Happenings of this last week

This last week had some highlights. Monday the Fire Department had an open house with demonstrations and exhibits of various tools and safety measures. While Kanga and Angel stood in line for the crash simulator Tigger, Roo, and I went and watched the heavy rescue workers turn a pick up truck into a door-less convertible (jaws of life demonstration). Tigger wasn't sure if he wanted to watch the demonstration and kept his ears covered for the majority of it. Whenever he is scared, he covers his ears. His grandmother things that he may be sensitive to loud noises. However, despite having his ears firmly covered he watched with rapped attention and, in the end, told me that he thought it was pretty cool. They also got a tour of an ambulance and a medical lift helicopter. The 'copter was smaller than the one that Tigger rode in when he was born, but it was still pretty neat. They also had some folks from the power company there showing why you don't touch power lines.

Wednesday found Angel, Tigger, and me at Primary Children's Hospital. For various reasons, including his being born early, Tigger was not circumcised when he was born. We've been able to trace some of his potty training difficulties to this and so we decided that it would help him if we did it now. He was a great patient and even woke up form the general anesthetic if a good mood, contrary to what was expected. We spent most of the day there checking him in, waiting for the doctor, waiting for the procedure, and then waiting for his meds. I think we were there for about eight hours when all was said and done. We had dinner at Angel's parent's house and Tigger was back to running around before too long. No, I don't have any pictures from Wednesday.

Saturday I got the lawn mowed - I would like to think for the last time this season. The apples are looking better and I'm thinking I may get some applesauce canned next weekend during General Conference. Angel went over to her mom's for the Women's General Broadcast while I watched the kids. I was just getting ready to start working on dinner when I got a text from some friends inviting the kids and I over for dinner and games. They had a bunch of left overs from a couple of birthday parties and I brought chips. Their kids line up pretty well with ours and so we dads (there were three of us fathers there) didn't have to do much. The kids were well behaved and everyone had fun. Dee came home just after we did and said she enjoyed the broadcast quite a bit.

Yesterday, we saw Angel's grandparents and chatted with them for a while. Her grandfather had a pretty sever stroke a little while ago and while he's recovering well he's starting to show his age a lot more. It was good to see them and Malcom was good for them. He was very content to sit on his great-grandfather's lap and be held. He's a pretty decent kid who goes really quiet when he's not sure what's going on.

Audible Book Review - Dune by Frank Herbert

I'm getting caught up on book reviews, as you can probably tell. I'm also in the middle of a series and am waiting until the end to review it. If I followed my past model (reviewing each book as it comes out) I would have to write two more book reviews. Dune is the second to last Audible review I will do for the present. I have one more book I pre-ordered coming at the end of October so I'll get to that one when I can. Dune is one of my favorite books. Considered one of the outstanding landmarks in the sci-fi genre, my father suggested it to me when I was in high school. There are a lot of books in the series, but I have only read the first book, and I'm okay with that. The book had a full cast, but did not always use it. The chief narrator was Scott Brick, who read the sections that were none dialog and limited dialog. The full cast was utilized for sections that had excessive dialog, particularly those without dialog tags, where two people are talking rapidly back and forth. There were also sound and music cues that were very effective at providing atmosphere and ambiance. I'm not surprised the production won a Audie award in 2008. I liked the different voices cast for the characters. Baron Harkonnen was particularly good.

Plot: Arrakis, Dune, is a planet of sands and Spice. The chemical Melange, known as Spice, is critical for interstellar travel. It is beyond important. It is essential to the present and future of the empire. But any Spice mining draws the justifiably feared Makers, sand worms so large they can eat factories whole. What's more, Dune is so dry that water of all kinds is richly cherished, so much so that when someone dies the water is reclaimed from their bodies prior to burial. Paul Atredies, the son and heir of Duke Leto, comes to Dune as a young man when the emperor grants his family the fiefdom of Dune. The previous rulers, House Harkonnen, House Atredies' rival, nemesis, and greatest threat, sought to subjugate the natives through force and violence. But Leto seeks to alley himself with the natives - the Fremen. These desert nomads grow up in the most harsh conditions in the galaxy. If he is successful, he will have the finest worriers imaginable - more fierce than the Emperor's terror troops. So it is no surprise that there is a trap waiting for Paul and his family, set to wipe them out. However, Paul and his father know that the first step of defeating a trap is knowing that it's there...

