Secret of the Seventh Son

I bought this book right after I came back from San Antonio.  It's by Glenn Cooper, and it is his first novel.  It's marketed outside of the U.S. with the title "Library of the Dead", which I think is more appropriate.  The book storyline is "fair".  However, it has one of the best twists of what is stored in Area 51, tying together medievel Catholicism in Britain, World War II, a supposed serial killer and an odd library with recordings of births and deaths.  The real kicker comes at the end, with BTH (Beyond the Horizon).  It will be interesting to read the next novel, as it offers the possibility of a new twist on the end of the Mayan calendar.

I've been away from home since July 5th, with only a four or five weekends home.  Here's what I do now that I am home: doze off while being surrounding by my daughter's cats.

Life is much better at home than in a motel!

I happened to notice (no really, just this weekend) that Coca Cola is being sold in 20 can packs.  Not 24, 20.  I don't follow this sort of thing regularly, but the price did not seem all that different than what I used to pay for a 24 can pack of Coke.  So we are buying 20/24 = 83% of two dozen for nearly the same price!  I guess this re-packaging gives us a realistic idea of what a devalued dollar means to our future.

Doesn't mean much when you are paying $6 for a 20 pack, but how about watching oil jump from $59 to $71, or a gallon of gas jump from $2.04 to $2.46.  Those sorts of devaluations really hurt at the end of the month, don't they?

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." -- Aristotle

Last night was such a sad Halloween.  Not 10 years ago, our neighborhood bustled with children, the young ones appearing at dusk, and the older kids roaming until 9 PM or so.  Last night, only four little trick or treaters showed up at our door.  Granted, we don't decorate like we did when our kids were younger, but we still enjoy cutting a jack'o lantern and handing out candy.  Saturday night just seemed so sad.  It used to be a social event where parents with flash lights visited at the corners and on the curbs.  But not any more.  Now it's planned parties and "safe" activities.  There's no quickening of the pulse because of dark shadows and strange growling from older brothers and sisters hiding in the shrubbery when their siblings passed by.  It all seemed so sterile.