Kindle Free Pick of the Week: No Time to Run

Like John Grisham and D.W. Buffa, award-winning author J.D. Trafford created a smart legal thriller that keeps the reader turning pages.

Michael Collins burned his suits and ties in a beautiful bonfire before leaving New York and taking up residence at Hut No. 7 in a run-down Mexican resort. He dropped-out, giving up a future of billable hours and big law firm paychecks. But, there are millions of dollars missing from a client's account and a lot of people who want Michael Collins to come back. When his girlfriend is accused of murder, he knows that there really isn't much choice.

"No Time To Run" has been an Amazon Top 100 bestseller and a best-selling Amazon Legal Thriller.

Packers Counting on Pass Rush From First Rounder Nick Perry

It looks like the Green Bay Packers will have a pass rush in 2012, and a rookie may be leading the way.

Expectations are high as Nick Perry puts on the green and gold, and he's fine with that.

"I can't really say that I'm going to be the savior," Perry, an outside linebacker, said during the Packers' weekend rookie minicamp. "But I'm going to put my best foot forward to help the situation, just to try and help the team any way I can."

Last month, the Packers spent their first six picks on defensive players -- Perry, linemen Jerel Worthy and Mike Daniels, cornerback Casey Hayward, safety Jerron McMillian and inside linebacker Terrell Manning.

Things seemed to go well in Perry's first minicamp appearance.  The new Packer looked explosive moving forward, but started tentative and sluggish in pass coverage. Perry is making the transition from defensive end to outside linebacker, that is to be expected. However, the 270 pounds he's carrying might be contributing to the problems with pass coverage.

Google Doodle for Mother's Day

A very cool and appropriate Google Doodle today as the O's give the G a flower and hugs.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there.

Reporter/Stripper Files Lawsuit

Some might say reporters and stripper have a lot in common - they both uncover things.

So , the former Houston Chronicle reporter who was fired after another publication exposed her second job as a night club stripper announced Thursday she had filed a federal gender discrimination complaint against the paper that let her go.

In her complaint, Sarah Tressler, 30, is asking the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to look into the Chronicle's decision to fire her. Tressler says an editor told her she was let go because she hadn't disclosed her side gig in her job application.

"I was very upset that I was fired because I had been told by many editors that I was doing a good job," Tessler said in a statement. "There was no question on the form that covered my dancing. I answered the questions on the form honestly."

Tressler announced she filed the complaint at a news conference with her lawyer, Beverly Hills celebrity attorney Gloria Allred. Later, Tressler tweeted: "Couldn't ask for anyone better by my side ... So grateful."

The Houston Press, an alternative weekly, first exposed the "double life" of Tressler in a feature story with the headline "Writer by day, stripper by night." It also drew attention to Tressler's blog - Diary of an Angry Stripper - which included pictures of her scantily-clad self, as well as rich detail from the inside of the gentlemen's club.

During her two-month reporting gig, Tressler covered high society, human interest stories, and fashion. She had previously worked as a freelancer for the Chronicle. Tressler "very rarely" worked as an exotic dancer, a skill that helped her pay for college, she said at the news conference, according to local TV station KPRC.

Tressler said she occasionally went to the club for exercise.

"And I didn't have a gym membership. So, on days off I might just go in there in the afternoon and do acouple stage rotations and knock it out," she said.

KPRC reports that Tressler, who has a master's degree in journalism from New York University, also teaches part time at the University of Houston.

"Most exotic dancers are female, and therefore to terminate an employee because they had previously been an exotic dancer would have an adverse impact on women, since it is a female dominated occupation," Allred, who is a self-described feminist lawyer, said in a statement.

"Sarah's work as a dancer is lawful and is not a crime. It does not, has not and will not affect her ability to perform her job as a journalist," the statement read.

Auto Legend Carroll Shelby Dies at the Age of 89

A loss for the automobile world today.

Carroll Shelby, the legendary car designer and champion auto racer who built the well-known  Shelby Cobra sports car and injected horse-power into Ford's Mustang and Chrysler's Viper, has died. He was 89.

Shelby was one of the nation's longest-living heart transplant recipients, having received a heart on June 7, 1990, from a 34-year-old man who died of an aneurism. Shelby also received a kidney transplant in 1996 from his son, Michael.

The 1992 inductee into the Automobile Hall of Fame had homes in Los Angeles and his native east Texas.

Shelby first made his name behind the wheel of a car, winning France's grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race with teammate Ray Salvadori in 1959.

He eventually gave up racing and turned his attention to designing high-powered "muscle cars" that eventually became the Shelby Cobra and the Mustang Shelby GT500.

The Cobra, which used Ford engines and a British sport car chassis, was the fastest production model ever made when it was displayed at the New York Auto Show in 1962.

In 2007, an 800-horsepower model of the Cobra made in 1966, once Shelby's personal car, sold for $5.5 million at auction, a record for an American car.

"It's a special car. It would do just over three seconds to 60 (mph), 40 years ago," Shelby told the crowd before the sale, held in Scottsdale, Ariz.

It was Lee Iacocca, then head of Ford Motor Co., who had assigned Shelby the task of designing a fastback model of Ford's Mustang that could compete against the Corvette for young male buyers.

That car and the Shelby Cobra made his name a household word in the 1960s.

Many people don't know that Shelby also inaugurated the World Chili Cookoff competition and he began marketing Carroll Shelby Original Texas Chili.

In recent years, Shelby worked as a technical adviser on the Ford GT project and designed the Shelby Series 1 two-seat muscle car, a 21st century clone of his 1965 Cobra.

Shelby is survived by his three children, Patrick, Michael and Sharon; his sister Anne Shelby Ellison; and his wife, Cleo.