Six Word Saturday - Round II

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words 

I thought my view was gorgeous, but this is what our daughter, Amy saw on her drive to the grandsons' soccer game this morning.  Albuquerque Balloon Festival. Wow!

Six Word Saturday

A picture's worth a thousand words . . .

The view from Green Acres Friday evening wiped out every six-word phrase I was considering this week.  

Six Word Saturday is sponsored by Cate at ShowMyFace.  Want to play along?  Just describe your life (or something in it) in a phrase using exactly six words.  For more information click here.  You can add an explanation, a video, a song or nothing at all.  Visit Cate's blog to link your entry or to read all entries.

Athletes and Infantry

 Ft. Riley, home of the Army's First Infantry Division - also known as the Big Red One (check out the emblem at the entrance to the base and you'll see why) - is only eleven miles from Manhattan, home of Kansas State University.  The University has built a partnership with the Army in a number of areas, including designating one home football game each fall as Ft. Riley Day (because, seriously, what would be the point of designating an away game?  Sorry, didn't realize how stupid that sentence sounded till after I wrote it.)  This year, Ft. Riley Day fell last Saturday, Oct. 1, for the game against Baylor.  Active-duty soldiers and their families received lunch sponsored by a local car dealership, and game tickets donated by fans and the athletic department, as well as recognition during the game.  It's always a good day for a K-State game, but this one is special.

One of the traditions at K-State game is our mascot, Willie the Wildcat, doing push-ups following each score - the number of points on the board = the number of push-ups done. It has become a new tradition on Ft. Riley Day for soldiers to pour out of the stands following a touchdown to join Willie in his calisthenics.

Picture from Ft Riley Day 2010 courtesy of www.army.mil

Throughout the game, during times-out (time-outs?) or play reviews, the jumbotron screen showed Ft. Riley soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan saying hello to their families back home and cheering for the Cats.

Below is a YouTube video of the halftime show.  It's long, I know, but start the video then run get a snack, throw in a load of laundry, whatever you got that will take about six-and-a-half minutes, then come back.  At about the 3:20 point, the KSU marching band is joined by the First Infantry Division Band, and at the 6:30 mark they begin Stars and Stripes Forever.  This is the part I want you to see.  As the song ends, notice the group of soldiers carrying the large American flag as they exit to the left of the camera.



What you can't see is that these soldiers exited the stadium, carrying the flag on their shoulders, via one of the stairways through the stands - OUR section of the stands, just a few feet from where we were sitting.  Fans along both sides of the aisle, and perhaps through the stadium - I was too engrossed to notice - stood to applaud and cheer the flag and the soldiers.  I heard many shouts of "Thank you" and, I'll admit, I got a bit teary.  It was a moving, spontaneous moment.

Once the soldiers had passed, we returned to our seats until, a moment later, we heard stirrings behind us, saw parents grabbing kids by the hand (their own kids, I hope) and rushing them off to look at something.  We dashed to the top of our section to see what the hub-bub was.  The soldiers had stopped directly behind our seats to carry out a precision ceremony for folding the flag.  Forgive the grainy picture, but Dave snapped it with his dumb-phone (because - have we mentioned? - we are the last family on earth without smart-phones).  It was impressive to watch and, once again, brought a tear to my eye - for both the patriotism and respect of the routine, and the attention and awe of the crowd.

When the flag was folded to a triangle, the ends securely tucked inside, the soldiers marched out of the stadium to another round of applause - at attention the entire time, never a sideways look, never a nod or smile at the crowd.  Impressive!

Not much left to say except God Bless the U.S.A. and the soldiers who protect and defend her!

Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues by Michael Brandman

Paradise, Massachusetts, is preparing for the summer tourist season when a string of car thefts disturbs what is usually a quiet time in town. In a sudden escalation of violence, the thefts become murder, and chief of police Jesse Stone finds himself facing one of the toughest cases of his career. Pressure from the town politicians only increases when another crime wave puts residents on edge. Jesse confronts a personal dilemma as well: a burgeoning relationship with a young PR executive, whose plans to turn Paradise into a summertime concert destination may have her running afoul of the law.

