Other Things – Page 3 – Looking to God

Priorities

Posted on October 16, 2015May 9, 2017 by Jack Flacco

Next Tuesday, October 20, I will be releasing my new book, the final episode in the Ranger Martin series. I think after this release, I will be taking a long break away from writing, maybe hibernate all winter until I resurface in the spring when the daisies begin pushing through the ground. Around the same time last year, I intended to do the same, but after some careful deliberations with my family—they didn’t at all like the idea of me easing on the reins for my three-times-a-week-website-writing-binge—I had decided to continue with my schedule. I may just do the same thing this year.

Let’s talk about priorities for today’s Freedom Friday.

Everyone has priorities in life. I don’t think anyone should feel guilty for not accomplishing certain things in life if priorities get in the way. When I say priorities I define them as life’s moments where you can’t do anything other than what you need to do.

This includes, but is not limited to the following: Cooking for the family, driving the kids to their activities, completing the taxes, being supportive to those who need support, balancing a chair on your chin—I just want to see if you’re paying attention—grocery shopping, taking the car in for maintenance, ensuring to pay all the monthly bills, spending time with the family and making money.

Sometimes, priorities get in the way of the things we really want to do. And that’s okay. That’s life. That is what living is all about.

The most important thing for me at the moment, and this wasn’t always the case, is family. I really wouldn’t know what I had to do without my family being there for me. They have never ceased to support my work and me. I spend a good chunk of my day with them, and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

My family has taught me lessons that I wouldn’t have learned anywhere else. If anyone were to have told me before getting married that I was going to have a life that would be brimful and running over because of my family, I would have said, “I hope I do.”

With my family I learned:

Picking up my socks at the foot of the bed is a good thing.
Cleaning the dryer’s lint collector will prevent fires.
Leaving a stray rag in the sink while the washing machine performs a rinse cycle will flood the basement.
Cooking with extra virgin olive oil at high heat will cause my wife to whip out the extinguisher to put out the fire.
Thinking that you’re smart and actually proving you’re smart are two different things when taking that shortcut through the city and getting lost.
Lifting a heavy box without adequate stretches will cause one to book an appointment with the chiropractor in order to deal with the sudden realization one is no longer as young as one thought.

My priorities may lessen the time I have with my family, but they certainly should never get in the way of what is important in life—the ability to say no when things get so out of hand that I would need a vacation to get back in rhythm.

Hmm, now there’s a thought. That actually sounds like a great idea.

Hawaii, here we come!

What do you think of spending time with the family?

Eclipse

Posted on October 9, 2015May 9, 2017 by Jack Flacco

I’m writing this a day after the big eclipse I had the pleasure of watching from the front steps of my home. By the time you read this Freedom Friday post, it will have been a couple of weeks from when it happened.

Apparently, from reading about the event, the lunar eclipse was not only when the moon was at its closest to the earth in over thirty years, but it also was a super blood moon. For some, the blood moon holds a sacred significance that has led many to speculate the end times is near. I’m not one of those proponents. After all, we’re still here.

The other far-reaching impact of this event is also the fact that Eastern Canada had a full view of the entire event. If you lived in places like Arizona or California, you were out of luck.

I wasn’t sure if I’d catch a view of the moon. Throughout the day, cloud covered the region and in some towns, including ours, heavy fog cast a thick layer of obstruction that would have taken a miracle to disperse, if I’d wanted to actually witness the event.

Surprisingly, a few minutes after ten o’clock, the clouds separated, and there, in the sky where it rested, the moon in its full glory disappeared in earth’s shadow. My family and I were in awe of the event. While everyone was taking photos, I stood there enjoying the view with my mouth open. For the first time, I didn’t feel the need to capture the moment with my camera. I simply wanted to experience the moment instead.

If you’ve ever seen a lunar eclipse, then you will know what it’s like. A solar eclipse happens when the moon sits between the sun and the earth casting a shadow on the sun. A lunar eclipse, on the other hand, occurs when the earth sits between the sun and the moon casting a shadow on the moon.

The great thing about the evening was I could enjoy the moment without the use of any aids such as a telescope. The other thing I liked about it was the temperature outside was mild enough that all I needed was a T-shirt to stay comfortable.

For this event, I saw how the shadow slowly began creeping on the moon until a sliver of light penetrated the moon’s surface. As the whole thing took place, I could also see traces of red opposite the sliver. In all honesty, I’ve never seen anything like it in all my life. It really was a remarkable sight.

By the time earth’s shadow covered the moon, I was in awe. The moon had become a big red ball in the sky giving a performance I would have never imagined possible, even if I had planned the whole thing myself.

