Luggage and Literature

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. - St. Augustine

Friday Five 9-14-2018

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After quite a LONG hiatus, this is the thirty-sixth installment in my sorta weekly series, called the Friday Five. In this series, I’ll tell you about five random things that I love, whether they be books, travel, music, movies…or whatever. So without further ado, 9-14-2018’s Friday Five!

1–Key West. Mike and I are going to Key West in November, so I was quite pleased to see this guide to frugal activities in Key West. I’m sure we’ll take part in a few of these when we visit.

2–Florida Scuba Diving. And for the trip to Key West, as well as for future trips to Florida, I might find this post from Alex in Wanderland helpful.

3–A gospel choir. This video from the Proclamation Gospel Choir at Olivet Nazarene University gave me goosebumps, and I’ve watched it several times. I hope you’ll give it a watch/listen.

4–The moon. I’m an astronomy buff, and have been since childhood. I found this video of the full rotation of the moon to be riveting. And unless my travel dreams come true and I get to go into space, this is the closest that I’ll ever come to seeing the moon from anywhere but terra firma.

5–Skating on Thin Ice. I wish it weren’t true, but fall is here and winter is around the corner. This video from National Geographic is beautiful, and shows that winter isn’t all bad.

Friday Five 4-28-2017

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This is the twenty-sixth installment in my weekly series, called the Friday Five. In this series, I’ll tell you about five random things that I love, whether they be books, travel, music, movies…or whatever. So without further ado, 4-28-2017’s Friday Five!

1–Hilma Hooker. Mike dove this wreck when we were in Bonaire. It was his favorite of the trip. Reading about the history of the ship here was quite fascinating.

2–Carnegie Libraries. Modern Mrs. Darcy wrote about Carnegie libraries here. There are Carnegie libraries in every place that I’ve ever lived, so I really have a soft spot for them. The architecture is always beautiful, and the whole concept is just amazing.

3–Hotel Alex Johnson. I’m from Rapid City, so this article about the Hotel Alex Johnson jumped out at me. I’ve never stayed at the allegedly haunted hotel, but now I want to!

4–Nuclear meltdown. Nuclear power is endlessly intriguing to me. I recently had the opportunity to tour the local Becton Dickinson manufacturing plant (they make insulin needles) with the Young Professionals group. During the tour, they confirmed for me that the plant has a nuclear reactor, which is used in part to sterilize the product. They didn’t let us see it, but described the room and the pools used to cool the reactor. So when I stumbled across this article about an intentional nuclear power meltdown, I couldn’t help but read it. Check it out if you want to learn more.

5–Earth from Saturn. As regular readers probably know, I’m quite a space/astronomy buff. So the photos of Earth (and the moon) as viewed from the Cassini Orbiter through Saturn’s rings just fascinates me endlessly.

Friday Five 7-15-2016

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Five.This is the eleventh installment in my weekly series, called the Friday Five. In this series, I’ll tell you about five random things that I love, whether they be books, travel, music, movies…or whatever. So without further ado, 7-15-2016’s Friday Five!

1–A new laptop. Guys, I’m a big nerd. Like, I think OfficeMax is one of my favorite stores. So getting a new laptop is sort of a big deal to me. And I love putting all of my programs on it, and getting it set up just the way I like. Super exciting! And if you’re curious, this is the one that I picked out. Asus computers are my favorite. I’ve never had any problems with them and this one is my fourth laptop (plus Mike has had two of their tablets), so that’s a pretty good streak as far as I’m concerned.

2–A Simple Taste for Reading. I’ve been reading Sierra’s blog for a couple of years or so. It’s a great place to get detailed reviews of interesting books, as well as author interviews. If you have a few minutes, check out her site or subscribe to it in your favorite feed reader, so that you don’t miss her future posts.

3–Astronauts. This Washington Post article about astronauts who are suffering from a mysterious eye problem after spending lengthy periods of time aboard the International Space Station is fascinating. It’s incredible to me that we know so much about our world, but continue to discover new mysteries daily. Hopefully medicine will be able to solve this one, although, as the article points out, it may require dangerous testing to be performed in space.

4–Vacation to Get a Raise. Apparently the US has been declining when it comes to the amount of vacation time that employees take. Which is strange, considering this statistic: “People who took fewer than 10 of their vacation days per year had a 34.6% likelihood of receiving a raise or bonus in a three-year period of time. People who took more than 10 of their vacation days had a 65.4% chance of receiving a raise or bonus.” You can read more over at Lawyerist.

5–Stranger Things. This Netflix Original show just premiered today. And I’m one episode in, but guys, I’m loving this show! It’s set in the 1980s, and is reminiscent of Stephen Spielberg and Steven King.

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