When a mysterious figure from Jesse's past arrives in town, memories of his last troubled days as a cop in L.A. threaten his ability to keep order in Paradise-especially when it appears that the stranger is out for revenge.

Film and TV producer Michael Brandman, who collaborated on several of the Jesse Stone TV movies, is continuing the series begun by Robert B. Parker.  And doing so seamlessly.   The most important part of any Parker novel is the dialogue.  I would love to live in a world where everyone is as sharp and witty as his characters.  Brandman nailed the short, snappy sentences and minimalist style.  

Although plot usually takes a back seat to relationships in a Jesse Stone story, this story may have been a little more sparse than usual.  A mobster car-theft ring is foiled with a couple visits to the right people, high-school bullies and a child-molesting teacher are easily ended, even an argument with the new woman in Jesse's life (a relationship that took all of fifteen minutes to develop) is settled simply.  Even the climactic confrontation between Jesse and the bad-guy is lack-luster and over practically before it begins.

Mr. Brandman kept me turning the pages with his fun, relaxed Parker style, but left me feeling a bit underwhelmed.  I would recommend this to established Parker fans, but definitely not as a starting point in the series.  I look forward to Mr. Brandman's next effort.

Anticipating Autumn

Skipping all attempts to write something witty or original, I'm blatantly stealing today's post from The Book Case - the blog page of BookPage.  (You've probably seen BookPage magazines at the check-out counter of your favorite library - a wonderful publication filled with upcoming book releases, author interviews and all things bookish.)  An August 11th article on their blog lists their 25 Most Anticipated Books for Fall.  Several of the books listed are already on my TBR, but there were some new ones that caught my attention as well.  So here are the books I'm anticipating this fall.  Leave a comment and share your recommendations, thoughts and additions.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach - Released Sept. 7
This remarkable coming-of-age story, set at a New England college during an extraordinary baseball season, marks Harbach as a writer to watch.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - Released Sept. 13
This imaginative debut, set in a magical circus, follows two rival magicians who select champions to represent them in a deadly competition.
I've got a hold on this one at the library!

The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina - Released Sept. 26
Mina follows up Still Midnight with another mystery starring Detective Inspector Alex Morrow—who is called to investigate after a millionaire banker commits suicide.

When She Woke by Hilary Jordan - Out Today!
This novel from the author of Mudbound is sure to be big; it’s a re-telling ofThe Scarlet Letter set in the not-too-distant future.

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian - Out Today!
A pilot who has to make an emergency landing on water (think Sully) survives the crash. 39 of the 47 other people on board do not. Haunted by the past, he moves with his wife and two daughters to a rambling Victorian house in Vermont, where the haunting becomes literal. Look for shades of The Shining.

The Next Always by Nora Roberts - Coming Nov. 1st
Perennial bestseller Nora Roberts launches the Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy with The Next Always. This series is especially intriguing because it is inspired by the real Inn BoonsBoro, which Roberts bought and restored in 2007.

11/22/1963 by Stephen King - Coming Nov. 8th
After a high school teacher discovers a portal to 1958 in a diner’s back room, he sets out on a mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
Our copy is pre-ordered! Can't wait!!

For the complete list, visit The Book Case.  What's on your fall reading list?

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple-murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades-with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is remotely what it seems. - synopsis from Barnes & Noble

Although this book was published 8 years ago, it will definitely make my list of Top 10 books read this year.  I had never heard of Dennis Lehane (I know - BAD librarian!) until Mrs. Bumbles recommended him last year.  I read his most recent book, Moonlight Mile, and was hooked.  When the movie of Shutter Island came out about that same time, I thought it looked intriguing, but our daughter saw it and didn't give it glowing reviews so I decided to save my $7.  It took me a while - I'm not forty-nine anymore, you know - but when I finally made the connection between the movie and Lehane, I couldn't get to the library fast enough.  

