Oh Finally...

... I finished up the audio book for "The Count of Monte Cristo"... The unabridged version... over 50 hours of recording.

While I am not a fan of a book that takes less than a week of commuting to get through, 50 hours are a little excessive and I am very happy to finally got it done.

Fortunately, I prepared for this moment ahead of time and was able to listen to an easy breezy one hour of "Radio Tatort" audio play. It's available as a podcast on iTunes for free... get it here.

In general, I am a big fan of free stuff (who isn't) and by the rate I am plowing through audio books (thank you sucky commute!), I had to find an alternative (a legal one) to by everything and anything off amazon. And while I was browsing the web, I found this little gem:

librivox.org

From their website:

LibriVox Objective

To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet.

Our Fundamental Principles

• Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project
• Librivox donates its recordings to the public domain
• Librivox is powered by volunteers
• Librivox maintains a loose and open structure
• Librivox welcomes all volunteers from across the globe, in all languages

Given that all books have to be in the public domain to become a part of this project and then on top of it, have to be picked up by the volunteers at librivox to actually record an audio book, the selection is not very fresh. But hey, don't we all want to brush up on the classics?

I already have a couple more books lined up (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Die Judenbuche), but before I tackle those, I will keep it a little lighter and shorter for a while.

So... and now I will take it easy for the rest of the night... Tomorrow is half marathon day.... Oh boy!

Unthinkable

Earlier this week, I finished up "UnThinkable" The Scott Rigsby Story on audio book. The book tells the story of the first double amputee on prosthesis to finish an Ironman. Not any Ironman, but the World Championship in Kona.

This is a story about faith and willpower and will leave you inspired. You don't have to be a triathlete or even an athlete to be uplifted and encouraged by this.

Two thumbs up!!!





Scott Rigsby has founded the Scott Rigsby Foundation with the objection to inform and enable physically challenged people to lead and active lifestyle.

If you don't feel inspired now to set out and do something you never thought you could... Well, I don't know.

So long! ;-)

Childhood Flashback

Recently, I got my hands on some audio plays of "The Famous Five" (German title: 5 Freunde) by Enid Blyton in German.



As a child, I used to inhale the books and had tons of tapes with their adventures as well as the tapes/books/TV series of TKKG (written and placed in Germany, never been translated into other languages) and "The Three Investigators" (German title: Die Drei Fragezeichen).


The TKKG logo and the business card of "The Three Investigators".

It was fun to revisit those childhood friends on my way work this week. Especially handy is that one episode is approximately as long as my commute*.

*Which is also to prove that my commute is just way too long... I know I sound like a broken record, but this waste of time on the road sucks all life out of me at times!

Looking at these stories and adventures from the perspective of an adult and also keeping in the back of my head that those books have been written in the 40s, 50s and 60s makes for a handful of observations:

1. Back in the day, children didn't need computer games and television to be adventurous... They had mother nature and a hand full of close friends for some nice clean fun. I didn't grow up in the time these books were placed and if you'll ask my parents today, they'll probably tell you that there have been a couple of days were I spend too much time in front of the TV. But I also have tons of school breaks in my head, where we didn't stay in a house for several days. Just running around outside until the street lights went on... That was when we were supposed to be home! Which leads me to the next point!
2. Children were so much less supervised back then... I guess there were less creeps... But my brother and I were gone for whole days running around in the neighborhood and nobody thought anything of it.
3. Language has changed A LOT! In the books it says: mother, father, the parents, the children... try to find those words in "modern" children's books... there it is: mom, dad, the old folks that keep us down at home, the kids...
4. Food has changed... Try to find a reference to a fast food restaurant in these books! ;-)

I really wonder, if kids still listen to audio plays?

So long!

Used Audio Books Review

Back in November, I went to a used book sale here in Greenville and scored five audio books for cheap. Since I went on the second day of the book sale, things have been picked through already and there was honestly not a whole lot of choice... I was just hoping, that I got myself some good stuff. Now, a couple of months later, I am through all of these books and can share my opinion for what it's worth.

Bushworld by Maureen Dowd :
This was the first book that I listened to and I actually already wrote a short review here. The only thing that I will add to that, that I started to read the author's column in the New York Times and can only recommend it. Also, I gave the audio book to a co-worker and he liked it too, but also shared my opinion that this book is a little bit of a tough subject for entertainment on your commute, because you can't zone out or you'll not get it anymore.

