2009- a year in books
This was the first year I used Goodreads to track my reading, which means I can go back and see everything I read. It's a pretty interesting thing to reflect on.
The most significant thing that happened this year is that Tuesday and I gave up on the idea of reading together each night. This is a bit sad for me, but considering we took the entire summer to read one book, not a big surprise that with middle school going on, we don't have time for this any more. When Tuesday was learning to read, we kept telling her how when she could read on her own, she would be able to sit in bed and read on her own without having to wait for Mom or Dad to read to her. Instead of convincing her how great reading would be, this scared her into not wanting to read on her own. Only after we realized what was going on, and I promised her that I would read to her every night we could until she no longer wanted that did she start reading on her own. Well, she hit that point in 2009.
I've always given myself reading "projects", choosing a topic or a theme to focus on. About 2 or 3 years ago I set out to read all of the Hugo Award winning novels (fifty-some books, I believe), imagining that I would get a very interesting perspective on the way the vision of humans' future changed over time. Well, I'm not sure that I accomplished that, but I did finish all the books this year, and I'm sure I'll read the winner in future years as well - regardless of the perspective issue, 1 book per year is pretty easy compared to the stack of novels I churned through to get there. In 2010, I'm guessing The Windup Girl will win, and I read that in 2009 as well, so that will be easy.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is one of the Hugo Award winning novels, and when I hit that in my list, I re-read the entire series - the first time I've done that without reading to one or both of the kids. It was fun, and I was a bit astonished how much I had forgotten about the Deathly Hallows, which is the only book I'd read once.
I also read "The Pets", which I had heard good things about, and it was Icelandic, so how could I not read it. One of the articles about the book (I read a few after finishing, to avoid spoilers.) mentioned how few Americans read translated works, so I set out to read a few of them this year. I didn't get 2666 at all, but Brother by Yu Hua was a great book, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone willing to stomach what was a pretty controversial book in China. This year I plan to read Beijing Coma (from China) and Last Rituals (from Iceland) for sure, and I'll keep my eye out for some other foreign titles in translation as well.
Overall, in 2009 I read 79 books (just a hair over 1 and 1/2 per week), which is more than I would have guessed. I doubt I'll hit that number in 2010. The best book I read in 2009 is probably "Predictably Irrational", so thanks to Pete for recommending that one (hey, the best book I read was recommended by a librarian, my Mom will be proud. The worst book title will have to go to Grendel, which at least was fairly short, and did lead to some funny conversations with someone who had also suffered through it.
Posted 6:28 pm | Add a commentThe most amazing slo-mo shot of an owl I've seen all day.
Posted 7:30 am | Add a commentToday is Tuesday's twelfth birthday. Or, if you really think about it, it's her thirteenth birthday, but she's twelve years old. Whatever.
My kids' birthday's always make me feel much older than my own. And over the past year, Tuesday has matured so much - making the transition to middle school, becoming a lot more independent. In a lot of ways, I miss the old Tuesday. I miss reading with her every night, and having her get excited when I simply walked through the door.
But at the same time, we're starting to get little glimpses of the type of person Tuesday will grow up to be. So far, so good.
Happy Birthday, Tuesday!
Posted 5:16 am | Add a commentRiver is three today, which is almost as scary as Tuesday being 12 next week, or Quinn turning 10 next month. She's spending the day walking around the house looking for things that she can do now that she is "bigger".
Posted 9:35 am | Add a commentThis is just here to indicate that you are looking at the new server, not the old one. With any luck, this is the only difference you will notice.
Posted 12:00 pm | Add a commentSo last month, while I was a bit distracted with other things, LifeHacker ran an article on my little project over at sourceforge- geek.menu.
If you doubt the power of advertising, the stats for the menu show the results pretty clearly. geek.menu is a specialty app for users of specialty apps, and it gets a fairly steady download rate of 1 or 2000 or so a month, but last month that spiked to 11,128
Not that this really does anything for me. It's free software, so it's not like I made a bundle. No new developers are clamoring to jump on board, and no one is calling me with 7 figure job offers or anything, but it's still pretty cool.
