Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card
There are books by Orson Scott Card that I haven't read! This is not one of them. I had not, however, read this book since high school. The story takes place on a future earth where the technology has been developed to be able to watch the past. Basically the ultimate DVR machine. Go anywhere in time, see anything you want. Historians clearly work a bit differently with this new tool - they actually watch the past. A few of the people decide that the general conquering of the Americas by Europe lead to a great deal of suffering and lead the world down a very destructive past. Coincidentally, the world is in need to saving, and someone has discovered that they can send things back in time to chance the past. So, three of these historians go back to stop Columbus and re-create the world.
Dead Wake by Erik Larson
From the author of The Devil in the White City, this book is about the sinking of the Lusitania, a big and fancy passenger ship that was sunk by a German U-Boat on its was from NYC to England during WWI. Sorry for the spoilers, but it happened over 100 years ago people. C'mon, read a newspaper! The book spends a lot of time building up to the actual sinking, covering the loading of the boat, the captain, the famous passengers, the not-famous passengers, the weather, President Wilson's dating life, etc. It was interesting, but not terrific.
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
From the author of Dead Wake, this book is about the tenure of the US Ambassador to Germany in the 1930s. If this book doesn't sound absolutely thrilling, you have successfully judged the book without even looking at the cover! The 1930s was a terrible time for a lot of people in Germany - you know, Hitler and all that. But I'm not sure that the viewpoint of William Dodd and his promiscuous 20-something daughter was the most exciting angle. The book covers Dodds attempts to work with the Nazi government to protect Americans from harassment in Germany, get American debts repaid, and encourage the Nazis to not, well, do all those things the Nazis are famous for. His daughter, in the mean time, was dating Nazi officials, that is, while she wasn't dating Russian diplomats. (She was a real piece of work.) This book took me a long time to read, because it just wasn't interesting enough to make me want to stay up reading - 4 pages and I'd be ready to turn out the light and go to sleep.
Saturday, January 28
Friday, January 27
Old Shoes Never Die, They Just Get Thrown Away
Because cleaning out stuff you don't use is nice to do, I finally got rid of a bunch of old running shoes. Consider this the eulogy:
Here lies a bunch of old shoes that have holes in them. I don't wear them any more. The end.
Don't worry though, because I have new ones.
Here lies a bunch of old shoes that have holes in them. I don't wear them any more. The end.
Don't worry though, because I have new ones.
Tuesday, January 3
The 2016 Yearly Review
It's been a big year here at the Bethletard. How big, you wonder? One bigger than last year.
One part of my daily routine is to read Significant Digits from fivethirtyeight.com, that delivers interesting tidbits of info in the form of numbers, and I like numberse. Sounds like something I can borrow.
1 airplane (round-)trip
It was never intentional or anything, but I boarded a plane for the first time in over 3 years for a trip to Utah. I'd link to the blog posts about it, but we forgot to generate much evidence of our making the trip. You'll just have to trust me.
3 hours, 14 minutes, 25 seconds
Marathons take a long time to run. Also, marathons are dumb. But I ran the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon anyway.
6 years
Ella is as bouncy and talkative as ever. She's really enjoying first grade and has turned in to quite the reader. She loves also loves talking. Also, telling you whatever she is thinking at the moment. We're still working on her "fear of werewolves" that keeps her from going anywhere in the house by herself. She loves to turn everything into a game, project or "experience" (because she cannot for the life of her remember the word "experiment"). Family home evening lessons, for instance, turn into a confusing series of picking things out of a hat, writing lists on papers, folding the papers up, putting them back in the hat, re-drawing them from the hat, and, well, we had to cut her off and tell her to wrap it up, because she could have continued adding steps to the procedure all night long.
7 states + 1 district
Our big trip this year took us through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington DC on our way to see Gettysburg, Washington DC, Shenandoah National Park and Harper's Ferry. Total driving distance was about 1,617 miles. The trip generated one blog post that made the top 10 all time on my blog: DC Trip, Day 3. Evidently the rest of the trip (1 & 2, 4, 5, and 6 & 7) was significantly less interesting. I think we walked about 1600 miles on that trip, too.
8 years
Julia's year was highlighted by her baptism in April. Next on her list might be starting violin and irish dance lessons. She seems to enjoy them both - you'll have to wait until after concert/recital season if you want to know how I've enjoyed them. We have had our first practices with the Blockburger 100% Natural Good-Time Family Band with Shannon on piano, Julia on violin, Clark on ukulele and Ella onwood block bells.
10 years
In October, this blog hit it's tenth anniversary. Apparently I haven't given up on it yet.