A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand :
This was the second book out of the bunch that I listened too and as the title already suggests, it's a much lighter read. I didn't like it. Firstly, I didn't like the story (I won't bore you with the details) and I found most of the characters pretty annoying, especially the main character "Claire". I was thinking about giving up on this book more than once and I even switched back to radio several times, because I couldn't take the storyline and the drama anymore. Secondly, this book would have been better off to be worked into a radio play, because the writing is very based on dialogues. After endless chapters going like this: "blah blah blah" Claire said. "boo boo boo" Lock said. "shimmy shimmy shimmy" said Claire.... I was ready to smack my CD player! The ultimate sign that this book isn't worth my time is when I can't think of one single person that I want to lend it to.

The Burma Road by Donovan Webster :
Here is a brief story description.
I like learning something when I read or listen to a book and in this respect this book is great. I finally have an idea about what the Burma Road is. As mentioned in the description above, there are tons of information in, but what definitely stuck in my brain most are the quotes out of Vinegar Joe's diary and in general the personal stories that are intertwined with the Burma Road. The audio book is read by the author himself and this was a little bit of a downside for me, since I had a hard time understanding him a lot of the time. Other than that: Thumbs up!

The Hornet's Nest by Jimmy Carter:
Another historic novel, this time it is about the American Revolutionary War. Once again, I felt that I really was able to learn something while listening to this book, especially since the American Revolutionary War is not a topic covered in German history classes. By putting it in a format of a novel, following loosely a handful of characters through the story, it made the historic facts of the story more accessible than just looking at a time table. The described characters also shed a light on the living conditions, traditions, religion and general cultural background they had during that time.

Executive Power by Vince Flynn:
This is another easy read and actually a book out of the "Mitch Rapp" series. If you want to learn more about the plot, here is a summary. Yes, the topic in itself might not be easy, but I would compare it maybe to the Alex Cross series from James Patterson. It's good entertainment, has a good story and it makes you believe in the "Good always wins over the Evil (eventually)" again. Now that I know, that this is part of a series, I might even hunt down the other books. But just listening to this one and it's the 5th book out of a series, you won't think you missed anything by not knowing the processors! There are some references to the history of the character, but it all got explained in the book.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
This was the last book out of the bunch that I listened to and I have to say, that I saved the best for last. The plot follows the lives of two Afghan women between the 1960s until 2003. Here is the complete plot (spoiler alert, don't read the wikipedia article if you want to read the book) and I will just additionally mention what impressed me most with this book. Once again it's a book with which you learn a lot about the history of Afghanistan, but not out of the eyes of the people that made history and politics, but through the eyes of two women who had to live with the circumstances that they got presented with due to the men that made history and politics. It also shows a story of two strong women that lived relatively free one time and then got imprisoned in burkas due to political and religious shifts in their environment. It was an excellent read and I can only recommend it. The first novel of this author was "The Kite Runner" and I am definitely interested in reading/ listening to that book as well.

!HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYONE!

Friday's Ramble

This picture is completely unrelated to anything in this post, but I just thought it was cute and don't we all feel like this every now and then?? ;-)

1. I am done with the first audio book bargain from the used book sale a couple of weeks ago. I started out with Bushworld by Maureen Dowd and really enjoyed listening to it. It's a collection of her column pieces from 1999 through 2004 about the Bush campaign and first presidency. Very insightful to read/ hear about this a couple of years after they have first been published... It took me a while to get into the groove of the book, the writing style and the content. It's also one of those pieces that you can NOT zone out for a couple of pages and still know what is going on. I have been talking to co-workers about it and will pass along for others to enjoy.


2. On Wednesday I got smacked in the face so hard by the puppy, that I was swollen and my face and teeth hurt. Yesterday still wasn't all that great, but today I finally felt like myself again. She always gets so excited when I come home that she starts jumping around. While jumping around she knocked the remote off the couch and I bend down to pick it up again... At that exact moment she jumped up once more, smacking me in the face with the back of her head. Good times... Of course, she was completely unaware of what she just did.


