Books of April, 06

Spending a few days in bed definitely kicks up the reading time, and even when feeling "better" it didn't equate to feeling good (or even close to good) so along with those days there were a number of afternoons spent in bed. The time spent betwixt dozing and reading does show in the number of books I read during April:

• Greenthieves by Alan Dean Foster
  
• Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
  
• Sanibel Flats by Randy Wayne White
  
• Purple Cane Road by James Lee Burke
  
• Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King
  
• Bad Move by Linwood Barclay
  
• The Baker's Boy by J. V. Jones
  
• Bad Guys by Linwood Barclay
  
• Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani
  
• The Wizard and the War Machine by Lawrence Watt-Evans
  
• Cachalot by Alan Dean Foster
  
• Currently reading A Man Betrayed by J. V. Jones

Greenthieves by Alan Dean Foster - This was an SF detective story about an insurance "adjuster" (this adjuster uses weapons more than adding machines) trying to solve a locked-room theft - actually, multiple thefts from the locked room. The detective story was routine, and being it was SF, it was flavored with the a futuristic landscape. Not bad, a bit of a neat idea included, but overall not spectacular by any means. Do note that if you enjoy Foster's off-beat Spellsinger books, you should know that Greenthieves is a straight SF detective story.

Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani - I call books like this one a "slice of life" style book; nothing that would make the newspaper, just a warm story about average folks. I found it a nice change of pace to thrillers of various sort, and while my brothers tend to suggest my liking such books is an indication of a lack of positive deflection on the mass meter when my foot apparel is placed upon it, I don't care. I likes what I likes.

Sanibel Flats by Randy Wayne White - I picked this book up on the paperback swap website, an opening novel in the Doc Ford series, first published back in 1990. Doc Ford is a former government agent who has retired and now lives in Florida. The cover of the copy I have compares White to Carl Hiassen though it's probably more for the Florida base than the actual novel. And while Ford, the central character, does now live in Florida, most of the action in this opening novel of the series takes place in South America. I wouldn't rate it superb, but it wasn't bad, had interesting characters, and I liked it well enough to see where the next novel goes. Hopefully it'll work out into an enjoyable series as there are several Doc Ford books out there.

Purple Cane Road by James Lee Burke - The first of Burke's books I read was Cadillac Jukebox which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was set in the New Iberia area of Louisiana, an area where I spent several weeks on business, and revisited with my wife one anniversary. Both my (very limited) familiarity with the area, along with Burke's masterful characterization and storytelling skills, left me wanting more of the series. I did read a couple of others in the "Robicheaux" series (the central character being Dave Robicheaux), but now my problem lies in remembering which ones I had read and which ones I had not read. Purple Cane Road didn't sound familiar, and I was right that I hadn't read it. It, too, was a great read, but I've decided I don't want to keep randomly picking them up and reading them out of order. I think I'm going to start with the first in the series - The Neon Rain, and go in order. If I accidentally pick up one I've read along the way, no biggie. The story? Oh, yeah. Well, it's your basic "damaged cop" sort of story, with Robicheaux being the damaged cop, and by "damaged" it's the standard alcohol problems that so many fictional cops/private eyes seem to be fighting. But the backstory around Robicheaux is well done, and the supporting cast is great, and the mixture of detective story with the human qualities of Robicheaux makes for a very good read.

Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower V by Stephen King - It's been awhile since I read Wizard and Glass, the fourth book in the Dark Tower series, but it only took a bit of time to catch back up in the story, and I enjoyed this one more than I remember (been a couple years or more) enjoying Wizards and Glass. I'll pick up book six sometime in the reasonable future, and eventually finish the entire series. But unless things change, Book One by far is still the best and I don't think the series lived up to the potential from a (or at least this) reader's perspective.

Bad Move by Linwood Barclay - Absolutely hilarious. The cover states "If Dave Barry wrote mystery, it would be something like Barclay's Bad Move." Which is true, because as I read it I was reminded of Dave Barry's mysteries, which apparently the writers of the blurb didn't realize Barry wrote - though I'd call both this one and Barry's books "criminal capers." But it is a very funny book, enough so that I ordered the hardback of the second novel Bad Guys without waiting for it's soon-released paperback version. The story centers around Zack Walker, a married father of two, whose attempts at life's lessons to his family tend to go awry.

