My Book Stash Must Go!

I have an 8x10 shed in my sisters back yard full of books. I had started to collect them way back in 2012 for my as of yet unfulfilled dream of opening a used book shop/gelato/coffee bar. Unless someone wins the lottery and gives me say 1 million dollars, it's not going to happen. Have I completely given up on the dream? Eh, sort of. I tried to get it going again last year. I had an amazing business plan, my eye on several potential locations that were for sale, a real estate agent ready and willing to get into the trenches and fight for me, and I had sold my portion of the house I co-owned with my sister back to her and pulled out my entire retirement savings from my 401k. But none of it mattered to the banks. I won't go into the long details of how the US banking empire is fucked up, and will only say that it was impossible for me to get any kind of loan (small business or commercial) from any bank (big or small community).

So, I have just under 4,000 books in a shed not being read or even used as kindling or toilet paper. I've looked into selling online via amazon, independent online sellers, setting up my own online bookstore, etc., and none of them would allow me to make any profit or even break even. I could donate them, and I have donated a few hundred, and given some to friends. But I don't want to donate them to the new crappy used bookstore that is in my dream downtown location, because they are crappy and I don't like them. I may be slightly jaded.

And if by some miracle I am able to open my dream shop some day, collecting books is not a hard task for me. I'm very good at it. So getting rid of the stash I have now will not break me. My sister could use the extra storage for other things like her oldest sons crap that he left behind after he joined the army or her broken exercise equipment. You know, stuff.

So I am posting a link to my inventory. I will put it in google docs and open it to everyone. You can search by title, author, and even ISBN. Let me know what you want, and first come first serve if I don't have multiple copies. I am not asking for any money for them, if you feel obligated to pay for them, then I only ask you don't try to overpay for them. They are used. If you want me to ship to you, I only ask you pay the shipping and nothing more.

If you happen to live near me (and by that I mean within a 100 mile radius), I will be happy to deliver. I will be on the road late May to mid June this year, so I can deliver to southern California, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. We will just need to communicate and coordinate to meet up. Also please check the Notes section of my inventory, there I have details about if I lent the book to someone, donated it, or is perhaps worth a good sum of money (first editions, out of print, etc.), or any damage.

So please, I beg you all, take a look, snag some books, tell all your friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances, random people on the street, the cop giving you a speeding ticket, your local homeless crazy person, and everyone else in your life to take a look, and snag some books. I want them to go to good homes and get read, or used in art projects, or as fire starters, or camping toilet paper. I don't care.

If I get enough response, I will update the inventory accordingly when books get snagged.

Here is the link to the book inventory:
Book Inventory

Ways to contact me:
comment on this blog post
comment on this blog posts link on Facebook or Twitter
message me on Facebook or Twitter (I promise to check Twitter regularly)
          my Twitter handle            my Facebook page
email me at kslarsen1@yahoo.com
text me (but I'm not going to leave my phone number in here so good luck with that)

To My Mom Part IX: The Purge

So if you are "friends" with me on Facebook, you've noticed that I've been going through my moms stash of greeting cards and mailing out all the silly inappropriate ones to those who have requested one, and even some to those who haven't. So why have I been doing this? Well, after two and a half years, Dad and I are finally cleaning out her office, to convert it into the spare/guest bedroom/my office. This means everything needs to be taken out and gone through. Big task. I've gone through her CD collection and digitized the ones I want to keep and boxed them all up. Dad has gone through her desk and organized all her stationary (there's a lot - she loved shopping at Staples). We have sticky notes and pencils to last two lifetimes. We've been finding interesting things. Something dad found was three note pages with her list of books to read, movies to watch, and a list of 10 books from me. She had copied the list from one of those Facebook things that people fill out. It was one that asked for the 10 books that have influenced or stuck with you the most. So it isn't a list of my favorites, but influential. She kept it. This list is probably 10 years old. Why? She must have thought it important to know about me. She was a voracious reader. And perhaps thought that reading the books that have stuck with me, would bring her insight into me or closer to me. I'll never know, because I didn't know she kept the list in the first place.

Here's the list: She named it Kelly's List
1. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
2. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. Christy by Catherine Marshall
7. A Town Called Alice by Nevil Shute
8. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
9. Canery Row by John Steinbeck
10. The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind

The list is still pretty accurate. However, I would change that last one now. Once I got to book 5 in the series, I got tired of the preachiness of the main character and the fact that none of them learned or evolved and seemed very two-dimensional. I got bored. There's a new series (book one: Outlander was published in 1991) I would replace it with. The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon. For one, I finished the series (she's writing book 9 now), second, and more importantly, it's the series I was reading when she died. That may sound very creepy, but, I had started reading them maybe three months before she passed, and I finished them a few months after she passed. They got me through a very difficult time. I would read them at night into the wee hours of the morning during the last month when she was really sick and in the hospital. And I would read them till my eyes couldn't focus anymore and fatigue would put me to sleep in under 5 minutes after she died. It was the only way to get sleep and not have my mind constantly thinking and turning. So I guess they have a special place in my heart now for getting me through that time.

It will be interesting to see what else we discover in moms old office.

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My Peak Challenge 2016: What happens when you fail

So what do you do when you fail at something? Cry? Eat junk food? Stay in bed all day? Drink copious amounts of alcohol? What do you do when you fail at something big?

