Finding your green thumb

To begin with its funny, pea pods with names. Arlo is one plucky Fellow. He overcomes many obstacles and grows up literally and metaphorically. I was fascinated by Mendel's experiments. Once a relative gave us lot of peas from his farm. We had peas curry to the point of fatigue, while a handful in biryani go a long way to make it special. But I never learnt how they grow until I read this book. Now I'm gonna grow some peas in the garden.
The busy illustrations with sparse words highlight Arlo's activity.

Too much Ballet for a day

The cover looks very cute but there stops the novelty. What follows is an encyclopaediac sketches of bunnies doing all the hard moves of ballet. All this in one day. Phew! Too much crammed on a page.

The Best american Science and Nature writing 2013

The T-cell Army
Out of the wild
Recall of the Wild
Polar Express
Our place in the Universe
The Artificial leaf
The Larch
Which Species Will Live? - Triage
The measured man
Tenderness and Mendel

The Best American Essays 2013

Highway of Lost Girls
Girls invisible like Rosie
The Exhibit will be so marked

Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits

Idealist
Make a difference day
Network for good
Taproot Foundation
Volunteer Match
Guidestar
Taxes Nonprofit Corporation Earnings
What are rules for nonprofit? How Girl Scouts can sell cookies once a year.


Other fundraising
Car wash
Bake sale 
C & H Bake Sale

Wordbirds

Wordbirds
I am Baby Einstoned.

The Desert

Grandma Gatewood's walk

Grandma Gatewood

Science of Everything

Coriolis effect
Gyroscope
Wardenclyffe Tower

Today I spoke to a mathematician who worked on Nonlinear optics

My Yellow Umbrella

 
Good story until the kids are ready for 'The Umbrella Man' by Roald Dahl
Growing up I was more fascinated with my 'duckback' raincoat than umbrella. While watches and umbrellas are a statement opportunity for kids, this book is an Alice in the reverse story in the sense that the little girl here gets to navigate different situations with the help of her yellow umbrella.
This book reminded me of 'Sora and the Cloud'. In the genre of kid getting imaginative with a prop, using the umbrella as a parachute and then as a float makes you wish for that magic wand which is panacea.
The simple illustrations with broad span of same colours have a soothing effect.

1/10/15

PS: Duck is a kind of tightly woven canvas.

Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal

After reading few pages, you understand the title.
I havent read much about Panama canal. So I grabbed this opportunity to know some of it. If it comes in poetry form. Even better.
This book Silver people: Voices from the Canal is a mix of historical fiction like Exiled: Memoirs of a Camel and multi-voiced liked Parched by Crowder. Only there are many more voices. In the jungle, its never quite. With all the diverse animals, you get to hear from all the trees and fauna.
The main characters Mateo, Anita were fleshed out very well. The book shows the travesties of the canal project and puts the people who worked for it, on the map of history.
A century after the bridge opened is a good time to commemorate all the people who contributed to it.
Panama Canal 

Flight School

The illustrations of the book will floor you. The light shock wave kind of contours for the animals, with pencil marks has an absolute newness to it. The pages move through like a video. the zoom in and out  and the top view of the school crew, once the penguin is in flight make you wonder if you are the one with the camera.
Now in the air
Now in the water, the book has a verve to it. Having just read Flamingo Sunset, its a nice continuation to have the flamingo as a  teacher.
This book is a good opportunity for animal behavior discussions.

An Explorer's Notebook

Tim Flannery

Scaling Up Excellence

Two Pizza Rule
Peanut Butter Manifesto

Long time ago I remember reading about Intel's fabs being exactly the same everywhere. New to US, I found it puzzling that you could be anywhere in a brand store like say Target, it was all the same. But now I see the advantage of a known layout when you are in a hurry. When I came across the section about MRI being made fun for kids, I wondered if there was going to be old news. But that was it.
The books starts at this point, and then we come across so many organizations and so many tactics followed by them to keep the guzzling companies growing. You hear about some companies throwing away the need for vacation request and performance reviews, in the book you read about how the companies used those methods for better performance.


Talking about Broadcom's vacation policy,  a colleague mentioned about the reserves needed to be held in books if accrued vacation was to be paid when an employee leaves the company.

Auto payment grievances

When businesses
1. wont update the wrong details even though the web payment works
2. when they throw you out of auto plan when your address changes and wont let you know