'Fracking Justice' launch party was fracking awesome

HECTOR, New York, USA - The launch party Tuesday at the Hector Wine Company for the novel Fracking Justice was nothing short of fracking awesome.

And I really hate to use the word awesome. But dammit, it was awesome. I was overwhelmed at the support people offered and their encouragement to start writing the third book in the trilogy.

Signing copies of Fracking Justice

Adm. Sylvia Fox and her amigos put on one great party that ran from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. It could have gone on and on.

Cousin Brett Beardslee provided fine music and Hector Wine Company wine flowed while I tried to keep up with signing copies of Fracking Justice and last year's The Fracking War. I even signed one of the Fracking Justice t-shirts, designed by Amy Colburn of Canandaigua.

Editor, proofreader and official Fracking Justice photographer Darlene Bordwell shot photos all evening. A sample of those can be seen here:  Launch Party photos.

There was one personal glitch.

My mind kept going blank on people's names. And these were people I see all the time in Watkins Glen, Hector, - even at church! They would come up with their books to sign and I would have to ask them their names.

Thanking Sylvia for, well, everything...

Gawd!

But except for that gaffe it went great with lively conversations. And my brief speech got sufficient laughs that I am not worried about giving a long-form version of the same talk at The Green Festival in Washington, D.C. on Friday.

At one point, Sylvia rallied the crowd to get people to write a review on Amazon of the book which will boost it through some weird Amazon algorithm to make the novel pop up more often for readers interested in a eco-thriller.

I won't pretend to understand how that all works.

Thank you to everyone who came out for the launch party - and all the other folks who have been sooooooo supportive of this novel and our efforts to get it published.

In the real world, it's past time for some real fracking justice. I hope the book can help with that. Somehow.

With Joseph Campbell and Yvonne Taylor, founders of Gas Free Seneca.
Fracking Justice is dedicated to them.

'Endangered' a suspenseful modern-day western

CHEYENNE WYOMING - The novel Endangered by Wyoming writer C.J. Box is a cleverly written book, full of suspense and as many twists as the winding roads of the mountains and plains in which the book is set.

It's another installment in Box's "Joe Pickett" series.

Normally, I shy away from such series novels. The characters often get really tired or turn into stereotypes. (The works of James Lee Burke are notable exceptions.) But this novel is a great standalone - and good enough that I am going to break my rule and look at some earlier "Joe Pickett" novels.

Endangered is that good.

This novel involves murders, abductions, an amazing family of evil miscreants that wreak havoc - and more than a few heroic actions on the part of not only Pickett, but other characters around him.

The law enforcement portrayals are realistic and gritty. And the final, climatic scenes are as good as any mystery detective novel.

Author C. J. Box

Recommended reading.

And if you live in Watkins Glen, it's on the new book bookshelf.

Launching 'Fracking Justice, Tuesday night in New York

HECTOR, New York, USA - When I completed The Fracking War in the fall of 2013, I remember  feeling a huge sense of relief - and being exhausted. The launch party for that book was a wild crescendo at the Hector Wine Company.

Two weeks later, I had my energy back and started writing the first draft of the novel Fracking Justice which will have its first public unveiling Tuesday at the Hector Wine Company, starting at 5 p.m. and going until 8 p.m.

If you live anywhere near the Hector zip code, I hope to see you there. It should be a lot of fun.

Fracking Justice has many of the same characters, is similarly set in Upstate New York and in the nearby fictional town of Rockwell Valley, Pennsylvania. But Fracking Justice has a new geographic character, Rockwell Valley Lake. And yes, the lake and community are facing an awful industrial threat, from, well, the same villainous corporation that appeared in The Fracking War. 

I won't spoil the plot. But it's a pretty wild ride, right to the end.

One of the pre-publication reviewers - who got an early peek at Fracking Justice - asked me a few days ago if I was still planning on doing a third book, completing a trilogy.

The short answer is yes. And a rough outline, ideas for that novel - tentatively titled Fracking Evil -  and even a cover concept have been bouncing around in my mind since last fall.

But I won't start stacking paragraphs on it until Fracking Justice gets properly launched Tuesday!

One week, three novels and all three excellent reads

WATKINS GLEN, New York - In quick succession this past week I read Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates, World Gone By by Dennis Lehane and The Harder They Come by T.C. Boyle.

