Olympos by Dan Simmons

I've got a bit of a backlog on my posts, so over the next couple of weeks I'll be doing some catching up. I'm going to start with this one:

Olympos is the sequel to Ilium which I reviewed here prior to one of our book group meetings. Ilium was fast paced, full of concepts and a compelling read. I felt Olympos was about the same with some caveats. To summarize simply:

We pick up with all of our favorite (and not so favorite) characters - Harmon, Ada, Hannah, Daemon, and Noman ( formerly named Odysseus) from Earth. The people on Earth are suddenly being attacked by the voinyx, who once served humanity in all tasks, with a ferocity that is downright scary. Daemon finds that Paris Crater where his mother lived, is now under a blue dome of ice and in the center Setebos has taken up residence and is laying eggs. Meanwhile, the voinyx attack Ardis Hall and the humans there and Noman is mortally wounded. Harmon, Hannah, and Petyr make a desperate gamble and take Noman back to the Golden Gate Bridge at Machu Pichu to Noman's regenerating coffin.


Here Harmon is kidnapped by Ariel and meets up with Prospero who tells him he has a mission to save earth. Harmon is frantic to get back to Ada, now his pregnant wife, but in order to do so he must complete this task.


And we meet up with my favorite little dues, the morvacs. Orhpu of Io and Mahnmut leave the battle of Troy on Mars and are heading toward Earth. From the sensors the morvacs have, there is a large probability the Brane holes and all the quantum stuff happening over Earth is going to destroy the near universe.



And lastly we still have the much altered battle of Troy in progress. The Ageans are getting their butts kicked, and Prof. Hockenberry, Ph.D., is quite distressed that it was because of him. In addition, the Gods have begun to war amongst themselves, and once Zeus is found and brought back to Troy, all Hades breaks loose. Literally.



That is to summarize very briefly. Overall, I enjoyed the story. I did get bogged down about halfway through, but that could have been in part because I became distracted by three busy weekends in a row (Minicon and two yoga workshops) and a knitting project. Plus this really isn't a book to read if you're tired.



I also found that Simmons seemed to pontificate more in this one. More than several times a character would go on at great length about some activity they were participating in or observing or whatever. And 'at length' would constitute pages of description. Now I normally enjoy description, but not when it drags on so much. (I'm thinking here particularly of Harmon finding the sub with the black holes in it.)



And it seemed to me the ending was almost to...pat. I shan't describe the ending because I know some of by bookish friends are waiting to read this, but it was almost as if Simmons just didn't know how he wanted to wrap this up or he just wanted to be done with the book.



But even despite my dislikes and it taking me forever to finish it (again, I got busy for about 3 weeks), I don't regret reading Olympus.

Viva Las Vegas!

Last week I went on vacation to a place I didn't think I would ever go: Las Vegas! What a great time I had hanging out with sister K4. I think with Vegas it is what you make of it - you can spend as much or as little as you like, you can gamble as much or as little as you want, you can do pretty much what ever you want. After my initial shock of being deposited in this city of lights and machines and people, I settled down and had a delightful time. I have gone through my pics and tried to pull out one picture that represents each day.

Saturday. We're here and ready to explore!

Paris in the summer time.

Saturday night we went to Spamalot! Funny, funny production. Warning though, you need to be a Holy Grail aficionado to really, truly, understand the humor.

Sunday was a hang out at the pool day. While waiting for K4 to wake up, I watched Planet of the Apes for the first time. Pretty good movie!

Monday. Look! I found Star Wars penny slots!

Tuesday took us to Red Rock Canyon, 30 minutes outside of Vegas. We could have easily spent several days exploring the trails. I had to content myself with posting this one picture.

Wednesday we went to a Cique de Soliel show (Mystere) at the Wynn and then caught some of the free evening shows along the strip. I caught this while waiting for the Sirens of TI battle.

Thurday was warm, warm, warm. 106* warm. We partook in a margarita over lunch while overlooking the strip. Then went back to the pool at the resort.





Thursday night we caught a shuttle down to Fremont Street, which is known as the old strip. We were there for 4 hours. 2 would have been plenty.





This is an image from the "jumbotron" that covers all of Fremont Street. The first light show of the evening was an alien invasion. This was an image I caught before my camera informed me that I had used up the entire memory card. Darn it!




My thanks to K4 for being a great travel companion and guide to this Vegas newbie! Looking forward to '08!

