On the fourth floor of the Cambria Hotel, in downtown Ashville, North Carolina, there is a wonderful & exotic & important place to visit: Hemingway’s Cuba Restuarant & Bar.

That is where my wife and I had our wedding dinner. It’s also a place I visited four times during our three-day stay at the hotel. Not just because of great food & great service & the like… it had to do with the feeling Hemingway was, in some way, with me.

It was Ernest Hemingway that convinced me I was a writer.

Back in high school, way before I ever thought I would make anything out of all the time I spent writing in notebooks, I read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. In those pages, Good Ol’ Papa described going to cafes in Paris, with a notebook and pencil, and writing stories.

Hell, I thought, that is what I do. I must be a writer.

It only seems too appropriate that I would have my wedding night there.

And return the following morning to get my glorious bride some breakfast.

And return the same night to have dinner. Which, at that point, I was so addicted to the place I was making the newly-blushing-bride blush. Not because of the “you-know-whats” but because I was hell-bent on stealing the bust of Hemingway on display at the restaurant.

(What can I say? They refused to sell it to me.)

I also had my GONZO pendant dangling from my neck. Hemingway & Dr. Thompson with me…

I was in a major energetic-inspired mood this past weekend. Not only did I get married, but my first book was also made available on Amazon.com. Notes From the Night Desk: Volume 1 is available both on Kindle & in paperback.

By the time my bride & I were back from Ashville, my Author’s Copy was waiting for me in the mail.

Now, back at home, in Taylorsville, I’m trying to come to grips with the magnitude of what all has happened in the past month… hell, just this year alone, so much has happened.

Tara and I are just getting situated & comfortable in the new home one week, the next we are getting married. My aunts were there. Two beautiful pillars that reminded me FAMILY will always be there. And that Tara is now part of that family. I know my aunt Brenda & my aunt Cheryl will be there for her, no matter the condition. And I know they would be there for me. – They were there for me, on that special of special days.

All of the CONGRADULATIONS from so many people on social media – on the wedding & the book – has made my heart very happy. I thank all of you. Thank you to my parents, sister, aunt Brenda & aunt Cheryl, Prof. William McKeen, Ron Whitehead, to the wonderful friends that were there at the ceremony & for their support & laughter.

And most of all: To Tara Locke!

It has been one hard-hitting year, thus far. I imagine it won’t slow down.

This coming weekend, we are going to be back on the road, heading up to Ohio, visiting family. And, oddly, I posted on facebook that I will be eating dinner at the Alliance, OH Applebee’s if anyone wants a signed copy of Notes.

More people responded than what I had anticipated.