One stormy day …

So my dental hygienist has me strapped in the chair, filled my mouth with appliances designed in the Middle Ages and starts poking around with wicked sharp objects prior to “the cleaning”. “Hmmm, haven’t been flossing regularly have we?”, she ponders. After she tires of the scrape and poke cleaning process, she nimbly fingers the floss and strums through my teeth like a harp player, just to show how easy it is. I can’t do that!

I have enough trouble stringing out the floss and wrapping it around a couple of fingers. Then you’re supposed to get that all in your mouth and run around all your tooth surfaces? I haven’t had that many fingers in my mouth since I was an infant. Can’t do it! Won’t do it!

My work around were those toothpick like floss sticks. Given enough time I can get through all the teeth, but still get twisted up with the appliance pointing in one direction while my jaw line seems to be aimed elsewhere. I’m afraid it will get stuck in there and I’ll need professional help to have it removed. Ok, so I’m challenged, but I know I’m not alone in my flossing handicap. There are enough of us with finger/jaw coordination issues that the drug companies see a market opportunity. I’ve tried all the flossing trick sticks that they blister wrap and hang in the oral care shelves. Finally I’ve found one that I can drive!

It’s called the Reach Access Flosser and it is awesome! I’ve been eyeing the product for a while, but frankly didn’t want another flossing failure on my record. My first hurdle was figuring out how to change the little floss clips. I relied on my engineering background to help here (where others might just read the directions). Once my Reach Flosser is loaded, I’m a flossing master. I can now plink through those ivories with the dexterity of a Julliard graduate. A formerly impossible task is now an almost daily routine. I’m less troubled mechanically by the flossing process, but forming good habits is still a challenge for me. Yet, I no longer dread that “… have we been flossing…” question.

Go to the Reach website and check out the character holding out the Flosser for inspection. That’s how the dental industry pictures me? Oh well, I’m thinking about making an early teeth cleaning appointment so I can show off my freshly flossed fixtures. Wait, that’s just plain stupid! I’ll save it for a surprise if I ever go back.

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The full title to Jay Greenspan’s book is ‘Hunting Fish, A Cross Country Search For America’s Worst Poker Players”. Greenspan talked an editor into funding his road trip across America. The premise was that he’d play in cash games as he went and write articles about the interesting situations and characters he found along the way. Jay’s hidden agenda was to build a bankroll for the bigger cash games in California and test his skills and desire for a life as a poker professional.In cash games there is typically a range of skills arrayed at the table, from highly skilled to those who think they know what they are doing (but may not) to the amateur with cash to burn. The pros at the table make most of their money, not from each other, but from the less skilled players, known as fish. The pros’ task is to identify the fish and then wait patiently for an opportunity to land a big pot; hence the book’s title of Hunting Fish.

I enjoy good books on poker. I like the strategy discussion, the tips, and the experienced insights but tend to skim over the sample hands. Poker hand analysis is deadly boring! Phil Gordon’s latest book is nothing but hold’em poker hands and hand analysis. Boring? Not! I followed every hand and thoroughly enjoyed Phil’s setup and analysis. Gordon wrote The Little Blue Book as a follow up to his successful book on strategy, The Little Green Book.

Where the ‘Green’ book lays out Gordon’s approach to hold’em poker and offers insight into his playing strategies; the ‘Blue’ book tells the same story through real poker hands that he has played.  Gordon sets up the situation for a hand, shows the table position of players and betting status, then takes us through his thought process on each card and bet decision. The situations range from tournaments to cash games to on-line games. Sometimes the players are nameless; often a famous poker pro shows up in the hand. Gordon makes each hand into a short story with a beginning, middle and resolution. There are happy endings and there are bust outs. Sometimes the strategy works and sometimes it doesn’t. Good or bad result, each hand teaches something useful to the aspiring poker player.  

Conclusion - Phil Gordon’s Little Blue Book is a great addition to the poker bookshelf.

Seth Godin, master squid at Squidoo celebrated the org’s 50,000th lens by creating a “favorite things” challenge. All lensmasters were challenged to create a “favorite things” lens  with the earnings going to a favorite charity. His theory is that if all lensmaster created a new lens pointed at a single charity, it would have an impact for years. I built this one titled (what else?) mystery books. I was thinking back on a turning point in my life, and Millie’s mom . . .

The charity is Room To Read. Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to establish schools, libraries, and other educational infrastructure. If you’d like to encourage reading and literacy in general, please visit and explore the lens and the charity.

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This lens looks at some different ways to think about any type of book as a gift. Don’t miss the “Discover …” module for some great book and author recommendations for my favorite genre, the mystery. Author tips are sprinkled throughout the other modules.

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Decided to make Laurence Shames the second in my Discover mystery writers series on HubPages. HubPages added a nice feature that allows you to group selected HubPages. Then when you are on one of the pages in your group, there is a pull down list of other group pages. Click and link. Neat!

Laurence Shames seems to be finished with his Key West series, and me I’ve just discovered him. Funny books. I don’t watch the TV series “Lost”, but might have to read the book. Shames wrote a tie-in book, “Bad Twin”. It was done under a pseudonym, Gary Troup. Shames is an experienced ghost writer, but this time the ghost has been un-sheeted quickly.

