Sunday, April 25, 2010
The 306 Greatest Books #88 - Madame Bovary
The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. This book can be found on the Sybervision, Norwegian, Observer, Zane's Top 10, and My Book Lists.
The first thing I noticed while reading Madame Bovary was how well is flowed. One idea flowed into another, most of it without a break or pause. Seemingly unconnected thoughts were put together seamlessly in a string of narrative that I could only hope to replicate. I loved reading this book, especially after The Canterbury Tales, since the language was so much easier to follow and I'm not trying to decipher what the author is saying, I'm just enjoying the words. I did have some problems with the book though. The first being the very weak female characters, especially the main character. She seemed mostly to be reacting to events in her life and not being proactive in any of her choices. Nothing she did was really in response to what she wanted and more in response to what someone else wanted. And her child was the most useless of characters, almost inconsequential for 99% of the story. So, even though it did have some weak points, it was a marvelously written story and I would definitely recommend this as a must read.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Personal Goals Update - April
3 months in, a little delayed in posting this, but here it is
1. Finish first draft of my novel -
January 1st - 1st third done
February 1st - Nothing new
March 1st - Nothing
April 1st - Nothing
2. Drop weight to 167
January 1st - 175.0
February 1st - 176.0
March 1st - 176.0
April 1st - 176.6
3. Balance our budget
January 1st - Things are looking up for this year
February 1st - Working over the winter break helped, a $1700 car repair bill did not
March 1st - Going the wrong way, another car bill as well as a new carpet and apparently I owe on my taxes, great.
April 1st - Working out those extra expenses a little bit at a time
a. Pay credit card
January 1st - Only one card left
February 1st - Still one card left
March 1st - Still on to go
April 1st - Still working on the one
4. Read a total of 100 of the greatest books on my lists
January 1st - Current count 86
February 1st - In the middle of Cantebury Tales
March 1st - Took a break from Cantebury Tales, time to get back
April 1st - Finished Cantebury Tales. 13 left to go. Reading Madame Bovary now
5. Finish 2 more movies on my Geological Movie Review
January 1st - Look to start 2 new movies
February 1st - Nothing done on this
March 1st - Nothing done
April 1st - Nothing done
a. Also update the last two I did
January 1st - One out of 3 up to par
February 1st - Nothing done on this
March 1st - Nothing done
April 1st - Nothing done
Other items of interest:
School has been ramping up. But good notes of interest are that I finished the Gummy Bear's room and we are all set for he/she to show up. The patio is almost done, only a little bit more to work on the landscaping around it.
1. Finish first draft of my novel -
January 1st - 1st third done
February 1st - Nothing new
March 1st - Nothing
April 1st - Nothing
2. Drop weight to 167
January 1st - 175.0
February 1st - 176.0
March 1st - 176.0
April 1st - 176.6
3. Balance our budget
January 1st - Things are looking up for this year
February 1st - Working over the winter break helped, a $1700 car repair bill did not
March 1st - Going the wrong way, another car bill as well as a new carpet and apparently I owe on my taxes, great.
April 1st - Working out those extra expenses a little bit at a time
a. Pay credit card
January 1st - Only one card left
February 1st - Still one card left
March 1st - Still on to go
April 1st - Still working on the one
4. Read a total of 100 of the greatest books on my lists
January 1st - Current count 86
February 1st - In the middle of Cantebury Tales
March 1st - Took a break from Cantebury Tales, time to get back
April 1st - Finished Cantebury Tales. 13 left to go. Reading Madame Bovary now
5. Finish 2 more movies on my Geological Movie Review
January 1st - Look to start 2 new movies
February 1st - Nothing done on this
March 1st - Nothing done
April 1st - Nothing done
a. Also update the last two I did
January 1st - One out of 3 up to par
February 1st - Nothing done on this
March 1st - Nothing done
April 1st - Nothing done
Other items of interest:
School has been ramping up. But good notes of interest are that I finished the Gummy Bear's room and we are all set for he/she to show up. The patio is almost done, only a little bit more to work on the landscaping around it.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Gummy Bear's Room
So the Gummy Bear's Room is done for the most part. Thanks to spring break for giving me the time to finish it. Next up on the to do list is finish the patio. Almost done with that as well. So things that were done on the room:
1. History - Well when we moved in there was paneling on the wall so Veronica ripped it out right away. I then had to re-plaster the walls since there were large tears through the dry wall. We then painted it (twice) and made it into the guest bedroom. We never put in any baseboards because we were gonna change the carpet. So when we painted we never laid anything down and the carpet ended up being really gross.
