beejhay

“The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls. Highly recommended. I’m starting to get a grasp of what makes a good memoir.

here’s a list of books i’ve read since my last update.

“what’s so amazing about grace” by philip yancey. a must read.

“a ragamuffin gospel” by brennan manning. companion to yancey’s “grace”, i say. another must read.

“blue like jazz” by don miller. and another must read.

“blink” by malcolm gladwell.

“way of the peaceful warrior” by dan millman.

“house of leaves” by alice sebold. which is being made into a movie by the peter jackson squad. can’t wait. i shared this book with some other friends and they couldn’t put it down. a friend of mine read it in four days. another in one. my, they’re good.

“teacher man” by frank mccourt. after the third book i grew weary of his self-deprecating tone. i mean, get a life, won’t ya? ;)

i’d still read the next book.

“quit digging your grave with a knife and fork” by mike huckabee. for motivation for my diet.

“the difference maker” by john c. maxwell. for motivation in general. given by a friend.

“adrift” by steven callahan, lost at sea for 76 days. dorados, yum.

“the glass castle” by jeanette walls.

another memoir.

so I’m roughly midway to reaching my goal, and i’m stuck. i mean, 40 pounds in itself is a giant accomplishment for someone like me, but i can’t seem to go onto the next step! i’ve simply maintained my weight during the month of july, and since i’ve been eating a lot lately, i just might be in danger of gaining some back (ulp, no!)

i’ve been combating that though. i can run for an hour now at 152 beats per minute (thanks, podrunner!) so i’m still thankful for that. problem is, i haven’t been running as often.

i dunno, maybe it’s the summer that’s making me so lazy. aaaaah snap out of it!

Ever since I took a class in photography three years ago I had wanted to take more photos. I had a digital camera, but it was a 5 MP point-and-shoot. I loved my SLR camera but film was expensive and pricey to develop. (Not to mention a pain in the darkroom, no offense to the purists). I used Digital Rebels at my college’s paper, and after using them I had decided that I wanted a DSLR.

So I finally went out and bought one today. It’s a Canon Rebel 10MP XTi, which was a good buy, according to my photographer friend. Hopefully this could be the start of something good for me.

Mark Danielewski’s “House of Leaves.”

Because of my job, I’ve been living in the desert for the last four months. I go home every weekend, so I never really considered it “moving out”. For now, living conditions are great, and my job allows me to pay for my own stuff, but I do miss home and my family.

If so, then I finished “Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down” by Dave Barry. Oh dear.

I finished Carson McCuller’s “The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter” last week. For reasons I cannot explain, I found the book extremely satisfying and moving.

I have yet to choose my next book.

I had an “I Heart Huckabees” encounter over the weekend. You know, one of those coincidental encounters with a total stranger that make you question if everything has meaning. I came up with a conclusion and wrote it down right before I started work. I think it’s suitable:

“I have to believe that everything is significant… that all these encounters have a divine signature affixed to them… that, yes, God does have a plan and that He can be trusted. If I don’t believe that, life simply gets too … tiring.”

Check it out!!!

I spent the summer working on this and I finally did it! Now to just distribute to places where I can play!

I was given a Samsung MP3 player … it only holds a gig but it’s also got an fm tuner and a recorder … i actually needed a digital recorder that can convert my recordings into mp3 so i can store them on my comp … so this thing is pretty nifty.

Done with “The Great Gatsby”.

Day 2 of me trying to lose weight … I’ve done six weeks of this last year so I have quite a way to go. But just like before, I’ll have to take it a day at a time. Weight loss is a bloody discipline, not mere emotional decisions.

I ran / walked for about 30 minutes, around the block of my house which is more than 1 mile. A mile a day should be a good start for me.

I try singing along to my mix of songs that I run to (chosen for tempo and pump-me-up factor) so I could also practice my lungs. I hope the people don’t get weirded out with me shouting “Show me how you do that trick” and “I’ll stop the world and melt with you” as I pass by.

Yesterday’s diet was turkey on wheat. Thank God for mustard. Some low fat ice cream at night made things bearable.

Took a long walk today. I finally got to listen to Dntel’s “Life Is Full Of Possibilities” and Beck’s “Guero” in the process. I’m thinking of bringing my camera next time and take photo walks so I can add more photos to my stock photo collection. That would help me accomplish my “take more photos” goal too, and if I do this right, I can also accomplish my “take a walk daily goal.” If I do this REALLY right, I could lose weight too.

But I don’t see how I can finish my whole library if I keep adding to it. I finished two books by Frank McCourt over the past month, “Angela’s Ashes” and the sequel “Tis”. I already have his third one “Teacher Man” but I think I’ll hold off on that. I’m currently reading Nick Hornby’s “A Long Way Down” which is quite a good read.

I’ve finally found a “gimmick” that works. I’m using my laptop to make arrangements to back me up as I play my acoustic guitar. And the style suits me, sort of like a Postal Service kind of outfit. If it’s coming from a computer I might as well make it sound like one.

I tested this out at a party today. It was cool. I played four songs, and I got good responses for three out of four of them. The last song was sort of a drowsy one but in retrospect I can see the problem and I’m making strides to fix it.

It was a really positive experience for me. I want to now go and try and get some gigs at local places now.

Okay, with a little help from everyone, I’ve seen basic shapes. Now that I know what to look for, I can rest easy and consider this goal done.

Finished Carl Sagan’s “Contact” over the course of the weekend. Loved it.

Okay, so after some serious digging (well, not really) ... I think I found a method of seeing those bloody things. I guess what I didn’t know was what I was SUPPOSED to be seeing. I thought the dots would magically disappear leaving a black and white image. I didn’t actually realize it was supposed to appear WITHIN the pattern.

When I learned it was a depth map, a bloody depth map, I think something finally registered in my head. I’m almost done with this goal :D.