The Baker's Boy by J. V. Jones (Book I of the The Book of Words trilogy) - Barring The Wicked Witch of the West and my partial of Son of a Witch, it's been awhile since I've read any fantasy. Well, I suppose Casual Rex would be considered fantasy, but it was more a detective story with dinosaurs than a fantasy story. The Baker's Boy was a beginning for The Book of Words trilogy. So far, an enjoyable fantasy read -- some small points are brushed over, so a bit of suspension of disbelief is required, but overall enjoyable. The other two books of the trilogy are on the way from paperback book swap members and I look forward to continuing the series.

Bad Guys by Linwood Barclay - The follow-up to Bad Move was also a dynamite, funny story. The hiccups are centered more around central character Zack Walker's relationship with his daughter this go around, but the story is still fast-paced and fun. On the one hand, I'm happy that the sequel wasn't a let down. On the other hand, darn -- that marks all of Barclay's work in this series so now I'll have to wait while he (presumably) writes. But Barclay has been added to my "Hardback Buy" list, and not many make the cut.

Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani was the sequel to Big Stone Gap. I found Big Stone Gap to be a nice slice of life book, but Big Cherry Holler wasn't nearly as interesting to me. It followed Ave Marie, now married to Jack MacChesney, and dealt with marital problems between Ave and Jack. Basically Ave is pretty passive about life at this point and nothing new was introduced to hold my interest. It seemed to do a bit of a 180 on both Ave and Jack and how their characters behave. Was skip-able in my opinion, having become a sort of failed romance story -- and though some might read it and say "hey, wait, in the end it wasn't a failed romance" I'd disagree.

The Wizard and the War Machine by Lawrence Watt-Evans -- Years ago I read Watt-Evans' The Cyborg and the Sorcerers and this was the follow-up to that book. While I'm a Watt-Evans fan, I didn't get into this book. Watt-Evans shines with his fantasy (the recent Obsidian series, his early Lords of Dus series, or any of the Ethshar books are all examples) but I've not been particularly enthralled with the little Watt-Evans SF I've read. This was an older work from the eighties, and Watt-Evans has settled in to doing Fantasy more so than SF; if you want to give Watt-Evans a try (and you should), make it his fantasy work.

Cachalot by Alan Dean Foster - I couldn't get into this book, try is I might. Written back in 1980, perhaps it was prior to Foster hitting his stride. Like Greenthieves mentioned above, Cachalot is an SF detective story but, while Greenthieves was engaging, I didn't find Cachalot to be in the same vein. The story is about an oceanographer (though I don't think that was what she was called) who was sent to an almost entirely water-covered planet to help figure out what was happening to some of the floating cities of the planet. About half way through I got tired of the story, but did at least check to see who-dunnit.

Currently reading A Man Betrayed by J. V. Jones (Book II of the The Book of Words trilogy)

Square Foot Garden - Produce!

The picture at left, clickable for a bigger picture, will be part of tonight's dinner. I'm going to make a couple of chef salads for SWMBO and I, and SWMBO is picking up a burger for Number One Son. As today includes the first non-lettuce produce from the square foot garden, I just had to photograph and include it.

I harvested the greens from several kinds of lettuce along with some Swiss Chard. The radishes are Icicle Radishes (you'll hopefully get from where the name comes) and it's interesting to see in how many variations just those half-dozen radishes grew.

Given how many lettuce squares I planted, along with four Swiss Chard squares, we'll have plenty for salads until the lettuce starts to play out. I'll probably plant another square or two of Swiss Chard to replace the lettuce as it gives way come hotter weather. The sad part is, though I'll try shade cloth, I figure the lettuce will be gone by the time the tomato plants start producing eatable tomatoes. I'm hoping at least the sugar snap peas will make it into a salad or two with lettuce from my garden prior to the lettuce playing out. Though I followed the time-table for the sugar snap peas, I believe I could have planted them much earlier -- and will attempt to do so next year.

