130 Books

Right before Thanksgiving, I very quietly passed my reading goal for this year. Back when I made the goal to read 130 books in January, I thought it would be an easy challenge. I had grossly underestimated myself the year before and blow my goal out of the water so I thought, I'll aim high but within reach this year. Then I moved 2,000 miles.

Moving tends to disrupt one's life in case you haven't noticed. It creates a whole set of problems that seem to take months to sort out. Add in the fact that I had major furniture losses during my move, I couldn't even unpack my books until a month after I got to Tallahassee. It was distressing. But I made it to the public library and slowly tried to get back into my reading groove. And then I got cable back...

I didn't have cable back in ND. With Netflix, it wasn't really a cost I could justify. But with the move, I was up for the introductory packages again and suddenly I had BBC America, ABC Family, Hallmark for cheesy movies and a myriad of other channels to lose myself in. Reading was something that I kept pushing off. Then I was 12 books off the pace to reaching my goal. Now, that wouldn't be so bad as I am a fast reader but I was losing momentum by the day. Something needed to kick me into gear.

Now when I say I am a fast reader, I am one of those people who can demolish a book in a couple of hours if I find it interesting enough. I like to know what will happen next :-) And luckily in October, rather oddly, I got into a Christmas mood and went to the library looking for a good fix. I found a ton of cheesy Christmas Regency books. I may have od'ed on them in the end but it got me back on track to start tackling my reading list more. Perhaps not the most highbrow reading but hey, we all have our guilty pleasures.

My original goal for this year was to read my to-read list in order. I will be the first to admit that did not happen. At times it did but most of the time if a book came up to the top and I wasn't in the mood, I would just go to the next book on the list or move that book out of my way. It's really hard to keep to a straight list! A lot of the books are on there haphazardly or all 20 books of a series are in a row and I like some variety to my reading. 

On the other hand, I sometimes plow through a series because I have to know what happens next. Take the Softwire series I read this month. It was a four book young adult science fiction series that I read over the course of two weeks basically. But I was invested in the characters and their plight and so I just kept reading. Plus, I never take for granted a series I can read in its entirety when I start. Harry Potter has made me very appreciative of a series I find after the fact because waiting for those books to come out was torturous. I also got back into the Amelia Peabody series in the last few months. Amelia is always nice to come back to and read a few books and then flit off again for a bit knowing I have half a series left there. I do want to get two more books in before I flit this time though - a particular relationship has to be coming to head soon!

So, a reading goal for next year...I'm working on that. I'm not sure if I want to aim for a higher number or maybe work on a particular genre on my to-read list. I have my favorite genres. Maybe I should challenge myself with some of the ones I don't read from enough or maybe I'll just give myself a year to read whatever with no real goal in mind. We'll just have to wait and see.

Ready Player One

From Goodreads

I have always wanted to be great at video games. But, if I am being honest, I really am not. It took me and three friends to finally beat Myst and, if I continue with my honesty, I don't think I contributed all that much in the end. I spent honors playing Commander Keen but never got very far. Same with Sonic the Hedgehog, the original Mario Brothers, any of the Sim games I played, you name it, I probably tried it but never got anywhere. But I wanted to. I wanted to be one of those awesome video game uberplayers. But really, the only ones I've ever gotten very far on are the Tycoon games - Rollar Coaster, Mall, Zoo. I made one heck of a zookeeper, people.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline may just inspire me to find some app version of Pac Man and dive in. This book is a classic gamer's dream. Also, if you wish it was still 1987, this is the book for you. Ready Player One takes place in 2044 (if I recall correctly) and the human race has succeeded in completely destroying pretty much everything. A world wide energy crisis has led to world wide poverty, crime, disease and overall chaos. Wade Watts (whose Dad actually gave him a name that would echo the comic book alter egos) is a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who escapes into the OASIS every chance he gets. The OASIS is like Second Life had a kid with World of Warcraft and the kid was like a billion times cooler than his parents. When the creator of OASIS, James Halliday, dies, he has no one to leave his billions so he creates a game within the OASIS. The first person to find all three keys, open the three gates and beat them, wins his estate. Wade, along with thousands, dive into the hunt. The hunt requires everyone to love what Halliday did; '80s pop culture, video games and MMO games etc. So Wade and his fellow "gunters" start on the ultimate game but, as usual, the stakes get higher the further along the game goes.

