Friday Fragments (Lonely Edition)

My wife is judging a music event tonight, our two daughters are spending the night at a friend's house so I am home alone with only one child. I am spending the time on the internet.What else ya gonna do?
 
I was thinking tonight about why there aren't more dinosaur themed sport mascots.  I know there are the Raptors in Toronto but they don't help matters because they have sucked for 90% of their existence. I think it comes down to the dinosaur names - they don't translate real well for team names; triceratops, pterosaurs or stegoceas....(maybe Talons would work okay)....

Stegoceas is my ALL TIME FAVORITE dinosaur. Yes, because I had to do a report on them in school in 11th grade. The report included my amazing free-hand picture of a stegoceas.

Places I would like to visit before I die: Peru (ha ha), India & Nepal, The Holy Land, Athens, Egypt (the Pyramids), Most places in Africa besides the whole Gobi desert section,  Most of Europe, Most of South America, New Zealand, Japan, Easter Island, and back to China again...basically, everywhere as much as I would like (well, when in wish-land, why not?) 

Tonight, after dropping the girls off, the baby boy and I decided to grab a six-pack of beer at the grocery store. That's it, just a little beer run on a Friday night.  I was headed back to the check-out when I saw my parents going into the 10 items or less line (the very line I was headed for). They live like 5 minutes away, so we run into them at the grocery store a few times a year. I turned back around to hide. My parents never drank when I was growing up and basically made me so paranoid of drinking, I only had a few sips of alcohol until my 21st birthday. While I am certain they have seen the beer and wine in our fridge, I just couldn't deal with the fact that I came to the store JUST FOR THE BEER.  I know I am an adult and all that jazz but I was in no mood for feelin' the JUDGEMENT from my Mom's eyes.

My reading has been way off this year due to real life interfering. Here's where it's at, most of the stuff I never even finished, please don't make me feel bad about that, I have three kids, ya know. 

Ha Jin - Under the Red Flag (short stories from the Cultural Revolution) - all but two stories. Excellent but sad stuff.

Klaus Klostermaier - Hinduism - Beginning Guide - read as a warm up to my church class, not much I didn't already know. Good refresher though...most of the stuff I had read was from practicing Hindus, so a Western perspective was interesting.

Fawn Brodie - No Man Knows My History (Joseph Smith Biography) - Mind blowingly good. Highly recommended if you're interested in Mormonism or American history for that matter. 

Lonely Planet - Peru (sections only) - almost finished a general "introductory" Peru book from the school library too.

How to Break a Terrorist (only the first 40 pages - I will have to come back to this at some point, because it was excellent that far in)

Re-read Evans' Philosophy of Religion - excellent Christian perspective but really that's all it is - an upfront perspective that's open minded.  Good stuff.

Sections of Bloomberg's Jesus and the Gospels (sections) - Bloomberg is a little too much of an apologist but he is fair-minded. Nice review of stuff I have learned in the past but good to reference again.  

Mallory's Experiencing World Religions (about 6-7 chapters of a college introductory textbook) - again, nice to review this stuff, so much I had forgotten about.

Lots and lots of old Marvel comics, especially lately as I like light reading before bed instead of the heavy stuff I read all day. 

Klosterman' Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs - disappointing. kinda sucked.

Currently: Gandhi: An Autobiography (eh) and Dirty Wars (Scahill) - good stuff

Lots of research online for Peru, my world religions class at church in the summer and now for my Eastern Cultures class at school this fall. That keep me a busy boy.

Pretty sure I am forgetting a book in there. Oh vell.

Here's an awesome little ditty to make you feel good about life.





That's all for now, stay safe, buckle your safety belts and don't forget to call your mom on her birthday!