Books

I just finished Manhunt, the 12 day hunt for Lincoln's assassin. Thanks to Deborah I seem to be on a Lincoln kick. Thankfully, this book was wonderful! The author pulled together historical data to describe with detail the days leading up to the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempted escape of John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators. Written like a novel, I didn't find it at all dull or text-bookish. In fact, there were moments of pure adrenaline and excitement - it truly read like a novel.

I recommend it to history buffs and to those interested in an engaging read.


Cormack McCarthy's The Road however perplexed me to no end. This Oprah Book Club selection was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "gripping, frightening and ultimately, beautiful." My reaction was quite the opposite.

Bleak, depressing and pointless are the descriptors that come to me. I am not one to shy away from dark stories - Jose Saramago's Blindness remains one of my favorite books of all time in spite of the horrendous descriptions of the cruelty of humankind. In The Road a father and son are walking through a wasteland that use to be America. They are on a journey to the south where they believe something resembling life awaits them. They are forced to hide from the other survivors and are placed in kill or be killed scenes during their journey.

I'm not sure if we're supposed to be comforted by the parent child relationship or find hope in their will to go on. Frankly, I didn't feel or see it.

And... Mr. McCarthy's technique of not using punctuation irritates me. He is a prolific writer with a skill I admire, but for fucksake man... buy a quotation mark or find it in your heart to every once in a while drop us a clue as to who the heck is speaking!!!

Oprah and others such as the respected New York Times Book Review loved this story - but I for one did not.

Movie Review: SuperBad

Well, never before has a movie been given such an apt title. This was super bad. I need to invoke the spirit of Bill Clinton and define "Bad" for our readers.

Bad has a number of meanings in todays vernacular, it can mean "cool, awesome, hip, great" or it can mean "not great, terrible, awful." For the purpose of this review you can assume I mean the latter.

I will say that if I was a jr. high to college age guy I might have a different opinion. The penis jokes and "Vag" references might be funnier longer for this crowd. I'm not totally mature and I did chuckle at times - but I don't recommend that you throw it into your NetFlix queue.

See Ya in a Few

I'm off to Arizona until Saturday. It's a work thing that doesn't feel like work.

Don't hate me, I'll be at the pool by one today.

(of course here it is 5:05 am and I'm headed to the airport... I do not love the 4:00 a.m. alarm.)

Gotta jet!

Kisses

Workin' It

tpgal and the dreadmill spent some quality time together this morning. (yeah!) Maybe if I start working out I'll stop losing and gaining the same one pound over and over again.

I noticed that my workout mix leaves a lot to be desired, so I used about $20 of the birthday iTunes gift certificate to "party up" my music selection. Daft Punk and some 90's dance club mixes will replace the great-but-not-for-working-out Peter Gabriel and Sinead O'Connor.

Even though I haven't been working out religiously, the 22 (21, 22, 21, 22) pounds I've dropped have helped for a better workout.

Go me!

Business???

The annual Information Security conference is coming and this year's local doesn't look like it's going to be all that hard to tolerate.

This is the view of the golf course. I've built time into my travel schedule to enjoy the pool on the last day! The hard part will be deciding which of the 10 pools to hang by!

Sometimes life sucks, and sometimes it doesn't. Next week - the suck factor should be in the negative numbers.

I am too cheap tho' to spend $200 at the spa. I do have SOME self control. Maybe after I'm thin and Prince William marries me I won't have to feel guilty about blowing money on intangible things.

I've been linked in!

I've made a new online friend and she put a link to my dumb blog on her site. I'm famous! You may all bow down before me now...





or not.



Just wanted to share with you all that lately work blows. There isn't enough time to get the work I need to get done done, and the manage-sphere above me is so focused on one project that they can't see anything else. It doesn't stop them from "volunteering" me to do crap for them. I push back but the new boss is dismissive. He needs a nickname and the only one that comes to mind is Junior - but that seems rude. He's not immature; I can't quite put my finger on what about him is bothering me.

