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2015 A Baseball Odyssey - Day 1

10/3/2015

The center of the universe

Sunday, September 20th, 2015

I got up early at Carmen’s house and packed. When I went to load the truck, I couldn’t find the keys. I tore apart my luggage. No keys. Carmen and I searched the house. No keys.

Where or where could my little keys be?

On my third (or was it fourth) iteration of searching my luggage, I decided to look in the camera case. BINGO! Keys. I vaguely remembered putting them there last night. I was so tired I didn’t know what I was doing.

Mystery solved, I jumped into the truck and headed for L.A., late. Then I had the usual L.A. traffic. I made arrangements to meet Katie at a Cuban restaurant close to Dodger Stadium for brunch. I finally had to call her and tell her to order. If I got there in time, I’d order, if not, I’d grab a Dodger Dog.

When I finally got there, there wasn’t time for me to order. Katie had ordered Cuban style huevos rancheros, so we shared. It was about the right portion for both of us. The Cuban huevos were kinda similar to Mexican huevos rancheros, but not the same. First of all, there was no tortilla or refried beans. The eggs were on the plate with a sweet kind on sauce on them. There were whole black beans and white rice. All-in-all, not a very spicy meal.

Now, I’m not complaining about Cuban food, it was just different.

Penn at Dodger Stadium

After brunch, Katie parked her car on the street and I gave her a ride to the stadium since I had already paid for parking. As it turns out, Dodger Stadium is surrounded by hundreds of acres of parking. We got there an hour early and only had to park five miles from the gates.

I’m still recovering from knee-replacement surgery and even though I work out six days a week, I wasn’t prepared for that death march.

We finally got to the fabled kingdom. My baseball world revolved around Dodger Stadium when I was growing up. I only got to visit it once, when I was seventeen, but this was my center of the baseball universe.

The stadium is old, built in 1962. That’s not Fenway Park old or Wrigley Field old, but in this era of “modern” ball parks, the grand old lady looked a little long in the tooth. Don’t get me wrong, the stadium was magnificently cared for, it just didn’t have all the amenities of modern parks.

I bought the tickets and we had pretty good seats. We were about opposite first base and only a few rows up in section 100. It was an afternoon game and the sun was scorching. Through no effort of my own, it turned out that our seats were under the roof, so we sat in the shade and had a nice breeze. Most of the seats in the sun were empty. It was a sold out game, so I can only surmise that the people in those seats moved to standing room areas in the shade. As we left the stadium, I stepped into the men’s room for a moment. Most of the guys in there had shirts soaked in sweat.

The highlight of the evening was the ceremonial throwing of the first pitch. It is apparent immediately in Dodger Stadium that they have a high percentage of Latino fans. All of the signs are bi-lingual and you can buy tacos and other Mexican food at most of the food stands.

To honor and celebrate their Latino fans, the Dodgers asked Delores Huerta to throw out the first pitch. Delores has been a political activist and organizer since the 1950’s and was one of the founders of the United Farm Workers Union. It was an honor to see her.

The World-Famous Dodger Dog

Having missed breakfast (almost) and lunch, I had to have a Dodger Dog. My next door neighbor told me to have a Dodger Dog for him. Who am I to go against his wishes?

It was a disappointment. I know that it was a fine dog at one time, but I suspect that this particular dog had been sitting in the back of the steam drawer since Sandy Koufax was pitching for the Dodgers. The bun was shriveled and stuck so badly to the dog, that I couldn’t pry them apart to add ketchup and mustard. The flavor was all right, but they should have been embarrassed to sell such an old, run down dog. Maybe they saw me coming and thought, “Here comes an old, run down guy. Let’s sell him that dog that’s been laying there for years. It'll fit him just right.”

Katie did a good job when picking games. Almost all of the teams we’re seeing are in the hunt for the playoffs. Both the Dodgers and the Pirates (who they played that night) will make it. The Dodgers could end up playing them again.

If they do, I hope they do better than they did tonight. The Pirates beat the Dodgers 4-3. Oh well, it’s a long season.

Play Ball!

As we walked out of the stadium, Katie told me a story about a scene she had witnessed the previous night.

A father and a son, about 5 or 6 years old, were walking to their car. There were a lot of helicopters circling overhead.

The boy asked his father, “Dad, why is the president here?” Apparently he equated a lot of helicopters with a presidential visit

“Well, son,” the father said, “that’s because the Dodgers are the best team in baseball and the president only watches the best teams.”

The boy thought about that for a moment. “If the Dodgers are the best team in baseball, why did they lose tonight?”

The father pondered the question, then answered. “Son, even the best team loses sometimes.”

I’m glad the young man is learning these lessons early in his life, it will serve him well. My father used to tell me when I failed at something, “Even Babe Ruth didn’t hit a home run every time at bat.”

As I’ve always said, baseball is a metaphor for life. No, baseball IS life.

After a twenty mile march back to our truck (It was longer going than coming. I don’t understand that.) I took Katie back to her car and we split up.

I headed home to our apartment in San Diego and Katie headed to a Ricky Martin concert in San Diego. She said she doesn’t know why she went, the guy is old, ugly and can’t sing or dance, but she had a marvelous time.

She showed up at the apartment about 11 pm and we got her settled down in our guest room/office. Tomorrow we get to share a little of San Diego with Katie.

