Race to 52 - 1 day remaining

A handful of pages remain in Swann's Way and just shy of a hundred pages are left in Executive Power. 52 is still within reach.

I'm going to need to finish both of these to start 2017 with a nice round number of books to read sitting on my shelves. I'm up to 182 after buying all 1200 pages of The Count of Monte Cristo. It comes highly recommended. I'm not sure when I'll find out the validity of that recommendation.

Fast Food Farewell Tour - Chick fil A fried sandwiches (and fries, they're not my favorite)

Every year I envision sweeping changes to my lifestyle. I see myself eating better, sleeping more, and finding more time for exercise. I find ways to maintain what I've been doing for the last few years by getting in my morning runs and making trips to the gym, but my diet never really changes and I still stay up too late to squeeze in a few more pages of reading or a few more minutes playing some game. The details may change, but the pattern stays the same. 

Our return to Disney World is in a couple of weeks. I'm very much looking forward to it. I like the food and the escape from the monotony and tedium of life. That places is all about escaping the trappings of normal life. It's an artificial world free from all the bad stuff that devours our attention and monopolizes our energy. It's a few days in an alternative space where there are no chores, everything is clean, and the future is bright. At least everything the park has control over glistens and gleams. The people walking around are a different story. Big guts spill over almost every waistband. People carrying around vast excesses of caloric energy spend their time in the park gobbling down even more energy while complaining about all of the walking and standing around. 

We've been looking at the pictures from our last visit as we make plans for this next trip. Seeing how much is similar in my life two years after our last visit hints at why big changes are so hard. Life has a momentum. I live my life with a certain direction and pattern. Those are very difficult to change. I like what I like and what I like is fairly stable and constant from one year to the next. Getting fit and trim will require shifting very powerful equilibria from comfort and contentedness to dissatisfaction and a struggle to achieve something different. 

Sleep and food are the biggest challenges. I'm doing this farewell tour to fast food as a small ceremony to remove places like Taco Bell and Chick-fil-A from my list of acceptable places to get lunch. I need to pack my lunch, everyday, if I'm going to lose weight. I have very little extra time for more exercise. The nice thing about rowing is its small time requirement. I only need 20 minutes for a very solid workout. I need to find those times and stick to them. I must establish a bedtime and adhere to it with an unsurpassed commitment. This sleep thing is critical to everything else. 

Sleep is critical for three reasons (at least, I'm sure I could come up with more). One, energy is critical to achieving everything else. A good night's sleep sets the tone for the rest of the day. It's hard to workout when you wake up feeling less than rested. It's easier to give into temptation and have that cookie or cut back on a workout when all you really want to do it go to bed. It's hard to read when you're tired. Two, I need to sleep to recover and heal. All the work that I put in during the day is captured and put into my body while I'm asleep. Cutting that recovery period short robs me of gains that I work hard to realize in the gym, in my garage, or out on the roads. Three, more sleep means healthy testosterone levels. There are many important aspects of my life dependent on doing all that I can to keep my testosterone levels up. Sleep is one of the big things I can do to keep all my parts in proper working order. 

So farewell to fried chicken sandwiches at Chick-fil-A. I will get the grilled stuff when I eat there with my kids (which I will be doing tomorrow, I expect). 

Race to 52 - 2 days remaining

I should have gone with The Reef. Those 336 pages would have been more manageable than the 500 pages of Executive Power. Edith Wharton is certainly literary but she is not a challenging writer. Her books are easy to read. Vince Flynn wrote to entertain so his books go very quickly, but quick does not cancel out the heft of Executive Power. I should have applied the lesson of The Caine Mutiny and picked short over entertaining. Oh well, too late now. And what difference does it really make. I have absolutely nothing riding on this goal other than meeting a promise to myself. If I miss my target the world will continue to spin. This will be my high watermark for books read in a year for quite some time. I want to set it as high as I can even if there is no material impact on my life if I can't crack 50.