3. Since this week, I have a coach. For a while I have been talking about running a half marathon and even though I don't necessarily need a coach to accomplish that, I wanted to have some help to improve my running overall since it is my weakest discipline out of the tri sports. So now I am on the coach's plan and that is of course way more structured than the training plans that I created for myself in the past. With more structure I mean, that it not only tells me when I have to train which discipline, but also what intensity, length of workout, even down to drills and HR range. I know that this will take some time to get used to, but I have trust in Katie that she knows what I need to do, to get better.


4. I postponed returning to the DMV to Wednesday. I just couldn't take this mayhem two days in a row. So on Wednesday I finally mustered up some courage to give a new driver's license another try. My initial waiting time has been way shorter than in the other office on Monday, but overall it took me the same amount of time to get back to work than in my first attempt. I was FUMING by the time I left the office and won't even go back into the details... Just too frustrating... But at least I have a new license now with a new picture that is going to make it so much easier to be identified as the person on the ID by the Wal-Mart cashier when I try to buy beer... I have to agree with all of the peeps that doubted it, since the picture looked nothing like me anymore.


5. Did a 5:30AM easy morning run around the Caine Halter Y trial today. Oh boy, it's getting cold out there. During the day, we currently have sunshine and nice temperatures, but it sure gets cold as soon as the sun is gone. I really have to think about what I am going to wear for the race tomorrow. It's almost 7 miles, the sun will be out by the time we start and a lot of the leafs are already on the ground, so the woods are not as shaded anymore. I am thinking shorts and a light long sleeve. This morning I got warm 1 mile into the run and the sun wasn't even up by the time I was done.

HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYONE! ;-)

First Item On My Bucket List

No, I am not planning on kicking the bucket any time soon, but lately I had a revolving thought about bicycle travel and also some outside inspiration from books and magazines, that I feel I have to put it on record, so that it starts to become a more concrete goal. Besides, I am sure that when I start to think about other goals, I would soon be able to find other items for the list.

Anyways, back in summer, in one of my reading-like-crazy phases, I picked up several travel report books. One guy was hitch-hiking around Ireland with a fridge, two dudes rode around the world on their BMWs and then there was this guy, that circled the globe several times in every possible direction on his bicycle in the last three decades.


Source of picture is here.

Especially this last guy (Tilmann Waldthaler), made a career out of travelling on a bike. His very first tour in the 1970s, he did on a touring bike, built for him... At the time he was in Australia and basically biked through the Australian Bush on skinny tires. He also described the first time he saw a mountain bike several years later and how he embraced this new sport. He actually wrote a mountain bike guide for the Alps only to be shown the door when trying to sell his book to his editor, because there was no market for this content in the editor's opinion... Only to sell it a couple of months later, when the need for it was even evident to this said editor. This guy really works to live. It was the revolving theme in his book, that he took on a job, just to finance his next trip of several months. He said, he always worked and doesn't need a lot. While reading excerpts out of three decades of travelling on a bike, he made the impression of a grounded dreamer, if this makes any sense to you. Now he doesn't have to take a regular job anymore to keep on travelling. He travels and then writes books about it, gives speeches and showcases his pictures. He is a professional adventurer. Here is an interview with him in German.

Even though I admire this lifestyle, I am a creature of comfort. I can take camp sites, porta johns, heat and coolness, discomfort and dirt for a couple of days, but then I want to get back into civilization with all of it's amenities. And yes, this is maybe the most extreme case of bike touring that you can do, but between this and doing a bike ride around the block, there are tons of possibilities. It's just the question of which shade of gray fits to your abilities, your preferences, your wallet and your time resources.

More food for thought gave me an article in the Roadbike Action Magazine (August issue) about two guys that went from Canada to Mexico in around four weeks. Those guys did the structured approach (I like structure) and they travelled light... very light. They basically did this trip on their credit cards. They didn't carry food other than water, stayed in hotels every night, didn't even have a full change of clothes with them, so they washed every night. I read this article and first I thought, this is just crazy expensive, but on the other hand... I did three weeks of road trips before and I had to stay in a hotel every night and also had to eat out every night. Besides, if you don't have thousand things with you, you can use your regular road bikes for this trip (like these guys did) and don't have to buy/ rent a touring bike. On a road bike, you are also able to log some serious mileage as log as your legs and your butt are game for it.

We'll see... It's on the bucket list now and I am going to work from here! ;-)

Read It Out Loud!

