Tuesday Mystery Trivia: Guest Camille Minichino/Ada Madison

Camille Minichino has just released her first Sophie Knowles Mystery. Camille has published more than a dozen novels. This is her third mystery series. Read about how she cleverly chose her nom de plume.

Poets or Mathematicians: Who's More Stable?

By

Camille Minichino/Ada Madison

One of the most enjoyable parts of the research I do for my three mystery series is weaving in little-known facts from history. I'd like to share some trivia about the pen name I chose for my third series, the Professor Sophie Knowles Mysteries: Ada Madison.

MADISON. That's easy. After Madison, Ave., NYC, where I'd like to live, and the bridge of the same name, which is

 1. 1892 feet long;

 2. connects 138^th St. in Manhattan with 138^th St. in the Bronx; and

3. carries about 20,000 vehicles in each direction daily.

Perhaps more interesting, ADA is in honor of Ada Byron (1815-1852), the Countess of Lovelace, considered the world's first computer programmer. In case anyone asks you for tidbits:

1. Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, pushed into mathematics by her mother who was afraid she'd inherited "dangerous poetic tendencies" from her famously erratic father.

2. Ada never met her father, but was friend to 3 famous men named Charles: Babbage, for whose "difference engine" she wrote equations, Darwin, and Dickens.

3. In spite of her mother's efforts to shelter her from poetic tendencies, Ada is said to have been promiscuous and addicted to drugs and gambling. She tried unsuccessfully to develop a mathematical system to win at the races and ended up in debt instead.

4. She lives on in the US Department of Defense, which, in the 1970s, named its special programming language ADA.

I love my writer's life, where I can wander through trivia and philosophy in equal amounts, pondering who exactly is more likely to have a "stable" personality, a poet or a mathematician?


Camille Minichino has published eight novels in the Periodic Table Mysteries series, featuring retired physicist GLORIALAMERINO. The series continues in short stories on Kindle and smashwords.com.
As Margaret Grace, she's published five novels in the Miniature Mysteries series, featuring miniaturist GERALDINEPORTER and her 10-year-old granddaughter, Maddie. 
As Ada Madison, she's released a new series, the Professor Sophie Knowles Mysteries, featuring college professorSOPHIE KNOWLES.

Camille received her Ph.D. in physics from Fordham University, New York City. She is currently on the faculty of Golden Gate University, San Francisco and on the staff of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Camille is on the board of NorCal Sisters in Crime. She's a member of NorCal Mystery Writers of America and the California Writers Club.
http://www.minichino.com/

Sunday's for the Birds: Missing the Mockingbirds

Spending part of the year in the Pacific Northwest is a joy. One of the few drawbacks of living this far north, however, is not being in my native Texas in the spring when the mockingbirds are in their vocal splendor. The long-tailed gray bird with the white wing patches is a member of the Mimidae family. They sing year around, but in the spring, during mating and nesting season, the mockingbirds seem to serenade throughout the entire day. Although their repertoire might include as many as 200 different melodious tunes, most are not all original. They mimic other birds, as well as the sounds of insects, amphibians; the barking of dogs, the mewing of cats, and the squealing of pigs. So, if you'd like a little entertainment while relaxing on a lazy afternoon, put out some wild bird seed or even grapes, raisins and chopped fruit, and wait for the Northern Mockingbird to come a calling. And if you spend time in the Northwest like I do, you may have to fly south to take in a few avian concerts.

photo from audubonbirds.org

http://birds.audubon.org/species/normoc

Mockingbird

I wonder if the mockingbird perched on 

a branch outside my window remembers.

He is still; his eye focused on me,

sitting in a chair at my desk.

We stare for a moment and he flits

to a higher branch for a better look.

Two springs ago, I raised three orphaned

mimids and released them in my backyard,

putting seed out for a few days until

they got the hang of foraging.

And every once in a while, one visits

and I regret not having placed little

yellow tags around their legs.

But release means more than opening

a cage and watching the birds fly away.