I will crack 50. I'm going to finish Swann's Way. I have 40 some pages to go. I will know if I have a shot at finishing Executive Power by the time I go to bed tonight. If it looks like I will miss Executive Power, I will put everything into Swann's Way. I'm going to keep pushing on both. I'm not going to give up until it's undeniable that I'm not going to make it 52 books this year. 

If I do manage to get to 52, I will start 2017 in an unprecedented position. I will have no books in progress. I can't remember the last time this happened. I usually have a couple of books going at any time so starting totally from scratch will be a different experience. Making the choice of what to read will be careful and deliberate. I usually just grab whatever looks good from my shelf and go. I want to stop and look back over what I have and pick something that has lingered and floated around the maybe I'll read that soon space and actually read it. More on this later. Right now, I need to get some reading done!

Update: I cheated a bit and read a decent chunk of Executive Power at work. Then I managed to have some Family Reading Time (FaRT) after dinner. I used FaRT to get in a few more pages of Swann's Way. I only have 30 pages left in that one. I can get that done in the next two days and still have plenty of time for the not quite 200 pages left in Executive Power. I was doubtful this morning, but I did what needed to get done for me to get back on track.

Race to 52 - 4 days remaining

It's going to be close. Seventy pages remain in Swann's Way. I will finish that one by the end of the year. Executive Power is harder to gauge. I'm on page 120. I need to pick up the pace. I basically need to spend more time reading. That's another way of saying I need to play less Mario Run. I say I'm going to play one or two levels and I end up playing for a half hour. Not good.

I thought I would get more reading done today. This was the day to really push. I was home by myself for most of the day. Well, I wasn't at work and the kids were at daycare, but I wasn't at home much. Grocery store, running, dealing with my insane brother, running other errands. Running other errands like buying books. I bought 4 today. So much for starting the year at 175. It looks more like 180. I'm at 181 right now. Getting through Swann's Way and Executive Power gets me to 179. That gives me a chance to buy one last book before the end of the year. I guess that last book will be my reward for reaching my 52 book target.

Back to work tomorrow. I'm taking Executive Power with me. If there is nobody else back in the lab, I will make plenty of progress on that one over the course of the day.

Race to 52 - 5 days remaining

Christmas was not a good time for reading. I zipped through the very engrossing last third or so of The Caine Mutiny and had that finished up on Friday. That was December 23. I did essentially no reading on Christmas Eve. Final preparations and a visit from my mom and her husband filled up my usual reading time. Then came Christmas.The day started off well enough, but then my brother messed everything up. I spent the afternoon drunk so I could stay calm and not create a huge scene. Needless to say, I was in no shape to read by the time all the relatives had gone home.

I was up for buying some books though. Both The Intelligent Investor and About a Boy were on sale. I bought both ebooks while drunk and trying to avoid my brother. I had both of these books targeted as potential purchases since very early in the year. Well, I wasn't specifically looking for About a Boy, just something by Nick Hornby. Seeing both titles on sale the same day felt like a sign. I also bought Undermajordomo Minor. It's on sale all month. I was waiting until I finished The Caine Mutiny to buy it. I wanted to keep my books to read total at 175. So much for that. I'm up to 177.

I would get back to 175 if I manage to finish both Swann's Way and book 52 for the year (it's looking like Executive Power is going to get that distinction). I would also have to hold off from buying anything else. That's not going to happen. I have a $10 gift card to B&N that I got for free after buying $75 in gift cards right after Thanksgiving. I've been waiting to use that for weeks. Tomorrow is the day. I think I know what I want to get with that card, but I may make a last minute change. We'll see what I'm feeling when I'm actually in the store tomorrow. I also want to read an Iris Murdoch novel. The local B&N stores don't any of her book in stock. I'm going to check a used bookstore tomorrow. If they have The Sea, the Sea or Under the Net, I will not have to order it from Amazon.

