kayray.org

If you enjoy listening to librivox audiobooks, would you please consider making a donation to help us with our infrastructure costs? Any donation will be helpful, large or small. And because we are under the wing of the wonderful Internet Archive, your donation will be tax deductible!

Click this link to go straight to our donation page: http://librivox.org/donate-to-librivox/

Here’s a short excerpt from our explanatory blogpost:

We have rebuilt all the software that runs our project management systems, our cataloging system, and our book uploading systems; in addition, we’ve done a complete redesign & implementation of our website. All this will be revealed to the public shortly… but there is more work to do.

We’d like your help to raise money to support the following things:
* technical infrastructure additions that were outside the scope of what we could achieve with the Mellon grant
* ongoing system administration costs
* ongoing development support and improvements on our new software systems
* ensuring the LibriVox site is properly internationalized
* to make sure that volunteers don’t need to pay out of pocket for big-ticket items that need paying for

Our 8-year anniversary is coming up, on August 10, 2013.

Our target is to raise $50,000 by then. Can you help?

Many thanks!

Another old favorite picture book. Try to find a copy of this one so you can see the beautiful woodcut illustrations! I don’t understand why it’s out of print. Sigh.

The Day the Sun Danced, by Edith Thacher Hurd

http://archive.org/download/KayrayReadsToYou3/the_day_the_sun_danced.mp3

Dan and I are visiting my sister, her husband, and their newborn daughter! Little Emma Rose is a dear sweet wonderful baby.

Looking through their books, I was delighted to find lots of childhood treasures that I thought had been given away years ago! One of them, Aldar the Trickster, was a huge favorite of mine when I was little. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see it again. I recorded it this morning using iTalk on my iPhone.

http://archive.org/download/KayrayReadsToYou3/aldar_the_trickster.mp3

One of my favorite picture books when I was very little was Richard Scarry’s “Busy Busy World” (first half of the hardback “Going Places). I know my little not-yet-born niece won’t be ready for it for a couple of years, but I recorded it for her anyway, and YOU get to listen to it too! I really hope you can buy or borrow the real book, ’cause the pictures are half the fun. Of course it’s out of print and VERY pricy used on Amazon. Sigh.

I recorded all thirty-three stories into one 45-minute file, which you can download here:
http://archive.org/download/KayrayReadsToYou2/busybusyworld.mp3

Also, just to be fancy I created an m4b file, which has chapters in it so you can skip to your favorite stories, at least you can if you use iTunes or an iOS device:
http://archive.org/download/KayrayReadsToYou2/BusyBusyWorld.m4b

Which stories are your favorites? :) I’m very fond of Glip and Glop, the Greek Painters; Schtoompah, the Funny Austrian; Schmudge, the German Chimney Sweep; Mario, the Venetian Gondolier; and Hans, the Dutch Plumber. Oh and Dr Krunchchew the Russian Dentist!

I’ve just updated my “Kayray Reads to You” page to include The Grey King, Bagthorpes Abroad, The Sweet Smell of Christmas, and The Adventures of Little Bear. As always, if you like these stories please buy copies of the actual books.

http://kayray.org/kayray-reads/

I’m almost finished recording the third Melendy family book — Then There Were Five. Just one more chapter to go, so check back soon! I might even finish this afternoon.

Also yesterday I knitted a cunning little iPhone pouch to hang around my neck when I wear stupid pocketless girl-pants. :)

Aran iPhone Pouch

Now that Kirsten has had her baby shower, I can show off some of the things I made for my baby niece! Links go to each item’s Ravelry page in case you want more details.

Tiny green booties

Adorable little bonnet (modeled by a large orange)

Entrelac beret

Striped cardigan

Black and white blanket

I’ve been making a lot of things.

What most of you are wondering is — am I recording anything for you? And the answer is yes! I’m just finishing up Elizabeth Enright’s “Then There Were Five” for the “Kayray Reads to You” podcast, and I’m also working on “Just William” for LibriVox.

