The Burglar In the Rye

You ever have an author you read pretty consistently and then...something happens?  You get busy; you get into other things.  You still buy some of their books but for some reason you just have other stuff to get to.  Then you finally pick up one of their books again and you’re instantly back in their world and remembering all the other books while reading this one?

That’s what happened to me with this book.  As part of the TBR Double Dare, I’m pulling things off my shelves that I’ve realized I’ve never read and finally getting around to them.  It’s the best resolution I’ve made!  I love doing away with reader guilt!

Lawrence Block is an official Grand Master of the mystery genre.  He’s got three popular series.  Well, he has more, but these three are his most famous: the Matthew Scudder series (my favorite), the Keller series, and the Bernie Rhodenbarr series.  Matt Scudder is an ex-drunk ex-cop who, in a gritty series, is an unofficial PI who deals with some serious moral grey areas.  Keller is a fun series about a professional killer and stamp collector.  Bernie owns an runs an antiquarian bookshop on paper, and that’s how he spends his days.  But many nights find his plying his true calling: that of being a burglar.  He’s a fastidious and entertaining character who often finds himself breaking into a room with a corpse and having to solve the murder so it doesn’t get pinned on him.  He’s the dry-witted Holmes in these situations and his Watson is the hard-drinking lesbian pet groomer next door to the books shop, Carolyn.  While the Scudder novels are gritty and hard-bitten, the Bernie books are all lighter than air and Block uses then as an excuse to play with all the usual tropes of these types of mysteries.  Scudder can be traced back to Hammett.  Bernie back to Agatha.  He’s even got the requisite cat in the book shop. The body, while obviously damaged in some way, has already been done away with.  There’s rarely ever any on stage violence.  It’s a game of wits that many times ends in a moment in which Bernie gets to say, “I’ll bet you’re all wondering why I’ve brought you here.”

This one is a riff on the Salinger letters and bios of the late 90s and early 00s.  In this one, a woman asks Bernie to break into the hotel residence of a famous reclusive author and steal his letters before the old editor sells them at auction and has them published.

Of course Bernie gets into the hotel room only to find that someone has just been there, gotten the letters, and done away with the old editor.  Bernie gets out; and to make sure the evening isn’t a total loss, steals some high-priced rubies from another hotel room on his circuitous path out of the hotel...and right into the arms of the cops.

So now he has to find the letters, solve more than one murder and clear up some confusion about these multiply-stolen rubies if he wants to stay out of the clink permanently.

With this many balls flying in the air, don’t even bother trying to figure out whodunnit because, well, you’ll never guess and it doesn’t really matter.  It’s more about watching the juggling act and enjoying the show.  And while you’re at it you’ll learn to appreciate those old writers who have filled our lives with these wonderful books.  Not bad for a light mystery.

Birthday Party Pre-Planning Craziness

Harper enjoyed her Hermione costume for Halloween so much that she has requested a Harry Potter-themed party.  My Lovely Bride loves the idea because if there's one thing she could do if she couldn't teach, it would be party planning.  And she just eats up everything Harry Potter, so I am anticipating much craziness for the next few months.

Yes, months.  Her birthday isn't until the end of March!

Now ours, I am sure, will be very cool, but try googling Harry Potter  Birthday Party.  Just...wow.  There are levels of detail and crazy in some of the things I've seen  people share about their own kids' HP birthday parties to rival the nuttiest over-the-top Bridezilla.

It should be interesting!



Some of her previous parties.

Another cute picture of her celebrating Harry Potter (before she even really knew what it was).

Book Fair Cheerleaders?

These girls were just hanging around during parent conferences, so I said, ''Why don't you go out in the hall and point people into the library for the Book Fair?''

Within 20 minutes they were doing this:



(And yes, after I shot this I told them to quit doing the whole lifting up the little one since we don't need a lawsuit on our hands...)

Overnight Zoo Field Trip

So yeah, I spent the night at the Altanta Zoo Tuesday night as a chaperone for my daughter's 2nd grade class field trip.  But it's a big school.  There are nine 2nd grade classes.  Three of them went Tuesday night and the rest were doing it Wednesday.

It was wonderful and crazy.  So you get there, dump you stuff in this big room, then head into an auditorium where they lay out the rules for the kiddos.  The kid I'm sitting next to?  Lost his tooth right there.

