Books

Total read since January: 33
(target is 36 by December, to be on track I should have read 24 books by now)

Big reading month! I am just three books away from hitting my goal for the year and I have two more months! Probably a good thing, too. I don’t think I’ll be doing much reading next month… November is for writing! Anyway, here’s what I read:

• Outlining Your Novel — I forgot I’d purchased this one. Then one day I decided I needed an outline for my work in progress project and dug this up on my Kindle. If you are working on a writing project that is feeling like it’s getting a little complicated, or if you are not quite sure where you are going with your story, I highly recommend checking out this book. Even if you are devoted to the “pantser” camp… you may just discover (as I did) that life on the other side really isn’t that different — it’s really just organized notes, not a soulless, Roman Numeral dotted doc that you must then follow mindlessly. The author of this book has some excellent advice that you can put to use immediately. (Longer review on Goodreads…)
• Booby Trap — My manager at my previous job is a breast cancer survivor and she wrote and published this book about her experience. She wrote most of it while she was undergoing treatment, and based this book on blog posts she was writing for her friends and family. The book provides an inside scoop about the breast cancer experience and manages to be light hearted and even funny. I recommend it if you or someone you know is going through something similar. Or if you’re just curious. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Allison, and knowing more about what she went through and how she handled it (I could totally picture her and her husband and kids while I was reading this) just added to that respect.
• The Great Gatsby — re-read this for the first time since high school. I remember loving this book in high school, so much so that I kept my copy of the book (instead of returning it to the school at the end of the class). I’m now tempted to go dig up the paper I wrote about this book in high school so that I can see what “deep thoughts” I had as a teenager about this book.
• The Girl of Fire and Thorns — I had been thinking about getting this one for a while and it ended up on a Kindle Daily Deal, so I pounced on it. I think I tore through it in a weekend. The story is a bit of a twist on your average epic heroine fantasy adventure. The heroine, for one, is not your typical heroine. She’s very devout, and pretty much eats her feelings. But she’s “chosen” so you know there’s gonna be an adventure. There is also some romance, but no love triangle (thank you! so sick of the damn love triangles!). One of the main dudes in the story has a mustache (also different!). The book is flavored with all sorts of things that aren’t quite what you’d expect that make this feel like a “new” story, instead of the old same thing. If you enjoy feisty ladies going on adventures and saving the world, you should check this out.
• The Shambling Guide to New York City — This one was kind of a surprise. I stumbled on this author based on a recommendation somewhere on the interwebs. I think she might have won a best first novel award or something. I thought her book looked interesting, and it was reasonably priced on Kindle, so I took a chance. I ended up devouring this book. It’s a fast, fun read along the lines of Christopher Moore (especially his novel A Dirty Job, which is my favorite of the ones I’ve read). If you like books and TV shows about monsters living among us, you should definitely check out this book.

I feel a little bad that I was kind of stingy with the stars this month in my Goodreads reviews. I’ve been taking a UC Berkeley Extension class called “Developing the Novel” and working on my own thing, plus workshoping my classmates’ work. So, I’m a little more critical than usual of writing and story craft. These were all good books, but all got three stars because I was being picky about the writing, character development, and/or the plot structure. At the same time, since I know how hard it is to do those things really well, I don’t want to criticize.

Writing

I didn’t blog this month. That was kind of on purpose. I didn’t have much to say. There is a lot going on and I needed a break. I did finish my Mystery Fiction class, and I wrote a bunch on my chosen work in progress project for my Developing the Novel class. I got into a pretty good groove of writing almost daily for the past couple of weeks. I discovered Scrivener which is a software program for writers (fiction and non-fiction), and has this awesome little progress bar that shows how you are progressing to your daily word count goal. I love it. But I have a feeling there won’t be too much blogging for the rest of this year. I’m going to focus on finishing up my work in process project. I’ll blog if I feel the urge, but otherwise things may be a little quiet around here until January.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

• 15 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
• 27.73 miles (target was ~30 miles)

This month was part taper and part recovery with one big, 2-day race in the middle. I’ve already blown past my goal of 250 miles for this year. As of today I’m at 285 miles for the year. I am hoping to get to 340 miles for the year. That would be an average of about a mile a day for 365 days with about two weeks off. I have no races for the rest of the year, just training and getting psyched for the spring short course yards racing season that kicks off in January.

