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Big Bloggin' News

5/22/2014

I know that I promised to tell you about the La Paz Founder’s Fiesta, but this is too big to wait. I’ll catch you up on La Paz goings on next week.

It’s here!

I published Hacker for Hire yesterday. It is now available on Amazon.com. Click here to go to Amazon.com.

Hacker for Hire takes Ted and Chris into the high-tech world of corporate greed and industrial espionage. Be the first kid on your block to read the sequel to The Inside Passage. I think that Hacker for Hire is even better than The Inside Passage because we see Ted in his natural habitat.

You are my friends and the first to hear this announcement. I’m hoping you’ll buy the book, but even more, I hope you’ll write a review for me. Reviews are the lifeblood for unknown authors.

When a potential reader views a book on Amazon.com, the first thing they do is to read the reviews. What do other people think of this book? I do it myself. If the book doesn’t have good reviews, I usually don’t buy it.

I implore you to read and review Hacker for Hire. That is, if you like it. If you don’t like it, then forget the whole review thing.

But wait, that’s not all. I’m hard at work on Book 3 of the Ted Higuera series. I had to hurry and polish the first chapter so I could add it as a tease at the end of Hacker for Hire. I also had to name the book. So here it is, the first reveal of the name of the new Ted Higuera novel:

The Mexican Connection.

How’s that grab ya?

If you are of my (somewhat aged) generation, hopefully it will invoke images of the movie The French Connection starring Gene Hackman. That was a movie about drug smuggling that took Popeye Doyle, the film's protagonist, to France to catch the bad guys.

Well, The Mexican Connection, takes Ted and Chris into the middle of Mexico’s drug wars. When Ted’s little brother disappears in Cuidad Juarez, the boys must journey to Mexico to find him. They are mistaken for DEA agents and all hell breaks loose.

Of course, if your are of a somewhat younger generation, you may never have heard of The French Connection. I’m sorry, you missed out on a classic (if somewhat dated) flick. Rent it today. In the meantime, hopefully, The Mexican Connection will still invoke images of Mexico’s drug wars.

I’m working hard on this novel every day. I’ve completed the outline and the first two chapters so far. I expect to have it finished and available by Christmas. Stay tuned for further updates . . .

I also have another treat coming down the aisle for you. In Hacker for Hire we are introduced to a new character. Catrina Flaherty is a beautiful female PI who saves Ted’s life. Ted goes to work for her and the adventure begins.

If you like strong female characters, you’ll love Cat. And to help you understand what makes her tick, I have a short story, Mirror Image, which will be published in August.

The Mirror Image involves one of Cat’s early cases. A big city police chief batters and terrorizes his wife. Only Catrina can save her.

Blanca and Les with Dawn and Penn

And now, one other little bit about the writer’s life. I have groupies!

You heard me right. I received an email from a couple I had never heard of before. They own a B&B near Abreojos, where one of our life-changing adventures took place. They have been reading my blog and were in La Paz, so they wanted to meet me.

Dawn and I met them at Stella’s Restaurant for lunch. Les and Blanca turned out to be a delightful couple. He is originally Polish, but grew up in the UK, then moved to San Diego for forty years. Blanca is Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro. They actually dug my writing. It was totally cool, telling them our stories and learning about theirs.

I could really dig this groupie thing.

That brings me to the end of this week’s blog post. Thank you for reading. I promise that next week I’ll get back to the La Paz story. And Odin is thinking he needs to write another post.

We’re living in a lovely Mexican villa for the summer to escape the heat. Odin thinks he needs to tell you about living in a house vs. living on a boat. We’ll see how he does with that story.

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Founder's Day Fiesta

5/11/2014

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Cortez meets with Moctezuma's emissaries

As promised, today I’ll fill you in on the activities surrounding the La Paz’ Founder’s Day Fiesta. First of all, you need to understand a little bit about Mexican history.

In 1521 Hernando Cortez landed in Veracruz, Mexico with a couple of hundred troops, horses and gun powder. The locals in Veracruz didn’t want the Europeans hanging around and when they discovered the Spaniards’ greed, they told them stories of a “city of gold” just over the mountains.

This did the trick. Cortez marched his troops inland. At each city they were told that the “city of gold” was just over the horizon. In this manner, the Mexicans managed to get rid of the pesky Spaniards.

Of course, Cortez eventually stumbled upon the Aztec empire in central Mexico. I won’t go into the details, but with the help of the Aztec’s subjugated nations, Cortez led a huge battle with over one hundred thousand men and defeated the Aztecs to conquer Mexico.

Cortez is not a favored hero in Mexican history. He is looked upon as a bad man. He got into trouble with the court of Spain time and again.