If you have read this blog before then you know I participated in something called My Peak Challenge last year. I wrote about it a few times. If you don't know what it was or need a refresher, click here for the beginning and here for the end result from last year. This year was of course bigger, better, and more bad-assery. It kicked off in January and culminated for the entire month of May. There was a facebook group formed for all the participants and a two month long prep program that ran from February through the end of March that included meal prep, menu's, and an exercise program with videos and tutorials. We were to pick our challenge and had the entire month of May to complete it. And of course all the while we were raising money for cancer research. I signed up for it all. I was so excited to do it again. I got my MPC 2016 t-shirt, bought the prep program and followed it every day for the entire two months. I even found and bought a rowing machine from craig's list. All the while I was trying to decide what my May challenge would be. I decided that this year it wouldn't be a physical challenge but a professional one. I kept quiet about the whole challenge this year. No weekly blog posts about good running music or embarrassing work-out mishaps. I didn't want to blurt out what my challenge was going to be. I wanted it to be a surprise.

When I left archaeology originally, it was to pursue opening a small business. My dream was to own and operate a used bookstore and gelato shop. So I started to pursue it. I wrote a business plan, started collecting books, went to classes sponsored by the SBDC (Small Business Development Center) and my local Chamber of Commerce. Learned how to make gelato from a real Italian. I put it on hold when I realized I needed money I didn't have and then my mom got sick. Well then she died, and I started My Peak Challenge 2015 last year. My sister bought me out of our house, I moved into dad's house, and I cashed out my archaeology 401k. All of a sudden, I now had money. So let's do this. Time to get this dream out of the clouds and a reality. That was going to be my May challenge. To find a building in downtown for my shop and get the necessary loans needed to get it up and running. So that's what I did. I rewrote my business plan, found the building I wanted, got my real estate agent on it, and went to a local non-profit that specializes in small businesses and their funding and the bank with my applications.

The non-profit said, "sorry, we won't fund you at this time, too high risk". The bank said the same thing. This wasn't just some normal big bank. Big banks won't even look you in the eye without coming to them with a multi-million dollar deal. I was just asking for $400,000. The bank I went to is one of the local community banks that specialize in small businesses. I tried SBA loans which are government backed and got no answers. I then asked my sister and brother-in-law to go in on it with me thinking they have collateral that I don't have and have incomes that I don't so surely the bank would like them better. Nope. The way that banks and any other financial institutions work these days are not for the common person. They work for huge conglomerates and the big money makers. They will not invest in small businesses. They just won't. They make it so hard. You have to front up to 50%, have already been in business for 3-5 years, etc. So how is someone suppose to start up, when no one will lend? You don't.

I failed. There are a ton of articles about how the current U.S. economy has killed small businesses and entrepreneurs. Google it. Read this article from Time magazine. Could I get investors? Sure, but then I have to do what they say, pay them back at their interest rate, on their terms. It wouldn't be my business, it would be theirs until I payed them off. Could I crowd fund? Sure. Could I get $300-400,000 that I need? No.

I failed. The U.S. economy failed. The only way to be an entrepreneur now is to be a 1%-er trust fund kid. And that, I am not. You have to do it outside of the traditional route. And even then you are taking a big risk. I was willing to take the risk. No one else was.

So what do you do when you fail? When your dream is dead in the water? Well, you keep getting up in the morning. You keep putting your clothes on. You keep going to that job you hate. You keep eating food. And you run. Run till you can't go any farther. You run till your tears stop flowing. You run with the music so loud you drown out the negative voice in your head telling you that you suck and you're a looser. You run. And you keep running. And get up the next day and do it all over again. Because sometimes, that's all you can do.

I did not succeed at this years My Peak Challenge. Not everyone did. Some people had to have surgeries. Others had to stop because they are on chemo treatments. Some got injured. Did these people give up because they failed to reach their peak this year? Hell no. They get up every day and go to physical therapy or to their chemo treatments. They keep going. And so will I. I will keep getting up every day. I will run because that is all I can do.

I failed. My dream of being a proud small business owner may be over, but I'm still here. And for now, I'll keep running.

To My Mom Part VII: The (almost) Golden One

Today would have been mom and dad's 50th wedding anniversary. I didn't have to work today and wanted out of the house. Dad wanted to stay in the air conditioning. So he stayed and I went to the coast to escape the 100+ degrees and residual smoke from a 70+ acre fire south of town.

I drove south past Monterey to Garrapata Beach in Big Sur. Jack Johnson music got me there. I walked around, picked my spot in the sand and set up camp. Ate my PB&J sandwich, snapped a few pics, and got down to reading. Not an hour later, rain drops. Rain? Seriously? "It will pass", I say. Nope, going to rain harder now. I put my hood up on my sweatshirt, packed up, and went back up the cliffs to the car.

I was at a good part in the book, so kept reading in the safety of my dry car. Looked up a few chapters later and couldn't even see the ocean anymore. Marine layer was in for the day. Drove back up the coast to Imagine Dragons music, with a small pit stop in Marina to pee. Thought I got stuck in the bathroom stall in the Target, but only a frantic jiggling of the stall door and a few swear words, and I was free! Walked over the to REI store. They were having a clearance sale. Sorry but still paying $30.00+ for a t-shirt is not a clearance! Left empty handed.

Rolled back into Gilroy and it wasn't in the 100's anymore. Stopped at Goodwill and rummaged through the clothes and got 2 pairs of new to me jeans for a whopping $16 bucks. I now have 2 pairs of jeans that fit my new running legs. Woot woot.