Posted 11:06 am | Add a comment
That weird smile on my dog is permanent- something's up with her lip. We've been doing some long-intended work on River's room, and Elizabeth took a break from painting a mural on River's wall to snap this picture.
Posted 9:14 pm | Add a commentI probably haven't spent a lot of time on this little corner of the internet discussing my love of all things Pixar, but trust me it's significant. Which makes this my one complaint all the more significant. It has been much discussed in my household, and I've finally decided to start my own little grassroots internet campain. It's a very simple idea:
For those of you who don't know these little details, Luxo is the cute little light that bounces out and squashes the "I" in Pixar at the beginning of their movies. And isn't it really about time that Luxo's lightbulb was reblaced with a Compact Flourescent Lamp (CFL) light bulb?
Pixar even made a short promotional commercial encouraging the use of CFL bulbs, but Luxo still has a plain old round bulb. When I saw the first teaser for WALL.E (where WALL.E changes Luxo's bulb) I had big hopes that WALL.E would do the right thing, but sadly, he replaces Luxo's bulb with a regular round bulb. Very sad.
But surely, if enough people suggest it, Pixar will do the right thing.
So, pick up the call, internets:
Posted 8:31 pm | Add a commentHey Quinn-
Sometime over the last year (and it's not entirely clear to me when this happened) you stopped being a little kid and started being a slightly less little kid. First, you started reading and writing like a machine- 31 Magic Treehouse books- read. 10 Weird School books- done. 3 My Weird Treehouse books- written and illustrated. Remember when I'd make you read Ten Apples up on Top again and again? And you didn't like it? That's gone. You like everything you read. Last night you stayed up reading till midnight to finish a book so you could start the new Magic Treehouse book
Also, you stopped being scared of things the way you used to. Sometimes now you can even watch a slightly scary movie right before bed without waking up 40 times. You don't even mind if your closet is open a few milimeters any more.
I think it hit me how much you grew up this year when we were playing catch in the front yard earlier this summer. After reading some books about baseball, you have decided you are a jock (you didn't get that from me, kid) so I was out in the front yard with you pretending that I know how to throw a baseball better than I do. You were doing pretty well catching, but then suddenly you missed one, and it hit you square in the chest. I could feel the thud from 15 feet away. But amazingly, you shook it off.
Two months earlier that hit would have been worth at least 30 minutes of screaming and crying and blaming me for throwing the ball right to you instead of over to some remote corner of the yard. But you just shook it off, and kept playing through the tears welling up in your eyes.
Another thing that freaked your mom and I out is how well you handled the swim team. We decided that this year you and Tuesday were going to learn to swim, damnit, and we were going to make this happen. We decided to sign you up for the swim team, which has practice every day.
For two hours.
We figured you'd last a week or so.
But you slugged it out.
You lasted that whole season, even though you still weren't managing much more than a dog paddle. At the end of two months of meets, you still couldn't even pass your band test to get run of the pool. Then when the regular practices ended, you asked the coach if you were allowed to go to the practices for the kids who qualifed for the post season meets, and you went to those even when Tuesday didn't. I guess something suddenly kicked in during those practices, becase that Friday, you decided to take your band test. While you were waiting in line, someone came up and started talking to mom and I, and by the time they left, you weren't standing there anymore. We couldn't find you until we realized that the kid swimming in the pool and lifting his arms all the way out of the water was you. All of a sudden I guess everything just clicked for you.
When you finished the test you ran all the way from the far end of the pool to the front desk with your arms up high in the air and your chest stuck out like you had just won a marathon. I don't need a picture of that moment to remember it clearly for the rest of my life. I don't think I've ever seen you so proud of yourself, and you earned every bit of that pride.
Happy summer, Quinn. Can't wait to see what second grade does for you.
-Dad
Posted 7:05 am | Add a comment