While researching Shames, I happened on a graphic of my favorite Shames’ character, Bert the Shirt. Surprised to see it was done by Jeff MacNelly. MacNelly drew “Shoe”, one of my favorite modern strips.

I’ve started a new series of HubPages on mystery writers that I like. My favorites include many of the big names, but also include a lot of relatively unknown names. So the series is called Discover … the first is Discover Harold Adams. I’ve also entered Harold Adam’s character Carl Wilcox in the official Quirky Detective rolls, and in I Love A Mystery.

Hmmm, wonder which author to feature next?

John Keller lives a very quiet, ordinary life. He’s single. Lives in Manhattan. Had a dog as a pet for a while. Had a midlife crisis, sort of, and thought about moving to a small town. Collects stamps, his one small obsession. Thinks about retirement, but has been making some large stamp purchases that eat into his savings. Travels widely in his work. Oh yes, his work – he kills people on contract, a hit man.

Lawrence Block created Keller in short stories that have evolved into three books, Hit Man, Hit List and the latest, Hit Parade. The books read like stitched together short stories and sketches but that’s ok. Block’s subject is a hired killer, but the stories are as much about Keller as any man, with any man’s concerns, interests and issues. The big anomaly is that killing other people is against the moral code of most any man. Block doesn’t shy from the mundane accounting of Keller’s workday, providing the occasional detail but not justifying or showcasing it. The hit man scenes in the stories are more about the business side, the planning, the problems to be worked out and the occasional moral or ethical hiccup. He’s a sociopath and a little sensitive about the label! Block doesn’t try to make you root for Keller and success in his work, but he does make you interested in Keller the man.

These stories are more about anti-detection – doing a job and avoiding getting caught or getting hurt; the law and order authorities play almost no role. Keller the man could almost be viewed as a boring nobody (with the exception of his profession). Yet, for me, Block gives him the appeal of the quirky detective, the oddball protagonist, or the non-hero that engages the reader. Caring is too strong, but you are interested in how it all plays out. The appeal might be that Keller does have everyman doubts, neighbor hood type issues, aging anxieties, and a sense of the struggle of daily life. Or it might be that Block is just such a darn fine writer.

Recommendation – Lawrence Block is such a fine and prolific author that recommending him is like saying you should catch a sunset sometime. His Matt Scudder books have complex story lines and a hard edge, about an alcoholic ex-cop who gets drafted into private detection of the noir kind. His Bernie Rhodenbarr series is light and fun reading about a casual burglar and bookstore owner. John Keller is the hit man, next door. Block has been equally prolific with the short story where he has given his series characters short spins, as well as created many other engaging good and bad folk. Start anywhere, but do catch a sunset.

This review is also featured at I Love A Mystery and at The Quirky Detective.

At the start of a hike up the Cave Creek trail in Spur Cross we ran into a forest service employee and got directions to some Petroglyphs in the Tonto Forest. It involved a trail that crossed Cave Creek three times. At the first crossing some of the expected stepping-stones had been washed out and the higher water had us looking down stream to find a crossing point. We crossed and worked our way back to the trail. Shortly after we entered the Forest area, our trail was washed out in several sections forcing us to slog through marsh and mud, up rock-strewn washes to get back to the trail. The last hurdle was a three-foot high bank that we found guarded by a pretty good-sized diamondback rattlesnake who seemed to think he owned that patch. We counted eight rattles and decided he was right.  We detoured and got back on the trail and made our way to the second crossing, which was now a thirty-foot expanse of water! So that put the Petroglyphs on the future hike schedule. We’ll wait for the Creek to recede a little before we try that again!

Other than lots of exercise, my new walking stick got a good field test. It was a great help in dealing with the very slippery mud and grasses that had replaced our expected trail. I bought it at REI, which calls it the “REI Hiker Vibra Stop Staff” and is made by Komperdell of Austria.

The detective – Pete Amsterdam, in The Naked Detective by Lawrence Shames, makes the cut as a quirky detective, by being a complete fraud as a detective. He hangs out his PI shingle as a business tax shelter on the advise of his accountant. He is living a good life in Key West that consists of tennis, a quality wine cellar and appetite, a music room, a pool and spa, and has no need or intention  to work. He discourages all detecting inquiries and the book opens with his rejecting one in a personal visit by a cross dressing thief who asks for help while Pete is in the spa. Of course other peoples needs and events drag him into detecting. Along the way he turns down more clients and shirks payment. The book follows his dogged detecting and finds closure with Pete in the spa. Pete Amsterdam is not the first reluctant detective, but he is one of the most engaging, and yes, quirky.
 
The recommendation – This was my first experience with Lawrence Shames. Don’t know why it took me this long! I thoroughly enjoyed the story and especially the story telling. It was funny throughout, and Pete Amsterdam was engaging from the first scene to last. The first person narration works and Shames is a master of the simile. His voice is fluid with a rhythm that is easy listening. I recommend the book, and especially the audio book.
 
