Tuesday, 28 December 2010

So, yesterday, my friend Ryan asked me (admitting that it was kind of a cliché) if I’d read any good books lately. This is always a tough question for me to answer on the spot, as my mind immediately goes to the books I’m currently reading, but as I talked with Ryan I came to realize that there were, in fact, a few good books I wanted to discuss with him. And, actually, now that we’re over 99% of the way done with this year, I thought I would provide all of my faithful readers (both of them) a list of the books I’ve read in 2010, especially considering the fact that I’m unlikely to finish anymore this year.

There are 35 books on my list, and increase of two over last year. 15 of them are fiction, which is an unusually high percentage, but you’ll recall that I decided to read the Little House series of books this year AND I took a college English course…so, you know, that skewed things a bit.

Here, then, is every book that I’ve finished reading between 01 January 2010 and today, along with some comments, where appropriate.

Almost an Evening (Coen, Ethan, 80 pages)
A play I read for class. I liked it so much I didn’t sell it back to the college book store.
The Atheist’s Introduction to the New Testament (Davis, Mike, 180 pages)
Atlas, Schmatlas: A Superior Atlas of the World (Robinson, Craig, 128 pages)
The Best American Short Stories 2009 (compilation, 348 pages)
Another book I read for class. Don’t let the title fool you: this book had one awesome story, two decent stories, and 17 shitty stories.
By the Shores of Silver Lake (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 292 pages)
Disproving Christianity (McAfee, David G., 86 pages)
I received this book from the published with the intent that I write a review of it. Here’s the review.
Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete? (compilation, 44 pages)
Earth (the Book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race (compilation, 236 pages)
Funniest book I read all year. I couldn’t put it down. Have you read it yet?
Earthquakes and Volcanoes (Merrians, Deborah, 42 pages)
This is a book for kids. I read it to Owen. Yeah, it counts.
The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe (Gray, Theodore, 242 pages)
This book is an awesome achievement in non-fiction: informative, passionate text written by someone who’s done the first-hand research and awesome illustrations. Best book I read all year. I loved it.
Farmer Boy (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 372 pages)
The First Four Years (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 138 pages)
God Hates You, Hate Him Back (Werleman, CJ, 298 pages)
Here’s another book I was sent for review. My review hasn’t appeared online yet, so no link. Sorry.
The Grand Design (Hawking, Stephen / Mlodinow, Leonard, 208 pages)
Anticlimactic.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Dawkins, Richard, 470 pages)
Dawkins has the uncanny ability to sucker me in with a mesmerizing first chapter. He does it every time. I think he should take the first chapter of every book he’s ever written and put them into one book. It would be the best book he’s ever written.
The Heathen’s Guide to World Religions (Hopper, William, 232 pages)
Another book I was sent to review. Here’s a link to my review, which is more humorous and less error-filled than the book.
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk (1999 edition) (Faber, Adele / Mazlish, Elaine, 288 pages)
In Search of Christian Freedom (second edition) (Franz, Raymond, 756 pages)
I started reading this book about two years ago, but I finally finished it early this year. There are about 3 great chapters in this book, and about 600 booooring pages.
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (Krakauer, John, 334 pages)
I won this book in the dice game last year, and began reading it the very next day. I love accounts of historical tragedies.
Jesus Lied: He Was Only Human (Werleman, CJ, 224 pages)
Yet another book I was sent to review. I haven’t yet.
John Adams (McCullough, David, 752 pages)
I listened to this book on cassette in my car. Yes, it counts.
Killing Yourself to Live (Klosterman, Chuck, 246 pages)
Lies Across America (Loewen, James, 480 pages)
Second-best book I read all year. Loewen is one of my personal heroes.
Little House in the Big Woods (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 240 pages)
Little House on the Prairie (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 338 pages)
Little Town on the Prairie (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 308 pages)
Wow. Wilder is really over-represented here.
The Long Winter (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 338 pages)
See what I mean?
The Lovely Bones (Sebold, Alice, 334 pages)
I read this book for class. For my essay, I was going to write “It sucked,” but I decided to shoot for a good grade instead. Did I mention the book sucked?
Night of the Living Trekkies (Anderson, Kevin / Stall, Sam, 256 pages)
Oh look! A work of fiction that was neither written by Laura Ingalls Wilder nor assigned in my class. Second-best fiction book I read all year.
North by Northwest (compilation, 238 pages)
On the Banks of Plum Creek (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 340 pages)
Out From Boneville (Smith, Jeff, 140 pages)
This shit-storm of a graphic novel only made it’s way into my hands because of the piqued curiosity resulting FROM THIS. Does it suck? Yes. Should it be banned? No.
A Raisin in the Sun (Hansberry, Lorraine, 156 pages)
The fourth, and final, book I read for class. Actually, there was a fifth book assigned, but I didn’t read it cover-to-cover, so listing it here would be cheating. Did I mention that I still managed to get an A on the essay I wrote for that book? Oh yeah, I guess I did.
These Happy Golden Years (Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 292 pages)
Holy Crap, Laura! You keep rearing your head here. Hey, it was a fun collection of books. I plan to encourage my son to read them one day.
Under a Flaming Sky (Brown, Daniel James, 272 pages)
Coincidentally, both the last book alphabetically and the last book I finished reading this year – having just wrapped it up a few hours ago. Like I said, I’m a sucker for historical tragedies.