My personal favorites: Dune has got all the hallmarks of sci-fi, inventive technologies, strange cultures, intriguing alien creatures, new societies, and then it throws in a chunk of political and religious intrigue. One of Dune's motto's is "plans within plans, within plans, and it's important to remember than as you listen to it. The character's are great and the depth of the conflicts is captivating. The book is over 20 hours long, but it didn't feel like it. There are moments of reflection as well as moments of action. And let's face it, the idea of riding a sand worm is just awesome.

Considerations: In terms of descriptions there is nothing that I would object to a young teen reading. There is nothing graphic or gratuitous in the writing. The only consideration is the steep learning curve and the more adult level intrigue and themes. As I stated at the beginning, I was in high school when I read the book.

I try to re-read this book every couple of years, but because it's a great story with good intrigue and characters that I love. I'm glad to have it as part of my audio library now as well, particularly since the production is very good. The total length was just over 20 hours.

Catching up

It's been a while since I posted. School has started and Kanga and Tigger are going to the same school know. For Peach Days they had a float with the school kids for the kid parade and Kanga hadn't had a chance to do it in previous years. I drove in to work so I could be home sooner and we got them loaded on the tractor trailer and they had fun. We gave Kanga a two-way radio so we could keep track of her and she had a little too much fun with it. They're behind the American flag.

We also celebrated Roo's and Angel's birthdays. He hasn't started walking yet, but he's getting bolder.  He is a delight most of the time, but he has gotten particular about how he sleeps. People talk about having a routine with your kids and he is so insistent on his that he won't go to bed any other way. He can be very funny when he is tired though.

 As per the tradition, I handed out the Lion House Cakes and Cupcakes book and Angel choose what I was going to make. Roo couldn't communicate what he wanted (and he might have shredded the book) so when Angel couldn't make up her mind between a couple, I just made one of her options into cupcakes. A co-worker asked if the the recipes in the Lion House book were difficult or complex. Not really. A lot of them call for a cake mix - Seriously. So Roo got devil's food cake cup cakes with whipped cream topping (I was also supposed to put toffee pieces on it, but figured he wouldn't notice if they weren't there). Angel, on the other hand got a chocolate cheesecake with Oreo cookie crust. That wasn't a mix and I was right proud of it. No picture of the cheese cake, I was too busy eating it every time it came out.

This Saturday, I was very domestic. I made pear honey - an equal mix of pear, pineapple, and sugar cooked until golden (in color) and bottled. The pears were from our own tree. I'm pretty bad at getting them when they are all ripe but the process softens up any of the harder ones. I worked on them all day, listening to an audio version of Pride and Prejudice, It was a good production and made the time go by a little quicker. After I ran the first batch I realized that I didn't have enough pint jars to process it all. I called a few people who we've swapped jars with in the past and even had Angel, while she was running errands pick up an extra dozen. In the end I had more jars then I needed, but I had it all done. I went through twelve pounds of sugar and about about about the same number of cans of pineapple in order to process my box of pairs. But we ended up with over 42 pints of pear honey.

This is just when when I had started and realized that I was going to need more bottles. My own mother used to bottle green beans, pears, peaches, cherries, salsa, and applesauce. A lot of times she would do it while we were at school, so I don't remember helping out very much. There is one year when she made it abundantly clear that we were going to help her bottle pears, no arguing. I wasn't prone to argue about helping her, but was surprised at her insistence. That's because pears are a lot of work. you have to peal and core them before you can do anything with them and they are a funny shape with makes things interesting. This year I felt like I got into a groove and think I found the best way to go about it. Wash the outside and cut it in half. using a vegetable peeler work right to left (I'm right handed) pulling the peeler towards you. Using the pear corer, which you can find in your local art/craft supply store under the tile of "clay molding tool" (shown below), remove the stem, core, and any pits or blemishes. Repeat on the other half. And repeat for the next pear, and the next, and the next, and the next..... You get the idea.

Amazingly my hand and back didn't ache like they have in past years. I made an effort to alternate sitting and standing at the sink and I was moving between the sink, stove and bath canner, which was on the deck on the propane stove. As I was in the the middle of it I told Angel that I thought that canning is one of the most rewarding work efforts you can do. It's also really cool when what your canning is your own produce. I gave away a total of nine pints to those that I borrowed jars from and still came out with over thirty-three pints. My dad, who introduced us to pear honey and gave us the recipe, said that it looked just like the way his mother's and grandmother's did which made me happy.

