It happened: I finally got a traffic ticket, after 20 years of driving, on and off.  I would not recommend it.  For one thing, it takes forever.  How long does it take to write a ticket?  I ask this as a professional writer.

I’d have to say that the main thing that I found, during my first-ever book signing event recently, was that people didn’t really understand why it was so important that I signed their books.  As I was reading a selection aloud, I could hear people asking each other, “What’s he doing behind that table?” 

Are you the parent of a teenager who has no real plans for the summer, and you want him or her to get out of the house and learn some life lessons, like how hard it is to get a decent job, or that any job they could even get requires basically none of the skills that they’re learning in school?