2. Next step: we moved all the furniture out of the guest room. Side table is in the hall, guest bed got moved to my office, and the dresser still needs to be redone for the Gummy Bear's room but it will probably be placed in the closet to be out of the way.
3. We then painted the Gummy Bear's room. We picked a Classic Winnie the Pooh theme and since we don't know the sex of the baby went with yellow and green paint. Veronica wanted to do a horizontal divide between the colors so we ended up deciding a chair rail will go through the middle of the room. Initially the room had 3 walls the same color then the window wall was a darker color.
4. We then ripped up the old carpet in the Gummy Bear's room, the hallway, and the master bedroom. We also took out the baseboards since they were rather ugly to begin with. We also removed the mirrored closet in the master bedroom in the process.
5. Afterwards a new carpet got placed. you can kind of see it in the picture below.
6. The next step was to place in the baseboards. We chose an oak stain for the furniture, the baseboards, and the chair rail. You can see both in the picture above. After that I had to touch up the pain around the chair rail since I had to sand the wall smooth to put it in. Also the ceiling had some of the old paint on it (good taping job this time, not so much the last time). And the wood filler needed to be stained that was put in to fill the gaps in the corners of the room.
7. After that all that needed to be done was hang some stuff on the wall, get curtains, and put together the furniture. My mother bought us most of the furniture and it looks great (Thanks mom :-)) except for the rocking chair which a gift from Veronica's mother and grandmother (Thanks In-Laws :-))
8. We also decided to do something different with the closet door. It basically was a piece of crap so we wanted to paint it but we weren't sure what. Veronica then came up with the idea to paint it with chalk-board paint, which apparently can be tinted to different colors. So that is what we did, got a purplish paint that matches pretty well. We also replaced the closet doors in our room in the process, changing the mirror doors to a nice white panel doors.
9. One of the last things to arrived was the light switch cover on Tuesday, this then let me put up the rest of the chair rail and the room was basically done after that.
10. Some things left to do: Strip and stain the book shelf and the dresser for the room, and that's about it. This will help to organize the closet a little more than we have it right now.
1. History - Well when we moved in there was paneling on the wall so Veronica ripped it out right away. I then had to re-plaster the walls since there were large tears through the dry wall. We then painted it (twice) and made it into the guest bedroom. We never put in any baseboards because we were gonna change the carpet. So when we painted we never laid anything down and the carpet ended up being really gross.
2. Next step: we moved all the furniture out of the guest room. Side table is in the hall, guest bed got moved to my office, and the dresser still needs to be redone for the Gummy Bear's room but it will probably be placed in the closet to be out of the way.
3. We then painted the Gummy Bear's room. We picked a Classic Winnie the Pooh theme and since we don't know the sex of the baby went with yellow and green paint. Veronica wanted to do a horizontal divide between the colors so we ended up deciding a chair rail will go through the middle of the room. Initially the room had 3 walls the same color then the window wall was a darker color.
4. We then ripped up the old carpet in the Gummy Bear's room, the hallway, and the master bedroom. We also took out the baseboards since they were rather ugly to begin with. We also removed the mirrored closet in the master bedroom in the process.
5. Afterwards a new carpet got placed. you can kind of see it in the picture below.
6. The next step was to place in the baseboards. We chose an oak stain for the furniture, the baseboards, and the chair rail. You can see both in the picture above. After that I had to touch up the pain around the chair rail since I had to sand the wall smooth to put it in. Also the ceiling had some of the old paint on it (good taping job this time, not so much the last time). And the wood filler needed to be stained that was put in to fill the gaps in the corners of the room.
