Dennis Sherman

Title: The Magic Shop
Author: H.G. Wells
Source: SimplyAudioBooks
URL: http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/audio-books/Magic+Shop/83498/

This is an entertaining short story about a boy who visits a magic shop for his birthday.  But is it entertainment magic, or is it real magic?  His father can’t quite tell…  Fun read, the reader manages the difference between boy and father quite nicely.

This is a book I got via SimplyAudioBooks monthly free offer — every month, something in their catalog is available for free.

Title: King of the Khyber Rifles
Author: Talbot Mundy
Source: LibriVox
URL: http://librivox.org/king-of-the-khyber-rifles-by-talbot-mundy/

The main character is a British secret agent named King.  He’s in India / Pakistan at the beginning of WWI, tasked with stopping a holy war.  As an adventure story, it is pretty good entertainment.  As political commentary, it is eerie how almost 100 years after the story was written, much of the situation in the hill country of Pakistan sounds current.  But don’t listen for the politics, listen for the adventure.

The reader is adequate to the task, managing a fairly large array of voices and accents reasonably well.

Oh, and yes, there have been movie versions of this story.

We recently took a cruise vacation, trying hard to get away from all the projects that are looming at home and at work.  It was a very relaxing vacation, and we feel recharged and ready to attack some of those outstanding obligations.

The cruise we took was a 3 day cruise on Norwegian Cruise Lines, from Miami to Nassau (Bahamas), to Great Stirrup Cay (a privately owned island in the Bahamas), and back to Miami.  In a slightly off-season and with an inside cabin, putting the dog in a kennel for 5 days cost more than the cruise did.    Airfare from Chicago to Miami was another story… twice the cost of the cruise tickets, and American Airlines wouldn’t let us select seats ahead of time.

Flights down and back were solidly booked, 100% filled as far as I could tell.  Even though we were taking only carry-on luggage, we ended up having to check bags in one direction because the cabin was so full.  At least American didn’t charge for gate-checked bags!

Transfer from airport to port and back again was in a charter bus, taking only about 15 minutes.  Checking in to the ship was pretty quick and easy with passports in hand, and it wasn’t long before we had our shoes off, flipflops on, and were lounging, Kindle e-book readers in hand.

Photos can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/drs1956/sets/72157625248368724/

The ship had a capacity of about 2000 passengers, and was probably close to full, although it was hard to tell.  I kept being surprised I didn’t see the same people over and over again.  The food was terrific, with the cooks seeming to have a specialty in chilled soups: orange carrot, peach mint, and blackberry were especially good.  We found ourselves eating in the buffet service area most often, although we did go to a table service dining room for one dinner.

The cruise is timed to allow for a day as a tourist in Nassau, and a day on the beach on an island owned by the cruise line.  Our day in Nassau was probably not quite like anyone else’s – a little Google Maps action ahead of time found a full day’s worth of attractions to walk to from the port, and then some.  And since we were walking on our own, having escaped all the tour guides at the port, we managed to see some parts of Nassau that most tourists don’t!  In fact, a passerby was so concerned about seeing us in his neighborhood, walking past the burned out cars on blocks, that he took it on himself to lead us to our next sightseeing targets.

We saw the Queen’s Staircase, Fort Fincastle (great views from the top) and the water tower (unfortunately not open to climb), Government House, and the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas.  It was quite a disappointment to see how few people visited the art museum – it had quite an interesting themed exhibit, with current works dealing the topic “What is your Carbon Footprint”.  And then we went to the Pirates of Nassau exhibit.  Yes, its a tourist trap, but it was a pretty well done one, and informative about the pirates who inhabited the Caribbean in the early 18th century.

When we were ready for a late lunch, we returned to the ship, and then lounged (and napped) with our reading materials.

Sunday was a shore excursion to an island beach, after sailing overnight to get there.  The tender to get to shore was much like a prettied-up landing craft, even to having a ramp at the front of the boat.  There were lots of attractions available, parasailing, water slide, snorkling and scuba excursions, and so on.  We went swimming (water colder than expected!) and then hung out in beach chairs in the shade until it was time to return to the ship.

