Last Man Standing is the first book by David Baldacci that I’ve picked up. Good thriller, good action, interesting plot. The main character suffered from a deplorable lack of curiousity at a couple points, necessary to keep the plot intact, but otherwise was a good airplane read.

A banner year for me. Lipitor, and now bifocals

You leave the country for 5 weeks and everything is turned upside down when you return.

We have a new nickel. A new coke. And our trash collection day has been moved to Wednesday.

It’s like coming back to a freakin’ foreign country.

OK here are some of the highlights from the remainder of our trip:

* Isola bella on lake maggiore. Previously blogged. Beautiful and the lake seems way cleaner than lake como. If we went back to this part of the world I think we’d stay on lake maggiore instead of como. * Florence. My initial impression was ?gosh this is a butt ugly city”. But it grew on us – the beauty is clearly not in the streets but in the art, culture, interiors of buildings, etc. And it is a very manageable size. * The Uffizi was much more to my liking than the Louvre – a manageable size, and I just prefer the style of painting. And of course David was just amazing. I just didn’t understand the scale at which these artists operated – when you see the size of the works and the level of detail, it is just amazing. I know, my fine arts education is woefully lacking, I am discovering all this somewhat late in life. * Venice was of course beautiful, we didn’t have enough time there. We had one really great meal there at Osteria Oliva Nera, a family run place. * Milan. Everyone told us ?ugly, no point in visiting?. But in many ways I liked even better than Florence and Venice. Florence and venice are ?cities in amber? – frozen in time, operated for the benefit of tourists. Milan is a living breathing city, I like a living vibrant city. * Ferrari museum out in modena. Man this place is like a shrine. A huge number of “pilgrims” visiting, getting their picture taken with the Enzo on display. What a car.

I’ve been out of the country for 6 weeks and am just back to build a new PC. I am disappointed I can’t yet get all the goodies I’ve been lusting for – PCI Express, BTX motherboards, the new NVidia and ATI graphics cards – it all seems to be vaporware. Fry’s had to send back all the PCI Express motherboards they got from ASUS, i guess they were disasters. The graphics cards are nowhere to be seen. Bummer.

seattlepi.com Microsoft Blog: Silverberg on open source

Phil Windley’s Enterprise Computing Weblog – I have to try squeak sometime.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Venture capitalists muse on new blog – way to go martin.

OK these are the books I hit in the second half of the vacation. Some very memorable reads in here.

* “The Good Soldier”:amazon. What a f#cked up set of people. Very interesting view into historical class dynamics. And you have to addmire the writing craft – faulkner but lighter. But I can’t say I really loved it, tho the first line is a great draw. * “362 Belisle Street”:amazon. Really crappy beach ghost story. Dumb, No theme. Go read stephen king instead. * “The Dante Club”:amazon. Good historical mystery. The Nicholas Rey character was quite compelling – first black policeman in boston, immediately after civil war, a political appointee, dealing with racism while solving the crime. I’d like to read more about him. * “My Friend Maigret”:amazon. Good atmospheric mystery, a midpoint book in a long series involving this detective. I’d read more in the series. * “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”:amazon. Completely unexpected story, I understand why this has gotten such good reviews. I didn’t expect to like this, I thought it was just a trendy choice, but really a great story. * “The Great Gatsby”:amazon. Another set of completely f#cked up people, for most of the book I thought it much weaker than the good soldier. But the last chapter, reflecting on the events of the book, was very insightful and memorable. * “The Handmaid’s Tale”:amazon. Wow, just creepy. Saw the movie years ago and was creeped by it, the book is much more impactful.

I’ve gotten several emails about I-884, a ballot initiative to add some funding for the public schools. I’ll look at on my return, seems like a good thing.

From my buddy Sam Hobson – a pumpkin case mod. You could make a permanent version out of a Funkin. Cool!

We visited the gardens and estate on Isola Bella today. Stunning! I was not very impressed with the Lakes District at the start of the day but I was so won over. The estate and gardens here were stunning, more memorable for us than Versailles – because they are on a more huiman scale, and show the care of the designers and staff better. Every room in the estate seemed to make sense – we could see living in this structure. Whereas in Versailles it felt like the architect/builders used up all their energy just making it big, and they had nothing left for the interior, so they just filled up the building with innumerable square rooms. Anyway this isn’t about Versailles, this is about Isola Bella – worth a visit! And we like Lake Maggiore much better than Lake Como – the water is cleaner, the taxi boats are nicer, Stresa is a nice hopping off point.

As always, lots of reading on vacation.

* Brazzaville Beach. Great great characters, a great story. Good reco from my buddy Tim Velegol. This will stay on my bookshelf. * Gideon. A good page turner, a good way to burn plane/train time. But two weeks later I can’t remember much about it. * Moon of Ice. Stupid. This is just a political essay, emitted as conversation by crappy characters in a stupid plot. Like the worst of Heinlein’s writing. Not sure why it has a decent rep. * The Dark Frigate. A great yarn. Won the Newbury Award back when it meant something – nowadays it seems like they give out awards every year, typically to a book published recently, whether there is a deserving book or not. Seems like they ought to wait 20 years or so before they award a book. Anyway tho, this is a good yarn. * Conquistador. A decent alternate history yarn with some fun, but way too much blathering about how different the ecology of North America might have been if Europeans hadn’t invaded in the 1500/1600s, and not enough insight into the implications. * Manifold: Space. I’ve seen this before. Average guy stumbles onto discovery that involves the very nature of the world/galaxy/universe, and gets drawn into saving the universe from destruction. Nothing distinctive about character or plot. Yawn. * Chindi. Kind of like Rendezvous with Rama – characters stumble onto massive functioning alien artifacts with incomprehensible purposes. A little more action than Rama. OK. * In a Dry Season. Good mystery. Something like 10th in a series from this author. Interesting main character, good plotting. I’d like to read more in the series but this one was fine standing alone.

Oh another vaca highlight – the complete works of william shakespeare (abridged). Hilarious. Worth seeing, I’d love to see their other productions as well.

I’m out on an extended vaca right now. Having a great time. Some of the personal highlights:

* The WW1 trench exhibit in the Imperial War Museum in London was very cool. Felt like I was at Disneyland, it was a nice simulation. * Loved everything about Paris. We stayed in the Saint Germain area and this was great for us, easy walking to lots of shopping and restaurants. Oh and Monet’s house and garden in Giverney was a great trip. Oh and also loved the catacombs, and the night time boat trip on the Seine. * Le Mas Entremont is a great hotel outside of Aix, and Aix is a great base from which to hit a lot. Avignon, Chateau D’If, roman ruins, etc. * Went rafting from castellane – beautiful town. * St Paul de Vence outside of Cannes is a great preserved hilltown, beautiful.

More later…internet connectivity is tough.