Then we split up and our class went into tis room where our guide brought us different creatures to talk about and touch including a six foot python that used it's tail to try and pickpocket her radio.

After some other activities we hiked out at night and saw the Komono dragon, then up to the Reptile house.  Each of the kids were given little squeeze lights of different colors, the lights were left off and they were let loose inside.  It was wonderfully controlled mayhem with these kids seeing all these freaky snakes and snapping turtles being much more active (and creepier) by the glow of little quivering lights.

Then the highlight of the evening, off to the kitchen where the "food" is prepared for the animals.  I'm not going to go into detail on this.  It was awesome.  You should go.

Then we crashed in that huge room with sleeping bags.  I had a little camping pad under mine and smirked at the adults who had gone all out and brought air mattresses. How bourgeois, I thought to myself.  Next morning?  Wished I had one of those dang things!  But it wasn't like I was getting much sleep with the adults snoring and the little kid away-from home nightmares.

How good is my daughter's 2nd grade teacher?  My little friend was freaked to find the tooth fairy had left him a dollar.  At the zoo!  Wow.

Wednesday was the best.  That's the reason to do this trip. You get to run around the zoo with a knowledgeable guide and no massive hoards.  They answer all your questions and, even better, the animals are being fed and very awake and active (except for that lion who was up roaring at night, he was crashed out).

Some hilarious bits:  That lion was spreadeagled with his, um, boy parts getting happily aired out.  One of the kids said, "That's a boy lion!"  The guide smirked, "Clearly."  The kid: "Ya know how I can tell?  Because of his mane!"  Oh. Yeah. That too.

The rhino backed up to a large flat rock and let go an impressive jet of urine.  Guide: "That's how they mark their territory.  That's his rock."  Me: "He can have it!"

A gorilla decided to vigorously scratch his ass. Kids: "Ewww!  Why is he doing that?"  Guide: "It itches."

Guide at the Kangaroo pen: "These are all females with our one intact male." Me: "Intact?"  Guide: "I'm just going to leave it at that."

Fun times!

It's a great program, our guide couldn't have been better and the kids reportedly remember it forever.  Totally worth it.

Atlanta Zoo NightCrawler Program

(Oh, and that picture is one of my many from the trip. It's of the Red Panda which isn't really red or a panda.)

Questions Answered!

I love this.  I've actually been getting questions and requests for posts lately.  I would be more than happy to make this a regular feature, so keep them coming!

Heather Kelly asks about my WEEK off of school to to the weather: "Wow--how much snow did you guys get?"

We got about five inches.  That doesn't sound like much (I remember getting that many feet in Ohio),  but it was a record-breaker here in the Atlanta area.  That's not why we were out a week, though.  It was the covering layer of ice and then the continuing sub-freezing temperatures that made the roads completely impassable.  Along, of course, with the lack of snow and ice removal infrastructure for obvious reasons.

In a similar vein, Doret asks: "Have you gotten out at all this week?"

Not really, no.  The three of us (My Lovely Bride (MLB), my daughter Harper, and I) all trekked out to the park and sledded on found objects that first day.  We also made a Totoro snow-person.  Tuesday was a complete jammies day for us all.  Wednesday the girls were getting loopy but some friends who had to work dropped off their daughters for us to watch and Harper to play with.  Thursday afternoon/evening the girls braved a two-mile drive for a playdate and Mom chat time.  Apparently the car almost went into a ditch right near the friend's driveway.  The other girl came back with Harper for an overnight.  Friday some other girls joined them as all three Moms went to lunch and I fixed lunch here, tea-party style for the gaggle of girls and their dolls.  (How many points do I get for that?)  Today we will be going out (very carefully) for groceries and a make-up Little Gym class and even a dinner date with friends.

klonghall wants to know about my new reading device: "I got a Kindle for my upcoming birthday.  I hope you'll do a post soon on what you like (and dislike) about yours."

I think it is made of awesome.  I do feel guilt because I can walk to a library and I work in a library and I have many unread books lying around the house but I love love love it.  My first initiative was to buy only kids books for it so that Harper and MLB could also read them on their iPad (thereby lessening my guilt).  But kids books are short and I was going through them pretty quick and that was adding up.  I slowed myself down with some free books and all three Mysterious Benedict Society books bundled together for the price of one.  I also decided to read the kid books on my own and every other book from my TBR pile (again, a guilt-lessening move but I find I can read a book much faster when my goal is to get back to my Kindle reading).

