Me and Nolan in line for the DARK KNIGHT marathon at Harkins Arrowhead.

Tana French's "Broken Harbour"

Just finished another great read, Tana French's "Broken Harbour", (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Broken-Harbour-Tana-French/dp/1444705105) which I was so ready to read I ordered it from amazon uk which had about a month earlier release date than amazon usa (http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Harbour-Tana-French/dp/1444705105). I can't say enough how much I have enjoyed her first three books and this fourth installment about the Dublin Murder Squad. If you have read any of the others, her books are about a talented detective on the squad who gets some case with a personal attachment. As the book goes along you watch the case get solved and the detective's life and career get unraveled with plenty of surprises along the way. So far the detective in the story has been introduced and a major part of the story in the previous book. I am curious to know who is up next from this story (please, not Quigley).

Just returned from a beautiful week in Arizona's White Mountains camping with my Dad and Nolan. The weather was unusually great (almost disappointingly so!) and we got to check out a lot of the damage from last year's terrible Wallow Fire. It is shocking how much forest is burnt. We drove for more than an hour and it was a near-moonscape for the whole drive. However many areas were inexplicably untouched. For example, Big Lake was unaffected by the fire. It seems to have parted and passed to the east and west. I am interested in how well the forest will recover from the damage and how long it will take. We saw some wildlife but they all seemed to be near occupied areas. There were even skunks, 4 babies, wandering near their den which was frighteningly close to our campsite. (yes, we locked up the dogs in the truck when the skunks appeared). Meanwhile down here in Phoenix it was raining like crazy. Next year.

Upton and his mood swings

In regards to my previous post about Justin Upton and both his struggles at the plate and his bad attitude, this In The Bleachers comic by Steve Moore is perfect.

In response to fan criticism after recent lackluster performance, Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Justin Upton said "To be honest with you, I don't care anything about what the fans think of me." Does he not understand who pays his salary? Professional sports, college too for that matter, is the entertainment industry. Spectators pay the bills for him and his teammates and his coaches and his opponents and everyone else in professional sports. I don't want to rant about baseball, there are many great blogs that do that much better than I can, but this attitude is upsetting and a poor example of sportsmanship.

“If you can do good things for other people, you have a moral obligation to do those things. Not choice — responsibility.” - Richard Parker


In the new The Amazing Spiderman movie, the classic "With great power comes great responsibility" line gets reworked into the above quote. Uncle Ben tells Peter about Peter's father's philosophy. I am not going to rant about the change. There is plenty of that in plenty of forums, google and enjoy. This quote is more important because it sums up so perfectly how I try to inexplicably live my life. I choose to work in an inner-city high school with kids who not only don't have much but often don't know how to appreciate it when they do. I spend lots of my own money on inner-city athletics and academics because I know it is important for someone to care about these kids and their families. I know I make choices that are not always best for my financial or personal or career interests but I don't care. I have opportunities to do good things and I will not let those pass by. I feel like I am alone in the wilderness. No one understands why I am the way I am. And here it is, succinctly put into a movie. There are people out there who are less fortunate for many reasons. We all have a moral obligation to help them. It is better not only for them but for the entire community.

Sign the Citizens’ Petition for Ownership Rights | Citizens for Ownership Rights

Sign the Citizens’ Petition for Ownership Rights | Citizens for Ownership Rights

There is a law being proposed in Congress that would limit a consumer's right to resell objects. Goodbye, Ebay and Craigslist. Essentially proposes that the original seller retains the only right to sell that product. The case started regarding books. Sign the petition. 

I just finished Akashic Book's "Phoenix Noir"edited by Patrick Millikin. If you have not heard of Akashic Books, they publish a series of mystery and noir short story compilations set in specific cities. They pull together very famous mystery authors, lesser known mystery authors, and authors writing outside their genre. "Phoenix Noir" includes stories by Jon Talton, Robert Anglen, Dogo Barry Graham, Diana Gabaldon, and Laura Tohe (I especially liked her short story) among many others. It was well worth the read and I recommend it highly.