In order to reestablish his reputation, he set out on another mission of conquest. He heard legends of a tribe of Amazon women on the Island of California (they thought it was an island in those days) who controlled vast amounts of pearls and gold. He was shown handfuls of pearls from a bay later named La Paz.

He loaded his men into ships and on May 3rd, 1535 landed in what is now La Paz. He established La Paz as his base and named it La Cruz, then went on to try to conquer the worthless land in search of gold and pearls.

His expedition was a dismal failure. His supply lines were weak and he abandoned the city and his venture after a couple of years.

In 1593, Sebastian Viscaino re-established the city and re-named it La Paz. Once again, it was a failure and only lasted a couple of years.

The natives were very happy being left alone. In the Nineteenth Century, a third attempt was made to colonize La Paz and it stuck.

I tell you all of this because we are celebrating the 479th anniversary of La Paz’ founding this year. But the reality is that the current version of La Paz is little more than two hundred years old.

To further cloud the issue, I have yet to hear the name Cortez used in any of the promotion of Founder’s Day. In the US, we would be proud to say that Daniel Boone, Davy Crocket or Eugene Skinner founded our town. In Mexico, they are a little embarrassed that Cortez was the founder.

The Riders Enter the Ring

Be that as it may, the Fiesta continues. It started off, like all good Mexican holidays do, with a parade. This was followed by the Dos Mares 500, an off-road race where off-road vehicles, fueled by massive amounts of testosterone, go charging off across the desert. There was a half-marathon and all sorts of musical and theatrical events.

Last Sunday, Dawn and I spent the day at the Fiesta del Caballos, the Festival of Horses. I didn’t know that Dawn was such a horse lover. A day at the festival and she was convinced that we need to sell the boat and buy a horse ranch. (On the beach, of course.)

You have to understand that the events in La Paz are never very well publicized, at least in the Gringo community. We heard about the event, but no one seemed to know when it started. I got a very vague idea of location from a local web page.

We started our day at the futbol (soccer) stadium. I had heard that there was to be a horse parade that ended at the stadium.

We got there and found an empty parking lot. There were several policemen standing around the entrance to the stadium so I stopped and asked them about the event.

Barrel Racing

They informed me that the parade would start on the other end of town, then gave me a rough idea of the route. Since there was nothing going on at the stadium, we decided to drive across town and see if we could find the horses.

Sure enough, we encountered clogged traffic and dozens of parked horse trailers. We caught up with the parade just opposite City Club, the local poor imitation of Costco. Since there wasn’t a lot to see at the parade, we stopped at City Club in search of cheddar cheese.

If I haven’t mentioned it yet, cheddar cheese is nearly impossible to find in this town. City Club is one of the few places that sometimes carries it. On this day, they didn’t.

After a quick shopping stop, we dropped the groceries off at Casa Mary Lou and headed back to the stadium. We got there well before the parade, but not before the crowd. We got the last parking place in the lot.

A Ranchero band (the Mexican equivalent of country music) entertained while we waited for the horses to arrive. Then a Mexican crooner filled the gap before the band came back on stage. Finally, around noon, the parade arrived.

The Queen Enters the Arena

The cavalcade was led by a beautiful senorita carrying the Mexican flag. Mexicans are really big on flags. Then came some well dressed caballeros and the reina de le fiesta (the horse festival queen) in a sort of Indian-like outfit with tall feathers and bare midriff.

We met her later, to learn her name is Celini. Her mom, who was proud as could be, was even prettier than the daughter.

After a couple of hundred horsemen and women circled the soccer field a couple of times, we were treated to a display of horse dancing. You read right: horse dancing.

Music blared from the speakers and horses, at their riders urging, pranced around, hopping from foot to foot, in time to the music. While not quite up to the Bolshoi Ballet’s standards, it was quite amusing.

After the horse dancing there was a barrel race. No, the barrels weren’t raced, the horses and riders galloped around a course marked by 55-gallon barrels.

Only one horse at a time was allowed on the course and they raced against the clock. Time after time the riders took their mounts around the course with the slower riders being eliminated at each heat.

There were apparently three categories, youth, women and men. The three winners were all from the same family, wearing the same outfits. The young woman who won the women’s competition must have posted times that beat most of the men. She was awesome.

However, her older brother was awesomer. He set a new event record.

El Diablo, Best Horse

He was also the rider of El Diablo. El Diablo is a large, majestic black horse who won best in show. While the rider was doing the barrel race an older man, who I assume is Papa, rode El Diablo around the grounds.

Following the barrel race we were treated to a charreada. Charros are Mexican cowboys, but with a twist. The Charro wears highly decorated costumes and adheres to a strict code of chivalry. The charreada is the Mexican national sport. It is a sort of rodeo, but here the emphasis is on the skills riders and horses need to herd cattle.