Movies

Oh the movies this month… I think we got four really good movies from Netflix this month. I expected one or two to be good, but was totally impressed with (at least aspects of) all four. Unfortunately, I’ve spent so long writing the other bits that it’s getting late. I’ll keep this brief…

• Much Ado About Nothing — Just watch this. Shakespeare’s words in a modern day setting. It’s so good. And I’m not just saying that because Joss Whedon made this.
• The Great Gatsby — The update. The Leo version. Great soundtrack. Too much “old boy.” And what is it about Tobey Maguire that I find so annoying? Leo is actually really good in this. So is Carey Mulligan.
• Galaxy Quest — OMG. How did I miss this? SO GOOD. It’s like an inside joke for sci fi fans. And Alan Rickman is amazing. Also, Tim Allen is really good in this. Hell, the whole cast is great. If you haven’t seen this movie, just go watch it.
• Iron Man 3 — So, I loved the first Iron Man movie. The second was meh. The Avengers was great. Thor and Captain America were both terrible. I’m kind of getting sick of super heros. I had no idea what to expect here. I watched it out of loyalty to the franchise and because of Robert Downey Jr. So I was totally unprepared to really like this movie. It’s a good movie. I was amazed. And, spoiler, they don’t do the damsel in distress thing. I mean, they trick you into thinking that they are going that way, and then they don’t! Hurrah! I still don’t think it would pass the Bechdel Test, but… I’ll give them credit for progress.

Tomorrow starts my second most favorite month of the year… NOVEMBER!!! November is exactly half-way to my birthday month, and it’s the first real month where the weather gets colder (relatively speaking… it is California…) and it feels like you should be cozying up with a book and a mug of tea next to the fire. Or, writing a novel, because November is also NaNoWriMo. So there’s that. I can’t wait!

Books

Total read since January: 28
(target is 36 by December, to be on track I should have read 24 books by now)

I didn’t have much time to read this month. I only finished two books. But I started (and nearly finished) two more — see the Goodreads “currently reading” box in the side bar for a preview of what’s coming next month…

• Crown of Midnight — worthy sequel to Throne of Glass… but feels a bit like a “middle book”… still, I really like this world and these characters, so I devoured this one and am eagerly awaiting the next one in the series. When I have more time I may go back and re-read the first one and then this one and try to write something more thoughtful later. There are many references to events in the first book which I barely remembered, and it relies heavily on knowledge of what happened in the first novel to understand what’s going on in this one.
• Silent Harmony — super fast, fun read… talented and ambitious “underdog” heroine + boarding school + horses… definitely a literature niche that appeals to many young women and girls — and I would definitely recommend this to anyone that likes that combination. The mystery aspect was mostly well done and kept me guessing about “who done it” until the end. Though, if I knew more about horses and horse culture politics I might have had a better idea from the hints provided. I only gave it two stars because I’m several years past my horses + boarding school phase. However, I can see how this would be a 3-4 star book for someone who is still really drawn to that stuff.

Writing

I’ve been working on “developing the novel” this month and, besides the swimming workout posts, managed to write four blog posts in September. I was trying to match the swimming workout posts one for one so that anyone who doesn’t like to read about my swimming workouts would still have something to read on my blog.

I started having a bit of a “blog crisis” over the weekend… these are the periodical events that cause me to kill my blog and hide under a social media rock for a while. Not sure exactly what’s behind this one, but for now I’m resisting the urge to retreat into my shell.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

• 20 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
• 38.78 miles (target was ~30 miles)

Last month of the “training” phase of my workout plan. I hit it hard and am looking forward to taper and a big race and a little rest in October before jumping back into the training phase and starting prep for the spring racing season.

Movies

Three movies this month! I am still not in much of a movie watching mood. But since Greg broke his foot and has been in a cast, movie watching picked back up again in September. The movies we watched this month were:

• Winter’s Bone — resisted watching this for a while because I wasn’t sure I would like it, but boy was I wrong! This was a really good movie — possibly the best movie we watched all year. Definitely the best movie from this month. After watching this I went and added all the “2013 Oscar buzz” movies to my queue so I won’t be the last to watch the good movies this year.
• Spy Game — this is an older movie that Greg added to the queue (I am getting sick of Netflix and movies, and he’s the one with the cast on his leg, so I let him pick). Again I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a spy movie and it has Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, so I wasn’t expecting much. But, it’s a really well done spy movie… not a special effects, blow things up, ooh look at all my awesome technology spy movie. A nice change of pace.
• Kings of Summer — I thought this was going to be good. I missed the free screening at work, and the trailer looked promising. It was okay. Some parts were really funny. Some parts were really thoughtful. But I lost count after the third “bonding montage” of the boys in the woods. And Greg was frustrated because he didn’t find it at all realistic that they would have been able to build this cabin in the woods in such a short period of time and with nothing but bikes to haul stuff to the construction site. But… the funny parts were funny… oh well.

