January 2017 Recap

So first there was an Inauguration and then the next day there was a massive march of Women. I wasn’t planning on attending, the introvert in me likes to stay home. But late the night before my friends asked if anyone wanted to go, and so off we went! About 100k to 200k people were there for the march that day. It was so much fun, everyone friendly and helpful, singing and chanting. It was a calm and happy atmosphere. I’m so glad I went!

A post shared by Lili (@liliontheloose) on Jan 21, 2017 at 9:03am PST

Also this month I made it to the National Western Stock Show for the first time. We took a bunch of out of state (and out of country) co-workers to the Rodeo, although some came away a bit traumatized.

Recommended Reading

Lili on the Loose

This month I finally got around telling a very old story, of the time I went to Japan and mostly only ate chicken.

After numerous failed attempts, I finally caught a picture of a dragon breathing fire. I also shared a lovely night photo of Rome’s Trevi Fountain.

And I gave an overview of Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s temporary Mummy exhibit.

Other Blogs

Here are some of my favorite articles I read this month:

Do you know what Kirkwall Ba is? I didn’t either and the story is fascinating.
This Google AR to look inside coffins and museum exhibits is why I love technology. Makes me wish I had done museum studies in college!
I’m still dreaming of a Jordan trip, and the video “Beyond Petra” is tempting me.
I’m going to have to do this Colorado Castle Road trip this summer!
I laughed at these two bots talking with one another.

Books

After Carrie Fisher passed away last month, I have been reading and listening to her words. I started with her latest book, The Princess Diarist. I’d read the book while relaxing in the bathtub. I managed not to destroy the book or drop it into the water, but decided to check out Carrie’s audio books since she voices them. For the audio books, I started with Postcards from the Edge, a fictionalized narrative that follows a very similar path to Carrie’s, and features an actress almost dying during an overdose and having to go to rehab. I found Carrie’s writing funny, witty, and endearing. I’m slowly working my way through her other works.

Watchlist

TV

This month was a lot of binge-watching TV shows. This included Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, The Man in the High Castle Season 2, and a lot of Late Night / Political Comedy shows. One show I randomly got into was The Magicians. I knew this was a book, in fact I had the first book but didn’t get to read it before a wine accident ruined the book. So I had no idea what it was really about going into it. But man, I love the pop culture geek references, the non-reverence to magic Elliot has, Q’s general disposition towards new experiences, and I just love Penny in general. (Margo and Alice are pretty interesting too.) The show handles some pretty heavy concepts, that I’m not sure I’d want to handle in a long reading session, but the TV format lends itself well to the story.

Movies

On a whim I started watching some Netflix comedy specials, such as the numerous ones by Jim Gaffigan. This lead to seeking out more and more stand up, and I found Craig Ferguson’s one hilarious. I also watched Inferno, the 3rd Dan Brown/Tom Hanks “mysterious” movie. I had read the book and was kind of sad they didn’t keep the original ending. I also watched the Carrie Fisher / Debbie Reynolds HBO documentary Bright Lights as well as Carrie’s Wishful Drinking comedy stand up.

Gaming

All the executive orders and talks of politics reminded me of an old web based game I played in college called “Nation States” The creator succinctly sums it up “[It] is a nation simulation game. Create a nation according to your political ideals and care for its people. Or deliberately oppress them. It’s up to you.” So go create your nation and see if you can keep yours running better than Trump is doing do the US!