My New Favorite Healthy Snacks

1. A banana - but it has to be the right level of ripeness. I like them on the less green more brown side and I'm rather particular. One day's worth of ripening can make a difference. I've been eating these after work before my hour long commute. It holds me over until dinner at home and prevents hunger attacks. (A few weeks ago, I had a hunger attack on the way home and I seriously came very close to eating my own arm.)

2. Applesauce - I've loved applesauce since I was a kid and my love has only been re-kindled of late. Man, it's good stuff.

3. Hard boiled eggs - with some salt and pepper - yum! Though they smell and I feel I have to announce to anyone present, "I'm eating some eggs" lest they think the smell is from some other source.

4. Ants on a log - celery w/ peanut butter and raisins - a childhood classic. Even Beth will eat celery if it has peanut butter and raisins. The thing is, you have to have them together. Peanut butter and raisisns is pretty good, but it's almost too sweet and gooey; you need the crisp cruch of the celery to balance it out.

Happy eating!

Extra long, long, WHAT!?

I was looking for a white officiator's jacket on the Church's website yesterday. It was one of the last places on the internet where I expected to laugh, but I couldn't help myself when I read over the list of sizes...




I can't believe that "portly" was the best word available...

Bad Books: I Recommend You Don't Read These

There are some books in life that are just awful. Here are some of the books that I just really hated reading. I know some of these are supposed to be literary masterpieces, but I sure didn't think so.

The Dollmaker by Harriet Arnow. I only read 1/2 this book. It's about this poor woman who moves to Chicago during some war (not even sure which war). She's a pretty strong woman and tries to make the best of difficult circumstances. I read 1/2 the booking just hoping that things would pick up and get more interesting. They didn't and finally I decided that it wasn't worth my time to read the rest.





The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. This book is just depressing, which I don't really usually mind much. This just so heavy with racism and abuse I didn't find it interesting enough to make the depressing stuff worthwhile.





I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Unlike a lot of people I know, I didn't actually read this book for a high school English class. No, I dragged myself through this ordeal of a book on my own. I read this one 'cause it's on a list of 100 Great Books that I have. After reading it, I decided that the list of 100 Great Books was crap and I'm just going to read what I want.





The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. I did have to read this for a high school English class. Perhaps it's because I was experiencing major senioritis at the time, but I don't remember anything remarkable about this book. I just recall a lot of partying and bull fights and stupid people doing stupid things.





The Red Badge of Courage by Crane. I know Clarke loves this one. Sorry Clarke, I did not. I don't know why exactly, but it took me months to read this 80 page book. Months - and these weren't very busy months either. This is also on the list of 100 Great Books, which goes to show that you can't trust a list of Great Books to really be great books. Just 'cause someone else thinks it's fantastic doesn't mean you'll like it.


That being said, if you have read these books and you've enjoyed them, I am glad to hear that. I really am 'cause then you're not shaking you head thinking, "What a waste of my time..."

Good Books: A Pair

I've decided that this blog will be a great place to post about the books that I read - 'cause I read a lot of books. I will post about the books, both good and bad, that I feel are blog worthy. This may end up being every book I read - I'm not sure how discriminating I'll be.

First off, I'd like to recommend to anyone who likes to read a lot (or even if you don't like to read a lot), to keep a list of the books you read. I started keeping a spreadsheet with this information in 2004 and have even added books that I remember reading in my childhood. It's a pretty intense spreadsheet, too - with ratings, when I finished reading the book, who recommended it, etc. It sure comes in handy when people ask you for books to recommend.

As this is my first post about books, I shall share 2 of my favorite books: The Good Earth by Pearl Buck and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. These 2 are a good pair as they both take place in pre-revolutionary China. The Good Earth is more about the male's perpective of this culture and Snow Flower is about the female's.

The Good Earth: I'm still not sure what it is that I love about this book. Perhaps it's because the characters are very human, and because it is about a culture that I don't know much about, and it is beautifully written. Probably all of those reasons.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: This book is a real page turner. I found myself fascinated by the life of these 2 women who tread to keep themselves afloat in a world full of extreme cultural pressures and expecations.

