Inday Arlene

Monday, April 8, 2013

Meeting Thelonious Monk

Yesterday I was working at Customer Service at the airport when a gentleman came up because he had missed his connection to Memphis. I took a look at his boarding pass and remarked on his name, Thelonious Monk. "Are you related?" I asked. He replied that the famous jazz musician was his father. In chatting with him while I tried to find a way for him to get to Memphis, I found out that he is also a jazz musician, a drummer. It was nice to be able to help him get to his destination, sorry that he would be a little late. Later when I mentioned meeting him to a co-worker they didn't recognize the name. I suppose that is normal since last fall when there were some "aging" rock stars waiting for a plane at a gate I didn't recognize the name of the band that they played with but several of my co-workers did.
Last fall I was thrilled when I was checking passports for an international flight, I got to meet one of my favorite authors, Alexander McCall Smith. There was only one flight attendant that I told who knew who he is. Even several years ago when I helped a gentleman named Winston Churchill, few recognized the name (my passenger was the grandson of the English PM).
C'est la vie!

Monday, August 27, 2012

Being Published

This book was published back in September, 2011. I got my copy at a book signing at Tattered Cover. It is one of the set printed to celebrate "Peace Corps at 50". I was honored to be included in this volume with my story: "Of Girls and Dogs and Cats". This was edited from my two submissions that I printed here and here. Of course what was in the book was 4 pages.
Here is a photo of me and my friend Bruce McDonald who had a story in one of the other volumes along with Jane Albritton from Fort Collins, Colorado who conceived the series and was the editor of our Asian collection.

The other books in the set published as Peace Corps @ 50.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

The Little Book of Snowflakes

The Little Book of Snowflakes by Kenneth Libbrecht

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This beautiful little book by Kenneth Libbrecht is absolutely stunning. He has added quotes and poems to photos of snowflakes in a wonderful way.

I love snowflakes, especially since I was a snowflake collector in a previous life (real snowflakes). I worked at the University of Wyoming for the Natural Resources Research Institute as a research assistant to the professor who was the snowflake man in the group. We were studying ways to increase the snow pack on the mountains because this is the water supply for this desert state. I discovered Snowflakes in Photographs by W.A. Bentley while I was working there and also found much of his early work in the National Geographic magazines and other publications of the early 20th century. I believe that Kenneth Libbrecht is a worthy successor to W.A. Bentley.

I have added his other books to my "wish list".

View all my reviews

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Bookshelf Crash

So on Monday I was trying to pull a book off a shelf in my bedroom when the whole shelf started to tip! Ack!!!!! Then since it was a backless shelf, some of the books on the top shelf started to slip down behind, making it impossible to right the shelf.

Now I think I need to explain the shelf: it is made from 4 2x4s that have holes drilled up the wide side, pegs are put in the holes and 2x2s with holes are put onto the pegs, the shelves are set onto the 2x2s, there are screw in attachments on the tops of the uprights that make it so you can adjust them against the ceiling, there are no nails holding it together. I guess I didn't have the screws tightened against the ceiling and when it started to come down, it did. So there I am trying to keep from being smashed by all those books on the top and trying to let down the uprights slowly so they don't crash into the window. Tuesday I had to get up at 4am to go to work a double and didn't get home till after 8:30pm so there all the books stayed, blocking the closet door. Wednesday was my day off so I spent the whole day putting the shelf back up and getting the books back on it. I decided that while I was doing that I would catalog them, so I took my laptop up to the bedroom and created a new shelf on my Goodreads list called "bedroom shelf". Basically, all the books on that bookshelf are ones I have acquired that I haven't read yet, so they are really TBR but I wanted to have them separate. I was amazed that there are 244 books there. I think I really can't justify buying any new ones! lol
Now I can maybe relax and read a few chapters from one of my "currently reading"!!