One, the geeky sixteen year old I carry in me has a serious fictional crush on Wade. He is adorable; a geeky, socially awkward teen whose real life is so bad, escaping into a computer simulation makes perfect sense - in fact, its self preservation. His virtual friends are also awesome - Aech (pronounced H) and Art3mis. In fact, if I am ever as cool as Art3mis, I will have reached my nerdy goal. These kids are all up against insane odds and you root for them, you yell at the book, you wish you knew enough to yell the answers along with them. As the game's stakes rise, you really wish these kids had an adult, someone with authority, they could ask for advice or maybe just someone who could ground them as they move forward. Luckily, a character like this does appear towards the end which led to a major fist pump from me. These kids deserved a little help; I was glad Cline gave them some.

Cline is also just a great writer - he has a great sense of pace which must come from his screenwriter background. He doesn't waste time telling you anything you don't need to know. Every piece of obscure '80s trivia he throws at you has a reason for being there. In fact, at one point, I thought he was going on a tangent. As I read, I was thinking what is he doing? He is wasting mine, and Wade's time, the clock is ticking! And then later, that scene, that time he took, was essential to saving the day. As the dust settled and Wade explained what had happened, I just sort of sat there and thought, well played Mr. Cline, well played.

Highly recommend this read for anyone who has a love of '80s pop culture and video games, then and now but also, this is a just a great action adventure story with characters you root for. Now excuse me while I dig up copies of WarGames and The Goonies and indulge in some childhood nostalgia.

(Also, sorry Wade, but Aech is totally right about LadyHawke....even I do not like that film and on paper, I should adore it but then I watched it...)

A Short Ode to my Favorite Park

Actually, ode is probably the wrong word since you won’t find poetry here. But I did feel the need to mark the 30^th birthday of my all-time favorite Disney park.

You see, I was an odd kid (I can see your mock shocked expressions from here) and while most kids liked the glamor of the Magic Kingdom or the thrill rides of what was then MGM Studios, I couldn’t get enough of Epcot. Something about hearing that futuristic music as I entered the gates and seeing that giant geodesic sphere of Spaceship Earth enchanted me as no castle could.

In Epcot, I could see what the future would look like if I rode Horizons, a ride that has sadly left us but that I still have a crystal clear memory of, even how Dad used to let me choose how the ride would end. I also have very clear memories of the original Journey into Imagination and Dreamfinder’s marvelous presence alongside his Figment. I remember the Land before it was “that building where Soarin’ is” and the Living Seas before Nemo invaded and you got to ride in a hydrolator to Sea Base Alpha. While I love Epcot just as much today and all the new attractions, I still have a pang for the Epcot of my childhood which seems more whimsical than the Epcot of today and also more hopeful, like we were still excited for the future would bring, rather than worried about it. In a sense, the Epcot you visit today is much more concrete and based in reality than the one you would have seen on opening day.

World Showcase though seems very familiar still. Not much has changed over the years; the landscaping grew in, they updated the boring boat ride in Mexico to include Donald Duck and Martin Short narrates the Canada film. The trolls are still threatening to send us over the waterfall in Norway, the department store in Japan is still one of the neatest places to shop on property and France still has the best bakery. I was one of those kids that had to do a passport through World Showcase every trip and the thrill of seeing my name in different languages never got old. I appreciate World Showcase more now though. As a kid, Future World was my favorite but now I love exploring the countries. I think being able to explore each country’s drinks is also a plus!

So Epcot, Happy 30^th – that Mimosa Royale in Morocco yesterday was for you!

(Sadly most of the photos from when I was a kid at Epcot are still actual printed photos and not digital files. Someday I need to digitize those...)

The Night Circus

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From Goodreads

Yes, I am alive!

I've been busy rebuilding furniture in my apartment, getting a couch picked out and delivered and finding my way around Tallahassee without my GPS more and more. I love my new city as I get to know it more and more. I've also had my sister to visit twice and my parents arrive next week. I think that is the most I have seen family in the last three years so definitely a bonus to the new location!

As it may not surprise all of you, one of the first places I checked out was the public library, both the main branch and my local branch. I frequent the main branch the most because I literally drive by it every day going to and from work and also, it's just a great building. My one gripe with it is how they have their paperbacks set up, on spinning displays that mean it often takes me a lot longer to find my guilty read of the week in the romance section than it should. Still, I like the airiness of the building and how it's always teeming with people - families, students, people reading in various corners that you stumble upon at the end of the rows. For such a modern building, it's cozy. My branch library is also always packed but less...welcoming in a way. I mostly stop in there to return books or pick up books I had sent there. If I want to browse, the main library is the place for me.

