The 306 Greatest Books #55 - Dune

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Dune by Frank Herbert. This book can be found on the BBC and My Book Lists.

Dune is often cataloged as one of the greatest science fiction stories ever told and the precursor to all science fiction that has come since. It is also frequently listed as the first book within the bestselling science fiction series of all time. These are all titles that the book has rightfully earned. Dune contains parallels in religion, politics, and environmental changes to modern day society, even when it was written back in the 1960's. The story takes place in our the distant future (at least 20,000 years) and the only concrete evidence that it even takes place in our universe is a quick mention of Earth in the appendix. We follow a 15 year old boy who turns out to be the prophet that a culture of desert dwellers has been anticipating. He then must not only learn to live in the harsh environment but to use his "magical" gifts properly. I recommend this book because not only is it the precursor to all modern day science fiction stories but because it is riveting and extremely well written. It is a bit of what is classified as "hard science fiction", meaning that there is a lot of science and not much of the more fantastical elements, but it is still a riveting story none-the-less. My only problem is now I have this urge to read the rest of the series.

The 306 Greatest Books #54 - Walden

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Walden by Henry David Thoreau. This book can be found on the Sybervision and My Book Lists.

While most of the books on my lists are strictly fiction, there are a few that delve into other aspects of history such as scientific and philosophical works. Walden was my first dip into these other, more intimidating, works of literature. And when I started this book I was expecting a rather long, dry, dull book, but in the end, I was pleasantly surprised. Although this is listed as a philosophy book, it reminded me much more like an amateur scientist exploring the world and describing what he sees. Walden is written in a language that is poetic and enjoyable to read where Thoreau will often comment on aspects of his society that are still prevalent today; including helping the needy and people living just to make money. The premise of the book is that Thoreau wanted to live outside of society, with no reliance on it and in the end he succeeded, for the most part. This work impacted me so much that a line within the story has become my email tag since reading it:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." 

I feel that for an educational experience this book should definitely be on everyone's list.

The 306 Greatest Books #53 - Emma

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Emma by Jane Austen. This book can be found on the Observer and BBC Book Lists.

Coming into Emma with a fairly large preconceived notion about the Austen/Bronte books of the time, I was pleasantly surprised and this book was actually better than I was expecting. Once I got passed Austen's round-about way of speaking the book rather intrigued me. The story is about a female in her early twenties among the upper class social scene of rural England. She had vowed to never marry in order to not stress her father. Instead of indulging in her own love-life, she then tries to hook up her friend Harriet. The problem comes when Emma realizes that she is really bad at playing match-maker and eventually causes more problems than if she had just left everything alone. The story wraps up very nicely in a happily-ever-after ending. My biggest complaint of the story is that the language used made the book very difficult to follow at times and Austen could have definitely used "by the bye" far less. Although I enjoyed it, I do not recommend it, especially compared to Austen's much better and more famous Pride and Prejudice. 

Life Update - The Blizzard of '06

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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The Blizzard of '06

That's right, maybe a month too late but here is my recap of the blizzard of 06'. Declared a National Disaster by FEMA and commented on many to be worse than Katrina. OK, don't get me wrong. I am not stating this was worse than Katrina, or even close. But it was pretty bad. We lost power for a week and some didn't get back power for at least a week and a half. Our internet service and cable took a little longer to come back.

Here are some pictures:

Actually during the storm. Hard to take pictures at night in a snowstorm.

The cars were under the snow, at least 2 feet fell that night.

Our backyard, the morning after. The reason that most of the region lost power was due to the wet heavy snow taking down the branches on the power lines. You can see the branches ripped out, broken and laying in the snow drifts. The table was tipped over the prevent it from breaking.

Yup, no power means no microwave, no oven, no heat, no lights. Only candles, hot water (thank you gas) and a stove (again, thank you gas). So after deciding we needed to get rid of all our food and quick it became hot dog night on the grill.

