Episode #351: But Wait, Is There More? {2}

Tree! Autumn! Southern New England! Good Times For All!

Last week  mentioned that I have two genres that I've become stuck in a rut with: True Crime and Military History (US Civil War). Part one covered my adventures with True Crime and its various sub-genres. Part two will cover my adventures with the US Civil War.

My passion, if you cal call it that, for the US Civil War goes a little further back, like to middle school. My dad used to lecture at my school during the Civil War segment in my American History class from middle school to a couple of years into my high school I believe. Since then, I always had a keen interest about the Civil War.

This naturally led me to reading all kinds of books and watching all kinds of videos/movies/documentaries about the Civil War. Thing is, there's only so many books that you can read and an equal amount of videos that you can watch before you cry Auntie Social. Sadly, this is what happened toi me, and it was long lasting.

I got so tired of trying to find books to read that didn't cover the same old same old on a consistent basis (and by consistent, I'm talking at least two per quarter), that I decided to take a brief detour by actually spending money on books about the US Civil War.

Thus I built two collections, one that I did not read and one that I did. Both of these collections were published in the 1980s, so this should give you a basic idea on how fed up I was trying to find quality reading material.

Both of these collections were purchased through Time-Life books. Back then, Time-Life's book division was a powerhouse division that published high quality book collections on nearly four dozen topics of interest.

The series that I did not read was called, "The Collectores Library of the Civil War". These were high quality reproductions, leather bound with gilded pages of originals that came out in the latter part of the 19th century, nearly all of which were first hand accounts from people who were direct participants in the War, either on the front line, behind the front line or on the home front.

Each one came with a nice two page biography of the writer, along with a nice synopsis of the book. Like I stated previously, I did not read them as I did not want to ruin the book in any way, shape or form. Sadly, one volume had disappeared over the years, whether by oversight on their end or theft on this end.

The original series was 30 volumes. Each volume, in 1980s dollars, with S&H cost me around $22 (not certain as this was nearly 40 years ago), so the total dollar amount was $660. In 2026 dollars, the total cost would be $1,940.10.

As you can see, this was a mighty expensive collection to have and basically show and not read. But as the title of this blog post states, there is more.

The other Civil War collection that I had acquired and actually read from first volume to lat, was a 28 volume set called, naturally enough, "The US Civil War". These too was also leather bound and each volume had logos that stated "US & "CS" on the cover.

This set was basically a well written encyclopedia thatr covered the many different parts of the Civil War: campaigns, front lines, behind the lines, both home fronts and everything in between. Much like what y ou would see if your were reading about WWI & II, and everything connected to it on the American side, be it military or civilan.

This was also purchased at roughly the same time as the other, so there was significant overlap money-wise. At the time, I was working full time in the middle to late 80s, but my rate of pay back then was maybe near $7/hr, which was well above minimum wage. So purchasing these books (plus other things from Time-Life that in hindsight I should've done differently) put a hefty dent in my wallet.

The total cost of this series was a shade higher, in that it cracked the $2k level of 2026 dollars. Back then quality mattered, so when you purchased a collection, you were getting your money's worth. In today's world, this kind of quality is something that is only seen on a Kickstarter* campaign that an author would do to reward longtime fans for supporting them.

*I am being 100% serious here. I follow a very talented writer who has a passionate fan base (Romance Fantasy) and frequently does this for hardcover versions of her books. She produces quality stuff.

Oh and the main reason I was able to read this entire series:L by the time I had fully acquired this series, I was working full time on the overnights, so on my days off, I needed something to occupy my time.

After acquiring those two massive collections, I basically took a powder from reading or watching anything Civil War related. I think the last book that I read connected to the Civil War was about Sherman's March To The Sea (his scorched earth campaign to Atlanta).

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this medium sized peek into what I like to read. Have a fantastic week.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #350: But Wait, Is There More? {1}

Apparently I'm so oblivious to my surroundings, that I did not see this for quite a few days, in spite of walking by that exact spot on a very consistent basis.

Ever find yourself at that turning point when your favorite genre simply isn't doing it for you anymore? That somehow the chosen themes that you enjoy so much somehow becomes stale, and you find yourself looking for other themes to peruse within your chosen genre to satiate that hunger?

Well I've been experiencing a multi-decade long rut with a couple of my favorite genres of choice: True Crime and US Civil War.

Today's post will cover the myriad of ways that I've tried to satiate the hunger for True Crime, while next week's post will cover the ways that I've tried with the US Civil War.

