Well, I've been reading a lot of L'Amour lately. So I decided to try something a little different. I picked a Michael Crichton book and it was a really pleasant surprise. He wrote this in 1968, and of course the way things were looked at was much different. It's sort of interesting to get into the social views of the 60's a little bit and get a glimpse of perception from that time.

The story revolves around a Doctor by the name of Arthur Lee who is arrested and charged with the murder of the daughter of a prominent medical family. Karen Randall is the daughter and she shows up dead after an apparent abortion. Abortion is illegal in the 60's and they are holding him for murder as they believe he is an abortionist. The main character (I don't like the term protaginist) is John Berry, a pathologist who is friends with Dr. Lee.

The story takes place in Boston. Michael Crichton gives a pretty good description of a dirty seedy part of Boston. You are introduced to some pretty in depth medical observation, so it doesn't hurt to have some familiarity with medical terminology. Although he footnotes just about every medical term he uses.

There are a ton of twists and turns in this story, and you are a bit surprised at the ending (I won't play spoiler). The end of the story seems more of a lesson in the social aspects relating to abortion and more to the point, it seems like Crichton is a little biased in his writing as far as his beliefs go.

Although it's an average length book in my opinion, at 416 pages it's a fairly fast read. Considering there is some medical jargon in here, it's not at all difficult to understand or follow. You are easily pulled into the book by Crichton's easy and smooth style of writing.

All in all a very enjoyable book, and a nice shift from some of the other Michael Crichton books I have read (this ain't no Jurassic park :P ). Of course I always enjoy when they use pen names and this is written as Jeffery Hudson.

Check this one out if you have a little free time for reading (took me about 3 days of leisure reading). It's a pretty solid read all in all.

Just finished up Crossfire Trail. This is in my opinion one of the stronger L'Amour books out there. It was made into a movie, with I believe Tom Selleck as Rafe Caradec, and I'm not sure but I think it was Virgina Madsen as Ann Rodney.

The basic storyline is that Rafe Caradec and Charles Rodney are both shanghaied. Charles Rodney is beaten by the captain one too many times and is dying, but Caradec promises the dying man that he will bring the paid mortgage for his ranch back to his wife and daughter and make sure that they are able to keep the ranch working.

So Caradec and three others leave the ship by rather brutal means and make their way to Painted Rock, which is the town closest to the Rodney ranch. Caradec finds out that the wife is dead and the daughter has moved into town and is engaged to the man that holds the note on the ranch.

The story revolves around Rafe and his companions making good on Rafe's promise to take care of the Rodney family while making sure that the people responsible for Charles Rodney's death are punished.

With a good amount of gun fights and fist fights and a great description of the landscape of Wyoming. (classic L'Amour) you will find yourself caught up in this story in no time. Rafe Caradec is the typical hard western man that L'Amour likes to write about and you find yourself really cheering him on at times in the book. All in all I really enjoy this book and this made about my 6th read of it. At only 157 pages you can afford to read and reread a good number of L'Amour books, which is in my opinion one of the reasons they are so dang popular even today.

If you have a few extra hours I highly recommend this one.

So this morning my middle son Cameron is complaining to my wife that his leg hurts. It's not that uncommon for somebody to have some sort of ailment prior to school. (somebody always trying to work their way out of going to school.) My wife told him that maybe he was having some growing pains. He agreed that it was possible and went about his morning routine of getting dressed and combing his hair.

Now Cameron is 11 and he is a bit (quite a bit) small for his age. He has been irritated about it at different times in his life. Mostly because my oldest son Andrew is pretty big for his age. Andrew just turned 17 and he is about 6'4" and about 215 lbs. So Cameron has always asked why he can't be as big as his brother. I told him that everybody grows at their own pace, and he should just give it a bit of time and things will be fine. After all I didn't grow much till the summer before my junior year in high school. I left my sophomore year at 5'2" and came back a junior at 5'9".

Fortunately for Cameron his height is one of the few places that he doesn't excel. He is one of the smartest children I have encountered. Now I know that all parents like to dote on their children and what they accomplish, but with Cameron it's just true. He has been reading since he was about 3 1/2. He was already adding and reading in preschool. He won the spelling bee in 2nd grade and now in the 6th grade, he reads at about 11th grade level. He reads the newspaper and likes to argue politics with his father (sometimes quite effectively). He can sing really well, he is a bowler, and generally whatever he decides to try, he does. Unfortunately for him, he has a bit of a temper for a nerd. Kids have teased him from time to time in school, and found out rather quickly that this is one nerd that can and will fight back (did I mention he watches a lot of MMA fighting). So the occasional suspension has been encountered by us in his short tenure at school.