It means not holding on to something

that is not mine, and I think I know how

God felt when he gave us free will.


Next week: The Whooping Crane Festival in Port Aransas, Texas

Mystery Trivia Tuesday: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote dozens of novels, nonfiction books, plays, short stories, and articles concerning his passions, political beliefs, and spiritual experiences. These publications give insights to the creator of Sherlock Holmes that cannot be found in the Holmes Canon.

1.  What is the title of Conan Doyle's very first story? It was published in the Chamber's Journal.

2.  What is the title of his short story inspired by his stint as a ship's surgeon on the whaling vessel Hope when he was twenty years old?

3.  What is the name of his book in which he defends the sightings of magical creatures by two young girls in Yorkshire?

4.  What is the name of his 1896 novel about the world of boxing?

5.  What is the name of his 1929 book about explores who dive into the Atlantic Ocean to discover the lost city of Atlantis?

6.  In 1891, Conan Doyle and his wife traveled to Vienna. What did he write in order to finance the trip?

Match with the answers below:
The Maracot Deep
The Lost World
The Captain of the Pole-Star
The Doings of Raffles Haw
Rodney Stone
The Coming of Fairies

photo from google images: prairieghosts.com

Sunday's for the Birds: Connie Hagar, My Inspiration

          In a few days, I'm heading to Rockport, my favorite town on the Texas coast. So, it's only fitting that I write about Connie Hagar, an amateur ornithologist who turned the birding world on it feathered tail. Connie was a woman and birder after my own heart. She and her husband, Jack, moved to the small fishing village in the mid 40s simply so she could enjoy and study the birdlife. They purchased a small motor court and Jack started a fishing business. In no time, Connie had earned a reputation in the birding world that had professional ornithologist "flocking," (sorry about the pun) to the coast to accompany her in the field. Many arrived skeptical that this self-educated woman knew as much about the avian world as she claimed and questioned her published reports and field journals.
One such skeptic, Ludlow Griscom, employed by the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology and known as the dean of American birdwatchers, came from Boston to scrutinize her findings.
          While studying Connie's notes in her living room, he said, "Surely, Mrs. Hagar, you don't mean that Wied's crested (brown-crested) flycatchers are present this far in Texas. Are you sure?"
          Connie responded, "Mr. Griscom, if you will move your chair back a bit and look out the window, you will see a pair building their nest."
          Impressed but not convinced, he then questioned her sighting of buff-breasted sandpipers. She brought him to a nearby location and showed him more buff-breated sandpipers then he had ever before seen.
          Soon the Hagars had a steady stream of birders and ornithologists staying at the Hagar's Motor Courts to go birding with Connie. Audubon presidents, John Baker and Carl Buchheister, Charlie Brookfield, Allan and Helen Cruickshank, Guy Emerson, J. Frank Dobie, and Roger Tory Peterson were regular visitors.

To learn more about the life of Connie Hagar, read Karen Harden McCracken's biography, The Life History of a Texas Birdwatch: Connie Hagar of Rockport, published by Texas A&M University Press in 1986. http://www.amazon.com/Life-History-Texas-Birdwatcher-Rockport/dp/1585441643

Next week: The Mockingbird

Sherlock Holmes Trivia from A Sherlock Holmes Companion

While researching my book, The Sherlock Holmes Triviography and Quiz Book, I amassed a collection of Holmes reference books that now occupy much of my bookshelf. Occasionally, I pull one down, dust it off, reread it, and am reminded of the enjoyment I experienced while gathering hundreds of Holmes trivia facts. One of my favorites is A Sherlock Holmes Companion, a collection of essays and articles written about Holmes and edited by Peter Haining. P. G. Wodehouse, Franklin Roosevelt, Basil Rathbone, Winifred Paget, John Bennett Shaw, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle contributed to the compendium.

Here are some great Holmes trivia gleaned from Haining’s book. If you haven’t added it to your collection, you don’t know what you’re missing. 

