Music Monday -- 1995

As part of my ongoing celebration for my 30th birthday, I am highlighting some popular songs from throughout my years.  Songs were picked based off of a list of Grammy award winners and Billboard Top 100.  Then, I chose my favorites to highlight.

Year: 1995

Book: Unknown

Music Selections: A transition year.  More and more rock and roll songs as favorites.

1. TLC "Waterfalls"
2. Smashing Pumpkins "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"
3. Poe "Angry Johnny"
4. Dave Matthews Band "Satellite" -- Adore this song still.
5. Alanis Morissette "You Oughta Know"

The Sunday Salon #9

Listening To: Alt Nation driving across the country.  That goodness for sateillite radio!

Book finished: The Radleys; Allison Hewitt is Trapped; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Bad Doings and Big Ideas

Reading: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

MakingLists: Summer camp options for the boys.  Sunnyvale has so many great looking ones. I hope the boys enjoy their camps!

Around the house: Unpacking, of course.  It is still a disaster zone, but slowly some of the rooms are coming together.  Master bedroom is basically done.  Boys room is almost done.  Kitchen, office, and living room to go.  Of course those are the hard ones to finish...

From the kitchen: Nothing exciting.  Trying to cook around the mess is difficult.

On the Web: We don't have internet in the apartment yet, so I haven't really been online much this past week. I did spend a ridiculous amount of time on Ikea's website sitting in the coffeehouse (1 1/2 away from the apartment!) reseraching desks.  I get a desk!  Finally!  Now I just have to pick one.

Weekly Quote: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming." -- Dory from Finding Nemo (I know I repeat, but it just seemed so appropriate!)

Crafting: Nothing until I get a desk in the office.

Work Observations: None until I get a job

Watching: Nothing until we get the server and theater up and running

Wondering: Where I put those canvas bins?  I really want to find those soon...

From Nature: North California weather = perfection!

Shopping Scores: I found some great trainers for all the walking I plan on doing around Sunnyvale.  After trying on about 10 different pairs, I finally settled on two paris of Dr. Scholl's.  I feel like I'm 50 with these, but they're incredibly comfy and pretty cute.  I'm enjoying them.

Project: Unpacking the house...

The Radleys by Matt Haig

Title: The Radleys

Author: Matt Haig

Publisher: Free Press 2011

Genre: Vampires

Pages: 400

Rating:  5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Vampires; Mount TBR

Just about everyone knows a family like the Radleys. Many of us grew up next door to one. They are a modern family, averagely content, averagely dysfunctional, living in a staid and quiet suburban English town. Peter is an overworked doctor whose wife, Helen, has become increasingly remote and uncommunicative. Rowan, their teenage son, is being bullied at school, and their anemic daughter, Clara, has recently become a vegan. They are typical, that is, save for one devastating exception: Peter and Helen are vampires and have—for seventeen years—been abstaining by choice from a life of chasing blood in the hope that their children could live normal lives.

Such a moody vampire story.  In many ways, it is a coming of age story.  It just happens that the people involved are vampires.  I loved seeing the story from the vampire perspective.  What would happen if you were a vampire, but didn't know it?  What happened when you found out?  How would you react?  I especially loved Rowan.  In many ways, he's the traditional romantic style vampire, but doesn't know it.  This book is a refreshing change form the Twilight style vampire story.  BTW the author questions at the back reveal that Matt Haig sees Robert Downey Jr. as Matt Radley.  Delicious choice!  I would love to see this book turned into a movie.

Allison Hewitt is Trapped by Madeleine Roux

Title: Allison Hewitt is Trapped

Author: Madeleine Roux

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Genre: Zombie

Pages: 352

Rating:  5  / 5 stars

Reading Challenges: Zombie; Mount TBR

How I Got It: I own it!

One woman's story as she blogs - and fights back - the zombie apocalypse

Allison Hewitt and her five colleagues at the Brooks and Peabody Bookstore are trapped together when the zombie outbreak hits. Allison reaches out for help through her blog, writing on her laptop and utilizing the military's emergency wireless network (SNET).  It may also be her only chance to reach her mother. But as the reality of their situation sinks in, Allison’s blog becomes a harrowing account of her edge-of-the-seat adventures (with some witty sarcasm thrown in) as she and her companions fight their way through ravenous zombies and sometimes even more dangerous humans.

I do love me some zombie stories.  I heard such great things about this book.  I finally got around to reading it for the Spring into Horror Readathon hosted by Castle Macabre.  Wait a minute you say... wasn't that last week.  Why yes it was...  However I was driving across country all last week and I've finally gotten settled in enough to actually catch up on my reviews.  SO, here we go.

I have really come to love first person zombie stories.  There's something about fighting right alongside someone that just puts me in a good reading mood. Allison is such a great character.  She has her faults, but they make the reader like her more.  She seems very real.  I particularly liked the fact that she starts her zombie apocalypse as a clerk in a bookstore.  As part of the first big encounter with the zeds, she almost gets turned into kibble because she pauses to grab a few books.  Yeah, that would be me...  From there we go on a whirlwind adventure of survival.  We meet the usual zombie threats.  But we also encounter the human threats.  I really think they're worse than the zombies.  I sped through this novel, on the edge of my seat, holding my breath, to see if Allison makes it.  I won't tell you the ending, but I will say that I can't wait to read the not a sequel-but set in the same world, Sadie Walker is Stranded...

