1:19am

Contrary to what you might think given the time, I am just now starting my day. I seem to write best from midnight to 8am, and this schedule also allows me to interface with the ‘normal’ world when needed.

So… what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

This past Saturday, I was chatting with the husbandly half of one of my best friends and learned he was going to make a run out to South Dakota to pick up a calf for their farm. Apparently, the bull calf came from good genetics, and they wanted to include them in their herd.

Made sense to me… I totally understand someone not wanting their herd’s family tree to look like a utility pole.

When we started the discussion, his plan was to leave Sunday after milking, visit some old haunts in the region where he grew up, pick up the calf, and bee-line it back home to minimize trauma to the little guy. By the time we finished chatting, the plan had evolved into leaving at 5am on Sunday with me riding along and helping with the driving, the intent being to be back by Monday night.

We rolled into their farm at around 6:12am – 6:15am Tuesday morning.

Now, I freely admit that driving at least 2,440 miles in 49.2 hours on what amounts to pretty much a whim probably doesn’t rise to the level of crazy you expected. But! I would like you to consider these points:

• Both of us are in our mid-40s.
• Neither of us are professional drivers.
• I’ve actually driven long, long distances a lot more and more recently than he has.
• It was the second time in my entire life that I’d pulled a trailer.

So, yeah… it was at least a little bit crazy.

I had a lot of fun. Oh, wait… you might want some proof. Here!

At the farm that will be their forever home

Right, then… where was I?  (Had to scroll up 🤣)

So, yeah… kinda crazy but loads of fun.

It was also an awesome ‘next step’ in my journey toward becoming a digital nomad. I’ve not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but I plan to do A LOT of traveling over the next few years.

I’ve already put a deposit down on a custom-order F-350 Lariat, and I’m researching fifth wheel campers. I really like mid-bunk floorplans, like the Grand Design Solitude 378MBS. I can convert that middle bunk room into an office, easy peasy. It would be perfect if I could get them to leave the slide-out empty at the factory, but I don’t know how feasible that is.

Here, have a look at what I mean…

See? That mid-bunk space would make the perfect office.

I’m considering picking up a Magnus desk from Secretlab anyway, and I’m pretty confident it would easily fit in the mid-bunk slide-out with the bunk and sofabed and any other stuff I don’t need there removed.

What I’m not sure about is whether the slide-out is wide enough to permit the extension that would make it an L desk. The Magnus desk is 59″ wide and 27.5″ deep. The L-extension is also 59″ wide and 27.5″ deep. That would mean–for a distance of 27.5″, the desk would actually be 86.5″ wide.

Hang on… I was wrong. The L extension is only 23″ deep. Which means that it’s only 82″ wide if attached to the end of a Magnus desk.

However!

It can also attach to the front of a Magnus desk… which means this just became a whole lot more feasible.

I’ll still need to do some measurements to see if the L will fit with the slide in, but that’s honestly small potatoes at this point.

Damn… glad I RTF specs. <– (computer joke… bonus points if you know the original format. Even more bonus points if you’ve ever looked someone in the eye wanting to tell them the original version but held it back for proper customer service.)

I’m working through the edits on Tempus, in addition to writing a couple different stories. One is Colfyr, which you should be familiar with by now. The other is a series-starter in the Draco-Verse shared world I want to work up.

And, no… it isn’t Denver Devastation, the first book in Draco Investigations (which is the series that gave me the idea for the shared world). But… I can be evil and share the cover.

😈

Suzie O’Connell at Sunset Rose Books took my idea of an inverted Ankh and made it look so, so, SO much better than my feeble attempt.

And, no… I’m not going to share that feeble attempt here. Let’s just all agree I have the artistic skill of a desiccated corpse and leave at that.

🤣