This afternoon I was working on the living couch in view of the hummingbird feeder.  The hummingbird came by and fed, its wings a blur.  It sipped and sipped, then sped off.  A few minutes later, it came back, sipped and zipped away.  It returned again for yet more sipping.

A hungry day for hummingbirds.

Saturday Aran and I went to the Saline Celtic Festival.  Aran absolutely loved it.



First, he bought a chocolate ice cream cone with his own money.  Then it was off to examine various living displays.  With me in tow, he took a good, long look at the blacksmith, a sword guy, a falconer (with real falcons), and, best of all, an armourer:



"This stuff is heavy!" he said.

Throughout this, he kept asking when the jousting would begin.  Finally, it was time for it, and he all but bolted down to the jousting field.  We got seats in the bleachers, and Aran noticed one of the knights was all in black, so must be the Black Knight.  The jousting match began, and Aran decided it was the greatest thing ever.  He wanted to try it, and I explained that he unfortunately couldn't.  The Black Knight won the tourmament, and the tournament master announced that the kids could come down and take a piece of shattered lance as a souvenir, which only continued the cool factor.

We got some lunch, and then I was an awful father because I made Aran listen to some actual Celtic music (which is the main focus of the festival).  I liked the bands quite a lot.  Then it was off to look at a few more things.  The day was getting hotter and muggier, though, and Aran announced he was ready to go home, so we did.

Every year I tell myself I'm going to go to the Saline Celtic Festival, and every year I end up not going.  This year, I said, "Dammit, I'm going!"

According to the web site, several workshops were scheduled for Friday evening, including one for playing in an ensemble group and another for playing the Irish pennywhistle.  This in addition to various bands.  Saturday, the main day, was filled with activities, ranging from jousts to haggis hurling to maypoles to dance workshops.  And, of course, music, music, music.

Aran has been on a big knights 'n' dragons kick lately, and it occurred to me that he would like the festival, too, but not until Saturday, when there's more going on.  Also, he and I haven't done anything together as just the two of us in a long time (unless you count piano lessons).  I told him about the festival, and he was eager to go.

Anyway, tonight I put Corey in the car and drove down to Saline--just me, since Aran wouldn't be big on the workshops.  The weather was balmy and perfect, completely unlike the usual hot, muggy destruction we usually get in July.  Found the park with little trouble, found parking with rather more trouble, slung Corey over my shoulder, and headed down.

At the entry table, I said I was interested in both the ensemble and whistle workshops, but it turned out all the workshops took place at the same time, so I chose the ensemble one.  Paid the fee, and the woman directed me to one of the large canvas tents that dotted the park.  "If no one's there," she said, "come back.  They may have moved it because we didn't get as many people as we'd hoped."

There was indeed no one there, so I came back to the registration table.  There I found four or five other people who were also waiting for the ensemble workshop.  And then I saw . . .

. . . them.

One of the canvas-enclosed stages showed a trio of people, and they had harps.  Since the ensemble workshop didn't seem to be in any hurry to start, I said, "I'm going to wander over there for a look."

The people at the harp stage were scheduled to give an event--a combination concert and "this is how harps work" sort of thing.  But there weren't many people in the audience, so everyone was just chatting instead.  They saw my harp case.

"What kind of harp do you have?" asked one of the women.

"Dusty Strings," I said.

"Well, come up and join us!" she said.

The event turned into a combination jam session/workshop/shop talk thing that went on for over 90 minutes.  The four of us compared notes and threw together a quick performance of "Greensleeves" and "Sheebeg, Sheemore."  More people came.  We swapped harps around.  Harpers love doing this because different harps have different feels and different sounds, so it's interesting hearing how your music comes out on someone else's instrument.  It's also interesting hearing someone else play your harp because you never hear your own playing, just like you never really hear your own voice--the tone sounds different from the audience than from behind the harp.  It was great fun!

I never did make it to the other workshop.

Once the harps wound down, I wandered about the festival.  It was very quiet and uncrowded--Friday is a very light day.  The main stage ran a couple of really good Celtic bands and one lousy one.  (Lousy because I hate so-called Celtic rock. It sounds dumb no matter how you do it.  In my humble opinion.)

And then home.  Tomorrow I return with Aran.  We'll see how he likes it.

I went in for a cardiac stress test today.  The technician took heart rate and blood pressure, then hooked up a mess of electrodes, took HR and BP again, then had me hit a treadmill.  Slow, slow, a little faster, faster.  Steeper, steeper.  I was watching the heart monitor.  No irregularities that I saw, though I'm far from expert.  Heart rate continued to climb.  The target was 150.  Reached 130.  140.  155.  160.

"How long are we going to do this?" I said.  "This is why I hate jogging."

She nodded toward a numerical scale on the wall.  1 was labeled "Easy" and 20 was labeled "Have to stop."  "Where are you on the scale?" she asked.

"About 13," I said, which was "Kind of hard."

A short time later I said, "Now I'm at 17," or "Really hard."

