BookCrossing Convention April 07 in Charleston SC's Friends

A fascinating account of the how the author deals with her challenge of a book a week for a year. The book is full of personal stories and snippets and books titles and authors. I read the book over about a week and made a note of all the books & authors she mentions and may well attempt a challenge of my own!

I really was looking forward to reading this book, I loved the concept of the storyline, as I enjoy these types of historical novels. Sadly the writing style spoilt the book for me and I gave up reading it.

xA really thought provoking,enjoyable and fascinating read.

Esme is a girl with ideas ahead of the times. Her behavior is unacceptable to her close family, who decide to have her confined in a mental asylum at the young age of 16. Sixty years later the asylum is due to close. The officials of the hospital manage to track down Esme's great niece,Iris, who up until this point knew nothing of Esme's existence. Iris is both in denial of the relationship and yet fascinated in what has happened in the family, 60 years previous. Despite, feeling that Esme is not her responsibility Iris is unable to walk away from her.

Kerri's work issued her with a Blackberry. That's so they can pester her with emails night and day.

It stopped working and she gave up on getting it going. I did searches "Blackberry 8300 dead" and found all sorts of stuff, but nothing much to bring it back from the grave. Found an online manual. Pressed all sorts of buttons and combinations thereof. Yelled at it. Nothing worked.

Funny. It had been recharging all night. Looked at the recharger, made sure that the power outlet was on and everything connected okay. Even reseated the little adaptor to make it fit Aussie sockets.

Aha. Musta been a loose connection in there somewhere. It lit up, screen brightened, all sorts of guff on it.

Right. Now how do I make it dead again?

If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Santa Fe - Hollyhocks everywhere, brilliant against earth-toned adobe walls. A narrow dirt road off a main street twists up a hillside, revealing an entire neighborhood tucked away from view: homes either secluded behind cedar and juniper "coyote" fences or partially hidden behind adobe garden walls and blue-painted gates. It's a town of shady streets and soft lighting, soft summer rains and cooling evening breezes, swishing long skirts worn by stylish women adorned with beautifully crafted turqoise and silver jewellry, art galleries and chamber music, churches built by the Conquistadors and newer structures whose architectural style reflects a deep respect for tradition and culture. It is, as the State proclaims, a Land of Enchantment.

We spent three days and four nights soaking it all in. We stayed in a two-story adobe: beautifully furnished southwestern style and as comfortable as home. We wandered the Plaza, visited the chapel at St. Francis Cathedral (famous for the brilliantly engineered winding staircase), ate dishes prepared with green chiles, enjoyed the latest show at Georgia O'Keefe Museum (included work by Ansel Adams), oogled the crafts created at the hands of talented Native American artisans, and still had time to just kick back and unwind, have a beer or three, and visit with R, my amazing brother-in-law (a long-time resident of Santa Fe).
This trip was a gift. I mean that quite literally. It was a wedding present from R. He had offered us a weekend in Santa Fe - a honeymoon getaway - with the tongue-in-cheek stipulation that the offer expired in 10 years. The BIL is no fool and he knows his workaholic brother only too well. He was really just razing his brother with the expiration on his gift, never thinking for a moment that even D could bypass an offer like this and let the "coupon" expire, but the man was smart enough to understand that D responds to deadlines !

Well, life being the rat race that it is, and between workloads, business travel, too many deaths and and too many time-sucking crisises in the family, we were nearing deadline date on our New Mexico vacation offer. As I said, D functions best in crisis mode and deadlines motivate him - big time. He's might be hard working to a fault, but folks he ain't stupid !!!! We made it in just under the wire, two months after our ninth wedding anniverary !!!!
And well worth the wait it was !