2 Comments

2015 A Baseball Odyssey

9/28/2015

4 Comments

The Grand Central Market

A long, long time ago, in a place far, far away, a boy who was fanatical about baseball had an idea. A wonderful, giddy idea.

I would take my motorcycle and cruise around the country all summer. I would stop in each major league city and see every major league ball team.

The idea was conceived in my new found freedom. I was eighteen years old and just graduated from high school. I was my own person now.

I had to have a motor cycle. After all, Peter Parker (my favorite comic book hero, Spiderman) talked his Aunt May into letting him buy a bike.

I fought and argued with my mother until I finally wore her down. She surrendered and let me buy a motorcycle.

It wasn’t big or fancy. I could only afford a used Honda 305, but it was suited to cruising. I could pack a few clothes, a sleeping bag and take off.

Enter Mama. No way was she going to let me take off on a summer long Odyssey across the country. Baseball be damned.

“But Mama, this is probably my only chance to see all the teams in one season.”

“They will still be there next year, won’t they?”

“Yes, but there’s never been a season like this. They just added four more teams and a playoff system to see who goes to the World Series. A season like this may never happen again.”

“You’re not going.”

“But why?”

“I’m your mother and it’s my job to protect you. You’re only eighteen. Until you’re twenty-one, I have final say. When you’re twenty-one you can go out and kill yourself if you want, until then, you do what I say.”

And that was it. End of story.

1969 Dodgers

It was a wonderful magical season. With four new expansion teams, the good teams had lots of cannon fodder to prey on. I was a life-long Dodger fan and the Boys in Blue were caught in a monumental four-way struggle for the pennant. The Dodgers, the (hated) Giants, the Braves and the Reds were within two games of each other as the season wound down. And the Mets (yes, really, the Amazin’ Mets, the Magical Mets) were leading the NL East. There was never again a summer like that one. And I sat it out.

As you may have guessed, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fanatic. Every winter, the prospect of Spring Training helps me get through the doldrums. After I moved to Seattle, where they had a “major league” team I never worked another Opening Day. I took the day off and took the family to the ball game

Flash forward forty-six years. I’m living in La Paz on my boat with trusty (and lovely) First Mate Dawn. Oldest daughter Katie calls.

“Dad, I’m taking a year off from work (She’s a high-school Spanish teacher.) and traveling.”

“That’s a great idea, Katie. I wish I had done that at your age.”

“I’m going to do a tour of Major League ball parks. Do you want to go?”

Does a monkey eat bananas? This was the trip I’d fantasized about almost fifty years ago. It wouldn’t include motor cycles and hot chicks, but what the heck. I’m getting a little long in the tooth for that anyway.

I certainly couldn’t afford the trip, but an opportunity like this only comes along twice in a life-time. I talked it over with Dawn and decided that I was in.

That brings us to today. I’m sitting in a hotel room in Kansas City. We’re going to the Negro Leagues Hall of Fame today, going to eat (more) BBQ and catch the Mariners and Royals tonight. Does it get any better than this?

This is the story of Katie and Penn’s Amazing Baseball Odyssey. Stick around, I’ll give you the blow by blow.

Taco Stand at Grand Central Market

Day 0 Saturday, September 19th, 2015

Katie has been on a personal journey of discovery for almost three weeks now. She drove down the Coast, switched over to Eugene (home of the University of Oregon Ducks), then crossed back to the coast to drive all the way to L.A. I won’t tell you about all of her adventures because that’s her story to tell. I will say that she caught a couple of concerts and a ball game in Oakland.

My trip starts a day early. I met Katie in L.A, on the 20th, but my Uncle Santos was in town and I needed to make time to see him. He lives in South Carolina, so I have to make time when he’s here.

I drove from San Diego up to Westminster in Orange County, about a two hours drive, to my Cousin Carmen’s house. We all met and climbed into two cars for a jaunt up I-5 to L.A.

Our goal: tacos. I know you are thinking “Drive an hour to get tacos?” Well, you haven’t had these tacos. Connie discovered the Grand Central Market when I was at a conference in L.A. She drug me back there that evening and we had tacos at the taco stand. OMG. The best tacos in the world.

So, we drove north for an hour to find these magical tacos. They lived up to their billing.

After gorging ourselves on tacos, Carmen (who is a sommelier at a Disney Restaurant) wanted to visit the San Antonio Winery. That’s right, there is exactly one winery in L.A.

I was in Yolanda's car. Yollie got the address from Santos and entered it in her GPS. Santos entered it in his GPS. Guess what, they didn’t agree. When one said turn right, the other said turn left. Finally, Yolanda decided to follow hers. We drove north on I-5 (that’s “the 5” for you SoCal residents). We seemed to be going a long way. Then her GPS told her to get off on Riverside Drive. We wandered around the street s of L.A. for a while, then were directed back to I-5. What the hey?

Finally, the GPS told us to get off in Burbank. We wandered the streets of Beautiful Downtown Burbank for half an hour. Turn right here, turn left there. Finally, in a residential neighborhood, Mr.GPS said “You have arrived at your destination.”

It was a private house. We called Carmen and discovered that they had been waiting at the winery for half an hour. They gave us directions and we headed back south.

Much to Yolanda’s embarrassment, the winery was only a few blocks from the Grand Central Market. As we pulled in I noticed the address. It was 310 Lamar Street. Yolanda had put 310 LamEr Street in her GPS.

