Lately, No Donkeys

Altitudinous

2009-07-31T09:30:00.006-04:00

A few weekends ago some friends invited me back to a cabin in the mountains. I'm not sure why I was invited back. Maybe they just haven't grown tired of me yet. Anyway it was a great time.

This is one of the sights I was greeted with in the morning. It was quite cool for the time of yea when compared to where I live. Ah altitude. We cooked some, drank some, went skeet shooting, and I made some decent peach ice cream for the first time.

Saturday and Sunday we went down to the river so some of us could fish, walk around, read, sit end enjoy the day, etc. I trudged out to the middle of the river to perch upon a rock and read and take some pictures. These are up and down river shots.

Then alas I had to come home.

Home Safe Home?

2009-07-31T09:08:00.002-04:00

So out on the loading dock at work we have a concrete slab with a concrete ceiling with hooded fluorescent tube lighting fixtures. Several weeks ago a bird took it upon itself to build a nest on the hood. I don't know how it made this decision, but here is the aftermath.

You can't tell from the picture, but the hood isn't that wide and it fairly steeply curved. I was amazed it got the nest to stick. I was also amazed the babies didn't fall out. Then I realized if these two things could be overcome Then there was no way a cat, snake, or other animal could get to the nest. It's probably the most secure location a nest could be built, from an intruder standpoint.

Oh and that bird's head is like right against the concrete roof.

And the First Shall Be Last

2009-07-30T14:06:00.002-04:00

I finished reading First Born by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter months ago, but I’m just now getting to the review. It’s the third in the “A Time Odyssey” series. The reviews of the first and second books are available. I’ll ramble on about the third one below.

First Born starts decades after the end of Sunstorm. Humanity is reaching out to the planets and stars at a furious pace. The sunstorm demonstrated how fragile and easily extinguished we are when we exist on only one sphere around one star. Also the threat of an outside force bent on our termination, the Firstborn, drives cooperation among the tribes of man as never before seen.

Our colonizers on Mars have found something under the polar ice cap and detection nets places around the solar system have found another incoming object unlike anything they have ever seen. The incoming “bomb” from space reveals that humans weren’t the first to draw the attention of the Firstborn, and under Mars’ pole is the key to our survival. Heroes and heroines from the last books, joined by new names, must race to Mars, to Mir, and who knows where else, in order to save humanity. This book reaches across time, space, and universes to expand the understanding of the Firstborn.

This one is a worthy successor to the first two books. It expands the universe and provides much more explanation, though Baxter does leave the door standing wide open for another book. It does provide a good basic understanding of that the Firstborn are trying to do and what they have done in order to achieve it. I liked it.

It’s been a while.

2009-07-30T10:18:00.000-04:00

I have been admonished for not keeping up my blog. I really just didn’t feel motivated. I’d say I had something else I was more interested in doing, but that’s not really that true. Anyway, what’s happened recently?

Lots of stuff at work has been delayed until probably 2 weeks before classes start. Yay. Looks like behind busting time is about to start. I did do an auditorium installation. It’s probably the showpiece we have now. I’ll have to post pictures.

I’ve gone on a few trips and hung out with friends some. Just got back from a trip to the mountains the other weekend. Went skeet shooting and down to the river. Rather cold water that. Had a great time. And I managed to make some peach ice cream that wasn’t awful.

I’ve read a few books, but not many. I finally finished John Adams. I’ll try to post a review soon. Saw several movies too. I should review those as well.

And this past weekend I had to replace the faucet in my kitchen sink. I had replaced the ceramic hot water valve twice and it broke again. So I yanked it and put in something I like more. It also allowed me to move the sprayer to a location that is far more functional.

Hey There

2009-05-07T09:41:00.000-04:00

Man I haven’t written anything here since January. It’s not that I haven’t had anything go on. In fact I have, just not anything Earth shattering. This may just be a one post thing, but maybe I’ll get back into posting here. I’ve spent more time on Facebook, but really this and that are two different things. I don’t post much on Facebook and no one wants to see a twitter of my boring day. So maybe a quick synopsis of things I remember.

It seems like I’ve been busier than it sounds like I have. I managed to read one book and another 1/3 of John Adams. I’ll give a short review of the book soon. I’ve done a little at the house. I’ve been busy with some friends. Had a snowstorm that downed some trees, and demonstrated a leak in my roof. I got that patched up. We’ve gotten a decent amount of rain finally. I may actually have to mow my grass this year. A friend and I cut down a Maple tree that has been dropping limbs for years. It was close to the house. I got a Beech tree to replace it eventually. I also got a Mossycup or Bur oak to plant in the yard. I’m currently messing with the idea of trying a small garden again this year.

Doors, Windows, Pictures, Dreams, Hearts

2009-01-12T14:17:00.000-05:00

And so it has come to this, the end of our tale. I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling last week. I actually stayed up until 2:15 AM to finish it. There was just no sleeping when I was that close. And so now I’ll attempt my final entry on the series. If you would like to read the others simply follow the links: First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth.

Well this is it. The end. The last of the line. And… I was pleased. Quite pleased in fact. This book is still not the longest of the bunch, but it is lengthy. The biggest part is that there are great stretches where nothing happens, punctuated by an almost lurching of the plot forward at a very rapid pace. The beginning is like that, and various parts in the middle. Even the beginning of the end almost seems to happen by accident. It is as if it wasn’t intended, it just came to be despite the wishes of the main characters. Honestly, it’s what I liked most about it. The book really does communicate frustration, boredom, anxiety, and a feeling of wayward destiny. It’s like being stuck at sea with no wind for your sails with periodic typhoons rolling by. I liked it, but I can see how some people would get bored or aggravated.

I’ve altered the following text for those that don’t want spoilers. Copy the text to here to decode it.

Znal bs gur cvrprf jrer gurer, ohg gurl jrer qvssvphyg gb frr. Vg nyfb qvqa’g uheg gung gurl pbhyq svg gbtrgure va zber guna bar jnl, vs lbh qvqa’g unir gur xrl ovgf. Gb gur urneg bs vg, Fancr’f eriryngvba jnf unaqyrq ornhgvshyyl. Vg jnf n terng eryvrs gb zr. V unq ubcrq gur qbr jnf sebz Fancr, ohg V jnf abjurer arne fher. V oryvrirq vg unq gb or fbzrbar sbe jubz Yvyl jnf nf vzcbegnag nf ure uhfonaq, gur fgnt, jnf gb Uneel. Gbax’f punatr bs Cngebahf urycrq fbyvqvsl gung vqrn. V jnf ernyyl fjrngvat orpnhfr gur vqrn jnf fhpu n fgergpu. Ubjrire Ebjyvat chyyrq vg bss jvgubhg gbb zhpu fhfcrafvba bs qvforyvrs. Gur qrnguf bs uvz naq bs gur bgure punenpgref jr jrer vagebqhprq gb uvg uneq, ohg nqqrq zber ernyvfz gb gur fgbel. Vg nyfb urycrq qevir gur oryvrinovyvgl bs gur frys fnpevsvpr bs Uneel.

V zhfg fnl bar guvat gubhtu. Gurer vf bar yvar gung V pna’g jnvg gb frr ba gur fvyire fperra. Jura Zef. Jrnfyrl lryyf ng Orngevk Yrfgenatr (frevbhfyl Yrfgenatr pbzr ba) “ABG ZL QNHTUGRE LBH OVGPU!” V ernyyl jnag gb frr gung. Qba’g zrff jvgu n erq urnqrq jbzna’f puvyqera.

And so the series is over. And the recommendation is to read it for all who care for entertaining, well written literature. Beyond that I could talk, but I don’t know what else to say here. Though I will admit I pondered and pondered over a title for this entry. It was not easy. I am still not sure I like what I chose, but I needed something didn’t I. So I chose some nouns the book brought to mind, and below I put some adjectives. Match them up any way you wish. I know how I did it.

Closed, Opened, Changing, Shattered, Lost

The Values of Halfs

2009-01-09T13:33:00.001-05:00

I have been neglectful yet again. I have finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for almost a week, and I haven’t re viewed it. I also neglected other reviews, but I may do those later. I will tell you of my tardiness at the end of this entry. This is of course the 6^th in the Potter series by J. K. Rowling. You can read what I said about the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth books following the links.

This is actually the first book in the series to contain fewer pages of text that the previous book. You can tell when reading it. It feels like it contains less things happening, but the events seem to carry a greater importance. I had originally hoped that the movie would come out right before I was ready to read this book. That way I would have seen 6 of the movies before reading the books, but alas they moved the release date back. Rather than wait for 6 more months I went ahead and read it. As a consequence there is no movie to compare it to. That means straight on to my take on the book.

Like previously I’m really not going to say much about specific things in the book. That really affects this review more than previous, because this books starts to bring to a head the themes and questions that have carried through all the novels. This one doesn’t really have the nice beginning, middle, close of the previous books. Those all had good closure for the conflict of that book. This one felt more like the first quarter of a game. The book ended but it wasn’t really closure. All of the buildup of the previous books built up to the point that it just exploded, and then it said to be continued. That’s why I chose to go ahead and read the next book right away. Yes that is why I didn’t write the review right away. I was busy polishing off number seven. But that means I now have to reconstruct some of my thoughts from last week and not have them tainted by having read book seven.

So basically this one is well written and planned, but the reader may not realize how well until they read the seventh book. Previously I had mentioned that The Order of the Phoenix, TOoTP, had diminished the likely hood of some possibilities for some of the characters, and that it left me wondering. Well this book did something odd. It seemed to have decreased the chances even more, BUT… I think it actually increased the likely hood of the things I had hoped for. I know that sounds odd, but that’s how it felt. That is why I think it is quite well written, even though it may not feel like it is as good at TOotP on first read. I urge all to dive deeper and think like a weaver of tales. And now for spoilers.

I’ve altered the following text for those that don’t want spoilers. Copy the text to here to decode it.

V jnf cyrnfrq ng gur tebjgu bs frevbhfarff naq senaxyl qrnguf bs yvxnoyr punenpgref va gur cerivbhf obbxf. V xabj gung fbhaqf bqq, ohg vg nqqf na nve bs ernyvfz naq “srne bs ybff” gb gur frevrf. Vg znxrf lbh gnxr zber pner va jung vf tbvat ba naq gelvat gb svther bhg jung vf unccravat. Lbh nyfb qba’g gnxr n punenpgre’f cerfrapr sbe tenagrq nf zhpu. Naq gurer unf orra na rfpnyngvba bs gur vzcbegnapr bs gur punenpgref gung qvrq. Gung yrnqf zr gb gur cbvag gung Qhzoyrqber unf gb qvr. V guvax V ernyvmrq guvf nsgre gur svefg pbhcyr bs zbivrf. V fnj gurz orsber ernqvat gur obbxf nsgre nyy. Vg jnf qevira ubzr gbb bsgra gung Uneel jnf eryngviryl fnsr ng Ubtjnegf nf ybat nf Qhzoyrqber jnf gurer. Ur jnf gbb jvfr naq cbjreshy naq sbe Uneel gb or va erny qnatre naq srry ybfg, ur unq gb or erzbirq. V erzrzore jura Ahzore 6 pnzr bhg naq V urneq fbzrbar fnl gurl pbhyqa’g oryvrir fur xvyyrq uvz. V vzzrqvngryl xarj Nyohf jnf qrnq, naq vg cyrnfrq zr sbe gur tbbq bs gur gnyr. Vg’f shaal, ohg xabjvat gung znqr vg rnfvre sbe zr gb ernq gur obbxf zber yrvfheryl. Qenpb’f jbex gb yrg gur Qrngu Rngref va jbeevrq zr, ohg uvf ernpgvba gb Terlonpx naq urfvgngvba ba gur gbjre erarjrq zl ubcrf. Fancr’f zheqre bs Nyohf ba gur gbjre znqr zr fpnerq gung zl ubcrf sbe gur obbxf zvtug or pehfurq, ohg gur synzr bs ubcr crefvfgrq va gur qnexarff gung Qhzoyrqber unq cynaarq, creuncf rira erdhrfgrq, uvf bja qrngu.

And that question forced me to jump straight to the next book. I said screw it, I’m going to read it now. The suspense was killing me. I feel sorry for those that waited two years for it to be published. Anyway as you expect I highly recommend the series, but I think that goes without saying. And so the next review comes shortly.

Fire and Ash

2008-12-02T22:54:00.001-05:00

Well I finished Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling. It’s the fifth year book. You can read the first , second, third, and fourth books in the series.

I finished this one the Monday after Thanksgiving. That’s not bad considering I started it over the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Like the last book this one came in at around 130+ pages longer. What you may not have noticed was that the font seems to have dropped by about one point size, maybe a drop from 12 pt to 11 pt. It may seem a small change, but it probably added a couple dozen pages to the book. Of course I didn’t measure it, so my eyes may be playing tricks on me. It also seems they used a thinner paper to curtail the book thickness growth as well.

Normally I don’t compare movies to the books that much. It’s a self defeating pastime in most cases. They are two different media with their own strengths and shortcomings. The storytelling has to be tailored to each in order to make the best story. I covered that in the last review. This book however, almost necessitates it. This is the longest book so far. It is jam packed with information. In fact there really isn’t much that could be removed from the book without diminishing the story. That is the problem. There was simply too much to put in the movie at its given length. You can see that in the review I wrote 18 months ago. Rereading the review I feel better about the review itself than I probably did at the time. After reading the book, I am amazed at what they managed to get in. Truly it is remarkable. I just watched the movie again to make sure I was comparing properly. There is a whole lot cut out to make the film, but the cuts were surgeon precise. They eliminated scenes that retold information and combined characters and changed who said lines. I am impressed. In fact it probably makes me admire the movie more. It would have had to have been two movies if done closer to the book. I think the movie suffered from a lack of more background, environment, and some cooling down time, but it holds up well.

This book is really just great. I think it is the best so far. There is a bunch of character development, the washing away of childhood simplicity, and the black and white nature of the world dissolves. It’s just great. It’s the first one that really had me yearning to get back to the book to finish it. I can see why some people read it straight through in one sitting, but that it a bit much for me. One sad thing though. The movie had left enough out of the storytelling that I had some hopes for some of the characters. With the book however, that seems less likely, but it is still a possibility. I’ll just have to wait to see. But honestly, this one has made it tough for me to wait my normal cycle of 2 fiction one non-fiction for the next one. I had hoped the next movie would be out now, but they pushed it back to Summer. Should I move on with the books or wait for the movie? Feel free to give advice on that one.

The Universal Mulligan

2008-12-02T22:07:00.000-05:00

As per usual recently I’m behind on this. So I finished Manifold Time by Stephen Baxter. It’s the first in the Manifold Series by Baxter. I’ve read a couple of Baxter’s later collaborations with A. C. Clarke. This is the first of the 3 book series, but it was written way back in 2000.

Frankly you can see why Clarke wanted to work with Baxter. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a kind of passing of the torch. I’ve only read 3 of his books so far, but Baxter seems to have the makings of the next great SF author, on the level of Clarke himself. This book is an excellent example of that. If the next two in the series hold up to the example this one set it is a series on par with the scale of The Space Odyssey series.

Baxter takes a big bite in this grand scale book that covers human existence from now until the heat death of the universe. And he does remarkably well living up to the goal he set himself. It starts at a time close to the publication of the book, 2000. That means that the 8 years that have passed make the story behind in some ways, but really it can be seen as an alternate universe anyway. Baxter weaves a tale that could lose many readers if not for his good use of characters that need exposition.

If you like stories with grand consequences that question humanity’s place in the universe, then this is a good one. It has made me really curious about the next books in the series.

Black and White and Read All Over

2008-10-23T22:18:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading Writing for Comics with Peter David, by Peter David of course. A friend got this book for a project, and thought I might like reading it. I must say that was a good assumption.

I’ve read quite a bit of David’s novel work, seen some of his TV work, but not so much of his comics work. The man is a prolific writer and story teller. I mean he has Hulk, Spiderman, and Wolverine under his comic writing belt, besides others. Safe to say he has enough experience to write a book like this. That experience and David’s engaging writing style come through.

There are tons of books and courses out there for people that want to write novels. There are even resources for writing plays or screenplays, but few cater to the media of comics or graphic novels. David takes a pretty good, broad approach to the subject. He provides easy to understand examples of the current trend of comics to present more like film on paper, and how the media is more visual and less language than it was 30 years ago. He shows differences between comics and novels or screenplays. He breaks down basic plot and conflict styles into their simplest forms. It’s just an excellent resource for anyone who has good stories to tell and feels drawn to the medium. Pardon the pun. Though I wouldn’t dream of starting out in an endeavor like this myself, it gives me a better understanding of the peculiar difficulties of the art style. I think it’s a worthwhile read for anyone that enjoys comics or good literature in general. And it’s a definite tool an aspiring comic writer should consider for their reference library.

Literary Consolidation 41 -50

2008-10-14T12:36:00.015-04:00

Or the Reader’s Digest Condensed Edition 5^nd Ed. Well it’s time to reduce the page length again by creating a post of ten books. I’ll give the picture as a link to where it can be purchased, in exchange for using the picture, a little bit about each book, and a link to my original take on the book.

50.

This is the second Jared Diamond book I've read, and this one seems approachable by more people. Although some might not like what is alluded to.

My Take

49.

This installation of The New Frontier sereis will upset some fans. Life is a bitch and then you die.

My Take

48.

The next in The New Frontiers series. This one jumps three years into the future showing what has happened to the characters you love.

My Take

47.

This is the final book of the series. Lewis closes the series with a lot of heavy imagery that should spark discussion.

My Take

46.

This sixth of the series jumps back in time all the way to the creation of Naria and how it all began.

My Take

45.

This is the fifth of the series. It jumps back in time in the series and follows characters from Narnia itself and does a lot of lesson teaching

My Take

44.

The award winning biography of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis. A good exploration of his often times contradictory character.

My Take

43.

I got this book for an industrial Engineering class, but many of the stories in it do a good job of showing what kinds of minutia designers have to consider when making decisions.

My Take

42.

The next in The New Frontier series by Peter David. The gods of old appear to have returned offering their wonderful ambrosia, but at what price.

My Take

41.

This is the fourth book of the series. It sees Eustace and a new character Jill tying to rescue the lost son of King Caspian.

My Take

Out of the Frying Pan

2008-10-14T11:21:00.001-04:00

Well I finally got to and finished the fourth in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Here’s my sparing comments about the first, second, and third books.

I said the last book was a decent leap in size by going up 100 pages. Well this one makes a leap from that one of around 300 pages. And you can tell it. I don’t just mean the physical size of the book either. The characters, descriptions, plot development, and critical thinking have all improved greatly in this one step. Although I will say the book didn’t have to be this long, the additional environmental development was enjoyable. There is still weakness in the storytelling, but taken as a series it is working out well.

