Deborah Woehr

My father-in-law told me this joke years ago, which I had forgotten until a friend emailed it to me just now. It is so true to life that I couldn’t help laughing then or now. If you’re easily offended, don’t click on the link.

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A big thanks goes to Marti and Scot for testing out my feed. I spent over half of yesterday trying to figure out what caused the problem, which actually began before I left for vacation. I started seeing the feeds for this blog, the blog I had on my main directory, and my “On Book Design” blog merge together. Not only was my RSS acting up, but I lost valuable pages on my other two blogs.

The root of the problem was a missing file on this blog, which I wasn’t aware of until I changed my permalinks structure. With the other blogs, I installed WordPress from Fantastico. But with this blog, I downloaded the program to my computer before uploading it to my server. For some reason, the .htaccess file disappears on Unix and Linux systems.

If your Cpanel is linux-based, check to see if that file is installed. If not, you need to create a new file and change its permissions to 666 so WordPress can automatically update it when you make a change to the permalinks structure or install a plugin that requires this file.

It’s also important if you’re going to be creating multiple blogs on one domain, like I did. Make sure each blog has that .htaccess file. I deleted most of the blogs and subdomains during the trail and error process of this fix.

I’ve kept my “On Book Design” blog, but will move it to its own domain because readers have shown an interest in it. That’s on my To-Do list for next week. Right now, my novel is screaming for my attention.

Melly was kind enough to tell me that she is having problems viewing my feed in her RSS reader. While the Feedburner link appears to be working okay, the WordPress link isn’t. I’m getting this External Protocol Request whenever I click on the WP RSS link. I’ve experienced this with other blogs when I tried to access their RSS feed.

Poring through the WordPress Codex has proven futile so far. So I posted a support ticket on their forum. I hope that I’ll wake up tomorrow and find either an answer or some direction.

Update: I’ve disabled the Feedburner redirect option and pasted the WP RSS link into a desktop feedviewer. I was able to read this blog’s feed. Will you test the link (below) on your aggregators? I’d like to see if I’ve solved the problem.

http://www.deborahwoehr.com/blog/feed/

Kaavya Viswanathan is the next writer to face scrutiny for plagiarism. Ms. Viswanathan admitted to copying parts of Megan McCafferty’s “Sloppy Firsts” and “Second Helpings.” She wrote an apology to McCafferty’s publisher, who claims that she stole 40 passages to write her own novel, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.”

Ms. Viswanathan claims that her crime was unintentional. After reading the article, I’d have to agree with McCafferty’s publisher. The passages are virtually the same.

Plagiarism has been a problem ever since the book was invented. But lately, I’ve been hearing about more cases. The Internet is a boon for writers, but it can also be a double-edge sword.

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of ghost stories and anything related to the paranormal. Starting today, I’ll be writing for John Evans’s Supernatural blog. You’ll find plenty of topics about ghosts. However, I plan to include other topics such as psychic ability, the occult, and and how different religions view the afterlife. I hope to see you there!

This was the last stop of our trip. The first time I’d been to Vegas was an all girls trip I took with my family (mother, sister, aunt, grandmother) back in 1999. I told my husband that I didn’t want to spend much (if any) time gambling, but seeing the sights. He agreed.

We got to the hotel late Friday afternoon. Our disappointment was immediate. CircusCircus was one of the few hotels that hasn’t been updated, and for that reason it was cheap. The old saying goes: You get what you pay for. CircusCircus is situated in the “hood” of the Strip.

That aside, we had a great time. We took the boys to the opposite side to the Luxor, which is where I stayed in 1999. The hotel has an IMAX theater, where we watched a neat 3D show of the astronauts landing on the moon as well as an expedition in the Nile.

In the New York, New York casino, we had an excellent Italian lunch. My husband insisted we try a cannoli despite the fact that we were stuffed. They were great! We liked this casino the best because it had the most personality.

After that, we went to the Sahara where they have the Nascar theme. This hotel was seedier than Circus Circus, but we had fun on the driving simulator and watching the boys in the arcade.

Back at our hotel, I stayed behind while my husband took our youngest to the amusement park dome that is part of Circus Circus. After a full day of walking and crowds, I was too tired to deal with a bunch of screaming kiddies. I had some one-on-one time with my oldest, which has become rare.

For dinner, we went to a Mexican place in the Frontier. It wasn’t that great. Or, should I say, it paled in comparison to the Casa Bonita in Flagstaff.