As always, I find it difficult to write a review of a book I really loved because I either end up sounding trite or gushing like a 15-year-old with a new Justin Bieber CD.  "OMG, you've just got to, like, read this book.  It's, like, soooo totally awesome, and it's all scary and, like, tricky."  To avoid both of those things, I'll give you a couple quotes from more professional reviewers . . .

To finish the novel -- and it would be criminal even to hint at its ending -- is to be disoriented, perhaps angered, and finally to reflect on the ability of a master storyteller to play havoc with our minds. - The Washington Post

“Combines the claustrophobia of . . . Agatha Christie . . . with the creepiness of a good Stephen King yarn. . . . Good luck putting this one down. - San Francisco Chronicle

. . . and just add "like, yeah - what they said".  

Sex on the Moon by Ben Mezrich

Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA program had an idea—a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally. 
 
Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impregnable laboratory at NASA—past security checkpoints, an electronically locked door with cipher security codes, and camera-lined hallways—and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: the moon rocks.
 
But what does one do with an item so valuable that it’s illegal even to own? And was Thad Roberts—undeniably gifted, picked for one of the most competitive scientific posts imaginable, a possible astronaut—really what he seemed?
 
Mezrich has pored over thousands of pages of court records, FBI transcripts, and NASA documents and has interviewed most of the participants in the crime to reconstruct this Ocean’s Eleven–style heist, a madcap story of genius, love, and duplicity that reads like a Hollywood thrill ride. (publisher synopsis)

Mezrich's retelling of the true story of Thad Roberts' theft of 101 grams of moon rocks insists on painting Roberts as a modern-day Robin Hood who just helped himself to some scraps, that NASA itself had labeled as "trash", as a grand gesture of love towards a woman.  But I wasn't convinced.  I saw him more as self-centered and egotistical, so amazed by his own IQ that he felt "entitled".

Although based on the actual events, the book is fictionalized to read like a novel.  But as such, it was disappointing.  The pace was way too slow and it included a lot of unnecessary detail in some areas and left glaring holes in others.  Comprehensive retelling of Roberts' relationships with the women in his life and his attempts to "remake" himself filled two-thirds of the pages, but the climax of the story - the heist itself - was glossed over.  I wanted more specifics.  I understood one or two people dodging security cameras on the way in, but how did they maneuver a 600 lb. safe on a dolly past the same cameras on the way out?  How did they get it in/out of their vehicle and, later, into a dumpster?  Why dispose of a 600 lb. safe in a dumpster?  You don't think it will be noticed?  Did someone as intelligent as Roberts truly believe that borrowing the get-away vehicle from a friend wouldn't leave an obvious trail straight back to him?  How many dark colored jeeps with a NASA entrance sticker could there be?  Not to mention, I felt deceived when, after 200 pages of buildup to stealing large amounts of moon rocks from one of the most secure locations in the country, just as the theft is beginning, it is revealed in an offhand comment that the heist has been "downsized" - "Oh yeah, and we realized we were never going to pull off that theft we've been planning for the past 200 pages, so we decided just to steal a safe."  Still a major undertaking, but nothing compared to what had been promised.  The final fifty pages covered Roberts' experience in prison - all of which could have been summed up in two pages at most.  

Dave and I read this book together, and he doesn't necessarily share my opinions.  He has more interest in NASA and the astronaut program than I, so he was more easily engrossed in the details.  While he did agree that the narrative was long-winded, and that there were some questions left unanswered, his assessment isn't as negative.  "I thought the topic was interesting, but the book was just ok."

We rated it a low 3 out of 5.  While I think the story would have been better packaged as non-fiction, without the fabricated personal scenes, it wasn't a total loss.  If nothing else, it made us reexamine our awareness of current events, since neither of us was aware that this theft had ever taken place.