The Manhattan Transfer

Last night, Kelly and I went to see The Manhattan Transfer give a fantastic Holiday show at The Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. They were absolutely amazing. I've been listening to them and admiring them since high school (yeah, that long ago; the current line-up started in 1972), so it was a real treat for me to finally see them live in concert. In the parlance of Mason and Emily, they were "tight." I just love to see (and hear) that kind of fierce talent. Go see them when you get a chance, or go to iTunes and check them out.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Samurai

I enjoyed a great karate seminar last weekend. Sensei Toru Shimoji was hosted by Sensei Karl Burgart of the Tradition Karate Association of Wildwood, MO. Sensei Shimoji is 5th Dan. The seminar was phenomenal. He is a tremendous athlete and his karate is spectacular to behold. One of the things that impressed me most was how learned he is. As he was talking to us about ways to improve our karate, he easily used examples from physics, anatomy, and even some molecular biology. I know he's a sculptor. To me, he seemed just like the samurai warrior-poets that you read about. We need more people like him in the world, I think.

Delicious Seafood Pasta Fra Diavolo

Tonight I made some delicious Seafood Pasta Fra Diavolo in my cool new Le Creuset Enameled Cast-Iron Round French Oven with Cover (more on this below). I had some pasta fra diavolo from Brio Tuscan Grille earlier in the week, and I decided to make some myself this weekend. I suspect the stuff Brio made had some cream in it, but the stuff I made was pretty good, and it had seafood (shrimp, calamari, and scallops) instead of chicken which is always a plus in my cookbook.

If you decide to make some yourself (it's so easy), here are a couple of pointers. First, I used half as much crushed red pepper as was called for in the recipe, and it was still too spicy for my family (for me, it was just pleasantly warm).

Second, instead of basil I used Penzey's Tuscan Sunset, and I think that was a good substitution. More complicated, but really tasty.

Third, I used mini penne instead of linguine.

Finally, I added a bit more shrimp than was called for. There was plenty of room for it. The scallops were terrific, though; I should've splurged on those instead.

My new Dutch oven is my first ever. It's made of enameled cast iron, and it's a spectacular vessel. I highly recommend it. The color of mine is Dune ("... Arrakis... desert planet..."), if you would like to cleave to my ways as closely as possible. ;-)

Bon appetit!

Churrascaria!

Today my group and I went out to lunch at Bacana Brasil, a really nice churrascaria in Chesterfield. Places such as these serve churrasco-style grilled meats, and lots of them. They have to place a special sign at your table so you can turn off the flow of grilled meat when you can't take it any more. So much meat is served, in fact, that I began to fret about various meat-related disaster scenarios, like "meat exhaustion," or the "meat death of the universe." Anyway, even though you really have to be a good carnivore to enjoy them, churrascarias are great. If you've never been, you should find one and try it out.

Special thanks to Scott Patterson for taking me to my first churrascaria feast, not so long ago in Seattle.

Best Christmas Album of All Time

My vote for Best Christmas Album of All Time goes to the Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas. If you don't agree, I will fight you.*

* Not really. :-)

Brain Rules...Rules!

Last night I finished reading Dr. John Medina's Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. I really enjoyed this one. I'm sometimes a bit skeptical about popular science books, being geeky enough to enjoy the more in-depth works. This book did not disappoint, though. Medina gave us some fun personal anecdotes, and tied them in very well with the latest in brain research (much of which I didn't know about). All of this was organized into 12 rules, which I thought was a nice way to do it. Highly recommended.

I read this on my Kindle (I guess I read everything on my Kindle these days), and I should point out two potential issues. First, there is text missing from the Kindle edition in half a dozen or so different places. I don't think I missed too much, but maybe I did, and it did interrupt the flow. Amazon is aware of this problem, but I haven't heard anything smacking of resolution on this topic from them.

The other issue is that the physical book has a DVD that comes with it. I'd be surprised if the DVD had more than what you find on the Web, but I don't know.

Go read Brain Rules now.

Neptune Made Me Cross

I recently finished reading Neptune Crossing by Jeffrey Carver. Actually, I gave up on it, because I couldn't get into it at all. I think that devotees of scifi will maybe enjoy it, but not me.

