Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #941 - That Winter Long Ago - Throwback Thursday 1802.01

Me and Mom - April 1962
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #941 - That Winter Long Ago - Throwback Thursday 1802.01

Hi Mom,

I am trying to be dedicated to sharing these photos. I have that big white photo album, Mom, and I have barely shared a fraction of it so far. This photo is definitely the best from the sequence taken when I was, as you noted, 3 1/2 months old, which I place at the end of April, even beginning of May. Originally, I had March for the month, which is wrong since I was born in January.

This is a good picture of us, Mom.

So, I have been working a lot.

Days seem to be long stretches of just getting enough done to meet deadlines as a minimum.

For instance, I should be working now. I finished one set of grades a couple of hours ago, then took the dogs for a walk and made dinner. And now, I should be working on the next set of grades that are supposed to be delivered tomorrow. But after working all day, I can't bring myself to do anymore work, so time to write some things on the blog.

So, it's been a while since I did a round up of what's going on in my life and in my head. I do not often give myself the luxury of time for some stream of consciousness. But here goes.

A big part of my life when not working is reading. It's my main form of relaxation. I read various non-fiction, some books, some news, some newsletters, various magazines. I always read comic books, though I am nearly caught up on the main ones in my pull now that I get them monthly. I read two books at a time: one via audio and one the old fashioned way.

I just finished Annalee Newitz's Autonomous, which was pretty good. My mind was not blown, but then I should not expect my mind to be blown with every novel. It was a good solid story about the not so far future (2144) , drugs, robots, AI, gender, sex, and surveillance society.

I liked it, but on GOOD READS, I gave it four stars. In reality, I would probably rate it an 8.9 on a 10 point scale. Some of the middle parts drag a little and the narrative thread gets lost. Though the robot Paladin is the most interesting character in the book, his/her sections drag until Newitz manages all the set up, but then, I may have just been tired.

As current SF goes, this is a winner and on the vanguard for the kinds of books the sad puppies (see Hugo dust ups) don't like at all.

THE VERGE REVIEW

LOCUS REVIEW

I want to read the new Binti book: Binti: The Night Masquerade next, the old fashioned way (with my eyes), but to do so, I have to re-read the previous Binti: Home, and I want to re-read it as an audio book because the narrator for Nnedi Okorafor's is amazing!
Assuming the sequel features the same narrator as Binti. Maybe I should check that. Yes! Whew.

VERGE ARTICLE ON BINTI: THE NIGHT MASQUERADE

But before I can start Binti: Home, I have to finish Andy Weir's Artemis narrated by Rosario Dawson, which is FANTASTIC!!

I was really dubious that Weir could follow The Martian with a book as worthy and well done. He manages it and may be topping it. He switched gears: the moon, female narrator. So, there's more character interaction than the sole inhabitant of Mars thing. The main character is sassy and whip smart. Dawson is the best narrator for her style and flair. So, there's no way I would put down Artemis and finish Binti: Home before going back to Artemis. I am liking it too much to take a break from it, even a short four hour break, which in time I can devote to audio books could be four days or more, depending.

Before Artemis, I re-read A Wrinkle in Time, and I didn't love it as much as I did when I was twelve or whenever I read it the first time. Then again, my expectations were probably wrong. It's great to have a girl as a heroine in books, especially at that time when it was published (the year I was born), and I am glad that the movie will be about people of colors other than just white, which is a needed update. I am not go see the film in the theater though, not with Black Panther coming out.

Having finished Autonomous, reading the old-fashioned way, I started Paul Cornell's London Falling, which will become a future audio book, and I am just stalling a bit until I can read Binti: The Night Masquerade, which does not yet have an audio edition. The first two chapters of London Falling are dense with situations and characters that are not easy to sort, but the narrative haze clears at the end of the second chapter with an incident that will accelerate the page-turny aspects of this dark urban fantasy.

In other news, and I know I am repeating myself a bit, Satchel is going to get her teeth cleaned by the vet soon, so she needed blood work. Also, though her diet food is expensive ($90 a bag), the bag last two months, so that's good. Ellory goes through her bag in about a month, though the bag costs less ($55-ish depending on my Petco coupons).


Liesel and I started watching Star Trek Discovery, which is something I have wanted to do since September. I am really liking it! SPOILERS: I like that the main character is not the captain, I like that she has a fall from grace and is Star Fleet's first mutineer, a complex character who will face adversity among her colleagues. Captain Lorca is a very flawed character and wonderfully played by Jason Isaacs. The rest of the cast isn't as well defined as in other shows, at least not yet. I do like the alien Saru, but others are either not at all defined (Stamets) or a bit caricaturized (Tilly), but we're five episodes in, so there's time. Ten episodes to go on what's released so far. Good timing because the 15th and final episode of season one will debut February 11th.

I am not sure I can get Liesel interested in any of the other shows on my list, which are all the Marvel Netflix stuff other than Daredevil, which is the only thing I have watched. Other than the pilot for Flash and the pilot for Supergirl, I have not watched any of the DC stuff.

So, that's most of my news, which is mostly about pop culture. I have entries in the works for two Batman comics I read recently and adored as well as some thoughts on Netflix's Bright, which is a good movie despite the rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I also need to do my books read in 2017 wrap up and finish my post on the stack code written in C.

I am a bit off my game with programming. I haven't been studying or coding the last two weeks, which is something that must change. It's just the work load and life balance. I don't even manage enough breaks for the blog as I seem constantly behind on it, evidenced that I am writing this on Saturday morning. I have been trying to practice task switching in a rotation to make progress in all schools and some extracurricular stuff all at once. But it's hard for me to task switch. I must prefer to focus on one thing at a time for a long stretch until it's done.

 Okay, one last thing. You were featured in my dream last night, Mom. And though I have often posted separate dream entries, this one will just get a mention as you would not talk to me in this part of the dream. You were in your recliner with the TV on, but you would not talk to me, and it bothered me.

Not a great note to end on, but there you go. It's how I am ending. It's okay, Mom. I still love you.

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Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom.

I miss you so very much, Mom.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

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- Days ago = 943 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1802.01 - 10:10

NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.

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