I survived the rainy beach, and dad survived the air conditioning. All is well. Sucks that mom didn't make it to the "golden" anniversary. She had made plans. But such is life. We all survived a big milestone day today. Tomorrow will be just another day. Next week will have another big milestone day without mom. But that's another post.

Some may think that driving 50+ miles and through traffic only to spend an hour or so at a beach... in the rain a crappy day. But I don't. I find it quite funny actually. Ironic. I did escape the heat. And don't worry, I'm sure mom is still laughing at my misadventure.




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To My Mom Part VI: The Road Trip Edition 2.0

Way back in April 2013, my mom and I did a road trip to Los Angeles. I wrote a post about it. Before I share the link to it, a few observations. My mom had cancer at the time, it just wasn't diagnosed yet. I knew she had health issues at the time. She had a hard time getting around. She couldn't walk long distances. I was somewhat upset at her lack of mobility back then. I kept it all internal though. I did not voice my displeasure at having to cater to her needs. We got her diagnosis a little more than 4 months after this trip. I didn't know it at the time, when you read the last sentence you will understand, it was the last road trip we would take together.

Here's the link: LA Adventures

She catered the trip around her friends and family, as always. Her friend number 2 passed away just a few months after our visit. So we made it just in time. I actually think she used taking me to the book fair as her excuse to see her friends. I had no issues being used like that.

I mentioned in my previous post in this To My Mom Series, that my dad had finished a "project". And said I may or may not share here. He gave his permission. So here it is. It's an online memorial. The family was deciding what to do with mom's emails and letters she had written during her cancer "adventure". (she called it an adventure, I'm not kidding) A family friend had put a lot of them together for my dad. My sister saw them and said it's like a book. Mom had written a book via her emails to her support group about her journey with cancer. What can we do with this? So this is what my dad did with it all.

It's a closed link, in that it is not searchable or linked to anything.

www.paravel.com/carol

So here's to my mom who used me (more than once) to see her important people.




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Shakespearean Taxidermy on a Bloody Monday

Everyone seems to hate Mondays. Usually, I am one of them. Today it was the beginning of a new week. Last week sucked. Nothing horrible happened, but I was not having it. Customers and co-workers alike, kept getting on my nerves. Everyone seemed to annoy me. To a point where I was about to punch people in the face. I would never actually punch someone in the face on purpose*, but I was totally about to do it in my head.

I didn't do very well with my workouts last week either. John Valbonesi (the dude I can hardly understand who runs Fight Camp Glasgow that is the trainer of Sam Heughan (the hot actor dude who helped start the MyPeakChallenge thing I'm doing) said it was time to do the fitness tests again to see how we are improving, so I re-did test 1 on Monday of last week and made myself sore the rest of the week. Wow, how 'bout that sentence! Anyway, I did improve. But I can only do lunges so fast before I fall over and squish my cat that likes to walk and plop down round my arms while I try and do burpees. I did 11 more burpees than before and can now hold a 2 minute plank. Wednesday all I did was the burpee test, and Friday?... Well, the night before I decided to finish a book I was reading. I finished it at 4am. So I slept in. The book was totally worth it. It was hilarious! So, yeah, last week wasn't the best. Here's the book:

And yes that is a taxidermy mouse with a Shakespearean neck ruffle and Dracula cape holding an alas poor Yorick mouse skull.

Today, I got to start anew. And I did. And it felt great. Until I did my taxes. I owed this year. That totally sucked. And that put a damper on the day. Apparently extremely poor minimum wage workers who are just above the super extremely poo(r)** minimum wage workers don't get a tax break for being extremely poor minimum wage workers.

I don't know where to go from here in this post. Don't quite know what I'm trying to say. Well, let's just say I have no real point. This is so not how I saw this post shaping out to be.

The End




*I would totally punch someone in the face on accident, I can be quite clumsy.
**the "r" is silent when you're that poor.

My Peak Challenge

I'm going back on my word. Sorry, not sorry. Long ago in a land not far from here, I said I would stop talking about my oh so exciting exercise and getting healthy drama. I told you all sorry here. Well, I'm going to be going back on that promise for a while. At least till mid March anyway. Why? Well, let me tell you.

The last day that I got outside and ran was September 29th, 2014 (I know this because I kept track on my kitty cat wall calender). Ironically that's exactly one month prior to the day my mom passed away from cancer (October 29th, 2014). I'm not sure my subconscious knew that something was up. Maybe it knew I should have been spending that time with my mom instead of out running circuits in my neighborhood. When she was in the hospital those last two weeks, it was never a choice. It was go see mom. November and December came and went. Now that it is January, I've decided that it's time to finally get outside again. I'm not one who makes New Years Resolutions. I would break them within a week or so. So I gave up on that silly stuff long ago. I've realized that the past two years or so, that I've settled. I never reached the goals I had set. I told myself, that that was okay. That I was healthy, and I wasn't fat or gaining weight. So it was okay. But it isn't. I shouldn't settle. So this year will be all about NOT SETTLING. And that is not just in my get healthy for reals part of my life. In everything. But in the get healthy for reals part I actually want to see my abs and not the muffin top. I want to eat healthy and get off processed foods. And so, to get me back out there and get my ass moving again, I've decided on #MyPeakChallenge.

