A weighty decision....

Okay, it's only been three months since the last time I went through Boy's pile of college brochures, but the shelf where I keep them is close to bursting and depositing all that unwanted paper on my kitchen floor. I put them all in a box and they're sitting on my ankles right now, and the box is really heavy. So in the interest of keeping my shins unbruised, I'm going to go through these a little more quickly, and only comment if I feel inspired. 

Grand Valley State U (MI, 2): Not just a brochure, but free parking and a meal!

U of Kentucky (13-15): Just in case you forgot about us.

Davenport U (MI), U Detroit Mercy (2), UM-Dearborn (4-5), UM-Flint (1-2)

U of Southern Cal (2-4): Come to LA this summer!

Reed College (OR, 2): No chance, but their annual Nitrogen Day sounds like a blast!

Roosevelt U (IL): Downtown Chicago! Plus my cousin teaches there!

U of Toledo (1-2), U of Dayton, Wooster (3): Come to exciting Ohio?

New York U (2): We did mention New York City, right? 

Rose-Hulman Institute of Tech (IN): The best engineering school you've never heard of.

Aquinas College (MI, 1-2): "The most open-hearted, open-minded college in America ... rooted in the Catholic Dominican tradition." Um, yeah.

Eastern MI U (1-3): Oh, Eastern. You have about as much likelihood of getting Boy to attend as your football team has of going undefeated.

Oakland U (MI, 2): Card is nice, but the dancing bear in your TV ads creeps me out.

Central MI U (1-5): Let's see how many in-state colleges we can ignore!

Kettering U (MI, 2-3): That makes the count 12? 13?

Yale U (1-3): Boy believes in equal opportunity when it comes to ignoring brochures, Ivy League! So 2nd postcard addressed to parents. Then a 124-page soft-bound book. No wonder tuition is high.

MIT (3): News supplement for its 150th year; interesting but maybe unobtainable.

University of Michigan (2): Yeah, baby, we've got the president at the Big House!

Alma College (MI, 1-2): They're called the Scots and a picture showed bagpipes. Run, Boy, run!

Carthage College (WI, 2): There's a picture of a huge lake ... that means huge mosquitoes! Run!

Bowling Green State (2): Ohio trying to outbid Michigan in the number of colleges ignored....

Ohio State (4): ... or mocked.

U of Chicago (10): Whoa. They knew we were ignoring the quirky postcards so they sent a massive brochure. Plus postcards (11-12), letter (13-15), and huge brochure (16).

Rice U (TX, 2): They put the tuition right on there to scare you away. 

Missouri S & T (3-4); U North Carolina (2); Pitt (1-2); Carnegie-Mellon (3); Olin College (MA): ????

Northwood U (MI): "Where can you get a great BUSINESS EDUCATION?" Isn't a major part of business knowing your target market? Brochure FAIL.

Manchester U (IN, 1-2): Apply early, get a FREE T SHIRT!

Rensselaer (NY): If you can spell or pronounce it correctly, you're admitted!

Army ROTC: Please, sir, may I not have another!

Michigan Tech (2): Hmm, tell me more about this full scholarship with tuition and stipend.

And that's enough for this installment. I can feel my feet again, and there's room in the drawer, so the rest can wait for a while. I'm hoping that now Boy is actually filling out college applications, the mail will slow down. Boy's senior year could slow down, too, he'll be out of the house before we know it!

Photo of the Week--10/10/11

Sometimes nature comes up with an architecture more spectacular than anything humans can dream up.... This was in Florida in 2005, on a boat a trip through Everglades National Park. Pelicans landed on the boat begging for food before we even left, and of course we saw gators, egrets, and even wild pigs. I was fascinated by the shapes we found in the mangrove swamps, where roots and branches twist and combine and create a maze on the water. On a later trip to the state we would take a canoe into the waterways around Naples, where the mangroves grew even closer together and you had to play limbo under many of the branches.

What does it take to write a book? (Part 1)

I know this blog has been pretty bare lately. That's because I spent the last nine months (and change) researching and writing a history reference book. I was given a rather broad subject—a period of 35 years—and so I spent a lot of nights and weekends reading history books, biographies, economic histories, and other materials. (My next post will go into that in more detail.) As a result, I did not spend any time cleaning my office. So one thing it takes to write a book is to let entropy take over your office, like this:




Note: I'm not the only one in our house who was reading books for fun, and not the only one who couldn't manage to put them away properly.

All the boxes contain small knitting or crochet projects I was working on as a fundraiser for the humane society. When they decided they didn't have room to house our crafts, our store shut down and my projects remained "in progress" in my office rather than put away in my craft room.

Don't ask for a picture showing the entropy in my craft room. Some things are just too embarrassing to blog about.

...aaand here's the real disaster area: my desk. More craft materials, spare books I meant to read, printer cartridges and other supplies, individual papers with notes I need to remember, stacks of feedback from my critique group I'd been ignoring for the past six months....

It took me a good three days (lazy days, at least) to get a handle on this mess. After boxing and storing and organizing and cleaning and hauling things away, this is what I ended up with:







Books stacked neatly! In single layers! (Except for series, a clever space-saving strategy!) Organized! Old ones donated!

