The main reason I don’t do radio interviews, or give public talks, is that they make me uncomfortable. I’m a naturally spontaneous person in person, but not in public. Call it insecurity or whatever, but a microphone makes me implode mentally, even though the interviews usually come off fine. I think I’m just a nervous person who is scared of a microphone and what I might say wrong.
Jeff Ferguson, my marketing guy, did an interview on a big AM radio station in Youngstown, Ohio, this morning. It went well, so now they want to interview me. Shit! To Jeff it’s no big deal, but to me it’s an “oh shit” type of deal.
My older brother, Hugh, could do these radio interviews easy. But he was a big time lawyer, a Staff Director and Chief Legal Counsel for a Congressional Committee for crying out loud, so he had the luxury of his position to calm him down. But it’s a different deal for me! I get interviewed as an unknown person, and every word that comes out of my mouth makes me look stupid or smart. That makes me very nervous, to the point I am relatively unproductive for the magazine in the several days leading up to the interview.
Wednesday, December 5th, 2012 by Dave Duffy | 1 Comment »
We posted a photo of Lenie conducting the Gold Beach High School Band yesterday on our Facebook page. The concert went off great but was almost very embarrassing for one of the 15 members of the band, namely our son, Sam. While putting on his pants just prior to the concert, Sam broke the fly zipper and came running into my office yelling, “Dad, what am I going to do?”
Luckily I had just put a new sewing kit into the Preparedness Pack I carry in the trunk of my car. We got it and pinned up his fly with the safety pins in the kit. He’s so skinny that the pants easily slid over his bony hips.
So you see, being prepared comes in very handy in a variety of emergencies.
Wednesday, November 14th, 2012 by Dave Duffy | 7 Comments »
I’m working on deadline in Corvallis, where Annie lives, so I thought I’d better make up a Corvallis mixture of my specialty — garlic, oil, and balsamic vinegar. This will take a few days to steep before it’s mellow enough to go on toast. I could just mellow it by tossing a tablespoon in the frying pan before dropping in my eggs.
I made a batch for brother Hugh when I visited him a few weeks ago. Yesterday morning Hugh had another knee surgery in his ongoing battle to get walking again. The batch I made for him will help his health. It was primo! I feel like Johnny Garlicseed, dropping batches of garlic, oil, and balsamic vinegar all over the place, spreading health as I go.
Tuesday, November 13th, 2012 by Dave Duffy | 1 Comment »
I’m working on this deadline in Corvallis, Oregon, rather than Gold Beach, helping Annie, who lives here. I’ve set up shop in a hallway of Oregon State University’s Memorial Union building in the center of the campus. Lots of background commotion, including someone playing a piano downstairs in the main lounge. My tiny, round table is located up the narrow, winding black iron spiral staircase, down the hall, and behind a big pillar above the Hall of Flags. The background sounds are my “zone.” Silence does not work for me. Getting a lot done here.
Tuesday, November 6th, 2012 by Dave Duffy | No Comments »
Forget the Presidential election, someone broke into Cedar Bend Golf Course last night and drove the golf carts all over the greens and creeks like they were in a bumper car derby. My golf cart ended up in the creek, with its steering broken so the steering wheel just turns freely, doing nothing, and the windshield was knocked out. Judging from the dents on the front, it was used as a battering ram against other golf carts. It was similar for another 20 or so carts.
Three of the greens were messed up with golf cart wheel markings and holes destroyed. Several members’ clubs were thrown into the creeks. Lots of damage that is not covered by insurance. Rats! All the work at our local course is done with volunteer labor. These volunteers, all men and women of modest means who just want to pay golf, have just had a great many hours added to their volunteer time. What a pain in the ass!
This is why elections are important, and why we must maintain a civil society agreed to by a majority of the population. No matter who wins, some sort of civil society must prevail. Otherwise, I won’t get to play golf.
Friday, November 2nd, 2012 by Dave Duffy | No Comments »
For the next five days, Backwoods Home Magazine will allow anyone to download for FREE the Kindle edition of a book and four back issues. Here’s the schedule: Today and Saturday you can download Can America be Saved from Stupid People, Saturday only you can download Issue No 120, Sunday Issue No 127, Monday Issue No 130, and Tuesday Issue No 131.
You can use your Kindle device to do this, or any of the various free apps for your Apple product or PC. Would appreciate your “review” of the book and back issues when you download them, and please let your friends know about this. It’s a very good price!
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012 by Dave Duffy | 1 Comment »
We’ve been doing all sorts of interesting stuff with Kindle, uploading a total of 20 back issues to the Amazon platform, plus uploading our all-time best selling book, Emergency Preparedness and Survival Guide (EPSG). Within the coming week I expect we’ll have my book, Can America Be Saved from Stupid People, uploaded to Kindle.
To date, 15,194 people have downloaded four of the back issues FREE, as part of the KDP Select promotion program Kindle runs. This week I’ll probably let people download our EPSG book. This all has to do with getting the conversation going about BHM products on the internet.
And if you click on this link, you can see that, by at least one narrow measure for a specific category, we’re doing pretty well at an early stage in the process. This list has a couple of our back issues ranked No. 12 and No. 14 on the Amazon best-selling list, at least for this category.
I’m doing most of the promotion and announcing of our moves with Kindle on the BHM Facebook page. So if you want to keep up to date with it, you’ll have to check that out occasionally.
There’s a lot to learn but we’re on the right road.
Tuesday, October 16th, 2012 by Dave Duffy | 1 Comment »
My wife says I smell like garlic. For good reason! Every morning I have an egg on whole what toast, but I fry the egg in my special concoction of two teaspoons of garlic, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar mix. It takes about a week of soaking in the olive oil and balsamic vinegar for the garlic to get “just right.” So delicious and healthy! — Dave