For me, that's something of a reading record.

It's not that unusual for me to read three books in a single week. But normally it's one novel and two quick-read non-fiction books.

Novels have to be really good to grab my attention. Most of the time I come home with an armload of books, taking most of them back within a day.

And so it is that I am still stunned that all three of these books, grabbed quickly off the shelves of the Watkins Glen Public Library, were all amazingly good reads. I burned through them. And they will be back in the library this afternoon.

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Jack of Spades takes the reader on a wild ride through the eyes of a best-selling author. Right there you know what hooked me at the outset. (Oh! To hit the best-seller list!) But you don't have to dip very far into this psychological thriller before you realize what you see on the surface isn't what's really going on.

It's a little like looking at a quiet mill pond where the surface of the water seems ever-so-peaceful. But down below there is a boiling turmoil of the aquatic animal kingdom competing, fighting - and perhaps even munching on each other.

Joyce Carol Oates does an amazing job of pulling the reader deeper and deeper beneath the surface of the author's life pond until you are almost gasping for air in the final pages. Like other work by Oates, the characters aren't what they seem to be at first. And who they turn out to be is as unpredictable at weather in suburban New Jersey where the book takes place.

Highly recommended reading. But read with extreme caution if you are a writer going through some kind of psychological doldrums or distress.  (And what writer isn't most of the time?)

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World Gone By in its opening lines seems like it will be a simple, almost pedestrian crime novel, further stereotyped by its setting in World War II Tampa, Florida. Then four paragraphs into it, without warning, the characters emerge so strongly they jump off the page before you even get through the prologue.

Books filled with psychotic gangsters can be fascinating - or a complete turnoff. In World Gone By Lehane humanizes some, dehumanizes others but always, always make them so interesting you can't look away even when guns blaze or knives flash. Kind of like trying to avert your eyes from a slow-motion, car-wreck video.

What becomes abundantly clear is that every character in the book is complicated. Very complicated. And those complications, set against the backdrop of criminal activity (and sometimes violence) make for very readable book.

There is even a bow to race relations - a la 1940s - using the rough underworld of that era in Florida.

Lehane is a veteran novelist with many best sellers to his credit including the highly acclaimed Mystic River. I'm not sure World Gone By will get that same traction. But it should.

Recommended reading, especially if fast-paced novels are what you like.

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The Harder They Come by T.C. Boyle is as quirky as much of the rest of Boyle's work. And equally captivating.

It leads with a 70-year-old, retired high school principal going through an identity crisis of sorts as he faces a life of, well, boredom. Boyle sucks the reader in with early pages making the book sound like a Paul Theroux travelogue as the principal and his wife bounce along on a pothole-strewn Costa Rica road uncomfortable on a smelly, third-world bus, part of cruise ship tour.

Then the principal violently thwarts a robbery attempt.

Paul Theroux disappears and T.C. Boyle emerges.

Like most of Boyle's work, his characters are incredibly complicated. And The Harder They Come take the reader on a nearly 400-page wild ride through the marijuana patches of Northern California's coast, the twisted anti-government minds of a middle-aged woman and eventually to the principal's son. Law enforcement gets hit a few whacks in the book, too.

It's painful to read in spots, but never dull. And just when you think you can predict what the characters will do next, you get surprised.

Especially by the principal's adult son - every parent's nightmare.

The Harder They Come is an artful book that is well worth taking a day or two to be immersed in.

I couldn't put it down.

'Fracking Justice' Kickstarter - 13 days to go now

WATKINS GLEN, New York - The Kickstarter campaign for Fracking Justice is past the midway point, with 13 days left to run.

That leaves 13 days to preorder a print book, e-book, audiobook or a T-shirt. Or maybe some combination of all four.

LINK to Kickstarter campaign.

After yesterday's blog post (and email) a number of folks jumped on the Fracking Justice Kickstarter bandwagon.

Thank you all!

So far, 31 folks have contributed $1,200, preordering their print books, e-books, audiobooks and T-shirts.

The T-shirts - designed by Canandaigua artist Amy Colburn who also did the book cover - are being printed and will be ready in the next few weeks.