I've done some reading today. I finally made my way back to Swann's Way. Under 100 pages are all that stand between me and the end of this first volume of the epic novel. I need to read 20 pages a day to make it. That will be my first reading priority for the rest of this week. Executive Power has started with a bang. I knew it would. That's why I bought it anticipating that I would need something quick and easy to read as the sprint to the finish book. It kind of feels like cheating, but this is my game so I can play anyway I want. It's not a particularly short book, it's almost 500 pages, but those pages go very quickly. I will have to push. Maybe it's not so close to cheating after all.

Race to 52 - 9 days remaining

I spent so much time in the airport Monday night I was able to finish Drive. That gets me up to 49 books complete. That's a positive step. Tuesday was pretty much shot as I was totally spent after my 21 hour long Monday. I did a little bit of reading, but it was not very much progress towards finishing The Caine Mutiny. I still haven't picked up Swann's Way since last Thursday. It's been a week. Nine days doesn't sound like much, I really need to get cracking!

The Caine Mutiny was not a very strategic choice. It's a very good book, but it's so damn long. I was at the 56 % mark when I started reading last night. It took me 30 minutes or so of reading to get to 60%. I could have read much more of it yesterday but every time I pick up my phone to get in a few pages I end up playing Mario Run. I finished all the levels last night and unlocked Yoshi. I really wanted to unlock some new characters. With that accomplished, I hope the temptation to play the game will be reduced. If I fail to reach 52 books for the year, I'm not sure if I'll blame my decision to read The Caine Mutiny, my horrible trip to NJ Monday, or Mario Run.

My off days have also been much more fragmented than I anticipated. Dropping kids off, picking kids up, running errands, all that stuff takes time. I've done very little reading during the day. Trying to get in meters to finish the rowing holiday challenge has taken plenty of time as well. I have some solid chunks of time today, but I have a bunch of little chores to take care of around the house. I need to clean the cat box, empty the dishwasher, put away some laundry, and wrap some gifts. And I need to row for at least 30 more minutes today.

I'm back in my doubting state of mind. It's going to be touch to finish Swann's Way, The Caine Mutiny, and a third book (probably Edith Wharton's The Reef or Executive Power). I need to fill in as much time as I can reading. And that includes not spending time writing posts like this!!

Race to 52 - 12 days remaining

My reading total for the year is up to 48 books after I finished Lowboy Saturday night. That was an ultimately deflating read. The blurbs highlight the plot. Yes, it was a nicely constructed plot. Too bad the big reveal was not particularly exciting. The story just kind of ended. There was lots of build up with not much of a payoff. Just another disappointing venture into contemporary fiction.

The push to finish Lowboy stalled my progress on other fronts. I have not read Swann's Way since Thursday. That puts me 40 pages behind my daily quota. I'll make that up and finish the book but I will likely miss my by Christmas prediction (unless I just really get into it in the next few days). My motivation and interest in the book has not waned. I just haven't had much time to read it.

I've had lots of time to read today. I was on a plane this morning. I used that time to read The Caine Mutiny. I made it through 5% of the book in roughly an hour of reading (I had to take a couple of breaks when the flight got a little bumpy). I grabbed Drive so I could read that while I was waiting for my flight back home. I've read a chunk of that. I'm familiar with most of the ideas in the book so it goes fast. I will likely read more during my delay. My reading effectiveness is going down as my day gets longer (I was up at 4:15 this morning).

I'm keeping 52 in play. I can still make it.

Race to 52 - 16 days remaining

Lowboy will be finished tomorrow. I have a little less than 50 pages left. Tomorrow is a very non-standard weekend day. We're heading to the beach for a race. It was fun last year. This year will be a little different as Bill and Jane will be with us. I'm looking forward to the day. It's going to screw up my reading though. Well, that's not true. I don't read much during the day on the weekend. My night time reading will be pretty much the same. That's when I will finish Lowboy.

Lowboy gets me to 48. I'm going hard on The Caine Mutiny Sunday (another non-standard day) and Monday. I'm on a plane for a couple of hours on Monday. I'm going to read as much as possible. I will be up very early Monday morning, but the early start doesn't seem to hit me until the next day. I'm off the rest of the week. That may be the time I need to finish up The Caine Mutiny and Swann's Way.

