What do I blog about?

One of the pieces of advice I often see in book and articles about how to blog is that one should pick a subject to blog about. For me that is impossible. I have a multitude of interests and I enjoy blogging about all of them. Tomorrow I might find something new that is interesting and then I'll blog about that. Thank heavens I don't feel any need to monetize my blog and I can blog about what I want ot blog about.

Recently one of my Reno blogging friends – Ron at Local So-and-so blogged about the exact same thing.

I loved the way he put it.

"As for me, I'm content to meander along, like a lazy flowing river,
curious to see what's around the next bend. Who knows, maybe I'll find
a purpose for my blog there, or maybe even a way to make some real
money without selling my soul to the Devil"

Books – Coraline, Street Fighters, and The 19th Wife

I've finished 3 more books. You can see the list of books I have read this year here. 

001

Coraline by Neil Gaiman adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell

I highly recommend this book. The original version of Neil Gaimon's Coraline was published in 2002. Last year Gaimon partnered with P. Craig Russell to publish a comic book style version of the book. Amazon calls it a graphic novel. It is a scary book about my kind of girl. Coraline Is brave, independent and she likes to explore. She and her family have just move into a big old house. The first sentence hooked me; "Coraline discovered the door a little after they moved into the house."

Street Fighters by Kate Kelly

Street Fighters is the story of the collapse of Bear Stearns. It was recommended by my friend Todd Jonz  who I interviewed in my podcast in June. I found the book fascinating. I could very much imagine being at Bear Stearns and living through this time. If I was an employee there I would have been so mad at the cowboy executives who apparently never took risk seriously. I read Street Fighters on my Kindle

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

The 19th Wife is really two stories. One is a modern murder mystery about a murder of a polygamist and the polygamist community he lives in. The other story is historical fiction. It is based on the life of one of Brigham Young's wives, Ann Eliza Young, who divorced him and went on to crusade against Polygamy in the late 1800's. I had never heard of her before so I learned a lot about the history of the Mormon church and about polygamy. I enjoyed the murder mystery but found the historical story much too long. It dragged. In spite of that The 19th Wife was worth reading.

HD Honscheid – Artist, Traveler, and Web Site Creater – Marion Vermazen Podcast Episode 4

For episode four of the Marion Vermazen podcast I interviewed my friend HD Honscheid. In this interview HD answered my questions about retirement, moving to the U.S. from Germany and the many different types of art he creates. I enjoyed talking with HD and I know you will enjoy listening to our conversation.

To play the podcast roll your mouse over the bar below and you will see the play button to click on.

Marion Vermazen Podcast – episode 4 – HD Honscheid

Here is a link to HD's personal website.

HD Honscheid

You can subscribe to my podcast by clicking on the
link at
the top of the column to the right. To subscribe in iTunes,
from the iTunes Advanced menu select Subscribe to Podcast and copy the
feed URL.

"  http://marionvermazen.blogs.com/mv-podcast/rss.xml  "

Aspen trees

Never plant aspen trees near your lawn. Back in August of 2006 I blogged about aspen trees.  A grove of Aspen trees can actually be just one tree because they share the same root system. The aspen is the biggest plant in the world.

The house we bought last year has three beautiful aspen trees in the front yard. Unfortunately they are trying to start a grove of aspen trees in our front grass. This summer the baby aspen trees were growing much faster than the grass.
001

In the picture above you can just see the baby aspens. The picture below gives you a close up.

002

4 Books

I’ve finished four books in the last few weeks, what with my vacation and all. In addition to describing the four books here I have added them to my list of books read this year.  I will soon be creating a summary of the presidential biographies I have read and will add the Martin Van Buren biography to my list. Here are the 4 books:

a book of bees by Sue Hubbell

001
I was reading the Fabulouslorraine blog a few weeks ago and she recommended this book. Among other interesting topics Lorraine blogs about bee keeping. A book of bees by Sue Hubbell is a fascinating book and very well written. On the first page she says:

“I have had bees now for fifteen years, and my life is better for it. I operate a beekeeping and honey-producing farm in the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri. I keep three hundred hives of bees”

From there she goes on to describe a year of bee keeping. It almost made me want to get some hives.

Different Seasons by Stephen King

112

I read Different Seasons by Stephen King while I was fishing in Canada. My secret of catching fish is reading while I fish 🙂  Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas. The first is the story that the movie Shawshank Redemption is based on. Shawshank Redemption is one of my all time favorite movies and the story is as good as the movie. I didn’t enjoy the second novella, Apt Pupil, as much, although it was thought provoking and disturbing. The third novella “The Body” was made into Rob Reiner’s movie Stand by Me. I enjoyed the fourth novella Breathing Lessons. It was a bit weird but still intriguing.

The Perfect Poison by Amanda Quick

002

The Perfect Poison is a mystery set “Late in the reign of Queen Victoria”  It was light and entertaining but didn’t want me make to want to read more of this series.

Martin Van Buren by Ted Widmer

I am working on reading at least one book about each American President. I just finished reading a short biography of Martin Van Buren, President number eight. It was interesting because a very large financial crisis, The Panic of 1837 hit right after Van Buren took office. The panic was one of the reasons that he was a one term president. Van Buren was also one of only two presidents with no college education or military service.

Van Buren deserves much of the credit for the creation of our two party system. I found the following quotes enlightening.

“evidence of opposition parties is one of the most important ways to measure the vital signs of an emerging democracy…………  Van Buren, while not a radical thinker, deserves full credit for realizing this truth ahead of his compatriots…..  Not only is the spirit of party not hostile to democract\y, it is essential to it…… there is a fundamental balance at its core – an internal gyroscope, based on brute competition – that has allowed this system to continue, with only a few modifications, from 1828 to the present. That gyroscope was built by Van Buren, and every time we ask another country to replicate it, we are paying silent homage to him.”

Ted Widmer’s Van Buren  biography was the first biography I have read from the American Presidents Series. At first I was really put off by how non academic it was. Widmer makes all sorts of contemporary references, to people like George Bush and Rush Limbaugh. But eventually I just decided to take it for what it was a light readable biography of Van Buren.