Spring Reading

So much time on airplanes, and a vacation thrown in the mix, leads to lots of books.

The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai. A well written, interesting book that follows the story of an orphaned girl in the Indian highlands who is taken in by her crusty English-educated grandfather. The story takes place around the time of political unrest (it seems there is no other time) in India, as the comfortable former colonialists get to deal with the new world changing violently around them.

The Colony, by John Tayman. Fascinating non-fiction account of the story of the leper colony in Molokai. The story starts at the beginning in 1893 right through the end. While there really was a problem with leprosy (which is curable these days within 30 days by taking a few pills), the disruption to victims' lives and families was amazing -- and as it turns out, useless. Don't let the gruesomeness of the disease scare you away from the book.

Restless, by William Boyd. A WWII spy story with a modern twist, as a former British spy gone underground spills her story to her daughter in modern times. The daughter has to track down and confront some of the mother's former colleagues when the mother feels she has been tracked down. I like a good spy story, but they've lost some of their currency since the cold war is over. I enjoyed this one.

The Secret River, by Kate Grenville. The book follows a husband and wife from their beginnings in London to their exile to Australia. They make a new life for themselves, eventually settling on a river surrounded by aborigines. Violence, trailblazing, racial tensions all mix together to provide an entertaining although somewhat predictable storyline.

Theft, by Peter Carey. I like Peter Carey (The True History of the Kelley Gang, My Life as a Fake). In this story, he follows a washed up artist as he falls for a hot female shyster in the art world. She steals a painting from a reclusive private collector, and together they end up fooling the highbrow so-called experts as to its value. Good, if dark, story that leaves you feeling like you know more about the art world than when you started.

The Western Limit of the World, by David Masiel. I thought this would be a modern sea story type of thing, and while it takes place on a broken down freighter, it isn't a sea story. It's about an elaborate but ill-fated plan to rip off the owners of the freighter by drugging the captain and selling its cargo. The interesting parts center around the crew and the main character, the boson's mate, as the crew slowly clues in that they're unwitting participants.

Standard of Care, by David Kerns. I liked this fiction book about a doctor who moves over to become part of the administration for a non-profit hospital, only to find the hospital taken over by a huge for-profit HMO. It takes place here in the SF Bay area, and if you've paid attention to the papers, you can substitute the real names in the drama.

A Season of Fire and Ice, by Lloyd Zimpel. A good frontier story that takes place in the Dakota territory. A new farmer moves in and his industriousness and skills shake things up with the old timers. As drought and grasshoppers raise tensions, there is a run-in between the new guy and another family, resulting in tragedy.

Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. A coming of age story in a modern English suburb. Dad is a manager at a supermarket chain, Mom is a housewife on her way back to work and chafing at the hold he has on her, while the narrator of the story struggles with being smart but stutter-y. Very good story and characters.

On Beauty, by Zadie Smith. I decided I had to read something by Zadie Smith, and this is what I picked up. She can write, no question. The story centers on a mixed black-and-white family in an academic setting (read: Harvard). The father is a weak philanderer who ends up sleeping with the student-daughter of his academic rival. Enjoyable read, great characters.

Intuition, by Allegra Goodman. With a pastel pink and green cover, I thought I might be straying into chicklit territory here, but this is a terrific story about competition in science. The story revolves around one post-doc whose experiments look like they're leading to a cure for some kind of cancer, and the questioning of results by his main competitor. This was one of the best of the bunch for me.

A Death in Belmont, by Sebastion Junger. What do you do as a follow-up to The Perfect Storm? The answer is: a book about the Boston strangler murders, in particular one that happened right down the street from Junger when he was growing up. In fact, a black man was convicted of the murder, but the real Boston strangler, Albert DeSalvo, was a handyman doing work on Junger's mother's art studio when that murder took place. The story hits close to home for him. Like The Perfect Storm, it's full of background and detail that makes it interesting and readable.

Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. This is a fascinating and enjoyable autobiography of Greg Mortenson. After being taken in by a remote Pakistani village on his way back from a failed attempt to climb K2, Mortenson promises to pay their kindness back by building them a school. Thus was born what became his life work and passion, eventually resulting in hundreds of schools being built across northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. An inspiring story that eventually weaves its way into using education as a path to fighting terrorism. Sure seems to be more effective than the path we're on.

We Are All Welcome Here, by Elizabeth Berg. The story of a young girl growing up in Mississippi in 1964. Her mother is a quadriplegic polio victim, but very much the force to be reckoned with. The story revolves around the black caretaker's relationship with the girl and her mother. They struggle with money and the issues of small town living. I liked the story and enjoyed the surprise ending.