As I am not one for elequoent words, I recommend that you look up reviews for these books online. They definitely get my thumbs up!

The first phone I've ever paid for!

It took some work - but I am now the proud owner of an iPhone 3G. The geek inside of me has been giddy with joy for the past 24 hours...

I nearly spent all of Thursday night waiting in line to be among the first to get the phone on Friday morning.

I mean that quite literally - I threw a flashlight, my laptop, a book, some snacks and a camping chair in the car and had Amy drive me down the to Apple store on Boylston about 11 pm on Thursday. I would have been person number 19 in line, had I not decided, after speaking with the Apple employees there, that since: a) they get new shipments everyday and b) the apple website has a nifty iPhone availability indicator that tells you which stores will have iPhones for the next day (if you check it after 9 pm), I could just wait and get one Saturday morning without having to worry about getting to work on time

(I was especially glad I did this after friday's activation fiasco...)

6:00 am - I woke up
6:53 am - I parked semi-legally on Newbury street
7:04 am - I was person 27 in line
7:05 am - Returned to reading McMafia - a depressing book about the enormity of organized crime around the world. But very interesting...
8:00 am - The doors opened and we got to go inside! Hurrah!
8:15 am - My joy subsided as I realized that line was moving incredibly slowly
9:15 am - Finally, the front of the line! I met Michelle, the perky apple store employee who was to help me buy my new phone
9:32 am - I confuse everyone (even the manager!) by saying that I wanted the $45 enterprise data plan (so that microsoft exchange would work) instead of the standard $30 data-plan. It was clear that the word "enterprise" brought terror into these people's hearts. Apple remains consumer focused I guess... they didn't sell the plan there, but told me I'd have to go to an AT&T store afterward (which would be easy because "they don't have any iPhones left") to get it changed. (Fortunately, it was a snap to do online)
9:45 am - Michelle was on the phone with AT&T trying to figure out why there was an error in activating my account (the fault was mine - I'd accidentally transposed a couple of digits in my SSN)
10:00 am - All was supposedly settled, but in the final step of activation, (on Apple's end) there was another error. After another call to AT&T, poor Michelle looked a bit helpless. (The AT&T rep wasn't very friendly and self-described "unassertive" Michelle wasn't able to make headway)
10:05 am - Matt, another apple store employee swaps in for Michelle and begins to help me
10:06 am - I'm asked how excited I am for about the fifth time. These people really are enthusiastic about this phone/all things apple
10:10 am - Matt has resolved my AT&T issue
10:15 am - Matt gets frustrated as he watches me put the screen cover on my new phone (I uncaringly left a couple of air bubbles). He asks (sort of) if he can redo it. He takes it off and decides that he needs to clean the screen of my 5 minutes-out-of-the-box iPhone to remove the all fingerprints and dust before having another "expert" employee put on the screen protector
10:25 am - Matt comes back with my iPhone with the screen protector expertly installed. I'm appreciative of his enthusiasm (even if it does remind me of the mechanic in Seinfeld who steals Jerry's car because he doesn't think Jerry is taking care of it well enough)
10:30 am - I walk out of the Apple store with a working iPhone. Joy abounds
10:40 am - I mentally add $25 to the price of the phone to account for the parking ticket I received and shrug it off
11:03 am - At home, playing with the phone commences in earnest (I do realize that yes, it is just a phone... my life won't dramatically change... but it is still a really really cool phone and the app store will do wonders for it)

And that is the story of how Luke finally paid for a phone for the first time every (I've always just used hand-me down phones from parents, or the free ones that come with a new plan).

Viva Las Vegas!

Amy posted a nice (and pictured) recap of last weekend's incredibly fun, mormon-style Las Vegas adventure on her parent's blog:

glowfamily.blogspot.com

(I'll refrain from re-posting it here...)

Behold a blog is born!

It has been a long time coming, but Amy and I are finally starting a blog. It has been a while since I've been blogging (freshman year of college)... I look forward to it