Seriously cannot believe it’s October already! This year is going by so quickly.

Books

Total read since January: 26
(target is 36 by December, to be on track I should have read 24 books by now)

Only three books this month and none knocked my socks off. Here they are in order of most to least favorite:

• Under the Empyrean Sky — I really wanted to love this book. I like the author. I like the genre. I like the concept of a post-apocalyptic world overrun with and built around GMO corn. But this book fell short of “love.” It was good. I liked it. It was just a little too “YA” for me. Too much boy growing up angst — anger at his dad, anger at the town bully, anger when he (inevitably) loses his girl, general anger at life, etc. Not enough about the world the story is set in. It left me with too many questions about the people, the classes, the politics, the history, the setting… But don’t listen to me. If you are intrigued by the official book blurb description, you should read the book. I’ll probably read the sequel. I’m interested enough to see where he goes with this.
• Out of the Deep I Cry — Russ and Clare solve another mystery in Millers Kill, NY. Yes, I am still reading these books. Yes, it is presumably for my Mystery Fiction final project. But, yes, I admit I am sucked into the story and the budding romance and actually WANT to keep reading these, even after I finish my project. Trashy romance / mystery novel? Yeah, kinda. Well written with thoughtful characterization and plotting? Yes! New guilty pleasure reading? Maybe…
• The Skull Beneath the Skin — This is the last novel I had to read for my Mystery Fiction class. It was a slog. So much description. So much gothic moodiness. So much drama. I mean, the client was an actress, but still. Blech. Not my favorite book from this class. I struggled to finish it. But, I did it! And now I just need to finish the last online module and my final project, take the final exam, and I’m done! (That still sounds like a lot of stuff… the slog continues…)

My goal for next month is to write deeper and more critical book reviews, ideally closer to when I actually finish reading the book.

Writing

My blog posts this month were almost exclusively about swimming. I am not sure that counts as “writing.” As much as my mom loves me, I’m pretty sure even she is bored silly by blog posts about swimming workouts. So, I am going to attempt to write about other stuff (in addition to the swimming workouts) next month.

I would drop the swimming posts, but it’s part of who I am and what I think about. Also, I want to be a resource for people who want to do lap swimming for a workout but have trouble coming up with workouts, or staying motivated. Ideally, I want to inspire people like me who had no idea they could still swim competitively after college that they can and should because it’s so much fun! Really!

Outside of the blog, I made some slow progress on the writing project this month. And by slow, I mean I only added 2k words. Sigh.

Still, I did some planning and thinking and plotting. I am starting a new writing class in September — Developing the Novel. I’m hoping that will help me carve out more of my free time to FINISH THIS DRAFT by the end of this year.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

• 21 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
• 39.94 miles (target was ~30 miles)

NEW RECORD for both number of days and number of miles in one month! Since pretty much the only thing I have been posting on this blog this month has been swimming workouts, you probably already heard enough about my swimming. So, I’m just going to celebrate this little achievement, and post this impressive chart of my yards / month that really shows how far I’ve come since January (and how lazy I was April thru June).

For those of you totally bored by my swimming workout posts… sorry. I don’t think they’re going away. Maybe just skip them? I’ll try harder to post other stuff besides swimming. Promise. Although, if you are sick of my swimming updates, you’re probably not even reading this section. Oh well.

Movies

This may be a first. No movies in August. I got a movie from Netflix in the first week of August that is still sitting, unopened, in the living room. I just haven’t been in the mood to watch a movie.

However, I did stumble upon one bit of amazingness that I can’t believe I am just now finding out about… The Lizzie Bennet Diaries! In the last 24hrs I’ve watched all 100 episodes. It’s AMAZING! I love it. They did such a good job adapting Pride and Prejudice to modern day. And the actors / actresses in it are fantastic. If you like Jane Austen, you should go watch this right now. Just be warned, you will get completely sucked in.

Next month: September… Back to school! My favorite time of year! (even though I am no longer in school…) And, even though it’s fall everywhere else in the country, it’s now finally “summer” in San Francisco. Yippee? (I miss real fall…)

Books

Total read since January: 23
(target is 36 by December, to be on track I should have read 21 books by now)

Vacation time means more reading time for me. I only finished two books during my vacation. Then I finished one more on the plane ride home. But, even outside of vacation, I’ve been reading like crazy this month, and I’m finally caught up (actually, a little ahead) of where I should be to meet my 36 books target for this year. Of course, my “to-read” pile just keeps growing because I am always finding or receiving recommendations for awesome books out there that I want to read.

Here are the (six!) books I read this month, stack ranked by how much I liked them, from most to least favorite:

• Swim: Why We Love the Water — LOVED this book. So many fun facts about the history of swimming and swimmers. Made me feel proud to be a swimmer, and made me want to go swim laps. Highly recommend this to anyone who loves the water and loves to swim.
• Where’d You Go Bernadette — This book cracked me up. Having lived in Seattle and worked for Microsoft, I can vouch for the fact that Maria Semple has Seattle and Microsoft nailed. One of my favorite parts is the transcript of the TED Talk. So perfect. I really enjoyed this book. It made me miss the city I think of as “home” (even though I grew up in the Midwest). Highly recommend this to anyone who has ever lived in Seattle and/or worked in technology (even though the book really isn’t about working in technology at all). Think Gilmore Girls, but set in Seattle.
• A Murder is Announced — Read this one for my UCBx Mystery Fiction class, but I actually enjoyed it. It’s very British and amusing, if not laugh-out-loud-funny. It’s sort of a comedy-mystery. I kept thinking I had the mystery solved, but then something else would happen and I would change my mind. Definitely kept me guessing (and engaged) through the end.
• A Fountain Filled with Blood — Read this one for my UCBx Mystery Fiction class final project. I liked the first book in the series (the one I read last month) better, but this one was still good. The story was fast paced and takes place in the Adirondacks where I was on vacation this month. My only (small) complaint is that the main character, Clare, was a bit more inconsistent in this book than she was in the first book. In this book she constantly flips from being responsible to irresponsible, and takes some actions that seem out of character based on what we know of her background. I hope this improves as the series continues, because I like her character in general, and I am drawn in my this will they / won’t they relationship developing as a (major) subplot. 
• Island of the Sequined Love Nun — Was less than impressed with this one by Christopher Moore. No matter how many Christopher Moore books I read, I still think the first one I read by him (A Dirty Job) was the best. Maybe his brand of humor / writing style has diminishing returns?
• Unfamiliar Fishes — Originally bought this for my mom because she lived in Hawaii and loves it there and also enjoys history. She read it and passed it back to me to read and it sat on my shelf for years. Brought it with on vacation and had a hard time getting into it. The text seemed to ramble without purpose and periodically repeat bits. It was almost as though it was a series of essays that were strung together into a book. I finally finished it, and then left it in the Adirondacks for future campers to enjoy.

I was hoping to be able to tackle more of my non-fiction selections while on vacation. It’s harder for me to read non-fiction in the start / stop way I have to read while I’m working. I only get about thirty minutes of reading time on the bus, and the rest of my reading time happens on the weekend. It’s much easier for me to devour novels on the weekend than meaty non-fiction. Plus, novels are more of an escape worthy of weekend downtime.

Writing

I haven’t been keeping up the blog this month, mostly due to “no screens” time during vacation. But also because I’ve had a lot on my mind that hasn’t been post-worthy. But, I have been doing a tiny bit of writing. I dusted off one of my two unfinished novels (finally) and started (slowly) working on it again.

The one I picked (I need a good working title…) had just over 16k words already typed up. I also had a few scenes scribbled in a notebook. After re-reading what I wrote I immediately decided that 1) this is utter rubbish writing, but maybe a decent story, and 2) it probably needs to be written in first person. The annoying thing is that I remember I started writing this in first person, then painstakingly changed it to third person, and now I’m having to go back to my original, first person narration.

This month I edited all the existing text, added the handwritten stuff, and then added a few “new” scenes. I now have just over 20k words. There are about 100k words in a novel (unless you’re George R.R. Martin, then it’s between 300k and 450k per novel…). So, at this rate, this may take me a while. But, my goal is just to ignore the “this is complete crap” voice and finish the story. I can always make it better later. Or just leave it gathering virtual dust on my hard drive. But I’m going to finish it.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

• 20 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
• 35.18 miles (target was ~30 miles)

Woo hoo! I did it! I finally hit my target for both number of days and miles! Yay! I owe all this to vacationing somewhere that I could easily swim daily and a little change of routine that increased my motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

This month I got to spend a week swimming around in a lake in the Adirondacks. On my first day at the lake I swam across and back a total of five times — not all in a row, but total for the day. That was the most I swam across and back for the whole vacation, but I did that trip at least once a day, and usually more, sometimes with friends, sometimes with small children, always with someone in a boat patiently accompanying me.

When I returned from vacation I decided to capitalize on my adaptation to East-coast time and get up early to swim in the outdoor pool instead of going to the gym. I LOVE swimming in that pool. It is so much more motivating the swimming in that dinky little three lane pool in the basement of Equinox with five other splashing humans and a sporadically working time-clock.

Because of this, I am planning on canceling my gym membership and buying a bulk pass to the outdoor pool instead. I may regret this decision come winter, but it doesn’t really get too cold here in the winter. Mornings now, in the middle of summer are in the mid 50s and overcast. I expect it will be a bit colder, maybe mid 40s in December / January, but the pool is always the same temperature. Besides, we have yoga classes and a weight room in our office, so I’m really just using the gym for the pool at this point (not that I’m using the office facilities, either… but I could…).

I need to step up my training in preparation for the fall racing season. Anything I can do to make that a more enjoyable experience is going to help me swim more — and faster. As you can see from this month’s stats, I am definitely finding the outdoor pool more motivating.

Movies

Not a big month for movies. Possibly recovering from last month’s movie watching binge. More likely, my movie watching time was allocated to swimming, reading, and writing. Here’s what we watched:

• Anchorman — Confession: neither of us had ever seen this movie before. Apparently it is a bit of a “classic”? It was okay. Some parts were funny, and, really, Steve Carrell was the best of all the characters. Is this the movie where that whole “mic drop” thing started (Vince Vaughn at the end, reporting at the zoo)? or does that pre-date even this movie? Answer here?
• Pitch Perfect — If you’ve been keeping up with my blog(s), or know me IRL, you know I am a sucker for feel-good “team” movies like Bring It On, Stick It, and Dil Bole Hadippa — especially ones with a strong, sassy female lead. So it should come as no surprise to you that I loved this movie. (Slightly more surprising was that hubby also liked it…)

There you have it — an extremely long post all about July to make up for my lack of blogging. I can’t believe that tomorrow starts AUGUST! It’s almost back to school time (my second-favorite time of year)!

Books

Total read since January: 17
(target is 36 by December, to be on track I should have read 18 books by now)

I’m almost caught up to my 3 books per month reading goal! I read two mysteries, some science fiction, some fantasy, and some historical fiction… basically, a little of everything except non-fiction, but I have a few non-fiction titles lined up for vacation next month…

I really liked all the books I read this month… except one. I wanted to try to rank them in order of preference, but it’s so hard to do. If I were forced to stack rank them, here’s what I’d say:

• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman — I had big expectations for this one, and it completely lived up to my expectations. If you’ve never read anything by Neil Gaiman and you want an introduction into his books and the worlds he creates, start with this one. This is basically a book about childhood for adults. If it doesn’t make you remember what it was like to be young and believe in magic and monsters, then you are a cold-hearted person and I have no idea why you are reading my blog.
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein — This may be tied with “Ocean” for the best book I read this month. I’m usually not a big fan of historical fiction, but this story just grabbed me and I couldn’t stop reading. I loved the characters and the story. The only annoying bit was something that was my own fault for reading reviews before I read the book. From what I’d read I was expecting some sort of major plot twist or something. Lots of people referred to how the main character “lies.” So I kept waiting and trying to anticipate (figure out) what would happen. So when the ending came, I had this feeling of, “that’s it? really?” Not a solid sense of closure to the story. I guess some of the stuff I guessed was going to happen was more of a surprise to others reading the story? Regardless, this is a really well written book and I highly recommend it. My advice though, just go into it and get absorbed by the story without expectations.
• Thousandth Night by Alastair Reynolds — Technically, I think this is more of a novella, and I think it should have been paired with a second novella (Minla’s Flowers), but my Kindle version only had the one story. Still, Alastair Reynolds is quickly becoming a new favorite science fiction author. This story played with some of the concepts he explored more in Blue Remembered Earth, and featured a little mystery plot that kept things moving as we learned more about this world and this species of space travelers. I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to read more by Mr. Reynolds.
• In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming — This one may be tied with Thousandth Night, it’s hard to say which I liked more. I read this for a project I’m doing for my mystery fiction class. However, I got to pick the topic and the book for my project. I had narrowed my (self-selected) choices down to three, downloaded the samples for Kindle, and ultimately picked this one. I am so glad I did. This is the first mystery I’ve read for my mystery fiction class that I actually liked. I am excited to read more in the series. It’s an odd choice for me, since it’s a mystery (I don’t usually read mysteries) and one of the main characters is a Episcopalian priest (female, but still, a priest…). I’m not religious. But I do like fiction that features a tension between believers and non-believers (like Contact and The Sparrow). And both the main characters have military backgrounds, which ranks up there with boarding schools as another feature I enjoy in my fiction.
• Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky — This one I read for my mystery fiction class, and despite the fact that I generally liked the main character and liked the fact it was set in Chicago (my home town), I didn’t really like the book. Sure, it is a mystery and has a lot of action and a “who-done-it” plot that makes you want to keep reading to figure out what happened. However, I felt like the book moved unnecessarily slowly. There was a lot of “activity” that didn’t really result in much resolution, or wasn’t really critical to the development of the plot. The author makes a point of describing the main character’s clothes, what she had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, how she slept, her exercise habits, etc., etc. It got really tiresome. So tiresome that I think it distracted from the story and left me thinking, “meh. it was okay.” Maybe I’m just not a mystery fan.

So many good books this month! If you want a sneak peak at the books I finally decided to bring with me on vacation, you can check it out here.

Writing

Big month for blog posts (6)… not much (any?) fiction writing this month, though. Writers write. But I haven’t been writing. I’ve been working. And reading. And, apparently watching a lot of movies this month, as you will soon see…

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

• 12 of 30 days (target was ~20 days)
• 19 miles (target was ~30 miles)

Yes, I remember saying in my last “by the numbers” post that I was determined to get 20 days in the pool this month. So, I only swam 12 days (3 days/wk instead of 5 days/wk). I’ve been struggling to get back on the getting up early in the morning schedule. I am also dreading swimming in the dinky three lane pool at the gym and would much rather swim outside. Unfortunately, swimming outside means waking up even earlier because the lap swim hours are 5:30am to 7:00am on weekdays. That’s early. Still, the weather has been so nice, even at 5:30am, that I can’t bear to swim inside. The last few weekday swims have been at the outdoor pool and they have been marvelous. Totally worth waking up early. If only I could remember that feeling when the alarm goes off….

Movies

I don’t even feel like talking about movies this month. We watched a lot of movies this month. Here’s what we watched with “Twitter-style” (140 character) reviews:

• The Heat — Screening for Twitter employees. Really liked it. Wasn’t expecting to. Funny with strong feminist themes.
• Double Indemnity — Watched for class. Didn’t like it. Don’t get why this is a “classic” that people love. Lame characters. Lame plot. I don’t like insurance.
• If…. — Watched because I read it was one of Neil Gaiman’s favorite movies. British boys boarding school. Didn’t get it. Greg really liked it.
• Cloud Atlas — Pleasantly surprised at how they turned this book into a movie. However, if you didn’t read the book you may not get the movie.
• Robot & Frank — Cute movie.
• Despicable Me — Really cute movie. I ❤ Minions. Looking forward to the sequel.
• Beautiful Creatures — Terrible movie. The book was okay, but this movie was terrible.
• Beasts of the Southern Wild — Cute movie. Artsy. Greg liked it more than me, go figure.

And that was June… A bit of a lull on progress towards most of my goals, but I did start to catch up on my reading… Next month, vacation! And hopefully a little more productivity outside of work…

Birthday Month Recap!

Books

Total read: 11 of 36 (target was ~15)

Only read / finished two books this month, both for my Mystery Fiction class:

• Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore — This book is a geeky book lover’s dream. The author used to work at Twitter. He almost perfectly captures the Bay Area tech scene as it might be viewed by someone who lives here but isn’t working in technology. This is one of those books that I wanted to hug after I finished it. I read it on my Kindle, so I hugged my Kindle instead.
• Bones and Silence — Apparently this book is one in a series. I’m not entirely sure why my professor picked this one, which I think is #11 in the series. It worked well as a stand-alone book, but it took me a while to get into it. It’s English, and the author uses a lot of English police / detective slang that took me a while to figure out.
• The Maltese Falcon — This one is a classic. I think I’ve seen the movie at some point, it was one of my dad’s favorites. But I didn’t remember the story. The story takes place in San Francisco, and that part is really cool. The story was good, and kept me engaged, but I wasn’t really a big fan of any of the characters.

Neither of these are books I would have read if they weren’t on my class syllabus. I’m not sure that mystery fiction is my thing. I used to love mystery stories when I was a kid. But so far, the ones I’ve had to read for class haven’t really grabbed me. I have two or three more books I have to read for this class (sometime between now and October). We’ll see if I change my mind as I read more mysteries and learn more about the genre.

Writing

This hasn’t been a big blogging month, or a big writing month. I meant to do revisions on my “Bridge Beat” story (the one that started off as a class exercise). I’ve decided I need to expand on it. But, I’ve been busy with work and birthday month activities, etc. So, I’ve been putting it off. Time to get back on it.