I want to read the rest, but I only have one more book before I am caught up with the movies. I hoped they might finish the movies before I finished the books, but that doesn’t seem likely. I don’t usually hold books and movies to the same light of scrutiny. They are different media and require different handling. The first three movies weren’t too far a departure from the books, but this one, with its length, you really start to see where they had to compromise when they translated it to movie form. There is far more obviousness in the movie, but that again is a limitation of the media. When an author wants to call your attention to something it can be accomplished by merely including it in the text. Then the author can fill in other details to hide, but not completely obscure the important data. Movies are filled with so much visual information not included in books that the pertinent visual information can be lost in the low signal to noise ratio. So maybe I’ll get the next one around the time of the movie. Then I probably won’t be able to wait for Deathly Hallows.

Birds in a China Shop

2008-10-12T22:02:00.000-04:00

This is over a week late as well. What can I say? Busy busy busy. So I finished the 3^rd in David Brin’s Uplift Series, The Uplift War. You can see my review of the second book here.

This book kind of takes place around the second book. As stated in this one nothing happens at the same time over the vast distances of space, so the exact timing is of some question. What is not is that the events of this book happen primarily as fallout of the discovery the Streaker’s crew made before the beginning of the second book.

The book takes place on and around Garth. Garth is a troubled planet that was given to the wolfling humans because no one else wanted it. Apparently it is similar on all the worlds leased to humans See the previous caretakers caused a huge ecological disaster that threatens to cause the planet to decline into barrenness. Lo and behold the humans are making a name for themselves as ecological wizards on all the galaxies, and Garth is no different. That was until Streaker found their burden. Now the Gubru have shown up at the backwater outpost of Earth with the hope they can take it hostage in order to force the surrender of Streaker or it’s information. So now the few free humans and their even fewer galactic allies must survive and fight against a much stronger enemy.

This was a worthy third entry in the series from Brin. It quickly becomes a page turner that doesn’t want you to put it down. Brin also manages to work in some good subtle subplots and intrigue into the mix to keep you interested and prevent dullness. Brin puts in the standard plugs for making Humanity seem to be better than we or anyone expected of a wolfling race. I always appreciate a book with short chapters and sections that allows you to read in spurts when you get small bits of time. Yet again this is a recommendation to all Science Fiction fans.

Good, A Hard Look

2008-10-07T22:03:00.000-04:00

Well I’m finally getting around to doing some reviews. I actually finished reading Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons several weeks ago. I originally bought it on an impulse at the book store. I tend to do that in book stores, which is why I have to avoid them many times. At the time I didn’t realize that there was a movie of it coming out. It was either luck or the subconscious that came through on that one.

So what can I say about one of the most acclaimed graphic novels ever produced? Well I feel ill equipped to take it on. Simply it’s remarkably good. It’s different from purely text novels you read, because your eyes are drawn to the imagery. You have to explore it in depth if you expect to understand what is going on. Sometimes you have to flip back and look over it again. You soon realize that even though there is far less text on these pages it takes you longer to get through each one than a normal novel.

The presentation is great. I enjoyed many of the small details, the humor, the comic within the comic, but mostly it’s the characterization. It’s a comic about a world similar to our own that happened to develop heroes, adventurers, vigilantes, or whatever you call them. You soon realize that these people, like we would expect of someone who started doing stuff like this today, are seriously disturbed and/or are nowhere near normal.

I recommend it to just about anyone. In fact a friend already borrowed it to read. I wonder how far he has gotten.

Doing It Our Way

2008-09-14T21:37:00.001-04:00

I’ve been so busy I actually finished reading A Social History of American Technology by Ruth Schwartz Cowan over a week ago. It’s taken me this long to have the time and the motivation to actually write a review of the book. I’ve actually been attempting to finish the book for some time. This was another one of those books I had to get for a class in college that I wanted to actually read all of later.

Essentially the book covers the growth and change of technology in the US due to its particular social and environmental conditions. It actually does a good job of covering the subject matter in an entertaining and informative matter. I enjoyed it, but those of the engineering bent can have peculiar taste in books like this. The earlier parts of the book are more thorough. Due to the rapid advance of technologies in the past half century, the latter part of the book covers a narrower group of technologies. This is understandable, and I dare say the book would have been too long had it covered much more. For what’s there though it provides a really good perspective on how American technology deviated from technologies originally developed in Europe and how technology altered American society in return.

Time Capsule Release

2008-09-12T14:59:00.001-04:00

August and the beginning of September have been exceedingly busy for me. Work hasn’t been as bad as I suspected it would be, but most of the off work time has be taken up with things. I figured I’d run down a few of them to catch up.

A friend came down from Canada to stay with her parents a couple weeks. We hung out some while she was here. I made her watch “Venture Brothers” on DVD. Had a great time, but it consumed several evenings. I’m looking forward to doing it again next year.

Went to Georgia to the cabin again and had a great time. Went skeet shooting again and did much better. I got 10 more out of 100 this time, but I was given a few mulligans the first time. My shoulder wasn’t nearly as bad this time. I think going to the gym has paid off. Hopefully I can improve my shooting and shoulder damage again next time.

Oh yeah I’ve been meaning to mention that. I’ve been going to the gym for the past 3-4 months now. It sucks getting up early enough to go and still make it to work on time, but it’s the only time that made sense for me. I can’t say I’ve lost more than a couple pounds, but I have noticed a decided shift in weight location and the quality of the material making up the mass. I fully intend to keep up with it. I have a checkup at the beginning of October, so I’m interested to see if it changes anything.

I’ve had two friends that bought a house nearby and they were trying to prepare it for move-in. Since they live out of state, each of them stayed at my place at various times. I did a tiny little bit to help at the house, but not much. I’m just glad it wasn’t me moving. That looked like a pain in the butt.

That’s most of the big stuff. A tornado came through, but all it did was break a branch that was already damaged. We started getting rain finally. The ground has been so dry that it didn’t even run off during the downpours.

And so life keeps going on.

Vote No For Bizarro

2008-09-03T21:13:00.003-04:00

So I've been talking to friends about this strange idea that popped into my head a few weeks ago. Remember I said weeks ago. They were talking about McCain's campaign for the Presidency. About how it seemed to be making stupid attacks that were easily thwarted, and in the countering made the attackers look stupid. We discussed how much of it doesn't seem to make sense, and how he is nothing like the McCain of 2000. I mostly listened and made a couple of small points. Most of the race has been so asinine I can't stomach more that a small amount. They seemed ripe for it, so I shared my crazy idea.

John McCain is trying to throw the Presidential race.

There I said it on the record. He doesn't want to win. He is specifically catering to the extremist elements in the party. The very same elements that hung him out to dry in 2000. He is letting them screw themselves over. I also think he specifically knows the Republicans cannot have a President in office for another 4 or 8 years if the country is to survive and start recovering. He waited until Hillary was assured to be out of the race and then the weird and stupid stuff really started happening.

This thought entered my mind over 2.5 weeks ago. Look back at the past year of politics and see what you think.

Water, Metal, and Religion

2008-07-27T09:53:00.000-04:00

I finished Startide Rising by David Brin. This is the third book I’ve read from Brin and the second in the Uplift Series. After reading the first one, this book was a little more like the normal SF books I’m used to. Read my initial review for some background on this universe and its history.

This book follows the first spaceship crewed by advanced dolphins. Of course there are also some neo-chimps and humans on board as well. This historic test mission has hit a snag though. One thing that Humans have started doing is testing the veracity of the Galactic Library. They have been doing random spot checks and have found it lacking in accuracy of detail. That simple mapping mission led the crew of the Streaker to an enormous find. They found a derelict fleet of ships the size of moons that appeared to be billions of years old and the mummified body of one of the aliens. By eavesdropping on a transmission to Earth, Galactic religious zealots have come to the conclusion that this is the fabled return of The Progenitors. These super powerful races have now chased Streaker to the water covered world of Kithrup. Now Streaker’s crew has to survive Galactics, an ocean poisoned with heavy metals, dissention among the crew, and a secret the planet itself holds.

This was pretty sweet. The book revs up pretty good so that about halfway through you don’t want to put it down. The intrigues, plots, and plans are well executed and smart. I can easily see why so many people call this an excellent series. I can’t wait to start the next one.

Bright Shines the Shadow

2008-07-20T21:48:00.000-04:00

Well Saturday I went to see “The Dark Knight.” I can’t wait to say it. WOW! That’s all I can say. That is the best movie I’ve seen in years. Seriously, I’m not sure when I last saw a movie that good in the theater. When you add in that it is a sequel, based on a comic series, and it’s an action/drama movie. It’s spectacular. I’m going to try to keep this short.

TDK is several times better than the first one. It’s quite a bit better than “Ironman.” This is the movie to beat this year, but I don’t know that anyone can do it. The acting, writing, directing, and special effects were great. Seriously it’s enough plot and action and drama for two movies, but they molded it all together so well. I watched it and kept wondering when it was going to climax and start the wrap up, but it just kept going and getting better. There’s not really anything I could complain about. My only fear is that they have set the bar so high that they can’t possibly come close to it for a third movie. Just Wow!

If you didn’t get it already, go see it. This is the kind of quality in cinema that we should support. I may go see it a second time myself. See it even if you have to brave lines and pay full price. I’m definitely getting this on DVD.

Work Release

2008-07-16T10:27:00.001-04:00

This is the third of the Harry Potter series I have been able to work my way through. That’s right I have finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The short reviews of the first and second books are available too.

This was a pretty decent jump from the last book to this one. It’s almost 100 pages longer. It makes it a little longer to read, but it also makes the book feel much heftier. And the inside of it does so as well. I like how the books are starting to take on darker, more serious tones. The characters are growing nicely, and the situations are becoming more complex and less black and white. I can see why so many people have praised the series, and I’m looking forward to the fourth book.

What’s so Special?

2008-07-14T15:50:00.000-04:00

So previously I posted my first foray into graphic novel review. This is my second trip. I purchased a series started by J. Michael Straczinsky, the “Rising Stars (spoilers so don’t go there unless you have read it already.)” series. The series is sold in five collections now: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The first three were written by JMS. The second two were by other authors and artists that were filling in story parts JMS skipped over in the original series. That’s not particularly unusual for JMS. He somewhat regularly bypasses talking about something big that may have happened, even though he mapped out what it was that happened. Sometimes others go back and cover that event in detail later. So the fourth and fifth books occur before or during the first three books. Anyway, on with the show. There will have to be some small spoilers to whet your appetite.

This series of course takes place in an alternate universe that diverged from ours at one point in the late 1960s when some sort of meteor or object fell from the sky onto the town of Peterson in the Midwest US and exploded. No one was killed, but all the children who were in utero, all 113 of them, eventually begin to show abilities. Slowly, as situations test them, they find each has some unique abilities. Some can fly, are very strong, very smart, can control light, move small objects with their minds, or many other things. They eventually become called “The Specials.” This of course scares authorities who want to study and control them. JMS talks about the legal battles that ensued.

But that’s where the story began. The tale begins in Volume 1 when a man is found dead in his home. He’s a portly man, and someone murdered him. The thing is, he was a Special. His ability wasn’t being strong, fast, able to fly, or any of that. He was simply invulnerable. So how does one go about murdering an invulnerable man? Well it requires intimate knowledge of the person you are trying to kill. Then the question becomes, Who with that knowledge would want to kill him? And here is a spoiler if you want to skip to the next paragraph. Honestly invulnerable was not my word and not the word I would have chosen. I would say he was impenetrable. You could shoot him with a howitzer and he wouldn’t feel it. He could swim in a blast furnace or liquid nitrogen and not feel hot or cold. In fact he couldn’t feel anything. Not even the caress of someone’s hand or the touch of their lips. How does being invulnerable sound now? One of the Specials begins an investigation of what happened. That leads to flashbacks and the unfolding of the plot of the story.

One of the things I really like about the story and the specials is that they are all just regular kids and people. They all have problems and issues. That includes some bad ones like child abuse and molestation. Real people are complicated and sometimes damaged things. Giving a random group of them superpowers can be interesting. This one will be shared with friends as well.

Even more movies

2008-07-14T09:35:00.000-04:00

I tell you this is a great summer for good movies. I don’t think I gave the theater this much money in all of last year. So last weekend I went to see “WALL-E.” Yeah I was lazy and didn’t write a review right away. So what the pay for writing this is crap so it say until today. And yesterday I went with some friends to watch “Hellboy II: The Golden Army.”

First I’ll do “WALL-E.” This is just another fantastic movie by Pixar. Frankly I don’t know how they keep hitting them out of the park. They have some talented people there and must have the management willing to let them run where they need to run. I don’t know what it’s like to work there, but I can’t imagine how overstressed, depressed people could turn out stuff like this. I congratulate everyone that worked on it.

Everyone knows WALL-E is a robot, and it takes place in the future. I’m not telling much else, because you have to see the movie. Wait. No. You HAVE TO see the movie! There. That’s better. If you like any of Pixar’s movies, then you will like this one. There’s loads of humor, drama, and moral lessons. It’s worth seeing at full theater price, and the kids should love it.

As for Hellboy, if you liked the first one you should like this one as well. Some things are done better in this one, and some things aren’t quite as good. But the action and the humor are there. I recommend anyone who liked the first one go see it. Full price is warranted if you loved the first one. If you merely liked it then catch a matinee.

And now I await “The Dark Knight.” I’m all excited.

It’s popcorn and a movie time. It’s popcorn and a movie time. It’s…

2008-07-01T11:48:00.001-04:00

So last week was busy. I had been meaning to go see several movies and the perfect storm seemed to form that allowed me to finally go. What follows is a ramble about each of the movies. I’ll tell you now they are, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Kung Fu Panda,” and “Wanted.”

So first I’ll do IJatKotCS. Man that is a mouth full right there. I saw it first because I was afraid it might leave the theaters first. I don’t know what some people were complaining about. Most of the movie seemed on target for the time period portrayed. I mean as far as plot points. As for the reviewers and nay sayers. It’s a friggin Indiana Jones movie. Did you see Temple of Doom? I mean come on. This was exactly on par with the rest of the movies. It was full of humor, slapstick, improbabilities, and sheer dumb luck. I thought it was nice and I enjoyed it. Frankly I don’t know what you were expecting. If you like the other IJ movies you should like this one, unless you are complete twit.

Now Hulk. You know I never understood why some people bashed the last Hulk movie. It went out on a limb on a couple things, some of which I liked and some I didn’t. Some of the high emotion scenes were tough to swallow, but it was strange characters reacting in ways unfamiliar to them. Consequently I forgive a lot. This one was better, but it’s still a Hulk superhero, kinda, movie. There are parts that are corny, some of them are simply because Bruce Banner is corny. There are some touching moments between Bruce and Betty. The general is a real f&*%er for lack of a better term. I mean lots of the plot and dialog are telegraphed. There aren’t many surprises, but it’s still a nice, fun ,pretty good movie. Well I take that back. There is a good turn at the end, that I was still hoping for but not exactly expecting them to actually do. When you last see Bruce, remember something Betty suggested that Bruce dismissed outright. At least I hope that’s what it is.

What about KFP? Well. You know. That was just a good movie right there. I had no idea the cast they got for it. The voice acting was fantastic. I mean Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Ian McShane etc. I wasn’t expecting that cast, and I was well pleased by it. It’s a hoot and surprisingly has a decent moral lesson in it. I mean of course it does. It is a movie parent and child should both be able to enjoy immensely. This was easily the best of the 4 movies, and right now only Ironman beats it for the summer. I recommend everyone see this one.

Finally Wanted. This made me conflicted. Some of it is fast paced and almost blinding in speed. Some of it made me go “Yeah Kick his ass.” And some of it made me go, “Did a 10^th grader write and direct this part?” I don’t know how it got better reviews than Hulk. It was entertaining, but it wasn’t much more than decent. Though the effects are pretty sweet.

Through the Seamy Side

2008-06-12T10:08:00.001-04:00

So I splurged a little a while back and ordered a few books from B&N. Now me buying some books isn’t that unusual. What is unusual is that these books are graphic novels. In fact they are two novels in three books. I’ve read both of them in normal comic form, thanks to a friend. I liked them so much that now years later I bought the anthologies. Both of them are by J. Michael Straczynski. I recommend reading his Wiki article. And I read one of the graphic novels over again last night. It was great, so I decided to throw up a short review of Midnight Nation. You know I’m not sure if I should italicize that or put it in quotes. Eh whatever.

I’ll try to keep any spoilers to a minimum. Oh and Smitty you will read this when you move up.

Midnight Nation (Big spoilers in link so don’t look if you haven’t read the story already) was made in 12 issues and covers the year long journey of LAPD Lieutenant David Grey as he walks from LA to New York. Why would someone with a steady job and responsibilities do that? Well David got too close while investigating a murder and what appeared to be a new crime power moving in LA. As a consequence, he had his soul stolen by “The Other Guy”, and he only has a year to get it back. This has thrust him into an invisible world that exists alongside ours where all the lost people and discarded objects go. A woman named Laurel is his guide and possibly more on his journey to reclaim his soul. Together they must traverse the country in heat and snow to get to New York in time. All the while “The Walkers”, servants of “The Other Guy” try to slow him down. Will David make it or will he succumb to the growing urges creeping though his mind as his struggles get harder and the road never seems to end? And one question looms. What must he do once he gets there to reclaim himself?

It’s good. I mean it’s really good. I always love JMS’s writing and characterization. And he has a way with telling a story. Not many times you can read something so profoundly religious (not necessarily Christian), and political, and psychological all at once. I know this one is going to have to make the rounds with some family and friends.

That’s a lot of beer

2008-06-06T13:42:00.000-04:00

So I’m lazy. I think most of you already k now this. Well last weekend I got to go to visit some friends in Atlanta. There was lots of Wii action and such, but the main reason for going was the East Atlanta Beer Festival. All I can say is that it was hot, but at least a breeze was blowing. I don’t drink much beer, but I did enjoy the several varieties of hard cider I got to drink. That and watching friends try a couple dozen of the hundred or so beers there was fun. I think I have something scheduled for next year too.

A Prince Among Narnians

2008-06-06T13:29:00.001-04:00

Okay I’ve been remiss in putting this up. Almost two weeks back I went to see “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” at the movie theater. I’ll keep this short though. There’s my original review of the book that tells about the plot and such. As far as the movie, this is a worthy successor to the first one. In fact I think I liked this one just a little better, which is opposite to the books. It is a great movie for the whole family and I recommend people go see at a matinee if it is still playing in your area. If not, then rent it.

Ocean of Fire

2008-06-04T10:17:00.000-04:00

A few months back I bought the first 3 of The Uplift Series by David Bryn. I reviewed The Postman a while back by Brin as well. In fact The Uplift Series is why I bought Postman. The store didn’t have the Uplift Series, so I bought TP, so I would remember his name. Later I found the first 3 books, and while reading this one I went ahead and purchased the next three. That probably tells you a fair amount about Sundiver already. Well if you want to know more I’ll probably ramble on about it some.

I don’t consider this next part to be spoilers, because I knew it ahead of time myself.

Sundiver takes place several centuries into the future. The world and world politics have changed quite a bit by then. Man has taken to the stars and has made great strides in technology and stewardship of the Earth. One of the biggest changes is that Man knows he is no longer alone in the galaxy. When we went out, we made contact with peoples that told us of a galactic consortium of sorts. Really it’s a series of organizations that are supposed to keep everything somewhat orderly. Much of the interactions of the different sophonts in the galaxy are governed by a hierarchy of, essentially, prestige. Prestige based on lineage and accomplishment.

