Twelfth Year Of Dougloids

Here we are and this is the twelfth year we've been publishing the Dougloid Papers and as is customary we add the photograph of the cranky kid who is our mascot.

I'm guessing he is probably a cranky adolescent these days thinking about the stuff that cranky adolescent boys muse over while they're pretending to have their noses in a book or paying attention to the schoolmarm.

I've started writing a story in the noir fiction genre, and it looks like it could be a novella. All I'll tell you about it is that it's the tale of a slightly dodgy ex military police investigator veteran of the Korean war who looks up an old barracks pal and rapidly finds himself  deep in a pool of crap. It has to do with murders, gunplay, a road trip to Los Angeles and the quest for a small time hoodlum who made a big score by accident.

The title is "Rocket 88" and of course it features a hot rodded Oldsmobile Rocket 88.

That's the creative effort. There are also some legal type writings in the works.

Yr editor is currently without a teaching gig as of last December 17.

That was a Monday and as usual I graded papers and assignments, posted the week's grades, read up on the topic du jour for the week, created a power point for my students, and did a bit of research.

All that took place in the morning and about 4:30 in the afternoon I logged onto my faculty email to find a notice from the administration that Vatterott College had closed in its entirety, effective immediately, thus hanging out to dry anyone who depended on their job, a cohort of students, and all the instructors.

Talk about a head snapper....I'll be following the story with interest as I scuffle around for another teaching gig but I do have a significant backlog of guitar amps to repair and a number of long term projects to work on.

 I'll stay occupied.

I get my next month visit with the oncologist to see whether I renew my lease for another six months. I am hopeful and I feel good physically, or as well as a 70 year old guy can feel.

An acquaintance of mine  has cut off all contact with me, and I expect it to be permanent unless something changes on on the other end and they decide that I'm worth talking to, even if it's just for information like "Any hereditary diseases I should know about?"
We do have them, y'know, and a weakness for the healing grape runs deep among the women of this family. It's something to talk about. The first step in dealing with something, anything, is to acknowledge its existence and speak out.

I remain hopeful. I was listening to George Mitchell talking today on IPR about negotiating the Good Friday Accords in Ireland, and that seemed to be considerably more difficult than this ought to be.

It turns out I'm not the only one in this pickle, and it seems that communicating through social media makes it easy to dump people who are inconveniences.

Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven as it is said.

Stick around. There's more to come.