And this  week - provided my cold goes away - I will be in Scott Adams' Hector, NY studio to record the soundtrack for the audiobook of Fracking Justice.

If you have any questions about the Kickstarter or how the rewards/purchase/preorder works shoot me an email by clicking this link: Michael.FitzgeraldFLTcolumnist@gmail.com

Thanks for your support.

'Fracking Justice' final proofs done - now it's all Kickstarter

ALAMEDA, Calif. - The final-final-final page proofs of Fracking Justice are done! I found the last out-of-place commas, formatting errors and (OK, OK!) spelling goofs today.

Now the book will be put into its final form by Mill City Press, still on track for a June 1 public release. Kickstarter backers will see their copies earlier.

This week Adm. Fox and I launched a Kickstarter campaign for the book, similar to what we did for The Fracking War. This time  Kickstarter backers can pre-order a print edition, e-book, audio book, a specially designed T-shirt - or a combination of any of these.

The audio book has proven to be the most complicated part of all this.

With the encouragement of Canandaigua, NY artist Amy Colburn, (who did the cover art for Fracking Justice),  I went into the recording studio of Hector musician Scott Adams where I recorded an audio book of The Fracking War. And when I return to the Finger Lakes in a week, I'll be recording the sound for production of the audio book of Fracking Justice.

Ever try reading aloud for hours without making a single mistake? 
Or stifle a cough mid-sentence? 
Or stop your your stomach from gurgling so loud the sound gets picked up by a microphone?

Kee-rist it's hard.

This week we also finalized the back-cover endorsements for Fracking Justice, too.

Here they are, also listed on the Kickstarter page (LINK: to Kickstarter):

Josh Fox - Director of Gasland and Gasland 2:
"At a time when fracking and other forms of extreme fossil fuel development threaten to destroy everything we hold dear, Fracking Justice is there to remind us of the true cost of fracking. It may be fiction but it shows how the fossil fuel industry is fracturing not only our land but our communities. Read this page-turner, then pass it on. "

Will Potter - author of the compelling book Green is the New Red:
"This isn't just a good read—it's grounded in a very real ecological crisis, and a backlash against those who dare to speak up. Fracking Justice captures exactly what is at stake, both for the planet and for our freedoms."

Mystery fiction writer Elle Ashe - author of Chasing the Dollar:
"A smart, powerful page-turner." In the new genre of environmental thriller, she says, "It’s exciting, edge-of-your-seat writing, and is all the more scary because it’s so timely."

Executive editor of the daily Finger Lakes Times newspaper, Mike Cutillo:
 "Fitzgerald has the uncanny ability to write in the meaty, fact-filled manner of a veteran hardscrabble journalist while also weaving a deft and enjoyable storyline befitting a seasoned novelist. In Fracking Justice — just like in The Fracking War — he puts his knowledge about the environmental and social issues associated with hydraulic fracturing to use in crafting a real page-turner with characters you feel for and care about. This is a must-read -- whether you want to learn more about fracking or are simply a fan of good writing."

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With praise like that, they have set the bar pretty damn high for Fracking Evil, the third book I plan to write in this fracking series.

Did I say damn high? The evil is creeping up on me already...
 

"The Book of Mormon" musical opens in San Francisco...

ORPHEUM THEATER, San Francisco, Calif. - The theater critics who said the musical "The Book of Mormon" is over-the-top, irreverent, obnoxious - and even in bad taste in spots - were all right.

But it's also hilarious, entertaining and provides some interesting insight, not only into the entire Mormon culture, but human nature.

 The plot revolves around a group of young Mormon men headed out on their church mission.

And what a mission they go on.

Adm. Fox and I viewed the show from some waaaaaaay back seats at the classic Orpheum Theater on Market Street. Even so, it was hard to take your eyes off the stage for even a second, the action moved so fast.

And the singing! And the choreography! It was timed so neatly the two+ hours of show zipped by.

The show was written by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone which explains a lot of the more eye-popping elements/concepts presented. I won't spoil the show by saying what they are. But wow!

Parker and Stone must be confident that God has a good sense of humor. (I'm sure she does. I watched the movie "Dogma.")

In the end, perhaps ironically, "The Book of Mormon" musical seems to offer a message for nearly everyone. You will have to check it out in person to see what the play has to say to you.