Oh, well. We had a fun drive and the trip to the winery was great. Anytime you can end an embarrassing moment in a place where they give away alcohol, it couldn’t be all bad.

I stayed with Carmen that night so I didn’t have to drive back to San Diego, then up to L.A. in the morning.

The San Antonio Winery

Other Stuff

I do have other stuff going on besides the baseball trip. I'm working hard to get Murder Strikes Twice to publication. As usual, I'm behind schedule, but my proof reader brought up several salient points that I need to address. I also think I need to add a couple more scenes to explain the story better.

Watch for more news here. I hope to have Murder Strikes Twice available in early October.

What's the story about you ask? I'm glad you asked that question. Female P.I. Catrina Flaherty takes on one of her toughest cases. Brody Barrett's wife died in a hiking accident at Glacier National Park. Everyone is sad, until Catrina discovers that five years ago Brody's first wife died in a mysterious accident.

This is, as they say on TV, a story ripped from the headlines. The actual case is still going on, but I couldn't wait for resolution before I wrote the fictionalized version.

Don 't miss this one.

Other News: I'm still working away at my diet and exercise plan. The day before we left on the Magical Baseball Tour, I was down twenty pounds. I give no guarantees of how much I'll weigh when I get back. We're in the middle of BBQ territory

Stay tuned to this Bat Channel, the great adventure has just begun.

4 Comments

How Many People Read Your Facebook Posts?

9/6/2015

12 Comments

Mama and mne at the Blue Water & Me launch party.

My email box is filled with hundreds of messages everyday telling me that one of my friends has posted on Facebook. The overwhelming majority of these posts are “buy my book” posts or “my book’s on sale” posts. I get dozens of these posts from many different individuals.

I find this annoying. I have blocked some authors because they send me twenty or thirty emails per day. Others, I look to see the subject before I delete them because they sometimes send out posts that I want to read. But make no mistake, I delete these emails without even opening them.

I’m not ranting and raving saying you shouldn’t write posts to sell your books, I’m just saying that I think they are ineffective. If I’m wrong, please let me know. I would love to hear that this method boosts your book sales, then I can join the obnoxious crowd and promote my books that way.

My friend, Jinx Schwartz, seems to have this social media promotion down. She spends two hours a day every day on social media. She finds and shares photos and videos that are of interest to her friends. They are cats and dogs (those always generate a lot of oohs and aaahs) and new inventions or dolphins or manta rays jumping. Nothing to do with selling her books. I look forward to her posts and ALWAYS open them. Once or twice a month she hawks her books. And she sells them by the thousands.

I think that method is much more persuasive than sending me twenty emails a day asking me to buy your book. I got the same email yesterday and the day before and the day before. Now you’re just spamming my inbox.

Click here to read Jinx's blog on the subject.

Me at book signing

So, this whole conversation raised two questions in my mind:

Does this constant spamming really sell books?

If you use this method, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line from the Contact Penn page by clicking here or comment on my post on Facebook. If you do sell books this way, I’m going to be right there with you.
How many people really see my Facebook posts?

I’ve done a little research on question #2 and here are the results.

I’d heard that 7% of your friends see your posts. I also read that 12.8% of your friends see you posts. Which is true?

Apparently neither of them.

I found the results of a study done by Stanford University in conjunction with Facebook engineers. They found that, on the average, 28.9% of your friends see your posts every day. If there are a lot of “likes,” “shares” or “comments” on that post, the number goes up to 35%.

They also said that 61% of your friends see at least one of your posts each month.

If these numbers are true, what does it mean?

It’s a numbers game. The more friends you have and the more messages you post, the more likely people are going to see them. It also means that you want “likes,” “shares” and “comments.” I spend about a half hour every day expanding my friends list.

Readers peruse Blue Water & Me

I wrote a controversial post about the immigration issue and received dozens of comments, mostly telling me how insane I am. Should I do this again? I try to keep my politics separate from my writing, so no, I won’t be writing many political posts, but you get the idea. If you can generate comments, you can get more friends to see your posts.

The other thing I already knew, but have never followed up on, is to ask for “likes” and “shares.” I learned in a sales class that you’ll never make the sale if you don’t ask for it. At the end of your post, put something like, “If you enjoyed this post, please like it or share it with your friends.”

Remember, Facebook is a social network. You may only have a couple of hundred friends, but if each of those friends has a hundred friends, you may be potentially reaching 7000 people with that post.

Okay, now let’s put some real numbers to it. I currently have 667 friends on my Facebook page. (I’m always looking for more, so if you’re not yet my friend, friend me right now. Go to https://www.facebook.com/penn.wallace. It’s OK, I’ll wait.) That means that when I send out a post, somewhere between 192 and 220 of my friends see it.

How can we increase this?

I’m glad you asked. Facebook has a wonderful feature called “groups.” I currently belong to about 80 groups that share common interest with me. The total number of people in those groups exceeds 2,000,000 people. That’s right, partner, potentially over two million people see my posts. If we add our formula to that number, between 578,000 and 700,000 people actually see my posts.

Would you like to have 700,000 potential readers see your posts? Go to your Facebook page. Click on the Groups link on the left side of the page. When you get to your Groups page, there are five tabs along the top of the page. You can click on “Suggested Groups” to see groups that might be of interest to you. “Friends Groups” shows you to what groups you friends are members. “New Groups” shows groups you have recently joined and “Your Groups” shows you the groups to which you are a member.

