Travelin' Man

This past week I went to both Boston and Saratoga Springs. It was a great couple of trips. I saw most of the things on the Freedom trail in Boston and the main street of Saratoga Springs. Here are a few of the things I saw in Boston.


This is the USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides." It was closed to go on board but we were able to see it as well as tour the USS Cassin Young right near by. The Cassin Young is a WWII ship that was kamikazed during the war.


This is the steeple of the Old North Church in which Paul Revere saw the two lanterns hung before his ride.


This is Paul Revere's tombstone.


This is John Hancock's tombstone. The man did NOTHING small!


This is Samuel Adams tombstone. Right next to it was a monument to the victims of the Boston Massacre. We also saw the sight of the massacre. It's located on a concrete island in the middle of a busy street. There is only a brick circle marking the spot. There's not even a plaque.


This is me sitting in the Boston Common. That park is great. There were tons of people there and right outside was the park was a protest. It was fun to watch all the people. I even saw a couple of Horse mounted police officers.

Emily decided that she wanted to cut off her hair. There is another lady in the ward that is a stylist, so they swapped haircuts. Here's her new do.

On our recent trip to the South I passed through a few new states. I have also got a few more on my trip across the country. This has prompted me to ask Emily to update my state map. So here's the new one with all the recent acquisitions.


On our way to Georgia we stopped in Philadelphia to check out Independence Hall. I was fascinated by how it sits in the heart of downtown Philly. I loved seeing the Liberty Bell as well as the hall in which they held the constitutional convention. I felt very connected to our forefathers and greatly appreciated the sacrifices they were willing to make to create such a great country. This picture is me in the constitutional convention room. I really enjoyed the experience.

Chillin' in Atlanta

I am here in Atlanta. I've spent the last few days sitting around watching kids, listening to girls gossip, and when I can, reading my book. This week is going to be an awkward one.



I have had the chance to read again Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I really love that series. My favorite character is Raistlin. I am amazed at the complexity of all the characters but he is particularly fascinating. Of all the books that I have read by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, He is the greatest character. Others come close but he is the best. I love that his mind and will are his most powerful characteristics. He is awesome. The other character that I think is so great is one that I think the authors love also. Fizban the old wizard is great. I think they like him because he showed up in the Death Gate cycle as well. I love that he is so silly and absent minded yet is obviously much more than he shows anyone. Getting back to Dragonlance; I love the grand feeling of an epic that they are able to create while concentrating on the actions of just a few people. This is probably because I read it first, but I feel that it is more intense and grand than the Lord of the Rings. It's just an awesome series. I recommend it to everyone.

The Saga of Dune is Far From Over...

I decided to go ahead and listen to Dune since I have read it a few times and yet never listened to it. I found I have missed somethings in the reading of it or I have just not caught on. I understood much more of this time. I think it such an awesome story. The reader is one that I have listened to in the past and been really annoyed with, but he did okay with this. I have 3 of the Dune books, the first and then the last 2. I wish I had the other audio books as well. I'll keep looking.

I am the Kwisatz Haderach!

I recently obtained a copy of the last book of the Dune series. This prompted me to go back and watch my Dune movies. This in turn got me thinking a lot about those books and how much I enjoy them. I am particularly drawn in by the degree of complexity in them. Only a mad man would be able to make such a ground work for a universe. What was going through his mind?

I spent all of Yesterday watching the two Sci-Fi channel miniseries they did of Dune. I admit they are not the most amazing things I have ever seen but I do like the graphics of the Worms. They did an awesome job on them.

Twilight the movie

We went and saw the movie on Saturday with my Mom, while my brother went with my dad to the new James Bond movie. There were some things I liked about it and some things I didn't. I thought the actors were chosen well for their looks. Some of their acting could have been better. Also I don't think they handled the big reveal that Edward's a vampire very well. Bella just seemed really over dramatic. Also, they didn't do a very good job with building the relationship. It just seemed all of the sudden they were saying I love you. I think they could have done more in the way of using Bella as a narator to build it up. I really liked the baseball game and then the final fight scene. Though I wanted Edward to do more than just bite him once before rushing over to help Carlisle. Over all I think I enjoyed myself. I didn't even have to deal with throngs of swooning girls.

The one character that I thought was particularly good was Carlisle. I thought the actor did a great job and was cast really well. I wasn't expecting to have that actor fill the role so well. He certainly exceeded my expectations. Edward was very awkward at the beginning but that was kind of expected. He just didn't get unawkward for longer than I was expecting.

Finishing

I have finished a few things lately that I figured I'd write about.


I finished my internship and found myself disappointed. I was under the impression that I was going to be able to work until the end of the year. No such luck. About 3 weeks ago my boss told me that I was going to be let go because they ran out of grant money. I wasn't happy. To make it worse the last two weeks I basically just sat around waiting for something to do. I did find out that I don't want to do research for a living. There's too much worrying about where the next grant is coming from and what the people giving grants are going to give them money for. They can't just research what they want to. There is also a fiasco about using a grant to pay for a future project that you haven't got a grant for yet. I don't want to deal with all that crap.
To commemorate my finishing we went to the beach. I took some good pics. Here are a couple.






I also finished my medical school secondary applications!

I now have to wait and find out. I'm excited that it's done but now I have to wait. That's not very exciting.

Twilight

This is my opinion of Twilight. If you haven't finished the story, don't continue reading.


This story had a lot of potential but the entire thing kind of disappointed me in the end. I really liked the idea of the Vampires trying to live better. I also kind of like the werewolves and how Meyer allowed them to communicate. I really had problems with Bella. She annoyed me with all her whining. I hated how she couldn't make up her mind between Jacob and Edward. That wasn't even a competition in my mind. Edward was probably the most gentlemanly character I have ever heard about. Even with all Bella's whining and moaning about Jacob, he just let her do what she wanted and loved her regardless. He even took her to him. I was annoyed quite a bit about the whole love triangle. Edward sacrificed everything. All Jacob did was complain about the "blood-suckers." He was just prejudice. I hated how he manipulated her in order to get her to love him. It was dirty. I liked how Meyer resolved the issue of Jacob. I liked how Jacob was able to remain around but get over the whole Bella obsession.

I always felt disappointed in the end of the books. I hated how Meyer would be having the characters bum around Forks for about 4/5ths of the book and then have something massive happen. The first she runs off to Phoenix, the second Italy, the third the get attacked by an army of Vampires, and the final, an army of royal vampires. I thought the traveling was particularly ridiculous, but some of the fights weren't much better. I was disappointed that in the end, they left the idea that the Valtore were probably going to come back and then they just said THE END. I don't like some of the names they used. I didn't like Billy, or Jasper as names. I really didn't like Renesme. That was retarded. I was also disappointed that the only thing Marcus ever did during the Voltore interactions was "look bored." Why bother to have him there if he didn't do anything?!

I liked how Meyer changed perspectives in the 4th book. I loved seeing what Jacob was thinking. I love when authors do that. If you want another series of books that do that, I would recommend the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony. The first of them is called On a Pale Horse. I think it's the best of all of them. I liked how Meyer did that. I really would have liked to see things from Edwards perspective and am excited to read the section the Meyer put on her website. I hope she goes back to it sometime.

Over all I liked the story. I will be interested to see what they do with the movie. I know this post is kind of random but I just wrote stuff as I thought about it. Let me know what you all think.