Trip To Auberry And USBC Nationals In Reno

It's definitely been a while since I posted here in this blog; I've been spending a lot more of my time lately over on Facebook and on other blogging projects around the web lately. Most notably I've been working on my bowling blog a lot as I've neglected it a ton since setting it up last year.

If you recall I decided to separate my bowling blog posts from this blog and put them on a site dedicated strictly to my bowling related activities. Of course this was simpler said than done as I can't have duplicated posts on both this site and that one and neither can I just delete posts here as many of my old bowling posts touched on things that had nothing to do with bowling.

Anyway, recently I took a trip to Reno, NV for another attempt at the USBC Nationals. If you've made it over to Mounts Bowling you might have been following along already however most of you probably haven't. My latest post over there however is my tournament recap for the event and an index of all posts related to the bowling trip. Check it out if you have the time; there's plenty of video and pictures available for your pleasure: USBC Nationals 2010 Recap.

In addition to hitting up the tournament in Reno I also took some time to stop by my dad's Nazarene church in Auberry which I posted on in December. He's been there for roughly 3 months now and things are getting settled. I met a couple people in the church and took a look at there new logo and sign which is being unveiled in the next few weeks. The church will now be known as the Auberry Nazarene Fellowship.

It looks like I have a new project to start on in the coming weeks too as I'll be whipping up a website for the church and their daycare. I'll be sure to link to it later on to get feedback from everybody.

Anyway, to quickly summarize the trip; I had a great time but I ended up spending about 24 hours in the car over 5 days by myself. Unfortunately Flor was not able to get away from the hospital as she's deeply entrenched in surgery rotations at the hospital. I forgot what it was like to vacation without her and I look forward to her being able to join me again. Next year she better be there! :)

Book Review: The Wastelands by Stephen King

Yet again my inevitable yet slow march forward continues. I have finally completed book three in Stephen King's Dark Tower Series. I read books 1-4 when I was a kid and in college I started book five but found myself severely lacking in the memory department when it came to the details of the storyline which I was picking back up mid-stream. Because I had forgotten so much from the first four books I didn't finish book five and eventually, a couple years ago, I decided to start all over and re-read the entire series again from book one.

Strangely I'm not really reading these very fast even still. I've only managed to get through the first three books in about two years, though I think that is a bit better than the first time through. When I was a kid I read them slow and had to wait a couple years for book four to even be released so I should get around to finishing it up sooner rather than later.

Anyway, book three, The Wastelands, struck me as a meandering tale that really didn't tell much. I remember this book being much more entertaining as a kid. Maybe I've been trained all these years to expect a conventional beginning, middle, and end, whereas in my youth I was more open to loose interpretations of story lines. This book picked up with the training of Susan and Eddie and then moved on to their beginning travels. They follow "the beam" which gave me to some insight to the greater King universe, which I didn't know of when I first read this book in Middle School. The beam ties in significantly to a short story included in Hearts In Atlantis, which I've also read fairly recently.

Anyway, we eventually get a plot build and conclusion with the drawing of the fourth, Jake... except the book is not over... it's only half finished. This drawing moment was quite spectacular and left me enjoying every word like it was the last I'd ever read. Of course when there ended up being a ton more to the book I found a letdown to the story, not sure why though. I think it was just so strange to have what seemed to be two books side-by-side in the same novel.

Anyway, eventually the group makes there way through the wilderness and we build a second dramatic tale from the ground up by setting the stage for the Gunslinger to rescue Jake and save him, seemingly making up for the time he killed him in book one. Blaine the pain, enters into the thick as the "God" of Lud and becomes there carrier and possibly savior but of course we won't know until we get to book four. Again, this goes against all preconceived notions of plot conclusions. We got a good one half way through the book but a bad conclusion at the end. Sure it leaves us wanting book four but it's artificial in my opinion.

Also, I remember quite a bit more riddling from my reading of this book as a kid but then again maybe I'm thinking of book four. We shall see. I'll have to get my hands on book four, Wizard and Glass, soon and catch back up. Despite my disappointment from this book I do trust King to deliver and since I read this far before I have to finally finish the series.

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Feel free to take a look at my fairly recent reviews of books 1 & 2, The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three or any of the other random books I've read and noted here on this blog.

