Books Acquired

• Sam Harris. 2004. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. (gift)
• Peter Hessler. 2001. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. (gift)
• J. Anthony Lukas. 1997. Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America.
• Zadie Smith. 2000. White Teeth: A Novel.

Books Read

• Thomas Pynchon. 2006. Against the Day.
• Audrey Niffenegger. 2003. The Time Traveler's Wife. (gift)
• Peter Hessler. 2001. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. (gift)

I finally finished Against the Day after three months of deliberately working my way through it. I took copious notes (filling two and a half sections of a journal book) and both contributed to, and benefited from the wiki devoted to the book. I'm not exactly sure what to make of the book now that I'm finished with it. It was a great book, but it's always hard to read a book when you feel like you have to study while you're reading. There were days when I came home from work, and just didn't feel like investing the energy it would take to read, write, and cross-reference so that I could get as much from it as it deserved.

I'm often called on to describe (often, defend) why I think Unix, and Unix tools, are better than the more popular alternatives. The point I always try to make is that Unix is an expert system, meaning it takes expertise to use it, and because of the richness and complexity of the system, there's always something more to learn. For a beginner, they're a pain to use because there's such a steep learning curve. But once you've learned enough to go forward, it is much easier to apply what you've learned to new, unique, and difficult tasks that are impossible in the simpler, restrictive box that a non-expert system places you in. Pynchon is the literature version of an expert system. It's a lot of work just to read it, but it's obvious once you do that not only have you gotten something unique out of it, you will get much, much more when you read it again.

The next book I read was The Time Traveller's Wife, and I enjoyed it so much, I was tempted to start reading it all over again right after I finished it. Not because a second read would be all that much more revealing, but because I wanted to be back in the world of Henry and Clare. It was the perfect antidote to Against the Day, yielding rich rewards with the simple effort of reading.

I finished the month out with Peter Hessler's memoir of his time teaching with the Peace Corps in China. I'd read some of his writing in The New Yorker and was a little worried that the book might seem too much like a series of columns in book form, but that wasn't the case at all. The Hessler who starts the book upon arriving in China is very different from the guy at the end, and the journey from one to the other was very entertaining. I also feel like I learned something about what makes China so different from the United States. The way the Chinese government deals with their own troubled history and the conflict between "Communisim with Chinese Character" and capitalism is pretty interesting when viewed from a rural backwater like the small town Hessler taught in.

We've had Koidern almost a year now, but as much as she loves being in the house, she's never felt comfortable enough to sleep on the dog beds we made. When she first came, she'd pace around and finally lie on the rug in front of the couch. A few months later, she started sleeping on a small commercial dog bed away from the other dogs. Within the last few weeks, her favorite spot has been the stair landing.

But today, when I came home from work to let Piper and Nika out (it's been too cold outside for them to ride with me to work), Koidern came in and went right for the middle dog bed, traditionally Kiva's bed. Kiva stood above her and gave her the stink eye, trying to get her to move but finally gave up and curled up right next to her.

Getting a new dog integrated into the family is a challenging and stressful process, and I think this marks Koidern's full membership in pack Swingley.

First place!

The second championship race of the 2007 season was held in North Pole this weekend at the Chena Lakes Recreation Area. It's been about 25 degrees below normal this week in Fairbanks, and Chena Lakes is one of the colder spots in the Interior. It was -45°F on Saturday and -41°F on Sunday in North Pole when I left the house for the track. The races were delayed until 12:30 so that things could warm up a bit, but it was still a chilly -15°F when the four-dog class went out.

It's a short 3.8 mile course for the four-dog class and Andrea and our dogs had the best time of 11:43.1 on Saturday. The second place team was 11.3 seconds behind. On Sunday Andrea lost some ground, but she held on to win the overall race by 1.5 seconds, finishing with a total time of 22:59.2. She got a trophy, three bags of dog food and a check for $50, but I'm pretty sure that getting first place in a championship race is the real reward.

This weekend's race was the final challenge race of the season. Andrea and the dogs finished the 5.9 mile course in under 20 minutes for the first time ever, which was good enough for fourth place. She was very happy with the dogs and their performance.

The photo on the right shows Piper sleeping with her head on the steering wheel down in Tok. It's a two day race at the end of the season, and the dogs (and us!) get very tired by the end.