You can also do a search in the search box on the upper left hand side of your screen. Enter “writers groups” or “book clubs” or whatever your interests are. I have several “sailing groups” and “cruising groups” on my list. If you wrote a book about a teacher who is a closet erotic book author, you might enter “erotic books” or “teachers” and see what you get. You get the idea.

I started out small. I joined groups for writers, especially groups in Southern California. These usually had a couple of hundred members. Then I hit a jack pot. Whenever I went to a groups page, I found a list of suggested groups on the right hand side of the page. When I looked at it closely, it told me how many members there were in those groups. OMG, there were groups with thousands of members.

I started looking for groups with over a thousand members. I quickly found groups with ten thousand, twenty thousand and more. My largest group has over three hundred thousand members. And these are all people that are interested in books. Granted, some of them are sci-fi addicts or romance novel readers, but there have to be some thriller readers in there.

Me at a book reading

How do you reach these people?

I start by writing my post in a Word document and save it to my folder called “blogosphere,” then I copy and paste the document to my Facebook page. At this point it usually needs some formatting, because Word does not copy to Facebook smoothly. I always add a picture to the post. If you mention a link, then Facebook will pull in photos from the first link you mention. There are usually three or four to choose from. However, if you first link was www.pennwallace.com and you don’t want my mug spread over your post, then click the “add photos” link at the top of the post and search for the picture you want to use.

When that post is all cleaned up, click on the “submit” link. Voila, you have sent that post to 28.9% of your friends. Be sure to ask them to “share,” “like” or “comment” on the post so you can reach the 35% mark. Copy the posting to your clip board.

Now, click on the “Groups” link of the left side of the page. It will take you to the “Your Groups” page. Click on the first group and paste you post into the “what’s on your mind?” box at the top of the page. If You’ve added a photo or video to the post, you will have to add it to each group to which you send this post.

When you have submitted this post, click on the back button at the top of your page and go back to your “Your Groups” page. Click on the next link on the page. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I have more than eighty groups on my list. This can take from 1.5 to 2 hours for me to send out a post to all of them. If you know of an automated way to do this, please let me know.

This isn’t the be-all and end-all to marketing your book. It’s just one tiny piece, but as Lao Tzu said back in the 4th Century BC, “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”

Good luck with your marketing.

If you’re in the San Diego area, I will be teaching a class on Indie Publishing at San Diego Writers Ink on October 19th. Put it on your calendar. You can find the details at http://www.sandiegowriters.org/.

I’m working furiously on a new Catrina Flahery mystery. It turned out to be a bigger project that I imagined, but I still hope to release it by the end of the month, but don’t hold your breath. It might be October before it’s out.

AND, if you found this useful, be sure to share it with your friends and like or comment on it on Facebook.

12 Comments

We Have A Winner

8/31/2015

11 Comments

Hang on to your hats, folks. Miss Dawn has drawn two names from the hat.

The envelope please.

And the winners are: (pregnant pause here. The audience holds its collective breath)

Doris Shane and Jane McDonald for their reviews of Bikini Baristas. (The audience goes wild. Doris and Shane make their way to the podium.)

Well that’s it. I want to thank all of you who entered the Bikini Baristas Review Contest. I’m afraid that four of you didn’t read the directions and didn’t send me your email addresses. However, don’t worry; Dawn didn’t pull your names from the hat. And I should mention that we used my “Hannibal Lector” Panama hat for the drawing.

What, you ask, are the prizes?

I sent Doris and Jane four mystery/thriller novels by authors who deserve to be better known. I hope that they will enjoy them and tell their friends about them.

The books were:

                Red Island                           by Lorne Oliver

                A Dead Red Cadillac           by RP Dahlke

                Low Tide`                            by Dawn Lee McKenna

                The Road to Key West       by Michael Reising

Both winners also got a $40.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com. (I hope that they will spend it buying MY books.)

I can’t tell you how happy it made me to get so many reviews, and so many 4 and 5 star reviews, the first week the book was published. Thank you all. You’ve made me a happy pappy.

Other News

Possible Cover for The Barrett Murders

I’m taking a short break from the Ted Higuera Series. Don’t worry, Ted, Chris, Cat and the gang will be back soon in another adventure in Mexico. I’m tentatively calling it The Cartel Strikes Back. Like that name? I kind of want to invoke the Star Wars theme here (The Empire Strikes Back).

In the meantime, I have completed the first draft of a standalone Catrina Flaherty Mystery. This one is about a man whose two wives die in mysterious accidents. Just the kind of case Cat loves. We’re using the working title of The Barrett Murders for now, but I hope we can come up with a better name.

I’m in the editing phase of the book and my team is working on the cover now.

Watch for it in mid-September.

Libby and Katie bundled up for Seattle baseball

A lot of stuff has been going on here in San Diego. Right now I’m preparing for a baseball vacation with oldest daughter, Katie. When I was 18 years old, I wanted to take my motorcycle and tour the country, visiting all the major league ball parks. Mama said no, so I didn’t go.

All these years later, Katie calls me and asks if I want to go on that trip with her. How could I pass that up? Take that, Mama.

