Pandemic and the Purge Plague

Parallels of Covid-19 and the Purge Plague

Parallels of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Purge Plague

The parallels of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Purge Plague are eerily similar. Granted, the Purge Plague is a fictional pandemic, conceptualized in my Mona Bendarova novels. When I began writing the first novel in the series, ‘The Taste of Honey’ #TOH in 2011, the Purge Plague #purgeplague was the catalyst that started society on the road to where Mona’s community ended up. The Purge Plague was an unstoppable pandemic that ended up killing everyone and everything. Mother Nature corrected the imbalance we placed upon her.

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The Taste of Honey

The
Taste of Honey

Second Edition

Yesterday, I published the revised edition of ‘The Taste of Honey.’ I love this new version. I completely rewrote it from the ground up. It’s the same story but revised and updated to fall in line with the later books in the series.

Why might you ask? more “The Taste of Honey”

Holy Missing Feed Batman!

Holy Missing Feed Batman
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Holy Missing Feed Batman!

Before I lose it again, I want to send everyone an update. For more than two weeks, my posts have not been going out to my email subscribers. Holy missing feed batman. I do not know why, it is working at this moment, but it is. So while it is, I am sending out this update to let you know what is going on.

My social media sites received the updates but my email subscribers have not. If I had hair, I would have pulled it all out by now.

To my email subscribers, I apologize. I will strive hard to make sure that you continue to receive my updates on a timely basis. In the meantime, if you like, you can go to my blog site and catch up. They are all there. https://richardverry.com/blog.

For the past two weeks, I’ve worked extensively with my host provider and the plug-in author to try and figure it all out. Yes, there are two vendors involved with this issue, and both pointed to the other as the responsible party.

Me? I believe it was the plug-in that broke the feeds. Why? The first question I ask myself is, what’s changed? That’s easy. The plug-in changed. In fact, the publishers updated the plug-in several times over the past two months. They released a brand new version just before I noticed my posts were not distributed properly. They claimed my SSL certificate configuration was not correct. Of course, this was debunked pretty quickly by the hosting company as well as my research.

Patience and persistence

So, what did it come down too? Persistence and I don’t know what else. I can say, that I used Google to research all sorts of ideas. (Don’t you just love the Google search engine for looking up answers to problems?) I also did a thorough review of my site, I found broken links, carried over from a year ago when I migrated my site to a hosted solution, which I fixed. I also figured out a way to leverage server-side caching that was on my to-do list. But that is about the size of it.

I believe it is the plug-in server side programming as well as aspects of the plug-in client-side programming that are the root cause of the issue. But, could I get them to acknowledge it? Nope. Even now, they still haven’t. Yet, yesterday morning, my posts failed to distribute to my email subscribers, and today they do. What did I do? Nothing.

Find out how the human race survives 3DTo my email subscribers, I apologize. If you have read this far, thank you. In acknowledgment of your patience, I would like to offer you a free copy of my book ‘The Taste of Honey‘. Just click the book title to connect you to the free download page.

In the meantime, I will do everything I can to keep this feed up and working for you.

Until the next time, have a great day and a better tomorrow. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Regards,
Rich

Happy Saturday

Happy Saturday

That’s right. The weekend is here. Two whole days of not having to go to work. Two whole days of skipping the grind that pays the bills and keeps food in my belly and a roof over my head. It’s a beautiful day here in Rochester, NY. Blue sky without a cloud in sight. Moderate temperatures and low humidity, I think I’ll spend the bulk of it out on my patio, soaking it all in.Happy Saturday

So for me, the day is starting off well. I got almost nine full hours of sleep. I can’t remember the last time that happened. Certainly well before my knock on the noggin.  more “Happy Saturday”

Working Hard

All my life I have strived to do better, improve myself, help the community, love my family, and cherish my significant other. It’s hard work but it’s easy work as well. Seems like a contradiction, doesn’t it? I don’t see it that way. Take for example, the quote I just found.

“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.”

Working HardWhen I read this, I didn’t need to study it. My mind instantly went to points in my life where I felt each of these emotions. I’ve had my stresses in my life but once I’m past them, I tend to forget about them. The feelings remain but the facts fade. I guess I do that as a way of protecting myself and staying healthy.