I knew I needed some type of motivation to get me going again. I needed some sort of goal (not the end goal) to get me motivated and moving. And this fits... perfectly. I won't tell you all about the challenge's details here. Click on the link above and read all about it yourself. You can do it. It's not that hard, just mouse up and click. I'll wait...

Now that you're back and informed I had to decide on what my challenge would be. The event takes place March 14-15, 2015. That's not long from now. So a marathon was out. Not that I want to do a marathon anyway. So was doing an actual mountain peak. Mt. Lassen and Mt. Whitney (which are on my must conquer list) are out do to snow and permits respectively.

Mt. Lassen

Mt. Whitney

So what can I train for for two months? Two hikes. Crazy, but I've been wanting to go backpacking again. Time made me forget about the back spasms I guess. First will be hiking up Mt. Madonna (Mt. Madonna County Park) from outside the park. The second will be doing a 12 mile back country hike in Henry Coe State Park.
Here's a really bad pic of what I will be doing at Mt. Madonna:

it may look big, but it's only 6 miles or so

And well here is a link to the Henry Coe hike. I can't seem to figure out how to get a good topo pic. But in my defense, it is 1:42am.

And now for the history: You can skip this part if you want. This is just the scholarly part of me trying to make you all learn something.

Mt. Madonna is one of the largest parks in Santa Clara County, it being a county park. It sits at the top of Hecker Pass in the Santa Cruz Mountains between Gilroy in the east (where I live) and Watsonville in the west. Besides the park where you can go hiking, biking, horse riding, archery, and camping, there is also the Mt. Madonna Center. This is a temple (Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple), retreat, yoga, learning institute, etc. It is also home to Mt. Madonna School. This is a k-12 school hosted by the Center that has a focus on the arts. Now what I find interesting is that the ruins of Henry Miller's summer home is in the park. Miller is quite famous in Gilroy. He was a cattle baron from the 1850's till his death in 1916. There is a street named after him in Gilroy. He also helped establish the city of Los Banos. A cool old work related fact is that SCE (Southern California Edison) an electric company bought land and water rights from him along the San Joaquin River for their Hydroelectric Systems in Big Creek. If you have read any of my older stuff about my archaeology days, you know that I spent a great deal of time in and out and about SCE's Big Creek Hydroelectric Project. In Gilroy, he is famous for stealing land and cattle from less prosperous folks. And the coup de gras is that there is a ghost story about his youngest daughter. She died when she was 8 when she fell off her horse and it crushed her. She was riding in Mt. Madonna. They say she haunts the campgrounds and the old Mt. Madonna Inn. You can read about it here. It's awesome.

I'll save you the enormous yet pretty cool and interesting history of Henry Coe State Park. I did a day hike there years ago with a friend, if you like you can read that here. The short version is this: Henry Coe had an ginormous ranch called Pine Ridge Ranch which had over 12,000 acres. He gave it to his son, Coe Jr. who was an idiot and sold it to Beach Land and Cattle Company in 1948. Coe's kick ass daughter Sada, bought it back in 1950. She donated the property to Santa Clara County in 1953, and so it is named after her father. The state eventually took ownership over the county and things happened. It almost got shutdown in 2012, but got saved by awesome people with money and the Pine Ridge Association. The park is still growing in size. It is over 67,000 acres now.

I'm now done with today's lesson.

I have asked my "certifiable" friend to join me on the hikes. This is the same "certifiable" friend from the adventures in backpacking the Skyline to the Sea Trail that you can re-read here if you like. If she is able to get both days off of work like I hope, she will join me both days. If she can only get one of the days, then the day she gets off we will do Henry Coe. I'm not about to venture into the back country on my own. I ain't stupid! Whether or not she decides to join in the challenge or not, is up to her. I'm most excited about the t-shirt I get. I realize I have a problem.

Now, just a few more things. I found this particular motivation via my geekiness. I will write about much of this in a different post, but let's just say that I started reading a book series called Outlander back in September. I tried starting it years ago, but never got passed the first 100 pages or so. Then the tv gods decided to make it into a tv show, so, I thought, ok, better try it again. Well, I finished the series back in December. (that's 8 books peeps). These books helped get me through the last month of my mothers life and the first two months after her death. I would read till my eyes burned and could no longer focus. The books were my escape from reality. It was the only way I could get to sleep at night. So, I also watch the tv show and geek out and drool online. Which is how I found out about #MyPeakChallenge. I thought it was a good fit since by joining the challenge I am also donating to a worthy charity. Granted my mom didn't have this type of cancer (blood cancer), she did have myelogous leukemia the last few weeks or so when her myeloma spread out of her bone marrow and into her blood stream. The peeps running the challenge are also avid outdoorsy mountain climbing nuts, which I am as well, so it all seemed to fit nicely.

So to start I have been off my precious soda for 7 days as of the posting of this. And here I am after the first run since the last, 106 days ago.

4.06 miles in 40 minutes, I still got this

Oh God, I think I'm going to die

Blonde IT Girl vs. The Black Canary

Here's something I didn't write, but is pretty damn good... if you watch Arrow (or any other show) on the CW or like superheroes or good romance with actual plot and actual believable connections or actual strong female characters that aren't busty bimbo damsels in distress cardboard. (those female characters should only be used as kindling in a fire-if you ask me-which you didn't-but I just told you anyway)

the link check it out, really, I'm being serious.

Must.Create.Something.