She’ll start in the Bay area with the Giants and A’s, then drive down to L.A. where I’ll join her for a Dodger game. Then on to San Diego where we’ll take in a Padres game. We’ve already seen the Angel’s park.

From San Diego we fly to Kansas City where the Mariners are playing the red-hot Royals. We’ll rent a car there and drive to St. Louis where we’ll watch the Cardinals machine. Then on to Chicago to see the White Sox and the Cubbies. Libby will fly out to Chicago to join us, then she and I will fly home, but Katie will keep going on her trip. Her next stop will be in Minneapolis to see the Twins. This is costing way more than I can afford, but what the hey? How often do you get to tour the country with you daughter and take in a bunch of ball games?

After the ballpark tour, Katie will spend a month in Mexico, then fly back to Seattle for a conference. When she is done with her presentation, she will fly to Ecuador, Peru and Columbia.

While she’s gone, we’re kitty-sitting her cat, Kiva. Kiva arrived yesterday. We picked her up at the airport and brought her home. She immediately hid under the bed, coming out only for food, water and the litter box. By this afternoon, she has ventured into the hallway to check out our apartment.

Wait until we move back onto the boat. That should really confuse her.

That’s it for now. I hope you are all having a great summer.

11 Comments

MIA

8/16/2015

4 Comments

The girls and me at Safeco Field

I’ve been MIA for the last two weeks. I made a trip to the Pacific Northwest to visit my family and friends. In April my daughters, Katie and Libby, came to L.A. for a concert. I was supposed to meet them there for a father-daughter weekend. However, I had not recovered from my knee surgery yet and had to cancel.

This is the makeup trip I promised them.

I started in Seattle where I went to a Mariner’s game with the girls and friends Susie and Steve. I stayed with brother-in-law and sister-in-law Sam and Marti on Wednesday. That evening Katie drove down and we grilled hamburgers.

On Thursday the girls joined me and we had dinner with Barb and her kids, Jenn and Chris. Oh, we had hamburgers again.

Friday was spent at the ballgame where I had a hot dog for dinner.

On Saturday, Marti and Sam’s middle son, Steven and his family came to visit and we, you guessed it, grilled hamburgers.

The next day, Libby and I drove to Spokane to visit our special friends, the La Plante’s. We got there in time for dinner and guess what we had… hamburgers.

We went to River Front Park for old times’ sake. When the girls were little, we would take them to the kiddie amusement park there every time we visited. They are tearing the amusement park down after the season and building a new one, so we had to see it one last time. We took two of the grandchildren so we had an excuse to act like kids. They put a gun to my head and forced me to ride the roller coaster, tilt-a-whirl etc.

Tuesday we went to a water park. By the time we were done with two days with the LaPlante’s, I was dead. Fortunately, I headed south to Portland to see my mother and brothers.

My brother, Jon, picked me up and we headed over to Mama’s for dinner. In the morning, Mama, her husband, Dave, and I piled into the car and drove to Astoria where Brother Jim is remodeling a house.

They failed to tell me that Jim didn’t have any furniture in the house yet. There was a fold-away bed, but Mama got that. I wasn’t going to ask a 90-year old woman to sleep on the floor. That means I got to sleep on the floor. With my knees, they had to rig up a crane to get me up in the morning.

For dinner, Jim had planned, wait for it…, hamburgers. I revolted and took them all out to a seafood restaurant for dinner. I don’t need to see another hamburger for quite some time.

I got home Saturday. Dawn picked me up and on the way home we stopped at a local taqueria for a burrito. In the evening, Dawn, Odin and I walked down to the dog park. As we exited our apartment and stepped into the courtyard, I smelled carne asada cooking and heard ranchero music playing. On the way home from the park, we walked past the community center where they were holding a quincinera. I felt like I was home.

Okay, that’s what I’ve been up to. I should throw in the commercial announcement here.

We published Bikini Baristas on August 9th. We already have twenty-two reviews. Most of them are five-stars with a few four-stars thrown in. There is one malcontent who gave me one-star, but you can’t please everyone.

I want to thank all of you that took the time to write a review for me. They are the life-blood of the independent author. I am truly blessed to have so many dedicated readers. Thanx again.

The review contest for Bikini Baristas closed today. I’ll announce the winners tomorrow.

You can get your copy at http://tinyurl.com/pm8kp7m.

What’s up next? I have finished the first draft of a new Catrina Flaherty mystery. I don’t have a name for the book yet, but it should be available by mid-September.

It’s about a man whose two wives both die in mysterious accidents. Catrina is hired to find out what really happened. If you like Catrina in the Ted Higuera books, I think you’ll love this story. She’s at her kick-ass best.

We’ll be working on the cover this week and I’ll finish my first round of edits and send it to the proof-reader. Keep a weather eye out for it.

If you haven’t read her first stand alone story, Mirror Image, you can get it at http://tinyurl.com/n5bxoed. It’s about an abused house wife whose husband is the chief of police. When your abuser is The Law, where do you turn? To Catrina Flaherty.

Once again, I want to say how grateful I am to all of you readers out there who write reviews and send me your comments. You have no idea how encouraging it is to hear from you. Hang in there and happy reading.

4 Comments

It's Finally Here...

8/9/2015

12 Comments

That’s right, we made it. Today is the release date for Bikini Baristas. Click here to download your copy. For two days only (August 9th and 10th) I am offering a special “friends and family” discount. You can buy the book for 99 cents. But hurry, the price goes back up to $2.99 on Tuesday.

