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Tales from the Crosstimbers is now open for submissions for the Spring 2026 Edition! We especially encourage members from Writing.Com to submit and have a special by-invitation-only link for WDC authors only. To access the form, click on the link below. If prompted for a password, it is SECRET (all caps).   Feel free to share this link with other WDC authors, but please do NOT share outside of WDC. We will remain open for submissions through January 15, 2026. For author guidelines, please see https://thecrosstimbers.net/author-guidelines/ |
| I've put a guestbook in my port at "Max's Guestbook" . I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to drop in and leave me a note. Any topic is fair game, but do try to be polite and be mindful that this is public and rated "E." I'm interested in 1--> learning about you; 2--> learning about something you've done or want to do; 3--> learning what you want to know (i.e., ask a question); 4--> learning what you know (i.e., answer a question). 5--> I'm also interested if you're just saying "hello;" or 6--> learning anything anything else you have to tell me. |
| That's cool. I have a guest book too |
Reply| Thanks to the person who nominated my newsletter "For Authors Newsletter (November 19, 2025)" for a Quill. I really appreciate it. Writing newsletters takes time away from writing fiction, which is why I'm here, after all, so positive feedback on the newsletters means a lot. Thank you. |
| I'm getting ready for the open call for the Spring 26 issue of Tales from the Crosstimbers. Spent this morning drafting the cover. How's it look? The open call will run from Dec 1, 2025 through January 15, 2026. |
Max Griffin 🏳️🌈  - I always seem to be late to the party. Is information about your activity posted someplace? |
We're having dinner tonight with some writing friends. They are fixing the main course. My job is to bring the dessert. I made a French silk pie. If you don't already know, that's a conventional pie crust, pre-baked, filled with chocolate mousse, and topped with whipped cream and chocolate curls. The chocolate curls turned out kind of inconsistent, but they still taste good.  |
| Dear Max, Thanks a lot for your consent. And I bless you with continued good health. Here is a story for children. Your feedback will be most welcome. Best Regards, Debanjan *** The Innocent Thief 7:30 am. New Delhi. A lazy autumn Saturday. The alarm was ringing, but a groggy-eyed Soniya wanted to sleep more. Mom, Reetu’s voice broke in, “Get up, darling! Today I’ll prepare ‘Mixed Chow Mein.’ You won’t like it cold.” The moment she heard the word ‘Chow Mein,’ she sat bolt upright on her bed. For the sake of this dish, Soniya was prepared to do anything! Soon, the sounds in the hallway told her that her parents had gone out for their morning walk. Yes! This was the time for a quick pre-breakfast snack. Yesterday, Sonia’s Dubai uncle sent a big hamper of chocolates for her birthday on Monday. But she didn’t have the patience to wait for two full days. So, the next few minutes found her going to the fridge and pulling out the big chocolate hamper from the deep freezer. Oh No! Her elbow had upset a bottle from the side rack. As the plastic bottle fell with a thud, its cap got loose, and water began spilling out. The quick-witted Sonia swooped in like an eagle and picked it up in a trice. Thank God! Not much water had spilled out. The girl quickly wiped the floor dry with a sponge, re-filled the bottle and placed it back. She could hear voices in the passageway. Her parents had returned. Her heart was palpitating! The chocolates could wait. But why was Reetu smiling as she came near her girl? “Darling, why did you raid the fridge again?” “But mom, I didn’t have anything to do with it.” “Then why is the edge of your pyjamas wet?” Sonia, in her hurry, had forgotten to change her pyjamas. Its bottom was still wet, which had not escaped the sharp-eyed Reetu. Alas. The chocolate thief was caught even before the theft could occur! *** |
Made Bordelaise Sauce for the first time tonight, for Mr. Gene's KC strip steak. I used sous vide to cook the steak, seared it in a skillet (to get the fond), then made the sauce. I sneaked a taste and it turned out pretty good--at least he liked it. It turned out to also be be pretty easy. Not the best pic--I made the potato salad earlier this week.  |
| Nice!!! Looks delicious. My favorite thing about Julia Childs' The Art of French Cooking book is how most French sauces are not actually THAT complicated. You just have to be precise about the recipe. (My second favorite is the casual way she tells you that you can sub in dry vermouth for white cooking wine in a pinch, a thing that has saved my bacon multiple times.) |
Raven  - Delicious? It looks amazing! We use bechamel sauce somewhat often, but I'm still looking forward to making sous vide sometime. |
I got a new watch today--a Samsung Galaxy 8 Ultra. At 47mm, it's pretty big on my pencil-like wrist, but it's got super cool features. Now I just need to figure out how to use them all...  |