And that is where the problem lies. Humanity doesn’t fit into the system very well at all. All the races in known existence were raised to sentience with the help of an already advanced, patron, race. Well that is everyone except these upstart Humans. But even that is suspect. All the galactic knowledge and activities are stored in The Library. The galactics can’t fathom that a race achieved intelligence through evolution, because their great Library says it has never happened in hundreds of millions of years if not longer. All of the races that have popped up unexpectedly turn out to have been abandoned by a patron race, something that is frowned upon. The Library has always found an origin for them. That is until humanity stood up and said, “Hi.” The Library has no clue as to where we came from. The galactics can’t fathom our origin, and don’t know what to make of us in the order of the galaxy. Humanity has done a lot of things in its past that the galactics frown upon and normally the patron race would not have let happen, or the patron race would have been punished along with the new race. But humans had no guidance in this. In fact much of the damage we did to our own planet, especially extinctions of potential sophont species, would have been grounds for summary extermination, but for one saving grace we were essentially put under observation. Humanity had already begun raising two species, chimpanzees and dolphins to sentience before contact was made. In fact Sundiver has an intelligent chimp as one of the ship pilots. That fact threw a very large wrench into where this wolfling race of humans sat in the grand order of galactic politics. And lots of people don’t like wrenches in their systems of order.

This part has a bit of a spoiler to it.

Anyway, that’s a good background for the book. The actual book itself turned out to be different from what I was expecting. The whole galactic political situation unfolds as a backdrop and driving force behind what is essentially a mystery novel. A brilliant but troubled human named Jacob is asked by his alien plant based friend Fagin to assist him in looking into something. Jacob reluctantly is drawn into an affair that entwines murder, science, interstellar political maneuvering, and the fate of two peoples around the discovery of something the great Library has no record of. Life has been discovered on our sun.

And you know what? I liked it. I’ve never really read any honest to goodness plain old mystery novels. I’ve thought about it, and would probably like them given the TV shows I like to watch. But I really liked this one. And it does an excellent job of introducing politics and humanity’s place in the galaxy. I understand the rest aren’t like that. Oh well, but I’m still looking forward to reading the other 5 books.

I got Wii'ed on

2008-05-20T12:51:00.003-04:00

I just wanted to say that I have a new electronic device sitting beside my television. Due to the exploits of some fabulous friends I am the recipient of a Wii. I currently have Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga and Mario Kart. I'm not going to manage to get anything done. We spent a decent portion of this weekend playing with it and the Wii that others brought. I'm looking forward to co-op play over the intarweb.

Clear the Chamber

2008-05-19T10:39:00.001-04:00

Well, I have finished the second in the illustrious Harry Potter series. Some have expressed surprise that I am managing to keep to my earlier goal of reading one per cycle, two fiction and 1 non-fiction. I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets relatively quickly, but I didn’t read it nonstop like some people have done. I don’t think I’ve ever done that with a book. Anyway my review of the first book is here, and I’ll ramble on about this one below.

This is a nice baby step up from the last book. It’s more complex. The characters are more ambiguous. I kind of want to watch the movie again now. I don’t usually have as big a problem with changes from a book to a movie as some people do. You go from a written medium to a visual one and you have to change some things. Plus there is the time limitation.

I digress. I don’t even have to say the book is good and a fitting second addition to the series. Everyone else already has. I will say I am pleased with where this is going and look forward to the next in the series.

The Face of Hundreds

2008-05-09T10:58:00.002-04:00

Well I finally finished reading The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H. W. Brands. I tell you what that took me a long time. The thing is over 700 pages long and I swear it’s like 8pt font. I read it in 3 goes. I broke those up with fiction books in between. It helped to take a bit of a break from the flood of information.

Well I’m not exactly sure what to say here. This was a darned good book. It’s well written. It covers an extremely important person in American history. And I really liked it. The reason I don’t know what to say is that the book just covers so much. Franklin lived a long time and did more in his life than most people could imagine. This is one of the people that helped make the US the country it is today. And some of the things the thought of and helped institute are very modern ideas even by today’s standards. So if you like history and good writing then you should pick this one up and give it a read.

Truck shoes

2008-05-09T10:37:00.003-04:00

I got some new tires for my truck this week. I'd been needing some for a while. Well technically I didn't need them quite yet, but I prefer to be safe with tires and brakes. So I decided on some Yokohama AVID H4S. They are unidirectional and considered high performance. That might be overkill, but I drive on a windy road to work. I loved my last Yokos, and these are performing much better with less road noise. I'm just going to have to watch out for snow.

Solid as Iron

2008-05-05T14:50:00.000-04:00

Well Saturday I went to see a DLP presentation of the new “Iron Man” movie starring Robert Downey Jr. I’m not even going to wait till the end to tell you. Go. Now. Watch it at full price if you have to, but go. Oh and stay through the credits. Just go. That is probably one of if not the best superhero/ comic book movies I’ve seen in a long time. The only thing that probably beats it is “V for Vendeta.” That’s right I think it’s better than “Spiderman” and “Batman Begins.” It’s already on my buy the special edition when it comes out. It looks like Marvel has some good stuff cooking up too. Go. Downey owns the role of Tony Stark. Everyone in the film really hits their performances with all cylinders. The visuals are stunning, and the CGI great. This movie should be enjoyable to anyone that likes good movies. So Go. I’ll quit talking now so I won’t delay you anymore.

Ass Kicking for the Whole Family

2008-05-01T20:26:00.000-04:00

So last week I went to see “The Forbidden Kingdom” at the theater. That’s the new movie starring Jackie Chan and Jet Lee. I had high hopes for the movie. I mean It’s Chan and Lee for crying out loud, but it turned out to be about what I expected. It is a pretty good movie with nice action scenes and pretty scenery. The writing and the directing is made for the whole family, including children. This isn’t like the epics of Lee or the fast relentless action of Chan. It’s so everyone can follow it. That makes it good but safe. There’s not really anything edgy about it. I say take the whole family, but try to make it to a matinee.

Traveling to Tampa

2008-05-01T16:09:00.000-04:00

Well two weekends ago in the middle of April I had the great pleasure of travelling with friends, to meet with more friends, to help two friends get married. It doesn’t get much better than that. And the damnedest thing of all, I didn’t take any pictures. Oh well. There were plenty of others taking pictures. Though we did miss recording the limo trip, the drunken go-cart racing, the game playing, and the drunken mini-golf. Ah that was a hoot right there. But the capstone was getting to stand up there and witness two people who are made for each other take the next big step in their life together. And now they are moving even closer to me. You know 2008 is turning out to be a stellar year. Smittys I hope you had a great honeymoon, and I hope you like the wedding present. I know Dex, Anita, James and Tiffany hope you do as well.

Busy and Lazy

2008-05-01T14:15:00.010-04:00

Man April was a busy month for me. I was at the house for all of one weekend that month. And once I was gone for 6 days straight. So what was I doing. I'll cover part of it in other posts. But for now I'll ramble about these.

The first weekend I went to Atlanta on Friday evening with some people from work. I was a late replacement for someone else. I work on Campus and they work off Campus, so we don't normally mix much. I think I fit in pretty well and might have just extended my friend pool. We went to see Jeff Dunham the comedian. Many of you have watched him. Let em tell you right now I haven't laughed that much since my Dad and I went to see Jeff Foxworthy. I suggest you watch Jeff Dunham on YouTube if you haven't seen his act. My back was sore the next day from laughing. It was his second show of the evening. He came out a little drunk, asked for some Jack D., and then had us rolling for almost 2 hours. I think he came up with some new material on stage, and If he was truthful he said it was one of the weirdest shows he'd done in a long time. I judge that to be a success.

I got home at 3:30 AM and got up at 7:45 so I could drive to see my family. Yeah I took a nap later that afternoon, but it was so worth it.

The next weekend I had accepted the invitation of a friend to come to a mountain cabin the father of a friend of his owned. Man that was a confusing sentence, and I knew what I was trying to say. Anyway here's a picture of it.

Actually my friend described it as a lodge rather than a cabin. I tell you what that is a nice place right there. Central heat and air, a wrap around porch, 5 or so bedrooms with real honest to God beds. It was wonderful. We got up there and we made pulled pork BBQ and fried chicken and hot dogs and hamburgers throughout the weekend. Mmmm Fried Chicken. I sat out on the porch, when it wasn't chilly, and read the Benjamin Franklin book I've been trying to finish. When it was chilly I sat inside and basked in the sun coming through the windows or glanced out at the mountains while I relaxed reading. I haven't had a chance to do that in such a lovely place in a long time. I included some pictures below of the view from the porch.

But that wasn't the best part. I also got to do something else. We went skeet shooting. That's the first time I've ever gone. I probably put a total of about 110 rounds through the old double barrel. I still don't have a name for it yet. I'll have to ask her again. Anyway, You know what. I 60+ year old 12 ga double barrel hurts when you shoot 100+ rounds. I imagine it tripled if not quadrupled the number of rounds I've put through it. Though I didn't think I did very well, 31% maybe, For a first time at skeet I had a hell of a lot of fun. Plus I think I was getting better near the end. But the things it did to my shoulder. My entire Pectoral was sore the next day. And later in the week the whole area was bruised. I took a picture for posterity, but I'm not posting hairy man-nipple here. Damn that was fun though. Maybe I can do it again sometime.

New Addition

2008-03-27T11:47:00.003-04:00

Well I have a new addition to my house. The couch in my den has been replaced by an actual new couch. That's right, that is the first new couch I've had. I have to say it's quite an improvement over the old one. Alas I didn't get any pictures of the old one, but that's probably for the best. However I do ramble on about the pictures of the new one.

So this is a picture of the illustrious new couch. It's actually about a foot shorter than the old one, but much of that is arm rest. The back is a little shorter, but it sits higher. The cushions are much firmer, which should soften over time, and they are much shallower. I like it. Well of course otherwise I wouldn't have chosen it. You can tell it's a gold color with a hint of green and maybe cranberry or wine in specks. The thing is this is the tipping point. I was content with the status quo, but that has changed. Next is the craptacular carpet in front of the sofa. It too moved from a previous abode, and was merely there to provide sound deadening and some scuff protection to the floor. So my search has begun.

This is the first foray. A few small pieces I picked up at one location to test in the lighting of the den. This like the other picture had to be color corrected slightly to make it look closer to reality. Darned flash. Anyway, the one on the left I wanted to use to confirm it was too busy for the room. The big version is even worse, so it's right out. My Godsister likes the middle one. It brings out the colors in the couch well. It gets more of the red and brown in the full size version. The one on the right I like, but I'm not sure for this room though. It's a dark forest green around the edge that transitions to a lighter green/beige in the middle. The three rectangles in the middle are the same green/beige with lots of blue speckles. The two vines are a dark wine. The big version is almost identical with the vines getting slightly thicker, but mostly longer with more leaves. I'll look some more places to see what they have.

What do you think?

The First Stone is Cast

2008-03-24T11:53:00.001-04:00

Well after much fanfare, gnashing of teeth, and taunts from friends I finally started the Harry Potter series. I purchased the entire set on sale after Christmas. It made each book about $16, which was a pretty decent price at the time. Anyway I finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone after only a few days. I probably could have read it in one, but I don’t read that fast and had other things to do. It was asked if I was going to read them all together, but I plan on continuing my two fiction one nonfiction pattern for the time being. So on with the rambling.

This is I believe the shortest of the books. Shoot I’m not even going to go into the story itself. Most of you are familiar with it aready. You can tell somewhat that they made some wording changes to move the book from Britain to the US. Frankly it’s probably the largest font I’ve read in a while. And yes it is a good children’s book, though it is a bit darker than the movie version. I also understand the changes they made for the movie. I usually don’t have as big of a problem with a book and movie being different, and some of my friends do. I just want them both to be good. Being different media means that changes have to take place to make the story flow and look right.

In short, I liked it. It was fun and a nice break. It was well written and engaging for a book aimed mostly at young people. I’m curious to see how the style evolves as the characters get older and their views of the world become more complex. I hope the writing style and plots become more complex as well. It would be interesting to see it grow like the human psyche and intellectual capability evolves through those formative years. And no spoilers please.

Literary Consolidation 31-40

2008-03-20T15:30:00.005-04:00

Or the Reader’s Digest Condensed Edition 4^nd Ed. Well it’s time to reduce the page length again by creating a post of ten books. I’ll give the picture as a link to where it can be purchased, in exchange for using the picture, a little bit about each book, and a link to my original take on the book.

40.

In this the third of the series two of the children return with a cousin to Narnia. This is a bit more mature and definitely is good for parent and child to read together.

My Take

39.

This book was bought after I got The Civilized Engineer for my class. The title pretty much says it all. The book is about the deep fulfilling pleasure we get from creation.

My Take

38.

I read this book for a class on Industrial Engineering. It's a good take on processes for making good, innovative designs.

My Take

37.

This is an odd tale by Atwood, Handmaid's Tale, that jumps between pre and post destruction of human civilization. You get to watch it all unfold.

My Take

36.

This is the second of the Narnia series by publication date. The story follows the children going to Narnia again, but centuries have passed there since the left.

My Take

35.

This is the excellent place to begin the Narnia series of books. I recommend it as a good story to read with your children.

My Take

34.

This is another in Peter David's series New Frontier. It's another great book for anyone who like Star Trek.

My Take

33.

I originally got this book for an engineering class and finally read the whole thing years later. It's about what engineers were, are, and what they should strive to be. I really liked it.

My Take

32.

This is the last of the three book arc in the series. I concludes bringing everyone back together again. It works out well and makes you want to continue the series.

My Take

31.

This is the second of a 3 book arc in this series. It continues following the crew of the Excalibur after it's destruction, but read them in order.

My Take

Book Smarts

2008-03-20T13:32:00.002-04:00

After lagging back a little while, I powered through two books in a short period of time. This review is the first of those. This was another break from the 700+ pages of what I now think is 8.5 point font. I finally read The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson. Previously I have reviewed Cryptonomicon, and before I started doing reviews I had read Snow Crash at the behest of a friend. Before starting this one I had liked Stephenson’s books and had high hopes for this one. In fact this book was recommended by the same friend, but it took me to this point to get around to reading it. I’ll probably ramble on about it in my own way.

This book takes place decades into a future where the promises of nanotechnology have been achieved. The novel explores what society becomes when virtually anything is possible. Buildings are grown by a feed run into a foundation. Diamond has replaced glass in windows, because it’s cheaper. The very air is filled with microscopic machines performing duties and waging wars at their masters’ biddings. Governments fell apart after truly secure money transfers made effective taxation impossible. They were replaced by a global economic protocol and groups of people that have formed societal clans. These clans maintain claves (enclaves) in various parts of the world where they live and guard their interests.

Now I’m torn because I want to talk about the book, but I don’t want to give too much away. Well I’ll see what happens.

The fulcrum of this novel is one John Percival Hackworth (Percival was the grail knight). He is an artifex, a master of nanotechnological design. In fact I would venture to say he is as much artist as engineer. Yes I know I am a little biased for engineering elegance being artistic. John belongs to the powerful clan of neo-Victorians. After the collapse of 20^th century western society this clan eventually came to power by embracing Victorian ethics and codes of conduct. The clan tends to churn members a bit. Those that join the clan after a hard life outside tend to become the clan’s strongest members. Those born into the clan tend to be lackluster in achievements. To combat this trend in his own granddaughter, a duke commissions Hackworth to create A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. The “book” if you can call it that is a sophisticated interactive computer system that is designed to give a girl all the tools necessary and to teach her to take chances and become great. Hackworth, in probably one of his only criminal moments, steals a copy of the book for his daughter only to have it stolen and fall into the hands of Nell.

Nell, not sure if it ever says her last name aside from saying her brother’s, is a poor little “thete,” poor with no clan affiliation, girl. She cannot read, her mother seems to have little care for her, and her brother Harv acts as her protector and teacher, until Harv brings her the Primer. Nell has had a hard life for a 5-6 year old and the Primer begins her education. What happens then is a wild ride following the lives of several people and Nell as the fruits of Hackworth’s brilliant mind accidentally, purposefully, and subconsciously weaves a tapestry of events into being.

I quite enjoyed this book. It captured me like the other of Stephenson’s books and made me want to read it faster. The characters, the environment, and the politics of the time all mesh well together. Stephenson does a good job of creating the fantastical from the technical. It does a good job of explaining how experience and education create most of who we are as individuals. The 3 initial Primers each do something different for the girl to which they are given. The 100,000+ given to the castoffs do something different, but similar. In all it makes you wonder if Hackworth had any idea exactly what he was creating. Stephenson also continues to do some strange things with sex and descriptions that tend to throw me out of the world he has created. It’s probably more me than anything else. At least none of it seemed that unnecessarily descriptive, unlike a couple of scenes in Cryptonomicon. In all it is quite a satisfying read. I recommend it to anyone that likes similar types of books.

Disconnected

2008-03-13T14:32:00.002-04:00

The venerable DSL modem that has been used for 6-7 years, maybe longer, has finally ceased to function. Therefore my home has been disconnected from the Aether since late Tuesday evening. I have been taking it surprisingly well considering I always have a portal to the Intarweb open next to my customary place of butt parkage. I have entertained myself with various DVDs I haven't had a chance to watch, and by reading my current book. I take it as a further sign that I truly am not addicted to it. I have had no convulsions or crazed thoughts. Though I must admit I do spend all of my working hours with a rather speedy connection to it as well. However, work time use of the connection to infinite knowledge and amusement always seems different than home use. Anyway, AT&T is supposed to be sending me a new entryway to the information thoroughfare either today or tomorrow. it is more complicated then what I need, so I hope it works without much trouble. I have things that I would like to accomplish using it this weekend.

Can I be back?

2008-03-03T11:42:00.001-05:00

Just over a month and no update from me, I should be ashamed. Well maybe I am and maybe I’m not. What has happened? Work is still work. I got to place an order for $60,000+ worth of equipment. That was interesting. Two friends of mine are looking for a house in the area. I got to do a little scouting for them, and one came up to look a few of them over. Then we went out and had a little fun with some targets and ammunition. I did better with the double-barrel on the skeet than I did with the pump. Oh well. It’s getting closer to spring, and I’ve got to start thinking about the yard. I’ll try to come up with more things to write about.

I’m looking over

2008-01-23T11:25:00.000-05:00

So this past weekend I had some friends up. We had a little frozen precipitation, but nothing stuck. So Saturday we went to the movies and watched “Cloverfield.” I had seen the trailers for it and had heard a few things. I was really anxious to see it, but I was also afraid that the camera movements would make me sick. I had a really had time with “The Blair Witch Project.” That movie had a shaky camera though the whole thing. I don’t know what possesses them to do that. Yeah it was realistic, but I had to close my eyes through about 1/3 of the movie due to a splitting motion sickness induced headache. Cloverfield had a similar camera effect, but it was easier to close my eyes during the high motion sections that didn’t really show anything. Anyway on with the review.

