The Weather Forecast

Yesterday, where I live, it was supposed to be 65 degrees and sunny. They’ve been saying it was coming for a week or better. Great January weather, right? And I, for one, was looking forward to it. Well, turns out the high was only 47 and we saw not one ray of sunshine. Conditions were mostly foggy with a bit of drizzle.

Why is it that weather forecasters never suffer any ill effects for being wrong? This is a fairly well-paid profession yet, they are notoriously wrong in their predictions. It’s a pattern. I think half the time their brain is in a fog. But, somehow, they keep their job.

I can only imagine if I turned in a similar performance at my job as a truck driver. I’m quite certain I wouldn’t be around after a single day. I don’t think I’m alone. In fact, I’m pretty sure most people would be fired if they came anywhere close to the abysmal track record of meteorologists. Most bosses do not appreciate incompetence—especially when it’s on-going.

These days meteorology has moved away from the old weather vanes and anemometers to some rather expensive and sophisticated technology; Doppler radar, satellite imaging, weather balloons with sensors, forecasting software with weather models, not to mention theses guys go to college to study weather patterns and the climate. Despite the advancements, accuracy rates are no better than they were fifty years ago. Really!

In the sixties, weather forecasters held an aggregate average of approximately 70 percent. Some days were better than others, obviously, as were some forecasters in any given time. But the average for them all was roughly 70 percent.

Today’s meteorologists like to claim they are far better at predicting the weather and that they are continually advancing. I think that’s just to justify the millions of dollars spent on equipment—meteorologist’s toys. One guy I looked up, while researching for this post, maintains he has a 95 percent accuracy. But if you look, you’ll discover this includes next day and even same day forecasts! Well, even I could do pretty well by glancing out the window—probably get close to 100 percent accuracy, I’m thinking. But a true forecast, as in, not waiting until the weather is happening or about to happen, is still averaging about 70 percent.

I looked up the statistics on weather forecasts for my area and found that the average from the top ten forecasting services, which includes, The Weather Channel, AccuWeather, and the National Weather Service, was 65.31 percent for the last month and 65.86 percent for the last year. So much for the meteorologist’s claims of improvement.

In school, I had teacher who pointed out that if you predict the exact same weather for tomorrow as was experienced today and you’ll have a 70 percent accuracy. No college, no study of weather patterns, and no equipment. And you’ll do just as well as the weatherman—at least over a period of time. So again, why do these guys keep their job?

Incidentally, the Old Farmer’s Almanac, long ridiculed by many, including meteorologists, has about an 65 percent accuracy rating—and that’s a running total all the way back to when they started, in 1792! Some years, they were as low as 52 percent but other years it’s been as high as 80. Seems to me that meteorologists could save a lot of time and money by just buying a subscription to the Old Farmer’s Almanac!

Oh, and what did the Old Farmer’s Almanac forecast for this week where I live? Mild temperatures (39 degrees) and a little rain. Not perfect, but definitely better than the weatherman!

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders also serves as the Vice-President of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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Current Reads

Allergic To Life: My Battle For Survival

Kathryn C. Treat

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Mystical Emona: Soul’s Journey

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A Wizard Dreams

Profile Of A Sculptor

As a kid, I used to love school field trips. Aside from getting out of school, the trip itself was usually something fun and memorable. After one such outing to a museum, and without much forethought, I decided I wanted to be a sculptor. I’m not sure how old I was at the time, around eight or nine I think. I do remember being quite impressed by the statues and figurines on display. Fascinated, really. Everything looked so real, so exact, so perfect.

Back at school, we watched a film on how sculptors did their work. The art of sculpting, it said, was intensive and required skill, both in imagination and artistic ability. Well, I immediately discounted the possibility that it could be difficult. I figured since I could draw, and had never lacked for an imagination, then I could certainly be a sculptor. How hard could it be anyway?

At home that afternoon, I found my dad’s tool box, picked out a couple of chisels, along with a hammer, and went searching for a rock. A big rock. Time to make my mark on the world!

I spent a few hours chiseling (pounding with the hammer until I got a chunk of rock to fracture and come off) and then studying my progress. I hadn’t decided what I would make beforehand. I think I was hoping something would start to emerge and then I’d just go with that. Well, as you can imagine, things didn’t go quite that way. After several hours all I had was, well, a rock. A smaller rock than I’d started with, but still just a rock.

Okay, I thought, maybe they’d been right. Perhaps sculpting was indeed hard to do.

A few years later, I tried my hand again. I was older, had a better idea of what to do, but while there was a little improvement, the result was about the same. And so, although I hate to give up, hate to admit defeat on anything, I realized that maybe sculpting wasn’t for me.

Then, after high school, I went to work at a dental laboratory where we fabricated dental appliances; dentures, crowns, bridges, etc. The process is a little drawn out but it begins by designing the prosthesis in wax. Generally, a pre-formed mold is used, which is then customized to match the existing teeth, gums, and facial features. This is accomplished with various tools, one of which is a wax carver, also known as a sculptor. And sometimes the appliance is made from scratch. It was probably two or three years before I discovered that what I was doing was sculpting.

Remember how I said I don’t like giving up or admitting defeat? Well, I suddenly found a new inspiration. I made all sorts of things; guns and holsters, cars, birds, little faces and figurines, anything I could think of. Mostly, I stuck to wax sculptures but some of the stuff, I chose to make out of stone or metal. And surprisingly, they all turned out! No, my “art” will never be displayed in a museum and it’s definitely not the picture of perfection but I did manage to become a sculptor—of sorts. Hmm, maybe it’s time to try my luck on a rock again.

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders also serves as the Vice-President of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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Current Reads

Allergic To Life: My Battle For Survival

Kathryn C. Treat

The Miracle Ship

Brian O’Hare

Mystical Emona: Soul’s Journey

Ronesa Aveela

SPOTLIGHT Author

C. S. Boyack

The Cock Of The South

 

Cheaper Gas!

A few years ago, I would have never thought I’d be happy with gas prices at more than two dollars a gallon. But that was before I’d been forced to pay nearly twice that much.

Everyone seems to be concerned with answering the question of why gas prices are dropping. I’m not really interested in the why, only that they are! And, like most people, I find it difficult to work up any sympathy for the companies that are losing money because of it. Those are the same companies that have taken advantage of me and everyone else for years. They were never too worried what the high prices were doing to any of us.

Recent reports claim that thanks to the falling prices, Americans are currently saving a few billion dollars per month! That’s a lot of money. And while I do more than my fair share of driving, I can assure you, I’m not saving quite that much!

Seriously though, living over 60 miles from my job means a weekly commute of around 650 miles. That adds up to a lot of gas over the course of a year. Wait, that adds up to a lot of gas over the course of a week. Especially since I drive a four-wheel drive pickup. And no, just to be clear, I NEVER considered buying a hybrid car. That’s definitely not  for me. I prefer to drive a real vehicle.

At any rate, you can see why the falling prices have me in such a good mood! But I know better than to allow myself to become too excited. Life has a way of handing a guy something with one hand and then taking it back with the other. I’m sure something will happen to even things out.

For the moment however, it is nice not to have to take out a second mortgage on the house just to buy gas.  Or, go without eating. And I no longer have the urge to shoot the dial on the pump either! Ditto for the sign. Good thing I guess, because so far, the price of ammo hasn’t really come down.

But perhaps the best part of the new lower gas prices is that I can now afford to go to work. Hmm. Now that I think about it, not sure if that makes me happy or not.

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders also serves as the Vice-President of Rave Reviews Book Club.

______________________________

RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB

Current Reads

Allergic To Life: My Battle For Survival

Kathryn C. Treat

The Miracle Ship

Brian O’Hare

Mystical Emona: Soul’s Journey

Ronesa Aveela

SPOTLIGHT Author

C. S. Boyack

The Cock Of The South

Today, I am happy to host Jenny Hinsman on her 4WillsPublishing sponsored Blog Tour. Jenny Hinsman is the author of Angel Of Death.

Excerpt from Angel of Death 

     Gunner pulled her hair to the side so he could rest his chin on her naked shoulder.  “Tance, until I met you I’d given up on the idea of having something special with anyone.  Sure, I dated and slept with some of the girls, but I never cared if I saw them again, it was just never right, no sparks.  It was like I was just kind of on auto-pilot for so long, getting set up on dates through friends and always agreeing because I was single and that’s what I was supposed to do.  It was all just robotic, for lack of a better word.” 

     She was nodding as he spoke, because she knew exactly where he was coming from, if she had a dollar for every date Audrey set her up with she’d have money like Audrey.  She just went through the motions because that’s what college coeds did: dated, had fun and slept around.  She never connected with anyone long enough, nor did she even have the slightest interest in sleeping with any guy she ever went out with.  She was curious at times, what it would be like to have sex.  There were a few times she considered losing her virginity, just to be done with it, but she was never brave enough or stupid enough.

