His Dark Materials

I read the Golden Compass, Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass this weekend. They are the trilogy of books by Phillip Pullman. I won't divulge their contents, but suffice it to say it takes an interesting view of the Church, God, angels, the soul, etc.

Golden Compass was pretty good, good enough that I wanted to see how the whole trilogy ended and when I get in a reading mood, I just go with it.

Subtle Knife seemed disjointed to me and too short, about 100 pages too short really.

Amber Spyglass was very disjointed, 100 pages too long (could have easily folded the beginning of this book into Subtle Knife) and the ending was terrible. The tying up of loose ends was not thorough enough the big decision to be made didn't really seem to affect the story as it was, but I suppose the reader is supposed to infer the big decision's effect. Blech. The descriptive elements of reading should invoke the imagination enough, I shouldn't have to imagine how things end up.

All in all, I didn't really care the trilogy, but I do love to read about Christian fantasy, despite myself usually being disappointed in the ending.

I'll be in Chicago August 1st through August 3rd for a bachelor party. Should be in interesting time, but if things get too bachelor party-esque, I may call of some of you Chicagoans to hang out. If it doesn't, I do hope to try and meet up at some point.

Later. Happy Holidays.

Back in Ohio

Got back in late last night (luckily Flanagan barked at me so he woke Mia up, that way I could hold her a bit). Trip was tiring. Lots more work was done, food was eaten and beers were drank.

The best part was the Holiday Inn Express we stayed at has a free happy hour from 6-7. They had sushi and Chinese food, all very tasty. They "happy hour" part consisted of 4 sixers (1 each of Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller Lite and Foster's). Our group of 5 took care of 16 out of the 24 beers. Thankfully we didn't touch the box of Franzia or the night could have gone crazy.

Flights were nice and short, but both times there were screaming toddlers. Felt sorry for the family on the way to Columbus. They had their flight cancelled twice on them and were scurrying to get to Columbus only to fly out again on Monday. Forget that noise.

Raleigh, North Carolina's dirt/clay is very red, reminded me of the French Open. They were just mounds and mounds of dirt everywhere. I guess any construction requires digging and moving dirt.

Still pretty tired, haven't really had a chance to recover from vacation yet. Not back into my Ohio groove. Hope everyone is feeling fine.

Goodnight from North Carolina

Jen and I were in the Outer Banks, NC (by the way...didn't see what all the hub bub was about) last week. We got back on Saturday the 14th. Tuesday morning at 4:30 AM I awoke to get ready for a flight to Raleigh, NC for work. The flight lasted 1 hour...but was delayed 1.5 hours. Lame. Been a good work trip so far. The 4 of us from my work had a great conversation about the massive project we are working on. Interesting that a change of scenery and some beers can really shed some light on deficiencies of a project.

Time to go to bed, got a free breakfast at 7. Cheers.

Lame Explanation for No Posting

I'm tired all the time. Between working, playing ping pong at work (we successfully lobbied for a ping pong table in the Distribution Center at work) and playing with Mia...I am tired a lot and get minimal PC time. Posting from work is tough because we are super busy. Guess I can give a work update:

On my 3rd boss at work. 1st boss was awesome, but after 6 months they were grooming this other guy for management, so they put some of us under him. 6 months later he left for an opportunity out in the Pacific Northwest. Then the Director of my team (boss's boss) enacted a reorganization so that is how I am on boss #3.

I do a lot more hardware work and a lot less development than I expected, but so far things have gone very well. I did get promoted to a Senior Programmer Analyst, but I work a lot. Trying to cut back on working when I am home with Mia, but sometimes it is very tough. Then if I do wait until she goes to bed, then I am cutting into time with Jen and T.V...very difficult propositions.

Going to be super busy this summer, including quite a bit of development opportunities in C++, C# and some basic scripting.

All in all, things are going well. I am still riding the Giants' Super Bowl win, but wish Liverpool would have done better. Same for the Cinci Reds.

Getting ready for our week long vacation in the Outer Banks, be tough to be away from Mia and Flanagan for that long, but we both need it.

Hope to be better about posting.

Take it easy coxswains.