I’ve said before, it never fails but that when I try to ratchet up the amount of time I spend on writing, something always interrupts to get in the way. Or life becomes more complicated in some way. I was about to get back to writing this week, after not doing a whole lot the last two weeks while letting In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People simmer before beginning the editing.

However, while we were on a hasty, weekend trip to southwestern Kansas for a funeral in Lynda’s family, we got work that my brother passed away in Rhode Island. He was 57 years old, had been in poor health for many years, had been failing even more lately, and had been in much pain of late. We will travel to RI for the funeral this coming weekend.

So writing must be set aside for a while. On the trip I’ll carry the proof copy of Documenting America and give it a good proof-reading, with the intent of uploading a fresh copy next Tuesday. I may work on the short story, the sequel to “Mom’s Letter”, tentatively titled “Too Old To Play”. Beyond that, this week will be given to preparation for travel and then the travel itself. If I can sneak in a blog post before we leave on Friday, I will.

After that, I really need to ratchet things up again. I may have to write a few articles to get some money in the door.

I don’t take adversity very well. I need my life to be full of peace in order to be productive and creative. Today was anything but that.

It actually began last night, getting home from church around 8 PM, I found a large hole dug in my yard. The underground phone lines had been marked on the ground about a week ago, and the digging was where the markings were. Since we haven’t had any phone problems, I assumed this was an un-requested upgrade of the service line. Entering the house, I found we had no phone service.

It took me four phone calls today to find out who was responsible. That man couldn’t tell me when it would be fixed, just that they’d have a technician out not later than 5 PM tomorrow. Meanwhile I get home and the hole is still open and fenced off and I still have no phone service. If AT&T wants people to keep their land lines, they are sure doing a poor job of showing it.

Then there was the spam attack and trying to figure out what to do about it. That took almost 3 hours. I’d load a WordPress help page, and find it a mass of words, crammed together, with graphics and links. Page after page, link after link. You would think, since this is such a problem, they would have somewhere on the dashboard a direct link saying something like, “Download and install this widget to protect against automatic spam swarms. But no, you must search for it. Figure out exactly what you want and then search for it. Go through the multiple crammed screens, file downloads, file extractions. Never a Wizard to show what to do next.

Finally I figured it out. The protection is installed and active. Two hundred fifty auto spam posts deleted. All desire to write gone. I started the blog to develop a web presence to build a writer’s platform—that ready-made audience that agents and editors want you to have before they will even talk with you about any book. Yeah, right. My audience is smaller than my techno-IQ, which is almost in negative numbers.

I can’t help but think of that song that we played on tape and sang for Ephraim multiple times last week: “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly….” In this case it would be: There once was a writer who started a blog. Stupid dog to start up a blog. He started a blog to capture some readers…. I need to work on it beyond there.

Goodnight all. I can’t work under these conditions. Might as well go eat.

In early June two events take place in the Chicago area that are a lure for us to make the 10.5 hour drive there. Of course, with our son living there, attending grad school at the University of Chicago, we didn’t need too many excuses. Still, the pull to make the 3.5 hour drive to Oklahoma City to see grandbabies is just as big of a lure, and the less cost and time means we make that trip much more.

The two events are the Publishers Row Book Fair and the Write To Publish Writers Conference. The book fair is in downtown Chicago, on June 4-5. We went to it a couple of years ago (or was it three?), and had a great time despite intermittent rain. Numerous publishers and booksellers set up shop on city streets and hock their wares, mostly used books, but some new as well. Some writer organizations were there, such as the Romance Writers of America. I know Lynda got to meet one of her favorite romance authors and get her purchases signed. Some readings were included. I got to talk to a couple of publishers, both of which turned out to be dead ends.

That year, on the same weekend, was a large art fair in the Hyde Park area of the city. We went to the book fair on Saturday and the art fair on Sunday. We bought on Sat. and looked on Sun. Both were interesting.