Since I moved in with Terry, my commute has increased around 1,500% (no kidding, it went from around six minutes to ninety minutes) and with that the amount of time wasted. Seriously, there are 10,000 things that I would prefer doing during this time than sitting in my car. But since whining really doesn't change the situation, but negatively influences my mood, I was looking for things that would start making the commute less of a waste of time.

Yeah right, this post is about my discovery of audio books.



I had a couple of audio books sitting in my book shelf for the longest, but really, at home I enjoy just sitting in silent and reading (very traditionally) a book with pages and everything. Lately, I didn't do as much reading, but this pastime comes in seasons for me. It's really odd, that sometimes, I finish up a book within days and sometimes it just takes forever... And it doesn't necessarily say anything about the quality of the book. But once again, I digress. What I meant to say before rambling off on other things was, that I had these audio books at home catching dust for years until I decided that this would be so much better than listen to those crappy radio stations around here that have a play list of all but five songs.

But now three weeks into this experiment, I am 1) hooked on audio books and 2) running out of material. Therefore the used book sale from "The Friends of the Greenville County Library System" last Sunday was perfect timing. It was already the second day of the sale and everything was half off. That is nice, but it was also clear that I would have much less to choose from. We got there five minutes before they opened the doors and there were maybe a hundred people already ahead of us. This was bargain madness! We got a little box and a map (!) at the entrance and I took off straight to the audio book section. The selection was slim and I sure wasn't picky, since none of the titles meant anything to me. So I walked out there with six audio books for USD 21.50. NICE!!! Now time will tell, if I got anything good, but I looked them up on Amazon in the meantime and it's quite promising! Here are my bargains:

• A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
• The Burma Road by Donovan Webster
• The Hornet's Nest by Jimmy Carter
• Bushworld by Maureen Dowd
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• Executive Power by Vince Flynn

This book sale is a great chance to stock up on books and they even have an almost new section. It's hardcovers and a little more expensive than the rest, but still no comparison to regular priced books. So put it down on your calendars:

The Friends of the Greenville County Library System will hold its next regular Book Sale on April 23, 24, and 25th, 2010 at Merovan Center, E-2. Friday the sale is 3 until 8PM and is open to members only. Memberships may be purchased at the door. Saturday the sale is open to the public from 10AM until 5PM. Sunday, the sale is 1PM until 5PM and is open to the public and everything is half price.

That might sound funny, but I can't wait to get in the car tomorrow morning and start on one of these, since I finished up Ken Follett's The Hammer Of Eden today!

Where They Burn Books...

I was debating back and forth today, if I am going to mention this in today's post or if I just need to ignore it. Maybe this is the originator's only wish to be in the news and have people talking about him and I really didn't want to promote those efforts. On the other hand, it's just too disturbing and if someone is wrong (in my opinion anyways) I feel that I have to speak up, however small my audience might be. Especially after reading this quote:

"Where they burn books, they will also burn people."

Out of Almansor: A Tragedy (1823) by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Okay, I guess by now you must be completely confused by me rambling away. Let me explain. This morning I saw in the news that the pastor of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton N.C. is planning on burning books on Halloween e.g. bibles in other version's than the King James Version because they are "satanic" and a "perversion" of God's word... click here for the full article.

This is wrong on so many levels, that I don't even know, where to start. First of all, I think there is a lot of truth in the line out of Heinrich Heine's work and throughout history, book burnings have always been used to judge other people's beliefs and opinions and a lot of the time, it didn't stop with burning books. It's a very strong statement of disapproval. What makes it even worse, when Christians start to burn bibles is, that they fight against their own team. Even if this process of burning books is not illegal (at least, I don't think it is), the act in itself has a bad aftertaste and the signal that is sends doesn't promote the Christian beliefs. It starts with them burning bibles, but what is next? Will they start to attack Christians in their community that "dare" to use other versions than KJV? Will they start to attack people of other beliefs in their community? This is an open invitation to any aggressive nut job out there!

When you start things like this, where will it end??

Making your Own Reality

Ever heard of the "Law of Attraction"? The bottom line of this law is, that your thoughts and wishes shape your reality. Mostly they talk about your positive thoughts and how you will get anything, if you really really want it. But honestly, I think that also applies to any negative thoughts and fears that linger with you for a longer period of time. This hypothesis is the center piece of the 2006 book "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrnes, that I haven't read yet… But a friend of mine did an excellent job on capturing the essence of the book on a canoe trip and so I feel like I got a pretty good picture. This is a highly controversial topic and a lot of very smart people are doing a lot of discussing around this. I think of it more as an aspect how people are able to influence their own reality than a universal law, but that's just my two cents.