The 306 Greatest Books #52 - The Brothers Karamazov

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Brothers Karamazov by Fydor Dostoyevsky. This book can be found on the Sybervision, Norwegian, and Observer Book Lists.

After reading Crime and Punishment I became a big fan of Dostoyevsky, an I found that this book read a lot like Crime and Punishment, which is the reason why I liked it so much. I probably would put this on my personal must read list but Crime and Punishment is already on the list and I thought that Crime and Punishment was a much better book. Overall I though the book was extremely well written, but long (~800 pages) and I did not fully understand the point of the epilogue. A good translation can make or break a story and I have found over time that Russian literature has a tendency to translate very well into English. The Brothers Karamazov is about 3 (maybe 4) brothers all from the same father but different mothers. All of them have widely varied personalities ranging from borderline psychotic to deeply religious to the non-religious academic. The story culminates in a murder that we as the reader know the brother did not commit but he is put on trial for. I like the way the story was written, with us knowing more than the people in the trial and the ending for the most part made sense; again except for the epilogue. So if you are in the mood for a long but relatively uncomplicated read, I recommend this one.

Hovercraft - Update

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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Hovercraft Update

So this is how the hovercraft looks now. It is slowly coming along (ok very slowly) but it actually has the shape of a boat now. I am super happy with how this is coming out. Unfortunately I hurt my back in the last week working on the stringers (the things hold the main ribs together) so work has progressed actually slower than before. If you want to check out how the rest of the hovercraft came up to this point go to my website here:

http://dinojim.com/AboutMe/hovercraftframe.html

The 306 Greatest Books #51 - Winnie-the-Pooh

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. This book can be found on the BBC and My Book Lists.

Winnie-the-Pooh is one of those stories that had pervaded my childhood. From the movies to the cartoon series, I was (and still am) absolutely in love with Pooh Bear, despite never having read the books. And I am sure that the reason this is on the BBC 100 Greatest Books (which is basically a popularity vote on books) is because of the cultural inundation of Pooh. That being said, I still really enjoyed the book. It brought back many good memories from all the movies and shows which took their plots many times directly from the books. The book is set up with each chapter containing a different adventure with Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Woods. This is how so many books can be created from the one original book. Each chapter is often broken out and made into a unique book, or cartoon, or movie. Within the stories, A.A. Milne talks to the reader in such a unique way that the language he uses could be considered as poor in other instance but in this instance it feels endearing. I found the best stories to be some of his earlier works in the book, which also ended up being some of the shorter chapters. As the chapters/stories got longer, A.A. Milne's particular use of language didn't seem to work as well. However, overall I would definitely recommend this book, especially for the kid in all of us.

The 306 Greatest Books #50 - King Lear

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is King Lear by William Shakespeare. This book can be found on the Norwegian Book List.

King Lear is the final play for me to read out of the six Shakespearean plays spread across my 100 Greatest Books lists. My personal take on Shakespearean English remains the same, I find it a barrier of entry for me to enjoy the stories and I often miss many of the subtleties within the plays. The plot of King Lear is generally easy to follow; King Lear (aka Dad) is nuts and his kids divide against him, with his "legitimate" son and one of his daughters on one side, and his bastard son with the other two daughters on the other. I hope this isn't too much of a spoiler but the story ends in true Shakespearean fashion, with 90% of the characters dead. I had found this play to be far easier to follow than most of the Shakespearean plays that I have read, however this isn't one of his best in my opinion.

The 306 Greatest Books #49 - The Book of Job

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Book of Job by an anonymous author. This book can be found on the Norwegian Book List.