My Disease Is Spreading

Last month while Flor and I were in Vegas for the USBC Open Championships we decided on the way out of town on Monday to visit the Orleans in an attempt to find some good Noodles... unfortunately we didn't notice the Japanese Noodle Bar in the casino until after we settled for the cafe. Grrr! Anyway, instead of just taking off we decided to join the Casino Club (or whatever it's called) and use the free game of bowling they provided for signing for some casual entertainment that afternoon. Of course we are nerds and decided to visit the pro shop upon entering the center and... well, the rest is history. We bought her a ball and a bag to complement the bowling shoes we bought for her last year. I'm pleased to announce, Flor is now officially a bowler. Here's the proof.

Continually Improving My Blog's Template

In my free time the last few days I've been working significantly on tweaking my blog's template to maximize the viewing space for posts while making a navigation menu to make things a little easier on eye. I think I've done some good things; check it out and let me know.

Along those lines, these updates to the template are a part of my grander scheme to make my site more professional and pleasing to potential contacts I may make in the future. In one way I plan on upping the professionalism by organizing my posting a little better. In another way I plan on cleaning up some of my older posts that are not quite appropriate for publication anymore. Until now I've written on this blog about a broad spectrum of personal events, interests, and thoughts; I'm looking now to split up this site by it's main theme's and place some of those themes on a different site strictly devoted to those idea's. For now the only significant change will be my bowling information and commentary. In the future I may start working on a separate site for my financial related commentary but that is another job for a later date.

I have created a new site called Mounts Bowling where I've copied over all of my bowling posts to. Soon I will be deleting the bowling related posts on this site and editing down some of my older posts that touched on bowling as well as other less appropriate topics and opinions. After all I started writing on this site back in 2004 and much of what I wrote back then is not very interesting and/or professional either.

I do still plan on documenting much of my life here however so posts in the style of the the past couple years will likely continue into the foreseeable future.

Book Review: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Not too long ago, about two weeks ago or so, just before Flor and I headed off to Vegas, I finished up my copy of Robinson Crusoe on audio book.  I found this classic novel to be quite interesting but I never found it riveting by any means.  This is probably why it took me upwards of six months to go through it from beginning to end.  I did listen to parts of the book twice however because every now and then I’d let it sit dormant for a month or so and would need to refresh my memory as to what was happening in the story.

Anyway, the story is about a man who heads out to sea and has some problems.  He eventually finds himself shipwrecked on a deserted yet fruitful island and he makes his life bountiful over the course of a few decades.  The island not only sustains him but brings him to god, inspires a sense of purpose in his wandering, aimless life, and eventually brings him great wealth and friendship.

Of course the most interesting part of the book for me was sprinkled throughout the story from beginning to end.  It was the discourse on Robinson’s methods behind creating a comfortable life for himself.  It was in the descriptions of how he cultivated the land, bred livestock, made bread, butter, and other processed foods, goods, and wares, and how he managed to replicate most every kind of common luxury of the times with the things he had around him.  Very interesting indeed.

Of course it took me a long time to finish the book up so I was constantly losing drive to hear more but it was never boring so in that regard I would place the book, classic as it is, near the bottom of my ‘to read again’ pile… but I would definitely watch the movie it it were to ever come to the drive-in. :) 

Related

Click through to see the plethora of books I had read and reviewed / noted on this site.

Looking Back On 2008

My dad was 28 years old back in the summer of 1980. He had been married for a couple years already and had finished up both college and seminary. He was about to take his first church on full time way up in the frigid tundra of South Dakota. That summer I was born and I don’t remember any of it. But what I do know is that 28 years later, in the summer of 2008, I celebrated my 28th birthday with my wife for the very first time. We didn’t (and still don’t) have any kids, nor have I or she finished grad school but my life, right now, is in the arena that my father’s was when I was born. This is the first year of my life where I felt as if I was on par with my father for the first time. He was always (for as long as I’ve known him and have been alive) a grown-up while I was still a kid.

Looking back on 2008, now that it’s a pinch behind us now, about four weeks and a couple days to be precise, I am proud to say that my first year as a married man was a really good year. I know I have a history of lamenting on my good years every January or so and spouting out my eternal optimism for the coming year but I don’t feel bad about that because so far I feel that every year has truly been better than the year recently ended.

2008 not only was my first year as a husband. Flor and I also adopted 2 cats and became quasi parents of two little ones named Esther and Fred (Freddie).

We even took advantage of the horrendous economy and market conditions of the times and purchased our first home, a small one bedroom condo out in El Cajon, just East of San Diego. Flor and I even endured about 26 days of separation in the summer due to a school term she had to attend in Washington DC and we experienced our first ever phone bills exceeding our allotted monthly minutes. :) We ogled the capital together with my sister and road tripped the United States all the way back to San Diego.