Overall, the evening was something I will remember for the rest of my life, not only in content, but also with how I had my dear family by my side sharing the moment.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE, on sale October 20.

Had you seen the lunar eclipse of September 27, 2015? If so, what did you think of it?

Freedom Friday, Other Things

The Decision

Posted on September 25, 2015May 9, 2017 by Jack Flacco

You’re gonna think I’m strange. In fact, you’re not only gonna think I’m strange, but you’re also gonna think I’m just plain weird. I wouldn’t blame you. If I were you, I’d think the same way. I mean, I typically have a high regard for the decisions I make. I don’t make them in a rash manner. I think about things. I ponder the consequences. And sometimes, I’m slow to act in order to gain the benefit of the doubt.

I gotta tell ya, though, for this decision, I dropped the ball.

I know what you’re thinking, “Hey, Jack. For Freedom Friday, don’t you usually write about things that are on your mind? What could be so terrible that you feel you can’t talk about it?”

Good question.

Here’s the thing—a few weeks ago I cancelled cable.

Yeah, I know—big step.

Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating when I say it was a big step. You have to understand the context from where this decision came. I cancelled cable and got Netflix.

Yikes! And here we go?

“You mean you’ve never had Netflix? What’s wrong with you? Have you been sleeping under a rock? Aren’t you a guy who likes growth? Netflix? You couldn’t afford Netflix? Where have you been?”

Okay, okay. I got the message. Yeah, I’ve been living my life in a box stuck on a shelf. Smack me.

But I have it now. That’s what counts, right?

Good.

Listen, this isn’t an ad for the service. I’m not going to get a commission or anything mentioning Netflix on my site. But know this—why hadn’t I subscribed to the service earlier? It’s great!

Let’s see, I can choose my shows and add them to a queue, which I find really cool. I can search for movies I’ve wanted to watch but never had the time to fully appreciate. The service makes recommendations based on my viewing habits. It even goes so far as to separate my watch list with those of the other members of my family. They’re not into zombies. That’s a good thing, right?

The best part about the service, and I’m not exaggerating here, is its ability to remember where I left off with a program I was viewing. By far, this has to be the one and most useful feature of the service.

I can begin watching Star Trek: The Next Generation from my TV in the family room, pause the program and continue watching the show on the TV upstairs in our bedroom. Then, if I want, after dinner I can pick up from where I left off on my phone at the kitchen table.

You might consider this a “meh” moment, but you gotta realize I’ve come out of the 20th century by getting rid of cable. Cable, folks. You know—where you only get twenty-eight channels and the best you can come up with for entertainment for the night is some guy balancing a chair on his face while someone’s sitting on it playing a rendition of Ride of the Valkyries on a clarinet.

Anyway, that’s what happened with me these past few weeks while I prep my upcoming book for release on October 20.

What have you been up to?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE, on sale October 20.

Have you tried Netflix? What do you think of the surface? It is all that you thought it would be?

Freedom Friday, Other Things

Distractions

Posted on September 18, 2015May 9, 2017 by Jack Flacco

An amazing thing happens when I cut distractions from my life. I write books.

A long time ago, I used to be a Twitter junkie. I couldn’t go two minutes without checking my newsfeed. Somehow, I found someone tweeting about their latest experiment with Mentos and coke fascinating. My DM feed was worse. It became a hodgepodge of ads from folks who wanted me to check out their offers for the latest diet fad, the most affordable bank loan or the cure for the ebola virus.

Facebook had me scrolling through reams of baby photos, birthday greetings, wedding announcements, graduation congratulations, college tuition woes, car crash images, death notices—you name it, I was there. And what would a newsfeed be like without the required charity pitch? California didn’t seem dry last summer when folks were pouring buckets of ice water over their heads.

It doesn’t end on the social networks either. Visiting a news site required me to install ad-blocking software on my browser to prevent me from clicking on related articles dealing with cooking, time management, of all things, and anything else you can imagine as taking an extra few minutes of my day in a senseless pursuit of useless facts.

Now that's a big oops. — Now that’s a big oops.

Add the hours I had spent surfing online “researching” favorite dog toys or best practices in lawn manicures—you had yourself a dull Jack.

Humor aside, it didn’t take long for me to change once I realized I had fallen into a spiral of mediocrity. At the time, I wasn’t writing nor was I thinking about anything that I was doing. I was going with the flow. Surfing. Not ruffling feathers. And any other cliché you’d like to stick in there to illustrate being trapped in the throes of everyday life.

Once I tallied the amount of time I was actually spending with the distractions, I had no choice other than to confront my time-wasting ways.