The movie follows a guy and his friends. The premise is someone is filming a sendoff party for one of the main characters. During the party the city is rocked by an “earthquake” and then explosion. Then it becomes obvious that it’s no mere accident. Something really big is in the city and it’s tearing up the place and killing people. The rest of the movie is about the people trying to get away.

It was pretty well done. There were some stupid parts. I always wonder if these characters have never watched a scary or a monster movie before. Here’s a tip. When stuff starts running one way you should probably follow it. And some others for people that might get trapped in a horror movie situation, when the scary things get scared it’s bad and don’t go to see what that noise is. Also, there is never too much ammunition. So in all I really liked the movie, even with the headache inducing camera motion. I’d like to watch it again, but I’ll wait for the smaller screen. I also really want to see a sequel. We talked about it at home and thought a parallel time line from the military point of view might be interesting, especially if it crosses the path of the same actors. They did a really good job making a unique monster, and driving suspense. It also leaves you with a lot of questions that never get answered. That’s for the next movie.

If you like scary monster movies then this is a must see, even at full price. If you have bad motion sickness, close your eyes when the camera is really bouncing around. At least it stops for some of the conversations.

Special Delivery

2008-01-12T10:39:00.000-05:00

I finished The Postman by David Brin in short order. It’s good to get back to old reading speed after a hiatus. I originally got this book at a B&N in Columbia I believe. I was there with a couple friends. We talked about The Uplift series by Brin and I looked to see if they had it. They didn’t, but I got a copy of The Postman instead. It helped me remember Brin’s name, and I was curious about after haven seen the movie. I admit I was one of the people that watched “The Postman” movie, Kevin Cosner’s other post-apocalyptic movie. It didn’t get good reviews at all, though I didn’t think it deserved the roasting it got. Anyway I’m going to ramble on about the book for probably longer than it deserves.

Hmm. I’m having a bit of trouble thinking about this book. I want to say much about it, but I don’t want to give too much away. I’m going to try to not spoil anything. Luckily the details are what were the most enjoyable; even though the expected outcome is probably know well ahead of time. If you want to be safe from spoilage, then skip to the last paragraph.

I realize now that this is going to be long. As a prelude I offer two “sayings” I guess. One is “If you tell a lie long enough, you may come to believe it yourself.” And second, “If you tell a lie with enough hope, it can become the truth.”

The book is copyrighted in ’85, to give a little perspective on when it was written. The story is about one Gordon Krantz. It’s after the fall of large scale civilization. Information about the fall is doled out throughout the novel. It’s been thirteen years since the DoomWar. After the extravagance of the 80’s came a recession, that sparked a growth of extremist groups, primarily the survivalists of the west and the mystics of the Asian continent. The recession seemed to have been fought back and the US was on the road to prosperity again. Then the East lost control of some of their nukes, and they were let fly. The US responded in kind, but somehow restraint was maintained. Only the major cities were destroyed, and the detritus in the air caused a winter of 3 years rather than the decades a whole-scale nuclear conflict would have caused. The EMPs and radiation destroyed communication and collapsed the network of interdependency that the US had developed. Militias, one containing Gordon Krantz, guarded huge silos filled with grain in the Midwest while cities in the east starved. The cities had large supplies of medicines while the farmers died of rampant disease. There was no coordination possible.

If it were merely the bombs many may have survived, but the east had also lost control of biological weapons. Diseases unlike any ever seen, or at least not seen in any modern times, ravaged the population as many more starved in the three year winter. However, even this subsided, and order might have managed to gain another foothold, but for one final plague. The survivalists with their hoardings of food and massive amounts of ammunition came out of their hiding places. Many followed the teachings of one Nathan Holn who promoted the idea of a survivalist, misogynistic, and violent way of life. They ravaged the barely surviving towns and peoples. They killed and destroyed everything they could not enslave. They are the one thing rival towns and peoples rallied together to fight. By the book most survivalist groups have been destroyed save for a few small groups spread around and one large group in southern Oregon, but the damage has already been done.

That’s where the book begins. Gorgon has been on a long trek West looking for some place where someone is trying to make civilization again, “Taking Responsibility” as he calls it. He has been working his way as a minstrel. He does renditions of MacBeth, Lincoln’s speeches, etc for food and shelter. He’s bushwhacked by a small group of survivalists who take almost all his clothes and possessions. Being in the mountains approaching winter, it means certain death. He chases after them, but looses the trail and stumbles upon the catalyst for the story, a jeep with US Post Office on it. Gordon hides inside for the night, the next day he takes the uniform to replace his lost clothes, what supplies are in the jeep, and some letters to pass the time. From the postmark Gordon realizes the Postman died 2 years after the Doom War. He had never heard of anyone holding on to a remnant of civilization for that long after the war.

Gordon comes to Pine View where does his song, dance, and overacting performance, but something peculiar happens. He tells the town that he found the Postman’s uniform, but most of the town takes to believing he’s actually a Postman. For some reason they don’t get that he just salvaged the uniform. They even ask if he will take letters with him when he heads West. He doesn’t want to upset the nice townspeople that helped him, so he agrees. The seed is planted. At the next town Gordon is shot at and has a find of supplies taken. He conceives a plan to use the uniform to his advantage. He forges documents and with bravado approaches the palisade as a official Postal Inspector for the Restored US Government. The bluff is almost lost until he goes through the Pineview letters and finds one for whom the recipient is still alive. The lie is born.

Gordon continues West. He perpetuates the lie and becomes quite adept at it. He co-ops the cynics, usually the smartest of the towns, and appoints them postmaster for the town. They even set up courier services with the previous towns he has visited. He hands out “official” edicts from the government with guidelines that he created from seeing the worst of what the towns would eventually degrade to. His rules head off slavery, generational servitude, degradation into feudalism, and mandates elections for town leaders. And the damned thing works. Gordon keeps working his way through Oregon using the Postman uniform to gain entry into towns and get supplies. He keeps looking for someone who has tried to rebuild civilization, the one taking responsibility.

The he hears a familiar sound and finds children playing with a portable video game. He goes in search of this Cyclops that is supplying these and other small electronics. On the way he finds a band of survivalists, a possible scout party for an invasion force. He rushes towards where he thinks Cyclops is with hope and warning. He had hoped to leave the uniform behind if Cyclops was even half what he hoped, but that dream would die when he had to use the old lie to try to warn the people. He meets Cyclops, the last sentient supercomputer from before the war, but something isn’t quite right. He tries to leave, but his conscience makes him return to help fight the survivalists.

I’ll leave the story at that. It’s probably much too much detail, but it’s already written. No sense going back over it.

As with most books this is much better than the movie. It’s odd on the B&N site some reviewers preferred the movie. I’ve read a few post apocalyptic novels, and I usually like the ones that cover the attempts at recovery rather than just survival or covering what caused it. I like following Gordon as he spreads his lie in an attempt to survive and becomes the very thing he has been searching for. There are also some interesting ideas that Brin adds. I like that he made the collapse of civilization a series of disasters, the last of which being stupid people. There’s the recurring theme that there are two types of men. Nathan Holn said they were the weak and the strong, the servants and the masters. Dena said it was the monsters and the heroes, the battle hungry and the reluctant fighters. The final conflict revolves around just that. Then there are the interesting ideas that the feminists are developing, which seem to be highly influenced by Lysistrata. One of them blames lack of intervention by the women for the fall of civilization. They believe that men can do both great and horrible things, and that it is the responsibility of the women to cull the bad seed and be responsible for the men they create. Anyway, it’s interesting to read.

So I highly recommend this one to anybody that likes post-apocalyptic or future science fiction novels. It read pretty quick and drew m through the story pretty well. Now back to Benny, which I find appropriate considering he essentially created the modern postal system that helped unite the original colonies.

Boomstick of My Own

2008-01-11T10:14:00.001-05:00

A few months before I started going to school at Clemson my Grandfather passed away. My Grandmother lived in the house for 10 or so more years, before her failing eyesight forced her to move. There is a bunch of stuff one can collect in a house over 50+ years. Piles and lists were made of what to keep, sell, give away, or throw away. One item was in the back of my Grandparent's closet. It had probably sat unused for around 30 years. My dad nor his brothers seemed all that interested in it, and so that's how I acquired my Grandfather's shotgun. I'll ramble a bit about it, with illustrations, after the link.

It's a Stevens 12 gauge, 2-3/4 " shell, double barrel model 5100. I've looked around, but this one seems to have been made before that started stamping a date code on them. That puts it at least before '49, which I would have guessed already. It's not a long gun. My Dad said Granddad used it to hunt rabbits I think. Anyway at the time I was renting a house with some friends. I kept the gun in the closet, and didn't bother with having it checked out or keeping any ammunition. I mean I was sharing a house I didn't own with other people. I didn't need liability.

Well After I bought my mortgage I started thinking about the gun more. In my yard I've seen opossums, squirrels, a wild dog of some kind, deer, and the previous owners had a black bear come by. You can understand why I was thinking about the gun. I'm only really worried about the four legged intruders. I decided to have the thing checked out. I wanted to have it cleaned in case 30 years of dust may have gotten in it. It looked in really good shape to me, but I'm not that familiar with guns. Besides, knowing Granddad, he kept it immaculate. I took it to Grady's in Anderson. I've been there before and a friend said they set him up with his handgun about getting ammo and cleaning supplies.

I got a case for the gun and brought it back the next day. The older gentleman behind the counter took a look at the gun and said that it was in excellent shape and didn't really have any dirt on it. He recommended spraying it down with some cleaner and letting it drain down the barrels, but other than that it was ready to go. I picked up a couple boxes of ammo, 00 Buck and a box of turkey load #4 for varments. Apparently Grady's had a big Christmas and were out of all kinds of ammo. So I went home an ordered 30 rounds of 3 different types of light load shells to see which ones I liked. I've got some friends coming up for MLK day, and we might make a journey to a gun range another friend uses. It would be my first time using powder. I'm probably going to have to write that one up too.

Eternal Knight

2008-01-07T12:16:00.000-05:00

As you can tell I’ve finished Fall of Knight by Peter David. A can’t believe that it’s been over two years since I read the previous book of the series, and the first before that. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this one, but in actuality it has been sitting on my shelf for a little while. I kind of stopped reading for several months there, but I’m trying to make a comeback. I took a pause 1/3 of the way though the Franklin biography. It’s good, but I needed a respite from 700+ pages of 10 point font.

This is the third and probably final of the series. This book is more like the previous one than like the first. Look at my previous review for what I’m talking about. Most of what I said about the quality of the second book applies here as well, but first the plot points. Basically this book starts a couple months after Arthur fights for the Grail and heals his wife Gwen. She and he are keeping a low profile alone on a sail boat in the Pacific. I mean how can Arthur explain the miraculous recovery of the former First Lady after a sniper round to the head? Surprise of surprises they are found out and rumors start flying all over the place about secret government treatments not available to the public and such. Arthur comes back to Washington and comes clean about what happened. Pilgrims start surrounding the White House wanting help from the Grail. Arthur goes into hiding, Merlin disappears, and some yahoo shows up with the Spear of Destiny. They seem to work something out about using the Grail to help people, but then all Hell tries to break lose. In the end it goes to show that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as much as the second. It gets a bit darker, and some won’t like it for some of the religious stance it takes. I mean come on it has the Grail and the Spear of Longinus in it. How can it not be controversial? If differing ideas don’t daunt you then I recommend this to anyone who likes the genre.

Movies Movies Movies

2008-01-06T23:40:00.000-05:00

I’ve been lazy and haven’t kept up with my requisite movie reviews. I’ve got four in total that I should have done by now, but just didn’t bring myself to write. I’d feel really bad about it if I thought someone cared. Anyway, I’ll be rambling about them after the link.

First, way back before Christmas I went to see “The Golden Compass.” It got decent reviews, so I figured what the heck. Well It was a pretty decent movie. I don’t think it went as well as say “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe,” but it was pretty good for the kids. It seemed to jump a bit in the story telling. It was a bit jarring, and I sometimes felt I had missed a scene or two. Luckily there were some good actors in the flick that smoothed some of that over. Had the acting had issues it would have made the editing/directing flop. It did make me want to read the book series though. As a consequence I bought a copy at the book store after Christmas. It’s actually an omnibus of the “His Dark Materials” series by Philip Pullman. I’m hoping that, as is usually the case, the book is more thorough than the movie. It’s on my list of things to get to.

Then there was the standard Christmas Day movie my family started as a tradition years ago. We looked at what was out and decided that everyone would probably enjoy seeing “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” I did enjoy it for the most part. It wasn’t as good as the original, but the reviews said that as well. There wasn’t nearly as much problem solving and clue following in this one. Plus some of the initial drama wasn’t explained very well, nor was it pulled off that well. But it was entertaining, and they left it open for a third movie.

Yesterday I went to watch “I am Legend.” I’ve never read the book or seen the two other film adaptations. This one deviates from the book, as all good film adaptations should. First I will say that those among you that dislike scary movies probably should wait to rent this. I’m not a big fan of scary movies myself, but I will admit that I had to make sure I set my drink down at certain times. Luckily those times are well telegraphed. Smith offers a great performance that really brings home the silliness and seriousness of the human dependency on interpersonal contact. The film almost feels like it has two parts. There is the mediocrity of the daily living, the doing the dishes part of the movie, and then there is the fight for survival. It’s really a pretty good movie. You just have to get past the obvious CGI creatures. But it isn’t called suspension of disbelief for nothing.

Then today I went to see “Sweeny Todd.” Well now that was just a good time right there. I don’t get to see musicals much, unless they are made by Disney. And there is a whole lot of singing in this movie. I’ve watched musicals on television and in person before, but this was jam packed with it. I know some people don’t care for musicals, but I’m not recommending it to them. I was actually surprised at how funny parts of it were. It reminds me of the human ability to make light of almost any situation. I recommend it to anyone that likes a bit of dark, gory, funny, and musical entertainment.

Holiday Return

2008-01-02T09:55:00.000-05:00

It’s only been a month since last I wrote. That’s better than my previous hiatus. I’m not going to lie. December was busy, and I probably had things I could have written about. Let’s see if I can cover some of what happened.

Classes came to an end with exams. That actually went better than I had hoped. There wasn’t much that went wrong other than a few maintenance items. I’m still “Primary Supplies Orderer” and considered “Lead Technician” at work. I take that as a vote of confidence from my boss. Had a week and a half off and am back today, though I do not want to be. It was 22 degrees F when I left the house this morning. Classes start next week and I’m not sure when we get to install those two new classrooms. That’s pretty much work.

Over Christmas I went home to spend time with family. My Godmother had hip replacement surgery earlier this year. That went beautifully once it was accomplished, but soon thereafter she began having what amounts to a compressed nerve issue in her back that is making the same damned leg hurt. Essentially the pain is still there, ain’t that some luck. There is some hope that a new procedure she is scheduled for will remove the compression and get her back up and going almost immediately. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

My family went to visit my Dad’s and Mother’s family separately. At both locations we do a “Chinese auction (read the bottom of the article).” Anyway, some people like it and some don’t. The rules area always a source of contention, but we never have any problems with actual execution. I usually just hang back and let others bicker about the rules, because I don’t really care. I found out a long time ago that the secret to those games it to expect to get nothing of any use. For my Dad’s family I actually stole a book form my brother called Weapon. It’s pretty nice. I think I got a shoeshine kit at my Mom’s family’s exchange. There it’s always more fun to watch everyone else’s reactions anyway.

We had our usual Christmas Eve and day stuff. Went to church for communion, Mom’s family, and went home to prepare for Christmas day. We got up and did our usual stocking stuff and prepared for breakfast. We usually have some visitors over for Christmas Breakfast. Then we went about some present opening in the front room. Mom has two trees, the 10 ft white and gold ornament tree in the front room and the 7 ft “Ethnic Tree” in the back room. I started calling it the ethic tree, because that’s where all the multi-colored ornaments and lights she used to use on the front tree wound up when she switched to white and gold up there. It kind of stuck, and it makes me proud. Anyway she wraps all the presents in the front room in white and gold paper and bows. To keep the base of the tree neat she overflows presents to the Ethnic Tree, but those presents get more vibrant paper and bows. Anyway we started cleaning out the underside of the front tree for a while, per custom. Normally we would then go to a movie at around 2-4 PM. We started that tradition when the movie theater opened in town. But this year the theater thwarted us by delaying their opening until 7 PM. That threw our whole schedule off. My Godparents weren’t able to come over early because of dinner plans. It worked out fine anyway. We went and saw “National Treasure.” I’ll review that shortly. My brother and I went to see my godparents after the movie, since my Godmother was having problems with her back. It wasn’t what we normally did, but all was accomplished.

I got a microwave, games, DVDs, books, and some other assorted things. My sister got some furniture and stuff for her new house, and my brother got an IPod, DVDs, and stuff. My Mom and Dad bought a new TV for their den like 3 weeks before Christmas. Their anniversary is the 20^th, so they called it an Anniversary/Christmas present to each other. Since they are so had to shop for, Mom buys things when she needs then regardless of how close Christmas is, we decided we could get them a small home theater in a box system to go with the LCD TV. We had discussed the option in previous years, but the new TV clinched it. We knew Mom would be a little unsure about it, she has a hard time with remotes and electronics, so we also got a gift certificate for them to go out for dinner and my brother found dishes to fill out her plates and bowls in her pattern.

All in all it was a pretty decent Christmas. There were a few bumps, but everyone made it through. Hopefully next year everyone will be up and back to their usual selves.

The Improbable Dream

2007-12-03T22:09:00.000-05:00

See the post before this one for reference. Plus I’ve been having some trouble with my Internet connection, so it took a while to get this posted. I hope the trouble clears up before tomorrow.

I don’t normally remember my dreams. I mean I rarely do. I remember waking up and remembering the gist of what happened, but they are rarely memorable enough to expend energy trying to remember them. In other words I usually dream pretty mundane stuff related to people and events of the day. I remember the occasional flying dream, though it was more like a slow glide. I also remember having dreams so realistic and vivid that I mistook the remembered dream for actual events later. Yeah that’s kind of disturbing. I’ve also incorporated sounds into my dreams. Anyway, while I was sick I had an awful night’s sleep. I was doped up on Advil liquigels. Which as an aside taking two liquigels on a fairly empty stomach chased by 2/5ths of a pot of coffee is like injecting it straight into your arm. It rocks. Anyway I had a dream so odd that I still remember the basic outline of it, which is more than I usually remember.

Where to begin. I was essentially four separate and distinct people, each with their own personalities and motivations. I rotated from one instance to another somewhat randomly. All of them existed in this ethereal mist, and each of them was forming or molding an object of some kind. The objects in question took the form of large black shapes constructed of protrusions of rectangular, cylindrical, and other geometric shapes and were several times the height of the person forming it and nearly twice as long as high. Interestingly each of the individuals pushed and pulled the forms using the power of an element; air, water, earth, and it think fire, but it could have been heat in general. For some reason the air and water instances were afraid of the earth instance. They seemed to fear he was building a weapon, though he and the rest of them didn’t really know what they were building. Consequently air and water had decided to ally themselves, and they were constructing their object for protection. That is even thought they didn’t know what they were building. Fire or heat or energy wasn’t afraid of earth or the other two, but it constructed its object, because it felt it needed to and as a “just in case” thing. As the construction continued the objects and individuals moved closer together in the mist. Tensions became greater as the impending whatever bore down on them. Then as the objects neared completion they got close enough that all four could see the objects at once. They realized they had been building four separate pieces of one thing. The final change was made to each of the four objects as they clicked into place, and I promptly woke up.

