Lots of Books!

“You are supposed mark the books you have read, want to or again and again if it’s one you keep reading.”

I saw this on my friend Rick's blog. I wish I knew how these books were qualified for this list, but I don't. I marked the ones that I’ve read in blue. 34 -- that's a third. Of these, I will most likely read the Tolkien and Hictchhiker's books again some day. The ones I want to read or are planning to read are in green.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) Sadly, this is my wife's favorite book
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. 6. 7. The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter 1 (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter 2 (Rowling) Two chapters only; left the book on a plane
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter 3 (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter 4 (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) Rick introduced me to this one in 1983
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) Really liked this book
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) My pastor is big on Russian literature
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter 5 (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) Love the title - know nothing about it
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75.The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) Started this one once...
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) This paperback has been in my stack for 10 years
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) My Uncle Ron turned me on to Ludlum many years ago
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) Did not like this one
100. Ulysses (James Joyce) ...or this one, either

Wardrobe Malfunctions

My wardrobe is a mess.

All of my recent clothing purchases have come as a result of packing errors and missed flights.

And I've been buying my clothes now at Eddie Bauer, a place I'd not shopped before last year. It's not because I like their merchandise (I guess I do, but that's not why I shop there). I shop at Eddie Bauer because it's on Michigan Avenue around the corner from my Chicago hotel.

I am adding to my wardrobe items not chosen to compliment what I already own. Thursday night I bought a blue shirt comfortable for wearing on a flight the following morning, a clean undershirt and new socks. I had missed my flight hours earlier and it was rescheduled for the following morning; I had nothing clean to wear.

I arrived in Chicago on one trip back in the fall, and when I got to my hotel I found a notice in my suitcase that informed me TSA had inspected by bag. And wouldn’t you know it – all of my pants were now missing! And I was in Chicago for four days. Talk about being inconvenienced by our country’s present security measures!

So I pressed on, as I usually do, only to find three pairs of slacks hanging on the doorknob of my study, where I’d failed to pack them beforehand.

Wildlife

I have seen wildlife since living in the Pacific Northwest that I never had the opportunity when I lived in the Southeast. Growing up next to a wooded area, I saw plenty of snakes, many poisonous, rattlesnake skins, many raccoons and black widow spiders.

Since moving to the Northwest, I have seen Orcas in the wild, harbor seals and bald eagles. But today was a first. My daughter and I saw a coyote.

We were walking across a large suburban parking lot, from the Blockbuster to the supermarket, when I spotted a coyote running full bore toward us. We were far from both the Blockbuster and the strip mall, with no cars around us. I froze and said, “Honey, look! A coyote!”

The coyote ran past us at a distance of about four feet. He was lean and beautiful. He passed us and ran through a busy intersection. I feared he would be struck by a car but he made it to a wooded area on the other side of the street.

Thinking my daughter may have been startled or frightened, I looked at her and said, “If he would have tried to attack us, I would have pushed you behind me and fought it to the death.”

She replied nonchalantly, “I would have kicked its butt.”

Oscar Predictions

See my Oscar predictions here: Fourth Row Center

A Conversation About Penguins Overheard

Overheard on a plane, an exchange between a rather dashing twenty-something young man and an older, pudgy traveling salesman-type, as the passengers were shown a program about penguins on the Discovery channel:

ON THE TV MONITORS: a line of penguins crosses a road in front of a stopped school bus.

20-SOMETHING: Those are penguins?

SALESMAN: Uh-huh. Yeah.

20-SOMETHING: Huh. How big are they?

SALESMAN: Oh, I'd say a coupla feet tall.

2o-SOMETHING: Hm. I thought they were our size.

SALESMAN: Huh?

20-SOMETHING: Human-size. I thought penguins were as tall as us.

SALESMAN: Huh? No. Foot tall. Coupla feet. That's all.

20-SOMETHING: Huh. Strange.

The Power of Advertising

It’s sobering to realize the power Madison Avenue holds over our children. My young daughter spends most of her television viewing time at PBS and The Disney Channel. It’s no surprise that she is in tune with every Disney Princess toy or product that saturates the airwaves and the marketplace.

But what I have found most alarming is how well she has been programmed by advertisers who are targeting consumers well beyond her six years.