My creativity has been stifled as of late and it’s been driving me nuts. Bonkers. All the BatB stuff and peeps I’ve been looking at have inspired me to do something. But I just can’t figure out what and in what medium. I’m no great artist. I don’t consider myself an artist at all. My first thought was to draw a stick figure comic-like blog about me fangirling about something. Then I realized that I have a hard time even drawing stick figures, and there are some really good stick figure comic artists on the web. Some are down right hysterical! Check out this one. And her too. Then I thought well, I’ll do something with gifs. But photocapping is a long process, and it would be much easier to steal other peoples gifs than create my own and I’d have to find free software and stuff, and ugh. And again, there are some really funny and talented gif-ers out there. So I’m stuck. I came up with a cool idea for a book if anyone wants to write it. I finally signed up at Tumblr but haven’t posted anything. I’m collecting pictures of some actor dudes thumb to trace the act of him smashing it in a door or something to it finally healing through episodes of his tv show. I’m playing detective, it’s kinda fun. Twitter and Tumblr have been my saving grace but I'm still creatively frustrated.

What I really need to do is get up off my ass and really do something about the shop. It’s almost to the point where I either engage and really go at it, or drop it and move on to something else. Several drinks and gelato flavors have been popping into my head and art pieces to create for the book side. I need to engage but can’t seem to make myself do it. What is holding me back?

LA Adventures

So haven't been getting many hits on the blog lately. Not that hit counts are why I do this anyway. If it was, I'd be a complete failure at this whole blogging thing. Anyway, I'm here today to share with you want I did this past weekend... with my mom. So no bar hopping or crashing of movie sets or playing I-spy at the beach. Mom's not really into that sort of stuff... I don't think.

A while back I had posted on Facebook that I wanted to go to a book festival where the guy that makes the Simon's Cat videos was going to be. And my mom actually said she'd take me. And she was serious. I kind of made that post in fun thinking no one would actually take me.

So Thursday noonish she came by and off we started on our drive down to Los Angeles. I drove us down through LA and on to Orange California where we were to stay our first night. Why Orange? Well, the festival didn't start til Saturday and it was now Friday. She was going to visit two old friends. (old as in they are old and they were friends for probably close to 50 years!) And both of them live in Orange County. And Orange just happened to be smack in the middle of where they live.

I had mentioned that I had the best Chicken and Waffles in Pasadena. Mom was like, "Wha? Chicken and waffles??" I couldn't remember where it was and neither of us have smart phones so she texted my sister. Got the address from her and plugged it into Broomhilda the GPS. Short detour to Pasadena for dinner. She loved the Chicken and Waffles combo. And it was just as good as I remember.

So mom left Friday morning to visit old friend number 1 and I called my good friend Pancho (not his real name) and say "hey, where you at? Wanna play?" So he of course said yes. He drove out from the Inland Empire and picked me up and we went to Downtown Disney. It's where I met my new boyfriend. He's really fit. Even his muscles have ripply muscles!

Pancho and I had a good time catching up and hanging out. He needed to get back home and left me around 2pm. Mom came by and picked me up and then we went to visit her old friend number 2. The last time I had apparently seen her I was 12. She has stage 4 cancer and had radiation treatment earlier that day. If you didn't know she had stage 4 cancer, you wouldn't know it by her exuberant personality and enthusiasm. She's quite amazing for being 81 with stage 4 cancer. I hope I'm half what she is by that age.

After leaving the home of old friend number 2 I drove mom and I into Downtown Los Angeles. We were to stay at The Sheridan. Fancy. Got totally snookered. But I had known that, but mom didn't. I know that the fancier the hotel, the more you will have to pay for amenities that you get for free at other places. Anyway. I had to drive around the block a few times to get into the parking and loading area for the hotel. It didn't help that Buena Vista Studios was setting up for a night shoot on the next block and so the streets were blocked off. Silly movie people! But I had a great view of the cater truck from our window. Ooh exciting. (I'm being sarcastic here)

Next day was our day at the LA Times Festival of Books on the USC campus. The whole point of me wanting to go down to this crazy place that I don't like visiting normally. We first drove a whole mile which took about 10 minutes to find The Last Bookstore. A friend had posted a link to an article about this bookstore on Facebook, and I was intregued. So I just had to go see it. I was here, so why not. Pretty cool place once we finally found it. But only had 20 minutes because the stupid parking meter ate my first $1.50 in quarters! They have a lot of books, but the cool parts were their displays. And apparently they have hidden rooms, where you have to find the right bookcase that happens to be a door. But again, the parking meter had eaten my money and we were missing the Festival of Books. So off we then went to USC. Besides the urine sidewalks in downtown are pretty smelly.

