Wednesday, December 24
Christmas Ornament #11: ???
Hey, we made it to the present! Despite four nights in the hospital this week, we managed to not only buy an ornament, but I even wrote up this blog post! 2 weeks ago, we went into the city primarily to visit the Chicago Art Institute. (When you live here you just talk about going to "the city". People never say they're going to "Chicago".) The art institute is free on Thursday evenings (for Illinois residents) and the girls really wanted to go, so we made the trek and had a good time. But if you're going to go all the way into the city, you'd better get your money's worth, so we also stopped by the bean, and the Christkindlmarket. As you can tell by all those words smashed together to make one big word, this is a German thing. It's a traditional outdoor market where they sell food and Christmas-y things. So, we stopped by and picked up an ornament. Now, I know that it was probably mass produced in Asia somewhere, but we'll pretend that it was hand carved by some little German shepherd or something. Either way, it's from the big city and now lives on our tree.
Tuesday, December 23
Christmas Ornament #10: The Fox
Monday, December 22
Christmas Ornament #9: Tree
Saturday, December 20
Christmas Ornament #8: Reindeer
Friday, December 19
Christmas Ornament #7: Sweater
Wednesday, December 17
Christmas Ornament #6: Snowman
Without a doubt, this is my least favorite of all our "special" ornaments. Which means there must be a story here. The scene is December 2009, and Shannon is 8 to 10 weeks pregnant. Weeks 6 to 16 of a Shannon pregnancy at our house is a bit like the bombing London in WWII; you hole up, live on whatever rations you were able to carry with you, hope no one dies and wait for it to be over. December is a busy time under the best of circumstances, but with Shannon mostly incapacitated, it was particularly crazy. All three of us did make it out of the house for a trip to Walmart in the week before Christmas, and that is not the time or place to find nice Christmas tree ornaments. But we had to get something, because we were nearly out of time, and there was no way of knowing if Shannon would feel well enough to go shopping another time. So, this is the least bad of the ornaments that were left. I have a vague memory of little Julia liking it.
Tuesday, December 16
Christmas Ornament #5: Baby Bell
I think this one is pretty self explanatory. This baby is made just like the Red Hat Lady and obviously commemorates Julia joining the family. Like the awesome parents we are, there is no ornament for Ella's first Christmas. (There are barely pictures of Ella.)
Sunday, December 14
Christmas Ornament #4: Red Hat Lady
You might think that our annual Christmas ornament is a big deal at our house, but it's really not. We put the tree up each year the day after Thanksgiving, and then about a week before Christmas we realize that we haven't bought a new ornament that year. So, during a regular shopping trip, we stop by the ornament section and see if something catches our eye. If we don't find anything we like we don't get anything, but we're not all that picky. This is just to say that we don't visit 20 specialty shops and spend hours searching for the perfect ornament. We just pick from what happens to cross our path. Such was the case in 2007 when we stumbled across the Red Hat Lady:
It's hard to see with that feather boa getting in the way, but she has a purple bell body, a red feather boa and a red hat. When we saw her, we knew she was just too fabulous to pass up. We didn't know it at the time, but she belongs to the Red Hat Society. There is great poem by Jenny Joseph titled "Warning" which begins, "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple / With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me." This prompted a woman in California to give a few friends red hats for their birthdays, and then in 1998 the Red Hat Society was formed, which is a social club for women. Now that I know they're a thing, I've seen a group of them once or twice out having lunch at a restaurant or something like that. The poem is about how when she is older, she will be able to do unconventional things and "make up for the sobriety of my youth." So now, when I see our Red Hat Lady, I think a little bit about small acts of rebellion against society's expectations for good behavior.
It's hard to see with that feather boa getting in the way, but she has a purple bell body, a red feather boa and a red hat. When we saw her, we knew she was just too fabulous to pass up. We didn't know it at the time, but she belongs to the Red Hat Society. There is great poem by Jenny Joseph titled "Warning" which begins, "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple / With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me." This prompted a woman in California to give a few friends red hats for their birthdays, and then in 1998 the Red Hat Society was formed, which is a social club for women. Now that I know they're a thing, I've seen a group of them once or twice out having lunch at a restaurant or something like that. The poem is about how when she is older, she will be able to do unconventional things and "make up for the sobriety of my youth." So now, when I see our Red Hat Lady, I think a little bit about small acts of rebellion against society's expectations for good behavior.
Saturday, December 13
Christmas Ornament #3: Hula Snowman
In 2006 we moved to sunny St. George, UT. That meant saying goodbye to white Christmases and hello to being uncomfortably hot for about 8 months of the year. We needed an ornament that would match our new tropical clime, and found some festive hula snowmen. Unfortunately, they had a problem: legs. The 4" snowman had skinny 2" long legs sticking out the bottom. If you're familiar with snowmen (which the creators of this ornament apparently were not) you'd know that they don't have long skinny legs. The story has a happy ending though, because one of the snowmen hanging there didn't have legs. I don't know if it was from an unsupervised kid, or if the snowman had a run in with the mafia, but either way, in our eyes this was a feature, not a flaw, so we bought him.
Thursday, December 11
Christmas Ornament #2: The Disco Ball
Some of our Christmas ornaments have little stories behind them. Not so much for 2005. In our search for a new ornament that year, we were at Target and we found this disco ball, and it seemed fun and we liked it, so we bought it. That's pretty much the story. I like having a tree with some personality - something that is severely lacking in too many designer trees.
Wednesday, December 10
Christmas Ornaments
Shannon and I got married in 2004, and when Christmas rolled around my mom bought us a little 4 foot Christmas tree. As we were living in about 550 square feet at the time, it was the right size for us, particularly because we'd be spending the actual holiday at our parents homes. Christy bought us some basic ornaments along with the tree, but we didn't have a star, so we went out and bought one. It's a four foot tree, so you can't go too overboard with the star. We picked a very simple star that really isn't meant to be a tree topper - it's just an ornament. But we liked the simplicity of it, and besides, we had a plan. We knew that we wouldn't have our little tree forever, but we'd be able to keep that star as a regular ornament on the tree each year after we'd upgraded to a bigger tree, and it would remind us of our first little tree all those years ago.
Well, the joke's on us. We still have the little four foot tree set up in our home for the 11th year now. Each time we get close to actually buying a new tree, something gets in the way. But I'm happy with our little tree, and each year that we've been married, we've gone out and picked out a new ornament to add to it. When we started, we had lots of branches on the tree for our nondescript white balls, but as time passes our tree is getting over run with our annual ornaments - perhaps in another decade we really will be forced into buying a bigger tree. This month I'll be sharing each of the ornaments we've picked over the years, each with their own little story.
So that's our little star, that keeps sitting on top of the tree year after year. We still plan to get a new, bigger tree someday. Maybe next year . . . .
Well, the joke's on us. We still have the little four foot tree set up in our home for the 11th year now. Each time we get close to actually buying a new tree, something gets in the way. But I'm happy with our little tree, and each year that we've been married, we've gone out and picked out a new ornament to add to it. When we started, we had lots of branches on the tree for our nondescript white balls, but as time passes our tree is getting over run with our annual ornaments - perhaps in another decade we really will be forced into buying a bigger tree. This month I'll be sharing each of the ornaments we've picked over the years, each with their own little story.
So that's our little star, that keeps sitting on top of the tree year after year. We still plan to get a new, bigger tree someday. Maybe next year . . . .
Saturday, December 6
River Trips
We don't go on exciting vacations, but we do read about them. And if you're going to read a book about people nearly dying while going down an unexplored river, why not two?
The River of Doubt by Candice Mallard (353 pages)
Lets review what we all know about Theodore Roosevelt. He was a scrawny kid, had asthma, became a boxer, grew a fabulous mustache, became president, went on a hunting trip to Africa, ran for president again, split the republican vote with Taft and let Wilson win. So what does a guy do when he's bummed out after losing a presidential election? If you said, "Lead a trip down an unexplored river in the Amazon." you win a cookie. (I'm sure this is what Mitt did, right?) The ex-president booked a trip to South America to deliver some speeches, look at a few museums and then do some adventuring in the Amazon down a known river. The trip would have been exciting for sure, but not all that note worthy. But, as they were making their way through South America, he seems to have realized that the trip as planned didn't meet his uber-manly standards (can you imagine the memes if he were still around?) and he adjusted the itinerary to go down a river known as The River of Doubt.
Isn't that the best possible name for a mysterious river in the Amazon? It's a pity that they re-named it the Roosevelt River, though as a consolation prize I do get to imagine Brazilians trying to say his name. (It would come out something like "Who's a velch?") The Brazilian government hooked him up with their most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, (so that's who all those roads are named after) who had found the headwaters of a river that went off into the rain forest and ended up who knows where. I mean, really, they didn't know where it went. Obviously it ended up in the Amazon River eventually, but they weren't entirely sure how long it was, or even which other river it would hook into.
So, after sending half of his fellow travelers off on an easier adventure, they set off down the River of Doubt. It turns out going down a river involves a lot of not sitting in a boat, because if you get to rapids too big to run, you've got to carry your boats around them, and that is hard work. Oh, and there are mosquitoes, and malaria, and hostile Indians, and piranhas, and at least one crazy dude in your expedition. They made it out alive (you'd probably have heard about the trip if Teddy Roosevelt had died down there) but not without some seriously close calls.
Apparently President Roosevelt had not read Down the Great Unknown by Edward Dolnick (294 pages). We'll cut him some slack because it wasn't published until 2001, but if he had, it might have helped him out on his trip. The full title of the book, Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy through the Grand Canyon could have given him a heads up on what he was going to face. Powell was a Civil War vet, explorer, geologist and whatever else he decided to be, who hatched a plan to hop on the Green River in Wyoming and hop off the Colorado River in Nevada. Easy peasy. Ok, I don't think he ever claimed it would be easy, but that was the plan. He and 9 other guys set off in 4 boats to go down two rivers that had never been traveled before. Between them, they had absolutely no river running experience. One of the first days, in calm water, when they pulled over to camp for the night, one of the boats missed the landing point and ended up 400 yards down stream. Yup, these were the guys that were going to take on world class rapids in the Grand Canyon.
This book made me long for the bare, red rock and steep canyon cliffs of the southwest. Once again, going down the river involves a lot of getting out of the boat and carrying it, or, more often, hooking ropes to it so you can guide it through the rapids while you're not in it. This trip had many of the same components of danger that Roosevelt had - Indians, rapids, etc. - but got to trade in the malaria and piranhas for cliffs and bigger rapids. The cliffs don't sound like such a problem until you realize that sometimes the Green and Colorado rivers fill the canyons from wall to wall, which means there is a risk that as you round a bend you can be faced with a set of rapids and getting out to walk around them simply isn't an option. Powell made it out, as did most of the crew (they named a Lake after him, after all) but 10 guys with 10 months of food and 4 boats went in, and when they made it to the confluence with the Virgin River, there were only 6 guys, 2 boats and 5 days worth of rations left.
Both books were pretty entertaining. In the middle, they both got a little bit slow as the monotony of a river trip wore on. With journals to work from, the authors are able to account for each day with detail as they went through each set of rapids, portages, and spoiled soggy rations. At times, I was really hoping for a sentence that started "Then it was pretty much more of the same for the next 10 days until . . ." In the end, the authors managed to pull it out and rescue the narrative before it got too bad, though. Both books were worth reading, though I think I liked The River of Doubt more (though it had the advantage of being the first one I read.)
One final thought from John Wesley Powell. He wrote up a 300 page first person account of his trip afterwards and in the entire thing, never found a reason to mention that he only had one arm. (Lost his right arm in the Civil War.) So next time you're tempted to complain on facebook about something, consider a man who climbed and rafted through the Grand Canyon in a wooden boat, with no map and only one arm who knew what it meant to only worry about the things that you could do something about.
The River of Doubt by Candice Mallard (353 pages)
Lets review what we all know about Theodore Roosevelt. He was a scrawny kid, had asthma, became a boxer, grew a fabulous mustache, became president, went on a hunting trip to Africa, ran for president again, split the republican vote with Taft and let Wilson win. So what does a guy do when he's bummed out after losing a presidential election? If you said, "Lead a trip down an unexplored river in the Amazon." you win a cookie. (I'm sure this is what Mitt did, right?) The ex-president booked a trip to South America to deliver some speeches, look at a few museums and then do some adventuring in the Amazon down a known river. The trip would have been exciting for sure, but not all that note worthy. But, as they were making their way through South America, he seems to have realized that the trip as planned didn't meet his uber-manly standards (can you imagine the memes if he were still around?) and he adjusted the itinerary to go down a river known as The River of Doubt.
Isn't that the best possible name for a mysterious river in the Amazon? It's a pity that they re-named it the Roosevelt River, though as a consolation prize I do get to imagine Brazilians trying to say his name. (It would come out something like "Who's a velch?") The Brazilian government hooked him up with their most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, (so that's who all those roads are named after) who had found the headwaters of a river that went off into the rain forest and ended up who knows where. I mean, really, they didn't know where it went. Obviously it ended up in the Amazon River eventually, but they weren't entirely sure how long it was, or even which other river it would hook into.
So, after sending half of his fellow travelers off on an easier adventure, they set off down the River of Doubt. It turns out going down a river involves a lot of not sitting in a boat, because if you get to rapids too big to run, you've got to carry your boats around them, and that is hard work. Oh, and there are mosquitoes, and malaria, and hostile Indians, and piranhas, and at least one crazy dude in your expedition. They made it out alive (you'd probably have heard about the trip if Teddy Roosevelt had died down there) but not without some seriously close calls.
Apparently President Roosevelt had not read Down the Great Unknown by Edward Dolnick (294 pages). We'll cut him some slack because it wasn't published until 2001, but if he had, it might have helped him out on his trip. The full title of the book, Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy through the Grand Canyon could have given him a heads up on what he was going to face. Powell was a Civil War vet, explorer, geologist and whatever else he decided to be, who hatched a plan to hop on the Green River in Wyoming and hop off the Colorado River in Nevada. Easy peasy. Ok, I don't think he ever claimed it would be easy, but that was the plan. He and 9 other guys set off in 4 boats to go down two rivers that had never been traveled before. Between them, they had absolutely no river running experience. One of the first days, in calm water, when they pulled over to camp for the night, one of the boats missed the landing point and ended up 400 yards down stream. Yup, these were the guys that were going to take on world class rapids in the Grand Canyon.
This book made me long for the bare, red rock and steep canyon cliffs of the southwest. Once again, going down the river involves a lot of getting out of the boat and carrying it, or, more often, hooking ropes to it so you can guide it through the rapids while you're not in it. This trip had many of the same components of danger that Roosevelt had - Indians, rapids, etc. - but got to trade in the malaria and piranhas for cliffs and bigger rapids. The cliffs don't sound like such a problem until you realize that sometimes the Green and Colorado rivers fill the canyons from wall to wall, which means there is a risk that as you round a bend you can be faced with a set of rapids and getting out to walk around them simply isn't an option. Powell made it out, as did most of the crew (they named a Lake after him, after all) but 10 guys with 10 months of food and 4 boats went in, and when they made it to the confluence with the Virgin River, there were only 6 guys, 2 boats and 5 days worth of rations left.
Both books were pretty entertaining. In the middle, they both got a little bit slow as the monotony of a river trip wore on. With journals to work from, the authors are able to account for each day with detail as they went through each set of rapids, portages, and spoiled soggy rations. At times, I was really hoping for a sentence that started "Then it was pretty much more of the same for the next 10 days until . . ." In the end, the authors managed to pull it out and rescue the narrative before it got too bad, though. Both books were worth reading, though I think I liked The River of Doubt more (though it had the advantage of being the first one I read.)
One final thought from John Wesley Powell. He wrote up a 300 page first person account of his trip afterwards and in the entire thing, never found a reason to mention that he only had one arm. (Lost his right arm in the Civil War.) So next time you're tempted to complain on facebook about something, consider a man who climbed and rafted through the Grand Canyon in a wooden boat, with no map and only one arm who knew what it meant to only worry about the things that you could do something about.
Thursday, November 13
Sports Mumbo Jumbo
Because I'm a sporty sort of guy, I recently clicked on a link at espn.com titled "Sharma breaks cricket ODI world record". It's a world record, so something interesting must have happened, right? It also got very good position on ESPN's site, particularly for a cricket match. But was Sharma's achievement really all that impressive? I have no idea, because the article makes no sense. Go ahead and give it a try for your self, if you like. Here's one of my favorite bits:
“Shaminda Eranga had extracted a thick outside edge from Rohit in the fifth over, and though the ball carried comfortably to Thisara Perera at third man, he shelled the chance. Having been dropped on 4, Rohit would become the third India centurion this series to have been reprieved early in his innings.”
Ok, let's tear that apart. Someone named Shaminda (probably the batsman?) did something with Rohit (the bowler?) and cricket has these things called "overs". I guess he hit the ball to someone named Thisara who was standing at a location called "third man". Or was he third in line for something? Anyway, he seems to have screwed up. Maybe he dropped the ball? At least something was "dropped on 4". I do know that a "ground rule double" counts for 4 runs in cricket, so maybe that's what happened. So, Rohit became the third India centurion, which means I think he scored 100 runs, so I guess Rohit was the batsman all along, and when Shaminda "extracted" that "thick outside edge" from him, maybe this was like a foul ball that our budd Thisara dropped? Either way, it is clear that he was greatly reprieved.
“Shaminda Eranga had extracted a thick outside edge from Rohit in the fifth over, and though the ball carried comfortably to Thisara Perera at third man, he shelled the chance. Having been dropped on 4, Rohit would become the third India centurion this series to have been reprieved early in his innings.”
Ok, let's tear that apart. Someone named Shaminda (probably the batsman?) did something with Rohit (the bowler?) and cricket has these things called "overs". I guess he hit the ball to someone named Thisara who was standing at a location called "third man". Or was he third in line for something? Anyway, he seems to have screwed up. Maybe he dropped the ball? At least something was "dropped on 4". I do know that a "ground rule double" counts for 4 runs in cricket, so maybe that's what happened. So, Rohit became the third India centurion, which means I think he scored 100 runs, so I guess Rohit was the batsman all along, and when Shaminda "extracted" that "thick outside edge" from him, maybe this was like a foul ball that our budd Thisara dropped? Either way, it is clear that he was greatly reprieved.
And then it hit me: So this is how Shannon feels when I start talking about sports. I'm sure Shannon will agree that that paragraph wouldn't have been any more incomprehensible to her if it were about the triple option, dime coverage, illegal defense, pick and rolls, icing, or a wide out failing to cover the end of the line.
Luckily, I have a friend from Sri Lanka. He explained everything to me. Unfortunately, I still don't understand anything about cricket. So now he knows what I feel like after explaining all these things to Shannon. ;)
Thursday, October 23
Fantasy Time
Let's catch up on some books. I've been requesting book suggestions on facebook recently, but I'm happy to take them here, too. My reading list always goes through feast and famine stages, and it's currently resembling one of those skinny cows that eats lots of books but still stays skinny.
11/22/63 by Stephen King
I don't read Stephen King, as a general rule, but this looked interesting and not terrifying. I was right on both counts. I'm only ruining the first 50 pages out of 800+ to say that the book involves someone who is able to travel back in time, and ends up on the idea that the Kennedy assassination needs to be prevented. Most of the book takes place in the late 50s an early 60s as the hero goes into a sort of deep cover for reasons that I won't spoil. The book had quite a bit less interesting commentary / humor situations stemming from someone from the present (2012ish) living in the early 60s than I expected. I was a bit disappointed when about 200 pages into the book it started developing some bad language. And then another 200 pages in there was suddenly more sex going on than I really needed. (To clarify, the amount of sex I need in a book is none.) It's not like things were graphic by any means, but I really didn't see any point in telling me exactly how busy the main characters were getting.
Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
This was probably my least favorite Sanderson book that I've read, but given the overall excellent quality of his work, that isn't exactly a condemnation. Really, the only issue I have with this book is that it is written for young adults. YA fiction isn't bad or anything, but a good adult fiction book is basically always going to win out over a good YA fiction book. The story is a near-future post-apocalyptic situation where a small percentage of regular people have developed super powers and destroyed the world. The main bad-guy, for instance, can turn stuff to steel, and is pretty much invulnerable to bullets or other weapons. So, he's taken over Chicago and has other super-powered people working for him running the city as his own personal kingdom. Enter the heroes who are going to save the world by taking down the villains running everything. Typical plotting, explosions, and near-escapes ensue. The book seems to be set up to be a series. Given the length (384 pages) and reading level it's a pretty quick read and I'll probably read the next one when it comes out.
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
The cover of the book says it's the best new work of fantasy to be written in the last 20 years, or something like that (credited to Orson Scott Card). As this is Sanderson's first book, it may have been true at the time, but I remain partial to Mistborn and the Way of Kings which he has written since then. Elantris is a city inhabited by people who are, essentially magicians. They can heal people, they live for a very long time, they make rocks into food, all that good stuff. Normal people become Elantrins in a magical transformation that happens overnight (literally), until something happens and it all goes wrong. Instead of a blessing the transformation becomes a curse where the people are left in a sort of zombie state physically (but not mentally) and the magic doesn't work anymore. The city is sealed off and avoided, and anyone else who is transformed is shoved into the city and forgotten about by their families. It goes without saying that our main character (who is the crown prince) is going to end up with the curse and be sent to Elantris. At the same time we've got people plotting to over throw the kingdom, and other sorts of turmoil going on. I liked that this is a stand alone novel, as I'm currently stuck waiting for books to come out in too many series as it is.
The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson
Yes, I've become pretty predictable. This is a short novel (170 pages) that I read in a single day. I guess it's supposed to be set in the same world as Elantris, but the overlap is so minimal that it might as well not even be there. Sci-fi and fantasy books are hard to summarize, because they can get so complicated to make the world make any sense. The best I can do in a single sentence is that the main character is a magical forger or sorts who is being held captive until she magically re-creates the Emperor's consciousness after he's been left a vegetable after head trauma from an assassination attempt. Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? All fantasy books do when you sum them up like that. But it's an interesting enough short read, particularly if you're working late at night watching a furnace cool down very slowly.
11/22/63 by Stephen King
I don't read Stephen King, as a general rule, but this looked interesting and not terrifying. I was right on both counts. I'm only ruining the first 50 pages out of 800+ to say that the book involves someone who is able to travel back in time, and ends up on the idea that the Kennedy assassination needs to be prevented. Most of the book takes place in the late 50s an early 60s as the hero goes into a sort of deep cover for reasons that I won't spoil. The book had quite a bit less interesting commentary / humor situations stemming from someone from the present (2012ish) living in the early 60s than I expected. I was a bit disappointed when about 200 pages into the book it started developing some bad language. And then another 200 pages in there was suddenly more sex going on than I really needed. (To clarify, the amount of sex I need in a book is none.) It's not like things were graphic by any means, but I really didn't see any point in telling me exactly how busy the main characters were getting.
Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
This was probably my least favorite Sanderson book that I've read, but given the overall excellent quality of his work, that isn't exactly a condemnation. Really, the only issue I have with this book is that it is written for young adults. YA fiction isn't bad or anything, but a good adult fiction book is basically always going to win out over a good YA fiction book. The story is a near-future post-apocalyptic situation where a small percentage of regular people have developed super powers and destroyed the world. The main bad-guy, for instance, can turn stuff to steel, and is pretty much invulnerable to bullets or other weapons. So, he's taken over Chicago and has other super-powered people working for him running the city as his own personal kingdom. Enter the heroes who are going to save the world by taking down the villains running everything. Typical plotting, explosions, and near-escapes ensue. The book seems to be set up to be a series. Given the length (384 pages) and reading level it's a pretty quick read and I'll probably read the next one when it comes out.
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
The cover of the book says it's the best new work of fantasy to be written in the last 20 years, or something like that (credited to Orson Scott Card). As this is Sanderson's first book, it may have been true at the time, but I remain partial to Mistborn and the Way of Kings which he has written since then. Elantris is a city inhabited by people who are, essentially magicians. They can heal people, they live for a very long time, they make rocks into food, all that good stuff. Normal people become Elantrins in a magical transformation that happens overnight (literally), until something happens and it all goes wrong. Instead of a blessing the transformation becomes a curse where the people are left in a sort of zombie state physically (but not mentally) and the magic doesn't work anymore. The city is sealed off and avoided, and anyone else who is transformed is shoved into the city and forgotten about by their families. It goes without saying that our main character (who is the crown prince) is going to end up with the curse and be sent to Elantris. At the same time we've got people plotting to over throw the kingdom, and other sorts of turmoil going on. I liked that this is a stand alone novel, as I'm currently stuck waiting for books to come out in too many series as it is.
The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson
Yes, I've become pretty predictable. This is a short novel (170 pages) that I read in a single day. I guess it's supposed to be set in the same world as Elantris, but the overlap is so minimal that it might as well not even be there. Sci-fi and fantasy books are hard to summarize, because they can get so complicated to make the world make any sense. The best I can do in a single sentence is that the main character is a magical forger or sorts who is being held captive until she magically re-creates the Emperor's consciousness after he's been left a vegetable after head trauma from an assassination attempt. Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? All fantasy books do when you sum them up like that. But it's an interesting enough short read, particularly if you're working late at night watching a furnace cool down very slowly.
Saturday, October 18
Halloween Logistics
Tonight was the ward trunk or treat, so I've been thinking about the various transactions of Halloween.
First, I go to the store, and exchange money for candy. Other people do the same thing. Then, I give the candy to other people, and other people give candy to my kids. And here's where it starts to get stupid. First off, we need to define the purpose of Halloween. Any kid can tell you exactly what the purpose of Halloween is: get lots of candy. Every single person who goes to the store and buys 30 pounds of little candy bars is admitting this. Of course, we all know that this isn't actually good for you. Candy is terrible, nutritionally. You're kids will be sick, hyper and won't eat their broccoli. We lament the fact that they have all this candy, when we (collectively) are the ones that handed it all to them.
Of course, not giving them candy simply isn't an option. It's traditional, after all, and we're nostalgic for our own Halloween adventures collecting candy. Also, I heard that the Jones' are giving out full sized candy bars this year. I guess our only recourse is to take the candy away from them. It is for their own good after all. But stealing candy from babies and small children is a bad thing, so I guess we'll have to bribe them to give it to us. To this end, we've invented yet another mythical being, the Switch Witch, who takes their candy and leaves them toys in exchange. But that's just code for me going back to the store and exchanging more money for toys, which I will then exchange for my kids candy.
This has gotten complicated enough that it's time for a diagram.
Halloween has got to be the most confusing holiday we celebrate. (And now that I've brought it up, what are we even celebrating?) Anyway, this holiday has some inefficiencies built in to it. Specifically, notice the triangle of red between me, other people and Julia & Ella in the diagram. Candy makes the whole circuit, which means its redundant, and can be eliminated. I buy candy, and then I just keep it. The added bonus here, is that now there's nothing connecting my family to the 'other people' on the chart, so they aren't needed! We don't have to traipse around the neighborhood collecting candy in the cold anymore! Next year for Halloween, I say we just stay home. I'll eat my enormous pile of junk food (just like every year) while my kids unwrap their presents. It'll be just like Christmas!
First, I go to the store, and exchange money for candy. Other people do the same thing. Then, I give the candy to other people, and other people give candy to my kids. And here's where it starts to get stupid. First off, we need to define the purpose of Halloween. Any kid can tell you exactly what the purpose of Halloween is: get lots of candy. Every single person who goes to the store and buys 30 pounds of little candy bars is admitting this. Of course, we all know that this isn't actually good for you. Candy is terrible, nutritionally. You're kids will be sick, hyper and won't eat their broccoli. We lament the fact that they have all this candy, when we (collectively) are the ones that handed it all to them.
Of course, not giving them candy simply isn't an option. It's traditional, after all, and we're nostalgic for our own Halloween adventures collecting candy. Also, I heard that the Jones' are giving out full sized candy bars this year. I guess our only recourse is to take the candy away from them. It is for their own good after all. But stealing candy from babies and small children is a bad thing, so I guess we'll have to bribe them to give it to us. To this end, we've invented yet another mythical being, the Switch Witch, who takes their candy and leaves them toys in exchange. But that's just code for me going back to the store and exchanging more money for toys, which I will then exchange for my kids candy.
This has gotten complicated enough that it's time for a diagram.
Tuesday, October 14
Stuck on an Author
Tyler's comment on a recent post called my extensive reading of Orson Scott Card's works "impressive". I choose to interpret this as impressive in a good way. And it's got me thinking about authors that I've read a lot of. So, I'm making a list, and you're free to play along. I'm excluding children's books (so no Dr Seuss, Sandra Boynton, or Magic Treehouse) but I'm obviously allowing young adult books. The list is dominated by (science) fiction novels, which isn't surprising. I read a decent amount of non-fiction, but those books are less likely to bring you back to the same authors again and again. (Unless William L. Shirer happened to write about the rise and fall of the first two reichs, or David McCullough continues on to write about every year since 1776.)
While I'm not sure what my list would look like if you asked me to come up with my ten favorite authors, I'm pretty sure this isn't it. I don't think more than 3 of these authors would make that list, though don't ask me who the other seven would be. I also can't shake the feeling that this list isn't accurate, so leave me a comment if you can think of someone that I've forgotten about. (Something tells me that five minutes after hitting 'publish' I'm going to think of someone embarrassingly obvious.) And after all that ado, here's the list:
1. Orson Scott Card, 39 books. It's like when you start eating your kids Halloween candy, and suddenly there is this enormous pile of candy wrappers, and you're thinking, "Did I really just eat 39 little candy bars? It didn't seem like that many. But they're so good, I just want more. Except that a couple of them were terrible." And then you eat more, even though Card's Homecoming Saga was painful.
2. Robert Jordan, 11 books. The first 11 books of the Wheel of Time. It's a zillion pages, and no, I don't want to read the prequel. The series was good, but it didn't really leave me wanting to go find more of his work.
3. Brandon Sanderson, 10 books. The last 3 in Wheel of Time, 4 Mistborn, 2 Way of Kings, and I've started Steelheart. Unlike Robert Jordan, reading his books did make me want to read more of his books.
4. J.K. Rowling, 8 books. Harry Potter, including the Tales of Beedle the Bard.
4. Arthur C. Clarke, 8 books. 2001, 2010, 2061, 3001, Rama (4 books)
6. C.S. Lewis, 7 books. Narnia. And I think they should be read in the order they were written. So there.
6. Isaac Asimov, 7 books. 4 robot books, 3 Foundation books.
6. Bill Bryson, 7 books. I think.
9. Michael Crichton, 6 books. Better books than movies. Actually, I think I've only seen 1 of the movies.
10. Dan Brown, 5 books. Apparently he's only written 6 total.
10. Agatha Christie, 5 books? 2 Marple?, 2 Poirot?, And Then There Were None. If anything I've read more than 5 of her books.
10. Lloyd Alexander, 5 books. Maybe I should add up the number of pages or something, because the 5 Prydain books combined only took a week or two to read.
10. Douglas Adams, 5 books. I'm pretty sure I read all of the Hitchhiker books, though I definitely was losing interest quickly as the series went on.
Notable authors who didn't make the list, but who I didn't forget: Tolkien (4), Clancy (3), Ludlum (2?), Grisham (2?), King (2)
edit: Added Crichton and Alexander, after they were mentioned in the comments and I realized that I have indeed read books by those guys. Added Adams when a different Douglas reminded me of him.
While I'm not sure what my list would look like if you asked me to come up with my ten favorite authors, I'm pretty sure this isn't it. I don't think more than 3 of these authors would make that list, though don't ask me who the other seven would be. I also can't shake the feeling that this list isn't accurate, so leave me a comment if you can think of someone that I've forgotten about. (Something tells me that five minutes after hitting 'publish' I'm going to think of someone embarrassingly obvious.) And after all that ado, here's the list:
1. Orson Scott Card, 39 books. It's like when you start eating your kids Halloween candy, and suddenly there is this enormous pile of candy wrappers, and you're thinking, "Did I really just eat 39 little candy bars? It didn't seem like that many. But they're so good, I just want more. Except that a couple of them were terrible." And then you eat more, even though Card's Homecoming Saga was painful.
2. Robert Jordan, 11 books. The first 11 books of the Wheel of Time. It's a zillion pages, and no, I don't want to read the prequel. The series was good, but it didn't really leave me wanting to go find more of his work.
3. Brandon Sanderson, 10 books. The last 3 in Wheel of Time, 4 Mistborn, 2 Way of Kings, and I've started Steelheart. Unlike Robert Jordan, reading his books did make me want to read more of his books.
4. J.K. Rowling, 8 books. Harry Potter, including the Tales of Beedle the Bard.
4. Arthur C. Clarke, 8 books. 2001, 2010, 2061, 3001, Rama (4 books)
6. C.S. Lewis, 7 books. Narnia. And I think they should be read in the order they were written. So there.
6. Isaac Asimov, 7 books. 4 robot books, 3 Foundation books.
6. Bill Bryson, 7 books. I think.
9. Michael Crichton, 6 books. Better books than movies. Actually, I think I've only seen 1 of the movies.
10. Dan Brown, 5 books. Apparently he's only written 6 total.
10. Agatha Christie, 5 books? 2 Marple?, 2 Poirot?, And Then There Were None. If anything I've read more than 5 of her books.
10. Lloyd Alexander, 5 books. Maybe I should add up the number of pages or something, because the 5 Prydain books combined only took a week or two to read.
10. Douglas Adams, 5 books. I'm pretty sure I read all of the Hitchhiker books, though I definitely was losing interest quickly as the series went on.
Notable authors who didn't make the list, but who I didn't forget: Tolkien (4), Clancy (3), Ludlum (2?), Grisham (2?), King (2)
edit: Added Crichton and Alexander, after they were mentioned in the comments and I realized that I have indeed read books by those guys. Added Adams when a different Douglas reminded me of him.
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