Okay, let's do this. I've seen a good amount of movies since I last got to talk about them, so hopefully today allows me to BS about movies.
Tag Archives: featured
Summer Mix
First Monday (Observed) Book Day
- Don't know if there are any William Gibson fans here, but I read his latest book, The Peripheral, this month and thought it was very good. The world building was fantastic, and although I was a little let down by a very tidy ending, I would still rank it among my favorite sci-fi books from the last year or so.
- I read Cat's Cradle and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater this month in my Vonnegut re-read project. Cat's Cradle is still pretty great, although it's funny how much I remembered the post-apocalyptic parts of the book considering how little of that there actually is. Mr. Rosewater was not my favorite of his, but it was one of the novels I hadn't read before, so the completist in me is happy to have read it.
- I finished The Last Policeman series (The Last Policeman, Countdown City, World of Trouble). Easy books to read, and I liked the setup for the mysteries (society is breaking down as an asteroid will destroy the Earth very soon).
- I also finally got around to reading Citizen by Claudia Rankine. It's a powerful book. I was looking for where others posted their thoughts (I know Pepper and CH have read it as well), but didn't immediately find it. It's very much worth a read.
Players of the Month: May
Our monthly honors.
Fish class
I signed up for Master's swim classes at my club, and have been going for the last 4 Tuesday's at 6:30PM. There are about 12 of us in the class, and a third of us are focused on endurance (long-distance) swimming for Triathlon. Actually one of the guys wants to do really long distance swimming - a later post on that (he recently did 10 miles).
My challenge is to add kicking to my swim, which I started with this class - beforehand I've done all my swimming with my arms. So I am kicking now, but not correctly. My coach has suggested several improvements, but I can't see what I am doing now with the advice.
Today at lunch, NBBW and I were discussing a way to drag some kind of device behind you while you swim with an embedded iPhone so you could film your kicking pattern. One idea was a strap around your waist, with a cord hanging behind you dragging a floatable device that would be holding your iPhone in a vertical position underwater (in a clear plastic bag) pointed towards your legs and able to capture your kicking movement. More to come on this...
Father Knows Best – overwhelmed
Sometimes I wonder if we made the right decision
Two weeks ago, we accepted a foster placement of an almost 2-year old girl I'll call Dakota. We thought it would be a good fit. She was just a year older than our youngest. Our other kids have demonstrated friendliness and acceptance to a couple of other foster children we've accepted in our home. I would say that we've had good experiences with previous foster children in our home (granted, they were for very short amounts of time)
Just before Dakota came to live with us, we worried about whether or not this placement would actually happen. A part of us was worried that something would prevent us from having an opportunity to care for this girl. We were very excited at the possibility though.
A lot has changed in just a month.
Dakota is a very high energy child. This means that she's constantly on the go, and eats and poops A LOT. Her curiosity gets her many places that she shouldn't be, and I feel like we're constantly correcting and redirecting her. All the while trying to remember her past and why she came to be placed into care in the first place, realizing that you need to have a different approach to children from foster care than you do your own children.
It has been incredibly difficult, and it's taking a toll on my wife and I. My wife has been bearing the brunt of the work, spending most of the day with her, trying to homeschool our other children in the meantime. Luckily the older children are somewhat independent and able to do much of their work on their own. By the time evening comes along, I try to be intentional about helping out by taking more direct responsibility for Dakota and let my wife have some time to herself.
Dakota does not like bedtime, and would much rather play and run around in her room. Once she finally does go down, we try to get as much sleep as we can, taking the same approach that many take to caring for newborns - sleep while she sleeps.
I believe it has less to do with her being a foster child, and more to do with the fact that she's nearly 2. I'm hopeful that we can move past this and come to a new normal with her in our home. However, our sanity seems to be taking a hit.
We're going to a family camp this weekend that we scheduled months ago. I'm not sure how it's going to go, as both my wife and I are very concerned how Dakota's presence is going to affect the family dynamic. If you pray, please pray for our family and for Dakota. If you don't, well, keep us in your thoughts anyway.
How have you been feeling overwhelmed lately?
Third Monday Movie Day: I’m A Revenger!
I accomplished the rare feat of going to a theater to see a movie this weekend. We picked Avengers: Age of Ultron or whatever the subheading/punctuation combo is. I had seen a handful of reviews and "what does this mean for Captain America" etc. stories, and was kind of braced for the worst. I had largely avoided spoilers, so that was nice, but I was still ready to see something worse than the first one.
That was not my assessment. I really enjoyed it. Much more so than the first Avengers movie. Good action, good balance between characters, a really fun villain, a little bit of heart, a good amount of humor... a great popcorn flick.
So... what has everyone else seen this month? Tell me more about why I should go see Mad Max, since I'm hearing lots about that? Etc.
