Bibliophilia

I don't often grow a 'stache, but when I do, it's name is Charles.

No, I haven't read Thoreau's Walden yet, but I keep meaning to.  Which probably means I'll read it the week before my son's book report on it is due in 10 years.  His minimalism has inspired many fans over the years, but I still don't get why he didn't just let the lip hair grow.  Maybe a fan of the Amish?  The closest I came to Walden was reading Anne LaBastille's Woodswoman five years ago.  She took inspiration from Thoreau and built a cabin in the Adirondacks, near a lake that I hiked and canoed when I was in high school.  She is certainly inspirational in that she can and did do a lot of building the cabin, hunting her own game and other resourceful skills we don't often see nowawadays (yes, I sound like a 90 year old curmudgeon).  

Graphic Novels
The Massive: Black Pacific - Pretty much combines elements of many post-apocalyptic movies (The Core for one) with a pacificist eco-nonterrorist crew on two ships that loses one of the ships.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies - Superman and Batman fight, then team up against crazy President Lex Luthor.  Alfred defends the Batcave with a double barrelled, side-by-side shotgun and Superdog defends the Fortress of Solitude.  So pretty much what you see everyday on CNN.

Books
Fragile Things - Great stories, just wow.  Read it in three days.  Neil Gaiman introduces the novel with who asked him or why he decided to write the short story.  One is a mashup between Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft; others are evocative of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - If nothing else, I appreciate the fact that David Sedaris titled his book based on a cool phrase (slightly reminiscent of Charles Bukowski's Play the Piano...) and none of the short stories/essays in the book were of the same title.

I've started both Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife and Diana Gabaldon's Outlander in the last few days.  I realize I only have 4 weeks left, so the Tan book serves the purpose of small paperback that I can carry around easily and DG's book is a "wow this series looks good; I hope I can finish the first one in four weeks."  So far Amy Tan's novel seems like The Joy Luck Club: "I'm Chinese and live in California, but my parents lived in China.  Life is probably different than yours if you are a typically WASPy American reading this."  Diana Gabaldon's is a Celtic fantasy novel, with time travel and a nerdy academic.  She's been writing about this for 20+ years, so I'm hoping for good things.

Back to squats, bench and rows tonight:
Squats: 5-305, 5-305, 5-305, 5-305, 4-305,
Rows: 5x5x155
Bench: 4-225, 5-225, 4-225, 3-225, 2-225

I dropped off the Superman/Batman book at the library and added the David Sedaris book to the stack of free ones at the library.  I decided to borrow the David Sedaris book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, if for no other reason than the essays are funny and easy to read one or two a day.  The librarian laughed and asked me if I had read all of the comics they had.  I told her that I was trying and that they should reorganize the shelves so it is easier to find them.  She told me I was the only mustachioed adult man she has seen reading comic books.

Gotta love it when you have lamb, burgers, ribs, lobster, eggs and sausages all within nine hours.

I'm going to believe these red beasties came from New England.

...then I ate six more sausages.

Nuts

If you have sardines and Star Wars, today is a good day.

Today was an excellent day for receiving mail!  My aunt sent me a letter (which contains such juicy tidbits like, "Here's a list of homemade food you can't eat."), Amazon delivered the BCAAs and CJ's butter I ordered and my unit sent me a big care package.  At first I thought, "They sent me printer paper.  We already have that here."  Then I said, "No, no Mr. Sarcasm, it's just a box the paper came in."  The picture above summarizes what I was sent nicely: sardines, nuts and Star Wars.  They also sent pretzels, Fig Newtons, beef jerky and a chocolate Cliff Bar, but my backpack was stuffed with the above.  Anyway, thanks to anyone who already sent me a package or letter and more specifically, if you are my aunt, work at Amazon (but only if you actually touched the things I ordered) and if you contributed to my care package above.

Through some investing blog reading, I found this guy.  I have not yet seen him trying to sell anything from his blog, so don't think he's a huckster, hustler or charlatan.  His message is clear: you don't have to spend all your money on things that fill up a garage.  If you can, use a bike rather than a car; if you buy a car, buy it smartly.  And grow a mustache.  I don't agree with all of the advice he gives, but I like his idea of a Costco membership and using the library a lot instead of buying books.  Certainly over here it's easy to use the library (surprisingly good selection out here.  I feel like I said that in another post...worth repeating.), both for borrowing and donating.

Rest day today, so tomorrow it will be squats-overhead press-deadlift.

Dinner involved a pile of meat, some butter and brussel sprouts.

The olives look like eyeballs.

Tomorrow I'll get to see my neighbor who is TDY out here.  Good night!