Tada. What’s really odd is that I remember feeling each of the distinct personalities and the emotional state of each. Then I was the air or water guys I truly feared the earth guy. And when I was the earth guy I couldn’t understand their irrational fear. I just wish I had gotten to see what the damned thing did. Maybe I was bringing conflicting parts of me into unison, or maybe just maybe I was running a temperature of 100+.

An Ill Wind

2007-12-03T16:31:00.000-05:00

Where has the time gone? Well friends you know how I’ve talked about having time I needed ot take off of work. Well I took two days for Thanksgiving. We got Thurs and Friday of course, but I added Tuesday and Wednesday. And low and behold what happens. I get sick Monday evening. Yay. I had fever, shakes and all my joints ached Monday night and part of Tuesday. Luckily I felt better Wednesday and went to my home town for Thanksgiving.

I came back to my house Saturday with a bit of a sinus headache. Sunday morning I felt somewhat better, but that all changed after noon. I started running a fever 100, got the shakes, was cold, and the pain in my sinuses started spreading. I had the symptoms of a sinus infection. Around time for bed I got terribly cold. I slept under my flannel sheets, electric blanket, comforter, and one of those velour type blankets. I woke up 3 times in need of medication to stop my head from splitting to the root. That was far worse than the abscess tooth I had.

Monday morning I felt alright, but I called in sick to work. I got well enough to go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription my doctor called in. It’s nice to have a small town doctor. Plus I had to go to class since it was a test review. Plus the professor has a “No Excused Absences” policy. I felt like trying to give him my disease for so callously encouraging sick people to spreading illness. Luckily I brought the Advil with me so that I could pop two in order to make it home after my head started aching again. Then I really got the cold and shakes again, fever 101+. I went to bed and had an awful night’s sleep and probably one of the oddest dreams I’ve ever had. I’ll tell you about that later.

I got up Tuesday feeling ok, but it got worse quickly. No work for me. I kept a fever of 100+ most of the day. I drank a full gallon of Gatorade on Mon and Tues. I stayed on the couch and rested. Tuesday night I popped a couple Advil for something I had to do and felt much better.

Wed I got up and nursed a 99+ temp all day, but I had to take an online test for class. And Thursday I was back at work. Those are the first sick days I’ve taking for illness in a long time, and the first 3 in a row ever. Turns out whatever it was has been going around.

Now let’s see if I can think of how to describe the dream.

Movies of Fall

2007-12-03T16:01:00.000-05:00

Can you believe it I’m actually making a post? This is of course about movies, but I’m not goanna spend much time on it.

First, several weeks back I saw “American Gangster” with a couple of friends. Let me tell you that is a pretty darned good movie right there. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It’s not nearly as violent as I thought it might be. Plus it doesn’t really get bogged down at any point. If I had written a review in time I would have recommended it for a definite viewing even at full price.

Yesterday my brother and I went to see “The Mist” based on a Stephen King novella. The sucker had pretty good reviews so I thought what the heck. That was quite interesting. It had the feel of a “B” movie, but the acting and writing were pretty good. I enjoyed the characters and actors quite a bit. Some might not like horror/suspense like this, don’t go if you don’t like scary movies, but this one had the right mix of stuff for me. It almost gave me a Hitchcockian feeling. All the way up to the end. You have characters that make pretty smart and understandable decisions all through a movie, and then you get to the en and they flub it. I know what it was trying to pull off, but that was the only unconvincing part. I recommend it as a matinee to anyone who thinks it might be interesting.

Now there seem to be a lot more movies coming out I want to see. I’ll try to write more.

Dang it’s late

2007-11-15T13:20:00.000-05:00

So it’s getting late in the year man. I’m not ready for it to be this late. Thought I have been enjoying the pomegranates coming back in season. I love those things. So I’ve eaten about a dozen of them so far. Then a friend of mine pointed out that the world’s most perfect processed food had made its reappearance for the season. And friggin’ Thanksgiving is next week. Ug. Where has all the time gone? Now I have to get going on running over my leaves with the riding mower. Too many things to do.

Big Project Pictures

2007-11-14T14:18:00.000-05:00

You know I didn't ask anyone if I could post these, but they let me take them and you can probably get a tour of the thing if you ask nicely. So I'm gonna post pictures and Ramble about them. Follow if you want, but there are 10 pics to load. I kind of started to know his project was coming about a month ahead of time. The thing was no one told me anything about it. I knew nothing about the equipment or how it was to be wired up. It's hard to prepare when you know nothing. It's not unusual for me to have no formal forewarning, but usually I get to see the equipment come in and I can figure out what kinds of connectors and cables I'll need. This is one of the first jobs where I was really blind. Plus the guy who designs this stuff kind of assumes we should keep lots of everything on hand. Yeah if I had an infinite budget and storage space.

Enough preaching and on with the show.

Well everyone wants to see the money shot first, so here it is. This is the bank of HD displays in the area. That's right there is an even dozen of the things. They are 1080p Sony Bravia sets, 52 or something inches, but I can't remember the exact measurement. I'm just glad I didn't have to put them up, but having them already up lead to a few wiring headaches. Those will become a little more apparent as the post moves on. We had to loosen the mounts, which took a 3/8 socket and 3 extensions. Of course we didn't have one of those at work, so I had to go buy them, on the University's tab of course. I kind of like being able to justify tools we should have had all along. This was a theme for the project. Since I didn't have good foreknowledge I didn't know what I needed to bring with me. I was planning on essentially packing up most of the shop to take with me, since the site was 15 minutes from the shop. But was told I shouldn't need that much stuff. After looking at the display mounts and the equipment on site, went to ACE and packed up most of the shop to take down there. I love showing people they don't know what they are talking about. Anyway, on with the tour.

Here's a pic of the control center. We started calling it Houston. Anyway there are four workstations at the back and six at the front. If you look, yes those are two 27 inch Dell monitors for each of the workstations. They are higher resolution than the Bravia displays. And those are wireless keyboards and mice for the computers. I don't know the specs for the computers, but I do know that the right hand display for each workstation in the back row is linked to a transmitter that sends it's image to the equipment in the wiring closet. What is this transmitter? It's a small black box that converts the image from the computer to a form that can be transmitted over Ethernet cable. Quite a long distance actually. Well, lets just look at the next picture.

There we go. This is a receiver on the back of one of the Bravia displays. It's slightly larger than the transmitters. It takes the RJ45 (Ethernet) cable and converts it back to VGA. Not bad considering it was taking a 1080P signal. We had to use Scotch Mounting Foam Tape to mount the receiver and the power supply to the back of the display. It worked out pretty well. Routing the cables so they wouldn't be damaged by the display mount when we pushed it back was fun, but not as much fun as attaching the VGA cable to the display by touch. Hopefully they will prove robust and won't have to be replaced. What I don't show here is another connection that comes over the Ethernet cable to the television. See they ordered these monitors before consultation with my group. They look nice, but they don't have a serial communications port. That means I had to figure out how to send an IR signal over Cat6 Ethernet cable. I'll show you that in the wiring closet.

And here we are at the wiring closet. We get the whole right rack. We were supposed to get only part of it, but Network Services didn't need all of the two racks they had. It's funny, but I think we had more equipment in there than they did. I'm not sure whose cost the most, but I bet they were ahead. On the left, you can see the computers feeding some of the displays out in the room. In the middle was a 1080P LCD display so you can see the computers while in the closet. That way you can move a USB keyboard and Mouse around for config purposes. Of course they also use a remote access system to do that from outside the room, but sometimes you need direct assess. I said was before because the display actually stopped working after a few minutes. We had to send it off for repair/replacement. Oh well, I didn't spec it.

This view is at the top of the rack. That top piece is the Crown amp that runs the overhead KSI speakers. There's no need for surround or anything here. Plus we can always upgrade the system later. The next two pieces are Crestron equipment. On top is the controller that runs the show, as it were, and below that is the final audio mixer/equalizer. On the shelf below that is the power supply for the Crestron gear and the DirectTV receiver. I don't know why they didn't spring for the HD version. I mean with those Bravia displays out there. Oh well, another future upgrade. Under that are the two Rolls mixers. Why two? The top one is for the computers in the rack next door. It dumps into the bottom one along with the DirectTV audio. The bottom mixer has a cutoff so that if the computers say something it cuts out the DirectTV audio to make sure the computers are heard. You can see my test audio cable coming down in the front. That was plugged into one of the multi-adapters I've made for diagnostic purposes. You gotta test the amp and speakers with some tunes.

This is the patch panel. The black cables carry the video out to the receivers behind the displays. The white cables combine three to one and run up to the back of the Crestron controller. That's my solution for sending IR over Cat6. On the other end behind the displays, I have a one foot Ethernet cable plugged into the wall jack. I put the IR probe's wires into an RJ45 jack. That I plugged into the short cable. Frankly I'm kind of surprised it worked so well right off the bat. It was a pain though.

Those black cables loop around and plug into the back of the Magenta Research Mondo Matrix Switcher. They plug into the outputs on the switcher. As you can tell, there is a lot of space for expansion in that thing. The inputs are filled from four cables coming from the four workstations in the back of the control center, the eight computers in the rack next door, the DirectTV receiver, and the Security camera system. However, the output from the computers next door have to change from VGA to Cat5. That happens below the switcher.

There you can see the front of the Mondo Matrix switcher, and below that is the Magenta Research Morph-It. That box is basically a backplane system designed to hold and power cards to do specific tasks. Here we are using it to run a couple of cards for skew control for the four workstations and six transmitter cards to take VGA from the computers, DirectTV, and security cameras and turn it into Cat5 for the Matrix switcher. However, DirectTV and the security cameras don't give us a VGA signal, so if you look at the bottom of the pic you can see one of the two Extron scalers we used. Those things can take almost any video signal and turn it into almost any other. This setup allows us to put any signal from any source on any and all displays.

Following those VGA cables over and you get to the back of the half dozen Mac Minis running Windows. He he that's funny. Under those are two Dell workstations. Those 8 machines put out a surprising amount of heat. If you look at the white cables leaving the Minis those are the audio cables going up to the Rolls mixer. Yeah I had to solder those 3.5 mm mini-stereo plugs on the end. Loads of fun that was, but not as much fun as the other end.

This is the other end. That's the back of the Rolls Mixer. That top row of plugs are all 1/4 inch mono plugs and there is one for left and right on each channel. One channel per computer. I had to take the one wire from the PC, strip it, double the sleeve/ground/common wire, and put the left and right channels in two different plugs. That took most of the morning right there. If I had known that earlier I probably would have tried to order pre-made cables. Oh well. So that's one of the things that kept me busy for a week.

This post ended up being a lot longer than I had intended. I'll try posting more stuff later.

I’m not dead yet.

2007-11-14T14:16:00.000-05:00

Good Lord two months. To the day even. I didn’t realize it had been that long. There really haven’t been any donkeys lately, and no me either. Well I didn’t fall off the face of the Earth. Although several times I was afraid I was going to land face down in the earth.

Well what’s happened since that fateful September day? I’ve had class. I made an 87 on my first test. The class mean was 56 and the instructor said he designed it for a mean of 45. I told someone on class that if he had told me that earlier I wouldn’t have had to drink as much the night after I took it. Anyway I’ve been doing fairly well in class.

I had two projects back to back that were “absouloutly have to have it doen by this time, but I’m not even going to give out half the time you want in order to get everything done. Oh and everyone in front of you is behind so you have to catch-up all of their lateness. And the Governor is going to come see this project when it is completed. I have some picks of that I might put up. And both of those projects had the standard “Other people’s screwups and wrong information,” that I had to deal with and fix. Not bitter about it though.

I had visitors come up to the house twice. Both times were around those two projects, so I couldn’t devote the time I wanted to prepare for them to get there. I still haven’t gotten the house into anywhere near final shape, but I did make it look a little better. We went to two Clemson games and Shot items in the back yard. It was a rousing good time and I think everyone got to work off some stress. Seriously, nothing makes you feel better than shooting a projectile at a target and getting a hit. It’s far cheaper than therapy or even alcohol.

A friend of mine talked me into doing something I haven’t done before. I might talk about it later, but it’s been absorbing some time.

And last week two family members passed away, so I had a funeral and visitation to go to Friday. The readers, what few there are, who knew them know who they were. Anyway, Lets see if I can post more frequently.

Articles of Interest

2007-09-14T21:02:00.000-04:00

Reading today, since it was my day off, I found several related items that I wanted to pass along.

A woman in the great state of South Carolina has filed suit against the RIAA. It looks to be an interesting case, but I really only mentioned it because you don’t see SC in the news about stuff like this very often.

Also the RIAA lost a case where the defendant didn’t even show up. It’s kind of unusual for that to happen to such a large organization, but it sets an interesting precedent for anyone seeking to fight them in the future.

Autodesk, makers of AutoCAD, is being sued by a man whose eBay account was disabled, because he was trying to sell legitimate copies of software. The thing is they used the DMCA to have the account shut down. This case is interesting because it take on the DMCA usage and EULA, End User License Agreements. Anyone who uses software, or some books, has supposedly agreed to a EULA. Well for a while the legitimacy of the items and rights signed over in the EULAs have been under attack. This one may further erode the huge EULAs that you have to agree to whenever you install anything.

Finally, a report probably overestimates the revenue generated by Fair Use. However, it does give good reason for lawmakers to pause and look at how protecting copyright too vigorously could cause much more damage than it prevents.

What’s going on

2007-09-13T23:26:00.000-04:00

So work has been pretty busy, and since I usually use some spare time there to update this page, I’ve been away. Last week one of my coworkers was off all week, and Monday and Tuesday one of my other coworkers was sick. It’s been a bad week and a half.

So what’s happened? Last Friday was the anniversary of something I don’t remember. And unlike others I won’t mention, but will link to, I admit hitting a score and 11 years. I’m hoping that shortly I will get my new computer for work. I’ve also had to take on some more duties at work, specifically ordering equipment. Other than that, not much going on except being busy. Oh, and I’m taking tomorrow off.

Illusions of Motion in Triplicate

2007-08-28T11:14:00.001-04:00

So I’ve seen a few movies in my month off as well.

First off I went to see “The Simpson’s Movie.” It was pretty nice, but it wasn’t as good as I was hoping. It’s no Tomaco episode, but it was pretty good. I laughed, but not hysterically. I’d suggest seeing it at a matinee if you like the Simpsons. Rent it as well.

Then I saw “The Bourne Ultimatum.” That was just fantastic. If you liked the first two movies then this is a must see. I’m impressed that the movies have seemed to get better each time. It’s a rare thing, but I’m contributing it to them going with 3 good books that were already completed, and they took their time making the scripts and getting the movies out. They still did that shaky camera thing that made me feel sick in the last one, except it was more prevalent this time. Why do they need to do that? I know it changes the feel, but not all the damned time. Anyway, you must see this movie if you like action or suspense. It’s just great.

Finally, this past weekend I saw “Superbad” with some friends. That is one of the funniest movies I have seen in quite a while. It’s from the makers of “Knocked Up” and “40 Year Old Virgin.” If you liked those two this one is 30-40% funnier. It’s wrong, gross, raunchy, and full of vulgarity, but it’s just so damned funny. I laughed so hard I started coughing. Anyone who was a nerd in High School will find it all the funnier. I’m probably going to have to see it again. I recommend going on a Friday or Saturday night at a theater frequented by college students. See it at full price, but you have to see it. Man that’s funny.

Millennial Man

2007-08-28T10:45:00.000-04:00

Actually several weeks ago I finished 3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. This is the final book in the four book Space Odyssey Series by Clarke. After reading this I understand why Stephen Baxter called the Time Odyssey books orthogonal to the Space Odyssey series.

This book starts with our short lived friend Frank Poole from the first book. Frank was the guy who went out to fix the antenna only to have HAL ram him with the Pod and send him flying off with his oxygen vented into space. Well 1000 years later he’s picked up and brought back to Earth and revived. This book focuses on Poole adapting to the new world. Imagine taking someone from 1007 AD and dropping him in modern society. Yeah it’s a big shock.

Frank makes contact with what is left of his friends Bowman and HAL, that reside in the inner workings of the obelisk. They tell him of a dark secret that threatens to destroy all of humanity. Frank must rally influential people to stop the danger, but how does one fight a device of almost infinite power. They have to use the most dangerous weapons mankind has ever created. The question is will it work.

This is a fitting end to the series. It tells a lot and brings home the differences in the aliens in the Time and Space odyssey series. I liked it.

Hiatus Redux

2007-08-28T10:26:00.000-04:00

After my chastisement in the comments of the previous post I will try to add some content. What’s happened over the past month?

Well we have been sweltering in 90-100 degree temperatures for July and August. That has had several consequences. First I gave up on the garden. I didn’t have time to water it for hours every day, I didn’t want to spend the money on the water for the meager returns, and many of the tomatoes and such were essentially baking on the vine. I picked a few that were hot to the touch and felt like I had boiled them. So I have let it go as it will. I haven’t even been out to it this week.

I haven’t had to mow grass in a month or more. It stopped growing. Now some of it looks like I burned it. I’m hoping it comes back next year.

All the new installation stuff at work that I wanted to do in July I was finally able to start 10 work days before classes started. I installed two classrooms, 2 presentation rooms, rehung 18 projectors, and reinstalled 15 computers. Yesterday I answered 10 work tickets and last Tuesday, the day before classes, I worked a 13 hour day I was not expecting to have to work. And the heat and humidity are not helping in the least.

I started a class for Fall in Ceramics and Materials Engineering which required I buy a $155 book. YAY!

The Bearer of Light Brings No Morning

2007-07-30T11:29:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading 2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke. For some reason this book felt a little longer that the other two. Anyway this one takes place some 50 years after the second novel, and one of the main characters, one Heywood Floyd, has returned at the ripe old age of 103. Though through living in reduced gravity and having undergone two hibernation cycles in the previous book he may be more like 65. So anyway I’m gonna do something different here and give you a little plot. OOOOooooo. Don’t get used to it.

In the last book, the humans rendezvoused with Discovery and HAL, life was found on Europa, Jupiter was collapsed by the Monoliths, and humanity was told not to land on Europa. There that should catch you up. Well humanity has improved its space faring ability and has stretched out its hands to the solar system. The Jovian system’s ministar Lucifer, Bearer of Light, has vastly changed the climate on the planets surrounding it. Europa’s shrouded in clouds, but sensors indicate what appears to be a Monolith on the surface. Suddenly a several kilometer high mountain appears on the planet, and no one can explain it. That is until one man makes a remarkable discovery. He travels to The Jovian system aboard the Galaxy to test his theory, but he’s been too careless with his information. A rival group is on the ship with him and forces a landing on Europa, against the instructions from the message 50 years earlier. Now the only ship that can rescue them is the Universe, on its maiden flight on the other side of the system, in the middle of an expedition to Halley’s Comet. Heywood Floyd, aboard the Universe, must once again travel to the Jovian system aboard the fastest ship in the solar system to reach a stranded vessel. Only this time His Grandson is aboard the stranded ship and no one knows if the rescue mission will be allowed to land.

