Wednesday Weird: Sasquatch Kidnappings

I'm actually surprised I haven't done a Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Yeti post yet, since it's one of my favorite cryptids (along with Orang Pendek and Thunderbirds (okay, let's get serious here. I have a lot of favorite cryptids))

But everyone knows about Sasquatch and junk so for this post, and any future posts, I'd rather speak about specific encounters.

Today we're talking about kidnappings, that is people allegedly kidnapped by Sasquatches. Which actually happens more than you might think (allegedly).

The most famous case is Albert Ostman, an occasional logger and construction worker, in Vancouver in 1924.

Albert was searching for a lost gold mine somewhere near Toba Inlet. Soon after his search began, he noticed that something was stealing food from his camp site. Then one night he was awakened when something picked him up in his sleeping bag.

At first he thought he was tossed on horseback, but then he realized he was actually being carried. Hours later he was finally dropped and he heard a strange chattering sound. But he didn't work up the nerve to get out of his sleeping bag until dawn.

He found himself in a cave with 4 Sasquatch, which looked to him to be a family group of an adult male and female and a juvenile male and female. Albert was later able to provide detailed descriptions of all four individuals, all of which were huge except for the juvenile female.

Albert claimed to have spent 6 days in the company of the family group before he got them sick on snuff, fired his rifle in the air and fled
.

 

the best part of this video is the "awesome" ending credits music. I mean, really??


There are other cases where people have claimed being kidnapped by Sasquatches, including Muchalat Harry, also in Vancouver in the 20s.

Also there are cases where children have gone missing in forests, only to be found "several hundred percent" outside the search grid organized.

An example being 2 year old Keith Parkins who vanished near Umatilla National Forest. He would later be found 12 miles away after only being missing for 19 hours.
The toddler would have had to cross two mountain ranges, several fences, rivers and creeks to reach his final location.
 

In Which Reading Can Be Hard

I have to read 40 books off my 120 book list for my MFA before I start in January.
Now, keep in mind, of those 120 books, at least half of them are picture books and easy readers and chapter books. They're not all novels. So it's not as herculean a task as it seems.

Still, I'd like to get through as many of the novels up front, so if I'm stressed or busy later when the MFA has started, then I only have to get through some PBs or something.

Anyway, so we have to read these books, then make a annotated bibliography of the books we've read with a 3-4 sentence discussion about an aspect of craft that we liked or found interesting in the book. This is to help us learn to be critical readers. Which I really want to do because right now I kind of suck at it.

Wait, correction. I'm pretty good about being a critical reader when reading a book I'm not enjoying. It's much easier for me to say "Why don't I like this book? What isn't working for me?" Than it is to say "Why am I loving this book?" when I'm reading something badass, you know?

And even harder, are those sleeper books. The books that are just fine, but maybe you don't luuuurve them.

So, the first couple of books on my bibliography were easy. Those ones had obvious huge strengths in something. Like voice. I read one (True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff) where the voice just slammed you in the face with it's awesomeness. So, no problem.

But man, most of the time I find myself just slipping into reading for enjoyment, and only when I'm half way through, or further, do I stop and swear and realize I was supposed to be paying attention to craft! Not just reading for fun.

Sigh.

It's much harder work than I thought it would be. It's hard to break a habit.

How about you? Do you have any troubles reading critically?

Wednesday Weird: Persian Mummy Princess

In the world of archeology, finding a mummy is the shit. I mean, they give you a medal and junk. Well, not really, as far as I know, but you get what I'm saying. You get some mad props if you're an archaeologist and find a mummy.

In 2000, someone tipped off Pakistani police that there was a mummy in a house that the owners were planning to sell on the black market for $20 million dollars and have smuggled out of Pakistan. When they raided the house, it turned out the tip off was right, there was indeed a mummy.

The mummy was 2,600 years old, encased in a carved stone coffin inside a wooden sarcophagus and was wearing a gold crown and mask. An inscription on her breastplate read: I am the daughter of the great king Xerxes. I am Rhodugune.

This was a huge archaeological discovery. No Persian mummy had been found before, especially royalty. And actually mummification had always been thought to be a strictly Egyptian practice.

An incident broke out about who would get to keep the mummy, Iran or Pakistan. So while that was going on, scientists got down to sciencing and closely examined the mummy.

That's when things got weird.

The first thing they noticed was that the grammar on the inscription was terrible. Like maybe the inscriber didn't actually speak ancient Persian very well.