Although I have seen many 100 Greatest Book lists that put the entire Bible on them, out of my four lists only The Book of Job had made the cut. The Book of Job is often considered to be one of the best stories in the bible because of its attempts to justify the presence of good and evil both together on Earth. As I was reading through the story though, I was getting a little bit confused by the text about who was arguing for each side as God and Satan verbally sparred it out. Otherwise, the book seems to get its point across. Essentially, the story is about a man named Job (pronounced "Jobe") who looses his family and his health because of a bet between Gob and Satan to show that Job will still be a man of God despite all his tragedies. After reading the story I can see the moral implications of the story but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth to see God killing people just to prove a point. Overall, I probably wouldn't advise this as a great work of literature.

The 306 Greatest Books #48 - His Dark Materials

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. This book can be found on the BBC and My Book Lists. The first book in this trilogy can be found on the Observer Book List under its UK title, Northern Lights. 

His Dark Materials has quickly become one of my favorite stories of all time. The series is absolutely enthralling, not letting me put it down for a moment. And it is one of the few series I have returned to time and time again. The story can be considered a cross between The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, where the world building is a bit less in-depth than LotR and much less preachy than Narnia. I find it a cross between the two stories that takes the best of both worlds. The story is about parallel universes, where the primary character, Lira, is a kid with a physical manifestation of her soul literally on her sleeve; or running all around as the case may be. Lira starts out being a very young kid with little worldly experience, who, over the course of the story, grows into the hero the story needs. I have often heard criticism that this series is like the "atheist's bible" or some nonsense like that, and I find that surprising as this book is actually very spiritual. It is very anti-organized religion though and that could be a bit off-putting to some. I found the story to be a well-written and fast-paced read (about 1000 pages in 2 weeks), where in the end all the plot lines got wrapped up neatly. Although, I do disagree with how it ended, but looking back on the story there was really no other way it could have gone. This is obviously a must read for me and one I have often recommended to a lot of people.

The 306 Greatest Books #47 - A Doll's House

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List. 

A Doll's House is interesting because it is basically about the women's liberation movement long before there was ever a movement. The play is about a woman who has done nothing with her life except try to please two men, her father and her husband. However, it is when something tragic happens that she realizes that nothing is as perfect as it seems. The characters were written well and believable, and the story is very easy to read. Personally, I often have some issues reading plays because I feel I miss out on many of the hidden themes. Plays are often a lot denser with material because the "fluff" gets excised that you could potentially have in a novel, so anything left in the play is usually very important for the feel of the play or the plot. However, with A Doll's House I feel like I caught most of the subtle themes throughout the story and it was, like most plays, a very fast read. Definitely on my recommend list. 

The 306 Greatest Books #46 - Beowulf

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Beowulf by an unknown author. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List. 

I should start off my review of this story with the premise that I do not generally like stories that are written in "Old English" or something close to modern English, such as Shakespeare. They take too much for me to get invested in the story personally and I find that detracts from my enjoyment. The story of Beowulf is about a famous man who slays several monsters and eventually gets killed while taking down a dragon. The story is rather difficult upon first reading because of the illusions created by the author. Unlike The Divine Comedy though, the illusions are not related to contemporary concepts but it is more of a figurative language. For example, instead of saying "ocean" it becomes a "whale-path." So a first reading can be rather a rather arduous task but future readings present more opportunities for understanding. Overall, the story itself is very simplistic but I believe it is the rich language which is used to describe the story which caused it to be placed on the "100 Greatest Books of All Time" list. Overall, this is not a particular favorite of mine, mainly because the language is such a barrier for me.

Home Remodel - Our New Walkway

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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Our New Walkway

This is our backyard before we put the walkway in. The walkway's main purpose was to stop Twix from getting so muddy when she ran around, so it is going to be rather long to cut out all the mud. You can see our outline spray painted on the ground.

Working on the path. It takes three layers to make sure everything drains and stays properly. A kind of "dry cement" layer, a sand layer, and the rocks on top. We also kept the old pathway blocks I purchased last year and put them in the middle of the path.

Veronica surveying the work done so far. This is how far we got at the end of day 1. Not to bad. Unfortunately that was one of our only days to work consistently on it.

