Once again, I’m not posting for any particular reason. I also haven’t taken the time to prepare more pictures for your viewing pleasure. I’ll give you some options, though.
(1) Fremont Oktoberfest
(2) Jenga (we bought and played Jenga — it was fun!)
(3) GirlAndi and her daughter LaRyantrelle (I only have one picture)
(4) Pictures from Dad and Peggy visiting (this was a while ago, but we’ve been busy, you know?)
I’ve also been thinking about posting about things I think instead of things we did or saw. This would be a big change for me, sharing my thoughts and opinions openly is a pretty foreign idea. Anything you want to hear about? Politics? Religion? American culture? Education? Or I could just make stuff up, which I’ve kinda wanted to do for a while. Or I could think back and write about some of the things I remember about my past, which are sadly spotty unless something triggers a memory.
I’ve read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies since the last time I wrote anything to put under the “Reviews” section. I don’t even have the interest to go back and list each of them, so I’ll just start picking it up again as I watch or read more stuff. I read a short story, The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth by Roger Zelazny, which I enjoyed. This is at the recommendation of a 65 year old PhD I work with — it turns out we have a lot of books in common. There’s several other good short stories in there, and a couple duds. But they’re short, so you don’t lose much. I’m currently reading another book at his recommendation (Downward to the Earth) which I’m enjoying more than I thought I would.
I also started reading Shibumi at Wilmbo’s recommendation, which wavers between ridiculous fantasy and creepy believability (more time on the ridiculous fantasy), but it’s a good read so far.
Last night, Mr. & Mrs. Pope and we went to listen to Neil Gaiman read from his new kids’ book, The Graveyard Book, about a kid who is raised by the dead after his parents are assassinated. The reading was fun, it was neat to see him, and it was good to eat Thai and play Scrabble with the Popes.
KrisDi and I have begun our pre-Cana classes, which have been good so far. KrisDi’s doing a good job of vilifying me, so I’m proud of her for that.
Now we’re watching baseball and sitting around, which is good. I like sitting around. I haven’t gotten to do much of that for a while. White Sox are in the post season (although they’re only a loss away from not being in the post season anymore — we’ll find out tomorrow). I’m running out of beer, but I’ll get more soon. Lagunitas‘ Imperial Red Ale is supposed to be out again now — I love that one.
I was looking up stats on North Dakota population today because I’m a nerd. Wikipedia’s “Population Density” stat of 9.3 people/square mile for the state is wrong — 639,715 people over 70,762 square miles = 9.040374777 people/square mile. Fargo’s “metropolitan” area contains 174,367 people, 27.26% of the state’s population. I figured out that without Fargo (not metro, just Fargo the city), the state’s population density drops to 7.76 people/square mile (yes, I was dorky enough to remove not only the people, but the area of Fargo). 14.16% of North Dakota’s population reportedly lives within Fargo proper, which is 0.05% of the state’s area.