Saturday, June 30, 2012

Review: Magic Dreams by Ilona Andrews


The fantasy writing husband and wife team of George and Ilona Andrews do it again. Their last e-book, Magic Dreams, shows why they have one of the fast growing group of followers of the last decade.

Magic Dreams is the latest offering in the popular Kate Daniels series set in post-technology Atlanta. In this book the focus isn't on Kate Daniels and Curran, the Beast Lord, but on Jim, Alpha of the cat clan and chief of security, and Dali, the mystical vegetarian white were-tiger.

The story begins as Dali comes home after another racing accident only to find Jim out cold in her house. When she revives Jim he tells her of how he found one of the clan outpost abandoned of all except for a strange woman and some odd writing on the floor. He needs her help since she is their only magic user. The two of them go back to the outpost to figure out what could be behind the abandoned post, the strange woman and why Jim can't remember much of what he saw and keeps falling asleep. Once they get to the outpost Dali quickly realizes that she might be in over her head.

Dali takes Jim to the one person with more knowledge about this type of magic her mom. At her mother's house Dali finds that Jim is slowly dieing and the only thing that will save him is the golden snail. There is one problem to get what they need they must travel the underground of Atlanta and try to avoid the poachers that prey on shape-shifters.

As with all of the books in the series this one is packed with mythology, magic, fights and romance. It is a fast read that everyone can enjoy.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The other day I was watching a show and they were making a garden where one of the biggest concerns was making it kid friendly. One thing they talked about was making the plots in the garden a size so that the children can reach in with comfort. When I heard that I thought that does make lots of sense that each plot should be small enough for are children but still with enough room to grow vegetables. However there were a few things they didn't mention that should also be included to make your garden kid friendly. Children like to grow things that will give fast results. There are several vegetables that take a little amount of time to show results, such as, tomatoes, sunflowers and zucchini. The one we use to always choose for my nieces was sunflowers. They didn't have to wait long t see the plant growing, it get tall,You get a big round flower and picking out the seeds gives them something to keep their hands busy for hours. Another thing to consider is to make the garden fun for the kids. There are a few ways that you can do this and not spend a lot of money. One of the ways you can make it fun for the kids making a few vertical beds that they can climb on. One example would be to use bricks to building a tiered tiered garden. Another idea would be incorporating the playground equipment in the garden and make games out of taking care of the plants.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

35 years of the Voyager space probe

Almost 35 years after it launched the space probe Voyager I is once more in the news. The craft that was built at NASA's JPL(jet propulsion lab) in California has now reached the edge of our solar system and pardon the Star Trek Reference is about to go where no man-made craft has before. The craft will keep going into interstellar space for another 13 years but it will stop transmitting back to Earth long before that time. For those of us that were around back in the 1970's we recall space exploration was all the talk of the day. The moon landings were still fresh in our minds, Skylab had our attention, the mariner probe had just been launched and we were eager to know more about what is out there. Soon that need for more exploration was answered when Voyager came on the scene in 1977 that would tell us more about the planets, comets and what ever else was out there in our solar system. The news was filled with talk of its nuclear propulsion system that would keep it going for decades, the advanced communication and video capabilities that would send back some of the most spectacular picture of our planets and the gold record that carried messages of welcome in several languages. On September 5th of 1977 came the big day that we long awaited when Voyager I would take off on its mission. After that day we eagerly await for its first pictures of Jupiter, the first planet on it mission of exploration, and in January of 1979 we were finally rewarded with some spectacular pictures of the gas giant that we knew very little. We found out more about the planet, its several moons and that just like Saturn there are rings around Jupiter. The next stop in its mission was Saturn where once again it sent us back some spectacular pictures of the ringed planet and its largest moon Titan. The close fly-by with the moon Titan though caused Voyager off of its original trajectory bringing any further exploration of Saturn to an end but not its overall mission. In 1979 anyone that saw the movie 'Star Trek:the motion picture' will remember that the movie was made around speculation of what might have happened to Voyager after it went into interstellar space. The space probe has picked up some alien technology and is returning to Earth leaving a line of destruction in its wake. The Enterprise is sent to stop it where they find out that it was the Voyager probe. Where they stopped it by letting the probe merge with one of their crew.