Thaddeus Nowak's Blog: Thoughts and Observations, page 24

Stephenie’s Father’s Coat-of-arms – part 2 of 5

Hi, Stephenie again. Yesterday I mentioned a few members of my family, including my great, great, great-grandfather, King Stemin. It is through his father that my family still holds the throne and so we keep the black wolf as a symbol of the family name.

We have one painting of him, though candle and fireplace soot has made it so dark you can barely make out his rakish grin. My father said there were stories of him sailing the Sea and leaping from the crosstree of the fore mast because he was told he couldn’t do it. My father also said, he nearly killed himself three-time before he manged to finally clear all the rigging and land in the water. It was a good thing he had priests to heal him.

I wish I had known him and his “pig-headed” stubbornness. I’m told I’ve got the same problem, but I want to go on record as saying I do listen to everyone, but sometimes I just have to do what I know I must.

Have you ever managed to pull off something no one felt was possible?

- Stephenie

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Stephenie’s Father’s Coat-of-arms – part 1 of 5

Hi, I’m Stephenie from Ted’s novels Mother’s Curse and Daughter’s Justice. Ted and I have been discussing the importance of family and friends and I thought it might be fun to share a few things about my family that you probably don’t know.

I used to spend evenings listening to my father read or tell me stories. I enjoyed the tales of battles and conquest, but my favorites were about my ancestors and the adventures they had. I think he wanted me to learn and gain experience so I could grow wise and act with honor, even if I didn’t realize it at the time.

My father’s motto has always been:

Honor through wisdom.

My father also has a coat-of-arms that he crafted to signify important people or events in his life. Each quadrant has a heraldic symbols from different aspects of our family’s ancestry.

The black wolf on a green field came from early in the Marn family tree. King Stemin, my great, great, great-grandfather adopted the wolf, which signifies perseverance, to honor his father’s survival of the siege of Antar, which lasted almost two years.

The trident on a blue field came from my grandmother Kara’s grandfather Gravhir Enishson, who was King of Calis when Calis became a great naval power. This symbol of naval power came into my family when my grandfather, King Morgan, adopted the trident to honor his wife Kara and my father kept it to honor his mother.

The prestigious white hawk on a green field came from a more recent ancestor on my grandmother Kara’s side. It came from Duke Urlas Vercima of Esland. Duke Urlas was my great grandfather. He earned the symbol of the hawk from his king for persisting in the negotiation of a peace treaty with Belis, a smaller county on the Endless Sea.

You may not be aware if you haven’t read Ted’s books, but I don’t exactly like my mother. The final symbol was added when my father married her. Her father was King Richard of Kynto. He adopted the castle to show he provided safety to his people. However, his version of safety was through fear and intimidation. My father said he would use the castle to remind us that people deserve safety through honesty and integrity, not hate and lies. I don’t think he ever explained that to my mother.

Ted also has some interesting ancestors, including one whole built a log cabin in some land called Wisconsin in the mid 1800s (I don’t know when that is, the is from some calendar I am not familiar with). The amazing part is the cabin still exists today, almost 150 years later! Probably because it was constructed using Norwegian shipbuilding skills.

Do you have a family or personal motto that you live by or a coat-of-arms (real or imagined)? Any interesting stories from your family’s history?

- Stephenie

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Grow where you are planted … why???

“Grow where you are planted.”

This was a sign I saw this morning driving down the road and to me it is a very depressing message.  Perhaps I am not seeing it as it was intended, but my immediate reaction was one of distaste.  To me, it says: “be content with what you have and just deal with it.”

While there is some value in learning to accept certain things and not drive your life by what you can never achieve, that message is too complacent.  It tells you to just accept whatever your situation is.  A much better statement would have been:

“Find where you can grow!”

Finding a place to grow implies personal responsibility and a call for action.  It tells the reader to do something with their life; take an active role in defining your situation.  I would never want to simply sit there and react to life as it passes by me.  I would much rather interact with it and drive myself to the things I enjoy and love.

To simply “grow where you are planted” can mean forever being stuck in an environment unsuited to who you are and who you want to be.  A mighty oak would not survive well on the tundra.  The harsh conditions there would strip it of life.  Move it to a lush valley and it will thrive.  However, plant some tundra grasses and flowers in that same valley and they would be starved out by all the taller plants.

It is important to know and understand yourself and if you are not in an environment suited to who you are or want to be, take action, get up, and find a place to grow!  Don’t just sit by and hope something better will come along.  It’s your life, be the leading character in it.

