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It's an Exciting World

The life and times of David Geisert

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Book Club: The Practice Effect

This book was very light, and the story itself wasn’t that involved.  The major concept of the book ‘the practice effect’ was fun to think about.

Stephanie had some really good points in the discussion, mainly that any civilization that has such a strong value of man-hours would have incredibly large families.  They would also have spread out and settled pretty much all the land in order to have the most number of people possible.

I thought that there wasn’t nearly enough sharing and offering of services to keep tools practiced.

The discussion was really great and the food was taken pretty well (it disappeared pretty quickly).  I made some of the Vegetable Kofta, which was a lot more involved from the start than I was expecting.  The prep that the teaching chef had done was a good deal of the time that was needed, even if it wasn’t the skill part of the cooking.

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The Pirates of Pacta Servanda

I’m really enjoying this series.  It’s reading level and story complexity is clearly for a much younger group, but I still really like it.  The book has an amazing mix of humor, magic, and light science.  The political environment, and the people in charge being foiled over and over is written so well.

Audible Link

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Year of living Danishly

This book was nice, but a little too anecdotal.  The points she makes about happiness are good, but the backing she gives to them isn’t all that great.  I understand that this book was meant for a different audience from myself, and it does point in a great direction for getting more information.  I just wish there were a book or paper on happiness that was deeply involved, and well backed by scientific studies.

Audible Link

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Daemon

This book was great.  The second book was good as well.

The story is really interesting in that the augmented reality is helping people become more potent as individuals.  They can be good or bad, but they become more potent.  They can also choose to be less involved in things that they do, or more involved.  The whole thing being run by a millionaire game developer was pretty cool as well.

Audible Link

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Games Night – Codewords

I really enjoyed getting back to games night this past Thursday.  We didn’t play any really intense games.  Just one round of Roll for the Galaxy, and three games of something new: Codewords.  We had a great time playing this new game that has a ton of possible optimizations, and meanings.  We were able to get a few really good rounds that had people giving 5 and 4 clues.  I’m pretty sure we’re going to get it for more social things around the apartment and at Andrew’s.

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Snowboarding/Skiing

Stephanie and I went to Whistler in Canada for a weekend of Snowboarding (me) and Skiing (her).  We met up with a group of people including Rong, Riley, Emily, and Emily’s family.  It was a pretty good time, and we stayed at a rather nice vacation rental.

We took a gondola there that stretches between the two mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb. It was an amazing view, and once we got the glass bottom gondola.  Looking down was pretty interesting, and we couldn’t actually stand on the glass.

Stephanie wasn’t terribly comfortable until near the end, and I was pretty rusty myself.  There were a lot of points I would have liked to go a bit steeper, but the paths that Steph chose were challenging enough for me.  The others were pretty good at the skiing part.  The only thing I would really liked to have done is go up to the glacier and snowboard down that.  It sounded like the kind of thing I’d really enjoy: huge area that is decently steep.  There are a lot more videos that we took with the go pro on my youtube.

Pretty much the entire way there and the entire way back I was using my phone for the Gear VR.  It was a really nice way to pass the time while travelling.  The only strange part is when the vehicle turns the screen registers it as turning.  It might actually be good for motion sick people since the screen responds exactly to the motion.

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Dinner at Lost Colony

We had dinner at Andrew’s place Friday night, and it was really good.  Debby made a pasta sauce and a green bean dish, both of which were really tasty.  Kevin also joined us, and he seemed to be doing much better.  Steph and I took our own pasta because she is trying to do the whole 30 diet again.  After dinner we played some Exploding Kittens, and I think I figured out the optimal strategy, it is just really hard to hold to when the randomness of the deck is right there.

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Book Club:Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This was a really hard book for most people in the book club to get through.  The only other person that actually finished it was Tina, and she was out for recovering from surgery.

The discussion wasn’t as deep as it could have been because the book itself was a bit off.  It had issues of continuity, fact vs. what was made up, and the ambiguity of who the narrator is.  I found it really hard to fully understand and pay attention when it was going.

I also found it interesting that when he completely broke down he was describing insanity and nirvana at the same time.

Audible Link    Goodreads

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Kochi

We got to Kochi pretty late and just went straight to the hotel. It was New Years Eve, so we had planned on staying up late and partying.  We got there and Lindsay was able to get us into the roof party, despite one woman insisting that it was sold out.  Lindsay even got us a discount because the package deal of a room and the party wasn’t on the website.

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We had a pretty good night.  Lindsay won a dance contest.

The only stop we made was to get some bootlegged alcohol, made from coconut juice.  It wasn’t that great and wasn’t from the cleanest of places

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I didn’t feel too unsafe because the fermentation process was proceeding cleanly.

We saw a fantastic sunset, and got some much needed sleep in the well sealed cabins.  I only got a half dozen bites from the mosquitos, but that is why I was taking anti-malaria pills.

The next morning we went back to Kochi and got a hotel for the time before the flight.  We walked along the beach some and got to see them take in the Chinese fishing nets.

Lindsay left at 4pm, so Steph and I grabbed some dinner and a nap before heading off to our flight at 1am.

The flights were really long, and not too bad.  Steph and I switched seats halfway through the long flight, and she really didn’t like the middle seat with the broken recliner.  I can’t blame her since it was really uncomfortable.  I wasn’t able to sleep in it very much, but the window seat she gave me got me a decent amount of sleep.  Her parents were there to pick us up when we got back and it was nice of them to make us some soup for dinner.  Steph was completely gone the whole ride back, but she managed to stay up until a decently late time.

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