My current books are both non-Kindle but I keep finding excuses to read short things on it.  I use Instapaper and have found I can download the whole shebang and stuff it in my Kindle.  Sweet!  I was also reading a blog post yesterday and the author recommended the introduction of a book.  On a Kindle, Amazon lets you download a "sample" which can be pretty generous depending on the length of the title.  So I downloaded the sample and, sure enough, had the entire introduction and then some.  I now have a bunch of samples I'm working through and it's a great way to make some future reading decisions.

I also have a generous amount of free classic books downloaded "just in case" so I never run out of stuff to read.  And just because I could I paid less than $2 to download The Complete Mark Twain Collection which includes more than 300 works!  And it all always weighs only 8.5 ounces!  Which is much nicer than one of those wrist-breaking 15.8 ounce Nooks (that was a joke).

But seriously, I still love books but the Kindle is nice.  I know I'm now married to Amazon and while I've had some pointed comments about them in the past, I figure if you're going to go for and electronic reader, why not go for the absolute best reader with the best selection?  Amazon is benefitting, sure, but so are independent publishers and self-publishing authors.

Oh, and I got one of the covers that have the little lights on it.  In my opinion, Amazon should just make that part of the deal because it's amazingly great to have a book light embedded right there.

I love: the weight and size and clarity.  Having the built-in dictionary!  Never having to worry about finishing a book and not having something else to read.  Being able to know I have a handful of things in my bag without stuffing said bag full of books and magazines.  Never again having to worrying about falling asleep and having some big-assed book conk me on the head in bed.  Always opening a book to where I left off and never needing a bookmark.  And being able to bookmark important pages to go back to without having to dog-ear pages!

I wish: the screen savers were customizable, but that's no biggie.  Um, that's about it.  They seem to have thought of just about everything.

I wonder: the point of the read-aloud computer voice.  It's silly.  Although I did once come across a word I didn't know how to pronounce and used the voice to figure it out.  I don't know if the voice was right, but I went with it.

And if you are worried about the expense of buying all those ebooks, don't forget you can ask all your loved ones for Amazon/Kindle gift cards for all future gift-giving and you're set!

Kindle (Wi-Fi)

Kindle, Lighted Leather Cover, Black

Woo Hoo!

My daughter giving me a push down a hill at our nearby park.  Fun, but cooooold.

I also added a few more pix to this album.

Now for more hot chocolate and toasty blankets!

Maybe I should explain this photo...

So this was taken during our morning broadcast on October 29th.  It was the Friday right before the Halloween weekend and my crew and I decided to have some fun.  The show starts with two anchors, then cuts to an administrator for some announcements, then back to the anchors for a couple of things and a sign-off.  

While the administrator was talking, one of the anchors covered himself in some extra green screen sheeting I had laying around.  To us in the broadcast room, the picture above what it looked like.  To those watching in their classrooms it looked as if only one anchor were present in a newsrom.  He said his line, then the other guy's came from nowhere.  He had to act as if he didn't realize this weirdo in a green sheet was standing right next to him.  When he asked where the voice was coming from, his friend pulled down the sheet and announced that he had "a magical invisible cloak.  Mwa-ha-ha-ha!"

Green screen technology.  Not always necessary, but it sure can be fun.

Librarians: The Best Search Engine

Two awesome high school librarians in my district.  Think they'll win their costume contest?

Some Random Dragon*Con Pix

Steven Strogatz

Have you been reading Steven Strogatz's column about math in the NYT? It's a lot of fun, especially for someone like me who was interested in math but hated the homework and missed the good stuff in school. His 28 March column was on functions. Sounds boring, right? Wrong.

Like the best teacherninjas, he makes it fun and interesting. There's a clip from Moonlighting, a gorgeous video of parabolas at play at the Detroit airport and a discussion if the amazing feat then high school junior Britney Gallivan who created a paper folding theorem (above) which put her in the mathematical history books. (When I was a junior I was taking Algebra II for the second time...) She proved it by folding 1200 meters of toilet paper in a mall. It was verified at Caltech, but even better it was replicated by Mythbusters!

Steven Strogatz is amazing and fun. You can find him often on Radiolab. A couple of filmmakers made this video based on a story he told on this episode of Radiolab. And this is also a cool episode about math and our number sense that he's in as well.