Here is the back cover synopsis of Bikini Baristas:

Bikini Baristas is a tale of two scofflaws.

Dick Randall is the owner of a chain of bikini barista stands in the Seattle area. Clayton Johnson-White is a teenage kid who thinks he’s smarter than the rest of the world.

The story begins when Dick’s pickup truck is discovered burned-out in the California desert. What happened to him? Did he fake his death to escape his sleazy past or did the past catch up with him?

To get away from his trailer-trash life, Clayton drops out of school and runs away into the woods of Camano Island. He breaks into vacation homes and steals what he needs.

Private detective Catrina Flaherty is hired by Dick’s wife to find out how he disappeared. When she and her partner, Ted Higuera, start turning over stones, some shocking things come crawling out.

Ted’s best friend, Chris Hardwick, has his first case as a grownup lawyer. He is assigned the Clayton Johnson-White file. He expects to do a quick plea-bargain and get on with his life. Instead, he finds Clayton has evolved into a professional criminal who teaches himself to fly, steals airplanes and goes on a nationwide crime spree. Chris, Ted and Cat are intertwined on a case that takes on international proportions.

What do these two cases have in common? In the end, they come together with the force of two colliding freight trains.

So far, we’ve gotten really good reviews for people who got the Advance Review Copies. I’m really excited about this book. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

As you probably know, reviews are the life-blood of independent authors. Most people make the buy/no buy decision based on the reviews a book gets. You want good reviews and you want a lot of them.

In order to encourage you to write a review for me I’m running a contest. If you post your review by August 16th 2015, I’ll enter your name in a drawing for a thriller package. I will send the two winners four thrillers by other authors I admire, plus a $40 gift certificate from Amazon.com. Just send me an email with a link to your review and your address. We’ll hold the drawing on August 17th 2015; I will notify the winners and send the prizes immediately.

To write a review on Amazon.com, go to the Bikini Baristas page. On the bottom of the page there is a section labeled “Customer Reviews.” To the right of the bar graph showing the ratings the book has received is a button labeled “Write a customer review.” Click on the button and it should be self-explanatory from there.

So, don’t forget, you must order Bikini Baristas today or tomorrow to get the special “friends and family” discount. Then submit a review to be entered in the drawing. Click here to buy your copy.

As always, thank you for your support.

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Bikini Baristas is Almost Here

7/22/2015

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I’ve been gone for a long time. In the last three weeks I have focused solely on finishing Bikini Baristas. I’m there and now have time to come up for air. One of the first things I thought about was my poor neglected website.

I haven’t posted anything new for three weeks. I’m here to remedy that today. I hope you’ll forgive me for the inattention.

There’s lots of big stuff going on at Casa Wallace. First of all, as I said, I’ve completed Bikini Baristas. I’ve added all the edits and proof reading errors. I’ve formatted the document, produced the HTML and uploaded it to Amazon.

Next, I’ve arranged for a couple of dozen people to get Advanced Review Copies of the book. When the book goes live on August 9th, they will post their reviews. (I sure hope they’re good.)

The third big thing is a contest. I will add everyone who posts a review to Amazon in the first week the book is available to a drawing. The two winners will get four thrillers from authors I admire and a $40 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

On the personal side, I’m preparing for two trips this summer. I’ll drive up to Seattle in August to see my daughters and visit with some old friends. Then in September, my daughter, Katie, and I are going to make a tour of some Major League Baseball parks. We’ll start with the Dodgers in L.A., then catch a Padres game here in San Diego. Then we’ll fly to Kansas City to see the Mariners play the royals. After that it’s off to St. Louis and we’ll finally end up in Chicago to catch the Cubbies and the White Sox.

I’ve been dreaming about this trip since I was 19 years old. It took Katie’s prodding to make it happen.

I hope you’re having a good summer. I’ll keep up with my blog better now that I’m done with Bikini Baristas. I’ve already started plotting the next book, tentatively called The Cartel Strikes Back. Guess what it’s about.

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Ed Robinson Interviews Meade Breeze

6/28/2015

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I know that I've been promising you this interview for weeks. Well, here it is. Author Ed Robinson interviews his primary character, Meade Breeze.

If you haven't read Trawler Trash or Following Breeze yet and like a good sea story, I recommend you buy them right away

When I first read Trawler Trash, I couldn't believe the character Meade Breeze. He was me. With the exception of embezzling cash from my employer, our lives are incredibly parallel. If you've enjoyed any of my sailing adventures on this web site, then you've gotta meet Breeze.

The only problem I have with Breeze is that he's a stink-potter. If he would just learn to sail, he'd be perfect.

Enjoy the interview.

Part rebel, part knight in rusty armor, and every ounce his own man, Meade Breeze is the rugged, reclusive Florida boat bum, with a special talent for attracting sexy women. His skill at handling boats is matched by only by his knack for getting into, and out of, one predicament after another.

We've been trying to snag an interview with Breeze for a long time, but he stays off the grid. He's always on the move and a hard man to track down. Now that he's in police custody, we caught up with him at the Lee County detention center, near Fort Myers, Florida. (Cell C-9)

Interviewer: So where have you been the past few years?