This book was made available for the Kindle for free, at least for a time (it's not available for Kindle at Amazon.com), which is how I ended up reading it. Maybe it's a "loss leader," and not the author's best work. I do like the strategy of making a book free for the Kindle to try to attract readers to the author's other books. I think it would be cost-prohibitive to try this with physical books. I hope it's successful for the authors who try it.

My Favorite Turkey Sandwich

So easy, and so delicious. Take some of that leftover turkey from Thanksgiving, chop it up into little bits, and add enough mayo to get it all to more or less stick together. Add some fresh ground pepper to taste (I like Penzey's Quatre Poivre), some kosher salt to taste, and then put in (also to taste) some Penzey's Sweet Curry Powder. Mix that all up and put a healthy dollop of it on your favorite sandwich bread, toasted or untoasted. Try some lettuce on there, if you like. Bon appetit!

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Stayed up late last night to finish Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Loved it. I haven't really ever read another novel quite like it. It's as bookish a book as I've ever read, complete with tons of citations (some real, some not) for all kinds of quotes and other things. It's a mystery story, with clues sprinkled throughout, so it's good to pay attention as you go. But it was a great read, with some writing that I thought was just brilliant. I'm looking forward to the author's next book.

Absolutely Scary

I drove my son and two of his friends home from tennis this afternoon. We passed an Obama sign in someone's yard, and one of these friends enlightened us all in this way: he said that we shouldn't vote for Obama, because "'Barack Obama' is a Muslim name," and "Muslims fly airplanes into buildings."

I can't even tell you how angry, and sad, and anxious this made me. Forget about the Muslim name part, that's just irrelevant. Here's a kid who doesn't even know what Islam is, or how it's different from Christianity (his own religion -- surprised?), or, more importantly, how it's the same. When I mentioned that he should maybe learn a little bit more about the world before he talked like that, he said he didn't want to know. He said the world is a terrible place, and he didn't need to know anything about it.

Thirteen or fourteen years old, this kid, and already so filled up with hate, and so unbelievably ignorant. I asked him where he got all this stuff, and he said, "my family." Can you imagine? What kind of contribution is this dunce going to make to our civilization? How far will ignorance, xenophobia, and hate get us as we try to help our neighbors around the world and be good stewards of the only planet we've got (whatever your superstitions might be)? His family ought to be ashamed of themselves. Or maybe I'm ashamed enough for all of them. We should all be.

Execution

Just finished reading Execution (which you may have noticed already if you've been following me on Shelfari). And the verdict? Not so good.

I had to read Execution for work, otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished it. It brought to mind a great article I read in 2006 in the Atlantic Monthly (thank you Mike Lawton for turning me on to that excellent magazine), called "The Management Myth." I quote Matthew Stewart:

According to my scientific sampling, you can save yourself from reading about 99 percent of all the management literature once you master this dialectic between rationalists and humanists. The Taylorite rationalist says: Be efficient! The Mayo-ist humanist replies: Hey, these are people we’re talking about!

Execution belongs in the rationalist camp, the idea being that you can't just be a management-strategy guy, you actually have to make sure that stuff gets done. I never would have thought of that. I'm not saying that I, as a manager, couldn't do better at that particular aspect of my job (who of us couldn't?); I'm just saying that I didn't get much out of this book except the impression that the CEO contributors seem pretty pompous (yeah, I have no doubt that employees are carrying your handwritten notes of criticism around and showing them to their colleagues because they're so starstruck to have them from you, from you!) and the feeling that the authors maybe put too much emphasis on the somewhat controversial Six Sigma thing.

Ike Is Here

The remnants of Hurricane Ike showed up this morning. Uninvited. My weather radio woke me up at 05.20-something with an obnoxious alarm, something about a flood warning and a wind advisory. And it sure is rainy and windy out there. Seems like it didn't take too long to get all the way up here to St. Louis.

Excellent Dream

Sometime this morning I woke up laughing, which I am wont to do occasionally. I do it when I dream something funny, and I was certainly amused by this dream.

Imagine, dear readers, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of Seinfeld fame) standing in front of a steam table with a trumpet. Only one of the bins in the steam table has anything in it, and she's standing in front of that one.