I attended that writers conference back in 2004, the first national conference I attended. I haven’t been back since, partly because it’s on the expensive side. It’s held in Wheaton on the Wheaton College campus. I think it’s a beautiful campus, though in 2004 a lot of construction meant we were dodging and weaving on odd paths and not exploring the campus. I learned a lot at that event, and have been wanting to get back to it, though our trip to the book fair a couple of years ago did not include conference attendance. This year it’s June 8-11.

This year is different. We actually have three events to attend. On June 11 Charles will receive his doctorate, a PhD in Philosophy. Last week he successfully defended his dissertation, so the degree will be conferred and he’ll be “hooded” on the 11th. It’s been a long haul for him. He earned his masters at Tufts University in 2003, and might have finished his doctorate a couple of years ago had he not had to work to make ends meet. We’re happy for him. In a future post I’ll say what his disertation title is and maybe describe it. I read one of his papers derived from the same subject matter. Actually, how about I just link to his website and let you look it up.

So that’s the main reason for the trip. Knowing we were going, I applied for a scholarship to the writers conference, and was one of eight to receive one. I doubt I would have applied had we not been going to Chicago anyway, but I figured why not. So I will be attending that with all expenses paid (except transportation). I have an evening event on the 7th with the other scholarship winners. So we’ll go up early and attend the book fair as well, make a long trip of it. If the art fair is also on, perhaps we’ll drive up on the 3rd, attend the book fair on the 4th, the art fair on the 5th, the writers conference the evening of the 7th through the morning of the 11th, and graduation on the 11th. Lynda will stay with Charles, not with me at the conference.

Planning and scheming are in progress. It would be nice to have a print copy of Documenting America in my hands to show everyone. Maybe I could even lure a publisher into picking up future volumes in the series. Although I’ve decided to self-publish, I haven’t completely given up the dream of being judged worthy of acceptance by a legacy publisher.

Yesterday afternoon when Ephraim got up from his nap he asked for “Grandpa Todd” to play with him. And last night he wanted Grandpa Todd to read him stories and put him to bed. Unfortunately, Grandpa Todd had left Oklahoma City as soon as Ephraim was put down for his nap. The four day weekend was over.

It was chock-full of activities. On Friday I took a day of vacation and drove there with my mother-in-law, Lynda already being there. Once in OKC we stopped first at the library of Oklahoma City University, where I accessed a certain periodical needed for my Wesley research, which I had electronically looked for in other places but found there. That was a half hour. Then it was on to Richard and Sara’s house for the family activities. On Saturday we celebrated Ephraim’s third birthday, with a family and church folks party. It was a madhouse, but fun. All the Oklahoma people had their ears glued to the radio for the Thunder vs. Grizzlies game.

On Sunday Ezra David Schneberger was dedicated, not by his pastor-father, but by the District Superintendent. I knew this DS and his wife from my brief single days in Kansas City, back in 1974-75, but we hadn’t seen each other since. It was nice to be reacquainted. Then after church we celebrated Mother’s Day by going out for Indian food. We figured most restaurants would be jambed, but this ethnic one would have seats available. It did, and the food was good as always.

Monday I took another day of vacation and we hung around until 2:15 PM, then drove back. In the morning Ephraim and I went for a walk, about 30 minutes, during which time he found many treasures to take home. Then I gave Ezra a bottle (pumped breast milk), and held him a long time outside, constantly moving him to help him work on his balance and exercise his arms and legs. He finally fell sound asleep and we didn’t hear from him for a couple of hours. I’d have held him longer if I wasn’t called in for lunch.

In still moments I read some in a technical paper for work, and about 30 pages in the first volume of John Wesley’s Journal. This was all introductory material, not the journal itself. Talked with Richard, talked with Sara. Simply enjoyed the time.

So I know all of you wondered why I let five days go by without a post. I should have prepared a post or two ahead of time and scheduled them, and will try to do better the next time I’m to be gone. I didn’t totally forget about writing those last five days, just subjugated it to family needs.

Of course, I told Ephraim when he went down for his Monday nap that I wouldn’t be there when he got up, and that I wanted to read him a story and see him to his bed. “NO! Daddy do it” was his reply. That’s okay. A three-year old has to learn lessons of opportunity. And he’ll learn them, and I’ll have lots of other times to read him stories.