Snow

Once again I find myself in the middle of the desert, during what I consider to be spring, and it is snowing. Two days ago it was shorts, t-shirt, and sunburn weather. Today large flakes of frozen water are drifting en masse from the sky and seemingly doing it with a will. The weather band news is predicting ground accumulation, which doesn't happen often here. Is this it? Is this the end? Probably not, but take it from one who's on location, hell is apparently freezing over.

The Blue Planet

I just started a new nightime class where we are watching a series production titled "The Blue Planet". I can't remember if it was done by the Discovery Channel or National Geographic or someone else, but the first episode was very impressive. It's all about the ocean and contains some really impressive scenes. The first episode was a general overview that took us up the food chain from phytoplankton to the great whales.

It was really cool to watch sharks swim through huge masses of sardines and how the sardines would scatter in the immediate vicinity to create pockets of space around where the sharks were swimming. The sardines were so dense that you could follow the path of the sharks from an arial view by watching the streaks of clear water that wove through the sardine mass. It's amazing those fish never run into each other. We also learned about how the dolphins use fences of air bubbles to herd the sardines into even tighter groups and force them to the surface where it's easier for the dolphins to eat them. We also saw the birds that would follow along the surface and then dive down to catch the sardines after the dolphins had herded them to the surface. It was impressive to watch hundreds of birds dive all at the same time into the ocean. It looked like it was raining birds. It was sad though to watch a pod of killer whales work together to first separate a grey whale calf from its mother and then drown it so they could eat it.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

The 10th Kingdom

Many years ago while I was perusing the available titles at 3D Video (a movie rental store), I came across one titled The 10th Kingdom. It was a television mini-series produced by Hallmark incorporating fairy tale characters such as Snow White, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, etc. I am a fan of reading long books in long series, especially in the science fiction and fantasy genres. So naturally I am also a fan of things such as television mini-series where each episode is not a show all by itself but just one chunk of the ongoing storyline. I decided to rent it -- much to the dismay of various family members who shall remain un-named but whose first initial is Jared -- and I am glad I did. I will admit that it's nothing spectacular, but it is cute and entertaining. Being only about 7 hours long, I have ever since suggested it as a candidate for Christmas Eve viewing. Disappointingly my family has always felt disinclined to agree. I did get Wendy to watch it with me. Once.

The other day I was perusing the book selection in the library here and what did I find? Yep, you guessed it. The 10th Kingdom, in paperback, ready for me to read and relive all over again. So I have now read it and can report that it wasn't too bad. The tv show was better though. So while I recommend the show over the book, they are both decent family friendly entertainment.