Tired

I am tired & getting ready to be off to bed, but realized I hadn't posted much of anything in Dec yet.  Well, it is not happening tonight either.  This is just another checking in post--mostly to make sure I get to my 10 this month.

Not running recently & not reading enough.  Went to the Billikens game on Saturday at the new arena--pretty nice.  Good time & was impressed with the businesses that have started up in the area.

That should do it, I am off to sleep now.

Eaten too much

It all started with Thanksgiving and has just continued since then.  Eating too much.  Throw in the fact that I haven't run in over a week & a half, well I just feel like a slug.  Not inspired to blog or do much.  Busy at work and busy after work each day this week--no fun.  Well that is a start to Dec, got to get in 10 this month.

The Rail--finished #29

Over the long weekend I finished book #29 for the year.  By the way to mention it again, this really crushes the most books I have read in a year, before this year I had read 18 in 1999 and 18 in 2001, last year was 16.  The one main reason I am figuring this is that I have really started reading 2 or 3 books at a time, before I was always a one book at a time person.  If the book got kind of tough to get through well I just read less and it took me longer, now I switch back and forth between books.  There are probably other smaller reasons as well, like less TV, not as much running and also setting that goal of reading 24 this year--2 a month--back in January.

Well, now onto The Rail, I really kind of liked it.  It was about a former baseball player that had a kind of screwed up life outside of baseball.  Once completely out of baseball, his life went even more downhill.  It was also about his family, that was also just as screwed up.  His birth dad, a well to do in town basically disowned him and his mom was forced to marry a jerk with a business.  Neil--the ballplayer, kind of kept in touch with his step-sister, his real dad's daughter--2nd married kid.  There was a daughter and a son by the son was killed while playing with his sister and their dog after the son ran out in the street.  Blanchard, the sister never really got over this and her life was also screwed up.  Well, there was also Blanchard falling in love with her older step-brother Neil and how Neil protected her thoughout her life.  Well, Neil even went to jail for 2 years for a drunk driving manslaughter charge, that was actually Blanchard driving.  Well, throw this all together along with Neil's son David trying to connect with his dad and you have this book.

I did enjoy how the author only feed the details out piecemeal.  It left the reader trying to guess what blanks were out there and what was still coming.  I had figured early on that Blanchard was the one driving and that Neil took the fall.  I am sure some could have seen this as confusing but I think it added something to a story that might have been hard to swallow all at once.  I don't think the story was all that good, but the characters were interesting. 

I am right now reading The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams.  He also wrote Watership Down and Shardik, both books the really liked.  So far The Plague Dogs hasn't gotten on very fast but I will give it time, Richard Adams has earned that.  As far as the 2nd book, I have pulled out War & Peace.  I might add a 3rd book right away also, a Grisham type--will see about this.

Books--more

After a few days out of town, it is time to do a little catching up.  First the family went to my parent's home in NE for Thanksgiving.  It was a really good time, kids love spending time with Grandma & Grandpa and some time on the farm.  I am probably going to do a couple/few posts of the long weekend so details on other stuff to come. 

First, I am going to update the many new additions to my book collection.  Last Monday, I didn't run so instead went to the library and picked up a few books.  Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton, I like reading the series but I know my mom does also.  I had gotten this one to give to her but she already had it so it reverts to me now.  It is a large print book, I guess I am getting old because that also sounded a little appealing too.  Next, On Writing--A Memoir on the Craft by Stephen King.  I thought since the idea of writing a book has crossed my mind, that this is something to spend that quarter on & see if it helps.  Worst case is I read about the life of Stephen King which should also be interesting.  Third is Eyes Wide Open, a Memoir of Stanley Kubrick, by Frederic Raphael.  I don't know much about him so thought this could be a good way to learn a little and also get the throw in about making movies.  Finally, a biography of Mary McLeod Bethune by Catherine Owens Peare.  From the flap, Bethune was a child of slave parents, one of 17 children.  It talks about her success in life and the found of Bethune Cookman College.  She is somebody that I know nothing about, but sounds like a very interesting read.

While in NE, I grabbed 3 books from the ones still at home.  I took a Jack London book with both The Call of the Wild and White Fang.  The Pearl by John Steinbeck and then Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.  I figure all of these are good for me to do a re-read but also might be books that Rose could read or might have to read in school.

Finally then, on Friday or I guess Black Friday, Debbie had to get at least some shopping in so after hitting normal stores we found a Salvation Army resale shop in Norfolk.  I picked up A Separate Peace by John Knowles--same reason as 3 in above paragraph.  Single & Single by John LeCarre', The Testament by John Grisham and The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough--all 3 for the quick read aspect.  Last was Selected Prose, Poetry and Eureka by Edgar Allan Poe.  This one kind of fits with that earlier paragraph, in that it is good for me to read but also could be something Rose will be reading as well.

