Friday, January 28, 2011
Been Awhile!
I do have a race update to give though. On Sunday, January 2nd I raced the Oregon Road Runners Club YK2 run for the 13th straight year. I always start my New Year out at this race and love it! Each year it gets .01K longer based on the year so this year it as a 20.11K distance which is 12.45-miles. And I successfully defended my Age Group title that I’ve held for the last several years. My times may have slowed a few seconds per mile over the last 13 years, but they haven’t slowed too much so I still got to bring home my annual first place ribbon!
Work has been super busy the last couple of months due to travel and study time for several certification exams I have to take to become certified in Epic. That has meant 2 trips back to Wisconsin in the dead of winter and another one next week! But that should be my last trip back there for a while and the silver lining is that all that airplane and airport time has given me a lot of time read! And I have churned through some great books since my last blog post. Instead of writing my normal paragraph or two to review each book I’ll just give a line or two with my thoughts along with the link to Amazon so you can check it out there, too, if you’re interested.
The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World = A behind the scenes look at the earliest days of Facebook and kids that created it. There has NEVER been a company that has grown so fast, so large or changed the daily lives of so many people as Facebook has.
Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin = I learned a lot with this book! I was a wee youngster when MLK was gunned down and never really learned much about him other than the obvious things everyone knows. I had no idea that James Earl Ray had broken out of prison and stayed on the lam before even killing MLK. He then was able to escape that and make it all the way to London (trying to get to Africa) before being captured. But nonetheless, he killed a man that had already changed the world and was destined for even great things. 
Dead or Alive = Tom Clancy's first new novel in almost 10 years and it was a good one! This is the first time he has brought all of his major characters together in one book. Jack Ryan Sr. & Jr., John Clark, Mary Pat Foley, Domingo Chavez and others all involved in trying to keep a terrorist from detonating a nuke in Yucca Mountain which stores America's nuclear waste. I am a Clancy fan and this one did not disappoint. I hope he doesn't wait another 10 years for his next book!
The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL = This was a fun read and I think the thing I liked the most is that it was the story of two excellent teams locked in battle and players were young men that I grew up watching on TV as older men. Pat Summerall and Frank Gifford are two examples. Vince Lombardi (yes, thee Vince Lombardi) was a coach and Tom Landry was an assistant coach. Johnny Unitas was the break-out star quarterback after the Steelers cut him! It was the first sudden death game ever played and it was a great one. 
War = This one was written by Sebastian Junger (Perfect Storm) while he was stationed in Afghanistan with the Army’s Second Platoon. It is unbelievable what our soldiers endure while stationed over there fighting this decade-old war. I can’t believe they are able to come back and function in society after going through what they go through every single day. And unless you’ve been there or read this book you have no idea what it is truly like for them. The media coverage we get here in America does not paint the real picture. Each one of those kids is a true hero and deserves our respect and thanks whether you agree with the war or not. 
And lastly, I’m now reading A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog which is a “biography” of “Trixie” the Golden Retriever that auther Dean Koontz had for 9 years. We had a Golden, Shelby, for almost 12 years and there is not a day that goes by (seriously) that I don’t think of her and miss her. And even though she left us a bit over three years ago I still choke up if I think too long about her. And as I figured it would this book is bringing back some great memories of my Shelby so I’m enjoying reading it.
Whew! I think that’s enough for now. I’ll try not to be such a stranger to this blog in the future. But if you are at all interested I’m on Facebook and update that much more regularly! Just friend me there and mention my blog so I know that is how I “know” you and we can stay in touch that way, too!
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