Dual kudos – I listened to the audio book version narrated by Ron McLarty. His performance was terrific. Firstly, his voice matched, perfectly for me, what Pete’s voice should sound like. His reading of Shames prose was less a reading and more a story telling. His voice for other characters managed to convey their personalities and become instantly recognizable as the story progressed. Even his handling of female characters was fine. He didn’t attempt to feminize the voice for these characters, just softened the tone and let the characters speak. Great combination of author, book and narrator!

When I got more involved in blogging and this web2.0 stuff (Squidoo, HubPages, Swicki, etc.), I learned how to open links in a new window (the trusty target=”_blank” code) and have pretty much used it wherever I had a link and could add the code. It seems I’ve been a bad boy!

I did it because it mirrored how I surf. When I’m on a page/article and want to checkout an offered link, I prefer to open the link in a new window so I don’t lose my place where I’m reading. Since I prefer that, I assumed it was a right and proper thing to do. Also, I felt that I didn’t want to push readers away from my site/page by letting the browser move to the link. Wrong thinking, according to the web wonks! “You can’t hold readers captive!” “Readers will use the back button if they want to come back to you.” “Bad form!” … I had no idea I was treating my readers so poorly!

I’d heard that it was considered “poor technique” so I searched and have been doing some reading. It seems that opening a new window with a link has been considered “poor form” for some time, and is part of the culture for many. I can’t say that I’m fully persuaded by the arguments but I sure don’t want to tick off knowledgeable people by my link handling! I’m not alone in questioning the arguments that it is completely bad. Some liken it to pop-up windows but it’s not the same thing at all. I doubt that the average unsophisticated user gives it much thought. The more sophisticated user has a preference, but seems more like a style issue and I’m not sure why it escalates to good/bad? But, I’m not looking to swim upstream unnecessarily as I learn how to navigate the world of web page making. 

So, I’m in the process of reconsidering. Some of my choices:

• Open my links in a new window, as I have been doing and prefer.
• Open links in the same window, and conform to the conventional wisdom.
• Offer links both ways and let the reader choose, new window or same window (and more work for each link).
• Stop linking (not a real option).

Here are a couple of the better references I found:

• Real Lawyers Have Blogs (ignore the whole bet thing, it’s a nasty diversion from the issue). Open link   Open Link in new window  
• Beware of Opening Links in a New Window  By Neil Turner (from December 30th 2004, the old days in web terms) Open link   Open Link in new window 

I’ve been playing with Swicki by Eurekster, which is in beta test. With Swicki, you create a search engine and focus it on a topic. In theory you can train it yourself, and also inform it by adding user searchers experiences. You put the code for the Swicki engine on your site, and encourage others to do the same. To the extent you can get others to use your search engine on a topic you can get some traffic, ad impressions, and possibly some reputation. While it’s not hard, if you are doing more than one there are quite a number of steps. Like anything about this web2.0 stuff, the entry is easy, but the cultivation and expansion can get intense. I’ve created a few (8 at this point) Swickis in my expert page topics. I added a page on Swickis to Stankevicz.com and put the links there. Gradually the Swickis will be showing up on my lens and HubPages as well.

I just finished reading, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend the book. There are many things that fascinate me about the man, but his general cleverness and adaptability got me thinking about how his approach and style would overlay with today’s world. I think he would take all we have to offer in stride, and then improve on it. He’d get used to the concepts of the computer and the Internet and start using them with a vengeance.

I’d been looking for a topic for an expository HubPage, and there it was. Ben’s lifestyle was a metaphor for the Internet. So I posited the query, “did Ben Franklin invent the Internet?” It has been well received and that has encouraged me about HubPages possibilities. HubPages is still looking for its public voice. Maybe it is going to work for exposition pieces with a little style: whitepapers, policy papers, mission statements, lobbying pages, letters to the public,?. You can pretty readily whip up a paper with text and graphics to form a one-page presentation. Dunno, but it’s a thought.  Check out my Ben paper and let me know what you think about it and about HubPages.

Since I’m a Squidoo expert, and learning to be a HubPages expert, what is more natural than creating an expert page (Lens) on Squidoo about HubPages. Confused or not, check it out at my new lens - HubPages.

HubPages sent me an invitation to participate in their closed beta testing. The site is only open to members as they get some user testing done and build a platform of hubs before opening the portals to the public. I joined and built a couple of HubPages. I can’t offer a link to my HubPages, as they are not public yet. The site offers a “get on the list” message and form at their temporary home page.

It’s inevitable for me to compare HubPages with Squidoo since I’ve played with Squidoo for a while and have some experience. In simple terms they are both sites that allow members to build single pages about a topic. The goal is to create good pages, develop traffic and credibility and eventually be an acknowledged reference source on the web, leading to ad revenues and more traffic. They feature different looks for their pages. Maybe because I’m used to it, but Squidoo’ s pages seem a little more reader friendly, however HubPages uses its screen real estate a little better. The major draw for a page developer at HubPages is that there seems to be a better revenue opportunity. It’s clear that Squidoo’ s model is too parsimonious and involves too much work to maintain even a small revenue chance. HubPages makes it easy to feature affiliate links.As I said, it’s early days. I’ll publish some more links when and if possible!