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I can’t believe I’ve managed to do half a month of the August blogging challenge so far!

Today’s post is photos of my hometown. I’m lucky enough to live in Austin, Texas, a great city for food, music, education, technology, and all-around fun! Yes, it can get beastly hot in the summers, but the winters are usually mild and the spring and fall are often quite lovely. We’re especially proud of our amazing wildflowers in the spring!

I wasn’t organized enough to pull together a bunch of around town photos, so I’ll post a couple of night time shots, one from the top of my building at work and one from just south of the river that runs through town. In the top photo, you’re looking south towards downtown Austin from the roof of Robert Lee Moore Hall which houses the Physics, Math, and Astronomy programs. Most of the buildings in the foreground are part of the University of Texas (my alma mater and my employer). The view is a little hazy because central Texas had had an influx of dust from the Sahara that week. (Yes, the big African desert – Austin is the same latitude as Cairo and the jet stream can carry dust right across the globe!) In the second photo, the thing off to the right is a full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope (launching in a few years) that was brought to Austin during the weeks of craziness in March known as South By Southwest.

Just like with five favorite books post for the August blogging challenge, narrowing down my favorite movies to just five is tough. The first three are no-brainers, but about a dozen or so things could go in the the last couple of slots. So here are my five — for today!

* Star Wars (the whole saga from 1977 to 2005 and future movies to come!)

* The Wizard of Oz (1939)

* The Philadelphia Story (1940)

* The Avengers (2012)

* Ghostbusters (1984)

I was having a hard time thinking of something to post when all of a sudden it occurred to me that one of my favorite ghost stories isn’t from a book or movie, it’s a song. Specifically the song She Moved Through the Fair. I didn’t even realize until after several listenings that the “she” of the song is dead, so when the singer dreams of her coming to him at the end, it’s really her ghost.

The first version of the song I encountered was by Loreena McKennitt on her album Elemental and it is still my favorite rendition. Here’s You Tube video with it, embedded below:

[edited to add: the video I originally linked to here was removed, but if you search for the song on YouTube, you’ll find several great versions.]

I’m sure that this is one that a lot of us in the August blog challenge will have trouble with, because this is a pretty book-crazy bunch and it will be hard to narrow down to five!

These are all the first lines of the first chapter, skipping any prologue or introductions.

So, here are the five I chose:

“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”
– Cosmos by Carl Sagan

“Her path to the Tower wound back beyond her birth, to the chance meeting of man and a woman more than a quarter of a century before that windswept April night of her imprisonment.”
– Legacy by Susan Kay

“Taran wanted to make a sword; but Coll, charged with the practical side of his education, decided on horseshoes.”
– The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
– Harry Potter and the Philospher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
– The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

(The last three are the first books in a series of books, of course, and are really representing whole series that I love.)

I really feel bad leaving off a Neil Gaiman book, but it would have been hard to choose one since I love all his books. And I’m sure there are other favorites that I’ve completely forgotten for one reason or another.

Continuing with the August blogging challenge. I’m doing Sunday’s topic today since I’ll have a different regularly scheduled blog post that day. Today’s scheduled topic was supposed to be a regret, but I honestly don’t have any big regrets and my small regrets aren’t all that interesting (except maybe one I’ll mention below, which ties in to one of my earliest memories).

I was born in 1972 and my earliest memories date from 1976, when I was four. I have some vague recollections of celebrations of the Bicentennial but I can’t remember anything concrete of that. I do however remember seeing the 1976 “King Kong” re-make. The funny thing is that my one clear memory from it was that I was excited to go to the movies because I could get the Reese’s peanut butter cups candy that had THREE of the cups instead of the regular two. But I do remember liking the movie. (I’m at least a second generation monster movie fan – see previous blog post on guilty pleasures and cheesy Sci-Fi movies – although I have a suspicion that my mom got it from her father, so I’m probably the third generation.) Because of that movie, I wanted to visit New York to see the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, which Kong climbed in that version. I also wanted to visit New York at that age because that’s where Sesame Street is, but that’s another story. 🙂 And that’s where my regret mentioned above comes in – I didn’t managed to visit New York until 2006, after it was too late to see the Towers. At least I did get to visit the famous landmark that other on-screen versions of Kong have climbed, the Empire State Building.

My other memory that I think dates from 1976 as well was visiting my grandmother’s classroom for her retirement party. I mostly remember that because her students spoiled me rotten with attention (and I vaguely remember cake being involved) and it being decorated with a bunch of red, white, and blue things.

So, they aren’t the most exciting early memories, but they are happy ones.

More in the August blogging challenge…

I admit that I don’t have a lot of guilty pleasures – in that *I* don’t feel very guilty in taking pleasure in them. But others might try to make me feel guilty about them so I guess they still count. 🙂

For foods – McDonald’s french fries. Part of the reason I don’t feel too guilty about them is that I eat them in moderation. But I do love a yummy, hot, crunchy fry.

For music – 80s pop and hair band rock. Again, I don’t feel guilty about enjoying it, it’s the music of my youth (from 8 to 17 – my formative years).

For movies – any cheesy Sci-Fi. Probably part of the reason that I’m a huge MST3K fan!

I’m sure there are others, but those are the ones that sprung to mind!

Next in the blog challenge – a favorite quote. I actually have lots of quotes that I like for various reasons (and to use in various situations), but this has always been a favorite of mine and many others who are fans of earth and space exploration:

Continuing on with the August blog challenge…

I wish I could sing really well. I was in choir in elementary school and I was decent enough at holding a note that the music teacher would put the new people next to me, but I didn’t continue with it in junior high and beyond, opting for band instead (I played clarinet for those who are curious). So now my singing is limited to the shower and car where only I can hear it. 🙂