Then they noticed that the coffin itself wasn't ancient. It was actually only about 250 years old.

Like the grammar, the mummification process was a crap job as well. Some of the steps of the process had been completely skipped.

So, at this point, with the hack work, they started to think that maybe the mummy wasn't a princess at all. Maybe someone had dressed up a common mummy as a princess to hopefully garner more bucks on the black market.

BUT! And this is a big but. (heh. Big butts). It turns out the mummy herself wasn't ancient at all. She'd only been dead 2 years.

And she'd been murdered.

It seemed someone had actually murdered a person to make a fake mummy purely to try and sell it on the black market for a crap ton of cash. And there is evidence to show that this wasn't the first time they had done this. They had actually done this three other times as well.

So, not only do you have to worry about being murdered by a stranger, now we have to worry that said stranger will mummify us (crapily) all to make some money.

In Which I Rent Books

So, as I stated last week, I gots tons of books I need to read over the next year and a half. And since I didn't want to buy all of them, I had to do something I haven't done in forever.

I had to go to the library.

Yes, yes. I know what you're thinking. But I was a bookseller for 5 years, so my default during and since that time has just been to buy books.

I haven't had a library card since I was a kid.

So I got a card, got my list of books, and hit up the closest library that was open on Sunday.

And it was AWESOME!

It was like a shopping spree. I could pick out any book I wanted, and as many as I wanted! It was so fun!
I got 7 books on my first trip and read 4 of them in as many days. Then I went back again and got 6 more. And I'm looking forward to when I can go again. It looks like I'll be hitting it up on Sundays, at least while I'm trying to get ahead on this reading. I'm sure things will slow down once it stops being a novelty.

Good times.

How about you? Are you a book buyer or a book renter? Or both?

Friday Fun

Yvie here, ape-friends! Doing my usual job of launching everyone into the weekend with some internet fun.

the weekend would be a lot more fun, though, if it just wasn't so hot

Before we get to that, though, my Mom's query is up on Matt's blog, so if you would like to stop by, she'd really love it!

Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's get to the funs!!

Puppy eating a lime

Wednesday Weird: Tomb Treasures

In 2008, archaeologists got a chance to crack a tomb from the Ming dynasty in Shangsi, Southern China. They were the first ones to visit the grave since the occupants funeral.

They'd brought a camera crew to create a documentary as they excavated the tomb. But while they were filming they found something much weirder.

When the were trying to remove the soil encrusting the coffin, a chunk broke off and hit the floor with a metallic clink.

They picked up the object and discovered it was a ring. But not just any ring.

The removed the dirt from the ring and it turned out to actually be a watch. A Swiss watch that had stopped at 10:06 am.

The watch itself was estimated to be 100 years old, buried in a tomb over 400 years old. Watches weren't even invented in the time of the Ming dynasty, and Switzerland wasn't even a country.

So how did this mysterious timepiece find it's way inside an undisturbed tomb?

Thoughts? Theories? Throw them my way!

In Which I'm Going Back To School

So, one of my goals/resolutions for 2013 was to look into Hamline University's MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. It's a low residency program which means if I decided to apply I'd be able to keep my job, which is a requirement when you have like a mortgage and junk.

So look into it I did. I did Internet research and I attended a luncheon info session. And everything I saw made me like the idea even more.

So I got my ducks in a row and I applied. And then I tried not to think about it. I was pretty sure I had a good chance of getting in, but of course you never know. I knew of one person who had applied and didn't get in so it was clear they didn't just take anyone, you know?

But then a few weeks ago I got a phone call from Hamline and they told me I'd been accepted!!!

Yay! Woo! I'm so super excited!

I'm also excited because two of my local writing pals may also be applying, which would be awesome if they did and they got in.

I don't start until January (they asked if I wanted to start in July, that they'd make room for me, but I said no. Way too soon for me) which means I've got around 5 months to prepare. I have to read 120 books by the end of my first year and they want 40 of them done before you start so I'm going to get started on that immediately. I also am going to try and curtail a lot of my frivolous spending. It's never too soon to start saving for those student loans.

Exciting times in the future for me!

So how are things going for you? How's the summer treating you?

In Which I Take A Shory Hiatus

No blog posts this week, pals. With the holiday and going up to the cabin, I figured I'd just take this week off.

I'll see you all next week and I hope you have a great 4th!