It's October!

October is a great month to:

1.  Read John Bellairs books

Last month I bought a complete set of John Bellairs books on eBay:

It's a set of 28 books, all first editions, and 20 of them have artwork by Edward Gorey.  They are fantastically creepy.  I've put up photos of each book with Gorey artwork here.

If you're not sure where to start, try his most famous book, The House with a Clock in its Walls.

2.  Read the Monstrumologist series

The third book in the series, The Isle of Blood, came out last month.  We both read it and loved it. It's the best one so far, and is beautifully and gorgeously written.  The series is literary horror for young adults, with heavy emphasis on literary.  And it's classic horror, ala Frankenstein, not horror-movie horror.  The books are fantastic.  You must read them!  I've written about the first two books here and here.

3.  Watch The Man Who Wasn't There

This is one of my favorite movies, and every time October rolls around I want to watch it.  I have no idea why, because there's nothing at all creepy or Autumn-like about it.  It's about a barber in the late 1940's who becomes involved in a blackmail scheme leading to murder.  But it's shot in black-and-white, has beautiful cinematography, and is very moody and atmospheric.

Wendy and I first saw this movie purely by accident when it was released.  We went to see the movie From Hell, but the opening scene was too gruesome for Wendy to watch, so we walked out and wandered the theater's hallways until we found another movie that was about to start.  It was The Man Who Wasn't There.

4.  Star-gaze

In the southern sky, look for Fomalhaut (FOE-mal-oh).  Because there are no other bright stars near it, it's been called the Lonely Star of Autumn.  It's also orbited by a planet, which has been directly photographed by Hubble.

Also keep an eye out for Algol.  It's a binary star, and about every 3 nights it dims dramatically because the fainter star eclipses the brighter star.  This periodic dimming/brightening earned it the name Demon Star.

5.  Watch college football

Of course, any month is a great month to watch college football!

Arcturus, Clocks, and Elgin

One of the best stories I came across while creating my Android app involved the star Arcturus.  Arcturus is a binary star system in the constellation Bootes, and is the 4th brightest star in the night sky.

The story was this:

In 1933, Chicago hosted the World's Fair.  Astronomers at the time had recently calculated that Arcturus was about 40 light years away.  So light just arriving from the star had begun its journey 40 years prior, in 1893, which happened to be the last time Chicago hosted the World's Fair.  So organizers decided to open the 1933 Fair by using light from Arcturus to turn on the fairground's lights on opening night.

Here's how it worked:  four telescopes around the country were outfitted with a photoelectric cell, which converts light to electricity.  These cells were a new invention, and were being promoted at the Fair.  On opening night, the four telescopes were trained on Arcturus, whose light entered the telescope, got converted to electricity, and sent via telegraph to Chicago where, with much fanfare, it tripped a switch that illuminated the fairgrounds.  

Four telescopes were used in case one site was cloudy.  The four telescope locations were:

• Harvard University
• Allegheny Observatory at Pittsburgh
• Yerkes Observatory in southern Wisconsin
• University of Illinois

Apparently the event was such a hit with the public that organizers decided to repeat it each night, with the Elgin Observatory taking over Arcturus-observing duties.  Elgin, by the way, is a town about 30 minutes south of where we live.

At this point, I thought three things:  1) "That's a really cool story", 2) "Hey, Yerkes Observatory! We've been there!", and 3) "Elgin has an observatory?"

A bit of googling revealed that Elgin does have an observatory, although it's not open to the public.  I also discovered the Elgin Historical Museum, and learned that Elgin once had a large watch factory.

I found all of this very interesting, so Wendy and I went to the Museum a few weeks ago:

It was much bigger and nicer than we were expecting.  And there was much more to Elgin's history that we didn't know.  Here's a bit of what we learned:

• During the late 1800's, Elgin was the center of the country's dairy industry.  The price of butter across the country was set each day in Elgin.  Also, sticks of butter used to be short and squat (and might still be on the West Coast?).  Elgin introduced the long, skinny sticks of butter that are the norm today.  These are supposedly "better", but we didn't see any explanation as to why that is.
• For the first half of the 20th century, Elgin had a huge watch-making factory, which dominated the world's watch-making industry.  Elgin watches were sold in nearly every jewelry store in the country, and the phrase "Elgin watches" was a common one and was synonymous with high-quality watches.
• At the beginning of the 1900's there were a number of train wrecks caused by engineers having inaccurate watches.  President Theodore Roosevelt ordered a new standard of accuracy for watches, so the Elgin watch factory built the Elgin Observatory which allowed watch-makers to track time more accurately using the stars.
• During WWII, the watch factory switched to manufacturing high precision aircraft parts.  Unfortunately, after the war, it had fallen too far behind the rest of the watch industry, and combined with changing consumer tastes, it didn't survive.  The factory was eventually torn down, although the Observatory was spared.
• There are a lot of Elgin watches on display at the Museum.

After a few hours at the museum, we drove by the Observatory and snapped a picture:

This was much more than I expected to learn from writing an app!

Star Odyssey

I released an Android app this week called Star Odyssey.  It's available in the Android Market for devices running Android 2.1 or higher.

Way back when I was shopping for a new smartphone, there was one main reason why I wanted an Android phone:  Google Sky Map.  It's an Android app that seems like magic.  You go out at night, hold the phone up to the sky, and it shows you a map of the stars for the exact region of sky you're looking at.  Stars are labeled and constellations are drawn.  As you move the phone around, the map moves with you, so it's always showing the same section of sky you're looking at.  The app doesn't have to be used at night either; you can use it to see what stars are above the horizon during the day.