With True Crime, I started off like a lot of other young people do, by reading about serial killers and the Mafia. However, once we had exhausted those particular niches, we had to find other sub-genres to explore, and up to about ten years ago, I was quite successful.

We started our next exploration by reading about well known events, then gradually switched to lesser known events. We then pivoted to the other side of True Crime: namely, the less publicized, but equally important related tangents.

For example, I started reading about crime scenes, such as ones that I had purchased a few years back that death with the LAPD archives (plus one that an LAPD dectective produced for himself) and one that dealt with the NYPD. The stories behind them were both incredibly eye-opening and depressing. Then we dabbled a little further in the nitty gritty by purchasing a book about the death penalty in Texas, specifically when they had switched over from electric to pharmaceutical.

Eventually, even dabbling in those interesting topics grew stale, so we made yet another pivot, albeit quiet briefly, back to well known historical events. I read about one that is a well known haunted house in Kansas, where an entire family involuntarily departed this world, yet it wasn't an isolated incident.

Then we pirouted one final time to killer objects. For example, I read a book about axes and how they were used to relieve people of their capacity to breath, and the history behind them.

Finally, the one book that we had talked about previously on this blog, which was about a woman who was childhood/high school friend with Gacy's final victims and was instrumental in bringing him to justice.

By this point of this particular book, which was in 2025, I was exhausted in trying to find something that one, I hadn't read about before, whether a person or event; and two, wasn't slanted to make the criminal the victim.

Fortunately for me, even though I had given up the reading portion of True Crime (was never really interested in the video portion), I tripled down on the audio portion of True Crime podcasts.

Being quite late to the podcast world (2018 when I had bought my first smart phone), it took me quite awhile to find some podcasts that piqued my curiosity long term. So let me tell you about five that have become permanent podcasts of my playlist, and all five I highly recommend.

1} Small Town Dicks: hosted by Yeardley Smith (aka Lisa Simpson), this focus on crime in the proverbial small town USA, and each episode features the person who actually worked the case. They have done special episode arcs like the first case in the UK to feature rudimentary forensic science (1920s if I recall); a mini story arc about the OKC bombing and this summer featured a ten episode arc about the Golden State Killer that one of the co-hosts was directly involved with. Has been around for sixteen seasons (about 8 years, give or take).

2} Park Predators: this one has a specialized focus on true crime that takes place in our great national park system. Highly informative and expertly researched, it originally started off as a summer only podcast but eventually switched to year round. I think it's been around since pre-pandemic.

3} Dark Down East: its true crime focus is exclusively New England and covers the occasional case from the 19th century, in addition to the 20th & 21st century. Expertly researched and written, and if you enjoy true crime with a regional focus, this podcast is for you.

4} The Casual Criminalist: this one dabbles in True Crime from around the world, from the 19th thru the 21st. Expertly written, with a twist that the narrator didn't set eyes on the script until he sat down to record it, it also doubles as a YouTube channel. Been listening for several years.

5} Blood Trails: this was a recent discovery via another podcast from the same media company (Meat eater). This one is also a seasonal, although it looks like it's going to be two seasons per year (about 16+ episodes per calendar year). This one covers the great outdoors (hunting, trapping, fishing, etc.) in the US.

This next one doesn't quite fit the category that was being used by the aforementioned podcasts, but this media company's output is more historical than true crime outright.

6} Black Barrel Media: they have two podcasts that fall under the historical true crime categories: Infamous America and Legends of the Old West. The former focuses mostly on true crime, while the latter has a mixed focus on true crime and history. They can also be found on YouTube.

So even though I don't read books in the True Crime genre that much anymore, I can satiate my need by listening to podcasts that cover true crime outside the norm: small town, New England, the outdoors, the national parks, worldwide and historical.

And that to me, means that I can still stay well read and well informed, even it it's now down in audio form.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #349: Shorten Our Stories Reduex

I found this random floral bouquet during my afternoon walk the other day (10/15). Not sure why it was left there, but seemed just enough out of place for me to take a picture of it. Because you know, curiosity makes Georgie's daily routine less routine.

I know I've mentioned on more than a few occasions that I've gotten back into writing short stories, and I've been basically writing short stories that were previously published in my now closed short story blog, with a few originals thrown in for fun.

Over the years I've been saying to myself and to you the reader that I've been (mostly) a pantster when it comes to writing because generally, I found planning a novel to be a lot more complicated than just writing on the fly.

However, the three plus years that I had spent writing my fantasy series basically blew that viewpoint completely out of the water to smithereenies. How, you may ask?