There, look, plot. BE AMAZED. Anyway, it’s a pretty good third installment. You can tell Clarke worked the second book and this one with continuations in mind. They are quite different than the first book. Anyway, this one is at least as good as the last one, though I have to say I still prefer the Rama series. It’s also nice to see the similarities and differences to the Time Odyssey series. On to the last book.

Second Time Around

2007-07-25T10:28:00.000-04:00

Several days ago I reviewed 2001: A Space Odyssey, when I had actually already finished 2010: Odyssey Two. I always find Clarke’s choice of simplistic titles interesting. Anyway I’m going to keep this review shorter than the last one.

2010 was published in 1982, a full 14 years after 2001. Clarke does something interesting here too. He decides to make this book the sequel to the screenplay rather than the first book. It’s an interesting choice, and probably a necessary one for the plot he wrote. Jupiter just offered too many options. This book also seems to develop the characters a little better. Clarke also delves into interpersonal relationships more, sexual relationships specifically. It’s a sign of how the times had changed from when the first book was written. May of Clarke’s stories since then devote a fair amount of page space to things of a sexual nature.

Overall this is a fitting sequel to the first book about which Clarke said he never intended to write a sequel. I was surprised at how quick a read it was. Plus it’s funny reading about the dates that things happened in the book’s alternate history.

Drink Naming

2007-07-24T23:25:00.000-04:00

For several months, I’ve been enjoying a version of the screwdriver I created. I had been trying to think of a good name the whole time. Well the screwdriver recipe is as follows:

3 oz vodka (from the freezer of course) I like Frïs (mild), Tanqueray Sterling (nice flavor), and Ketel One (peppery)

1 oz quality tangerine juice

4 oz quality orange juice

Feel free to adjust the vodka portion to taste.

So I’ve been drinking these for several months. At first I had to squeeze my own tangerine juice. Just recently my grocery store started to carry tangerine juice. Anyway I was talking with some friends before lunch today and the name came to me. It’s an Africanized Screwdriver. In order to understand that one, just look at the origin of the tangerine name and a certain insect’s history of hybridization

Now back to finishing my Africanized Screwdriver.

Sunday Picking

2007-07-24T20:33:00.001-04:00

I picked some tomatoes on Sunday Morning. I also picked Saturday morning, but this is by far the largest tomato harvest I have had or will have this year. I supplied the requisite Dr. Pepper can for scale. All the ones on the ground are Brandywine, with the basket containing Better Boy and Century.

This is the biggest Brandywine of the bunch. It was so massive it bruised itself due to it's own weight.

This is not the largest harvest of Roma tomatoes I have gotten, but the harvests look to be tapering off from now on.

This is one of the two Pomegranate seedlings my Dad brought me.

Other than that, there's not much to talk about.

Homer Never Imagined This Odyssey

2007-07-22T14:02:00.000-04:00

I’ve read a bunch of books by Arthur C. Clarke, including the Rama series, but I never managed to read the Space Odyssey series. Well I finally got around to starting it with 2001: A Space Odyssey. The book I have is nice because it has a special introduction form Clarke that gives all sorts of interesting information. I had forgotten that Clarke built the book on his short story “The Sentinel” along with many other stories and new ideas. The most interesting thing is that Clarke and Stanley Kubrick worked together to make the screenplay and Clarke wrote the book at the same time. Clarke even indicates that the movie came out first because Kubrick didn’t finish reviewing papers Clarke sent to him. Also the Apollo 8 crew got to see an early showing of the “2001” movie before they launched for the moon. They later told Clarke that when they rounded the back side of the moon they had been tempted to radio back the discovery of a large black monolith. But on with the rambling at hand.

I’ve seen the movie a few times, so I was interested in the differences between it and the book. First a little background on the book/screenplay. Clarke and Kubrick started discussing and working on it in ’64. Since it draws on some previous stories it really sits at the end of the Golden Age of Science Fiction and just before the beginning of the New Wave. The book is very Clarkian, if I can use that word. It deals with big themes and ideas, astoundingly competent science for the day it was written, and questions the very essence of humanity and our place in the universe. The book differs from the movie in that the final destination is Saturn not Jupiter. In the book Jupiter is merely used as a gravitational slingshot to reach Saturn. Kubrick apparently changed this when he found out there was no appealing way to create Saturn’s rings onscreen. There are some differences with how the events unfold with HAL and the deaths of all the other astronauts, but other than that most of the story is the same.

The book is actually far shorter than I was expecting. It is probably one of the shorter big name Clarke books I’ve read, besides Childhood’s End. You can tell it’s earlier in his career while you are reading the book. The characterization isn’t as good as it becomes later, and the sexual events and overtones are not there. It all reflects the dying embers of the Golden Age. When reading the book one must remember that man had yet to set foot on the moon, and we had sent to probes beyond Earth’s gravity field. All of Clarke’s descriptions of the Jovian and Saturn systems are astounding. Any small errors one detects must softened by the realization that the systems had only been observed from Earth based telescopes. Clarke even admits in the foreword that some have criticized him for revealing too much in explanations of what was happening. I disagree, but to each their own.

Basically, if you like Clarkian books then this is a must read. Besides, it’s a 4 book trilogy that started as a single screenplay/book.

Potter’s Wheeling

2007-07-18T10:56:00.000-04:00

Well last Thursday I went to the theater with my brother to see “Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix.” I reviewed the previous movie a year and a half ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, until you see how the actors have aged. Anyway, on with the show.

I said in the previous review that I thought the movie was rushed. It was based on a long book and there were scenes that felt like the last minute of dialog were cut. Well this movie is based on an even longer book, but there didn’t seem to be as many scene fragments lying around. It seems that they spent more time figuring out what they could prune and making the rest mesh together better. The editing was better. However, it was pretty obvious that there was a lot missing. Characters that received only fleeting air time in the previous movies were there a lot more, but didn’t develop much. New characters hit the ground running without much back story. It makes the watcher beg for more information about characters. A friend said he thought it should have been about 30 minutes longer. Well I haven’t read the books, so I don’t know all the stuff that was left out. However, listening to others talk about it indicates to me that the additional elements might have been difficult to mesh in 30 minutes, and may have already been left out of previous movies. In any event, the missing explanations and character development makes me want to read the books even more. And that should be considered a success for any author.

This one was better than the last movie. I will read the books at some point, probably when I can by all of them in one boxed set. At that point I may have some more words to say about the films, but for now it’s a good movie and worthy successor to the rest. Go see it.

2007-07-12T10:53:00.000-04:00

I don't think I've posted too many pics recently. Well i haven't posted that much at all. Anyway i thought I would put something up. Here is a pic of one of my Dwarf Crepe Myrtles I have anchoring the walkpath to the driveway. They seem to be doing alright considering the late frost and dry hot summer. It's just starting to bloom.

This is the second Brandywine tomato I picked from the vines. That is indeed my hand and that is a pile of Romas i picked in one day from my 4 vines. I gave the Brandywine to one of the guys at work. I've got more coming in now. For some reason the Better Boys have been more susceptible to blossom end rot. I'll have to research and maybe test the soil for next year.

In case you thought it was an optical illusion, this is the same tomato from the side. The scary thing is that this isn't the biggest tomato on the vines.

I'm still getting okra and I've had a few ears of corn come in. Some of the ears are small due to the hot dry weather and my tendency to not thin the ranks enough. But all in all it's not too bad for a first year try.

Die Cast Action

2007-07-10T15:53:00.000-04:00

Well last Tuesday I had the day off. I have vacation time I’m having to start taking or I will lose it. So I went to see “Live Free or Die Hard.” First of all Bruce is getting a little old for these parts. Other than that however, this was a bang up good movie. And for once the good guy actually gets to beat up the villainous woman. Come on equal treatment in the workplace. It got good reviews on RT and I enjoyed it a lot. The only thing about it was not so good was the depiction of the computer stuff and the action with the plane. Who thinks server rooms look like that? I mean really. Oh well. If you liked the other Die Hard movies then go see this one, at least at the matinee.

Then Saturday some out of town friends and I went to see “Transformers.” I wasn’t sure what to expect, but according to some of the reviews I was hopeful. They had the real Optimus Prime voice, and most of the geek crowd wasn’t crying foul. So how did it fare. It was a pretty good rendition of a live action Transformers movie. I was impressed. The acting was good and the story line was pretty good. It turned out better than I expected. Plus the battle scenes were awesome. There was some service for the kids and hokey love stuff, but it was kept manageable. I recommend anyone who likes action take a look at this one.

Myopic, Lethargic, and Rapacious

2007-07-10T14:19:00.000-04:00

I’m reminded of a quote from Abraham Lincoln that goes, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” I thought of that, because I just finished read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond this past weekend. That quote sums up a great deal of what the book is about. The other measure of the book concerns studying the past in order to understand ourselves. I recommend reading the reviews of friends here and here.

This is the second of the books by Diamond I have read. I reviewed Guns Germs and Steel earlier. Whereas that book coved why certain civilizations became the world conquering powers of today, this one explores the civilizations that didn’t make it. Well that’s not true. It covers some that made it and some that didn’t. Then it delves into the differences between the two.

This is a long book and it took me longer than normal to read it. I was distracted by other things and had to steal time away to read it. However, it was well worth it. GGaS may have won Diamond a Pulitzer, but I see this book as more important. Almost anyone who can read a book of this length can understand where Diamond is coming from here. In chapters he lays out societies from early civilizations to pretty modern nation-states that that have collapsed due to essentially mismanagement of their environment. He then examines similar societies that survived, and in some cases thrived, because they undertook the steps necessary to secure their future.

As my friend Smitty commented in his review, the brilliant thing is that Diamond doesn’t get preachy about saving the horned owl or some such thing for its own sake. The point he does make is that saving a little money right now by ignoring pollution, overpopulation, overfishing, and overworking the environment is going to cost taxpayer a hell of a lot more money down the road. He explains it all in dollars and cents manner rather than appealing to altruism. I think that method will appeal to far more people than most others.

So as you might be able to tell I really liked this book. It’s probably one of the best I’ve read in a long time, and I think most people should read it. I let my father borrow GGaS to read, and I’ll probably send this one after that.

Saturday

2007-07-02T10:22:00.000-04:00

A few interesting things happened Saturday. For one thing the continuation of the rain storms at some point during the day continued. We got some rain in the evening. I’ve been really happy that I haven’t had to water the garden in the past several days. Watering different parts of it daily was getting to be quite a chore. Now however, the grass is starting to grow. Well you can’t have everything.

I picked okra early in the morning, since I had neglected to pick it Friday. My parents went to Commerce, GA Friday and stopped by my house that morning on the trip. They picked up something I had to exchange for my Dad and a little okra as well. I had way too much for myself to be able to prepare and freeze, so they took it. As a surprise they left something in its place. They left me some corn from my Dad’s garden, and 2 small pomegranate sproutlings they got from a friend’s yard. Now I have them in pots waiting on them to get a little bigger before I decide where to put them. I’m thinking it’ll have to be in the sunnier and drier parts of the yard. Maybe in front of the garden.

I did the requisite dish cleaning and such after some breakfast and a little TV watching. I went outside to receive my self prescribed dose of ultraviolet radiation. It’s my way of fighting the kickin’ farmer’s tan I was building up in the early spring. While outside I heard something moving around and looked up from my book. Lo and behold, what may have been a Gray fox went trotting across the back yard. I’ve been looking up information about them. The animal seemed a little tall and the muzzle was a little long and thick for a Gray fox, so it may have been something else. In fact it looked a little like a young Grey wolf, leading me to believe it may have merely been a wild dog. I’m not sure, but the scat that appeared in the front yard a week ago resembles descriptions of fox scat on the web, and I have seen several dead foxes on the side of the road over the past year. I’ll keep my eyes open and see if I can get a picture if I ever see it again.

I came back in showered and decided I was bored, so I went to see a movie. I freely admit I went to see “Evan Almighty.” I enjoyed the first movie, so I figured why not. As for the review, I give it a big meh. It was ok. Rent it if you want to see it. No need to go to a theater and pay those prices. In the end it’s a sequel that doesn’t live up to its original.

I came home made some dinner and roasted about 3 dozen little Roma tomatoes. I’m trying to make a sauce so I can freeze it for later. Then I decided to do something I haven’t done in many months. I took my blender out to make a “Purple Pomelator,” that’s a “Purple Nurple” with some pomegranate juice in there. Anyway I put the mixin’s inside and the ice and fired up the blender. I heard the normal grinding of the ice and what not and then it went WHEEEEEEEEEE. I wasn’t sure what had happened. I lifted the jar off the motor and my worst fear had happened. The danged gear on the top of the motor housing had shattered. It was ruined. I had always considered that to be my greatest concern as a point of failure, and those fears bore out. Well it did last for over 5 glorious years and lots of ice and frozen beverages. I’m going to see if I can find a way to replace the gear. I hate for a piece of hard plastic to kill an otherwise fantastic piece of equipment. Anyway, so Sunday I took my trusty 20% off coupon to BB&B to get a new one. Well BB&B doesn’t sell that model anymore. They sell a new model that has a design change that specifically fixes the component that failed on my blender. The only problem is that it comes with a polycarbonate jar rather than a glass one. Polycarbonate costs less to make and ship, but it is much noisier when you start throwing ice around inside of it. So I broke down, used the coupon, and bought the blender. It works quite nicely, but it is at least twice as loud as my old one. But I haven’t given up yet. I’m going to look for a way to revive my onyx jewel. Hopefully I can.

Update: I have just placed an order for 2 blender couplings for my little black baby. They should arrive in a couple of weeks. From forum that I have read I now need to make a special wrench to hold the shaft while I take the busted one off. I like a challenge.

Horrid Discovery

2007-06-27T22:42:00.000-04:00

I made a truly horrid discovery this evening. I made French fries in my Fry Daddy the other day. I used the leftover oil to perform an experiment. I chopped and breaded some of my garden okra and drenched it in the hot oil of the Fry Daddy. That is when I made the horrid discovery. It makes pretty decent fried okra. Not great, but decent. I really need something with adjustable temperature control and experimentation with oils in order to make it great. Right now my standard oil is canola for saturated fat, smoke point, and flavor purposes. The horrid part is that it was way easier than pan frying, but that also diminishes the taste somewhat. Even though it wasn't quite like Mom makes, it's good enough to make a fried okra lover like myself contemplate making it every day. Add to that what looks to be an ample supply of okra coming from my garden, which seriously looks like it is going to be outrageous, and you have a recipe for making me fat. I must summon my willpower. That and I need to find time to prepare the okra for freezing.

And a Hush Came Over the Wire

2007-06-27T09:49:00.000-04:00

For those of you that didn't know, today is a voluntary day of silence for Internet Radio stations. It's to bring attention to the problems being caused by a new royalty rate increase that will cause most Internet broadcasts to cease due to inability to pay. Ars Technica has an article up about it with lots of good links, descriptions, ans discussion. I suggest you take a look at it. As someone who listens to a radio stream, 99x out of Atlanta, during work, I hope this will call attention to a misstep that should be corrected. Go to savenetradio.org if you want more information.

Let’s go out to the lobby

2007-06-27T09:46:00.001-04:00

I say that fully knowing that the two movie theaters I frequent here no longer have any drinks I want. Anyway my brother and I went to see two movies recently so I thought I’d give you a rundown on them before I forget about them.

Last week we went to see “Ocean’s Thirteen.” Arguably this is probably one of the better threequels that has come out this summer, in that it most accurately channels the spirits of the first two movies. Essentially, if you liked the first two, then this one should not disappoint.

Then this past Sunday we went to see “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” This actually turned out better that I expected it to. I reviewed the original a while back, and I noted that they needed to make the sequel more like the latter part of the movie. Well guess what. They did. And the reviews on RT demonstrated that. Plus it has Jessica Alba in it. And I don’t know what happened, but Alba’s and Kerry Washington’s lips looked HUGE. And who told Alba to wear such freaky looking blue contacts. They were ok in the longer shots, but up close, strange. But it was quite entertaining. I wonder if they will make another one.

Here I am

2007-06-27T09:22:00.000-04:00

I’ve been neglecting this page for a while. So what’s going on? The garden continues to grow. I’ve picked about 3 dozen Roma tomatoes and one Century, but none of the other regular tomatoes are ripening yet. I have lots of fruit, but they are all staying green. Oh well. Oh and several of them have grown out of the tops of the 5 foot cages I made. I’m making cage extensions. My first batch of corn has started to go to tassel and is about 8 feet tall. I’m curious how it might turn out, but two days ago a big wind storm blew half of my second batch of corn over. I had to get out and tie it up like I did the first batch. Note for next year, I live on a hill and must tie my corn up after it gets over 2 feet tall. I’ve been picking squash and zucchini and giving them away. I think the plants may give out in another few weeks. One has traveled almost 3 feet it has grown so much. My bell peppers have finally started to put out a lot, but I’ve only picked one. I have to tie all of the peppers up this evening. I’ve probably picked 2 dozen cucumbers, several around 14 inches long. I’m going to have to change the way I plant them next year, because they overran my cages already. I also may plant a few of the shorter varieties. And Saturday I picked okra for the first time. I planted too much. I’ve only harvested from 35% of the plants, and I estimate I’ll be getting over a gallon of okra each day or two when all the rows start producing. I’m not sure I’m going to have enough time to pick it, much less prepare it for freezing. Oh yeah, my Godparents sent me their stand up freezer. So now I have a place to put extra produce. And last week I made a pizza. I put some of my Ichiban eggplant, roasted Roma tomatoes, mushrooms, black olives, and mozzarella on it. It was pretty darned good if you ask me. I have a few changes I might make for nest time, but overall it was good for my first attempt at a pizza without meat on it. I may make some pictures later to put up. It all depends on how much okra I have to pick.

No More New Timmys

2007-06-12T23:23:00.000-04:00

I just saw on CNN.com that Don Herbert, better known as "Mr. Wizard" passed away today. I remember watching his show almost religiously on Nickelodeon. I remember it was the last cable channel we got at the time, 18. He introduced me to fascinating properties of the world and physics. He was probably the second most influential television personality at the time, no one can displace Fred Rogers. The two Misters of children's television. I salute you Mr. Wizard and thank you for all you have done.

And so it begins...

2007-06-08T14:52:00.000-04:00

Well this is one of the first pictures of a harvest. I included a Dr Pepper can for scale. I brought this stuff to work and gave quite a bit of it away. In honesty I've already harvested some squash, cukes, and 3 eggplants previously, but this is the first one that really felt like harvesting rather then picking one or two things for a friend. This stuff is growing fast. The squash are about 3-4 days of actual growth. They doubled in size each day. The same goes for the zucchini. It's crazy. And you can see the mutant conjoined squash on the right. It's just strange. I'm going to have to get a basket or something to carry this stuff in. The tomatoes haven't even really started to come in. Lord I'm gonna have my work cut out for me.

