08.29.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:06 pm by Bridget Zinn
It has been a year since we’ve had a television. I can’t say that I’ve missed it much. I mean, we HAVE a computer (or three). It isn’t like we are devoid of entertainment. LOTS of shows are out on DVD which the library gives to us for free, along with movies, books on tape and all sorts of entertaining things. Plus, now there’s hulu, iTunes and youtube etc. TV’s are so last century.
But… suddenly there are all of these HISTORIC EVENTS going on. And we are missing out. We’re like those people who only read secondary source documents. We are anti-Pepys. We just read about the Olympics from other people who watch them. Read about Obama’s speech last night from other people who watched it. You can catch like a snippet of live video maybe here or there, but even then, it’s only after the fact.
Is missing out on historic events enough to actually break down and buy a tv? For the couple of times a year we’d need one?
Of course, there is the small issue of Barrett working for the television industry. I suppose it would be nice if he actually had access to a television.
Hmmmm…..
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08.27.08
Posted in Book Reviews, Portland at 3:30 am by Bridget Zinn
Probably I’m the only person in the world who would wholeheartedly trust the directions on the reservations.gov website. But, come on, it’s got dot gov at the end, surely the government wouldn’t LIE to me? That’s what I thought last Friday when I was still niave and trusting. BEFORE I tried to go to my online reserved campsite at Moss Creek Campground following reservations.gov directions.
The directions clearly say, “Drive 50 miles on Hwy 14 to Cook. Turn north on County Road 1000. Campground 5 miles ahead.” Something like that. So we drove 50 miles away from Vancouver on 14. Guess what? Cook is NOT 50 miles away from Vancouver. No big deal. EXCEPT that County Road 1000 also DOES NOT EXIST. So then we weren’t sure if the 50 miles direction was right or the turn north at Cook was right or what. So we tried it ALL. Plus, we drove another twenty miles in each direction just to MAKE SURE that County Road 1000 didn’t exist. It doesn’t. I’m pretty sure of this.
Finally, I called reservations.gov, waited forever on hold listening to bad music, and then informed the nice man in NY who answered that it was getting dark out on the west coast and I wanted to cancel my reservation. He was sure he could direct me to the campground with Google Earth. I’m a sucker. We gave it another go. Finally, finally, we found it — not 50 miles away from Vancouver, not one turn north out of Cook, but somewhere a couple of turns up in the hills. Of course, by then it was dark out and the idea of camping there had lost much of its appeal. It didn’t even have running water. A person needs some time to adjust to that idea and 7-11’s in the vicinity need to be open in order for that to work (there were no 7-11’s in the area, but if there had been, it would have been too late).
In my defense, I would like to say that I wasn’t able to find an actual address for this campground (okay, maybe that should have been a clue) so it wasn’t like I could mapquest it or anything.
On the plus side, the drive there (and back and forth and up and down and back again and through at least twenty tunnels) was absolutely stunning and it was sunny and the Columbia River was all sparkly and mountains would pop up here and there and the bluffs were so green and tall and wonderful and the orchards and vineyards up in the hills were so bountiful it felt like we’d left the planet and were in Mt. Olympus or something. So there’s that.
But still, I’m not betting on reservations.gov any time soon.
We went back a couple of days later to Hood River since we’d been hoping to visit from our campground — it is the cutest little town (though populated entirely by young people who seem to have some money to burn). The windsurfers there are seriously fantastic and bear no resemblance to my windsurfing in Madison, WI which was more like windfalling as I spent most of my time in hitting the water.
Hood River also has a lovely bookstore full of paperbacks. Not just books that are published in paperback but really great hardcover titles republished in paperback. So smart for a tourist town. Of course, I’d read most of the young adult titles (that is the downside of reading everything published as soon as it comes out) but I found something I’d missed before. It’s called Set in Stone by Linda Newbery and is wonderfully gothic and intriguing.
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08.20.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:43 pm by Bridget Zinn
Yes, my blog is back! I knew that blogs could go on vacation, but I had no idea about the Blog Goblins that could come along and chomp up your blog leaving you with nothing but a weird login page as though your blog had never existed at all. 