A couple of weeks ago I had mentioned that I needed to get up on the roof and check some shingles and she said, “You’ll need the Little Giant.” It took me a couple of days to realize she was referring to the multi-purpose ladder system featured on endless Infomercials.

Then as I was cleaning the bathroom she came in and watched me scrubbing the toilet for a few moments, then said with an incredulous air, “That would be easier if you used Kaboom! Never-Scrub.”

Cleaning products are regularly advertised on television, and she seems to know them all. On a recent trip to the supermarket I as I was retrieving a container of Dow Scrubbing Bubbles she looked at the can, shook her head and suggested, “You should try Purple Power.”

The final blow was when she patted me on the stomach recently and suggested, “Dad, don’t you think you should get the Ab-Lounge XL for Ultimate Results?”

Out of the mouths of babes. Or ad executives.

Or both.

Final Words About Football

While watching the AFC and NFC playoff games recently I found myself thinking about television coverage of NFL games, and I have come to the conclusion that CBS has the weakest game coverage of all the NFL broadcast affiliates. And the most annoying on-screen stats graphics. This is strictly my opinion, of course, arrived at by wholly non-scientific means, but it appears to me that CBS needs to try harder, and think about improving its pressbox talent.

Watching last week's Super Bowl only served to strengthen my opinion. Phil Simms? In the booth at the biggest game of the year? Come on!

ESPN's coverage has been strong this year, but I have to give my personal 'thumbs up' to FOX, who provided the best and most energetic NFL coverage this season. Also, they have the best graphics.

Oh yeah. And Madden.

As for true favorites in NFL game coverage, I will admit to being a little nostalgic for the glory days of Monday Night Football on ABC. Like him or not, Howard Cosell was a knowledgeable commentator with a broadcast style uniquely his own. Cosell was ABC, and defined the Monday night broadcast for many years. And the network continued the tradition of broadcast excellence even after Cosell's departure. (We'll try to forget ABC's brief lapse in judgement during what I have come to call 'the Dennis Miller Year.')

Ultimately I was disappointed with CBS's coverage Super Bowl XLI this year, and not even the ads will made up for what the network lacked.

There is always next year.

Rain Returns

Besides the hassle of the commute to work, we have enjoyed the week of snow here in Seattle.

On Tuesday, as more snow fell, I actually worked a half day at home and took the rest of the day off. My daughter and I made a large snowman in the front yard (actually it was a "Snow Mommy," according to my daughter, the mother of the snow child pictured here). And I saw a bald eagle soaring above my back yard, the first I have seen in several years.

Polly, the black Lab, fruitlessly chased snowballs again.

But tonight the rain is back, melting and washing away the snow. Things in Seattle are getting back to normal. My daughter slugged the snow child yesterday, and alas it is no more. And I fear that by tomorrow the snow mommy will be little more than a large ball of slush.

Feeling My Age

Last night my wife reminded me of my age, and it struck me that in my mind I am not much older than 24, though that was 15 years ago.

Then the following exchange on an episode of "Bernie Mac." I have never seen the show, and always turn the channel when it comes on, but I caught these lines before my hand could reach the remote:

WIFE: You’re 45, you should be getting a physical each year.
BERNIE: I’ll meet you half way – I’ll get a massage.

That about sums it up. I will be making my appointment soon.

Fun in the Snow

Tonight it began to sleet as I left work, which turned to snow shortly thereafter, and kept snowing until there was about 5 inches of snow on the ground at our home in Seattle. I had a wonderful time frolicking in the falling snow with my daughter and our dog. The dog had a particularly tough time retrieving snowballs (she brought back nary a one), but enjoyed the fun nonetheless.

Tomorrow I will most likely work from home, but plan to take a little time to build a snow man in the yard.

Seahawks 21, Cowboys 20

I must admit that this season's team is not what they were a year ago, but I could not have hoped for a more exciting game (or a more bizarre finish to a game) than the one played in Seattle last night. My only regret was not to have been at Qwest Field with the other cheering Hawks fans.

,,,and a Happy New Year

We began our Christmas Holidays by engaging in one of my daughter's favorite activities in Seattle -- visiting the Space Needle. She seems to enjoy the idea of going up to the top of the Needle moreso than taking in the panoramic views of Seattle. Regardless, we have a great time when we go. Even with high winds, rain and low visibility we managed to have a swell time.

