Thursday Doors: Willamette University

In honor of my daughter’s starting her freshman year at Willamette University in Salem OR, for this week’s post I am going to show some Willamette doors. 

Mundane Tuesday: Ducks

I am finally home from dropping my daughter off at Willamette University for her freshman year. It was a fun and eventful trip, but at the end came a long and kind of lonely drive, without a companion or anyone to share in the driving, the way my daughter did on the way up. When I got back late Sunday night I was tired and I spent most of Monday recovering, unpacking, doing laundry, and watching Game of Thrones episodes that I had missed while I was away.

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Science Stories for #WATWB

The last Friday of the month is the day for my post for the We are the World Blogfest. This blogfest was born out of a desire to change the tone on social media to one of positivity, peace, and connection. Participants come from all around the world.

Mundane Moonday: Sidewalk Shadows

My Mundane Monday challenge picture for this week has the ultimate frame: the moon for Mo(o)nday!

A Different Kind of Eclipse

My daughter’s future alma mater, Willamette University in Salem OR, is indirectly responsible for my being here in the path of totality for the total solar eclipse on August 21st. I dropped her off yesterday morning for an introductory hiking trip out in the Oregon wilderness. The University is supplying her and her fellow pre-frosh with official ISO 12312-2:2015 standard glasses for watching the event. This camping trip lasts for several days before the official “opening days” when the students really move in and start classes. So I decided to stay up here in OR and watch the event myself. I have seen a partial eclipse before myself, but I’ve never seen a total one. The Willamette dorms aren’t accepting guests, however, so I’m here at another festival program about an hour south, but still right in the path of totality, at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

Thursday Doors on Friday: Oakland OR

This week I’m going to interrupt my collection of Asian doors to show a different collection of doors, from a place I didn’t know existed until yesterday: Oakland, Oregon.

Mundane Monday: Aquatics

It’s hot. Care for a swim?

The National Aquatics Center in Beijing, China. Site of the 2008 Summer Olympics

For the Mundane Monday Challenge #122

Mundane Monday is a Weekly Photography Challenge that focuses on those seemingly mundane subjects that we usually do not consider taking pictures of and make a good photograph out of that subject.

Thursday Doors: Palace Museum in the Forbidden City

Earlier this summer I was gone for 3 weeks on a trip to Asia. Our itinerary was as follows: South Korea (Seoul), China (Beijing, Xi’an, Hong Kong, Shanghai), and finally Japan (Tokyo). I find travel blogging to be rather challenging without some guiding or organizing principle to follow, so I have been blogging about this trip and showing pictures from it in my weekly photo challenge blogs, Mundane Monday and Thursday Doors. Not everything is mundane and not everything is a door, but these two concepts are still covering a lot of ground.

Mundane Monday: Great Wall Shopping

The Mutianyu area near Beijing is a great place to visit the Great Wall of China. It’s not crowded, a long stretch of the wall itself is restored to good condition, the surrounding natural scenery is beautiful, and it has a chair lift and toboggan! But today I’ll focus on the mundane aspects of the visit: what you see when you pay your money.

Review: Xenotech First Contact Day by Dave Schroeder

Xenotech First Contact Day: A Story of the Galactic Free Trade Association by Dave Schroeder

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading this short introduction to the Xenotech series. It was quick and fun and it made me laugh. These books would make a good read-aloud book for families because the humor works on both kid and kid-at-heart levels. I am curious how and whether the author will be able to sustain this pace and tone through an entire book series, but he seems to have enough depth of life experience to draw on to make it work. I’d also like to see him take a few more risks and let a darker, more serious side show in his work too (a la Douglas Adams). That would be hard to do in this short intro but would give more depth to longer works. A promising beginning to what looks like a fun series!

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