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I just finished Tinkers by Paul Harding. A story about a dying man and his memories of growing up, it won a Pulitzer Prize. The book got off to a slow start, and started to intermingle the present day and flashbacks, and I wasn't following it too closely. The man was a clock repairman by trade, and there were some interesting comments about his profession, but the skipping around, which I believe was supposed to be a reflection of his mind's erratic focus, was hard to follow. Occasionally, some of the characters hallucinate, which is always a difficult literary maneuver. In one hallucination, a character sees an Indian next to a pond, and a fish jumps into his mouth. It is hard to make the transition from the occasional straight-line storytelling to a hallucination/daydream/flashback to the eventual return to reality.
I wasn't sure how much farther I was going to go with it when the story shifted to a long reminiscence about his childhood, and for about one hundred pages I had a hard time putting it down, as they say. The father of the aforementioned dying man, a traveling salesman of brushes and soap, had difficulty being a great father, and had epilepsy before they knew what that was. The man and his wife managed to keep the seizures a secret from their children, until one day at dinner the father had a seizure in front of the family. The portion of the book that narrated the father's story was very well-done, and I really felt what was happening in the book - the reaction of the family members, the fear and panic of those who had not yet witnessed a seizure, and the believable calm of the wife.
After the story of the father winds down, the book returned to the present day, and almost immediately, the flow of the book (and my understanding of which time period was being covered) became choppy again.
I give it four out of five stars, with a solid five stars for the middle 100 pages.
I've read several non-fiction books lately, mostly having to do with computer languages like JavaScript and Python. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that information, but JavaScript has been on the minds of quite a few people at my work lately as a language that some of us may be getting more familiar with in the weeks and months to come.
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K is reading Middleworld, about a boy whose archeologist parents go to Central America. He is invited to join them there, but finds they've disappeared.
M is reading The Twenty-One Balloons, a Newberry Medal-winning book he read last year and wanted to read again. I think I might like to read this one.
J is finishing up the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, a series we've all read and enjoyed. The writing is a mix of comics and words, and is the diary (although he doesn't like to call it that) of a boy who is struggling with his identity in a world of wierd friends, bullying brothers, and icky (but somehow fascinating) girls. And, of course, his experiences with The Cheese Touch. I'm not sure what other books she's read lately, but she always has one in progress.
Everyone here except me has read The Hunger Games, and after hearing what it's about, I'm not sure I can stomach it. We'll see.
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We finally bought a new camera to replace our aging Canon A510. We bought a Panasonic Lumix, partly because it was recommended by my dad, and partly because we were having a hard time finding a different, smaller camera with similar features. We're happy with our choice, and we've already taken quite a few pictures.
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Thanksgiving is near! We're going to see almost all of our family, most of whom are conveniently located in the state of Michigan. We're looking forward to the fun and food, and the opportunity to see some relatives we usually only see this time of year.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Plane Rehab, Plus A Few Links
Planes (the woodworking kind, not the other kind)
Dad found a few planes at a thrift store and handed them off to me to see if I could do something with them (thanks, Dad!) I started with the most promising one, a Millers Falls model 14B, which is very similar to the more common Stanley #5 smoothing plane.
I took it apart, cleaned up the rust, polished the metal parts, stripped the red stain off the handles, and restained and them. After a few coats of clear finish, the handles (also known as the tote and the knob) were back on, and it was almost ready to go. A little honing on what was already a pretty sharp blade, and I was in business.
There are two more planes in the set, and I am not sure if one of them can be saved - it has a lot of rust on the sole. But I'll give it a try and see what I can do.
"Family" Fun Night
M and I went to his school's Family Fun Night last night from 6:00 - 8:00. It is so named because family members of students are invited. Whether the middle-schooler has any desire to actually spend time with his or her family at the Family Fun Night is an entirely different matter. When we got there, we bought a slice of pizza for dinner, and I asked M what the plan was. His answer: "I'll meet you at the front door at 7:55." OK, then. I wandered around, talked to some other parents, introduced myself to some volunteer moms and dads that I didn't know, talked to one of M's teachers, and played basketball with a few sixth-graders I know from Lawton. I'm not sure if I avoided embarrassing M by being there, you'll have to ask him.
Soccer season for K has ended. He had a good year, and scored a goal in a game a few weeks ago. His team played very well again this year, winning all but one game, and most of the wins were of the lopsided ilk.
Links
The only reason I wouldn't buy an Electric DeLorean is, well, actually, I guess if I had the money, I'd buy one. They're cool!
David Malki, creator of Wondermark, provides a brief but important flowchart for internet users.
Jim Gaffigan asks his friends who are so eager to spend their days off work camping and hiking: "If it's so great outside, why are all the bugs trying to get into my house?"
Providing tools and materials to people who need them, and teaching them how to use them, is better than standing around wondering why they're not being productive.
I read this book, Banker to the Poor, by Muhammad Yunus, several years ago. It's about microloans in developing countries, and its concepts can apply in countries like the US as well. The idea that loaning even ten or twenty dollars to someone in a developing country can help pull them out of poverty doesn't make much sense to us, but it's real, and it works.
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Halloween
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M did the two end pumpkins, K did the castle, and I did the bubbling cauldron. The cauldron glowed with the light inside it, but it never quite looked like I hoped it would.
K is a hobo, and M nerds it up big time with his headgear and brainiac hairdo.
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