Author: phindacure

I am a husband, a father and a caregiver to a wife with late-stage Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. I'm also a 25+ year Network Engineer and aspiring writer with a fascination with organized crime and prohibition-era American history. I'm also a very mediocre Rocket League play (peak Champ 2).

Late night story ideas

Why? That’s what I wan’t to know. It happens without fail, that once I’ve decided to flip off the computer and put down the phone to sleep, inspiration strikes. An idea so much better than the ones I had while actually writing, will pop into my head. Without any encouragement, the idea takes root and grows and blossoms faster and with more clarity than I could even record it. Within minutes I’m wide awake and faced with the decision to get up and try to get it all down, or simply close my eyes and hope the idea reappears in the morning. I tend to choose the latter, and the idea tends to disappear.

That’s what happened last night. After losing two hours to YouTube shorts, I finally managed to create a blank timeline and a handful of to-do’s on my FreeForm board. Then I stared at it for another hour, adjusted text boxes, moved things around and avoided doing anything meaningful with regards to writing. My lack of productivity and the late hour were signs that it was time for sleep, so I proceeded forthwith. I even avoided reaching for the AirPods and the podcast or audiobook that normally sends me to my slumber.

But, then it happened. On the verge of sleep, as my breathing slowed and relaxed, the idea came. It couldn’t be ignored. It was something important, a revelation about a character in one of my stories. The details of the idea were vivid and it’s implications could have had the potential to affect several other characters and the overall plot. So, I got some water and spent a few minutes orchestrating things in my mind, finalizing things as prepared to get up and write even if it meant an all nighter. And then, inexplicably, I fell asleep.

When I woke up this morning, I remembered just enough to be frustrated that I didn’t act on it last night. Not the details of the idea of course, not the important bits, those remain a mystery to me today. It’s like the idea itself burned out while I slept and I woke only to find smoldering ruins. Smoke. Evidence that an idea had burned brightly not that long ago, but only the merest whiff of it remained. I recognized the feeling this morning, so I set about to write down what I could remember of the idea. It’s not much, but it is something. Who knows if it’ll ever spark back to life the way it did last night, but I doubt it.

I wish there was a happy medium. Some way of recording enough of an idea without getting out of bed to fully flesh it out, without losing too much of it to sleep. A voice recorder maybe, but then I’d ramble on and eventually wake up my wife. I could whip out an iPad or phone to try and write something down, but I could also drop the damn thing on my face when I drift off to sleep. Who knows, maybe there isn’t a solution. Maybe there is just something magical about laying in warm bed, listening to the sound of rain at 2am and letting my imagination run free of constraint.

PHind A Cure

Getting into the swing of things

The OT Savant

It’s taken a couple weeks, but I finally feel like I’m getting into the swing of this blogging thing, and gosh darn it if I don’t really enjoy it.

My 2025 started off a little slow on the reading and writing front, due partially to my work schedule picking up. As a Network Engineer specializing in Operations Technology (OT) and working at an electrical utility, the new year traditionally means new budgets, new projects, and dreaded ‘kick-off’ meetings. With three weeks of that now behind me, I was finally able to give some attention to the blogs last week. I’m glad I did.

In my short time here on WordPress I’ve been introduced to many friendly and talented writers whore are walking this writing path before or beside me. WordPress has really opened up a new world to me, and that world seems to be filled with stories and people who I admire and hope to connect with as I grow.

Firstly, a big thank you to anyone who is reading this or has read any of my posts. I’ve spent most of writing time on my Caregiving and Awareness blog New Lung Plz!. If you’ve never heard of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension or if you’d like to learn more about rare disease caregiving, I urge you to take a look.

The rest of my writing time has been spent over at my fictional short story blog, Heeled. It’s the first real story or set of stories that I’ve had the courage to share with anyone, even my wife and kids. My excitement continues to outweigh my anxiety and self-doubt, despite learning daily of mistakes I’m making. But I will continue to write even if its the worst piece of shit ever written, which it very well could be. I spent several weeks in December knocking out most of the short story content and I’ve been spending a little time each week editing chapters and uploading them. If you’re interested in prohibition-era crime fiction, I’d be honored to have you take a look.