No More Planes, Please

Made it back home in one piece. England was suffering from massive floods in the midlands, but we mostly got unsettled weather while we were in London. The hotel was way out of town, in the Docklands of east London. The Docklands consist of skyscrapers populated by banks, built on the old port of London, a half-hour train ride away from almost anything you want to see in town. Still, we managed to see a ghost story play, Woman in Black, and the musical Billy Elliott. There were probably fifty fourteen-year-old girls at Woman in Black. When the creepy ghost showed up, they would all scream in unison, making us glad we were in the half-price-ticket rafters. Billy Elliott followed the same story line as the movie (kid in on-strike mining town wants to pursue ballet dancing). It was very good, but I suspect it won't translate well to American tastes -- even if a little Margaret Thatcher bashing should be fun for everyone. And speaking of Thatcher, Tony Blair formally handed things off to Gordon Brown while we were there. In spite of widespread discontent over Iraq, the papers there were amazed that the House of Commons gave him an unprecedented (for any PM) standing ovation.

Country ain't Country no More

25 years ago I saw it happen to Manassas where I lived for so long, we used to hunt and fish inside the town limits, now I can't navigate my way through it without getting turned around. There was only 4 traffic lights in the whole town and now its a commuters nightmare, durring rush hour you can't get out of 1st gear till you are well into the county. I now see the same thing happening to Front Royal. By years end we will have Lowes, Wal-Mart, Target, and a whole host of other big box type vendors. Once refered to in the Washinton Post as a "redneck settelment" I always thought of it as sort of the last outpost for anyone hanging onto northern Virginias hub of civilization. Front Royal is still small and has retained its rural atmosphere for now. You can't get out of the grocery store without seeing someone you know well enough to stop and talk to, the sheriff is on a 1st name basis with most people, if you look around there are still cattle grazing inside the town limits, I havn't taken the keys out of my truck since last time I went to Manassas, and you can still pay after you pump your gas. After seeing what happened to Manassas I know all that is going to change and I don't mind to much considering I make my living off of the growth and development of the area, in fact you could say it is a bonus for me to be here in the midst of the whole thing. There is some part of me that just rejects progress, even though we will clearly benefitt from it, I find myself in that crowd of old farts sitting around saying "We don't need no stinkin Wal Mart we got Stokes General Store". I know Kirsti and Dan are eagerly awaiting the grand opening of Target and the others. Our little town has moved up from Redneck Settlement, now the post refers to us and others as exurbs, whatever that means.

Blogging on the Road

I had a business trip with three great destinations in the itinerary, so Dara packed her bags and came along. I'm not great company in my business mode, so it mostly amounts to her being a single tourist. Still, we managed some time together in Nice, and our weekend in Prague is just about over. Then it's on to rainy and cool London.

The Promenade d'Anglais runs along the beaches of the Cote d'Azur. The hotel was at one end, and at the other was the "old town" area. We climbed above the old town for this view along the Riviera toward the hotel. We sampled some of the local fare in the old town, including Socca, a kind of chick pea pancake that is cooked like crepes, and beignets stuffed with onions and fish. We had a good time eating dinner outside, very late by American standards, and people watching.

Here in Prague, the touristy area of the city is quite compact, broken into various neighborhoods with their own character and history. Almost all the streets are cobblestones, and the sidewalks are paved with 2x2 inch multi-colored stones set close together in sand, making different interesting patterns as you rove the winding, narrow streets. Dara the photographer rousted me at 5AM to get the best light. Here she is on the famous Charles Bridge, looking toward Prague castle on the hill. By 6AM, the streets were still fairly deserted, except for roving bands of drunks returning from bars. One bunch of drunk Frenchmen was getting their picture taken on the bridge, forming a human pyramid of bared asses.

This morning we walked across the river and took a tram up to the top of a hill overlooking the city. The Charles Bridge is the one on the right side of the picture, for foot traffic only. At the far end of the next one downriver is the Rudolphinum. For two evenings now our entertainment has been classical music in concert halls. Last night was some Mozart and Dvorak in the Dvorak Hall of the Rudolphinum. There are people hawking tickets to little concerts all over the town as you walk through it.

More updates later. Just thought I'd keep the blog alive!

Keith, Trend Setter

Keith told the story about how he injured himself running when he tried to do it the first time, but this time he studied up and followed a program from a book. Seems he's trendy as well as fit.

Many recreational runners now solicit advice before they cinch their shorts and lace up their sneakers. For them, there are Web sites promoting injury-prevention techniques and bloggers raring to discuss the latest clinics. Joggers have helped to spike the sales of form-conscious books and DVDs from programs like ChiRunning and the Pose Method.

Next he'll be attending the runner's workshop in Malibu.

