ladykatza

Try and try again.

That seems to be my motto when it comes to vegetable gardening. I’ve had two attempts at veggies since I have lived in this house. The first attempt was a commando style where I planted a few things here and there in the few bright sunny spots. Logistically, this was not the greatest of ideas. All the things I planted in pots on the back porch did great. Anything in the yard was overtaken by weeds or pests. In some cases I just plain forgot where I put stuff.

So, I skipped a year. LAST year I tried a traditional row type bed in an area that I thought might actually get enough sun. I was off by a good bit, because I wanted it closer to the house and not further away. This one tried to do well, but again, I got overwhelmed by how labor intensive it was and everyone else in the house is like plant kryptonite. Second try, fail.

Nuts.

Well, when were were in the apartments in Kennesaw, I did a pretty successful container garden. I did some lettuce, tomatoes, and bell peppers with pretty good success. Recently, I found out about a method called square foot gardening. Some guy came out with a book in the early eighties, I think. You can read most of the book here. Well, this actually may be just what I was looking for. I have a very small area on the side of my house next to the driveway that gets about 7 hours of direct sunlight a day. The ground itself there is not conducive to tilling and planting because of drainage. BUT a raised bed like you use in a square foot garden would work just fine. And it is higher off the ground so I won’t strain my back as much. And I can build my first 4 foot by four foot planter, add dirt and plants, for less than 100 bucks. That’s 16 squares to plant in. And it will be right next to the front door and the driveway, where I walk by ALL THE TIME.

I’m a bit excited about this, can you tell? The other great thing is I don’t have to worry about watering restrictions because food gardens are exempt. And because I live in Georgia, our growing season is phenomenally long. Not as awesome as California or Florida, but close. I am also trying to curb my obsessive nature and keep it simple. I will only do one planter box. IF it works out well, I will add a second one later. Two would be the max. After that I run out of full sun space options and have to look at cutting down trees.

I’m going down to visit Mom and Dad this Saturday and I plan on hijacking Dad’s workshop to make the planter. With his help of course.

So here’s hoping the third time will be the charm.

Google announces an agreement with The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP)

Of the official announcement on their blog, here is my favorite paragraphs.

With this agreement, in-copyright, out-of-print books will now be available for readers in the U.S. to search, preview and buy online — something that was simply unavailable to date. Most of these books are difficult, if not impossible, to find. They are not sold through bookstores or held on most library shelves, yet they make up the vast majority of books in existence. Today, Google only shows snippets of text from the books where we don’t have copyright holder permission. This agreement enables people to preview up to 20% of the book.

What makes this settlement so powerful is that in addition to being able to find and preview books more easily, users will also be able to read them. And when people read them, authors and publishers of in-copyright works will be compensated. If a reader in the U.S. finds an in-copyright book through Google Book Search, he or she will be able to pay to see the entire book online. Also, academic, library, corporate and government organizations will be able to purchase institutional subscriptions to make these books available to their members. For out-of-print books that in most cases do not have a commercial market, this opens a new revenue opportunity that didn’t exist before.

OOO OOO, and…

As part of the agreement, Google is also funding the establishment of a Book Rights Registry, managed by authors and publishers, that will work to locate and represent copyright holders. We think the Registry will help address the “orphan” works problem for books in the U.S., making it easier for people who want to use older books. Since the Book Rights Registry will also be responsible for distributing the money Google collects to authors and publishers, there will be a strong incentive for rights-holders to come forward and claim their works.

You’ve all seen this one before. But its FUN.

* Grab the nearest book.

* Open the book to page 56.

* Find the fifth sentence.

* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions if you want to.

* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

There is no fifth sentence, so I’ll just go with the last one.

“I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant -perhaps transmuted into the substance of the human mind — I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all.” - Thoreau quote in “The Little Book of Zen”

Yes, it stays on my computer desk almost always, if its not in my purse.

The quote on that page in its entirety:

“I have commonplace book for facts, and another for poetry, but I find it difficult always to preserve the vague distinction which I had in mind, for the most interesting and beautiful facts are so much the more poetry and that is their success. They are translated from earth to heaven. I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant –perhaps transmuted into the substance of the human mind — I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all.” - Thoreau

What kind of fantasy works for you from the genre? If it helps, name some examples. - Treyvah

I had some difficulty parsing this particular request, but upon watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, I had a bit of an epiphany. I am fascinated by science fiction/fantasy that deals with human spirit. So much of our science fiction talks about humans creating technology to be able to do bigger and better things. But as we artificially enhance the human form, what happens to that which makes us living and sentient?