Chilly Charles 🎄  - It links with my phone and uses the same number. I can make calls with it even if I leave my phone at home. It will monitor my sleep and other health indicators. I can use it to pay at the checkout lane--like you can use your phone, but all I have to do is tap it--no need to pull my phone out, pull up the wallet, etc. It'll do lots more...I'm still learning... |
| I vaguely recall a thread a while back about displaying the current date in a WDC page. I don't recall if anyone gave an entirely satisfactory answer to that question, but it dawned on me that it certainly IS possible on a WDC web page. See "Date and Time Web Page" This page displays the current date by accessing the clock on your system (which your browser accesses by default.) So, if you happen live in Perth Australia, for example, you might see a different date than I see in Tulsa, Oklahoma, since Perth is about 14 hours ahead of me (when it's noon here, it's 2AM the next day in Perth). Unfortunately, you can't insert this page into, say, a survey and get anything useful. Using the insert tag just copies the HTML in the time page into the survey form, which treats it as text, not as HTML. In other words, you get jibber-jabber HTML in your page, not the nicely formatted date. The embed tag thinks it's a YouTube video and tries--unsuccessfully--to play it. If anyone is interested in the (simple) HTML and javascript that does this, let me know, but it looks more or less useless to me. I've updated this to show local time as well as the date...not that it matters much. |
Actually, I was the one who tagged you in that thread. Brandiwyn🎶  wss the person asking. But she wanted WdC time to display, which I was able to do in a webpage also, but it's not possible to put it in a static item I realized. You recommended embedding a YouTube video that shows current eastern time which was smart, and much easier, lol. |
Doodling tonight with images. This is the object that Arlo and Manda Sue recover in "Three Moons Over Calydon" . The image links to the story where you can learn the significance of the phrase engraved on the side.  |
Well, my stupid SciFi story is finally done. It's long, and the ending is pretty sappy, but at least it's done.
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| Well, I'd hoped to finish my Jase and the Arlo-nauts story today, and I have added 2000 words, but it's *still* not done. I think it'll come in under 6000 words (it's at 3800 at the moment), but it's the story that just keeps growing. I've got a set of fraternal twins (same mother, different fathers) who tend to chain-talk, completing each other's thoughts. An annoying habit, and it makes things longer, but adding them to the Arlo-nauts is the whole reason for the story... |
| I just discovered this amazing bit of freeware. When I use my laptop, I'm *constantly" frustrated by the touchpad--my palm brushes against it, or I breathe heavy, or a crumb dribbles on it, and POOF! It selects and deletes massive amounts of text. These "ghost strokes" make using my laptop for composing impossible and infinitely frustrating. Until now. I found this freeware called "touchfreeze." Basically, it senses when you are typing and disables the touchpad. I've typed this ENTIRE NOTE without a single glitch. When you stop typing, the touchpad works fine. It just doesn't have a mind of its own and randomly select/delete stuff. If you want to try it, it's on Gethub or MajorGeeks: https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/touchfreeze.html *BEWARE* of downloading from non-trusted sites, as there is malware out there masquerading as useful programs like touchfreeze. If you're unsure, use your antivirus (you've got antivirus, right?) to scan any download. But touchfreeze is awesome. |
| Chilly Charles 🎄 - Yes indeed! I still play, as a matter of fact. (I copped to knitting on a different thread. WdC is learning all my secret Other Hobbies...) But I also learned to type on a manual typewriter, which I think made me both learn to keep my wrists up, and made me hit the keys somewhat harder than most people who learned to type on a computer keyboard. (And my mother insisting I type the alphabet on that thing, over and over again until I could do it without looking at my fingers, made me a dang fast typist. You don't need Mavis Beacon, kids! Just a typewriter with a sketchy ! key and a dream.) |
Soldier_Mike  - I have similar issues with features like selecting text, copying/pasting, etc. I have even worse difficulties trying to do any kind of writing & typing on this phone, and I detest the little, blue teardrop that pops over the top of where I'm trying to type after I use a formatting feature like 'indent.' |
| This morning I wrote 1500 words of a new Jase and the Arlo-nauts story set on the planet Hopeulikit. Manda Sue gets kidnapped, and two new Arlo-nauts, fraternal twins Cas and Perce, get added to the team and help rescue her. It mostly happens at the Mechanikerstadt Handelsschule—Mechanicsville Trade School--on the continent Ostland. Story is about half done...but I'm drained for the day...will finish tomorrow.  |
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I did mess around with html in a webpage... I may mess around with it one of these days to make my portfolio all nice and organized 
