soapbox

Well, the trilogy is done. There’s technically a second trilogy of books too, but no one says they’re any good. I’ll have to think for a while before I try to find them.

It’s very interesting to me how your interpretation of a book depends hugely on your circumstances. When I first read these books in high school, I thought they were cute and the odd format amused me. Now though, they speak to me directly. It actually tells me exactly what I need to do.

I’m going to go write a letter. Pen and paper.

(That’s not what the book told me, the book told me that I need to go somewhere far away and start anew. I’m too stuck in my current life to take that advice though.)

on my laptop before I just had to reboot it for some security patches.

it’s not quite as good as drew (currently 170 days of uptime), but it’s not too bad. I always end up rebooting my linux machines every week or so to update the kernel or add hardware.

I wonder if they don’t want grad students in the department after sunset. It’s freezing in here now.

I’m sure computers like it though.

It’s pretty obvious that I don’t want to do work this morning…

If anyone likes reading historical fiction, you should try some of the American Empire series by Gore Vidal. My favorites so far are Burr and Lincoln. Burr is really funny and surprisingly historically accurate (e.g., stuff that Thomas Jefferson says is very close to what he wrote in his actual diaries). Lincoln is excellent and really made me admire Lincoln and the decisions he was forced to make. I’m reading Empire right now which is set at the end of the 19th century after the Philippines were “acquired” by President McKinley. Last night I was reading a scene between McKinley’s sec. of state, Theodore Roosevelt (then governor of NY), and Admiral Dewey (hero of Manila) and the whole thing was hilarious. TR in particular is a fun character to read about. He reminds me of some of the current administration officials…

I haven’t been skiing yet this winter and it is starting to drive me crazy! I dreamt about skiing last night and this morning I drove past a ton of undergrads with their skis waiting for the bus to take them to the skiway. I think I’ll have to bite the bullet and go there for a half day tomorrow.

My cat had another seizure this weekend He had several during the summer and after multiple trips to the vet, we never figured out what was wrong and thought he just might have epilepsy. But now I think it may be due to him eating poisonous substances — he was outside all summer and liked to eat grass/plants. And there was a poinsettia in our house this weekend, so maybe he ate that. Poinsettias are poisonous to cats and can cause toxic reactions, though a seizure is a bit extreme. Since I can’t watch him all the time, I don’t always see the stuff he gets into, and he’s a pretty stupid cat and might not stop eating plants. So if anyone else has cats and sees them have a seizure, this might be why.

Well, two books out of the three read now. It’s definitely entertaining, although book two definitely has less mystery than book one.

The main effect that the book is having on me though is the fact that I want to write letters by hand and seal them with wax.

So how do I address this? Why, I type up a little blurb addressed to no one.