After dinner, we drove to the Mirage and watched their simulated volcano via water fountains and lights. It took us about an hour to return to our hotel due to the wall-to-wall cars and people. Las Vegas is teaming at night. The best time to visit the casinos is in the late morning before the crowds come.

We started home Saturday morning, dreading the prospect of returning and yet yearning for our beds. This was our best vacation, and it has left me thirsting for more of the Southwest.

Most of the pictures I took were behind guard rails. However, I got a little braver in the last two pictures and veered off the path a bit to get some better shots of the canyon. I never got closer than three to four feet from the edge. While I was taking my pictures, several tourists went closer in order to get “the perfect shot.”

After I took my pictures, I went to the bookstore and found this staring me in the face. I was intrigued by the title (being morbid and a horror writer). When the cashier told me that it was a good book, I snagged it off the shelf, along with some other items.

This book has a very macabre title and some horrific stories of people dying in various ways inside the Grand Canyon. The first chapter involved tourists falling off the rim to their deaths trying to get “the perfect shot.”

Others were just plain stupid. For instance, one guy was clowning around with his daughter, teasing her by jumping off a sub-ledge to make her think he had fallen off the canyon. Well, he lost his footing and fell off for real. Fortunately for the girl, she refused to watch and walked back to the parking lot as her dad fell to his death.

The authors of this book summed up the tourists’ attitude towards the Grand Canyon very well. They believe that 911 is just a phone call away should they find themselves in trouble. I was no different, and it hit me that night just how stupid/naive I was.

Although this book has some macabre stories, it is very educational. You will learn what not to do. Okay, enough of this. I’ve uploaded some of the shots I took. I think I must’ve taken over 100 shots. By the time we left, I was burned out on picture taking.

We arrived here around 1pm the 18th. The thrill of standing in four states at once lasted about five seconds, long enough for me to get frustrated with the wimpy batteries that kept dying in my digital camera. There isn’t much else to do here except get your picture taken and visit the Indian crafts shops that line the perimeter.

One of the Indians told me that April is the prime time to come to Four Corners because they don’t make the sales like they do in the popular seasons. This means that you can get a discount on their pottery and jewelry.

This was the favorite spot of my husband and sons. If I hadn’t had such a hard time with the altitude, I would have enjoyed it more. What you’re looking at is the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde. These dwellings were built by primitive Indians some 600 feet above the canyon floor. Why they left remains a mystery.

During my research for Prosperity, I read up on dust storms. Also, a good friend of mine had told me about the dust storms she’d experienced when she lived in Arizona. After the storm had died off, they would have to clear the tumbleweeds and debris from their front porch in order to walk outside. This was very mild by comparison.

In the distance, the horizon looked beige/yellow. Once we hit the center of the storm, everything had a reddish cast. Red sand blew across the highway, and the wind threatened to blow our car off the road. Pebbles beat against our car, and we could smell the dust through the vents.

When we arrived in Monument Valley, we could barely make out the mesas and buttes in the distance. The first thing we did after we checked into the hotel was walk up the hill where the restaurant was located. The waiter who served us explained that the dust storms had originated from California. We get heavy rain; they get heavy dust.

Later in the afternoon, we visited the Goulding museum, where we saw a model scale of the entire Monument Valley region. Included were posters of movies that were shot in the area since the 50’s. While that was interesting, my husband and I enjoy the geological aspect better. We watched a 20-minute video on how Monument Valley was formed.

The next morning, we woke up to a spectacular view. Even though we still had wind, the dust storm had passed. After a hearty breakfast, we drove out to the Monument Valley park, where these two photos came from.

While I got some great shots, I regret not going on the tour, which takes you off the beaten path and into the secluded places of Monument Valley. At $60 per person, it was too expensive for our budget.

Flagstaff was my second favorite, although it was much colder than Phoenix. This was the first place we stayed overnight. We ate the best Mexican food at Casa Bonita, which was around the block from our hotel. My husband enjoyed it so much that he was tempted to backtrack to Flagstaff just so he could enjoy another meal. But we had a long drive to visit other places, which you’ll see.

The next morning, we went to see the Lowell Observatory. Unlike my city, you don’t have to drive up a steep mountain to get to Flagstaff’s observatory. Just as we got out of the car, the wind started picking up.

This spoiled the tour for me a bit, as I’m very sensitive to hot and cold. Fortunately, we didn’t have far to walk from building to building. My family and I love watching space exploration documentaries, so this was a treat.