B Boozy Botanists

Fill This

Part of the fun of being able to identify plants as you walk by them in the forest is knowing which ones might poison you and which ones are mighty tasty prepared in a mixed drink over ice or fermented and bottled.

Last year the ladies got really interested in squishing fruit. They combed the neighborhood and delivered letters to our especially fruity neighbors inviting them to some free labor. In exchange for cleaning up around their fruit trees, we'd bring home a few large buckets of apples, pears, persimmons and muscadines. Over the course of several weeks during harvest season we accumulated many "carboys" (large glass containers) full of squeezings. They're naturally doing their thing and now we have lots of bottles to fill. Pretty tasty pear wine, honey wine, cyser, mead, and more, I'm sure. I'm trying to stay at arm's length. (Yes, with a glass in hand, though.)

Identifying the plants while you're walking next to them is pretty impressive, but what really wowed me was driving around, even on the highway, hearing, "Pear! Apple! Persimmon!" Red2 identified a pear tree hiding in front of a grocery store. She's 9, kiddos.

Their mom and I did share. It wasn't all booze. We had persimmon cake, apple and pear butter, and pear preserves using as recipe from the tree owner who feels like she's all done making preserves herself. She was very happy to have some help.

The last thought here is about where this all leads. The natural ingredients that used to be found in things like Maraschino cherries and grenadine. Amy Stewart's book, The Drunken Botanist, is good read full of stories about what's really supposed to be in the bottles. Read the labels, folks. Red1 wants a field trip to a liquor store to find real grenadine made with pomegranates, not colored up corn syrups. I think she'll have to wait a bit for that. Do you think the shop keepers will let us in to read the labels?

Science Fiction Curriculum

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on our big big list

Getting back to the originally promised topic. The girls. Due to some county school board issues, mostly zoning, we're going to start up the home school wagon this fall.

Having crazy-awesome kids is a blessing that I'm proud to share about. I'm looking forward to being a huge part of their education. I know it's something most parents don't get to do.

I do promise not drone on about all the details unless they pertain to my Science Fiction Daddy topics. And because I'm me; some of it will.

Red1 and I have already started planning out her reading lists for the year. We are making a plan to include a unit on all the Wizard of Oz books, play, films, etc. and another unit on Science Fiction. We're going to look for some award winning sci-fi standards but are open to suggestions. Remember we're in the fifth grade but at a very high reading level. Her favorites right now are the Rick Riordan novels about that Percy guy.

A couple of articles that we wanted to keep track of here:

• Inside Nova - family-tech-science-fiction
• NPR - mind-bending-sci-fi-books-for-a-fantastical-summer

Red2 who is going into second grade, is excited about the Paul Bunyan phenomena. I say phenomena, because after doing some research his story is pretty amazing. He's got it all. Humor and stories mostly, but look at all the geography packed in there. This is going to be fun.

It's not really a robot, sucker.

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November was a funky month for me. I was making great strides with a novel for the NaNoWriMo, where you chunk out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days with a few thousand of your pals, but about half way through the month I became a little encumbered by some medical issues and couldn't finish.

I learned a lot though and my family loves the story. They helped me by inspiring the characters. It's a story about us in the future. It's what we'd like to see happen next year if we could just up and "Green Acres" ourselves to the country, but 60 years in the future. What would Eddie Albert or Ava Gabor do in 2076? It turns out that my story ends up reading like Forrest Gump meets Petticoat Junction. Dunno if anyone other than Red1 will think that's funny or remotely interesting.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 - should lead to the TV series.

Yet another distraction, but look at this scene from The Force Unleashed II.








It's so exquisitely acted by the digital characters. The stormtroopers move so very realistically. It's an excellent piece of game cinematics. Even the human character is rendered with exceptionally high level of craft.