7. After that all that needed to be done was hang some stuff on the wall, get curtains, and put together the furniture. My mother bought us most of the furniture and it looks great (Thanks mom :-)) except for the rocking chair which a gift from Veronica's mother and grandmother (Thanks In-Laws :-))
8. We also decided to do something different with the closet door. It basically was a piece of crap so we wanted to paint it but we weren't sure what. Veronica then came up with the idea to paint it with chalk-board paint, which apparently can be tinted to different colors. So that is what we did, got a purplish paint that matches pretty well. We also replaced the closet doors in our room in the process, changing the mirror doors to a nice white panel doors.
9. One of the last things to arrived was the light switch cover on Tuesday, this then let me put up the rest of the chair rail and the room was basically done after that.
10. Some things left to do: Strip and stain the book shelf and the dresser for the room, and that's about it. This will help to organize the closet a little more than we have it right now. 
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The 306 Greatest Books #87 - Canterbury Tales
The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. This book can be found on the Sybervision and Norwegian Book Lists.
I started off reading Canterbury Tales by reading the introduction, which in my version states that "anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from reading good books for ever," by Ezra Pound. Awesome. I had high hopes for this book in the beginning. My wife said it was great, she really enjoyed what she read so I'm all looking forward to it. Then I start to read it, and I don't understand it, at all. And this had nothing to do with the "small glossary" it was written with but with the fact that all of the words are misspellings of modern words, and not even consistently misspelled the same way. When you sound the words out you can make sense of what is going on but my mind doesn't work that way. It turns out my wife read a more friendly translation than my original script of the book. Mine looks more like this: "And daunced wel, he wolde nat come ayeyn..." (and danced well, he would not come again). So it makes sense, but it took me about 400 pages to understand it on my first reading (about 1/2 the book). Anyway, I ended up reading a summary of what was going to happen on Gradesaver.com, and then reading the tales in the book. This ended up being a lifesaver, because even if I missed a line or two I would still know what was happening. Generally, the book had its high points and low points. A lot of the stories were rather fun and interesting, but a lot of them were a drudge to get through (i.e. The Tale of Melibee). Then the final story, The Parson's Tale, seemed completely out of place and contradictory to everything Chaucer has stated before. After several tales of husbands and wives who sleep around he comes in with this sermon about the seven deadly sins, stating things like masturbation is basically homicide and if a woman were to indulge in sexual activity she should be stoned to death. It seemed so out of place that I felt it was on purpose, to throw off the reader. So overall, Canterbury Tales is really a story that does not need to be read straight through. I recommend if you do want to read it, to pick out the best sections and read them alone. It feels like Chaucer added some of the tales more for context around particular stories, rather than the actual enjoyment of reading them.
I started off reading Canterbury Tales by reading the introduction, which in my version states that "anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from reading good books for ever," by Ezra Pound. Awesome. I had high hopes for this book in the beginning. My wife said it was great, she really enjoyed what she read so I'm all looking forward to it. Then I start to read it, and I don't understand it, at all. And this had nothing to do with the "small glossary" it was written with but with the fact that all of the words are misspellings of modern words, and not even consistently misspelled the same way. When you sound the words out you can make sense of what is going on but my mind doesn't work that way. It turns out my wife read a more friendly translation than my original script of the book. Mine looks more like this: "And daunced wel, he wolde nat come ayeyn..." (and danced well, he would not come again). So it makes sense, but it took me about 400 pages to understand it on my first reading (about 1/2 the book). Anyway, I ended up reading a summary of what was going to happen on Gradesaver.com, and then reading the tales in the book. This ended up being a lifesaver, because even if I missed a line or two I would still know what was happening. Generally, the book had its high points and low points. A lot of the stories were rather fun and interesting, but a lot of them were a drudge to get through (i.e. The Tale of Melibee). Then the final story, The Parson's Tale, seemed completely out of place and contradictory to everything Chaucer has stated before. After several tales of husbands and wives who sleep around he comes in with this sermon about the seven deadly sins, stating things like masturbation is basically homicide and if a woman were to indulge in sexual activity she should be stoned to death. It seemed so out of place that I felt it was on purpose, to throw off the reader. So overall, Canterbury Tales is really a story that does not need to be read straight through. I recommend if you do want to read it, to pick out the best sections and read them alone. It feels like Chaucer added some of the tales more for context around particular stories, rather than the actual enjoyment of reading them.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Olympics - Passes and Fails
So the Olympics have come and gone and a majority of my free time has been returned to me (although I do have a significant number of hours still on dvr that need to be watched). Afterwards I have come to a number of conclusions.