Pantry Reduction Week 3 & 4

Where did my May go?!? Away, that's all I know.

Well, my pantry reduction project continues. This is going a lot slower than I anticipated. I suppose I should have expected that, given it is just me working my way through the freezers and cupboards. But still, it is frustrating to think I am making progress and then open up the chest freezer and think, "Aw, crap. It's not empty yet."

Here's what progress I did make in the last two weeks:

Spicy Honey Glazed Chicken (Every Day with Rachel Ray, June) 8

This used up a rather large chicken breast I had languishing in my upstairs freezer. I made two modifications: one was I did this on the grill rather than in a grill pan and I bought canned pineapple rings rather than a whole pineapple. The canned one's worked just fine and were thick enough to place on the grill as they were. However, I don't think my grill was hot enough to properly sear them. The honey redux that is made on the stove also didn't quite reduce enough for my tastes and remained rather runny. However, this was absolutely fantastic the next day. I re-heated everything on the stove and the flavors really popped. Perhaps this is more of a stove-top than an grill dish.

Skinny Chimichangas (From Sugar Rush from Weight Watchers) 8

I used up some extra shredded chicken from a very large chicken I grilled quite some time back and some frozen tortilla's. This dish was really good! The recipe did call for ground turkey and Erin (from Sugar Rush) recommended shredded. Awesome. Also upon her suggestion, I subbed pepper jack for cheddar, sprinking the cheddar over the top instead. Awesome. A delicious sauce is made on the stove, adding the chicken toward the end to let all the flavors meld together. Then the cheese and chicken is rolled up and placed on a baking sheet. Here I deviated again and after placing them on a baking sheet, I grilled them. These made 6 tortillas for me, but I suppose that was because I added extra shredded chicken. Delicious!

I served these with homemade corn chips: cut some corn tortilla's into wedges, spray with olive oi and lightly salt. Bake until nicely crisp (this was about 15 minutes on the grill at 350*). Yummy!

Pineapple Chicken Salad Pitas (Ckng Lght, May 2007) 6

Here I continued to use up the leftover shredded grilled chicken. I think next time I grill a chicken, I am going to make sure it is a small one and I am going to make sure the chunks are properly shredded before I put them in the freezer bags. I also skipped the pita's bit and just served this over lettuce with some crackers on the side. This salad intrigued me because there is no pasta in it - only chicken, mayo, seasonings, toasted almonds, carrots and pineapple.

Anyhow, I found this to be just okay. I over pureed my leftover pineapple rings (decided to save time and run them though the food processor) and I didn't shred the chicken finely enough so I had these awkward larger hunks of meat to contend with. So my low score is because I screwed up. Otherwise, the flavor is very bright and fresh and I thought it made a great lunch.

So these last couple of weeks I've used up:

1 chicken breast

3 (8oz) bags of grilled and shredded chicken

1 package flour tortillas

2 corn tortillas

carrots (still have nearly a whole bag left though)

2 sweet potato samosas

Next week I'm taking a little vacation - Viva Las Vegas! I have so many draft posts waiting to be posted that I may have to increase my posting to 3 times a week till I get caught up.

Here's what I have coming up:

Book reviews:

Olympus by Dan Simmons

Dreamsnake by Vonda Mycintre

His Majesty's Dragon by Naiomi Novik

Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

Knitting Projects:

Knitting Project #4 - Dishcloths!

Knitting Project #3 - Sister's hat and Scarf

and One Awesome Vacation!

Grand Marais, MN (part 3)

On Sunday of my Grand Marais weekend we had hoped to do some small hiking, but alas, the weather decided otherwise being quite overcast with a continual mist falling. Instead, I talked the Folks into driving up the Gunflint Trail to see the Ham Lake Fire. This was met with enthusiasm, more I think because the Father had never been to the end of the Gunflint and I wanted to touch charcoal. Geeky, I know.

We packed a lunch and at the Forest Service campground "Trails End". This adventure didn't take all day, and allowed time later in the evening when it began to rain harder, to dine at the Crooked Spoon.

This kind of restaurant seems to be a growing trend in Grand Marais, catering to the "City Folk" who have this hoity-toity view of driving up to the "Cabin" on such-and-such lake and dining on lamb in the evening. The Crooked Spoon, while very good, was definitely a hoity-toity greenie restaurant.