Race to 52 - 17 days remaining

Too much TV last night. I was hoping to make some serious progress in Lowboy, but I watched the end of Beetlejuice and a favorite episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. That cost me a half hour of reading time. I read a bit after that, but it was getting late and I get up early on Thursdays. That will probably come back to haunt me tonight. I'll likely be passing out early. Oh well. I'm hoping to make my kids do some reading time so that could be a solid 20 minutes. I could potentially grab another 10 or 15 minutes while they're watching TV. 

I read a few pages of Swann's Way this morning. I missed my 10 page quota. I may pick up some more pages tonight, but I'm leaning towards Lowboy. Tomorrow is a couple's vacation day so who knows what kind of reading I'll get in. 

Race to 52 - 18 days remaining

I'm feeling like this is possible again after making it through a quarter of Lowboy, a book that I picked up with a B&N gift card my wife gave me for my birthday a couple of years ago, in about an hour last night. Lowboy is a shortish book, 250 pages or so, with lots of white space on each page. I should be able to finish this one by the end of the week, Friday orSaturday. I wasn't really feeling the book in the first couple dozen pages, but I was hooked by the time I closed the book for the night. I'm hoping to ride this momentum and get through another big chunk tonight. I've already read my daily quota of Swann's Way so I can focus on Lowboy. Note that The Caine Mutiny is not really in play at the moment. I did not fully appreciate the heft of that book when I started reading it. It's fantastic and something that I will definitely get back to, but I need to see significant progress from my reading time right now. Reading a book for the sake of finishing a book is not the noblest of motivations, but that's where I am right now. 

I'm going to read no matter what. It's just a question of what I choose to read. Making progress towards 52 books is the way I want to spend my reading time right now. Lowboy gets me there faster than The Caine Mutiny. There is also something to be said for the amount of time that has passed since I bought a particular book. Reading something I've been skipping over for awhile feels like it's more in the spirit of Bookshelf Zero. I've had Lowboy longer than Caine. I bought The Caine Mutiny as a Kindle Daily Deal on Christmas Day last year. I haven't had it for a year. I've had Lowboy for over 4 years. I think it lived in the drawer of my night stand for awhile after I skipped reading it for a few months and there was no room on any of my shelves. The history of Lowboy gives the progress that I've made that much more significance. Finishing the book will close a loop that I opened on Valentine's Day 2012. 

Swann's Way is the epitome of a book that feels good to read because I've been trying to read it forever. My failed previous attempts made picking it up again made it that much more intimidating to start again. The end is in sight. It will be fantastic to finish. I should really start the next volume right away. We'll see if I have the courage to keep going after finally beating volume 1.

Bookshelf Zero - 52 book in 2016 looking dicey

I could have stuck with 30 and been comfortably over my target at this point in the year. No, I saw that I was getting through a book every week, on average, a fewI'm  months into 2016 and decided that should be my target pace for the rest of the year. So here I sit with 19 days left in the year needing to finish 5 books by the end of the year to realize that goal. It's a largely arbitrary and meaningless goal. I won't win anything if I make it or get punished if I fall short. But I committed to the goal and I want to make. 

I'm nearly finished with Swann's Way. Sticking with my 10-15 page a day quota should get me through this long standing reading goal (first attempted in 1998) by Christmas. That's leaves 4. I'm almost half way through The Caine Mutiny. Good book. Thick book. I'm not sure if I'm better off leaving this one behind for a bit while I race through some shorter stuff or keep plugging away at this one with a goal of getting it wrapped up by next week. Let's just say I finish it. That leaves 3.

Nineteen days to read 3 books in their entirety while still chipping away at Swann's Way and The Caine Mutiny. I need more books like The Stranger. That was a one day read. I bought it just for that reason. It's still echoing in my brain. It makes me want to read more Camus. That desire will have to wait while I read Lowboy or The Reef of some other 200-250 page book sitting on my shelf. The books are there. I just have to find them. And find the time to read them. I have lots of days off coming. 