Sunday, 26 December 2010

Today we spent decompressing. I awoke first and began brewing some tea. Jennifer and Isla got up next and Jennifer checked her emails while she ate breakfast. A tired Owen came hobbling into the living room about a half hour later. He declared that it was time to take the tree down, but I told him it still feels like the holidays to me, so we’d leave it up past New Year’s.

Soon after eating breakfast, Jennifer announced we would be cleaning the living room – at least to make the floor safe for Isla. We collapsed a few gift bags, and removed the packaging from some of Owen’s gifts. We started putting away some of his gifts, too; his new card game went in his room, the soap I won in the dice game went in my bathroom, the bag of nuts Jennifer won went in the pantry. Jennifer posted on Facebook that Christmas threw up in our living room. I quite agreed.

Jennifer’s parents came over this afternoon to take Owen for a couple of days. He’s off from school this coming week, too, and so it’s a great time for him to sleep over at his grandparents’ house. Once he left, I breathed a sigh of relief; ‘cause, man, he’s a lot of work. Jennifer and I sat down at around 3:30 this afternoon and, with Isla calmly nursing and then falling into a nap, we watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie. A really lame, boring episode titled “Chicago.” Yes, it is as bad as it sounds.

Monday, 27 December 2010

So, the first two hours I spent in that weird, dream-like state known as ‘consciousness’ were quite good. From about 8:30 to 10:30 I reveled in my first day of a weeklong furlough from work. I again brewed some tea, and Jennifer and I sat and read quietly. Then we got up to continue our cleaning – without Owen around we planned to get a lot done, and we were expecting company this evening, so I was looking forward to that.

But then Jennifer’s mom called and said we had to come and get Owen.

I was worried that something was wrong with Owen or that he had misbehaved so badly that my mother-in-law couldn’t stand another second with him. Well, the good news is, my son was not the problem. The bad news, though, was that my mother-in-law’s brother Mark had died unexpectedly several hours earlier.

I gotta admit, I didn’t know Mark very well. He made himself rather rare at family gatherings and, apart from briefly saying hello to him when the family convened in Hinckley for my wife’s grandma’s (Mark’s mom) birthday, I hadn’t seen him all year. In fact, now that I think about it, he never meet Isla. Still, I was very sad that someone so close to people that I do know and care about had passed away so abruptly (and young – he was in his mid-50s).

The news of Mark’s untimely passing sent me on an impromptu drive up to my in-laws’ home to pick up Owen. When I got there, Owen was with my wife’s two teenage cousins, who had been dropped off to care for Owen while my mother-in-law went to tell the terrible news to her mom. So the four of us piled into my car, and I dropped my wife’s cousins off at their house and then spent another half hour answering high-strung questions from a nervous and confused five year old.