33 books
I read 33 books and 12,883 pages this year which divide up nicely into three nearly equal groups: Non-fiction, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and Fiction. My books tag will take you to my thoughts on all the individual books, but I'll hit a few highlights here. I sorted through the list and found that the Fiction group was, far better as a group than the other two. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (3 books) was very gripping, The Rent Collector and All the Light We Cannot See were both beautiful books about people in trying circumstances that I could recommend to nearly anyone. Trigger was a very interesting fiction novel (as I classify them, at least) about gun control. Wonder should be required reading for all of humanity (it is only this far down the list because I've read it before).
In contrast, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy list is topped by books 5 and 6 from the Mistborn Series, which were good, are probably don't even make my top 10 for Brandon Sanderson books. The next two books on my list are Harry Potter 4 and 5, which I've read 3 or 4 times at least, which means the books below that aren't even worth mentioning.
As for non-fiction, Shadow Divers (WWII submarine wreck), Seabiscuit (race horse), and Lost in Shangri-La (WWII plane crash) top the list. They were interesting, but I'm not going to tell you to push them to the top of your reading list.
1281.2 miles
Total distance I ran in 2016. Not all at once, of course. I dragged my butt out of bed 195 times in order to get that done. My only two races of the year were the aforementioned marathon and a 1:28:32 half marathon. There's a whole tag for running if you really want to know more.
115,359 pages
Total number of pages read by our family. Over half of this was Julia, with Shannon, Ella and me contributing roughly equal amounts.
One part of my daily routine is to read Significant Digits from fivethirtyeight.com, that delivers interesting tidbits of info in the form of numbers, and I like numberse. Sounds like something I can borrow.
1 airplane (round-)trip
It was never intentional or anything, but I boarded a plane for the first time in over 3 years for a trip to Utah. I'd link to the blog posts about it, but we forgot to generate much evidence of our making the trip. You'll just have to trust me.
3 hours, 14 minutes, 25 seconds
Marathons take a long time to run. Also, marathons are dumb. But I ran the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon anyway.
6 years
Ella is as bouncy and talkative as ever. She's really enjoying first grade and has turned in to quite the reader. She loves also loves talking. Also, telling you whatever she is thinking at the moment. We're still working on her "fear of werewolves" that keeps her from going anywhere in the house by herself. She loves to turn everything into a game, project or "experience" (because she cannot for the life of her remember the word "experiment"). Family home evening lessons, for instance, turn into a confusing series of picking things out of a hat, writing lists on papers, folding the papers up, putting them back in the hat, re-drawing them from the hat, and, well, we had to cut her off and tell her to wrap it up, because she could have continued adding steps to the procedure all night long.
7 states + 1 district
Our big trip this year took us through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington DC on our way to see Gettysburg, Washington DC, Shenandoah National Park and Harper's Ferry. Total driving distance was about 1,617 miles. The trip generated one blog post that made the top 10 all time on my blog: DC Trip, Day 3. Evidently the rest of the trip (1 & 2, 4, 5, and 6 & 7) was significantly less interesting. I think we walked about 1600 miles on that trip, too.
8 years
Julia's year was highlighted by her baptism in April. Next on her list might be starting violin and irish dance lessons. She seems to enjoy them both - you'll have to wait until after concert/recital season if you want to know how I've enjoyed them. We have had our first practices with the Blockburger 100% Natural Good-Time Family Band with Shannon on piano, Julia on violin, Clark on ukulele and Ella on
10 years
In October, this blog hit it's tenth anniversary. Apparently I haven't given up on it yet.
33 books
I read 33 books and 12,883 pages this year which divide up nicely into three nearly equal groups: Non-fiction, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and Fiction. My books tag will take you to my thoughts on all the individual books, but I'll hit a few highlights here. I sorted through the list and found that the Fiction group was, far better as a group than the other two. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (3 books) was very gripping, The Rent Collector and All the Light We Cannot See were both beautiful books about people in trying circumstances that I could recommend to nearly anyone. Trigger was a very interesting fiction novel (as I classify them, at least) about gun control. Wonder should be required reading for all of humanity (it is only this far down the list because I've read it before).
In contrast, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy list is topped by books 5 and 6 from the Mistborn Series, which were good, are probably don't even make my top 10 for Brandon Sanderson books. The next two books on my list are Harry Potter 4 and 5, which I've read 3 or 4 times at least, which means the books below that aren't even worth mentioning.
As for non-fiction, Shadow Divers (WWII submarine wreck), Seabiscuit (race horse), and Lost in Shangri-La (WWII plane crash) top the list. They were interesting, but I'm not going to tell you to push them to the top of your reading list.
1281.2 miles
Total distance I ran in 2016. Not all at once, of course. I dragged my butt out of bed 195 times in order to get that done. My only two races of the year were the aforementioned marathon and a 1:28:32 half marathon. There's a whole tag for running if you really want to know more.
115,359 pages
Total number of pages read by our family. Over half of this was Julia, with Shannon, Ella and me contributing roughly equal amounts.
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