Follow Roosevelt on the adventure of a lifetime. At times this was slow, but it was written as a biography and a travel novel. There is a lot of detail here. You can tell the author did their homework, but at times the details did come at the expense of the readability of The River of Doubt. I did enjoy this book and for those history buffs who are into the presidents, I would recommend it.
The journey itself is interesting even if it was not a former president. It’s had to believe this was written in 2005. It felt like a much older book, but maybe that’s because the actual trip took place, just after 1912, so much before when it was written. Even with all its detail I did give it 4 out of 5 stars. This one was an audiobook and that’s probably why I read it so fast even though it had all that detail.
I”m sure I read Raspberry Pi Cookbook right after or during my RetroPi build. I had a great time building that. The girls still ask to play it and I like to play it when I have time too. This was a very thorough book and covered things more professionally than the other Raspberry Pi books that I picked up from the library.
This got 4 our of 5 stars from me mostly because of again of the professionalism of the writing and how polished the book is compared to those other books that look very much slapped together. Since building that first project I’ve also created a digital frame, that tells me what time it is and the weather, etc. It’s a nice build to have above my other monitors.
I also plan on building another one with a camera in it. I hope to have that one built early next year if Santa is good to me! This is a good book to have while you are building your first Raspberry Pi project. Not sure if you need to buy it though, I think this is more of a rent, as I doubt you will need it again.
Thanksgiving means a nice slow start to the morning and since I went to the gym yesterday it means I can skip that today. I’m not worried about rating too much because I’ve gone vegan and I already know what I will eat. Michelle made a tofu loaf and a veggie side dish. I’ll have those two things and some of my mother-in-law’s stuffing. With that I’ll be full. I’m writing this from the in-law’s house right now. Lots of time to blog this weekend. I’m looking into using twitch too. I’d also like to use YouTube a bit more, but I want to have things planned out to say, because I don’t think I can be one of those spontaneous bloggers.
Above is my breakfast. I don’t always have coffee, but today I did, with a bit of almond milk to take away the bitterness. Michelle bought some intelligencia coffee. It’s not decaf, but its okay. The oatmeal is my go to Coaches Oats. It’s great! I have it most mornings.
A strange thing happened yesterday when I was updating my book list using Goodreads. All the books I had read since February were not listed. I was missing a bunch. Among them some of the key reasons I may be obsessed with RVing right now…Travels with Charley. We listened to this on a recent trip up the coast. For those of you not familiar it’s a non-fiction work where Steinbeck travels across the US in a ….wait for it….RV! He called his RV Rocinante after the horse in Don Quixote.
Rocinante Inside
We also visited his museum in Salinas. On that trip, we also stopped at an Autocamp, where you can stay in an airstream overnight. That was a blast, but I didn’t care for the shower.
Airstream
So again, more reviews yet to come, but I thought I would mention this little thing in a follow-up post. Happy Thanksgiving all!
Many of the books listed above I read because I was at least slightly interested and I was participating in the adult summer reading program at my local library. The last book on this list is the exception. I read that just because I loved the first two books. It took me a while to get to this last book because there are so many other books I also want to read. I’m happy to have finally read it and I will update you all with a review soon I hope.
Now that it is Thanksgiving break I finally have some time to sit down and do some work in my office that’s not related to my day job. I got some other things done as well. I scan all the girl’s artwork that they give me. I know we can’t keep it all, but I can scan it and store it on the Network Attached Storage (NAS) device we have. I also have all our movies and tv shows stored on it. I scan everything in using my trusty Canon scanner. Thankfully, they keep their driver page updated, even for those of us that adopted macOS High Sierra early.
I’ve also been watching some more TV recently as well. I started by diving into Star Trek DS9. It is the only series that I haven’t watched all the way through. I’m making my way through that on Netflix. In addition, I’ve also gotten addicted to Stranger Things. I’m early in the second season so no spoilers, please. When I’m not watching those I’ve been making time to learn about class b RVs on youtube and got addicted to the We Are The Russos.
I’m not a camper, so I have not idea why I’m so into the idea of these RV things. No idea where it all came from, but I’ve always been into the tiny homes stuff. I think it is amazing the way that people find a way to make it with so little. I have so much and the idea of paring down has always appealed to me. When I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I really did get rid of a lot, but it really wasn’t enough. We have a two-thousand square foot home and it is full!
Speaking of youtube. I think it would be a good idea to try that here. I’m not one to sit down and record a video, but I think it would help drive traffic to the site and I know lots of times I want to watch a video of something instead of reading a bunch of text. Sounds strange on a book blog site, doesn’t it? I think some more about that one. Lots of things to consider.
Lots of other things are also going on. Work has gotten a lot busier and I started taking my weight loss a lot more seriously. I watched Vegucated on Netflix and a few other vegetarian and vegan documentaries as well as Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead 2. All these films together pushed me over the edge to go vegan. I’m what you would call a lazy vegan. I find my self-making exceptions to the dairy rule. For example, I can not give up pizza so my give and take on that is ordering only vegetarian pizza. It’s not vegan, but at least it is vegetarian. I haven’t had meat in about four months.