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Pictures on the trail

This post is overdue and I still have tons of other images to process, but I wanted to get a couple of pictures posted for everyone to enjoy.

I’m a fan of soft water, so I often have to stop and get a few shots when I comes across any falls.  The trouble is, stopping, getting out the gear, getting the shots, moving around, getting more shots, and then packing up the gear to move on down the trail takes a lot of time.  This trip I didn’t end up with as many shots as I normally take.  Hopefully the ones I did get will yield a few more decent shots.  (Plus I have video to edit; lots of video.)

The image of the falls above and to the right was taken while we were doing a pair of trail in Pisgah National Forest: Slick Rock Falls and Daniel Ridge Loop.  It was one of our shorter days hiking, but the trails were enjoyable.

Much of my time on the trails, when not looking at the scenery or taking pictures, was spent thinking about my books and working out plot details.  It really is amazing how focused I can become when out in the woods.  I find I do most of my “writing” while hiking, in the car, or exercising.  When I get back to the computer, it’s just to type out what I’ve already written in my head.

The picture to the left  was taken an hour later on the same hike.  I liked how the water was falling into a pool filled with logs and debris.  The green of the moss and leaves offered a nice contrast to the browns and grays.

There were other “great” shots to be had at that site, but sometimes it is not worth climbing and hanging from things to get the shots.

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A little holiday fun — hiked 42.7 miles over 5 days

We spent the prior week hiking in the Smoky Mountains.  Well, most of it was hiking in Pisgah National Forest with a couple of stops along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I love holidays; I even enjoy the drive (with a couple of exceptions).

As with all holidays, this trip was too short.  However, I do have about 26gb of video and another 6gb of still shots.  I will admit to taking far fewer stills this trip than on prior trips, but I think I managed a few good shots (the time to set up the tripod and camera at every interesting spot can eat into the day).  The small little waterfall on this post was taken on the first day of hiking.  It was just a spot along the trail that looked interesting and I’m fond of soft water.

It will take me a bit to process through the hours of video I captured.  But my intent is to put together a video blog of the highlights (no time frame promised yet, I’m still experimenting with that whole realm of toys).

For those interested in the photo details, the image was taken with a Nikon D700, 50mm lens, Singh-Ray Veri-N-Duo filter, iso-200, f7.1 @ 13 sec.

For the hiking prospect, it was definitely fewer miles than on some of our other trips.  It was a combination of things that kept us from getting as many miles as we would have liked.

For a recap: there were a couple of trails with way too many bugs, but no ticks the whole trip.  One trail had a caution about a bear with cubs sighting a couple of days earlier.  We saw a couple of snakes, lots of lizards and snails, and generally had a good time.  On Friday before be left, after the hiking, we went to dinner and a book store (have to be true to one’s self).

Here’s a quick summary of the days we hiked and the trails.  Some hikes were out and back, so the trail mileage doubled to get our daily totals provided by the GPS:

16 Jun 2013 — 8.6 miles

Mt. Pisgah and part of the trail to the campsite.
Caney Bottom Loop
Cove Creek

18 Jun 2013 — 7.0 miles

Rattle Snake Lodge
Some of the MTS trail
Crabtree Falls Loop

19 Jun 2013 — 7.0 miles

Slick rock falls
Daniel ridge loop

20 Jun 2013 — 11.0 miles

Moore Cove
Graveyard Loop
Cradle of Forestry Discovery Center
Pink Beds Loop (bugs)

21 Jun 2013 — 9.1 miles

Pilot Cove – Slate Rock (bugs!!!! and bear w/ cubs warning)
Pilot Cove Loop

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Book Review: The Dog In The Dark by Barb & J.C. Hendee

I want to start by saying I really enjoyed the start of the Noble Dead Series. Dhampir was something new that I had not expected when I first read it and that invested me strongly in the characters.

The Dog In The Dark, is the second book in the third series.  I should mention that the whole “series” so far is broken into three groups:

The first part of the series consists of 6 books which focused primarily on Magiere (a Dhampir), Leesil (a half-elf assassin), and Chap (a fay born into the form of a wolf).
The second part of the series consists of 3 books, which focused primarily on Wynn (a young sage), Chane (a vampire), and Shade (a daughter of Chap).
The third part of the series is about getting the group back together, splitting them up again, and hopefully resolving the story in the yet to be released third book in the “third series”.