After returning home I would have made my Grandfather proud surely by becoming the handyman that that he would have admired. I’m sure he would have loved helping me and Flor fix up our place. Having said that however, I think maybe he might have helped us out some way along the way anyhow, who knows. We painted walls, patched holes, changed light fixtures, installed hardware, and as the year turned we even fixed our ceiling and roof (minor repairs mind you, nothing to get too exited about). 2008 even brought with it my return to school as I did the bulk of a Master’s program between my regular work and bowling excursions. And Flor’s schooling has made great progress and makes me so proud to call her my wife. She started going to the hospital once every couple weeks shadowing doctors and seeing real patients. She’s so cute in that white coat. :) I swear she’s going to make a fine doctor, one of those doctors that everybody loves, the kind that seem to love what they’re doing.

All in all Flor and I had a remarkable year in 2008. Sure retirement accounts fell precipitously, as did everybody’s, and there were stressful times at work and at home but the smiles and happy times were much more prevalent. We even found ourselves peering into the small little eyes of a new baby nephew and received word that another nephew/niece is on the way. Flor’s family has been blessed with little ones and we’ve had the good fortune of being the fun aunt/uncle coming to town to entertain the kids. It’s been really cool to be in that spot… and then we get hand the baby back over to mom when the little guy poos. :) The point here however is that I feel like I’m an adult now and that my life is good and in order. I have my wife and all of my friends and family to thank for that because really, it doesn’t feel like I did anything to make this happen.

I hope my dad understands that though he is now twice the age (and maturity surely :)) that he was when I was born, I am now infinitely more mature than I was then, just 28 years ago… or even a few years ago for that matter. For the first time I feel like I can walk side by side as equals with my dad, and his dad, and his dad.

They were all great men and one day I hope to be a great man as well. In 2009 I look forward to all the things that might come our way. I should graduate while Flor will be spending many of her days in the hospital. Our little kitties will both turn one. Happiness and comfort should abound, and surely many unforeseen happenings will direct our lives… but hopefully with a little luck 2009 will turn out even better than 2008 and we’ll have many more happy stories to tell in the years to come.

Lest us not forget the one defining moment however. I became a man when I purchased this awesome refrigerator. :)

Yesteryear's in Review
2007
2006
2005

Book Review: Personality Plus For Couples by Florence Littauer

Almost a full month ago I finished up Personality Plus For Couples. This was one of the two books that Flor and I were encouraged to read as part of our pre-marital counseling back in October when we met with our Pastor, Scott Peterson. Both Flor and I really enjoyed reading this book as we were able to discuss it all the way through. I think we both really enjoyed the first half of the book a lot more than the second half though. The second half was a grind of a read. I'm not sure if it was any one reason it just didn't seem that helpful to the subject matter; it seemed to only be there to take up space.

The premise of the book, though a little overly general, was to demonstrate that there are four main personality types that all people fit into to some degree. It's pretty much impossible to to be 100% of any of the four types though so the book comes with a nicely developed but not to long test to determine what percentage of each type you and your mate are. There are combinations that are somewhat normal and there are combinations that don't occur very often... as it played out I was one of the weird types. I tend to be passive, reserved, and introspective (Phlegmatic) and "gettr done", take charge, lets start a project type (Choleric). These two types naturally repel one another so it's strange to tend to be both.

Flor ended up being Phlegmatic and Melancholy, or one who tends to be a perfectionist, a more normal combination. Anyway, it was fun learning about these different types and labeling ourselves and our friends in their respective types. We also found joy in learning that both of us are predominantly Phlegmatic, which bodes well for us having a peaceful relationship together. I also have tendencies to get things done so I'll keep us moving forward but Flor has tendencies to do things right so she won't ever let me do a shabby on anything.

The book was nice to learn what tendencies people of various types have and it was nice to see what needs people of the various types have so that we can be aware of what to expect for each other, how to deal with each other, and how to better care for one another.

Again the second half of the book went more into specific circumstances for various combinations of people looking at specific stories. All of the stories however seemed pretty much the same and very lame. They all revolved around friction in a couples relationship and how it was repaired through the very knowledge of the personality types. This was pretty campy in my opinion as every story seemed exactly the same and there was no real work that was taken in any situation to fix the underlining problem. There were some bright spots through it and a few of the stories were entertaining as well as informative but a future reader would be more than fine just reading the first 120 pages of this book and then putting it down.

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My other book reviews.

Book Review: Dispatches From The Edge by Anderson Cooper

Last evening I finished up Anderson Cooper's Dispatches From The Edge. I must say this book touched me like no book has touched me in years. I remember reading Chinua Achebe's book in High School, Things Fall Apart and getting upset as I read on. By the time the book ended I was mad. I had truly connected with the story and was emotionally affected by it. Since that time I have rarely if ever really gotten that connected to a book... until this read.

Last week I was sitting in a Taco Bell on my lunch break listening to chapters from this book on my Zune. I was sitting on the edge of my seat holding back tears as Cooper described the lives of people he encountered through his professional life as a journalist. I was sitting there eating a Crunch Wrap Supreme as he described the famine in Somalia and Niger and I suddenly lost my appetite. My food seemed somehow insignificant.

Cooper writes that the act of moving on kept him going. He intermingles his stories from the field with the story of his life. Everything seems tragic; everything seems painful. He describes his original desire to immerse himself in the worst situations in the world as a way to surround himself in other people's pain and sorrow in the hopes of wrapping perspective around the tragedy and pain of his own life. In the end Cooper makes it clear that he used to think his stories might cause change to the world but now he believes they merely show an audience what is happening in the world instead of inspiring us to change it.

From a news corespondent you hear on a regular basis the facts of stories and world events, hopefully unpolluted with bias. But from this book we really hear the opinion of a man who has seen many horrible things throughout a career. We see a man who has cried alone at night after watching men, women, and children dying of starvation in Africa. We see a man appalled by the death of Americans in the city streets of New Orleans with no government officials to clean up the bodies or save those clinging to life. We see a man who has held his tongue on his opinions out of duty to his profession who is full passion and pain.

This book was a brilliant memoir. It is short and readable and I will never forget it. It will change the way I think about war, poverty, hunger, and foreign affairs. It will stay with me for years. I don't expect another book to touch me quite like this one for a very long time!

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My other book reviews.

2007 - A Year In Review

Here's a quick synopsis of last year. What a year! It's amazing as you go about your day-to-day life you don't really see the amount of significant events unfold quite like you do when you look back on it all.

2007 ended up being a life changing year. It was full of joy and pain. I didn't even blog about everything but what I did touch on here is outlined below. I am so happy right now in my life that I can hardly express it. I look forward greatly to 2008 as it will be my first year as a married man.

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January 2007 - A new year begins and I begin blogging again after a long lull. I then begin picking and tracking stocks again as I try to stay current in the business world. Finally I decide that I should make sure I'm healthy by seeing a dentist and a doctor for the first time in a long time.

February 2007 - I begin tracking all of my bowling statistics and start looking back on past NGS videos with fondness. Valentines Day with Flor went off great as did the championships of our softball league with Flor making the game winning catch. Ohh yeah, I finished my BA requirements.

March 2007 - Graduation! Decision to take multivitamins was made, as was a nice guys decision to get married. Got tired at work so I went on a vacation, Big Bear was great!

April 2007 - Tough month for the family, Grandma died but Flor got to meet my family. I did some bowling, got my first Dutch 200, and went green. Great news! I saved a ton of money on my car insurance... er, Student Loan.

May 2007 - A 299 game, a journey into Africa with my lady, and my diploma arrives. Stink! My car is broken into, luckily my first audio books weren't stolen. Cousin John leaves town.

June 2007 - Grandma's cat moves in, Kathleen visits SD, and Flor and I hit Reno & Yosemite in style. I was happy to take Flor golfing for the 1st time.

July 2007 - I bowled great in Reno and caught my cousin Jess' wedding. An important 1-year anniversary and family camp.

August 2007 - Took a trip to Dublin and Barry hits #756. Flor and I start cooking hard core stuff and I make some great cookies. How cool! My dad starts blogging.

September 2007 - Flor says yes! We take pictures and start our wedding website..

October 2007 - Fulfill lifelong dream and do some more bowling.

November 2007 - Amazingly I decide to enroll in Grad School. I'm getting an MBA and I spent the holiday with Flor's fam and with friends.

December 2007 - Christmas time again. and the wedding came so fast! The newest Mounts' celebrate Christmas together and then we spent time with family.

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Read my reviews of 2006 & 2005

Book Review: Carrie by Stephen King

Last month around the amazing schedule Flor and I kept as our wedding approached I managed to tackle a relatively short but classic book from Stephen King, Carrie. Carrie was adapted into a movie back in the 80's and was played by Sissy Spacek in a magnificent performance and I was very surprised to listen to this book as it was narrated by Sissy Spacek also. As many of my readers know I tend to not actually "read" many books but listen to the CD versions of them in mar car predominantly.

Anyway, the book was a mere 6 disks long so it was a pretty short read for me and I was able to finish the book a few days before the wedding despite my significant lack of free time. For this reason alone I love the audio book because had I been reading this book conventionally I never would have touched it in those few weeks in early December.

There were quite a few differences between the book and the movie and like most books the book contained far more detail and was much more rewarding to finish. I'd have never known otherwise but Carrie basically did 95% of her telekinetic development in the few weeks the book/movie covers. Also, we learn in the book rather than the movie of all that happened in Carrie's past through a documentarians writings. Carrie also finds herself taking her wrath out on the whole town as opposed to just her school in the book and continues of her rampage for hours after the initial blow-up at the school before finally slowly dying in the middle of nowhere due to the wounds of her mother inflicts on her.

The book was intense from start to finish and as it was so short I could imagine someone getting sucked in and reading the whole thing in one sitting. It's one of few books lately I've read where I was troubled to put it down due to a craving for more chapters and when it ended I was sitting on my seat.

The concept of the book really was quite crazy but the storytelling is so good that you instantly bond with Carrie and care for her. You overlook the ridiculousness of the plot line and feel like it is totally normal despite it's tragedy. I recommend this book to all King fans and to those that don't mind a classic story with a lot of blood and gore.

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My Other Book Reviews

Book Review: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

Over Thanks giving weekend Flor and I put some miles on the car. first we drove to LA to have dinner with her family and then I drove back to San Diego. On Saturday I drove back to LA to join Flor for our wedding shower and then drove to Fresno to be with my parents for Sunday. My mom came down for the shower also so Flor sat with her in her car for the ride and during this three hour drive by myself I finished up my latest King novel in the car: The Drawing of the Three.

This is the second book in King's Dark Tower series and though I read this book in my high school years I was amazed to reread it again as I didn't remember much detail from it. The end of the book was far more intense than I remembered it being also. Frankly this was a three hour drive that flew by! I was into the story more than I had been into one in a long time. It was great.

The Drawing starts off hours after The Gunslinger ends. Roland is dying of infection and he has to gather three people from another world through magic portals that only he can control. These three are his path to the Dark Tower. Amazingly, the entire book does not ever leave this premise and at the end of the book he's still on the same beach though a different section of the beach and he's still fighting infection and death except now he has drawn three "companions" or "helpers" for his quest and the reader is thoroughly sucked into the journey.

An interesting tie-in to The Gunslinger is in the third portal that Roland enters he enters the mind and body of the man responsible for killing Jake, the boy Roland meets at the weigh station in The Gunslinger. Jake died but somehow found himself in Roland's world after his death. Later in that book Roland sacrifices Jake and allows him to fall to his death for at least a second time. Jake tells Roland there are other world than this and he's correct in King's imagination.

Looking forward to book three!

Book Review: Heart In Atlantis by Stephen King

In my ongoing pursuit to revisit my Stephen King library and re-read some books that I first read as a child and read for the first time new King books I have come across Hearts In Atlantis for the first time. This is considered widely to be one of King's better books as it does not merely delve into fantastic stories but deals with real issues. I however was not impressed by much of the book but only part of it.

Hearts is written as a collection of short stories featuring many of the same characters throughout the course of their lives. The first story I enjoyed a lot and wanted more when it ended. The second was marginal and got mildly interesting when King decided to end it. The third story had the makings of a riveting novel but it was a micro story that ended before it began. The fourth story nearly put me to sleep as it didn't have a lot of story in it just driveling about war stories from a sad character that happened to show up in the first story. The fifth and final story was a bit better but I also found slightly pointless as well.

I don't even know what to say about them. I finished these books a month ago and finally decided to at least note it here in this blog. I don't even want to go into detail about these stories because I didn't care for them. I suppose that I just like King's usual style more than his artistic/academic style better. If you want a real review of this book then you can read this review as it pretty much sums up what I don't care to write. What I will say though is that I loved the huge tie in of "the beam" in the first story. "The Beam" is a central theme to the Dark Tower series which I'm currently reading and it was nice to get a large piece of it in this book. The first story in this book is worth reading just for that.

Book Review: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Like other things on this blog I have fallen behind in my writing. I finished a book at the end of August Called Blink. I had every intention on writing in length about it because I liked it so much. Unfortunately I cant easily recall as much of the detail as I could have 6 weeks ago but I can say that it was a fantastic read and very worthwhile of one's time.