Competition from the Amish

The other day I had a request to price a gazebo for a previous customer, this is something I could do but not exactly my target market, maybe my enthusiasm for the project was reflected in the price I quoted so it didn't surprise me when I didn't get the job. It did surprise me to find out an Amish man and company got the work. We went over for some customer service work and found 2 guys putting this thing together. The only thing that said I am Amish was those black hats and plain looking homespun clothes. They drove to the site in a 1 ton Duel wheel diesel pickup pulling a trailer with a full compliment of modern tools, generator, compressor. an assortment of nail guns I would like to have, the latest in radial arm and mitre saws. They had the gazebo premade in sections and really only needed to assemble it on site. I guess I was expecting mules and wooden pegs and that old world craftsmanship evryone is searching for. It turned out to be a nice looking job but it looked like one of those kits you buy from home depot or something. I guess the guy is capitalizing on his Amish heritage, sort of an odd twist on buiseness, but it seems to work for him and thats great I wish him all the best, but he works just like the rest of us heathens.

I want to be a Hunter Gatherer

50,000 Years of Resilience May Not Save Tribe - washingtonpost.com I thought this was interesting on several different levels, last tribe of hunter gatherers proud and stubborn steamrolled by rich arabs in pursuit of a good vacation spot where they can get the thrill of hunting some prime ground in Africa. I hope they work something out though it seems like they are more of a tourist attraction these days than a powerfull civilization able to live off nothing but hunting, fishing, and agriculture. I guess more than anything to me it was uplifting to hear about a whole group of people who have absolutly no use for money and do not recognize any standard for time. No matter how much the arabs enjoy that property they will never come close to that kind of freedom.

Father's Day Gadgetry

Father's Day came early for me this year, because I'm taking off on Father's Day a week from today, with Dara, to Europe. Seeing me lug so many books to Bethany must have spurred the kids on to get me the Sony eBook. I think I blogged about wanting one of these a while back. The trick here is that the display is white and the lettering shows up black. There is no back-light on it; in fact, you need to have good lighting to read just like you would any other book. It only burns the battery down during the act of changing pages. Very cool. Seems very easy to read even for my old eyes.

First book downloaded: The Navigator of New York, by Wayne Johnston. Basically a frozen bozo book by the guy who wrote Colony of Unrequited Dreams that I liked. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks Garrett and Kyla!

PTL The Season is Finaly Over

I doubt if anyone knows much about Dan's little league team this year. Sort of like that goofy wierd guy at school or the office no one wants to aknowledge, he is just there, that sort describes the treatment we gave it. With a record of 0 wins and 12 losses it went down as a forgetable experience for all, players, coaches, and parents. Todays final game ended predictably with a 12-4 loss. It sort of reminded me of that movie Bab News Bears without the heartwarming comeback at the end. Despite something of a mutiny midseason and what seemed like (for the most part) a group of completey uncoachable misfits for players the coaches did a fantastic job of just hanging in there and trying to keep fun 1st and winning 2nd. In the end it just didn't work, even at that level there is no substitute for winning. Dan was ready to quit early on when he found out he didn't make the team he wanted to, but with some strong encouragment from Kirsti and I he made the commitment for the season and hung in there with it. In some ways it was good for him as he was considered to be one of the best guys, in his last full game he was 3 for 3 with 4 rbi. But I think he would have much preffered to spend more time on the bench and have a winning season to talk about. Next up is fall ball, where last year his team tied for 1st place. One of his best friends dads is going to coach and he, and his best buds Garrett and Eric plan to take the fall competition more seriously. Somewhere in the ruins of this season there is a good lesson for a 12 year old, I think I'll leave it to him to figure out or to forget about whichever one he wants.

More Vacation Pics

Dara created a Flickr photo set of the pictures she took at the beach. She added great titles, too. Best if you view it as a slide show. When it comes up, click on the big "i" in the middle of the slide show to see the titles as the show progresses. Enjoy.

Wayyy Creepy

Dara shocked our niece Sarah when she told her she was on Facebook. The look on her face seemed to translate as: I hope you can't find me on there!!! I enjoyed this most-Emailed NYTimes article about a Mom who joined Facebook and her interaction with her 16-year-old daughter when she found out she had set up a profile:

Things were going really well, when suddenly something disturbing happened. An instant-message window appeared onscreen to deliver a verdict.

“wayyy creepy,” it said. “why did you make one!”

Ah, there she was.

“What are you talking about?” I typed innocently.

“im only telling you for your own good,” my daughter typed.

“Be my friend,” I typed.

“You won’t get away with this,” she typed. “everyone in the whole world thinks its super creepy when adults have facebooks.”

At least Kyla has friended Dara.

Good and Bad Plant News

Arriving at SFO at 1:30AM, we made it back home. Someone had either turned off the power to work on the gate lighting or blown the breaker when the wrong wires were crossed. As a result, we had no automatic watering for probably a week because the watering system was on the same breaker. Most of our outdoor plants were somewhere between dead and unhappy. Luckily, as I'm sure you're all wondering, there is probably not much issue for the irises! Still, we had one piece of good plant news. After years of buying blooming orchids, watching the flowers die, then nursing them along and hoping for some action, Dara arrived home to find this specimen re-blooming.