Now winter is half over...

and this is my first blog in 3 months. Not going to happen again but then again it may. The winter is here and my wife and I both absolutely love this season. Maybe for not all the same reasons but we do share at least one major crossover. We love to spend time with family and friends as we celebrate the cornerstone of our beliefs. Without His birth he couldn't have died and given meaning to this crazy race we call life. We get distracted this time of year by presents and football and worrying about how we are going to get to everywhere we have to go. But we cannot forget the reason for the season. I will get off my deacon soapbox and continue on to other things.

It is a great time of year for reading. I know that I read year round but this time of year is when coffee takes on a new life. Christmas blends at my favorite coffee shops sipped slowly at home or at the shop itself. Starbucks at Eastchase or Cafe Louisa in Cloverdale are outstanding venues for a cup of coffee 'for there'. I forgot how much fun it was to just slow down and finish a mug of coffee, something I took for granted all those years at Taylor's Bakery in Auburn. I figured that in order to catch up on my 3 month drought of posts I could go through a few interesting books that I have read in the last few weeks. As most of you know who read my blog I am an avid movie fan as well and as mediums go only books are better. So it only stands to reason that I would rather read a book before seeing the movie and alot of times I have already read a great book before they even decide to make a movie out of it. So four of these are topically relevant all but one I have also seen the movie.

The Blind Side - Michael Lewis (5 out of 5) - An amazing story about a black boy born in the worst part of Memphis who through a series of events ends up at a private Christian school thanks to a grandmother who new there was potential in her grandson and left money for him to attend a private school. Michael Oher wasn't the grandson he was just a friend of the grandson who went along for the ride. A caring family who found out he didn't have a place to stay took him in and helped him qualify for high school football as well as adopt him giving him a family for the first time in his life. The book continues on through his college recruitment and an investigation by the NCAA when he chooses his adopted parents alma mater 'Ole Miss. The book a ton of info about left tackles and their development as one of the highest paid positions in the NFL second only to quarterbacks. The movie is also outstanding and does a great job of telling Michael's story.

Twilight & New Moon - Stephanie Meyer (3 out of 5) - Unless you are a dude or a girl living under a rock you have already heard about these books. I have called this many times 'girl porn' as it appeals to the most basic want for girls to be sought after feverishly by a godly being of a person who is willing to forsake his own needs to be with her. The first book is about Edward and Bella meeting and cementing their love for each other and felt more like a prequel than a full story. The 3 out of 5 is more of an average Twilight got closer to a 2 and New Moon closer to a 4. New Moon starts with Edward leaving Bella after a very tense event where Bella cuts her hand in a room full of vampires, and he realizes the danger he is putting her in. Jacob her friend and soon to be werewolf falls for her and again she is swooned over by a guy who never wheres a shirt. The movies were similair to the books Twilight was ok and New Moon was better. If it keeps improving the 4th book may just be great.
 
The Road - Cormac McCarthy (5 out of 5) - I don't understand why it took me 3 years to find this book. I can only blame Oprah's Book Club for picking it which is no excuse since everyone of the books on her list I have read has been great (Night by Wiesel and Million Little Pieces by Frey). It is about a father and son who don't ever even have names that are traveling through a post-apocalyptic world trying to find food in the ash covered world that is left after some nuclear event. People have resorted to eating each other and they are trying to find a place where they will be safe and maybe get out from under the clouds of ash. The father is trying desperately to show his son that life can continue on without resorting to cannibalism and loss of morality. The movie is in limited release now but I strongly suggest you go see it especially if you aren't planning to read the book. No spoilers but it is a heavy story so don't look down on a man who sheds a tear while watching.

Hopefully I will have several more posts before the end of the year to give some best of 2009 stuff and alot more book reviews. Merry Christmas!

The Fall is HERE!!!

