The price of silver also plunged. It hit $29.80 on Sept. 26, basically erasing its gains for the year


WILDFIRES RAVAGE OUR AREA
Monday, September 26, 2011
It makes me quite happy, and relieved to say that our iminent danger of fire breakout of this past weekend ended with just one small fire that is now totally under control. Let's hope we never have to go through all of that all over again. Now if we could just do something about this heat.....here it is end of Sepetmber and yesterday, it was 105 degrees. Today it will hit 102.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Today we can say that all of the fires, except for the big one in Bastrop, are either under full control, or are out. Meanwhile, in Bastrop, the fire is now "50/50" but still wreaking havoc everywhere. This record-breaking fire, which at its' peak was 20 miles wide, has claimed nearly 2,000 homes and burned 35,000 acres of land. Two deaths are associated with this fire, and seven or eight people have been reported as missing. Let's hope they are all found safe and sound.

New worries arrived with the continuation of the worst drought in history, and the record-breaking heat again. The winds have arrived too, and those conditions will be here for the balance of the week. A record-setting tempreture of 104 degrees brought the peace and calm of 5 days in the low to mid 90's to an end, and experts predict another 4 or 5 days of records are in line to be broken this week along. Meanwhile the area remains without a single drop of water now for over two and a half months. All it will take is one or two careless people and.....

Sunday, September 4, 2011Tonight's news was over an hour long, instead of its' usual 30 minute format, and all it dealt with was
the wildfires raging all over our viewing area. As I write this tonight, no less than 7 fires are burning in our area, the worst of which is in Bastrop, where a fire has already consumed more than 14,000 acres and over 300 homes. Over 3,000 people have been evacuated, and it is so hot that the firefighters can't get close enough to it to fight it. The blaze, which is said to be a mind-boggling 16 miles wide and 6 miles deep, is moving so fast, about all they can do is try and prevent more homes from being destroyed.

There is another huge fire burning in North Austin, in a high-end subdivision called Steiner Ranch. Over 3,000 people have been evacuated there too, and over 100 very expensive homes have been lost so far. That fire is said to be so hot, is moving so fast, that they have no idea how many acres have been lost. It to is totally out of control as we speak.

Next up Pflugerville, where Linda and I live. This fire has been burning since late this afternoon, and although it is not as big as the other two fires, it has done its' share of damage to the area, claiming about 50 homes and 400 acres of land. It is currently about 40% contained. Although it is at least 5 miles from where we live, when the winds pick up, it is close enough that we can smell the smoke, which is close enough for us. We are not in any danger, although we are always on guard. You have to be, around here, right now.

New to the list is Dripping Springs. This area was minding its' own business, until a fire which had already claimed 30 homes in a neighboring county, decided to jump over a dried-up creek, and into another county entirely. It is also moving fast, and since this has happened just tonight, there is no telling how many homes will be claimed, nor when this one will be contained.

Smaller fires that are still burning from earlier today include one in Cedar Park, a highly populated area which got lucky and did not have significant loss, and yes, another fire in Pflugerville, which was earlier today, that is now under control. Both of these fires claimed less than 5 homes each, and each claimed about 50 acres of land.

The 7th one I believe, is burning in a remote area of Bastrop county, not near the other one. Not much else is known about it yet, other than it is in a far reaching part of the county.

The combination of a very windy day, constant winds of 20-30 mph, with gusts of up to 50 mph with the worst drought ever in our history, make for a perfect tinderbox. All it takes is one careless person, and the fire has plenty of dry brush, trees and grasses, with lots of wind to blow it all over the place.

I would like to say that Monday will be a better day for all of us, but the truth of the matter is, according to the National Weather Service, we can expect even higher wind conditions tomorrow throughout the area. No rain in sight.

Good God. When is this going to end?

NEW SHOPPING CHANNEL OPENS
Saturday, August 20th 2011
A new shopping channel has emerged on TV.
The "World of Watches TV" channel is seen on DirecTV Ch. 227
from 5 - 8pm Central Standard Time. I don't have any other information about their channels of distribution, nor air time as of this writing. The hosts that were on the air were Charla Rines former host at ShopNBC and a male host whose name I did not catch, nor recognize from any network I know. I got the feeling from watching the few minutes that I did, that he might even be the person running the operation.
MY TAKE: Getting Charla was a brilliant aquisition for this new network, although her ability far outdistances his. I suppose it isn't bad, if watches are your thing. I like the fact that just about every item I saw had "STRESS FREE PAYMENTS" on it, and when I was watching at least, most of the watches were quite reasonably priced. Personally, I believe that any one-item format like that will ever be a total success, although they could carve out a name for themselves in limited fashion, like the knife channels somehow have managed do, although I'll never be able to understand how. One thing I know for sure, "World of Watches TV" is going after the ShopNBC watch business, that's pretty obvious. Good luck with that.