Check out all of his columns at NYT. They stat with muppets counting and will continue on through calculus, which I'm sure he'll find a way to make fun and entertaining.

Steven Strogatz: teacherninja.

The Top Three Children's Books!

You know those strict dates they have for big bestselling books, like a new Harry Potter book?  Those are called "laydown dates" and they're not always strictly enforced unless it's a big book like the HP series.  There is no "laydown date police force" or anything.  The publisher might cut you off if you sell the books before that date if you're a bookseller.  But wasn't it fun to read about the three or four kids who got their hands on that last Harry Potter from stores (usually not bookstores--other stores that also sold books on the side) that accidentally sold them before the correct date?

Well my friends, you will get that same thrill here today.  I have a nefarious friend who has helped me hack into Elizabeth Bird's email account and I have discovered the identities of the TOP THREE CHILDREN'S BOOKS on her list that were to be released in the coming weeks.

I may be sued, but you, my friends, will have the satisfaction of knowing the top three before anyone else!  How could you resist?

Not to be too much of a spoiler, I will let you decide if you want to click on the links.  (But I'm pretty sure you will!  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!)

Number Three!

Number Two!

Number One!

Happy Birthday, Harper!

"Camping Party"

As "Trixie"

As Wonder Woman!

Wow!  You have had some great birthday parties, daughter of mine.  That's because your mom is an amazing party planner.  When you were 5, you wanted a "camping party" because you had discovered the joys of hiking.  There was a map everyone had to follow and all kinds of treasures to find.  The pinata was a bear cannister.  In the picture above you are crossing the driveway "river."  The cake had a little tent on it.

When you were 6 you wanted a storybook character dress up party.  There was a kid dressed as Cinderella and there was a Cat In the Hat and a Harry Potter and more.  You went as Trixie from a favorite picture book that I thought was more well-known at the time. Too bad for me because you had me go as the 2:00am daddy and the other parents just thought I was a loony unshaven guy in his jammies.  A month later we met Mo Willems himself and it cracked him up.  He even mentioned it on his blog.  The pinata was a princess castle. You had book-covered cupcakes, kids jumping over candlesticks and throwing cows over the moon and we went on a Wild Rumpus.

But wait, there's more.  This year you wanted a superhero party!  We had kids dressed as Mr. Incredible and transformers and Superman and Batgirl and you, of course were rocking that Wonder Woman outfit with the special-ordered real Wonder Woman boots!  The pinata was a big red, white and blue star and the Wonder Woman cake was cool.  Luckily, the weather cleared just in time!  We performed "Feats of Strength" and instead of Pin-the-Tail on the donkey, we had Pin the "KaPow!" on Cat Woman!  This time I got even more suspicious looks from the other parents because I had to be the Super Villian.  I wore a black suit with an eyepatch and my sling.  I cradled a pet skunk (stuffed) and cackled while I dared you and your other hero friends to just try and find all the stolen gold (chocolate) coins I had hidden (among other things) somewhere in the back yard with poisonous (rubber) snakes guarding them!

What a hoot!  It was a crazy amount of work, but it sure was fun and you're totally worth it.

Happy 7th!

Corey, The Short Pirate

Another fun cover project from 100 Scope Notes.

Good Old Times

Tee hee! Found this fun little generator here.

betray

My YA cover for the 100 Scope Notes challenge. "betray" by Frankie S. Haddad, quote: "Your love is a deserter" --The Kills.

Check out all the rest of the entries in his gallery. Great stuff!

Batgirl Was A Librarian

The title of this post comes from the front plate of a car I saw in the parking lot of Macon State College as I attended the GLMA Summer Institute. It wasn't the best conference I've ever been to, but it was a good one for getting the feel of my new career path.

They're librarians, so of course there's a wiki of resources, which is certainly worth checking out. I was dismayed to hear that it's a yearly struggle to get the funding for GALILEO (click here if that link doesn't work), Georgia's online research library and databases. It's an amazing resource and especially great that every school in Georgia has access to it. Much better than Google for the kiddies and you could get the equivalent of multiple Ph.Ds using nothing but this without any books in your media center. How much does this treasure set the 9.4 million citizens of our state back for use in our public schools? Less than .02 cents each. A veritable drop in the bucket.

