I had withdrawn in forest, and my song

Was swallowed up in leaves that blew away;

And to the forest edge you came one day

(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,

But did not enter, though the wish was strong:

You shook your pensive head as who should say,

‘I dare not—too far in his footsteps stray—

He must seek me would he undo the wrong.

--From "A Dream Pang" by Robert Frost

A poem of missed opportunity. What opportunities will you miss in 2026? Let me advise you not to miss the opportunity to get Accidental Pirates, because you're gonna love the sequel. I had planned to write the final words of the sequel today, but an unseen specter crept upon me and seized me, enveloping me in a persistent chill and throbbing head. As a result, I was utterly unable to channel thought through keyboard yesterday, lolling in a chair like a clump of congealed oatmeal in my incapacity until I crawled to bed at 8pm. I'll write some today, but I won't finish it.

If you would like to see what I published in 2025, check out my list with links.

In podcasts, I've been listening to the "Mexican Game of Thrones" from Frontier Partisan on Podbean. The rise of Pancho Villa is an interesting story. Because Podbean often gives me problems, like stopping for no reason, I also dip into Dan Snow's History Hit podcasts on Prime.

In music, I've taken a dive into a life-long favorite: ELO. I hate the way Prime Music continues to make itself less functional and user-friendly; it sometimes won't show me albums I own, or somehow thinks I don't own all the songs on the album I purchased. I have to put all the songs from an album into a playlist as the only way to guarantee availability. Anyway, I was coming to the point of saying that I've put some ELO favorites into an ELO only playlist. I have a penchant for Time and Balance of Power.

On the reading front, I recently finished Lectures on Faith. I have read it a couple times before, but I think I got more from it this time. I'm still reading Saberhagen's Ardneh's Sword,but I did need to clear the palate before I can finish it, and so switched to Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Sword--which I think may be the least exciting of all the Sharpe books; of course, I didn't remember that when I started it. Really, it is tough to get excited about Sharpe waiting and searching and being wounded and put in the death house to languish and die -- of course he doesn't die, but wound descriptions and the healing process, broken only by Harper making a new sword, does not a gripping story make. Sure, it's going to get more exciting, and the Sharpe/Harper friendship remains a critical factor in the story. I'm whining about the fact that the midpoint of the book drags on while Sharpe heals and the army marches and countermarches off-stage. We'll eventually get to the Battle of Salamanca and I'm sure that will be full the action and adventure I'm expecting, as well as some resolution to the intrigues in Salamanca. Hey, if I couldn't complain about better authors than me, who could I complain about?

History Bit:

After De Soto's Spaniards took the natives from the lake--following the Indians' plan to get De Soto alone and kill or capture him, but De Soto, being forewarned, turned the tables on the natives--taking as many as 300 prisoners, the common Indians were divided up to be slaves to the soldiers. However, De Soto wished to persuade the chiefs to be friendly with him, and had them released from their chains. The chiefs, perhaps upset at seeing their defensive backs and linemen as slaves, refused to make nice. One of them raised his arms in a gesture used by the Indians when about to engage in a feat of strength and leaped over the intervening ground and obstacles to attack De Soto, striking him in the face. The blow sent the Spaniard and the chair in which he was seated bowling over backward and rendered him unconscious. Naturally, the Spaniards threw a flag on the play, skewering the chief with their swords and ejecting him from mortality. The remaining prisoners seized the moment to challenge the call, grabbing whatever objects they could get to attempt to kill the Spaniard nearest them. This, naturally, led to the sportsman-like Spaniards returning the favor. Only the youngest of the slaves who had rebelled were spared. Several Spaniards had been killed. De Soto was out for half an hour and two of his teeth had been knocked out. One rumor goes that he later complained to the refs that he never signed up for a hockey game. -- The serious parts of this History Bit were summarized from chapter 4 of Charles Hudson's Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun.

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"When you meet negative energy with negative energy, it's just going to fan the flames. The smartest plan is always to de-escalate a situation." -- Oz Pearlman, Read Your Mind.