"We'll take you down," she said, and slowed the mill.

At last we stopped.  More monitoring followed.  When my heart rate dropped below 70, she removed the machinery and I was done.  Results would go to the doctor later that day, and they would call me right away if they saw anything weird.  Detailed results to come in about a week.

No phone call came, so apparently nothing's weird.  Yay!

Snurched from kradical :

http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/

Books on library shelves that have become outdated and thoroughly silly as a result.  And it's a Michigan-based site--my home state!

When I was a kid, I thought writers all lived in far-off places like New York or Miami or San Francisco.  They didn't live on farms in rural Michigan.  Only later did I learn that lots of authors grew up where I did, and many of them still live there!  In fact, we Midwestern authors are quietly taking over.  In an effort to showcase more Midwestern talent, I'm bringing a series of interviews, starting with this one.  Enjoy!

Pearl North (Anne Harris) lives in southeast Michigan, where she combines grand adventure, enormous ideas, and compelling prose in her work. Her YA SF book THE LIBYRINTH (Tor) has just hit the shelves, and she's here to talk about it. You can find her web page at http://pearlnorth.com

Tell us a little about LIBYRINTH.

( Read more... )

Thanks to a video game, Aran has become ultra-interested in King Arthur and the knights of the round table.  I pointed out that the video game was very different from the original stories, and he naturally asked how.  I told him a few of the stories, but this was a challenge--I'm not an Arthurian authority--and he wanted yet more and more.  Finally I surfed around and discovered LE MORT D'ARTHUR was available free for Kindle download.  Perfect!  Save me a trip to the library, and I could keep it as long as I wanted!

I read the first chapter to him (how Arthur became king) and expected him to say that was enough, but he demanded the next chapter (the origin of the round table) and the next (the finding of Excalibur).

Nice!

Bad news.  The sewer pipe leading from the house has eroded and collapsed.  It has to be replaced, which involves major digging.  The estimate is $3,500.  It =has= to be done, but I don't know where the money will come from.

Saturday the basement drains started backing up, spewing sewer water onto the floor.  It required a lot of mopping up.  And we couldn't pour the water down the drain, see . . .

Naturally, this had to happen on a holiday weekend.  But the rest of the plumbing was unaffected; it only meant we couldn't use the basement bathroom or the laundry room.  An annoyance.  Kala called a plumber and scheduled one for Monday morning--today.

He's now industriously snaking out the main drain.

Here's an interesting link about the decision to remove the bus stop from Arborland:

http://annarborchronicle.com/2009/06/20/aata-to-arborland-we-could-pay-you-rent/

AmCap seems to be the main villain here.

Yesterday morning, we all went down to see the Independence Day parade through Ypsilanti.  Since the Zettel/Smiths weren't at home, and since the parade route goes down a street only a block away from their house, we parked in their handy driveway and trotted down the sidewalk to watch.  Perfect parade weather--cool and mostly cloudy, with a few peeks of sun.  It was the quintessential small town parade.  We had the fire department, the local high schools bands, the Shriners (what's a parade without Shriners in tiny cars?), the local motorcycle club, tractors, the Bookmobile, various churches, local businesses, the lieutenant governor, several other politicians, and more.  I enjoyed more than I would have a big city parade with huge floats and nationally-ranked bands because all the people in it are part of the local community.  The boys like it because of the sirens and the candy. :)

Later that evening, we were invited over to presterjon and son Jack's place for Fourth of July explosions.  Comrade Tim was there with Little Comrade Alexander, along with one of Jack's friends from daycare and his dad.  In fact, Kala was the only female in the place. (!)  We had grilled hot dogs and beans and other assorted foods, and once the sun went down, we adjourned outdoors to set off a whole lot of perfectly legal fireworks.  Much light and many explosions followed.  In Michigan, it's illegal to use fireworks that leave the ground unless you have a special license, but that doesn't stop a lot of southern Michiganders from going over the border to Ohio, where laws are more lax.  The neighbors and some people in the nearby park had some pretty elaborate stuff.

Afterward, we went back inside.  The young boys ran screaming around the house and had to be settled down.  Aran tried out John's weights and clocked himself above the right eye.  He got a big purple lump.  Interestingly, he didn't cry or seem to get upset.  He only put his hand to the injury with a grim look on his face.  (I think karate has greatly improved his pain tolerance--or given him greater emotional control when he gets injured.)  We got some ice for it.  John said he should tell everyone he got it during karate practice to get better street cred, but hey--getting a black eye while lifting weights is perfectly good cred!

When we left, a thcik sulfur fog had cloaked the entire neighborhood.  There was no breeze to stir it, so it hung there.  It lifted a little on the main streets, but our home streets were thick with it as well.  You could easily understand how London felt.

The store where Sasha works is at Arborland Mall. We were planning that he would take the bus most days, and occasionally Kala or I would drive him. Then, the day before he was to start work, the Ann Arbor Transit Authority announced that the bus stop at Arborland Mall (where three bus lines intersect) was closing, effective immediately. The bus stop was torn out within 24 hours, in fact, making it clear the buses will not return. The AATA may build one across the street from Arborland some time later.

