Deathbed

Get yourself over to itunes and pick up Relient K's new album Five Score and Seven Years Ago. Then listen to the eleven minute song Deathbed, it's AWESOME! Thanks for the tip Mark.


Basketball started back up this week. I'm coaching 8th grade girls. It's basically my same team from earlier in the year when I coached the Ninth graders. That team made it to the Champoinship game of our league. We were down by 14 points at halftime and then 8 points with about two minutes to go. Our girls had begun to make a run and the other coach called a time out. During the time out I gave my best Churchill, Henry V, William Wallace, "we Will Not lose this game, They called this time out because they are scared, they know you are coming and they are afraid." I then sat next to my assistant and mumbled, "we'll see if that works." To make a long store short the girls went out and scored the next 11 straight points. We took a three point lead but the other team tied the game and sent it to overtime, during which two of my girls fouled out and we lost by three. The girls were crushed but it was a great season. Now I have most of the girls back for another season. It should be fun.

Read so far

After reviewing last years list and noticing that I forgot a couple books I'd read including Flag of My Fathers, I decided I needed to keep better track of what I'm reading, especially if im going to break 10000 pages. So here's where we are so far.
Caleb Carr The Angel of Darkness 747 pgs - Sequel to The Alienst. Not impressed, it slogged along almost as badley as the first one. So I had just swore off any more Carr when I noticed that his next book called the Devil Soldier, is about China during the Taiping rebellion. I'll try and pick it up this summer at a used book store. I'm such a sucker.

Damaged Angels Bonnie Buxton 331pgs. Standard memoir of dealing with a difficult child. This book focuses on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the effects it has on kids and families. Lottsa good info on what to look for but really lacking in intervention techniques. A little too broad, needed more information on "what do i do now?" Is a nice reminder of why you should slap the drink out of any womans hand that is pregnant and drinking.

Gone Baby Gone Denis Lehane 412 pgs. I've enjoyed all the Lehane books I've read so far. All are set in Boston and are very intense. He is also willing to take some plot risks and suprising you when characters don't act like they are in a tv movie of the week where everything works out.

Currently reading, The Face of Battle - Nonfiction book that goes through three different battles and describes the difference in what soldiers experainced. Waterloo, a WWI battle and the battle on Agincourt (sp?). Also reading The Closers, another mystery this one by Michael Connolly. I'm noticing so far I'm heavy on the mystery genre. I need to find something really different to read next.

Best movie I've rented recently The Devil Wears Prada. Both the wife and I enjoyed it.
Best movie I went to recently Letters From Iwo Jima. Good solid war movie but not Oscar Best Picture material.
Worst movie I've rented recently The White Countess. Soooooooo slooooowwww. Painful.

The Reading Year in Review 2006

This was my first year in the “Contest” and oh what a year it was. Humbling would be the descriptor of my adventure. As a graduate of George Fox I was confident going in, I felt like, “ hey if a kid in school can crank out 555 books and a 181,486 thousand pages, I’ve gotta be good for at least 10,000 pages no prob……”
Well progress was steady for a time but then I ran headlong into the unholy trinity or rather the Bermuda triangle of literature. It all started at the end of school. I’m a guidance counselor at a K-9 school in Kaohsiung Taiwan. When I started the contest I surveyed my chances at a respectable showing…..Yes I have two children…….Yes I have a full time job……..Yes I coach girls basketball……..Yes I teach Sunday School ……but I have the ace in the hole, the granddaddy of trump cards….. I had the summer off. I’ll be able to crank out books like a TSA screener chucking lotion.
But summer was where it all ended. Running to catch a flight I grabbed my two year old and a Ken Follet book. Now I was fairly sure I had enjoyed an earlier Follet book, something about WW2. This particular book “Whiteout” was something to do with a biolab, missing weapons, a snow storm, and strained family relations. It’s the absolute worst book I have ever read in my life. It was written so bad it actually was making me angry reading it, kinda like a surly seventh grader spitting words at you. Then I picked up Da Vinci Code and it got worse. This book is the end of Christendom as we know it? It’s a hum drum murder mystery where the author all the sudden mumbles something about “Jesus had a wife and kid” All I wanted to know was why Tom Hanks did that to his hair.
The final nail in the coffin to my summer reading was Stephen Kings Dark Tower series. An uncle had recommended them. An uncle that in the past has given good advice for books, tv series, and movies. As soon as the monorail started talking I should of thrown that book right out the window and as I continued to struggle through telling myself, it’s gotta get better, it’s gotta get better……………until finally I surrendered. I picked up the remote to my in laws TV, I turned on VH1’s Hogan Knows Best, and slid off into nothingness. Crystal Farnsworth would be so ashamed.
So that’s the dark part of my story for my first “Contest.” The best books of the year were Lonesome Dove (thanks for the recommendation) and Gilead. I’m determined to break the 10,000 mark this year. Thanks

