Showing posts with label Ransom Riggs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ransom Riggs. Show all posts

Monday, October 19, 2015

In Search Of. . . Written Words: Books I'm Reading


So, after reading so much, I've been kind of off books for the past month. This came up and I still wasn't reading, but I thought it would be a good time to decide what book to read. 
I could read the third book from Ransom Riggs. 
Which would be good. I might do that. 

Or 
I could continue reading Michael Crichton. He's one of my favorite authors. I would probably read The Great Train Robbery. 
You guys tell me which.

As Always,

Friday, October 16, 2015

In Search Of. . . Observations: Link Love

So, I started thinking about how to do this one. I thought maybe I would it topically, but then it might be too confusing. I think I'll do it by where the social media type that I follow specifically. A lot of these I follow in more than one place. 

To start: 
YouTube: 
It's kind of embarrasing how many things I follow on YouTube. Or at least it is too me. 
However, I have several favorites from there. 
I follow three Ispy stylists


Then, you have the rest of them.


Facebook people I follow:


Tumblr people I follow


Various other things
 Story Monster by Heather Dixon
 Lackadaisy Hilarous comic


Those are most of the links that I love. 
As Always,











Friday, October 9, 2015

In Search Of. . . Adventure: A Day in the Life Of

In Search Of. . . Adventure: A Day in the Life Of

So, some weeks ago I planned to go to the final event for Ransom Riggs' tour. He's the author of
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It's just enough creepy for me.
The book signing, which was the final event, would take place in Los Angeles, California. I had made up my mind to go. I've never been further than Arizona, and this would provide me a reason.
Coincidentally, it also landed on the Day in the Life of theme as well, which works in both our favors since my life can be fairly boring.
Now, I didn't get to see Ransom Riggs of have him sign my copy of The Library of Souls, because I'm an idiot, but I did get to have a great time.
Since my video skills are heretofore, still lacking, I'll show you guys my day in pictures and captions.

We begin the day with my luggage and my car.
 It was only a day trip, but I had two bags anyway. All my stuff has a tendency to melt and spill or do other damaging things in my bags. I lost an entire bottle of face toner that way. So if I can help it, they go in a separate bag from anything I want to keep safe.

So then we drove.. It's roughly 8 hours from my house to LA, which isn't too bad.
Here's some scenery along the way.

Yes, it's all desert, but very few things in life beat that blue sky. It was a great day for driving. Cloudless.

So if any of you follow me on Instagram you'll recognize my car make up before and after. I like to do my make up in the car because it helps me pass the time. I wasn't driving by the way. I was the passenger. 
As I look at the picture though, I realize my make up is too orange for my face. Oh well, I'm almost out and can get new stuff anyway. 

Finally, we crossed the state line, and officially have been across America. 
And since I like scenery, although most of it looks the same. Here's some more pictures 

I finally got to see LA from far away. Not sure why I was so excited to see a city. I live in one. Maybe just because that meant I could get out of the car.


Well, after enduring traffic, we got to the hotel, which for whatever reason I didn't get a picture of front. It was the Benvonshire Motel on Beverly Ave. My dad, who was my travel buddy, found it for $99.00. It was clean, and in a really central location, especially when I thought I was going to meet Ransom Riggs.  
I'm going to rant about traffic. I hate it when there's ten cars that impede my way to work in the morning. I dread when snowbirds and school start, because I like having the road mostly to myself. In other words, I avoid traffic, when on the rare occasion we have it. I don't live in a small one-horse town, but LA was  just too much traffic for my road rage. The stop and go. I thank you, but no.
Rant over. Back to the day.

So the hotel. Clean neat little place. It had a cool little mural on the wall across the street of people taking pictures. I thought it would humorous, if I took a picture of it.
Here's the pictures I did take of the hotel. And the last one is soap. I thought it was chocolate when I first saw it. I mean come on. That wrapper with the brown? Doesn't it look like chocolate. (Although, why someone would put chocolate in the bathroom is beyond me.) 

So after we changed, Dad and I went down to the Santa Monica Pier and ate seafood. Over the years,
It was really cool to see the little fair and street performers. Plus, that is the end of Route 66. I got a little commemorative key chain to add to my burgeoning collection.

I've spent a fair amount of time on the Gulf Coast, so when I moved to an entirely land locked state, I stopped eating seafood out. I could cook the same thing at home, better for half the price. Now, going to a coastal city. I had to eat seafood.
I did. We went to Bubba Gump Shrimp, which is an idea taken from the movie Forest Gump. It was  really good food. Dad got the seafood platter, and I got the coconut shrimp. I should have taken a picture of the signs they had to get the waiter's attention. One was red, and said "Stop, Forest, Stop." When you needed them. The other was green and said "Run Forest Run." Of course, the first thing I did was knock it down, but it was a fast fix.
After that, we went down to the beach and walked in the water. At that point, I could say I have been coast to coast. Atlantic to Pacific. So much excite, my life is now complete. Not really, but that goal is.
see that's me in the water. It was dark so we couldn't go swimming, obviously. Another side note, this sand does not have bio-luminescence like some sand does. It's also brown, and actually exfoliating with out being fine powder. 

So after that, it was late and we were tired. We decided to head back to the hotel. I went to be almost right away. 

So that was a really awesome day in my life. Rather, fortuitous. ;) 
Here's a parting gift of the lights from the fair on the water. 
  

Coming Soon, weekend highlights. 

As Always, 

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

In Search Of. . . Written Words: Miss Peregrine's home for Peculiar Children



Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs
We cling to our fairy tales until the price of believing them becomes too high.
~Jacob

Jacob Portman grew up devouring the bizarre stories his grandfather told him about growing up with peculiar children and fighting monsters. As a worshiping child, Jacob believed him. Then, finding that his grandfather had created a fairy tale life to explain the horrors of WWII to himself, Jacob stopped believing. Besides, stories about super strong children, floating girls, and invisible boys just couldn't be true, could they?
When his grandfather calls him in a panic, 16 year old Jacob goes to calm him down. He finds Grandpa Portman dying in the woods with a cryptic message. Then he sees it—the monster from his grandfather’s stories.
The trauma triggers night terrors and anxiety that prompts Jacob’s parents to take him to a psychiatrist, Dr. Golan. He urges Jacob to seek out his grandfather’s past, so that he can confront reality. His search leads him to the Welsh island of Cairnholm. Then Jacob must separate the truth from the lies. 
Allow Ransom Riggs to haunt you with his tale of monsters and peculiar children. He intertwines the story with actual photographs from the past, giving it a three dimensional feel of reality. The eerie Tim Burton-esque quality enthralls readers, scintillating them with the answers to the unexplained oddities we find in sepia-toned snapshots.

I rarely read any book more than once and enjoy it. This proved to be an exception. I read it a second time to refresh myself on the story before I dove into the Hollow City. I love this book just as much the second time if not more. This time instead of watching the story unfold, I could pick up on the small details that foreshadowed what was to come.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is definitely worth a read or twenty.



Here's the Book Trailer:



As always,