I finally get us into a parking garage on campus and we start the walk to the center of campus. I get mom situated in the shade at the Stage where all the authors she wants to hear are at and I go off to look for stuff. So many booths, so little time! I went off to get tickets to the "conversation" that Simon and two other authors were going to do. I finally find the booth selling the tickets. They are free! Woo Hoo. And they hadn't sold out yet. Sweet. I get two tickets and then go off to find a booth that is selling Simon's book. Wander wander wander. Ah ha! Found one. I ask the guy how much it is, he says it's on sale today for only $10.00. Sweet. I'll take it. Then he says, "oh here's Simon the author, by the way." Wha?? My brain goes stupid. All I get out is, "Hi, will you sign it?" He say's sure, and gets out his pen and asks my name and writes out "For Kelly, All the best" and then doodles the cat, kitten, and robin. I say, "thank you very much" and shake his hand. Oh, he also asked if I had any cats, and I said yes. If my brain had been working properly I would have told him about my cat Quirk. But it wasn't. I get back to mom, and told her what had happened, and said that my mission is complete! I stayed with her through the next author she was going to listen to. Oh my god! It was Debbie Reynolds. You know Princess Leia's mom!! She is in her early 80's and she is just a riot! Totally funny and genuine person. She talked about the early days with Gene Kelly and Fred Astire. And about her many husbands. It was just fun to listen to her. Truly. Again, if I can be just half what she is by her age. Wow. Oh and there was this old guy behind me that chatted with me for a while. He was so freakin impressed that I knew who the Smothers Brothers were. And the Kingston Trio. Thank you dad for introducing me to them. I earned major props with this old guy for that. He was fun.

After her talk it was time to go listen to Simon. The panel is Simon Tofield (cats), Lauren Scheuer (chickens), and Ken Foster (dogs). It was really fun. The moderator introduces them and asks each to read a bit from their books. The Chicken lady was hysterical. The dog guy was really poignant. Then it was Simon's turn. The moderator said, "This will be really interesting since there aren't any words in your book." He proceeded to do all the voices of his characters. I could talk a lot about the panel. But will say, it was really interesting and informative and I found out that the chicken lady is my sister's soulmate. After the panel they were going to have a signing. So I go out and buy her book. Since I already got Simon's autograph, I didn't need to stand in that line too. I told the chicken lady that my sister and I had chickens once. She signed the book to me and my sister and drew us a little chicken. So cool.

It's funny that I go to a book festival with all these famous authors there and movie stars and major publishers and panel after panel about writing, publishing, any and all genres, and I get most excited about a web comic artist and a crazy chicken lady. Go figure.

We were done at the festival after that. We then drove back east to Whittier to go visit my Grandmother at Rose Hills Cemetery. After seeing her marker it was probably close to 7pm. I then drove us out of LA and headed up the 99 to Bakersfield. I know, why Bakersfield? We were going to stay the night at some family friends who live there. We got in to their place a bit after 9pm. We chatted, went to bed, got up, they made us a great breakfast. Chatted some more, and then it was time to get home. We were both ready to go home. Of course mom decided she wanted to go home via 101. I said it will take longer, but she said, but it's prettier. Fine, whatever. I drive us over 46 and onto 101. Pull into my house around 4pm.

Awwww, nice to be home. When we first left on this adventure, I was excited. I needed out of the house. I had felt like a prisoner in my own home. It was good to get out. I needed it. I needed a jolt or a swift kick in the ass. By the end I was ready to be home again. I love my mother, but I was ready for my own room without a snoring person next to me. Next time: bring ear plugs. Because there will be a next time.

When I grow up...

I never knew what I wanted to be when I was younger. I can remember when I was about 5 or so, telling my parents I wanted to be a boy when I grew up. I thought the peach fuzz on my lip would grow into a mustache. Thankfully, it never did. When I was a child, besides turning into a boy, I wanted to be a Park Ranger. I thought they were cool. I still do think they are cool. Also wanted to be an Olympic Athlete, and an Astronaut, even after watching the Challenger explode on live tv in my 2nd grade classroom.

In 1993, after watching Jurassic Park I decided I wanted to be a Palaeontologist. Then I wanted to be a Geologist, Coroner, a fighter pilot, a Navy Seal, and an Author. After watching Dante's Peak in 1997, I wanted to be a Vulcanologist. Then a rescue squad member, Firefighter, Smoke Jumper (Hotshot), EMT, Script Writer, Set Builder, Coast Guard, Photographer, Columnist, Travel Writer, Pastry Chef, and a Forensic Anthropologist. There was also Professional Musician, Mountain Climber, Explorer, Naturalist, Adventure Travel Guide, Oceanographer, Glass Blower, and Welder.

In 2005, I got my first Archaeology job. But I didn't stop. To survive as a successful archaeologist, one needs other skill sets. So I thought Biologist, Botanist, Geologist (again), Forensic Anthropologist (again), Geographer, and Osteologist. I never did any of those, perhaps a reason I'm no longer employed as an archaeologist. Then I thought, time for a new career as a Landscape Architect, Construction Worker, Park Ranger (again), Freelance Writer, Adventure Tour Guide (again).

Right now I'm trying out Entrepreneur.

But seriously, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Anyone have any ideas?

The sort of The Hobbit fangirl

*one of my favorite pics from New Zealand, also is the background for this blog.
It’s a big day on the other side of the world down in New Zealand. It’s the World Premiere of The Hobbit in Wellington. Starts at 4:30pm kiwi time which means 6:30pm PST. It will be televised live too on Cinemax. I don’t subscribe to that channel. And it seems weird that that network will broadcast something where everyone will be keeping their clothes on. I mean, Cinemax isn’t nicknamed “skinemax” for nothing. But now that I think about it, they do show some shows from the UK and most likely have some sort of deal with Sky over across the pond. And New Zealand is still part of the British Empire and all that. Would be a lot easier on me if BBC America was doing it instead. Anyway, there are also several places on the web that will live stream it. So the question is will I watch it?

