The jets have been active tonight. I counted six individual jet contrails in the sky. Very interesting.
And there was a nice sunset.
I hope you enjoyed April. Coming up is a very warm start to May!
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Urban Development Fascinates Me – Rogers Place and Skyscrapers
Yesterday, I was downtown Edmonton with my wife, and we went past some major construction sites. Downtown is filled with cranes, and one of the biggest projects is the ICE district, which includes the new home of the Edmonton Oilers, Rogers Place. It also includes the two new tallest buildings in the city and right next to it is the City of Edmonton tower.
I enjoy seeing urban development and watching how it changes the area. Construction is fascinating, and I always wonder what kind of businesses are going into the new buildings. I took a couple pictures of Rogers Place, which you can see below. And notice the halo around the sun?
In this picture, you can also see the City of Edmonton tower under construction. It’s the one with the crane. It has an interesting curve on the south side.
Anyone else interested in architecture and urban development? Let me know in the comments below.
Authors Answer 78 – When Authors Get Superpowers
Writing isn’t easy. Crafting a story is a difficult process. But we’re only human, so mistakes may be made. We’re not perfect. But what if we had superpowers? Not like superheroes, but literary superpowers. What would an author like to have as a superpower?
Question 78 – If you could have a literary superpower, what special ability would you like to have that would help your writing?
The power to instantly read any revision with fresh eyes. I have a tendency to think of my own writing as droll and dull after reading it over and over and over and over. It’s only after I’ve spent months away from a manuscript – usually spent working on a different manuscript in the meantime – that I get to see what I’ve written is actually exciting and engaging and emotional and GOOD.
If I could cut out the long wait period for those new eyes, it would greatly hasten the editing process in all its forms – copyediting, structural, etc.
Can I consider maximum caffeine efficiency a superpower? I’ll go with that. It would combat that “not enough hours in the day” feeling and I could write more as well as catch up on my reading and work through my shifts without feeling (as) exhausted.
I would like to have the superpower of not being lazy and inert. Can I get that please? What, I need to learn to exercise my own willpower? Fine. If I were to have an actual superpower, I would like the ability to insert my consciousness (as an observer) into other people’s heads, so that I could have by-proxy experiences to better understand other people and also activities that I can’t participate in — like climbing Mt. Everest. Because I am a keyboard knight only, and I worry that my imagination doesn’t paint the picture right. Also, I swear I won’t use my power for evil. …Often.
Ooh. Tough question Jay Dee. I though writing itself was a superpower! I suppose the superpower I would like to have is the power to weave obsession between my lines. The kind of obsession you get when you only intend to read one more chapter but instead stay up until 3 am on weeknight to finish the book. The kind of obsession that makes you want to tell everyone about this great book you’re reading. The kind of obsession that makes you want to read it over and over and over. That’s the superpower I’d like to have.
At first I was thinking something along the lines of Flash-level writing speed, but that power really depends on whether or not I can think as fast as I write, since it wouldn’t really do me much good if I had to stop every ten seconds to let my brain catch up.
So now I’m thinking something that isn’t necessarily a literary superpower, exactly: the ability to get a full night’s sleep and be totally well-rested and alert in, oh, let’s say ten minutes. If I could do that and have an extra 7-8 hours more to every day, I would write so much that no one person would be able to read it all. It may sound weak when given the choice of any superpower, but honestly, the need to sleep is the biggest roadblock to my writing right now, so that’s what I’m sticking with.
This is a great question! I’d love the power of engaging description. The ability to describe a room, a meal, an outfit, all the little bits that flesh out a world without making my own eyes glaze over would be great, bonus points if readers also are entertained. So, when are we handing out the superpowers? I could use this right now.
The ability to instantly know the words that most perfectly describe the images in my head.
The innate knowledge on where to place a comma would be awesome.
More time.
Literary Power… ACTIVATE! I choose: PROLIFICNESS!
I would love to immediately transfer my thoughts to the page as passable prose. Once it’s on the page, I don’t mind editing the hell out of it, but sometimes getting the complexities down on paper before it gets bogged down, distorted and/or forgotten is a huge challenge. I hate to think of good ideas and characters being squandered by my inefficiency.
Hmm, a literary superpower? Okay… My mind works faster than my hands. I often drop words when writing. I suppose I’d like to type as fast as I think.
So many things I’d like. But I think what I’d like is some kind of barrier in which no outside distraction can enter. That means outside sounds like TV and people. Also, people can’t enter my barrier. Wherever I am, I can create this barrier and adjust it to whatever size I want, preferably the entire room I’m in.
How about you?
If you could have any literary superpower, what would it be? Let us know in the comments below.
TV News: 2017 Star Trek and Wheel of Time
A couple bits of TV news have popped up recently that I thought may interest a few people.
2017 Star Trek TV series
The new TV series will start filming this fall in Toronto. The first Star Trek TV series to be made in Canada. But I think the biggest news is who is running the show. It’s Bryan Fuller, who was involved in Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Also, Rod Roddenberry will be executive producer with Fuller. With these two working on it, it sounds like it won’t be part of the film reboot. And that’s true. It’s going to be in the prime universe. When? Well, earlier rumours have said between the original series and TNG. Another more recent rumour said fifty years after TNG. But either way, we have a prime universe Star Trek TV series next year!
The Wheel of Time Optioned
It looks like we may get to see The Wheel of Time on TV in the near future. A studio has optioned it for TV and film, which I would suspect be an incredibly long TV series. Robert Jordan’s wife, Harriet McDougal, recently announced this.