After I got my Android phone, I spent a number of evenings outside using the app to identify stars and constellations.  It worked as advertised.  When I've shown Google Sky Map to other people, everyone is just as amazed as I was when I first saw it in action.  The app is just plain cool.

But after using it for a while, I wanted more.  The app shows star names and constellation names, but that's it.  I remember last year, on an incredibly cold Thanksgiving night in Oklahoma, showing the app to Cory and identifying the star Procyon.  I wanted to know what kind of star it was, what the name meant, why it got that name, and even just how to pronounce it.

I looked for an app that would give me that information, but came up empty.  So I decided to write one.  The result is Star Odyssey, which is a star guide with details on over 60 of the brightest stars (the same stars that are labeled in Google Sky Map).  It includes a pronunciation guide, details on each star including its brightness and distance from Earth, and it even integrates with another app (called SkEye) that lets you search for and find the star in the sky.

Finally, here's a sample of what Star Odyssey has to say about the star Procyon:

• It's the 8th brightest star in the night sky, and is only 11 light years from Earth.
• It's a binary star system.
• Procyon forms one point of the Winter Triangle.  Sirius and Betelgeuse are the other two.
• It's pronounced "PRO-see-on".
• In northern latitudes, Procyon always rises before Sirius, the Dog Star.  As a result, the star got the name Procyon because it comes from a Greek word meaning "before the dog".

There's other cool stuff I learned while making this app.  More on that later.

Good vs Evil

While I was trapped in a meeting at work this past Monday, Wendy came to my rescue:  she bravely fought through a virtual crowd of would-be Android collectors, beat back dozens of server-too-busy error messages, and emerged victorious with a 4-pack of the limited-edition "Heroes and Villains" Android figurines.

From left to right:

• The Hidden Task
• The Hidden Task makes no sounds and leaves no traces.
• The Hidden Task waits in the shadows, always prepared to set things right.
• Cycle-On
• Cycle-On's tough metal casing makes it a formidable opponent.
• Cycle-On is a power-hungry Android who will stop at nothing.
• Greentooth
• One shake of his hand and you are under his command.
• Greentooth is a master of mind control and technology.
• El Poderoso
• El Poderoso is ready to wrestle the worst villains and pin down the biggest kingpin.
• El Poderoso fights for justice, equality.. and fancy belts.

Summer Fun

A lot's been going on lately.  Here's the scoop:

Severe Thunderstorms

Last week we had a line of severe thunderstorms blow through the area one morning, right as we were getting ready for work.  They were brief, but powerful, with wind gusts of 70-80mph.  Over 800,000 people wound up with no electricity, the worst storm-related outages in over a decade.  Our power went out, too, so I manually opened and closed the garage door for Wendy, took a shower in the dark, and shaved by flashlight.  Then I went out to survey the damage.

We were very fortunate: our yard was littered with small branches, but that was it.  A few houses down, two trees were uprooted, and one was lying on the roof of another house.  On the drive to work I saw a number of trees completely uprooted.  It was crazy.

When Wendy got to work, she discovered it was closed for lack of electricity, so she turned around and headed home.  By the time she got home the power at our house was back on, which was, again, very fortunate.  A lot of people had no power for several days, and a few unlucky ones had no power for nearly a week!  It was unbelievable how much damage was inflicted.  Here’s a collection of photos from around Chicago-land.

• Link1
• Link2
• Link3
• Link4
• Link5

Surgery Not Required

A couple of Saturdays ago, I was all set to perform major surgery on our laptop.  The hinge kept coming undone, making using the laptop a precarious proposition.  The laptop is almost 5 years old, so it's close to needing a replacement, but I couldn't bear buying a new one because of a broken hinge.  So I got everything ready: an operating table, an assortment of screwdrivers, instructions for hinge-replacement, a pair of new hinges I got off ebay for $7, and a youtube video showing the procedure being performed.  Once I got the laptop opened up, I discovered the hinge wasn't really broken: it was just missing an interior screw which had come out.  So I screwed it back in, patched up the laptop, and it was good as new, and only took about 5 minutes.  Much quicker than I was expecting!

Some Assembly Needed

We've kind-of, sort-of been half-looking for bedroom furniture for the past 5 years, with no luck.  To make do, we've been using college leftovers and $20 K-Mart nightstands.  Over the years, we've trekked to nearly every furniture store within an hour radius, but never found anything that:

1. We both liked
2. Was priced right
3. Most importantly, fit in our bedroom

However! In last week's Sunday newspaper was a World Market ad with a bedroom set that was on sale and appeared to meet every requirement.  After looking at it in the store, we agreed it still looked good, so we went for it!  It took two trips to two different World Markets, a lot of creative arranging of boxes in our car, and 4 days to assemble everything, but our quest, and our bedroom, is now complete.

Precognition

We've been waging a war against chipmunks this summer.  They took up residence underneath our porch and started chewing up parts of it.  I hired a wildlife company to trap them and take them away, and it worked, but they kept trapping more and more and more chipmunks.  Eventually it got too expensive and I decided I could do the same thing they're doing (using a cage trap with peanut butter bait) but much cheaper.  So I bought a Havahart for chipmunks and set it up.  It worked; I caught a few, which I transported a few miles away and set free.  It was a bit more work for me, but was a lot cheaper.