I don’t know. I’ve been sort of overloaded with Hobbit hype of late and I don’t really want to spoil the experience of seeing the film. On the other hand, the footage of the Premiere is only that. I won’t be there actually seeing the film so it won’t be spoiler-ish. Perhaps I will watch it later and not tonight. I do have things I need to do. I should be mowing my lawn right now.

Which brings me to something else I’ve been worrying about... sort of. With all this hype and excitement and little clips, interviews, previews, behind-the-scenes snippets: will it all make me so excited that when I finally do go and see the film in December, will it live up to my boosted expectations? So I’ve been perusing the pre-film juggernaut and not delving in and reading and watching everything there is out there. I don’t want to get my expectations so high that it will be a disappointment when I go to see it. I know it will be a good film and it will be entertaining, but I went to see Tron Legacy in the theaters in 3D expecting to get my mind blown with the special effects. I know the actual story was weak so I wasn’t expecting that. But I came out of it disappointed. My mind wasn’t blown. I don’t want that to happen with The Hobbit.

Also, I hate 3D. It gives me a headache. The eye strain is exhausting. When I walked out of Tron Legacy I practically had a migraine! So I never went to see Avatar or Hugo or any other film that showed in 3D. Movies are so expensive these days and 3D is even more money. But I’ll be going to see The hobbit in 3D and at the HFR (high frame rate). I decided that I need to see it as the Director (Peter Jackson) intended. So I will give it another shot. I’ll be taking drugs though (legal ones). I will most likely pop some Ibuprofen before hand and have some more in my pocket, just in case. I will most likely be taking my nephews as well. So it might be their Christmas present from me. We aren’t doing the midnight showing though. I didn’t buy those tickets, and plus we wouldn’t be getting back home till after 4am!! I’m not that hardcore. Sorry. Perhaps later in the week or the following week. The movie isn’t showing in 3D HFR in my city, so we will have to travel 40 miles to San Jose to see it. And of course I’ll have to splurge for the snacks and such, because this is part of “the experience”. Part of the experience will be traveling to the theater, waiting in lines, getting all the junk food, and picking out the best seats, and then of course the movie itself.

I fell in love with The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. I was a bit late. I reread The Hobbit prior to going to see The Fellowship of The Ring. I was greatly confused the first 10 minutes figuring out who this Frodo character was. Face palm, I know! I then went home and prior to The Two Towers, I reread the Trilogy. I came away from that trilogy experience wishing I was somehow part of it. I wanted to be part of the experience that all the actors and production had. Everyone who worked on those films kept saying how amazing it all was and how it changed their lives. I wanted that. And of course that was the first time I had seen the beauty of New Zealand. I knew that place existed, but just figured it was like Australia to its north.

*at left is one of the places I got to visit where LOTR was shot.
So years after the films came out and several DVD editions came and gone, I finally made it to New Zealand myself. You can read about that here. Many other films had been shot in New Zealand since then. So while I was there, I traveled with a trekking group for 10 days. Midway through we had a day off in Queenstown, on the South Island. So what did I do besides jump off a cliff and live to tell about it? I went on a Lord of the Rings Tour. I felt like such a dork, but there you go. You can read about that here.

I tell you all this because I watched an interview this morning about The Hobbit and one of the actors said something to the effect of, “Even if there wasn’t a film at the end of this year, it has changed my life. Just coming here to New Zealand and the experience has changed my life forever.” Not exactly what he said, but close enough. They all spent the better part of a year down there. I only spent just under a month. Reflecting on it now, three years out, had my own experience down there change my life? Today I thought, “I missed it again.” After my own trip to New Zealand, I wanted to move there. I went as far as looking for jobs there and looking into what I’d have to do to immigrate. Had I actually done it, would I have had the opportunity to be part of the making of The Hobbit? Who knows.

Did my own short journey change my life? I think so. I wrote about this here and here soon after I got back. Now three years later, I still do think about it sometimes. I look through my photos, I reread my blog posts sometimes. It was a huge deal for me to go there... alone. I didn’t know a soul. I had never traveled internationally alone before or that far. For some people traveling overseas alone is no big deal. But for me it was huge. I had put off the trip for years because of that. I felt that, and still do, even this extremely introverted person can take on the world. Okay, maybe not the world, but you get what I mean. I can overcome whatever obstacle comes along.

So in a way, the Lord of the Rings movies and now The Hobbit films, have changed this closet fangirls life.

*and no, I will not be dressing up. I am not a cosplayer.

**we'll see if I get any new views besides my normal readers when I tweet this with a Hobbit hashtag.

uh oh, what if there's sex?

I’ve decided to post just half of this particular entry. 1.) it is taking way too long to edit the second half, 2.) the second half doesn’t really have anything to do with the first. So instead of confusing you all, I will split them, and maybe someday I will get the second part the way I want it... or not.

I recently convinced my sister to purchase an audiobook for our trip. It wasn’t hard, I didn’t even have to reveal the real reason I wanted her to get it. Then I realized it was a classic regency romance, and then thought, “oh god, what if there is sex in it?” So I had to go to the library (needed to get my card anyway) and got the book. Read it. Rest assured, there are no sex scenes. Our fragile ears will not be defiled! Hurrah! But as I was reading this lovely book, I realized that since I had stopped reading as of late, I have become dumb. Seriously! There were so many words in that darn novel that I didn’t know the meanings of. Sad to say though that I didn’t look any of them up. I have always realized that my own vocabulary is limited. I’m more of a say it straight, dammit. So when people start using big vocabulary, I start to feel kind of stupid. And I know this is all shocking to you because I have a bachelor's degree in English! Yeah, I felt pretty stupid then, too. Besides the life stories I’ve been sharing with you here on the blog, there has been another one that I have not been sharing. And while reading this book, I thought, this (reading intelligent books) will help me in my pilgrimage of bettering myself for a specific purpose (of which I will not share with you all). But rest assured reading intelligent books not only betters me for my “specific purpose” but also betters my mind, body, and soul in general. It’s multi purposeful!

