Gone Fishin'

For those who were wondering and thought I shut down The Commissioner, I have good news. I'm not going anywhere. I was simply on vacation. My apologies for not informing others of my three weeks spent in Washington State. However as a health care provider my home address is publicly available to anyone if you go to the right websites. Consequently when I leave for any significant amount of time I don't let many know.

But three weeks still isn't enough time to make up for not posting anything since mid-May. Well I am in the midst of Regal Heart. I've quickly realized I have one major flaw, the propensity to self-edit compulsively. There are some pages that have been re-edited ten times. I suppose this is because I want to make such a good product that I keep nit picking over the details rather than moving on. Editing involves asking yourself, "does that read right? Is this interesting? Am I being too detailed or not detailed enough?"

This week I am going to focus on just moving ahead and let the editing go for a while. I still need to finish the first two chapters and get the submission into the writer's guild as my immediate short term goal.

That goal would have been easier this week however I decided to go back on the warpath for certified stables. As it turns out on Roger Stein's radio show he made mention of how a particular racing stable is defrauding their investors. Being one of those investors I had simply given up on the stable and written off the lost money. But since Mr. Stein was willing to take the initiative I decided to e-mail him. Well that lead to a very prolific e-mail conversation which now involves, in no particular order, the NTRA, the TOC, the CHRB, Little Red Feather Racing, a handicapping service, a racing steward, and a few others. Toss in some phone calls as well for good measure. Whew!

Today also involved getting things rolling again on the NTRA Ambassador Program at Del Mar. The track has us green lit so now we need a trainer willing to let us come visit their barn for the barn tour part of the program. I made a call and am waiting on a confirmation from last year's helpful trainer, Doug O'Neill. I also contacted a pony club that never was able to attend last year to get them involved in the first program of the season after which I contacted last year's press, the Poway Chieftain, to see if they are willing to cover us simultaneously as a local interest story. The paper last year accounted for 90% of attendance so I hope to have them on board again.

Hopefully I will be able to get to Regal Heart during the weekend when all else is squared away.

Perseverance!