Graduation, Family, and Curling
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Last week was my wife’s graduation – she now officially has her PhD in the eyes of the entire world, and not just her advisor (now boss) and committee. With all the pomp and circumstance associated with that and several family members in town, it was busy last week. Throw in a 2-day conference I had to attend (and present at) and a big business meeting, I’ve had almost no reading time – which I hate.
Yes, the title really does say curling. This Texan, who’s nearing a decade of residence in Arizona, has joined a curling league. If nothing else, it’s a cool place to spend a few hours now that the temperature is over 100°. In all seriousness, it’s been tons of fun and ‘stacking the brooms’ has become the social event of the week. I’m not yet used to staying out until 2 am (we finish our games around 11:30 pm), but I’m sure my body must remember those college days when I did this all the time. And I can promise you that it's much harder than it looks on TV.
Work is still busy, but things have quitted down enough to give me some reading time again. I’m still reading City of Saints and Madmen and I’m really enjoying it so far. After that, I’ll be rounding out my recommendations for the June Bookclub discussion at Wotmania OF – Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, and The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. In two weeks I’ve got a week's vacation in Hawaii, so I should be getting these read fairly quickly. Beyond those planned reads, I may finish the series I’ll have started by Williams and Robinson and then I’ll be moving on to ‘preparation’ for my next vacation in September. That’ll be a two-week trip to the UK (we plan on covering quite a bit of ground in England, Scotland, and Wales). So I’ll be reading a number of books set in the UK, most will fit into the SF realm, but not all. So, if you have any recs on good books and places, let me know.
Anyway, that’s it for the update. Look for the review of City of Saints and Madmen to be up on Thursday or Friday (like I said, work is still busy).
2 comments:
What is "curling"? I'm guessing it's not anything to do with hair?
Congratulations to your wife, by the way. :) What was her thesis?
Curling is a game/sport that involves pushing stones down ice - there is more to it than that of course. I don't know what Olympic coverage you get in India, but curling got a fair amount of coverage during the last two Winter Olympics. Check out http://www.worldcurlingfederation.org/ for more info - generally people either consider it to be completely silly or fascinating.
My wife's dissertation was generally about the surface (thermophysical) properties of the surface of Mars. It gets way complicated beyond that.
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