Vacation September 2011 - The Freedom Center

  If you have been over to my photo's section you know that my most recent posts of pictures were of my visit to Harriet Beecher Stowe's house this past Tuesday.   After we finished that tour we headed over to The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.  As I mentioned, getting to The Stowe House was no easy matter.  GPS is very much needed if you ever decide to go there.   In the same manner if you travel to The Freedom Center in Cincinnati Ohio be sure and bring the GPS.  I am sure I hold the award for the most U turns in Cincinnati for one day.   No photographs are taken inside The Freedom Center and I forgot to take one of the outside.  I was flustered from being lost when I got there and too blown away from the exhibits when I left to think of it.   As a result I share a video of the facility with you.   Also the second video explains there is an IPOD app of the museum.  I downloaded it before I went so that I could play the audio/videos for each display as I looked at them.   But if you download the free app you can see the exhibits just as they are in the museum.   I highly recommend if you can't get to Cincinnati to visit The Freedom Center that you take the time to view the app and share it with everyone you know.

Vacation September 2011 - Harriet Beecher Stowe House

http://stowehousecincy.org/

The first place we toured on Tuesday morning was The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati. More accurately, this was the first place we toured after seeing quite a bit of the Cincinnati area. It is not the easiest place to find and I had ran google maps to help me find my way around on this trip. Normally I use Yahoo map it and have had good luck. Not so with the google maps for this area. Next road trip, if I am going to be in a city area at all, I will need to invest in a GPS on my phone for at least the month the trip is in. But eventually we did locate the Harriet Beecher Stowe home and enjoyed the tour very much. The curator was an older black woman who was very knowledgeable. I had re-read (or more accurately listened to on audio) Uncle Tom's Cabin the month prior to this trip in preparation. And I knew that the years that Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in Cincinnati provided her with the motivation and the material for the novel. But I did not realize she lived in the area for a long as she did. Also the guide told us that Harriet's father was the president of the Presbyterian Seminary in the area of the home and that is why she came to Cincinnati as a young woman of 21. She married one of the professors of the seminary and she interacted with some of the key abolitionist leaders of the time while in the Cincinnati area. Visiting her home was one of the highlights of the trip for me.

Vacation September 2011 - Where We Stayed

The evening we arrived I stepped out on my balcony and snapped some photos.

http://www.huestonwoodsstateparklodge.com/

The last two years when Peggy and I have went on vacation we rented rooms at Bed and Breakfasts. This year I thought it would be nice to stay at a state park lodge so I reserved us each a room at Hueston Woods Lodge. I picked a location half way between Cincinnati and Dayton because there were things I wanted to do in both areas.

Book For The Week - 9/24/11

Blackbird Fly

by

Lisa McClendon

From the Kindle Ad for this book:

"A house in France connects three women together -- the woman who owns the house, the woman who lives in the house, and the woman who died in the house sixty years before. Who are they? Merle Bennett inherits the house of her late husband, in a small village in the Dordogne. But when she arrives a deranged squatter won't let her inside. Who is the woman? What is her connection to Merle's husband? Secrets from the post-war period, when southwest France was crushed and left to wither by Nazi occupation, and secrets of a newer kind, occupy what should be a fine French summer for Merle. With her teenage son in tow, a sexy roofer in her kitchen, and a nasty discovery in the pissoir, there is plenty to keep her mind off her endless to-do list. A story of murder, self-discovery, and family, deep in the heart of France.
"A heartbreakingly beautiful story of love, loss, sisterhood, and the ties that bind us together," says novelist Jenny Siler."