What do you think of this news? Let me know in the comments below.
Ducks Visiting the House
We had a surprise outside tonight. We were visited by a duck. A mallard duck. A male mallard duck.
Actually, make that two male mallards.
No, make that two males and a female!
And a rabbit ran by, too. Didn’t get a photo of that, though.
Poll: Which Book Are You Interested in the Most?
A few days ago, I posted about some books I recently got from Amazon. I asked for some opinions, but didn’t get many. So, I’d like to do a bit of a poll. Here are the books again.
Please vote in the poll and then let me know why you voted that way in the comments below.
It’s Green, and I Like It
The last few days wouldn’t convince anyone it’s spring. It’s been a mere three degrees the last three days, but finally above ten today. Yesterday, out in the cold, I did see one sign of spring: green leaves.
Looking nice! In the past week, it’s become very green here. But the cold weather is over, at least for now. Just look at this forecast.
It’s going to be hot next week! Three days of twenty-seven to twenty-eight degrees. Wow!
How’s the weather in your part of the world?
Ariadne Stories from A to Z
Last year, I participated in the A to Z Challenge, and for that challenge, I wrote a very brief story about a person who lived on Ariadne for each letter of the alphabet. It grew into something bigger than I imagined it would. It became an actual story and sets up the first novel a bit. This year, I didn’t participate because of our move to Canada. However, in honour of the challenge, here is last year’s challenge, all available in one post with links to each part. Read it all if you like. Each part will be very quick to read. Enjoy!
- A – The Artist
- B – The Botanist
- C – The Carpenter
- D – The Doctor
- E – The Environment Minister
- F – The Farmer
- G – The Geneticist
- H – The Horticulturalist
- I – The Irrigation Engineer
- J – The Judge
- K – The Kitchen Supervisor
- L – The Librarian
- M – The Microbiologist
- N – The Nurse
- O – The Obstetrician
- P – The Palaeobotanist
- Q – The Quarry Worker
- R – The Railroad Engineer
- S – The Surveyor
- T – The Teacher
- U – The Urban Planner
- V – The VTOL Pilot
- W – The Waitress
- X – The Xylophonist
- Y – The Youth Coordinator
- Z – The Zoologist
I hope you stuck with the entire story. I mostly just skimmed over some of the parts, and realised that I really need to read it again. Get my mind back into Ariadne and the characters so I can continue to write Journey to Ariadne and the first novel.
Please leave comments below, or you can leave comments on the story posts. I’d love to hear your impressions.
Week in Review – April 25, 2016
I don’t know where to start. It’s been a crazy week. So much happened so fast. Not much was expected. At the moment, I’m taking care of my daughter with my mom and sister for a few days. You’ll see why.
Reading
None done, but I got some new books! They arrived last week, and I made a post about it.
Writing
Again, nothing written. Soon, though!
Languages
Still studying Esperanto. I’d like to speed up my study of it. I should get back to work on French, too.
Canada
Here’s where things got crazy. My wife got an email from the Manila visa office saying that they can’t send her decision package to Canada. We were dumbfounded. Why? Apparently, they could only send via courier to Tokyo. Well, after trying to figure out if the visa application centre in Tokyo could courier it to us, we found that they couldn’t, and the deadline was far too close to arrange any delivery method. So my wife is currently in Japan. That’s right, she went to Japan just to pick up the mail. She got the decision package, and told me that the envelope has our Canadian address on it! They couldn’t send it to us in Canada because customs can be so notoriously slow about allowing packages into the country. They needed to make sure that it could get to us on time, and sending it by express mail to us was too risky. Well, my wife returns to Canada in a couple days, and she’ll officially be a landed immigrant. And she’ll be able to start going to school starting with ESL lessons provided by the government for free.
Videos
Thinking about getting to work on this today.
The Blog
I’m starting to get back into the twice daily blogging schedule. I’m going to get my regular weekly schedule ready for next month. Expect a return to normal next week.
Studying
Maybe this summer.
The Next Week’s Goals
Most important things are to pick up my wife from the airport, get her driver’s license translated, get her health care sorted, and so on. Also, apply for lots of jobs. And maybe start up the birds of Alberta blog and the restaurant review blog. Those last two are not definite. I’ve also caught up on comments, so the next thing to do is catch up on social media. Expect a lot of tweets, Facebook statuses, Google Plus posts, and pins from this blog over the next couple of days.
How was your week?
Game of Thrones and Others, Why I Won’t Watch Them… Yet
I heard Game of Thrones is back on TV with new episodes now. I won’t watch it. My mom told me The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was on TV last night. I said I didn’t want to watch it.
Why would I refuse to watch these? I’ll watch The Shannara Chronicles. I’ll watch the Ender’s Game movie. Why will I watch these, but not the others?
The answer is simple: If I’ve read the book, I’ll watch it. If I haven’t read the book, I won’t watch it.
I’ve read up to the third book for A Storm of Ice and Fire, but I don’t really want to watch the TV series until I’ve read more of the books. I’ve only read the first Narnia book, but the Dawn Treader is the third book. I have read Elfstones of Shannara, which the TV series is based on. I have read Ender’s Game.
The reason why I won’t watch the movie or TV series until I’ve read the books is because I don’t want the actors to appear in my imagination. I don’t want the sets to appear in my imagination. I want my mind to create the appearance of the people and places. I don’t want that spoiled.
Do you feel the same? Let me know in the comments below.
I Read Encyclopedias for Fun 