Month: July 2012

Woot! We won!

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2012-07-31

11:53 pm

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Family, Fun, politics

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It looks like the T‑SPLOST bill was defeat­ed by a land­slide. I’m so glad! That thing was a total boon­dog­gle. My baby girl and I spent the day togeth­er and one of the very first things we did was go vote against it!

We had a good lunch togeth­er and a frozen yogurt treat. She indulged me, so I final­ly got to go to In Stitch­es, too. They have the most incred­i­ble selec­tion of fibers! I picked up my first Glo­ri­ana silks for a char­i­ty stitch­ing project.

Now I’m exhaust­ed, but hap­py. It was a good day!

Free Courses Online

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2012-07-30

8:06 pm

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College, Lifelong Learning, Online Education

I’ve been look­ing into online edu­ca­tion late­ly, beyond my exper­i­ment with learn­ing pro­gram­ming (which is still ongo­ing). These are some of the resources I’ve iden­ti­fied. They’re all free, although you don’t get col­lege cred­it for the courses.

  • Cours­era — cours­es taught by instruc­tors var­i­ous top universities.
  • Khan Acad­e­my — video cours­es on every top­ic under the sun, at many levels
  • Udac­i­ty — cours­es involve prob­lem-solv­ing and add the option to take tests at test­ing centers.

There are long lists at these two arti­cles. I don’t see a rea­son to repro­duce them here.

Book Review: Entangled edited by Edie Ramer

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2012-07-29

7:55 pm

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Book Reviews, Reading

EntangledEntan­gled by Edie Ramer
My rat­ing: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this anthol­o­gy up because all pro­ceeds go to the Breast Can­cer Research Foun­da­tion, which is a won­der­ful cause. Many of the authors’ lives have been touched by can­cer in one way or anoth­er, some first-hand. The vol­ume is Hal­loween-themed, as well.

I don’t believe I’ve read any­thing but short sto­ries by any of these authors in the past except for Jen­nifer Estep, and I haven’t read the Mythos Acad­e­my series in which her sto­ry is set. I’m more like­ly to read it now than I was before.

“Hal­loween Frost” by Estep and “Ghost­ly Jus­tice” by Alli­son Bren­nan (set in her Sev­en Dead­ly Sins series) were the most pol­ished sto­ries in the anthol­o­gy. Too many of the oth­ers had plot holes, or felt like teasers to get a read­er to pur­sue more of the author’s work. A short sto­ry should be self-contained.

Some of the authors let the “romance” get in the way of the plot­ting. If the main char­ac­ter acts like an idiot because she’s dis­tract­ed by the bulge in a man’s pants, why make her the main char­ac­ter of a sto­ry? Espe­cial­ly if, as in “Sin­ful­ly Sweet” by Michelle Miles, you fail to resolve the major plot issue you raise?

While I admire the cause for which these ladies are writ­ing, I can’t help but think a short­er, high­er-qual­i­ty anthol­o­gy might have been a bet­ter bet.

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Happy News

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2012-07-28

11:51 pm

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Reading

You are read­ing the blog of the newest board mem­ber of Grants to You, a won­der­ful non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion based in Prescott, Ari­zona. I’m going to be doing a lot of work involv­ing the web site and serv­ing on a new com­mit­tee. I’m tick­led pink!

In oth­er news, I got to intro­duce some­one to the Dres­den Files today! I thought every­body had heard of Butcher’s books, but in case there’s anoth­er fan­ta­sy fan out there who has been deprived: you want to read these, I promise. They’re about Chicago’s only pro­fes­sion­al wiz­ard, Har­ry Dres­den. He rou­tine­ly deals with vam­pires, demons, werewolves—you name it. There was a short-lived tele­vi­sion show that should have been longer, but it died the death of so many great shows (like Firefly). 

Start with Storm Front, but know that you’ll want to have Fool Moon and Grave Per­il handy. 

I love them so much that I keep all four­teen vol­umes (thir­teen nov­els and a col­lec­tion of short sto­ries) on my Nook as com­fort read­ing. I’m eager to read num­ber four­teen, and I can’t think of many oth­er authors who can keep the excite­ment going that long. I’ve nev­er encoun­tered one per­son who does­n’t like these books if they’ve read them, so give them a try!

Book Review: Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

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2012-07-27

9:30 am

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Book Reviews, Reading

Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse, #11)Dead Reck­on­ing by Char­laine Harris
My rat­ing: 3 of 5 stars

For fluff, it’s got some real­ly dark scenes. It does­n’t have enough of a plot to be any­thing more than fluff, though. It absolute­ly does NOT stand alone, so don’t con­sid­er read­ing this book unless you’ve read all that went before it — you’ll be hope­less­ly lost. 

Sook­ie has changed so much over the course of this series that she is hav­ing trou­ble rec­og­niz­ing her­self, and is trou­bled over it, with good rea­son. Hav­ing a main char­ac­ter change is good, and I’ll say that some of that change is growth, but I can’t say it’s all growth, or all to the good. (Can any of us say that, though, about the changes we go through in our lives?)