The new short stack

I took a trip to my local B&N today. I picked up Lee Child’s Killing Floor, George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, and Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. A thriller, a fantasy, and a classic. Talk about a mixed bag. Got Child’s Killing Floor because it is the first of one of his best known series, and everyone I have talked to who has read them say it’s great fun. I like fast paced good action thrillers. I was going to get David Morrell’s First Blood, you know the Rambo movies right? Well, it was a book first. But they didn’t have it. *sad face* So I got Martin’s Game of Thrones, instead. I’m very picky about fantasy books. I have a hard time finding ones that I actually like. But I thought I should give this one a try, it is an HBO series now and it’s all the rage. I think I can handle some magic, mayhem, incest, and epic betrayals. And now the classic. I recently watched the BBC production of this novel and absolutely fell in love. No really. The whole puppy dog googlie eyed, I have to watch this over and over again in love. Ok, maybe just the ending, but still. Now that I know what Thornton looks and sounds like, I can get all googlie eyed in the text. Charles Dickens gave her good reviews, so it must be a good book as well.

The whole point of this is I haven’t been able to read much lately. I’ve started reading several books and just haven’t been in the mood, or they just haven’t captured me. Hopefully these will get me going again. I also need to re-read The Hobbit before December, to refresh my memory before I go see the movie extravaganza. It will be epic, EPIC I say!

News Update

First blog of 2012. Today I realized (well, I’ve known for a while now) I am not a dog person. I can tolerate them and live with them, but it isn’t by choice. There’s a new dog in town. Her name is Sura. She is a ridgeless Rhodesian Ridgeback. She is almost 5 months old and belongs to my sisters husband. I live with my sister and her two teenage sons with their little weiner dog Pepper. My sister’s husband only lives here part time. So Sura is here, part time. Well, when said husband goes to work, Sura stays with us because he works 3-4 12 hour shifts. Today (Monday) he worked, my sister went to work and my nephews went to school. Which left me with Pepper and Sura. Pepper doesn’t like Sura that much. And even before my sister and her husband got Sura, I said I didn’t want another dog. But apparently I don’t have a say in the matter. Well, lets just say taking care of Sura is like taking care of a colicky toddler. They won’t stop screaming, nothing you do is right, and you can’t take your eyes off of them, and by the end of the day, you want to pull your hair out. So when my sister came home to check on us, we decided that Sura will go to doggy day care on the days that her husband works. Hurray!

Now don’t get me wrong, Sura is a very pretty dog and she is pretty smart. She is only 4 and a half months old and can sit, stay, drop things she’s not suppose to put in her mouth, plays well with other dogs, and has figured out how to open doors. She will be a very well behaved dog when she grows up and be very sociable. I just don’t want to babysit her or take care of her. She isn’t my dog. I like cats. Cats are very low maintenance. You feed them and clean their litter box. That’s it. If they like you, they may curl up and sleep on your lap. They pretty much take care of themselves. They even give themselves baths. But sister is allergic to cats, and Pepper is a neurotic territorial ferret that tries to kill cats, so we can’t have them. *sad face*

Which brings me to another subject. If and when I get my soda/ice cream/ book store, I would like to have a shop cat. It would live at the store and hang out with the books and lounge on the comfy sofa’s and chairs and be loved by all the patrons.

And what’s this soda/ice cream/book store? Well, I am still unemployed (only been working a few days to a few weeks per month doing archaeology). I’ve realized that if I stay in archaeology, that is all it will be. So I’ve decided to pursue another dream. I have many, this shop is just one. Before the shop dream, I thought I’d go back to school and become a landscaper (yet another dream). I even applied to school, but when I went to register, the classes were all full with a 20 person wait list! I took it as a sign. That maybe that dream should be put on hold and to try a different one. So on a whim while sister and I were at the bank sorting out a checking account issue, we talked with a small business manager there. He made it sound like it could be done and helped us get started. A few days later he called and said we would qualify for a SB loan to purchase the building we were looking at for the shop. Some other stuff happened and we talked to some people and met some people willing to help us, and things are rolling along. Right now I am in the process of writing up our business plan to present to some potential investors. If all goes well, my new profession will be owner and proprietor of a small business, and landlord. By no means are we even close to making this happen yet. But we should know by as early as the end of the month whether or not this dream could become reality. I really hope we can do this. It is a lot of work, and the “work” I’m putting into it now is free labor. So I am still taking archaeology jobs when they are available to me, so that I can stay afloat a bit longer. If this dream can become a reality soon, then perhaps my financial future won’t look so gloomy, like it does at the moment.

My sister and nephews, and my mom seem to be on board, but dad is a bit uneasy. But I attribute that to his personality. He is by nature a worrier. And I can understand that, we are related and I also have this particular trait. This is a huge risk that may or may not work. We shall see, and I will try to keep you posted.