Books in 2016

Almost a year late, here's my list for 2016. I was surprised to see it shorter like this. I didn't keep the list throughout the year, so it's possible that I've missed something, but I likely just didn't read as much last year.

1. Crimson Shore - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
2. Shadow of the Hegemon - Orson Scott Card
3. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
4. Shadow Puppets - Orson Scott Card
5. Deathwatch - Robb White
6. Shadow of the Giant - Orson Scott Card
7. Beyond the Ice Limit - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
8. The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King

These books were all enjoyable, but if I had to recommend one, it would be Ready Player One. It was an extremely fun and exciting book to read, and it was fun following all the pop culture references and seeing how the puzzles unfolded. I'm not sure how I feel about the movie from the trailers I've seen, but I hope it's good.

Books in 2015

It's a couple year's late, but here's my list of books that I read in 2015.

1. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth - Chris Hadfield
2. Sphere - Michael Crichton
3. Saint Odd - Dean Koontz
4. The Lost Island - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
5. Blue Labyrinth - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
6. Twilight Eyes - Dean Koontz
7. The Gunslinger - Stephen King
8. House of Odd - Dean Koontz and Landry Walker
9. The Dancing Wu Li Masters - Gary Zukav
10. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
11. The Martian - Andy Weir
12. The Fallen Curtain - Ruth Rendell

I'd have to say that my top three books this year, if my memory serves me right, were An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth, The Dancing Wu Like Masters, and The Martian.

An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth was fascinating and full of great life lessons. And I'm a big fan of Chris Hadfield.

The Dancing Wu Like Masters was fascinating. It was a really slow read for me and parts of it could be tough to get through, but it was a really interesting mix of physics and philosophy. It really made me think a lot and there was more than one occasion where I felt like his explanations of quantum mechanics resonated well with LDS doctrine, or at least my understanding of it.

The Martian was simply a really fun, intense and engaging read.

Books in 2014

Well, here we are in March 2015 and I'm just now getting around to posting my annual book list.  Obviously I don't keep up with my blog at all anymore, but I still felt funny erasing my list from my white board without posting it on here.  So, here you go.  These are the books that I read last year.

1. Xenocide - Orson Scott Card
2. White Fire - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
3. A Dance With Dragons - George R.R. Martin
4. Deeply Odd - Dean Koontz
5. The Giver - Lois Lowry
6. World War Z - Max Brooks
7. In Odd We Trust - Dean Koontz
8. Odd is on Our Side - Dean Koontz
9. It - Stephen King
10. The Darkest Evening of the Year - Dean Koontz

The list is a little shorter than previous years.  A Dance with Dragons and It both took me ridiculous amounts of time to finish reading.  I'd have to say that I enjoyed everything I read last year.  I also listened to a few audiobooks while driving between Utah and Alberta, so here's a list of those as well.

1. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
2. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
3. I'm a Stranger Here Myself - Bill Bryson
4. Children of the Mind - Orson Scott Card

And, just to give you a little preview of next year, I just finished reading An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield.  I highly recommend it to everybody.  It's full of great lessons on not only how to be successful in various aspects of life, but how to recognize and appreciate the successes that you do experience.  If you haven't read it, go find a copy right now and start. Go!

Books in 2013

Once again, it has been nearly a year since I last posted anything on here.  But, the least I can do is put up my annual list of books that I read the previous year.  So, here they are, the books that I read in 2013.

1. The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown
2. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
3. Ender's Shadow - Orson Scott Card
4. The Toaster Project - Thomas Thwaites
5. Odd Interlude - Dean Koontz
6. Two Graves - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
7. Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus - Dave Barry
8. Clapton - Eric Clapton
9. What the Night Knows - Dean Koontz
10. Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
11. Odd Apocalypse - Dean Koontz
12. Falling Backwards - Jann Arden
13. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

There you have it  Apparently I didn't read quite as much last year as in previous years.  Hopefully I can remedy that this year.

Also, for anybody who has read any of the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz, someone has apparently made a movie of the first book.  Anton Yelchin (Chekov from the new Star Trek movies) plays Odd.  The trailer is below.  It looks like it could be a fun movie, but nowhere near as good as the book.  It just doesn't look or feel right to me.  But, it could be fun.

"The World Needs You to Stop Being Boring"

Note:  I realized while writing this that it might sound like I'm being really hard on myself.  Don't worry.  I've been doing fine, these are just some thoughts I've had on what I can be doing better.

