Next round of Books

Here are the latest books that I have gone thru over the past few weeks.

Daemon by Daniel Suarez
I wanted to like this book. It is about a dead man who programmed some very nasty computer viruses to wreck havoc on America when he was gone. It is a fun storyline and it is wild but it all too often shifts to the unbelievable side. The computer side is fascinating, but the recruitment and managing of so many people to help this dead man continue on managing the computer viruses strains credibility. Fun read but you will need to suspend logic at times.





The Shack by Wm. Paul Young
I have no idea what to think of this book. It centers on a family who loses their daughter to a serial killer. The dad spends a few years trying to figure out his life now that his daughter is gone until one day he gets a note in his mailbox from 'God.' He has to decide if he is willing to follow the direction to go up to the Shack where they found evidence of the death of his daughter.

He gets there and he comes face to face with God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. He spends a weekend learning about forgiveness, the love of God and Jesus' atonement while at the same time learning about himself. It is a very interesting concept and it is played off well. It gets hokey sometimes, but the conversations between man and the Godhead is compelling at times. For those that believe in God, it is worth a read to see how He is handled and how He interacts with a very flawed but very earnest man.



Watchman by Ian Rankin
This is a thriller of the England MI-5 spy organization and a man who is part of the watchers team. His job is to watch targets and monitor them. A man eludes his watch and ends up killing a foreign member of a government. He quickly realizes that there is more to this than just about him as he may be being set up within his own organization. The story revolves around him trying to figure out, getting double crossed and working his way thru the mystery. Pretty good, with some rather slow periods. This is one of Rankin's first books and it is a bit raw but still interesting with good character development.

Tennis and Bodyguards

Last night, Brodi and I played in a mixed doubles tournament over at the UofU Eccles Tennis Center. We had a good time even with Brodi talking trash all night against our opponents. It was interesting though, there were these 2 younger guys in dark suits hanging out. I figured that they were probably not there to watch me...but they were watching the man on the other court. It was Utah governor Gary Herbert.

At one point, Mr. Herbert lost one of his tennis balls. We didn't find it at first on our court but we eventually did and I walked it over to him and told him that we found their tennis ball. I then mentioned that I was going to keep it, but I didn't want the bodyguards to beat me up and throw me in jail if I kept his tennis ball. He kind of laughed. I will say though, I could have totally beaten his bodyguards in a tennis match.

Randomness of the Week

Brodi and I went to a movie this past Saturday and it was a Horror. No kidding. The movie was pretty entertaining, Iron Man 2. I am a true comic book geeks (as my thousands of comics from my childhood would attest) so seeing these comics on the big screen is always fun. But the scary thing was outside of the movie theaters on 33rd South. It is hard to tell from the picture, but look at the trunk and go up to where the branches start--there you will see a massive beehive. HUGE. Few things in this world scare me much. I love heights, I love adventure...but bees make me break out in a cold sweat and makes me scream like a little boy. I gathered up the courage to take this picture. We were told that a queen bee landed here and her swarm joined her for a party. They yellowed taped this area off to the public. No deaths reported.

This morning, we drove by a sign at a dance club with this on a billboard: 'Foam Party tonight!!' I seriously have no idea what that means. Dancing with foam? What kind of foam...the hard styrofoam stuff or the liquid foamy stuff. I am tempted to take Brodi down there and show these teenagers how old parents party.

I went out to eat with my dad at a restaurant. He got a can of Diet Coke. He went to pop it open and the tab popped off. We finally punched it out so that he could drink it. After a taste, he put it down and checked the expiration date: October 2009. Yep, not a good impression of that eating establishment.

Have a good weekend.

You probably can judge a cereal by how it spells

Nothing better than seeing a kids cereal which kids eat and having them spell the name wrong. Kids across the country now learn how to spell 'cookie' -- 'kookie'

With that said, please no comments on my crappiness as a dad for still buying the sereal, uh, I mean, cereal. At least it is better than the chocolate cherry ice cream covered in caramel cereal that I bought for them last week.

Car oil does a body good

I bought some Lucas Oil. Basically, it is oil that you mix in with regular car oil to help older engines perform better. I checked the back of the bottle and it said the following: "Keep out of reach of Children. Harmful if swallowed." Seriously? Seriously? You need to put a warning on a bottle of Car Oil that if someone swallows it, it is harmful? You mean to tell me that coating your ribs, throat and stomach with black car oil could be harmful to your health? Thanks for warning us all.

Jury Duty, here I come...maybe

Jury duty questionnaire came in the mail today. Yay?

I will say though that my spirits were lifted though when it talked about compensation--you get $20 or so for the first day and $50 for each day past the first, but the best line comes right after that: "You will also be rewarded with the pride you can take in serving your community." It may not pay the mortgage, but I will be beaming with pride at possibly sitting for days in a courtroom, listening to mind-numbing testimony. Actually, I probably won't even be accepted. Good times.

Dinner for a Night...an Aroma for a Month

I love Indian food. Probably too much. I think part of it has to do with my trips to Pakistan and loving the food there but I am always on the search for good Indian/Nepalese/Pakistani food. Utah actually has a pretty solid group of restaurants serving pretty good indian food. The Bombay House, the Himalayan Kitchen, Kathmandoo, Ganesh, Royal India and Five Star India are all tasty indian restaurants along the Wasatch front.

I decided to make up my own Butter Chicken. It was surprisingly good. The best part of it all though has to be that the smell basically infests the walls of the kitchen...so now, pretty much everything we eat has a nice aroma of curry. Eggs? Yep, taste a little bit like curry eggs. Grapes? Yep, with a hint of curry. I am thinking that by the time the smell goes away (and judging by the smell yesterday, it may take a few weeks), I may just have to cook up another batch of food.