I had to make a box delivery today. Since I was in downtown Portland, it seemed natural to stop by Powell's Technical Store. I continue to learn about SQL and databases for my software project and wanted more books for reference. While in the store, I made a fabulous discovery.
I am an inveterate collector of things. One of the things that I collect is notebooks. Not in an "I want to have one of each shape, size, and color" fashion, and not in an "I must have rare and valuable notebooks" fashion (are there rare and valuable notebooks), but in an "I want to find the most useful full-featured notebook possible" fashion.
This probably sounds ludicrous. I don't care.
For years, as Kris and I have traveled, we've stayed alert for useful and unusual notebooks. We found a great one at the University of Victoria. The bookstore for the University of Washington had other neat finds. Up to this point, though, the best notebook I had found was the standard-issue (for Willamette Universty, anyhow) hard-bound blue lab book. These books are durable and light-weight with good quality paper. The pages are numbered, too, which is a nice bonus.
Today, at Powell's, I found a better notebook: the Moleskine. The Moleskine is a small notebook, 9cm x 14cm, covered with a leather-like binding. The cover is firm but flexible, and there is an elastic band which wraps around the book to hold the covers closed. The ninety narrow-ruled pages include a bookmark to note your current place. There is also a small pouch pasted inside the back cover in which one might put mementos or leaves or similar items. The binding is stitched. This little notebook exudes quality. Though expensive ($10/each), the Moleskine is bound to be a staple in this house for years to come.
This month's book group selection is Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks. Nonfiction is a hit-or-miss proposition with me; I either love it or I hate it. I was skeptical of this book initially. I don't need to read another book about the oppression of women.
The book's poor first sentence didn't help: "As the bus full of women inched and squealed its slow way through Tehran traffic..." -- "inched" and "slow" are redundant, aren't they? and "squealed"? how does a vehicle that is inching through traffic squeal?
Fortunately, the book has only improved since those first few words. Parts of it are brilliant. This is not a book about the oppression of women, though that is certainly one of its key themes. This is a book about the diversity of the Middle East, the variety of culture and opinion, the myriad perceptions of life. Brooks' writing excels when she is relating the details of daily life: her early-morning trips to buy fresh bread in Tehran, the excitement of a wedding in Baghdad, watching while Jordan's King Hussein plays a Nintendo Gameboy for stress-relief. She makes no accusations. She puts forth no political agenda. She simply relates the experience of women in Islamic cultures and, through these experiences, explores the gamut of Islam.
I'm only two-thirds through the book. There's plenty of space for Brooks to stumble, but I don't think she will. I intend to read this book again.
Pam traveled to Boston over the weekend. She qualified for the Boston Marathon for the first time (through her time on the Portland Marathon?) and didn't let the chance to race pass her by. She's a competitor.
Actually, she seemed to play the race down both before and after running it. I think that some of us here at home were more excited for her than she was for herself. Running the Boston Marathon is a big deal. We're proud of her.
She posted an admirable result, too, finishing 267th out of 5119 women. Awesome!
I'm refurbishing my laptop. Sort of.
The laptop triple-boots Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Redhat Linux 6.2. I'd like to remove the Windows 98 partition, expand the other two partitions, and then dual-boot the other two operating systems, but I learned long ago that one should not mess with a stable system. Since my Windows 2000 and Linux partitions are dreamy, I'm letting them stand. I've actually considered just wiping the Windows 98 partition completely and reformatting the partition for storage, but have opted to keep it around as a backup.
Since acquiring the wireless network card, I'm using the laptop more. I'd use it even more, too, if all of my current work was on it. To that end, I'm stripping it of two years worth of accumulated flotch, transferring my current projects, and installing all of the tools I currently use. I hope to have it ready to roll by this weekend.
Two years ago I burned a CD of my most frequently used tools. This was handy, as you can imagine. Two years is a long time, though, and my tools have changed. I need to gather all of my new tools together and burn a similar CD.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2005 — The Education of Henry Adams For book group this month, I selected The Education of Henry Adams. It was a difficult book.
2004 — Geek Squad Though I was fairly well integrated with my classmates in grade school, by the time I reached junior high I had gravitated toward a clique of geeks.
2003 — NEW! Cookie Barz NEW! Cookie Barz are not cookies. They are not candy bars. They're waxy turds doomed to fade from the market as soon as the Nabisco marketing campaign has run its course.
2001 — Budget Committee A really very fine rant about the city of Canby budget committee and the ludicrous budgeting process.