Book Help?

Ok, everyone, I need some help.  I have received the galley-proofs of my book, "Does Your Daughter Have DadHair? A step by step guide for Dads" Which teaches Dads how to manage their daughter's hair.  Dads try, and Dads always fail in this arena. I call it DadHair.

dadhair (dad-har) n. A style in which hair is arranged so that it is obvious that an unskilled stylist (namely the male paternal figure) is responsible. syn. DISASTER, TRAGEDY - "...that poor child obviously has dadhair..."

We all know that a guy won't ask for directions, he'll just keep on driving.  Just like with daughter-hair.  He keeps going, not knowing where he is going, and this always ends in disaster. If you have young children in school, you've seen it. And it needs to be abolished.  Using color photos, hints and tips, and psychology of the father-daughter bond, I think my book will get rid of DadHair once and for all. LOL

I could pitch this book all night, but that's not what this is for.  My time frame of getting the proofs out to people of importance for blurbs/comments/critiques and a LAST edit has been sped up. I was thinking a complete month or two to get back the comments and make some changes.  Well, I have been given the chance to bring my book to the Orange County Children's Book Festival on October 4th. It's an amazing opportunity for me.

www.KidsBookFestival.com

It will take 6-7 working days to get copies printed and ready for sale. Give it 2 days for my layout-guy to make the small changes. Give it 2 days just for comfort. Add weekends in there. That brings the date I need a final final edit, to me, back to September 18th. In 10 freaking days!

I'm still sending out the proofs to the people on my list, but as schedules go, I don't think I'll have comments back by then.

So....that's my dilemma, and here's my question: Anyone have an editor in their pocket that would pro-bono a quick turn around for a 40 page, mostly pictures, humorous book written by a real dad for real dads? A book to help dads stop making their daughters look like cave-children? A book that will give mothers peace of mind? A book that let's dads MAN-UP to the challenge?

Any and all help with my issues here will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks for reading!

Ok, my first book review can be see here.  This is so exciting!

http://www.momlogic.com/2009/09/does_your_daughter_have_dadhair.php

Thanks for viewing, and thanks to all that commented. You girls are GREAT!!!

Cash 4 Cluckers

"Did anyone run the numbers?? A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per 
year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline. A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 
miles per year uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average clunker 
transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. 
They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons / year. That 
equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels of oil 
is about ¼ of one day's US consumption. And, 5 million barrels of oil 
costs about $350 million dollars at $75/bbl. So, we all contributed to 
spending *$3 billion* to save $350 million. How good a deal was that??? 
That's politicians at work. And that we are even considering letting 
them near healthcare is truly an anathema to common sense."

(hopefully you can see this one.)

I was emailed this earlier today.  Thought it was funny.

Dad - 1 Mom - 0

Something a Dad would do, but a Mom would not.  Although, some Moms might like the idea, I do not believe a Mom would ever carry out the plan.  In the eyes of boys, Dad wins!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ejlkzDCuc&feature=fvw

LMAO

Do You Fluff or Filter?

We had a bunch of people over last weekend for a BBQ. Very good friends. So when the total of ten people answered a question that came up, it was, statistically speaking, right down the middle(no pun intended). Five favored one way. Five favored the other way. And it wasn't split by female or male.

The question, you ask?

When you're in bed with your partner(ie.. watching tv, talking, sleeping, whatever), and you fart. Do you Fluff the covers, or do you let it Filter its way out?

I like statistics. That's why I am asking everyone to join in and give me their answers. If you have a partner, ask them as well. To Fluff or To Filter? That is the question.

Oh, and welcome to my world. LOL

Sweating Destiny

“One quarter, standing on another straight up from the ear, and the length of a dime back.” The sentence blew through me like the blackest of chilled air. Shivers ran the span of my body and I wondered…how could I be shivering? At Ft. Benning, Georgia, in the middle of summer, I was sitting in a windowless bungalow with no air-conditioning but still my bones were cold. As I looked forward, there was a glowing diagram on the wall with an outdated overhead projector dullness. In traditional black and white, the diagram was the classic silhouette of a human head, two quarters, and a dime. The head was in the center of the glowing box on the wall, the dime marking the spot where a victim wouldn’t flinch when a projectile burst through its skull. This was the reason for my contradicting body temperature. In the top left corner of the rectangle was a pair of crossed rifles, a symbol designating the Army’s Infantry. But these rifles were different. They were equipped with scopes, and badly out of focus.