The Dog In The Dark is named for Brot’ân, an elf and master assassin who had shown up in several of the earlier books.  This book focuses on slowly eliciting information from him as well as explaining what Magiere, Leesil, and Chap were doing while we were busy with Wynn in the second series.  Unfortunately, this exchange of information is done mostly through the use of flashbacks.  While many questions were answered, others were added, the trouble was it was hard for me to stay engaged through the story and ended up reading another book while I was reading this one.  There are a few action scenes scattered about, some in the flashbacks, some in current time.  However, a few of the setups for those events seemed a little forced.

I really wanted to enjoy the book.  I became fond of Magiere and Leesil in Dhampir and will finish off the series (I have invested a lot of time in it), but was disappointed not to see more growth in their characters.  Some of the issues they were dealing with earlier on, like short tempers and hypersensitivity to issues should have been overcome by this point in the story.  I am a firm believer in the growth of characters over the course of a story arch.  When I don’t see that happening, I start to lose some of my appreciation for the characters and the series.  This to me was the hardest part of reading the story.

As a writer myself, I can understand why Barb and J.C. decided to use the flashbacks; already at a projected 12 books in the series, to actually tell the details of the events in this book as they had in the prior books would have extended the series even more.  However, it did make it a slower read than the prior books.

I would not recommend the book to someone just entering into the series.  It really is only there for people already invested in the tale.  My hope is that book 3 in series 3 will wrap things up.  However, it will require getting all the players back together and there are a number of them to move around.  I would like to give it 2 stars out of 5, but my initial fondness for the series makes me give it a 3.

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Movie Review: Epic

Epic is the story of a young girl, Mary Katherine (or M.K.) who is about sixteen or seventeen years old.  She is returning home to live with her father, whom she has not seen in years.  Her parents had split up and I got the impression her mother had died before the start of the film, which is what caused her to return home.

Her father is obsessed, to the point of total distraction, with finding proof that there are wood spirits or little people running about the lands around his home.  She is angered by her father’s continued obsession and desire to run off to investigate one of his monitors, despite the fact that she just arrived.  She gets ready to run away, including leaving a note to that effect, when she becomes caught up in the struggle of good versus evil (or life versus decay) that is taking place in the woods.

The Queen of the forest, Tara (played by Beyoncé), is what keeps the Boggans from spreading their decay and destroying the forest.  Queen Tara gives M.K. (whom she shrunk to a small size) a quest to protect the pod which will be the next queen.  With a pair of leafmen (the queen’s guards), she needs to take the pod to someone who can tell her want to do with it.

The movie is something of a coming of age story, where M.K,’s father, herself, and the leafman all have to grow and learn to become better people.  There are characters for kids and kid humor in many scenes.  However, there is less adult content than I had hoped.  I see many of the cartoons that come out, but only when they have a hint at adult subtleties and plot elements.  The movies aimed solely for kids I often avoid and after having seen it, I realized this one is on the cusp of that avoidance.

My biggest problem was the creation of primary plot driver, which is caused when the young leafman (who is rebelling against authority) and M.K. disobey the commandment to guard the pod so they can go explore on their own.  While I can see kids (or even myself) do something a little foolish under certain circumstances, I would expect sixteen or seventeen year old kids to have a slightly greater sense of responsibility when everyone it telling them if anything goes wrong, the world will end.  For M.K., her hopes of returning to a normal size hing on the pod, so she has a vested interest in making sure it stays safe.

I know it was a plot move to teach the kids about responsibility, but if it had been more subtle, the movie would have had more appeal to me.

For parents with small children, some of the characters are killed,  The violence is not graphic, but there is enough of it.

Despite my issue with the lack of subtlety in generating the plot elements to teach responsibility, I did enjoy the animation and would give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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Movie Review: Now You See Me

My intent is to review SciFi and fantasy movies from time to time.  Now You See Me, might stretch this definition.  It was a movie I saw last Thursday (date night with my wife after work).  I can say that from the previews I had a little different expectation for the film than what I saw.  However, I will start off saying that I liked it.

The movie is about four street magicians, or really hustlers, who are recruited by a mysterious person to perform a spectacular magic show.  There are things that cross almost into the scifi realm with 3-d effects in the movie (not 3-d visuals for the audience, but for the characters in the movie).  These stretch the believability slightly for current technology, but add a slight sense of mysticism.

After the brief character introductions and getting them together at one location, the movie cuts to one year later and their first big performance together.  This is where they rob a bank and the FBI and Interpol get involved.  I won’t go into many of the details because I don’t want to give away anything, but the bulk of the movie is about the four magicians avoiding the authorities and how the authorities are trying to capture them as they perform two more big feats.

