Happy Hurricane Day!

It’s here! We’ve been waiting all week for this! The Hurricane Irene has touched down on Old orchard Beach! YAY!

Nothing better than aqua jogging on the beach, during a hurricane Had to cut my daily 2 miles down to a 1/4 mile though the waves were getting taller than me and the wind got to the point I couldn’t walk against them any more. Happily I’m not the only insane person on the beach today – it’s as busy as July 4th down there – only instead of swimming every one is down there video taping the storm! LOL!

Oh and if you are really, really really crazy, the Brunswick Hotel (Old Orchard Beach, Maine) is hosting a Hurricane Party on the beach tonight at high tide – 11:11PM…

Weird – half the businesses are boarded up and stacked with sand bags, while the rest are hosting beach parties. Half the town is evacuated and the rest of us are standing on the beach going “Oooooh look at that wave going over that house…”

There’s a lot of people gathered around “The Hurricane House” this is the first hurricane since they built it…it’s some sort of high tech revolutionary hurricane proof house, the theory being that even if the ocean lifts it off it’s foundation and tosses it out to sea, it will remain intact. There’s a crowd of people gathered praying the flood waters will go high enough to drag the house off it’s foundation, just to see if it falls apart or not.

Watching nature at it’s worst. This is better than going to the movies. We must be the coastal versions of Tornado chasers.

THIS is how I got the nickname “The Sea Witch of Old Orchard Beach”…In 20 years I’ve never missed standing on the shore during a hurricane.

And uhm… the police are on stand by with body bags…that’s always encouraging… LOL!

Did I ever mention my favorite weather is hurricanes?

No kites down there tonight – I think the wind would shread them in an instant! it’s going over 70MPH right now.

Hurricanes – the whole reason I live on a beach

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

Quick One Minute Review: POTC 3

Just back from Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 with my three brothers. Super cool.

Johnny Depp is great, as is Johnny Depp, and so was Johnny Depp, and ohhh look there’s Johnny Depp over here and another Johnny Depp over there…. how many Johnny Depps can you count? LOL! Funny!

Best scene:
The Black Pearl cruising full speed and full sail across the desert sand dunes. Amazing!

Most amazing special effects:
The decent into the maelstrom! Awesome action packed scene!

Should win an award for:
Best movie wedding in history!

Shocker:
Crazed fan girls beware: DEATH ALERT; one of your fave pirates doesn’t make it to the end of the movie!

Best quote:
“Nobody move! I dropped my brain!” ~ Jack Sparrow or was that Jack Sparrow… oh wait, no, it was Jack Sparrow.

Insider advice to those who have yet to see it:
Stay until the VERY END… stay in your seat, and watch the words go by. AFTER the words go by, watch for a surprise “second” ending.
If you already watched it, and you didn’t stay to see what happens after the words go by… than you missed a very important part of the movie: YOU MUST GO BACK AND WATCH THE MOVIE AGAIN!

Ultimate question:
This movie didn’t actually “end”; like the ending of POTC 2, it ends with what appears to be the beginning of a POTC 4. Well there be a POTC 4? Has anyone heard?

See more progress on: Watch Pirates of the Caribbean “At World’s End”

Business Plans: Moonsnails Magazine: We’re Back!

In fall of 2005 Twighlight Manor Press announced that it was planning the release of a new magazine, which at that point was untitled and it‘s genre unknown. Our original idea was to keep it local; local writers, local sales, local flavor to the stories. Market research, however showed us that that would be a very unprofitable venture that would doom our magazine to failure before it’s fifth issue. We had to rethink out plan.

Over the next several weeks we threw around ideas and finally decided that the magazine would be a fiction “literary journal”. At first we planned on “all good fiction”, but than after studying the market, realized that this was virtually a bottomless pit, that would result in more manuscript submissions than our tiny staff of four would be able to handle.

Another thing we decided early on, was that, we wanted to stand out on bookstore shelves. Looking at other magazines sold at a local bookstore, Nonesuch Books in Saco, I discovered something. Rack upon rack of magazines, where all the same: 8×11” glossy and flimsy issues, that would not stand the test of time on a bookshelf, given them a shelf life of just 3 weeks. (This short shelf life was according to a study I found online.) According to that study, only a few magazines would be shelved and saved to be read again and again for several years. These magazines had good content and a sturdy binding. I went to Nonesuch Books looking for magazines with good content and study bindings, and was amazed at how few there actually were. In the end I found only three, out of the hundreds of magazines the shop had on the racks. By the end of this stage in our study we came to one conclusion: this magazine, was NOT going to be a 8×11” glossy; instead it would read like a book, with crisp white paper and a square bound “paperback” cover.

After some more market studies, we came to the conclusion that rather than focusing on fiction in general, we would instead use the same rule we use for writing: Write what you know. In our case it would translate into: Publish what you read. All four of us are sci-fi buffs. Sci-fi movies, sci-fi TV, sci-fi comics, sci-fi books… well it seemed only natural that we would thus choose sci-fi as the genre for the new magazine.

By January of 2006 we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do with the magazine. On Space Dock 13 (the website) we announced that the magazine was a defiant go, and we were planning it’s release later that year.

With our genre in mind, we set out the name our new magazine. After several weeks of debate, only one thing was agreed upon: that the magazine must have a sci-fi sounding name and that it should reflect our local home base, namely that we are on the world’s most beautiful beach: Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

In April 2006 we introduced the world to two new websites. The first was the message board for writers: A Writer’s Desk. It was our hope that through here we would find new talent seeking to be published in our magazine. A message board built entirely to promote the magazine, today it stands on it’s own and has no connection to the magazine at all.

