The earthquake a in VA a half-hour ago rattled my workplace in the RTP. Which makes me want to promote these worthy causes:
It is Brooklynne's 31st birthday today. She is a special woman and I love her to death. I can't imagine life without her. Here's a picture of us at our rehersal dinner. It's crazy to think that I love her more today than I did eight years ago. If you see her, give her a squeeze and tell how great it is that she was born today!
alas and alack.
As a followup to my pre-beach post about summer reading, I wanted to say that I chose Under Heaven as my "yearly" novel and it served the prupose well, though the plot promises to achieve greatness early on, and doesn't quite live up to its potential. The problem here is that the story has fantasy at its heart and develops toward fitting climax, but then unravels without an equivalent resolution, much more like the ending from a historic fiction couched in realism. So much so that I had about 15 pages left when it was due back at the library, and I didn't bother to ask Brooklynne to renew it. I will never know what those last 15 pages held (and perhaps someone will tell me I should regret this) but I'm confident I had already passed the ending 50 pages before. That sounds harsh, but I did really like this book, I recommend it, and I think I'll read more of Gavriel's stuff. I'm just not the kind of reader that "needs" to slog to the end after taking as much satisfaction as possible from a story.
Here's another take on the book with a rationale for why it's ok for the story's ending to seem so unfitting.
Now Reading: The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read Them (totally nerdy, I know, but I can't help it.)
Brooklynne and I were invited to an Obama birthday party last night. I dropped by to say hello to some friends, but I didn't stay because Brooklynne and I were exhausted from the past week and it was the kids bedtime. Not to mention that I feel like it is slightly wierd to go to a birthday party of a stranger. I mean, we all feel like we know the guy because he's been plastered on the TV and radio for the past 4-6 years, but really... shouldn't birthday celebrations be reserved for people you know and care for--and people who know and care for us in return?
Anyway, Brooklynne and I had a discussion last night about Obama and whether he has been good for the country or not, whether he deserved our vote next time, and who was causing all the problems in our national government. I still like Obama, though he certainly hasn't changed the atmosphere in Washington the way I was hoping he would. And my question to people who have become disenchanted with the pres is "what's the alternative?" There's no such thing as a moderate Republican anymore; the Tea Party has seen to that. And Democrats are too entrenched in the current regime to offer any fresh options. So the outlook for 2012 is rather uninspiring.
So, the discussion got a little heated--Brooklynne is a little more conservative than I am--but we agreed that, whoever you want to blame, this debt war has shown that there's less and less of a place at the table for purples like us.
I don't blog as much or as regularly as I used to. The blog used to be a great way to keep in touch with people, but other folks started using twitter and facebook, and most of the blogs I followed kind of started drying up. Then, I took on this house project that takes up almost all my free time, and my own blog has suffered.
Still, there are people that only keep up with me through my blog's feed, so I wanted to share some sad news with you guys--last week Brooklynne and I lost the baby we were expecting to be born later this year. We don't have a real explanation for it... the heart just stopped beating for some reason. Obviously, we're wrestling through a wide range of emotions, but time will bring healing, and we praise God's faithfulness even in these tragic circumstances.
On a more trivial note, this week also brought sadness to my heart in the firing of Butch Davis--not that I disagree with the move, or care one iota for Davis's situation--but because I feel very pesimistic about our chances for success after this season. We'll probably do alright this year before recruiting tapers off and the NCAA penalties come down, but don't expect to beat state, and don't expect a bowl game. And I'll go on record now... we may be competitive in any given game, but I predict we will not be competitive for the league title for another 10-15 seasons. Everett, please prove me wrong, but I'm afraid we have been consigned to 3-8 football hell for the all of the foreseeable future.
Tonight at about 6:27pm Neptune will return to the exact place in its orbit, where it was when it was discovered, completing one orbit of the sun, or one Neptune year.
If you want another fun Neptune fact to amaze your coworkers today, scientists think it is possible that Neptune could have seas of liquid diamonds with "diamond icebergs" floating on the surface.
More pictures after the jump....
