I read The Paladin, by C. J. Cherryh. I generally liked it, but it certainly wasn’t her best work. It was published in 1988, and it is 2017 now, so her idea of a love interest just came off as harassment to me. Maybe I’m not like other guys, but when a girl repeatedly says no to me, I stop asking, and I certainly don’t try to logic her into it. On the other hand, this novel was interesting from the beginning, which is not always the case with C. J. Cherryh novels. I found the cover art to be a little humorous. The story is evidently supposed to be set in China or perhaps Japan, and Taizu is supposed to be a peasant, but the girl on the cover is clearly an auburn haired caucasian with kohl black eye makeup. The other covers that have been used for this book in the past have been awful.
It seems like I’ve just begun watching Star Trek: Discovery, and they’re already talking about a “midseason finale” and taking a break until January. What’s that about? On the other hand, I guess it means I won’t miss an episode while I’m on my hunting trip.
I’ve been preparing meals for my hunting/camping trip, and I’m actually feeling good about what I’m preparing. The experience I gained this summer, last fall, and last summer have taught me a few things about what works and what doesn’t. One unique factor is that I am cooking for one. The kinds of prepared meals I would buy to cook while camping don’t work very well because I’d end up throwing away much of the food. Left-overs don’t work well in a camp situation. So, I am dividing them and repackaging them into smaller units.
I bought a bigger tent for cold weather camping, the Eureka K-2 XT. It is much roomier than the tent I used last November, which felt a little claustrophobic with my mattress and my sleeping bag and everything in it. This one will let me have quite a bit of gear in the tent, move around, and just generally be more spread out. It also has a vestibule large enough to be worthy of the name. This tent is heavier, but I won’t take it backpacking.
I have a bit of a flashlight fetish. I don’t really think of Bushnell as a flashlight company, but nevertheless they have been making some interesting lights, of high quality and innovative design. They look great, and the build quality is excellent. I just bought TRKR T150L on impulse, a little 150 lumen light that runs on a single AA battery. In addition to the 150 lumen white light and the 13 lumen red light, it has a blood tracking mode. The blood tracking mode uses red + blue LED lights that give the impression of a sort of violet-white light, but which makes red (and blue) objects stand out very brightly. This is different from the other blood tracking light I own, which has red and green lights that shine in different spots and requires you to pass the light back and forth, making red objects alternate between bright and dark. If I have a chance, I will try to compare the effectiveness of both these lights when I go hunting this month.
After I bought that, I did a little more research on the visibility of red versus green lights by deer. I read this article. I had previously believed that deer could see red and green light about equally well, but the conjecture was that green light is perhaps less alarming to deer. I had been using a green light. However, this has caused me to flip my position and decide that red lights are better. So I went back to the store and bought the Bushnell H75L hat light, which has a 75 lumen white light and a 1 lumen red light and runs on a single AAA battery. I don’t expect to use the white light often, especially since it can only run for 45 minutes (as opposed to the red light which runs for four hours), but it might come in handy.
On the subject of lights and deer, I used to have a light for hanging inside my deer blind. It could shine red or green. However, it died last year. That one is no longer made. Downward-facing blind lights are rather few and far between. Ameristep makes one, but it’s clunky and uses green light. Bushnell makes something that would work, but it has a rechargeable internal battery. Rechargeable lights are a lot of hassle unless you use the light all the time, and when the battery ages to a point where it can’t take a charge, the light becomes useless. In this case, it also makes the light very expensive. I’ll keep looking around.
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson is to be released on November 14. I have pre-ordered it for my Kindle, which will make it just in time to take on my hunting trip so I’ll have something to read in my tent at night. The first two books in this series, beginning with The Way of Kings, was weird, but excellent. And in typical Brandon Sanderson fashion, the thing is more than 1100 pages, so I’m sure it will last the whole trip.
