Can you find the hidden clues in this famous painting and uncover the infamous Waldo?

I've always been a voracious reader, as far back as I can remember I felt a powerful need to read. My Mom was a tireless reader of popular novels and mysteries and my Dad was a "Great Books" reader so I grew up in the presence of books and their availability probably had a lot to do with my love of reading.

When I was five and six years old I lived half a city block from a branch library and my grandfather would take me in hand to check out a book every week or so. I remember reading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at the age of nine and devouring everything I found interesting in my elementary school library. I read everything, books, newspapers, cereal boxes, reading became my escape, reading became almost obsessive.

Circumstances, mostly revolving around some changing conditions with my employer, have limited my blog posting over the last couple of months.  However, another factor that's cut down on the number of posts I've generated has to do with that profession that used to be my primary means of support, but which has sadly slipped to a minor part of the family budget in recent years.  I'm writing another novel.

Back when the keyboard was the only means of providing mac and cheese for the family diet, I finished off about a book every two months.  Heck, I did one on a six day start to finish deadline.  However, with no contracts to nail me down, my writing muscles have grown flabby.  I had been working on this book for over a year, and if I hadn't taken steps to put a self-imposed deadline in place, I fear another year might have fluttered past without seeing the words "the end."

With your indulgence, and those of the rest of the Political Cortex family, I'd like to give you a little peek at what I've been up to.