Love that last cartoon! 

Robert Dugoni - is the critically acclaimed New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and #1 Amazon bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle, which has sold more than 8 million books worldwide. He is also the author of The Charles Jenkins espionage series, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and  several stand-alone novels including The 7th Canon, Damage Control, and the literary novels, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell - Suspense Magazine’s 2018 Book of the Year, for which Dugoni’s narration won an AudioFile Earphones Award and the critically acclaimed, The World Played Chess; as well as the nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Several of his novels have been optioned for movies and television series. Dugoni is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Award for Fiction and a three-time winner of the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award for best novel set in the Pacific Northwest. He has also been a finalist for many other awards including the International Thriller Award, the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the Silver Falchion Award for mystery, and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. Dugoni studied at Stanford University where he received writing awards. He worked as a reporter for The Stanford Daily and briefly for the Metro Office and the San Gabriel Valley Office of Los Angeles Times. He began and completed law studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, then practiced as a prosecutor in San Francisco. In 1998, he decided to devote himself to writing.

Comment: I have read all but the last book of his Tracy Crosswhite series ... nine books total. I have also read The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell which was excellent. He's one of those authors that you know the book will always be good.

Egeskov Castle (is located near Kværndrup, in the south of the island of Funen, Denmark. The castle is Europe's best preserved Renaissance water castle. Egeskov was first mentioned in 1405. The castle structure was erected by Frands Brockenhuus in 1554. Due to the troubles caused by the civil war known as the Count's Feud (Danish: Grevens fejde), general civil unrest, and a civil war introducing the Protestant Reformation, most Danish noblemen built their homes as fortifications. The castle is constructed on oaken piles and located in a small lake with a maximum depth of 5 metres (16 ft). Originally, the only access was by means of a drawbridge. According to legend, it took an entire forest of oak trees to build the foundation, hence the name Egeskov (oak forest). The estate has belonged to the Bille-Brahe family since 1784, when they acquired it from descendants of the Brockenhuus family. In 1882 it was inherited by the counts Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille, who still own it)

FYI: From my Around the World topic folder

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Frogmore Cottage - is a historic Grade II listed home on the Frogmore estate, which is part of Home Park in Windsor, England. Built in 1801 at the direction of Queen Charlotte in the gardens near Frogmore House, Frogmore Cottage is part of the Crown Estate, the monarch's public estate. The cottage became the residence of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in the United Kingdom in 2019 and was their primary residence before they moved to Montecito, California in the United States. In March 2023, an agent of the couple said that they had been requested to vacate it. In 2020, Frogmore Cottage was described as a 5,089 sq ft, four bedroom and nursery, four bathroom single-residence Grade-II listed house. Before renovation, it had 10 bedrooms. During renovations two orangeries, a vegetable garden, and a yoga studio were also developed. The couple most recently spent time at the cottage in 2022, when they came to the UK to attend the late Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations. They also hosted their daughter Lilibet’s first birthday there.

The cottage in 1872

YouTube

Here's How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Renovated Frogmore Cottage

Here's How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Renovated Frogmore Cottage. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/9TE-t7nhjVY #MeghanMarkle #PrinceHarr...

Gaslighting (is the subjective experience of having one's reality repeatedly questioned by another. A colloquialism, the term derives from the title of the 1944 American film Gaslight, which was based on the 1938 British theatre play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton, though the term did not gain popular currency in English until the mid-2010s. A 2022 Washington Post report described it as a "trendy buzzword" that is "often used incorrectly by people referring to simple disagreements [...] that don’t meet gaslighting’s historical definition", leading to expert concerns about the term becoming diluted)

The term derives from the title of the 1944 American film Gaslight, a remake of the 1940 British film of the same name, which in turn is based on the 1938 thriller play Gas Light. Set among London's elite during the Victorian era, it portrays a seemingly genteel husband using lies and manipulation to isolate his heiress wife and persuade her that she is mentally unwell so that he can steal from her. The title refers to the gas lighting of the house, which seems to waver whenever the husband leaves his wife alone at home. The term "gaslighting" itself is neither in the screenplay nor mentioned in the film in any context.......................

was Word of the Year in 2022.............

Calling it a night...........................

Ho Chi Minh Trail - also called Annamite Range Trail, was a logistical network of roads and trails that ran from North Vietnam to South Vietnam through the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. The system provided support, in the form of manpower and materiel, to the Viet Cong (or "VC") and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), during the Vietnam War. Construction for the network began following the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos in July 1959. The trail was named after Ho Chi Minh, the president of North Vietnam. During the 1960s, the Ho Chi Minh Trail (actually a network of trails, footpaths and roadways) moved several tons of supplies each day through rugged mountain ranges and dense jungle. U.S. military forces—aware of the amount of weaponry that the trail supplied to the Viet Cong, its enemies in South Vietnam—had the Ho Chi Minh Trail in its sights as American involvement in Vietnam increased over the 1960s. In 1965, more than 30 U.S. Air Force jets struck targets along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. This was just one part of several American ground and air strikes against villages and roads along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

In the early days of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, bicycles were often used to transport arms and equipment from North to South Vietnam.

YouTube

The Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh Trail

The Pennsylvania Veterans Museum is dedicated to preserving, protecting and promoting the legacy and dignity of all veterans of the United States military. O...