Lots of napping and relaxing time with (e-)books in hand, food available pretty much on demand with no dishes needing washing (by us)!  What a great vacation!

Again, photos are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/drs1956/sets/72157625248368724/

I’ve fallen way behind listing the audiobooks I’ve completed.  Its amazing how many I can get through while walking the dog every day.

Title: Allan’s Wife
Author: H. Rider Haggard
Source: Librivox
URL: http://librivox.org/allans-wife-by-h-rider-haggard/

The story of Allan Quartermain’s wife, with some other adventures.  A perfectly good adventure story, although with a fairly predictable plot.  It may have been innovative when first published, but the plot elements have been repeated so often since that it is pretty clear the shape the story line will take early on.  The reader is good, although her voicing of native African characters sounds to my ear more like Indian than African.

Title: Anne of Green Gables
Author: L. M. Montgomery
Source: SimplyAudioBooks.com
URL: http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/audio-books/Anne+of+Green+Gables/20306/

SimplyAudioBooks makes something in their catalog free each month.  I’m willing to try almost anything for free…. and I’m glad I did.  I never read this classic at the “Young Adult” age, even though I did ready the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and such.  I don’t know why I skipped it, and I’m happy to have filled the gap.  This story is quite enjoyable, with interesting and realistic characters.  The reader does a great job of voicing the characters.   Highly recommended!

Title: The Stolen White Elephant
Author: Mark Twain
Source: SimplyAudioBooks.com
URL: http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/audio-books/Stolen+White+Elephant/46374/

A Twain I haven’t run across before, this is a long short story, not a full novel.  It is full of absurdity as detectives struggle to find the stolen elephant.  I was not thrilled with the reader, who seemed to me to not understand where the deadpan humor is in Twain’s writing.  But if this comes up free again at SimplyAudioBooks, it’s well worth the price.

Title: Sketches Old And New
Author: Mark Twain
Source: Librivox
URL: http://librivox.org/sketches-new-and-old-by-mark-twain/

A collection of familiar and unfamiliar short stories and essays.   Some are better than others, of course, but its a nice collection.  The reader, John Greenman, has done a lot of Twain for Librivox, and he really understands how to deliver Twain’s humor.

Title: A Short History of England
Author: G.K. Chesterton
Source: Librivox
URL: http://librivox.org/a-short-history-of-england-by-g-k-chesterton/

Chesterton’s view of history is that of the continuing advance of Civilization (spelled Christianity) over pagan barbarism.  That view lends a certain predictable perspective to his narrative, which can get annoying.  It is, however, interesting to listen to the arguments, and a good bit of his discussion of the events of the late 18th century (e.g. 1776) is from quite a different perspective than standard American history provides.  The reader is adequate, but would benefit from checking a dictionary for pronunciation of some less common words.

Title: Greylorn
Author: Keith Laumer (1925-1993)
Source: Librivox
URL: http://librivox.org/greylorn-by-keith-laumer/

This is a long short story or novelette.   As often happens with classic science fiction, the technology that seemed speculative at the time was overtaken by  events and is very dated now.  The story was pretty good though, and well read, with a classic “short story surprise” ending.

In 2006 we traveled to York, England, to participate in the quadrennial presentation of Mystery Plays.  This was with the International Pipe and Tabor Festival, held that year in conjunction with York’s early music festival.  We (the taborers) worked up music appropriate for the mystery plays, and accompanied them through the streets of the old city of York.

It was a great experience, and I’m regretting I couldn’t participate this year (2010).  Especially since as my taborer friends talk about this year’s edition, there are photos turning up from four years ago!  And I want a place to keep track of them, hence this post.

My photos from 2006: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drs1956/sets/72157624463467411/

Laurie and Gillian from an extensive set of photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7617572@N07/sets/72157600201074588/

More photos from 2006: http://www.mainlyfax.fotopic.net/c1024939.html.  Same photographer as the flickr set above, more photos!  I’m particularly fond of #17 and #38.  Poke around to find more of 2010.