Then one night I dreamed a skunk was caught in the trap and I got sprayed trying to set it free.

A couple of mornings later after I finished getting ready for work, I looked out the window and saw something big and black in the trap.  I couldn't figure out what on earth it was until it started to move and I saw the dreaded and tell-tale white stripe.

I absolutely could not believe it.  I slowly realized that 1) I had dreamed this, and 2) I now had to go outside, get within inches of a skunk, and release the trap door so it could escape.  And if I got sprayed, I'd probably have to take the day off just to remove the smell.  Ugh.

So with Wendy's help, I formulated a plan of attack.  We figured out the best angle of approach to minimize the chance of being seen and thus freaking out the skunk.  I went outside, crouched close to the ground, and slowly made my way to the trap.  Once I got close, I noticed the latch to free the trap door was jammed.

At this point I was certain I'd have to get out a set of tools and pry the door open.  But I decided to just pull hard on the door, hoping the latch would give out.  It did, and as soon as it did I sprinted to the deck, and through the sliding doors which Wendy had thoughtfully unlocked.  The skunk, thankfully, ran the other way and I escaped unscathed.

That was an exciting morning!

Lap One

During one of my recent hikes at Moraine Hills, detailed in the last post, someone rode past me on a bike, and I thought "Man, that looks fun."  A few days later I dusted off my bike, which I hadn't used in about 5 years, aired up the tires and went for a quick ride around the neighborhood.  I was surprised it still worked after years of neglect.

A few weeks later I got a spiffy new bike rack for the car and immediately started planning a bike trip to Moraine Hills.  I decided to take the Friday before July 4th off because the weather forecast said it would be the hottest day of the year.  Unfortunately, the weather was a complete bust.  It was cloudy, with a slight breeze, and disturbingly pleasant.

Looking on the bright side, I was able to ride longer than if it was hot, so I managed to ride every trail in the park:

10.8 miles in 1 hour 3 minutes, for an average speed of 10.2 mph.  I discovered Friday afternoon is the perfect time to go for a bike ride there.  I rode for miles without seeing anyone.

Frozen Treats

Wendy's been making Popsicles thanks to some Popsicle molds she recently got.  So we've been enjoying some delicious homemade frozen treats as the weather has gotten hotter.  Here are the flavors we've tried so far:

• Lime Mint
• Strawberry Mango
• Chocolate
• Chocolate Mint

Next up: Chocolate Peanut Butter!

Recent Hiking Exploits

We got to enjoy a few days of really hot weather last week (mid-90's). While most of our families are used to much hotter weather, this was the hottest it's been in northern Illinois for 5 years! I've often wished the summers here were hotter, so I tried to enjoy the heat while it lasted.

Thus, last weekend I went for a hike at the nearby Moraine Hills State Park during the hottest part of the day. It felt great to bake in the sun's rays. I had plans to do an epic 6-7 mile hike around the perimeter of the park, which I've never done before. But after a couple of miles I was drenched in sweat, and realized I had no water or sunscreen. My visions of grandeur were crushed. So I turned around and headed back to the car.

I did bring along my trusty Android phone, and using the My Tracks app I recorded my hike. When I got back to the car, it said I'd hiked 3.7 miles in 1 hour, and I had this handy map:

Wendy is not a fan of hot weather like I am, so she declined to accompany me on the hike. In fact, when I got home, I managed to gross her out with how sweaty I was.

A few days later the heat wave ended. The 90-degree highs turned into 50-degree highs with lots of clouds and rain.

But, this morning the clouds parted and the sunny weather returned. It wasn't 90, but it was 65 and felt warmer in the sun. So I headed back to Moraine Hills. I did a longer, but still not-quite-epic hike:

According to My Tracks, it was 4.5 miles in 1 hour 11 minutes, for an average speed of 3.8 mph. The hike took me through sections I hadn't been in for a few years; I'd forgotten how gorgeous it can be.

Finally, when I got home, I ate a quick snack and went back outside to mow the lawn. Just for fun, I brought my phone along to track my mowing:

As you can see, there is some margin of error. I did not, in fact, mow our living room or dining room or the road. Still, according to the app, I walked 1.6 miles while mowing, in 41 minutes.  My average speed was 2.3mph.

That's enough walking for now.

Hot and Now

Netflix

We signed up for Netflix shortly after moving to Illinois, and we've enjoyed it the entire time.  We first signed up for the 3-dvds-at-a-time option, then downgraded to 2-at-a-time, then 1, back up to 2, and now we're down to 1 again (plus unlimited streaming).  Several times I've put our account on hold during college football season (for obvious reasons).  As you can see, our movie viewing waxes and wanes periodically.

SpongeBob

I mention all this because Netflix recently announced they've acquired streaming rights to more seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants!  They now have seasons 1-5 available for online streaming.  So if any of our readers have Netflix, and would like experience the best that SpongeBob has to offer, I now present our favorite SpongeBob episodes of all time, all of which are available to stream right now!  In no particular order:

• The Frycook Games (Season 2, Episode 19, second half)
• Krusty Krab Training Video (Season 3, Episode 10, first half)
• Mid-Life Crustacean (Season 3, Episode 15, second half)
• Missing Identity (Season 3, Episode 18, first half)

Ebert Presents at the Movies

I've become a fan of Roger Ebert's new show on PBS.  Since he can no longer speak, due to cancer, he usually only appears for one review which is narrated by someone else.  Most of the show is devoted to reviews by Christy Lemire of the Associated Press and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of the Chicago Reader.   I don't know if words can convey the sheer impressiveness of Ignatiy's name.  I did a double-take when I first saw him introduce himself.  Then I had to rewind and listen to it again.  And again. Then I had to try saying it, which took a couple of tries to get right.  Ignatiy Vishnevetsky.  Ig-naughty Vish-nuh-vet-ski.  Those are now my two favorite words to pronounce.

