Jamie Wakefield

We are heading to Santorini Greece tomorrow. Have spent most of the day packing and worrying about what I am forgetting. I really wanted to get a blog post up before we left. So, here it is. I am hoping to have blog posts up about the trip while we are there, but then, that’s always the plan isn’t it? Wendy and I have promised to take time out and get an hour of writing a day in as the memories are fresh in my mind. Hopefully some of those will be amusing enough to post. Work continues on the travel memoir and despite some truly heroic efforts on some days, ending in mind numbing exhaustion, I still have not finished editing it, so work on that continues. Yesterday Wendy and I quit work early (4:00) to relax just because we’re so jazzed for this trip we can’t concentrate on work this week. We spent a good portion of time after that cooking and watching “Lie to Me” one of our favorite shows on television right now. Watch it, it’s awesome. One of the things that stuck out to Wendy was ho...

If you have not clicked on the link to the right titled "Evolution" you should. Probably my best writing ever.

Things continue to revert back to normal. Lots and lots of writing being done on my travels in Spain and by the end of the week I hope to be approaching agents again. I approached over seventy-five for Marilyn’s Story but I think this one is much more marketable. People actually seem to like to read about travels abroad and not so much about cancer. Marilyn’s story will be self published and self marketed by me as soon as one final person has time to finish making corrections to it and then I rework those corrections. So, a couple of interesting things. Five years ago I was working at my local high school and had become friends with a lot of the teachers. One of them comes in to have lunch with Len and I. He works with “troubled” kids and tells this lovely story. “So I saw “kid I used to work with a few years ago” this weekend.” “Yeah, how’s he doing?” “Just got back from Iraq. Said he served three tours there and was signing up for a fourth.” ‘What? Why would he do that?” “I asked him...

Brackets are up so Patrick sent us new pictures.

Don’t look to get a book published on cancer. There you go, I just saved you a year or more of work. See, you and everyone you know has or will in the future be affected by cancer, or know someone affected by cancer. It will be a deeply moving and emotional experience. It will not be unique. How many times have you heard this statement in your life : “I’d like to write a book someday.” Or “I think I could be a writer.” Maybe you’ve even said it yourself. There are just over three hundred million people in the United States alone. Of those, just under three hundred million of them think they can write a book someday. When they are moved by a tragedy like cancer, I am betting they will try. And when they try to sell that book, they will find out that the market is already clogged with books about 1. Surviving the experience. 2. A retelling of their loved one (parent, sibling, spouse) dying. 3. A guide to what you should know and what the author wishes they knew before the disease hit. 4....

Usually I try to be very funny about the travels, but another aspect of the book is trying to capture the wonder I felt at discovering the beauty of Europe. This is on page 60 of the book I am editing today. So far it is 160 pages and I think it will end up being about 200 when I finish. Anyway, I thought this part showed the "wonder" portion of the book, so I thought I would share a snippet. Hope you enjoy it. In late May we fly to Provence to visit Colette and Mathieu. We fly to Marseilles and rent a car for the hour long drive to Provence. As we drive along, I look out at the beautiful greenery, the coastline, the fields filled with vineyards and I come to a startling revelation: I have finally found a place on Earth more beautiful than Vermont. That place is Provence. I never thought I would type those words or feel that way, ever, but Provence is as green and unspoiled as Vermont and then, on top of that, has vineyards, and coastline. We have a Hertz "Never Lost,...

Look, if you have any taste at all, DO NOT CLICK the following link. This is a warning to my parents, Aunt Didi, anyone who has ever attended church, anyone who finds anything offensive, I beg you, just ignore this post. http://blog.joerogan.net/archives/1450 Lorelei, you on the other hand should read it immediatly since it is by Joe Rogan and I laughed until I cried. For those of you with a strong stomach and who are not offended easily, this is pure comedy gold. It inspires me to be a better, funnier writer. I can't even finish reading it because I'm laughing so hard I have to keep stopping.

This is the back of the house. The dormer in the middle is the bathroom, separating two half floor bedrooms. The skylights are nice, but old, open into the rooms, and not being vacuum sealed, the panes have moisture and fog in them obstructing the view to the outside. (All pictures can be clicked on to be enlarged and show a more detailed view.) This is the stairs leading up to the two upstairs bedrooms. When the house was rebuilt in the seventies, this was the style of carpet that was in style. This is what the carpet and stairs look like now. This is Doug's bedroom. Notice the slanting ceiling showing that the house is really one and a half floors, not two. Notice how a queen sized bed takes up almost the entire room. Notice the in-style 1970's wallpaper. This is Wendy and my room. It is filled with junk from the eves that we are cleaning out. Sorry I don't have a better picture. Notice the slanting ceiling and how you have to bend over to get to the other side of the bed...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/business/30shoe.html?_r=1&em "TODD BYERS was among more than 20,000 people running the San Francisco Marathon last month. Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, he might have blended in with the other runners, except for one glaring difference: he was barefoot. Vibram, with its FiveFingers line, is challenging the traditional idea of a running shoe. Tony Post, chief of Vibram North America, in the company's thin rubber running shoes. He says the industry is due for a shake-up. Even in anything-goes San Francisco, his lack of footwear prompted curious stares. His photo was snapped, and he heard one runner grumble, “I just don’t want the guy without shoes to beat me.” Mr. Byers, 46, a running coach and event manager from Long Beach, Calif., who clocked in at 4 hours 48 minutes, has run 75 marathons since 2004 in bare feet. “People are kind of weird about it,” he shrugs. Maybe they shouldn’t be. Recent research suggests that for all their high-tech...

Visiting Vermont was certainly interesting this summer. As always, a rollercoaster ride of dinners, works on, in and around the house, a funeral, things to pick up in town, cleaned out the cellar, and mowed the lawn twice, installed two new air conditioners, picked up furniture and a stereo from Wendy’s old house, parties with college friends and a little bit of tennis thrown in for good measure. The house looks amazing and I am eager to show you before and after pics. Sadly, combing my backup pictures of “before” comes up with little if any that illustrate what I want to show you. Luckily, the contractor took a bunch of before pictures and promises to send them to me. We put in Skylights in the bedrooms and the front of the house to let more light in, a wrap-around porch and dormers on the back of the house to expand the upstairs bedrooms. I just uploaded a few pictures but they really don't show what I want to show so I have removed them. Most of them show the house still under c...