Brown Dan The Da Vinci Code 496pg
Carr Caleb The Alienst 597pg
Clark Chap Hurt 195pg
Follet Ken Whiteout 384pg
Greene Graham Brighton Rock 288pg
Hessler Peter River Town 399pg
King Stephen The Gunslinger 224pg
King Stephen The Drawing of the Three 480pg
King Stephen The Wastelands 590pg
King Stephen Wizards and Glass 688pg
Lehane Dennis A Drink Before the War 277pg
Lehane Dennis Sacred 400pg
McMurtry Lonesome Dove 945pg
Mueller Walt Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture 233pg
Robinson Marilynne Gilead 247pg

Total 6443pgs

ok ok im writing already

It's been a loooooong time since the nomad fired up the ol blog so it's about time to get back at it. One of the reasons I started this blog is to keep a list of what I've read this year. I'm in a reading contest that I have no doubt of losing yet just being in the contest makes me feel somehow more intelligent. At least more intelligent than my fantasy football team makes me feel, which would be like a loser. Anyway back to the point. The following link is the reading contest I'm keeping track for. If you'd like to join in please do. I enjoy this guys blog he writes for the Oregonian and does a good job as a muckracker and I think a closeted christian. His reading contest started as a way to get his kids to read, he would pay them by the page for any pages they read above what he did.

http://steveduin.blogs.oregonlive.com/default.asp?mode=blog&category=46196

The winner last year goes to the same university that I graduated from George Fox. She read 555 books, over 180,000 pages. I haven't added up mine yet but i'm not sure iv even broken 10,000. But hey it's my first year. Which reminds me I need to go read.

Pages and a Flick

Here's an update on the current readings.
Hurt : inside the world of todays teenagers. Chap Clark pgs 195
Great book on the state of teenagers. As someone that spends almost as much time with teenagers as adults I can vouch that much in this book is right on. Unfortunatly it gives few ideas of what to do about it, other than the good ol fashioned spend time, get involved in their lives, love them where they are not where you want them. I was hoping for something much simpler. Like giving them a nugiiee.

The Wastelands. Stephen King pgs 590
This is number three in the Dark Tower series. It was not as good as number 2. I'm content with reading the rest of the series on the library's dime this summer.

A Drink Before the War. Dennis Lehane pgs 277
Author that wrote Mystic River. I liked the movie so I thought Id try out the author. This is the first book of a series he has written about a male and female private detective duo. All occuring in Boston. Fast read, pretty intense, looking forward to reading more.

Brighton Rock. Graham Greene pgs 288
Story about a young gangster thats much tougher in his mind than in reality, with a nice dose of short mans disease and you have a wreck waiting to happan. This book was written in the early 1900's and I was surprised how intense it was. I was also surprised at how by the end of the book I'm rooting for the guy not to make another idiotic choice but to no avail.

Mission Impossible 3
Now it could be that I haven't been to the movies in three months and that fact has weakened my critiqing skills but I really enjoyed it. Enough mindless action, with a splash of good acting when Philip Seymor Hoffman shows up to keep things moving along. It was a good ride.

This and That

First off, apologies for how long it's been since the last post. It's not good to realize you post even less than the people you like to read and who you get pissed at when they go to long without posting. Sorry

Two more weeks of school and another year in the books. This year has been eventful on the work front. Many "counseling" issues. Sometimes I forget that counselor is my job title but not the last few weeks. Yikes! The end of the year always brings transition issues to the forefront for the students. The good thing is that it gets them in front of me and ready to listen. The bad part is it's really painful for them. So it's nice to be needed.
Next weekend I take out ninth graders on a last fling together down for a night at a resort in the south of the island. It is always a good time and an emotional one for them. Next year they will be spread out all over the world so we try and force them to bring some closure to their lives.


I'm looking forward to make the trip back to the states for our summer holiday. I think were getting used to all this travel. The first couple times there is alot of anticipation as you think about the plane and packing. Now it's become so routine it's like driving to Portland for the weekend. Riley is trying to walk. Scout is turning 16. Karen and I are just trying to keep up. Scout starts Kindergarden next year, which seems really weird.

We hope to see all off you in a few weeks.

Pages

River Town by Peter Hessler pgs 399

This is a great memoir about a peace corp english teacher that was one of the first American's to live in the Chinese city of Fuling. He and another teacher are the only two (waiguorens, chinese for foreigner) in the city. Even though I reside not in China but in a certain renegade province, the book was full of descriptions and details that I quickly recognized. A personal favorite that is still making me laugh is Hesslers realization that the pollution causes his snot to be black when he blows his nose. He decides that instead of focusing on how bad the pollution is and how it' s unhealthy and horrible, he will just stop looking at his snot after he blows his nose. This attitude should be somehow injected into anyone that will be living overseas. It's a great example of creative problem solving or rather........just getting over IT!

Great read if you want a taste of what Chinese culture is all about and how to thrive within it. It's also really funny.