Anyway, I dig the show.  Christy and Ignatiy are fun to watch, they joke around, and sometimes those jokes are even funny.  They cover some lesser-known movies, as well as movies that are available to stream online (their "Hot and Now" segment).

My favorite experience from the show came last month, when they gave two thumbs up to an Oscar-nominated foreign film I'd never heard of.  After the episode, I went straight to Netflix and was able to watch the movie right then thanks to the streaming option.

Mountain Madness

During a company book sale last year I picked up a non-fiction book called Into Thin Air.  I hadn't heard of it before; it's written by a reporter who witnessed firsthand the disaster on Mt. Everest in 1996 as the group of climbers he was with were trapped near the summit due to a sudden snow storm.  It would become the deadliest climbing season in the history of Everest.  The back cover had quotes like these:

"Ranks among the great adventure books of all time"

"A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgement..."

"virtually defines excellence in the genre of narrative nonfiction"

So I decided to get it, thinking it might make a good gift.  Wendy had other plans, though:  she'd heard of the book, knew it was really good, and had wanted to read it for a long time.  In addition, she remembered the news stories about the disaster when it happened, and had vivid memories of seeing the survivors being rescued.

On our recent trip to Phoenix, she brought the book along and almost finished it during the 4-hour flight.  "It is utterly absorbing," she said.

I decided to read it on the flight home and it hooked me in.  I didn't finish nearly as fast as Wendy, but I was just as enthralled.  It is a very harrowing read.  Afterwards, we talked about all the amazing things from the book (and there are many).

The most amazing thing I got is just how huge Mt. Everest is.  When we lived in Colorado, we had a great view of Long's Peak, which is 14,259 feet.  If you doubled the size of Long's Peak, it still wouldn't match Everest, which stands at 29,028 feet.

But the author of Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer) had even better ways to express it:

1.  The peak of Mt. Everest is at cruising altitude for some jetliners.
2.  Everest is so high that for most of the year it pierces the jet stream!  This creates a contrail of ice particles steaming off the peak.  Twice each year, during the spring and fall, the jet stream moves north of Everest, and that's when most summit attempts happen.

It dawned on me last week that it's spring now, so there are probably groups climbing the mountain right now and blogging their experience.  Here's one such group I've started following:

http://peakfreaks.com/everestnews2011.htm

Finally, much to my surprise, right after I finished the book, Jon Krakauer appeared in the news again, this time for alleging the book Three Cups of Tea is a fraud.

Spinach Salad

While making breakfast this morning, I looked out the window and discovered we had an inch or two of snow, just enough to cover the grass and coat the trees.  Between the snow and the oatmeal I was eating, this morning had a distinctly winter feel.

A couple of weekends ago Wendy and I went to Phoenix to visit Joy and Cory.  It was the first time either of us had spent any substantial amount of time in Phoenix, so it was cool to get a feel for the area.  My impression is that it looks entirely like an alien world.  The landscape is barren and sun-bleached, with cactus of all different shapes and sizes poking out of the ground.  The vegetation is just vastly different from the Midwest.

We did some cool things while we were there, including visiting the Botanical Gardens and viewing artwork and decorations produced by local artists.  My favorite activity was going to Taliesin West, which served as Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and as a school for aspiring architects.  Wright’s summer home, Taliesin, was in Wisconsin, just west of Madison.  We haven’t been to see it yet, but we both want to now that we’ve seen Taliesin West.

Our flight to Phoenix went smoothly (discounting the extremely talkative retired guy I sat next to), but our flight home was delayed by 3 hours, which was never fully explained, but we overheard the ticket-counter lady saying that if a flight has to be delayed, Southwest likes to delay the Phoenix to Milwaukee flight because it’s a long haul flight with few connections in Milwaukee.  So that’s something to be aware of in the future.  At least they did give each of us a $100 voucher for a future flight.

While we visited Joy and Cory, we had a spinach salad for dinner a couple of nights.  That led to a conversation about something I discovered a few years ago: spinach helps me sleep better.  Even if I’ve been sleeping well, I can still tell that I sleep deeper than usual the night after eating spinach.  But, it has to be fresh spinach: frozen or cooked spinach doesn’t do the trick.

I discovered this effect after I kept reading about people making green smoothies (spinach + fruit blended together) as a way to get lots of leafy green vegetables.  So I decided to give it a shot.  For my first attempt, I went heavy on the spinach and light on the fruit (I think I used spinach, a banana, and ice cubes).  The result, as you might imagine, really wasn’t that good.  But I’d made a big glass of it, so I drank it.  And when I woke up the next morning I could not believe how well I’d slept.  That’s when I made the link.

I tried green smoothies a couple more times and discovered the magic ratio was 2 parts fruit to 1 part spinach.  If you did that, you really couldn’t tell there was any spinach; it tasted just like a fruit smoothie.  But that meant not as much spinach, so the improved-sleep effect wasn’t as great.  Eventually I stopped with the smoothies, deciding that eating a spinach salad was just as easy, tasted just as good, if not better, and as an added bonus I didn’t have to wash the blender when I was done.

