I was going through some of the pictures I took this summer, and found a couple of wildlife shots taken at the Huntington Library and Gardens. Here, for example, is a splendid example of a bonsai tree escaping from its container.
And here is a Rainbird in its native habitat:
Finally, here’s a shot of the Japanese Garden. The bridge used to be that bright Japanese red, with black highlights; alas, it’s been allowed to return to natural wood tones.
According to Lars Walker,
I know for a fact that every time a pagan deity materializes or the space-time continuum is violated in my neighborhood, the police put me under surveillance.
I generally find Captain Yips to be one of the more insightful, clear-thinking, and calm commentators on The Current Unpleasantness; today, however, while retaining his insight and clarity he appears to be channeling his inner Chris Johnson.* Well, as he says, it was late.
* Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I just realized that I hadn’t posted anything about S.M. Stirling’s The Protector’s War, which is the sequel to Dies the Fire. I won’t try to summarize it at this late date; I’d only get it wrong, which would be embarassing. But I liked it, and had fewer qualms about it than its predecessor, and I’m looking forward to the next book, A Meeting In Corvallis, which is just out in paperback.
Digging a little deeper, I find I’ve also neglected to speak of Against the Tide of Years and On the Oceans of Eternity, which are the follow-on books to Island in the Sea of Time. I liked those, too, and would buy them again. As before, I won’t try to say much about them months after having read them…but the series is worth finishing, which is really what you wanted to know, right? Of the two, I’m enjoying the Dies the Fire books a little more, though.
(As you might have guessed, I’m tidying up my study. I’ve got six months or more of books to put away. Just because I wasn’t posting doesn’t mean I wasn’t reading.)
Stolen shamelessly from Jaquandor:
1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/.
2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
3. Take their “Career Matchmaker” questions.
4. Post the top ten results.
So here are (ahem) mine:
1. Multimedia Developer
2. Industrial Designer
3. Computer Programmer
4. Interior Designer
5. Fashion Designer
6. Desktop Publisher
7. Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
8. Computer Engineer
9. Video Game Developer
10. Website Designer
Remembering the questions they asked, it’s clear that the folks who put this together have a different notion of “creative work” and “design” than I do. Fact is, I can’t draw worth a darn, which would seem a requirement for a number of these.
(For those who don’t know, I’ve spent the last seventeen or eighteen years working as a software engineer. As to whether I’m well suited to it—well, I’m supporting a family of six, so objectively I’m reasonably successful, and as for subjectively…I do this stuff even when I’m not getting paid for it.)
Do anyone else’s kids make their stuffed Pokemon dance on the kitchen table at breakfast while humming Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”?
No, that’s what I thought.
One reader’s summer with Jane Austen and Jack Aubrey, courtesy of Mark Shea.
Here’s a personal remembrance of a childhood spent riding the elevator with Madeleine L’Engle, via Happy Catholic. L’Engle sounds like she would have been a treat to know; I’m sorry I never had the opportunity to meet her.
Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time and many others, has passed away at 88; she’d evidently been in a nursing home for some time. Julie at Happy Catholic has some comments, and links to comments by others as well.
The sad thing when an author dies is that they aren’t going to write us any more books. The joyful thing is how much of themselves they leave behind.
Damn, but Nevil Shute can tell a story.
That’s about all I’m prepared to say about this one; if I told you much of the plot, then I’d have to shoot you, so that my having told you about it wouldn’t spoil your reading of it. Many thanks to Ian Hamet, Benevolent Misanthrope, for the loan of this one.
The View from the Foothills 