So from now on when you see this

from me know that I am hugging you in my new style!
Anyways happy Wednesday!!
You, too!
anyway , hello to everyone! i'll be back tomorrow and be able to "talk" more.
Woohoo!
Training was good, but it drove me crazy not being able to check in with you guys.

Missed you, too.
Hope you all had a great day! Tomorrow it's supposed to be 70 degrees!

We're 60 for tomorrow and 70 for Friday!
Sorry about Gus, hope he's feeling better.
Hi. I'm new here. Or I'm new again, anyways. My name is G-luv/Jen.
And I miss my friends. My Focker friends
I just wanted to pop in and tell ya' I miss you guys.
THERE you are. For the record, I want it noted I came looking for you yesterday.
And now I'm back. I need my Fockers.
We need our JenM.
HI again 2 times in one day is a record for me
No joke! Glad to see you again!
I haven't moved yet. Although I will be once school is out. San Antonio it is!
Missed y'all.
Deets, please.
Sorry im a little confised about this. Is it just a list of of bestsellers or what?
Long and involved story, but I'm an "
amazon Vine Reviewer" for amazon.com, which means once a month I get to pick a few pre-release or just released items for free, as long as I review them and help generate some buzz. That is cool in and of itself.
This late winter, they invited me to be a preliminary round judge (apparently based on my book reviews - how "helpful" they are, etc.) for their Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. I was to judge 40 random 10-page excerpts on originality, voice, hook, and overall "would I read it-ness."
Unbeknownst to me, I was much more important than I realized. They only picked 100 people to do this, and we all had 40 excerpts, but there were only 2000 in the contest at that point. (There may have been up to 10,000 submissions, but amazon.com cut to 2000 based on a "pitch", and gave those to the reviewers.) Therefore, each excerpt had only two reviews, and our decisions definitely helped cut the 2000 to a quarter-final group of 500. And where I kind of figured there'd be at least 5 reviews for each one, mine was one of only two on those that I read, which carried a LOT of weight.
Anyway, out of the 40 that I read from the list of 2000, eleven made it to the cut of 500. I loved some and didn't others, but the ones that were absolute crap were part of the 39 that didn't move on, so that is good.

And my absolute favorites were in that 11...
Just today, they announced the next stage - cutting the 500 to 100, but this time the cut was based on people at Publisher's Weekly reading the whole book, rather than just the excerpt I got. And only 2 of my 11 made that cut.
Still with me?
I'm just very involved - it was really, really cool to be asked to do this, and as the cherry on top, amazon.com gave me a Kindle2 for doing it.
If anyone's interested, the website for the contest is amazon . com / abna
without the spaces. Right now, they only have the 100 listed, but I think all 500 of the quarter-finalists are available as free downloads in a PDF file.
I am not supposed to reveal which ones I reviewed, but one of the 100 is in the Historical Fiction category, and the title will make you think of WDW.

It's the one I think is very well written, but is more of a "book club" type.
My very favorite didn't get through, but if you're interested in reading 10 pages of a Douglas Adams type fantasy-humor story (sadly, that's all you can see), PM me and I'll link you to it.
Anyone else going to be there? I mean its not tennis or anything, but its still an exercise.

I can stand on a court for 3 hours, but I am NOT running for that long. Good for him.

Are you running, too?
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OK, off to bed. D has a trip in the early a.m., and MIL arrives right after my fun tennis class. I'll try to check in before I head out in the morning, but I may be a little MIA over the rest of the week until Sunday.
Oh, one last thing...
Yucky subject, sort of, but I just found out that one of my college friends has a brother who's a reporter in the Denver area. He's going to be on Oprah Monday because he's written a really comprehensive take on Columbine (he's covered it since the beginning.) He's getting really good reviews, and hey, I know two of his sisters.

Just a little plug... it's neat for him and his family that he's getting success - and from all the reviews, no one thinks he's being sensationalistic or greedy over the tragedy, if that makes sense? The reviews are coming in that it's really insightful and possibly helpful, not just cashing in.
One of his sisters was a flight instructor when D was a student, and then the youngest sibling is about 2 years younger than me and was part of the whole group we hung out with - she was at our wedding, we still do Christmas cards, and she's a friend on FB, etc.