Springtime - and spring sneezes - in the Sacramento air

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The shock of 60+ degree days after the past few winter months at Seneca Lake was, not surprisingly, almost as startling as when Adm. Sylvia Fox and I used to fly into Puerto Vallarta, stepping out of an air-conditioned plane into a sauna masquerading as a resort city.

But here in California it hasn't been just the temperature, it is the sunshine. Hours and hours of it. Hours. Sunshine.

 Still,  this isn't entirely a paean to the drought-stricken Golden State. In addition to the warmth and sunshine, I rediscovered why we weren't always thrilled with California in the spring when we lived here for years.

Allergies. Lots of allergies.

My airplane flights from Elmira to Chicago, and then Chicago to Sacramento, sent my sinuses into such a paroxysm of congestion I wondered if it might need to use a half stick of nasal dynamite to unclog the logjam. But a day of hot showers and gentle sinus rinsing brought my breathing almost back to normal.

Almost.

Then we started taking long, glorious walks in the sunshine, past carefully tended flower beds and gardens, all gloriously in bloom here while still  a faroff dream for upstate New Yorkers. And amid the glorious sunshine and blooming there were also some less-glorious puffs of pollen that have sent my sinuses almost back to where they were when I got off the cattle-car flight from Chicago.

All that said, sitting in the sun and not having to put on boots (for either snow or mud) is a treat. And if it means I have to lug a small box of tissues with me, it's worth it.

I bought an extra box to take home with me to New York when I travel in about two weeks. Thing should just start blooming shortly after I get back.

And I hope the sun has returned, too.

St. Patricks Day: Whiskey & 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People'

WATKINS GLEN, New York - St. Patrick's Day is usually a day of, well, celebration and little work..

But most of the morning (and now afternoon) ended up with organizing some short stories for a book/collection Adm. Fox has been itching for me to put together. (I did promise her I would do this, oh, a year ago!) And that led me to reworking a novel-in-progress (tentatively titled Jack's Boat) for a couple of hours. I started writing Jack's Boat, oh, so long ago I won't mention it here.

By the way, the Jack in Jack's Boat has no connection to Jack Stafford of The Fracking War or Fracking Justice.

But in a few hours I am heading to that hotspot of wild party activity - downtown Watkins Glen - for a drink or three. Then I will head back home to watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People. It's kind of a tradition.

I'm sure I saw it in the theatre when I was 11 or 12 years old. And I had been bombarded with Irish stories and Irish lore by my grandmothers. One grandmother always insisted that some of her relatives still in Ireland had some of the little people living right under their cottages in County Cork.

If you haven't ever seen this 1959 Disney movie, you should take a peek at it. It has leprechauns, pots of gold, rainbows, whiskey, a pretty Irish lass - and even Sean Connery.

Yes that Sean Connery. And he is singing. I'm not kidding. Singing.

The film also features an Irish ghost called a 'banshee.' If you heard the wind howling in an especially evil way today, that might have been a banshee warming up to warn of a death tonight.

A banshee wailing

I had nightmares as a kid after watching the banshee in the movie, though the cleaned-up Disney banshee wasn't nearly as scary as the image I'm posting to the left.

Hope it doesn't give anyone a fright.

I had been thinking about stopping by the Democratic Party's corned beef and cabbage party downtown tonight, but because I don't eat beef anymore, just cabbage seems a little, well, plain. And it's doubtful they will have any whiskey on hand to wash the cabbage down.

Happy St. Pat's Day to all!

Out in the cold at the Town of Reading Town Hall - again!

TOWN OF READING, Schuyler County, New York - The weather was the same (cold, snowing) the cast of characters slightly different when court convened in the Town of Reading Wednesday night for the 40 people scheduled to be arraigned on charges of trespassing.

They faced hearings for blocking the gates of Crestwood Midstream, the Houston-Texas company that has been pushing a project to store 88 million gallons of propane in salt caverns on the shore of Seneca Lake.

It barely needs mentioning this is a colossally bad idea that has people all around the Finger Lakes protesting. A regional rally is planned for Jan. 31 at 2 p.m. in Geneva.

Since October the group We Are Seneca Lake has been blocking traffic from entering or leaving the 576-acre facility - at least until Schuyler County Sheriff's Deputies show up and haul them off, citing them for trespassing. The deputies are feeling the pressure and have been exhibiting signs that their senses of humor are stretched pretty thin.

