On her birthday I took YaYa to the orthopedic doctor in
hopes her full arm cast could be changed to a ‘shorty’ – no such luck. She’ll
have to wait until the 1st for relief. Afterwards I took her to
Barnes and Noble to spend $50 in gift cards she got at her party, and to Target
where she used birthday gift cards to buy the new Taylor Swift and Christina
Perri CD’s.
Speaking of music: I am proud to say that if an MJ song
comes on the radio and, after only a few seconds I ask “Who is this?” all of my
kids inevitably scream “Michael Jackson!”
I listened to part of Game 2 of the World Series on a
Canadian radio station that mysteriously came in on the way to work. It was
either from Toronto or Montreal; while it was English language, there were
advertisements that mentioned both cities.
I’ve finished reading Edison
and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death by Mark Essig, an
account of the invention of the light bulb and the contentious invention of the
electric chair in its wake. Edison, while an opponent of the death penalty,
advocated the chair as a humane method of execution; but he also took care to
make sure that rival technology was used for it, equating his rivals work with
danger in the eyes of the public. I enjoyed the book and grade it an A- Book # 82 of the year
On
the 26th I completed
reading The Killing Zone: My Life in the
Vietnam War by [2nd Lieutenant] Frederick Downs. [It was one of
three Vietnam history paperbacks I bought off of Ebay a few months back; the
cost for all three, including shipping? $1.99.] The book covers a period in
late ’67 when Downs was a fresh faced lieutenant in the Central Highlands of
Vietnam. It’s very readable, honest in its depictions of combat and the
treatment of civilians, and I recommend it. I detested the constant use of the
term ‘dinks’ to describe just about any Vietnamese, but I’m sure that’s just
staying true to the language of that platoon at the time. Grade: B+ Book #83 of the year.
Early on the 28th I finished
reading No Safety In Numbers by Dayna
Lorentz. This is a new release, young-adult hardcover YaYa bought on her
birthday. She read it and highly recommended it, so I gave it a shot. It’s a
novel about a shopping mall that’s hit with a biological weapon, forcing the
patrons to remain quarantined inside. Order and civility collapse as the number
of dead and dying grow, and the characters – mainly teenagers – must do their
best to survive the chaos. There were a few very short but suggestive scenes
that I wasn’t happy YaYa read, and I think the mall patrons were far too
willing to surrender their freedom at the onset, but aside from that I enjoyed
it. Grade: B+ Book #84 of the year
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