I know, i know September just started but when football starts so does the fall. In my opinion at least. I didn't get to watch much football this weekend because i had to work the afternoon shift so I have to reserve most my judgments for when I actually get to see more than just the end of a few games. I will say I was really happy with what I saw out of Chris Todd and just the excitement level of the whole Auburn team. I watched the replay on FSS at like 1am last night and I am really trying hard not to get too excited over LaTech although they were 8-5 bowl winners in 2008. I will be more comfortable with a win at MSU this weekend. But anyway WDE!

Fall means most of the great movies have already happened during the summer with a few exceptions, Sherlock Holmes for one. Fall does mean new TV though which has me ready for some couch time. I put together a little list for myself and thought I would share it with everyone else. Mad Men, Entourage, Glee and Greek have already started so you may already be behind but most of the others start next week.
Tuesday 9/15
30 Rock - 8:30
Thursday 9/17
Community - 7
Parks & Recreation - 7:30
The Office - 8
Fringe - 8
Always Sunny In Philadelphia - 9
Monday 9/21
How I Met Your Mother - 7
Big Bang Theory - 8:30
Wednesday 9/23
Gary Unmarried - 7:30
Thursday 9/24
Grey's Anatomy - 8
Sunday 9/27
The Simpsons - 7
Family Guy - 8
Thursday 10/1
Private Practice - 9

The only show that I know of skipping this fall is 24 which doesn't start season 8 until Jan 2010. If there are some I missed I will catch up in another post. I almost forgot the new show on the list is "Community" coming on NBC starring Joel McHale(Talk Soup) and Chevy Chase. I hope it's funny the stuff they have online is hilarious.

I decided to blog instead of book review today. I will catch up with a book this weekend.

Coffee Book of the Week

This weeks book is a classic that I picked up because I had enjoyed his other books that I had read and this one may be my second favorite of his to this point. Again I had not heard much about the book I just got it because it was written by Ernest Hemingway.

 

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

 

This book was first published in 1926 and was second novel but the first major success for him. The central idea of this book was really a narrative about the "Lost Generation". The young veterans of WWI that had trouble returning to the norm after the war was over traveling abroad to get away from the responsibilities back home. 

 

The story follows Jake Barnes, an injured fighter pilot, who can't get over being shot down in the war so he travels around Europe with his buddies Mike, Bill and Robert. He is in love with a woman, Lady Brett Ashley, who is taking the independence given to women during the war to a whole new level. All of the men in the novel are after Brett in one way or another. At the beginning of the novel she is engaged to Mike, but at one point in the novel you find out Brett once had a short affair with Robert, who spends the entire novel trying to win her back. They travel from Paris to Pamplona to see the running of the bulls. They all drink too much and party too hard with no apparent consequences other than maybe the occasional fight or an indiscretion that later merits an apology. Hemingway's description of the running of the bulls and later the bull fights themselves is graphic and the prose he uses really makes you feel like you are sitting around the drinking table with this crew or sitting in the stands with them.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Coffee Book of the Week

The book this week is not a long one (just over 200 pages) or one that I had heard much about before I read it. Don't get me wrong I had heard the title and seen it on bestseller lists but had not heard much about the premise. The inaugural book for my weekly book posts is one that really tugged at the heartstrings and showed something we have all heard, read and talked about many times before in a different light.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Since I hadn't heard much about the book it was very exciting "figuring out" what was going on and understanding what the narrator, a young 9 year old German boy, was talking about. Because everything is told from his point of view and in his vocabulary there are several key words and phrases that he uses in the book long before you actually figure out what they mean. This is going to be spoiler free but I just wanted to give everyone an idea of how ingenious the author uses the boys imagination and young mind to bring full circle Nazi Germany and what it would look like too a child.

The book starts out with the child, Bruno, upset that he is having to leave his friends and move out of Berlin. His father is in the army and "the Fury" has come to his home and asked them to relocate to a place he calls "Out With" as a promotion and great opportunity for his father's career. At his new home, which by his standards is not as much fun as his old house, he is surrounded by soldiers and fences. The fences contain lots of people that are all wearing striped pajamas and he is confused by why he is separated from them and why he doesn't get a pair of striped pjs. In his explorations he meets a boy about his age that he becomes friends with. There is, in his mind, no reason why they should not be friends.

I was floored by how this book made me feel. Anger, sadness, and still after all the years studying the Holocaust still shocked. The ending is amazing and I was surprised after such a short novel how well I identified with Bruno and how sometimes I just sit back and wonder why things that are happening, are happening? By the way "The Fury" is the furor and "Out With" is Auschwitz which was the largest concentration camp but I am sure you already figured that out. There is also a movie made from the book but I haven't brought myself to watch it yet, I don't know how it could even compare to the book.
RATING - 9.5 out of 10

Sometimes There Are Free Lunches....

I had a wise old baseball coach as a Calculus teacher, not a coach. If that's not a nerdy beginning to a story I don't know what is, anyway he had a big poster board by the door of his classroom that had in big hand written caps "NO FREE LUNCHES". For those of you not familiar with the term it means nothing in life is free there is always a catch, or you have to study to get the good grades, yada, yada, yada you don't get something for nothing. But I recently had one of the best customer service experiences in a long time maybe ever where this did not apply. Some of you know my iPod was acting up and not playing music from any of it's outlets, headphones or through a sound dock. I tried a couple things on the online troubleshooting guide but nothing seemed to work so I called the dreaded tech support line. I got to speak to a guy named Kenny Ferris (I knew I was in luck when he explained how to spell his name by saying "The same as Ferris Bueller's Day Off", sweet) who was absolutely beyond helpful. Once he figured out my problem by having me squeeze my iPod in a couple different places he said those dreadful words no technology owner wants to here, "Well your iPod is 2 years old and it only had a one year warranty..." BLAST right but the next statement threw me for a loop "BUT, we expect our products to last longer than than so we will send you a new one." Yeah you read that right and they paid for shipping, sent me a box with a return label on it to get mine and my new iPod here in less than a week. I might expect this kind of treatment from a smaller company interested in keeping business but this is Apple they sell like a gagillion iPods a year but they are still interested in the guy who bought his a couple years ago and something inside it broke, awesome.

Some friends of mine and I had a discussion about favorite vacation spots. Everyone in the group was supposed to rate vacations home spots from most to least favorite, these are just general but the categories were

• Beach House/Condo
• Mountain House
• Ski Lodge/Condo
• Lake House

Everyone's responses were interesting especially since mine and my wife's #1s were both completely different. Here's mine

1. Mountains
2. Skiing
3. Beach
4. Lake

I can't remember how my wife's went but I know beyond a doubt her #1 was the beach. This has always put us in quite a conundrum as far as vacations go knowing that neither of us is on our ideal vacation when we are together. But over the summer in the course of about 3 weeks we got hit both of our #1s. We got to spend an awesome weekend in Highlands, NC with some college friends and then two weeks later spend a weekend in Destin, FL with some of our amazing friends from right here in Montgomery. Drop me a comment and let me know your order of favorite vacations.

Also, I know this is a short blog for such a freaking long break but I figured out what keeps me from getting over the hump to blog and this is going to sound really nerdy BUT it's how many books I have to "review" I wait a little too long then I have to rush the blog so that I can get the books listed and not be too long. So I have decided to change up the blog a little bit. I am going to make the book review longer and once a week. I am a good 8 or so books behind so I shouldn't catch up with my reading for a while. I haven't decided what day for sure yet but I am thinking Tuesday. It's new book day at the book store so why wouldn't it be new book review day. So check back Tuesday for my first one "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas". I will be doing personal blogs along the way as well so don't fret very loyal audience, but they will be sporadic as events/ideas happen.

May is the month for crazy and growing up...