1.  In 1955, Sherlockian Nathan L. Bengis claims to have discovered Sherlock Holmes’ will in which the detective leaves Dr. Watson five thousand pounds and any books he wanted, his dictionary went to Lestrade, a collection of poetry to Tobias Gregson, a copy of each of his monographs to Scotland Yard, and the remainder of his estate to Mycroft.

2.  Conan Doyle published an article in the Strand magazine in March 1927, asking his readers to list their twelve best Holmes stories. Conan Doyle drew up his own list, placed it in a sealed envelope, and gave it to the editor to be revealed and compared later. Feeling that his detective had outlived his time, Conan Doyle, in the article, announced his plan to bid farewell to Holmes and all future stories. 

3.  From 1942 until his death three years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt was a member of the Baker Street Irregulars. When he published his essay, Sherlock Holmes Was An American, in The Baker Street Journal, he was critically attacked for his theory.

The photo of the book cover was taken from amazon's web page.

A Sherlock Holmes Companion was published in 1980 by Barnes & Noble  Books.

Sunday's for the Birds: The First Annual Edison Bird Festival

The small town of Edison, Washington is located in a bird-perfect area: Samish Bay on the northwest and farm fields on the southeast. What bird wouldn't love it! My husband and I spent the day traveling to our favorite birding spots around Edison. But today was different. I began to wonder if the local bird species had also heard about the festival and planned their attendance. The largest number of bald eagles we had ever spotted was six, but today, we stopped counting at forty. Along with the eagles, mallards, Northern pintails, blue herons, and tundra swans showed up in mass. Red-tailed hawks swooped down showing off their fan-like tails in an attempt to steal the show from the eagles. I swear I caught a glimpse of a black oystercatcher. But the star attraction was the ring-necked pheasant strutting just off the roadside by the Edison Liquor Store.
The "Keep Your Chickens in Line" parade kicked off the festival on Saturday morning. We regretted missing the spectacle until we found our own private chicken parade in the neighboring town of Bow.
If you didn't make it this year, put it on your calendar for 2013. http://edisonbirdfestival.com/blog
On the way home, we drove along March's Point to photograph what is believed to be the largest blue-heron rookery in Western North America. Check out their live heron cam: http://www.padillabay.gov/education_heron.html

Sunday's for the Birds: Think Like a Bird

Operation Migration Goes to Plan B
          When you work with wildlife, you have to be ready for anything. For eleven years, the pilots of Operation Migration have led young whooping cranes on their maiden migration all the way to Florida. Unforeseen tribulations popped up along the way (lost birds, bad weather, equipment failure), all were dealt with and migration continued. This year, a surprise situation occurred and a new plan had to be implemented, and quickly. With more than 400 miles left to travel, the whoopers put on their breaks and stopped in Winston County, Alabama. For more than a week, the OM team attempted to coax the cranes to follow the ultralights, but time and time again, they returned to the stopover site, leaving the team perplexed and frustrated. Did they stay too long in Alabama, or was the early spring sending a message to stay put? Soon it would be time to head back north. A decision had to be made.
          The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) and the OM team met on February 1. Two days later, all nine whoopers of the Class of 201l were crated and driven to the nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in north central Alabama where they joined thousands of sandhill cranes, other migratory birds, and seven adult whooping cranes who had chosen to hang out there instead of traveling to Florida. But all is not lost. These nine youngsters know the way home to White River Marsh in Wisconsin and will undoubtedly make it there without any trouble. Next fall when those migratory genes kick in, and they hooked up with other cranes, their second trip south could very well lead them all the way to the Gulf Coast. If not, Wheeler NWR will make a fine winter home for them.
          What's the lesson here? The jury is still out on that one. So, we will see what these young whoopers have to teach us. And with that lesson, we can better serve the future generations of whoopers that will one day join the Eastern Flock.

Visit the OM website: http://www.operationmigration.org/

for the latest updates by going to "In the Field." 

You can also purchase whooping crane merchandize on the website: jewelry, T-shirts, greeting cards, etc. And you can sponsor migration miles for the Class of 2012's migration in the fall.