Mark’s mom did not take the news very well (I suppose that goes without saying) and –long story short – she ended up in the hospital this afternoon after suffering a heart attack.

When I arrived back home, Jennifer wasn’t sure what to do regarding our plans for company this evening (I left it up to her) and we kept anticipating a phone call with more bad news.

Update: my wife’s grandma will be spending the night at the hospital, but it appears her heart is in good condition and will recovery physically, if not emotionally, from the rough day.

Now we wait to find out about news of funeral arrangements.

Saturday, 25 December 2010

The first item on our agenda today was to open up our Xmas presents. Owen didn’t want the presents sitting under the tree all month this time; he wanted them to ‘magically’ appear under the tree on Xmas eve. So, last night, after he went to bed, Jennifer and I set his and Isla’s gifts under the tree.

Owen’s gifts included: A Star Wars Visual Dictionary, nesting robots (matreshka style), a 2011 calendar, a mini-remote-controlled robot, and a stuffed robot that he can color and decorate himself. Isla’s gifts included some wood teethers (including one that I made!), playsilks, and one of those puffy books that infants like to chew on. Here’s what I’m talking about.

It’s a cool book, because it’s essentially a photo album, and we filled it with pictures of Isla’s family (mom, dad, brother, cousins, grandparents, and great-grandma).

Next, we drove to Jennifer’s uncle and aunt’s house in Forest Lake. We had dinner there, then we went downstairs to their basement for the dice game. The dice game is really fun and here’s how it works: everyone brings some gifts that they’ve prewrapped. The gifts aren’t fancy – a box of tea bags, a couple lottery tickets, some knick-knacks from the thrift store, a flashlight, used books, stuff like that. Anyway, they are labeled as BOYS, GIRLS, or UNISEX, and thrown into piles in the center of the room (it’s a big room). Then we all sit around the piles, and we pass around boxes with a pair of dice in them. When the box gets to you, you roll the dice inside, and if you get doubles, you get to run into the middle and pick out a gift. This takes a surprisingly long time, actually, but it’s entertaining to see which gifts go first and which ones stay for a long time. Finally, when all the gifts are accounted for, we keep rolling the dice for a couple more minutes, and if you get doubles, you can steal from someone else. This often results in tackling. And here’s another funny thing – you might think that it’s a good idea to steal the biggest gift – because surely that one has the best prize inside it – but this is actually not such a good idea. The reason why is because other people might also want that gift, and then they’ll steal if from you when they get doubles.  It’s funny to see some gifts change hands multiple times. Bottom line: it’s better to steal unremarkable gifts, because then you have a better chance of keeping them.

After that, everyone opens his or her gifts. Some of my gifts included a wine rack, a jar filled with candy, and a book about beer. Owen participated in the game for the first time this year, and he stole a gift from me (he thought that was sooooo funny). Now I have 364 days to start collecting gifts for next year (I am always on the lookout – at the Goodwill, at vendor shows I attend through work, and even here at home where there might be things I don’t want anymore, but that still have some value).

On second thought, instead of telling you about the dice game, maybe I should just show you:

[Oh wait – I guess I can’t. After trying for several hours, it turns out that YouTube’s upload software is, for the fifth straight year, a piece of shit.]

Thursday, 23 December 2010

Happy Christmas Eve Eve!

`11`1            111111111112QAQ1                                     1`1q            AWZA≈Î444SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSZA

Okay, first of all, the above message is what happens when I leave my laptop on the floor in proximity to a 4 month old. So – let it be known – that message is Isla’s first ever attempt at written communication. I don’t know what language she speaks, but I think it roughly translates to “Hey, what’s this?”

Today Owen and I ventured to Home Depot. I copied some blueprints for a stool that I want to make for him, and I figured I would buy the wood today.

See, Jennifer and I have these IKEA chairs in the living room and they have matching stools. IKEA ever so adorably has a kid-sized version of the chairs…but not the stool. What are they thinking? If that’s not a missed opportunity to make some easy money, I don’t know what it.