Well....when you incrementally expand your universe to include eighteen characters and fifteen plot/sub-plot points, you decided that plotting/outlining that universe isn't such a bad thing after all.

So we applied that learned lesson to our short stories, albeit in a modified form: we took that previously written short story and used it as a viable outline for the new version of that short story.

And it does come in handy, as it gives me a predetermined starting point and a predetermined ending. All I have to do, in general, is create the filling. And sometimes, we improvised the starting point, so that it blends with the filling and the ending.

For example: I had chosen a train story in my latest batch of rewrites. It wasn't anything particularly special about the story: a man was riding a train and encountered a woman who left a hairbrush behind.

Using that original story as an outline, we tweaked the beginning (riding a train to visit his late wife's parents), created a middle that elasorateds on how he came to be a widow, tweaked the original ending and we ultimately wounds up with a ghost story.

This was the process that I used for rewriting over a dozen short stories: use the original as an outline to plot out nearly 75% of the story (aka, the beefy middle), with the remaining 25% evenly split between the beginning and the end.

I've gotten so used to writing with an outline that I now often wonder why I hadn't tried it sooner. Then I remember after asking myself that question, I answer it by stating that going into that much detail prior to putting pen to paper makes Georgie a dull writer.

So today, or rather, this year I learned that you can teach a crusty old dog new tricks, but only after you heavily bridge them with treats and harsh persuasion of the crystal blue variety.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #348: Boy, Do I Got The Music In Me Or What?

I came across my birdie the other day and I caught them sitting on the mirror looking outside the window. I do catch them in unguarded moments from time to time, but never have my phone nearby to do anything about it.

I have a lot of c.d.s.

So many in fact, that my tiny little den was becoming quite cluttered because of the amount of c.d.s that I own. So naturally, I needed to get them organized. Fortunately for me, I have quite the imagination and planning capacity when the situation calls for it.

This situation called for it and my solution jumped out at m a couple of months ago, when I saw some cheap wooden crates at my local Dollar Tree store. I said to myself, these would work perfectly as c.d. racks. After taking a couple of measurements and checking to see if a c.d. case could actually fit. They did, and within the space of about a month, between Dollar Tree and Amazon, I had acquired thrity-eight small wooden crates that were 10 x 3 1/2 & 7 x 3 1/2, plus an appropriate number of slats of various sizes.

Fast forward a few months and I start planning on where I can put these crates  in my den. I had already emptied the den of my c.d.s, three tower racks and a bookcase, so it made the planning quite easy. Yet, it also made it quite frustrating.

"How?" you may ask.

Well, I am a firm believer of creating a free standing system of display units when it comes to wooden crates, so I thought I would design for my den would be easy peasy lemon squeezy.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Rule #1: if you're creating a free standing shelving unit, maximum height is four crates. That way, the amount of c.d.s works as a safe counter balance for the height of the crates. This is especially important when you have a baseboard trim and cannot get flush to the wall with your crates. Excess height plus weight equals a disaster in waiting.

Rule #2: always important that you have enough units for the job that you're undertaking. Because thirty-eight units with a maximum capacity of 758 c.d.s is apparently not enough.

Yes my friends, you read that correctly.

Turns out that I had grossly underestimated the amount of c.d.s that I currently possess, thus requiring me to procure six more craters and an equal amount of slats. Plus, I had to find a smidgen more space for all of my c.ds, which are not counting the ones whose height is greater than 5.8 inches, and thus are propped up on a few of the crates as display pieces, along with old coffee cups, a pen cup and some toy cars.

so after redoing the numbers to make the math actually math, I believe I am close to 800 c.d.s. Which does, in a strange way, blows my mind, because if you had asked me nearly thirty years ago, would I be an owner of a format that was prohibitively expensive in those early years (if I recall correctly, new c.d.s were running around $25-$340 per title, much like new vinyl is today), odds were very good that I would answer quite negatively.

Such is the value of hindsight, I guess. In any event, as I stated, my freestanding wooden crate c.d racks were mostly kept to three units in height, and because I had so many c.d.s, I had to find other spaces outside of my den to make them all fit.

On a lighter note, I haven't purchased any c.d.s, new or used, as of late. Not because I don't have any room for them, but more to the simple fact that because I like my stuff reasonably organized, I would have to do a tremendous amount of shifting to make everything fit. And to be perfectly frank, I really do not want to do that kinds of work just yet.

I now have a reasonably organized den where stuff is judiciously spread out, as opposed to stacked upright and compact, and that makes me a happy miser.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved