Read The Dark Tower

I finally completed the Dark Tower epic. Once again I thoroughly enjoyed it. This last book was sped along by me listening to it on the drive down to Georgia (a great way to pass miles). There is so much from this series I would like to apply to my life. The old value of honor, hard work, friendship, and the journey is what is important, not the end.
I cannot recommend this series more than I have, but it is amazing once you let it grow on you. At the end of this last book it relates how he started in 1970 and finished in 2009. Amazing!

make a craft

I decided that I need a bigger camera bag and I just happened to have a messenger bag that I loved and Connie has been doing her own version of silk screening. So the first step was to decorate the bag and here it is.

Read Song of Susannah

Book 6 of the Dark Tower epic down!  Song of Susannah is a bit shorter than some of the others, but so many important events happen and get set up for the climatic finish.  I hate doing reviews because I don't want to spoil secrets but I want to get others to read the books so I never know how much to tell.  I guess I'd be safe in saying that Susannah's trial with her personalities take up much of the book and get sorted out as well as some business with the rose and the vacant lot.  There is a lot of time traveling, alternate worlds and meddling in fate, so if you have a hard time wrapping your head around stuff like that (think Matrix) you may not like this series.

 

But wow oh wow, this is my favorite series of books ever!

 

On to the last one where the Tower is won or lost!! 

Read The Wolves of the Calla

Continuing on my journey for the Dark Tower I read the fifth book in the series, The Wolves of the Calla.  This is one of my favorites, more of an isolated adventure that takes place in a sleepy little border town where strange raiders abduct children every generation.  Roland's group of adventurers are called in to aid the town but there is much here for the band of Eld to see, hear, and discover.  They will have changed much by the time the wolves have left!

 

I love this series and will speed through the next one, The Song of Susannah, I'm sure.  This is one of the few series I can read over and over again.

Read Wizard and Glass

Continuing the Dark Tower series; I just finished Wizard and Glass, the fourth book of the line.  I again enjoyed it greatly.  This book takes the reader back to Roland's past and one of his first adventures as a gunslinger and shows how the Dark Tower first enters his life.  I am impressed that Stephen King can weave such a detailed back story into the stream of a story and make it feel uninterrupted.  It feels natural to happen here, right in the middle of the series.  There is some bookending done in the current timeline and a neat adventure in what seems like Oz, but the majority of the time is spent when Roland is only in his teens.

 

Next is book five in the series, "Wolves of the Calla"

Buy a DSLR

This item has replaced "Buy a Motorcycle" as I don't see me buying a motorcycle. It just doesn't make sense in a city where we are buried in snow for 6 months out of the year, but I do LOVE to take pictures. And with a DSLR I can take some great pictures (hopefully) and that will help me with my weekly blog feature. Also I might be able to sell some on etsy for my other 30/30 item.

So with out tax refund I was able to get the Nikon d3100 for my birthday. I LOVE it!!! I'm still learning but already the pictures I am to get are really awesome.

debt free, way to be (sort of)

Well we've finally dos it. Got rid of all of our consumer credit debt. No more Best Buy bills. No more paying for furniture. All done working for discover card. It is a nice relief to not have to remember to pay different companies every month. We still have student loan debt and a car loan, but those are to be taken care of as we can. They aren't killing our credit score or just throwing money away. I'm happy to have learned from the mistakes of my youth and finally set one right.

Play Your Shape: Fitness Evolved

WOW! I played the demo for this game and all it included was a gym game, and while fun, wasn't the deepest experience.  Best Buy put Kinect games on sale and I read lots of good reviews (including the one by my good friend Hana) and decided this is one to pick up.  I am so glad I did.  The workout routines are fun, VERY challenging and don't seem to carry on forever.  The interface is clean and informative, the trainer isn't obnoxious and the fact that there is already added downloadable content shows that they plan on supporting this product for a while.  LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!

read The Waste Lands

I was pondering over what to read next for my 30/30 list (I fear that it is a thing I may come up lacking on) and came across a book I read quite some time ago and remembered enjoying greatly.  The Waste Lands is the third in a series of seven books called the Dark Tower saga by Stephen King.  Each book is large (by my standards at least) and for a series to be seven books long seems massive, but this has to be one of the best things I think I've ever read.  In a world that closely parallels our own the last of the gunslingers heads ever towards the Dark Tower.  It's fun to see how in a broken, worn down world little bits of our own have bled through in "thin" spots.  Symbolsim run deep through the whole series and double meanings are everywhere.  If you enjoyed that part of the TV show Lost, this is a series for you!

In this particular installment, the gunslinger has started to lose his mind by a tearing in the timeline caused by him killing and not killing the same person at different times in his journey.  Aided by his new gunslingers in training, Eddie and Suzannah, they start to make real progress towards their destination.  But as they find a means of speeding their progress, perhaps they will have to regretted wishing for a speedier means of transport.

I do love this series, and will probably read the remainder of it.  The library did not have the first two volumes in when I grabbed this one and I remember most of what happend in them anyways.  If you like any of King's other works, they appear throughout the series.  Vampires from Salem's Lot, the man in black from The Stand and many more.

Read Just After Sunset

I just picked up Stephen King's compilation of short stories "Just After Sunset" from the library and rekindled my love for King's writing.  I had forgotten how he can just wrap me up in his characters and get me concerned for what will happen next.  This is even more amazing to me as these are all short stories and I would think much more challenging to create the backstory and emotional attachment to characters and level of detail I am used to.  Some of these stories like Gingerbread Girl I could easily see being made into a TV movie.  It was really fun to hear him mention Case Western University in one of the stories as I had worked there a number of years ago.

A very enjoyable read and I think I'll pick up another one of his books for my next read too.

read Quitters Inc

I've always been a fan of Stephen King, so when I saw that he had an available title on the library's ebook service I jumped at the chance.  It's not a very long book, but very much a stephen king one.  The premise is a cigarette addict meets up by chance with an old friend and asks how he quit and his friend refers him to Quitters Inc.  This place takes a new and very drastic way of motivating clients to quit their habits, pain and torture to loved ones.

The premise is pretty good, but not new it seems.  The twists are rather predictable and the characters are not overly developed like most king novels are.  This largely comes from the lenght of the piece I suppose, but it would have been more compelling if I was a little more attached to the main character.

Not a bad book by any stretch, just short and to the point.