Then my family took off to South Carolina for Christmas, and I was more than delighted to be with friends and family at this special time of year. Seeing my grandmother brought me great joy on Christmas Day, as did the delicious treats provided us by my Aunt Joice, a true patron of the culinary arts, to whom I gave a hand-made apron I bought at Seattle's famous Pike Place Market. (Auntie, I start my diet tomorrow!)

Aunt Cindy was there, as were uncles Roger and Ron, cousins Melissa, Heather and Daniel, and I was able to see my Aunt JoAnn and Uncle Gene as well.

After Christmas I had the opportunity to catch up with Tim, Todd, Crump and their wives, as well as with my good friends the Wilks. (Jane, between your baking and my aunt's, I will definitely be starting that diet!) Thanks to my friend Lori for gathering my friends together for a nice dinner, and for providing me the opportunity to reunite with my childhood friend Ralph.

Most of all, I am thankful for my wife and daughter, my parents, my sister and her husband, and their delightful daughter, Lindsay, with whom I had a terrific time!

Merry Christmas from the National Weather Service

It has been a difficult couple of weeks in the Pacific Northwest, what with wind storms, fallen trees and more than a million people without power. The photograph was taken in downtown Seattle across from my office building. You should have seen it before they cut the rest of the tree away!

And now people are stuck at the airport in Denver, possibly for another couple of days, after a blizzard there.

Who do we blame for this year's wicked weather? Some say the Bush administration. But I blame the National Weather Service. After all, they seem to know about these things before they happen. Coincidence?

Seattle Storm

The forecast was so dismal last Thursday that I called my travel agent from my office in Chicago and asked her to re-book me for a return flight to Seattle on Friday, instead of Thursday night. The National Weather Service was calling for severe winds with gusts of hurricane strength.

I returned on a bumpy flight to the Emerald City and landed after the storm system had moved on to find my home without power. My wife and daughter fared well, and with a gas fireplace and hot water heater, along with plenty of camping gear, we managed to survive quite well and had some fun along the way. My family was thrilled to find me cooking up coffee, eggs and hot dogs on the propane camp stove at sun-up on Saturday morning.

Thankfully, our electrical power has been restored, but there are still hundreds of thousands of people without any power or heat. Many have branches or whole trees -- uprooted majestic douglas firs and cedars -- through their windows and rooftops. Hundreds of people are living in shelters, and people are suffering. Our prayers go out to those who here who are still suffering hardships, and I am reminded that as difficult as things have been this past week in the Pacific Northwest, there are still many on the gulf coast who have yet to reclaim the lives they left behind after Katrina.

Blue Skies on Black Friday

The following is a diary of my Day After Thanksgiving, which I pecked out on my Treo throughout my adventures downtown with my family.

8.40 am - Starbucks. Up and on the road by 8 am for downtown and the Macy's Holiday Parade. 20 minutes now in Starbucks order line – place is packed...guessing 15 more minutes until my latte. I count 18 people in the pick-up line ahead of me.

9.01 am - Starbucks. I counted the waiting orders - empty cups lined up for the Barista - to fill. 42. It’s nuts in here.

9.24 am - We are enjoying the parade, and my wife pointed out to me that enthusiasm for marching bands must be regional. Indeed, it has occurred to me that many of the bands here lack the snap and discipline of many of the marching bands in the Southeast. Then again, it’s been a long time since I was in a high school band.

10.58 am - Returned some overpriced merchandise to fye music and fought the crowds. Now off to Macy's.

Noon - Macy's is nuts.

1 pm - Appointment with Santa. Polly Pocket house, butterfly catch and Amazing Alison. What’s a butterfly catch?

2 pm – Enjoying a Ballycastle roll at Kell's Irish pub.

3.40 pm – More Christmas shopping.

5 pm - The tree lighting at Westlake Plaza was heavily attended, as the rain forecast for today never materialized.

7.10 pm – last stop – supper at a Thai restaurant near home. Exhausted. Will sleep well tonight.

Dinner for Three

This year, considering that our Thanksgiving feast was prepared by my lovely wife for just the three of us, we held back on dishing up the usual Southern Thanksgiving feast. We decided to scale down this year. We even decided not to cook a turkey, and opt for my baked chicken recipe instead. But my daughter, at the supermarket on Sunday, decried such heresy, going so far as to engage a supermarket employee to ask, "Not having a turkey on Thanksgiving is just not right, is it?"