So, about a month ago there was a video popping up all over Facebook.  It seemed like everyone and their dog was posting links to "A Pep Talk from Kid President to You."  When I first noticed this popping up, I tried watching it, but turned it off after about 2 seconds.  I don't know why, but I apparently decided in those 2 seconds that the video was boring and I didn't want to waste my time on it.  Well, like I said, everyone was linking to and sharing this video and I couldn't escape it.  So, I decided to give it a second try.  And, you know what?  It was actually pretty good.  If you somehow managed to not notice it anywhere, you can find it here.

The first few lines of this pep talk really struck home for me.  "The world needs you to stop being boring.  Yeah, you.  Boring is easy.  Everybody can be boring, but you're gooder than that."  I felt like this really addressed something that has been bothering me for quite a while now.  It seems like whenever somebody asks me how I'm doing or what I've been up to, I always say the same thing, "oh, you know, same thing as usual.  Going to school, trying to get my research done. And, yeah..."  Don't I have anything more interesting than that to say?  Do I really not do anything new that's worth mentioning?  What's the deal?  Anyway, after watching this video, I realized that it's up to me to not just take the easy route by being boring.  I decided that I needed to spice up my life.

I was discussing this with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago.  I told her that I had been feeling like I needed to add some more excitement to my life and that I needed to do things that would provide me with stories to tell people.  Well, be careful what you wish for.  That night as I was preparing dinner for my dinner group, I managed to slice off a piece of my thumb.  This wasn't quite what I had in mind when I said I wanted more stories, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, eh?  Anyway, I was slicing potatoes on a mandoline and managed to take the edge of my thumb off.  It wasn't a huge piece, but it was big enough that I debated for a few minutes about whether I should just take care of it at home or run up to the Student Health Center.  The health center won out in the end and I had my roommate rush me up there.  It got bandaged up, I got a tetanus shot, and I got home on time to change my plans for dinner and (with the help of my roommates) still get a meal finished relatively on time.

That extra "e" adds an extra element of danger

This desire to add a little more flavor to my life also came into play with this past Presidents' Day weekend.  Back in January, a group of my friends decided to drive down to Las Vegas during the long weekend to visit another friend who is leaving on a mission soon.  At the time I thought, "sure, why not?  I need to do more fun stuff."  Well, over the course of the next month, I started to flip-flop a lot over whether I was actually going or not.  I just couldn't commit.  Well, the Tuesday before the group would be driving down to Vegas, and not long after I had started seriously thinking about this "boring" dilemma of mine, I went out for lunch at China Town with my professor and the rest of his students.  When it came time for the fortune cookies, my fortune said, "Looking for enjoyment and adventure?  Go on a vacation."  How in the world could I ingore that?!  I committed to the trip that night.  I had a great time on the trip.  It was a fun group of people, it was nice to see this friend before she takes off to North Carolina, and the weather was beautiful.  While in Las Vegas, I also got chance to catch up with an old roommate of mine who I hadn't seen for 2 or 3 years.  And, on top of that, I got to visit with some cousins that I hadn't seen for years...one of which I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen for at least 10 years or more.  This was a real treat.  I am so thankful that I decided to seize this opportunity and go on this trip.  If I hadn't gone, I probably would have just sat at home reading, watching TV, and messing around on my computer.  While I enjoy those activities, they would not have been nearly as fulfilling as what I actually got to experience.

As I've been thinking about this dilemma, I've also come to realize that while seizing and making opportunities for yourself is an important part of introducing fun, excitement, and interesting elements to your life, there's more to it than that.  Attitude and perspective make a huge difference as well.  You need to be able to find the fun and interesting moments in a regular day.  So, I think that another problem with me feeling like I didn't have anything interesting to share when asked was that I wasn't paying close enough attention to the world around me.  I wasn't appreciating the experiences that I was already having.  I wasn't storing away in my memory all the little things that made me laugh, reflect, spring into action or made me feel excited, scared, hopeful or any other type of reaction.

So, after all of that I have two new goals for myself.  The first is to be more willing to seize opportunities and not be too lazy to do what I know will add richness to my life.  The second is to seek out and notice something each day that already adds richness to my life.  I'm a unique individual and I'm doing and experiencing things that other people aren't.  I just need to notice those and share them with others around me.

Books in 2012

Here's my annual list of books I read the previous year.