     “Then this gorgeous blond, with the most stunning blue eyes, walked into my office a few weeks ago, and I immediately felt something … something exciting.  I can honestly say, I don’t think a woman has ever had that affect on me.  I swear, the first time we touched … I knew I needed to make you mine.  I saw my future in those stunning eyes of yours.”  He brushed his lips up and down her neck.  “I love this, Tance.”

      Tancy moved the tray and got onto her knees to face Gunner.  “I feel like I can say ‘ditto’ to everything you just said.  Your first touch sent sparks through me, and the first time our lips touched it felt more right than anything ever has in my life.  The first time we made love and you held me in your arms all night, it felt like home, only no home I’ve ever known.  I trust you implicitly, I want this … us … you.”  She straddled his lap and kissed him with raw, passionate emotion. 

       They began to arouse one another, and she rode him like that until they both

climaxed, saying one another’s names.  “Tance, you have me …”

ANGEL OF DEATH Book Trailer
 

ANGEL OF DEATH Purchase Link

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Blog Tour - Jeffrey Von Glahn

Today, I am happy to host Jeffrey Von Glahn on his 4WillsPublishing sponsored Blog Tour. Jeffrey Von Glahn is the author of JESSICA: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN INFANT.

BOOK BLURB:

Jessica had always been haunted by the fear that the unthinkable had happened when she had been “made-up.” For as far back as she could remember, she had no sense of a Self. Her mother thought of her as the “perfect infant” because “she never wanted anything and she never needed anything.” As a child, just thinking of saying “I need” or “I want” left her feeling like an empty shell and that her mind was about to spin out of control. Terrified of who––or what––she was, she lived in constant dread over being found guilty of impersonating a human being.

Jeffrey Von Glahn, Ph.D., an experienced therapist with an unshakable belief in the healing powers of the human spirit, and Jessica, blaze a trail into this unexplored territory. As if she has, in fact, become an infant again, Jessica remembers in extraordinary detail events from the earliest days of her life––events that threatened to twist her embryonic humanness from its natural course of development. Her recollections are like listening to an infant who could talk describe every psychologically dramatic moment of its life as it was happening.

When Dr. Von Glahn met Jessica, she was 23. Everyone regarded her as a responsible, caring person – except that she never drove and she stayed at her mother’s when her husband worked nights.

For many months, Jessica’s therapy was stuck in an impasse. Dr. Von Glahn had absolutely no idea that she was so terrified over simply talking about herself. In hopes of breakthrough, she boldly asked for four hours of therapy a day, for three days a week, for six weeks. The mystery that was Jessica cracked open in dramatic fashion, and in a way that Dr. Von Glahn could never have imagined. Then she asked for four days a week – and for however long it took. In the following months, her electrifying journey into her mystifying past brought her ever closer to a final confrontation with the events that had threatened to forever strip her of her basic humanness.

BLOG POST:

