Review: Escape to the Chateau

 A few years ago John and Bill told me about this amazing television series on PBS, but produced by the BBC.  "Escape to the Chateau" had just started showing season 2 and I fell in love.  Dick Strawbridge (engineer) and his wife Angel Adoree (artist) move from England to France and buy the  Château de la Motte-Husson.  The series follows the couple along with their two children and her parents as they renovate the chateau and make it a functioning special events business.  

What's completely entertaining is that on my visit to Texas the following Christmas I was talking about how much fun the show is and Sydney pipes up about how she saw it while visiting in England but couldn't find anything about it here in the U.S. She seemed relieved to know that someone else could verify the series existence.

The can-do spirit, the unbridled and not-HGTV approved decorating and the artistic verve are all attractive to me.  I absolutely love this series you should definitely go find it.

- Jenny

Book Review: Girl Genius

 The first webcomic strip I followed was Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet.  I found it in late 1997 and quickly caught up with her past posts. Helen is a literal genius with all things tech.  She is clearly attractive but isn't focused on that aspect of life.  This strip ran from 1996 - 2005.  I can't find an archive of this strip which makes me terribly sad.  However, without Helen I would never have found Girl Genius.

Girl Genius is an ongoing webcomic collaboration between Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio. I consider it steampunk but they believe it should have the genre heading gaslamp fantasy.  I actually don't care what we call it, it's amazing.  A heroine who is a compassionate, funny, genius in a mad science world populated with interesting characters some of which are monsters and/or evil geniuses.  The Foglios have been putting out three strips a week (M,W,F) since 2005.  

Wikipedia simplifies the overall plot to:

"Girl Genius tells the story of Agatha Clay, a student and apprentice at Transylvania Polygnostic University whose experiments never work, until she encounters an electromagnetic pulse and is robbed of her locket.  This leads her to break free of an attempt to suppress her powers as a Spark, and to hide that she is the long-lost daughter of famous hero Bill Heterodyne and villainess-turned-good Lucrezia Mongfish. Agatha Heterodyne (whose surname is based on a real scientific concept) learns to mix scientific genius, a streak of true heroism and an obsessive possessiveness for what she considers her own in order to claim her monstrous heritage and birthright, even as the eyes of all Europa watch her carefully in case she turns out to be one of the monsters herself"

Eventually they started pulling the strips together and publishing graphic novels.  Yes I have all of them.  Now they're turning the plots into actual novels enhancing the world and the material in the strips with more detailed information without removing or twisting any of the comic strip plot points.  Gifted, they are super gifted to achieve this kind of coherence across multiple media venues.  

I highly recommend this series to anyone and everyone.  Start reading here: https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

- Jenny

New Refrigerator

The new one

 I'd like to know why I have to keep replacing refrigerators.  Right after the divorce in 2012 the white refrigerator/freezer started dying. We could tell by the new noises it was making.   We were lucky in that we found a countertop depth scratch and dent modern model with a water dispenser in the door and a freezer drawer on the bottom.  It was so exciting to have such a great appliance.  That was until we started having difficulties.  It took a number of years, okay almost 9 and after paying for several repairs starting 4 years ago it finally just quit.   Well it quit in a weird way, first the freezer stopped functioning but the fridge was still moderately cold. I don't trust appliances. So, we packed the freezer drawer with ice and moved stuff out of the fridge part and moved the frozen stuff to the chest freezer in the garage.  

Then we went shopping.  We first looked for something new at Home Depot where the sales person tried to convince us that we knew someone with a truck who could deliver it for us.  This young person was clearly out of touch with reality. Not everyone has friends with trucks and even if I did know someone why not just have it delivered by the store?  Well, the reason not to was that it would take up to 10 days for it to be delivered.  That wasn't going to work.  We went to Lowe's

The new one

Lowe's was great and we found a refrigerator.  Unfortunately the size of refrigerators has continued to grow so they came to deliver it and couldn't get it through our front or back doors.  We have 29" wide doors.  Ummm this was not something we knew would be a problem.  We knew that we had to get countertop depth and we knew it couldn't be super tall.  But now we had a new measurement.  We sent it back and went back to the store.

In the meantime our existing refrigerator decided that the freezer should work and the refrigerator went warm which meant that all the stuff we had moved to our freezer to keep cold was now frozen.  WEIRDO refrigerator.  Well, we finally found something in-stock with the configuration we liked. It still has a water dispenser, but this time it's hidden inside the fridge.  Also it really is metal not brushed aluminum so magnets work on the front.  We're quite happy with this new fridge.  I guess we'll see if it'll last more than 9 years.

John & Bill Graduate

Shanna and I got to attend a graduation ceremony during this time of coronavirus. They had social distancing in place, zoom/pre recorded speakers/performances, and mandatory masking. It was very strange. The were able to do social distancing by limiting the number of people allowed to attend. Each student was given two tickets for audience members. It was still fantastic to watch these two guys graduate. They are amazing people and I am very lucky to have them as friends.

Socially distanced graduating students

Bill getting his MA in Art

John getting his BA in Art