I was appalled and upset. The closest bus stop is now quite some distance away. There's no good way to get to Arborland by bus anymore. Putting a stop across the street is hardly a solution--Washtenaw Avenue is six lanes of busy traffic, and there's nowhere to cross safely. I mean, NOWHERE. The only traffic light doesn't have a pedestrian button, and there isn't enough time to cross. Not to mention that there's a lack of sidewalks in the area. The buses are a vital artery to Arborland.

So why dismantle the bus stop? It seems that some of the stores have been complaining that commuters have been leaving their cars at Arborland and hopping on the bus. This takes up parking spaces. Some of the stores (and mind you, these are all huge, upscale stores--no Mom and Pop stores allowed at Arborland these days) have been whining that the commuters have been using parking spaces set aside for customers.

WTF? I've never once gone to Arborland and found the entire parking lot full. I mean, never. There's always plenty of parking. But no, those evil commuters, who help the environment by taking public transportation, are TAKING UP PARKING!!! The horror!

But wait--there's more!

Apparently, buses bring a lower class of people to Arborland's upscale stores. These undesirables, who, according to the upscale stores, should be swept under the rug and stomped on, wander about this picturesque strip mall, wreaking havoc, overturning cars, smashing through walls, and breathing fire on the more upscale citizenry (read, "those who can afford cars.")

Arborland is owned by AmCap. I've already called them and left a message in the general mailbox. I'll call again when I can try to talk to a real person:

Headquarters
AmCap, Inc.
1281 East Main Street
Stamford, CT 06902
(203) 327-2001
Information@amcap.com

The tenants of Arborland Center Mall include the following. I'll be paying them a visit soon. If anyone else does, let me know their reaction!

( Read more... )

So I was in a Petco store a while ago and I passed their crappy little display of hummingbird feeders, and on the shelf underneath them was a display selling humming "nectar."  You could buy it by the pint, quart, or gallon.  I stared at the gallon a moment, then heft the jug.  It cost--heart attack time here--FIFTEEN DOLLARS.  Yes, you read that right.  Fifteen freakin' dollars.  I checked the ingredient list.  "Water (purified by reverse osmosis in a filter . . . [blah blah blah]"  The blah blah blah part went on to desribe the exact process used to filter TAP WATER. 

Second ingredient: sucrose.  Yep--plain old sugar. 

Third ingredient: red food dye. 

In other words, it was red sugar water, and they were charging fifteen bucks, or seven times the price of a gallon of milk.

I was stunned.  People actually bought this crap?  For fifteen bucks, you could buy enough of the ingredients at the store to make a whole barrel of the stuff!  Someone has a really good racket going here.

For a moment I was outraged as well as stunned.  Then I thought, "Anyone who's stupid enough to buy it deserves to get rooked."  And then I thought, "I wonder if I could get in on it?"  Hell, I could sell my hummingbird nectar for two dollars per gallon less than theirs and still make out like a bandit.  Hmmmmm . . .

My agent and fellow writer Lucienne Diver guest blogs about the Romance Writers of America's policy toward electronic publication:

http://espan-rwa.com/my-two-cents/

Since Mackie's birthday falls on December 26 and gets lost in holiday shuffle, we've taken to celebrating his birthday in the summer, halfway between birthdays.  A couple days before, I got out the cake recipe book and asked Mackie what kind of cake he wanted.  He waffled a bit and then settled on a Boston cream pie.  I made it the day before.

Mackie said he wanted to go to the water park and bring L---, his best friend from school.  Unfortunately, the day of the planned celebration turned out cold and rainy.

I said to Mackie, "We can't go to the water park, but you have a choice for what to do instead.  We can either go to the indoor playground place or play laser tag."

"Laser tag! Laser tag!"

So we drove through the rain to Zap Zone and played two games of laser tag.

When we got back, Granny and Popa arrived, as did L--- (who wasn't available for laser tag earlier) and his mother.  We grilled hot dogs and other summer food for supper, ate cake, and opened presents.  Mackie got a bunch of Bakugan stuff, a 300-piece puzzle (he loves puzzles and has already put it together), some money, and a boogie board.

That night when I was tucking him into bed, he said, "Thank you for the great birthday, Daddy!"

This single video justifies the existence of the entire Internet:

Fellow writer Anne Harris/Jessica Freely interviewed me at http://www.friskbiskit.com/2009/07/author-spotlight-steven-harperpiziks.html , and posted a segment of DREAMER.  So totally worth reading.  :)

</a>All three entries were really neat, and I couldn't decide between them, so I chose at random.  abdoggett and her fudge-stealing dog have won the Chocolate Covered Kindle Contest!

Thanks for playing, and for the blog readers, thanks for reading!  abdoggett  , message me you snail mail for your prize.  :)