When the weather turned cold and snowy, so did the hearts of the members of the Town Board of Reading and the elected town supervisor who said the courtroom would remain open, but the balance of the spacious, taxpayer-funding building would be remain off limits.

Thus anyone who couldn't fit into the courtroom had to stand outside. I did my best to embarrass the town in a column last week in the Finger Lakes Times.

Wednesday Sandra Steingraber spoke again about the movement, the arrests, the obnoxiousness (and dangerous aspects) of the lockout and also gave a knot of shivering arrestees and their supporters some words of encouragement - and news that the ACLU was stepping in. Of course, given the mindset of the people running the Town of Reading, the ACLU carries very little weight.

The two county sheriff's deputies on court duty continued to enforce the town's new policy of keeping the public out in the cold. But it was pretty clear neither of the deputies liked doing so.

And in the courtroom, I observed that Judge Raymond P. Berry - the same judge hearing most of the arraignments for the 200 people who have been arrested - has become more adept at reading the mandated state script about defendant's rights to counsel, rights to contact someone and the other assorted legalities.

He also now reads the script with the same enthusiasm as a flight attendant explaining how to buckle your seat belt on a commuter airline.

The sun is shining, the snow is falling and I want to stay inside

WATKINS GLEN, New York - This phenomenon I don't remember from my years growing up in Lakewood, NY.

The sun is out (albeit low on the horizon) and it is snowing - fairly heavily with swirling winds and snow accumulating fast enough that the village snowplow has roared past twice in the past hour.

Outside my office window, between snow squalls

I wouldn't be quite so winter sensitive today if I didn't have to bundle up in every piece of clothing I own and go out. With the temperature down at 10 degrees (probably zero with the wind chill) the sensible thing to do would be to stay indoors, get my exercise by bouncing on my mini-trampoline and eat some of Adm. Sylvia Fox's excellent minestrone soup.

But nooooo.

The Town of Reading court has called a special 2 p.m. session that I need to attend to shoot some photos for the Finger Lakes Times newspaper of Geneva. A 1:30 p.m. rally will precede the court - held outside!

But mostly I need to get the skinny on whether the town officials will let people into the town building (those persons not required to go into court) to stay warm while court is in session. In recent weeks the town officials have not let people in, except to go directly to the small courtroom. But those times were in the evening when the building is normally closed. Today's session is, well, during the day. And logic would indicate the public building would be open to, well, the public.

But this is the Town of Reading, New York.

Will the Reading officials do the right thing and let people in the town hall. Or make them shiver outside in subzero temperatures?

My already cold feet are rooting that they do let people in. If they don't, my Ugg boots will have to work overtime, again.

The Captain's Blog six-month sabbatical has ended

WATKINS GLEN, New York - After a six-month hiatus to chase other writing projects (including the novel, Fracking Justice) The Captain's Blog is up and running again.

In this era of Facebook and Twitter, blogging in some ways seems waaaay too slow and cumbersome. Ironically, blogging has become the equivalent of long-form journalism in the social-media sphere.

Noting that, this post will be brief.

Hans and Franz, or is it Franz and Hans?

Adm. Sylvia Fox and I (as the dateline indicates) are in Watkins Glen, not Puerto Vallarta (or even California) where we would normally be this time of the year. Instead, we are wearing Ugg boots, long underwear, covering up our faces with balaclavas and stuffing ourselves into enough clothing to resemble "Hans and Franz" from an old Saturday Night Live skit.

Our Toyota Tundra is sporting aggressive-looking snow tires on the rear wheels and sandbags in pickup's bed. And my red Nissan truck has been living most of its days at a local auto shop getting minor repairs done.

It doesn't seem to like the zero-degree temperatures and blowing snow.

But we are foregoing  sub-tropical and tropical climes to help in a regional effort to stop a Texas corporation named Crestwood from turning the shore of Seneca Lake into an sprawling industrial wasteland of natural gas and liquid propane gas storage.

Sometimes this fight seems like a Don-Quixote/Sancho-Panza-like endeavor, other times not, such as when NY Governor Andrew Cuomo banned hydrofracking for natural gas in December.

