Have Yourself a Merry Little Census

Dear Civil Rights/Census people,

Thank you for capitalizing on this holiday season. It makes me just want to hop on my donkey and get all censified.

November books

Getting close to the end of the year, here is the book list for November:


Marriage: Love and Logic
Dr. Foster W. Cline

My wife and I read this book together. It had some good advice and sparked some great conversation between my wife and me. But a lot of the "love and logic experiences" seemed very redundant after a while. Maybe the fact that we were reading it on a strict time schedule (we had to get it back to the library) lessened its impact. And, finally, whoever edited the book missed quite a few misspellings and format errors that made focusing on the content a challenge.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Stephen R. Covey

This book took me about six months to read. There was a lot of good advice, sound principles and memorable ideas, but I thought that the book went on and on repeating ideas over and over with stories, examples and explanations. I think it would have been more powerful had it been more concise.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
Jeff Kinney

These books are extremely quick, but are just a lot fun to read. The author continues to find new experiences to keep the books interesting.

GMAT
Kaplan

This book was a good reference in preparing for the GMAT. I was focused mainly on the quantitative portion, and their "100 rules to know" was very helpful in preparing.

GMAT 800
Kaplan

What I liked most about this book was that you had 2-4 questions to answer and then it took you step-by-step on how to find the right answer to each of those questions. So instead of having to take full tests or full sections before checking answers, I could understand where I went wrong almost immediately.

With one month to go, I think I have 6 books left to read to meet my goal of reading 50 books for the year. Definitely doable.

The Studio

Some of you may remember my christmas wish post from a few years ago. Well, Deidra gave me an inch and I took over our spare bedroom closet and, with a newly-made shelf from my mother-in-law* recently added, here is the finished product:

* In my mother-in-law's defense, the shelf was given to us unpainted. The bright green came from a can of paint that Deidra got for free. But I kind of dig the color and the contrast it adds to the otherwise black instruments/cables/etc.