It has been absolutely one of the nuttiest months for me especially since my last post. We are in a month long outage at work and when you are on the "front lines" like I am now as a supervisor outage takes on a whole new meaning. Before I was just coordinating two or three jobs and one contractor for a couple weeks. Now I am working with every contractor working in the department, my guys( aka the crew), maintenance needs on the equipment that is down and also the equipment that is running. It was crazy but also exciting at the same time. The fact that the outage is over this week will be a blessing on everyone because it was so long but it also means we completed it successfully. In past outages we had multiple supervisor coverage but this time I was the lone man in charge. I know that sounds crazy, me in charge, but we did it. OUTAGE COMPLETE... and in the immortal words of Johnny Drama as Torvald, VICTORY! And as of now I am down to 1.5 night shifts 2 afternoons and one day shift before the big switch.

My wife is joining my age club next week. As of Monday she will officially be in her "late-twenties". It's not easy moving into a new partition of life the good news is she has a long weekend off to prepare herself for the slide to 30. Not that there is anything wrong with 30 it's just the first big "0" age after college and though nothing happens at 30 specifically it is a turning point. A turning point that has become more evident as we found a house we weren't looking for. We kind of fell into a house in old Cloverdale, well we haven't fallen in yet just I guess found it and are pursuing it despite the fact that less than two weeks ago I had not yet even started to think about moving. It is 4 bedroom 3 bath and as soon as I mentioned it at work all the guys started ragging me about how you can't have 4 bedrooms in a house without starting a family. Wow, that is heavy but also so very true and while my wife and I aren't planning that right now the "turning point" I talked about earlier really makes me think.

This summer has just started and already the movies have been awesome. We to see T4:Salvation this weekend and loved it. It was also the 4th weekend in a row my group of friends and I had been to the movies which I know is a post-college record. Graded below

May 1 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Rating B)
May 8 - Star Trek (A+)
May 15 - Angels & Demons (A+)
May 22 - T4: Salvation (A)


And there are still so many great ones left too

May 29 - Up
June 5 - The Hangover
June 19 -Year One
June 26 - Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen
July 17 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
July 31 - Funny People
August 7 - G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra


Of course there are others coming out too but these are the ones that have the most promise of being good. If I missed any let me know. With Netflix I was surprised how many books I got through in this month but there were all very good.

The Last Dickens - Mathew Pearl (5 out of 5) The latest historical fiction mystery from Pearl based on the true fact that Charles Dickens died with only half his last book written. The story is about the search for the last half of the book. It covers Dickens' last American book tour and a alot of great background information and actually characters from that time. Another great weaving of history and fiction.

On the Road - Jack Kerouac (4 out of 5) A biographical look at the late 1940s "Beat" generation. Jack, who calls himself Sal Paradise, travels cross country listening to jazz, hitch-hiking, drugging and leaving women in his wake. But is more than that, it is a look at a forgotten age of trust, generosity and lasting friendships. He wrote the whole book on a 120 foot scroll of paper that is still around. It is regarded as the "Bible of the beat generation".

Blink - Malcolm Gladwell (6 out of 5) The second book by Gladwell was absolutely amazing. I would recommend this book for anyone in business or sales. It is a study in what our brain does subconsciously which he calls "thin-slicing". I could do a whole blog just about this book so I won't go to deep but it looks at preconceptions we have about people and things that are developed throughout our lives. What is called the "Warren G. Harding Error" about how a man that just looks presidential because of his height and demeanor can actually be elected president despite being completely inept at politics.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson (5 out of 5) A best seller worldwide from Sweden. It is a great mystery/thriller about a journalist who gets ousted from his magazine after getting charged with libel. He is enlisted by an ex-CEO of an international company to find a murderer. The twist is that the murder happened 30+ years ago and it was his niece who he was grooming to take over the company. Her body was never found so it has haunted him for all these years. It flowed amazingly and I liked the subtle differences in writing style such as using proper names for books and things like saying "he picked up his iBook" instead of "he picked up his computer" which is the norm.

April Showers Bring May Weeds...

well if you haven't mowed yet this spring I guess they don't count as May weeds more like late fall weeds that died and since you didn't do anything to keep them dead they just came back. Anyway enough about uncut yards. It's been 2 months since my last post and I hate doing these first posts after a long wait because they always feel rushed but here goes.

Biggest thing that has gone on was our amazing trip out west. My wife and I and 2 other couples went to Breckenridge, CO for my first big skiing adventure. The area was beautiful and the mountains were awe-inspiring. Having spent most of my time in the woods in the Appalachians and the Sierra Nevadas I was absolutely floored by the Rocky Mountains. Thier size, snow coveredness and juttiness, if that's a word, were awesome. For space sake here is my wife's blog on the trip. I will just say a couple things
1) There is nothing like a trip with best friends. Spending a few days away with them is amazing with all crazyness of our lives it's hard for grownups to develop the same type friendships we had as children but a trip like this is perfect.
2) Take ski school. My wife went from falling down the mountain and having dispariging things to say about the sciences on day 1 to skiing down some of the hardest greens just the day after, DO IT.
3) Skiing rocks. It's fun, not dangerous if you take it seriously and in a place like Breckenridge you get the same outdoors feel of backpacking with out all the packing.

Next up although my next job is still up in the air I did finally get full recognition for what I am doing now. The crew I have is great and everyday is challenging trying to figure out how to fix problems we have when not everyone is there at the mill. Also I will be done with shift work on July 1st if everything goes as planned, WOOT!

A Netflix update: I appreciate all you guys/girls who watch your dvds slowly and some of you know who you are who keep the same one for weeks at a time. I appreciate you because you keep Netflix affordable for me since I have about the shortest turnaround time you can get as of now I have had the service for 2 months and have gotten 18 movies and 3 full seasons in the mail and using the instant watch feature watched another 25 movies and 4 seasons. So like I said thank you to everyone who slowly returns movies and keep up the good work!

I want to give a shout out to a great comic book series that I just finished reading in graphic novel form, Y: the last man. I don't know if I mentioned it before but it is outstanding. Story starts with an epidimic that kills everything with a Y chromosome except the main charachter Yorick Brown, the last man alive. It's collected in 10 graphic novels as he tries to cross the globe to find his girlfriend who was on vacation in Australia after the world starts to fall apart with one gender gone. Read it.

On that note I also have read some great books since my last post so here goes:

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (4 out of 5) Classic set in the 1920s the narrator, Nick, is new to New York and moves in next door to the mysterious, party throwing, Jay Gatsby. The story follows a year of his life hightlighting the changes of the time with women gaining more rights, the rise of jazz and the stock market. Great read and a difinitive look at the "roaring 20s"

In the Woods - Tana French (4 out of 5) Thriller would be a good description. A detective who had a harrowing experience as a child is brought back to the same neighborhood he left behind to solve the grisly murder of a young girl left on an archeaology site. He should recuse himself from the investigation but doesn't and as the try to figure out who killed the young girl he also learns more about himself. It's a real cliff hanger story and I don't usually read these but I liked it, just enough twists I never figured it out until the end.

Marley & Me - John Grogan (5 out of 5) Great story and written soo well. The movie skips alot of good stories and information from the book so having seen it doesn't mean the book isn't worth your time, it is. An good story about a bad dog who despite his quirks means more to the family than they really know. I think anyone who has a dog can relate to some or all of the story.

Bad Dogs Have More Fun - John Grogan (2 out of 5) Got it thinking it would be another good story from Grogan but should have read the cover. It was just his columns reprinted. Some good ones but too short and quick. (That's what she said)

Hot, Flat & Crowded - Thomas Friedman (5 out of 5) Really more of an extension of his last book "The World is Flat"that I reviewed back in June 07. The book centers on how the flat world affects the environment and our love as a world for getting everything that we can no matter the outcome. Lots of great facts and figures and discussion about what it will be like when the emerging countries of the world catch up with the U.S. in oil consumption/person.

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell (6 out of 5) A why the world is the way it is book. Reminded me of "Freakanomics" in style. Discusses what it takes for things to tip from obscurity to epidimic from personality types to stickiness factors it is awesome. Comparing a suicide epidimic in Micronesia to teen smoking may just be the neatest part of the book. I would recommend anyone in the business world to read this book now.