UPDATE: POSH TV CLOSES DOWN
Saturday, August 20th, 2011
I recently learned from a very reliable source,
one of POSH TV's vendors, and a good friend of mine, that POSH has in fact ceased operating. Hopes of securing one last investor apparently did not go the way they hoped it would and that was their last opportunity for survival.
Although their impact on the video retailing industry was small, it is never a good day when we lose one of our own. I have been where they are right now, and it is no fun. I wish everyone involved in that venture nothing but the best in the future, and hope for a quick recovery. I invite everyone to join me in adding them to your prayer list tonight.

POSH TV GOES DARK
The POSH TV Shopping Network which broadcast
from the facility formerly occupied by GemsTV, has ceased operations. If you visit their website, they speak of some form of "restruction" which makes it sound like they are actually in the process of doing some high def changes to their operations. However, my sources tell me different.
What I have learned is that like any other company that is facing financial problems, they were seeking investors with the hopes of keeping the network going. Unfortunately, they were, for the most part, unsuccessful. However, I learned that they still have one more investor (or investors, perhaps a group, I don't know that for sure) that is still in the picture. If they are succesful, they will survive. If not, they will shut down, just as GemsTV, the former occupants of the same building did, a couple of years back. I don't know about you, but personally, the last thing I would ever do is put another channel in that building.

MY PERSONAL REACTION TO ALL THIS:
I hope with every fabric of my being that this is a temporary situation and that POSH TV does return to the air, and soon. I am not ashamed to admit I said a prayer for them before I went to bed last night. Anybody worth anything in this business should feel the same. I have some dear friends that I have worked with before working at POSH, and it would not make me happy if they all were unemployed like I am as I write this piece. Friends or no friends, it should not matter. It is never a good thing, when we lose one of our own.

DAN LEAVES LIQUIDATION CHANNEL.
Sudden move takes everyone by surprise.

I wish things would have worked out differently for me at the network, and I will always remember the many good times I shared while I was there. I have many friends at LC that I regret leaving behind. It is out of deep respect for them and for the network in general that I choose not to comment any further on this situation at this time. 

I would like to wish first and formost al of my family at the Liquidation Channel and STS nothing but continued success and happiness in the future. The network is sound, and it will continue to prosper and grow. I will personally miss all of you that have touched my life during these past four years.

I would also like to thank all of my viewers for all the support that you have given to me throughout my twenty six years in this business. There would be no "Dan Dennis" if it were not for all of you. That is something that I have never forgotten and never will.

SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE, YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING?

It is a little too early yet to announce where we go from here. I will promise you one thing for sure: there will always be a way of keeping in touch with me, and you are here right now:  www.dandennis.com

If you have not registered for my newsletter, please take the time to do so. As of now, it is the only way to keep in touch, ane let you know what is going on with me.

PROJECTS AND PRODUCTS TO COME

Besides everything you have read about on the home page, my gem book in book form is my next target. It will undergo a complete makeover, and may never be sold again under it's current title "Gems: A Lively Guide for the Casual Collector."

At first, it looked like it would be an easy go, but the format I have from my publisher and the formats they use today are nothing alike, and it appears to be far too costly for me to go through everything we need to do in order to make it work. However, this was just one publisher's opinion and I am not totally giving up on the project yet.

Hopefully, I will have a book available by the holidays, in some sort or another, but don't totally quote me on that.

Right now, I have no less than eight different options that are open to me, and some can be combined with others. In fact, most can be combined with others. Where we are going to end up next, only the good Lord can say.

Since 2005 we have moved from Florida to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Knoxville, TN, from Knoxville, TN to South Florida, from South Florida to Texas, and now from Texas to who knows where......

I told Linda before we got married that I knew she was used to the old "9 to 5" routine, but if she was going to marry me, that she was buying into another whole deal. I don't think she ever thought it would ever get this crazy, but then again consider who she is married to. It comes with the territory.

Hard as it is to believe, this nut case journey that passes for my life, is about to take off again.