I yielded, and we reached a compromise with my daughter to allow a turkey breast (a cut breast with the skin on, not the pressed turkey breast loaf) instead of a chicken.

My wife prepared all but the pie, and the meal was excellent. Here is what we had:

turkey breast prepared with herbs in a crock pot
pumpkin-zucchini stuffing (a Rachel Ray recipe)
gravy
fresh green beans
creamed corn with tumeric and rosemary
Yorkshire pudding
two-layer pumpkin and cream cheese pie

My daughter asked to give thanks, and delivered an eloquent prayer from a five-year-old's heart that thanked Jesus most of all for her family.

Happy Thanksgiving

This is where I am nestled this Thanksgiving Day, at my coffee table in front of the fire.

I was watching the National Dog Show earlier, and J. Peterman, the host of the show, said, "The National Dog Show Presented by Purina is brought to you by..... Purina!"

I found that funny, but it does not read well.

Does anyone think that NBC's coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has become more NBC self-promotion and less parade?

I have to say, that Al Roker still cracks me up.

14 Hours, 5 Films and Panang Curry

For the second year in a row, my friend Mike and I spent the Saturday between our birthdays at the movies. Like last year, we were able to screen five films, among them a few surprises and a disappointment.

We started off the day at Seattle's Cinerama, and enjoyed the new James Bond film, Casino Royale on their mammoth screen with state-of-the-art sound. A fan of both the books and the films, I went into this movie with high hopes and somewhat low expectations. But seeing Paul Haggis listed in the writing credits (he wrote Million Dollar Baby and the phenomenal Crash) my expectations rose considerably and I was not disappointed. This Bond is raw, tight and breath-takingly exciting. So much so that it ranks now as my number two favorite in the franchise.

Transition now to the Uptown Theater and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, which is not at all what we expected. At times I felt I was watching a David Lynch picture. Nicole Kidman's performance is fantastic in this impressionistic and sometimes surreal "invented" biopic of the famous photographer, and Robert Downey's turn as Arbus's muse (whose face is seen only at the end of the film) is rich and compelling. Mike and I spent the day trying to decide whether or not we actually liked the film, and I cannot recommend this one to everyone.

We followed fur with the latest Christopher Guest outing, For Your Consideration. He has taken on the theater, dog shows, and folk music in his unscripted films thus far, but turning his attention to Hollywood is uninspired and ultimately disappointing. Granted, his cast is good, and there are a number of genuine laughs, but the film remained the day's big disappointment.

Break for Panang Curry and rice at Phuket Thai on Queen Anne.

If there is anything wrong with the period piece Copying Beethoven it's the uneven script. But the performance by Ed Harris as the maestro during the final days leading up to the premiere of his ninth symphony is remarkable. The filmmakers took a chance with an extended sequence highlighting the performance of the symphony, but the composition itself is exquisite and Harris is mesmerizing as the deaf conductor, able to lead the orchestra only by receiving cues from his copyist, played by the lovely Diane Kruger. We left the auditorium raving not so much about the film as we were about Harris's performance and about the magnificent ninth symphony.

We finished off our day with The Prestige, in which Hugh Jackman joins Batman Begins alumni Michael Caine, Christian Bale and Director Christopher Nolan. Though we felt the film cheated us at the end. Nothing is as it seems in this film (which I guess, in a film about illusions, that is the point, right?), but we were thrilled and surprised and wildly entertained.

All in all, I would say it was a good day.

A Blistering Loss

Yesterday was the perfect autumn day for a game against the Vikings, and I had the privilege of attending the game with my friend Peter, who wore three Seahawks shirts despite the fact that he hails from Minnesota. We met my friend Erik and took our seats for a contest that sidelined Hasselbeck and caused the 12th Man a rare, embarrassing loss at home.

Fine day. Excellent company. Great seats. Good food. Blistering loss. Four out of five ain't bad.

The President, or the First Officer?

George Bush was today’s guest on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Feeling that my daughter should know who our president is, I asked her:

“Do you know who that is?
“No.”
“You should know who that is.”
“Is that Spock?”
“No! That’s the president of the Unites States.”
“George Bush? On TV? NOW?”

I have refrained from drawing any conclusions and dropped the subject then and there without fully understanding her response.