Stephanie Plum is my guilty pleasure. I absolutely LOVE this series of books! Yeah, I should be reading Cannery Row for my book group meeting next week, but a co-worker passed on a copy of the latest/greatest Stephanie adventure along with the recommendation that it was a GREAT one. So, which one will win out? Cannery Row? or Fearless Fourteen? I don't think it will be much of a contest. In fact, I may even skip my knitting group and just curl up with Stephanie, Grandma Mazur, Lula, Ranger, Joe and the rest of the crew tonight.

On another book topic, I finally went to the bookcrossing site to try to catch up on all the discussion regarding the changes. This year for my birthday I had promised myself that I was going to make time to get involved in BC again. Now, I'm not so sure that I want to. I love the community there but it sure seems like that is going to be most affected by these recent changes. I'll continue to register and release books (I'm way behind!) but do I really want to get involved in the "community" again? Even if I did, despite the animosity that seems to be in the air right now, it seems like the powers that be are going to make it difficult for me to do so. I'm disappointed.

I got home early this morning. Like about four AM.

Pulled out the computer to check on things before retiring to bed, opened up the web, and heard a small noise behind me.

And a tiny grey sputter of movement when I turned to look.

There, on the bench beside the stove, up out of the reach of the livestock, we keep a baited mousetrap. One of the sort that doesn't kill, merely captures through an ingenious entry portal that prevents small rodents from shimmying back up with their muscular arms.

And a fresh occupant inside, busy trying futile things to escape.

I was too tired to go outside and release it. And it was cold and dark, too. Significant factors in a large number of university students choosing a cab to make the $8.25 trip from the main rank to one of the colleges after midnight.

Instead I went to bed and cuddled the wife, who assumed a defensive posture, guarding her warmth from those who might leech away some heat whilst feigning deep affection. I told her of the mouse, and she said she'd take it out in the morning.

Kerri's idea of releasing mice consists of taking the trap outside and opening it, whereupon the captive scurries off into the hedge, and is later recycled by the cat, who brings it back inside through the cat flap, plays with it awhile before letting it escape into the kitchen.

I begged her not to, this once.

So when I awoke some hours later, I was able to have my breakfast, sternly ignoring the continuing futile attempts from the benchtop, and then take the trap and occupant outside, down the street, across another street and let it go beside a hedge. I figure it's not going to return across a wide stretch of tarmac, and the cat doesn't range that far.

Problem solved.

I now have two "small" dogs (a 15 lb mix and a slightly overweight 29 lb beagle). I also have a queen size bed. So, me plus the dogs should fit just fine, right? Would someone please explain that to my dogs?!?

Last night I started to get into bed then remembered something I needed to do. When I came back a few minutes later this is what I saw:

So, um....where am I supposed to sleep? I finally convinced them to give me a sliver of bed right on the edge.

I think they're getting along just fine. :)

On a less happy note, I woke up just before 2 am to Oliver having a seizure. I guess I can't blame that one on the stress of moving (he had 2 small seizures the day I picked him up). I've had a full blood chemistry done already, including a thyroid panel and liver functions and nothing pointed to a cause for the seizures. I think maybe it's time to consider medication. I'll talk to my vet tomorrow and see what he thinks. I keep reminding myself that the seizures don't hurt Oliver and fortunately he recovers from them really well (unlike some dogs that really suffer during the post-ictal phase). I don't want them to get out of control though and if that means giving him some meds then that's what I'll do.

His appetite has certainly picked up, and he loves our 2 or 3 walks every day. I think he's happy here. I'm sure happy having him. And Jack, well....I think Jack is in love. :lol:

After a few hassles, the Apple Time Capsule has been installed and now works perfectly. I've moved the router upstairs (which seems to have resolved a lot of the internet outages, possibly due to the ratsnest of rat-chewed cables which ran under the house to the downstairs office) and the little white Apple box is now sitting under the phone, status light glowing green.

It's happily pumping out a wireless network, an upgraded standard from our regular network. Apparently this is running in tandem with the wireless router, don't ask me how, but it's working and we've got internet all through the house.

