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How I spent my birthday.

Posted by Dan on February 27, 2010 No comments

The Life, Universe and Everything. Those of you fans of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will know the answer to that, 42. Forty two just happens to be how old I am. For my birthday I woke up early (But Dan, it’s your birthday shouldn’t you sleep late? ~Settle down, let me tell the story~) I drove 250 miles north to Ocala. (But Dan, it’s your birthday? ~ I said settle down!~)

Okay, enough interuptions from my psyche.

Cindy and I drove to the Kindred Spirits Sanctuary in Ocala, Florida, and there we met some amazing people, and some amazing animals. Greeted by Winston and Lilly, two farm dogs, we approached the sanctuary and were met my Logan, one of the care takers of the residence of KSS. Read more »

The Virtual Book Fair

Posted by Dan on February 26, 2010 No comments

What’s the difference between a regular book fair, and a virtual book fair? No crowds, no fuss, just books.

My first children’s book, The Tale of Eartha the Sea Turtle, is part of the Virtual Children’s Book Fair.

The book fair is the brainchild of children’s book author Tara Michener. She has corralled a group of author who have joined forces to create the ultimate book fair social event. This book fair is scheduled for February 26th through the 28th, and will present the works of several new, and some experienced authors.

Authors like Tara Michener, Patty O’Brein Novak, Grace Hatton,  Dawn Stephens, Colleen Murray Fisher, J.D. Holiday, and Riley Carney will have their works presented, and will share information with their readers on the other presenters.

If you’d like to see their work, and visit the Virtual Children’s Book Fair, click here.

Kindred Spirits Sanctuary

Posted by Dan on February 11, 2010 No comments

In my latest book, Steven the Vegan, a group of children visit a farm sanctuary where Steven shares with his friends the reason he doesn’t eat animals. Farm sanctuaries are places where farm animals go to live out their lives, free from the slaughter house destiny that plagues their species.

Part of writing a convincing story is research. I wanted to research farm sanctuaries and find out more about them. That led me to the Kindred Spirits Sanctuary in Ocala, Florida. The Sanctuary encompasses 36 beautiful acres. There are about  150 sanctuary residents. The animals living there are called residents, because that’s what they are. The residents receive around-the-clock care, carefully controlled diets, spacious barns, and green pastures to graze.

I am planning a visit to the sanctuary very soon, and hope to meet some of these amazing residents. According to the care taker, each of the residents has a unique personality, and their special needs are seen to. I cannot wait to get there and meet some of the residents.

Sometime research can be fun! Check out The Kindred Spirits Sanctuary and learn about some of their residents.

Hidden Easter Eggs In My Book : Part 3

Posted by Dan on February 2, 2010 No comments

Here we are at the third and final Easter egg in The Tale of Eartha the Sea Turtle. Unfortunately I don’t know who to credit with this one. I recall someone telling me this, but I don’t recall who.

In the story, people gather on the beach to see Eartha’s release back into the great wide ocean. One of the people on the beach, has a camera, and dark hair. Yup, you guess it, that’s suppose to be me!

The book is based on a real rescued and released sea turtle and I was there for the release, so it’s only logical that I end up in the story. Well, that’s it for official Easter eggs.

Wait? Did I say official Easter eggs? What about unofficial Easter eggs? Here are a few other truths about the illustrations.

  • Moonfeather was based on a real Lakota woman who taught me about Native American Spirituality. Consequently, our cat Kota’s real name is Lakota.
  • The bunny on the last page with Moonfeather is a tribute to PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The bunny symbol on products usually means they are not tested on animals.
  • Jolly Roger is the name of a real loggerhead sea turtle that was at the Loggerhead marinelife center with Eartha.

So, will my next book have Easter eggs in it. Most likely, but I’m still not sure what they will be at this time.

I hope you enjoyed this series, and you enjoyed the book.

Drawing Steven the Vegan

Posted by Dan on January 31, 2010 No comments

It’s been over 12 years since I’ve seen my friend Ron, the illustrator for Steve the Vegan. We had a great time reminiscing, working on the illustrations for Steven’s book, and some new ideas and concepts. We worked on design ideas for the cover, and we think we came up with a great concept. He did some work on a new character for a new book I am writing.

We also discussed topics regarding a web comic, and an interactive story book.

Watching Ron work was incredible and brought back memories of watching him doodle in class. I wanted to share that experience so I recorded a video of him drawing Steven. Even though I have known him since childhood, I am still amazed at his artistic abilities.

Story Time and Book Signing update

Posted by Dan on January 23, 2010 No comments

Success. Story time was great. Joe, a volunteer at the LMC read the book and I was amazed at how captivated the kids were. One little boy kept standing up to get closer to the book. Afterward his mom purchased a copy and he wouldn’t give it to her to have it signed. He loved the book. It made my day.