1. A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
2. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
3. A Storm of Swords - George R.R. Martin
4. The Shining - Stephen King
5. A Feast for Crows - George R.R. Martin
6. Breathless - Dean Koontz
7. Cornered - Ron MacLean
8. Gideon's Corpse - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
9. Frankenstein: Prodigal Son - Dean Koontz
10. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley
11. Frankenstein: City of Night - Dean Koontz
12. Frankenstein: Dead and Alive - Dean Koontz
13. Frankenstein: Lost Souls - Dean Koontz
14. Frankenstein: The Dead Town - Dean Koontz
15. The Wolf at the Door - Jack Higgins

I enjoyed each of these books.  I really enjoyed the Frankenstein series by Dean Koontz.  After reading the first book in the series I decided to go and read the original by Mary Shelley.  I enjoyed it and it helped me understand some of the dialogue a little better, but it's not necessary if you plan on reading the series.  I think it mostly just put my mind at ease so I wasn't always wondering if I was missing something by not reading the original.

Also, you may be wondering why I stopped reading the Song of Ice and Fire series after A Feast for Crows.  I just haven't had a chance to read A Dance with Dragons yet.  I don't want to buy the hardcover, the paperback isn't out yet, and since it's constantly on hold, I can't keep it checked out of the library for long enough to read it.  I'll get to it some day.

Christmas Movies

Another great way to get into Christmas is by watching lots of Christmas movies.  I feel like I've gotten a decent start on this so far, both on my own accord and with the help of those around me.  So, I figured I'd talk a little bit about some of my favorite Christmas movies.  Some of these I have watched already this year and some I haven't gotten to yet.  Also, these are listed in no particular order of preference.  I'm not even sure I could list them in order if I wanted to.  I've also included clips for some of them.

Mr. Krueger's Christmas

Okay, I know, this is an extraordinarily cheesy and, at times, weird movie, but I love it.  For anyone who may not be familiar with this movie, it's a short film produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints back in 1980 and stars Jimmy Stewart and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  Basically it's the story of Willy Krueger, a lonely widower who has various Christmas related dreams and fantasies throughout the film.  So, why do I love it?  The manger scene.  This is a scene where Mr. Krueger imagines what it would be like to be in the stable when Christ was born and expresses his faith and feelings for Christ.  This is one of the most touching scenes I've seen in any Christmas movie and does about the best job of any of reminding me what Christmas is really about.  The rest of the movie really is quite cheesy, but this one scene makes up for all of the cheesy awkwardness.  The scene has more punch to it if you've seen the rest of the movie and gotten to know Mr. Krueger's character better, but it's great on its own as well, so I highly recommend you watch it below.

Elf

This is just a fun movie, and that's all there is to it.  I watched this with some friends in the ward the other night.  It had been a couple of years since the last time that I actually sat down and watched it all the way through.  I think that before I had maybe watched it a little too much and had gotten a little burned out on it.  But after coming back to it this year I was reminded of just how hilarious this movie is and how it makes you want to be a kid and have that same innocent excitement all over again.

Christmas Vacation

I've watched this one a couple of times already this year.  I'm pretty sure this one has played in my parent's house pretty much every Christmas since it came out on VHS.  I can't really say anything about it being a touching and uplifting movie filled with the Christmas spirit, but it is pretty darn funny.  Here's a classic scene from it.

A Christmas Story

Who doesn't love the story of Ralphie and his quest to get a "Red Ryder B.B. gun with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time"?

Joyeux Noel

This is an amazing movie.  It's not exactly a cheery movie, but it is amazing and it will forever be a part of my must-watch Christmas movie list.  It tells the story of the Christmas Truce that occurred in the trenches along the Western Front in 1914 during World War I.  It takes elements from stories of various occurrences of the truce and combines them into one convenient location.  I can't really put into words the effect that it has on me.  I'm getting emotional just trying to figure out what to write, so I'm just going to tell you to go and find a copy of this movie and watch it.  If you're not sure about it, watch the trailer below and then go and find a copy of the movie and watch it.



The Muppet Christmas Carol
This is by far my favorite version of Charles Dicken's classic A Christmas Carol.  Okay, so, maybe it's one of the only versions I have watched, and maybe I have never read the book, but that doesn't mean it can't be my favorite.  This is another movie that I hadn't seen in a long time, but I was able to watch it Sunday night and I still enjoyed every minute of it.  I mean, it's a classic Christmas story with a great message combined with the lovable lightheartedness of the Muppets!  How could this movie not hold a special place in your heart?  Below I've included one of my favorite songs from the movie.