This one always made me feel like it was written for me, by a man I always loved dearly, who died way before his time:

        "There's no straight lines make up my life and all my roads have bends,
         There's no clear-cut beginnings, and so far, no dead ends."
                                                                                              Harry Chapin, "Circles"


WE ARE INDEED NOT ALONE IN THIS WORLD.

I had always held to the belief that we were not alone in this universe. On Saturday night, February 5, 2011, I now know that I am right. Everything you are about to read is 100% true.

This is not a scam, nor a joke.

It was just after midnight, so I guess I could have said technically Sunday morning February 6, but since I was still up it was part of Saturday night, you all know how that goes. At any rate, I had just come downstairs to get ready for bed, and was just about to get in bed, when Linda came into the bedroom and said “I want you to take a look at something.” I figured it was something on the TV, but boy was I wrong. She led me to a window, a large one in our formal dining room that has a clear view of the stars and the big Texas sky in the evening. She pointed to what appeared to be a star, although it appeared to be blinking and was much brighter than the rest, and said “I always take a few minutes to look at the stars before bed. I want you to look at this star, and tell me what you see. I have been watching it now for about ten minutes, and unless I am going crazy, this is no ordinary star. It is moving, in all sorts of directions.” So we shut all the lights off so we could get a good view, and we watched this “star” for about a half an hour, and as we did, whatever this thing was, I can tell you, it was not a star, but some sort of self-propelled something. You had to be patient, because it would do nothing for maybe 5-8 minutes at a time, then all at once it would shoot straight up, then take a sharp turn either left or right. Sometimes, it would move, almost in a big circle, and end up right back where it was before. It had worked it’s way up in the sky to a point where we needed to move almost up next to the window to see it now, rather than to see it from about five feet from the window. It seemed the longer we watched, the more it began to move. When it moved upward, it almost resembled a rocket, except I have never heard of a rocket stopping, turning around, or coming back down again. Eventually, it began to move higher and higher, and we began to wonder if it was getting ready to leave. I told Linda we needed to have somebody witness this thing, so I called our local news network TV 24 KVUE, and unfortunately, at 1:30am on Saturday night/Sunday morning, they had no one to send out. I tried shooting it with my camcorder, but it was too far away for my $199 special to pick up. I called our newspaper (the Austin Statesman American), and left a message, which I now realize was stupid, because they will most likely get it on Monday. Finally, I decided to call the Pflugerville police department. They sent over two policemen to the house, and eventually, even their sergeant showed up as well. (Slow night for crime in Pflugerville, I guess.)

At any rate, when the policemen first arrived, nothing was going on, and they were quite cynical, one guy in particular. Then, all of a sudden, while we were all watching at the same time, the “star” suddenly shot up and to the right quickly and dramatically. We all saw it as plain as day. It stayed there for just seconds, before suddenly reversing itself and shooting across the sky to the left. The guy who had been the most cynical said “Holy sh**! You guys are really telling the truth.” No one could really explain it, although the sergeant pushed the satellite theory a bit, (like a satellite would actually move like that) and they finally left after watching it move around with us for about another 15 minutes. We do know one thing for sure: it was no star. The stars move as the earth rotates, and this thing, whatever it was, and wherever it came from, stayed basically in the same area all night. The coolest times were when it would appear to “hover.”

I watched for a little while longer before going to bed, and Linda went back to our media room to watch a little more TV. I asked her how long she stayed up and she said about an hour, and that when she came down to check on the “star” it was gone. Apparently it had seen enough, and left.

Pflugerville is all farmland, very flat and pretty remote, particularly on the outer reaches. It is easy to see why something like this could happen out here, because of those reasons. I would seriously doubt you would see this hovering over downtown Austin.

The TV news guys said that if it showed up again tonight that they would send a crew up to shoot it. Unfortunately, it is overcast and we cannot see any stars at all tonight.

We swear all of this is true, and was witnessed by three Pflugerville policemen as well. Don’t wait for a joke or punch line here, because there is none. I can’t tell you how cool it was to watch this thing up there, and know that something up there was checking us out at the same time. Like I always thought: we are not alone.

Very, very cool. I hope it comes back again soon

Dan and Linda Dennis

AS OF FEBRUARY 14TH, OUR FRIENDS HAVE NOT YET RETURNED. I STAND BY MY PREDICTION THAT THEY WILL, AND SOON. I CHECK THE SKIES EVERY NIGHT.

Dan