Marie's Book Finished

Well, we finished up Marie's book and I think it turned out very well. As I promised here is a link. The finished title is "Ghost Stories and Legends of Murphy, NC" and it is available on CreateSpace and Amazon. If you like ghost stories and legends this book is a must read.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1517725313?keywords=marie%20ault&qid=1445275118&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

Have a look, download it for free if you are a Kindle Prime user!

Ghost and History Walk

I helped my daughter get some photos for a book she is doing about the Legends and Ghosts of Murphy. Four hours of walking around and taking pictures of various places and things in town that are involved with the stories she has collected. It should be great! I will post a link as soon as she gets it together and we publish on CreateSpace.

The book is in support of a Ghost and History walk we are trying to pull together for October and November for the Wherehouse of Murphy, come on by and sign up!

Got my Book Back

My contract with Black Rose Writing has run out and I received the rights to the book back. They also allowed me to purchase the files, cover art and such cleansed of their logos. This made republishing the book under CreatSpace a snap and the book was re-published as a second edition in less than 3 days.

My biggest issue with Black Rose Writing was the price point they placed on my book. "Prelude to Darkness" is a 250 page book and they placed a $17.95 price on it. People just will not buy that expensive a book unless it is in the 300-400 page or longer range. I put the book up for a price point of $9.99 which could have been less except it would have generated negative returns in some of the expanded markets.

http://www.amazon.com/Prelude-Darkness-World-Book/dp/1517179564/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1441555370&sr=1-2-catcorr&keywords=Prelude+to+Darkness+Ault&pebp=1441555379580&perid=06E4AR6BTSQTFY6D5974

Anyway I hope that people will find the book more accessible at this new price point.

I am attending the New York Pitch conference this month and hope to sell my new book "The Suppressors" about the premise that magic is and always has been real but a group known as the Dark Adepts has been suppressing it using suppressor portals, but what happens when their network begins to break down allowing wild magic? I also have book three of my Rex Franklin series with Rex installing a tsunami warning network in the Turks and Caicos and getting pulled into a search for lost Spanish emeralds  just about ready if they allow you to pitch more than one maybe I will pull it out as well!

I will be traveling to Ft Worth, New York, Raleigh, Orlando, Cannes France and then going on a cruise all before Thanksgiving. Something tells me I will be ready for the holiday downtime.

Heading Home

Well, this is my last day away from home. I've been on the road to SNIA-DSI conference, Oracle Collaborate Conference and vacation. It will be good to get back home. I really enjoyed fishing with my father and brother even if we didn't catch our limit. I am also seriously looking into the gasifier I got a chance to see in action for the Wherehouse in Murphy, both to offset energy costs and to sell.

Stopped by the kids place in Kingston Georgia, work is progressing nicely and they should be able to move in soon. We will take Susan's Mom  out for lunch today then head on up to home.

I plan on concentrating on getting the 12c cluster up and running next week. Of course Open World, EDGE and another SNIA event are coming up as well as trips to the Midwest and New York as well as California. Of well, travel so fast old age can't catch ya I guess!

This Week

Just finished attending SNIA-DSI conference in Santa Clara, California. Next week it is off to IOUG Collaborate 2015 in Las Vegas. So a busy time. I was able to attend several presentations about flash, testing and futures. I also was able to visit Calypso who makes a great testing platform for SSDs and flash, if you have SSDs or flash to test, I suggest you look them up(https://calypsotesters.com/).

I presented to day on implementing IDC testing guidelines using VDBench. Unfortunately since I was in the last time slot on the last day I only had a few attendees but they asked many questions and seemed to enjoy the presentation.

Tomorrow evening I am attending an open house at All Power Labs (http://www.allpowerlabs.com/) who knows, if I like what I see I may contact a unit for my retirement home. They manufacture a 20 KW biomass fueled gasifier that power a generator. I looked at a 15-20KW solar option but it is very pricey at $80k (with batteries).

Well, that is about all for now.

Progress...Sort of!

Well it has been a while since my last post, I have been working with the components of my RAC setup and got the passwords for the servers, and the HP SanSwitch, plugged in the SFPs/GBICs and have been battling with the switch ever since. Indications are that the switch is malfunctioning. When I run a minicycle command it tells me the switch is faulted but I can’t find the component that is causing the fault indication. It appears the actual port controller may be bad. Anyway, for $90 bucks I will toss it and get a new 4gb IBM switch for $140 with a 8 port license. Hopefully I will get the switch Monday and then I will finally get to see if the 5TB MediaVault storage system is working.

Once I get everything working I will look into going over to Oracle Linux on the servers and then load up Oracle12C. I will continue to report on my progress.

I attended IBM Interconnect and a writing conference since my last post. I have also finished the first draft of my next fiction book “The Suppressors” and contributed 2 chapters to a new Oracle trouble shooting book. Of course I have also been traveling with the job and staying busy at Sunset Cove. I helped my oldest daughter put in some raised beds for growing plants (well, we started anyway!).

I also am very happy to say my fifth grandchild, Evelyn Joy Bojczuk, was born 3/21/2015 at 1:25 in the morning. 6 pounds and 13 ounces and 19.5 inches long. Mother and baby are perfect.

Getting ready to head over to Raleigh to do some webcast recordings and week after next off to SNIA in Santa Clara and then EDGE in Las Vegas. After that it is a week fishing with my Father and Brother. Meanwhile my property manager will be cleaning up the storm and snow damage at Sunset Cove and will be preparing the upper and lower gardens for planting. The Asian pears, apple and pear trees are all blossoming and spring is finally here!