Image by popculturegeek.com via Flickr

It makes me sad to hear about the live action Star Wars television series is on hold when a snippet of the universe delivered here is so nice. Perhaps we're waiting for the next big leap, like the "dinosaur leap" that green-lighted Episode I. This was our ability to create the dinosaurs so realistically in Jurassic Park that impressed George enough to be able to bring Jar Jar to life. {Yes, this is me being more sarcastic than Mr. Lucas deserves. I really like Jar Jar... now.  But that's a whole other post.}

Image via Wikipedia

So it would be too expensive to produce right now, Mr. Lucas? Really? I'm so sorry to hear that. I would like to put my vote in for seeing the new series verses having 3D versions of the 6 movies, but I know it's a good move. We will all go see them in the theater again as they come out. I promise. And we'll bring our kids.

And THEN, when we're all excited about Star Wars again, you can launch the new TV series and we'll line up to buy the new action figures.

Promise.



I haven't experienced the first Force Unleashed game but I'm interested in reading the book by Sean Williams. The story has gotten some high marks. Too bad this new installment isn't getting the rave reviews. I'm sure it's going to be pretty fun to play regardless.

Plug the big speakers in and send the kids away for the weekend kind of fun.

{Oh, that sounds so sad.}

Related articles

• Gamewatch: Fable III, Rock Band 3, Star Wars The Force Unleashed II (pcworld.com)
• Live-Action Star Wars Series Is Leaking Details

CassaStar - art and coverage

CassaStar coming soon from Alex J. Cavenough

“…calls to mind the youthful focus of Robert Heinlein’s early military sf, as well as the excitement of space opera epitomized by the many Star Wars novels. Fast-paced military action and a youthful protagonist make this a good choice for both young adult and adult fans of space wars.”

- Library Journal

How nice is that?!

Alex is about to be published next month, and you can preorder,  but Amazon doesn't even have his book cover on the listing yet.

How long will it take for one of the fans to add their own artwork?

Image via Wikipedia

When will it be available on Kindle or the Apple iPad store. Barnes & Noble?

Will Steve have to buy his copy on paper? How SciFi is that?


To learn more about the book, go straight to the source.

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html

I suppose my copy will have to be on paper! Yours, too?
 

Why REAL friends are worth keeping

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Why Facebook friends are worth keeping - tech - 15 July 2010 - New Scientist

Why Real Friends are worth keeping

Help for anyone struggling with getting out of the rut. Just send your best friends (only 1 or 2) an email and ask them out on an outing. It worked for me. Yes, I had all the right conditions set up for success. A free afternoon with no little ones attached. Mrs. SFDaddy was out of town and a promising new movie to see. That's the recipe. But the missing ingredients were a small group of REAL people to enjoy the setting with. Solution: send a quick email out to warn them I'm calling. Wait a few minutes and call them both. Agree on a time with Friend 1 and leave a message for Friend 2.

{There is a point to all of this, bare with me...}

Okay, Friend 2 checks in with a call back. We're really talking to people. No Twitter or Facebook involved. Friend 2 exterminated Facebook for a second time this year and I'm sure it's probably for good this time. It's all set. We're going to see Inception - great movie. This is not going to be the review for the film. Do I review movies, here? Maybe...

I get to the meeting place an hour early to skim a book* I'm wanting to purchase. I want to see if it gives me all the details I feel like I need. It's a business kind of book, so the REAL bookstore is very helpful. A smiling face of a real person helps me find the right shelf since they've rearranged the super mega bookstore again. I bought a coffee--no flavorings, fake sweetener or sugars, but that's another post too. I sat down and read the first couple of chapters. Win. The book I wanted wasn't there, but it turns out the author is a huge company now with many books in the series. Okay, so maybe he has some points. Maybe I'll buy the book after all.

Okay, so it's movie time... {Getting to the point}

Friend 2, greets me with a hug and 1/2 of a confection she had from a coffee shop visit... we're all portioning! Cool. She's excited to see me and has urgent need to discuss a new (actually old) business opportunity she wants me to be a part of. It's not robots or architecture, but it's extremely relevant to who I am and we pledge to get the ideas flowing soon.