Our second Website was of course the homepage for our magazine. We had finally decided on a name, and that name was: Moonsnails. After a walk to the beach that cold April, me and my three brothers returned home with tote bags filled with Old Orchard’s most beloved seashell: the Atlantic Moonsnail. Later that day, while sorting the shells on the lawn, it hit me: Moonsnails was the perfect name for our magazine, it kept the local flavor and it sounded sci-fi. Later that week Moonsnails homepage went online.

By the end of April 2006 we were getting quotes from various printers, both local and online. Announcement went out with the news that Moonsnails would see its public release in September of 2006. We were off and running, and than came May 9, 2006 and the flood that washed away all of our plans, destroying everything we owned and bringing Twighlight Manor Press to an instant standstill. We lost everything, the building was condemned, and nothing survived. As far as the business was concerned, we were back at ground zero.

That same day, as a result of the flood, my dad went into a coma. In July of 2006, my dad awoke from the coma and returned home disabled and in my care. In September of 2006, instead of releasing Moonsnails, we found ourselves in the midst of fight to save our land from a local land shark. The result was my dad’s return to the hospital. In October of 2006, a fire swept through. What little we had that survived the flood, was destroyed in the fire and we were faced with fighting out Maine’s frigid winter in a tent, a fate that did not sick well with my disabled dad’s rapidly failing health.

In January of 2007, things took a turn once again, this time in our favor, and we found our selves with electricity, heat, and a roof over our heads, for the first time since May 9, 2006.

Reunited with my computer, I was amazed to find, that in spite of the flood, in spite of the fire, the hard drive remained intact, and with a few minor repairs, it runs as good as new. It looks like hell, a bent mangled mess, but who cares, all my files are still here! All my plans and templates, all those months of research and market studies: they had survived! With that knowledge in hand I set out to pick up the pieces, and once again, plans are underway, full speed ahead, to bring Moonsnails into production.

And that brings us to today. Nether flood, nor fire, nor cold of winter, could stop Moonsnails. Moonsnails rises once again.

~EK

Spring In Maine

It’s a nice warm spring day in April in Maine. I bet you can tell, that is if you can see through the driving snow outside your window. Yep, it’s April, and right on schedual is our annual snowstorm. Jim Thomas and Ken Shoop must be ripping their hair out right now.  More snow mean longer snow on the ground and a longer time we got to stop them from stealing the Goldeneagle (my 1964 Dodge 330 which they have said must be junked as soon as the snow melts, otherwise the town of Old Orchard Beach well fine us $2,500 a day for each day we refuse to remove it.)

For those of you who do not know The Goldeneagle is the heart and soul of The Twighlight Manor series. If not for this car, none of the books would ever have been written. Back in 1978 when the first volum was written their were 4 characters: EelKat, Sir Roderic, Emporer Blue, and Captain Goldeneagle a.k.a Etiole. Captain Goldeneagle was the character based on this car, the character that would go on to be the most celebrated and most contraversal of the entire series: Etiole. The car itself has been featured again and again thoughout the series. It is an icon with fans of the series. An icon who is now threatened on the latest method of harassment that Jim Thomas and Ken Shoop have brought down on our family. (and ours is not the first they have done this to, they have a long history of doing this!)

First they put my dad in the hospital in a coma.

Than they force us to live in a tent during Maine’s sub-zero winter.

Than they threaten our pets.

Now they threaten my car.

And I continue to wonder: when well this end? When well someone put a stop to this man’s reign of terror? Why does everyone turn a blind eye to what they are doing?

~~EK

Communist blacklist, Communism in America, the communist town of Old Orchard Beach, Jim Thomas the Communist, Will Watson the Communist, down with Communism, fight for your rights, make America the land of the free again, 1964 Dodge 330, angry, animal rights, animal welfare, animals, anti-elder abuse, antiquies, author’s rights, authors, bantams, belief, beliefs, Biddeford, birds, cats, chickens, Christ, Christianity, church corruption, conspiracy, corrupt leaders, corruption, crime, criminal, criminals, cruel, cruelty, danger, disabled, discrimination, dogs, evil, evil men, faith, Family, farm animals, farm life, fear, Garden by the Sea, geography, God, government, government crime, harasment, harassment, hell, help wanted, Holiness, Holy Spirit, humans, in need of help, Jesus, LDS, lies, Life, life blogging, local government, Maineland, Mormons, my thoughts on…, news, ocean, ocean life, Old Orchard, police, police corruption, police threats, politics, Relationships, religon, seniors, sin, sinner, sinners, social change, stamp collecting, stamps, stealing, Stolen House, stolen items, strange but true, strangers, tent, terror, terrorism, terrorists, Theology, theology beliefs, thief, thieves, thoughts, threats, town hall, Town of Old Orchard, vandelism, vandels, villain, war, weather, Winter, World, writer, writer’s rights, writers, York county

testing tags

having a problem getting posts to show up… testing to see if tags are working yet

Unusual sea creature…

I just saw this picture on another blog:

Under The Sea

Feb 23rd, 2007 by sparky23

[...  The picture at the top of this post is of a creature (one of many bizarre and odd beasts) that washed up after the tsunami in Southeast Asia in December of 2004. Its alien strangeness reminds us of the natural possibilities…  ...]

Does anyone have an info about this creature? Perhaps someone knows of any articles about it? if so please post a link to them in my comments, I’d love to find out more about this. Thanks!

~EK

Life in Maine

First we were snowed in, and now this….

Maine had 2 blizzards back to back—we got a total of 102 in….I’ve spent 2 months with no sunlight because the snow went over the tops of our windows….in places where it drifted it went over the roof…

The past 3 days it warmed up and has rained non-stop. The combination of 102 inches of snow being melted by heavy rain has resulted in massive flooding. The bridge on our road has washed out, and the bridges on the 2 roads crossing ours have washed out too, leaving only one road open.

Maine…The way life should be????