The spinach salad we had in Phoenix was delicious: it had spinach, feta, dried cranberries, pecans, onions, and raspberry vinaigrette.  I highly recommend it.

Must Be Beautiful This Time of Year...

...all that snow!

We got somewhere around 20 inches - we measured anywhere from 16-36 inches, depending on the drifting.

For a sense of perspective, check out this post. Now imagine those bushes around the flag pole, only imagine them 4 and a half years taller. Now...

Those bushes are still there. Honest.

A few more pictures:

Randy worked really hard to get the driveway and front walk cleared. It even took our neighbors, who all have snowblowers, several hours to get their driveways cleared.

The driveway before:

And the driveway after:

Our street didn't get plowed until about 7 p.m. That's actually not bad, considering all the reports we read of snowplows getting stuck in drifts.

We ended up with a big drift in our backyard that was at least 36 inches tall. Is now the time to mention that I have a 27 inch-inseam?

Hope everyone is staying warm and getting shoveled out!

Tropical Fun

While I was slicing mango last night I realized our fridge was about to become a tropical wonderland. It already had sliced pineapple and sliced papaya, and now I was about to add two freshly sliced mangos. Delicious! Pineapple and mango are easily two of my favorite fruits.

And speaking of the tropics, this is a fine time to mention the cruise we went on last month with Wendy’s family. Our ultimate destination was the Panama Canal, but we did plenty of other things along the way:

• Bill and I went jet-skiing in the Bahamas. It was unbelievably cold and windy (apparently arctic air can still reach the Bahamas), but the wind churned up waves that made for a much more fun and intense jet-ski ride.
• Wendy and I went snorkeling in hot and sunny Aruba. Fortunately Aruba, which is just off the coast of South America, is close enough to the equator that arctic air can’t penetrate.
• We all went on a tour of caves in Curacao, which is an island just east of Aruba.
• We all got to see the ship enter the Panama Canal. Many pictures were taken.
• Wendy and I, along with Bill and Beth, took an aerial tram through the canopy of a rain forest in Panama.
• Bill and I went zip-lining in Costa Rica (Abby and Matt did too, but in a different group). Meanwhile, Wendy and Beth went kayaking through a Costa Rica jungle.

One of the daily on-board activities was Team Trivia Challenge, and our group completely crushed all competition (those who know the Drescher clan will not be surprised at all by this). We won at least 5 or 6 days and tied on another day. It was a 10-day cruise, and there were a couple of days without a trivia challenge, so we won somewhere around 75% of the time. We all came home with lots of mugs, bags, water bottle carriers, and Rubik’s cubes thanks to the famous Drescher Trivia Prowess.

The award for Most Interesting Passenger went to a Canadian music professor Wendy and I ate dinner with one evening. He collects musical instruments and currently has around 5,000 pieces, which is the largest private collection in North America. He supplied all the instruments for the Disney re-make of the Music Man, even providing a historically-accurate double bell euphonium for the song “76 Trombones”. He’s married, and joked that his wife will never divorce him because if she does, she’s stuck with half the instruments.

The ship also had internet access, and although it was expensive, I bought enough time to give me about ten minutes a day to catch up on my internet activities. I quickly discovered what information was most important to me: my email, the weather at our house (thanks to my weather station), and the latest college football news.

Finally, two bonus items:
1) A video I took of people doing the zip-line in Costa Rica:



2) A trivia question from Team Trivia Challenge that completely stumped the Drescher clan:

• What does a spermologist collect? Keep in mind this was a family-friendly contest. I’ll post the answer in the comments.

Book Roundup

I’ve written a lot about books recently, so please bear with me for one last book mega-post, and then we’ll move on to other topics.

During our recent cruise to the Panama Canal (more on that in a later post), I was perusing the ship’s library and came across the cool-sounding Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Tales by Algernon Blackwood.  The summary on the back cover included lots of quotes by H.P. Lovecraft praising the author, so I figured it must be good.  I flipped to the table of contents and noticed a story named “Wendigo”.  I was hooked.

You will of course remember the book I recently read about Wendigos.  It occurred to me that I never explained what a Wendigo is; I hadn’t heard the term until recently.  Basically it’s a Native American myth about an evil spirit often associated with wind, severe cold, and starving to death.  The exact details vary quite a bit, and what appears in fiction usually doesn’t match the historical descriptions, but in a nutshell, that’s it.

Algernon Blackwood’s short story was the first instance of Wendigos in fiction.  It, along with the other short stories in the book, was excellent.  Most of them can best be described as creepy nature stories.  His work is now in the public domain, so you can find a lot of his stories online, in the Kindle store, etc, for free.  “The Willows” and “Wendigo” are both really good.

However, the inspiration for this blog post was not the Algernon Blackwood book, but the other book I read while on the cruise:  “Zodiac” by Neal Stephenson.

Several years ago, at a company book sale, I came across a book called “Snow Crash”.  I half-remembered hearing of it before and having some kind of positive association with it, but that was all I could recall at the time.  So I bought it and read it.  And it turned out to be absolutely insane, crazy, over-the-top cyberpunk fun.  As soon as I finished it I turned to Wendy and said “Best.  Book.  Ever!”

