Give a Child a Book

Over the weekend I learned about a local charity with a specific aim: to give books to children. Many children grow up without having a single book of their own.

I grew up in a house that was filled with books, and I was free to read any that I could. I read a lot of classic SF from the family collection, and a lot of non-fiction. I did not, however, have a collection of children's books. There were a few, yes, but most of the easy reader books that I read came from school and went back to school.

And yet, I did have a book of my own, given to me by a college student. I couldn't have been more than five or six at the time. They gave me the book, and I like it very much. It had interesting pictures. As I grew older and could understand the words, I found it very interesting to read.

I did not know at the time that they had picked up the book especially for me. I thought, like so many things in my life, that it was another hand-me-down, and may not have seemed as excited by this gift as I really was. Or perhaps because I opened it and fell into it, they knew I did indeed like it.

So I would like to say thank you for this book, which turned out to have a life-long impression on me. And I would like to encourage other people to give books to children, books with interesting pictures and fun facts, such as the life cycle of a parasitic worm. Thank you very much.

And see? I still have that book!

The Shrinking Mountains of Madness

February 21st, 2014

February 28th, 2014

March 10th, 2014

As you can see, the endless winter has ended, and the Mountains of Madness are shrinking.  How much longer before Regional Warming destroys then forever?

Thaw!

Today it was warm. Warm! Up to fifty degrees warm, leave the car in the coat warm! Grass could be seen by the road, and we drove through water puddles instead of snow slush!

And here I found the snow on a tin roof sliding off like so much warm icing on a cake.

I'm Having Trouble With My Mailbox

 

I can't get to my mailbox. We've had continuous snow cover for over a month now, two major snowfalls, and several minor ones. Where the snow is flat on the ground it does melt down into the ground, slowly, but on the sides of the driveway the piles turn to ice. And we must have piles on the side of the driveway, because every time the snow plow comes past it scrapes a wall of slush over the mouth of the driveway. Sure, we could just shovel it back into the street, but the next time the plow comes past we are blocked in again.

Meanwhile, our street is growing narrower with every snow. The mailboxes stand on the edge of the curb, which is now about two feet from the clean edge of the snow. It's worse on the other side of the street. More than a yard. Two cars must pass very carefully now, and there is now passing the school buses.

 

In the parking lots, the snow is piling up even higher. We will have snowmounds for a long time. I think I should start a contest as to how long before this one, which I have nicknamed the Mountain of Madness, will remain.  Place your guesses in my SFF.net newsgroup and the winner will get a free ebook/pdf of any of my novels that he or she chooses.

The Mountain of Madness

 

Snow Crystals

I went out to clear off the car the other day. There had been enough moisture in the air that snow was threatened, but it had been too cold -- below zero -- to snow. Instead of frost or snow I found my car was covered with these giant snow crystals. They looked like delicate butterflies waiting to take off, growing as they were away from the car like wings. I could not take the time to photograph them, but when I got back from my errand I found that a few were still sticking to the leeward side of the other car.

Here's a close-up of the crystals:

Big Bang Theory, October 12, 2011

In honor of tonight's showing of the Big Bang Theory, which will have a guest star appearance by both Will Wheaton and Brent Spinner, my daughter is wearing her special shirt.

Pottermore

Wow -- I'm in Pottermore! Sorta.

Pottermore has been billed as an interactive site for the Harry Potter fans. What it will be, no one knows, other than that it is currently exclusive. There are rumors of games and ebook downloads and fan forums. The TOS deals with the ownership of fan fiction and fan art posted on the site, so I assume that will be allowed as well. For the most part, however, it is a tantalizing mystery.

The big game right now, however, is to get in. One millions lucky souls will be allowed in early. That is, they will be allowed to experience the Beta site.
To be chosen as one of the lucky million, they must play a game. Each day for seven days, at a secret time, a clue will show up on Pottermore. Tack the answer to the clue to the end of the web address quill.pottermore.com. This may take you to the site where the magic quill is located. If you find the magic quill, then you can register for the site.

Using all the skill I had developed while trying to land substitute teaching jobs, I went to the Pottermore site. First I found the servers swamped. When I finally landed the site, the clue was not up. But after some time and a few refreshes -- it helps to be writing a really tough section of a novel and looking for a distraction, any distraction, from the uncooperative wordage -- I discovered that the clue was up. And it was, for me, an easy one. So I tacked the right answer onto the address and got...

I got a website advertising Sony products. Sony gaming systems, Sony TVs, Sony DVD's. Huh? No mention of a quill anywhere. Was my answer actually wrong? I tried a different answer, and an obviously wrong answer, and discovered that if the answer was wrong I was simply bounced back to the Pottermore site, with the clue staring me in the face. And the right answer took me to an advertisement.

Obviously, I was meant to be a Muggle.

As I was trying to figure this out, which meant multiple tries with the right answer, suddenly I got the magic quill. Okay, it worked. So I went through the more complicated than usual registration and was awarded a user name. I choose a password and wrote it down. Then I was congratulated and told that my registration would be complete when I clicked on the link in the email I would receive. It would arrive within a day. And then I could enjoy the wonders of Pottermore.

The email arrived within twenty minutes. It helps, as I said, to be grinding through a tough section of writing. I clicked on the link and went to the registration page, and carefully entered my user name and password.

My password was not recognized.

I tried again and again, checking each time. Same result. I went through the password change link, and tried again. Soon after, I was told that I had tried to log in too many times and was thus locked out for an hour.

They know I'm a Muggle.

I waited for an hour and tried again. Ahah! I was in! Or was I? What I got was a page congratulating me on completing my registration, but they can't let everybody in at the same time, so I should get my welcome letter in a few weeks.

How many is a few? There are only eight weeks until the site opens to everybody.

When do the Muggles get to enter?

At any rate, it is important to remember that this is a beta site, and there will be glitches. And frustrations. If you want in, just keep trying, and remember, a few weeks isn't that different from eight.