It’s Saturday, and by the time you read this post, I will be closing in on the Connecticut border, on my way home from Pittsburgh. My brother and I converged on our hometown (and the setting for the books in the Dreamer’s Alliance series) from opposite directions (him from Iowa, me from Connecticut) a week ago. We enjoyed a week of sports, food and nostalgia, including spending time in a few bar and grill establishments. I’m going to keep this post short – OK, shorter than normal, as Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt arrived as we’re getting ready to head out on my last day in town, and there’s a Steelers preseason football game on TV tonight. For the prompt, Linda gave us:
“Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is ‘envelope.’ Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!”
I might be pushing the envelope a little by changing my traditional opening line to: “When we were having a beer” we were about to do something fun or had just been doing something fun.
I think it’s fair to say that the best part of this week was watching the struggling Pittsburgh Pirates beat the best-in-baseball Atlanta Braves Monday night. We had to endure a rain delay of over an hour, but since we had Pittsburgh Baseball Club level seats (the favorites of Abraham Rosella in The Evil You Choose), we were able to escape the rain.
Other highlights included a trip to the Steelers training camp in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, stops at family grave sites and a visit to my undergraduate alma mater in Morgantown, West Virginia.
Anyone who has read either the second or third book in the Dreamer’s Alliance series would not be surprised to learn that we stayed in the Fairfield Inn on Neville Island—we always stay there—it’s convenient to both of us as we drive in, and most of the places we like to visit. Last year, we discovered Carmody’s Grill, a delightful bar and grill on Neville Island. The tribute to Canada in the gallery at the top of the page was taken there.
We also discovered a bar that serves the signature meal of Zach, Billy, Abbie and Uncle Mike—fried shrimp and fried mushrooms. Good food, fun events, a few adult beverages and great conversations carried us through a wonderful week.
The gallery includes some pictures from the trip. I’m sorry if some of them make you hungry.
All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
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