After looking over the DIY bubble wand options that are available online, I had to find a better way. The other DIY wands were either very large circles (six-pack rings) or rope hoops. I needed something with a fixed diameter and/or rigid design. I finally found two ways to make cheap, household, rigid (slightly flexible) bubble wands.

Well, another spring's Jack's Camp has come and gone. There were a total of 16 family in attendance for this wonderful camp. Of the 16 families, 4 were "new". There were some truly new family who were introduced to the "welcoming influence" that everyone shares at camp. Two families were newish, one hadn't been to camp for 3 years, but they came back and had fun.

I am back at work today and thinking again about my priorities. There were some missing campers who will hopefully be back for more camps. Work is going to be moved down the priority list and life has been moved up the list.

It has been four years since my first and second surgeries to remove the tumor growing into my brain stem, crushing my pituitary and squeezing my right 6th cranial nerve. One more year of active life that I would not have had without great doctors and excellent technology. If my MRI scan looks good again, then I might be able to move on to MRI scans only once every two years.

Just one more year for my five year anniversary. That will be a big day for me.

Certain servers have some ebook channels for sharing epubs and other formats.

Oh man! I finally bought this album from Amazon MP3 store. It has been many years since I have had a chance to listen to the whole thing--my first copy was a cassette tape. I forgot how much I love this album. "The Reality Of My Surroundings" and "truth and Soul" are two albums that really stretched my idea of what a band could do. They truly pressed outside of the strictly ska background, reaching into Soul, Funk, R&B and Thrash.

#!/bin/sh
find . -name '* *' | while read file;
do
target=`echo "$file" | sed "s/ /_/g"`;
if [ -f $target ]
then
echo "File Exists: $target";
else
echo "Renaming '$file' to '$target'";
mv "$file" "$target";
fi
done;

As always, it was a good year. Spent time with both sides of the family. We had to take our puppies with us--Jak Jak had kennel cough. Ate too much food, had too many laughs, had too little time with my brother, but it was a good time. My nephew broke his arm and had to go to the ER, he is doing well now.

In the history of the award, one award was given to adult and children's liturature until 1992 when an award was given to both classes.

•1971 The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
•1972 Red Moon and Black Mountain by Joy Chant
•1973 The Song of Rhiannon by Evangeline Walton
•1974 The Hollow Hills by Mary Stewart
•1975 A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson
•1981 Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien
•1982 Little, Big by John Crowley
•1983 The Firelings by Carol Kendall
•1984 When Voiha Wakes by Joy Chant
•1985 Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen
•1986 Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
•1987 The Folk of the Air by Peter Beagle
•1988 Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
•1989 Unicorn Mountain by Michael Bishop
•1990 The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers
•1991 Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner

Finally! This year we had a great turnout for Trick-or-Treat. There have been many new families moving into the neighborhood. Maybe next year I will decorate the lawn with tombstones and other Halloween stuff.

I have not been consistent with keeping my reading list up-to-date on my website. Here are some of the books I have read in the last month or so.

Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
The Good, the Bad, the Uncanny - Simon R. Green
A Hard Days Knight - Simon R. Green
The Last Apprentice - Revenge of the Witch - Joseph Delaney
The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee
Sealab - Ben Hellwarth
The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

Some of the books I am reading now or will read shortly.

The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
The Bride Wore Black Leather - Simon R. Green
The Last Apprentice: Curse of the Bane - Joseph Delaney
A Separate War and Other Stories - Joe Haldeman