What happened? I changed. Just like that.

How? Simple. Imagine taking a vacation every week and that vacation turns into quality time with family, friends, and to pursuits that you’ve always put aside because you felt you’ve never had the time to enjoy them.

Now, imagine if you will, actually acting on that idea.

That idea is about taking one day and dedicating it to none other than yourself. Scary, huh? Pretty terrifying, don’t you think? Guess what? It is scary. It is terrifying. How can one do that with the bills to pay, the kids to shuttle back and forth, the meals to prepare, the laundry to wash, and the shopping to bring home? How? Theoretically, it’s impossible.

And you know what? It is impossible.

But once I had decided I needed a change, to cut the distractions, and live a more productive life away from the online world, all of a sudden I had time to do anything. Those little slivers in between tasks where I would have sneaked a tweet, read a Facebook entry or pressed a like button had disappeared, replaced by a meal with the family, a trip to my kids’ recital or simply a talk with someone I love.

That one day in the week I’m now disappearing from the online world has become the day I look forward to the most.

By the way, don’t forget today and tomorrow are the last days to pick up your FREE copy of my first book Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse from Amazon. It’s my gift to everyone who has stuck with me for the past three years, putting up with my banter while I lost my mind writing the conclusion to the Ranger Martin trilogy due out October 20.

What about you? Do you dedicate a day away from the online world? Are you thinking about if?

Freedom Friday, Other Things

Pre-Cover Reveal

Posted on September 11, 2015May 9, 2017 by Jack Flacco

When it comes to announcements, I’m never quite sure how to go about making them. Sometimes, I keep it a secret for as long as I can in order to maximize its impact. Other times though, I want to talk about it until I collapse on my bed and wish for a time less stressful.

Today, I’m trying to figure out which one of these times this is.

This coming Monday I will reveal the cover to my new book Ranger Martin and the Search for Paradise, which hits the shelves on October 20. I’m excited about it, but at the same time, sad. The book is the final entry in the Ranger Martin zombie trilogy.

For those of you unfamiliar with how the Ranger Martin series came to be, I had written the first book Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse during 2011’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a writing contest that takes place annually in November as a way to spurn writers to compete against themselves in order to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

I joined the challenge thinking it would be a good opportunity to exercise my skills as a writer and write the book I’ve always wanted to write, even if I had no idea what the project was going to be about. I joined anyway with the hope it would take on a life of its own.

For a month, I had no friends.

Yeah, you can say I went all OCD on everyone. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 1,666 words every day for 30 days and I approached it as if it were a war. No matter what, I wouldn’t let anything or anyone get in the way of my goal to complete the manuscript.

I was such an idiot. Seriously.

Part of that attitude came from the fact that the most I could produce at that time was 500 words a day. I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of producing three times that amount. Ever. I can truly say it is also the reason some reviewers felt the writing in the first novel had a sense of urgency. And there was. Every day was a race against the clock to get my ideas into the manuscript before midnight. The way it works is if I missed one day, it meant I would have had to write 3,332 words the next day. And that, to me, would have been equivalent to clamping my head to a paint mixer and flipping the switch.

Looking back, I now see how silly that was, given today I write every day out of habit. You know what else, though? Once I had immersed myself in Ranger Martin’s world, I was producing far more than the assigned daily quota. I actually was having fun, even if I had shunned society for the entirety of November that year.

Anyway, I was planning to talk about Ranger Martin, how the character came to be, but it looks like I’m running out of time. I guess I’ll save it until Monday.

Just know I’m excited to show you the cover. It’s a journey completed. I really can’t wait.

Oh, and by the way, in celebration of the Ranger Martin and the Search for Paradise release, I’m offering the first book Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse FREE next week for 5 days, starting on Tuesday. It’s my way to thank you all for putting up with my long-winded posts about zombies, women who wow, macho warriors, and anything else that may have caught my attention.

Here’s the first of the plugs I’m publishing for this celebration. Thanks for the support.

Freedom Friday, Other Things

Driving

Posted on August 28, 2015May 9, 2017 by Jack Flacco

I love driving. I mean, I really do love driving. I once drove from my home, an hour north from Toronto all the way to New Brunswick in a day. I had stops along the way, but I had done it in one full day. That’s about 1,500 Km/900 miles, give or take. I can also negotiate my way through traffic in Montreal. If you’re familiar with Montreal, then you would know what a feat that is. The other side of it is that I also love country drives as much as anyone else who loves driving.

For Freedom Friday I would like to talk about my driving experiences, what I’ve enjoyed and perhaps, if I have time, talk a bit about what I would have wanted to do over.