When he made his announcement it clearly felt like a windmill had been toppled in a crash that still has hydrofracking supporters stunned.

If you read Cervantes' novel, you know that even Don Quixote gets a good shot in once in awhile.

That why I believe Crestwood of Houston will be the next to fall.

Sancho! Hand me my sword!

A two-court tango for anti-salt cavern propane storage activist

SCHUYLER COUNTY, New York - Local anti-hydrofracking, anti-propane storage activist Jeremy Alderson of Hector, NY had double court dates Wednesday June 18, the first in the Town of Reading, the second in the Town of Dix.

Reading is where a Houston, Texas-based gas company wants to put in an 88-million gallon propane storage facility, using old salt caverns. It also is using the project as Phase One of a massive industrial complex to serve the propane and natural gas needs of the entire northeastern United States. Gas from hydrofracked gas wells in Pennsylvania is also likely to find its way into the proposed facility before being shipped to export terminals for overseas sales.

Alderson has been arrested twice for protesting at the gates of the Town of Reading Crestwood facility.

Here's a video of the first arrest Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012:

In the Town of Reading trial, and again last night in the Town of Dix, he was unsuccessful in getting the judges to let him use what's called a justification defense. That defense is based on the accused's  belief that there is a clear and present danger.

Both judges disallowed the defense, saying it had nothing to do with his trespassing on property owned by the Crestwood Corporation. Crestwood bought the property, along with U.S. Salt and a development plan from the Inergy Corporation of Missouri. Alderson has argued - unsuccessfully - that it has everything to do with not only his defense, but having the community understand what it will be like if the project is approved.

In addition to additional truck traffic and likely water and air pollution, no safety plan has been draw in the eventuality of any major explosions, fires or spills at the company site.

Here's what Alderson had to say outside of court Wednesday:

And here is a video of Alderson's second arrest, June 28, 2013:

Ten days ago the Schuyler County Legislature narrowly passed a resolution in favor of the project, but only over the objections of nearly 300 local residents who came to a meeting to protest. Representatives of Crestwood and U.S. Salt attended. The pro-project attendees (most of whom worked directly for Crestwood) were provided with company t-shirts if they agreed to speak in favor of the project. Local opponents said only a handful of the 48 people in T-shirts were actually local residents. The rest were bussed in and/or came from out of state.

A request to Crestwood to confirm - or deny - that it provided t-shirts, lodging at the Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel, and food for a cadre of out-of-town, paid supporters was answered by this email from Debbie Hagen, a Crestwood spokesperson:

"We encouraged project supporters to attend Monday’s meeting 

but we have no way of knowing how many supporters 

attended on their own.  

That said, we are grateful for those who attended 

and showed support for the project."

Here's a video of the  Schuyler County Legislature meeting:

In the second court hearing, the judge was briskly efficient, rendering a guilty verdict on the trespassing charge in just under two hours. Repeated objections from defense counsel Jerry Kinchey of Sayre, PA were generally brushed aside quickly. The same thing happened with the contention by Alderson that the entire question of trespassing and property lines has never been established.

The district attorney and Crestwood have never produced legal documents showing property demarcations at either of his trials.

Alderson will go back into the Town of Reading court sometime later this summer. The Town of Dix court however will see Alderson July 9 for sentencing.

In the meantime, local activists opposed to the project are burning up social media with various conversations about issues related to Crestwood's project, other propane and gas-related issues nationally and internationally and continuing a simmering resentment over the Schuyler County Legislature's 5-3 vote to support the project.

The five members of the legislature who voted in favor of the Houston, Texas company's plan even found themselves featured on a wanted poster. From left to right, Stewart Field, Phil Barnes, Dennis Fagan (chair of the legislature) Van Harp and Thomas Gifford.

Barnes is up for re-election in November and will likely run unopposed.

A big week for 'The Fracking War' - and it's only Monday

WATKINS GLEN, New York - Just a few days after Adm. Fox and I returned to our upstate NY zip code, our son Dustin Fox put the finishing touches on an author website for me - something that looks more professional than my hacking on websites like these.

He and his friend (professional web designer Kimberly Paternoster) did a very nice job. And they promise there can be more neat things to come. LINK: Michael J. Fitzgerald, Author.

