The Gathering Storm

This is the latest installment in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I will continue to refer to it as Jordan's even though Brandon Sanderson is, quite wonderfully, finishing off the series for the deceased Jordan. Luckily for all of us fans, Jordan left a plethora of notes and outlines, as well as haven already written somewhere in the range of 10-20 thousand words already. The 'final' book ballooned to a reported 800 thousand words, and subsequently is being published in three different volumes. So, basically, it went from a 12 book series to a 14 book series. Some may cynically see this as a money making ploy. I frankly don't care if it is, as long as I get more great story, and honestly when you pick up this latest book, it couldn't have been three times this size and been manageable.

On to the book itself. I will not put down any spoilers, I hate spoilers. (The most shameful experience of my life is giving the ending away to a movie for some inexplicable reason that I still can't comprehend, sorry Mark). Anyway, many Jordan fans began to be turned off around books 8-10. Admittedly, the story slowed to a snail's pace. I will not spend time defending the books as good, which they are, or explaining that on a second or third reading there are parts that you really get to appreciate, which is true, I will simply say that in books 11 and 12, the story jumps back to the amazing form that fans were used to at the beginning of this series.

The first thing I must say is that Sanderson did a masterful job at picking up where Jordan left and weaving Jordan's notes into a book that, frankly, is impossible to distinguish from Jordan's writing. I was leary that the books would have a different feel, being authored by a different person, but it did not. For you fans, do you remember the way you couldn't put down The Shadow Rising because of how compelling the story was, or the excitement of Fires of Heaven. The Gathering Storm should be placed firmly in the very top of these books, as good as any of them. Story's begin to resolve and it is clear that this series is headed quickly and decisively to an amazing conclusion. I wish I knew more people who have read it, so I could start talking with them about it, so far its just Alisa and me, as far as I know.

For those fans who gave up back in the slow time, come back and catch up with this series, I promise you won't be disappointed. For those who were tempted away by that flash in the pan George R.R. Martin, or any other of a myriad inferior writers/series, you need to catch up and read The Gathering Storm, it was a masterpiece, plain and simple.

400 thread count sheets

Holy cow. Just bought some 400 thread count sheets from Sam's Club the other day, put them on last night. I can't adequately describe how awesome they are. I'm used to just the cheapo 100-150 thread count sheets, which are fine, but wow, what a difference. If you have the chance, splurge, get some of these, its worth it.

Fourth on its way.

So, Alisa is pregnant with our fourth. We are both very excited. It will be interesting to see if the trouble making continues to be distilled in each subsequent child we have. Its like an exponentially growing amount so far. Anyway, she is due sometime in April, so at least she won't ever be cold this winter.

My Blog

So, its been quite a while since I posted anything here. This was kind of my outlet for my thoughts. Unfortunately, I realized how it can be taken and twisted, so, I kind of lost the passion for it for a while. This was the place that I wouldn't have to censor myself to make sure that everyone was okay with it, but now I have to worry as I post, who is going to read this? And what will they do with it. Its stupid, I know, but that is how it is.

Lance, yet again.

As many of you know, I am a huge Lance Armstrong fan. He is the only person, in my opinion, who can make the Tour exciting. When he doesn't race, I can understand everyone else's opinion about bike racing being like watching paint dry. But when he races, I'll get out of bed at the crack of dawn to watch a stage where he is going to make a move, go flying up a climb, and fight past people to cross the line first.

The most recent issue of Sports Illustrated had two separate articles about Lance, the first basically talking about how Lance is a giant hypocrite for not admitting that he dopes. It talked about how many people dope, about how in Europe its pretty much agreed upon that all of them dope, and that Europeans don't care that much, get caught, serve a supspension, all is forgiven. It hammers Lance for pages about how ridiculous it is for him to think that anyone would believe that he could be that much better, and not dope. The second article talks about the following commercial.



The person who wrote the second article took Lance to task for what she saw as almost unforgivable arrogance in trying to tie criticisms of him to the fight against cancer. She argued that he was making it impossible to critique him without coming off as being an opponent of what he stood for. Finally she finished with saying that he should be less forceful in his tone about his critics.

Thats a load of crap.

In the same magazine that she spouted that tripe, her editors felt the need to put in pages denouncing Lance as a fraud, and a doper, and a hypocrite. His tone seems to be right on the money to me.

There are many who claim there is no way he could be as good as he is, so automatically assign him to be a doper and a cheat. I find it amazing that the same label is not automatically put on Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Lebron or Kobe. No one claims that Barry Sanders must have been a juicer to run like he did, especially with the sieve of an offensive line that the Lions had. No one says you must be blind and naive to think that Joe Montana, or Steve Young must have been cheating to have the success that they saw.

You want hypocrites, look to the people who, because cycling isn't America's pasttime, are so quick to denounce someone who dominates the sport when they don't hold their sports heroes up to the same standard.

Is it possible that Lance has taken some performance enhancing drugs, of course. Of course it is possible that he has access to drugs that are impossible to detect over literally thousands of tests given at completely random times with more scrutiny that any other athlete in the history of the world....its possible. But it is out of the realm of logic to make the claim that because doping exists, that because people in his sport have doped, and because he has beaten those same people consistently for years, that he too must be guilty absent any and all evidence to back it up.

I'll still be excited to watch him win the Tour this year, and make no mistake, when they finish in Paris he'll be wearing the Yellow Jersey. The critics can continue to say whatever they want, this guy actually makes it exciting to watch men race bikes for hours at a time, tell me one other professional athlete with that kind of charisma.

Me and the BSA are gonna have a fight.

I couldn't be more enraged by the stupidity of this new BSA policy. Story here.

Apparently the BSA thinks its a grand idea to say that any scout or leader who is overweight, as decided by the BMI scale, will be banned from participating in many activities. It seems the rule is that if one is overweight you cannot participate in any activity that would take you more than 30 minutes from emergency medical help.

I have more than one problem with this. First, the BSA already required a physical to go to scout camp etc.. If someone were unable to safely participate the doctor would not clear them. Second, with the state of health in the youth of the country, is banning them really the good option here. But, if these were the only problems, I would just be annoyed, what enrages me is the use of the BMI to label kids and leaders.

I hate the BMI, I hate how it makes its blanket labels with no real differentiation between body type, or variables.

Now, I am the first to admit that I am overweight, and I am currently working on losing weight. But, I would direct you to this BMI website. It will tell you what weight you need to be to be considered not overweight according to them. For me? I would need to lose 78 pounds to finally drop into 'normal' weight. I would have to weigh 191 lbs. If this rule were actually enforced, I would have never been allowed to go to scout camp, work at scout camp, go rock climbing, etc.. I would have been unable to take my Varsity scouts down the Snake river a couple years ago.

It is hard enough to find adults who are willing and able to help out with scouting, if this is actually enforced, it would really be the death of any sort of outdoor/high adventure scouting.

I couldn't be more enraged at the BSA.

Already getting excited.

Granted, all these guys are still seniors this next year, but its always exciting to see future good news. ESPN story here.

The top QB prospect in the country decided to commit to BYU, with him came one of the top WR prospects (decommitted from Texas, committed to BYU), and a top linebacker from California.

For those who are BYU football fans, its always good news to get the big name Mormon recruits (no all you BYU haters, not because they 'should' come to BYU, but if we can't get big name recruits with the BYU/mormon thing going for us, how are we ever going to get big name non-mormons.)

And, as I always do, I hope these guys choose missions, I'd rather wait an extra two years to see them succeed on the field.