Breeze: All over, man. I've to been to hell and back. Heaven too. I've cruised the Keys, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic and the Virgin Islands. I just got back from the Chesapeake Bay not too long ago. I get around.

Interviewer: I understand there have been some pretty ladies in and out of your life?

Breeze: I've been loving them and leaving them. Never seems to work out for me, but I've got no regrets.

Interviewer: What about Joy? She promised to wait for you at the end of Following Breeze

Breeze: I hope she does, but she's a free spirit. You never know. There's something about her that I feel close to. She left a bad life behind and remade herself. She's out there living free . Her "I don't give a f*#k" attitude is attractive to me. We could be partners.

Interviewer: So what's it like being behind bars? That's got to be tough for you.

Breeze: It's the worst. If I thought I'd have to stay in here forever, I'd just off myself. Never let them put you in a cage. Freedom is the only thing worth living for.

Interviewer: Do you think you can resolve your legal troubles?

Breeze: I've got my lawyer, Mike Savage, working on the embezzlement charges. I think that part will go okay. The IRS is another story. It will probably cost me every dollar I have left to stay out of prison. Of course, then I'll have to return to Florida and face the pot possession charge. If at any time it looks like it won't work out, I'll run. I'd like to clear all this shit up, but I'll run before they lock me up long term.

Interviewer: What will you do once you're free, assuming you wiggle out of this mess?

Breeze: I gotta get back to my boat. Last time I saw Leap of Faith, it was riddled with bullet holes. I'll fix her back up and disappear again. If I have any money left, I'll go hide in the islands. If not, I guess I'll go back to growing dope and brewing rum. It's not such a bad life. Beats the hell out of working a real job .

Interviewer: So, you'll never return to civil society? You plan to stay outside the real world forever?

Breeze: Damn straight. Once you taste real freedom, you never turn back. I don't care how poor I am, just leave me alone and let me do what I want with my own life.

Interviewer: That seems to be a recurring theme for you. What is it that makes you disregard what the rest of us would call a normal life?

Breeze: Listen man. I'm ending it with this; You've all been sold a bill of goods about your so-called "normal" life. It's all a lie. You can have your 9 to 5 job, your consumerism, your false media, your all-encompassing government and endless regulations and laws. You're not free. You’re a slave to your job, your mortgage, your car payment. . . what's it all for? I'll keep my freedom, thank you. I'll keep my beach, my ocean, my sunsets and my liberty. My boat and my freedom; that's all I care about. You can keep the rest.

Read all of Breeze's adventures in Trawler Trash, and Following Breeze.

Click here to go to Trawler Trash.

Click here to go to Following Breeze.

That's it for this week boys and girls. I hope you enjoyed this interview. If you like sea stories, mystery and intrigue, you've got to read these books.

As long as I'm pitching Ed's books, I coming very close to releasing Bikini Baristas. If you haven't read the previous Ted Higuera stories, this would be a good time to read them so you can be up to speed for the new book.

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Fathers' Day Thoughts

6/21/2015

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I know that I promised you an interview with Ed Robinson this week, but I forgot it was Fathers' Day. I'm posting my annual Fathers' Day message. It hasn't changed, but I think it's still timely.

Papa, circa 1980

Papa in 1946 aboard the Cuantos Pescados

June is busting out all over. This is our first spring/summer in San Diego. I was shocked to learn that May and June are cool cloudy months here. They call this the May Gray and the June Gloom. As we near the end of June though, the skies are clearing and warmth is returning to our fair city.

Along with June comes Father’s Day and my thoughts turn to my own father, Blue Water Charlie. If you want to read about Blue Water in detail, click here to find a copy of my book, Blue Water & Me, Tall Tales of Adventures With My Father.

There’s a tremendous difference between families with fathers and families without fathers. Just Google it. There is no question that children that grow up with a father figure make better citizens.

My father was not a perfect man. He was this bigger-than-life commercial fisherman. A complex man, full of contradictions, he laid down the law for us like some Olympian God and never explained his reasons. Just because he said so was good enough.

When I had kids of my own, he once told me that “raising kids is a lot like breaking broncos.” He should know because that was his first job, growing up in West Texas. “Show them who is boss, then treat them with kindness.”

Papa teaches me to fish

When I was little he often left us to go adventuring. Around the time I was nine years old, Mama put her foot down. When he was about to go off on one of his escapades she told him “If you go, when you come back, the children and I won’t be here.” He gave up the sea to raise his children. He worked every day at a job he hated so that he could put frijoles and tortillas on the table.

But that didn’t mean he gave up his thirst for adventure. As we grew older, he took us with him camping, traveling, exploring. I’m so grateful that he instilled that sense of adventure in me.

He always showed us kindness, even when administering discipline. I can’t remember how many times he said “Now Penny, you know that I don’t enjoy this, but you need to be taught a lesson. I’m doing this for your own good.” Was it good that I couldn’t sit down for a week afterwards? But I learned my lesson.

The lesson I learned was to logically decide if what I wanted to do was worth the punishment. I never got away with anything. My mother had the ability to read my mind. She always knew what I was going to do before I did it. She could see through walls and had eyes in the back of her head. I learned early on to gauge if what I was contemplating was worth the penalty. If it was, I went ahead and did it, if not, I abstained. That way, if I was going to misbehave, I always got my “spanking’s worth.”