Finally, I’ve also started reading from my list. I chose The Enfield Gang Massacre by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips as my first book/graphic novel of 2025. I aim to finish reading this weekend and post a review early next week, so if you have any interest in that, stay tuned. I’ve always held a special place in my heart for Westerns and I owe that to my Father, who would have been 100 years old next month. When I visit my Mother each week, I dust off their collection of John Wayne collectible plates and we watch old reruns of Wagon Train. And when I lay my head down each night, it’s usually to the scratchy sounds of an old Gunsmoke! episode. So there it is, I love Westerns and I REALLY like what I’ve read so far in The Enfield Gang Massacre.

I know it’s just a wee little post, but it’s something! If you’ve taken the time to read it, thank you! I am hoping each of us has a productive and fulfilling week of reading, writing and learning.

Cheers,

Terry / PHind A Cure


Time to read

The OT Savant

Just like the post says, I’ve assembled a lineup of books to read in 2025, and I intend to get started today. The theme should be apparent, Organized Crime with an emphasis on the prohibition-era time period in America. My fascination with these subjects didn’t arrive by chance, they were cultivated.

My Father was born in 1925. He lived through the great depression, quit school in the seventh grade to get a job, and eventually served in World War 2 and Korea. After the war, he spent his years growing a family of seven and supporting it as a Teamster hauling freight up and down the West Coast. He was a simple man with simple hobbies. He liked Westerns and collected stamps, enjoyed working with wood and his bare hands and he preferred listening to baseball and football games over an AM radio crackling with static, rather than watching it on a nice big television. He would have been 100 years old this year. If he was still around, I think he’d enjoy the content I now love to consume.

So without further ado, I present to you my reading list for 2025 (so far). I’ve included fiction novels from the master himself, Max Allan Collins, along with engrossing and meticulously researched non-fiction by Collins, A. Brad Schwartz, and John J. Binder. There’s a healthy dose of graphic novels penned and illustrated by my favorite duo, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. And in honor of the old man, there’s even a Western thrown in. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I present to you my 2025 reading haul:

Lets go left to right and take it from the top, shall we?

The list will likely grow over the year, and it represents only what I intend to put my grubby little fingers on. I’m also an avid audiobook and podcast enjoyer, so I’ll be posting similar lists for those mediums as well, stay tuned for those if you’re interested. In the meantime, check out the list and let me know what you think!

Terry / PHind A Cure

Let’s try this again…

When I started this blog back in 2023, I didn’t really know what I wanted to accomplish with it. I knew that I wanted to become a more consistent and disciplined writer, but I wasn’t exactly sure what to write about. I figured my job as an OT Network Engineer and my experiences being a husband and caregiver to a critically ill spouse would provide all the material needed. However, it didn’t quite work out that way.

I launched the blog and wrote my first post, a simple ‘Spring Reading’ list with the books I hoped to read that Spring. The site was bare and the post was short, but it was a start. My enthusiasm for writing was so evident that before I even wrote a second post on this blog, my wife convinced me to start another blog that we would both contribute to, New Lungs Plz!

Unfortunately, thats as far as we got. Life threw a one-two punch of increased work along with my wife’s Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension progressing. The result was the last eighteen months being filled with ups and downs, successes and failures.

Our dog dies unexpectedly one month, the next month my wife’s echocardiogram and blood work showed a sharp progression and the need for Oxygen during sleep and exercise. A new drug called Winrevair is then approved for my wife’s disease and she begins treatment almost instantly, but the issues with her platelets and hemoglobin mean that she might not be able to stay on it. Thankfully, it her numbers even out and she is able to continue with injections.

A month after that, we get a new puppy and celebrate our daughters 22nd birthday, our 25th wedding anniversary and my wife’s 44th birthday, only to have a central line infection land my wife in the hospital for a week the very next month.

By the end of 2024, my wife was back home and healthy, our puppy had become a full fledged member of the family, we celebrated my other daughter’s 19th birthday and I celebrated several milestones as multi-year projects got wrapped up at work. December was so good in fact that I even spent a couple weeks at the end of it starting a new writing project, a collection of fictional short stories taking place in prohibition-era Chicago called Heeled. If you’re interested at all, head over and check it out.

As I look forward to 2025, I’m sure of only one thing. It will be a journey. I wanted to list my goals for the year and maybe I will at some point, but it seems a little silly now given that it’s halfway into January. The most important goal, the one that I had when I started the blogs, was to write more. If I accomplish nothing else this year, that seems like a goal I can stick with. I hope you’ll join me.

Terry / PHind A Cure