Tag: books

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Are you raising a reader?

We are! We watch Erin on the baby monitor reading late into the night. She gets that from me. This is Erin’s bed on a typical morning. Actually, on a typical morning there would probably be 3 more books in the bed, plus a couple Toy Story action figures. How does she sleep like that?

Chair full of books

I’m pretty sure those cheap plastics chairs are not rated to handle that kind of load.

And it’s not like she doesn’t have a perfectly handy place to keep those books. Check out the forsaken bookshelf. It’s not all the way across the room, but at the foot of her bed!

And yes she does read yoga books. Baby is an enigma.

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Programmed to self-destruct

Hmm. Remember last year when I declared I was never going to take another programming class ever again?! Yeah. Well, last month when I said I was starting my Programming with PHP class, why didn’t you gently remind me of this? Hell, why didn’t you just start hitting me over the head with a toaster?!!

At first I thought things were going to be ok. PHP seemed to make a lot more sense than JavaScript ever did. But that optimism was short lived and PHP done went and broke my brain this past weekend! I spent most of Saturday trying to get my little program to work. As my head was starting to ache, I finally gave up and went to bed completely frustrated. So it was no surprise when I woke up Sunday morning with a wicked bad migraine. Fun. Of course my assignment was due Sunday at 11pm. At 8pm, after another nap, I turned on the computer. As if that wasn’t painful enough, I gave my program another couple attempts – nope, wasn’t happening. I just could not figure it out. Had to turn it in anyways. Double ouch.

Yesterday I started the next assignment, which includes having to read 5 chapters! I read 2 and called Chris. I was not getting it. He ordered me to go the bookstore to get another book on the subject. And I’m pretty sure that’s going to help. Seriously. What didn’t help was taking Kyle with me. Damn, that boy would not shut up! So I bought him ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. “No, I will not buy you the whole series tonight!”  – jeez. And then Kyle fell in love with the dude working the cash register. Ok, maybe not “in love” but he certainly seemed to like him. The guy – who kind of had a shorn Seth Rogan thing going on – commented that Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a classic and one of his favorite books! He then agreed with Kyle that I must have spent my childhood living under a rock because I’ve never read ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. sorry. And then (and I missed this) the dude put his hands together and gave us a little bow! And Kyle thought that was the coolest thing ever. I heard about it the whole way home. We also discussed when and how the Buddha gained enlightenment. Kyle kills me. What a kook.

And because I know you are as worried about my grade as I am, I am happy to report that the teacher email me back saying that I was really close. Gave me a couple pointers and voila! I got the program to work. I am ashamed to admit how happy this made me.

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a Hodge-podge, but no Brady

Damn woman – have a little patience!

The uber-in-laws called while I was cooking dinner. Over the speaker-phone I promised to post a pic of Kyle’s new haircut. 20 minutes ago, while I was still helping Kyle with his homework, I received the following email:

“I rushed home (okay, there was a pizza stop in the ‘rush’ part) to see Kyle’s haircut on your blog!!! I was promised!! Oh, deceiving phone calls on speaker.”

Well then. As promised! The new and improved Kyle – BEHOLD!


I had forgotten that he even had eyebrows!

Reading list

And while I have your attention P, how is Lamb coming along? I finished Island of the Sequined Love Nun and it did not disappoint! It wasn’t as laugh-out-loud as some of his other books, but the ending had me grinning like a fool. 5 Stars. Classic Moore. Yum!

2 days ago…

Sunday afternoon, I finally scanned the negs from the roll of film I shot with the Supersampler. Today I uploaded 7 of the 12 ‘keepers’ to Flickr. I’ll post the rest tomorrow – but gee wiz, if I don’t get them up right away, cut me some slack eh?!

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Event Horizon

The call from the vet was not good news. Bodhi’s kidney levels were through the roof. Apparently she had been sick for some time and was suffering renal failure. It was just a matter of time. So we said our goodbyes, and I took her back to the vet’s yesterday afternoon. What a heart-breaking day.

Kyle’s friend picked him up later in the evening and took him to a band event at the school for a couple hours. Chris went to bed early. I watched a little TV and then grabbed my book – I’m almost hesitant to tell you what I was reading, lest you think I am intentionally trying to re-read my youth. Which I’m not, but an interesting idea all the same.

I was reading Neuromancer. Which I’m pretty sure I read the first time while I was still in Detroit. Which means – hold on, gotta do a little math and that’s always painful – 17+ years ago. Holy crap. That can not be right. I no longer trust my math skills. Anyway, I read this book a long long time ago. And unlike Jailbird and The Watchmen, I remembered none of it. At points I even doubted that I had really read it before. Science Fiction was not (still isn’t) my usual genre. But I did read it, and at several times throughout the book, I really wanted to go back in time and ask the younger, completely not-geeky in the sci-fi way, me it I enjoyed it. Did I even get it then? 20 years later, the concepts of AI and the matrix are not that hard to wrap your head around. But in the late 80s?! Yeah, not so much. I really would like to have been in my poor brain on that first run – man, that must have been one hellofa mind fuck! Or I was completely lost. Yes, I know – I was in my brain that first time, I just don’t remember the experience. Don’t remember any of my thoughts about the book. Nothing. Nada. Kinda strange don’t you think? Maybe it was completely over my head, so I just moved on, retaining nothing.