I finished this big warm sweater back in November and wore it all winter, but then I decided it needed a shawl collar and pockets, so I ripped off the button band and reknit it, and added lovely big patch pockets.

More details at ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/kayray/splash-of-blue

And here is a rather adorable knitted cow:

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/kayray/milk-cow

Also, when I was looking for something one day, I found a set of four vintage linen napkins with cutwork designs stamped on them that I bought from ebay 8 years ago and never finished! So I’ve finished them. They make wonderful hankies.

In progress:

Finished:

Ok, I know language changes over time. I know I should just be flexible and not let the changes bother me too much. But when reporters on NPR use “pleaded” as the past tense of “plead” it sounds as awkward to me as if they are saying “He writed a good book”.

What sounds better to you?

He pled guilty.

He pleaded guilty.

I’ll admit that I have a weakness for strong verbs (“those which mark their past tense by means of changes to the stem vowel”)*. For example: write, wrote; run, ran; sing, sang; plead, pled. I worry that they’ll go extinct because we’re not making any more of them. All newly-coined verbs are weak — that is, they take regular endings to change tenses: google, googled; text, texted; type, typed.

Here’s a list of English irregular verbs (not all irregular verbs are strong, but all strong verbs are irregular). Use them, love them, don’t let them die!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_irregular_verbs

*for more on strong verbs in Germanic languages, of which English is one, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_strong_verb

Thank you for all the well-wishes, dear blog-readers and story-listeners!

In the middle of January I came down with another horrible virus and was knocked flat for several weeks, but I am, finally, feeling like myself again. My cough is much better so I hope to get back to recording any day now!

Happy New Year!

I’m still sick, believe it or not. Getting better every day, but very slowly.

This seems like as good a time as any to suggest some apps for your iPhone or iPad. (If you got one for Christmas, congratulations! You’ll love it.) I try a lot of apps, if they get good reviews and are free or only cost a buck, but very few are worth mentioning.

Here are some current favorites, with links to iTunes:

Spaceteam. Maybe it’s a little bit premature to call this a “current favorite” since it’s brand-new to me, but I installed it last night and found it to be extremely fun and totally different from anything I’ve ever played. It’s free. You need 2 to 4 players, each with his own i-device. Dan and I played a couple times and then Henry and I played together; we’ll probably try a three-player session today. I am ITCHING to play again so I hope my family wakes up soon :)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spaceteam/id570510529?mt=8

Ski Safari. Not your typical “go fast and collect coins” game! Give it a few plays and you will see its charm. I’m crazy about it!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ski-safari/id503092422?mt=8

Dan gave me a wonderful pressure-sensitive Pogo Connect stylus for Christmas because I love to draw on my iPad. My two favorite drawing apps are “Paper by FiftyThree” and “Sketch Club”.

Paper is simple and sleek. I like it for doodling and quick sketches when I don’t want to fiddle around with too many choices.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003812?mt=8

Sketch Club is a more traditional drawing app with layers, many tools, importing etc., plus a great online community with daily challenges and tons of helpful tutorials.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sketch-club/id404414176?mt=8

ÃœberDoodle — Spirograph-esque, and you can make your own gears and rings!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/uberdoodle/id372062013?mt=8

Letterpress — strategic word game. I LOVE it and have been playing for months. Start a game with me. I’m KaraShallenberg on Game Center.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/letterpress-word-game/id526619424?mt=8

CRUX crosswords. I’ve tried most of the crossword apps, and this is by far the best. I’ve been using it almost daily since April 2011. You can connect your NYTimes account and play the NYTimes puzzles in this lovely app, or choose from a variety of free puzzle sources.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crux-crosswords/id409309617?mt=8

That’s enough for now. Have fun!

Merry Christmas everyone! I’m still sick but not miserably so; my throat is fine and it’s just leftover runny nose, cough, and fatigue. The rest of the family seems to be nearly well. It just takes me a lot longer to recover.

