Miye’s Neighborhood

Finished Gone by Michael Grant.

This is a pretty fitting series to start right after reading Life as We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone (and right before Under the Dome), because there are similar themes.

In this one, everyone over the age of 14 disappears, all at once.  (So kids 14 and younger are now responsible for themselves/each other.) 

To make matters more interesting, some of these kids start developing powers.  (Think X-Men style mutations.)

Not surprisingly, they start to break into two camps--Team Sam (good) and Team Caine (awful).

This is an interesting series.  (I'll be starting book 2 tonight or tomorrow; Gone ended with no real sense of resolution.)

Gone

Michael Grant

Gees can you believe this is the 78th Photo Quest?  Seems like I started this just a few months ago.  I thank all the loyal members for all their great photos and for teaching me more about photography.

For this weeks quest lets look at diagonal lines and how they contribute to a photo.  You can use diagonal lines to draw to eye to your subject or the lines can be your subject.  The human eye natural views an image by going from left to right.  By placing a diagonal line from left to right you are using that natural view to your advantage by now drawing the eye to your subject.  Make it easy for the viewed to know what your subject is.

Can you look at your photos and know what the subject is?  Do you look for the subject of your photo in your view finder or LCD before you click the shutter?  Do you remember the rule of thirds?

Now that I've filled you with questions....here is this week's quest.  Take some photos using diagonal lines.  Photos can be any that you have taken in the last year.  If you can't find a photo with diagonal lines or can't find a subject with diagonal lines around use a photo software to make some lines.  No excuses this time. 

Here is a great article on diagonal lines  http://digital-photography-school.com/using-diagonal-lines-in-photography.  Any questions...please ask!  Take care and  have a wonderful week.

Finished The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  This is a companion book to Life As We Knew It. 

Alex lives with his parents and two younger sisters in New York City.  When the asteroid hits the moon, his mom is at work (she works in a hospital's OR) and his dad is in Puerto Rico for a funeral. 

Alex has to figure out a way to keep his family safe and together, at least until one or both of his parents comes home.

I think I preferred Life As We Knew It, but this was good, too.

These books (there's going to be a third out in April) are so scary, too.  I don't think I'd do well in a world where I'd have to acquire food someplace that isn't a grocery store (or any of the places where we normally get food) and I certainly don't know how to cook and wash clothes without electricity and running water. 

the dead and the gone

Susan Beth Pfeffer

What are your favorite web or mobile apps? Which ones do you use everyday?

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I Heart Radio.

I have an aux hookup in my car, so I can plug my iPhone in and listen to it through my speakers. I listen to I Heart Radio talk shows like Lex & Terry and Elvis Duran. It has radio stations all over the country. I spend about 2 hours a day in my car, so it helps pass the time. Sometimes it buffers for a while, which can get annoying, but it usually works pretty well for me.

Pandora is a close second.

Yikes there were some very scary photos this week!  Thanks to all the folks that send in photos, it was so much fun to see what you were doing for Halloween.  I miss Halloween so much.  The department I worked the for last 9 years didn't do much of anything for Halloween.  Now that I'm retired well, it was even less.  We are too far out in the country to get trick-a-treaters so it was like any other day here.  Darn it...I did get to see some cute photos of my grandsons dressed up.

Back to the quest I didn't see a bad photo in the group and we had tons of photos this time.  Darcy made my job easy by posting only one photo, thanks so much girl.  Her photo of her daughter as Wednesday Adams showed tons of creativity.  Darcy's daughter played with the photo in photoshop to make it spookier!  Great work there.

Then along came Cap'n wow frozen pumpkin fields and a great jack-o-latern...amazing work on that.  My favorite was the jack-o-latern photo. Taking the photo at night gave it a real Halloween glow.

Next was Yan with his great photos of Halloween in Japan.  My favorite was the friend dressed as an alien...great capture in a dark bar.

Now it was Amy Sue...boy she made my job very hard with all her great photos!  Thanks for the great photos of the kids trick-or-treating downtown.  What a great place she lives that the merchants give out candy..keeping it safe for the kids...very nice!  It was so hard to pick a favorite...so I picked two.  I loved the pumpkin and  hunted house photo.  The low light gives the photo a very nice Halloween spooky feeling.  Then I really like the Halloween old photo of the two kids under the movie poster.  Nice work there with making the whole photo feel very old.

Wow then there was Metz....so many, many photos my friend.  I felt like I was there with you enjoying seeing how your children had so much fun. Of couse it helps that her kids are so cute!  So my favorite of all the photos was Halloween 048 with the red tree behind your daughter!  That was an amazing photo, loved the red leaves that matched your daughters outfit.  Nice work there!