Blink is basically about the benefit of using snap judgements to base decisions off of so long as those snap decisions are based off the right inputs. Gladwell illustrates the book with stories of professionals that have gotten so good at certain tasks they can virtually read minds or the future because the can focus in on the smallest of details that lead to correct assumptions, decisions, etc.

Honestly, the book is more entertainment based than self-help based because according to his logic one needs an intimate and rich background in the subject material to start making these decisions correctly but assuming you have the experience in some area of your life you can do the same.

For instance, I bowl... a lot. I should be able to decide how I want to play the lanes just by throwing a shot or two with one ball. I should be able to read subtle things such as the amount of oil up lane vs. down lane and inside vs outside in a shot or two to decide which ball is best to use, at what speed is optimal, and which line is most conducive to striking. Over the course of many games I will likely find that my gut instinctual decision after one or two shots will generally allow me to do better than if I were to try and dissect every detail in the lane. I would probably over analyze and make decision based on obstacles that are not as important as others.

Interestingly enough, if you look at my league stats from last year the first game I bowl is better than the second because I'm relying on my gut, the second I'm dissecting, and the third I understand the lane the best and do good again. The same can be said for the Conan league last year, and the summer league 2006. Basically the last 3 hose pattern leagues I bowled in this pattern showed up. I guess in the future to apply this book to my situation I need to remember what the important factors are in my bowling and base my decisions on my them and stick to them.

Anyway, in the end the book was one of my favorites in a long time and it was a quick easy read too. I recommend it with two thumbs!

Book Review: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

I just finished The Gunslinger by Stephen King this morning. This was the second time I read the book. The first time was roughly 13 years ago when I was around 14 years old. This is the first book of King's Dark Tower Series which is basically his legacy series in which most of his novels somehow tie into it. I find it particularly cool that he can make all of his works fit together.

The Gunslinger starts out chasing "the man in black" across the desert. We pretty much meet Roland (The Gunslinger" and get a feel for his purpose in life. We learn of his transition to manhood and we learn a bit about his cryptic future but most of all we learn about his tormented psyche as he pits his own desires against his destiny.

It's a fun read and a short read for King standards and it will make you salivate for the next 6 books in the series as this book is basically just the introduction to the series. It's one of the longest introductions of all time I think but it's darned inspiring to find a purpose in life.

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My Other Book Reviews

Book Review: Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

I finished reading last Friday Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. Again I read this via audio book in my car while commuting so I pushed through it somewhat fast. I don't really classify myself as a democrat or a republican so I don't find myself loving or hating Obama. I tend to believe in a more Libertarian or Capitalistic political approach so there were some things that I really didn't agree with in this book but on the other hand there were many elements to Obama's philosophy that I couldn't help but love.

In this book Obama pretty much just skimmed over his beliefs on just about every possible subject while sporadically including thoughts and stories from his own childhood and adult life. It was very interesting to learn of the growth of Barack from relative anonymousness to political super stardom. I had never heard of him until last fall even. Mostly I found I loved his speaking ability and the quality of his voice and vocal inflections as he read. He seemed inspiring even when I didn't fully agree with what he had to say. Funny, but true.

Honestly, I think he would be a fine president that I could support but for now I won't be voting for him, there are to many other candidates that I might find more attractive. If anyone wants to learn about Barack then this is the book / 5 CDs to to do it.

Book Review: Desperation by Stephen King

I just finished reading Stephen King's Desperation in my car via audio book. It took me about 23 days. This was my first book read through audio book and I loved it. I think I'll be pushing through a lot of books in the coming months because of them.

Desperation is about a group of people that are brought together against their will by a cop possessed by a devilish spirit named Tak. We don't learn of this until a good way into the book, we just think the cop is crazy.

The group of people are from all walks of life and have nothing in common aside from unfortunate circumstances and they end up being led by an 11 year old boy who is a close follower of God. God leads the child and the child lead the adults in putting the evil spirit back to rest deep below the surface of the earth.

Like all King books, this one is relatively simple to explain in a paragraph or two but delves in to fantastic detail and holds you for hours on end. I enjoyed the book a lot though not as much of some of King's other books. I am now interested to read King's The Regulators as this is somewhat of a companion book to Desperation as it is set in the same location at the same time as Desperation but on a different plane or dimension. I look forward to seeing how the two books correlate and deviate.

The Merits of the San Diego County Library System

I've always been a slow and steady reader of books. In my youth I would read a lot and in my adolescence I read a fair amount and in my early adult years I've read a little but even now I've always been able to put a book down every couple months at least but I've always wanted to do more reading... I just never sit down to push through books any faster. What's a guy to do?

