Week 38 of 2026
Greetings all!
I’m writing this from an IPad. First time I’m using an Apple product since the 80s. I’ll tell you my reasons in a moment.
But first, never let it be said Wynnifred doesn’t help around the house. Here she is after cleaning a plate for us. Nice of her, isn’t it.
The big news this week is that Giant Killer Kaiju is in production and will be released on October 23rd! It was a great honor to get to serve as guest editor for this, and let me tell you, folks brought all the RAWWWWRRRR!!!! I could hope for.
My homework told those interested in submitting that I wanted to evoke the cool feel of 1950s Godzilla and Mothra flicks. Exciting, interesting, and filled with RAWWWWRRRR. I got some great stories, stretching in time period from ancient Rome to centuries in the future.
More exciting to me at least, they’re all filled with people just dealing with that which their morning caffeine didn’t quite prepare them for. It’s a lot of fun and I’m proud to be a part of it.
Many thanks to Raconteur Press, especially Ian and Jonna Hayden for giving me an opportunity!
Now, why am I figuring out how to use a Command button and not a Control key when I’m copying and pasting? Well, it’s because we had a spare IPad for shop use with a keyboard, and using it seemed like a better idea than dragging a laptop around.
My wife and I are finally taking our honeymoon! We’re closing the shop after work on Friday and not opening up again until Monday, October 20th.
The side quest that opens up the trip will be the two of us going to P-Con this weekend! Excited to join the folks down in Dallas again, and this time I’ll have the actress who plays my wife—I mean my wife with me. She does exist!
On Monday, though, we’re starting the main adventure: We’re going to Italy! And you guys can play the home game.
In 2012, I went to Wales and I blogged about my trip. In that case, it’s because my second wife and I got a divorce, so there’s a lot of philosophical stuff there. However, it really was a great time and wasn’t entirely Rob walks all day to another pub where he has beer and sticky toffee pudding. Not entirely.
Here’s are those posts of that trip by the way, if you want to see how that went:
Welsh Trip 2012
I’m going to blog this trip again here. I don’t plan on sending those posts out as emails, as I don’t want to spam you all, but I will be doing my updates while I’m there and you can always keep checking here to see what all we’re doing.
We’re hitting Milan, Turin, Como, Verona, Venice, Florence, and Rome along the way, and maybe a side quest into the countryside here and there.
The first part of it is a scheduled tour with Country Heritage Tours. It’s called the Italian Fabrics & Flavors Quilt Tour, and you can see why we’re interested. We’ve got a bunch of great museums scheduled, some time making chocolates and pastas, and I plan on coming back as an expert on Italian wine.
In light of that last one, I’m not promising every blog post will be perfectly coherent.
August and September have been rough. We’ve faced a bunch of challenges and we literally didn’t know for sure we’d be able to go until this morning.
But we are going. We’re going to have a honeymoon of legend! Either that, or I’ll accidentally fall into a Venetian canal while accidentally wearing concrete shoes my wife made for me. Accidentally. Obviously.
Next week I’ll be sending this from Turin!
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Have a great week, everyone.
Rob Howell
Creator of the Firehall Sagas Universe
Founder of the Queen Elizabeth’s Own Foresters
My Weight Today: 301.0lbs
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