It's also hosting the printer via a USB connection, which means that we've finally got a printer everyone can use without the need to have a computer handling it. I can hit the print button and it wirelessly prints. Heheheheh.

And last, but not least, it's a 500 gig hard drive, which is transparently running Time Machine backups for both Macs. Wirelessly.

This is all a huge boonus because our MacBook Airs only have a single USB port apiece, and while Kerri isn't what you might call a power user, I am more along those lines, and I was getting fretful about having to shuffle devices around to do everything that needs to be done (sync the iPhone, download images from the camera, run backups, connect the external optical drive, print...)

Happy Peter.

Happier yet because a new shipment from Levenger arrived today. I now have some jumbo rings, enabling me to get back to work on the travel journal from last year's big trip. I'd gotten to Istanbul, I think, and it was getting to be a battle to squeeze new pages in, especially when I stuck tickets and photographs and blog printouts onto the already generously thick paper that Levenger uses.

So that's another use for my time and space to cut things out with scissors and glue all over the dining room table and write up events for the ages. But fun.

Included in the order was a letter-size project binder, and a starter kit. This is meant to inspire me to creativity and organisation in getting my thoughts about a FaceBook app into some sort of order. I've got a kind of rough notion of where I want to be, but my usual "suck-it-and-see" approach to project management probably won't be up to an application where dozens, hundreds, thousands of users could arrive overnight. I need a solid structure, and management tools in place before problems strike.

I can do stuff like mindmapping, goal-setting, list-creation, to-do lists and other projecty things in one place, in my cab during spare moments. And think about the next step while driving.

And then write up the code in my copious spare time.

What I'll probably do is to get a bare bones application in place. It will work, and there'll be "hooks" all over where I can hang other features into it, but I can get things running one step at a time. And, of course, once the thing is up, new directions will probably suggest themselves.

At the moment, I'm reading programming manuals in the cab between passengers. Oooops, almost time for my shift!

My summer housemate has returned to the bosom of her family in Brooklyn, at least until she returns to the University in September. I let her leave her bike in a storage area of our basement. Mira was actually quite a good housemate: quiet, clean, friendly but not intrusive, smart, and, according to Lilith, gives good tummy rubs.

I took Friday, my birthday, off work. I did some boring errands, like getting a oil change and taking Lilith for her annual check-up. But I also went to the Smart Museum of Art for the exhibit Seeing the City: Sloan's New York, etchings and paintings by John Sloan, along with some photos and letters. I had read Van Wyck Brooks' biography of Sloan several weeks ago in anticipation of the exhibit, and while it certainly wasn't necessary for an appreciation of the show, I was glad that I had done so. It gave an added depth of understanding. I must say that I prefer the etchings, and the night paintings, to the figural representations. The Museum had also set up an interactive computer program, which allowed one to locate on a map, or on a timeline, the various etchings and paintings. It also contained photographs and film of some of the locations that Sloan drew (some of the film was quite early - turn of the 20th-century). I have another book, John Sloan's New York Scene, a collection of excerpts from his letters, diaries, etc., that I think I will read before the exhibit closes in September, and then make another visit.

I had an appointment with my hairdresser in the late afternoon, but she was running very late, so I switched it over to the evening. That allowed me to take myself to dinner at a local Italian restaurant before the appointment. She gave me a cut much like Meryl Streep's in The Devil Wore Prada, but my bangs are shorter. (I do peer over my glasses like that, though, particularly during cross-examinations.)

Saturday I had planned to go to the local farmers' market, but it was raining so I didn't. But I did go to a neighborhood spa place, Japanese Spa Zen, where I treated myself to a Japanese herbal bath and an hour-long massage, another birthday gift to myself. What a pleasure! I will definitely go again, though it's a bit too expensive to do frequently. But a half-hour massage occasionally won't break the bank.

Today I went up north for dinner with friends and general hanging out. Fran's daughter had dropped by with her latest creation, Fran's sixth grandchild (2 1/2 months), so we all cooed and admired.