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

• 15 of 31 days (target was ~20 days)
• 24.21 miles (target was ~30 miles)

Second month in a row that I’ve felt like I’ve been slacking off a bit and not getting in my swimming workouts. I averaged about three workouts a week, which isn’t terrible, but I am going to need to step it up a bit (and possibly add in some strength training) if I am going to be in tip top shape by short course meters season this fall.

For starters, in June I want to swim at least 20 days out of the month. That’s been my goal since January, and I don’t think I’ve hit it once yet. This month I will.

I swam in my first open water race this month! Open water racing is to pool racing as cross country running is to running track. It feels a bit as though I’ve been “set free” in the wild to run an obstacle course using skills I’ve honed in the pool for decades. Sort of like only ever running on a treadmill and then running outside in the woods for the first time. Empowering. I am not a hamster.

Movies

We kept Netflix busy this month, averaging about one DVD per week. Plus, we actually saw a movie in the movie theater this month! In 3D! Shocking, I know. As you will soon see, the majority of the movies we watched this month fit with a theme that could be summed up as “good guys going rogue to beat the bad guys…”

This month’s movies were:

• Silver Linings Playbook — I did not read the book. I saw that the movie got some awards or something, and that it had Hunger Games chick in it, so I rented it and hoped it wasn’t a completely dopey RomCom. At first it seemed like it was going to be a RomCom, but then it redeemed itself and turned out to be an entertaining drama. Greg even enjoyed it, which is saying something.
• Django Unchained — somehow I hadn’t heard about this movie until I saw a trailer for it on another movie we got from Netflix. I really enjoyed it. The slavery parts were really hard for me to watch. I hate that we treated people that way. And the ending was SUPER cheesy. But, it is a Quentin Tarantino flick, so that shouldn’t be a shocker.
• No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (part 2) — last month we watched (or re-watched, depending on who you’re talking to), part one of this documentary. This month we watched the second half, strangely enough, on Bob Dylan’s birthday! Weird. This month has been full of weird coincidences like that. I think Bob Dylan is an artistic genius and this documentary has a ton of great interviews and old footage. For someone who wasn’t even born yet, it helps put a lot of that music and surrounding drama into historical context.
• Gangster Squad — I have no idea why we picked this movie. I think we saw a trailer on another movie we watched and Greg said we should add it to the list. It was not great, but entertaining enough, and better than I thought it was going to be. Watch it if you like good guys going rogue to stop the bad guys.
• Star Trek Into Darkness — You have to see this if you like “Space, the final frontier.” It is a really good movie. And not just because brimming with hotties. I love space. The effects in this movie are so good. We saw it in 3D which made it even better. Just go watch it, and then come home and stream the next movie on my list this month…
• Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (streaming) — I was a little too young to have seen this when it came out, but it is available to stream right now on Netflix, and since we just saw the newest Star Trek movie, which featured Sherlock Khan, I figured we needed to watch this one. It was surprisingly good! And after watching this, the newest Star Trek made so much more sense.
• This is the End — we got to watch a special screening of this movie for Twitter employees and their +1 guests. Don’t expect anything deep from this movie. It’s basically a stoner flick. It’s funny, and gross, and has a star studded cast (Emma Watson! With an ax!). My favorite part (besides Emma Watson, who is basically the only female in the movie, btw) was the ending, but since I can’t spoil it for you, you’ll have to see it for yourselves.

And there goes another birthday month. I’m pretty satisfied with this one. Can’t wait to see what awesomeness my 36th year has in store for me.

Books

Total read: 8 of 36 (target was ~12)

• Sassinak (re-read) — This is one of my favorite books, but it’s been in a box for years along with all my other books. I finally unpacked those boxes a few months ago when we moved into this apartment, and I immediately wanted to re-read this, but didn’t have time. Then I found out they released it on Kindle and that was it. I had to buy it and re-read it. I have to say, I still love this story. Sassinak may be the best heroine ever. She would definitely make a “top five fictional heroine (from a book)” list were I to put one together… (future blog post idea!)
• Beautiful Creatures — basically I read this because I saw the preview for the movie and decided I had to read the book first. I will say it was much better than the Twilight series (which I didn’t like), but not as good as some of the other YA fantasy / sci-fi that I’ve read recently. I’m not sure it’s worth continuing in the series. I am just not that interested in what happens next.