The Mother and I ordered the Whitefish, lightly panfried with spring vegetables of pattypan squash and asparagus. The Father ordered penne pasta with a tomato basil sauce and cheese and a bowl of french onion soup with Guyere cheese and a pastry crust. The meal was served with fresh baked bread, nicely sliced and still warm. (I'm a sucker for warm bread.). I honestly don't remember what I had to drink so it must have been water. While we dined, we had a small pampered child screaming at the table behind us while a very good acoustic guitar player sang in the entryway. I will note now, that a grandparent finally took the child away which improved the ambiance immensely. The menu here was not very child friendly. The price range of the menu was all the way from $10.00 for the pasta w/o meat up to $24.00 for kangaroo tenderloin.

The Grand Marais harbor.

Grand Marais, MN (part 2)

With Friday nights culinary adventures nicely digested, our minds turned toward Saturday's much anticipated hike. The Guide to the Superior Hiking Trail (2004 ed.) was carefully analyzed, miles measured, routes negotiated and hiking times calculated. We quickly settled on Kadunce River Wayside to Magney State Park. Lunches were packed the evening before to allow for a quick and hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, fruit and yogurt, and English muffins. Then it was trail time!



Here are some shots along the route:

We actually hiked the trail from east to west (Magney to Kadunce R.). This was a really nice segement of trail that had a bit of everything. It was long inclines and declines, with a mixture of mature and younger forest which made for varied and delightful walking. The hiker passes through 30 year old upland black spruce plantation, crosses a dry stream bed, over a couple of bridges and there is even one small overlook of Lake Superior. There are some neat streams to cross and the main feature - the lake walk! This isn't as impressive as it sounds as by the time you hit the "lakewalk" you've done 5.2 miles and walking on rocks for 1.5 miles isn't as neat as it sounds. As we came down the Kadunce River, it started to sprinkle and by the time we hit the car, it was seriously raining. Luckily the car was only a dash across the highway.


Trail stats:
10 miles
6.5 hours
good segment for dogs
passed 4 hikers all after lunch
5/26/07 - 58*, overcast, cool until the afternoon. Then a tich muggy with rain at 3:30.
Lunch was on the lake

Grand Marais, MN 2007 (Part 1)

For the last 4 years, I have met my folks up the North Shore for a bit of hiking. For the last 2 we've gone to Grand Marais over Memorial Day weekend - it helps that they bought a camper trailer and they bring it up to the Municipal Campground. Our weekends include hiking another segment of the Superior Hiking Trail, eating, and bumming around. This year was no exception.

I drove up on Friday and met them at noon. It was sunny but chilly (48*) with a light lake wind. We had a light meal of chef salads then went for a walk around town - this is one of the nice things about Grand Marais, everything is within walking distance. Dinner was at Chez Jude on Friday night.

Chez Jude

We had reservations for 5:30p, a bit early perhaps as we did have the restaurant to ourselves. However, that didn't stop us from being our usual selves.

We each ordered something different, except the Father wouldn't let the Mother nor I touch his ribs so we have to take his word for it that they were good, and seeing as he cleaned his plate, I don't doubt that they were. But the mustard that came with his dish was fantastic and I had to sample several bites with stolen french fries.

Apple with whitefish salad, balsamic syrup and herring roe

Superior Whitefish en Papillote w/Meyer Lemon Parsley Butter Sauce

Wood Roasted Ancho Maple BBQ Glazed Pork Ribs

Wood Roasted Cedar Planked

Wild Sockeye Salmon

Lemon Curd Creme Brulee

Chocolate Decadence

French Apple Frangipane Tart

We concluded our meal with a walk down to the harbor to allow such delectables a chance to settle on the stomach before retiring for the evening.

Nebula Awards 2007 ed Mike Resnick

Somehow, somewhere along the line, this has become a yearly book group selection. I think it initially grabbed our fancy in 2003 and we've been reading them ever since. Some years are better than others, but that's how it goes.

This year's selection contained a decent but not outstanding variety. Since these are all short stories I shan't summarize much, but mostly just offer my opinion.

Magic for Beginners and The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link. Magic for Beginners was just okay. I thought it was simplistic and incomplete and could have been better as a longer piece of work. The Faery Handbag was rather well done and contained some nice little twists for a short story.