That started me reading other Neal Stephenson books.  A couple of books later I read “Cryptonomicon”, which blew my mind.  I’d forgotten how a book, when it completely captivates you, causes your entire reality to shift into two modes:  Reading-Your-Book and Not-Reading-Your-Book.  When you’re Not-Reading-Your-Book all you can think about is getting back to Reading-Your-Book.  So you do whatever you can to get back there.  That was me during Cryptonomicon.  (I remember Wendy going through those modes when she read the staggeringly-long “Lymond Chronicles” by Dorothy Dunnett.)  After I finished Cryptonomicon, I turned to Wendy and said “I have to modify my earlier statement about Snow Crash.  Snow Crash is the Most Entertaining Book ever.  Cryptonomicon is the Best Book Ever.”  Even better than the Count of Monte Cristo, which I read way back here.

Since then I’ve plowed through the remaining Stephenson books.  From The Baroque Cycle, to Anathem, his most recent, which I inhaled more than read because it was so fascinating.  Zodiac, then, was one of his earliest books, and the final book of his I had yet to read.  The cruise gave me plenty of time to finish it.  And when I was done, I had really enjoyed it.

Much of why I enjoy his books so much is they often involve and hinge upon complex, technical subjects he’s able to easily explain. So not only do you get an entertaining story, but it’s almost like you’ve gotten an introductory college course on a particular topic by the time you’ve finished one of his books.  At the very least, you’ve gotten a glimpse into a complex subject you may never have learned about otherwise.

Here’s a breakdown of his books and a few of the broad topics each covers.

Zodiac
* Toxic chemicals

Snow Crash
* 3-D virtual worlds, Hacking, Ancient Sumerian mythology

The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer
* Nanotechnology

Cryptonomicon
* Math, Cryptography, Hacking, Information Theory

Quicksilver (Baroque Cycle, Part 1)
The Confusion (Part 2)
The System of the World (Part 3)
* Money, Finance, The Royal Society, Isaac Newton

Anathem
* Consciousness, Quantum Physics, Cosmology

If you’re interested in any of these, be warned that several of his later works are incredibly long (1000+ pages).  But, that’s part of the fun!

Merry Christmas!

OU vs Nebraska

A few days ago Wendy and I were talking college football, and I was telling her about one my favorite OU vs Nebraska plays, when I remembered another favorite, and then another favorite, and I thought “Hey, I should blog this”.

So here they are, in chronological order:

OU vs Nebraska, 2000

Probably my favorite, because I was at this game. Nebraska jumps out to a quick 14-0 lead, OU trims it to 14-7, and then on 3rd and 14, Heupel throws a long, arcing pass right as he's knocked to the ground. I looked downfield, there were no receivers anywhere, and I thought “Man, incomplete. 4th down.”. Out of nowhere, though, Curtis Fagan breaks free, sprints underneath the ball, catches and scores. Tie game! OU goes on to win 31-14.

OU vs Nebraska, 2001

This was a defensive battle between the top 2 teams in the country, and what I remember most are the trick plays. OU ran a reverse to Mark Clayton, who stopped and threw back to a wide open Nate Hybl. Hybl, unfortunately, stumbled and fell while the ball was in the air. Incomplete pass. Later in the game, Nebraska ran the same trick play, but Eric Crouch did not stumble; he made the catch and scored a TD. Unbelievable. Both teams had been practicing the same trick play during the week. One worked, one didn’t. Nebraska won, 20-10.

OU vs Nebraska, 2006 (Big 12 Championship game)

Up 14-7 in the 3rd, OU had the ball at their own 1-yard line on 3rd and 10. Nebraska had momentum, and with a stop would get the ball with great field position. Instead, Paul Thompson hits Jermaine Gresham for a 35-yard completion and a 1st down. That kickstarts a 99-yard touchdown drive(!!), putting OU comfortably in the lead. Nebraska never recovers; OU wins 21-7.

And now I can add this to the list...

OU vs Nebraska, 2010 (Big 12 Championship game)

It’s too early to say what the most memorable play will be, but here are some nominees:

• OU falling behind 17-0, but rallying to tie the game in the 2nd quarter.
• Travis Lewis’ game-changing interception in the end zone, the first of 3 turnovers he recovered.
• In the 4th quarter, OU had 3rd and 24 when Cameron Kenney catches a 20-yard pass and fights, fights, fights for 3 more yards. That brought up 4th and 1, making it an easy decision to go for it. OU converts, throwing to Kenney again, for an 11-yard gain, which sets up the game-winning field goal by Jimmy Stevens. Go Jimmy!
• Late in the game, Nebraska attempts a fake punt on 4th and 4, but just as they start the fake, the play is whistled dead. Stoops realized it was a fake at the last second, and called timeout just before the ball was snapped. With the element of surprise gone, Nebraska is forced to punt.

Final score: OU 23, Nebraska 20.

Monsters Reloaded

I finished reading The Curse of the Wendigo (the sequel to The Monstrumologist), and it’s fantastic. It doesn’t have as much gore and viscera as the first book, but makes up for it in other ways. I won’t give anything away.

Both of these books are really top-notch, and deal with some impressively adult themes. For instance, Dr. Pellinore Warthrop is a so-called monster-hunter, but despises the term, preferring instead to be labeled a philosopher of “aberrant biology”. After all, what is a monster? Is a lion a monster for attacking and eating the antelope? Then what of the creature whose sole means of survival is attacking and eating humans? Is it a monster for trying to live, for trying to provide food for its young?

