Today has been a rather lazy day. I just didn't have the energy to follow our usual schedule, so we spent most of the afternoon watching "Life in the Undergrowth", another installment in one of my favorite nature series, the Life Collection, from the BBC of course. We haven't seen them all, but the ones we have seen are excellent! And I just love David Attenborough. The Blue Planet is another nature series favorite, but I digress. Anyway, when dinnertime came around, I didn't want to fix anything so we ordered pizza and finished watching "Life in the Undergrowth". I'd say it was a good day. It wouldn't be good to do that sort of thing everyday, but once in a while it's fun (and necessary) to have a "B&D's" day. For those of you who don't know, B&D's was a burger joint within walking distance of the music building on the U campus. Whenever we needed a break from the stress of college life, someone would say, "Let's go to B&D's" and we'd go. Gradually a B&D's day came to mean a day where you just say to heck with life/responsibility and go have fun and relax. I don't know if anyone from that group still uses the term, but I do because it perfectly captures the feeling, in just a few words, of days like today.
Long live B&D's.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
House Shopping
We had made of offer on a house. Sadly, there was another offer to compete with. The offers were equal, but the other offer had a contingency. They had to sell their house before they could buy, so our offer looked like the better one. Since their offer was technically first, we had to give them a chance to remove the contingency. Well, they did and we lost the house. Oh well! The market is still coming down, so I have high hopes that we can find another house without too much trouble. I'm excited because some 4 bedroom houses are coming into our price range. The top of our range, granted, but we're within striking distance now! When we first started looking, I couldn't believe the junky houses that people were trying to sell, and for how much! I'm so glad we didn't try to buy a house when we first moved here. The market is in a free fall and we would have lost a lot of money between then and now. When we were in grad school, I was very concerned about our being able to afford a house when we finished because prices were rising so fast, so I feel really blessed to be looking for a home in such a buyer favorable market. To tell you the truth, I don't really like home shopping. You have to shift through a lot of 'crap' to find something good and it takes a lot of research time and legwork to say nothing of the legal hoops once your offer is accepted. But it will all be worth it in the end if I can finally have a space for my garden and the kids can have a yard to play in!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Musings
Some days my life feels like an endless monotony of laundry, cleaning, and cooking (though I do enjoy cooking, it does get a little tiresome to be preparing for and cleaning up from 3 meals every day). I once read somewhere that doing at least one thing every day that did not need to be done again would help combat that feeling. So today my thing that did not have to be done again was to finish reading "Pride and Prejudice" (again, I must admit, but I certainly didn't have to!). I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the book and what fun the story is to read. Reading is probably my favorite "don't have to do it again" activity, but I also like doing things that have concrete results, like sewing, cross stitching, or crochet or even cleaning and organizing a closet. It makes me feel accomplished and I have something to show for the time spent. Granted, I don't have the luxury of being able to do those things every day, but the more often I can, the happier I am with life.
And crochet therapy is cheaper then real therapy.
And crochet therapy is cheaper then real therapy.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Answers
1. Through the Looking Glass
2. "I Want to Hold Your Hand", The Beatles
3. Star Wars: A New Hope
4. "Sunrise, Sunset", Fiddler on the Roof
5. The Pokey Little Puppy
6. "California Dreamin'", The Mamas and The Papas
7. The Magic Flute, Mozart
8. "We Will Rock You", Queen
9. The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe
10. "Dancing Queen", Abba
11. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
12. "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Nirvana
13. The Elephant’s Child
14. Peter Pan
15. "Nothing Compares 2 U", Sinead O'Connor
16. Fahrenheit 451
17. 1984
18. "Rock Lobster", The B-52's
19. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
20. MacBeth
21. What about Bob?
22. "With or Without You", U2
23. The Princess Bride (the book)
24. "June is Bustin Out All Over", Carosel
25. A Christmas Story
26. "Blowin' in the Wind", Bob Dylan
27. Mary Poppins
28. "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald"
29. Monty Python & the Holy Grail
30. Pride & Prejudice
Looking at these again, I think I should have chosen fewer songs and more books. Oh well! If you'd like, you can post how many you got correct, along with your favorite first line that I didn't include here.
2. "I Want to Hold Your Hand", The Beatles
3. Star Wars: A New Hope
4. "Sunrise, Sunset", Fiddler on the Roof
5. The Pokey Little Puppy
6. "California Dreamin'", The Mamas and The Papas
7. The Magic Flute, Mozart
8. "We Will Rock You", Queen
9. The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe
10. "Dancing Queen", Abba
11. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
12. "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Nirvana
13. The Elephant’s Child
14. Peter Pan
15. "Nothing Compares 2 U", Sinead O'Connor
16. Fahrenheit 451
17. 1984
18. "Rock Lobster", The B-52's
19. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
20. MacBeth
21. What about Bob?
22. "With or Without You", U2
23. The Princess Bride (the book)
24. "June is Bustin Out All Over", Carosel
25. A Christmas Story
26. "Blowin' in the Wind", Bob Dylan
27. Mary Poppins
28. "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald"
29. Monty Python & the Holy Grail
30. Pride & Prejudice
Looking at these again, I think I should have chosen fewer songs and more books. Oh well! If you'd like, you can post how many you got correct, along with your favorite first line that I didn't include here.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
"It Was a Dark and Stormy Night"
One of my favorite regular features in Home Education magazine is their "Good Stuff" segment. It is always based on a theme and the author recommends various resources to learn more about the chosen theme. This month's theme was "Wretched Writers Welcome" based on the The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest in which participants compete to write the first sentence of the world's most dreadful novel. (You can read more about that in the article.) One of the recommended resources was a game called "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night", a board game of first lines, in which players move their pieces around a board, trying to identify titles and authors from the first line of a well-known book (or movie). I love board games and I love books so this sounded like the perfect game for me! Sadly the $50 price tag is rather more than I can justify spending on a board game. However, as the last line of the article says: "...don't forget that adroit homeschoolers with a handy pack of index cards can always invent first-line games of their own." And so came the idea for this post.
In this version of the game, anything is fair game for first lines; books, movies, songs, operas, plays, etc. I tried to choose lines from media that a larger number of people would have been exposed to, just to be fair. There are 30 lines. I'll post the answers tomorrow, and, if you'd like, you can post how many you got correct, along with your favorite first line that I didn't include here. Enjoy and good luck!
1. One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it: - it was the black kitten's fault entirely.
2. Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something, I think you'll understand.
3. Did you hear that? They shut down the main reactor. We’ll be destroyed for sure. This is madness.
4. Is this the little girl I carried, Is this the little boy at play?
5. Five little puppies dug a hole under the fence and went for a walk in the wide, wide world.
6. All the leaves are brown, And the sky is grey
7. Help! Oh help! Or else I am lost, a certain victim of the cunning serpent.
8. Buddy you’re a boy make a big noise Playin in the street gonna be a big man some day
9. True! – Nervous- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
10. Friday night and the lights are low Looking out for the place to go
11. It was the middle of winter, and the snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky, and the queen sat at her window working, and her embroidery-frame was of ebony.
12. Load up on guns. Bring your friends. It's fun to lose and to pretend. She's overborne and self-assured. Oh no, I know a dirty word
13. In the high and far-off times the elephant, oh best beloved, had no trunk.
14. All children, except one, grow up.
15. It's been seven hours and fifteen days Since you took your love away
16. It was a pleasure to burn.
17. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
18. We were at a party. His ear lobe fell in the deep. Someone reached in and grabbed it
19. Dismount! Herman’s horse-sick!
20. When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain?
21. I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.
22. See the stone set in your eyes. See the thorn twist in your side
23. This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
24. March went out like a lion Awakin' up the water in the bay;
25. Ah, there it is. My house. And good old Cleveland Street. How could I ever forget it?
26. How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
27. All right, ladies and gents, comical poems suitable for the occasion, extemporized and thought up before your very eyes.
28. The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
29. Whoa there! Halt! Who goes there?
30. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
In this version of the game, anything is fair game for first lines; books, movies, songs, operas, plays, etc. I tried to choose lines from media that a larger number of people would have been exposed to, just to be fair. There are 30 lines. I'll post the answers tomorrow, and, if you'd like, you can post how many you got correct, along with your favorite first line that I didn't include here. Enjoy and good luck!
1. One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it: - it was the black kitten's fault entirely.
2. Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something, I think you'll understand.
3. Did you hear that? They shut down the main reactor. We’ll be destroyed for sure. This is madness.
4. Is this the little girl I carried, Is this the little boy at play?
5. Five little puppies dug a hole under the fence and went for a walk in the wide, wide world.
6. All the leaves are brown, And the sky is grey
7. Help! Oh help! Or else I am lost, a certain victim of the cunning serpent.
8. Buddy you’re a boy make a big noise Playin in the street gonna be a big man some day
9. True! – Nervous- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
10. Friday night and the lights are low Looking out for the place to go
11. It was the middle of winter, and the snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky, and the queen sat at her window working, and her embroidery-frame was of ebony.
12. Load up on guns. Bring your friends. It's fun to lose and to pretend. She's overborne and self-assured. Oh no, I know a dirty word
13. In the high and far-off times the elephant, oh best beloved, had no trunk.
14. All children, except one, grow up.
15. It's been seven hours and fifteen days Since you took your love away
16. It was a pleasure to burn.
17. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
18. We were at a party. His ear lobe fell in the deep. Someone reached in and grabbed it
19. Dismount! Herman’s horse-sick!
20. When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain?
21. I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.
22. See the stone set in your eyes. See the thorn twist in your side
23. This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
24. March went out like a lion Awakin' up the water in the bay;
25. Ah, there it is. My house. And good old Cleveland Street. How could I ever forget it?
26. How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
27. All right, ladies and gents, comical poems suitable for the occasion, extemporized and thought up before your very eyes.
28. The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
29. Whoa there! Halt! Who goes there?
30. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Fantasy and SciFi
Megan's comment on my 100th post really got me thinking. I said I love fantasy and science fiction books (#22), but it has been quite a while since I have read any! Sad. Part of that, I believe, is because I am very picky about what I read. I am especially wary of books that seem too popular. For example, I didn't read any of the Harry Potter books until just before #5 came out. Of course once I started I was hooked. I haven't read any of the Twilight books for the same reason. Another reason why I haven't read any scifi or fantasy lately is because I read them all when I was a tween/teen! During the summer I would go to the library and check out 3-5 books (usually 200+ pages), read them all in one week, then go back and get more the next week. I quickly burned through the entire fantasy section of the library and most of the science fiction section. Ah, to have that kind of time again!
So what are my favorites? In fantasy my absolute favorite books are the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I think I have read these books more times than any other book (except the scriptures). I first read them when I was in 7th grade. I come by my obsession honestly; my mother was a ring nut. She once skipped all her college classes to read through the whole thing in 3 days (I think, correct me if I'm wrong). She wanted to name me Arwen, but my dad wouldn't agree to it. Just FYI, if we ever have a girl, she will be named Arwen (or maybe Arwyn).
As for favorite science fiction, that one is a little harder to choose. I'd have to go with the Foundation series, just because I've read them more times than the others. Probably not the whole series though, just the first 3 books. Isaac Asimov is definitely my favorite scifi author. I read every book they had of his in the library, short stories, the robot novels, etc. Ray Bradbury runs a very close second. I like his short stories better and his novels are definitely more thought provoking. Of his books, I really enjoyed "The Illustrated Man" (short stories), "Something Wicked this Way Comes" (maybe not strictly scifi), "The Martian Chronicles", and of course "Fahrenheit 451". My favorite short story of his is "A Sound of Thunder". Wow!
Here are my second tier favorites:
Fantasy
Shannara Series (though I stopped when I got tired of the formula)
Magic Kingdom for Sale-Sold
The Dark is Rising series, Susan Cooper
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Merlin Series, Mary Stewart
Harry Potter series (of course)
The Hobbit
A Wrinkle in Time series
The Last Unicorn
Science Fiction
Sphere (book is SO much better than the movie)
Jurassic Park
2001: A Space Odyssey (also 2010 and 2061)
Richter 10
1984
Dune
Frankenstein
I'm sure there are more I could list, but these are the ones that come to mind first.
Not really on topic, but I just have to bring up one of my favorite, newly discovered, sites for bookophiles: GoodReads.com. Share all your favorite (and not so favorite) books with your friends! And be my friend too!
What are your favorites?
So what are my favorites? In fantasy my absolute favorite books are the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I think I have read these books more times than any other book (except the scriptures). I first read them when I was in 7th grade. I come by my obsession honestly; my mother was a ring nut. She once skipped all her college classes to read through the whole thing in 3 days (I think, correct me if I'm wrong). She wanted to name me Arwen, but my dad wouldn't agree to it. Just FYI, if we ever have a girl, she will be named Arwen (or maybe Arwyn).
As for favorite science fiction, that one is a little harder to choose. I'd have to go with the Foundation series, just because I've read them more times than the others. Probably not the whole series though, just the first 3 books. Isaac Asimov is definitely my favorite scifi author. I read every book they had of his in the library, short stories, the robot novels, etc. Ray Bradbury runs a very close second. I like his short stories better and his novels are definitely more thought provoking. Of his books, I really enjoyed "The Illustrated Man" (short stories), "Something Wicked this Way Comes" (maybe not strictly scifi), "The Martian Chronicles", and of course "Fahrenheit 451". My favorite short story of his is "A Sound of Thunder". Wow!
Here are my second tier favorites:
Fantasy
Shannara Series (though I stopped when I got tired of the formula)
Magic Kingdom for Sale-Sold
The Dark is Rising series, Susan Cooper
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Merlin Series, Mary Stewart
Harry Potter series (of course)
The Hobbit
A Wrinkle in Time series
The Last Unicorn
Science Fiction
Sphere (book is SO much better than the movie)
Jurassic Park
2001: A Space Odyssey (also 2010 and 2061)
Richter 10
1984
Dune
Frankenstein
I'm sure there are more I could list, but these are the ones that come to mind first.
Not really on topic, but I just have to bring up one of my favorite, newly discovered, sites for bookophiles: GoodReads.com. Share all your favorite (and not so favorite) books with your friends! And be my friend too!
What are your favorites?
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Better Air
I want to comment on an article from the May 2008 issue of Discover Magazine. There are several good articles in the segment "Better Planet Solutions" that I will probably comment on later, but this one caught my attention first. It is not available online, but if you want to read the whole article, it should be available at almost any library. Entitled "Better Air" it addresses concerns about world wide pollution. According to the article, 800,000 people are killed each year by the effects of air pollution.
"While big vehicles like Hummers and other SUVs are often blamed for excessive emissions, some of the worst culprits are the smallest rides around. Throughout Asia, vehicles with two-stroke engines produce vast amounts of pollutions."
Apparently, a single two-stroke engine produces pollution equal to that of 30-50 four-stroke engines. The author estimates 100 million motorcycles in Asia, giving off 2.5 billion cars' worth of pollution. Yuck! Several solutions have been tried, but without lasting effect. Enter Envrofit with a retrofit kit for two stroke engines that reduces emissions by almost 90 percent while increasing fuel efficiency by up to 35 percent. They have done field tests in the Philippines on tricycle taxis where after 8 months, the retrofit not only reduced emissions, but saved the taxi drivers money.
"By cutting fuel loss and reducing oil use by up to 50 percent, the modified engines may save their users as much as $600 a year. Bauer (co founder) believes that Envirofit could produce up to 500,000 kits in five years, 'putting $190 million into the hand of some of the poorest people' in the world."
IMO, that is the best part! I'm no big fan of pollution and if technology can reduce it AND save people money at the same time, it definitely has my support. Now, the article doesn't say how much the kit costs, which I can see as a big drawback if the upfront costs are prohibitive, even if it will save money in the long run. People aren't always very good at considering "the long run" so we'll see if this brings the improvement hoped for. Hopefully the word of mouth from the trials will be enough to get interest going!
After all, it's a step in the right direction...
"While big vehicles like Hummers and other SUVs are often blamed for excessive emissions, some of the worst culprits are the smallest rides around. Throughout Asia, vehicles with two-stroke engines produce vast amounts of pollutions."
Apparently, a single two-stroke engine produces pollution equal to that of 30-50 four-stroke engines. The author estimates 100 million motorcycles in Asia, giving off 2.5 billion cars' worth of pollution. Yuck! Several solutions have been tried, but without lasting effect. Enter Envrofit with a retrofit kit for two stroke engines that reduces emissions by almost 90 percent while increasing fuel efficiency by up to 35 percent. They have done field tests in the Philippines on tricycle taxis where after 8 months, the retrofit not only reduced emissions, but saved the taxi drivers money.
"By cutting fuel loss and reducing oil use by up to 50 percent, the modified engines may save their users as much as $600 a year. Bauer (co founder) believes that Envirofit could produce up to 500,000 kits in five years, 'putting $190 million into the hand of some of the poorest people' in the world."
IMO, that is the best part! I'm no big fan of pollution and if technology can reduce it AND save people money at the same time, it definitely has my support. Now, the article doesn't say how much the kit costs, which I can see as a big drawback if the upfront costs are prohibitive, even if it will save money in the long run. People aren't always very good at considering "the long run" so we'll see if this brings the improvement hoped for. Hopefully the word of mouth from the trials will be enough to get interest going!
After all, it's a step in the right direction...
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