The Mission, by Larry Hunter

 Devin Hester, a great player,  is off the Bears for 2014, Sad to see him go
Well, it has been another season, and now the Bears besides letting Urlacher go at middle linebacker last year, now they have also let Devin Hester slip away. He's the guy who on special teams was tied for the most kickoff return touchdowns, ever. Those are spectacular because it is right when the other team is just starting play off by doing the kickoff to put the ball in play, and they are not expecting the first guy who touches it to come charging right back and get a touchdown. But Devin did. Just to tick off the Green Bay fans, I some time ago had my lady friend who was living in Wisconsin start wearing a Devin Hester Chicago Bears jersey, right in front of all the Packers fans. So I hope they think they know what they are doing, the Bears I mean. This happens when they don't want to pay a player a certain rate for the next year, maybe thinking he's too old now or something, even though he's half my age.

Overtime
I have actually been working steady overtime in the 50s and 60s hours a week range ever since the last post about Urlacher, that is almost a year straight, and have not had even one day off since the sogenannte polar vortex rendered my car unable to start due to extreme cold, that was back January 7. I had no choice but to not work that day, but try to get the car to start. It was something like 45 below zero wind chill factor, with an actual reading 14 below as if it were out of the wind, which it wasn't. No dice till it got to 12 below. I have no idea what that would be in Celsius, but it is colder than a ^%$# 's (*&.

Accident, Their Fault
A week earlier on New Years' morning I was going from an overnight job New Years Eve directly to  the morning job in another town 16 miles away, yes that is a holiday double shift, that is my life, when some Bulgarian partiers from a New Years Eve party crashed into me, having run through a red light, while we were experiencing a blizzard which later turned out to have dropped 10-12 inches of snow on us. I managed to win the case, since they were at fault, and got thousands in repairs quite reasonably. I did not think I was particularly hurt, but with some things you can't really be sure right away, but have to wait and see. Also we now know for sure, a Smart car can defeat an SUV, and the wreck is survivable after all, at least with snow below to slide on.

Civil War
So since then, whatever I said I was doing before, I forgot about (it was Kolin) and have been reading heavily this year about the Civil War, which means that I should post on the other blog sometime soon. Trouble is I was still in the process there when I left off, of working on 1861, and what I have been reading about the most actually is for 1864. And last year the reading kick was on for 1862, even though by then it was 2013, so my 150th anniversary thing is all thrown out of gear, even though it is still now shortly before the anniversary of the final long showdown between Grant and Lee, which kicks off in May 2014.

Amazon Came Back On
After moaning and groaning for three years about how the governor had got us all kicked off Amazon, stymying my efforts to make very reasonable sales of books and so on that I talk about available here, as well as playing he-- with my raison d'etre. shortly before Christmas the Supreme Court ruled the governor's deal void, and we all were able to get back in after all, not that anyone was ready any more. A number of us gave up and died since then, or various other things happened. And then they finally decide it's been void all along. Very good, now ya tell us.

 So I was waiting for them to reply, when the accident happened, and it turns out they let me back in three months ago, but then said if I didn't sell anything for three months, I'd get kicked out again, anyway, for that now. And by the time they mentioned that, it was almost too late. By the time I read their email, maybe it already is too late.

And in any event I can't remember if I had put Amazon.com anywhere, or was still thinking about it, in which case the amazon through skimlinks.com should still be working. I think it still is, so no wonder I hadn't sold anything, since I not only didn't tell anyone, but also hadn't even read it myself. I think I actually am still thinking about it, and had not taken any real action before forgetting about it again.

And I just read that after it may be too late, so I'll see if I can get something myself off here, and also off the other one. It always turns out to be an excellent deal and quick too, and with me I always see several other things I also could use.

The Mission, by Larry Hunter.

Now this past week I have been reading a novel titled The Mission, by Larry Hunter, who I have met personally, and I have had some discussions with him. He is a new reader over on the Civil War blog, Headquarters in the Saddle.blogspot.com

He wrote a novel a few years ago which is the one I have been reading. I read one page from the middle a couple weeks ago, then set it aside, but I could tell it sounded good, in fact real good, from that particular page I had opened it to, since it had the bagman run off with the money from  the hotel room above Lee Harvey Oswald, shortly before the Kennedy assassination occurred.

But I have been really busy. These 65 hour weeks and 52 or 56 hour ones are partly daytime, partly nighttime, and an afternoon evening, so that for several days straight I have only eight hours to get from job A to job B, with little rest in between. That's bad enough to do that once, but I am doing it fully half the time, 3-4 times a week.

I see Larry on Sunday afternoon. We were discussing things like whether McClellan was really as bad as they say, etc, which is really more geared towards the other blog.

So finally I got started with pages one and two, and could tell he had succeeded in hooking me into the story from there. That was a good sign, but after all I had to be up to go to work like seven hours later, so I went to sleep anyway. I just finally got a chance to read yesterday, and I did not put the book down for a good six or seven hours, and again then only to sleep for work and also to save a little for later.  So in that marathon session, I read from page 3 to 165.

Yes, it is good. I'm not saying he is right about everything, necessarily, but it is certainly plausible enough, and some of it happens right on my very route home from work! And like with a movie, it is the story that pulls you in with a novel, it isn't set up as a documentary.

The whole book only runs 219 pages, so I still have about 55-60 more pages to read  to finish it. I have passed up the bagman part, and also now I understand what Larry's wife meant when she had asked him "Why did you do that?" about one certain part, but read on to where okay I understand. So check out his novel, The Mission, by Larry Hunter, and I think you'll enjoy it. There's plenty of action.

The shootout in Chapter II occurs about a mile from my house, in front of a church where I pass through the supposed line of fire five times a week! I have never had a shootemup action novel hit that quite close to home before, and also the author is a reader here now, so you can talk to him here. He's working on another one, this one came out in 2010 and is available through Amazon.


So anyway, I'll be finishing this book up soon, and see if any of my links will work for it or what. I'll also have to see about mentioning it on headquarters in the saddle, because I couldn't get Larry to remember Tabakskollegiummekelnborg, he just kept on asking what? What? I can't remember that, how do you speel that--what's the other one called then?

I probably would too.

*                 *                *