Friend 1 and 1/2 (his Mrs. who is also a good pal!) arrive and we all suit up for a thrilling movie. Just fabulous. Afterward, the star align and we agree to have dinner. We're all still free! The server asks if we want a drink. The topic of Martini's comes up. I've never had one, but I've always been fascinated by them. 007 you know. You know. I didn't actually order it like his though. My REAL friends all recommended a dirty one. Actually a dirty-dirty one.

{I thought I was getting to a point.}

One of the things that came up was Facebook. Recently Friend 2 closed off her account and dropped it for good. I supported the idea, but as I do so often, I followed up with a defense of it. {This gets me into trouble a lot, but it doesn't seem to register and I embark on that course of action anyway quite often.}

I have been blessed by a great group of people on Facebook. They are the regular suspects, friends, family, old school friends and acquaintances. I shared with the Friends that I've discovered some very interesting things about these friends. Most recently the things that are catching my eye are their blogs and the Facebook Pages they are creating for their own companies. I love that my writer friends from high school are still writing. I love that a classmate from elementary school is making glass beads and another is a graphic artist. I know scientists, horse farmers and TV executives. Without Facebook, I'd never had any further connection with them. Of course making a connection NOW with those people is the next step. Becoming their customer, cheerleader and advocate come next.

I was hoarding the conversation by now, so I continued with my recent experiences with bloggers. {Oh, yes. I'm talking about you, now! Don't worry, this too is really good! and the point is coming.}

I've found myself on the outside edges of a very supportive network of bloggers. They are doing everything right. Go find the articles about what that means, but they've gotten my interest, they have my "Follow Me" icon on their pages and I do! I'm efforting to keep up with them all. I have plans to buy their books when they come out and their efforts to reach out to new audiences is seeming very successful! I'm hooked in.

Friend 1 mentions to Friend 2 about the book she's writing. WHAT??? So I start into more details about the authors I'm Following. A few of them are involved with a small publisher which is a whole other weird and strange post that may surface one day, but it has to do with Lemurs which are a thing with me you may already know about. She doesn't have a publisher, but we talk about self-publishing and the success a friend of hers had going that route. We all have some great books in us and the ebook sounds so promising. Especially after reading some of the posts about rejection letters from publishers.

Is self-publishing the answer? How is it that I'm suddenly surrounded by authors, would-be authors and actively publishing acquaintances? What is MY book?

So I had a great night out, with real people, saw a great movie, tried a new restaurant, ordered a drink I've never had. Enjoyed it by the way. It led to new business opportunity and recharged my interest in the book I wanted to buy. Bought the ebook instead after closing down the bookstore. Went home and got charged up to start fixing some things with the existing business opportunities.

*The book is the E Myth, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet. {But I do really like it so far.}

Harry Potter's new trailer.

We are so thrilled about Harry. We've really introduced the girls to reading via this series. R1 (who is entering the fourth grade this fall) has been listening to the audio books for a while now. Recently she's finished actually reading the books and was treated to seeing the 6th movie in the theater. We screened it ahead of time so I was prepared to walk out with her if it was too much... that was a while back if you remember. Her reading prowess is remarkable to me. I was not a reader at that age by any means. She is definitely taking after her mother in that arena.

We Googled for this a few days ago and found all sorts of other clips. One even had a bloody Hermione. Quite chilling! Enjoy the show!

Dead and Gone - Sookie

Oh, Sookie. What sort of trouble are we heading for? The reviews are not looking great!

Will this be our first e-book on the iPad? Or will we patiently wait in line with 500 people over at The Paperback Book Swap? (It's usually not a very long wait...)

When the Weres and shifters finally come out, the residents of Bon Temps, Louisiana, must deal with the violent aftermath. But a far greater danger threatens. A race of unhuman beings--older, more powerful, and more secretive than vampires or werewolves--is preparing for war. And Sookie will find herself an all-too-human pawn in their battle.