Sunsets, Stars, West, Wind
The first snow and winter storm of Winter 2019 finally arrive the second Saturday of January. In my experience, that’s a delay of nearly ten days from when we usually have snow or a winter storm or if nothing else bitter cold below zero temperatures and wind chills. The snow we received was wet and heavy, perfect for making a snowman but not so great for my back when I went out to shovel the driveway.
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.
In 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.
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. 🙂
An excellent analysis of one of my favorite Disney classics, Sleeping Beauty, posted at Tor.com and authored by Mari Ness.
Some interesting tidbits:
Now I wish I lived near you. Gorgeous painting.
[vimeo 1368678 w=500 h=281]
Nightfall from Valentin Schwind on Vimeo.
Incredible. Poignant. Heartbreaking.
Dialogue is over rated. Thank goodness there isn’t any.
Enjoy!
This should bring a smile to your face and lighten your day:
[vimeo 105545337 w=500 h=281]
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/12/picturing-the-hobbit
Happy birthday to Bilbo and Frodo!
I’ll link in a few of my favorite art pieces from the above article later this evening.
Tomorrow the winners will be announced for the 1939 Retro Hugo Awards.
The 1939 Retro Hugo Awards can be watched online via ustream. The stream will be located at http://www.ustream.tv/hugo-awards. The Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony starts at 8PM BST (or 2PM Central) on Thursday 14 August.
Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony, LonCon3
I’ve covered the main ‘big’ categories in previous posts. Today, I’ll summarize the remaining ones that are less, ‘sexy’, for lack of a better term. Continue reading “Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Remainder of Retro Hugos”