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Doing much better...
Sep. 23rd, 2007 09:47 pmI was truly dragging Thursday night when I got home from my assignment, and sort of went through the motions on Friday, not getting much of anything done. Yesterday, I took it easy, watched the Pausch lecture, and then later watched Laurence Olivier's version of Hamlet (done in 1948 and winner of 4 Oscars).
Earlier in the morning, I had gone to check out a couple of nearby garage sales, one of which listed "books" on the sign stuck in the ground out by the main road. Books are relatively rare at garage sales, even if you include those where the principal offering is a stack of volumes from the Reader's Digest series of condensed books. However, the two places I stopped at had some reasonable selections.
At one house, the owner was offering a bunch of "advance reader" copies for sale, and ended up walking away with a self-help book and a curious tome titled The War Journal of Major Damon "Rocky" Gause, which is pretty much what the title says, and describes an Army pilot's escape from the Phillipines after the fall of Corregidor. At another, I was happy to spy a number of novels that I've heard some buzz about, and as the proceeds of the garage sale were being donated to charity, I bought a few, limiting my purchase to four medium-sized volumes.
Among the books I brought from New York, I had occasion to flip through an old, yellowed paperback of mine, of short stories by John D. MacDonald, who is perhaps best known for his series of books detailing the adventures of Travis McGee. MacDonald's range was much broader than that (somewhere I even have a collection of his science fiction short stories), and the title short story of the collection at hand, End of the Tiger, had a hook at the end that made me think, and then nod in wry agreement. What's wild is that undoubtedly, I read these stories back in high school, and had completely forgotten them.
At any rate, by the time Natalie called from Austin this morning, where she is visiting an old friend from Pagosa days, I had all but proscrastinated myself out of going to Galveston today, but perhaps when it became clear that Natalie wouldn't be home until later, I got to thinking that I needn't make make a federal case out of going to the the beach there, and that even a 15 minute visit would suffice (a) for Shiloh to be entertained by the water, and (b) for me to be entertained by Shiloh being entertained.
And so it went, and if the return trip hadn't involved a traffic slowdown (during which I listened to an instructional Spanish CD), it would've been just perfect.
After a short nap, I cleaned some more shredded paper off the floor (I really need to observe Shiloh more closely) and then settled down to watch Blade Runner, which - if you've seen the film and you think about it - sort of reverberates the whole "knowing when you're going to die versus not knowing" theme that got thoroughly tolled as a result of watching the Pausch lecture. And for the n-th time, I fail to see any credible clue to suggest that Deckerd is a replicant, as has been often bandied about.
In the end, I've not lifted a finger to translate a word today (a situation that will not hold tomorrow), or this entire weekend, for that matter. I think the R&R has been worth it. I feel much better.
Cheers...
Earlier in the morning, I had gone to check out a couple of nearby garage sales, one of which listed "books" on the sign stuck in the ground out by the main road. Books are relatively rare at garage sales, even if you include those where the principal offering is a stack of volumes from the Reader's Digest series of condensed books. However, the two places I stopped at had some reasonable selections.
At one house, the owner was offering a bunch of "advance reader" copies for sale, and ended up walking away with a self-help book and a curious tome titled The War Journal of Major Damon "Rocky" Gause, which is pretty much what the title says, and describes an Army pilot's escape from the Phillipines after the fall of Corregidor. At another, I was happy to spy a number of novels that I've heard some buzz about, and as the proceeds of the garage sale were being donated to charity, I bought a few, limiting my purchase to four medium-sized volumes.
Among the books I brought from New York, I had occasion to flip through an old, yellowed paperback of mine, of short stories by John D. MacDonald, who is perhaps best known for his series of books detailing the adventures of Travis McGee. MacDonald's range was much broader than that (somewhere I even have a collection of his science fiction short stories), and the title short story of the collection at hand, End of the Tiger, had a hook at the end that made me think, and then nod in wry agreement. What's wild is that undoubtedly, I read these stories back in high school, and had completely forgotten them.
At any rate, by the time Natalie called from Austin this morning, where she is visiting an old friend from Pagosa days, I had all but proscrastinated myself out of going to Galveston today, but perhaps when it became clear that Natalie wouldn't be home until later, I got to thinking that I needn't make make a federal case out of going to the the beach there, and that even a 15 minute visit would suffice (a) for Shiloh to be entertained by the water, and (b) for me to be entertained by Shiloh being entertained.
And so it went, and if the return trip hadn't involved a traffic slowdown (during which I listened to an instructional Spanish CD), it would've been just perfect.
After a short nap, I cleaned some more shredded paper off the floor (I really need to observe Shiloh more closely) and then settled down to watch Blade Runner, which - if you've seen the film and you think about it - sort of reverberates the whole "knowing when you're going to die versus not knowing" theme that got thoroughly tolled as a result of watching the Pausch lecture. And for the n-th time, I fail to see any credible clue to suggest that Deckerd is a replicant, as has been often bandied about.
In the end, I've not lifted a finger to translate a word today (a situation that will not hold tomorrow), or this entire weekend, for that matter. I think the R&R has been worth it. I feel much better.
Cheers...
