Reading the Bible in 1 Year

The Nation of Israel - Reading the Bible in 1 Year

Showing posts with label The Pacific Northwest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Pacific Northwest. Show all posts

Monday, April 27, 2015

DEMON'S INK - A PERFECT HALLOWEEN STORY


Art that’s more than anyone bargained for . . .


In a city filled with skin artists, Bartos has no trouble dealing with the competition because he's stealing more than customers...he's stealing souls. And his customers fall in love with Bartos Slinderman’s tats but they can’t walk away from his art.





This young adult novel is set in Portland, Oregon and with Halloween coming, you'll want to have a scary story to share...

That’s where DEMON'S INK comes in:

EXCERPT:


DRAKE

Expectations can ruin everything. Like thinking my senior year was going to be something special. What a set up that was.

I should have known better than to get my hopes up.

Ever.

I’d never been lucky. No one in my family was. I was probably only six when I’d heard grandpa say, “We come from a long line of losers.” He was talking to my Dad. I don’t even know about what. But, now, I know I should have listened to him.

Dad had already gone to prison, leaving Mom and me worse off than ever. And we were never good but, at least while he’d hung around, she managed to act like things were okay. Now she wasn’t even trying to pretend. Really it was way worse than that; she wasn’t even getting up off the couch any more.

I’d come home from school to find her passed out. The first couple times it freaked me out. Seeing her face-planted in the front room and not knowing whether she was alive or dead, I didn’t want to be the one to find her like that, to turn her over, to have to check to see if she was still breathing but I did. . . and I had no idea if she was high or drunk. I didn’t even care because what difference did it make? She was out of it. That was all that mattered.

So, after Dad went to jail, I was completely alone until Bartos made me a deal I couldn’t refuse but that was later.

For weeks, I’d come home after class and make a sandwich—if there was bread—otherwise it was a bowl of cereal for breakfast and dinner, sometimes I’d eat it dry because the milk had gone bad.

I knew I was going to have to get a job if I wanted to survive and I’d started looking around but that was right before everything changed.

It was late one Thursday evening. I still remember because I was thinking, “Only one more day…” I just didn’t know how right I was.

I don’t know what woke me up that night. Maybe it was the smell, the heat, the sound of my Mom screaming. I really don’t know. But I opened my eyes to the thick burning haze of a room filled with smoke.

I’d gone down into the basement that night and fallen asleep.

Looking around, I already knew there were no windows. I was trapped.

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Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Columbia River Gorge

The Pacific Northwest is one of the prettiest places in the world - at least in my opinion. Check out this view and see if it's not the truth. This is the view you will get from Crown Pointe. But it's hard to say if this is the most spectacular view . . .  or not.

Just drive a little bit further and you'll find falls and lots of them: Bridal Veil, Horsetail, Multnomah...just to name a few.

 In the view above, you can see the Benson Bridge, which is out of commission for now. There was a landslide that hit the bridge and left it unstable. It's a shame because we used to hike over this beautiful old bridge all the time in the summer.



But there are still a lot of trails to hike and pretty falls to seek out. So don't let the one bridge keep you back. And if you're planning a spring break trip, this would be a great destination: the Columbia River Gorge and the entire route along the way.