But I hadn’t planned on reading this book. I was in the Science Fiction section at the library looking up books by Neil Gaiman, when I noticed Neuromancer by William Gibson on the shelf below. And I remembered that Chris, who is always reading SciFi, had told me he had never read it! I, of course, gave him some shit about it being a classic and that even I had read it blah blah blah. So I checked it out for him. But he’s reading some work related books right now, so when I finished The Watchmen, I picked up Neuromancer. Simple as that.

Kyle didn’t get home till around 10pm last night. I stayed up to 11:30 finishing the book. When I finally got to bed I was completely exhausted. Emotionally beat-up by the week, and up hours past my normal bed-time, I hoped I would fall right to sleep. No dice. My head hit the pillow and I closed my eyes…

I was in the exam room. Petting Bodhi’s gaunt frame. Waiting for the doctor to come and…

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Wow. I just finished re-reading The Watchmen last night. Damn. On so many levels.

And with that stunning assessment, it is time to catch you up on what I have been reading. After finally finishing The Shock Doctrine last fall, I hunkered down in the fiction section to nurse my wounds and regain my strength.
According to my Goodreads* account, I’ve read:

  • I Was Told There’d Be Cake – Blah. Didn’t finish it.
  • Pagan Babies – Good ol’ Elmore Leonard. Started out kinda slow (coulda been the Elavil) but wrapped up nicely at the end!
  • How to Be Good – Nick Hornby being not so good.
  • Jailbird – pulled this old Vonnegut book off my bookshelf. It had been so long since I had last read it that I had forgotten everything, but would remember/recognize it as I went along. So it goes.
  • American Gods – Oh yeah baby, this was good. There should be more Neil Gaiman – such a great story teller. And you can never go wrong with gods right?I must convince the Sain’tly one to send me the rest of the Lucifer series.
  • The Glass Castle: A Memoir – Cynthia lent this book to me and I must say, I avoided it for the longest time. But I picked it up between books and was quickly sucked in. Amazing story.

Which brings me back to The Watchmen. Damn. It was fanfuckintastic. The Sain’t gave it to me to read the first time in – let’s see, we determined it was my second stay in San Francisco, so that would have been ‘92? Early ‘93? And like the Vonnegut book, I didn’t remember much of anything about the plot, yet turning each page there was a familiarity, a “oh yeah!” moment. I did remember the comic with-in story, but the end was a complete surprise. How nice. (It seems 15+ years does the trick. There was a postcard for a gallery opening dated 1992 in the Vonnegut book.) And now it’s finished. And I’m feeling rather lost. But hey! The movie will be out soon! And when it comes out on DVD later this year, I’ll finally get to see it. I’m not worried. Those uber-in-laws will take care of me. Bob’s TV is large enough to rival any movie theater. And there will probably be cake. Whether I like it or not.

What am I reading now? Dreamweaver CS3 – The Missing Manual. Cause I just can’t stand not lugging a big heavy programming book around with me everyday. It’s an illness I tell ya, an illness.

* ya know, I was just talking to Chris about my FBI file. Everyone has one right? Mine should have a flag on it by now don’t you think?! (I’m now following Karl Rove on Twitter!) Anyways, “they” say they track your library records and searches on Amazon etc. Well Goodreads.com and its ilk make sure they don’t miss a thing! Books bought at a garage sale? Loaned from a friend? Handed to you in an airport with a marigold for a bookmark? Let me just add that to my Goodreads account. It’s the equivalent of polishing the silver tray, donning white gloves, and spoon feeding the info right to the data miners. Damn. I should quit everything and start focusing on the JFK conspiracy full time! And UFOs.

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Wiped out

Wow. Didn’t mean to disappear down a black hole on ya. But this has been a strange week and I don’t think I’ve fully recovered yet. And really, I don’t even know what I would be recovering from. Headaches, new medications, stock market woes, JavaScript, being a brunette… wait – that change is good. I think. Hard to tell when no one says anything either way. Kyle is calling me Goth, which is pretty damn funny. Hey, is it too soon to give him the Sandman books? I just added Neil Gaiman as a friend on GoodReads. I’m rubbing bandwidth with the big boys now.

What else. Didn’t see Coleman Barks. Totally ok with that. (I’m not ok with the fact that I can’t find the copy of his CD I made years ago) We went to the circus last Friday. Fun, but exhausting. Erin does not sit still even for lions and tigers and bear oh my. Or the tigers, elephants, and small white horses that we actually saw. I took some pictures –shocking, I know. Look for them around Thanksgiving. Tonight I have to take my Chapter 10 test. JavaScript really gave my brain a workout. Wish me luck. Cause when I do poorly, Chris suffers.