I have also been reading lots of short stories for my writing class, and I purchased quite a few new books for my Kindle this month that have now been added to my rapidly growing “to read” pile. Besides Sassinak, I purchased:

• Island Beneath the Sea
• Unnatural Creatures: Stories selected by Neil Gaiman
• The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2012 Edition

All this focus on short stories in my writing class must be paying off… I think I might finally be learning to enjoy / appreciate short stories… Hard to believe I purchased TWO volumes of short stories this month…

Writing

Only three blog posts, but lots of progress on other writing fronts… You might be interested to know that I took that writing exercise that I posted here and turned it into a short story. I submitted it to my workshop class and got some great feedback. I’m making revisions now and will find a way to publish / post / share with anyone interested once it’s complete. Everyone in my class seems to think it should be a novel, but I’m trying very hard to cram it into a box labeled “short story” because I can’t see a full novel story arch here…

I also completed another “just for fun” exercise for class which I think I will post here today or tomorrow, just for fun…

Swimming

My US Masters Swimming FLOG (Fitness Log) says I swam:

• 13 of 30 days (target was ~20 days)
• 21.14 miles (target was ~30 miles)

I was a bit of a swimming slacker this month. I intended to only take one week off after the Pacific Masters SCY Championships. One week turned into two. Then when I tried to go back, forces conspired against me. So, I swam just over half the number of days I intended to swim this month. However, I seriously kicked up my mileage and am not trying to swim 2800 – 3200 yards (1.7 – 1.9 miles) per session (this takes me about an hour).

I only had one race this month. You can check out my race times on the US Masters Swimming website here. But if you’re lazy and you just want to see my times / events from the Pacific Short Course Yards (SCY) Championship swim meet I participated in this month, see below:

Date	Event	Time	Age Group Place
2013-04-05	50 Breast	38.27	2
2013-04-05	100 Breast	1:20.59	2
2013-04-05	200 Breast	2:51.81	2
2013-04-05	100 IM	1:17.11	2

As of right now, I have the 16th fastest time in my age group (35-39) for the 200 yard breast stroke, and I have the 25th fastest time in my age group for the 100 breast stroke. Not bad for about three months of training. Of course, the Nationals are next weekend and I’ll probably slip a bit in the rankings before they finalize the 2013 SCY season best times at the end of May. Until then, I will enjoy the fact that I achieved two of my three swimming goals for this season (Nationals qualifying times and top twenty times). Next year I’ll get that stretch goal — top ten times here I come!

Besides all my “season best” swims this month, I did achieve one additional swimming milestone… as of today’s practice, I have swum just over 100 miles since January first! Yay me!

Movies

We averaged about one movie and two TV show episodes a week this month… that means we probably watched almost four hours a week of entertainment. Not bad. Still WAY below the national average…

The movies of April:

• Total Recall (the new one) — People told us this wasn’t as good as the original, but I actually liked it better than the orignal. The conclusion I came to was that action / sci-fi movies really benefit from a special effects refresh… and better acting… 
• Argo — How did I miss this one when it came out? This movie was so good. I absolutely loved it. And now that I’m thinking about it, I want to watch it again.
• The Hobbit — I really liked Lord of the Rings, but this… this was SLOW, almost nothing happens, and it made me think of this addendum to the submission guidelines for an online sci-fi / fantasy magazine that I read recently:

Stories that start in an inn are usually out.

Ditto for stories that start with a group of strangers meeting at an inn.

Ditto for stories that start with a group of strangers meeting at an inn and being hired to do a job by a mysterious individual who is clearly a sorcerer (or vampire, or sorcerer/vampire).

Double ditto for stories that start with a group of strangers meeting at an inn and being hired to do a job by a mysterious man who is clearly a sorcerer (or vampire, or sorcerer/vampire) who then turns on the very adventurers he/she/it hired only to be thwarted by the one dwarf in the party.  In fact, toss us a dwarf curveball.  So far we’ve never seen a story with a dwarf character where that character doesn’t kick ass from beginning to end.

• No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (part 1) — Greg says we watched this already, but I don’t remember watching it. So we watched it (again?). I love Bob Dylan. He is so full of shit. And he is such a talented artist. Watching this I was struck by the similarities between being a musician / artist in “the Village” when he was up and coming, and the start-up scene in Silicon Valley today. He was like the Mark Zuckerburg of his age / industry. So many parallels… someone should write about that…

Besides movies, we’ve been enjoying Sunday night Game of Thrones, season 3, episodes on HBOGo (thanks, @MagMarCat!) and we finally finished season three (the final season) of Lie to Me on Netflix. We really liked Lie to Me and are very sad it’s over. At least we have Game of Thrones…

And that was April…

And tomorrow is the first day of the best month of the year… my birthday month!