Another book read. This time I could not put down Jon Talton's latest David Mapstone mystery "South Phoenix Rules". I have read all of Talton's Dacid Mapstone mysteries and I am quite fond of the mix of  historical Arizona and the cold-case historian-deputy although this story does not have as much history and is very contemporary. If you love mysteries and Phoenix, this is a great very tightly written series of books. I am already looking forward to the next one.

Somehow I have managed once again to acquire too many books for my summer reading.

Experiments for the Introductory Physics Laboratory, Oleg Batischev, 9780738048802
Food, Inc., Karl Weber, 9781586486945
Perfectly Perilous Math, Sean Connolly, 9780761163749
Haunted Kansas, Lisa Hefner Heitz, 9780700609307
We Disappear, Scott Heim, 9780061468971
Sealab, Ben Hellwarth, 9780743247450
An Empire of Ice, Edward Larson, 9780300154085
Guide to Observing Deep Sky Objects, Jeff Farinacci, 9780387728506
Building a Roll-Off Roof Observatory, John Hicks, 9780387766034
Free Radicals, Michael Brooks, 9781590208540
Soda-Pop Rockets, Paul Jarvis, 9781556529603
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog, Chad Orzel, 9780465023318

I also got a new reference book, the 32nd Edition of the CRC Standard Mathematical Tables and Formulae, 978143983548. Fun.

And there is a pile of more books on their way. How many will I actually get through along with all the ones already here that need to be read?

Turned in keys, turned in laptop, done at RCB. interesting. not sure how I feel.

Who I read

I am a long-time Amazon.com customer. Back in the day when Amazon started they had amongst all their features a subscriber tool where one could list their favorite authors and be notified whenever that author published something new. It was simple and useful. I am very busy. I don't make it to bookstores very often nor do I read about upcoming books very often. I do however get Amazon's emails and I always bought the books of the authors I follow as soon as I was notified. For some reason I cannot fathom Amazon took away this simple service. I still get Amazon emails but they rarely target the authors I like which is even more surprising since I usually buy my books from Amazon, especially now that Borders has closed (We will save that rant for a different post.), and Amazon still does not update me about my authors. Dumb. What an easy marketing tool. Anyway, to preserve my own memory and to publicly show what a unfocused reader I am here are the authors I read. Amazon, if you are listening, wtf? Let me know if any of these people publish something new, I will almost certainly buy it immediately.

Authors
Karen Traviss (Gears of War, Halo, Star Wars)
Richard Marcinko (Rogue Warrior)
Mario Acevedo (Felix Gomez)
Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad)
Jon Talton (David Mapstone)
Naomi Novik (Temeraire)
Benjamin Black
Rafik Schami
Greg Bear
Brad Warner
Susan Casey
Sean Connolly
Mary Roach
Dava Sobel
Larry Gonick
Robert Zubrin

Subjects
Halo
Gears of War
Phoenix
Arizona
Buddhism
Zen
Christianity
Physics
Chemistry
Astronomy
Mathematics
Mars
Ocean Science
Surfing
Navy
Education
Rugby
Coaching
Athletics

wow, so this is it

well, I am finally writing a blog after much internal debate and encouragement. Special thanks to my amazingly smart friend Nicole, you can read her blog at http://didthatjusthappentome.blogspot.com/. It is guaranteed to be more worthwhile reading than this. I have many interests and they are all hard to keep straight, even for me. Especially for me. So this blog is going to be my own digital memory as well as thoughts. Let me know what you think, disagree as often as you like. I enjoy a good debate or discussion.

Rugby, Physics, Education, Teaching, Astronomy, US Navy, Cosmology, Medicine, Mars, Space Exploration, Athletics, Phoenix, Arizona, Surfing, . . .