What's in the steam table, you wonder? Well, start with a base of that delicious, sweet/spicy General Tso's sauce, and then add a big frog wearing a birthday hat and a smallish, thinnish tabby cat wearing a look of righteous indignation (both of these animals very much alive, in case you were concerned; I guess the steam table was not actually functioning).

Why the cat's look of righteous indignation, you wonder? Because Juia Louis-Dreyfus is merrily blowing random notes on her trumpet at them, while they were just minding their own business playing in the General Tso's sauce.

So, the part that made me laugh and woke me up was where the cat, still looking mortified that this woman would be blowing her trumpet at his amphibian friend and him, raises his goofy cat paw straight up in the air (you know how cats stick a leg straight up in the air while they're giving themselves a bath? Like that) and brings it down on Julia's arm with a wet, General Tso-ey smack.

See? Hilarious. Now, let the analyses begin.

Wild Swans

My vacation read this week was Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang. I guess my take-home for this was that I just really had no idea. I had some vague notion of what happened under Mao, but really I had no idea what daily life must have been like (imagine having to spend your time ripping up the bourgeois grass from the yard, which would be one of the more innocuous things you might have to worry about during that time). Wild Swans is unique in that it takes you through three generations of women in China. Go read it.

I also intend to read Mao: The Untold Story by the same author together with her husband, but I'm holding out for the Kindle edition (hint hint). Wild Swans isn't available in a Kindle edition, so I was readin' it old-school. I picked it up at my favorite bookstore in all the world, Leelanau Books.


Now, back to Greenspan's book...

Oops, One More Uber-Tune

Inevitably, I forgot an uber-tune. I have to add The Wings, by Gustavo Santaolalla, to the list. You'll find it on the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack.

Uber-Tunes

Sometimes I'll hear a song and it will really grab me. I'll listen to it on my iPod over and over again for a long time, and keep coming back to it over and over again. These songs are different from the songs that I just like; I obsess over these songs. Sometimes I know it's because I can sing them well; they're in the sweet spot of my vocal range and I can really belt it out (Afterglow and The Crane Wife 3 are like that). Others I'm not so sure about, but there's just something about them.

Anyway, I was thinking about these songs and I thought I'd make a list of them, and here's my list. I'm sure I've missed a couple, but maybe you'll find something you like in here.

Afterglow, by INXS
Face Down, by Katie Todd Band
Gravity, by Embrace
Hallelujah, by Jeff Buckley
Hear Me Out, by Frou Frou
Hide And Seek, by Imogen Heap
If You Were Here, by Cary Brothers
In The Sun, by Joseph Arthur
Intro - Svefn-g-Englar, by Sigur Ros
London Rain (Nothing Heals Me Like You Do), by Heather Nova
Such Great Heights, by Iron & Wine
The Crane Wife 3, by The Decemberists
Thinking About Tomorrow, by Beth Orton
World Spins Madly On, by The Weepies

Thanks, Mr. Roam

I sort of criticized Dan Roam, the author of the excellent The Back of the Napkin, because he didn't email me back when I suggested that he make available on his website some cool laminated versions of some of his visual aids. Well, he has redeemed himself by making just the things I wanted available, for free; not laminated, but nice PDFs. Enjoy! And read the book.

Sorry, Dan, and thanks!

The Funniest Blog in the Whole Wide World

The funniest blog in the whole wide world is that of The Bloggess, a sample of which is waiting to delight you at the other end of that link. It is not necessarily for the kids to read, but I find it so, so funny.

Down River

Down River, by John Hart... excellent! I just couldn't put it down, read it in about a day. Go get it.

There Are Some Very Confused People Out There

Sam Harris has written an amusing article. An excellent quote therefrom: "Rarely does one discover nonsense in such a pristine state." You can tell he's delighted and mortified at the same time by some of what he's found (as am I).

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Just finished Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Best novel I've read in a long time; I highly recommend it. I must've missed out on some of it, because there's some Spanish in it that I couldn't read (being as shamefully monolingual as most of my fellow Americans), but I could figure most of that out and I do think it added to the narrative in a subtext kind of way. Not only was it a great read, but I also learned a lot about the Dominican Republic under Trujillo, and it prompted me to do a little homework about that on Wikipedia. So, go read it, and enjoy.

