Steph and I joined Lindsay, Kevin, and Debby at Yoga Belly. The class was really good, and I was able to do all the positions, with only a few stumbles. I really enjoyed the time there, and the dinner after. Andrew joined for dinner, and we went to Pho. The pho was tasty, and the perfect food for after a hot yoga session.
Steph and I went to Rong’s place for a BBQ. We made some misir wot, and Rong had a ton of really tasty food. I stayed and talked, while Steph, Nick, and Sarah went down to the hot tub. It was a really good time, but we had to head out to go to dinner with her parents at Patxi’s
The story in this was good, but there were a number of plot devices I didn’t like. The first was the trope of the ‘Woman in the Refrigerator’. This happens all over the series, with the female characters depowered to move the story arcs. This was particularly bad when the old bard was able to choose how he died, while the woman of interest was hunted down and killed to get to him. The book also had the unimportant characters die by the thousands, with the important characters miraculously living over and over again. Many of the important characters were supernaturally powerful, so it isn’t that surprising, but it is still one of my pet peeves when going through these kinds of books. Towards the end some major characters die, and it does even out in a way. The magic system in the book was also somewhat underdeveloped. There are small explanations of how it works, but I was hoping for something a bit more in depth. I might be spoiled by some of Sanderson’s universes.
We joined Jason, and one of the guys that works at the same company as him, Nathan, on a backpacking trip to Sword Lake in the Sierras.
We started out from their company parking lot at about 3pm, and the going was pretty slow due to traffic. We decided to stop in a little town called Sonora. We just happened to hit it on one of their town get together days. The town was packed, and we had trouble finding a restaurant, but managed to get a table and some tasty food. It took a lot longer than we were hoping, but eventually we got back on the road and made it to the camp ground a little before dark. Fires were allowed in this park, so we had a really nice campfire that night, and a few beers.
We got up late the next morning, and got ready to head to the trailhead. The hike in was really slow going, because we stopped for a photo shoot at a really nice view for about 30 minutes. Then we stopped for lunch at a nice rock outcropping for probably an hour. Then we climbed up a ridge next to the trail for another really nice view that we enjoyed for around 30 minutes more. When we finally got to the lake it was gorgeous. The rangers were walking around checking on permits, but it wasn’t all that crowded. There were some ‘frat guys’ or so we assumed across the lake from us, but it wasn’t too bad. We found a great campground in a grove of trees in a little depression in the rocky landscape. We gathered wood and filtered some water. I got in the lake, but didn’t go for a swim, since it was pretty cold. It was probably in the mid 60’s so certainly swimmable, but not pleasant. Nathan was the only one to get in all the way. We hung out at the campground for a while after that, but I was getting a really bad caffeine headache. I called it a night pretty early. The hike out was pretty uneventful, and just as gorgeous as the hike in. The drive back was uneventful as well, besides stopping for lunch at Sno White, a little diner with great milkshakes.
I really enjoyed it and would love to go back for a full day in the middle, or a day hike from the closer trailhead. I’ll post pictures when I get them.
We had Lindsay, Kevin, Riley, and Rong over for Taboo on Wednesday. It was a really great time! Stephanie and I won the couples round, despite her checking her email during a turn where I was giving the clues instead of trying to guess. The guys won the girls vs. guys round. We then did a round of telephone pictionary to cap it off, and that was a ton of fun. We had some good win, some tasty cookies, and I cooked a good bit of misir wot.
We read Replay by Ken Grimwood this month for bookclub, and it was a very interesting book. There were a few good discussions about morality of some of the actions the characters take, the Eurocentricness of the book, the way the author used the characters by focusing on their love more than the outer world, and the way the characters chose to use their extra lives. I think the idea is great, but the book could have been so much more.
Stephanie and I went to Santa Cruz on Sunday with the company she is now working for. We had a good time out on the water, especially since we didn’t need to actually run the boat. We took the Chardonnay II. It was a good time, and we got to see dolphins, sea lions, and otters. Didn’t see any harbor seals. We had lunch at Chocolate nearby before heading back. We were too full to stop by the Penny even though we had parked right by it.
This series was pretty good. I really liked the magic system, and most of the characters. At some points the magic system got a little mixed up to be convenient for the plot, but most of the time it was straightforward. There was the common issue of things that are learned and used to great effect in previous books aren’t always used again when the situation calls for it. This book was better than most about that, but still had it in a few places, mainly when dealing with the fairy. The were two other big issues I had with the book. First the main character lives were valued so much more highly than the common man, despite them valuing the ‘old law’ which should have had everyone more or less equal. Second, there was what seemed to be a false dichotomy of evil people and good people, where the good people could do no wrong, and the evil people could do no good. The only somewhat in between character had his evil doing explained away with grief, so it was really evil, just misguided.
I really enjoyed this book. It had a lot of suspense in how he deals with the environment, and he is really funny in what he does. I like the way he treats mission control, since he has nobody to really take things out on. The epicness of his ingenuity and the scrapes he gets through are fantastic. I can’t wait to see the movie.
It's an Exciting World 