Saturday, March 04, 2017

the sleepwalker

The Sleepwalker (Sleepwalker, #1)The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Sleepwalker a really good read Probably 4.5 stars. An interesting mystery centered around a disorder I knew almost nothing about. I really liked the characters, the pacing, the layering on of clue after clue.

My only quibble is probably unfair as I wanted to know more about what happened afterwards, details and not just broad strokes. I won’t say any more as I don’t want to inadvertently spoil it for other readers.

posted by lee on 03/04/17 at 10:19 AM
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Wednesday, March 08, 2017

planet earth 2

Flamingoes - San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, BBC America Planet Earth 2
Flamingoes,San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, Justin Anderson (click to see it big!)

We’ve been watching Planet Earth II—and it’s just as beautiful as Planet Earth, first aired back in March 2007 in the United States.

My only quibble is sometimes the music gets twee—I loathe that. I like David Attenborough fine as the narrator, though I would be just as happy with Sigourney Weaver as narrator as she was in the 2007 US version of Planet Earth. I also like that they are pointing out the effects of climate change and encroaching development on the habitats.

In the first episode, Islands, the flight of the baby marine iguanas in Fernandina, Galápagoes to reach their parents without being eaten by waiting racer snakes was very exciting—better than a car chase by far. And in episode 2, Mountains, the flamingoes in the Atacama Desert was my favorite part. In the most recent episode, Jungles, I loved the Wilson bird of paradise mating ritual in West Papua, Indonesia. I’m looking forward to the next episode, Deserts, on Saturday.

posted by lee on 03/08/17 at 01:00 AM
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Saturday, March 11, 2017

a criminal defense

A Criminal DefenseA Criminal Defense by William L. Myers Jr.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well-written and interesting, but ultimately preposterous. Much too convoluted and contrived and too many things had to fall perfectly into place for the resolution to work. But it’s well-written and it kept me reading because I wanted to see how it all resolved.

posted by lee on 03/11/17 at 10:31 AM
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Sunday, March 26, 2017

wind, weather, water, & an empty house, oh calamity!

This weekend wasn’t a good one for tech stuff—DoS attack on one server, weird glitch on another, and we had to move our webserver to a new box because the disk is failing. So I was starting to think about what else to do for a living to get away from high tech. (I always do when aggravated by server crap that always seems to happen at once.)

However, I got a lesson that even “low tech” has problems. We put Dad’s house on the market last September and I saw that the market is picking up so that boded well for actually selling it this spring (Iosco County is not exactly a hot market—not for years now). But Mother Nature kicked us in the teeth. There have been windstorms and power outages where the house is—it’s the norm for a northern Michigan winter. While we don’t know for sure, it looks like the wind knocked the power out to the house (happens an awful lot there) and it didn’t come back on in time to prevent the pipes from freezing. Frozen pipes in the back wall, which apparently burst and destroyed the ceiling above the dining room and family room. My nephew Scott and his girlfriend Kayla just happened to go up that way for a weekend jaunt, checked on the house, and discovered the nightmare.

This was my biggest fear, that weather would cause something like this. A storm or a lightening strike or even a tornado. What frustrates me most about it is I’m not there to help with dealing with it.

Here is what these rooms looked like:

kitchen
The kitchen, when we put it on the market. (click to see it big!)

family room
The family room when we put it on the market. (click to see it big!)

That was then. These are now:

damage kitchen view
Looking from the kitchen towards the dining area/family room.

dining room ceiling
The ceiling in the dining area (click to see it big!)

Dining room area.
text (click to see it big!)

The ceiling above the dining area
The ceiling above the dining area. What gets me is how pristine and untouched the curtains look. (click to see it big!)

The ceiling that is no more
Where the ceiling used to be, above the dining area and family room. (click to see it big!)

Where the ceiling is now
Where the ceiling is now. (click to see it big!)

I know there was a bad windstorm a couple of weeks ago, but this looks like it’s been more than two weeks. But, I don’t know—I have no idea how quickly damage like this can happen.

The area that is damaged in mainly in the one-story section behind the garage, and below the upstairs bathroom in the two-story part of the house (hence all the pipes).

My nephew saw a silver lining: “Well, once we fix it we can say ‘improvements made’ in the listing.”

posted by lee on 03/26/17 at 08:13 AM
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