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Grab your copy of the MISSION BRIEFS – 5 books for $5 and get caught up with The Shadowboxer

AND inside this boxset is a link to another free book, PROTOCOL, so its really 5 ½ books for $5

But because I’m not totally insane, this is going to be a very limited deal:

Includes

DANGER CLOSE

BLOOD RANSOM

GHOST COUP

FOREIGN TARGET

COLUMBIAN GOLD

MISSION BRIEF

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It’s Friday morning

and the June humidity is already pressing against the windows like a wet blanket.

Summer is here.

I was staring at that cookie tin while the caffeine kicked in.

Not for the cookies inside, though those are delicious dunked in coffee.

It’s the kind of tin Mamaw used to buy at Wal Mart on 28th Street for $1.98.

She would reuse those tins for sewing kits or homemade sweet treats.

My Dad even used one to store polished rocks he tumbled in the garage back in the late 70s.

It’s the Schrodinger’s Cat of treasure tins.

It could be anything and everything until you open the lid.

It made me think about time.

And waiting.

I looked over at a pair of muddy baseball cleats by the door.

We’re deep into travel ball season, packing the car with gear and driving to tournaments.

#10 is getting older.

The eye rolls have started.

The snorts, the armpit stink, the signs of entering that phase where he knows everything and the world is just “ugh bruh.”

But at the games, I watch him sit in the stands, slurping a slushie and studying the older players.

He’s the only kid on our team who does it every time we play.

Observing. Learning. Preparing.

It makes me wonder if I’m doing enough of the same.

I think about “what if” a lot, because it keeps me prepared.

What if the power goes out?

I’ve packed a bookshelf with paperbacks and the top of the closet with board games.

I’ve got extra notebooks and gel pens ready, just in case I can’t write on a laptop.

I’ve got beans in the cabinets beside the rice, and water tablets in the medicine cabinet.

Because change is as inevitable as a sunset, and good times don’t last.

I juggle eleven projects at once.

My brain races ninety to nothing behind a face carved from stone.

It probably looks crazy from the outside.

But I’ve done a lot of things most people call stupid or impossible.

• I decided to run a 100-mile race, and suffered a lot.

• I decided to kayak the length of the Mississippi River, and almost drowned.

• I decided to become a small business publishing books, and almost went under more than once.

I’ve failed more than I’ve finished.

I have more DNF’s (Did Not Finish) on my ultra-running records than actual finishes.

Every time my body stopped working at fifty miles, I chalked up a DNF.

But here’s the secret.

There is always another race.

Another chance to shine.

Eminem said you only get one shot, but that’s a lie.

You get hundreds of shots.

As many as you’re willing to take.

I was up late recently, thinking about what I want my final chapter to say.

Every obit starts the same way.

He died last night.

Unless we make some rapid advances in nano-tech or vampire outbreaks, we all get the exact same last sentence in our books.

The End.

So what do you do with the pages in between?

You get busy.

Living.

You rely on grit, the only thing that really matters.

You control what you can control.

Traffic will still be a nightmare. Politicians will still lie. The news will still peddle fear.

Let them.

You have a blank page today. A closed tin waiting to be opened.

Decide what treasures you want them to remember about you.