Chapter 74 of Victory Tour has been submitted for posting. Gary endures his appeal hearing, then has to deal with more grief from his girlfriends.
This one took some time because God apparently decided that one productive week in late June was too much and I needed to be humbled.
July 3 — I somehow broke the screen on my laptop.
July 5 — A thunderstorm knocked out power all over my little town. It also caused a tree limb to fall on the line to my house, ripping it off the wall. I finally got power restored on July 8. That only cost me $450.
July 9 — Finally hustled up a ride to the computer shop in the nearest big town, about 40 miles away. I don't drive since having aa stroke seven years ago and basically have to find someone with a doctor's appointment. Wound up buying a new laptop, much fancier than I need, for about $1,100. Then had to leave it behind so the computer geeks could load all my files from the busted one.
July 12 or 13 — A work crew somehow cut through the main phone cable in the community, knocking out landline and cell service. The cable wasn't marked, making it AT&T's fault, Communications were restored late on July 14.
July 25 — Finally hustled up another ride to the computer shop. I should have accepted the geek's offer of a tutorial, but I had other errands to run. None of which were accomplished. One place didn't have what I was looking for, another wasn't open on weekends, a third was no longer in business. At least my driver was agreeable to me buying barbecue for lunch. And I filled his gas tank on the way out. Only took 14 gallons. Good thing we took his wife's (relatively) small SUV instead of his one-ton work truck.
July 27 — Finally got back to writing (really should've taken the geek's tutorial), then ran out of steam after just a couple of hours. Since then, it's been write as much as I can on days I have brain function, sit in my chair and maybe watch YouTube videos on day I don't. The last chunk of 7,100 words was knocked out in three days, but required two days off in between.
So, the story is still progressing, just not as fast as we might want. I'm hoping cooler fall weather will help. But in this part of the world, that may not come until November.
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