Finishing 5 books would lower my pending pile to 172. I want to start 2017 with no more than 175 books to read so that would give me room to pick up 3 more before the ball drops on December 31. That's the real motivation. The more books I manage to finish this year, the more I can buy before I cut myself off in 19 days.

Fast Food Farewell Tour - Taco Bell

Bean burrito, chicken burrito, soft taco, and a Cool Ranch Locos taco. And fire sauce. Always lots of fire sauce.

This was my last lunch at Taco Bell, at least for several monthsy. I will miss you. Taco Bell is like Tetris and Depeche Mode's Violator. Some elements of my young teenage years just seem to have become an indelible part of me. I may leave them behind for awhile, but I always go back. (Especially after hearing a very slick cover of Enjoy the Silence.) So this is not good-bye forever. I will make a run for the border again. I'm just going to take a break for a little while to see what happens when I stop eating highly processed factory food sold at a convenient roadside location and start eating something that can be identified as a real plant or animal. 

Shedding weight, both literary and adipose

My bookshelves are more bloated than my waistline. And they've been that way for a long time. Buying a book, or two or three, happens in just a few minutes of walking around a bookstore or poking around on the internet. Reading those same books takes just a bit longer. It's not so different from eating a few cookies or other delicious treat. It's so easy to dip those suckers into a glass of milk and scarf them down. Those couple of minutes are sublime. Skipping other delicious food or spending more time in the gym to get rid of the calories from those tasty cookies takes quite a bit more effort. 

Reducing my books to read pile and my waistline have been two long standing goals. I've been able to at least stay pretty much in place with my weight and the number of books that I own but have yet to read over the last few years. That's not good enough. I can't just drift along waiting for something to change. I have to take some action. I've been saying this for years with very little to show for it. Every year that passes marks another missed opportunity. I can't just be content with the same old holding pattern. 

I've implemented Bookshelf Zero to address my reading backlog. I will read every book that I own. With 175 books pending my attention, this is not something that will happen in a single year, but I can make a serious effort to read books that I've been wanting to read for years but have put off to read something easier or more immediately intriguing. While reading what I own is the biggest part of this challenge, limiting the number of books that I acquire is just as much a part of Bookshelf Zero as the reading. There will be no book buying in 2017. There will be no books borrowed from the library, no free books downloaded from Amazon, or reading something loaned to me by a friend. Everything I read will come from what I already own (or will own by the time 2017 rolls in). I love buying books. I know going on a buying hiatus will be hard, I've done it before, but this is an absolutely essential step to take to get Bookshelf Zero off and running. 

Running is a big part of reducing my waistline (no catchy name for this goal, at least not yet). I've already registered for a marathon in 2017. It's not until November, but my running year will be directed towards that race. But exercise is not the biggest part of getting thinner. I must be more conscious of my eating behavior. I dropped a bunch of weight about 10 years ago. I really only did two things to lose the weight. I stopped eating until I felt like I was going to be sick and I avoided desserts as much as possible. Getting back into that habit will be the big challenge this year. I love to eat almost as much as I love buying books. I haven't figured out how I'm going to handle this as the new year rolls in.

I definitely won't do what I did during my lunch today. My standard lunch is a Clif bar, a small bag of popcorn, a banana, apple, and a protein bar (after I finish lifting at the gym). I didn't pack an apple today. Rather than going a little hungry, I picked up a burrito from Taco Bell on my way back to work. It was just a bean burrito, but cutting out little things like this is the only way to lose weight. I just need to get comfortable being hungry. That's my big challenge. I almost fear being hungry. That is what I must get  over to finally lose some weight. As long as I'm running regularly, I don't really gain weight. But I don't want to just maintain. I want to reduce my weight. I must be a little hungry from time to time to make that happen.