Author: Geoff W

Reading my way through life.
CRWMPodcast

CRWM #07: The Adventures of Captain Underpants

Geoff W

CRWM07For episode seven of Come Read With Me, I was joined by my friend Dalton. He chose The Adventures of Captain Underpants (link to my review) and I am glad he did. This isn’t a book I would have gone out of my way, but it’s one of those books that is as much a part of pop culture as any cartoon show I grew up watching! Make sure to check out his Tumblr The Whet Whitch Whistler and follow him on Twitter @barleypoop.

I think we kept it PG-13 enough, not to warrant an explicit label, but suffice to say we discussed whether or not Dav Pilkey was a bit of a pervert, whether The Adventures of Captain Underpants could be Fifty Shades of Grey for nine-year-olds, AND whether or not Dalton writes fan-fiction or erotica. (Inquiring mines want to know!) To make it even more exciting, I may have even compared Dalton and his sister, Hayley, to the Brontës. Now that is praise from me for sure!

Audio Player

Download it here: CRWM #07 (Right Click and “save as.”) Or, better yet, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher!

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Personal Project, Professional Development

Teaching Myself Technology

Geoff W

This is the first of three follow-up pieces to my piece last week about my online presence, concerning hard skills. Posts on people and networking skills and establishing individuality are still forthcoming. Each post will build on the previous posts ultimately highlighting my unique skill set.

Today’s post, if you couldn’t tell by the title, is about my self-taught tech-skills. I’m discussing learning html, graphic design/editing software and podcast editing and how they have helped in my professional life. I’ve learned and refined other skills including copy editing (always a work in progress), mobile design programs and time management to name a few, but I wanted to focus on the bigger skills for this piece.

2015 08-26 HTML SampleLet’s start with the first I learned: html. Sure, most platforms have WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface, but having the ability to go in and fix formatting issues from font size and space to photo alignment is critical. When you add in the ability to build more complex things like lists and tables this has become an invaluable skill in my professional life. I am able to build, design and edit webpages and solve most formatting problems on my own. I can even use this to find out how other webpages are built (by viewing the source code) which allows me to continually expand my html knowledge!

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Books

Book 375: The Scourge of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #3) – Jeff Wheeler

Geoff W

I loved this series and it’s kind of obvious in that I read it in less than five days. I would’ve read it faster, but pesky work and being somewhat sociable got in the way. I’m glad I read the series, as it gave me three squares on my BOTNS Bingo card so I at least feel like I made an effort! Plus having read the first few paragraphs of this review and learning the publishing history behind the Muirwood series, I’m glad I gave it a chance because of my women with weapons are awesome mindset.

Picking up where The Blight of Muirwood left off there is no downtime in this novel; here is no year of discovery or growth off the pages. It may as well be part two of book two and that works really well for this series, and that could answer what it is about the middle book of this trilogy being so good.

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Random

Reading the Collections, Week 29: Brontë Book Covers

Geoff W

I don’t think y’all truly know how excited this made me to find this in my reader this morning. Everyone should follow this blog as it’s covered some fascinating things over the past few years!

Books

Book 374: The Blight of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #2) – Jeff Wheeler

Geoff W

This is just one of those series I’m going to BLAZE through. It’s good because it gets my 2015 Goodreads “challenge goal” count up, but it’s even better because it’s so enthralling that I can’t put it down!

I’ll start with what’s great about this novel. Wheeler wrote at the end of the novel that he loves middle novels in trilogies and that he thinks they are often times the strongest. For me, I generally do NOT like the middle novel and dread reading them as I feel they’re often the weakest. I’m still trying to figure this out, but Wheeler was able to keep the crescendo building from The Wretched of Muirwood and I cannot wait to see where he takes it in the last book of the Legends of Muirwood trilogy, The Scourge of Muirwood.

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