Inntel Hotel Amsterdam Zaandam (This visually 4-star hotel has an impressive façade. The structure is a lively stacking of various traditional houses to be found in the Zaan region. The interiors of the modern hotel rooms also reflect the rich history of the Zaan area: the traditional products, the pioneers of the local craft industries and the families which made the area world famous. In short, it provides the best of tradition combined with modern-day comfort. Inntel Hotels Amsterdam Zaandam offers besides nostalgic rooms, a Wellness Club with swimming pool, Bar & Restaurant Puur Saen and free Wi-Fi. The hotel is not only the ideal place to stay when discovering the Zaan area, but as well for a trip to Amsterdam. The train journey will take 12 minutes to Amsterdam Central Station, and you can travel to Schiphol airport in only 18 minutes. Inntel Hotels has respect for people and the environment, and contributes to a healthy planet and beautiful society. With the Surprisingly Sustainable program, the hotel group is working towards a sustainable future)

FYI: From my Accommodations topic folder

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Off to work.......................

June bug - Cotinis nitida, commonly known as the green June beetle, June bug or June beetle, is a beetle of the family Scarabaeidae. It is found in the eastern United States and Canada, where it is most abundant in the South. It is sometimes confused with the related southwestern species figeater beetle Cotinis mutabilis, which is less destructive. The green June beetle is active during daylight hours. The adult is usually 15–22 mm (0.6–0.9 in) long with dull, metallic green wings; its sides are gold and the head, legs and underside are very bright shiny green. Their habitat extends from New Brunswick to Georgia, and as far west as California, with possible population crossover in Texas with their western cousin, the figeater beetle. The complete life cycle for the green June beetle is one year.

Kiss & Cry (is the area in a figure skating rink where figure skaters wait for their marks to be announced after their performances during a figure skating competition. It is so named because the skaters and coaches often kiss to celebrate after a good performance, or cry after a poor one. The area is usually located in the corner or end of the rink and is furnished with a bench or chairs for the skaters and coaches and monitors to display the competition results. It is often elaborately decorated with flowers or some other backdrop for television shots and photos of the skaters as they react to their performance and scores. The term was coined by Jane Erkko, a Finnish figure skating official who was on the organizing committee for the 1983 World Figure Skating Championships which were held in Helsinki. Erkko came up with the name when visiting television technicians who were mapping the arena prior to the event wanted to know what the area was called. The first formal off-ice waiting area at the Olympics appeared in Sarajevo 1984. The term "kiss and cry" was widely used by the early 1990s, and is now officially a part of the International Skating Union Regulations. Showing the "kiss and cry" area has personalized the sport and has helped make figure skating more popular in televised Olympic competition. Many national federations, including the Americans, train skaters on how they should appear on camera while waiting. A kiss and cry area is now featured at some gymnastics competitions)

Meryl Davis & Charlie White in the Kiss & Cry area at the Sochi Olympics............

you can see Kiss & Cry on the badge (for security purposes) around the neck of the coach............

Calling it a night.........................

Libby - is a mobile app which supports users in accessing library services. It is a product of OverDrive, Inc. Upon use, Libby requests the reader's library card. With the library card, Libby connects to the user's account at the library and provides support in checking out books. The intent is improved service and ease of accessing the library instead of using the library's own website. A reviewer for Literary Review of Canada praised Libby's management of reading data, including books read and books in queue for reading. A reviewer for Time called Libby one of the best apps of 2018. Popular Mechanics named Libby as one of the best apps of the 2010s. Free library services of the sort that Libby provides are an unusual historical custom for providing free access to media when in contemporary time, almost all such services come from commercial vendors.

Comment: I finally got a library card back in October and started using Libby. I use it on my laptop to get the books and then click that I want the book on Kindle. Then it takes me to Amazon where I can download the book to my Kindle. I love it. Granted I may have to wait weeks or even months before a book is available, but that's okay with me. I've definitely cut down on the number of books I was purchasing. In the past 5 months I've borrowed and read 16 books and currently have two I'm reading from Libby. 

The Mukaab (is a proposed Saudi Arabian architectural project to build a mammoth cube shaped skyscraper which volumetrically could hold within it twenty Empire State Buildings. The massive undertaking was announced by the Kingdom's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The design has been the subject of some criticism for its similarity to the Kaaba at the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine. The interior as currently planned will feature enormous holographic projections which will be aimed at transporting viewers to other paradigms, realities, times, and places. The interior will also feature a swirling tower within for observation decks, restaurants, and from which the projections will emanate. The Mukaab is planned to be the centerpiece of a giant new downtown built within the Saudi capital city of Riyadh called New Murabba. It will be the world's largest single built structure with around 2 million square meters of interior floor space. The project will be undertaken by the New Murabba Development Company of which Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is the President. The cube is intended to be 400 meters tall and 400 meters wide on each of its four sides. Plans for the Cube are part of the Saudi Vision 2030 project. The building's design is inspired by the modern Najdi architectural style. The Mukaab will also feature a rooftop garden)

FYI: I actually learned about this from an ad that ran on my iPhone while I was playing a Match 3 game, thought it was pretty cool. 

Calling it a night.............