Kate Harrison announced at the BookCrossing Convention in London that there is nothing wrong with Chick-Lit and she's right - sometimes it's exactly what I need to read and today was one of those days!

I spent a large portion of the day sitting outside in the sun, indulging myself by reading
Love Potions by Christina Jones and great fun it was too - I had pulled the book out of one of the bags of library discards sent to me at work and a quick glance at it captured my imagination - aromatherapy being used as love potions in magical massages! It is also set in Berkshire - very close to where I live so was easily able to slip into the story and escape which was perfect for me today. I have a feeling she must also be a local author - so will try to check this out!

Half way through the book this morning, I decided upon a bath with some aromatherapy oils so slipped upstairs to sort through them... sadly I could only find a christmas mixture (far too heavy for a bath!) some pure cinnamon oil, geranium, lemon balm and tea tree...lavender I'd left in my drawer at work (its brilliant for headaches!) So I sprinkled several drops of geranium, two or three of lemon balm and a couple of tea tree for good measure....and it was delicious, almost as good as the description in the book! Though I suspect the essences used there had other more hallucinatory essences slipped in somwhere!

Now I'm off to dig out my aromatherapy books to decide upon which essences I need to order to keep up my positive frame of mind! I'm sure it helps!

I've been singing along non-stop since Wednesday....I can't wait for Act Three on Saturday.

Destroying the status quo because the status is...not...quo...

It has been pointed out to me that I was a day early, even when you consider time zones, in wishing TexasWren a happy birthday.

Mojosmom kindly(?) explained that I live in a very different time zone, and that it was in fact her birthday here in Australia, even if it hasn't yet arrived in Chicago.

Owwwoooooh! Sometimes this timezone business makes my head hurt. Driving a shift that spans a midnight doesn't help me keep track of the daze, neither.

It's Friday here in Canberra.

I remember once, about this time of day, I got on a plane, full of excitement. It was Friday when I left, Friday when I landed in Sydney, Friday late afternoon when I got aboard a Qantas jumbo heading east out over the Pacific. But after that, things went beyond my ken. We crossed the International Date line around midnight, and it may have been Saturday down below. Or it might have still been Thursday as we crossed over. I looked down on the glowing lava in the middle of one of the Hawaiian islands and was confirmed in my excitement as the rest of the plane slumbered on.

And at dawn we neared the Californian coast, and it was definitely Friday morning. Again.

I went through immigration and customs and security, tired, excited, bewildered at my first taste of a truly foreign land. While I'd been overseas before, it was only to New Zealand, where they are just like us except they talk funny. Here, cripes, but they walked on the wrong side, they were in a different hemisphere, they had all sorts of weird laws, they elected their head of state... And they talked funny.

And then after lunch, I got aboard a flight to Washington, and the sun set somewhere over the Midwest, and it was still Friday. I was welcomed by ResQgeek, who, by that time, looked to my tired eyes to be a sainted angel sent to save me from all the weird sights and sounds pouring into my fading brain.

He rescued me, grabbed my big yellow bag, wrestled me into his car where the steering wheel wasn't, and calmed me down by driving around Washington at night. There was the Washington Memorial, the White House all lit up, crikey but here was the fabled Lincoln Memorial and we were driving right by it! G'day, Abraham!!

It took me hours to get back to anything resembling normality. I was introduced to MrsGeek, and we sat up until midnight talking. And it was still Friday!!!

That was the longest, and possibly the happiest Friday of my life.

So, mindful of the weird sort of time they have in the rest of the world, I got confused and went early today. It's Friday, you see.

Never mind. To all my BookCrossing, Livejournal, Facebook and real life friends. I might not remember your birthdays. I might remember them early. I might be six months out of whack.

But every day, I think of you all, I rejoice in your friendship, I read about your joys and tears, and I wish you all love, happiness and the very merriest of birthdays every day of your lives.

Party time!

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