Book Review - Farmer in the Sky by Robert A Heinlein

When I was a boy scout I was told that I should read Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein. I was told that it was published, in an abridged format, in the Boys Life magazine. The inside cover conveys this as well, mentioning that it was titled, "The Satellite Scout." As the more hard core sci-fi was not my usual cup of cocoa, all I knew about the book was that the main character was an Eagle Scout. As I was borrowing books from Dad and exploring more sci-fi, I figured that it was time to finally sit down and read Farmer in the Sky. While it takes me a while, I try to read the books my parents recommend. As per the usual, I was not disappointed. Heinlein is one of the grandfathers of sci-fi, and as I recently pre-ordered a sci-fi book,Her Brother's Keeper by Mike Kupari, I figured that I ought to establish some roots. Especially since Kupari pointed out that the space ships in his book, "land on their tails as Heinlein intended." Farmer in the Sky was published sixty-five years ago and while dated (no references to calculators but several to slide rules) I would say it still holds up.

Plot: Bill and George are headed to Ganymede, emigrants headed for the small colony on Jupiter's largest moon. The trip will take two months and they're not sure exactly what will happen when they get there, but they know that they are going. This means some big changes for the father and son team. Bill suddenly finds out that he's getting a step-mother and step-sister. He won't be going to school in the near future. And he will be leaving his scout troop. But the changes continue when they reach the Jovian moon and find out that the planners back on Earth hadn't listened to the colony's demands for less people and more equipment. Now Bill has to decide how he, George, and their new family are going to survive in this outer world wilderness.

My favorite parts: The narrative was great. Bill was a solid narrator that felt natural and had his imperfections. I liked the characters and even though I didn't feel myself getting sucked into the book, I realized halfway through that Heinlein had enticed me deep enough that I really cared for the characters, and was invested in the story. The book did a great job of balancing sci-fi's traditional tech heavy dialog with good story telling. You learn how they are able to do everything but I didn't get bogged down in the descriptions.

Considerations: There's a reason this book was released in a middle grade level publications. There wasn't anything that was questionable and it would read well for many ages. It's clear to me why my parents recommended it to me as a young boy scout (age 11-12).

If I were to introduce my children to sci-fi, I would probably start with this book. It's clean, it's a traditional sci-fi story format, and it's not too long. I'm sure that's what my parents were trying to do. The total length was 224 pages. 

Book Review - Thursday with the Crown: Castle Glower book three, by Jessica Day George

It's been awhile, but I finished the most recent book in the Castle Glower series. I wish I hadn't waited so long, but I figured that I would get it from my mom. In the end, I checked it out from the library. When were were at the check out desk the librarian asked if Kanga was the one checking it out. I didn't have any problems saying that I had selected it. I would like to read the series with Kanga, but she hasn't expressed an interest... yet. The series does a good job of keeping you on your toes. It continued to feel like a children's book but certainly deals with grown up challenges.

Plot: Celie, Rolf, Lilith, Probst, and Lulath, along with Rufus the griffin, have been taken by the castle to where the rest of it is. Arriving at the ancestral home of the castle places them all in great danger and not just from starvation or exposure to the elements. It turns out that there is a poisoned lake, wild griffins, and an ancient vendetta between two peoples who both claim the castle. Cast into the middle of the remains of this feud Celie and the others must figure out what is going on and how they are going to get back.

My personal favorites: Jessica Day George is great at writing children's stories that expose their readers to serious questions. Thursdays with the Crown is no exception. I also like Lulath. A lot. I love how Lulath, correctly, had an accent when speaking his non-native language, but when they talked in his language he didn't. George justifiably hangs a lantern on the first time it happens and I thought it was great.

Considerations: This book is very age appropriate and I don't have any reservations with this book.

I thought there were only going to be three books in the series, but, after speaking to my mother, learned that there should be a Friday and a Saturday forthcoming. The total length was 224 pages.

Audible book review - The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

Due to changes in our finances Angel and I have suspended our Audible subscription . Before doing so, however, I was faced with the choice of three credits and how to spend them. I wanted books that I would enjoy listening to multiple times. Nor did I want to take a risk on an unfamiliar author. In the end, I pre-ordered the latest Larry Correia book (as I have re-read and re-listened, multiple times, to every one of his books that I own), Dune by Frank Herbert (one of my favorite books), and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (another all time favorite). With Blue Sword, I wanted something that Angel might enjoy as well. Turns out she's read the book, but is enjoying listening to it now. The Blue Sword was narrated by Diane Warren who did a decent job when all was said and done. At first, it seemed like she put pauses in at strange times - it would sound like a chapter break, but then the scene would continue. Either she stopped doing it after a while or I got used to it because I only noticed it at the beginning. I didn't think the narration detracted from the story and she had a nice voice.