I have been also going to the gym on average 5-6 days a week. Pretty much every day. I got a new Apple Watch and I’ve been trying to close all the rings every day. Most days I make it and with giving up meat, it has been pretty easy to lose a lot of weight. I’m down about 18 pounds from September. I use my Aria, a Fitbit scale, to track my weight every day. They have the 2nd version of it available now. I was thinking of getting it because mine doesn’t always sync right. I’ve had problems with it since the beginning.
I think that is pretty good for now. Hopefully, more coming very soon.
On February 8th the New York Times published Teenagers Who Vandalized Historic Black Schoolhouse Are Ordered to Read Books. The article describes a crime, where 4 young boys, vandalized a historic black schoolhouse. The judge of the case handed down a strange ruling. The boys had to read. For someone like me, this would not have been a punishment, but I also didn’t go around vandalizing anything.
Now, I don’t know if this will work. If those kids see this as a punishment then maybe not, but if they take it as a learning opportunity then maybe so. I’m not sure how enlightened kids that would do this kind of thing are, there is also their age to consider.
I did think that the list of books they were ordered to read was actually pretty well thought out. It wasn’t just, we are going to give you a bunch of books to read as a pure punishment. They thought about the books hoping to give the kids a little background and maybe teach them an understanding that they didn’t have and they weren’t learning from their parents or school.
For those of you interested (like me) here is the list:
Full disclosure: I met Andy Walker and Sean Carruthers a long time ago at one the first podcast conventions. It was an absolute pleasure. They even treated me to lunch. Andy sent me a copy of this book himself. Having said all that my review of this book is my own.
Who should read this book? As the authors themselves say “…there’s a good chance you’re interested in ways to use science to make life better for yourself and your offspring…”
The authors of Super You are Andy Walker, known technology journalist, tv and radio personality, and podcaster. You may know him from Call for Help, a tech television show he starred on with Leo Laporte. Andy writes this book with co-authors Kay Walker, his wife and Sean Carruthers, a long-time friend, and partner in many of his endeavors.
I enjoyed watching their many videos on youtube and listening to their podcast. Even watching their tv shows back when ZDTV or TechTV was still a channel. Speaking about podcasts, check out this interview about the book from Triangulation one of Leo’s many podcasts.
Back to the book. The chapters are mostly about how you can improve yourself through technology for the first portion of the book. Altering the genes of your baby before it is born to make sure you have a boy with blue eyes. The book moves on to discuss beauty hacks like plastic surgery and a few people who are injecting themselves with RFID chips.
Most interesting to me was the bit about living longer through technology and how that is about 30 years away. What happens in 30ish years? By then, the authors say, we should have access to the technology to extend our lives by double what people are living now. It shouldn’t be a stretch to live past 100 if you are younger than the baby-boomer generation.
That’s all great, but will it really happen? And what do we do to ensure that we make it that last 30-year stretch? The book speaks to both of these questions. I suggest you read it, with a glass of red wine, you’ll see why after you read the book! Enjoy!
Lots of people have new year’s resolutions to read more each year. While I didn’t make my goal of 100 books in 2016, I still think 66 is not too bad. If you think that is a lot keep reading and I’ll tell you how I did it.
This is how I read 66 books last year with two kids to watch and taking 3 online courses, not to mention a regular job every day that regularly required more than 40 hours a week. The biggest secret to my success is probably audio books. I listened to 3.7 days of audio last year. 14% of all books I read (consumed) were audio. Listening to books is easy to do. Sometimes I can do it at work on a break or when I’m doing something boring and reparative. A long commute is a godsend to consuming lots of books. I also listen in the gym and when I go on short walking breaks during the day. Another big part of listening to books is not to buy them, at least not physically. I download all the books I read from Overdrive, a company that sells audio downloads to public libraries so the patrons can download and listens to books free. That’s right, free. Download to your smartphone and listen as much as you want for free.
Reading Kindle at Old Street Tube by Annie Mole
Buy a Kindle. It will pay for itself in no time! I have the new oasis. Whenever I’m heading out somewhere that I will have to wait or think I may get bored, I grab my Kindle. I read every night in my daughter’s room. She likes it if I lay on her floor while she falls asleep, so I need a quiet activity to keep myself awake. I read. Usually for a good 20 minutes before she nods off.
Lastly, use your local libraries. That’s right plural. You probably have a bunch within about 15 miles from where you live. Use all of them. Librarians are there to help and they do a great job! You can usually find what you want, but sometimes you have to get in sent from another branch, its worth the hold fee, some don’t even have a hold fee! Try to plan a weekly trip to the library to keep some books in stock and ready to read. Better yet visit a used book store and buy some books to have ready for to read, that way you don’t have to worry about returning them before the borrowing period is over.
The Lost Hero is the first book in a series from Rick Riordan. It is a spin-off series from the original Percy Jackson and The Olympian series. There are 5 books in the series. This book reads very much like the books in the Percy Jackson series and for me, this is a very good thing. I liked that series a lot. A lot of action all the time and it is funny as well. This book was a great introduction to a new series. We meet all new heroes but still get to check-in with some of our favorites from the Percy Jackson series. Riordan makes some great calls in writing this new series. I’m hooked.
This is the first book in a series of 6 books by Ursula K. Le Guin. She is an awesome science fiction writer. Not too long ago I reviewed The Lathe of Heaven, another excellent book. I listened to this book and had a hard time pausing it when life got in the way. Just a great story that is very original. Lots of adventure and magic. I can’t wait to read the second book.