The End of the World as We Know It by Dale Bailey. This was a really cool short story. Initially I found the fragmented writing style a bit annoying: the author would digress into historical bits about other end of the world events then jump back into the main story. However, as the story progressed the end of the world bits began to make more sense and I found myself looking forward to them. This story also had overtones of realism that I found to my liking.

Still Life with Boobs by Anne Harris was...well, I didn't like it. The premise of this story was this woman's boobs detach themselves and go off on their own, often at embarrassing moments. I found nothing interesting or funny about this story. It was discussed at book group that this story was a metaphor for embarassing moments women have. It still wasn't interesting or funny.

Men are Trouble by James Patrick Kelly. This was just okay. Future world where the 'devils' took away all the men and somehow impregnate the women to propegate the race. The heroine is hired by a devil to solve a mystery of a suicide and as the reader follows her they find out some rather dark aspects of this all female world. Rather feminist from a male author.

Identity Theft by Robert Sawyer was tedious at best. A private investigator novel set in the future on Mars, but with an 1940's flair. The story just didn't work - to many poorly done cliques.

I Live With You by Carol Emshwiller. Was kinda creepy-odd. A person? Shadow? Other being? Slinks around and takes up residence in peoples houses and does stuff. And then eventually goes away. Speculation was this was a metaphor for a shy person coming out of thier shell.

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman. This is the novel excerpt the nebula awards always put in. We read it for book group last year and enjoyed it as we do most of Haldeman's works.

The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie by Harlan Ellison. This was not sci fi or fantasy and was written ages ago while Harlan worked in Hollywood. It is set in early Hollywood where a producer and his cronies find an old film star waitressing in a diner and decide to bring her back to the big screen. It's a fascinating look at people and personalities. While I really didn't care for the story itself, the writing was absolutely amazing. I kept reading for that reason alone.

In between all the stories various authors discuss a variety of topics in the sf&f world, such as small publishing houses, past Nebula awards, where the field is going, artwork in sf&f, and so on. I usually skip most of these and did so again in this volume. Except for the blurb on Harlan, that was interesting. So for 2007, this was a mediocre selection with only a couple stories really worth reading.

Pantry Reduction Month, Week 2

So the quest to reduce the food in the pantry and freezer continues! As I mentioned in my previous post, it isn't about baring my cupboards so much as just cleaning things out a bit. I'm also finding it's going a bit slow...but that could be because of my odd work schedule right now. Still, it's been fun to find a recipe to use up a very particular ingredient rather than just choosing a completely new recipe.

This past week we pulled out and ate (see, I'm even squeezing in a couple of new recipes!):

1/4 box rotini became - Bob Barkers Summertime Salad (Rachel Ray Every Day, June pg 131) This made a lot and would be great for a summer potluck for people with non-adventurous taste buds. I found it lacking a bit in the seasoning department. It could have used just a bit of...something. Feta cheese perhaps? Provolone? Pepperoni? The visual appeal of this salad was delightful: red, orange and yellow peppers, red cherry tomatoes, bright green basil, dark purple kalmata olives. I did make one substitution: the recipe called for tri-color rotini, but I used whole wheat.

1 tub Marinara sauce - which will go on the linguine or my homemade ravioli or both.

1 tub Corn and Salmon Chowder

2 frozen bananas became - Tropical Banana Cream Muffins (Culinary in the Desert Blog) I haven't tried one of these yet because they are for book group tonight. A banana muffin is transformed from ordinary into tropical with the addition of cinnamon, ginger, lime, sour cream and coconut. I didn't have lime zest so I obviously skipped that bit, and I omitted the coconut because people are just funny about it. Instead, I added some lemon zest to some sugar and sprinkled it over the top of half the muffins. Oops, forgot to snap a picture, I'll have to add one later.

I have just been reminded to come back and review the muffins! They were just okay. The lime juice didn't really come through and they turned out a bit on the dry side. Perhaps if I had added the lime zest and some toasted coconut they would have been more "tropical", but I wasn't overly impressed as it was. They also weren't as enthusiastically recieved at book group as other treats I have brought, if I am to judge from thier eager taste buds. I think my group prefers chocolate, carrot cake and cheesecake...

I also used up some: walnuts, sunflower seeds, and honey while making granola, and some packets of yogurt culture while making yogurt. Bit by bit I am making progress!

