Katy’s Weblog
This is Orson Scott Card’s newest book in the Ender’s Game series. We are fortunate enough to have found a copy in our local Walnut library.
You have to read Ender’s Game to make sense of the later ones in the series. Once again, Ender Wiggin does not disappoint. He is super smart, out-maneuvers everyone, full of compassion, and gives the book a good ending.
War of Gifts is short story by Orson Scott Card using the setting and some of the characters in Ender’s Game.
The story is somewhat humorous, aggravating, sad, and thought-provoking. And it had a good ending, so I liked it. Card is so clever in weaving a story while dealing with the difficult real life subject of child abuse and religion.
And of course, Ender Wiggin is the genius boy that solves everyone’s problems.
A great book to read on a lazy afternoon.
Saw this on IndianaGrain.com:
Craigslist has been accused of single-handedly killing the newspaper industry by conditioning people to pay as little as zero for classified ads. The traditional lifeblood for newspapers for your used car is being drained dry by this international classified ad network and by slightly-more-expensive-and-more-complicated auction services like eBay. You can’t blame Craiglist for innovating. You’d have to blame the entire internet.
To be fair, Craigslist did donate $1.6 million to UC Berkeley’s ‘New Media’ program, so it’s not exactly the bad guy. Scott Outing from Reinventing Classifieds wrote an open letter to Craig and Jim Buckmaster last summer with some suggestions on an intervention, and later posted one to Google which readers could help write (though few did).
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The internet has changed the way people do business in every industry. No matter what type of work you are in, you cannot afford not to have a good working knowledge of the internet and the fast paced innovation going on 24/7.
Those guys don’t sleep.
Working together with people with the same mission and vision is the way friendship is often built.
I made friends in college when studying together, working on presentations together, and promoting department events together. My roommate and I were never good friends even though we got along. We didn’t have any common projects to work…
“OH, I think It’s an earthquake! An earthquake is happening right now!”
I was talking on the phone with someone in Riverside. In the middle of our conversation, he said his house was shaking.
I didn’t feel anything, about 60 miles away from him. Then about 15 seconds after he felt the earthquake, I felt a little jolt. I thought it was psychosomatic, but the rest of my family felt it too.
If I wasn’t on the phone with him, I would’n’t have thought much of the slight wave here.
Then I immediately IM my Caltech friend – 5.0 in San Bernardino, he said.
Got the news instantaneously from my friends. I thought that was interesting.
I just made a couple of donations to Christian organizations that I love.
In light of our current financial situation, I did not expect to be able to give beyond what we normally tithe to our church.
But the generosity of some great friends at church gave us the opportunity to give more. With what our friends gave us, we spread some of it to others.
In today’s lean times, Christian organizations are not getting the donations they normally receive. I hope that as we are blessed, we will in turn bless others.
A BIG THANKS to our friends for giving us the joy of both receiving and giving.
I read on a blog that this was a good book. I have to rush through it because it’s due back at the library today.
Good To Great for the Social Sector by Jim Collins is a monograph to accompany Good To Great. Collins brings out 5 issues and how the social sectors apply them differently from the business sectors.
On Monday, we went to Mountain High to ski.
I skied vicariously.
I can’t remember when I last skied. I am sure I have not skiied since I had kids, which would be at least 21 years.
So on Monday, I experienced skiing again through my children as they skied for the first time. I remember going through the same learning curve. Getting used to the heavy boots, walking awkwardly, skiing into a tree…been there, done that.
I was never a good skiier. At my best, I was barely able to get down the intermediate slopes. Yet, as I watched my kids, I felt that if I were to ski now, I would know what to do.
Age has matured me. I play tennis better now than I did when I was younger even though I hardly practice now and my body is not what it used to be when I was 20. My confidence and understanding of the sport as an adult has improved my game.
So it is with skiing, though I did not test out my hypothesis. I am through anything that hurts.
My husband, on the other hand, chose to test his limits. The brave man tried snowboarding for the first time. We had not even heard of snowboarding in our days. I am proud of you, honey. Never say die!
Is it bad to make a new year resolution and not keep to it? Is it better not to make resolutions at all?
There are the “should” kind of resolutions – “I should lose some weight.”, “I should stop smoking.” Those are not real resolutions. Those are merely words to appease your guilt of abusing your body.
I came across this poem published 100 years ago, yet so relevant for me today. It’s an appropriate reflection as we begin a new year.
At the Gate of the Year
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied,
‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’
So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.
So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention.”
by Minnie Louise Harkins 1875-1957, included in King George V1 broadcast 1939
Taken from PoetSeers.org