26-Dec-2016
Ughhh.
Yesterday was quietly epic. If that's not an oxymoron.
Just Shawndra and her sister, three dogs, three cats, and me, three games (two on boards and one digital), a YouTube fire burning in the television, Bing Crosby crooning Christmas songs via some BlueTeeth, tw...
4-Dec-2016
Solstice.
Pretty soon now, anyway. If you don't know, there's this place in Pittsburgh, called the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden. Amazing place, truly.
Anyway, this month they are keeping the doors open late for the Winter Flower Show and Light Garden.
So...
7-Aug-2016
Waking up.
So: This is my new website. Thanks for stopping by. Take a look around, if you like.
The more astute reader might notice that this I my first blog entry in the better part of three years.
I’ve been sorta busy for a while.
Glancing at my earlier entries, yo...
23-Nov-2013
Rebel.
That’s me: rebel, malcontent, nonconformist.
Well, okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. But I am a NaNoWriMo rebel, refusing to follow the rules, cutting my own path, doing it my way, rationalizing why I can’t make my word count.
For those of you who were unaware,...
9-Apr-2013
Vocabulary.
Here in Hawaii, normal conversations are often peppered with words and phrases borrowed from Hawaiian, such as aloha, maholo (thank you), pau hana (finished working), pilau (stinky or awful), and hordes of others which I can't remember unless I'm talking to...
12-Feb-2013
Sybil.
I sent an email the other day, thanking a friend for her kind review of Gilman. In the process, I talked a little bit about what the writing experience is like for me. Shawndra suggested that I expand on those thoughts for the blog.
Let’s start with this: Writing...
19-Dec-2012
I presented this as a closing philosophy yesterday at the last meeting of the year for my Hilo Toastmasters chapter:
Before we adjourn, here at the closing of another year, at the end of our last gathering for 2012, I’d like to talk a little bit about the idea of comfor...
31-Oct-2012
Bliss.
It is 4:15. AM. You know: dark, cold (even here in Hawaii), silent. This time of year it is cool enough at this hour to mute even the coqui frogs. And I am awake. I am awake because something has nudged me in the right shoulder.
Now, you might think that this woul...
22-Oct-2012
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Friends.
Over the years, I have been fortunate to have had many friends to share my life with. Many of them were actual, for-real, genuinely alive people.
Many others were figments of my own imagination.
But many of my best...
6-Oct-2012
Kobo.
I’ve spent the last few weeks pushing Gilman out through different sales channels. I had intended to make a big announcement once they were all in place. I haven’t announced anything yet because the plan went something like this:
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Make manuscript corrrections th...
about me

I'm a writer and a poet and an artist and a fool and, at least for now, a no-longer-itinerant engineer.
It could be said that I grew up (if you use a sufficiently elastic definition of the term) in Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio and Colorado. Following a series of mis-adventures, I found myself living in the rainforest outside Hilo, Hawaii, with my wife, the amazing Shawndra Holmberg; her sister, the equally brilliant writer Anne Avery; three dogs; two cats; and several imaginary friends, most apparently named Bob.
All of the mammals have recently joined me in western Pennsylvania, where everyone wears a beard, rides a Harley and eats french fries on their salads.
The Bobs and all the rest were already here waiting for me.

December 26, 2016
December 4, 2016
August 7, 2016
November 23, 2013
April 9, 2013
February 12, 2013
December 19, 2012
October 31, 2012
October 22, 2012
October 6, 2012