Category: Seasons

Seasonal happenings

Banned Book Bonanza

Libraries around the country celebrate “Banned Book” week during the final week of September (or the first full week of Fall). My local library, the Lansing Community Library (LCL), decided to extend this celebration of reading freedom through the end of October, to give patrons a longer window of opportunity to explore this year’s top challenged books.

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Interview with a Librarian

I asked Emily Stratton, one of LCL’s Youth Services Librarians, a few questions that I had about banned or challenged books and with her permission I’m sharing her answers here:

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became a librarian?

I’ve always been a reader. Growing up as a military brat, reading was always something fun to do when we hadn’t made new friends yet or had our house items delivered to our new home. Though I received my bachelor’s degree in photography, I never stopped enjoying reading. I applied for an opening at Lansing Community Library after graduating college and began working there as a Circulation Technician in January of 2015 and fell in love with the job. A year and a half later, I’m now the Youth Services Librarian and plan on starting my Masters in Library Science next year.

What are your hopes for the program?

With our display and Banned Books Week, we’re hoping to get others excited celebrate their freedom to read and access to information. So many are surprised to find that their favorite book or a classic novel they read in high school has been challenged to be removed from an educational environment. Hopefully the displays we’ll keep up will spark conversations about why these are challenged and whether or not they agree. Maybe it will even introduce some new books to someone!

How long will the display remain up at the library?

Continue reading “Banned Book Bonanza”

Autumn Arrives and Adventures in Astronomical Observing

Autumn arrived mid-week here in the Heart of America, but you wouldn’t have known it by looking at the weather forecast:  Mid 90s and moderately high humidity.  Also with the change of the seasons, I retired my FitBit Charge (or rather it retired itself by falling apart) and upgraded to a Samsung Gear Fit2.  The new fitness tracker is spurring me on to be more active, although my sleep pattern hasn’t improved much. I can safely blame work (10 pm to 4 am conference call on a Saturday night/Sunday morning) and astronomy, which requires, well, dark skies, for my reduced snooze time.

Speaking of astronomy, I’ve upgraded, finally after two years of paralysis analysis, from the Meade ETX 90, gifted to me by my father in October 2010 (also, unsurprisingly the birth of this blog site), to an Orion SkyQuest XX14G.  Continue reading “Autumn Arrives and Adventures in Astronomical Observing”

WorldCon Withdrawals

Despite what my husband thinks, I have not over-dosed on science fiction since last Wednesday when the 74th World Science Fiction Convention (commonly referred to as WorldCon) arrived for the second time in Kansas City, Missouri.  MidAmeriCon II ended yesterday and of course the highlight of those five days was the Hugo Awards Ceremony held Saturday evening.

20160817_073751In fact, I sincerely hoped when I woke up this morning it wouldn’t be to the harsh reality of a Monday morning workday.  Ah, but life is cruel and the alternate dimension I’d enjoyed for five days evaporated into the dreary doldrums of gainful employment.  Well, not completely dreary.  Perhaps dreaded would be more like it, since I knew I’d be walking into some ‘hot potatoes’ once I strapped myself to my desk.

Continue reading “WorldCon Withdrawals”

Grande Finale to a Grand Weekend

I’m amazed at how much I accomplished this past weekend, especially considering my husband had major surgery less than three weeks ago.

Friday Evening

TalkingTolkienTwoTowersFriday night was our first venture out on a ‘date’ since the surgery.  I signed up for a free lecture and screening at the National World War I Museum and Memorial entitled “Talking Tolkien: The Two Towers.”  We arrived about fifteen minutes early to enjoy some hors d’oeuvres and drinks.  We retired to the auditorium and waited a few minutes.  At ten minutes or so after the hour, the lecturer strolled up to the podium and gave a meandering introduction of upcoming events in a clear effort to stall.  He wanted to give the people in the lobby time to finish eating.

His lecture on Tolkien’s experiences during the Battle of the Somme was quite brief and rushed, not at all what I had been hoping for.  He further devolved into a montage of photographs from the Museum’s collection delivered in the manner of a television show’s “Previously on …” wrap of the Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring.  You could clearly see where Tolkien (and probably Peter Jackson) got his inspiration for scenes from Middle Earth and the conflict immortalized in the Lord of the Rings.   After the lecture, the screening of The Two Towers began, for which Terry and I stayed only about thirty minutes before deciding the movie viewing experience was better at home.

Once back home, I decided to break out the Celestron C8 I had recently borrowed from my astronomy club.  Despite dire predictions, the sky remained perfectly clear so I looked forward to an evening of planetary observing, since all five visible planets are ripe for the plucking at this time of year.  I got everything attached to the tripod and manhandled it outside to my lower patio, giving it a quick leveling and orientation north so I could get through a polar alignment swiftly.  Then I just had to wait for darkness to fall enough for me to see Polaris with my naked eye.  Continue reading “Grande Finale to a Grand Weekend”

Good Morning Sunflower

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).