Look! My desk is made of wood! Who knew!

But now that the desk is clean, I have to get back to work. I have to try to reduce the stack of feedback I can no longer ignore and tackle the mammoth job of rewriting my novel.

....Unless ... yes ... my craft room needs cleaning! Be back in another week!

Photo of the Week--10/3/11

I love visiting archaelogical sites, especially areas where a whole community of buildings have survived, making it easier to imagine what life might have been like when the city was occupied. This is one of the many buildings that survive from the Mayan city of Tulum, on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. It's a newer city, at its height between the 13th and 15th centuries. Tulum briefly survived Spanish occupation; it was likely abandoned after diseases brought by the Spanish decimated the population.

It's a beautiful site, with temples and a pyramid along with many other buildings, some situated right on the rocky coast of the Caribbean. I liked this photo because of the relatively few tourists in the picture (Tulum is a very popular attraction) and the look of the columns that remain while the ceiling is open to the sky.

2011 Book Report: Third Quarter

Last quarter I managed to get halfway to my 100-book-year goal, thanks (or no thanks) to research for my history project. How did I do this quarter, and I did read anything for fun? Check out my list below.

Key: C: Children's; F: Fantasy; H: Historical; Hr: Horror; M: Mystery; MG: Middle Grade (ages 8-12); NF: Nonfiction; P: Poetry; SF: Science Fiction; SS: Short Stories; V: Verse novel; YA: Young Adult (age 13+); *not in the last ten years at least; ^for work; #e-book.

07/04/11: David Weber, More Than Honor# (SF, 3 or 4)
07/08/11: Weber, Worlds of Honor# (SF, 3 or 4)
07/18/11: Weber, At All Costs (SF, 2)
07/20/11: Weber, Changer of Worlds# (SF, 2)
07/22/11: Michael Kazin, A Godly Man^ (William Jennings Bryan bio, 1)
07/22/11: Weber, The Service of the Sword# (SF, 2)
07/23/11: Carrie Bebris, The Intrigue at Highbury (M, 1)
07/26/11: Richard Cherny, A Righteous Cause: The Life of WJ Bryan^ (NF, 1)
07/31/11: Weber, The Shadow of Saganami# (SF, 2)
08/07/11: H. Paul Jeffers, An Honest President^ (Cleveland bio, 1)
08/09/11: Henry F. Graff, Grover Cleveland^ (NF, 1)
08/15/11: Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs^ (NF, 1)
08/22/11: Samuel Gompers, 70 Years of Life and Labor^ (memoir, 1)
08/23/11: Weber, Storm from the Shadows# (SF, 1)
08/25/11: Edward Renehan, Dark Genius of Wall Street^ (Jay Gould bio, 1)
08/29/11: Richard Stiller, Queen of Populists^ (Mary Lease bio, 1)
09/03/11: Weber, Mission of Honor# (SF, 1)
09/05/11: Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier^ (bio, 1)
09/11/11: Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.^ (bio, 1)
09/13/11: Louis Sachar, Holes (MG, 1)
09/16/11: Craig Phelan, Grand Master Workman^ (Terence Powderly bio, 1)
09/18/11: Powderly, Terence, The Path I Trod^ (memoir, 1)

Only 22 books this quarter; as you can see, I was doing a lot of research for the biography portion of my book. My deadline was September 27 and I was working weekends and nights to meet it, so I didn't get a lot  of extra reading in. (So much for the "lazy summer.") Only 10 of the 22 books were for "fun," and of those, only four were for the first time.

Although some of the biographies were well written and interesting, I have to pick Louis Sachar's Holes as my favorite. It's not a new book—it won the Newbery Medal in 1998 and was made into a movie that I saw when it came out in 2003—and I'd had it sitting around the house so long I thought I'd already read it. So I was pleasantly surprised when I started reading and realized it was new to me. It's a wonderfully plotted book, with compelling characters and a language that is simple but interesting.

So at 74 books for the year I'm just shy of my goal of 100 for the year. With my book project—and the need to research—all done, will I make my target for the year? Check back in three months to find out.

Photo of the Week--9/26/11

Oh, right, I was also looking for architectural things that caught my eye on this go-round of vacation photos, and it doesn't get much more interesting than Frank Lloyd Wright. This, of course, is his famous building for the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, which we visited in the fall of 2003. I love that except for one guy probably getting his own picture taken and thus imposing himself on my picture, the place looks deserted. In reality, it was pretty busy, with lots of people enjoying the selection of Impressionists and 20th-century artists. Or not enjoying, depending on your taste for weird art. In any case, it was fun to look up and down the spiral "staircase."

Photo of the Week--9/19/11

Although flowers are nice, they aren't necessary to create a beautiful garden of growing things. This lovely scene is part of the Botanical Gardens of Montreal, which I encourage any tourist to the city to visit. Just make sure you save most of the day: you won't want to choose between the bonsai gardens, orchid greenhouses, outdoor water gardens, lovely walkways, and indoor displays.