Legless Torso Book Promotion

I just posted my weekly Suburban Dad contribution to Kim Strickland's City Mom blog at ChicagoNow. This week's column is about the unique way I handled the challenges of book promotion when my first novel came out.

You can read it here.

Bridget in Italy

In Pesaro at night, with her husband.

Bridget in Italy

At the old Roman wall in Fano...

Bridget in Italy

On one of Pesaro's wide streets. Yes, cars did drive here...

Bridget in Italy

Overlooking the Adriatic...

Catching Hell

If you saw "Catching Hell" last night on ESPN, you saw a moment in our history that wasn't exactly Cubs fans finest hour. I actually thought the filmmaker did a really nice (and fair) job of capturing the zeitgeist. One of the participants in the program was Fox 32's Dane Placko--and they asked him to participate because they saw this video on my website Just One Bad Century...

Meatloaf

Happy birthday Meatloaf. He's 64 years old today...

Urbino

A 15th century city (and birthplace of Raphael) that is completely intact...

Acqualagna

Took this one during our truffle hunt (full story of that day to come).

Italian Roads, Take Me Home

Granted, we weren't exactly in the highest population centers of Italy, but this is pretty typical of the roads we traveled on the entire time we were there.

Mornings on the Adriatic

Took this one as we prepared to get on the bus for an excursion...

Pesaro, Italy

This is an outside wall, and no, it's not attached to a library...

Fano

An arch built by the Roman Emperor Augustus around two thousand years ago. The original etchings are still on the wall...

Loreto

The Basilica behind me was built around the birth home of the Virgin Mary, brought back to Italy during the Crusades. The church was only 700 years old. The fountain was only 500 years old.

An Italian Vineyard

We had an amazing lunch here last week in the hills above Fano, Italy. The food was delicious. The wine was incredible. Yes, that's right, wine for lunch. And lots of it...

The Italian Riviera

This was the view from my hotel room in Pesaro, Italy last week...

Rube Waddell

This is finally the last merciful week of the baseball season, so this is the last week of stories to come from Just One Bad Century.

The final Cubs Hall of Famer for the season is Rube Waddell.

Father Knows Nothing

Just got back from Italy, and this week's Father Knows Nothing column is about the very strange circumstances surrounding the day I left Chicago. It's called "An Italian Birthday."

You can read it here.

Italia

I'm on assignment this week in the Marche region of Italy, which is along the Adriatic. (Seriously, I am. Who knew this writing thing could be so fun...er...I mean grueling.)

I'll be here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I'll be back this coming weekend.

Coming soon: An official announcement about my second novel. Until then, Ciao!

(P.S. That photo is not taken in Italy. It's at Elvis' grave at Graceland. It's the closest I could find to a religious picture--I'll be seeing lots of churches in Italy.)

This week at Just One Bad Century

I'm out of the country this week, but just because I'm gone, and the Cubs haven't shown up for months, doesn't mean that we aren't still going strong at Just One Bad Century.

We'll still have our weekly Cubs Hall of Famer: Bruce Sutter

We'll still have our weekly Great Nickname: The Rajah

We'll still have two Tales from a Bad Century: Bill Veeck Jr. and Norman Rockwell Nails the Cubs

We'll still feature Sights & Sounds

And of course, go back This Week in 1908, and This Week in 1945.

But even more importantly, our souvenir stand remains open, and wouldn't you like to buy one of our snazzy shirts or hats?

That's what I thought: Buy those here.