Plot: The Homelanders came to Damar decades ago, but Harry Crewe is a new addition to the desert country. When her father died in the Homland across the sea her brother, Richard "Dicky", arragned for her to live with the local government representative. Harry is a young lady who prefers to be on horseback and loves being active, traits that, while not unacceptable, are not often encouraged. Life appears to be set on a fairly boring, but satisfying track when Harry is dragged into international politics and war. Kidnapped by the king of the mysterious Hill Folk, Corlath, after his appeal for aid is refused, Harry doesn't know why she has been taken. But then, neither does Corlath, only that she must.

My personal favorites: I love the world that McKinley sets up. I totally eat up the scenes where Harry learns the language, customs, and skills of the Hill Folk. I wish I could wear a sash and complete in the Laprun trials. I don't know how accurate the information is about horsemanship, but I like the detail and time spent on it. I like the characters as well.

Considerations: This book won the Newberry Medal for children so you would expect it to be good for kids of almost any age - And it is. The only consideration I've heard against it is that it seems to be an example of Stockholm Syndrome - where a person who is kidnapped sides with the kidnappers. I don't see that as as a mark against the book - I only mention it because the argument has been made. I don't see it that way.

I'm glad to have this story in my Audible Library and I know there will come a time when my family will listen to this story as we travel. Perhaps we will be in the desert, headed for the mountains, much like Harry does on her first trip on a hill horse. The total time was a little over 12 hours.

It's official!

It's official, I've completed my Master's Degree. So I am now a Master of Science! I like the sound of that.

Strangely enough, my being done with my degree doesn't feel much different from being in a degree program. I think this is due to education being such a big part of my life. Working in education (going on 8 years now) I'm surrounded by the atmosphere of classes, teaching, and learning. My work life is dominated by the school calendar and school concerns. I'm sure my feelings are also due to there being a two year break for my religious mission during my undergrad and it taking me five years to complete my graduate program due to lack of funds at different times. Over the last thirty-two years I have been in school or in a degree program for about twenty-three of them.

What's more, because I work at a university I have access to classes and degree programs at a inexpensive rate (i.e. free to a certain extent) so the possibility of taking classes without having to worry about funding is always present. As I've learned more about myself and what kind of work I like to do I've considered getting a second Bachelor's in management information systems (something along the lines of database administration). I would only be able to take a couple of classes a semester (due to time and the tuition waiver policy) so it would take me quiet a while, but it's free, so why not take advantage of it.

What this ultimately means is that any time I'm not actively enrolled in classes just feels like a break between classes. It doesn't matter if it's for three months or two years. It's just a break from classes. They'll start up again in the future and I'll have homework, lectures, etc. and things will feel normal again. Granted, my definition of normal is different from others.

Reflections on parenting and childhood

This weekend I was reflecting on my family and my children. I love them very much even though they often do things that drive me crazy sometimes. As I was thinking about those particular things that drive me nuts I realized that I remember doing many of them when I was their age.

For instance, one thing that my father always got after me for was dragging my feet when I walked. I'll be honest, when I was a kid, I never noticed that I dragged my feet and I had no idea what he was talking about when he told me to stop. As an adult, I am acutely aware of when my children drag their feet, particularly when they are outside.

Angel and I am constantly frustrated by Tigger's predisposition to push buttons and take thinks apart. He does it to see how things work - he's experimenting - and it drives us crazy because it tend to break things. We're down our blu-ray player because he was messing with the drawer. He will also ignore us when we tell him not to touch things. But it wasn't until I saw him walk up to something and push a button just to see what it would do that it occurred to me that I still have a tendency to do that. I'm incurably curious and love to see how things work. In short, he is just like me. What's hard with him now that I've realized what and why he's doing it is not to squash his curiosity but also to keep him from accidentally breaking anything.

There are a few others, but, of course, I can't remember any as I write this. I also try to keep these revelations to myself. This is in the interest of self preservation as Angel tends to look at me rather severely when I confess to doing things my kids do. Luckily for me, she will sometimes confess to seeing herself in our kids as well. In those confessionals we invariably smile and say, "So, it's your fault."