Lane's Ramblings

I finished up yesterday by reading chapter XLVIII in book 1 of 'Don Quixote'. I was supposed to run but I didn't with the rationale that my legs were tired from some hard runs earlier in the week even though I promised myself that I wouldn't deviate from my program. I did walk to the shops to buy some groceries; though that was only 3kms all up. I then read Tom Friedman's column from the New York Times. Lastly, I read from 'Greek Mythology and Religion' before I went to sleep.

Today we'll talk about reading:My sixth grade math teacher once advised us to read everything we could, even cereal boxes and I took that to heart. I had always been curious and read quite a bit but this gave me a quest though not a reason. That reason became apparent later when I became aware that one had to build a foundation to their lives, their knowledge, and their character. You never stop growing, you never hit a pinnacle in your life. To me that would mean that you're finished.

In ninth grade we filled out a survey, which included a question asking how many books you read in a year: A) 1-3 B) 4-6 C) 7-9 D) 10+. Even though I really didn't read the books that were assigned to me in school, I was surprised to find that I fit into the '10+' category, which I was secretly proud of.

I'll read just about anything and if it's on my shelf then I'll force myself to read it. I'm also a bibliophile, which means that I want every single book that I can get my hands on and I don't want to get rid of any of them (much to the annoyance of my mother and now Ula - who will soon learn just how many books I own when I ship them to Australia some time this year). I have fiction, history, religion, philosophy, sports, biobraphies, cooking, garending, language, college text books, math, science, essays, poetry, etc, etc, etc. It doesn't stop. Now I'm not going to pretend that I can remember all if any of the content of the books that I've read but I would describe it as a quest that has no end, though I certainly hope that it has its benefits. I do believe that I am growing from the experience. I at least enjoy it.

Like I said yesterday, the books that I am currently reading are 'Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes, 'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 'Greek Mythology and Religion', and I am reading/studying 'The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga' by Swami Vishnu-devananda, which has more words than the title suggests.

I consider the internet the second most important invention in history, next to the printing press. Without the distribution of knowledge we wouldn't have the exponential increase in technology that we have now. Yes, there are downsides to this as well and we don't seem to be improving in other facets of life but I'm getting ahead of myself. The point that I started was that the internet now allows us to receive our news immediately from anywhere in the world (as well as watch major league baseball in places such as Australia) and over time I've created a list (neatly orgainzed in my 'favorites' tab of Internet Explorer) of websites that I get a majority of my information from.

News Sites:
BBC NewsBoston.com - from the
Boston Globe, lately I've been using it just to get a quick headline read, see what's happening with the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and to see if it snowed last night.
CNN - where I get a majority of my up-to-date information.
Detroit News - just to see what's happening in the D.
The Associated Press - where everybody gets their information from.
Herald Sun - Aussie new.
CNN Political Ticker - one of CNN's better features.
El Mundo - I hate to think that we get all of our information from our culture and our news media. This Spanish news site gives me a perspective different from ours but I do need to work on my Spanish.
Business Week - this engineer is trying to figure out business and finance. Those people are crazy.
Financial Times - more information from Europe.
The Wall Street Journal
CNN.co.jp - when I finally learn how to read Japanese this will come in handy.
The New York Times - mostly for its opinion section.
The Washington Post
Yomiuri Online - also waiting for me to learn Japanese.
The Age - Aussie news.
Fox News - There's no doubt that the media is slanted and no matter how much the liberals disagree, it's obvious that it's slanted to the liberal mind. If you keep reading one side over and over again then eventually you're going to believe it. I hope that Fox's right wing stance will keep me objective.
The Boston Herald
Times (of London)
Asharq Alawsat Newspaper - a Saudi website in English that I haven't gotten into much yet.
The Times of India - to gain a perspective from a very important country in the world.

Research Sites:
Dictionary.com - used as a second opinion to the next entry.
Merriam-Webster Online - my choice for word definition.
Wikipedia - used quite a bit but with caution.
Google - I'm starting to question their validity.
CIA-World Factbook - the best source of international statistics.
The library grows...

Columnists that I read:
Maureen Dowd - NYT
Frank Rich - NYT
Thomas Friedman - NYT
Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe
And there are others that I read occasionally and this list should grow as well.

Newspapers - to get off the internet for a bit:
Local Berwick papers
The Herald Sun
The Australian
The Age

Any suggestions are very welcome.

And that's enough for today. I'll recap today's work later tonight.