Wedding, Family Reunion and more books

Just got back from a weekend in Iowa for a wedding and family reunion. My niece Rachel and her fiancee Matt were married on Saturday. My girls were the candle lighters for the wedding. The ceremony and reception were both very nice. Big props to all the helpers with the reception as they all did a great job!

Today was a family reunion for my wife's cousins on her father's side. It is a good sized family and this is an annual reunion. This year it was again held in Parkersburg, Iowa which was the site of an F5 tornado two years ago that took away half the town. Everything has since been rebuilt and the town park is very nice with lots of new equipment from the aid that came in following the tornado. This may have been a record for the attendance for the reunion with a very large turnout. Everyone brings a couple of dishes to the reunion so with the large turnout there was also a big selection of food. It was all good. One of my wife's cousins is really into genealogy and he shares information on the family at these reunions. We had heard in the past that there was Scandinavian royalty in the family tree and today I learned that one of the other branches of the family tree went back to Ghanghis Khan. I guess this is the black sheep of the family. :)

Reading - One very positive benefit from long drives is the opportunity to get some reading in. After recently reading and enjoying the Young Adult book "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow I decided to read one of his adult books. I read "Makers" over a couple day period late last week and really enjoyed this book. The story is science fiction though the time frame starts off in pretty current time and continues for 20 or so years. The book is about a couple of inventors (the title characters) and a journalist who documents their work. The characters were great but my favorite part of the book was the actual inventions and the creative ideas throughout the book. I think that in general this (creative ideas) is probably my favorite part of reading science fiction. I love to read about things that are not possible yet but that will maybe be possible sometime later in my lifetime. Devices similar to current day PDAs and smart phones were described in science fiction 40-50 years ago. It is interesting when reading old science fiction to see those ideas that did later come true and other ideas that either were not forward thinking enough or are still way out there. I enjoy authors who include these types of ideas in their stories (in addition to writing a great story). "Makers" is this kind of book and a great read.

The other book that I finished over the weekend was "Replay" by Ken Grimwood. This is a book from 1986 and is a classic. The premise of the story is that a man dies in 1988 at the age of 43 and suddenly his consciousness is back in 1963 in his 18 year old body. He is young again but remembers everything that happened to him in his previous life. He "replays" his life and then at the same moment in his life at age 43 he dies again and repeats the cycle. The book contains quite a number of the replays though over time he doesn't jump back as far so the replays get shorter and shorter. Each of the replays is very different but in all of them he is financially secure as he knows where to initially bet money (on certain sporting events) and later invest money (e.g. Apple, Atari, ...). The story is interesting as you see how the main characters (there is also a woman going through the same cycles) pursue a different goal in life each replay (e.g. acquire as much wealth as possible, eat-drink-and-be-merry, arts, travel, family, ...) and how these different quests turn out. They jump into different circumstances each time as they go back to a different point of their original life which also impacts the goals of that replay. Very nice story telling in this one in addition to the fantasy aspect of reliving your life. The story has a similar premise to the movie "Groundhog Day" (which came out 7 years later in 1993) but this story is much more poignant as the main characters see that there is an end coming to their replays as they get shorter and shorter each iteration.

I really enjoyed both "Makers" and "Replay".

Summer time...

Well it has been almost 6 months since my last blog so I thought that I would put down some random thoughts.

Travel - I just got back from a trip to Oklahoma and spending time with my family down there. It was very enjoyable seeing everyone and the food was great (especially the fajitas at Abuelita's in Shawnee). Earlier this summer I spent a week in St. Louis for work. We were field testing a new software release. It was good experience for me though I was pretty tired by the end of the week with a number of midnight to 3am shifts. Some of our activities needed to be in the late night to avoid disrupting the cellular network during the day.

Gaming - My favorite platform for video games is the PC and more specifically my Gateway laptop. I have played lots of different genres of PC games over the past 25 years but I have only recently started playing racing games. Two of the racing games that I picked up on sale in the past 6 months have been DiRT 2 and Burnout Paradise. The games are very different with DiRT 2 being an off-road racer and Burnout being a street racer but I have really enjoyed both games a great deal. They have been a welcome change from the strategy and shooter games that I typically play.

Reading - I used to be a very heavy reader but for some reason the past 3 or 4 years I have really stopped. My favorite genres are science fiction and spy/thriller books though my overall favorite author is John Grisham. This past week I grabbed a book called "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow as I was looking at Young Adult books for my daughter in the bookstore. I had read some short stories by him in the past and the back of the book for "Little Brother" sounded interesting. The reading was easy though the book was close to 400 pages long. I read the book in a couple days and really enjoyed it. The title of the book is a play on the theme of "1984" and Big Brother. The book takes place immediately after a terrorist attack on San Francisco that kills thousands of people. The story is about how quickly we can become a police state when security is a higher priority than personal freedom. The book also contains a lot of interesting technology that appears to be pretty realistic. I thought that it was a fun read and as a computer geek I enjoyed the many ideas in the book including thoughts on encryption and security systems. Two thumbs up!

Health - My health has been good this year. After my hernia surgery things have been going very well. I continue to take medicine each day for my hives and for my irregular heartbeat but the medicine is working well and both have been very well controlled. I am still considering a procedure to correct the irregular heartbeat (AFib) but for now I haven't made up my mind either way. I have two cardiologists that I see and it seems that one thinks it is a good idea and the other thinks that I should wait until the medicine stops controlling it before I do any procedures. They both make sense so for now I am just waiting and seeing how it goes.

Sports - I have been digging the World Cup which just completed as well as the Tour de France which has just started. For the World Cup I was rooting for the United States and Germany. Neither won but they both had a pretty good run with Germany taking 3rd place. For the Tour de France I guess I have been rooting for Lance Armstrong but it appears that he has already put himself in position where he can't win with problems on Sunday. I am now cheering for Andy Schleck from Luxembourg. I enjoyed watching him and his brother in last year's Tour. Unfortunately his brother Frank is out of the Tour after breaking some bones in an accident during the first few days but Andy looks very strong and should be a top contender along with Alberto Contador. After all the drama from last year's Tour between Contador and Armstrong I am hoping Schleck wins this year.

Well that about covers my random thoughts for now. Thanks for stopping by!