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Book Review: Tricked by Kevin Hearne

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2012-07-26

9:06 am

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Book Reviews, Reading

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Tricked (Iron Druid Chronicles, #4)Tricked by Kevin Hearne
My rat­ing: 5 of 5 stars

That was so good. Just so very good. Like the last three — well plot­ted, with good char­ac­ter devel­op­ment from a fas­ci­nat­ing cast of char­ac­ters. This time most of the mythol­o­gy is Native Amer­i­can (specif­i­cal­ly Nava­jo) instead of Norse or Celtic, but there’s a lit­tle spice from oth­er tra­di­tions thrown in as well. And as before, there are always con­se­quences get­ting involved, even in good caus­es. I think that’s one of the biggest ways this series reminds me of the Dres­den Files by Jim Butch­er.

I am absolute­ly going to be on ten­ter­hooks until Trapped is released!

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Morning Pages Tool

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2012-07-25

3:15 pm

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Writing

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I’ve recent­ly got­ten back into the dis­ci­pline of doing morn­ing pages, some­thing that’s a vital part of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. It’s a great way to clear your men­tal caches each morn­ing and pre­pare to write some­thing more mean­ing­ful. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, one writes three pages longhand.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I have trou­ble with that. The arthri­tis in my hands caus­es ter­ri­ble cramp­ing, and I can’t read what I’ve writ­ten by the time I’m a sen­tence or two on. I get pre­oc­cu­pied by how ter­ri­ble my hand­writ­ing is and so dis­tract­ed that the whole point of the exer­cise is lost.

If I try to use a word proces­sor, I end up writ­ing too much. Blog­ging is no good, because I write too much and I wor­ry about for­get­ting to mark the entries private.

750 Words is a won­der­ful alter­na­tive. It pro­vides noth­ing but a blank screen and a notice when you hit 750 words (three pages at 250 words each equals 750 words). It’s a free ser­vice! And it will send you reminder messages.

I’m tick­led pink!

Book Review: Hammered by Kevin Hearne

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2012-07-24

1:43 pm

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Book Reviews, Reading

Hammered (Iron Druid Chronicles, #3)Ham­mered by Kevin Hearne
My rat­ing: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. This book has a non-stop pace, for rea­sons that will be obvi­ous to the read­er but can­not be explained to oth­ers with­out spoil­ers. I’ll just say “clear your cal­en­dar” because you’ll not find ANY good stop­ping places.

One of the things that tru­ly impress­es me is that Kevin Hearne does­n’t just show his char­ac­ters doing amaz­ing things, but shows them expe­ri­enc­ing the con­se­quences of their actions—some expect­ed, some total­ly unex­pect­ed. I tru­ly enjoy his views of arche­types and myth, espe­cial­ly com­ing from a char­ac­ter who walks around speak­ing to gods, hav­ing a beer with Jesus and throw­ing down with Thor.

I’m so glad that I have Tricked on hand, but I wish Trapped were out already! At least I have the extra A Test of Met­tle to read, too. I just can’t get enough of Atticus.

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Book Review: Places to Be, People to Kill edited by Brittiany A. Koren & Martin H. Greenberg

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2012-07-23

5:06 pm

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Book Reviews, Reading

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Places To Be, People To KillPlaces To Be, Peo­ple To Kill by Brit­tiany A. Koren
My rat­ing: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this anthol­o­gy more than one might expect from a col­lec­tion of sto­ries about killers, but then I’ve read a cou­ple of vol­umes edit­ed by Brit­tiany A. Koren and Mar­tin H. Green­berg now, and I trust the pair. (Green­berg has turned out so many antholo­gies that I don’t assume any­thing at all when I see his name.) 

I had to explain to my fam­i­ly why I kept laugh­ing while read­ing “Exact­ly” by Tanya Huff. I’m a long-time fan of her work, so was already famil­iar with sib­ling assas­sins Vree and Ban­non from Fifth Quar­ter and No Quar­ter. While all of Huf­f’s work includes some humor, this sto­ry is par­tic­u­lar­ly funny.

“Breia’s Dia­mond” by Cat Collins was a mem­o­rable low in the book. In addi­tion to the inap­pro­pri­ate and inept use of romance clichés, it’s all too obvi­ous ear­ly on that the mer­ce­nar­ies are being paid far too much for too lit­tle work by the necro­mancer. That isn’t fore­shad­ow­ing, it’s foreshouting—or just plain stu­pid­i­ty on the part of the mer­ce­nar­ies. They are mur­der­ers for hire, noth­ing else, and I’ve nev­er felt any sym­pa­thy for such. Why would I start now, sim­ply because a sto­ry is told from their point of view?

Bradley H. Sinor’s “Mon­ey’s Worth” has the feel of some­thing excerpt­ed from a larg­er work. It’s good and I enjoyed it, but I think I would have enjoyed it far more in its prop­er context. 

The only oth­er sto­ry that is mem­o­rable enough to sin­gle out is “The Hun­dredth Kill” by John Mar­co. It is a love­ly jew­el of a sto­ry, one that stands for itself, leav­ing lit­tle to be said oth­er than “read it.” I don’t believe that I’ve read any of Mar­co’s nov­els, but obvi­ous­ly I’ve missed out on some­thing very good. I intend to rem­e­dy that omis­sion shortly.

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