So my oldest daughter is a University Graduate

At 10:00 this morning my family headed to our local university to watch our oldest daughter's Convocation ceremony.

It was pretty darn awesome.

Although I don't necessarily feel old enough to have a University-graduate daughter, it doesn't really matter, as I now have a University graduate daughter.

And I couldn't be more proud.

Bookmonkey vs. Aerobics

About two months into my healthy living and I was getting kind of frustrated; although I was still eating well and had increased my walking and stair climbing (I’m up to 50 flights a day, three times a week, eventually hoping to get that elusive 250 flights in a day badge from UWalk.ca) but I had pretty much stopped in terms of weight loss. Starting at 254 back in April, I dropped to 241 by May 5th and pretty much stayed exactly there through the rest of the month.

Talking to a couple of my coworkers about it, they informed me I had probably plateaued and would be best served by a change up in my exercise regime. So I decided to give aerobics a try, and swung over to my local branch of epl to see what they had to offer. At first I came across a lot of super-fit folks looking angry or extremely intense, neither of which is something I’m really interested in dealing with while exercising.

And then I saw this guy.

And decided, what the heck, at least he isn’t frowning, and how hard could it be?

So twenty minutes into my first run through of Sweating to the Oldies, and I was huffing and puffing and feeling the beginning of a stitch in my side.

The workout was a lot of fun (I think I was grinning about two minutes into the set – darn you and your infectious smile Richard Simmons), and by the end although I was definitely feeling it, I couldn’t help but think, Yeah – I could do this for the next month.

So we’ll see how well the program works for me in June and I’ll check back in with you at the beginning of July!

Book Review: The Harp of the Grey Rose

Moving onto my third Charles de Lint novel, I've finally found one that I simply loved beginning to end.  The Harp of the Grey Rose (1985) follows a pretty straight forward fantasy fiction storyline; a young man meets a mysterious woman, sets out on a quest, and ends up having a significant destiny.

Even with that, however, the story moved along swiftly and like an excellent fairy tale, kept me either smiling at the great characterization or enthralled by the action sequences.  Having been a little underwhelmed by his first two books, but hanging on as my wife kept telling me that his later books would be right up my alley, I was happy to find this third book was pretty much bang on in terms of what I expect from quest-based fantasy fiction; swift, filled with great descriptions, and intriguing characters (my personal favourite, a bear who also serves as a harper himself).

A great read and strongly recommended.

Genre Character of the week: Nathan Byrn

So recently I've been enjoying reading a lot of the books my youngest daughter is reading, including the Divergent series (one more to go!) and all sorts of others, but a pretty cool one I just finished was the novel Half Bad, by Sally Green.

This Dark Fantasy novel follows a sixteen-year-old boy called Nathan Byrn, who happens to be a son of both a white witch and a black witch.  In the world of the novel, this appears to be one of the worst situations you could find yourself in.

Growing up in a world ow White Witches who rule every aspect of his life with Draconian Measures, Nathan becomes a pretty angry young teen (which, to be fair, is how most people would turn out if raised by people who disliked them in a society that barely tolerates them).

In the world of the novel, there is a massive preoccupation with the possibility that Nathan may grow up into a Black Witch, who would then have to be hunted down and killed by society at large.

As a guy who grew up half native and half white, there's a lot I can relate to in Nathan, a feeling of not quite fitting in and a fear that I wouldn't really be accepted by either side.

The story moves at a very quick pace, and although there were some sections that required a little suspension of disbelief, Nathan is a very relatable young man and I am definitely interested in seeing how his life turns out over the rest of the series as it comes out.

Although the book may be too dark for Elementary or Junior High aged kids, I think High School readers might get a lot out of it.

Book Review: The Martian, by Andy Weir

So let's talk about The Martian, by Andy Weir.

I actually first came across this book in a local book store on the Staff Picks wall.  Having never heard of Andy Weir (who actually e-published this book a few years back), I simply looked at the cover and thought - you know what?  I don't read enough contemporary science fiction.  I'm pretty great at classic SF, but the recent stuff is all sort of hit and miss with me.

So I cracked open this book on Saturday morning and within about ten pages I was hooked - think (minor spoiler here) Castaway mixed with Apollo 13 and you can get a pretty good idea what to expect from the novel.

The novel itself focuses on a Botanist/Engineer accidentally left behind on a Mars mission (again, sorry for the mild, chapter 1 spoiler), and his attempts to survive on Mars until he can be rescued.

First of all, considering the book is pretty much the definition of hard SF (Science fiction focusing on scientific or technical detail) I was really blown away by just how readable the book was, it felt an awful lot like Scalzi's Old Man's War or Wilson's Robopocalypse for sheer page-turning enjoyment.

If you haven't picked up any SF in a while, it would really be a pretty great place to start, the story is fun, fast paced and definitely thrilling.  I will absolutely be keeping an eye out for what Mr. Weir comes out with next.

Catching Up to my PVR

As the 2013/14 TV season comes to a close and my free time has been on the rise since finishing school, I'm happy to say I'm finally almost down to 50% of the space on my PVR finally being clear.

Which is pretty great as I now have the luxury to choose from the many different series I've had waiting on DVD for a while now.

Having just finished with season two of The Americans (which should definitely be on everyones "to watch" list), my wife and I are now catching up with both Mad Men (only three more episodes until we're up to date) and Grimm (we still have 14 episodes to go, dating back to January 3!)

In the end, I'm currently enjoying a surplus of free time and am finally starting to catch up on my entertainment wish list.

Game Review: Dead Space 3

As a quick side note before I get into this review, I'd like to thank The Parched Page for the loan of the game - having read about my excitement over Dead Space 2, he very kindly sent me his copy of Dead Space 3, and although it didn't end up working (I have a PS3 and it was an X-Box copy), I appreciate the loan none the less - also it showed me just how cool bloggers can be.

On to the game - Like many series, I was intrigued by the first, fell in love with the second, and wanted to like the third a little more than I actually did.  Dead Space was such a creepy, terrifying story which mixed fast zombies and a very Aliens-style vibe to create a truly terrifying story.

Dead Space 2, was a strong follow up, had a lot of sequences that were pretty fantastic (and also horrible), and had some sequences that were really interesting on a more cerebral level as well.

Dead Space 3 (and to be fair, I didn't take advantage of two key aspects - the co-play feature or building my own weapons), put much of the action on a single planet, which took away from the zombies-in-space feeling i liked so much from the first two, and the addition of cultist enemies didn't feel quite right to me - I prefer the man vs. environment vibe of the earlier games, this just del like adding a new enemy class to the game.  I did like the new enemies that moved incredibly fast - they were both strange and challenging.

In the end the game was fun, but I felt a bit of a let down compared to the first two.  A good few weeks of play but I'm not sure I'd revisit it for a while.