Well, now to get ready to go home and mow the grass.

Showing My Ars

2007-05-29T14:43:00.000-04:00

I haven’t posted anything about my favorite web site Ars Technica in quite some time. Well here goes.

Ars had a nice article about a project to use some knowledge of thermoacoustics to develop a inexpensive, robust, and simple device that can use such a common item as a cook fire to provide the energy needed to provide rudimentary electricity and refrigeration. For those that don’t want to look at the article the goal is to apply acoustic cooling and high efficiency thermodynamics to create essentially a highly engineered tube that when one end is heated the other end cools and electricity is generated. And all of this with a minimum of moving parts. It’s a fantastic use of modern scientific and engineering understanding to create a simple item that can change people’s lives everywhere. It reminds me of an article in the NY Times not to far back about a man who spearheaded creating a solar charging flashlight for poor people in 3^rd world countries without electricity. The flashlight left in the sun all day provides about 8 hours of illumination. It allows them to read school lessons, cook, scare away animals and thieves, and any number of other things we take for granted. It also allows them to stop using soot producing lamps and such to light the dwellings. Both of these are good examples of industrialized nations footing a large development cost for a simple item that could help millions of people.

Ars also mentions a report that the Center for Naval Analyses released in which it calls global climate change a national security issue. It’s definitely an interesting article. I like that the report states that the military most often must take action and plan for worst case scenarios when there is usually a limited amount of information. They approach the problem from a tactics and logistics point of view. It promotes that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Climate destabilization can cause governments to fail and new enemies and wars to crop up. It would be far cheaper to offer technology to the countries we can help stabilize than it would be to fight in dozens of conflicts. It’s a good smart read.

And finally Ars mentions that Illinois’ citizenry are paying a rather hefty price for defending a law that they should have known was unconstitutional. Most probably the law was seen as a way to garner votes for election time by “Protecting the children.” I hope the tax payers of the state rise up and kick their government’s collective ass. Taking money from the welfare and public health to pay bills on stupid laws. I’m actually surprised SC didn’t end up doing something like that.

Time Sink

2007-05-29T09:15:00.000-04:00

Well I'm back at work after my long weekend. I'm hoping it's going to be a slow day, but who knows. I'd better get these posted while I can. Follow the link all ye with broadband connections.

This is a picture of the rows of okra. I planted it in two stages about 2 weeks apart. So far the okra hasn't been growing really fast. I think the first batch went in while it was still a little cold. Hard to believe that given how hot it's been, but really it hasn't been all that hot. It's just been incredibly dry with little wind. We haven't had rain in weeks, and the rain we did get came after weeks of going without. I'm having to water the garden a lot, daily for some things, but I don't water wholesale. I water each plant or down the middle of the row. I think I'm wasting very little water. I also don't water my lawn. I think it's a waste of water and money. My neighbor waters his lawn and uses a sprinkler in his garden. He has grass growing all in it, and his lawn starts wilting if he skips a couple of days watering. Anyway, I think the dryness of the weather and daily doses of cold water on the roots has stunted the okra, but they finally seem to be taking off with some big leaf production. Or maybe okra just takes a while to get situated before it starts growing. This is the first year I've grown anything here after all. The green between the rows is where I thinned the okra during the weekend and a little bit of centipede grass that came up in the pathways. I have mostly centipede in the yard, and it's the best kind of grass to have in the yard and accidentally get in the garden. It's drought tolerant, grows slowly, and stays fairly short. The centipede in my yard is brown; witnessed by the foreground of the picture; but if I put a sprinkler on it it turns green in a matter of 30 minutes. Gotta love it.

This is the corn. It's growing a might faster than the okra. The first two rows I planted are about 2 feet tall now and going strong. I wish I could get some soaker hose to leave between the rows to make watering easier. Oh well. The nozzle on my hose started malfunctioning this weekend and I had to go get a replacement. It'll have to do until later.

These are my cukes. I have them growing on the same cages I made for my tomatoes. Next year I may make larger cages. I don't really care for cukes, but lots of other people do. This garden is primarily for give away produce anyway. So far there are a few small cukes and one that's about 7" long but hooked like a clothes hanger.

The tomatoes are doing pretty good. A few are over 3 feet tall now. They seem to be alright with the weather, but I have been really putting the water to them.

These are of the the same Romas of which I took the first picture exactly one month ago. Given that the plant is now 10 times larger I can assume growth has been the primary goal for the past month. Virtually every blossom on the Roma produces a fruit. These things are enormous producers. I'm going to have Romas coming out my you know what. I'll have to start making sauce or something with them. If they ever start ripening.

This is the first fruit on my Brandywine tomatoes. It's much smaller than the picture makes out. I've mentioned before that the BWs are considered an heirloom variety and considered one of the most flavorful tomatoes. I was curious about them when I got them. Honestly I didn't know what to expect. I figured I would probably lose one and the insects would eat a lot of the others. Well the dadblamed things are the tallest of my tomato plants. Plus they stand up the best. They also don't branch as much as the other tomatoes, nor do they bloom as much. So far the BWs seem to have a pollination problem. I'm afraid the dry weather and the bee die offs may be adversely affecting their reproduction. Or they could just take longer to get busy making babies. I'm really curious about them though.

This gives a good indication of the rows of yellow squash and zucchini. They were doing ok and then all of a sudden about 1 1/2 weeks ago they started growing like crazy. I've got a few small zukes and squash, but the squash are straight with no bulge at the bottom. That happens some with the first fruit, cause the blossom's don't get pollinated properly. I'm just hoping we get enough bees and such to start pollinating them. Next year I may have to follow my Dad's lead and plant some flowers around the garden to attract pollinators.

This is one of my cayenne peppers. two of them have been putting out like no body's business. One still looks like it wants to die and another one is just odd. From the looks of it two will produce all the pepper I need. Oh and those are some of the free-range cantaloupe in the foreground. They aren't bothering anything, so I'm letting them go.

This is my first bell pepper. I don't really care for bell peppers either. And unfortunately cooking doesn't improve their taste to me that much. Usually a plant for which I don't care for the raw taste improves greatly with cooking. I think it might be allergy related. But with bell peppers there's a bitterness or something to them that just turns me off. Raw cukes cause a similar dislike, but at least pickling can make them delicious. Oh well, more stuff to give away.

And finally the item that I am most pleased with. This is a picture of the very Ichiban eggplant I took a picture of before. Yes that we 7 days ago, and you are looking at a week's worth of growth. It's amazing. I would go hit the new okra and corn seed with a little morning water and look at this plant. I would come home from work 9 hours later and the dang thing was visibly longer. In the mornings you can see how much it grew last night because it doesn't turn purple till the sun hits it. And I have 2 more fruit growing on two other plants. I pulled up the logs beside them, because I think insects in the logs were coming out at night to feast upon the yummy eggplant leaves. I was seriously expecting to lose two of the plants or have little production. The early insect damage seemed to confirm that feeling, but removing the logs and a one time sprinkling with Seven dust seems to have fixed that. I love it. And from the looks of it I'm gonna have a lot of these before too long. The guy I bought them from said they love heat and sun. Well they seem to be liking where I have them. Next year I'll move them from behind the asparagus ferns so they can get even more sun.

Well that's about it for right now. There's not much going on in the yard, since we haven't gotten any rain. Hopefully we might get some in a few weeks, but I'm not holding out much hope. So far I'm pretty happy with what's happened. Not bad for a first year attempt, though I did have second hand experience from the garden's my Dad, Godparents, and television allowed me to get close to. And I got a whole lotta sun this weekend too. Come on tan.

Here Thar be Bloodthirsty Monsters

2007-05-29T00:19:00.000-04:00

Well I had a pretty uneventful and enjoyable weekend this weekend. Each year we have to sign up for an Optional Holiday at work. I signed up for Memorial Day to offset something. Due to a State mandate we have to have MLK Jr. Day off. Well that ignored that, as an institute of higher education we don’t take many normal holidays, since they would reduce class time. That means we get MLK Day, but we don’t get President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, or Veterans Day. I think it seems a little odd. Of course I think MLK probably would have preferred we celebrated Human Rights Day instead, but I digress. That means I had a 3 day weekend lined up. Work had been a little slower than expected so I asked and received Friday off. That hooked me up with a 4 day weekend. That allowed me to sit around a bit and get some things done at the house.

Friday my brother and I took advantage of being off work; he recently quit his crappy job along with 6 other people this month; and we went to see “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” RT didn’t give the movie a great meta-review, but I don’t pay them that much attention. This is a continuation of the second movie essentially, and it basically has the same feel of that movie. It’s not as good as the first one, but if you enjoyed the second one then you should like this one. I saw it at a matinee, which I recommend.

Then Sunday I went to see “28 Weeks Later.” I saw the original on DVD at the house, and I was anxious about seeing this one in the theater. I don’t normally go see scary or frightening movies. I just usually don’t enjoy them much, and sometimes the camera movements on the big screen give me motion sickness. This one was ok though. It has a lot of the look of the original, which I like. And I would say it’s close to the original in quality viewing, but it kind of grinds down a little in the last part. The really scary part is watching people make bad decisions. You sit there thinking “Shoot It. SHOOT IT!!” or “Don’t do that!” I say think. I don’t yell at the screen. What they really needed was Guy from “Galaxy Quest” to grab one of them and say, “Did any of you ever watch the show?” Well have any of you ever watched a horror movie?

Three for the Money

2007-05-23T13:07:00.001-04:00

Well this past weekend I went and saw "Shrek the Third" at the theater. First of all I am terebly upset. I used to go to the theater by the interstate and they were bought by Regal. They stopped honoring the free movie every 9 cards and the matinée cost went up a quarter. I was a little frustrated cause the year before they had moved from a free every 7 card to the free every 9 card. That was ok. What killed me, and made me stop going there, was that concession prices jumped 30-50%+, plus they stopped serving Mountain Dew. This was after they had removed Dr. Pepper about 1 1/2 years earlier. So I started frequenting the theater near the Lowe's and Target farther into town. The ticket prices became the same after the price increase, and the extra distance was mitigated by them having both Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. And all was good, for a time. Well we went into the theater this weekend and Dadblame it if they didn't switch to all Coke products like the other theater did. They don't even have Cherry Coke, and Mr. Pibb does not taste like Dr. Pepper any more than Pepsi tastes like Coke. But I digress.

Shrek III didn't get particularly good reviews on RT and I can understand why. It's the least entertaining of the three. I think most of the good lines and story point were used up in the first two movies. There's just too much drama and the movie takes itself too seriously. Give it a rental or go see the matinée with children, but don't bother paying full price for it.

Chlorophylling a Promise

2007-05-22T23:59:00.001-04:00

I mentioned last time I had a couple more pics to put up. I'll follow precedent and put them after the link.

Hopefully this yard and garden work will start taking up less time, but not right now. I wanted to post that my Dwarf Crepe Myrtles did survive the frost earlier this year, but not without significant damage. You can see the dead ends of the branches. I'm waiting to see if they put out anything, and then I'll trim them back later in the summer. I do like the way they look though.

My Cukes are coming on. Too bad I don't really like cukes. Maybe I can get a sliced pickle recipe. They have female blossoms that should start growing cukes this week.

And this is my surprise. This is one of my 4 Ichiban eggplant with a small fruit growing on it. I took this at 3:30 PM, and by the time I finished watering at 8:30 the fruit was larger. There are two others growing on the other plants. Have to start thinking about what I can make with these.

I've got a movie review I need to write as well. I may have another soon after too. Well now it's time for bed.

Whatever my thumb has,...

2007-05-21T16:09:00.001-04:00

it's turning the rest of me pink and brown. That's right it's time for another episode of "What You Got Growin' On?" To keep the front page clutter to a minimum I'll post it after my rambling link.

I've been busy in the garden, yard, and house this weekend. I have the pink and browning skin to prove it. I haven't had this much sun in years. After another month, people at work might start confusing me with Dexter. "snort snort" Well I haven't been working in the house as much as I'd like. I have next Monday off for Memorial Day, so maybe I can get some cleaning done. Eh. I'll get to it. Anyway, garden stuff is growing pretty well. The corn is coming along. The okra is getting there, but a couple of cold days stunted it. Now that it's warm again I'm watering the first batch of okra to get it going again. I've already planted the second batch of corn and okra i soaked the seeds for a few hours before planting and dadblamit if they didn't germinate a couple days faster than the first batch. Here's my oldest corn.

This is a shot of general tomatoes. They are growing pretty good, and I've been busy tying them up in the cages. They seem to like it here. The holes in that mesh are 6" square, for scale.

This is a batch of my Romas. I've got about 3 clusters like this on my plants with more clusters forming. I'm gonna be up to my neck in tomatoes.

This is in fact the first producer in my garden. The friggin cayenne pepper plants started producing not too long after I got them in the ground. I think I'm gonna lose one plant, and one has been kinda wimpy. The other two both look like this. they are making peppers like no one's business. This one has at least 8 peppers on it and it's only about 12 inches tall.

This is one of my largest yellow squash plants. I was worried because after I planted them they started yellowing some. I thought I might be watering them too much, so I cut back and they seem to be doing much better. If you look down inside you can see the very first squash growing. There is a smaller one on this plant and at least two more on other plants. Time to start looking for recipes. The zucchinis seem to be coming right on the heels of the squash, as always.

Last year when i bought the house the owners hadn't done anything with the garden that year. I did find 2 cantaloupe plants growing out there though. They made several fruit, but the overhanging grass prevented them from making a lot of sugar. They didn't taste that good. so I left them and didn't think anything about it. I plowed the garden and began planting. After a heavy rain a couple weeks ago I came out to a surprise. I have dozens of "volunteer," as my neighnor calls them, cantaloupes growing up and down the garden. I haven't decided what to do with them yet, so I'm just leaving them.

Next time I'll put a couple of other plants pictures up.

I Think My thumb is Infected

2007-05-15T10:30:00.000-04:00

Or something. Cause I'm thinking it may be turning green. Only time will tell. Since I don't have much of anything else using up my time, I decided to post more pics of my yard and garden. I swear I feel like on of those new Dads that always shows everyone pictures of their child. Maybe it'll wear off in a year or so, since I still haven't been in the house for a year yet. So you have the freedom to look at the pics or not, and since there are already way too many pics on the front page, you have to follow my rambling link to see them.

This is one of two lilies my Mother gave me last year for my birthday. She planted them, and they seem to be liking it. I had to move the other one to plant my dwarf crepe myrtle. It hasn't quire forgiven me for that yet, so I'll just show the big one.

Behind my property was a dead and rotting pine tree leaning against another tree at about a 70 degree angle. I knew it was only a matter of time before it fell. I wasn't looking forward to it, because it was tall enough to land on my fence at the back and break it. Well i stepped into the back yard the other day and as I was walking I heard this crack. I turned in time to see the tree falling. I winced and went to look at the damage. The thing broke in two, folded back on itself, and missed the fence by 2 feet. Nice.

I tied several of my tomatoes up on Thursday evening. I went home Saturday, for Mother's day, and came back Sunday evening. Dog gonnit if some of them hadn't grown and flopped over again. Some of the plants had grown over 3 inches in 2 days. I can go in the garden in the evening and see a noticeable change int the plant size. The stakes were a temporary support until i got the cages built and set in place.

Well that rate of growth made me move up my timeline. I went and bought 150' of concrete reinforcing mesh. It's not terribly expensive, and it works much better than those $4 tomato cages. I didn't need 150' but I didn need more than the 50' on the smaller roll. It's kinda rusty, but the galvanized fencing with the same mesh size came in 330' rolls. This is one of my 'Sweet 100' tomato plants. I even has one little tomato on it already. Those mesh holes are 6" square, so yeah, that plant is almost 2 feet tall. I've got to finish up the cages tonight.

This is one of my Romas that i need to put a cage on. It's starting to collapse under it's own weight. That big tomato is the same one I photographed earlier. On my 4 Roma plants I probably have a dozen tomatoes growing.

These are my two rows of corn.The green in the walk paths is from some weeding and thinning of the corn plants. I probably need to pull another 1/3 out. The two wet rows behind these two are freshly planted corn. I wanted to spread out the harvest.

These are my little okra plants. I need to thin them desperately. Hopefully I can do some of that today. Again the two wet rows behind it are two more rows of okra.

The sad thing is that I still have space in the garden. Maybe I'll plant some green beans, carrots, or something else. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Last weekend

2007-05-14T13:13:00.000-04:00

I’ve been meaning to write this since last weekend, but I’ve been busy, procrastinating, and gone. Anyway I’m doing it now. Last weekend I went to see 3 movies. Well one was on Friday and one on Monday, but it was all centered around the weekend. May seems to be the month of movies this year. I managed to see “Next” and “Hot Fuzz” with my brother, but I had to see “Spiderman 3” by myself. I’ll ramble on about them after the link.

I saw “Next” on Friday, since SIII would have been way to full. It only got a 30% on RT, but I will usually go see a movie down to about 20% if I think the idea has promise. As I’ve said before, I enjoy watching the thought process behind the movie plot and much as I like watching the actual movie. “Next” is based loosely on “The Golden Man” by Philip K. Dick. I don’t think it deserved the 30% though. I was seeing it as more of a 40%, not good but not bad either. With Nicholas Cage you can never be sure about a movie, but Jessica Biel confirms B movie status. Although she did help keep eyes glued to the screen. In this one Cage has the ability to see two minutes into the future and see all possible outcomes of his decisions in those two minutes. A nuke has made its way to US shores and a federal agent believes that Cage can find it for them. As one critic said Biel proves her acting skills by almost making you believe she is seduced by Cage, 18 years her senior. Yeah. Well the ending of the movie really stuck as harking back to the short story’s origins in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Having read some short stories from that time it strikes me as a very likely ending for the story as portrayed on the screen.

Later I went to see “Hot Fuzz.” RT has it at 89%, and I dare say it’s worth all of it. It’s made by and starring the same people responsible for “Shaun of the Dead,” which coincidentally also got 89% on RT. That’s just one jolly good time right there. Simon Pegg plays Nicholas Angel a cop that is just too damned good at his job. His fellow officers in London get fed up with him making them all look bad, so he gets promoted and sent to the quiet village of Sandford. Once there a series of accidents causes him to begin seeing a huge conspiracy behind the near perfect facade of Sandford. It’s just great fun, and it’s British.

Then I went to see “Spiderman 3” on Monday. It got a 61% on RT. I would say that’s about a fair assessment, but I probably would have given it a 70%. It’s not as good as the first one or the second one. Not really form an acting standpoint, or a plot standpoint. It’s like they tried to do a little too much in the movie. I have been told that Venom was kind of forced on the writer, which kind of shows. He seems to be tacked on a little more. I also heard they wanted to to be 2 movies, but the studio overrode that decision. That also seems plausible. Raimi seems to have done the best he could with the short time and huge number of plot points he had to make. The problem I had is that the character development in this one is lacking. You don’t spend and lot of time with the new villains to get to know them. So to make up for that some of the character building scenes are heavy handed and hammer the point home with one hard blow rather than taking many soft blows. These also make the movie seem like it lurched forward all of a sudden. A scene would change and it would move the action straight forward. I was expecting a short character building, tender moment but got dumped into the next big plot point. I’m hoping the director’s cut will be better, but I don’t know. I’m also hoping that if they do a 4^th one that Raimi and the writer can point to the bad reviews and press and get more control back. But the bean counters will say, “Look at all the money we made on it though.” Ug. You should still watch it though. That is if you liked the first two.

