Crazy times

Well, it has been a crazy start to the new year. My car was rear-ended leaving the Bob Seger concert on the 30th, so I had to get that repaired. Now the mystery is whether I have to pay the deductible or if my company reimburses me, it's a company car, and the policies I've found on our website are unclear. Trips to Canada, the autoshow and repeatedly to Milan, MI for a customer's quality problem have filled my work days, and Red Wings games and soccer games have filled my work week evenings.

My grandmother passed away on Saturday the 8th. She was 93. She had had a severe stroke on Christmas day 12 years ago and has been partially paralyzed and mostly unable to speak ever since. To see such a strong independent women struck down for so long and trapped in that body was more difficult than letting her go, but she was my last surviving grandparent, so it's still sad. Of course, it makes me think about when I will lose my parents which is something I hate to even consider, but my folks are in there mid 60's and I've had friends lose their parents at younger ages. Both sides of my family seem to usually live long lives, but you never know.

On a nicer note, I had a wonderful weekend. Jenni and I went to see the Killer Flamingo's at the happy hour in Royal Oak, they were great as always. Other friends of mine were there too, so lots of folks to see and hang out with. At 1, we decided to leave and hit Gusoline Alley on our way to the car. I love that dive. Talked to some very strange fellows standing by the juke box, escaped to play pin ball, then talked to some other marginally more normal folks before last call. The guy was passably interesting for closing time in a dark bar, but he never asked for my number. In retrospect, he kept asking if there was anything else he should know about me... was that a subtle hint for me to reply, 'Well, my phone number will come in handy?" If so it went right over my head at the time.

Saturday I took Isabelle (attacking her Christmas present from Jenni) to the adoption event, I didn't get rid of her, but met a promising follow up, she may have a permanent home soon.

Saturday night I met Yeimy, Scott, Alan, Amy, Kim, Jenni, Curry and wife (need to remember her name) at Camp Ti for drinks and music. What a great idea Scott had, I had a great time just hanging out and chatting and listening to the classic rock tunes the band was playing. It was a very nice mellow evening.

Book Updates:
Yesterday I finished reading Dorothy L. Sayer's The Documents of the Case, which I borrowed from my mom. Good detective novel, I will find more of her books. This one was written as a set of letters for the most part which is a format I find rather annoying, and I figured out the gist of how the murder was accomplished not long after, but the use of what was cutting edge science at the time was interesting.
Also this passage was interesting to me: From letter #8 "...It is difficult to bring one's mind into sympathy with that curious Victorian blend of materialism and trust in a personally interfering Providence. It's odd how they seem to have blinded themselves to the hopeless contradiction between their science and their conventional ethics. On the one hand, an acceptance of Darwinian survival of the fittest, which ought to have made them completely ruthless in theory and practice; on the other, a sort of sentimental humanitarianism, which directly led to our own special problem of the multitudenous survival of the unfittest." How topical from a novel published in 1930.

I almost find Sayer more intriguing than her novel, she was one of the first women to get a degree from Oxford University, and very accomplished in a time when that was uncommon. I am also listening to Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, I love it as much as The Fountainhead, reading these books makes me want to join Ayn Rand's cult. I need to go buy for my book club The Omnivore's Dilemma, we decided a theme of non-fiction for the first 3 months this year. I'm also trying to finish The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, I was always curious why this book caused the Ayatollah to put a fatwa on him. But it is very disjointed and hard to follow. I read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown over Christmas, and all the fascination I felt reading DaVinci Code was completely replaced with disappointment for this book, what a load of unbelievable crap.