The feature that took a little extra care was an order form so that people could request a book directly from me, avoiding the Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble online stores.

We added it so anyone who wanted to get an inscribed copy of the book can do so. And they can also have it sent directly to someone as a gift, too. (LINK: The Fracking War, inscribed)

More big news came in an hour ago from Sylvia. She arranged it so that Saturday afternoon I will join with other local author types at the Barnes & Noble store in Ithaca, NY to give a brief presentation about my novel and do an honest-to-God bookstore book-signing.

I signed about 25 books at an anti-fracking rally in Sacramento, Calif. then more in Flagstaff at an informal Sunday afternoon gathering at Beth and Mel Tucker's mansion.

But this is a bookstore! And believe me, bookstores are getting quite rare. I know because I'm contacting them to see if they want to carry The Fracking War.

And then there is the Finger Lakes Times, the newspaper for which I write a weekly column titled Write On. (LINK: Write On, Finger Lakes Times)

Executive Editor Mike Cutillo told me today that the newspaper is planning on publishing a story about the book coming out in print, wants to do a video interview with me for the newspaper's website - and also will proudly display The Fracking War on sale in the newspaper's lobby.

Sounds like the war is on!

The Fracking War is out in print - and some life updates

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Since sometime in December, my brain has been totally focused on getting The Fracking War novel out the door.

Thus, no blogs. None, nada, zip, zilch, zero...

But now the book has gone out the door, and is back in, this time as a published paperback novel, with its own Library of Congress designation and everything. Imagine, a book with my name on it in the Library of Congress.

Of course, my name is likely already all over all kinds of NSA documents but that's another issue.

Admiral Fox and I returned from Mexico just a few days ago where we had our usual adventurous moments both in Nuevo Vallarta and Arroyo Seco.

This season, however, for the first time in at least four or five years, I caught a cold. Not just a booger-filled, sneezing, I feel-like-crap cold. No, this was a headbanger with a fever, enough deep-lung coughing for a roomful of cigarette smokers and such low energy I could barely walk up and down the stairs of our condo at Bahia del Sol.

It only lasted about a month, though.

A month. Kee-rist!

All that is just so much water in the sand though as Adm. Fox and I get ready to catch 400 copies of The Fracking War this week, coming via UPS. More than 100 books are destined to be mailed to Kickstar.com supporters. Some will be sold at a March 15 anti-fracking demonstration at the state capitol here. Others will go to various potential reviewers locally.

And on our driving trip back to the east coast, we will be stopping in towns to chat with newspaper editors and radio stations to see if they have any interest in the book.

The book popped up for sale on Amazon.com Sunday night, 48 hours after I gave the nod for Mill City Press of Minneapolis to fire up the machine and start cranking out copies of The Fracking War. Barnes & Noble shows the book for sale now, too.

Can a call from The Daily Show be far behind?

In the meantime, we continue watch the weather in Northeast carefully, comparing it to our Sacramento experiences. Seems like heading east too early means a repeat of some of the foul weather we traveled in getting west in December.

Admiral Fox does have her snow boots with her, but says if she has to don them, there will be trouble.

I believe her.

Sun is up, waiting for the highway to clear...

FAIRFIELD INN, Tehachapi, California - One of the benefits of being stuck here in Tehachapi has been that I finally can spell the name of this small burg.

Tehachapi in summer, much nicer

Others are that the highway is still closed which means we are sitting in a cozy hotel, breakfast is just being served and we didn't sit alongside the road all night in a snowdrift.

Or worse.

Adm. Fox and I will head out when Highway 58 opens and make our way down the mountain, then north to San Francisco and Sacramento where it has been cold, but the likelihood of 100 mph wind gusts and black ice is considerably less.

Considerably!

Black ice, tractor-trailers and a guardian angel helps out

FAIRFIELD INN, Tehachapi, California - Admiral Sylvia Fox and I were breezing along in our Prius on California Highway 58, crossing through the Tehachapi Mountains on our way from Flagstaff to San Francisco, when we ran into a weather phenomenon I haven't seen in years.

A snow whiteout.

10 minutes before the whiteout

We were driving about 15 miles per hour and within a few miles of the summit in blowing snow when suddenly the tractor trailer 100 feet in front of us disappeared in the snowstorm.

