Friday, June 27, 2014

Feature & Follow - Favorite Coffee Mug(s)



I started drinking coffee when I started working with computers. I'm afraid I'm hooked. Of course, I also enjoy a good green tea or chai at times too. And always "black" - no sugar, no milk, definitely no artificial anything!

My two favorite mugs were bought by my son for me on two trips he took. The blue, Lionfish mug, was from when we both slept on the battleship Massachusetts with the scouts.


Do your favorite mugs have stories?




Friday, June 20, 2014

Feature and Follow - Books of 2014

Alison Can Read Feature & Follow

The question of the week is what are your favorite books of 2014 so far.

It occurs to me this is a terrible question for me since I've only read two books published in 2014. One, Birth of an Assassin by Rik Stone, was reviewed here in April. The other, Memories, I wrote.

I have been reading (see other reviews here as well as my GoodReads list), but they are all from my TBR pile which stretches back for years!

I am sure, after this hop, that the pile will be even taller.




Friday, June 13, 2014

Feature and Follow - Armchair Travel

Alison Can Read Feature & Follow



Alexander Kent's To Glory We Steer is set in the 1782 Caribbean. Captain Richard Bolitho and his crew hit most of the islands in this action/adventure story - the Bahamas, Bermuda, St Kitts, Jamaica, Antigua. I would love to go south (especially, of course, during the next long northern winter!) and follow the path of the frigate Phalarope (without all the smoke and swordfighting, of course!)


Monday, June 9, 2014

Summer has come, where was spring?

Yesterday it was 86 degrees with nary a cloud in the sky, sun beating down and the smell of flowers and barbecue permeating the air. This year it went from a cold 60 with slanting rain to the beautiful weekend just past, with hardly a moderate day in between.

Now, this could all be explained away as a normal variation. Some years are just like this, have been forever. Some years the spring comes early and lingers late and people start to complain that summer never comes. Just like all the tornadoes ripping through the center of the country. Some years there are just a lot of tornadoes.

It could also explain why we've had such massive and destructive storms in recent years - Katrina, Sandy, to name two. Big storms do come around occasionally.

And then there was the story in the news today that officials in the Marshall Islands had discovered the remains of some 15 Japanese soldiers from World War II. Their shallow graves had been destroyed by ocean waters that were 8 cm higher that just a few years ago on an archipelago where the highest point is only 2 meters above sea level.

One or two of these could be coincidence, could be the normal variation of nature over time. But all of them and more in the past ten years? Maybe not.

Let me know what you think! Comments (polite ones!) are always welcome.