Russian History

Watched a show about the Russian Czars this weekend.. it was about 4 hours covering from the Vikings in the 9th century up to the slaying of Nicholas II. It is amazing on the way that Russia developed.. such a large county.. that just kept getting bigger and more powerful... I found it really interesting.... both in the Politics.. about every other Czar was murdered.. often by someone close (wife, son etc.) and by the way they dealt with Russia.. So many time they were SOO close to a representative government, but the Czar would not let go...
Things I didnt know about Russian History....
The walled city of the Kermlin dates back to the 10th century (but Keiv is older)
The Mongol horde are the only people to conqure Russia as a whole (in the 11th century)
The Tartar's that still live in Russia are decentants of the Mongol's
Ivan (the terrible) build St Basils Cathedral in Moscow
Peter the great build St Petersburg as his grand city on the Baltic and it was the capital city for the Czars.
Napoleon marched across Russia with little resistance until he reached Moscow. In the first 24 hours for the battle of Moscow 75,000 men were killed. After Russsia lost Moscow, they burned it rather than let Napoleon have it. Denied of his prize Napoleon retreated to France.. his Amry weary and low on food and ammuntion. The winter came early, and hard that year. The Czar called on the Russian people to attack the foreign invaders as they retreated. Which they did with vengence! Of the 500,000 troops that Napoleon led into Russian.. only 25,000 returned alive.
Catherine the Great.... was German by birth

Dogberts Top Secret Managment Handbook (59)

Ah... Dilbert and Scott Adams... It is amazing how accurate this guy is in his protrayal of a typical office. I found myself laughing out loud as I read parts of this.. and you swear he is in YOUR office for some of his obversations... the scary thing is that he isnt.. which means that it is the same everywhere :)

Bandits (58)

Bandits
by Elmore Leonard 1987

Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite authors, but I must say that I did not enjoy this book all that much.. I think it was just the story line.. About the Nicraguarn contra and freedom fighters, nuns, lepers.. none of it was of much interest to me. The book was written in 1987, which surprised me a bit.. I thought it would have been a bit earlier. As I read more of Leonard's good I am starting to see a pattern.. but not like Sanders.. with Leonard in the end.. the characters never seem to end up with the money.. and as with many of his books, a minor character steps up to have a big role at the end.. In this case Franklin steps up at the end and takes charge.. I am also thinking of Swank, where the girlfriend has a huge impact on the final turn out.
While it wasnt my favorite, it was still a Leonard book and I did enjoy the ending!

Goodyear blimp passes old MSC Stack

 
 
Taken Saturday, shortly before kickoff of the Homecoming game.

Weekend

Overall the weekend was relaxing... On Sat slept until 9, had breakfast, exercised, and took MM over to drop off some popcorn. Afterward we went to MSU to see mom who was working parking. MM stayed with mom while MA and I walked to the stadium. Afterwards we were going to have lunch at the Barrel.. but EL was packed so we went to the Tavern instead. Went home and watched the game which rapidly fell apart.. cut up some wood in the backyard and had a fire in the evening.
Sunday went to Andy T's and the pumpkin patch.. got some pumpkins and apples.. relaxed through the day and had a nice dinner...

Voices Of Chernobyl (56)

Voices Of Chernobyl
By.. Svetlana Alexievich

One of the best books I have ever read.. very moving...
I wont go into detail, it is impossible to summarize the emotion of this book.
The author invertviewed many people over the period of 3 years and presents their stories as monlouges
She talks to widows, children, people who returned, liquidators, party officials. It is a look into what the people went through.. but I also think an interesting look at Soviet life and ideals.
Find the book.. and read it... it is incredible!

October 19

October 19 is always a day that stands out for me.. It is my grandfathers birthday.. although I never knew him.. He was born on this day in 1901, but he died in 1943 when my father was a young teen. It is also the day in 1993 that I got my first PC based computer. A 486/25 with 4m of RAM.. my how things have changed!

Nutrition

I am going to try to be better about diet and exercise.. I am getting lazy about it again. I spent this morning looking up nutritional information... everybody tells you to be healthy.. but it is harder than you think to find the damn information.
It is all about balancing calories, fat, carbs, protien.. oh, and dont forget protien.
Food not has the amount of everything in grams.. so I know how many grams I am eating.. but how much am I suppose to have?? They tell you to have less than 30% of calories from fat.. so I can caculate that.. but how many grams is that? Christ.. this is more difficult than I thought.. finally found a site.. 9 calories per gram for fat, and 4 calories per gram for carbs, and 1 gram per kilo of body weight for protein...
Ok.. now I have a plan.. I am using fitday.com to keep track of all of this.. seems to have a nice intereface and reporting.. it is all about customizing it to fit you.. Since I eat mostly the same stuff.. I can enter in the information from the packages into this, and have a much more accurate picture of what I am eating.. vs what I should be getting...
So I hope that by keeping better track of what I eat, it will keep me on the right track of eating better and avoiding empty foods.

Cabin - EOY 2005

Closed out another 'season' at the cabin... I guess it wasnt too much of a season.. opened it in early June, then was up twice in Sept, and this weekend.
Went up Sat morning.. rather than going to the cabin, we went to Deadmans Hill.. did the 3 mile hiking trail. Kids did great and made it around... Started to rain toward the end, but not too bad...
Went to the cabin, grilled some dinner.. I got some wood around and made a fire.. after dinner, got some more wood from the neighbor.. and we just relaxed in the eve.
Sunday was overcast.. putzed around the cabin in the morning, and headed to Charlevoix around noon. Went to Big Rock Point.. the reactor vessel is still up and looks mostly intact. They say the area will be returned to green space by Spring 2006.. I was surprised to see it was still there. Then went to sand dunes and had a ball. The dunes were SO cool.. standing in the bottom of a bowl with 50' cliff on one side and a small 6' lip on the other.. the Lake behind us... finally got up there and could see the Beaver Islands on the horizon.. you cant see them from shore.. when I climbed down I double checked to make sure it wasnt just the conditions.. but it wasnt.
Had a good trip home, and ended out the weekend with a fire in our new fire bowl in the back yard....

