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New books!

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Posted in Personal, books by adam
July 23, 2007

Now that I’ve got a little bit more free time, I ordered a couple books from Amazon.

I’ve already finished about half of Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park, and it’s pretty good, if you dig American Psycho or his other works. Not a very fast paced plot, but entertaining anyways, it’s a semi-fictional autobiography (well, mostly-fictional, from what I can tell).

I’ve also picked up the next 2 books in the Ender series by Orson Scott Card, Xenocide and Children of the Mind. Despite all the science fiction I had read growing up, I had somehow managed to avoid reading any of the Ender books. A few months ago I picked up Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, and read them both in one weekend, I enjoyed them so much. Hopefully these next two live up to their predecessors! Apparently, Card has written a few additional Ender-universe books that parallel the originals, and look at the world through different viewpoints during the same overall plot. I think they will be fascinating to read - kind of like multiple-angle DVD’s were supposed to revolutionize movie watching. I assume, however, that the newer Ender books won’t just be pornography, like the DVD’s were!

And just because I want to abuse my Amazon Prime membership, I picked up a couple of Robert A. Heinlein books - Starship Troopers, Time Enough for Love, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Apparently, there is a substantial amount of these books that I missed in the past by reading the mass-market paperback edition. I discovered this through a friend[1] of a friend’s blog, which piqued my curiosity. Hopefully what I missed was Quality, rather than some Directors Cut garbage (like the extended breathing scenes in the directors cut of 2001: A Space Odyssey).

[1] I’d link to her blog directly, but Geoff’s blog is currently experiencing some Rails problems, and I can’t find the link to her site. Firefox history to the rescue!

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And dizzyness ensued…

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Posted in Personal, Social by adam

This weekend was our 1st anniversary, and strangely, the first weekend we’ve spent almost entirely together in months! Mary got her earings that she’s always been wanting, and I got gift certificates to all my favorite restruants for A Taste of Ghent! I also got a new bike! I called Matt and asked for info on the best place to buy a bike, knowing he had spent a ton of time researching his recent bike purchase. Apparently, we’re both suckers for the exact same sales pitch, down to getting a bike with ‘replaceable parts’. So, I ended up buying the small version of the exact same GT 2.0 that Matt got. That was a little embarassing!

Desperate to try my expensive new toy out, I called everybody I knew with a bike, and we settled on the Virginia Beach Boardwalk as a good first trip. This is the 2nd time in 6+ years I’d been on a real bicycle, so I didn’t want to jump right into log hopping, ravine falling, gear busting fun just yet. Which is a good thing - about 2/3rd’s through the trip, I had to stop to adjust my seat (cause it slid all the way down!), and when I got off my bike, it was like the world got whitewashed. I felt super dizzy and light headed. The exact same thing happened last time I road for a while, so I dunno what’s going on. I can ride on the stationary spin bike @ the YMCA for an hour at nearly full tilt, but here I was, 30 minutes in and dying on the boardwalk.


Me,recovering from almost dying at the VB Boardwalk.

While I rested and tried not to pass out, everybody went down to the water and had fun, so I didnt feel super bad - they needed a break too ;) I was able to make it without feeling bad, the rest of the way back to the Hilton, coming in at about 5-6 miles for my total trip. My seat only fell down 2 more times!

I liked the ride, despite the pain, and would like to do it again in the future. I just need to get in shape so I’m not always forcing everybody to stop and wait for me to not die :( I guess that sort of comes with riding more!

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