Leaving on a Jet Plane

Here I am in Utah. The skiing has been pretty bad because we haven't had snow in a while, but it's supposed to snow this afternoon, tonight, and tomorrow, so tomorrow should be a good day. Because the conditions suck so much right now, we're planning on going snowmobiling today. Can't wait.

I finished J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy on the flight here on Sunday. I don't recommend it. She puts together a very interesting and well-written cast of characters, pretty much all of whom are people you wouldn't want to meet, and the first few dozen pages promise a story full of all the twists and turns you'd expect from Rowling's storytelling. Trouble is, the story really never goes anywhere. Even as she seemed to be bringing the plot to a climax, some things just didn't seem realistic. Not as in "Oh, magic, not realistic", because there is no magic in the book, but more like, "Oh, I always thought that character was stupid, but there's no way s/he is that stupid" unrealistic. The climax is essentially based on impossibly poor decision making by dumb people that should have, at the bare minimum, the sense not to do the things that they do. All this, and then the ending. The last couple pages. The part that's supposed to make you go, "So that's why I read this book." It sucked. It just wasn't satisfying enough, or frustrating enough. Either one I would have been fine with. Either the main characters learn from what happens to them and develop as people, or they fail as a result of their own mistakes. Which sort of happens. All right, that's as long as I need to spend talking about this book.

I've been busy not being busy, so I haven't really gotten the chance to read all your posts this week. It'll happen.

Oh, I wrote my first article at the Ducks blog. I don't recommend that any of you read it, because it will most certainly bore you. Just letting you know that it happened. Also, the Ducks are 7-1-1, good for FIRST in the Pacific, SECOND in the West, and THIRD in the entire league. And the Kings? We XC folks have a term for where they are. We call it DFL. As in, "My heat is really fast, I hope I don't DFL!" or "Poor guy. He's DFLed twice in a row now." Dead Fucking Last.

Speaking of running, I ran a race on Saturday at Dartmouth. A 3k, to be precise. I PRed. And I did not DFL. 9:17. That was kinda nice, though not super nice, because I think I'm faster than that.

I know this is a short post, but it's cutting into my vacation time, so I'm okay with that. Bye.