Latest Books, Frustrations, and Awesome Weather

Well it's been a few since I've written. Since we last checked in, I have completely given up on reading Midnight in Sicily. Life is too short to read books that suck. I have finished The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, which was excellent. The author, Richard Zimler, seems to have a few other books out, so I will definitely be checking those out. Also, in celebration of the Tigers ability to finally string together a few wins, I have decided to read A History Of Early Baseball, which is a short, easy ride about baseball's rise in the middle of the 19th century. So far so good. Reading about baseball is not as fun as watching, and watching isn't as fun as playing, but it's better than slogging through Midnight in Sicily! I also finished The Wisdom of Crowds, which was an interesting read, but probably could have been about 100 pages long. So many of those types of books seem to be centered around a crystallized but very simple premise, then proceed to spend 200-300 pages to 'prove the hypothesis' using (hopefully) entertaining and enlightening real-world stories. Wisdom of Crowds was well written, and was a good follow up to Made To Stick.

I recently ordered 7 more books from Amazon. It's not my fault - their recommendation system works so well that I just HAVE to do these things. As Jena says, if my worse vice is to buy too many books, we can work with it. I am especially excited about one of the books - A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted. As someone who tends to be put off by what I see as the increasing incompetence and apathy in our world, I would love to see how to transcend that and focus on what I can control. Hopefully it won't be a bunch of self-help mumbo-jumbo. I'll let you know what I figure out.

In other news, I am frustrated by web applications. I think that there are too many frameworks, not enough examples, and that JavaScript is terrible. That said, I am definitely learning a hell of a lot right now - being at a small company like Sportsvite definitely allows you to be a jack-of-all-trades, and we really are doing a lot of interesting stuff right now that I think will really improve the site. That's the end of my little techno-driven rant.

The weather outside is beautiful. And I am sitting here programming and blogging. Anyone know of a world where I can sit outside every day and make money programming? Sign me up. Headed to Indiana this weekend for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. It'll be great to see the family! Hopefully I'll have some great pictures.