Here’s a little Christmas treat for you: my recording of Barbara Robinson’s wonderful “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever“. I treated myself to a hardback copy this year (and you should, too) and recorded it especially for Elli, but I’m sure she doesn’t mind sharing. :)

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 1
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 2
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 3
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 4
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 5
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 6
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 7

I’m starting to feel a bit better. Yesterday I was well enough to knit, and today my throat is a lot better and I’m coughing less. I’m still really fatigued, but at least I can make tea for Henry, who has caught the bug and is miserable. Poor lad. I stayed far away from him ever since I got sick, trying not to give it to him, but he got it anyway. Dan had it first (he brought it home from San Francisco) so now none of us have to worry about getting the others ill and we can all sit together cozily in the living room and recover.

I made a double batch of gingerbread cookie dough the day before I got sick and it’s still in the fridge waiting to be rolled out, cut, and baked. Maybe today I will see if I can make a tray of cookies…

Ugh. I’m sick. I think I’ve got the flu. Started out a few days ago as just a mild sore throat but now I’m achey all over and so fatigued that I can’t even knit or read or watch movies. Little cough, stuffy head, delicate stomach, etc. No symptom is very dramatic but I still feel like I got run over by a moose or something. All noises are too loud. I felt really horrible all day but now at bedtime the achiness is a little better and I managed to watch a BBC documentary about Vikings invading Scotland. Not recently, hundreds of years ago. Why did the Vikings stop raiding the British isles?

Miso broth is good when you’re sick. Hot and salty.

A couple weeks ago a listener (Heather) suggested that I record a solo version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” so I did that :) Aravis was my MC and Proof-Listener extraordinaire. She did ALL the tedious LibriVox tasks and let me do just the fun part — recording!

http://librivox.org/a-christmas-carol-version-6-by-charles-dickens/

As usual, reading the story aloud made me notice things I hadn’t before. Did you ever realize that Scrooge’s nephew’s wife is pregnant? See if you can sniff out the delicate Victorian hints.

Hand-colored engraving of The Ghost of Christmas Present. This makes handsome album art!

A very Merry Christmas to you all!

After I upgraded to Mountain Lion, I noticed that the save dialogue in Pages and TextEdit defaulted to iCloud every single time. I don’t use iCloud so this behavior was driving me completely insane. (It doesn’t take much to drive me completely insane, I guess.) Anyway, this morning I finally snapped and googled for a solution and there is one and it is easy and it works!

Here’s the link:
http://www.cultofmac.com/187553/change-from-icloud-as-default-save-location-in-text-edit-mountain-lion-os-x-tips/

In case the link breaks and you’re going to commit suicide if Mountain Lion wants to save to iCloud ONE MORE TIME, here are the instructions:

Launch Terminal and type or paste the following command in (My blog is showing it on two lines. You might want to paste it into a text document first and get rid of the carriage return if there is one):

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

Quit whatever app is pissing you off, run it again, and try saving something. Voila.

You’re welcome.

Letterpress. If you have an i-device and are a fan of word games and/or strategy games, you’re got to try Letterpress.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/letterpress-word-game/id526619424?mt=8 (Free download. If you want to play more than two games concurrently, you can pay $.99 for the full game via IAP.)

Gameplay is simple: You have a grid of 25 letter tiles. Your color is blue; your opponent’s is red. (There are other color themes but they are, er, too linuxy for me.) You take turns creating words using any of the letters on the board; letters don’t have to be adjacent. You get one point for every letter that you use. When you submit your word, the letter tiles you used are painted your color.

But wait, there’s more. A white (unused) letter gets you a point, and so does using a letter that is painted in your opponent’s color, and in both cases the letters are changed to your color. Using your opponent’s letter not only gives you a point, it also subtracts one from his score. You get nothing for using one of your “own” letters.

