Jack Reacher—my new role model?

I spent some time this morning with Steve Dancy. I didn’t write a lot of new material, but I did edit the last couple of chapters I’d written before we moved into our new home. I was able to get back to Steve because I’ve finished unpacking the last indoor box from our move. (Unfortunately, there are still loads of garage boxes yet to be dealt with.) You might think Steve Dancy is my favorite literary character, but I’ve recently developed a fondness for Lee Child’s character Jack Reacher. Reacher travels unfettered by personal belongings—no house, no car, no wardrobe, no knickknacks. Reacher carries only a toothbrush and buys new clothes when the ones he is wearing get dirty. Wow, the freedom. I, on the other hand, am anchored by countless possessions that possess me.

I enjoy the Jack Reacher novels and suspect Lee Child invented the character after a vexing move to a new house. If so, it was a brilliant way to transform hardship into largess. Dancy moves around as well, but through the magic of fiction, he transports everything he needs effortlessly. I wish I could jump into one of my books where everything happens in an ordered fashion. My order, of course. Unfortunately, I live in a world of corrugated board, cluttering stuff spread all over every flat surface, and pictures galore leaned against any open wall space. I think I’ll make a trip to the pharmacy to buy a toothbrush.

See ya on the other side ...

Instead of writing and blogging, I've been moving. What a pain. It's been twenty-two years since our last move and I forgot how hard it is. Boxes everywhere, all filled with more packing paper than possessions. We gave away about a third of our library before moving and we still have boxes of books as far as the eye can see. I hate corrugated board.

The popular refrains around the house are:

What is this?
Where is the rest of this?
and Why did we keep this?

I've heard there's no rest for the wicked, but I haven't been that bad. Really.

Turning a house into a home

Yesterday we walked our new house with a contractor. Whew, do we have a lot of work to do. Just about everything we own is in storage awaiting re-engineered heating, new flooring, scrapped ceilings, updated plumbing, and lots of paint. Guess our stuff will be hidden away in a dark warehouse awhile. In the meantime, we’ll stay in an apartment and make frequent visits to our renovation project. I already warned the contractor to expect to see us daily, so he should bid accordingly.

Our house may not be ready, but family and Omaha friends have already made us feel welcome. We were even welcomed by the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Douglas County Treasurer. The people in Omaha sure are friendly.

I’m hoping the temporary quarters will give me plenty of time to write. I already started researching the next Steve Dancy Tale. That means I’m reading books about the places Steve and his friends might visit. Reading about the Old West is fun, but I’m getting anxious to start writing. Especially, since I’ve come up with a tentative title. I hesitate to share it because it may change, but for now it will be called, Jenny’s Revenge.

A Surfer in Nebraska?

We arrived Friday evening in Omaha. It was late and we were very tired. Eight hundred and sixty miles of driving in a single day tends to do that to a worn out old body. I can’t imagine the hardships the pioneers endured. Brave souls.

Omaha, Nebraska is the geographic center of the nation. In the early days of the Cold War, the Pentagon put the Strategic Air Command headquarters outside Omaha to make it harder to hit. This means you can’t live in the United States and be further from a breaking wave.  So why would a lifelong surfer head for Nebraska? To be close to my grandkids who live in Omaha and closer to the ones who live in NYC. Besides, we still have a small condo in Pacific Beach to escape harsh winters on the Great Plains. Ironically, we bought our San Diego place to escape the scorching Arizona summers. (Arizona has two seasons: winter and hell.) I just need to convert from a summer surfer to a winter surfer. Thank goodness for wetsuits.

I’m going to enjoy writing Westerns from Nebraska. Omaha and the surrounding territory have a great Western heritage. In some respects, pockets of Arizona remain the Wild West, but Omaha nurtured the move west for many of the pioneers. Besides, it will be a great take-off point for trips to South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. These are all states I’ve visited several times, but want to spend more time exploring. It all ought to be great fun.

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Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

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Modern Wetsuits, A Wonder and a Pain in the Butt

Rolling, rolling, rolling

It is time to move on. We've sold our Arizona house and start our trek to Nebraska today. Actually, the house closed a week ago and we have been catching our breath in our condo in San Diego. I got in a couple of days of fun surfing on both ends of the Labor Day holiday weekend. (I avoid the water on holidays … it’s just tooo crowded.)

