A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R. R. Martin

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a collection of three short stories about Ser Duncan the Tall, a hedge knight in Westeros, and his squire, Egg.  It is the same setting as Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, but about 100 years before those events.

The first story is of Ser Duncan's first tourney and how Egg became his squire.  The second is about their service to an impoverished noble house dealing with a drought.  The third about another tourney to celebrate a wedding.  In each story there is, of course, a conflict and through each Duncan proves his valor as a Knight.  Given the author, I kept waiting for a hammer to drop, for something to go horribly wrong.  But each story ended happily ... or at least in a reasonable facsimile thereof.  The good guys win, anyway.

The book is well crafted.  Each story is its own, but with common themes throughout.  The characters are engaging and endearing.  The intrigues are fascinating.  The stories are fun and exciting.   I really enjoyed the book.  Whether or not you have read A Song of Ice and Fire, I recommend this one.

Book Review: Reamde by Neal Stephenson

Richard Forthrast has lived an interesting life.  Grew up in rural Iowa, ran to Canada to escape the draft, smuggled marijuana across the Idaho border, amassed enough money to eventually invest in an MMO (massively multiplayer online game).  He did so not so much because it was cool (though it was), but because he wanted a way to transfer money from the online environment to IRL.  It was wildly successful.

When his niece Zula visited him at his ski lodge in Canada, she brought her boyfriend, Peter, and that's where the twist happens that sets the book's plot.  Peter, an IT security specialist, had decided to make a quick, one time foray into crime.  He stole a bunch of credit card data and sold it to some Russians.  He just wanted enough money to pay off his upside down mortgage.  By a stroke of misfortune, the files containing the data were hijacked by a group of Chinese hackers using a virus called reamde that exploits Richard's MMO to launder money extorted to unlock the files.

From there the book gets all sorts of exciting.  I swear, Stephenson must have written this one with the intent of having it made into a movie or something. I would love to see that.  The story is incredible.  the characters so good.  This is a great book.

Flint, MI

Once you shrink government to the size you can drown it in a bathtub, apparently you get to drown it in lead laced water.

Book Report: Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub

Jack Sawyer's mother is dying of cancer.  And running from her late husband's business partner, though it's unclear why.  An old carney named Speedy sends Jack on a quest to an alternate world known as the Territories, a Narnia-esque place where evil is not nearly so pristine as new fallen snow, to retrieve a magical talisman that can save his Mom.  Of course he also discovers why they're running.

I've been meaning to read this book since high school.  My Dad was a Stephen King fan and at some point had the book sitting around.  I read fantasy novels, so it seemed like a good overlap.  I'm not sure why I never got around to it ... but I saw it in the library a few weeks ago and grabbed it.

It was well written. I liked the characters.  The story was kind of predictable.  The themes and imagery seemed liked they were just a rehashing of stories that have been told before.  I didn't impress me enough that I'm convinced to read Blackhouse, their follow up to Talisman, but I finished the book.  I've read both better and worse, but at least the writing was well crafted. I enjoyed reading it.

Saturday at the Shedd

Oh man, we had a spectacular weekend.

It started Friday when I took the day off so we could get on the road early for Milwaukee.  Spent the morning preparing for the trip.  At about 1:30, went and picked up Tabby & Ben from schools, then hit the road.

We picked up Jack as we drove by Sheboygan and arrived at Sam's place about supper time.  Becky, who had been preparing for the trip for weeks, had a lasagna to throw in the oven.  Sam put his finishing touches on our new computer.  We chatted for a bit.  Jack & I hit the store for some last minute items we'd forgotten then we all crashed for the night.

Saturday morning we were up early, ate breakfast and hit the road for Chicago.  Becky & I had given our family a trip to the Shedd for Christmas!  We tried finding deals online and found several "deals" that really didn't amount to much.  Best we found was that the cost of a Family Membership was $6 cheaper than full price, plus we could return any time this year for free!  And Becky saw so many cool photo ops as we drove through Chicago that she is just itchin' to go back for our anniversary.

We had a great time there.  I think the dolphin show was everyone's favorite, but there were a lot of cool displays.  We must have spent 15 minutes right off the bat taking pictures at the Caribbean tank.  We ate lunch at a booth right next to the Beluga whale display.  We walked through display after display until our legs ached too bad to go on ... and we didn't quite see it all.  Close .. but not quite all.

