But This Is Different Now On Nook

Writing a novel doesn't end with The End these days.  In fact, writing The End now means that the other half of the writing project has begun -- the promotion, the marketing, the...all of those once negatively charged words now so essential to the miracle of getting people to read the book.
We're learning as we go and the learning is tough and fun and exciting.
Dealing with the two mega on line folks (Amazon and Barnes and Noble) has been often daunting.
However, we're pleased to announce that But This Is Different is now available on the Nook e reader.
Here's the link:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/but-this-is-different-a-novel-mary-walker-baron/1104697524?ean=2940013633575&itm=1&usri=but%2bthis%2bis%2bdifferent
Check it out.  Buy the book.  Have yourself a good read.

Will An Apple A Day Really Help?

When it comes to the world of finance, I am generally more of a snarky observer than an advice giver. However, I was just reading that, according to the most recent available financial statements, Apple Inc. has more cash on hand - over $76 billion - than the U.S. Treasury. So, again, not telling you what to do with your money, but I'm taking all my cash and converting it to safe, stable iTunes gift cards.

A Whole Lot More Impressive Than The Unbegun One

I had the stomach for neither news nor NPR yesterday morning driving to work.  Sometimes too much bad news becomes almost as tiresome as too much deep thought.  So instead of listening to one or the other of my commute regulars, I listened to classical music -- KUSC, the only classical music station in Los Angeles.
I wasn't paying too much attention until Dennis Bartel announced that the next piece would be Symphony No. 8 In B Minor begun but never completed by Franz Schubert and thus known most famously as 'The Unfinished Symphony'.  I wanted to give a good listen to this stopped in the middle of creation composition.  I turned the radio's volume up.  I didn't want to miss a single unfinished note.  I waited for the first of those notes.  The next thing I heard, though, was nothing.  This nothing - this silence - went on for so long that I thought Bartel had changed his mind and was playing the not famous at all piece by Schubert know as 'The Unbegun Symphony'.  Eventually Bartel and his station overcame their technical difficulties and I finished my commute delighted and inspired and captivated by incompletion.
All through the day I wrapped my mind around 'The Unbegun Symphony' and what I might learn from those moments of radio silence.
We all have a symphony or a painting or a novel or an I love you inside us unbegun because we're afraid to say the words or make the commitment or doubt we have the talent or the skills or the energy.  Or maybe we don't begin because we worry we won't have time to finish and heaven forbid we leave something begun but undone.
Here, though, is what I learned from Schubert yesterday morning even though I have no idea why his Symphony No. 8 In B Minor remained unfinished.
Begin.

Plenty Of Nothing Isn't Okay With Me

OK, I'll be the first to admit that I really don't understand how the U.S. avoided a catastrophic economic meltdown by passing a measure that raises the government's capacity to borrow more ("debt ceiling"). But, based on the 266 points the DOW just plummeted, apparently Wall Street agrees with me that if the federal government were in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.

Post Office Miracles

So there I was this morning at the United States Post Office mailing some sold books to the people soon to be involved in the read of their lives.  But I digress.  The postage label for which I had already paid $4.95 on my credit card got stuck in the machine.  Forget that I had parked in the 10 Minute Customer Only Or We Will Heartlessly Tow You Away space at the nearby 7/11 convenience market and was now sweating cheap hot dogs for fear the old Jeep would really get towed away this time.  Forget all that.  I had already paid for the postage now stuck in the whirring gears of the automated do it yourself mailing kiosk thing.  And then it happened.  The first of the morning's and possibly the life's United States Post Office miracles.  The machine spoke to me!  No, not in a voice I or anyone else could hear but in a printed message on the screen of the machine.
"An error," the screen printed, "has occurred.  We will print you a smaller postage label."
And there it came like rain to a drought stricken desert.  The smaller postage label for the exact amount charged to my credit card.
That would have been enough to tide me over until the arrival of, well, some special agnostically unnamed being.  But things didn't stop there.
I stopped to get the weekly delivery of junk mail out of the post office box so my arms were full of stuff I didn't have time to put in the newly installed Postal Service recycling containers.  Remember that I was hurrying back to the 7/11 before the impound people got to the old Jeep.  Seeing my arms full of junk predicament, a woman went through the heavy door and then held it open for me.  Perhaps she was racing against the impound people, too, because she didn't notice that a man with arms full of stuff to mail was trying to get through the door.  So I made room in my junk to grab the door and hold it open for him just as the woman noticed what was going on.  She stopped and came back to me.
"Isn't this wonderful?" she asked and exclaimed and bubbled.  "I held the door open for you and then you held it open for him.  You thanked me and he thanked you so now I just feel the need to thank you to make this circle of kindness complete."  Whereupon she laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "Don't you think that life should be like this all the time?"
Whereupon she turned and disappeared around the corner.  I had no time to answer her question.  On second thought, maybe it was more of a prayer than a question.
Anyway, two Post Office miracles in one morning.
I'm good.

How Many Clowns In The Little Car?

The circus is over.  The streets are littered with peanut shells and elephant shit.  Soon the big tent will come down to be packed away for just a little while before it's time again for the clowns and the men on stilts who really believe that they are tall.
Okay, while I'm waiting for my cotton candy I have a question.
If this whole three ring national shame thing was about money, why have the Republicans left town without doing something about the FAA impasse?  They just left town and the FAA and thus us continue to lose what will ultimately total by the time the Republicans get back to work (or whatever it is they call whatever it is they do in Washington) a billion dollars in lost taxes on the sale of tickets.
A billion dollars.  That's quite a bit.  Forget about raising taxes.  Why don't we just try and collect the ones already in place instead of leaving town and letting the money go into the pockets of the airlines?
I'm no political pundit and I certainly don't have the smarts of my favorite early morning political comedienne talk show host Stephanie Miller.  But come on!  A billion dollars in taxes because members of the House couldn't stay around long enough to fix the FAA.  The FAA?  Isn't that also the organization that makes sure airplanes don't fly into each other?
I have to go see how many clowns are getting out of the little car now.  No time to worry about this stuff.

Monday Morning HInt

Here's a helpful little workplace observation for a Monday morning. As I stood, dumbstruck, in the courtyard, listening to a co-worker drone on about what a fun weekend she had with her dogs, it occurred to me that "Stop, Drop, and Roll" is not JUST an effective fire safety technique, but also a very effective and memorable way to get out of a boring conversation.