Halfway done. Most of the time took digging up the ground, which Veronica did and laying the edging, which I did. Then both of us put down the layers and stamped them down but that did not take much time at all.

While working on this I knew we were getting a real BBQ, so I started working on a little patio for it. Veronica actually started this but I felt it needed to be perfect so I laid some sand down under it to flatten it out.

And this is it all done. The garden between the walkway and the garage took almost a week to just break up all the clumps of sod that were non-transportable.

And another look at the finished work from the back showing our new cherry tree and you can see the BBQ in the background.

The 306 Greatest Books #45 - Wuthering Heights

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. This book can be found on the Sybervision, Norwegian, Observer, BBC, and My Book Lists. 

Wuthering Heights ended up being a very weird book and not at all what I expected. I initially considered this to be one of those "chic lit" books but I couldn't have been more off. This is one of the most depressing books I have read yet. The book explores how Satan himself can sometimes corrupt people into being wretched human beings, but in the end sometimes they are able to pull through. Most of the story takes place as a flashback of one of the former housekeepers. It is a little confusing and not very enjoyable at first because of the erudite language Bronte used, but after a few chapters I got used to it. After the flashback it shows an orphaned child, Heathcliff, brought back to the house and is shunned by everyone. However, Heathcliff eventually takes over everything. Since most of this is known at the start of the story, it is interesting to see how everything comes about and to see how two separate families who differ in everything (intelligence, strength, and health) intermingle. This book is definitely on my must read list and it should be on yours.

The 306 Greatest Books #44 - Les Miserables

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. This book can be found on the Sybervision and My Book Lists. 

I grew up attending the musical version of Les Miserables and I was always thoroughly confused by the play. I enjoyed the music but the plot of the musical confounded me. After having seen the musical three or four times, I decided to delve into the book and I must say that this book was absolutely enthralling. I have since seen the musical after having read the book and it makes much, much more sense now. The story is two fold, one following the social unrest of the French Revolution following the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo, the second follows an ex-convict, Jean Valjean, while he tries to redeem his life. The book meanders a bit in its plot, but overall I found it fantastic. I was lost in the depths of Hugo's Paris and I didn't want to find my way out. Many times when an author goes on random tangents (like Melville) I get bored and want to move on with the story. This was different for me. Hugo paints such a wondrous portrait that I want to delve back into it time and time again. This is definitely on my must read list and is perhaps one of my favorite books of all time.

Hovercraft - The Beginning

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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After years of talking about it I am finally doing it. I am building a hovercraft. I purchased the plans about 2 years ago and now I am finally starting it. Today is day 1 where I go get the wood for the frame. I am so excited.

Life Update - Honeymoon Pictures

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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 Pictures from our Honeymoon

View from our room.

Us hanging out in the pool after a romantic dinner.

View of the sample bar at the Bacardi factory. We could have any samples we wanted. They didn't let us take pictures of the factory itself however.

After collecting some sand samples for my Texas paleontologist friend.

Life Update - Honeymoon Recap

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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Ok I know I have been negligent lately but I am going to catch up slowly. First off is the honeymoon. It was fantastic. I highly recommend going to an all-inclusive resort. We went down to a Sandals in Nassau, Bahama. The food was all terrific, even if we did get sick one night. Drinks were all top shelf (helps when there is a Bacardi factory on the island). And the rooms were super comfortable. Let's start this off in order. We arrived on Saturday and were extremely confused at first. Just leaving the airport was an experiment in cross cultures. They had random signs around with conveyor belts and people and we did not know whether to talk to them or keep walking. Then check in was just confusing because they held onto our bags and our room wasn't ready. But eventually everything turned out wonderful.

Overall, our days consisted of trying each of the 8 different restaurants, laying in the sun, swimming in the pool, relaxing in the numerous hot tubs, reading my book, and drinking. We met a couple of super nice people the first night there at the Japanese restaurant. Dan and Julie are from Wisconsin and we spent most of the week drinking with them and Joe and Nicole are from Chicago and were around our age.