A Great Movie

This weekend I watched the movie In Bruges, which instantly became one of my favorites of all time. I think anyone who knows me will know my favorite line the moment they hear it. I'll be buying a copy of this one when it becomes available.

Suite Française

Just finished Suite Française, a novel by Irène Némirovsky. I really liked it. It was mostly about how some upper-middle-class French characters responded to Germany's invasion and occupation of France early in WWII. Excellent writing, great character development, really good stories. Sadly, the first appendix comprises a series of increasingly desperate letters between the author, her husband, and various friends, beginning around the time she was deported from France and murdered at Auschwitz in 1942. (I find that kind of thing tough to read, but I also firmly believe that it needs to be read, and remembered). Her husband followed not long after her, but they never saw each other again after her deportation. Fortunately, their two daughters were hidden from the Germans and so survived the war.

A Terrible Glory (and some others)

Quite a while ago, my Aunt Nancy suggested that I write about the books I read on my blog. I love to read, and my taste in books is a eclectic (though it tends to run toward non-fiction, historical stuff), so maybe you'll find something interesting in here. I read almost everything on my Kindle, too, so I'll probably add some Kindle-specific stuff in these kinds of posts.

The last book I read on my Kindle was A Terrible Glory, by James Donovan (mentioned in a previous post). I very much enjoyed it, although it does run long so if you're not interested in this kind of history then you might look for something more condensed. The treatment of Custer's demise is pretty cursory, but when you think about it there isn't much to be done about that; nobody in his regiment lived to tell the tale, so we're all a bit light on the details. The book was filled up with all kinds of interesting insight into the life and times of Custer, Sitting Bull, Inkpaduta, and Crazy Horse. Thumbs up.

Here's a quick summary of the other books I've read on my Kindle since I bought it, and what I thought of them:

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold: Excellent novel; thumbs way up.

The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, by Naomi Wolf: Scary, but a must-read. Thumbs up.

The Ruins, by Scott Smith: A page-turner, as horror novels often are, by an author with a good track record, but... strange. Thumbs up, but maybe in a read-this-on-a-rainy-day-just-for-something-light kind of way.

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely: Very cool book about the irrational behaviors we all display when we make various decisions. Lots of "oh yeah, I do that" throughout. Thanks for the recommendation, Enoch. Thumbs up.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic, and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, by Steven Johnson. Excellent book, just the kind of thing I really like, and I couldn't recommend it more highly. Two thumbs way up.

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust. I really thought I was going to like this one, but I just can't say that I did. While it was interesting in spots, I thought it was repetitive, and I thought there was something of an attempt to inject profundity into something that just wasn't that profound. Thumbs sort-of-down.

Dangerous Laughter: 13 Stories, by Steven Millhauser: Delightful book, start to finish. Highly recommend it. Two thumbs up.

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, by Dan Roam. Very enjoyable book, but here's one where the Kindle falls down a bit. Most of the illustrations (which are kind of important in this book) were a little hard to see, although the author did a much better job of getting the artwork into the Kindle than some others have been able to do. And, when I emailed Dan to suggest making a laminated copy of his codex available on his website, I got no reply. So, with the caveat about the illustrations, thumbs up.

Undertow, by Elizabeth Bear: The rare sci-fi/fantasy entry, and I kind of liked it. Thumbs up.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive, and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath. Great all the way through. Thumbs up.

The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan: I learned so much from this book about the Great American Dustbowl that I was able to look past some of the oddities in the narrative (like simultaneously asserting that there was no food to be had and that there was a huge surplus of crops). Fascinating stuff about a huge, man-made disaster right in our own backyards. Thumbs up.

Duma Key: A Novel, by Stephen King: Well, you can tell it's a Stephen King novel, because it was a page-turner (told you about those horror novels); I remember staying up awfully late one night to finish this one. Beware of the usual Stephen King swerve-into-goofiness. Thumbs up.

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote: So? I never read it before! Liked it. Thumbs up.

Pontoon, by Garrison Keilor: The guy is just a genius. Thumbs up.

Got Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens: Excellent work by a very bright author. I would think this book would be more approachable than Sam Harris's phenomenal End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason for most people, so if you're ready to be a little less dogmatic this is a great place to start. Two thumbs way up.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeannette Walls. Very enjoyable. Thumbs up.

Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't, by Stephen Prothero. And it tells you why we don't, which is interesting all by itself. I enjoyed reading this book and learned a lot from it; eye-opening, really. Dr. Prothero answers his email very politely and thoughtfully, too. Two thumbs up.

Wicked, by Gregory Maguire. Fun! Thumbs up.

No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy. Didn't turn out at all like I thought it would (which is good!), but extremely well written and engrossing. Thumbs up.

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, by Jon Krakauer. It's telling that I bet you can't tell from the title alone which faith this book is about. A head-shaker. I learned a lot from this book. Thumbs up.

I Am America (And So Can You!), by Stephen Colbert: Absolutely hilarious from beginning to end. The illustrations were just about useless on the Kindle, though, which was pretty disappointing. Nonetheless, two thumbs way up for this first book I ever read on my Kindle.

Quarantine, by Jim Crace: A Booker prize finalist, and a really great novel. Thumbs up.

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, by Garr Reynolds: Spectacular. Don't get the Kindle edition (I don't even think you can), as the book is just too beautifully done. Everybody who does presentations should read this, and we should work out a system of fines for those presenters who don't. Two thumbs way up.

Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL, by Dean Allemang and Jim Hendler. A much-needed practical book by two talented authors which should help us get Semantic Web technologies and techniques put to use a bit faster. (Not a Kindle book just yet). Thumbs up.

OK, that's pretty much it. There will be more.

Ferguson

Yesterday, Mason and I took my dad to Ferguson, MO, where he grew up. It's a pleasant place, not too far from where we live now. It was really fun to see where my dad used to live, where my mom used to live, and the trail that he took from his house to my mom's house, and all the other houses and schools from his boyhood. We talked about memory, and how it's not always the most accurate picture of what happened. I saw my mom's parents' old house, and it looked so much smaller than I remember it being.

We had lunch at the Whistle Stop, which is a sandwich shop/frozen custard shop/museum in Ferguson's old train depot. While we were deciding what to order, a super nice guy came up to us and asked which one of us was N6QXA. Evidently, he had seen my license plate in the parking lot. I told him that was me, and he introduced himself as being from a local radio club that operates CW (Morse code) out of the museum using the original railroad equipment. I couldn't make heads or tails of what they were sending, because instead of the International Morse Code that I know, they were using the much rarer "railroad Morse" or American Morse Code. They were very excited about it, and so happy to tell people about it, and it was nice to see some people doing that. My dad informed them that when he was a kid he used to go to the depot and watch the telegrapher sending. Evidently, that telegrapher died only recently at the age of 106.

We ended the tour at the Fee Fee Cemetery near Creve Coeur. If you follow the link and zoom in as far as you can, you might see a big sugar maple just northeast of the sourthernmost loop of the cemetery road. That maple tree is just about right in the middle of the perpetual Slater plot, where my dad's parents are buried, and their parents, and some other Slaters as well as some members of the Long family who are also our relatives. A couple of these Longs were Confederate soldiers, as indicated by the prominent "CSA" on their grave markers. One of the Slaters interred there, Herbert T. Slater (1895-1918), died in an interesting way. He and his girlfriend went out on a last boat ride on the river before he shipped out to fight in World War I, and they never saw either of them alive again.



As always, a really great time with my dad. He is so fun to have around. Photo credit goes to Mason Slater, who is also fun to have around.

Teddy Slater's Best Friend

Today, my dad and Mason and I drove about an hour and a half to Clarksville, MO, to see my dad's father's best friend Kurt Owen. My name is Ted (not Theodore) because my grandfather's name was Harry; his friends all called him Ted. Or Teddy, evidently, as I heard Mr. Owen call him. Mr. Owen is "92 years young." We asked him to what he owed his longevity, and he said same as Mark Twain: he stayed away from hard tobaccy, hard drink, and fast girls... until he was 13 years old. Mr. Owen has let his driver's license expire. He says they don't renew it after you're 91-and-a-half years old, and anyway he has two girlfriends to drive him around when he needs it. He is sharp as a tack, and he has such a great, powerful baritone voice; he must've been able to sing just about anybody under the table back in the day.

