The 'real' Pup

Another author asked about my "too many dogs":

The “real” Pup was found chained in the back yard of a crack house/whore house that the local police shut down. He then lived in a 5x10’ kennel at a halfway house. (Five-year old niece of halfway house manager named him ‘Puppy Dog’ - out of respect for his masculinity, I shortened that to 'Pup'.) I guess the constant stream of new people there got him used to strangers, because he’s never met one he didn’t like. He was given away three times, but he was “too much dog” for the new owners, and they all had tiny yards if any; he took one look at my 1/2 acre and has never left.

Cocoa (AKA “Devil Dog From Hell” b/c of her penchant for stealing and chewing up anything she can reach - which is everything…) was the result of the neighbor’s wolf getting out and roaming the neighborhood - it was me or the pound after her brothers and sisters were given away and nobody took her. Her brother “Moose” - 125 pounds of solid black-and-white muscle - lives nearby. I woke up when a dog jumped on my bed last week; from the weight, I thought “Pup", which made me wake up because he doesn’t DO that very often, and I guess subconsciously I realized it was even more weight than Pup - I rolled over and was looking at MOOSE! He’d gotten out, gotten in my yard (tore a hole in a chain-link fence!), then come through my dog door… Neighbor wasn’t thrilled at a 4AM phone call, but was glad to get Moose home… I’ve gotta quit carrying and handing out Milk-Bones...

Mink was an unwanted ‘runt of the litter’ with thick, luxurious black fur. Then at 6 months she chewed it all off and looked like a Mexican Hairless. She’s allergic to grass (we think) plus has thyroid problems. The vet wouldn’t spay her (too high risk) until we got all that under control, which it now (mostly) is, thanks to expensive medication and special food.

Pup (AKA “Speed Bump” due to his habit of laying across doorways in the middle of the night waiting for me to face-plant, and AKA “Zoloft” because he’s the perfect antidepressant) was so smart and friendly I wanted to breed him - I just didn’t intend it to be with Mink! :-/ But, I’m happy with Blondie (AKA “Foot Warmer”) as the outcome. :-)

Pup is ALSO a character in my books; in the first, he’s “just” the President’s dog, not too sure about the alien dragons that come to the White House, but willing to play if they are. In the second, we know a bit more about the dragons, especially Terfl (the ‘adolescent’ one) and she and Pup give our stalwart (but sometimes bumbling) hero grief. In the third, Pup becomes the first interstellar-traveling dog as the now Ex-President and his family are on the ambassadorial visit to the dragon’s home planet. SQUIRREL! Um. No. Just another alien species. Oops! Then there are the Chihuahua-sized baby dragons...

(THIRD BOOK COMING SOON!)

SETI (the real one)

As you know (I hope!) my first book opens with a guy running SETI@Home on his PC. In THIS universe, SETI is only one of many distributed-computing projects you can run under the BOINC umbrella. (Google it if you care and don't already know...)

This week and next are the SETI WOW! competition, sponsored by SETI Germany. I've got every PC I can beg, borrow, or scrounge churning out SETI@Home work units. It seems those totally worthless BOINC "credits" are amazingly addictive. And like any addict, once you've developed a tolerance, you have to find new ways to get your "high". Credits alone aren't enough any more. Next you need "badges", and then "WuProp hours", and then a high placement in a contest to see who can wrangle enough computer power to process as many SETI WU's as possible in two weeks.

Okay, I can hear you out there smothering "Geek!", "Nerd!" as you laugh, trying to hide it with your hand over your mouth. All I can say is "I'll sic Terfl on you!" Hmm. That may not disprove your point...

But seriously, BOINC isn't about the credits. <yeahright> It's about helping humanity! Yeah! Those hours of CPU power go to folding proteins, and analyzing gravity-wave data, and designing new gizmos for supercolliders! Curing cancer! I'm doing this for the benefit of the human race!

Plus, I'm REALLY close to 500,000,000 credits...

Promo worked, sort of...

Well, the free promo for book 1 worked, sort of. Several downloads, and again quite a few then purchased book 2, so they must have liked it. But I only got ONE REVIEW! (At least it didn't disappear like at least 3 others have.) Come on, people. If you like it enough to buy the next book, how about leaving a review! I'm begging here!

Book 1 - "The Short War: Invasion" will be available FREE on Amazon from May 28, 2017 to June 1, 2017. If the ridiculously high price of $2.99 has kept you from buying it, and you aren't on Kindle Unlimited where you can read it for free at any time, then jump on this limited-time offer!

I'd throw in a set of Ginsu Knives but I'm all out. I NEED REVIEWS! :-)

(I had two 5-star and a 4-star, but they've mysteriously disappeared. No response from Amazon thus far on why, just a lot of platitudes...)

LARGE PRINT versions of the paperbacks of my books are available on Amazon. Because of the way they do Kindle vs. Paperback, you'll have to "show all 3 formats and editions", then click on the arrow to expand the choices once you are at paperback...

Website is up

My website is now up (sort of). http://www.fttern.com!

Test post

This is a test post of my new blog. Hope it works!