It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Craig Johnson and his Walt Longmire series. The one the TV show is based on. Yes, there are books . That's Craig's new motto for those who are surprised Walt existed before Robert Taylor and Lou Diamond Phillips brought his characters to life. Hubby and I took a trip to Erie, PA earlier this year to hear Craig give a talk. Hubby is now a fan too. I had another encounter with Craig at Writers Police Academy where he was the keynote. All of this happened BEFORE I learned he was coming to Pittsburgh. In spite of having attended these two previous events, I couldn't wait for him to return to my city, if for no other reason than I'm a fangirl who couldn't wait to snag his newest book! As I said, it's no secret what a fan I am, so you can imagine my delight when Natalie of Mystery Lovers Books asked me to introduce Craig! Squeee! I could have babbled and gushed for hours, but I knew the capacity c

As I last reported, my beloved old Dell Monster Machine gasped its last breath. Within two days, the delivery guy brought my new computer, Dell Monster Machine version 2.0, to my door. That was a week ago. One week, more money than I want to think about, days of file restoration, and a variety of curse words later, I'm back to where I was before the old compute went kaput. I liked how my old machine was set up. I liked the software I had installed on it. I didn't have to think about how to do stuff on it. I just clicked and tapped and things happened the way I wanted. My first victory (of sorts) was installing my ancient Office 2003 software. Yay! It installed! Boo... all the updates to make it compatible with newer versions are no longer supported. This means I can still use it on my WIP (work in progress), but I can't open documents from other sources. Okay, I can. I download them onto my laptop, save to Dropbox, and then open them on the new machine. A lot of wor

Most of us, myself included, have a love/hate relationship with our electronics. Some days we wonder how we survived without our smartphones and our tablets. Other days, we want to throw the blasted beasts out the window. I've lost track of how many computers I've owned over the years. Laptops and desktops. My first was a Gateway running Windows ME. I didn't know about computer bugs, so every time it blue-screened, I assumed I'd done something wrong. It ran slower and slower. I added memory. It still blue-screened and booted up like a slug. By the time I'd decided to move on to something else, I was thrilled to see the thing go. Each new computer arrived bright and shiny. And FAST. And each computer, laptop and desktop, eventually became bogged down by all the programs I installed until they limped and crashed. Almost six years ago, I got fed up. I decided I was going to splurge on a computer with more memory and a bigger hard drive than I would ever need. My

Better late than never, here is my photo journal from last month's Writer's Police Academy. This has to be one of the coolest hotels I've ever been in. While I didn't get to see much of Green Bay, the hotel and its decor definitely gave me a feel of the area. First, we got to practice some hands-on police techniques.  The drone demonstration was fascinating. I had no idea what these things could really do. Or in some cases, what they can't do. Did I mention how awesome the hotel was? There are always a few surprises when you get off the bus at the training facility. RESEARCH! Defense and arrest tactics. Somewhere out there is a photo of me getting handcuffed, but I don't have it.  Have I mentioned how cool the hotel was? And did I mention the surprises awaiting when you get off the bus in the morning? The problem with getting fully immersed in the hands-