Why I Hunt

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Reagan Doe 1st hunt 12-7-18

Reagan proudly displaying “her” deer. She loves when I cook venison and can’t wait to taste her deer!

One of the questions I get most often about hunting is why I do it.  We have grocery stores where you can go buy beef, pork, chicken, seafood, and at the right stores, even venison for relatively affordable prices.  The meat is high quality, clean, and readily available.  So why do I layer on clothes, hike miles through rough terrain, and sit hours in the cold, at times wet, wilderness waiting for a deer to happen buy so I can shoot it?

The simple and yet incredibly complicated answer is it’s a part of who I am. Continue reading →

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A Special Thank You…

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Dirt Road 2 v2

I would like to take a moment to say thank you to someone who has shown me unconditional love and support from the moment we started dating nearly 13 years ago.  Without my wife, Courtney, and her steadfast faith in my dream there’s no way I would have seen that dream realized today as I start the first day of my new career as a full-time author.  Continue reading →

Endings and Beginnings

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Home

Today marks the end of my career in property restoration.  I find myself struck with a mixture of emotions, some of them quite unexpected.  I never planned for my life’s career, my life’s work, to consist of my time in property restoration.  I have always wanted to be an author, and I am now getting the chance to explore that career full time for the first time in my life. Continue reading →

Some Q & A

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still-life-678447_640

One of the coolest aspects of being a self-published author is the direct contact I have with my audience. Some readers are family members and friends that I’ve known for years, but many are people I have never met personally who have picked up a copy of my books through Amazon and have left feedback in the form of a review, a comment here on my website, or one of the various social media platforms on which I am active. And since I just released the third installment in the Blackout Series, Zero Hour, I thought this might be a good time to address a few of the more common questions I get from readers about the books and the series in general. Continue reading →

UPDATE: Zero Hour: Blackout Vol. 3

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Candidate 1 Final Vers 1 pic

 

I have some very good news for my readers who have been patiently (for the most part) waiting for Zero Hour, the 3rd installment my Blackout series. The editing is almost complete, and the cover design is coming along nicely as well. The manuscript has been through multiple round of editing at this point, and it is in the final stages of proofing. This is the last major step needed before it will be ready for publication!! Continue reading →

A Grateful Heart

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christmas-tree

For most of us, Christmas is over by now. The presents have all been unwrapped, the stockings have been emptied, and now we face the task of returning to the day-to-day routine that, for a brief time every year, gets suspended in lieu of the holiday season. Many of us, myself included, have returned to our day jobs, albeit reluctantly, and soon the kids will be returning to school. It’s sad how fast the spirit of love and generosity that is at the heart of the Christmas season fades into the background as daily life begins once again to take over our thoughts and our conscience. But before that warm fuzziness of Christmas gives way to the cold reality of going to work before sunrise in January, I want to take a minute to talk about the difference between “thankful” and “grateful.” Continue reading →

Happy Cyber Monday

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happy-kids-computer

I am not a person who typically enjoys being in a large crowd.  There are, of course, exceptions to that rule, but they are few and far between.  I can tolerate large audiences outside at events like concerts, fairs, or the occasional NC State football game, but a lot of that tolerance is dependent on who I’m enjoying these events and venues with.  One crowd that I absolutely refuse to throw myself into is the so-called “Black Friday” shopping craze.  Continue reading →

Nov. 9th, 1989

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bw8

I sat in my grandparents’ family room, my eyes glued to the television. There were crowds gathered at the base of a concrete wall covered with graffiti in a language I couldn’t read. Camera flashes were going off so much that it looked like the worst lightning storm in the earth’s history. The peoples’ breath fogged in the cold air as they sang songs, wept, and hugged each other.

Some of the men swung sledge hammers, the heavy metal heads bouncing off the concrete face and sending chips flying in all directions. The people around them scrambled on the ground and scooped up fragments and chips wherever they landed. Whenever one of the bw6men grew weary, his arms too heavy to lift the mallet, another stepped in to take his place.

The hammers never stopped swinging.

Continue reading →