Lately he has encountered a bully at school, and this is one of those times that he has been a little unsure how to handle it. I have always told him to try and handle problems without violence, but I remember school, and how hateful kids can be when they want to. I've told him over and over to try talking first, but sooner or later there will come a time when talking is pointless. Some kids (and adults) don't understand dialogue. When that time comes strike first and strike hard. He knows that I will back him up to the hilt. I'll be in the principals office with the familiar argument. "If your yard monitors would have taken care of it, Cameron wouldn't have had to hit the kid." So this big kid grabbed Cameron and dragged him into the bathroom and punched him in the arm. I asked him what he did about it and he told me that he told the kid to leave him alone, but it wasn't working. Well we have the 3 times rule. Tell them 3 times and then you defend yourself. Well a couple days ago, he reached the end of the 3 times rule.

I go pick my boys up from school that afternoon, and Cameron is acting sorta weird. So I ask him what's wrong? He explained to me that he had more trouble with this kid and this kid had passed the 3 times rule. The problem for Cameron was that this kid was really really big and Cameron didn't know if fighting back would do any good. I explained that he didn't have to beat anybody up, but he has to stand up for himself. Usually with a bully if you face up, he moves on to find easier prey.

So the very next day Cameron had the encounter. I guess that he decided to even things up a bit. So the kid made some comment, and then slugged Cameron again. This time my little boy, faced him kicked him square in the gonads and punched him in the stomach, he then made a point of yelling to the kid that he was tired of his crap and that this is what would happen from now on every time the big kid picked on him. Well I was excited for my boy (as many fathers would be) and asked him what happened. Evidently the kid was sitting down crying, and didn't do anything. I waited for the phone call from the school, telling me that we needed to have a talk about Cameron's attitude or something. Nothing has come and this has been a week now.

So take us back to tonight, with my sons sore leg. I asked him after dinner this evening how his leg was feeling, since he had complained about it a few times over the course of the evening.
He explained to me that it was sore. I figured we would make it through without too much argument since he left it at that. But right before bed he explained to me that he had been thinking, (always makes me a little nervous). He said that he decided that his leg pain was no different than his bully problem and I was lost. So my soon to be 12 year old had to explain to me, that what he meant was they were probably both just growing pains.

So once again, I am sitting here wondering where in the hell this kid came from, cause I would have not thought about it like that as an 11 year old or for that matter as a 20 year old. But it made me feel pretty good to realize that some of those times that I'm trying to make a point to my kid about something that is going on in his life he is actually listening and not watching tv, or listening to that dang Ipod. I might not be a great parent, but I sure do have great kids.

1:30 in the morning and yet here I am, no closer to sleep than I was at 1:30 this afternoon. I'm the lucky owner of insomnia. Sometimes a curse but sometimes a gift.

I haven't always had it. Growing up I was always quite capable of falling asleep (sometimes right in the middle of class :P ). About 10 years ago I was afflicted with a "condition" called Guillain-Barre Syndrome. For those of you that are into medical terminology it's Idiopathic demyelinating poly neuritis. It's autoimmune, so basically my body thought it was fighting an invading body, but in reality it was attacking the myelin sheath around my own nerves. It causes a severe slowdown in nerve conductivity. No big deal you might think. The problem with that is you get severe weakness in the arms and legs, and you get as clumsy as the corner wino. If you are really lucky (as I was) you will also get a Bells Palsy. So I basically was walking around like an 85 year old man who had suffered from a stroke.

Another of these wonderful side effects is insomnia. They don't know why, but it's extremely common in people that are afflicted with this condition. Now the cure for this wonderful little experience is something called plasmapherisis which is basically pulling the blood out of your body(via a central line through the carotid artery) where it is then put through a centrifuge and separates the blood cells from the plasma. The blood cells are introduced to new plasma and reinstated in your body. If that sounds uncomfortable. It is most definitely uncomfortable. I sat through 5 of those procedures, I every other day.

But after about 6 months I was considered cured. They test you for this condition by a lumbar (spinal tap). Fortunately they only do nerve conductivity tests to gauge your recovery. I will take the little shocks from the conductivity tests over a lumbar any day of the week.