The best presenter by far was a fellow named Tommy Johns. I have no idea if that is his real name. He has many of great tips and the theme of his talk was perfect. To be a great media specialist he says, you need to have:

Now there's a philosophy I can promote!

Free Harry Potter Books

Ms. Yingling has the scoop.

Should be fun, kids!

Back from Disney

I must congratulate the authors/compilers of this magnificent tome. I mentioned earlier that I was using it for our week-long Disney trip and it was indeed all that! Every time we stuck to their touring plans, we were delighted. Every time we tried to wing it or went against their advice, we were grumpy. Mostly, we were quite happy. We met princesses and other characters, did three of the major parks, saw shows, parades, had her made up like a princess, rode boats and buses and trains, and enjoyed the hotel pool. A full week indeed!

I am not a fan of long lines, large crowds, or mind-numbing heat so this kind of vacation is not at the top of my list. But I have a six year old daughter who I would do just about anything for (proof), so way back when she first discovered the existence of a Disney park, I started considering options and browsing travel books. I told my wife I'd like to wait until she was either 40 inches tall or 7 years old and I would encourage anyone going to take this advice to heart. It's an expensive trip and everyone I saw that didn't fit either of these two requirements were usually having a temper tantrum or sleeping in strollers.

I saw many grown ups having temper tantrums as well. More than half the fathers I witnessed seemed to think of themselves as generals of an army and the only words they spoke to their children were barked orders, sometimes accompanied by fingers to the chest cavities of the little ones. Some slaps as well. Why were they even there?

I know I'm biased, but I think our daughter was the best behaved of all the children, and this is not something we focus on. I honestly think it's because we simply talk to her about everything. We would talk to her about the schedule and warn her when lines might be long. We discussed choices and how if we rode something again we might not be able to do something else. We even (gasp!) involved her in the decisions.

We're not the kind of people who think this is the "most magical place on Earth" and don't want to do this every year or anything. So we were ready to blow our wad for the week and make it as memorable as possible (another reason for waiting--three year-olds might have fun but won't remember a thing). The Unofficial Guide and Small World Vacations did us up right.

One funny story. While we were watching a performance in front of the castle one afternoon featuring Mickey, Donald, Goofy, princesses, pirates, and dancers all about your dreams coming true, Micky asked the crowd to shout out their dreams. Among many "I want to be a princess/pirate" responses, Harper looked at us and shouted, "This! This is my dream come true!" She was so incredibly happy. Then she laughed when I shouted that my dream was to be a...librarian.

Harper's Clubhouse

In a previous post, I ranted about the difficulties of building a playhouse "kit" we bought for my daughter's 6th birthday. Well it's mostly finished now, so I thought I'd share since some of you have asked. Here she is inviting you in. Yes, it's huge. 8x8 square on the floor. 9' high at the tip. Real windows, shingles, flower boxes, etc. The front door is small, but as you can barely see there is a regular-sized adult door in the back.

There are still some touch ups to do, but she's been "moved in" for about a week now and we're all happy with it. One cool thing is that I can hang out there with her and my laptop and still get wireless internet. Sweet!

April Fool

So if you haven't figured it out already, the two posts I  put up yesterday were April Fool's jokes.  Fuse #8 has not revealed the favorite picture books as yet (of course I' haven't gone through my feed reader yet, so she may have started--it'll certainly lead to some interesting discussion I'm sure).  It was just a play on her "Triumvirate of Mediocrity" post from a while back.

And there is no such book as The Vengenace of Argir or an author named "Orson Wright" (as far as I know).  I took some of the ideas from Travis's post on "Create Your Debut FantasyNovel Cover" from 100 Scope Notes and tweaked it for my own nefarious purposes.  I must admit it's quite fun.

First, got to this name generator to make up an author name.

Then go to this fantasy novel name generator to get a title.

Now he said to go to Photobucket and click on "surreal art" but Photobucket is blocked at my workplace (natch), so I went to a service which searches for Creative Commons licensed images and types in "surreal" instead.  Travis gives a formula for picking a random image, but I just picked one that kinda went with my title.

Finally, I used Picnik to edit it (and added the touch of an award sticker).

Here's another one I made later in the day.  I think it'd be fun to try this with my students.  I have them writing a bunch of poems this month--maybe I'll let them finish up the project by creating their own poetry volume cover.

Have a great month.