There are just a few hints of supernatural in the movie, but the tricks are explained through the course of the investigation and the explanations are plausible (with the assumption that everything was working to their advantage).  I was attracted to the hint of potentially supernatural magic in the trailers, which if you are expecting to see that, you may be slightly disappointed.

The other attraction for me was the cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mogran Freeman, and Michael Caine are favorites of mine.  The other actors also did a good job: Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, and Melanie Laurent.

I will give it 4 out of 5 stars.

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Book Review: Sporting Chance by Elizabeth Moon

Sporting Chance is the second book in the Serrano Legacy series.  It continues the story that started in Hunting Party, with Captain Heris Serrano and Lady Cecelia returning to the capital with the Prince.

The story is set in motion by Lady Cecelia, who is something of a rebel in the aristocracy, when she exposes some of her observations about the Prince and the events that took place in Hunting Party to the King.  The events unfold, showing Lady Cecelia’s stubborn streak, as well as Captain Serrano’s ability to predict and plan for potential problems.  However, despite the Captain’s expectation of trouble, Captain Heris is unable to avoid it and is placed at odds with much of the aristocracy.

The trouble for me with the story is later on when the Captain almost willfully ignores obvious signs of trouble, which puts the crew, the ship, and her mission in jeopardy.  While people do this all the time in real life, I had higher expectations of the Captain’s character and although I could see ignoring some of the signs of trouble for a while, I felt it went on for too long in the story.  I would have liked her to proactively recognize the trouble and deal with it.  However, Moon was also using that to build some of the other characters and provide the Captain with lessons learned.  Hopefully, the Captain will be able to avoid those kind of issues in the future.

Aside from that one issue, which might not bother other readers, the story was engaging and I enjoyed it.  I would give it 3.5 stars out of 5 (leaning closer to 4 than 3).

I will add one other warning for people who may pick up the series with one set of expectations and get surprised to find the story is a different type.  The series is not one that I would call “hard” science fiction.  It is a mix of science fiction and European high society and court intrigue.  While there is some space travel and ship to ship combat, the story is more about the people and how they fit in the world Moon has created and less about star travel.  This may appeal more to some people who are not into hard scifi, but do enjoy some aspects of the setting.

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Monday Musings…no wait, it’s Tuesday

Holiday weeks are great!  Sometimes you get to spend time with family and friends, other times, you just get to relax.  Of course, the rest of the week is a mess since it is never the day it is supposed to be.  And what’s more, while today my mental clock is behind, by Thursday, I will be certain it should already be Friday and the week will feel longer than most.

For me, this long weekend was actually quite busy with not a lot of rest.  It resulted in a pile of tree limbs I need to cut into pieces (I know if I leave them in my driveway more than a couple more days, someone will be thinking bad thoughts about me).  The yard got mowed, cloths washed, dishes done … ya the really exciting things.  But work on the book also happened, a soccer game attended, kept up with a friend in France, spent time with family … a good weekend.

I also got some hiking in and when rain (and more importantly, lightning) washed out our hiking plans for Monday, we hit the gym for some hill work on the treadmill and Stairmaster.  (I am really wanting the time to fly so my trip to the Smoky Mountains is here.)  Of course, I have a thousand things to get done before I get there.

One of those thousand things is a decisions on a video camera.  I’ve been toying with the idea of doing some vblog entries and I thought I might capture some of the interesting things (hoping there will be some) on my upcoming hiking trip.  The GoPro looks like a strong candidate for durability, but my analytical brain is going to muse over it for a bit longer, no matter what that primal instinct of instant gratification screams.  That’s because my logical half (okay, logical 97.3%) knows that as soon as I dive into doing vblogs, I’ll have to learn new software and spend time editing and tweaking video posts instead of working on novels or cutting up the branches in my front yard.  (I may have just sold myself on the purchase.)

Of course, all these musings makes me long for the good old days of summer vacation and hours of time spent in the pointless, but completely satisfying, pursuits of my younger self.  I had almost started up the PS3 and played a game this weekend, but I spent time with family and friends and took care of the chores around the house instead.  I guess some would say that’s what comes with growing older, but I’m still a kid at heart.  I still want to run around the woods and build snow forts and slide down a muddy slope into a stream … and dream of worlds and people who lead even more interesting lives.

The best part is knowing that I will always be able to do at least some of that … now back to writing down the stories of those interesting worlds and people.

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