Father's Day

My Father's Day presents. Happy day to my fellow fathers out there!

Star Trek and Candyman Autographs

I stumbled across these today in my files and thought I would share. I met several of the Star Trek cast in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Chase Masterson is one of the nicest people I have ever met, celebrity or otherwise. Star Trek fans will probably remember her as Leeta from Deep Space Nine.

I did not get to talk much with John de Lancie ("Q"). He was nice but quiet.

Tony Todd is very cool. As seen here, he is Candyman, but he was also Worf's brother Kurn from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. When I met him, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had just premiered. (He was the voice of The Fallen.) I did not want to bother him and be all star struck, so I got my autograph and proceeded to move on. He stopped me, shook my hand, and asked me whether I had seen Transformers. I told him my wife and I had seen it just the previous night. He asked what we thought about the movie, and he continued to talk with me for several minutes. I hear so many stories about celebrities being rude.  Tony Todd is 100% class.

The Writer Who Sketches

          Back in March, my mother-in-law got word of an art contest, hosted by a local merchant. She encouraged me to sign up. Actually, she told my wife, “Sam needs to enter this.” It was more ultimatum than encouragement. Bless her heart.

          Well, I am by no means a professional artist. I like fiddling with art supplies. Once, I even considered a career as an illustrator after my boss at the Native American casino where I was marketing director let me design a few advertisements. But I found that I enjoyed writing fiction more.

          Besides, I had not entered an art contest since I was six years old.  (Although that entry did win me a Happy Meal.)

          The only rules were that it had to be a sketch (no Photoshop) and it had to be of ‘nature’.  My entry is below. I always liked bridges and those gnarly oaks that look like tortured souls. It is graphite on rough tooth sketching paper. I used four pencils: 4HB, HB, 2B, and 4B.

          And . . . well, . . . my sketch won.  Or at least it ranked as one of the winners. The sticky note that came back with it said, ‘Adult Winner #2.’

          This time the prize was $20, which made me seriously consider enduring the sidelong glances when a 43-year-old man ordered a Happy Meal and nothing else.

          “Is that To Go, sir?”

          “Nope!” Then, I would hold up my sketch and shout, “Booyah!”

Star Trek's Main Klingon Michael Dorn's Autograph

          My wonderful niece recently attended a Star Trek convention in Texas. While there, she met several of the Star Trek cast, including Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, John de Lancie, Denise Crosby, Marina Sirtis, William Shatner, and others.

          Always generous, she thought of her only slightly geeky Star Trek fan of an uncle and bought me the Deep Space Nine comic below. She asked Michael Dorn (Worf) to sign it for me.

          Thanks Beth!  You are awesome!

Northwest of Eden

My best friend of the last 37 years, Yancy Caruthers, published his first book.  I could not be more proud of him.  This memoir recounts a year-long tour of duty at the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq.  It's nonfiction that reads like a thriller, telling an in medias res story of a real military hospital. 

          Parts reminded me of the old TV series MASH.  Other parts played out far differently.  Not always do the scenes gush blood and guts.  There are pranks and gun barrels and broken chairs, swollen feet and good food and pitch-black chopper rides.

          Yancy also gave me the honor of designing the book cover.

UPDATE:  20 May 2014 --

         Here is an old video of Yancy that I just found when he was stationed in Iraq.

You can purchase Northwest of Eden through . . .

Kindle

 

Paperback

Also, drop by his Facebook page.  He would love to see you. 

          If you read Northwest of Eden, please leave a review.  Each improves his book’s visibility in the vast crowd.  He reads every comment, because he is the type of writer who wants to know his readers and appreciates their support.  

About the author:

Yancy Caruthers retired from twenty years of service in the U.S. Army Reserve after completing his second deployment to Iraq. He left the nursing profession in 2010 and now lives abroad with his family.