Mr. Owen lives on a bluff with an unbeatable view of the Missouri River. The river is actually flooding now, and is going to flood some more in the coming days; people were filling sandbags down by the river, and there was a steady stream of dump trucks carrying sand to them the whole time we were there. When we left, Mr. Owen gave my dad (who promptly gave to me) a metate and mano that has been in the family for a long, long time, since 1900 or so, my dad thought. He remembers grinding some corn with it when he was a kid. Tasty. Remind me to tell you about the time my dad dyed all my underwear with walnuts.

Good Stories

Did you ever meet one of those people who just know a million stories? You feel lucky when you meet them and talk to them, because you know there's just no way you're going to get those stories from anybody else. I'm pretty lucky, because my dad is one of those people. He rode his Harley from Socorro, NM, to see us here in Wildwood, MO, and we had a nice dinner with him this evening.

I told him that I was reading a great book called about the Battle of the Little Big Horn called A Terrible Glory, by James Donovan, which I thought he would find interesting. My dad's an anesthesiologist, and we lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota when he was in the Public Health Service. The Pine Ridge Reservation is an Ogalala Sioux reservation, and it was against the Lakota Sioux and some of the Northern Cheyenne that Custer fought in that Battle. This got my dad telling a couple of stories from the time we lived on the Rez.

The first story he told was about Ben Black Elk, who was Black Elk's son, and who translated Black Elk Speaks to John Neihardt (who was an interesting guy in his own right; my dad used to see him walking around campus at Mizzou in Columbia). Ben Black Elk came in to see my dad as a patient a few times. He told my dad that Black Elk was 13 at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, and that he and a friend of his were walking through the dead and wounded soldiers after a fight, scalping them with their dull kid knives. It was standard procedure for dead and wounded enemies to be mutilated by the women and children; one's enemies are not to go comfortably into the afterlife. Ben Black Elk said that his father scalped one soldier who was still alive, the soldier started grinding his teeth. How's that for stoicism?

Another story was about a Sioux named Ben Irving. Ben showed up at my dad's office with all the classic symptoms of diabetes. My dad prescribed some medication for him, and Ben came back after a while feeling a lot better (which, according to my dad, is what they always do). Ben was effusive in his thanks, telling my dad how much better he felt and everything, and he reached out his hand to give something to my dad. Dad was thinking that Ben had some interesting Native American craft or something, and that he was going to have to say something about not being able to accept a gift like that. What Ben put in my dad's hand was all of his urine test strips showing his good blood sugar results. Ben must've been awfully proud of those things.

One thing about Ben Irving was that he was kissed by the Queen of England. How that happened was that it turns out that Ben was the Littlest Indian in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. One performance was attended by Her Majesty, and at one point a couple of her guards went out and lifted the Littlest Indian from his pony and brought him to be kissed by the Queen. That is definitely something to tell the grandkids about.

My dad didn't tell this story this evening, but it's one that I've always liked because I think it changed my history. One time my dad was helping some Indians on the reservation break a horse. He said that at one point when the horse was really kicking, he saw one of the horse's back hooves come right up toward his forehead. Luckily, it didn't hit him (I can tell you from experience that those animals can really kick hard). But later that evening when he was home, he happened to look in the mirror and he noticed a red horseshoe-shaped mark right in the middle of his forehead.

Mitakuye oyasin.

Field Trip to Tom Bihn

Tom Bihn makes the coolest bags. I carry the Buzz bag all the time, and when I travel I use my new Aeronaut. I also have the Big Brain Bag backpack which I pull out occasionally, and the Empire Builder briefcase. I have my eye on the Zephyr, though, a smaller version of the Empire Builder; maybe someday.

Anyway, I was in Seattle early this week, and managed to get a field trip in to the Tom Bihn Retail Store / Factory Showroom. That was a real treat for me, as anyone who knows what a bag freak I am will tell you. I got a TerraGrip strap for my Aeronaut, and my friend Giles got a wicked cool Ego bag with a seat belt buckle. Very nice!

Kindling

I've had my Kindle for about 3 weeks now, and I still think it's one of the coolest things ever. Since my last Kindle post, I've finished Under the Banner of Heaven, No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy), and Wicked (Gregory Maguire). Right now I'm reading Religious Literacy, by Stephen Prothero. I think I'll read The Glass Castle: A Memoir next.