Comments | mkwhite: Charmed Weekend

mkwhite

Charmed Weekend

Sep 19, 2006 15:23

I had a beautiful weekend this weekend ... mostly. Friday night we slacked. We went out for dinner and a movie. Both (Coho for dinner and The Black Dahlia) were good but not great, but it was a nice, relaxing way to celebrate the end of a stressful and hectic week. Between dinner and the movie, we had a little time to kill so we poked around ( Read more... )

wine, biking, books, weekend, toys

Comments 7

(The comment has been removed)

mkwhite September 20 2006, 14:02:55 UTC

The best thing about the set, which the Amazon.com photo doesn't really show, is that the pieces were really nice looking. They seemed to put some thought and effort into the product, rather than just mass producing molded plastic lumps.

astormorray September 20 2006, 02:35:41 UTC

Have you read a lot of James? I read The Golden Bowl and came away with two impressions; that about half of the novel was too dense to be understood by me, and that he is a genius with a metaphor in the half I could follow. What I'm asking I guess is, is it just me?

mkwhite September 20 2006, 13:56:48 UTC

I'm afraid I can't tell you just yet. I've had a few of his books on my list for a long time, but I've never actually read any of them. (oh the shame! I'm a classics slacker!) From what I've heard, though, he is supposedly known as a genius of the metaphor ... so I'm guessing it's not just you.

hrm... zootsaxismyaxe September 20 2006, 16:07:50 UTC

Make sure to check your "Strength of Materials" book for loose papers. You never know what you'll find. When I got a 1920, Third Edition of Hazen & Williams' "Hydraulic Tables" from Powell's in Portland, it had a final exam from Cal-Berkley (dated Friday, December 9, 1927) inside its pages. Fun stuff :)

Also, if you're looking for classic novels to read, I just finished "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol, and it was quick good, while still being a simple read. Very different Russian novel that the usual Tolstoy/Dostoevsky that everyone reads...

Ah well, that's my $0.02....which buys you nothing these days :)

Re: hrm... mkwhite September 20 2006, 16:25:59 UTC

I'm currently reading a very different style of Russian novel, called The Master and Margarita, a comedy about the Devil coming to Moscow. I'm not very far in, but so far, it's pretty good and very strange.

I haven't really gotten a chance to read Strength of Materials yet, because I'm a little overwhelmed with more current CE texts these days, but hopefully I'll get a chance to dive into it after October. Blah.

Re: hrm... zootsaxismyaxe September 20 2006, 17:51:13 UTC

So, October is the big test date for you? It wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be, although you should definitely study as much as you can. If you haven't already, the "Six-Minute Solutions" practice manuals are pretty good (http://www.amazon.com/Six-Minute-Solutions-Civil-Structural-Problems/dp/1591260515/sr=8-5/qid=1158774267/ref=pd_bbs_5/102-4430354-9047368?ie=UTF8&s=books... )

Re: hrm... zootsaxismyaxe September 20 2006, 17:52:37 UTC

...oh, and steal the mechanical pencil they give you. Of people I've talked to, the pass rate is MUCH higher for those who steal the pencil than for those who don't. (yes, you can always rely on Duck for amazing advice in ethics :) )