Alberensa

 Fair warning - the author is my brother.

After many years I was finally offered a prerelease version of Alberensa. Frankly, I was captivated. One of my favorite books is "Pillars of the Earth." Different time, different location, but the same rich texture of history with interesting and intriguing characters. What does one do to hang onto a small but critically important hereditary family holding when the very powerful want it for their own? Lots of twists and turns and a wonderful ending. I think you will enjoy it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578751178/ref=sr_1_38

100 Years of Solitude and Amazon

I mentioned that I had purchased 100 Years of Solitude. What was very unusual for me is that I actually purchased the paperback. Keeping books on a sailboat is a challenge, they usually turn to pulp fairly quickly. Not to mention that they take up a lot of space. This is why every marina has a free book exchange shelf or shelves. Some have extensive offerings. I was stunned when checking into Marathon, Florida to find a library of thousands of books. 100 Years of Solitude has yet to be converted to Kindle so I ended up buying the paperback.

Amazon got a big leg up by pioneering ebooks and the Kindle format. Nots to mention Prime and Unlimited. But what have they done for me lately? The paperback deliver was late by a couple of days. Probably due to service disruptions caused by Covid-19. This morning out of the blue I got an email from Amazon. They gave me a store credit for the shipping cost without being asked. A good way to maintain customer loyalty.

Fair winds and following seas 😀

YouTube Channel

After many years I have decided to spend some time on my YouTube channel. Rather than a travelog it will be focused on two things: World cruising tips and hints and digital music production using digital audio workstations. You can hopefully find it and subscribe searching for Roger John Jones but if that fails this link should get you there:

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoXNMKhG5rSNbqGCPA3GP3A?view_as=subscriber

Fair winds and following seas 😀

100 Years of Solitude

What better way to spend my time during the Covid-19 panic than to read Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years Of Solitude.

Márquez was a both a journalist and writer. Perhaps you have read or heard of another of his famous books: Love in the Time of Cholera. His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style known as magic realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

Fair winds and following seas 😀

Summer Cleaning

I missed spring cleaning. Even worse, I missed the opportunity for pagan rituals at the summer solstice. Wine, women, song, bonfire, dance. Mea Culpa.

The weather at Royal Langkawi Marina is not conducive to getting things done that require sitting for long periods of time concentrating. The temperature runs from 80F to 95F and the humidity remains around 95%. The only window to work on Reboot is from dawn until about 10 AM when it gets brutally hot. Even more so for working on deck in the sunshine.

Over the past couple of days I have focused on cleaning up my computer and web presence. Changing old weak passwords, deleting files that are no longer relevant, and updating software (such as radio communications) that I have not used since I have not been crossing oceans. It feels good to make some progress.

Fair winds and following seas. 😀