Brother Running-man's Birthday

I can't, at this particular moment, actually recall Brother Running-man's day of birth. I was eleven at the time, so it isn't as if I wasn't old enough to recall, but nothing comes to mind - not sure why. I do recall a couple of things prior to his being born, one being his name. Brother Running-man goes by his middle name, and that was as intended by my family. From the start, Mom and Dad planned to use his middle name and have his first name of Christopher just be a spare. But I remember I wanted to call him Chris, and furthermore I remember not only wanting to call him Chris, but only using the name "Chris" for several weeks after he was born; I refused to use his middle name. I finally gave it up as a lost cause, but I was very disappointed that I couldn't sway those who counted. Had I had it my way, bro, you'd be answering to Chris.

While sitting here typing, the first actual memory of Brother Running-man I can dredge up has to do with something I'm sure he'd as soon forget. He was somewhere around two years old, and he hadn't yet had a haircut. His hair was a flowing, baby-blond (though "blonde" might work here as well). One day when some folks with a daughter were over, my parents dressed poor Brother Running-man up in clothes made for the fairer sex - but I have to admit, he was pretty fair. He made an adorable little girl, picture perfect (and pictures were taken, again something I'm sure my bro would as soon forget). But even with this fling with cross-dressing by force, he turned out okay. As flings go, I guess it was Mom and Dad's last fling at having a daughter, giving the baby business up after Brother Running-man arrived as the fourth son.

I also owe Brother Running-man a vast apology for deeds from my late teen/early twenties time period. When I was (in theory) supposed to be the adult in a couple of situations, I allowed some stuff to go on that shouldn't have gone on -- nothing drastically nasty, and certainly mild by today's standards -- but shouldn't have gone on. Heck, prior to visions of real weirdness taking root, let me just say adult beverages were allowed for a nowhere-near-adult. I've looked back on those occasions many times with a ton of regret, so, bro, consider this to be the vast apology owed. To his credit, though, even with such corruption of his younger years, Brother Running-man has overcome.

With Brother Running-man being eleven years my junior, it's occasionally easy to just think of him as the baby of the family. But in reality he's a mature and intelligent fellow, a wonderful husband and dad, and an all around great guy. His running blog is in my links list, and it's an inspiration to a couch potato like myself to get up and get some exercise. By inspiration, I mean it's almost guilted* me into starting an exercise program -- but, hey, "almost" will hopefully become a reality.

To sum up, I'll just say you're a great guy, bro -- have a great birthday!

*guilted - to cause feelings of guilt. (Works as a word for me)

Not as Tough These Days

While I haven't felt particularly tough these past few weeks, fighting through both an illness and knee surgery (probably shouldn't have had the surgery with the illness ongoing), Easter Sunday coming up reminds me, as always, of how we used to gather in the kitchen on Saturday night before Easter and color some dozen or so Easter eggs for the Easter egg hunt on Sunday afternoon. Most times, we had an Easter Sunday service at the church followed by a pot-luck lunch at a local park. Everybody brought gloves, bats, softballs, and we had a softball game. Frisbees were thrown, some caught, some missed. Much, much food was eaten. And, of course, several dozen Easter eggs were hidden, and surprisingly the large majority were found.

Now picture for a minute if you will these colorful eggs. Boiled up, colored, and refrigerated the previous night, these eggs left the coolness of the 'frige around 9:30 Sunday morning to be hidden around 1:30 Sunday afternoon. Under bushes, against the grassy sides of trees, hidden to be hunted down by a couple-dozen kids. After the hunt, the eggs were brought back, counted (to see who found the most), then passed around, cracked and eaten. Yep, eaten. Out of the 'frige for over four hours, in the heat of the day for at least a couple of hours, and then eaten.

