31 for 21

I am going to try to do the 31 for 21.  That is blogging for all 31 days in Oct for Down Syndrome awareness.  I just signed up or at least hope I did.  One of these days I will have to figure out how to add photos and all that other stuff people add to their blogs as well.  

Since I have to come up with 31 different things to blog about I better save whatever thoughts I have for the next few days.

Reading

Well, I have gotten started on Desert Light by Williamson.  Not much there yet but again just getting started.

Debbie bought me a book today that she found cheap at Borders maybe.  It is The Faith of My Fathers by John McCain & Mark Salter, selling for $3.99.  It says it is a family memoir.  I started reading it tonight.  His family history certainly sounds interesting and with the election coming up figured it couldn't get more timely than now.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is still on going also.  I plan to get a few pages at least in on it before calling it a night also.

By the way I took home the league title in my fantasy baseball.  Nice win, I think this is something like 4th in 6 years so a nice run that I have been having.  After last year's 2nd place finish, it is good to return to the top.

The Teeth of the Tiger--finished

I finally finished another book, number 20 for the year for those counting.  It was the Clancy novel The Teeth of the Tiger.  A good solid Clancy spy book.  Since it has been a while since I have read anything by Clancy I am kind of behind on the plot lines that kind of run through his books, especially with what Jack Ryan Sr is doing.  In this book Jack Ryan Jr and his two cousins are the main good guys and Islamic terrorists are the bad guys.  It is post 9/11 in the book, which is kind of nice because that is just such a mind changing event.  Overall like a said a solid Clancy book.

I had pushed through the last couple of nights trying to get it finished so I would have at least one book done in the month of Sept.  No thoughts on next book yet, many to consider though.  I am looking forward to getting back into Uncle Tom's Cabin though as well.

Books

I had to take a couple of kids DVDs back to the library and one of Debbie's books that was due tonight.  If anyone out there is a regular reader, which I doubt there is anyone, they would know what is coming next.  That is of course the books that I bought at the library on their for sale tables up front.  I ended up picking up 4 books for the price of a whole one dollar--what a deal.

First, I picked out Desert Light by Chilton Williamson Jr.  A lawyer story from the late '70s.  A NY lawyer kind of chucks it and moves to Wyoming and gets involved in a murder investigation and then involved with one of the female suspects.  Thought it sounded interesting enough.  I just did a check on the "internets" about it and did a quick read through about the author, a very interesting life and still going on.  Book didn't get great reviews on Amazon but not a bad pickup overall, at least at this point before reading it.

Next I grabbed Mirage by Bandula Chandraratna.  A book based in Saudi Arabia something to do about marriage.  Since the Mid-East is an area of interest I pretty much was getting it at that point.  Again checking it out, it actually sounds kind of boring from people who reviewed it at Amazon but the people with stuff on the book cover make it sound good.  Not sure at this point but not a long book so will probably get read at some point.

Bearing Witness by Michael Kahn was next.  I recognized Kahn as a St Louis writer and so this was a pretty easy one to get.  I read one of the other Rachel Gold books a few years back and remember it as being at least okay.  Again from checking, there are now up to 9 books in the series, so might start trying to read all of these if possible.  Might even mention them to my mom who is always looking for something to read.

Finally, running out of time and needing a 4th book, the old by one get one free sale thing, I found The Yellow Sailor by Steve Weiner.  Looks and sounds kind of weird but could be a book that surprises me.  Again the book jacket makes it sound kind of eclectic or however that is spelled and that is about what Amazon was saying too.  This could be the darkhorse out of all 4 that make them worthwhile.  Of course at 25 cents a piece they would have to be really bad to not be worth it.

I did put some time in last night on Uncle Tom's Cabin--just a good book.  I really like the characters and like that it almost seems over the top in places because it was sort of written to show how wrong slavery was.  I still have around 300 pages to go. 

Tonight I read the Clancy book while also watching a little of the Cards game.  The terrorists just struck so I am expecting the action to be ramped up from here on out.  I have around 180 pages left.  I will probably focus on finishing this over the next few days.  It has been over a month since finishing a book, 8/18 for that Buckley book.  It is time to get one done.  Next one done will be number 20 for the year--getting closer to that goal of 24.

Quick Rundown

I really don't feel like typing much so I am just going to rundown the normal boring things.

--I tried to run tonight but didn't try very hard.  Only did a little over 1 mile with most of it being walking.  Somewhere over 15 minutes.  Not sure why Monday nights have been a struggle the last couple of times.

--No change on my books and in fact few pages have turned since then either.  I am really kind of caught in a rout(I don't know if that is spelled correctly or not).  Too lazy to look for a 3rd book also.

--Lost this week in fantasy football.  Only a week left in fantasy baseball and I am leading the league in that one.

--I need to cut out the late night snacking and also shorten up the portions I am eating.  Of course, I keep saying this to myself and get little results.  Maybe if I type it somewhere I can make it happen.  Doubt it.  Dropping 10 lbs or so would probably help my running.

Well, I guess that is enough.  I am going to try and get a few pages read in those seemingly never ending books now.

This Week

This is the week that the markets have really crashed then bailed out and now a slight rebound.  I still expect bad times ahead but hope that things straighten out down the line.  I am not a financial person at all though.

Monday, I only did 2 miles and they were mostly walking.  I think they were around 15:45 & 14:45 or something like that.  I am not sure if it was from the busy weekend catching up to me or the cold that I was still trying to get over.

On Wednesday, I got 6 miles in that felt great.  All 6 were under 13 with the fastest right at 12 minutes.  It was good to finally get a run in that actually felt very good.  I hope I can build on this run and get a few more like it in the coming days.

I am still working on my two books, Uncle Tom's Cabin & the Clancy The Teeth of the Tiger or something like that.  I like both books, but neither one has turned into a must keep reading page turner, so still kind of slow going.  I probably need to check back on my blogs but it is probably a month since I have finished a book.  I think I am still okay for getting 24 read this year but probably need to check on it.

I probably need to also check on those goals that I had ran through early this year and do a review of how it is going.  This year seems to be flying by, so might not have much time to get some of those things done.

Not Sure

Not really sure what I should or want to type about tonight but that goal of doing 10 of these a month is forcing me to get something down.

I tried another beer from Aldi, this time one from Holland, Klassic or something like that it is called.  It is actually pretty bad, it will be really tough for me to get down the other 5 bottles.  I had been buying a Guatemalan beer from Aldi that is very similar to Corona or so I have been told.  It is kind of tasty.  Since the price on it went up a whole 50 cents, I figured I would try something else, good idea, bad product.  Oh well had to give it a try otherwise I would have been left wondering about it.

Rose had a VB game today & she did very good.  She got most of her serves over, something she normally struggles with.  She also bumped it back over a couple of times.  She had a lot of fun and the team won all 3 games.

I won my fantasy football game this weekend also and still have 1 player going tomorrow night, Witten TE.  This will take me to 2-0, the good start I needed especially since I am not yet convinced the talent on the team will get me to the playoffs.

I think I will be heading upstairs to get a few pages read before going to sleep.  Still working on the same 2 books.  Going slow on both, too much other stuff going on right now--just doesn't seem like much time to get any reading done.