Disappeared.

And when I glanced in my rear-view mirror, the tractor trailer who was tailgating us disappeared also.

We will get back to that tailgating in a minute.

In maybe 15-20 seconds, the visibility cleared slightly, then lifted more, revealing a freeway littered with cars that had probably slammed on their brakes when the visibility went to zero.

And they were on black ice.

I am sure about that black ice because as soon as I saw the cars in the ditch, cars off the side of the road, cars in the median and lots of people with totally stunned looks on their faces, I gently tapped my brakes to avoid colliding with the semi in front which was shuddering to a stop.

We did a really neat skid, but stayed straight. And I thanked all those years of skidding and sliding in upstate New York growing up.

Then I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that the semi behind me - the one tailgating, remember? - had gone into a locked-wheel skid and his trailer was starting to pass him, very slowly, but definitely swinging around.

I don't think I would have been more terrified to see a platoon of zombies from World War Z closing in.

I didn't mention this little problem to Adm. Fox who was marveling at all the people in their cars and commenting on how fast some people were still driving.

But the guardian angel who travels with me most days decided to goose the semi in front of us just enough forward  so I could give our Prius gas to keep the semi behind from turning us into a Prius pancake.

It was close, but we proceeded on the black ice, making between 5-10 mph between skids.

We got off at the Tehachapi exit just as the California Highway Patrol was closing the highway's west bound land, a sure sign that things were unraveling. Within a half-hour they closed highway completely.

And as I write this, we are ensconced in a comfortable suite at the Fairfield Inn with quite a few other pilgrims who decided that with the sun going down and snow blowing hard a warm bed and cold wine was good alternative to black ice and cars in the ditch.

Pool at the Fairfield Inn

Oh! And this Fairfield Inn has a nice Jacuzzi and swimming pool which we have already tested out.

And the wine is chilling in the ice bucket.

Snowstorm slows progress towards California...

SANTA FE, New Mexico - Admiral Fox and I spent a great afternoon and evening in Santa Fe, New Mexico capped by an excellent dinner at a restaurant called The Shed with amigos Randy and Karin, California transplants who own a fabulous casa near a Santa Fe college.

We are getting to know their casa well as we wait out a raging snowstorm that has snarled traffic on the interstate highways.

Just like upstate New York

Today we expected to arrive in Flagstaff, Arizona this afternoon.

But given that it is snowing horizontally and the snow is supposed to continue into the night, Randy and Karin have put out the welcome mat.

Santa Fe is a very interesting town with museums, artists, and restaurants of all shapes and sizes. You could drop a lot of money here - pretty fast - on some beautiful handmade items.

Seeing the city covered in a mantle of snow is apparently a rare thing. We hope that mantle lifts by morning

From Whole Foods to Whole Foods across the USA

TULSA, Oklahoma - Admiral Fox and I seem to be traveling on this trip from Whole Foods to Whole Foods, Trader Joes to Trader Joes.

It's pretty healthy, except for the wine.

But we continue our quest west in a few moments, landing tonight in Amarillo, Texas before soldiering on Wednesday to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

There is a hellacious snowstorm ahead of us, which we think we will use age and treachery to outwit.

If not, well, we will try to get stuck in a hotel near a Whole Foods and across the street from a Trader Joes.

More from Amarillo tonight, depending on what time cocktail hour starts.

Heading for Sullivan, Missouri; gasoline costs $2.98 a gallon

ON I44 West of St. Louis - Adm. Fox and are are 974 miles from Santa Fe, New Mexico, our first stop (well, stop with friends) on our sojourn from Watkins Glen to California.

We rolled out early this morning, discovered that the complimentary breakfast at our Best Western was unlikely to be complementary to our digestive systems and so left immediately to cross Ohio, Illinois and now Missouri.

The sun is out here at 5:30 p.m., temperature a balmy 60 degrees.

Yup, northeast amigos, that was not a typo - 60 degrees.

For mileage afficionados, the Prius is getting more than 50 mpg and seems to like going 75 mph, particularly if there are no state troopers nearby.

We are looking forward to touching down somewhere east of Springfield, Missouri in an hour or two. We bought a few bottles of wine at Trader Joe's today so we can save  all the NY wines we brought to share with California amigos.