But I did not start this to review the Leon County Library system, though I have found it fabulous so far, I started it to notify everyone that must immediately drop what they are doing and read Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. This goes double for those of you who love fairy tales, read magical realism constantly and mostly wish they could live in a wondrous fictional world. The Night Circus is the place for you. This book got a lot of hype and book clubs have waxed poetic over it and normally that means I steer clear of that book for awhile but this one just sounded too much like a book I HAD to read, a book that was so up my alley it probably already had its own address there before I ever read it.

Celia and Marco have been playing a game most of their lives, preparing and waiting for the venue for the game to be announced. Finally, Le Cirque des Rêves opens and their lives will never be the same again. Both are talented illusionists, able to change the world we move in through the most fantastic of the circus's tents. There is the Ice Garden, where everything is made of ice, the Labyrinth where doors lead into fantastical landscapes and the Wishing Tree where your wish is lit by the person's wish before you.  However, this game has consequences and as time goes on, the way it must end will not work for these star-crossed lovers or for those who call the Circus home. It is time to change how the game is played.

So, I want to crawl into this book and never come out. It is almost torture to know I can’t visit the Circus! And, I think it is the smells Morgenstern is careful to waft through her writing that make me long for it the most. I remember one of the first short stories I ever wrote for a class, my dad read it and handed back to me and said, “you’re missing smells.” And he was right, a smell is a memory and we associate smells with so much more than just the object that creates it. A smell immediately draws a reader into the world they are reading about. Morgenstern’s book is autumnal; caramel apples and popcorn, crisp cool nights where bonfire smoke drifts through the sky and hot cocoa warms your hands are the smells of the Circus and you are there now, aren’t you? There is magic in nights like that and the smells of the Circus are key to its inhabitants. When the smell is not right, that is when you know something has gone very wrong.  

I love all the characters in this book, even the ones I am not supposed to like.  Celia is ethereal and yet as strong as steel, a dreamer who finds herself trapped in a game. Marco is more practical, a student who plays the game for her always. There are the twins, born the opening night of the Circus and affected by its magic in unforeseen ways. Hector, Celia’s despicable father who gets his just desserts in the end I think and yet I enjoy his oily appearances to torture his daughter, and Lafevre, the owner of the Circus who comes to be imprisoned by his own creation. They are tragic and yet wonderful and you are pulling for a happy ending so hard that you can’t read the text fast enough, hoping that Morgenstern is cleverer than you, that she has figured out a way to save this world she created from breaking apart though you yourself can’t see the way.

Needless to say, this book has made it onto my to-buy list, a feat few books do these days. My shelf space is precious but this book has more than earned its spot. As fall comes, and I have a feeling it will be a very odd fall for me (palm fronds don't exactly turn red, orange and yellow and then fall off), I will pull this book out and wrap myself in its crisp autumn nights with bonfires and caramel popcorn and hot cocoa and visit the Circus once more.

Hello Tallahassee!

I made it! Another cross country move later, I have officially relocated to Tallahassee, Florida. I don't have much else to report yet. I haven't been here a week and I'm finding my way through my first week of work at a new (HUGE) university. On the plus side, I've only gotten lost once so far and that is because I managed to type the wrong address into my GPS after triple checking that it was right (go me!). I have managed to find a really tasty fish sandwich though at Barnacle Bill's (the name caught the eye, the delicious food meant I'd actually go back).

My first impressions is that it rains a lot here. Even as I type this it is pouring down rain faster than I thought possible accompanied with thunder that is shaking the building. And yet I can see blue sky from where I sit...The old saying of if you don't like the weather just wait 15 minutes is actually true here! The rest of the country, the portion I just drove through over four days, is in drought and I'm under flash flood warnings here. A bit of a different world. Also, the humidity, heavens have I missed you! Walking out of the library is like hitting a brick wall of heavy air and I love it. I don't think my hair does but I rejoice. I'm certainly not cold around here. Unless I happen to be in a building because apparently if the A/C is on around here, it must be set permanently on the Arctic setting. So I wear a sweater all day and take it off to go outside. Talk about a reversal of the norm! 

