September readings

Yes I know! It's almost October and I'm only now putting up my reading list from September but if I leave it another day then it WILL be November and I'd have to publish the October list as well! So here goes the summary:

• Dead Sleep (Greg Iles)
• The Amtrak Wars bk 5 (Patrick Tilley) - can't remember the full title
• Tears of the Giraffe (Alexander McCall Smith)
• The Amtrak Wars bk 6: Earth-Thunder (Patrick Tilley)
• Colours in the Steel (K J Parker)
• Night Watch (Terry Pratchett)
• 24 Hours (Greg Iles)
• The Belly of the Bow (K J Parker)
• Unnatural Exposure (Patricia Cornwell) - after I'd started it I realised I'd read it before but finished it anyway

Not as many books that month - I've been busy doing other stuff.

Favourite book was 'Colours in the Steel', worst book was 'The Belly of the Bow', both by KJ Parker. The first book was the first in the series and I thought it was an exciting book but the 2nd one really lost that excitement. I only finished it because I thought the 3rd one might be more exciting (but it wasn't).

There was a bit much of an emphasis on SF this month, which I've managed to even out in Oct. Also, all the books were novels and that may have been the reason for stopping reading for a while - I'd overdosed on them. Interesting to look back at what I'd been reading.

Challenge accepted

Last week Scrap Pea & I discussed how we hadn't been updating our blogs. As we were at a Photography Club meeting we decided that we needed to challenge ourselves and at the same time, put something up on our blog. So we set ourselves a small challenge - to tell a story using photos. Of course, I've left it to the last minute to do (we promised that we'd have it up by Mon) so mine is a very simple story.

Touristy bus tour in L.A., Oct 2006:


On my way to the UK last year (via L.A.), my mother & I were delayed for a day. We decided to take advantage of the delay and do a 1/2 day tourist tour to give us a taster of L.A. rather than sitting around at a very boring airport hotel.
Our first stop was Venice Beach. To my poor, sleep deprived eyes it was so glarey I could hardly see and the above photo really does not show how white the sand was, nor how hot it was even though it was only about 8.30am.

There was virtually no-one around at that time of the morning - just some bums that had been sleeping rough. We'd just had a 9/11 memorial installed in Christchurch so it was interesting to come across this memorial here.
On the way back to the (air conditioned) bus, I spotted this huge cactus/succulent. So unlike anything we have back in NZ.
Racing around in the bus I kept seeing these trees. I still have no idea of what they are but found them totally fascinating. I think I've posted this photo before because I can now see where Dr Seuss got his ideas for all his weird vegetation. It wasn't made up - he just looked out his window!
We did the usual touristy stuff of visiting a market and the celebrity walk. Also had the joy of visiting a bank to change money. We weren't expecting to spend any time in the US so we had absolutely no US dollars. I managed to change some Australian money to US (after visiting two banks) so we could buy some food and water. The bus driver had warned us about dehydration and boy, was he ever right.
Then, as we raced back to the hotel, we passed all these oil pumps that were what caused L.A. to be built where it was.

So there you have it - a 5 second snap shot tour of my one and only L.A. experience. I found the tour fantastic and really want to go back to have a good look around. Just haven't managed it yet.