Jeep

Filson makes awesome more … awesome-y!

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

The American Expedition Vehicles Brute Double Cab Pickup Truck is one of my all-time favorite off-road vehicles.  They don’t sell them anywhere near me (the closest authorized dealer is down in Oceanside), and they’re the most expensive Jeep I’ve ever lusted after.

The AEV Brute Double Cab is a customized 4-door JK Jeep Wrangler, that’s stretched, beefed up, and made spectacular by the Michigan-based company, American Expedition Vehicles with skid plates, available Warn winch packages, and more.  There are even more varying degrees of awesome available from the factory.  This particular vehicle offering is not just the upgraded JK, though.  Underneath that sheet metal beats 6.4 liters of American Hemi V8 can-do whup-ass.  This Jeep is the Captain America of Jeeps.  It is hoo-rah on wheels.

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National Forests, National Parks

Take a hike with Street View through U.S. National Parks and Parks Canada

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

On Wednesday, Google launched a collection of images from more than 44 national parks and historic sites across the United States and Canada after travelling through the destinations earlier this year.

From Google Maps Product Manager, Evan Rapoport:

What do tents and hiking boots have in common? You don’t need either to start exploring or planning your next adventure to some of the best national parks and historical sites across North America.

Working with the U.S. National Park Service and Parks Canada, our Street View cars, trikes and Trekkermapped more than 44 locations with beautiful, 360 degree panoramas.

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eBook, Success Stories

Fact: Self-publishing my non-fiction as ebooks makes sense

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

“Having registered that digital is the busy end of the business, I realised I could do more, and faster, on my own”

Anthony Hayward posted on The Guardian today about his adventures in self-publishing.  From the article:

Last year, ebook sales in the United Kingdom more than doubled, as did their share of the entire books market – to almost 15%. Despite an understandable reluctance on the part of many readers to join this revolution (and in time it might well prove to be that) ebooks are here to stay – so why not embrace them and discover the advantages?

As a journalist and author myself, I have done just that. After writing more than 20 books, with major publishers behind them, I have found it increasingly difficult to get new ideas accepted. It is also frustrating as a writer to have a non-fiction book that is up-to-the-minute when “completed”, only for it to come out maybe nine months later and seem slightly dated.

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eBook

Bowkers continues to fight it’s growing marginalization by publishing silly fact-light statistics

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Yes, another quarter … another weird Bowkers “report.”

On October 9, 2013, Bowkers issued a ‘report’ with gems like:

“…The analysis shows the growing prominence of a handful of companies that offer publishing services to individual authors.  More than 80 percent of self-published titles came to market with support from just eight companies, including Smashwords and CreateSpace…”

and

“…Ebooks continue to gain on print, comprising 40 percent of the ISBNs that were self-published in 2012, up from just 11 percent in 2007…”

You can read the whole “report” HERE.

It’s important to note, however, that ebooks sold through eRetailers like Amazon don’t require ISBN numbers.  The vast majority of ebooks on Amazon – the world’s largest retailer of ebooks – use ASIN numbers, which are Amazon’s own internal numbering system.

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Patriotism

The first Republican President’s speech: the Gettysburg Address

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

On this day, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address to a deeply divided country.  It wasn’t a long speech – 278 words, total – but it continues to be one of the most enduring.

Not once does the President use “I” or a teleprompter.  He doesn’t come to divide the country based on the color of skin.  He comes to unify.  He uses the word “we” over and over again to talk about a unified country.  Both the idiot who occupies the White House and all elected members of Congress could learn quite a bit from this speech and this man.

Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, and his ideas weren’t popular; liberals didn’t want to end slavery.  They were fighting and dying to save their way of life.  Republicans were a new party, and didn’t garner much favor in the south.  In fact, it was specifically because of the Republican party that liberals created the Ku Klux Klan.  Liberalism was then, and continues to be today, the most divisive and un-American ideal that was errantly imported to this great country.

The country has drifted far from where it was in 1863.  Liberalism continues to be a disease that spreads hate among the uneducated, and continues to insist on dividing people based on race, creed, color, religion, and sexual preference.  Once liberalism and all of it’s vitriol is removed from the landscape, we can have peace, unity, harmony, and a nation based on the belief that all men are, truly, created equal.

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