For those of you who have been with me since the beginning of time will know what I mean when I say that he reminds me of Troy. You have all met this guy, he's the cute and smart guy who is able to turn on the charm to get what he wants from people. But... he's only like 2 inches deep; he's friends with everybody and yet no one really knows him. I'm charmed and disgusted at the same time. So, the new boss is like that, only I have to do his bidding because it's my job but I still feel like I'm being manipulated.

Hold on, I've got it! Troy was the sports king in high school, the new boss uses A LOT of sports analogies and he's the boss so his new nickname shall be THE QUARTERBACK. I love it! QB for short.

Meet a member of my goofy family

My uncle Ed is a right nutty fellow. The ears were his response to his wife telling him he needed to have his hearing checked.

Back in the "day" he and Aunt Sandy held the family title of favorite aunt & uncle. They were the coolest (probably because they didn't have kids so they weren't worn out like our parents.) We had lots of fun on camping trips, boating trips, or just hanging out at their house.

Ed had an admittedly wild youth and was given the option by the local law enforcement of either joining the Army or participating in the structured behavior modification programs offered by the county and state governments. He chose the Army. Vietnam sucked and being a veteran in the 60's didn't make for a grand home comming. He did manage to meet and marry the youngest of the Vail daughters and they built a very nice life. (They also experienced the 60's and 70's in a a groovy way, complete with the VW van if you catch my drift.)

Ed is pretty great and was the only man camping with us 5 ladies last weekend. He did pull me aside to tell me that it was time to bring a fella to the family stuff as he was tired of being out numbered. He promised to keep his teeth in during the first meeting. Thanks!

I don't know, it's probably a wise idea to keep any serious beaus away from the family gatherings until I'm certain he's a keeper. I wouldn't want the family to fall in love and break their hearts.

More about the family at another time.

Camping with the family

Last weekend I headed off to Randle, WA to spend a few nights with the family in the woods. We played with fire, drove up into the hills to pick wild huckleberries, swam in the pool (it was a pretty swanky camp ground), made smores and slept under the stars.

Mom brought the provisions, and this is her version of roughing it. Notice the refrigerator on the right. It was nice to have cold milk, but shesh a fridge?

Grrrrr

I had an appointment for a medical exam today. 3:30 and I'm on time laying on the table talking to the technician, we get half way through and she asks, did you eat today?
um, yeah was I not supposed to ?
No, this test must be done during a fast.

Great! I love that the scheduler person didn't say anything about fasting. So I get to wait another 3 weeks for an opening that works with my wacky calendar.

Grrrrrr

Illiteration

It occurred to me today that our president is suffering from “illiteration” – where he makes stupid, uneducated statements that sound good.

You can find him talking about nucular “nuke-you-lar” weapons when he means to discuss nuclear “nook-lee-are” weapons.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to use this new word, but since I own the blog, I claim it as my own.

Mr & Mrs. Glad Rico

I'm sure you're eager to hear how the wedding music turned out.... it was fine. I really must be ignored most of the time.

The weather was the star today, as the expected clouds did not arrive and we were treated with a stunning day. The bride & groom were delightful and the 40 people who attended were treated to a wonderful afternoon.

Here's some pix to tide you over. The one shot of Cindy and Rico isn't that flattering, but it's the only one I have so I've popped in some others so you can see how pretty she is.

Also, a washed out photo of Rico and me. I love this dress (and am fitting into it for the first time since I bought it!)

It's a fact that I'm a big whiner.  The music thing at the wedding tomorrow (today!) isn't going to be a problem.  

It's easy an I'm a big crybaby.

The rehersal was a snap, dinner was yummy and we were done at 8:15.  Cindy and family retired to her house and Rico and I were still in the parking lot talking.

It occured to me that since he doesn't have a groomsman or best man that he might just be going home to watch tv.    I asked if he wanted to go to a movie or something and he jumped at the chance.

We found a movie with a decent time and headed out.  It seemed wrong that he would be home alone the night before his wedding, and while I'm a cool friend I'm still a girl so I'm not about to take him to a bar or a strip joint.

Anywho... I'll take my camera to the show tomorrow so you can all see the bride and whatnot.  Russ and MJ have a beautiful yard and I believe the ceremony will be lovely.