I am still getting settled in my apartment and it will take longer than planned. The moving company managed to get all of my belongings here and if it was in a box, it was mostly in one piece. If it was furniture however, it was apparently free game. I lost both my bookshelves and my desk so it will take me awhile to replace those as well as hunt down a new sofa for the apartment. My living room currently looks very sad. I also have all my Christmas boxes stuffed into a corner of my dining room as I have to get plastic bins for them before I can move them out into my storage closet off the patio. BUT I have my own washer and dryer and a walk in closet big enough to be a guest room if I wanted. It certainly blows Harry Potter's Cupboard Under the Stairs out of the water. There is also a pool though I haven't been in the apartment (and without rain) long enough to do more than run up and take a picture of it. Even when I did that the storm clouds were rolling in. 

I am hoping this weekend to get out and explore. I know I want to check out the movie theater (I found one closer to my apartment than I thought!) and maybe head up to see the other mall in town where Barnes & Noble's lives. I also need to try to dig up the second hand bookstore in this town as well as the library branch down on my side of town. As I won't have cable/internet installed until the 18th, I have to find some way to entertain myself!

A New Adventure...

So, one of the reasons I haven't been writing very much on the blog in the last few months was I have been busy getting ready for a move. Two and half years ago, I started an adventure. I moved to North Dakota in the middle of winter to start my first digital library job out of grad school. I had no idea what I was getting myself into - I learned more about myself and my skills in one month here than I ever had before. I have certainly grown up a lot since moving out here and I am thankful for the time I've had. But, it's time to start the next adventure.

Later this week, I say goodbye to North Dakota and make another big cross country move to Florida. I am excited to be moving back to the east coast, closer to family and friends who live in that part of the country and to be starting a new and challenging job at Florida State University. I will be taking everything I've learned over the past few years and using it in a new setting, hopefully to great success. I'll also be learning again, which is always a good thing, and sharing my adventures in my new city with family, friends and anyone else who cares to join in!

Onwards!

Visiting the Park that Walt Built

Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland

One of my favorite questions to ponder when I visit my home away from home, Walt Disney World, is what would Walt think of his Florida Project today? What would he think of how they "translated" EPCOT, of Hollywood Studios, of Animal Kingdom? It's a fun exercise but we'll never know the answer like we do when it comes to its Southern California counterpart.

One of the pilgrimages every good Disney geek needs to make is to the park that Walt built, Disneyland. It's the one park we have that is stamped by Walt in every way, the one that started it all. I've been begging to go for years - insisting the photos from the one time I had been there at 18 months old were doctored. I was apparently miserable on that trip; I wouldn't let a character near me for a picture and the one of Mom and me and Donald, I am crying my little heart out. Luckily, I grew out of that quickly in time for my first trip to Walt Disney World a year later. So, going back to Disneyland has been a dream and finally, about a month after visiting my home parks in Florida, I got to go back to Disneyland.

It was work that gave me the excuse to go. I was presenting at ALA Annual which was being held in the Anaheim Convention Center, literally across the street from Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. I wasn't staying on property but I could see California Screamin' from my hotel room window, which leads to my first impression of the resort, how small it was and how on top of everything it was. In Walt Disney World (WDW), once you're on property, you're in an area controlled by the Imagineers. You see what they want you to see, nothing more. They could do that in Florida because of the lessons learned in Disneyland. It also blew my mind to see the two parks directly across from each other - five minutes and you could walk from one and into the other. I sort of missed the anticipation of having to climb onto a bus to switch parks, the special moment as you have to walk up to the entrance for the next one you want to explore. Downtown Disney is also right there, next to the two park entrances and it's more like Universal CityWalk than its Orlando counterpart. I liked its atmosphere though; made walking through it to get to the parks fun rather than overwhelming.

Disneyland was the park I was most excited to see. Sure, California Adventure was an entirely new park to me but again, it wasn't the park that Walt built, it wasn't the one I'd really come to see. With Disneyland, I would have a chance to see a park that we know exactly what Walt thought about it. I'd get to see the Firehouse with the light on, alerting everyone that Walt was "home," the original Tiki Room, the original Haunted Mansion. I could pay my respects to Mr. Toad one more time and ride the Matterhorn after exploring Toontown. I could also, finally, get a good look at Sleeping Beauty Castle.

