Karen and I are nearing the end of our stay in Port Aransas, a small town near Corpus Christi, Texas. It's a tourist town, so I'm sure it's a lot different from other small towns, but I had a couple of small-town things happen to me today.

For breakfast, Karen and I went out to the little cafe we've found. The guy at the table next to us was talking about his job--he's a shrimp fisher. He built this huge boat himself--maybe 37 feet wide and I don't know how long. He talked about how shrimp goes for the same price it did years ago, but that diesel is obviously a lot more expensive. It's turned into a break-even business for him. It wasn't a happy story. I wonder how much of it is overfishing, though. There sure seem to be a lot of fishermen around here--all busy pulling in fish. I think it's shrimp farms in Asia that have depressed the price of shrimp. I wish I could believe that they were being environmentally sound with their operations over there. Not, unfortunately, that we've been particularly environmentally sound over here.

Later, Karen and I drove around from Aransas Pass through Corpus Christi and over to Padre Island and back to Port Aransas. We did bird watching. I seem to have caught a bit of a cold, so I stayed in the car while Karen went chasing. A nice afternoon.

Back to small town--we've got cable service here and they run local ads. Some of these are truly horrible. Karen thinks they're intentionally bad. I'm not so sure. Of course, since I occasionally try to make videos myself, I guess I shouldn't make fun of the amateur look from other people.

I wrote my review of THE FAR SIDE OF THE STARS by David Drake. It's an enjoyable space opera. Here's my review: www.booksforabuck.com/sfpages/sf_07/far_side_stars.html. Now I'm reading THE WISDOM OF THE FOX by Harry Turtledove.

No bike ride, no walk on the beach.

I'm going to make THE CEO's S.O.S. by Robyn Anders the www.BooksForABuck.com book of the day. When his late sister's dog tears apart his house for the tenth time, billionaire Tyler Atwood knows he has to do something. And when he learns that pet psychologist Courtney Zane can help, he resolves to get her working for him full-time--whether she wants to or not. By the time he realizes he's falling for the beautiful woman, he's up to his ears in the tricks he's used to get her help. A fun romantic comedy and it's only $2.99. Learn more, read the Free excerpt, or buy the entire eNovel here: www.booksforabuck.com/rompages/rom_2005/ceo_sos.html. (Available in HTML, Adobe Acrobat PDF, Palm Reader/eReader and Microsoft Reader formats.). Here's the cover (cover design by Karen Leabo):

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