Book review club

I started a book review club. So far I'm the only member. Here is a summary of the group's recent adventures in page turning...

Harlan Coben, The Innocent

I read this on my trip across the pond. I really don't know who a master of suspense is, but the author did a great job of keeping me interested in the plot with all of the twists and turns. I liked the characters that he created in the story and I thought I really got to know them in on a close personal level. I really felt for the main character, the twist that his life takes is something that could have happened to me. Or still could.

Great book! I'll read Harlan Coben again.

Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October

I picked this book up for a dollar at a rummage sale last fall. I thought I would really like it since way back in 2002 I desperately picked up Rainbow Six on a whim at LAX and really loved it. I started it back in November, but fell off the wagon and just now got around to finishing it. I really didn't find it that interesting. It's about a Russian submarine. There's a movie about it. It was like reading the play by play of a chess match. Well, it wasn't that boring, but it took my stubborn streak for force myself to pick it back up and finish it.

I won't give up on old Tom just yet.

David Baldacci, Simple Genius

I found this book last summer during a layover on a trash can at LAX. This was another one of those that I started, but loaned to a coworker, then I read some other books and then came back to this and finally finished it. The story was pretty good, but in the middle it became a bit drawn out.

"Oh, we're two private detectives and we ran out of clues. Oh, but wait, we can investigate this! Oh, we are out of clues again. But wait, we can investigate this! Out of clues again...la la la, what to do, oh wait, we can investigate this!"

All in all it was a pretty good book. I didn't have any expectations from Baldacci, so I wasn't too let down. Let's just say I wasn't as let down as when I read The Hunt for Red October.

Now I'm onto reading The Sphere by Micheal Crichton. I've never read anything by him before. I have high expectations from him.

Caution!!! Wild Animal Violence!

Caution, below are images of a killer cat poaching on her realm, proceed with care.

Over the weekend I was puttering around the yard. I got rid of our old firewood storage system behind our shed a few months ago. It was two pieces of u-channel (the same green metal that street signs are mounted on) welded to two pieces of angle iron for the ends, with metal poles keeping the logs from rolling off. Well, this was no good in keeping the wood off of the ground and caused most of our firewood to rot. So I threw it out and built a new one from some treated 2 x 4's and used treated 2 x 6's as the ends.

Anyway, for the month or so from when I had thrown the old one out and built the new one last weekend I stored the remaining firewood in our firepit just off of our patio in our backyard. Well low and behold, some happy little family of mice built themselves a comfortable home there. Upon restacking the firewood one of them scampered out of there and I thought that there would be more in there.

So I asked myself, what would be better than seeing if Ainsley would chase a rabbit? I know! Ainsley chasing a mouse! So I grab Ainsley and move a couple of more logs around and scare the next mouse out. Shazaaam! The Orange Lightening Bolt returns!

I moved the picture far down there to give you a chance to not look.

Happy birthday to me!

29 and feelin' fine!

I feel like there is something that I need to do to fully appreciate being 29, so when I'm 39 I can look back and reminisce with fond memories. Oh, I'm sure I'll have fond memories of being 29, but there are all those folks out there who say...'ah, to be 29 again'.

Well, dear readers, I am now 29, now what? What should I do so that in another decade instead of saying 'ah, to be 29 again' I say something like 'Hell yes! 29! I kicked the crap out of it!'

That's it. I've made up my mind. I'm going to have a theme for this year, and it is to kick the crap out of 29. I've never had themes before, let alone a theme for a year of my life. Look out 29, there is a size 12 headed for your hindquarters!

So what should my focus be? I don't know. Don't lose focus!

Weezer and bleach

So Friday night we were in Best Buy to buy Amanda her mother's day gift, 27 Dresses. We were in the checkout line and she says "Do you still want that Weezer cd?".

"Heck yea!" I say.

So for the entire weekend I've been jamming to Weezer's first cd, the one with the Sweater Song. You know you like that song! It's going to be stuck in your head all day now.

I spent saturday afternoon playing in the yard and now I have poison ivy on my left forearm. It's kiling me! My in-laws told me to put bleach on it. Yea, while I'm at it I'll shove bamboo shoots up my fingernails and rig up a contraption to conduct self-water-board torture.

As it turns out, today at work I was mocking their home remedies to my coworkers and they back up that logic. So right now, as I resist the urge to rake a jagged piece of broken glass across my forearm, I am wondering where we keep our bleach.

rising gas prices

You know, with rising gas prices fast food chains ought to do all they can to speed up drive though lines and decrease the time customers spend waiting in line with their engines idling. Why just yesterday after a hearty 2 hours volunteer gardening at our church we decided to treat ourselves to some DQ goodness. Would you believe it took 3 minutes and 45 seconds (Do the Evolution played while waiting) to get our tasty goodness? That is entirely too long to wait for ice cream.

The problem was all of the doodoo-heads in front of us ordering sandwiches. Sandwiches from Dairy Queen? You don't go to DQ and get sandwiches! Where's your brain people?

And do you know 2 small twist cones cost 2.98? 2.98!! Fricking outrageous! Oh and small means small, it wasn't opposite day.

In other events, with my child's supervision, I planted bell and sweet bananna peppers in the remaining garden area. I planted seeds so hopefully that turns out okay. Never tried that before. I gave them some 'roids too, so I hope to have some super peppers.

Before I got started gardening I wanted to clear it with the wife so I said to her "Is it okay if I plant my seeds?" Thinking it's best to see if she needs a break from the kid. "IN THE GARDEN!!" I add in a shout.

Garden

The garden has been started! First we had to get rid of a few bushes that seemed to me to be a various random assortment of miscellaneous plants hodge podged together in the flower bed. Amazingly we convinced the in-laws that the various random assortment of miscellanea would go perfectly at their new house. They were convinced and came over last weekend and picked them up.

Prior to that, we were on vacation in Williamsburg and I got some new ideas for the garden. The first was to take two rows of treated 1x8's and use that as border to keep the rabbits out. The second was to use soft pine needles as border instead of buying mulch; or just leaving the dirt exposed. I just don't see the sense in buying mulch year after year. I just don't see the benefit. Lucky for us the previous homeowner put down expensive mulch so we don't have to. That leaves time for the ground cover we planted to take over so we don't have to buy mulch in the future! But anyway, the soft pine needles look really good around the veggie patch.



Ta da! In-laws also purchased some tomato plants for me for my upcoming birthday, so I planted those and an onion that was sprouting in our kitchen cabinet. The red tarp stuff came with the tomato plants and is some form of mulch. I was just going to chuck it, thinking that the 'roids that I planted the tomatos with was enough, but I got one of those "it's free why not use it (you big dummy!)??" looks from the wife, so I put it down.

I think this weekend we'll put in some sweet corn and zucchini.