First Monday Book Day: Silkpunk
One of the things that I enjoy about following a lot of the science fiction and fantasy awards is that you get to read great short stories by authors that are getting their first exposure, before they publish a novel. That's how I was introduced to Ken Liu, through his short story "The Paper Menagerie" which was really good. Since then, Liu has been really prolific in the short fiction realm, consistently writing really good stories (a collection of his short fiction is coming out later this year, and I'll probably buy it, even though I've read most of its contents already).
All of this is to say that I was very excited to read his debut novel "The Grace of Kings". It's a fantasy epic that has some steampunk tendencies and a pretty clear basis in Chinese/Asian folklore. This combination has spawned the term "silkpunk" which Liu has talked about here and there (this podcast was a really interesting - and spoiler free - look at the book and the author's approach and viewpoint on fantasy).
I loved the book. It wasn't standard fantasy based around a hero's journey, but jumped right in with a large cast and pulled everything together. It read like the recounting of a legend where various stories were all cast and recast with the same set of characters. It really played to my enjoyment of his short stories, but at the same time it was cohesive. It's long (around 700-800 pages), but it felt like it earned that length - the scope is enormous.
It's the first book in a trilogy, but I think it stands perfectly well on its own. All in all, one of my favorites that I've read this year.
Some short things I read last month:
- Reading "Labyrinth" by Amelia Gray and then reading this short piece about the editing process for the story was pretty interesting. Some of the things seem petty and weird, but I find the thought process of an author revising a story that's "finished" really interesting.
- Grunion Run by Juliet Escoria. This was my favorite story from her collection, Black Cloud. I read the entire collecion this month in about two sittings. It was good, all the stories were about this short and they all tackled influences (positive and negative) and things that pull at you long after you think you've moved past them. Every story in the collection has a companion video. Here's the one for Grunion Run, and it's weird (and maybe NSFW - language).
- Ciaran Berry - For the Birds. I'm not quite finished with Berry's collection, but this poem is one of the many so far that has caught me up in the mix of rustic image and historic allusion. Here's the author reading the poem:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul8Zb2LCJQY
The Games We Play
To be honest, I didn't like the name "Getting Dicey." Going with this much simpler, to-the-point title this time.
So, I have not played many games this last month. Weird. It's like I had something else occupying all my time. Not sure what that was, but it may be the subject of my Father Knows Best coming next month.
Anyway, I wanted to share a little bit about Gaming Conventions. Last year I went to my first gaming convention: Geekway To The West in St. Louis, MO. IT. WAS. AWESOME!!!
I've been getting heavy into board gaming over the last 2-3 years, ever since my friends introduced me to games like Ticket To Ride, Shadows Over Camelot and Talisman. When they told me about Geekway last year, I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. It was. I played so many new games like Euphoria (Build a Better Dystopia), Coal Baron (great worker placement game), Firefly (based on the TV show - shiny!), and also got to play a 60 player game of Werewolf.
This year, I'm going again, but I it's different for a number of reasons. First, I know what to expect. Last year, I really didn't know how to get into games when I didn't know anyone around. This year, I not only know how to use the Meeple "Players Wanted" signs, but I also know a bunch more people going. Also, after listening to several episodes of The Dice Tower over the last year, I'm aware of many of the latest games to get a lot of buzz. Games like Mysterium, Dead of Winter, and XCOM the Board Game.
My favorite part of the convention is the Play and Win. There are about 50 games (3 copies of each) that you can play throughout the weekend, when you do, you put your name into a drawing to win a copy of that game. Last year I won a copy of Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar and its expansion. I already had the base game, so I sold the base for cash and bought Terra Mystica instead. Oh... and you get a free game just for registering. Last year I got a roll-and-move game called Bakong that I thought was mediocre, but my son sure liked it. They did have some gems last year, and this year I'm hoping to get King of Tokyo of Sons of Anarchy.
If you love Board Games, Conventions are a great way to try a bunch of new stuff out, or get to those long drawn out games that you have a hard time getting to the table. Conventions are becoming more and more popular. To find one near you, I suggest looking here, or try Board Game Geek.
What have you been playing lately?
Nothing new on race day
This last Sunday I did the Cheshire Half Marathon. Great temps (43F at the start). Flat course. Trained for it well.
Several weeks back I bought some hiking boots/socks, and have been doing some trail hikes to break them in. The hiking socks are some kind of smart wool, and are pretty close to the same color as my running socks (which are not as thick).
So I accidentally picked out the hiking socks on Sunday morning, and didn't even think about them, until mile 11, where I was struggling to run. I finished, but wasn't happy with my time.
When I got home I found that the hiking socks had crowded the small toes in my running shoes, and I had developed large blisters on the outside toes. Natch.