Papa taught us lots, both by what he said and what he did. He was a stickler for manners. He grew up in the south and was a southern gentleman. He also was an Army officer and learned US Army style manners. He passed these on to us. I won’t take a bite until the hostess is seated and can’t abide someone wearing a hat to the table.

Papa's 80th Birthday

He taught us grammar and the value of education. To this day hearing “where’s it at?” or “Me and Bill” drives me crazy. We learned about human rights and civil rights at his feet. But most importantly, he taught us to question everything and never settle.

But he settled for the sake of his children. He loved us so much that he gave up what he wanted to do to be with us. So this brings me to the question of what is love?

Although he never told us he loved us, the fact that he sacrificed his desires for his family was the ultimate act of love. Aristotle said that love is “to will the good of another.”

Putting the interest of your children ahead of your own interests is certainly an act of love. Even though Papa tried to plan our entire lives and we sometimes disappointed him, he reveled in our successes.
For all of his flaws, Papa was a good father. He set an example for us to follow. He made me want to be a better father than the one I had. I could not be who I am or have accomplished what I have accomplished without him.

When his grandfather, Pendleton Carroll, died, he held his father’s hand at his grandpa’s grave site. His father told him that grandpa, “was much of a man.” I guess it’s hereditary. Papa was much of a man.

Now for the unabashed commercial plug. I’ve written an entire book about Papa. To learn more about him, or order your copy of Blue Water & Me, Tall Tales of Adventures With My Father, click here.

Happy Father’s Day to all of you dads out there.

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My Life Update

6/15/2015

16 Comments

Odin's getting a little along in years. Now he needs reading glasses.

With all of the visiting author interviews I’ve been doing, I’ve sort of gotten off the original track of this blog. I do have another interview I want to post, with Ed Robinson. Ed is a gifted author with a main character who is living my life. Next week I’ll post my annual Father’s Day message, but we’ll get back to Ed the following week.

This week, however, I want to give you all an update on my life. I am finally back to work, working hard to do the edits on Bikini Baristas. I’m really behind schedule on this book. I expected to have it published long ago, but as you know, the knee-replacement surgery hit me harder than I ever imagined.

If you haven’t read any of the Ted Higuera thrillers yet, this is a good time to start. I’m giving The Inside Passage away free this week. From June 15th to the 19th you can download a FREE copy from Amazon. Click here to get your FREE copy now.

As with all the Ted Higuera novels, Bikini Baristas can be read as a standalone book. However, it would be much more interesting to know the back-story of how Ted and his friends go where they are by reading the three previous books first. This is your chance to catch up with the series before Bikini Baristas is released.

Bikini Baristas has two main threads running through it. In Seattle we have a phenomenon called bikini barista stands. I haven’t seen these in other places I’ve visited. The coffee shacks are manned by attractive you women wearing next to nothing.

The owner of a chain of bikini barista stands disappears. His burned-out truck is found alongside a road in the California desert. Ted and Cat are hired by his wife to find him. As the follow his trail, they soon descend into a slimy world and get mixed up with the Mafia.

Chris is working at his dad’s law firm. He gets his first grown-up lawyer case. He is asked by one of the senior partners to represent one of his relatives. His wife’s cousin has a teenage son who is always in trouble.

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. What Chris thought would be an easy plea-bargain turns into an international manhunt and a daily headline story.

What do these two stories have to do with each other? You’ll have to read Bikini Baristas to find out, but I guarantee you, you won’t guess the ending.

Okay, enough shameless self-promotion.

Odin and his Mama.

I had a great birthday season. In my family, we realize that you can’t adequately celebrate your birthday in a single day. The season started Friday with Dawn preparing me a special dinner. Then on Saturday we went to the Padres baseball game with her brother, Duane. On Sunday, I cooked BBQ ribs for friends and on Monday, my actual birthday, we went to look at the San Salvador.

The San Salvador is a replica of the Spanish Galleon Juan Cabrillo used to sail up the Pacific Coast and claim California for Spain.

After the San Salvador, we went to the maritime museum, then Dawn took me out to dinner at the 94th Aero Squadron.

The 94th Aero Squadron is a French chalet built at the end of the runway at Montgomery Field. The chalet is surrounded by French 75 cannons, the same cannon that Papa was in charge of when he was in the army. There are several replica WWI airplanes and the grounds are sandbagged to protect against enemy attacks.

The interior is done up in a WWI aero squadron scheme.

It was a riot. I got to spend a couple of hours boring Dawn with my extensive knowledge of WWI aircraft, fly aces and history. By the way, the dinner was pretty good too.

Last weekend I went to the California Crime Writers Conference in Culver City, just west of L.A. This may be the best writers conference I have ever attended because the focus was so narrow. Everything they did was stuff I was interested in. There were so many sessions that I wanted to attend that were at the same time that I had to make some hard choices.

Probably the best two session I attended were the Firearms class given my a senior FBI agent and a talk on Mexican prison gangs by a senior detective from the L.A. County Sheriff’s office. You can look forward to seeing some of that information in an upcoming book.

On Saturday, I did an book reading and signing for Blue Water & Me at the Chula Vista Marina. Mike and the staff there really pulled out all the stops to accommodate us. We had a nice crowd and many people hung around for an hour or so after the reading to talk about fishing and boating in general.

That just about brings you up to date. I’m almost through with the drugs for my knee-replacement surgery and hope to be back to normal soon.

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