(This was on the free list for my kindle shortly after I received it for my birthday and I picked it to try.  I enjoyed reading it.  The story held my interest.  It had a good share of wine,  sex,  friendships,  bad marriages, and murder in it.  I would not call it the best book I ever read in 2011 but it did the job I wanted it to.  It cleared my mind so I could sleep soundly when I was ready to put it down.  And it held my interest enough that I was in no hurry to put it down.  As always click on the author's name and the book title to follow the links to  learn more. )

Book For The Week - 9/19/11

Murder On Bank Street

by

Victoria Thompson

Often,  in between heavier books,  I sandwich in a mystery.  Mysteries are not particularly my favorite genre of book but they do well to entertain in a lighter way and so are a good escape.   After "The Thirteenth Tale"  it was time for something lighter.   Therefore I turned to Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Series.  The heroine of The Gaslight Series is Sarah Brandt.  The setting for The Gaslight Series is New York City in the late 1800s.  Sarah is a nurse midwife who serves the poorer women of the New York tenements.   The plot of most of the books is that a murder takes place in a tenement building and Sarah becomes involved in solving it.  She has a friendship that has sprung up with one of the police detectives.   As the books progress they deal with various  women's issues, including: childbirth,  poverty,  crime, corruption in police departments and health issues of varying types.  Sarah Brandt is a widow.  Her husband,  who was a doctor,  was murdered.   In Murder On Bank Street,  her detective friend is determined to solve the crime in which Sarah's husband was murdered even though it is several years old.   Just prior to his death,  Dr Brandt had been doing case studies on women who had Erotomania and were fixated on their doctors.   See THIS .  In the book it is referred to as "Old Maid's Disease".   I listened to the book during my commute and at the very end the author adds a note in her own voice where she encourages victims of stalkers to go to the following WEBSITE  For an entire list of the Gaslight Series go HERE.  One of my contacts here at MP recommended this series to me and I have enjoyed a couple of the books.  They are a fun series to read and with my line of work  I find them particularly interesting. 

'Source Code' Trailer

Mark and I watched this movie tonight. We had some technical problems because the DVD I rented was damaged but we were able to see almost all of the movie.

Book For The Week - 9/11/11

The Thirteenth Tale

by
Diane Setterfield

"From Publishers Weekly

Former academic Setterfield pays tribute in her debut to Brontë and du Maurier heroines: a plain girl gets wrapped up in a dark, haunted ruin of a house, which guards family secrets that are not hers and that she must discover at her peril. Margaret Lea, a London bookseller's daughter, has written an obscure biography that suggests deep understanding of siblings. She is contacted by renowned aging author Vida Winter, who finally wishes to tell her own, long-hidden, life story. Margaret travels to Yorkshire, where she interviews the dying writer, walks the remains of her estate at Angelfield and tries to verify the old woman's tale of a governess, a ghost and more than one abandoned baby. With the aid of colorful Aurelius Love, Margaret puzzles out generations of Angelfield: destructive Uncle Charlie; his elusive sister, Isabelle; their unhappy parents; Isabelle's twin daughters, Adeline and Emmeline; and the children's caretakers. Contending with ghosts and with a (mostly) scary bunch of living people, Setterfield's sensible heroine is, like Jane Eyre, full of repressed feeling—and is unprepared for both heartache and romance. And like Jane, she's a real reader and makes a terrific narrator. That's where the comparisons end, but Setterfield, who lives in Yorkshire, offers graceful storytelling that has its own pleasures."

I finished listening to the end of this book after I got home from work last night.  It is usually a sign of a good book if I turn my IPod back on to finish listening after my commute ends.  But I am not sure if I would call this a good book or not.  I can say that I really didn't like the first third of the book.   The second third there started to be parts that I liked along with more parts that I did not like.  But the last third was really good.  And I have to admit that the parts at the beginning that I did not like were necessary to the story.  The reason I selected this book to listen to is that it was one that I noticed the library book groups around were reading and discussing last fall.   My own library book group did not select it but it looked like an interesting storyline.   A young bookish type woman receives a letter from a famous authoress asking her to come and write her biography.  The writer is elderly and ill.   A friendship develops between the two women as they collaborate on the book they are writing.   While all that seems like a nice story it soon becomes apparent that the elderly female writer has some real family skeletons in her closet.   As a reader I soon hated the house she grew up in.   The story is told in a manner that keeps you guessing about many aspects of the people involved right up to the ending.   If a reader can get through the first of the book and keep reading it will be well worth the effort.    Click on the title of the book and the author's name above to follow the links to learn more.