I was talking with my friend Josh Saddler about a month ago as he and his wife came to my apartment for a visit. Josh works at the San Diego County Library in La Mesa and he was educating Flor and myself on the merits of the San Diego County Library system. After some devil's advocacy Flor and I surprised him by stopping by the library a week later to get our library cards. I don't think he actually expected us to stop by.

What sold me was the idea of checking out audio books to listen to during my commute to and from work. I drive on average about 20 minutes to and from work 5 days a week. That adds up to 3 hours 20 minutes every week and 10 hours every 3 weeks, which is the duration of library checkout times. 10 hours plus additional incidental drive time is plenty to push through many books and would get me going through a book on average in every 3 weeks without ever sitting down to additional conventional reading time.

In the last month I've "read" Stephen King's Desperation and have begun a new book that I've been meaning to read for some time now, Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics. I believe that this is going to get me really going on books again and I think I'm going to take some time to start chronicling the books I read here in a book review of sorts. Above all it would be nice to remember what I've read and what it was about as I tend to forget those types of things over time.

What a weekend...

Well this past weekend turned out to be one of the worst weekends in recent memory, although there were some bright spots sprinkled throughout it. Friday I dropped cousin John off at the airport as went on terminal leave as he is getting discharged from the Marines. Good for him! He made it through 4 years of military service including two tours to Iraq; he deserves to get a normal life started.

After that Flor and I started North in the direction of East Los Angeles to attend a funeral for a close relative to her family. This was hard as it came so soon after my own Grandmother's funeral and it was her first funeral for close family. I found it somewhat difficult to remain emotionally stable when everyone around was teary eyed and crying. It was a sad evening. Making it worse was that the burial was moved back to Saturday morning and I wouldn't be able to be there as I was entered into the PBA Regional in Visalia and had plans with my own family for Mother's Day weekend.

So after a good visit with Flor's family and meeting extended relatives of her family we went back to her parents house for coffee and pastries and general togetherness before finally turning in for sleep on the living room couch. I intended on getting up at 7am and getting on the road by 7:30 so as to meet my parents for lunch in Visalia but as I went out to my car I found the doors unlocked, the hood popped open, the back passenger side window busted in and all of my bowling gear stolen! Needless to say I ended up filing a police report, which seems meaningless anymore; do they actually do anything? I don't think so; it's all just purposeless formality... and then I filed an insurance claim. After doing all this I made a call to Gary Mage and let him know that I was coming up and could possibly be late to the tournament. He told me that he could help me out if need be.

Finally at around 12:30 I made it to Visalia, with duct taped windows and everything and I waltzed into the bowling alley. I didn't get to have lunch with my parents because it was so late and I had to bowl in just over an hour. Amazingly Gary introduced my to Eric, the Brunswick Equipment Rep for the tournament and he was immeasurably helpful as he went out of his way to give me a new ball free of charge and have it fitted and drilled for me as I lost all of my equipment. He game me a Brunswick Fury. It was the only ball I had to throw for the entire tournament so I didn't quite bowl up to the level I wished I had but considering the generosity of the gesture and my performance under limited resources I was pleased. Final results of the tournament can be found here, my complete bowling stats page can be found here, and my game by game break down follows:



After the tournament I ended up heading the rest of the way to Fresno where I spent the evening having a barbecue on the Airport Tarmac with my mom and the rest of her TSA co-workers. It was pretty funny, around 9pm TSA announced over the intercom that the security gate would be closed for one hour and at that point a police officer walked up to me and without making direct eye contact said in a low commanding voice: "Follow me."

I got up from my chair and was led out onto the tarmac and around to the backside of a building where there were many airline employees gathered with much food and a big grill full of meat. I had a good time but man, how often do civilians get to eat meat with their mothers on the airstrip of a major airport on Mother's Day weekend.

Anyway, to wrap up, I ended up sleeping that night on my parents couch and going to church with them in the morning. After a hearty Mother's Day lunch at a local steakhouse I started my long trip home in my busted up car. I picked up Flor and did Mother's Day dinner with her and her family and made it home just shy of Mid-Night. Whew, what a weekend. Hopefully the next tournament isn't so stressful and I'm crossing my fingers that insurance comes through for me with the car. Rest in peace, Ramon Salgado.

