January 2008 Archives

We're leaving for Turkey early Thursday morning. Antalya, here we come! Istanbul, and the Hagia Sophia, will have to wait their turn, because we'll be hitting the southern shore and climbing until our fingers bleed. (This video shows one of the camp owners redpointing an 8c. The rock looks fantastic, doesn't it?) I'm looking forward to seeing some sun... Güle güle!

We will be there from Thursday, January 17 to Wednesday, February 6.

You're looking at a swatch from a hat project, already completed, already photographed, almost set for sale. It's a pattern I'm fairly proud of, and I'm sure you'll like it the instant you see it, and perhaps even make it! This sudden burst of inspiration may stem from cabin fever, but the person who benefits will be you, dear Yummy Yarn reader! I already have 3 additional patterns in the making...

I'd hoped my first post of 2008 would coincide with the launch of a new blog redesign, but it was not to be. The last time I looked at my blog code was 3 years and 3 versions ago; in Movable Type 4.1 every single asset has been modularized. It's taken at least a month to just look over the code and try to wrap it around the design I created. I finally caved in and wrapped my design around the code, which had me growling at every other line. I just growled right now, writing about it. Movable Type, make your code user-friendly! And what's up with 300+ lines of CSS? Grr. (I'm not asking for dumbed-down notes, but it wouldn't hurt to add comments so that clueless people like me know what line of css affects which asset. You know?)

Life in Bavaria has been interesting so far. While the weather has been weird (too much summer rainfall, short winter), living hasn't been dull. We watched the Bundesliga finals in the city, where the local team (1. FC Nuremberg) won the national title, visited all the museums, walked in historical towns such as Rothenburg, eaten all manner of heavy German specialties (although I did draw the line with fleischküchle), picked mushrooms in the forest behind our house (that was a lot of fun), visited the zoo, attended three Christkindlesmarkts, and seen the Christkind. So far, so good.

Two things happened this year that we've (well, primarily me) been excited about. You'll know from previous posts how much I like polar bears, so it's total bliss that there is a newborn eisbär at the Nuremberg Zoo! (The link gives you some background on the situation.) The other big thing is that Germany enacted a nationwide ban on smoking in eating establishments. Yay! There have been many times where we've entered a restaurant and had to sit in a haze while people smoked around us. Now it's law, and punishable with fines for both the proprietor (1,000 Euros) and the guest (40 Euros). We were actually surprised that Bavaria, which is the most traditional and most conservative of the German states, has the strictest laws. But it's all good, and we can breathe freely!

Three weeks, three links:
◊ National Geographic has a news feed. This takes you to pictures of Sir Edmund Hillary.
◊ The Martha, she has a blog.
◊ Ha ha, sneezing baby panda.Ha ha!

Despite the fact that 2007 was a year of significant events and adjusting to a nomadic life, I faithfully kept up with my reading list. English-language books are predictably hard to find! I'm lucky to find even a bookshelf's worth of them in the towns around here, and even then half of the shelf is Harry Potter books, which just isn't my style! To top it all off, the books are expensive: 8 Euros or more for paperbacks, and if you factor in the current exchange rate for the dollar, well....

As usual, I read a lot in a variety of genres. My recommendations are the titles with bold comments, and if you have any questions or comments about a particular book, please feel free to ask!

1. Year Zero, Jeff Long Good book


2. Hitler's Children, Gerald Posner


3. A Simple Act of Murder, Mark Fuhrman


4. Death Watch, John Sandford


5. Judge & Jury, James Patterson


6. Arthur & George, Julian Barnes


7. Blackbird House, Alice Hoffman Beautifully written


8. The Probable Future, Alice Hoffman


9. The United States of Arugula, David Kamp


10. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt


11. Dispatches from the Edge, Anderson Cooper


12. Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iraq, Jason Elliott


13. Dark Horse, Tami Hoag


14. Local Girls, Alice Hoffman


15. The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle


16. His Last Bow, Arthur Conan Doyle


17. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan Sheds light on the Organic movement--the back story--as well as how food ends up in our plates. Informative.


18. Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08,No Child's Behind Left, and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War, Greg Palast


19. The Book of Fate, Brad Meltzer


20. The Collectors, David Baldacci


21. Ice Cream: The Delicious History, Marilyn Powell


22. Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, Nando Parrado with Vince Rause


23. You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again, Suzanne Hansen


24. The Power Broker, Stephen Frey


25. The Passion of Artemisia, Susan Vreeland


26. Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light, Mort Rosenblum If you're a chocophile, it's worth reading.


27. A Year in the World, Frances Mayes


28. Joan: The Mysterious Life of the Heretic who Became a Saint, Donald Spoto


29. Taken, Chris Jordan


30. Next, Michael Crichton. Book takes an absurd but also realistic look at genetic engineering.


31. Leading with My Chin, Jay Leno


32. False Impression, Jeffrey Archer


33. Imperium, Robert Harris


34. The Alexandria Link, Steve Berry


35. Happy at 100, John Robbins Highly recommended


36. Step on a Crack, James Patterson


37. The Romanov Prophecy, Steve Berry


38. An Englishman à la Campagne, Michael Sadler


39. Of Paupers and Peers, Sherri Cobb South


40. The Last Empress, Anchee Min


41. The Expected One, Kathleen McGowan


42. Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber


43. The Qur'an, Bruce Lawrence


44. Hannibal Rising, Thomas Harris


45. The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai


46. The Interpretation of Murder, Jed Rubenfeld


47. My Dog Skip, Willie Morris


48. Forcing God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture—And Destruction of Planet Earth, Grace Halsell


49. Ten Days to Die, Michael Musmanno Interesting and disturbing look into the last days of a madman


50. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen


51. A Place Called Here, Cecilia Ahern


52. The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova Excellent, excellent book


53. Hour Game, David Baldacci


54. Wicked, Gregory Maguire


55. The Swarm, Frank Schätzing Great start, disappointing ending