This excerpt appears in Ch. 1 in the book, although it occurred in the fourth year of her therapy. I was floating in water and hearing it flutter in my ear. I heard a steady heartbeat. I was stretching and yawning, calm and peaceful. My only concern was growing. All that was happening seemed to be in preparation for a different dimension in my life. I remember ‘thinking’ before I was born all that was going to happen. I was going to be born so somebody could love me and touch me, so I could be enough, so I could be a part of a big, working thing and I could have an effect on the world. All of it was going to be so neat. I was going to be a part of a whole big world. The world was a good place, and I was going to be a part of it! Me! The world was going to be better because I was here, because there was nothing like me. Nowhere could the world get what it was going to get from me. I was important, as important as anything. Even the tiniest speck! During labor, I felt squeezed. I wasn’t frightened. I was going along with the process of being born. I was starting to get out when somebody pushed me back in. Gosh darn it! I was not in charge of my birth anymore. They were pushing my head in, and I couldn’t breathe. I was very frightened and confused. I thought I was going to die before I could get out. Somebody was jerking me and scaring me. Everything was just jerking and pulling and turning. It hurt everywhere on my body. I didn’t know what to do. I was dizzy. I wanted to go back to where it was quiet. Make them stop! Leave me alone! Everyone leave me alone, and I’ll be just fine. Let me do it! The doctor simply plucked me out of my mother and said, ‘Here’s the little troublemaker. I can tell she’s going to be a stubborn one.’ My mom hurt, and she hurt physically because of me. There was a lot of confusion. The lights were bright, and the room was noisy. The medical team was in a panic, and everyone was yelling. It seemed like the whole world was a mess. Things weren’t going right, and it was all because of me—because I was ready to be born and I wasn’t doing it right! Everyone was frightened and scared, and they didn’t understand. Two nurses took me and washed me roughly. They were talking and laughing with each other and were unaware of how they were treating me or how I felt. I remember one of them saying, ‘Who do you think you are? You’re just another person to take care of.’ I was hungry and screaming and scared. It didn’t matter. Nobody wanted to touch me and hold me and smile at me. There was a whole room full of people. I just had to wait! I wasn’t any more important than anybody else! Everyone was doing what had to be done, and I had to just behave and stop crying. And I’d learn…I’d learn I was a nobody, that I was just like everybody else. It didn’t matter what I wanted or expected. I was in the real world, and I’d just have to wait. I was nobody special, and I didn’t deserve anything any more than anybody else did. It didn’t make any difference who I was. I was just one more person to take care of. It all made me feel like I wasn’t what they were looking for, like I was a nobody. Who the hell was I? They weren’t concerned about me. They were just concerned with what I had done and how hard I had made it for everybody. Like I had any control over it! All I had done was be born. And it was no big deal! I came out ‘thinking,’ ‘Ta, ta, I’m here!’ And everybody goes, ‘Big deal!’ “Everybody felt like I had to prove myself. It was like everybody thought it was a tough, mean, crummy world. Welcome to it, kid! You’re no different than the rest of us. It’s all crummy and rotten and look what you’re a part of. They must have had a lot of bad attitudes. “I felt like going and hiding. What did I do good? I was just born! It didn’t matter what I had to offer. Nobody saw any good in me. I was waiting for someone to be so delighted and happy I was here, that I was out and now the world was a better place because there was one more good thing. Nobody felt I had contributed something only I could. I thought something unique had just happened and never in the space of time would anything like that happen again, because I was different. I was one of a kind, and I could contribute things nobody else could. I do feel like I’ve committed a grave transgression because I was born. Because of me, I added more hurt to this world. I didn’t add good things. I wasn’t good, and special, and one of a kind. I felt so awful, like I didn’t have a right to live. Everybody thought the world was crummy and a mess and that I added to the awfulness and the crumminess. I felt so disappointed. Yuck. This was what I had waited for? After being cleaned up, I went to sleep. When I woke up, I decided to give the world another chance. It was tough being born. It was. Then she looked at me directly and asked, “Do you remember all this stuff? Do you think I’m cuckoo? I know all this happened. AMAZON PURCHASE LINK: "JESSICA: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN INFANT" by Jeffrey Von Glahn ~ Goodreads Event Page ~ Rafflecopter Page CONTACT INFO: Twitter:  @JeffreyVonGlahn Website: http://JeffreyVonGlahn.com ***This tour was sponsored by 4WillsPublishing.wordpress.com  To book your own tour, please contact us.***

My Dad's Hands

I remember as a little kid of about three or four, looking at my dad’s hands and wondering why they looked the way they did. My hands were smooth, his were not. After I got a little older, I realized it was because he worked for a living and that’s how working hands look.

But even after I’d been working for a while myself (still as a kid), my hands didn’t look nearly as callused or weathered as his. I used to check my hands at night, especially after a particularly hard day’s work, and though it seemed they should be developing calluses and toughening up, they never really matched my dad’s hands. I decided it was because he must work more than I did. A LOT more, apparently. After all, he was always working on something. Me, I spent a lot of time playing. Still, I wanted my hands to look like that.

As a teenager, they did develop a few calluses and become a little rougher, but nothing like my dad’s. In school, I learned that due to genetics, eventually my hands would inevitably have many of the same features as my father’s. But I figured that was only referring to size and shape. Besides, by then, I had given up on the idea my hands would ever look like his.

Life went on and I grew up, and continued working—and aging. I’m not sure when it happened, but one day, I noticed my hands had the same weathered look as my father’s when I was a little boy. Of course, by this time, his hands were obviously well beyond where mine were. Still, my hands had become like his were when I first noticed them. I had inherited his hands! Or, not.

Although I’m sure genetics played a role, I knew I hadn’t actually inherited his hands. Instead, what he’d given me was a work ethic. That, combined with time, and I suppose a little due to genetics, had given me my dad’s hands.

Since that epiphany, I’d pretty much forgotten about it—until recently. Over the Christmas holiday, my son was home for a few days, and I noticed his hands were starting to take on the same look. Apparently, I passed the working thing on to him as well—and the hands. Hope he doesn’t mind.

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders also serves as the Vice President of Rave Reviews Book Club.

______________________________

RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB

Current Reads

Allergic To Life: My Battle For Survival

Kathryn C. Treat

The Miracle Ship

Brian O’Hare

Mystical Emona: Soul’s Journey

Ronesa Aveela

SPOTLIGHT Author

C. S. Boyack
The Cock Of The South