A Short Vacation... Part 1

This past weekend was a Godsend. I've been horribly stressed at work as of late. Well, stressed isn't the best word for it but busy definitely is. I don't get too stressed by I get tired of being so darned busy. Anyway, despite my inclination to finish things up at work before quarter end I decided to capitalize on Flor's Spring Break and take a couple vacation days to be with her when she's got nothing on her plate.

Saturday we got up around noon and met AJ Buerer for lunch/breakfast at the Mission Cafe in North Park. It is always nice to see AJ and it's even better to see him doing so well now that he's back in San Diego. Anyway, during normal conversation we started talking about the Zoo and the animals and then because of my awesome purchase last month of annual zoo memberships for the two of us, Flor and I decided to make an impromptu trip to the zoo to see the big cats. Unfortunately AJ opted out of coming but next time he will have to join us. Had we remembered we could have gotten him in for free with our guest passes. Ohh well.

The Zoo was a nice afternoon spent although we never got over to the big cats we got caught up in the hype of the Giant Pandas and the Giant Hippo that was extremely active and playing with a big ball. It was pretty cool. I caught a few pictures of our trip on my camera phone, my favorite of which being a close up of the hippo's butt. :)

Anyway, Saturday was just the beginning. Sunday Flor and I headed down to Chula Vista for another attempt on the monthly PBA Tough Shot 5-Gamer Tournaments. This ended up being a bust as the approaches were sticky and I couldn't keep my footing. It was so bad that I just lightly threw the ball one-handed like everybody else with out sliding on the approach at all. This of course did not allow me a chance to score well but guaranteed me that I would not injure myself. Despite my "I-Give-Up Performance" I still managed to beat out a couple people sliding in at a cool -202 for 5 games. Blah! Complete results can be found here. All of my other bowling stats can be found here. I think that I'm going to stop bowling these events. I just don't like the approaches. I know I've bowled well there before but I've never liked the approaches and Sunday they were as bad as I've ever seen.

Anyway, that's just the beginning of the weekend. The second part I'll have to blog about a little later. Flor and I decided to take our vacation together up to Big Bear Lake and Snow Summit. I've got photo and video and a lot to say about our time there... but not until later.

Weekend Update and a Bad Bowling Excursion

This past weekend was a weekend that contained a few first for me along with some entertaining moments, tragedy, and peaceful relaxation. First of all Aaron and I went out Saturday afternoon to Balboa Park and spent the day with another Nice Guy, Daniel Harrison and his fiance. We took their engagement photos and generally had a great time. Aaron tells me the photos came out great but I haven't seen more than just a few. Attached to the right is one of the pictures from the day that I've seen. I just ripped it straight from Aaron's public gallery.

Later on we picked up Flor and we all headed out to Casa de Pico for an evening of drinks and dinning. I had my very first Bloody Mary and I liked it as I am a big fan of Tomato Juice. We had a great time and I am happy to finally say that I know Channin. Until this weekend I had never met Danny's finance and I was starting to wonder if she was a real person. :)

After the evening festivities Flor and I met up with the Tragers for a first for me. We all went out to the drive-in theatre and watch 300. It was an incredible movie; a delight even. Probably the most artistic war movie I've ever seen and beautiful. The drive-in experience was pretty amazing too. I really enjoyed it but the next time I take Flor out there I will insist on coming in our own car as we were very cramped in the back seat for a long time. It's tough on your back! Regardless we did have a good time as always with the Tragers.

Sunday morning I got up really early (on daylight savings morning too, ugh!) and drove up to Mira Mesa Bowl in North San Diego with Flor. I bowled in the annual San Diego USBC Masters Tournament. Flor manned the camcorder for the trip but luckily for me the camera battery was almost dead so she wasn't able to film more than 3 frames. Why is this lucky you may ask. It's because I bowled about as bad as I've ever bowled before. The three frames she captured can be found in the below video and as you'll notice I didn't get a strike in any of the frames and I left two splits. This pretty much summed up the entire day. I shot a -230 for 6 games or a 161 average. Yes the shot was tough but frankly I just stunk and have no excuse.



Anyway, after getting that awful bowling behind me I made the same conclusion I always come to after an outing like this. I decide to quit bowling for good. Of course a couple hours later I was already thinking about my next bowling event so at least I can say I get over my problems quickly. :)

The rest of the day Flor and I relaxed at home. She studied while I played CIV IV. Man, I love that game! All in all this was a nice relaxing conclusion to an exciting weekend filled with many events. And that was my weekend update, it was an enjoyable experience spent with an array of good fiends. I can even now say that Danny's fiance Channin actually exists. :0 Until next time...