So I was given a clean bill of health and told not to worry about it, that this is random so my chances of getting it again are about 1 in 200,000. Guess what the doctors don't know enough about how this works to say that. I get relapses on a regular basis (nothing as bad as the original thankfully). Unfortunately one of those symptoms that I get (along with the numb fingers and toes) is insomnia.

Well the curse side of insomnia is that in my former employment, I was forced to get up rather early on a regular basis. It wasn't uncommon to have to go to work at 5:00 am till 3:30 or 5:00 pm. Not a problem if you can get to sleep at some sort of a decent hour. It really sucks though when you don't get to sleep till 2:30 and then have to get up at 4:00. Do that for a couple weeks and you start to see things (no really).

Now the gift side of this, is that I have tons of time to indulge in my favorite books, or in the past my favorite video games (Guild wars). I could read an extra 3 or 4 books a month with that extra time. It also didn't hurt when I was writing my short stories. It's amazing what kind of weird sick crap you can come up with when you haven't slept more than 3 hours in a week.

It's like tweaking without paying for it. I've tried relaxation exercises, drinking, sex, you name it. Nothing allowed me to sleep. So I decided what the hell, I'm just gonna go with the flow and accept that it's part of my life and enjoy the ride.

So if you get a few really off the wall rants on my blog, just remember this post. It's bound to happen, and sometimes I'm told that the BS I spew while in a "mood" is highly entertaining.
Who knows one of these times I might even get up the nerve to put one or two of those short stories on here for some critique.

I was enjoying a plate (that's right plate not bowl) of ramen noodles this afternoon and I got to thinking that they are quite possibly the most perfect food I could ask for.

Think about it, they take about 3 minutes to make in the microwave (6 on the stove). You can use the flavor packets if you want. I don't use the packets, I might put pasta sauce on them, or maybe just butter and grated cheese. Sometimes I'll scramble some eggs and put them in the mix. There are so many things you can do with this food it's mind boggling.

I was in the USMC for a little while, and along with our MRE's (Meal Ready to Eat) some of the guys would bring along some crushed up packs of ramen. The way we would use it then, was to crush them up pretty fine with the flavor packets in a plastic bag. Simply shake it all up and you have a sorta trail mix, but more like a chex mix. Very good and it will definitely hold you over till you can stop somewhere and get a decent meal.

A friend of mine use to make spanish rice, and then crush up the ramen and boil it adding it to the rice mix to make it seem "fuller" as he put it. I didn't like the sound of it, but when I tried it I had to admit it was pretty awesome.

The bottom line is, ramen is easy, affordable, and the possibilities are endless. So go spend a couple bucks on some ramen and try out a half dozen different ways to make them and see if they aren't all I've said.

Besides, a couple million college students can't be wrong.

Just finished up with Milo Talon. Much better book in my opinion than Radigan. Milo Talon is more along the lines of Tell Sackett or Logan Sackett.

Lots of action in this story. Milo is hired by a man named Jefferson Henry to find his grand daughter(really only a step). The guy offers Milo a pretty large amount of money for the job and he figures it's a pretty easy way to get paid. Little does he realize that a lot of people along the way have died because of this girl as well as the people she is associated with.

The nice thing about this book is L'Amour ties in the Talon's and the Sackett's. Em Talon who is Milo's mom is a sackett. I think that might be why Milo is meant to share so many traits with his cousins. Regardless, you get a little history regarding the Talon family and some tie in to the Sacketts and you also get to meet some really salty (and extremely interesting) characters in this story.

German Schafer is a cook at Maggie's in town. Pablo is the Mexican rider for Shelby who Milo befriends. Portis, a friend of his from St. Louis. I always like when L'Amour adds in these types of characters. Portis is a man that Milo helped out in the past, and they became friends of a sort Portis has a lot of contacts in St. Louis and is sort of an informational warehouse for most things in the city. There is also the love interest in the story which happens to be a pretty young girl by the name of Molly Fletcher. He doesn't leave out the bad guys in this one either although they might not be the ones you would think. The toughs in this book are many but the main ones seem to be John Topp, Tom Baggott (The Bald Knobber) who is a known killer for hire. Then you get one of the Mexican toughs, Felipe (who as it turns out befriends Milo because of his friendship with Pablo.)

All in all I really enjoyed the book, and I just touched on the characters. L'Amour develops a pretty good picture of Milo Talon in this book. Also it is told mostly from a first person account so you really get into the characters head.

I'd suggest this one to anybody interested in Westerns. If I was grading it would get a solid B.