“All stories are stories of enlightenment”. It was something that my friend dreama said. In this way, I’ve found that I admire greatly the works of C.S. Friedman. I think that she is a contemporary of William Gibson, in that their flavor of science is very much influenced by current trends of technology. Where Friedman branches off, and where she is most skilled, is she takes humans and puts them in a completely alien setting. Sometimes they don’t even remember, except in ancient lore, that they were once from a place called Earth. Every series she writes is a landscape of emotion and detail, landscapes alien yet eerily familiar. She turns left when you expect a right. She tears away the masks and shows just how terrifying human emotion can be, even with all the technology we use to shield us from it.

I am not hugely into cyberpunk in novel form, but works such as the Ghost in the Shell series, and other similar anime are enjoyable.

Another thing I look for in writing is characters. Knowing what character is speaking just by what and how they say things is the mark of good characterization. Having that solid foundation of personality, the character is then the one driving the story and the situation. To paraphrase Heinlein “I don’t write the book, I write the character, throw them in a situation and let them get themselves out of it”.

Hmm, does this explain what I enjoy? To a point, I guess. I like scifi that gets you involved the the character and the alien landscape upon which they are painted. Throw in a good bit of sexiness, and I’m set.

This says a lot about me, but when I want trash romance, I read Laurel K Hamilton’s books.

C.S. Friedman has to be one of my favorite modern sci-fi writers. She is brilliant.

In a world where data is coin of the realm, and transmissions are guarded by no better sentinels than man-made codes and corruptible devices, there is no such thing as a secret. - This Alien Shore

Yup, its true. I don’t have enough bookshelves. What’s more, I don’t really have enough places to put them. Heck, I need to add an entire room on to my house just for a library. Really.

When I lived with my parents in North Carolina we had a very large two story house. The main living area was on the top floor, and then there was a walk out basement. Every inch of the basement that was not window or furniture had floor to ceiling bookshelves and they were crammed full. We had to get rid of about half of those books when we moved to Georgia, since the house was much smaller. The books got donated to the school library, who had to direct them to the public library. Science Fiction, it seems, was “inappropriate” for high school students.

Can you imagine? Mom felt sick when she heard that.

So the other week, while staying with Mom, we were commenting on some of those design-on-a-dime shows. One of the designers said “You should never have just books on your bookshelves, you need to break it up with something.” WHAT?! Oh, right. Yeah, come over to MY house and try that fer cryin’ out loud. While your at it, give me the money for that extra wing. sheesh. When I first got a job, one of my very first big purchases was a nice set of bookshelves. They cost me 70 dollars, in 1993. I still have them.

So anyway, I’m sure many of you that actually read this can sympathize with my plight of space and my reluctance to give up books.

And on that note, its time to shower and dress for work. Ta tA!

Current Mood:  geeky

Article Here

She is most famous for “A Wrinkle in Time” and is one of my most beloved of authors. Now I want to go back and read so many of the books that drew me into the science fiction world in the first place.

Current Mood:  sad

This comes from Neil Gaiman’s blog, and the word is to spread the word. Sixteen authors are auctioning off a nameplace in their books and all proceeds will go to benefit The First Amendment Project.

Even if you don’t have a great sum of money to use for the auction, you can still donate to the cause.

ok, so i hadn’t read a book in a while and it felt good to breeze through this one. its much easier to get the lay of the world than her Black Jewel Trilogy.

this setting is old world fuedal/village type setting. elves and other fae are real, and so are witches. its starts out with the elves wondering why the roads between their world and the human world are closing the clans in those sections fading into mist.

there is a lot of allusion to the inquisition and world war two in this book. its also very similar to her other series in the respect that imbalance between male and female and nature causes bad things to happen.

ok, so this is all vaugue, i realize, but its a good book and well worth reading.

Current Mood:  nerdy

it was nice this week and i decided to take my lunches outside. finished reading “american gods” by neil gaiman and started a new book by a relativaly new author kim harrison. the second book is “dead witch walking” (yes, i know this sounds trite) and is really a lot of fluff. not bad fluff, but good fluff…

tuesday as i was getting up and clearing my spot from the table a gentleman sitting at the next table over asked me if the book “american gods” was any good. we got into a discussion then about neil gaiman and 50’s science fiction and the subject turned to one of my favorite authors robert heinlein. i started rattling off all the different books i had read until i was interrupted with the question “where did you graduate from college?” i shyly admitted that i never actual graduated, i just read a lot. however, that question was one of the nicest compliments i have had in a while and it made me smile for the rest of the week.