Knitting, Project #2, Sister's Scarf

Round about Minicon weekend, I joined up with my friend and our adventures took us all around St. Paul and Mpls. One place we visited was the Yarnery on Grand Ave where I purchased some yarn for projects for both my sisters (K2 and K4). K2 requested a scarf in antique pinks and I found a blended yarn in a lovely dusty pink in just the weight I wanted. I also bought yarn for K4's scarf and hat - she requested blue-reds. And I just had to buy a nifty pair of birch needles (in picture below). And I needed some circular needles. And I needed some double point needles...

Anyway, I decided to start K2's scarf as I had a teacher handy over the Minicon weekend. She showed me how to purl and knit in the round. The purling was a necessary lesson as K2's scarf pattern was a ribbed scarf where I would be knitting two, purling two. The knitting in the round would be for K4's hat but I will be posting on that later.

This was a delightful and quick project. I did have to make a quick run back to the Yarnery the weekend following Minicon (I was down for a yoga workshop) as I realized I didn't have enough yarn to complete my project. One skein only gave me 2'. Eeep! I had also modified the pattern so her scarf would be 6" wide rather than 5". 5" was just a bit to narrow given the length of the overall scarf. Final length was about 5.5'.

Pattern: Knitting by Jennifer Worik, Taking a Ribbing Scarf, pg 40

Yarn: Plymouth Yarn, Encore Chunky, 75% acrylic/25% wool. 143 yds.

Store: The Yarnery, Grand Ave, St. Paul

Needle Size: #10

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

The Englishman Peter Mayle and his wife decide to move from foggy England to sunny Provence, France, purchasing a 200 year old farmhouse on the edge of one of France’s national parks. They happen to move in January and first thing they experience is the natural wonder know as a Mistral - cold blasting winds that roar down from the mountains and blow through every crack and seam in the house.

Each month Peter describes what it’s like to live in Provence, what the country is like, the season, the restaurants, the holidays, and the food. He talks about driving around to buy cases of wine for their wine cellar. He describes each little towns restaurants. Peter talks about discovering where to by bread, who has the best olive oil, which baker makes the best pastries, what butcher takes the most care with his cuts of meat.

And mixed in are the Mayle’s adventures with the construction workers over 9 months. After that first Mistral Peter and his wife decide to put in central heat and between their poor but improving French and the growing understanding on how quickly things get done in France we follow the monthly construction progress.

This was a nice book that highlights the beauty of Provence and the attitudes of the people who live there. I loved reading about restaurants who serve one thing a day and if you go that’s what you get. I enjoyed reading about mushroom hunting and poisonous snakes. I empathized with the Mayle’s as they contemplated in Nov whether their heat would ever be installed. This wasn't a gripping page turner, but rather like a lazy summer's evening with the sun slanting through the trees as bits of cottonwood fluff float lazily through the air while dragonfly's dart hither and yon. It was kinda like that.

Knitting, Project #1, My Scarf

Way back in March...well, earlier than that actually, but March was when I went and did something about it, I became fascinated with knitting and taught myself how to knit. I was going to take a class back in January and February from one of my local yarn stores, but a 6 week class and a $60.00 price tag was more than I wanted to commit to. Besides, I didn’t think I needed such an in depth class for something that nearly everyone is doing.


So with some on-line guidance from a friend and a small shopping list, I grabbed a local friend and we checked out the Yarn Harbor in Duluth. I dutifully bought the appropriate weight yarn and the corresponding needles and a book. A very handy book as I will discover over the coming months.

Thus on a quiet evening (remember this was March) I sat myself down and figured out how to cast on, how to hold the needles (very important), how to hold the yarn (even more important) and how to do the basic knit or garter stitch. Before long I was knitting a scarf! Now this wasn’t with out some lessons...I had to rip my project apart no less than three times to get the width right. Attempt #1 had me making a 5" wide scarf. Attempt #2 had it at 12". Attempt #3 I think I had the cast on count correct. Other lessons learned were to periodically check your stitch count lest you some how end up adding on 10 extra stitches somewhere. More ripping out involved but I learned how to do so and then get the needles back on the project.



So by April I finished my first project. I was going to block it before I posted this but I seem to be dragging my feet. I may not block it either. We'll see.



Pattern: Knitting by Jennifer Worick, The Starter Scarf, pg 32.
Yarn: Cascade Farms Ecological Wool, 100% Puruvian Highland Wool, 478 yards
Store: The Yarn Harbor, Duluth, MN
Needle size: #10

Kia's not so sure she wants to be a model...