The first day after we met Dan and Julie we saw them while we were relaxing around the pool when we start hanging out. Eventually Dan walks to the bar and comes back with 4 plastic cups and a cup full of what looked like a Corona. Well after one sniff I could tell I was not going to like this. So it eventually ended up where we had about 7 shots of tequila before the afternoon was over.

One day we went shopping in downtown Nassau, which is where all the cruise ships stop. We bartered and we spent lots of money but it was cool, we got lots of cool stuff, like pearls for my newlywed.

So the one downside to the trip started Wednesday morning when we got breakfast in bed. After we ate I started to have an upset stomach, then suddenly it turned into excruciating pain (37 on 10 point scale as I explained it). I eventually got taken to the hospital where we spent the day. It seemed like I had some sort of liver problem so no more drinking for Jimmy (N.B. I actually had passed a gallstone but I wouldn't know that until a few months later.).

And now to the really sad no drinking part, we then went to the Bacardi factory the next day. That was really cool, they had one storage room where all the rum was aged that they said you can get drunk just by walking into the room. I walked in anyway. :-). After that we ended up going home, but all in all a great trip. We want to go to Saint Lucia next.

Life Update - Birthday Trip

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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It the single best day of the year. That's right, it's my birthday! I know you are all jealous. And I got the spend it with the most wonderful wife in the world.

We started out going to the neighboring county where the annual Maple Weekend was being held. I ate at a pancake breakfast (Veronica didn't eat due to a diet that was soon thrown by the wayside).

Then we traveled off to see some of the farms. The first place was pretty cool, after we drove by a place we couldn't find. It was a nice little three room shop that sold some candies and had stainless steel equipment. Overall very clean. Then we went back to the shop we drove by and it was a shanty to say the least. Very small but the people were very nice. We went into the room they were boiling the sap and it was so foggy in there we could barely see. We would have purchased some syrup from them but the guy we were talking to said the sap just started running and that it was the bad stuff. It's the kind of stuff they send to Aunt Jemima. Apparently, the big companies only need 1% maple syrup to be considered 100% pure maple syrup.

The next place we went to was an Audubon Museum, it was not a real maple syrup ranch but they had a bunch of activities. But since it was not a real farm we left to go somewhere we could get some syrup. We randomly drove down this one road towards a town we knew had a farm. We ended up seeing massive amounts of smoke/steam so we stopped there. That ended up being the best one, they had a good tour, lots of free samples and a snowball gun. Also they had hot dogs cooked in maple sap, which were also very good.

Then we came home to a decorated house. Veronica apparently had her mom and sister decorate the house for me. I then went popping all the balloons looking for prizes and notes in all them. This also came with a giant cookie cake, my first. Like a wonderful wife that she is, we ended up watching a geology movie, Volcano. Ending the evening off we went to Olive Garden for some wonderful food.

All in all, a good birthday. :-D

The 306 Greatest Books #43 - The Aeneid

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Aeneid by Virgil. This book can be found on the Sybervision, and the Norwegian Book Lists. 

We head back to the ancient classics with this Roman telling of the travels of Aeneas, a Trojan who ultimately became the ancestor of the Romans. The Aeneid feels like it was written to fulfill the Roman need to copy all of the Greek mythology, and unfortunately that is how this book reads. The first half follows The Odyssey almost to the point of going to the exact same places as Odysseus. The second half is much better and kind of reads as its own story, although it is still reminiscent of The Iliad. The one thing that The Aeneid did do that Homer skipped over was to establish the use of the Trojan Horse as a means for the Greeks to enter the city of Troy during the Trojan War. Overall, I feel that despite this being considered one of the major works of fiction from the ancient times, it feels too much like a rehash of Homer's much better duology. I would personally say you can skip this remake and stick to the original.