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May your Monday be full of summer sunshine and happiness!

Wildflower Garden Update

20160609_055708Last 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.

Continue reading “Wildflower Garden Update”

Lunch Walk Sponsored by Spring Flowers

May has been like April was supposed to be – full of showers.  And all that rain is preventing me from taking refreshing lunch time walks (otherwise, I end up walking in circles in the bottom of the parking garage where there’s no signal, no sunshine and no spring flowers).  Thursday saw a break in the clouds (sort of) and I walked east a couple of blocks to visit the Kauffman Memorial Gardens.  I took several photos and didn’t get much walking done for 5-10 minutes.  More like a stroll through the park (click on photo to see the rest of the album).

Lunch Walk Sponsored by Spring Flowers
Busy Bee at the Kauffman Memorial Gardens (click photo for rest of album)

Hope you have a great weekend!

Tonight’s Adventure in Star Gazing with the Public

Tonight is my first night this year as a volunteer of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City in our public outreach efforts to introduce astronomical observing to the public.  Every Saturday night in May and through the end of October, we open up Powell Observatory to the public and provide education programs, solar observing, binocular observing and of course telescopic observing (weather and cloud cover permitting).  The weather forecast for this evening couldn’t be better.  See for yourself as we have our own weather station and sky cam broadcasting 24-hours a day.

Astronomy’s Sky this Week reports for tonight:

Saturday, May 14

•  The Moon moves approximately 13° eastward relative to the starry background every 24 hours, and its motion carries it near Jupiter this evening. From North America, the two appear within 5° of each other all night. They will be in conjunction at 6 a.m. EDT tomorrow morning, when our satellite passes 2° due south of the planet. Although the best views of the pair come with the naked eye or binoculars, don’t pass up the opportunity to observe Jupiter through a telescope. The giant planet’s disk currently spans 39″ and displays a wealth of atmospheric detail. All this week, Jupiter appears high in the south as darkness falls and doesn’t set until nearly 3 a.m. local daylight time. It shines at magnitude –2.2 — brighter than any other point of light in the night sky — against the backdrop of southern Leo.

While Sky and Telescope Sky at a Glance expands on: The two brightest things in the evening sky, the Moon and Jupiter, shine high just a few degrees apart this evening, as shown here. Third brightest is Mars, low in the southeast after dark.

So for a great time this evening, head south of Kansas City down US-69 to Louisburg and join me and several hundred other people as we take in the wonders of the night sky.

Keep Looking Up!

 

 

Double Timing It: Walk Across Kansas and Up the Coast of California Simultaneously

VirtualWalkBig1At the beginning of April, I embarked on two (2) virtual walks.  The first is sponsored by my employer and is called “The Big 1” and described as “The Big 1 takes you on a coastal voyage from Laguna Beach in the south all the way up to San Francisco.  It is going to be a beautiful trip and your goal is to complete the route along the Pacific Coast Highway in six weeks.” Continue reading “Double Timing It: Walk Across Kansas and Up the Coast of California Simultaneously”

Movie Review: Before We Go (2015) 4 Stars

Before We Go

Release (U.S.) September 2015

Watched (via Netflix streaming) April 2016

Rating: 3.5-4 stars

After a sunset walk along Angel Falls Trail with Terry, Lexy and Porthos, we whipped up some baked hot wings and sat down to find a movie to watch.  First stop Starz On Demand.  We looked at every movie offered and discounting the ones we had already seen, found not a single movie worth watching.  I asked Terry, “We’re paying how much per month for Starz?” Yeah, they got cancelled this morning, despite Dish trying to entice me with a $5/month for 6 months ‘deal.’  I switched to HBO for a special price this morning to see if we’ll get any better movies with the oldest and biggest premium channel in the business.

Next we both checked our Netflix streaming queues.  I also checked movies I’d bought on sale at Google Play and suggested we re-watch the re-make of True Grit.  We held that in reserve until we could find something we hadn’t seen.  Terry found some strange high school comedy/drama from the mid-80s called Lucas that we attempted to watch for 15 minutes but gave up.  I lived through the 80s once.  Once was enough.  I also checked Hoopla (streaming video from local libraries) and my PBS app but came up with nothing promising.  I went back to Netflix and reviewed the drama recommendations.  I don’t normally do dramas because they can be a downer and I really didn’t want to start my weekend off on a sad note.  But the reviews on Netflix for Before We Go were higher than the normal so I decided to take a chance once we ditched Lucas.

I’m glad I did NOT read any of the ‘critics’ reviews of this film as I quite enjoyed it.  Charming and sweet and not bad for the directorial debut of Chris Evans.  A very different view of New York from the eyes of two strangers not on a train.  I liked it because it was different and hopeful.