I have to thank the good people at Mannix Marketing, the designers, maintainers and reliable partners in bedlamfarm.com, it is a wonderful creative collaboration and a true partnership. I am so glad I did not got to New York City to have my website designed, Mannix is always there, and I am even more grateful I don’t have to try and fend off a massive hacker attack by myself. For the past two days, a hacker has launched a sustained and powerful and very targeted attack on my blog, flooding the server with so many messages it shut down to protect itself – and me. Mannix techs have been up all night figuring out how to shut down the attack and keep the blog up, it was up and down yesterday and all night.

I will spare you the technical details, and I don’t quite grasp them myself but I think the good guys have won. I’ve written books about hackers and geeks, but nobody really understands the destructive and malicious drive of some of the computer world’s most gifted people, just imagine if these powers were used for good.

I got on the blog for a few minutes early this morning but the blog was shut down again, I think they are getting a handle on it now. Last night Maria and I went to Battenkill and our offers of free paperbacks to 20 of the people who buy “Second Chance Dog” at my local bookstore seem to be flushing out more sales for Christmas. I am anxious to get to our goal of 1,000 books sold, but Connie counsels patience, one book at a time, she says, we are getting there. Patience is not my dominant characteristic, we have until December 18, the last date Connie can guarantee Christmas delivery.

I took advantage of the blog shutdown to work on my next book and get up way before dawn, sweet time to work. You can get my book anywhere, but if you get it through Battenkill, you are eligible to win potholders, photos, free bags of dog food and now, free copies of two of my paperback books, “Dancing Dogs,” and “Rose In A Storm.” All will be signed and personalized, you can order my book’s on the store’s website or call 528 677-2515. And thanks.

It was disturbing for me to see the blog shut down, bedlamfarm.com was clearly targeted for reasons we may never know. It happens a lot to public people, not just me. Life in the new world.