Book one in the Percy Jackson series
Writing for both the adult and young adult (YA) successfully is difficult, though many authors are trying to cross that gap these days. Stephenie Meyer of the Twilight series tried to move to adult fiction with The Host, which was close to a Stargate clone and not very satisfying; Ms. Rowling of Harry Potter fame is trying to do it with The Tales of Beetle the Bard (the book is not yet out, so the the jury is still out).
But the best ‘cross-over artist’ I’ve come across so far is Rick Riordan, whose Percy Jackson YA books are just as entertaining as his adult Tres Navarre series. The fact that he is a Texas author and hails from my home town of San Antonio makes the gloating that much better. (more…)
Since it is reputably the most practiced form of Taijiquan, finding English language books 
on Yang style Taijiquan is pretty straightforward; there are several, particularly by Dr. Yang, Jwing-ming that one can refer to. But it is more difficult to find a Chen style Taijiquan book. Mark Chen’s book Old Frame Chen Family Taijiquan fills a large part of that void; though a large part of the book (90 pages out of 220) is taken up with descriptions and photos of the First Form of Chen style old frame, the rest of the material and some of the postures and movements from the old frame descriptions were very useful.
There are several sections of the book that alone are worth the price, particularly the section on Tajiquan basics. (more…)
Our son is a senior in high school, his sister has long since graduated college and is, of course, taking the world by storm. As we look forward a different life, to the changes that our empty-nester period will bring (assuming they do not come home to roost, and we have encouraged them not to with threats of skinny dipping and smoking hookah (family inside joke)), we are walking through a lot of “Last Firsts”:
- Last first day of school (true, there is college, but mom won’t be snapping pictures as he walks out of his dorm room….we hope);
- Last first high school football game of the season (we’re there for the band, we even got to walk out on the field for senior parent day. Sadly, the football team is vastly undersized compared to their opponents);
- Last marching band contest; at the area finals, an all day event, where the band finished higher than any in the high school’s history;
- Last first homecoming date; obviously, the mom gets more excited than the son about homecoming, and my son adds a measure of excitement by having homecoming be the first date with a new girl each of th
e last three years…the boy is adventurous, it will serve him well;
- Last first senior picnic; they played in the mud, somthing we should all do more of; ‘nuf said.
- Last first Tomball High School patriotic show; for 28 years in a row, Tomball HS has put on this halftime patriotic show, featuring the high school+2 middle school
bands, choir, flags and theme songs from all armed services (with veterans from the crowd behind them), fireworks and, of course, a large US Flag. This was our last one, (4 with my son, 4 with my daughter).
- Last first college visit; to UT Arlington, which we all liked quite a bit, and went to the top of the young man’s college sweepstakes (has the degree he wants (Aerospace Eng) and is in Texas);
Soon, there will be a last high school graduation, and we will hopefully have done our job and duty correctly…makes you realize all the trials and tribs your own parents went through to make sure you were a happy and productive person, vs. a chain-saw wielding looney…which unfortunately would get you on the evening news, but probably would not make you very happy.
