things you can tell by a person's book order

already spending some birthday money...
Chess:
The Art of the Middle Game by Paul Keres
Pawn Structure Chess by Andrew Soltis

i don't have much opportunity to play chess anymore but these are the last two chess books that i really really wanted and they should provide some interesting insights.

Baseball:
The Joy of Keeping Score: How Scoring the Game Has Influenced and Enhanced the History of Baseball by Paul Dickson
The Fielding Bible by John Dewan
The Summer Game by Roger Angell

the first is supposed to be a great little read to kick off each season, the second is a defensive stats analysis book, and the third is another classic by the master of baseball writing.

History:
Theodore Roosevelt by Nathan Miller

i've been intrigued enough by TR to want to read this single volume biography. if i'm still intrigued by this republican who doesn't reflect today's republicans, i'll move on to the three-volume biography.

Fantasy / Fun:
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

as the history of the first age in the lord of the rings world, this is a collection of stories that sets the historical context for tolkien's more widely read works, the hobbit and lotr.

Spirituality & Local Missiology:
Traveling Mercies : Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church by Frost and Hirsch

the first is supposed to be an excellently-written, down-to-earth book about a journey of christian faith. the second is supposed to be a great book on today's culture and context and what the church may look like as this century progresses.

mom then dad

so my mom and stepdad charlie visited from friday evening to monday afternoon and my dad arrived in town monday evening and will be visiting during this week. we had a good time with mom and charlie in town and, most importantly to lindsay, charlie and i finally got the glass door put up. we had bought it last summer (lindsay really wanted it), but we had to add two inches of wood to the sides of the door frame to make it even with the top of the door frame. it was a challenge, but it looks great now. afterwards, we just tried to relax for the evening and we scarfed up some good salad and baked spaghetti prepared by lindsay. sunday morning was their first visit to our church, lunch was red lobster (lindsay and mom's birthdays are this week), and on sunday evening we went for ice cream at the new bruster's in town and jake thoroughly enjoyed his 'purple dinosaur' flavored ice cream (colored vanilla?). on monday, we grilled out some yummy burgers, beef dogs, and brats and topped it off with derby pie, a kentucky specialty that lindsay made for the first time (yum!).

dad rolled into town monday evening and we went for chinese food and some more bruster's. i think getting chinese food on the evening dad gets into town is becoming a tradition - this makes three times. this morning, dad went to visit the principals of the local elementary schools as he is seriously considering moving up here. he applied earlier in the spring, but in this backwards county the school board office said it'd be cool for him to just go talk to the principals. at lunch we went to look at some houses. jake loves seeing all his grandparents and i think he's going to stay home with dad on wednesday and thursday.

photoshop

so i found photoshop on my work computer and used it for the first time ever yesterday. yeah, ever. i guess i've just never had the opportunity before. i've always been able to do what i needed to with microsoft photo editor. enough to the point where i've grabbed it off my old computer and put it on my new laptop since it didn't seem to come with office 2003. anyways, i made a more eye-pleasing header graphic than the 3 picture blurry mess with no title that i had up there - enjoy!

kc

i had a great trip, it's always good to get to spend some time with family - especially when you don't get to see them too often. my cousin josh got graduated just fine and it was great to just sit and talk and hang out with everyone.

the drive to and from louisville airport was beautiful. I had the windows down and I just enjoyed the scenery of all the horse farms and such.

on saturday, lindsay's family came up and kept her company and worked on the house. they put up a beautiful tile backsplash (pictures forthcoming) behind the stove, mulched the front landscaping (27 bags), and fertilized the yard.

when i got home at 5pm on sunday, we were hungry and breakfast food sounded good. we went over to waffle house for waffles, eggs, and scattered-smothered-covered hashbrowns. we got home, put jake to bed, and watched 2-3 episodes of desperate housewives and then finished the season last night.

breaking news that none of you may care about!

7th heaven signed for an 11th season after airing their series finale just a week and a half ago! yay!! if you hadn't heard, the wb and the upn are combining into a new station - cw. wb had said that the salaries on 7th heaven had gotten too expensive and last season was going to be the end, but apparently cw is continuing it - yippee!!

whew

everything got turned in and finished on tuesday, but i guess i needed a couple of days of down time to think to come over here and tell the world. maybe i'll do better this summer without classes. can i say it again? i'm just glad to be done. it feels like i've been going so long, but unless i kill myself with more summer classes, it'll be another 3 years (6 semesters of ~6 hours for my final 37 hours). at least it'd be paid for by work that way. any summer classes would come out of my pocket since i can only have 12 hours/year paid for.

so i'm headed to kansas city, mo this weekend. my cousin josh is graduating from high school and i don't get to their family much. the last time was three years ago when i flew out when he was awarded the honor of eagle scout. i remember talking to my aunt about how me and lindsay were excited to have kids some day. two months later we found out we were expecting. don't worry a similar chain of events won't be happening :-)

the nats are stinking and i'll leave it at that. they're still fun to follow and i'm expecting an interesting summer of roster shake-ups.

jake is doing good and is around halfway poddy trained i guess you could say. he can stay dry when he's awake. pretty much. he'll occasionally have a small accident while he's trying to get to the bathroom.

we've got a busy few weekends coming up. as i said, this weekend i'm going to kc and during that time lindsay's family will be coming up to hang out and work on a project on the house. i'll put up pictures afterwards. next weekend is memorial day weekend and my mom and charlie will be coming up to visit and we're going to get that glass door (that we bought last august the last time they were here) put up. the next weekend we're going to knoxville for a wedding of one of lindsay's high school friends. the next weekend we're going up to cincinnati and back for a party for my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. we hope to see lots of family and mom and charlie will probably come up the day before and leave the day after.

not long after that, we'll be going to clearwater, fl for the week of july 4th with mom, charlie, and my step-sister brooke. i can't wait to get away and clearwater is the best beach i've ever been to. my telecom classmates from senior year in college can tell you a story of me falling asleep and getting lobster-fied. "did anyone feed the gops?" good times...

light at the end of the tunnel

just a few more assignments left for the semester. i'll have 59 of 96 hours and i've been at this for 4 years now... crazy.

i can't wait for the summer - playing outside with jake, going to bed early, catching up on TiVo and netflix, reading what i want, you name it. i'm not even making a reading list because i've got more than a shelf of stuff i've been trying to get to. our family is doing good - lindsay started working at the new office in danville where she is the office manager. they open next week and there hasn't been anyone there to work with just yet, but she's working hard to get the place organized and ready for business. she's awesome.

dinner with friends

we had some more new friends over for dinner saturday evening. lindsay and michelle are in the same position, but in different offices with the same company. michelle's husband jason mowed our yard (and the big hill aka 'the plantation') last week because i'm too busy / lazy while in school. he did a great job and the my time and energy might be worth the money spent as the summer goes on. they have a son who is just a few months older than jake and they had a real big time playing together. they also have a 9-month old daughter that i got to hold and play with for a long while which will hopefully temporarily placate my desire to have another kid. we'd like to but with jake, time, and finances, we really shouldn't until i'm out of school and jakes into school. luckily, lindsay is the reasoned one.

we grilled out for the first time this year and once i got the gas tank to lowe's, i realized it wasn't all the way empty. actually, the new one was only slightly heavier. oh well. the burgers, beef hot dogs, and brats were very tasty alongside lindsay's baked beans with sausage, chips and dip, and that yummy pasta i made the last time we had friends over for dinner (don't worry, it was a fresh batch).