Sunsets, Stars, West, Wind
I noticed yesterday afternoon as Terry and I were leaving to meet friends for dinner that one of my sunflower plants had bloomed. We made it home just before sunset when I was able to snap a photo of the bloom (before the birds destroy it getting to the seeds).
May your Monday be full of summer sunshine and happiness!
RisenReleased: 02/19/2016
Watched BluRay: 06/23/2016
Directed by: Kevin Reynolds
Story by Paul Aiello
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Brief Plot Synopsis (via IMdb): In 33 AD, a Roman Tribune in Judea is tasked to find the missing body of an executed Jew rumored to have risen from the dead.
My Thoughts
I normally detest police procedurals (there are way too many of those in a myriad of permutations in prime-time television), but this one intrigued me. Excellent sets, costumes, locations and above average acting gave me hope that this faith-based film would overcome it’s predecessors shortcomings. And for the most part, I was not disappointed. I had minor historical quibbles which I confirmed at IMdb’s Goofs page ( I caught them all without checking the internet).
This week, I finished two (2) of the five (5) nominees for this year’s Best Novel Hugo Award. I started a third one immediately, which leaves me just one left after that.
I enjoyed reading Uprooted by Naomi Novik until I surpassed the halfway point. From then on, it became a chore and a struggle to continue listening to what seemed like the never-ending tale of corruption in the forest and the protagonist’s slow discovery of her power and identity.
Only a couple of the characters appealed to me and most of them just frustrated me with their actions. This can probably be attributed to its intended audience (young adult).
If it had not been nominated, I might have just given up shortly after reaching the point in the story where the focus moves from the hinterlands to the capital, and all the political intrigue that comes with that relocation.
I would give this book 3 or 3.5 stars and it will land in the middle or lower standings in my voting for Best Novel.
On the other hand, I couldn’t put down The Fifth Season by N.K. Jimisin. Well written, some of it using second person point-of-view. Compelling characters and a plot that moves fast on multiple timelines and fronts. Interesting new magic (or science, not sure which yet) and a lot of social commentary (but that’s to be expected from this author).
As an author, I’m very impressed with how Jemisin has honed her craft since I first read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. In fact, I’m probably going to read her duology as soon as I finish reading the other Best Novel Hugo award nominees.
I gave The Fifth Season 4 to 4.5 stars and it may get top honors when I make my final vote for Best Novel later this month.
As soon as I finished Fifth Season, I started listening to The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher. That audiobook is close to 24 hours long and I’ve managed to squeeze in over three hours of reading in the last couple of days. If the heat wave breaks soon, I’ll be able to get a few more hours of listening in when I go back to walking the dogs.
I’m not going to start reading Seveneves yet. I’m going to give myself a break and work through some of the short fiction selections in the other categories. Some of those stories can be finished over a lunch hour.
Last fall, we had some landscaping done on the east and north sides of the house. The south side just had some fill dirt graded against the foundation and a cherry try planted between the apple tree and the fence. We also removed the bothersome mulberry terry from the corner of the fenced backyard.
I attempted to grow sunflowers last summer with limited success. This year, I decided I wanted a wildflower garden to give bees and hopefully hummingbirds something to enjoy. I bought a bag of wildflower seed, raked the fill dirt to loosen it and even it out and liberally sprinkled the seed along the entire south wall of the house. A few weeks later, I’m starting to see blooms, thanks in no small part to nearly ten inches of rain we received in May.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/pawnee-sky/486557/
Light pollution update. Not looking good for looking up for 80% of us in the United States.
Last night I finally sat down and watched the last nominee in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form for the 2016 Hugo Awards.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (2904 nominating ballots)
What was the final holdout that I took so long to get to? Continue reading “Watching the Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form Hugo Nominees 2016”
I remember spending time with my grandmother putting together large landscape jigsaw puzzles as a child. I have always had exceptional pattern recognition abilities, probably a direct result of my photographic memory. Whether it’s puzzle pieces or star hopping using binoculars and a telescope, I can look at the missing space once and sort through hundreds (or thousands) of pieces and match it in my memory before confirming it by snapping it into place.
But with the advent of my own children, and then followed by large dogs who think puzzle pieces are dog treats, I just haven’t thought it was worth it to do jigsaw puzzles at home for quite a long time.
Spurred on by the “Exercise Your Mind” Bingo card challenge, I went searching for a 21st century alternative to thwart my Rottweilers. I found an app for my tablet that allows me to complete a puzzle and never worry about dropping a piece to be snatched up by the mobile black hole on four feet padding around my kitchen.
Here’s the Flickr album I created today to track my progress while completing my first virtual jigsaw puzzle of “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh:
This satisfies my love for great works of art, astronomy and puzzles. My mind is doing mental cartwheels right now.
I drew this Zentangle last night right before heading off to bed. I don’t think it’s quite as ‘good’ as my first one, since I didn’t follow the ‘rule’ about repeating patterns. But, it’s my Zentangle and I’ll draw it however I feel like drawing it. 🙂
I learned about Zentangles yesterday, which is a more focused form of doodling (in a nutshell). Also, you’re supposed to do them in pen because you are not allowed to erase any ‘mistakes.’
Here’s my first attempt at a Zentangle:
I may color parts of this one with colored pencils tonight.
I updated my “Exercise Your Mind” Bingo card to reflect my progress.
Next up: Jigsaw Puzzles.
I just finished my previous two walking challenges (one successfully up the coast of sunny virtual California and one oh-so-close-but-not-quite walk across Kansas thanks to record rainfalls in May). No rest for the weary, I suppose.
I picked up my packet for the Lansing Community Library summer reading program (not just for kids anymore! – all ages welcome) at the kickoff event Saturday afternoon. Don’t worry, you’ll have another chance to sign up tonight at 5:30 p.m. and meet one of the Sporting KC players.
Not only is this a reading challenge, it’s an exercise one as well. My packet included quizzes about healthy foods, facts and olympic athletes. The most interesting and challenging of my various goals will be the “Exercise Your Mind Bingo” card, which I recreated as a Google Doc so I could easily update it as I progress and share it here in this blog post.
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”document/d/1tWwH-CAuxLcw3q3QFliQPFiwJbfu6bm9_JmzCGbyDEs/pub” query=”embedded=true” width=”600″ height=”1000″ /]
To satisfy the “Learn about easy life hacks” I did a Google search on ‘life hacks’ (duh) and read a few ‘top 100’-type postings. I settled on following @LifeHacks to get daily bits of dubious wisdom. Most of them are good for a chuckle.
Next up: Learning to draw a Zentangle (whatever that is and I’m sure it’ll be fun to find out).