My first look of the castle though was rather rushed. Thanks to a disorganized shuttle company, we needed to run to make our Blue Bayou lunch reservation. My first reaction to the Castle was literally "oh look - the Castle! Excuse me, where is the Blue Bayou restaurant?" It wasn't until after I was stuffed with a Monte Cristo that I got my first really good look. I'd always been told it was small and of course I'd seen pictures but I'd never really understood how small until I was standing in front of it. My picture from one end of Main Street, you can barely tell there IS a castle there. But all of Main Street USA compensates, it is all built on a smaller scale - like its been slightly miniaturized from what I am used to seeing. The Castle itself was just...cute. Like the sort of castle you dream of as a kid, quaint approachable - all good fairy tales come to life. Cinderella Castle can look imposing; Sleeping Beauty Castle looks like a place to explore. Fitting it is the one with the walk through attraction in it.

All of Disneyland is like that - smaller scale than I was used to but approachable, welcoming, quaint - full of nooks and crannies to discover and explore. I fell in love with New Orleans Square, lots of courtyards and stores tucked into corners and it empties out at the Rivers of America where the Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain sit on opposite sides than where I expect them to be. I actually spent a lot of my time in Disneyland going in the wrong direction. Its familiarity was disconcerting. I'd think "I know where that is" only to realize it's not even in the same land as in the Magic Kingdom. Not only were things in different places, they weren't even in the right park! There is an Innoventions in Disneyland, a Star Tours too, both sitting in Tomorrowland and confusing me but it was fun to see how they fit into the Magic Kingdom park rather than in Epcot or Hollywood Studios. I think my favorite Disneyland ride had to be Indiana Jones Adventure. I had so much fun both times  rode it, laughing and enjoying its effects. It's the same ride vehicle as Dinosaur but I thought used to much better advantage in this attraction. I also loved the fireworks at Disneyland and was sad they don't have the soundtrack for them available for purchase (Surprised too, Disney doesn't usually miss a chance to sell you something) but seeing Tinkerbelle and Dumbo zoom around Sleeping Beauty Castle was so neat and the fireworks are huge! I realize its because they have to set them off much closer than they do in the parks in Florida but it was wild to see!

Carthay Circle Theater and Fountain in DCA

I did of course go over to California Adventure too - I had to see its new attractions though going a few weeks after the opening of Cars Land meant about a billion other people are there with you. I adored the Buena Vista Street area; it reminds me of how Hollywood Studios used to be before they built that awful hat in front of the replica of the Chinese Theater. It even has Streetmosphere people wandering around and a snappy newsboy show that is clearly playing on the current popularity of Newsies but I not going to complain - I do love me some singing, dancing boys. Cars Land is impressive; what I could see of it through the crowds anyway. It literally feels like you walked into the movie and the details are all there from the different "houses" of the characters to the statue of the founder, Stanley, sitting at the end of the street. I only got to ride its main attraction, Radiator Springs Racers as its single rider line was a fairly reasonable wait (about 45 minutes when we joined it, 60 minutes when we got off the attraction - considering the main line was never below three hours and fast passes were always gone while I was there, it's the only way I was getting on it). Racers is so much fun! Its story is great, the theming out of this world and the end "race" with another car full of guests is a blast. My only complaint is how short it was. If I'd waited three hours for it, I think I might have been a bit steamed. The other two rides didn't have single rider lanes and I wasn't going to wait an hour for them when I had so much to see and do. I kept telling myself it was another reason to go back! I also got to ride the Little Mermaid ride which is coming to WDW in the new Fantasyland expansion. It was so colorful and fun and hey, any excuse to sing along in a ride, I'll take it! As I didn't visit California Adventure back before a lot of its face lift was completed, I can't compare but this definitely seemed like an all-day park to me, especially since you'll be waiting for the three rides in Cars Land for most of it! Also, World of Color? A. MAZ. ING. And has fast passes - brilliant! I didn't have to stake out a good spot hours before the show, I could ride rides up until about 30 minutes before then proceed to my designated spot for the show, front and center (but back enough so I didn't get wet at all). Seriously, Disney needs to get on that for its night shows in FL, it made life so much easier and let me enjoy the park a lot longer than I could have otherwise.

Overall, I enjoyed my visit out to the park that Walt built and its next door neighbor. I didn't get to see everything and lines meant I missed out on certain things (like Space Mountain and the Matterhorn as they was either down or the wait too outrageous every time I was near them) but like I said, just another reason to go back!