The room was quiet, the faces stern and emotionless and a dark gray Karma floated about the room. The kind of Karma I would never desire and would do what I could to change; but there was something else in this room, something that lured my soul into wanting more. What it was … I couldn’t begin to know.

A sharp “CRACK” ripped through the air. A shattering sound that made hearts flutter and muscles flinch. We looked to where the sound had come from, the ten or so of us, and saw the speaker grinning over a broken yardstick on the desk in front of him.

“One shot! One drop! The guy won’t know nothin.”

I studied his face for a brief moment and one thing caught my eye. His eyes glinted a world unknown to me, empty, inexplicable. With a morbid smile the speaker continued. He began to tell his newly sweat drenched students in this airtight stuffy classroom about some of the “One shot, one drops” he’d had in his career. He loved the pictures in his mind of bodies falling limp and quickly slumping to the ground. He told us exactly what each kill was wearing, the gesture they carried moments before, and how the body lay after the closing of the curtain, as he put it. We envisioned his movie on a slightly bulging piece of glass with cross-hairs. Keeping an “X” on the star of the show, he would make up a storyline, the story coinciding with the motions of “The Chosen One”. Such an atrocious name for what will come at the closing of the curtain.

The Chosen One, a star in the eyes of an unsound stranger. The Grim Reaper, priest, pallbearer, and the last one to say good-bye enveloped in an unseen shadow describing his reality. The slow drag of his index finger across a stem of metal. The vindictive collision of the wood stock against a padded shoulder. The sweet smell of spent gunpowder seeping into waiting lungs. Keeping practiced stillness as they look at their friend in disbelief, look toward the woods, and then back to the now lifeless corpse. A millisecond to breath and move to a place predetermined to aid in escape. His place, out of view to all and unnoticeable to anyone else. Slinging his long range weapon and loading a mighty handgun, he begins his long journey to safety. As he moves, he changes his camouflage to match his changing surroundings. Mile after mile, hill after hill, he runs, slowing only enough to hold water in a cupped hand for a brief sip before continuing. He reaches the outskirts of a particular clearing and becomes a single bush among many. As motionless as sails with no wind, he waits. Sometimes for days; but this man is never alone or unamused, for he has movies to watch.

While listening, I was visualizing all of this all in my head. Quickly, as if brilliant lights were flashed in a darkroom, I snapped out of it. One short glance at this man told me something was not right. He was sweating profusely. His eyes were ablaze by an unseen fire and fixed on an imaginary picture screen. His body ticked as if in a seizure. The index finger of his right hand was pulling at an unseen trigger, seemingly faster than humanly possible. He was stuck playing the same part of one of his movies repeatedly. His face was ghostly white, as if all the blood had been siphoned from his body. A few seconds later, he regained control enough to apologize, that he would be alright. I took this acknowledgment to mean that this had happened before. Good God! This man lives with this torment? As he left the room, aided by two sets of arms, I found myself reevaluating my life.

Everyone is gifted in something. It may take your whole life to find it … but find it you will. I was there because of my talent. Why not use it? The crossroads of life were right here, staring me in the face. Use my talent and possibly end up like him? Move on and maybe never find another gift?

For one minute or maybe ten, I sat there stunned. I rose from my chair to find my legs weak and my uniform damp. I walked to the door, beads of sweat running down the backs of my legs and into my boots. It was hot. So very hot. I pushed open the door, took in a deep breath, and answered myself quietly.

As my friends released their grip, I wondered if my portrayal was as convincing to them as it was for me those many years ago. The essence of what can be learned from such scare tactics is phenomenal. It gives a soldier the knowledge that things of this nature can happen. It opens their mind to their own possible future and creates questions within that only they can answer. As crisp as yesterday, I remember when today was my day for this. Standing in the doorway juggling my destiny with wet hands wasn’t fun,…but it is necessary.