We lived in Arizona for 22 years, so this is a big change, but we have five reasons to move to Nebraska— all of them live at my daughter’s house.  Here are three of them.

By the way, I’m bringing Steve Dancy with me. I've started the research on the fifth book in the series and it will be out sometime next year. Happy reading.

Good vittels, lovin', kissin' 
Are waiting at the end of my ride 

Move 'em on, head' em up 
Head 'em up, move' em on

Move 'em on, head' em up 
Rawhide 

I Just Gave Away Over 300 Books

Those of you who follow this blog probably know my wife and I are moving from Arizona to Nebraska. It's been over twenty years since we've moved and we forgot how much work it is. To keep moving costs down, we're giving away lots of stuff to the Salvation Army and Goodwill. Another possession we took a hard look at is books. They're heavy, thus expensive to move. We donated well over 300 books to a literacy group. After my blog post yesterday, you probably think we've gone hard-over for Kindle e-books. Nope. We still intend to move over a thousand books to the Great State of Nebraska.

Our current house has a library. It's our favorite room. It's filled with books, family memorabilia, and two over-stuffed chairs. For over thirty years we have bought books whenever we came into the vicinity of a bookstore, especially a used bookstore. My wife and I have different interests so our collection looks eclectic and we each have our favorite categories. When we prepared to move, we separated the house up and took different rooms, but not the library. In this sanctuary we had to go through the books together and each of us had an absolute veto power.

Except that it wasn't just the library. The shelving in that room could easily handle 800 books, but we outgrew it years ago. So when we had an entertainment center built in the family room, we added book shelves along an entire wall. Another 400 or so books. We outgrew this as well. I use a spare bedroom as a writing room and furnished the closet with cheap bookshelves. This collection was mostly nonfiction books I use for research or color in my novels. Before long, the shelves were full and books got stacked on the floor. My wife was perfectly okay with my mess ... as long as I kept the closet doors closed.

This would be easier

It's a wonder we found 300 books to donate to a charity. These discards were mostly fiction we knew we'd never read again or outdated nonfiction. (Okay, some were books we bought with good intentions, but never read.) I kept all of my early twentieth century Westerns and crime mysteries that I had bought for the cover art. My wife kept every cookbook. I kept all of my American history books and biographies. She kept all of her collectable books from some bygone era. Children's books? Nary a one hit the discard bin. Coffee table books? Unreadable narratives, with pretty pictures. Most of these heavy-weights went without a tear.

We pared our books by about a quarter. Before we started, I was sure at least half of them would go. Nothing goes as you expect, but I was enormously relived when this task was done. Then my wife said we needed to do the same with our DVD collection. Oh no. Chick flicks versus Westerns and films that go bang. I guess we're not done with the bickering and snide remarks.

Off to Omaha

In the morning, I'll catch a flight to Omaha. Some of you may have read that I am moving from Arizona to Omaha. Not this trip. I'm going to Nebraska to close on our new house, but unfortunately our home in Arizona has not yet sold. Soon ... we hope.

We have gotten ready to move. The Salvation Army truck driver knows our address by heart, the trash barrel is jam packed every pick-up, and our stuff has never been so neat. All we need is a solid offer and we are gone.

There is one thing I need to take care of before we can go. In a prior life, I ran corporate data centers. For novelty, I had an IBM 083 Card Sorter in my office. It worked perfectly and everyone who came in felt compelled to run a deck of cards through this ancient machine.

It still works. And it is in my garage. When I moved on to another career, my staff gave it to me as a going-away present. That was kinda cool. Except movers charge by the pound, and this baby weights a ton. It is 1950s construction and appears to be solid steel. Anyway, I threw it up on Graig's List. No bites yet, but sooner or later someone will spot it and say, hell, I always wanted one of those. I've got a Fortan program on a stack of cards around here some place. It'd be fun to watch those cards fly through that sorter. Yep, someone will lust after this miracle of early computing technology ... or maybe not.

I wonder how much it would bring at a Goodwill store.