CubeMan

I let myself get very behind as far as book reviews go. This isn't because I stopped reading; I just stopped mentioning them as I completed them. However, for my future reference, in approximate order:

2010/34: Farnham's Freehold, by Robert A. Heinlein
2010/35: Tomorrow, the Stars, by Robert A. Heinlein
2010/36: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, by Robert A. Heinlein
2010/37: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein
2010/38: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, by Robert A. Heinlein
2010/39: The Menace from Earth, by Robert A. Heinlein
2010/40: I Will Fear No Evil, by Robert A. Heinlein
2010/41: Friday, by Robert A. Heinlein
2010/42: Job: A Comedy of Justice, by Robert A. Heinlein

That just about finishes off the Heinlein collection. I'll be passing them on now, except for those that broke apart while I read them.

2010/43: A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
2010/44: Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year, by David Ewing Duncan
2010/45: When God Was A Woman, by Merlin Stone
2010/46: Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say, by Douglas Rushkoff

And finally, some items that I read on the Nook:

2010/47: Ancient tales and folklore of Japan, by Richard Gorden Smith
2010/48: Santa Olivia, by Jacqueline Carey
2010/49: Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift
2010/50: And Another Thing..., by Eoin Colfer
2010/51: Machine of Death, a collection of short stories edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki
2010/52: Shards of Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Whew.

I recently finished the Couch-to-5k program. Now I'm running about three miles, three times a week. I'm scheduled to participate in the Corporate Challenge coming up in September. We'll see if I can beat my scores from last time.

Things I have learned while jogging:

1. I have a pair of really cool veins on my temples. They're all squiggly, and they show up nicely after jogging three miles.

2. I find it very difficult to not run faster when listening to Run to the Hills, especially during the chorus.

3. I am one of the fortunate ones whose appetite is not strongly increased by exercise.

So far my biggest problems with the JLPT 3 vocabulary are:

おくる - to send a thing, to dispatch
おくれる - to be late, to be delayed

うつる - to move (house), to transfer (department)
うける - to take (lessons, test), to undergo

For some reason, I'm having a lot of problems internalizing these.

Also, I now know at least four words for "to take":

とる - to take (a photo)
とる - to take (e.g. a sample)
かかる - to take (time, money)
うける - to take (lessons, test)

Argh!
すごくない!

I'm back from my trip to Michigan. I went up Friday morning and got back yesterday evening, for a great 4.5 day trip.

Positives:
Everyone claimed to like the green bean casserole that I made.
First cousin once removed Jane is at the age where you can get her to repeat words just by saying "Can you say ___?" Successful words: hexagon, X-Men, Aquaman. Failures: Ominous. (Too many complicated vowels.)

Negatives:
While cleaning up from making the casserole, I sliced my left thumbnail a bit, and now I'm trying to be very careful that I don't rip the front-half of my nail completely off. :(

Both:
I ate way too much good food.

Lesson learned: Project Euler and Job: A Comedy of Justice mix poorly when you're dreaming. I kept dreaming that my codebase kept shifting from one old language to another while I was trying to make changes to it.

I've been jogging again, and have just finished week four of the The Couch-to-5K Running Plan.

As a warning to anyone following this plan: the increase in difficulty from weeks one to two to three are not bad. The increase between weeks three and four is very tough in comparison.

The plan starts you with some jogging and a lot of walking until you're eventually doing a lot of jogging and no walking. Each week rearranges how much of each you're doing, and in what combinations.

To help visualize the changes, I plotted the amount of time walking versus jogging:



In week four, you start jogging for considerably more time than you are walking. I'd recommend placing a week between three and four with about 12 minutes of jogging and 8 minutes of walking: "Alternate 3 minutes of jogging and 2 minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes."

Aha! Funny thing, it turns out that I had a 21" monitor sitting upstairs, and my laptop supports splitting the desktop across the built in and an external. Close enough!

I've got new monitors at work: two 24" LCDs.
I've got a strong desire to get the same at home now.

If you liked Portal, I recommend the flash game Exit Path. It has a very similar feel to it.