—–

From 2010 (without me 🙁 ):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosyhunt/4786458558/

Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iAvLVZVEvw

We’ve just added a new Canon printer at home.  There’s a one sheet warning notice, with cautions about loading paper correctly – photo paper here, plain paper there.

The interesting thing is the number of languages this warning is printed in, filling both sides of the page.  I’m certain of English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Danish, Greek, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Czechoslovakian, Magyar,  (p2) Polish, Slovakian, Russian, Turkish, and Romanian.  I think I am identifying Latvian and possibly Georgian.  There are two that are some flavor of Arabic, but I have no clue which is what, and there’s another in the Cyrillic alphabet.  Also something that looks related to Latvian, but isn’t the same, and another that might be related to Finnish.

Languages are cool, and this is the most I’ve ever seen at one time.  Kudos to Canon!

Title: The Great Shadow
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
Source: Librivox
URL: http://librivox.org/the-great-shadow-by-sir-arthur-conan-doyle/

This is a nice little adventure story, set in Napoleonic Scotland and France.  Our hero tells the story from the perspective of old age, reflecting on the happenings of his youth, first love, running off to war, and so on.  The characters are entertaining, the plot serviceable, and the reader does a pretty good job.

I enjoyed this one, and might listen to it again on a trip sometime.

Basically, I don’t get it.  There’s more to it of course, but my logical mind doesn’t understand how people can waste their money that way.

What spurs these thoughts is a recent experience working “The Money Wheel” for a neighborhood festival.  I looked at how it worked, did a rough estimate of the odds, and was appalled that anyone would think they might have a chance to come out ahead.  Then I looked at the way the “game” is played, and still can’t figure out what might be fun about it.

The game is simple.  There’s a large vertical wheel, with photocopies of currency attached to it, a pointer, and dividers so the pointer will always point at one of the bills when the wheel stops rotating.  There were 60 slots on the wheel, about half $1, about a quarter $2, some $5, a few $10, two $20, a joker and an American flag.  So that’s  1:60 to hit a joker or flag, 1:30 to hit a $20, down to best odds of a little worse than 1:2 on a $1.

To play, you place a chip on the location on a board that matches $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, joker, or flag.  You can play multiple chips and multiple locations at one time.  Then you watch the caller spin the wheel, and wait for it to stop.

OK, so playing is putting down some chips, watching the wheel go around, watching all the chips that didn’t match get taken off the board by the house (me!) and receiving the payout for anything that did match.  The payout is 1:1 on the $1, 2:1 on $2, 5:1 on $5, and so on, up to 25:1 on the joker or flag.

Oh, cool, I can put down one dollar on the joker, and get 25 back when I win?  Yes, but on average the house will have taken 59 dollars from you before you win – odds of 1:60, payout 25:1.

Well, how about playing on the $1?  I can’t lose so much there, right?  I hit almost half the time!  Yes, but you lose a little more than half the time.  28:60 I think I counted as the odds.  So you can’t win there, either.

The other numbers are about the same – and in fact, the odds are hugely tilted toward the house.  So standing around and putting down chips to see them go away most of the time is fun?  Oh, sure, every once in a while someone hits, and hits big.  And usually keeps playing and loses it all, and more.

I understand the idea that gambling on poker, or blackjack, or even horses can be seen as a way of paying for the entertainment time of enjoying the activity, win or lose.  But standing and watching a wheel go ’round?  Not for me!

And that brings me back to my beginning:  I just don’t get it…

When traveling with geek toys, packing and keeping track of the connection and power cords gets to be a problem.  Lots of cords come with velcro straps attached, but not all of them.  So what to do?

You could buy velcro straps and add them to the cord yourself.

Or you could be cheap, and use sandwich bags.  I like to use zip lock sandwich bags, one cord per bag.   A cord with power brick attached may need a quart sized bag instead of sandwich size.  Coil the cords, slip them into the bag, zip the top, and you’re done.  The cords don’t get tangled, and they are a lot easier to see and understand for the TSA employee looking at the carryon bag XRay.  The bags hardly weigh anything, and are big enough (compared with twist ties) to see easily, so you won’t lose them often.