My web guys said that my blog was corrupted. The Blog Goblins weren’t happy just stealing away my blog, they had to turn it to devious underhanded activities. It came back with slicked back hair and leather, ideas about flaunting authority and singing Fight the Power.
Next month I’m going to the Kidlit Bloggers Conference. Perhaps there’ll be whole sessions on Blog Goblins and corruption. Maybe they’ll have some suggestions for taming previously corrupted blogs and turning them into respectable citizens.
While my blog was off with the Blog Goblins, I had some adventures of my own. Many thwarted attempts to get to the beach were made (how did every other person in Portland have the same idea?), a pacific northwest picnic was had — they have dungeness crabs here like Wisconsin has hotdogs, and Ramona Quimby was visited with my friend Amanda. Fun times all around. Ha! Those Blog Goblins can’t get me down!
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08.12.08
Posted in Writing at 4:30 pm by Bridget Zinn
Maybe the point of conferences is not so much to learn things, but to have fun. That seems to be mostly what I came away from the SCBWI National Conference with. Besides discovering the secret to looking perky when exhausted (cannot divulge) and being reminded in Jay Asher’s session that The Monster at the End of This Book is a great book (EVERY single time I think, No, Grover, No! Don’t do it! Don’t turn the page. And I’ve read the book MANY, MANY times at this point), I mostly just had a super fun time. And got to see great people I don’t get to see very often. It looks like Judy took way more photos than I did and you can find them here.
I did get a good one of the WI-ites before the Red Ball.
Since last weekend I’ve learned another valuable lesson (on life):
The combination of being afraid of heights and having wee calves does NOT work well for hiking up mountains. It’s okay on the way up because mostly you see the trail in front of you and the mountain, plus your legs are still going strong. But on the way down when your super wimpy calves start to give out on you and you’re looking OUT at the view because you’re turned away from the mountain on your way down, it can only lead to disaster. It is shocking that I, of the Wimpy Calved Height Fearing contingent, survived our last hike.
Here’s a view from our climb on Saturday.
I think it’s easier when you climb things in the dark. Climbing up behind the Hollywood sign my first night in LA wasn’t too bad. Probably more dangerous though.
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08.08.08
Posted in Writing at 5:25 pm by Bridget Zinn
The SCBWI National Conference was so, so, so, so, so fun, even though it may have killed me. Every muscle in my brain got a workout. Smiling muscles too. Lots of smiling. Once I get my pics together I’ll post some.
Some things I learned from the conference:
-Bruce Coville is quite a dancer as it turns out
-Arthur Levine sneaks around all low-key in a hooded sweatshirt which can cause innocent girls like me to be just a bit mean to them as they would to anyone else who was so slow in the buffet line (which these innocent girls would never do if they knew who it was because, come on, who can be mean to the man who brought us HP? Even when he really, really deserved it for keeping a poor starving girl from her taco fixings)
-Jay Asher makes a good Elvis
-There are a lot of fun people in this industry
-Also, a few crazy ones (this is a very small segment and most may have missed it all together — I might be one of the few who accidentally got in the path of the youth hating contingent)
You know, these are not the sorts of lessons I should probably have come away with. In fact, this all sounds a lot more like gossip. I’m sure I got something more tangible, useful, and literary out of it. I just can’t seem to think what right at the moment.
My brain hasn’t recovered from the conference work out yet.
Which is why I have to say Thank God for Stephenie Meyer. I know there has been some controversy over Breaking Dawn and not everyone likes it, but this book was THE most perfect thing for someone suffering from post conference brain melt disorder. I got completely sucked into the book. That’s not to say that I was totally on board with everything in the book (the cynic in me couldn’t help but laugh at the “perfectness” of the first couple of chapters), but it just didn’t matter. It took me away and that was just where I needed to be while my brain regenerated. And it really is a totally new and different book from the first three which I really appreciated too. I almost missed my flight home because of this book. I forgot where I was until they paged me to get on the plane so they could shut the doors. I was completely and totally immersed. What more could an author ask for, really?
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