Book For The Week - 9/5/11

I finished up this delightful fluff book early this morning.   Since I got my kindle I have been throwing  a load of laundry into the washer or starting the dishwasher  and curling up with my kindle.  When the appliance is done I throw the stuff in the dryer (in the case of the washer)  and go on to bed.   Except last night.  I started the washer as usual and started reading.  I was about 75% done with "Lye in Wait"  by Cricket McRae.   I never heard the washer buzz.   The next thing I knew I was at the end of the book and it was 4:30 a.m.   This is a fun little book.  It is one of those mystery stories that doesn't take a lot of brain power to follow.   The main character makes home made soaps, lotions and lip balms as the story unfolds and then at the end of the book the recipes for the items she makes are all listed.   I got this book off the free list at Amazon's kindle's bestsellers page.  I am sure when I am ready for another fluff book that this series will be one of the ones I rotate through.   Follow THIS LINK to the author's website to learn more. 

Pulling My Head Out Of The Sand For A Moment

I have been coming home from work,  quickly checking messages online, on to the  shower and then into bed with my kindle on which I have been reading fiction.   Therefore I have been calmer than I have been in years.  Calm but out of touch with what is going on.  Oh,  I did notice a hurricane on the east coast.   This pm I checked a few sites a little deeper and felt compelled to re post a video and add some links.   I find it makes me feel better to avoid products that are putting money into people's hands that act in ways I don't agree with.   Here is a list for you from the Democrats for Progress site:

Koch Industry Gasoline:

Chevron
Union
Union 76
Conoco

Koch Industry/Georgia-Pacific Products:

Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins

Koch Industry/Invista Products:

COMFOREL® fiberfill
COOLMAX® fabric
CORDURA® fabric
DACRON® fiber
POLYSHIELD® resin
SOLARMAX® fabric
SOMERELLE® bedding products
STAINMASTER® carpet
SUPPLEX® fabric
TACTEL® fiber
TACTESSE® carpet fiber
TERATE® polyols
TERATHANE® polyether glycol
THERMOLITE® fabric
PHENREZ® resin
POLARGUARD® fiber and
LYCRA® fiber

Georgia Pacific Building products

Dense Armor Drywall and Decking
ToughArmor Gypsum board
Georgia pacific Plytanium Plywood
Flexrock
Densglass sheathing
G/P Industrial plasters (some products used by a lot of crafters)-
Agricultural Plaster
Arts & Crafts Plaster
Dental Plaster
General Purpose Plaster
Glass-reinforced Gypsum (GRG)
Industrial Tooling Plaster
Investment Casting Plaster
Medical Plaster
Metal Casting Plaster
Pottery Plaster

FibreStrong Rim board
G/P Lam board
Blue Ribbon OSB Rated Sheathing
Blue Ribbon Sub-floor
DryGuard Enhanced OSB
Nautilus Wall Sheathing
Thermostat OSB Radiant Barrier Sheathing
Broadspan Engineered Wood Products
XJ 85 I-Joists
FireDefender Banded Cores
FireDefender FS
FireDefender Mineral Core
Hardboard and Thin MDF including Auto Hardboard,
Perforated Hardboard and Thin MDF
Wood Fiberboard -
Commercial Roof Fiberboard
Hushboard Sound Deadening Board
Regular Fiberboard Sheathing
Structural Fiberboard Sheathing  

Furthermore,  follow this link for organizations that (if you think like me)  you might want to avoid giving money or support to. 

Then watch the following video.  Different Day Same Sh*#.  Although an older name than what they call themselves today.  Keep up the good fight folks.  It has been going on since the formation of our country.  I stay on the side of   Thomas Jefferson,  Lincoln,  FDR,  Carter, Clinton,  and Obama.  It seems clear to me that people don't play fair unless there are rules.  So I support regulation to prevent abuses of the people.  People like the man in this video scare me.



Now back to my kindle and my fiction.