Thursday, June 28, 2012

Accidents and guilt


Interesting news bit today - a dad left his toddler in the car and went in to work. Forgot the child was there. Luckily, a co-worker noticed the child after two hours in the hot sun and called the police. The child will be OK, and the dad will never make that mistake again. What's my point with all this? Just that when I read about tragedies that happen to children when their parent should have been more aware, attentive or whatever - I can empathize with the parent. This is just in the case of accidents of course; child abuse is a different animal all together.

When I think back on the years I was a single parent, raising two children and holding down a full time job, I just feel lucky that nothing really tragic happened. It could have. Easily. For some reason we all made it through OK. I also remember my own childhood. We used to go out in the morning during summer break and stay out until dinnertime. We would ride bikes all over town, hunt for tadpoles, swim in the lake and jump off dangerous heights without much more than bumps and scrapes.

So, when a moment of distraction on the part of a parent, or a twist of fate at the swimming hole, or any number of other possibilities that leads to tragic accidents happen, I know that there but for the grace of God could be me. Life is dangerous.

That's why I love mystery books I guess. Controlled danger. Threats that will be revealed in the end. Right will win, evil will pay. Mystery books are so, so much safer than the real thing.


Saturday, June 23, 2012

Heavens, the tyranny of a blank page. I do believe it's easier to write a book than to fill up this blank area. OK, my day so far, wrestling with Facebook and losing. I hate losing to software, it takes away a bit of our humanity doesn't it? After spending an entire morning trying to get it to work, I found out there is a known problem with the program, "they're working on it." I feel so much better, really, I do. It's not just me. Now I'll set out to create Blog posts interesting enough to draw you in.

Some interesting things I've learned about Homeland Security during the book research for Blue Ice. You can take comfort in the fact that we are very well protected indeed. The Special Agents in the Investigations branch are around you, where ever you live, and are more active than the media would lead you to believe, preferring to let the other federal agencies like FBI and ATF take the credit. They stay under the radar, unnoticed, and it's likely you have never heard of the scope of their power unless you have become interesting to them. Interesting word, you know, interesting. There are times when it is in our interest to remain uninteresting.

Just a start. I'll add to this site regularly, and maybe we can get a good discussion going.