City Of Gold (55)

City Of Gold
By Len Deighton

I love Deighton.. this one is set in Cario in 1940's.. the British occupy this 'neutral' country, with Rommel marching toward the city.
The plot revolves around trying to find out who is leaking infomation to Rommel about Allied movements and strengths. This part of the book is accurate.. which is why I enjoy Deighton so much.. his fictional stories are set against a historically accurate background.
So I have been looking into the history behind this a bit.. I never understood the Afrika campaigns much... starting to put a few of the pieces together, with the help of my friend the 'war historian' - lol

Dr Burns (54)

Dr Burns Prescription for Happiness
George Burns

This was a quick book written in 1983 when Burns was 88 years old. I always enjoyed George Burns.. I thought his humor and stories were actually interesting unlike so many other enduring comedians of his time. This is a tongue in cheek book, heavy on the stories, that poke fun at "the author" as he likes to refer to himself.
I quick enjoyable book.

Update, and quotes

I have not been writing much, but then again there is not a lot happening. Got some things done around the yard this past weekend. Still having such nice weather! Went to the Water Carnival on Friday, along with the local HS football game, and the S150 parade on Saturday. On Sunday I went for a long walk... took the kids it was nice!
Color is not the best yet... it isnt that it is bad.. just not here.. most stuff still seems green.. Going to the cabin this weekend.. hoping to see some color.. but from what I read it is still not peaking there.. seems to be the best at the Soo right now.. but that is too much of a hike for me this weekend.

I found 2 great quotes last night in the Deighton book I am reading.
The first is from the Koran
"Don't complain that the rosebush has thorsn, rejoice that the thornbush bears roses"

The second is just from Deighton, but I think it more eloquently states something I have always believed...
It is better to voice the obvious frequently, then to face the consequences of things going wrong silently.

Final Warning (53)

Final Warning: The Legacy of Chernobyl
By: Dr Robert Gale
This was written by Dr Gale of UCLA who works with leukemia patients. When he heard about the accident in Chernobyl he offered his services, as treatment for radiation exposure and leukemia are similar (bone marrow transfusions).
So he is invited and is the first US Doctor invited to the USSR post WWII. Most of the book involves his work with his Soviet hosts.. he does get to visit Kiev and the plant itself. The book bogs down near the end when he (for no apparent reason, other than he can) goes off about the Isreal situation.. his wife is from Isreal... the last section of the book is him going off about nuclear safety and nuclear weapons.. except he is a medical doctor not a nuclear scientist.. so who cares.
The book isnt bad as a first had account.. but you have to glean information out of it.. he is most concerened with telling his story.. and later expounding on his own ideas.

Wolves Eat Dogs (52)

Wolves Eat Dogs (52)
by: Martin Cruz Smith

Mission accomplished. I have always wanted to read an average of a book a week.. I have never done it during a calendar year.. now I have finally reached that goal! And dit it in week 40 of 2005. I wonder how many I will actually get through... I have 12 more weeks. And I can't think of a better author to accomplish this goal with, then Martin Cruz Smith. I read his first Arkady Renko book, Gorky Park when it came out in 1982..
This was an excellent book! Arkady ends up in the Dead Zone around Chernobyl investgating a murder and sucide that seem related.. and related to radation. Smith gives vivid description of the Dead Zone (30km around the Chernobyl Plant) that prompted me to look up to see if it was accurate or just a fictional account. It was accurate. I have now been reading about Chernobyl.. and the accident...
At the end of this book.. there is a hint of hope for Arkady and the future... I wonder if there will be more books in this series? I hope so as long as they stay at the high standard that I have come to enjoy from Smith.

Weekend

It was a pleasant weekend weatherwise. Did not feel 100%, think I am coming down with a touch of a cold. Worked around the yard Sat morining getting a few things done I have been putting off. We decided to celebrate Mitchell's birthday on Saturday.. after a trip to the store and the library we ordered some pizza and watched the game. Gave him is big presents, a skateboard and a tents.. so he could play with them on Sat afternoon while the weather was nice. In the evening we had cake.. then set up the tent downstairs, so he could sleep in it that evening.
On Sunday I worked from 8.30 ~ 3.30.. a sureal day.. I was at 13.. outside.. but in the ramp.. the street is covered there where the ramp spans the street.. so you cant really see anything.. you have an idea of the weather from the temp.. but cant really see anything.
The day went quickly and I started and read a good deal of the last Arkady Renko book.. This once involves Chernobyl.. very interesting.. I love these books.. they are fiction, but set against the back drop of real life events..

Charity

I finished the final Benard Sampson book Charity on Thursday evening. This book moved along slowly.. Benard is in London.. having some odd throughts.. a lot of this book revolves around him and his children.. his relationship with Fiona, and Gloria.
Toward the end he gets back to Germany and he and Werner are working again.
He is still on the trail of Tessas death.. and starts to make some progress.. I wont give away the ending.. but Deighton does manage to wrap this up in a satifactory manner.. not a neat tightly little package.. but an ending none the less.. life is seldom tighty and neat.. but I was very pleased with the ending.. You hold some promise for the characters going forward.. and that is not always the case at the end of some of these books..