When we began the task of hiding eggs for our kids, we always treated these eggs as poison pills - you were not allowed to eat them suckers. And while my kids are now beyond the Easter egg hunts (though the participate in the hiding), the younger nieces and nephews aren't allowed to eat them either. But in thinking back, I don't recall anyone falling down dead from having a sun-warmed Easter egg back when I was a kid. It must be kids just aren't as tough these days.

Square Foot Garden Update - 04/07/06

There have been a fair number of changes since my last update. Almost everything has been transplanted from the indoor seeding area to the square foot garden. Below is a picture of my four square foot garden beds taken today. Clicking it gives a larger (800 X 600) image.


The back beds have home-built trellises, made from some scrap wood I had after tearing down the playhouse that used to be on the concrete pad. This will allow the back row of beds A1, A2, and A3 to have climbing vegetables. The left bed has tomatoes, the center sugar snap peas, and the right has both cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

The overall plan I had in mind allows for nine beds on the concrete pad, three rows (row A, B, and C) of three beds (1, 2, and 3) each. So for my purposes of keeping up with everything the back row of beds is row A1, A2, and A3 with the front single bed being Bed C2. Inside each 4' X 4' bed, there are sixteen planting squares which I number from A1 in the upper left corner to D4 in the lower right corner.

Below is a picture of Bed A3, and the individual plantings that match up are Cherry Tomatoes in squares A1 & A2, cucumbers in squares A3 & A4, a bell pepper in square B1, square B2 is empty, B3 & B4 have Swiss Chard, C1 & C2 along with D3 & D4 have lettuce (various kinds, though I've recorded which kinds), square C3 & C4 have onions, and D1 & D2 have radishes. The image can be clicked for a larger version.

I plan to publish additional pictures every couple of weeks or so as I go. So far, the only food coming out is the lettuce that just came up from dormant seeds left in Bed A2, square D1. But we have had several salads from it, as well as lettuce for sandwiches. See my post God's Little Chuckle for details on this particular lettuce square. I did add two lettuce plants to the square when I transplanted all of the other lettuce.

Random Childhood Memory - The Pants of the Family

The first house I remember -- the one in which my parents were living when I was born -- was a small two bedroom home out "in the country." By that, there was a gravel road that ran in front of the house, only two other houses within a couple of miles or so, and otherwise lots of woods. My early memories revolve around this house -- and probably have evolved a bit since leaving, as I've had one or two corrections over time.

The house was small; a living room, eat-in kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. You walked into the front of the house straight into the living room and if you kept walking you went into the kitchen and out the back door - and it didn't take all that many steps. Just inside the front door, to the left, was an old record player I wish I had now. It played seventy-eight speed records -- the two I remember are Downtown (the Petula Clark version) and What it was, was Football by Andy Griffith. There was a console TV against one wall, black and white of course, and I remember Mom watching a daytime soap opera back then. Some lady on the soap had a long trial and I still remember the excitement when she was found not guilty . . . though Mom said she did it.

I can't remember the bedroom I shared with my brother, but to get there you went down a short hall from the living room and turned left. If you turned right, you went to Mom and Dad's bedroom. Going straight put you into the bathroom. Apparently there was a bit of confusion about my direction back then, because one memory I do have is of being awakened from sleep by the yells of my Dad. Apparently he was upset that I was peeing on his pants which were lying in the floor by their bed. I'm not sure why he got so upset; after all, he wasn't wearing 'em, so it could have been worse. Turns out in asking him about it later (forty years or so later) that he had found his pants wet on a couple of occasions and had no idea how they got that way. Seems I was good at solving a who-dunnit even back then, as I put an end to speculation on that mystery in pretty quick fashion.

Over the years, in my recollection of this memory, I had remembered this peeing-on-the-pants episode had occurred after we moved to town when I was six, and had attributed my misdirection to the new direction I had to take to get to the bathroom. Turns out, not so. I've no idea why I was sleepwalking into their bedroom and peeing on the pants of the family, but I'm sure a gaggle of therapists could come up with a gaggle of deep-seated mental problems I must have had at the time. I know over the ensuing years I mistook a clothes hamper for a toilet on more than one occasion, lifting lid and peeing on the clothes in the hamper. I don't think it's occurred in the last thirty years, so apparently whatever was causing it I've long since resolved. But peeing on Dad's pants is one of my earliest memories and as it recently popped to mind I thought I'd share.