Early on, Dawn picked out a gray horse with lassos on its saddle. “That’s a real working horse,” said she. “Ready to go to work.”

She was right. This was the main horse used in the charro display. The rider put the horse through his paces. From a standing stop, he dashed at full speed from one side of the arena, then the rider put on the brakes. The horse dropped his rear end, put out his hind legs straight and skidded to a stop. I guess this is a skill needed for herding cattle.

Then there was the circling trick. The rider had the horse circle in its own length, rapidly changing directions. Once again, this is needed to keep stray cattle moving in the right direction.

While this was going on, three other charros treated us to a display of rope tricks. You’ve all seen American cowboys do tricks with their lassos. This is where that tradition started.

A Charro Works his Horse

The Charros Herd a Pony

The event went on for some time and the bond between the horse and rider was obvious. Mexico is famed for its horsemanship and it certainly was on display on this day.

Celeni and Penn

By this point I had all the sitting on concrete bleachers that I could take. We saddled up and headed back to Casa Mary Lou for poolside Margaritas and munchies.

The fiesta runs on through the entire month of May. Tonight we are going to a dance recital put on by the Ballet Folclorico del Institito Technologico de La Paz. The dancing tonight will be Mexican wedding dances.

Next weekend I’m looking forward to hot air balloon races and a classic car show. Mexicans know how to throw a party.

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A Big Apology

5/5/2014

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Cinco de Mayo

1901 Poster Celebrating Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo

When I was growing up, Mama used to tell us that on Cinco de Mayo we had to steal a chicken and shoot a gringo. That was, of course, playing to the Mexican stereotype we saw in the movies of the time.

During the American Civil War, France invaded Mexico in violation of the Monroe Doctrine and set up Maximilliano up as Emperor of Mexico. On May 5th, 1862 a small Mexican force defeated the French army at the Battle of Puebla. The battle really had little impact on the war, but was a decisive morale builder for the Mexicans. It is celebrated today as a sign of patriotism and national pride.

Today, Cinco de Mayo is a big drinking holiday in the US. Not so in Mexico. In tourist towns like Cabo and Puerta Vallara there will be plenty of parties at the bars and resorts, but in Mexican towns, they will take the day off and spend it with their families.

I will spend the day chained to my computer. I have a book to get published.

Here's the Apology

The Inside Passage

Today’s blog entry is all about writing stuff.

I need to start off with a big apology to all of my readers. When I published The Inside Passage, I did not hire a proof reader. I mean, after all, I am Superman. How could any errors possibly escape my notice?

Keep in mind that I have counseled hundreds of other writers to have their work edited. “You can’t possibly see your own errors. After you have been over your manuscript so many times, you know what it should say, so you don’t see what it does say.” Do as I say, not as I do.

I was just being cheap. I was strapped for cash and didn’t want to pay for a proof reader. The result is that many errors escaped my notice. I have had several readers point out that little fact.

I am so embarrassed I can’t put it into words. Please accept my apology. This will not happen again.

I have had a professional proof-reader go over the manuscript and today I re-published it. You should be able to download the new version for free if you have already purchased a copy. Click here to download a new version.

If you find any errors, they are all mine. Donna marked all of the errors and I chose to accept or reject her edits. In some cases, I rejected her grammar corrections because I wrote them that way for a purpose. Either it was in dialog and that’s how the character speaks or it was because I was trying to make a point by breaking the rules.

Hopefully all of the spelling and punctuation errors have been dealt with.

Lesson learned. I will ask Donna to proof Hacker for Hire before I subject you to it.

Hacker for Hire Cover

Hacker for Hire

Speaking of Hacker for Hire, work is coming along nicely. I have a couple or three scenes to write, some editing to do and then I can send it to Donna for her proofing.

The cover is done. I am unveiling the cover here today for the first time. I’d love to hear your feedback on it. What do you think? Would you buy this book?

Look for Hacker for Hire to be on sale in June of 2014.

If you haven’t read The Inside Passage yet (shame on you) this would be a good time to do so. You will want to know how the story began to fully appreciate Hacker for Hire. Of course, if you haven’t read The Inside Passage, you can still enjoy Hacker for Hire. I give a little explanation on how the characters got where they are, but it’s more fun reading the whole story.

Now, back to other topics. This is Founder’s Month in La Paz.

La Paz was founded by a gentleman named Hernado Cortez 479 years ago this month. You might have heard of him.

I’ll fill you in on the history and goings-on next time. We have pictures and stories, but for now, it’s going to be near 100 degrees today, so I have to make a Margarita and head for the pool.