But! Surround one of your letters on all four sides with other letters of your color and it turns a darker blue. A darkened letter gives your opponent no points, if he uses it, and does not change to his color! It is critically important to capture as many letters as you can.

The game ends when every white letter has been used. High score wins. I often get carried away, play a really cool word that colors all the tiles, and lose because I have the lower score :)

Not only is the game extremely fun to play, but the interface is a joy. Clean and uncluttered, with tasteful animations and sound effects that beg you to get your fingers in there and start rearranging letters.

The only drawback is that the game relies on GameCenter. You match up with your opponent via GameCenter and there’s no “rematch” button, so after every game you have to go back to nasty GameCenter to start the next match. And when GameCenter is having ISSUES, Letterpress won’t load. Oh well. Nobody’s perfect.

Oh hey, here’s a good detailed review with screenshots and stuff:
http://www.imore.com/letterpress-atebits-review

If you try it, start a game with me! (KaraShallenberg on GameCenter)

I found the most wonderful podcast recently: The British History Podcast. Here’s the iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-british-history-podcast/

And here’s the website: http://thebritishhistorypodcast.com/

Click the “get involved” link to find the forum.

I don’t remember how I discovered it, but when I did, I started listening from the beginning and after only a few episodes I was hooked on Jamie’s intimate, casual, lively style, and bought a membership to support him — $5/month via Amazon and TOTALLY worth it, not only for the membership extras (a special section on the forum, show transcripts, and extra members-only podcast episodes) but for the good feeling of being able to help a guy make a living doing something he really loves. He’s an attorney by training, but when he became unemployed he started this history podcast because he loves British history. His enthusiasm is what makes this podcast so very special.

There came a point last year when Jamie either had to go back to work as an attorney (yuck!) or get enough subscriptions to allow him to continue to work on the podcast full-time. So glad he achieved his goal.

I should tell you that Jamie is not professorial in his delivery and he works from his own notes, not a script, so there’s a fun, improvisatory feeling to his recordings and the occasional stumble or mispronunciation. However, the content is, as far as I can tell, carefully-researched and accurate, and Jamie has a way of synthesizing and explaining that really clicks with my brain.

If you want a Teaching Company lecture series, go buy one. That’s not what this is. But if you want to hear a friendly fellow sharing his passion for history in a memorable, enjoyable way, give this podcast a try. And buy a membership if you love it as much as I do :)

New episodes come out on Mondays, barring unforseen circumstances. Last week we had a wonderful episode about Anglo-Saxon healthcare with a companion members-only episode about the development of western science. Great stuff! I can hardly wait for the new episode tomorrow.

Homeschoolers: This is a great resource. I would have let Henry listen to this podcast at any age and he likes it now at 17 even though he’s not quite as fanatical about British history as I am; however, there is the occasional mild curse word when Jamie gets all worked up about something and of course there are some unsavory historical events mentioned. Jamie doesn’t dwell on the gory details, but squeamish parents might wish to pre-screen.

Someone asked in a comment how to find my recording of the Sherlock Holmes story, “The Red-Headed League”. I link to my solos (and duets) on the “Librivox Recordings” page here on my blog, but if you want to see a list of all the individual chapters and poems I’ve ever recorded for LibriVox, go here:

http://librivox.org/reader/19

“THe Red-Headed League” is part of “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”:

http://librivox.org/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holmes/

There ya go :)

Dan and I are in Julian for a little two-day getaway! We’re staying at the Eaglenest Bed and Breakfast, which is just wonderful. So comfortable and pleasant. Highly recommended! I can’t wait to come back here again.

Eaglenest B&B in Julian, California.

More later, time to go upstairs for home-cooked breakfast!

Dan retweeted this cartoon and it made me laugh so hard!

Every day I can’t do anything until the 10am NASA news briefing is over. It’s all so fascinating and exciting. Tune in tomorrow at 10am Pacific for the latest updates and photos from Curiosity!
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html