A lot of additions to the book case, I will really need to join that Paperbook Swap sight and try to move a few of them if possible.  I am down to one book I am reading right now, but I was looking over my lists of books read and saw that it has been since 1999 that I read War & Peace.  It is time for another reading, only 3rd one.  I hope to be starting that tonight.

Running

I hadn't given a running update in a while.  I ran 6 miles last weekend, I ran around Forest Park.  I then ran 2.2 miles Monday night, my PSR run.  I didn't run again though until yesterday--Saturday.  It was cold and I didn't have a whole lot of time.  I just did 4.3 around the house.  It was good to run streets again, I should probably do more of that.  The cold and getting dark early though make it tough to inspire myself to get out there.  I am sort of supposed to do a marathon relay in two weeks--I wouldn't mind finding a way out, but not sure I could at this point.

Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth--finished #28

Two books finished this weekend.  I guess with kids being sick last week and being stuck inside most of the weekend while kids got better gave me lots of time to read.  I really took advantage of it this weekend in polishing off the two books I had been reading.  

Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth is basically about adventure racing, something I hadn't heard of before this book.  Since in the US it was first introduced on MTV and then later variations on the X-Games, it is not surprising.  The book is basically about the author himself, Martin Dugard, and how he kind of was inter-wrapped in this sport.  Covering the Raid Gauloises is what gave him the push to quit his day job and become a free lance reporter and writer.  He talks about different people and teams in the early years of adventure racing and then when he catches the bug to do it himself, the 2nd half the book talks about his experiences.

An interesting read, but looking back on it, the whole adventure racing did seem to flame out.  Most of the book was written with the expectation that it would continue on, but there was one point were he kind of hedged it saying it could be a kind of fad like the Dance-a-thons, etc in the past.  I did a quick wikipedia check and don't see where adventure racing is continuing.  I would guess it is still somewhere but the luster is certainly off.

As far as how I see adventure racing, I don't really see any appeal to it for me.  Combining mountain climbing, rafting, kayaking, rappelling, hiking, mountain biking and putting altogether as a team effort, is certainly demanding but I guess I just don't see the point.  Of course most of those are things that don't interest me so that is probably my built in bias as well.  I guess though it is kind of an additional step beyond the triathalon or Iron Man competitions.

Glad I read the book, it certainly opened my eyes to something I wasn't even aware of but overall just an okay book.  It seemed as if it was written almost as much for trying to continue to build up adventure racing, a kind of advertisement as such as for being written for any other reason.  This is a book a friend from work had given to me to read, so it is one that won't be staying in my library.

I did start reading another book a couple of days ago, The Rail by Howard Owens.  About a former professional baseball player after his playing days and just after getting out of jail for some reason.  So far seems to be about how he has screwed up his life.  Need to get that second book figured out yet.

Survival in Auschwitz--finished #27

What an amazing book.  It really allows the reader to understand a small portion of what these many people had to go through in these camps.  This is something that I know I cannot fully grasp, living in America at this time with almost every want or type of food just minutes away.  I think most people believe and had a kind of base understanding of the holocaust but I believe reading a book like this is also needed.  People need to be knocked upside their head and be reminded of this.  I know there is a Holocaust Museum here in St Louis that I need to visit as well.  I am not sure if Rose my oldest at 9 is really ready for it yet though.  I will probably have to check into it first to find out.

Earlier this year I also read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which talked about the gulags in Siberia under the Stalin times.  There are many similarities between the two camps, like the work being done, the food, the guards, etc.  The one big difference is that these German camps exterminated thousands both before even getting into a camp or once they outlived their usefulness and room was needed for more incoming prisoners.  Levi didn't go into much detail about the exterminations because he did not see it, instead he talks about right off the train being separated from the women & children and never seeing them again.  Later he talks about the selection process in camp where an SS soldier decides in the matter of a few seconds if you stay in the camp or will be taken from the camp.  The prisoners hope it is just moving to another camp, but all know it means death.

The inhuman nature of the people that set these camps up as well everything around them that supported them in one way or another is just mindboggling.  I sit here in my warm home and think that today something like this could not happen, but then I am reminded of the genocides that have gone on in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and still happening in Dafur/Sudan and could easily happen in Somila, it is isn't going on yet.  I certainly don't have answers to solve these problems but just have a faith in God that for whatever reason these things occur that they do not happen in vain.  I believe that people will get their just due in the afterlife and that cuts both ways.