We stopped at Perkins for dinner just south of Milwaukee before dropping off Sam.

It turns out that Jack has been in the process of adopting a dog and its foster family was in West Allis, about 15 minutes from Sam's place.  So we stopped there on our way out of town to pick up a cute little Jack Russel Terrier mix named Annie.

The weather was kind of sloppy from about the time we left and threatened to get worse as we drove north.  Sure enough it did.  By them time we hit Sheboygan the roads were treacherous enough we just crashed for the night at Jack's place.

We had a nice leisurely Sunday morning and drove home on well cleared roads.  I spent most of the day setting up our new computer. Ben went in to work at 4:00.  Tabby & I went to Yoga at 6:00.

There were some bumps this weekend.  Our car died (temporarily), something went wrong with our computer while transferring files from the old drive and I had to reinstall Windows, the weather.  But you know, those were all overshadowed by the good times.  Yeah, it was a pretty spectacular weekend.

Pictures!

Going back to this fall.

Ben marched in the homecoming parade.



Becky got some nice fall photos





We waited until October to baptize Tabby so my parents would be back from England and able to be here.  Becky took Tabby out into the woods to get some pictures in her baptismal dress.







While my parents were here, Sam came up from Milwaukee and we spent a morning at the Botanical Gardens.









Ben took 2nd place in a Math Meet.



Becky took them all to Pamperin Park for more photos!






























Merry Christmas!



We spent Christmas in Rapids and Becky got some nice pictures down at Lake Nepco



The week after Christmas we had our first real snowstorm of the year.  And it was indeed for real.

Yoga

Through the end of last year at United Health, they offered a once a week yoga class for employees.  I tried it early in the year just 'cause I was curious about yoga.  The whole relaxation thing was, meh, I could take it or leave it.  I don't feel like I much need it.  But I really liked the stretching.  So I continued to go.

At the end of the year, they discontinued the class.  However, the instructor, Erin, teaches at a local yoga studio (Everybody's Yoga) and mentioned that every Sunday evening they offer a class to raise money for charity.  So this past Sunday I asked Tabby if she wanted to go try a Yoga class with me.

She loved it.

First of all, it was fun to go do something with Dad.  At least, I tell myself that was the #1 thing.  Tabby was also very impressed with Erin, who is one of the nicest people I've ever met.  "Oh Tabby it is so nice to meet you!  I'm glad you came.  Give me hug."  Plus, Tabby was really impressed watching Erin do handstands and side crow and all those cool yoga things.  Half way through the class Tabby commented, "this is challenging and that's good.  I'm getting strong!"  Then at the end of the class, "I love Erin.  We have to come do this again next week, Dad".

Gaming!

Sometimes on Saturdays I like to go into work.  I don't just do it, I actually like it.  I'm not sure I accomplish much.  I'm certainly not there very long, but it's kinda' nice.  I use the fitness facilities, head to my desk, work for an hour or two, then go grab a relaxing lunch while I read for a bit, then head back home.  It's quiet, relatively productive time that is mine.  No one telling me what I have to work on or where I have to be, just me doing what I want.

This Saturday turned out to be exceptionally cool.  Checking my e-mail I found one sent about 1/2 hour earlier from Randall Tupper asking simply, "Want to come down and join us for games today?"

Yeah!  I sure do.  Called Becky to make sure nothing was up today, wrapped up the files I'd started testing and headed out for Sheboygan.  In Sheboygan I grabbed a sub at Jimmy John's and actually caught Jackson at work there.  It was cool to see him.

It was Randall, Pat, Josh & Josh's wife Becky.  We played two games.  First was a "quick" game of Tiny Epic Galaxies.  Roll dice to move ships to cards representing planets, gather resources, or colonize said planets, get points.  It was fun.  Not as quick as we'd planned, but it was the first any of us had played it so it was learning game.   Second was Clockwork Wars. It was the first time Becky or I had played it, the rest had played once before.  Hexagonal map, each tile generating either resources or points.  Each turn generate resources you use to buy action or take actions that either capture tiles or use the tiles for points.  No die rolls involved.  Simply unit placement on a board with only minimal movement of those units once placed.  Fun, fun game.

Saturday was an awesome day.