Today was the first day of classes, one of my busiest times. I don’t have any assistants trained yet, so in between the other stuff I’m doing, I’m answering the bell to sell people textbooks every few minutes. I’ve got no complaints. It makes the day pass quickly. I’ve met my new assistants. One is a doctor from Ecuador, the other a pastor from Africa (not sure what country. Nigeria or Uganda, I think).

We have high employment requirements in my little library.

It’s amazing what you get in your e-mail as a result of being a Writers Digest subscriber. Today I got an advertisement for this book: The Pirate Primer. Teaches you the language of the freebooter. Just what we need to get ready for “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” September 19.



Usually when you get an e-mail that seems to come from yourself, but with your name spelled wrong, it’s a pretty good indication that you’re the lucky recipient of spam. But I took the risk of looking at an e-mail I got last night from a fellow named Lars Walkler (note the extra “l”), and it turns out he’s genuine. He wrote just to say hello and to warn me I might get some accidental e-mail intended for him in the future.

It’s rather amazing, I think. He’s a Swede, and he invented his unique last name, which he cobbled together from syllables of his father’s first and second names. But his original family name was Ohlsson. Ours was Olson.

He operates an adventure vacation business in Spain.

That’s where the resemblance ends.