Like may Texans, I have a vaguely negative feeling about Oklahoma. It seems like it's all tornados, bitter cold, ultra hot, dry and poor. Now, those stereotypes aren't all wrong, but they're not all right, either. We had a beautiful drive up to Oklahoma City yesterday. I saw big turkey vultures, red-tailed and coopers hawks, flycatchers, dozens of mockingbirds, and lots of crows. The countryside is bright green and we had a complete cloudburst this morning--with not a tornado in sight.

Unfortunately, my bridge magic wasn't as beautiful as the countryside. I blew one hand, going down one on a cold slam that my partner had bid and most of the tables missed. Other than that, it was hard to see too much we did wrong but our percentage was miserable. This afternoon, we're playing in a knock-out with a couple of guys with thousands of masterpoints. I hope I'll be more on than I was last night.

I'm reading THE RENEGADES by T. Jefferson Parker. I discovered Parker maybe eight years ago on an airline flight to Europe--I started one of his books (maybe The Blue Hour) at the beginning of the flight and kept reading until I was done. Powerful. RENEGADES is definitely grabbing my interest so far.

I'm going to make STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL by Karen Leabo the www.BooksForABuck.com book of the day. He was her great love--until he vanished and married someone else. Now he's back--and Lauren Fitzhugh wants nothing to do with him. Sexy and fun--only $2.99 (available in HTML, Adobe PDF, eReader and Microsoft Reader formats). Here's the link for more info or to buy: http://www.booksforabuck.com/rompages/rom_2005/strictly_confidential.html. Here's the cover (cover design by Karen Leabo):

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