1. I really want to be in the Olympics. Having a skeleton track within an hour of my house is awesome but it costs money that I don't have (as does everything) and I have a wife hesitant to let me try it.
2. NBC really dropped the ball on this on. I mean they put the suck in sucked. Their coverage of the 2008 games was awesome, they had a number of fails but overall I thought their passes outweighed their fails in Beijing, not so much this time.
(A) Pass 1 - they fixed that stupid "LIVE" stamp that was on all broadcasts in 2008 to only be actual live broadcasts this time. And since I am in mountain time I should never have seen this, which I didn't.
(B) Fail 1 - What is the purpose of online coverage if they only show one or two different events. The only thing live online was either curling or hockey and on top of that you had to have an outside cable company account to be able to log into the video feeds.
(C) Fail 2 - Their coverage overall sucked majorly. They only followed the headliners or Americans and even then not all the time. I saw one event where they only showed the gold medal race and nothing else. Thanks NBC because I didn't care about anything else but the final race.
(D) Fail 3 - Too much figure skating. What demographics are watching this that they needed to show 10 days of figure skating almost uncut as opposed to almost anything else. Because I care about ice dancing all that much.
(E) Fail 4 - The closing ceremonies - Oh this has a host of it's own problems. So once the actual coverage started they would continually cut away to commercial in the middle of something happening then at the end they just cut away to their new show while events were still ongoing. They disclaimered it with "come back in an hour to see what we felt you didn't want to see". This was all a ploy to watch their new show "The Marriage Ref" which turned out to be rather slow and not even that good to begin with.
3. I got to play Fantasy Olympics :-D. Although I was more of a fan the way they had it run in 2008, it still was a bunch of fun. Things I would have preferred would to be able to see everyone's team, even after trades like in 08. I ended winning my league and tying for second overall (out of 141 teams). Although after the tiebreaker I came in fourth which is the same score from 08.
4. Even ESPN got into it where you vote for or against an event and they ranked the people based on the results.
So all in all I enjoyed watching the fantastic Olympians but got frustrated by NBC more often then not.
1. I really want to be in the Olympics. Having a skeleton track within an hour of my house is awesome but it costs money that I don't have (as does everything) and I have a wife hesitant to let me try it.
2. NBC really dropped the ball on this on. I mean they put the suck in sucked. Their coverage of the 2008 games was awesome, they had a number of fails but overall I thought their passes outweighed their fails in Beijing, not so much this time.
(A) Pass 1 - they fixed that stupid "LIVE" stamp that was on all broadcasts in 2008 to only be actual live broadcasts this time. And since I am in mountain time I should never have seen this, which I didn't.
(B) Fail 1 - What is the purpose of online coverage if they only show one or two different events. The only thing live online was either curling or hockey and on top of that you had to have an outside cable company account to be able to log into the video feeds.
(C) Fail 2 - Their coverage overall sucked majorly. They only followed the headliners or Americans and even then not all the time. I saw one event where they only showed the gold medal race and nothing else. Thanks NBC because I didn't care about anything else but the final race.
(D) Fail 3 - Too much figure skating. What demographics are watching this that they needed to show 10 days of figure skating almost uncut as opposed to almost anything else. Because I care about ice dancing all that much.
(E) Fail 4 - The closing ceremonies - Oh this has a host of it's own problems. So once the actual coverage started they would continually cut away to commercial in the middle of something happening then at the end they just cut away to their new show while events were still ongoing. They disclaimered it with "come back in an hour to see what we felt you didn't want to see". This was all a ploy to watch their new show "The Marriage Ref" which turned out to be rather slow and not even that good to begin with.
3. I got to play Fantasy Olympics :-D. Although I was more of a fan the way they had it run in 2008, it still was a bunch of fun. Things I would have preferred would to be able to see everyone's team, even after trades like in 08. I ended winning my league and tying for second overall (out of 141 teams). Although after the tiebreaker I came in fourth which is the same score from 08.
4. Even ESPN got into it where you vote for or against an event and they ranked the people based on the results.
So all in all I enjoyed watching the fantastic Olympians but got frustrated by NBC more often then not.
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