The thing I most enjoy about driving is the freedom. Sitting behind a steering wheel and going somewhere really excites me. When no one else is in the car, I crank the tunes, open the windows and allow the wind to carry me where I want to go.

Night driving has to be my favorite part. I have one of those cars that sport a blue dashboard. In the evening, it makes me feel as if I’m part of a Star Wars movie. The middle scene in Attack of the Clones when Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi follow an assassin through the planetary cityscape comes to mind. The other reason I enjoy night driving is because driving through a town, a city or in the country, in my opinion, is much more beautiful at night than during the day. The lights make the journey something to behold. Whenever there’s an opportunity to pick up my kids from their activities, I’ll jump into the car without a problem. I love riding through town at night—especially during Christmas. The lights warm my spirit and renders my soul satisfied. That’s code for saying I always have a smile on my face whenever taking the car through town.

Anyway, enough about night driving. I told you it was my favorite.

The other part I enjoy about hopping behind the wheel of my car is the long trips to various places. Depending on the traffic, the trip to Niagara Falls from my home is a highlight. With attractions on either side of Clifton Hill, the main street where all the museums and activities take place, I can’t say enough how awesome a time it is going through there and experiencing the joy of adventure. Yes, it does feel like an adventure, but how many places can actually do that, besides Las Vegas, which is a place I’d like to visit one day?

Lastly, I would have to say that I also enjoy a country drive as well. I live out in the country, so, in that respect, I have to like it—otherwise, what would I be doing living here? Right? The relaxed pace, the farms and small towns is a regular occurrence as is the sight of cows, horses and other farm animals grazing in the fields. The other aspect about a country drive is the leisurely pace everyone drives getting somewhere. I can say the experience is relaxing and eases the mind into hibernation. Not good though if it’s at night, since you don’t want to fall asleep while taking a jaunt without the light standards paving the way to your ultimate destination.

And so that’s why I love driving. Some folks don’t enjoy it, but I’m one who looks forward to it.

Now, I’m just wondering if there is anyone else like me who loves driving.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE, on sale October 20.

Do you like driving? What road trips have you taken that made the drive special?

Freedom Friday, Other Things

What Excites You?

Posted on August 21, 2015May 9, 2017 by Jack Flacco

An article in Psychology Today eloquently titled What Excites You?—yes, you can smack me later for ripping off the title—states that the prevalent thought in psychology according to Silvan S. Tomkins’ Affect, Imagery, Consciousness is that humans have an inherent need to maximize positive and rewarding emotions while minimize negative ones.

Given it’s Freedom Friday, I figure the best way to maximize positive thought is to provide you a peek into what excites me. Later in the comments, you can tell me what excites you. How does that sound?

A Good Song: First up, nothing can really replace a good song. You know when it happens as soon as it hits your ears. Your feet begin to shuffle, your fingers begin to tap, and you’re off bobbing your head to the rhythm of the beat. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a lousy mood only to rise from the dumpster when one of my favorite songs is playing on my earbuds. My secret weapon for curing the blues is three hits of AC/DC, two chasers of Led Zeppelin and one shot of John Williams.

Good Food: How can I describe the feeling I get when sitting at the table anticipating my mom’s home-cooked meal? There’s a whole method to the act of patiently waiting. I’m Italian, so a meal doesn’t only consist of the main course but it includes the antipasto, the salad, dessert and other foods I can’t bare writing about without eating part of my anatomy. The whole experience is reminiscent of a grand opera served on a platter. Delicious.

Good Exercise: I love taking walks. I love doing my stretching exercises. I love physical activity outside. Actually, let me qualify that last bit. I love physical activity outside if there’s a goal to achieve. Cleaning up a garage is not my idea of a physical activity I like. I’ll do it, but it’s far and away not on my Top Ten list of things I love doing. Okay, back to my walks. When I go for a walk, I grab my phone, plug in my earphones and soak the tunes while I perform a half-hour jaunt around my neighborhood. The music helps me focus and my love for my neighborhood allows me the convenience to say hello to all my neighbors. The activity is also great on the heart.

Good Friends: Lastly, meeting with good friends over a meal or a ball game makes for one of the most wonderful times ever. I’ve known my best friends, those people who I can call on and say they are my friends, since I was a single. We go to each other’s houses, have BBQ’s, picnics, etc. and we simply enjoy each other’s company. What’s not to like? People change, but the friendship always remains. That time together will one day become a memory worth talking about.

These things excite me. They thrill me, lift me up and inspire me to do better in all that I do.

What excites you?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE SEARCH FOR PARADISE, on sale October 20.

What activities do you enjoy doing? What would recommend that I ought to try?

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