Most poignantly are the passions in my life. Building a shelf, lashing a complicated structure to protect life and limb, painting a portrait to get it just right, writing and rewriting a piece of dialog for a story; these are all passions I love.

I pour my heart and soul into my passions. My girlfriend and significant other is the most important passion in my life. I tend to put aside other passions in order to do for her. Helping others, even the little things, is also important to me. Whether it’s offering a drink to a house guest, helping someone find their lost keys, or helping someone in distress, I do with the love of passion.

When I put aside time to work on my creative works, my passions really come alive. I recall and relive those feelings. I get lost in the creative process. Even now, as I write this entry, my body and soul are coming alive as these feelings flood every nook and cranny.

Time seems to slow or even stop. Adrenaline floods my body, my mind focuses on the work and everything else disappears. It’s a wonderful feeling. In my mind, I go somewhere else. Just ask anyone who has observed me in this state. I’m gone from this world and I’m in another world. I’m so far gone, that it frustrates my girlfriend to no end. Whether she wants to make dinner, spend time with me, or just ask my opinion, she finds it hard to break in. When I finally acknowledge the interruption, I can get upset, even angry. I lose my train of thought. I lose my mojo.

I don’t mean it. I would prefer to not snap and get upset. She doesn’t deserve the response and she tries to be patient but at times, not. Sorry honey. Together, we work it out, make adjustments and move forward.

Yet, I can’t get away from this alternate reality I go to in my mind when I’m creating, painting or writing. It’s fun. It’s addicting. It’s a far better alternative to prefering alcohol, drugs or just being a dickwad.

I can’t wait to re-enter the zone of my passions. What about you? What are your passions that you love.

Leave a trail

Good morning all you readers out there. I had a long and tiring weekend but today I’m refreshed and happy. I spent Friday night with friends who cooked us a fine meal and engaged me with spirited conversation well into the night. Saturday, I went to a wedding at the ball park. After the wedding, the reception was held in one of the ball park suites where a battle raged on the field. After the game, I were treated to fireworks. I’ll bet that there aren’t too many people who can honestly say that they had fireworks on their wedding night.

Not that kind! Well, that too but I am referring to the kind where gun powder is fired into the air which explodes into a multitude of light and sonic boomers. I had a wonderful time. Sunday was recovery day. I was wiped out and I needed to rest and recover.

But I digress. I read a cool quote this morning which I’d like to share with you.

“Do no go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Reading this quote, I was hit with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, following the path is easy. It’s what is expected. Fall in line, conform, and do as your told. I know that my girlfriend would welcome this from me, at least, some of the time. Yet, one of the reasons she loves me is that I do blaze my own trail. I go my own way. I forage ahead and damn the consequences.

Leading Line To The Kyoto GatesAdmittedly, I’ve gotten into trouble on a number of occasions and paid a price for my independence. Yet, it is who I am. One thing I’ve learned in life is that to be happy with myself, I have to be who I am. If I’m not happy with me and who I am, how the f**k can I make someone else happy.

So, I walk where there is no path. I am enjoying this period of discovery. It’s filled with wonder and joy. True, I make a wrong turn now and then and I need to back track a bit. So what. It’s a learning experience. What I still need to figure out is how to leave a trail. I do so in my professional life. Yet, I need to figure out how to leave a more lasting trail in my personal life.

I have talent for doing things. Whether it is hanging a TV on the wall so it won’t fall off or grilling a steak to perfection, I manage to do things in creative ways that people appreciate, or so they tell me. Yet, it is not enough. I want to more. I want to blaze a trail for others to enjoy.

Which is why I write and paint. I can express myself in ways that is impossible to do in real life. Perhaps some of my creative works will survive my life. Wouldn’t that be cool? Can you imagine? What if a hundred years from now, some picks up one of my books and reads it, or stumbles across one of my paintings and says, “Wow!”

What would Mona think? Would she enjoy someone reading her story well after her author moved on? I think she would. There is a lot of me in Mona.

What about you? What do you think?