Nevertheless I want to share a couple of stories now and let you decide, if our own wishes or fears shaped our reality!

• A couple of mornings a week, I get up early to get a run or nice walk with the puppy in. In this time of the year, it's still pitch black dark outside by the time I hit the road, so I am outfitted with a headlamp and even put a flashing light on the puppy. The streets in our neighborhood have long stretches of bushes and woods and even though I am not very skittish when it comes to this kind of thing, I still avoid looking into the woods/bushes with my headlamp because I just don't want to see a pair of eyes staring at me. I shared this with my BRR team before we did our night legs and we knew that those routes will go right through the woods. Fortunately, I have never seen glowing pairs of eyes… Until yesterday morning. On my first early morning walk after we were having this conversation and joked about it back and forth, I didn't see one pair of eyes, but two… In different spots. The second pair belonged to a little kitty, the first pair I didn't even investigate, because the eyes were so wide apart that I assumed it was bigger than I wanted to know.
  
• Last year BF, the kid and I went to Charleston SC. One day out of the weekend, we spent on the beach. BF has this paranoia about sharks and basically refuses to swim in the ocean. I told him over and over again, that I have been to this area several times and never seen a shark. Sure enough, BF walked along the shoreline and basically just stuck his feet into the ocean, when the lifeguard instructed everyone to get out of the water and then I saw my first living shark outside of an aquarium. It was a small* one and I joked that it probably would just nibble on us a little… Still, it was a shark. This little story actually was the reason why my friend told me about the book.

* updated 9/19: Terry wanted me to correct this statement. According to him, I am largely underestimating the size of this shark.

Hmmm… All my examples are out of the animal kingdom, but I think that just shows how outdoorsy we are! :-)

• To also have a positive example for this theory, here is one more: After I came back from by internship in England in 2000, I always said, that I want to go abroad for a longer period of time. I was sharing this desire with my family and friends, mentioned it in my job interviews, when it came to my goals and the "where do you wanna be in 5 years" type of questions, kept my English skills up to date and in general an open mind… At least that's what I want to believe. Only one year after I started with the company, a position opened up in our U.S. subsidiary and people remembered the statement I made in my interview and half a year later, I had my first day here. What I am saying is, that I never actively pursued this, but was just rather going with the flow and it positioned me in the right spot.

When you read information about racing, they also give you the advice to envision yourself crossing the finish line and what kind of feeling that this is going to give you (example here). They say that doing so, will help you stay motivated and focused in your training and eventually will help you with the mental challenges of completing a race. Once again this doesn't only apply to your athletic career, but also your professional life. It holds true to the fact that you have to work hard, stay dedicated and focused in order to succeed with any goal that you set in your life. Whatever attitude you have will shape your reality and therefore let's all try to be as positive as we can and surround ourselves with other people that have a positive vibe.

While I am writing this, I also have to give myself a little kick in the butt. Right now, I am still in the process of settling in at my BF's house. The move is just three weeks ago and of course, there are still boxes sitting around unpacked…. And of course moving in together is a whole lot of change for everyone involved that just needs some getting used to and also some time for all of us to establish a new routine. These days, I catch myself focusing on the negative a lot, like the longer commute, the increased household responsibility, the decreased privacy (I was used to live on my own for a long time) and other stuff, that I don't even what to go in detail here. Instead, I should focus on the many positive things that came with this move like, that I am able to spend a lot more time with the person I love, that we live in an area with almost endless outdoor possibilities, that the house is big enough to hold every one's stuff without the feeling to suffocate and tons and tons of other things. I guess, I have my marching orders now… I will focus on the positive changes, this move has brought into my life and that is going to help me to work through the not-so-positive ones and I believe that this is really going to make a difference in how the settling in process is going to proceed for me.

When I started this post, I really wasn't sure, what my point is going to be in the end. But while I was going with the flow, I think I found it on the way! :-)

PS: It's FRIDAY and guess what was sitting on one of the cabinets at work this morning? Of course… DONUTS!... AND…. CAKE…. I know, sometimes we go a little overboard around here!