So in closure, rent Next if you like stories like that, Go see Hot Fuzz now and buy the DVD when it comes out, and go see Spiderman 3 if you liked the first 2, but you may want to see it at matinee. I can’t believe I had to shift a Spidey review to an almost matinee view. Anyway I am going to post some more stuff soon I hope.

Sometime Life Doesn’t Go On

2007-04-30T10:46:00.000-04:00

Well I just finished Missing in Action by Peter David yesterday evening. This is the most recent of the New Frontier Series. It picks up right where the previous book ended. I have an even better understanding of the necessity of the note to the reader that I mentioned at the beginning of the review for the last book. This book could make some readers mad.

This book is pretty much non-stop. There is a lot more action and it draws the reader through the story a little faster. Calhoun and the Excalibur are trapped in another universe trying to get home, but really that’s a side plot. The main play is still with the women of the books, Admiral Shelby, Captain Meuller, and Lt. Commander Robin Leffler. They are trying to find out what happened to Calhoun, stop a civil war in the Thallonian Protectorate, and save countless lives in the process. You know, the usual fare. People will be pissed off because, shit happens, the world changes, and people die. And time keeps moving forward, inexorably.

Giddiness?

2007-04-29T20:57:00.000-04:00

For some reason this has made me far happier that is should make a normal person. I was out putting pine needles around my plants in the garden when I found this:

This is the first Roma tomato to appear on my plants. The thing probably started growing before I put the plants in the ground. Now I'm gonna have to figure out how I want to stake the plants up

Cheaper but not easier by

2007-04-29T16:37:00.000-04:00

I had some family come by the house yesterday to help in the yard. If I lived closer to my place of birth this might be a weekly occurrence , but as it is it only happens occasionally. I'll take any help I can get. They brought some additional garden plants by, and they helped mow and trim the yard. then they helped put out mulch in some of the beds. I'm glad they could come by, cause Lord knows I couldn't have gotten it done by myself. I've got some updated pics following in my rambling way.

This is that Painted Maple I bought last year. I's doing pretty good, and I expect it to grow a lot this year. We put some mulch around it, and I plan on watering it some. It has only been in the ground a few months.

This is what the front walk looks like now. I sprayed weed killer on the grass in the enclosed area. It was a Bermuda grass I think, and the rest of the yard is Centipede. That means it always grew three times faster that the rest of the yard, and it was never the same color. It was a pain to mow, and didn't do much for the yard's appearance. So I killed it, cut it short, put newspaper down as a weed stop, and put mulch on top of it. I think it looks a lot better. later I may put in a ground cover or something.

This is the evergreen shrub that was on the house side of the walk. Someone had planted it too close to the walk and the driveway. My bet is that there were two at one time and one died. However, if there had been two of that size there, it would have been quite difficult to get between them. I was thinking of moving it, but the root system was too extensive to expect it to survive the attempt. So I cut it down and ripped the stump out. This is the remains.

In place of that I planted two dwarf Crepe Myrtles that I got at the SC Botanical Garden sale last weekend. They were bitten by the frost, but are starting to put back out again. They will have the nice bronze looking leaves and in late summer they will have the nice red blossoms. I got my Godmother a few a couple years back and they make a nice showing.

Being lazy I had left my fall wreath up for far too long. Well someone took advantage of it and decided to build a nest on it. I've got another nest on a shelf in my garage, and a nuthatch is using a birdhouse next to the driveway. There're babies all over the place over here.

Last Fall I started a fern garden in my back yard. The previous owner had planted some hanging basket ferns in the ground and they appeared to be doing well. I picked up three ferns at the Botanical Garden sale and planted them in the same area. This one is an Eastern Wood Fern I believe. It's an evergreen native. You can see the old foliage under the new fronds. It's doing pretty good.

This is the second fern I got in the Fall. It's a Lady in Red. The stems of the fronds are a scarlet color. It's deciduous, so all this is this year's growth. It's a real beauty.

This is the last fern I got in the Fall, a Cinnamon Fern. It's deciduous as well, and the reproductive stalks are similar in color to cinnamon sticks. You can see one of the hanging basket ferns in the ground behind it.

This is one of this year's purchases. It's a Royal Fern. I put it at the back, because it's fronds can get 5 feet long or longer. I'm anxious for this one to grow.

This one i got at Lowe's of all places. It's a Japanese Painted Fern. I was struck by the coloration, but upon reading up on it, it's a pretty good fern. The only qualm is that it loses some of it's attractiveness in drought. Eh. I'll just have to give it a drink occasionally.

Now I'm off to do more things. A home owner's work is never done.

A plantin' I did go

2007-04-29T10:12:00.000-04:00

Well this week I've been spending a great deal of time working in the garden. In fact several last weekend I spent most of Saturday in there. I finished tilling it on Monday after work. I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from about 6 to 8:30 or later in there planting. I was watering by moon light on more than one occasion. Anyway, I thought I'd put up some pics of all my labors up after the rambling link.

This is a picture from the back of the garden. You can see the asparagus ferns on the left side. You also get a good view of the depth of the garden. It's 25' by 70'. It took me almost 3 gallons of gas to till it. On the bottom left you can just see a couple of the pine logs that were around the garden. I pulled most of them up, because they made t really tough to get the tiller through the garden.

This is a pic of the last 4 rows in the garden. These rows host 4 zucchini, 4 yellow squash, 4 cayenne peppers, 4 green bell peppers, and 4 Brandywine (Heirloom variety) tomatoes. I'm waiting to see how those go.

These are the next 4 rows forward. This has 4 Roma tomatoes, 4 Better Boy tomatoes, 2 Sweet 100 tomatoes, a tomato my dad sent me without telling me what it was, 4 Ichiban eggplants on the far side,4 cucumbers, 3 Banana peppers (sweet), two other sproutlings that Dad didn't know what they were, and some Blue Lake Bush Bean seeds. You can see the asparagus ferns on the far left and the bales of pine needles I'm going to put around the plants to help slow water evaporation. I'm not going to show the other 8 rows; yeah, there are 16 total. Those are going to be 4 rows of corn and 4 rows of okra. I'm staggering the planting with planting half a week or so apart. It spreads out the corn harvest a little. I have so much stuff because 1 I have space and 2 I got this stuff from a place in Union. The guy runs his own greenhouse and sells the plants for like $2 a pack of 4. I went a little overboard.

This is one of the grape vines my Dad sent to me. I think this is the muscidine grape, but I can't remember for sure. He's going to root a few more of the scuppernong grape to bring over. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to start harvesting.

The horticulture students were having a plant sale last week. I usually stop by and see what they have. It's a good place for Mother's day presents. Anyway, they had some spearmint and peppermint on sale for like $1.25 a container. I decided to get one of each. I have space, and mint is usually a plant it and forget it kind of thing. This is the spearmint.

And of course, this is the pepermint.

I'll probably post more stuff as the garden grows or dies. While I was planting Saturday a rabbit came running up and skidded to a halt about 12 feet from me. We stared at each other for a while and then I made a foot stomp to get him to run off. I hope he doesn't eat too much.

Comes the Thud

2007-04-25T12:14:00.000-04:00

It’s been a long time coming, but I finally finished reading After the Fall by Peter David; of the New Frontier Series. This book chronologically is the next book after the first New Frontier book I read, Stone and Anvil. But it takes place three years after that book ended. It also apparently takes place days before the events of the movie “Star Trek: Nemesis”. That is said in the “A Note to Our Readers” at the beginning of the paperback. It also states that 3 years have passed, life moves on, and the Universe changes. Big things have happened to the characters you have grown to love and that’s the way things are. There isn’t going to be a fancy travel back in time ending to set all things “right” with the universe. This is life and the passage of time, get used to it. They did.

First of all, I understand this statement at the beginning of the book. Many readers expect ST books with big sometimes unpleasant changes to come with a time travel fix everything ending. I like the warning, because it stops the wasting of brainpower. People can accept the changes without constantly wondering if they will evaporate later. Secondly, is the timetable placing. For many reasons that would be a signal that the book is almost fanfictiony in quality and the story is almost wishful thinking, but David seems to have an excellent knack for bridging other people’s story arcs and plots with well written and thought out adventures of his own. That’s one of the reason’s writing about a crew no one else writes about is such a great palette for him. Long time readers will see characters are gone that you didn’t expect, some come back that you did expect, people are having real problems with family, and a new and mysterious threat has emerged. A kidnapping leads to a murder, and possibly war. And then it’s continued until the next book. PD why do you tease us so?

Free time

2007-04-19T23:16:00.000-04:00

It's kind of a time sink having a house with a yard to care for, but I'm gonna try. I've got family coming up for the weekend that might be able to help with some of the yard stuff. Plus the Botanical Garden sale is this weekend. Of course I had to make more pictures. They would have been up earlier, but blogger.com seemed to be having a problem with the upload. The pics are after the rambling link.

This is picture of the clematis after it really started blooming . It was beautiful.

Then we had several days of high gusting wind that blew the whole thing down. Oh well. ime to start training it again.

The iris at the end of the driveway, and all over the yard actually, have started blooming pretty nicely. I've got a lot of blue.

But I also have some white in the back and yellow by the kitchen door. I have some dark purple onnes coming in as well. I just wish they weren't quite so scattered. I might have to consider moving them int he coming year.

In a bed far from the house I have a nice red hot poker coming in. It's making quite a show of it. I just wish the pines around it didn't look quite so bad.

It's odd, but I was taking these pictures a little after a friend of mine made a post about asparagus. Turns out I have a little patch of it in my garden. The problem is that it isn't in a particularly good place. I'm going to have to think long and hard about whether I want it to stay there. you can see I started tilling the garden. the soil is actually better than I expected. I put 160 lbs of dolomitic lime on it first. We have fairly acidic soil around here. I'm going to till the rest this week.

I didn't harvest anything this year cause I wasn't sure about how long it had been there, plus it all came in at a spread. So i could have had a sprig every 4 days or so. plus I wasn't sure how long it had been there.

The sprouts look kind of nice though. I'm going to investigate the feasibility of moving them. I'm pretty sure I can dig up the batch without disturbing the roots a lot. Plus it would give me a chance to build up the soil I would put move it to a little more.

I'll probably post more stuff later. I have plants and seeds for the garden already,and I have something special that i need to plant. I think Smitty will be interested in that as well.

Frost on the everything

2007-04-10T23:15:00.000-04:00

So this past weekend saw the temperature drop quite a bit for Easter. We joked at Church that Easter was colder than Christmas. Some of the ladies said they couldn't wear their Christmas finery because it was too warm, and they couldn't wear their Easter duds because it was too cold. What a topsy turvy world we live in. Because the temp dropped into the 20s we now have reports that the peach and apple crops in SC this year have all bit the dust, or frost. The strawberries depend on how well the covers worked. I was anxious to get home and see what the cold had destroyed in my yard. Luckily I had taken a few pictures before I left. So in the ramble you get to see some before and after pics. So follow the link.

This is a pic of the absolutely gorgeous azaleas between the driveway and the house. They were the most amazing red, and covered in blooms.

The frost killed all the exposed blossoms on the top of the plants. At least I got a pic of them.

My dad gave me a maple tree he grew at home. It is a sibling of a maple from my grandfather's yard. I think it is a Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum Atropurpureum) or one of the improved varieties. I planted it near the driveway over a month back and it started coming out a week ago.

It didn't fair so well. Ordinarily I wouldn't be too worried about a tree, but it's recent transplantation causes a little trepidation.

This is a picture of my bifurcated maple growing in the front yard. It was like this when I moved in. It is a filigree (lace leaf) red Japanese maple that I think was grafted to a regular maple root stock. It seems that at some point the root stock sprouted and grew much faster than the filigree, as one would expect. Frankly I like the contrast, and I'm going to use it to my advantage. I'm going let the green maple pump energy into the root system, but in the late winter I will trim it back so that energy is sent to the filigree. Hopefully I can keep them scaled together.

Well the filigree half took a big hit, but the green half is fine. I hadn't foreseen this, but the green half should go a long way to helping pump energy into the filigree to help it recover. I hope.

Luckily it looks like the painted maple I bought in the Fall at the SC Botanical Garden Plant Sale is none the worse for wear. I'm gonna go back this year.

The driveway flower bed started looking really good. Too bad that by the time I got my camera back the sparse stands of tulips were fading. The dianthus in the foreground are doing really well, even after the frost.

The flox however did not fair so well. Last Saturday you couldn't see anything but flowers. Oh well. It'll come back.

Surprising me was the clematis that showed no signs of any damage whatsoever. It's starting to hit a stride in blooming. I've got to try to keep it on the fence rails.

Also the Iris in the yard and the end of the driveway came through without any damage.

This is the red dogwood in the back yard. It's trimmed kind of funny, but the petals came out a pretty dark red on the edges. It got pinched by the frost too.

These two dogwoods are on the other end of the yard from the driveway. I wasn't at home at the right time to get the light right on this picture, so it doesn't do them justice. They were so white you couldn't look at them in direct sunlight. This picture is actually mostly in the shade of some pine trees.

Work Related

2007-04-02T22:31:00.001-04:00

Well I have some work related news. So back in May of last year I started working for the group that works on classroom technology. I worked with a guy doing installs and support. Earlier this year, they hired an evening shift person to provide night support, especially when we can’t get into a room during the day. Then over a month back the worker I displaced was returned to the group, for reasons I will not go into. Well the guy I started working with in the summer, declared last week that he is accepting employment at another location. He wasn’t pleased with the return of the prodigal co-worker, and he hasn’t been happy with the speed of some of the changes. I think the move will be good for him and I wish him luck. That means I will be senior most technician in the group. I count the fellow leaving and coming back as starting over, especially considering the changes we accomplished while he was gone. Anyway, this summer looks to be interesting.

Literary Consolidation 21 - 30

2007-04-02T22:00:00.000-04:00

Or the Reader’s Digest Condensed Edition 3^nd Ed. Well it’s time to reduce the page length again by creating a post of ten books. I’ll give the picture as a link to where it can be purchased, in exchange for using the picture, a little bit about each book, and a link to my original take on the book. Follow my rambling link to the list.

30.

This book starts a 3 book set that covers the crew in the escapades after the starship Excalibur blows up. This would be a good way to start a 3rd season of a TV show.

My Take

29.

This is the second Joseph Ellis book I've read. Both were fantastic.

My Take

28.

This is the second in the Time Odyssey series by Clarke and Baxter. It's almost as much of a page turner as the first.

My Take

27.

This is the eighth in the New Frontier Series by Peter David. It demonstrates that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. At least until the Russians help defeat the Germans.

My Take

26.

This is a great book about differences in the way man and women typically communicate. It's a great way to promote understanding.

My Take

25.

This is the Third in the Sir Apropos of Nothing Series by Peter David. It's great fun and fulfills your pun quota for years to come.

My Take

24.

This is a good continuation of the New Frontier series. I keep recommending it for all ST and SciFi fans.

My Take

23.

This is one of the controversial books by Christina Hoff Sommers. She talks about the origins of feminism in America and how a schism has formed in it.

My Take

22.

This is the second book in Peter David's Sir Apropos of Nothing series. It's just a hoot, like the first one.

My Take

21.

This is the sixth in the New Frontier Series by Peter David. It's a well developed Star Trek series.

My Take

Bloomin Good Time

2007-03-29T10:21:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday i took some pictures that I wanted to make a post of. Well some things came up and procrastination reared it's ugly head. I went to Atlanta over the weekend to go to Sal Gross o for a friend's birthday party, and packed ourselves with meats of various kinds. Then we spent some time playing on another friend's Wii. Then I came back home and left my friggin camera bag in Atlanta. Luckily I had copied my pictures already. Follow the link to my ramble if you want to see the pics.

This is the line of Cherry trees that grow behind the building in which I work. The picture really doesn't do them justice. The petals really started falling like snow yesterday and are carpeting the parking lot and bed with pink petals. But I can't take a picture of it. Oh well. maybe next year.

This is a picture of the space behind the library. I had to dodge the Bumble bees. They were flying around like madmen. It looks a little odd because the clouds were making some strange lighting effects on the open space. It was kinda cool. Anyway there are a bunch of Redbuds on this side and more pink trees on the other. The grass was the most amazing green, but what do you expect from a college build on agriculture and engineering.

A friend of mine worked for campus planning for several years and recommended Yoshino Cherries when they were replacing the trees in front of the library. I think it was a good decision. At the time Clemson was voted #2 party school. We joked that they should have been Maraschino Cherries instead.

In front of the library and cherry trees is a reflection pond with fountains. The seating around the trees overlooks the amphitheater, Hardin, and Brackett.

Farther up behind the amphitheater is Carrilon Garden that holds one of the bells from the bell tower.

This is a little zoom to show the bell off a little more.

I left campus and went out to the Botanical Garden on the outskirts of campus. If you are around, every Spring and Fall they have a sale. I recommend you stop by for some interesting plant choices. Plus the staff can answer almost any question you have about the plants. The entryway into the garden has a bell and some nice walkways.

There is an area in the garden planted with nothing but camelias. Here's an example.

There is a trail that goes through the camelias. It starts off and you think that there are quite a few of them.

Then you take a turn and realize that it's practically a camellia forest. When I got there some plants were in full bloom and the rest were on the way out. The smell was amazing. If I hadn't been taking my allergy medication it would have driven me crazy. As it was the sweet smell almost gave me a headache. I'm just glad it wasn't a Gardenia forest.

Getting into the rest of the garden you see several benches donated and placed in various nice spots. I like the azalea behind this one.

One of the benches overlooked this scene right here. You can barely see the water running behind the foliage and rocks.

Lets look at that from the bottom side. There's the bench I was talking about. You can even see the blue flowers from here too.

Down by the big pond the wildlife was enjoying the 80 degree day. The turtles were out basking on several of the logs.

The resident geese/mafioso were out in force. For the love of God don't feed them. They get quite aggressive. I walked by without making eye contact, but I managed to snap a picture.

I saw a white duck resting in the shade on the warm day, and then realized what I think is a mallard had plopped down for a rest under another one of the benches.

And as a closer, one of the other flowering plants. I think the label said it's an azalea.

I have more things I wanted to show at the house, but without a camera. Oh well. Maybe I can get it this weekend.

Don’t talk to the crazy man honey

2007-03-18T23:03:00.000-04:00

Last October I talked a little about Rockstar and Jack Thompson. Well Rockstar is owned by Take Two, and they have two games scheduled for release this year. Thompson has indicated that failure of his previous lawsuits will not deter him from trying to stop these games from being released. As a preemptive measure Take Two has filed to preemptively prevent Thompson form suing them. Normally I wouldn’t mention it, but Thompson has released a response that is interesting, to put it mildly. Basically it looks like the man is a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. Give it a read. I don’t think he helped his case any.