Books of March, 06

During March I finished off six books -- well, that is to say, I completed five books and gave up on a sixth. The books were:

• Thud by Terry Pratchett
• Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
• Fast Forward by Judy Mercer
• Casual Rex by Eric Garcia
• Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley
• Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen

Thud by Terry Pratchett - what can you say? At the very least, it's another Pratchett Discworld book. I mean, if you're addicted, it isn't like you can skip even one of the weaker books, so you're going to read it. And if it's one of the better ones, then you will just enjoy it that much more. That said, I'd probably peg this as one of the weaker ones but was still a fun Pratchett read.

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire - I read Wicked - the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West a month or two ago and it didn't really excite me all that much. A neat idea, but the book didn't pull it off in my opinion (though that opinion was disagreed with by quite a lot of folks). So I wasn't really excited about Son of a Witch, but since I was down to just a couple of choices and at the time I wasn't in the mood for The Assassins, the conclusion to Oliver North's trilogy, I went with Son of a Witch. The principle character, Liir, seemed to wander from place to place for no apparent reason. About two-thirds of the way through I realized I was continuing to read this book for no apparent reason as well. I didn't care about the characters anymore - hadn't cared much to start with. I guess it was supposed to be a "coming of age" sort of thing, following an apathetic character through a particularly boring part of his life written without wit, humor, or any human interest. Since I had spent the BAM gift card from SWMBO's Mom and had some books around I wanted to read, it seemed foolish to keep plodding through. So about two weeks of hit and miss reading into it, without even flipping to the back to see what happened I left Liir to plod along on his on and picked another book to read.

Fast Forward by Judy Mercer - Not bad. This was a "woke up with amnesia" book with a slight twist. A nice idea that Mercer developed fairly well, even though the glaring spotlight of an obvious conclusion to the main plotline introduced in the first page or two of the book was left for a sequel. Don't get me wrong, the first phase of the obvious was shown, but the details behind it were left for later. I'll probably eventually buy the next one (haven't looked for it yet, but I assume there is one), but I did fell let down that the obvious conclusion being hinted at for the entire book was only scratched at the end of Fast Forward. With some books these days, it seems so much effort goes into trying to get you to buy the next one that they don't keep you happy enough with this one to bother.

Casual Rex by Eric Garcia - This is your typical detective story about a couple of hard-nosed guys who have partnered together to form a private eye firm . . . well, typical except the detectives are dinosaurs. In Garcia's world, the dinosaurs have survived but have adapted by hiding in the world of humans (whom they look on as particularly vile). Once you're past the dinosaur twist, the book has to hold together as a private eye story, and it does okay but it isn't really anything special. And the fact that humans are pretty much all trash gets old (our hero considers even having dinner with a human to be disgusting). Since I bought Casual Rex as part of a double-novel book, I'll probably eventually read the sequel in the book, Anonymous Rex (though Anonymous Rex actually came out first, with Casual Rex being published later, but being published as a prequel to the first). Anonymous Rex will have to be a level above this one if I'm going to be tempted to buy another.

Fearless Jones Walter Mosley - Set in Los Angeles of the 50's, Paris Minton is a black small business owner working to mind his own business. But trouble falls in his lap in the form of Elana Love, and so Paris relies on his fearless friend, Fearless Jones, to help bail him out. It was an interesting read from the beginning and I'll probably check out some of Mosley's other work based on this book. Picked this book up via my Paperback Book Swap membership.

Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen - First published back in the mid-eighties, Tourist Season follows former reporter turned private eye Brian Keyes as he tries to stop the Las Noches de Diciembre terrorist group who are trying to run the tourists out of Miami. A pretty good book, and I may keep an eye out for other Hiaasen books.

Currently reading Greenthieves, an SF detective novel by Alan Dean Foster, published back in 1994. It was also acquired through my Paperback Book Swap membership.