And speaking of young, how do these “monsters” propagate their species? At what rate? What is their natural habitat? Are they nocturnal? How do they capture their prey? These are the questions that drive Dr. Warthrop.

Similarly, as the Doctor’s young assistant, Will Henry, points out, “monsters” aren’t always giant, man-eating creatures. Sometimes they’re microscopic parasites living in your blood, inflicting... well, I won’t give anything away.

Coming back to reality, all of this talk reminds me of an article I read in New Scientist last year, about the closest thing Earth has to the alien from the Alien movies starring Sigourney Weaver. The best the author could find was a long, stringy, parasitic worm; I don’t remember the exact details, thankfully, but I do remember feeling sick to my stomach afterwards, and thinking “I wish I had never read that.” Trust me, it was gross.

To finish on a less gruesome note, the Monstrumologist books remind me of one of my favorite authors growing up, John Bellairs. He wrote creepy, gothic horror children’s books full of crypts, tombs, evil spirits, magic artifacts, and haunted dwellings. Almost as good as the stories were the illustrations, drawn by the macabre Edward Gorey. (Unfortunately, the more recent printings of Bellairs’ books no longer have Gorey illustrations. If you’re interested in reading Bellairs, try finding some older printings.)

Among the various characters Bellairs created, Johnny and Professor Childermass were by far my favorite. Will Henry and Dr. Warthrop remind me a lot of Johnny and the Professor: Johnny and Will Henry are both the same age; and while the Professor has a love of chocolate cake, Dr. Warthrop loves raspberry scones. But the similarities are only superficial, I must say. Johnny and the Professor are short, creepy stories for middle school kids; Will Henry and Dr. Warthrop are lengthy, gruesome books for young adults.

Treats

1. While we were at the grocery store today, the X-Files theme song started playing.
2. For the first time ever, the grocery store had OU apparel for sale. I scored an OU shirt and cap.
3. A Halloween Android to add to my collection.
4. On Thursday, November 11th, a special SpongeBob episode will air: "Mystery with a Twistery". Our Tivo is set.
5. 5 Things SpongeBob SquarePants Can Teach You About Business

Boomer! Sooner!

I can’t let this week pass without mentioning college football.

Last Saturday, sometime around 6pm, there was a volcanic eruption of cheering centered around our house. OU, clinging to a 1-possession lead with a minute remaining, recovered a muffed punt to seal a victory against Texas!

I don’t think I’ve ever cheered so hard before. I’ve certainly screamed that hard in disgust (the Oregon game in ‘06), but this was a pure victory celebration. OU was in control for most of the game, but a bizarre series of plays tightened the game late in the 4th quarter, and only when OU recovered the muffed punt could we breathe a sigh of relief. Or, to put it more accurately, run all around the room, jumping up and down, screaming because we just beat Texas.

Boomer Sooner, baby!

Snap to, dear readers! Snap to!

Way back in January, at my day job, I came across a fantastic-sounding book review; a review so good I had to share it with Wendy. The book was The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey. This was the review, in part:

Grades 9-12. With a roaring sense of adventure and enough viscera to gag the hardiest of gore hounds, Yancey’s series starter might just be the best horror novel of the year. Will Henry is the 12-year-old apprentice to Pellinore Warthrop, a brilliant and self-absorbed monstrumologist—a scientist who studies (and when necessary, kills) monsters in late-1800s New England.

...

Yancey keeps the shocks frequent and shrouded in a splattery miasma of blood, bone, pus, and maggots.

...

Yancey’s prose is stentorian and wordy, but it weaves a world that possesses a Lovecraftian logic and hints at its own deeply satisfying mythos. Most effective of all, however, is the weirdly tender relationship between the quiet, respectful boy and his strict, Darwinesque father figure. “Snap to!” is Warthrop’s continued demand of Will, but readers will need no such needling.

Source: Booklist

Wendy shared the same enthusiasm as I. “Dude, that sounds awesome!” she said. I checked all the local libraries online, but it was checked out everywhere. The book had just won a Michael L. Printz Honor Award, which is how I heard about it, so it was no surprise the book was so popular.

Several months later, at the company book sale, we were winding down by going through the stacks of books we’d each found. As luck would have it, Wendy had found a copy of The Monstrumologist! Sweet!

The next several months, though, it sat in a big pile of books, nearly forgotten. However, I recently re-discovered it, remembered my earlier excitement, and decided to give it a read.

Well, I finished it last night.

And wow, that book has an astounding amount of gore! And it’s really good!

If you like your stories dark, grim, gruesome, appalling, with a LOT of gore, and with hordes of ravenous, man-slaughtering monsters, then you may have just met your match.

As for me, I think I’ll try something lighter for my next book.

But wait! There’s more!

I just discovered the sequel is about to be released! It’s called The Curse of the Wendigo and the Booklist review says it has "more honest emotion than any book involving copious de-facings (yes, you read that right) ought to have".

A One-Of-A-Kind Post

Several months ago I got a new Android smartphone. I hesitate to use the word phone, because it's far more of a hand-held computer than any kind of phone. There are apps galore that can be downloaded for it, and I've been having fun trying out a bunch of them, particularly astronomy apps. Some apps (Google Sky) are great for identifying stars and constellations, and others (Iridium Flares, Satellite Flybys) are great for spotting iridium flares, satellites, and the space station.

