Whistling Past the Graveyard and Amazing Grace……

Separated by 30 years but has that much changed…..

Yesterday, i finished Whistling Past the Graveyard, the 48th book that I have read this year! Three more to go to reach my goal of 51! I finished the 47th book Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation by Jonathan Kozol a few days prior and as I thought about the books, I began to see similarities between the books. The big dissimilarity is that Whistling Past the Graveyard is a novel and Amazing Grace is nonfiction. The other is that Whistling Past the Graveyard is set in 1963 Mississippi and the children whose lives Jonathan Kozol writes about live in New York City in some of the poorest neighborhoods in our nation. But they both deal with the lives of black Americans. One happens at the time that black Americans were gaining their civil rights and dealing with overcoming deep-seated prejudices and a part of our nation that was being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century. While the other  views the lives of children in 1993 NYC who may now have those rights but are still fighting for equal treatment in a highly segregated  New York. Read More

Reading Challenges – November 2015 Update!

Reading Challenges a November and 2015 Update!

As the end of November approaches, it’s time again to recap the books that I read this month and my reading plan for December.  Even though November has been a busy month, I have still managed to finish three books. First Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore, followed by Patrick Lee’s second book in the Sam Dryden series Signal and most recently Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace:The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation. I finished Amazing Grace this evening, so I will try to write about it tomorrow. Read More

Groovin’ at the Crosse Roads on a Four Mile Run…..

The Run – Creek Out and Back – Modified – 4.03 miles

So today I ran for the first time in almost two weeks!! Two reasons, one a nagging cold that has been mostly nasal congestion and the other a very busy two weeks! Anyway, I worked today an easy Black Friday at Target. Nobody is buying food on Black Friday!! This afternoon I came home had leftovers from yesterday’s dinner and then took a nap! When I woke up I didn’t really feel like running, but the temperature was in the 60s and there was still about an hour of daylight so I decided to go for it! I thought about running a course with a hill but then I thought better about it and figured I needed a positive run, not a struggling run so I decided on the old Creek Out and Back! Read More

D.B.Cooper Jumps into History Nov 24,1971

November 24, 1971 – D.B.Cooper Jumps – Todd Snider puts it to Song!

In November of 1971, I was 20 years old and entering my sophomore year at the University of Florida. On the 24th of that month……

A hijacker calling himself D.B.Cooper parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 into a raging thunderstorm over Washington State. He had $200,000 in ransom money in his possession. Read More

Buy My Soul Back – Kevin Selfe

Great Soundtrack to a New Workout Type…..

Kevin Selfe – Buy My Soul Back  *****

The Workout….

So Sunday after sitting through that miserable Eagles loss to the Tampa Bay Bucs, I just couldn’t make myself lace up my new running shoes and go for a run! What I did instead was pull out the stationary bike and did a 30 minute interval workout. I really didn’t know how to lay out the workout – so I ended up alternating 1 minute of fast riding followed by 1 or 2 minutes of relatively slow riding. The result that I was able to get and keep my heart rate up to the 130s during the high intensity riding and then having it drop back down in the recovery portion. Read More

Updating a Busy Week, few posts….

but lots going on….

So this week has been a busy week, but one of the things that has been missing is running! My last run was on last Sunday!! Since then, I’ve missed one run due to the weather, two because I was pleasantly babysitting my grandson Oliver and the other days I didn’t have running shoes.My old ones got tossed and I haven’t made it to Sports Authority to buy new ones yet. Oh and then there was the day that one of our two nineteen year-old cats was hit by a car and we sadly had to put him to sleep. Anyway the bottom line is that I haven’t been running but I’ve been busy!. Hopefully, I will be able to run tomorrow!! Read More

Signal – Patrick Lee’s Latest!

Patrick Lee Author of Signal

Signal – Patrick Lee (Sam Dryden # 2) ****

Patrick Lee has a penchant for writing thrillers with a bit of science fiction weaved into the storyline. His last two books Runner and  his current release Signal, both feature Sam Dryden and ex-special forces operative battling forces against advanced technologies. My first encounters with the works of Patrick Lee was the Travis Chase trilogy which included The Breach, Ghost Country and Deep Sky. In that series The Breach sends artifacts and people back and forth through a time portal. In Signal, Dryden confronts a machine that receives signals from the future! Read More

Citizen by Billy Sherwood and the Miles Zip!!

The Run – November 12, 2015 – Creek Out and Back

Being the fair-weather runner that I am, I was a little concerned on Thursday, when I could see that it was raining in the morning. I thought that maybe my run would be washed out like it was on Tuesday.But the front moved through and by the time I was ready to run at around 4 o’clock it was cloudy but not raining. I decided that I would run my Creek Out and Back since it was getting close to dark and that course crosses only one main street and it is an easy run, which fit well with a day that started a 7 am at Target!! Read More

Secondhand Souls from the Mind of Christopher Moore!!

Secondhand Souls – Christopher Moore – Grim Reaper #2 – Book 45 of 2015

Christopher Moore may be very near the top of my list of authors that make me laugh out loud when I read their books!! His latest book Secondhand Souls certainly did that in many places! Secondhand Souls is the second book in the Grim Reaper series, that feature Charlie Asher and his daughter Sophie and a crazy cast of characters. From Goodreads.com….. Read More