YEA! We made it all the way to the Bahamas and back, flying at 38,000 feet and survived. Actually it was a beautiful trip because you fly into the Bahamas at about 5,000 feet and can see the many colors in the water as you are landing. There are many difference between The Bahamas and the USA. For one, they drive on the left side of the road instead of the right. That one fact kept us from renting a motor scooter, that and the fact that they do not know where the break is on their vehicles, just the horn.
I do love the attitude of the people though. They slogan is "Don't worry, be happy" and "Everything is going to be alright". It is a beautiful country with sparkling white beaches and crystal clear water. Paradise Island is a place for the rich and famous, but Nassau is full of down-to-earth, friendly people.
We saw homes of Nicholas Cage, Oprah, and many other famous stars. But the real Bahamas is on the main island at places like the fish fry (30 restaurants of local cuisine), or taking the public bus #10 from where we stayed to the downtown area. It is places like these that you can get the real flavor of the people.
We even drove by Anna Nichol Smith's grave (I hope the island never becomes famous for that happening).
There is a strong British and Canadian presence on the island and of course a strong American influence since Florida is only 40 miles away. Cuba is a short distance also and there were a lot of Cuban tourists on the island.
There are 700 islands that make up the Bahamas and only 29 are inhabited. For a low price of 40 Million, you can own your own island. Then you get to spend more money developing the utilities and building a house. Of course a boat is a must. The second day we took a boat ride out to one of the islands and went snorkeling. All I can say is I have never experienced anything like that. You could see for miles underwater it was so clear. The water was cold though because it was the Atlantic Ocean.
Down there they eat what they call a Conk Salad every day. They eat it raw with raw tomatoes, onions and veg's. The guys say that is what puts the lead in their pencils. There are some people on the outer islands that are 104 or 105 still doing their daily chores. I guess it does something for them.
We stayed in an all-inclusive which was a nice place but when we go back, we are just going to stay in a regular hotel somewhere. All-inclusive's are OK but they are not for us, unless they are in Mexico, which we won't experience for some time.
They eat 4 times a day and drink all day long. If you don't participate you feel like you are wasting money. That is the only drawback. But it is nice to know that your food and drink is paid for in advance.
The casino's are nice but the better paying ones are away from Paradise Island. The Atlantis Casino will suck every Penny from you so don't bet there.
We loved our vacation and nowadays, that is not easy to say. I highly recommend it.

Thanks for listening

John

Flying to a Vacation Spot

You know, it's funny how it works when you choose to fly to a Paradise vacation spot. If you are airplane challenged as I am, you spend 2 days worrying about getting on the plane and which alcohol will be your tranquilizer. Once you get there it is like a 40 Pound weight lifted off your chest. By the third day you are starting to relax and by the fourth day, it is time to start to get pumped up to get back on the plane for the return trip. Is all of this nervousness really worth going? You're darn right.
If we are so affraid to go somewhere because of what might happen, we would never leave our house. You might as well barricade yourself in and have the grocery delivery drop you food into a reverse airflow entryway. So to all of you would be travelers out there I say DO IT!
The whole thing about life is to experience and embrace it because tomorrow is definitely not a certainty.
Flying is the safest means of travel by far. It is just when something does happen, the whole world hears about it. No one hears about the thousands that die on the highway each day. No one hears about the 36,000 people who die from the flu every season.
So let loose and enjoy getting away to see how the other half lives. But above all, embrace it as one of the perks of life.

John

The importance of family

You know, there is no one in this life that will stand by a person like family. The world is made up of all kinds of people. I would have to say mostly good people from all races, languages and countries. Those who say that people are basically bad do not know one thing about humans. Everyone has two things in their personality when they are born. The desire to be a good person to others and the desire to survive. It is built into our basic DNA.
I want to go on record as saying I am fortunate enough to have the best family a person could ever have, or ever hope for. I have a loving wife whom I would definitely take a bullet for if I had to. I have three beautiful, intelligent and loving daughters whom I am very proud of, not to mention three wonderful grandchildren and a fourth to be here by the end of June. I also have two of the most caring and well rounded son-in-laws that a person could ever want. I have the best cousins in California and San Antonio that one could hope for. Finally, I have great brother-in-laws. In the category of being blessed, I am a saint.
This old world (society) can stomp on your face, tear you up or wail on your spirit but when the chips are down, family will do whatever is necessary to ensure you are okay. So I say with all of my heart, thank you family for being my family.
A hundred years from now when we are all gone, it will be family that remembers that you were once a soul on this earth living and loving and doing all of the things you were meant to do.
The sad thing about today is the fact that when someone gets so depressed that they feel like taking their own life, they have to take a half a dozen people with them. This is a terrible thing and should not continue if we are going to survive in the future. The fact that people get like that tells me that we lack the support system as humans to drag people out of these holes they have dug themselves in. It is all about "me" in this society and the heck with the other person. What is the world going to come to? I'd like to think that it will always be a good place as people wake the hell up and remember, you are not the only one sharing this planet. We Americans take so much for granted it is not even funny. A child in a third world country starving to death can get us to say "that is terrible" but it cannot get us to reach in our pockets and try to help them. Out of sight, out of mind sort of thing.
But basically people are good and I am glad to be a part of this world and look forward to being a part for many years to come. But I wouldn't be near the person I am today without my family.