The Android OS has its own little mascot. This guy:

And a while back, a company started selling collectible Android figurines like this:

They turned out to be hugely popular, and sold out nearly instantaneously.

This brings me to my birthday! Wendy let it be known that:

1. She was making me a birthday present.
2. The magnitude of its dorkiness would be off the charts.
3. She waited too long to start it and was now hurrying to finish it in time.

I honestly had no idea what it could be.

So, on my birthday, the mystery was solved when I unwrapped this:

I loved it! It was way cooler than anything I had imagined she was making, and I was totally impressed with her mad crocheting skillz.

A few days after my birthday, the company got more figurines in stock, so I jumped at the chance to get some friends (minions?) for my custom-made Android:

The little guy on the right, by the way, is a glow-in-the-dark "radioactive" android.

The Android wasn't the only hand-made gift I got, either. Long-time readers of our blog know that Wendy and I love books, and we have a lot of them. So, some months ago, when my Mom mysteriously asked for a list of authors and books I like, I knew something was up. And when Cory blogged about his Concorde birthday gift a few months ago, I knew something cross-stitch-y was up.

Once again, the mystery was solved when I opened the box and found this:

(click to embiggen)

A very cool, not to mention very creative, gift that goes quite well with our tall bookshelves and stacks of books piled high.

A Monumental Report

Recently, I came home from work and Wendy was at the laptop surfing the web.

"I just finished reading an article about the 20 least-visited national monuments in the U.S. Guess how many we've been to!" she said.

It was a leading question, to be sure, so I knew the answer was greater than zero.

"Um, two?"

"You're right!" she replied. "Now guess which ones!"

Hm, a much tougher question. I thought about it for a bit and made a few wrong guesses. Then said: "George Washington Carver National Monument?"

"That's one!"

We wrote briefly about our stops at the GWC National Monument a few years ago. I'm surprised it made it in the top 20 least-visited monuments, but according to the article it comes in at #13, with 39,000 visitors last year.

So, one down, one to go. I tried a few more ideas, but with no luck. "Ok, I don't know. What's the other one?"

"The Capulin Volcano in New Mexico," Wendy said.

Ah, Mount Capulin. I would never have come up with that. It's a cinder-cone volcano in northeastern New Mexico.

Back in our Colorado days we took a continuing-ed Astronomy class at Colorado State University. From the class we learned about Star Hill Inn, an astronomy retreat in the mountains of New Mexico. You rent a cabin in the woods and get access to over a dozen telescopes of all different types to use for stargazing.

We went a few times and really enjoyed it. It was during one of those stays we visited the Capulin Volcano which was nearby. The thing I remember most is thinking we picked the right day to go; it was cloudy and cool, while the day before and day after were sunny and very hot. Had it been sunny and clear, though, we might have seen portions of four states from the highest point (New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Colorado).

I am sad to report while writing this post I discovered that Star Hill Inn is now closed. Bummer. It was a very cool place.

Finally:

"Now guess what the least-visited monument is and how many visitors it had last year."

"Well, it has to be in Alaska. 50 visitors?"

"Aniakchak, Alaska. 14 visitors!"

More Turtle Videos!

Turtles have a long and storied tradition on our blog: from sunbathing on logs to the annual migration across our yard. This year, we've decided to super-size that tradition! I now present to you, courtesy of the Springfield Zoo, a Galápagos Tortoise:

For the past few years we've been meaning to visit the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL. We've heard a number of good reviews of it, so over Easter Weekend we drove down for a few days.

Because rain was forecast for the latter part of the weekend, we decided to do the outdoors attractions first. Thus, our first stop was the Springfield Zoo. It was fairly small as one might expect, and a few exhibits were closed until later in the spring, but it was still a decent outing. Our encounter with Mr. Galápagos was alone worth the price of admission.

Afterwards, we visited the Dana-Thomas House which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We went on an hour-long tour of the house, but pictures were not allowed inside, so you'll have to make do with these exterior shots. The interior, by the way, was very elaborate with lots of winding passageways.

Finally, at the end of our first day we visited Lincoln's Tomb. This was much more moving than either of us expected it to be.

Day 2 was devoted exclusively to Lincoln. We spent the entire morning exploring the Lincoln Museum, and yes, it is quite good. There's a lot of information presented very effectively. Again, no pictures were allowed of the exhibits, so you'll have to take our word on it.

One of the highlights was seeing one of Mr. Lincoln's top-hats on display (there are only 3 left in the world, the very helpful volunteer told us), complete with thumbprints on the brim where he would tip his hat. Lincoln wore the hats partly because he liked to carry papers inside of them.

Finally, from a gift-shop book I learned that Lincoln had quite a temper as a young politician, published vicious letters anonymously in the paper attacking his opponents, was found out by one of those opponents, and was challenged to a duel. Both men met with swords at the alotted time before a peace deal was struck at the last minute. (The entire affair is rather funny; you can read a full account here.)

For the last stop on our Lincoln Tour, we spent a while touring the neighborhood and house Lincoln lived in for 17 years.

Lincoln did quite well as a lawyer in Springfield.

This house was remodeled twice during his stay.

Lincoln's sofa. It was actually long enough for him to recline in.

His work desk in the bedroom.

We left Springfield the next morning, but took a longer route home so we could meet Danny and two of his friends in Champaign, IL. We had a delicious Easter brunch at Carmon's restaurant (their crepes are quite good), and enjoyed catching up on the latest news.