Anyway, the stool blueprints I found are for an adult-sized chair, too. No worries, I thought, I’ll just construct it smaller so that it’s Owen-sized. Well, stupid me forgot about the scaling-down part of it, and I bought enought wood ($40 worth) to construct the full-sized version. Damn. That was stupid. So, yeah, I got some extra wood laying around.

(Did you think with all this talk about stool and wood that I would take the opportunity to make a sophomoric joke? Sorry. I’m too mature for that.)

Also, check this out:

Damn. I’m not sure if Jesus is coming…but Pope Palpatine sure is! (ba-dum!)

Friday, 24 December 2010

Happy Christmas Eve!

Today we celebrated baby Jesus’ 2,010th birthday by going over to my sister-in-law’s house. She lives about two miles away, so she’s just barely inside my daily recommended car trip allowance.

Owen’s grandparents were there, too. And his grammie had a great idea: pack as many gifts as you can into a single box, and then just wrap that one box. How clever is that? It’s great because then she didn’t have to bother wasting time and materials individually wrapping all sorts of things. As an additional bonus, Owen is really bad at unwrapping stuff. I’m serious; I think he thinks he has to unwrap gifts such that the wrapping paper, ribbon, and tape are all reusable.So, having less to unwrap is a good deal for him. On an unrelated note: he’s been randomly saying “Jewish people” at odd times.

Also, I tried my latest batch of homebrew this evening. Not good. Too bitter, and an unfortunate aftertaste. Of course, it just finished conditioning a few days ago, so maybe it will taste better in, like, a week or so. Otherwise, I might just put a cup of honey in each glass I pout and keep some sugar sitting next to me that I can splash onto my tongue every time I take a swallow.

Tuesday, 21 December 2010

Happy December Solstice! (“December” is more PC than “Winter.”)

Are snowplows exempt from following traffic regulations?

Today, on my way to work, while driving north on Ayd Mill Road, I happened to be behind a snowplow. It was a small snowplow – just a small pick-up truck with a plow attached to the front of it. I could have gone around the plow, but the driver was slightly straddling the other lane, and with so much snow piled up, I really would’ve had to squeeze to get through.

As we approached the stop sign, the snowplow driver just decided to ignore it – he didn’t slow down or give any indication that he care that there was a stop sign there. And he wasn’t in the process of plowing, either, he was just driving somewhere.

About two minutes later, I was driving north on Snelling Avenue. As I waited at a stoplight, a very large snowplow came barreling past me in the other lane. This time, it was a large Caterpillar digger, with the number ‘950F’ emblazoned on the side. It just went right through the stoplight. I’m not sure why he couldn’t wait, the light turned green about 5 seconds after he past. I caught up to that snowplow, and we both slowed down and came to a stop at the next stoplight. “Oh good,” I though, “this time he’s stopping for the light.” But he only stopped for a second – ‘cause then he just went right on through that light (even though opposing traffic was approaching) and then, crossing over the highway, switched lanes without signaling and drove straight through the next stoplight, too.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many traffic violations in such a short time. I think I’m gonna strap a plow to the front of my Cavalier so that, should I ever get pulled over, I can say, “Sorry officer, but you see I have a snowplow, so normal rules don’t really apply to me.”

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

Happy Christmas Eve Eve Eve!

Today is my last day of work for the year. I am not stepping foot in this building again until January third of next year. It’s funny how much of a ghost town my job becomes – only seven people from my department (a department of normally 15 people) are even here at work today, and one of them left at noon. The parking lot is relatively empty and many departments got to leave early today. I think I just saw some tumbleweed blow by.

On the Christmas front: my beer is done conditioning as of today. Good timing! Now I just have to apply the labels to the bottles and then I can go ahead and spread some Xmas cheer! Last year (not sure if I mentioned this before) I completely forgot to brew some beer for Xmas until it was too late, but this year I stayed very cognizant of it, having purchased the supplies the weekend after Thanksgiving.