Quote Wednesday -- Zusak

"Some people are beautiful.  Not in looks.  Not in what they say.  Just in what they are."  -- Markus Zusak I am the Messenger

In a culture obsessed with physical beauty, I love this little reminder. 

Into the West Day #4

We're on our way.  We're heading to California to start a slightly modified life.  Excited as it may be, we've got a lot of ground to cover.  I thought you would like to see the things we encounter on our ~2000 mile journey.  (I know it 's just what you have all wanted!).  Enjoy! Travel miles today: 561  miles

Travel miles total: 1831  miles

Places of interest: Another huge day of traveling.  I did get to see some awesome dino bones, though.  We didn't quite make it to Reno today, but we are about 3 hours away.  That should leave us with about 6:30 hours of driving tomorrow.  I think we can do it.  Just need to get up and going early.

First (and only) stop: Dinosaur National Monument.  We arrived right as it opened and got on the first tour of the day.  The ranger takes you up to the Quarry Fossil Center and from there you can explore.  Of course, we got to enjoy it with about 50 elementary students there on a field trip.  The center is basically a building covering a giant wall of dinosaur fossils.  It's huge!  And really cool.  The original building was built in the 1950s, but closed in 2006 because it was structurally unsound.  It was literally falling apart.  It took the NPS five years to replace it.  Thankfully the new building opened last year, so we could see the wonder that is the Quarry.  Very neat place!

In passing: We passed the Great Salt Lake.  Man is that thing huge!  and the Bonneville Salt Flats.  J didn't want to risk the car, so no offroading.

Tomorrow: Donner Party Memorial in Truckee CA, Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield CA, and finally Sunnyvale CA!

April 2012 Wrap-Up

Books Read and Reviewed (12 books)

1. Everneath by Brodie Ashton
2. Aftertime by Sophie Littlefield
3. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
4. Definitely Not Mr. Darcy by Karen Doornebos
5. Beastly by Alex Flinn
6. The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
7. The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
8. The Walking Dead: Book 4
9. Bad Doings and Big Ideas by Bill Willingham
10. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
11. Allison Hewitt is Trapped by Madeleine Roux
12. The Radleys by Matt Haig

1,000,000 Page Goal

Monthly Total:  4244 pages
Pages Remaining: 925,054 pages

Current Read

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Books Won (0)

Books I Gave Up On (0)

Challenges Completed (0)

Comments

I thought April would be a wash with Spring Break vacation and moving, but I ended up with a respectable book and page counts.  I didn't get around to reading my MonthlyShakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing) or my Monthly Harry Potter (Goblet of Fire).  So those are definitely going on the list for May.

Next Month's TBR

• HP 4
• Much Ado About Nothing
• HP 5
• Antony and Cleopatra
• Have to unpack my books before specifying any others...

Random Reads May

From I'm Loving Books:

It’s easy…

1. If you’re on Goodreads enable sorting to your to-read shelf (you should see numbers next to each book now).
2. Go to Random.org and type in the Min as 1 and the Max as how many ever books are on your to-read shelf.
3. Scroll down to the book matching the number Random.org picks.
4. Link up to your Random Reads post (below).
5. Read and be merry. 

So, I've decided to join this fun meme.  I thought this would be a great way to par down my TBR shelf and read some books I might not pick up right away.  I used the Goodreads sorter and Random.org to find my Random Read.

This month's winner:

#139 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Ohhh... This has been on my list for so long, I can't even remember.  Can't wait to get into it!

Into the West Day #3

We're on our way.  We're heading to California to start a slightly modified life.  Excited as it may be, we've got a lot of ground to cover.  I thought you would like to see the things we encounter on our ~2000 mile journey.  (I know it 's just what you have all wanted!).  Enjoy! Travel miles today: 665 miles

Travel miles total: 1270  miles

Places of interest: A huge day of traveling.  We didn't really stop at much, but passed through South Dakota, all of Wyoming, a bit of Colorado, and into Utah.  We got a phone call that the moving truck will be arriving on May 3rd, so we need to get moving.  Our plan is to get to Reno, NV tomorrow to be set for early evening arrival on the 2nd.  But before we get there, here's what we saw today:

First passing:  From Hill City, SD, we headed north passing through Deadwood and by Sundance on the way to...

First (and only) stop: Devil's Tower.  You know the giant rock from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Yeah! That giant rock.  It's even more impressive up close.  We paid the entrance fee to wind our way up to the tower.  The road passes through prairie dog town (literally next to the road) and up to the visitor's center.  We bought a few interesting photographs and postcards, but decided to skip the mile long hike around the tower.  We took more pics and then headed back to I-90.

Then: Headed south to Casper, WY and kept going.  Because of the push up on arrival, we kept driving into part of the night to get to Vernal, UT to stay the night.  After checking a few full hotels, we finally found on that had rooms and got one.  I don't know what is going on, but Vernal seems to be hopping tonight.

Tomorrow: Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, and Nevada.