Thanks for listening

Waiting for retirement

Will retirement ever come? I hope so since the alternative is not of my liking. You know, I think life is completely reversed from the way it should be. You work your butt off all of your life and by the time you can travel and see the world you are too darn old to enjoy it the way it was supposed to be. I think we should figure out how to get our money up front (sort of an advanced salary for twenty years. After we have traveled for twenty years and seen the world, we can get us a nice little cabin on the lake somewhere and find our artistic side and do our thing. We all have an artistic side, some of us find it but a lot of us don't even know we possess it. So what will I do in a couple of years when I hang up the work apron?
Well, I do have a plan because I, for one, know that if you just stop doing everything and think you are going to sit and watch the birds or something like that, you will end up going star raving mad. Human beings are born to interact with other humans. That is why we have a brain and a mouth.
My plan is simple. I plan to do a lot of writing about subjects that I have always wanted to write about. I simply love to write and it fullfills me in a way that nothing else can, with the exception of my wife and daughters and grand children, present and future. They are the most important thing that has ever happened to me.
I already have a war/love novel out. I also have a murder mystery and the sequel to it out. My last book is a wagon train adventure set in 1868. I have two books coming that will be my best work yet. "Winds of chance" is set in current time in Martha's Vinyard. It is about young people with the world at their feet. The book after that is titled "Hilltop Manor" and will be a historical fiction book about a family who own a thriving cotton plantation in Savannah, Georgia in late 1861. The civil war comes along and turns the family upside down.
I will never stop writing as long a I live because I write for me and people who need to escape into the world of fiction. If I can make one person in this world happy and a better person through my writing, I will have done my thing.
You know, we enter this world and are automatically drilled that material things are all that matter. Well, the matters of the soul are the real things that matter in this world. You are hear a millisecond in time compared to the big picture. A wise person once said it is not the two dates that are associated with a persons life (Birth-death) but what you do with the time in between.

There are so many talented writers out there that are never discovered because they lack the funds to get their profile out there. That is a shame because the world deserves good literature and are being deprived. The major publishers are as bad as the music business. If you are not at the right place at the right time, you will be destined to roam the unabscure world forever, no matter how good your book is.
All we can do is to keep trying each year and by all means keep writing because what is in our minds must come out in the form of the written word or we will explode.
Thanks for listening.

www.johnhachmann.com

The wonderful world of fiction

Don't you just love to escape all of the stressful things of everyday life sometimes and leap into a good story that takes you to places that you can only imagine? Well that is what fiction does. Fiction is like a stress pill in that you can become lost in an adventure that you can only dream about.

I have published three books so far, all of them in separate genre's. One is a Love/War story, one is a Murder Mystery, and the other is an epic wagon train adventure with thrill's galore.

• The Tears of Destiny is a novel about a man and a woman who are married in the summer of 1941. He joins the Marines in order to see the world and take his lovely bride with him. Along comes the bombing of Pearl Harbor and their lives change forever.


• The Dark Water Murders is a novel about a biologist and a reporter who are caught up in the worst serial killer event in the state of New York. They fall in love and join forces to try to bring the terror to an end. This novel has a sequel which is the Dark Water II - Killers Revenge. I am currently 90% finished with this novel.


• Journey into Peril is a novel about two brothers who lead a wagon train across the United States in 1868. They will make the dangerous journey across the rocky mountains in an effort to get 107 wagons to the promise land. After they arrive, they are planning to travel to the Klondike to search for a gold strike. They encounter many perils on this journey. Will they all make it to the California coast?

I have two works in progress in the form of a novel titled The Winds of Chance and Hilltop Manor. Hilltop Manor is an epic historical fiction book about a family living in Savannah, Georgia at the opening of the most costly war in terns on loss of American soldiers in the history of this great country, the civil war.

If I can take at least some of you readers to the magical place of fiction and make your lives better, then I will have accomplished what I set out to do. God bless all of you and good reading.

You can purchase a copy of any of my books at BarnesAndNoble.com, Publish America.com or Amazon.com.