Finished Finding Purpose Beyond Our Pain by Paul Meier and David L. Henderson for Thomas Nelson.

The thesis with this book is that hard times can either bring you closer to God or drive you farther from God.  When bad things happen, it tends to be for one of two reasons:

1)  God is using these incidents to improve you in some way.  For instance, if you have a problem with patience, perhaps you will be put in situations where you have no choice but to develop that quality. :)

2)  God didn't want this to happen, but will work within these circumstances so your life will continue to be what He wants.  This is where free will comes in.  He doesn't "let" you get mugged, but if you trust Him, He can take your fear away.  (as an example.)

I don't think this would be a good book to read while you're going through difficult times (although maybe that's just me; hearing about how God works in mysterious ways after my dad died made me want to hit people in the face) but I think it'd be comforting to read after, once things are calming down a little.

I do have some issues with some of the things the authors said.  First, as someone who's struggled with faith, I can tell you that atheists don't think that there's no point in being a good person in this life.  You can be a moral or ethical person without believing in God.  (And really, isn't there something to be said for doing the right thing because it's the right thing, not 'cause you think God will smite you?)

And second, they trotted out Carrie Prejean as an example of faith and not, say, prejudice.  Yes, she has every right to believe whatever she wants.  But let's not act like she isn't a bigot.  If she had said that she didn't think black people/Hindu people/atheists/immigrants or any other group shouldn't be allowed to get married, we wouldn't even have to have discussions on whether or not she's prejudiced.  And yes, it is the same thing. :)

Finding Purpose Beyond Our Pain: Uncover the Hidden Potential in Life's Most Common Struggles

Paul Meier M.D.

Finished Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

This book is told through a series of diary entries. Miranda is a normal teenager, living with her mom and two brothers (one older, one younger).  There are two noteworthy events for her at first--her dad's second wife is pregnant and she's going to be the godmother.  And an asteroid is going to hit the moon, which everyone's excited about. 

Except it turns out the asteroid was bigger than anyone thought, because it knocks the moon closer to earth.

This may not seem like a huge deal.  Until you remember that the moon controls the tides, so there are a lot of tsunamis.  There are also a lot of earthquakes and volcanic activity (something about gravitational pull; Miranda doesn't get much more specific).

Because of the tsunamis, oil refineries are mostly gone (gas goes up to $12 a gallon) and there's not much electricity.  And after all the eruptions, plants aren't growing so well, either (volcanic ash blocks the sun, which means no light for growing).  And of course there's no electricity, so grocery stores aren't open very long.

It's scary to think about how screwed we'd be if a huge event like this actually happened.  Still, a very good book.

(And tomorrow I have to go to the store anyway, so I may be stocking up on canned goods.)

Life As We Knew It

Susan Beth Pfeffer

Some people vote the same way every time: Rs for Rs, Ds for Ds. Then you have the wildcards.  The wave. The pendulum. The moody middle swayed by who knows what -- "Dancing with the Stars" perhaps or McDonald's dollar menu? Who knows... I don't... Ask the people at Pew.

Anyhow, if I had to venture a guess, I would bet that some fussy pendulum-riders were already skittish about health care reform (i.e. they fear change -- they can't love the outrageous health care bills that are bankrupting them and their families) and they got a few too many e-mail forwards from wackadoo friends about Obama trying to take over private businesses (I guess we should just funnel tax payer money to big business to save them and not takeover?) and then the White House got pissy about Fox News and then somebody got too meddlesome in gubernatorial elections (when there's a country to be running) and there are a fair number of folks throughout the country who arent sure about whether that dude in the White House is Muslim/born in the U.S. -and/or- just they're just plain racist/ignorant/fill-in-the-blank and there you have it...

[extended run-on sentence for your reading pleasure... I hope it helps someone's superiority complex. Maybe I should make this post public to infuriate the masses. You're welcome.]

Finished Fallen by Lauren Kate (this is a review copy; it comes out December 8).

Luce (short for Lucinda) is about to start school at Sword & Cross (a sort of cross between boarding school and an alternative school for troubled and/or dangerous children).  She's there because of a mysterious incident involving a fire that led to a boy's death.  (That's about all we know, because she doesn't remember it.)

Not long after arriving, she meets Daniel, who is really, really, ridiculously good looking.  He smiles...then gives her the finger.

She's still fascinated.

This is a suspense/love story. 

Luce is a good heroine.  She's smart and easy to root for.  Daniel is a fairly typical love interest (I don't think it's a spoiler for me to say that) although I wish that authors would let go of the "He's cruel because he cares so, so much" rationale. 

The writing is cheesy in parts but the story is compelling, so I forgive it.  (Also, since I got a review copy, it's possible that some of that got edited out.)

Fallen

Lauren Kate