The LMC staff was very helpful, and I was invited back for another story time / signing combo. One thing Cindy noticed was how much more brighter and colorful my book was in comparison to other sea turtle books.

It was a great experience and another high point in the whole “first book” experience.

My first meet and greet book signing

Posted by Dan on January 22, 2010 No comments

Tomorrow, January 23rd, at 11:30am is my first book signing and meet and greet. It’s being held at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach. I’ll be giving out free coloring pages, bookmarks and more.

Prior to the meet and greet there will be a story time for kids where the book will be read by an LMC volunteer.

I have to admit, when I started the process of writing the book I never knew I’d be doing a book signing, much less selling as many books as I have. It’s been a great experience and I am grateful to the Loggerhead Marinelife Center for their participation.

On another note, (Break out those wallets) recently the LMC was inundated with many “cold-stunned” sea turtles. You’ve probably seen it on the news. They could really use some donations to help replenish supplies and to continue the care and rehabilitation of their residents. Please reach into your hearts, and your wallets and give them a hand.  If you’d like to make a donation, you can do it here.

I’ll post some photos of the story time and the book signing after the event.

Hidden Easter Eggs In My Book : Part 2

Posted by Dan on January 20, 2010 No comments

As promised, here is Easter Egg number two! If you haven’t followed the Easter Egg trail, be sure to read the first part of this series.

When the illustrator was drawing the pages where Eartha is rescued by a boat he asked me, “Did you want to put a name on the boat?” I received his email question while I was watching the Discovery Channel show, Deadliest Catch. On that show is a boat called the Cornelia Marie. Without hesitation, I replied back to the illustrator … “Name the boat, Lucinda Marie”.

Lucinda Marie is my wife Cindy’s true given name. From the beginning she had been by biggest supporter in the writing this book. Whenever I got frustrated or disillusioned, she would be right there to offer inspiration and support. Now not only is she the wife of a brilliant children’s book author, but she is forever immortalized as a marinelife rescue boat.

This being Easter egg number two, that can only mean one thing. Our third and final Easter egg will be revealed soon.

Do you think you know what it is?

Hidden Easter Eggs In My Book : Part 1

Posted by Dan on January 6, 2010 No comments

First let’s define what an “Easter Egg” is. According to Wikipedia, an Easter Egg is defined as the following.

A virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in an object such as a movie, book, CD, DVD, computer program, web page or video game.

Many movies and TV shows, like Lost, have hidden images and messages in them. When I wrote the story of Eartha, I had no intention of including any Easter Eggs. But as I started seeing the illustrations, the first Easter Egg came to mind.

There are a total of three (3) Easter eggs in The Tale of Eartha the Sea Turtle, and I will reveal one of them now.

The book is dedicated to the memory of my father-in-law, Ken DuCheney. I really liked Ken, he was a lot of fun to be around. He was always good for a laugh, whether intentional or not. Considering he welcomed me into his family without hesitation, he’d have to have been a great guy.

The image of the dedication (shown below) includes a sea horse, and five (5) fish. Each of these actually represents a member of the family. Ken, is represented as the sea horse. The larger of the five (5) fish is his wife, and my mother-in-law, Pat. The other four fish represent their children, Kenny, Steve, Lori and my wife Cindy.

So, there you have it. Easter egg number one. I’ll be posting the additional Easter eggs later on.

It’s all in the math.

Posted by Dan on January 4, 2010 No comments

I was recently talking to a collegue about web hosting, and the expression “99.9%” up-time came up. He was adminant about having a solution that had 99.9% up-time due to the crucial need for his site. I told him 99.9% really doesn’t mean much, and he disagreed. We looked at the hosts “promise” and noticed that the 99.9% up-time was within one year. This means that in any one year his hosting will be up 99.9% of the time. So, let’s break that down…

There are 365 days in a year. There are 24 hours in a day. This breaks down to 8,760 hours in a year. If we go by hours, 99.9% is 8,751. That means that his site could be down for 9 hours in any given period of 365 days.

Break it down further to minutes, and that’s 540 minutes. Most people can’t stand their site being down for 5 minutes. So 99.9% up-time means that if his site is down for 1 hour, they (the host) are still within their service agreement.

Even if the agreement stated 99.9% up-time per day, a day is 1,440 minutes. 0.1% down-time is 14.4 minutes a day.

In the end, he understood what I meant. Sometime we need to look beyond the promise to the actual math.

Okay, I know we all hate math, but the truth behind this is … think of all the things in our lives that are promoted as 99% effective. Perfection may be unattainable, but it doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

Class dismissed.