Running... Again?

Image
  If you know me you know there was a time about 10 years ago or so where I was running. A lot. At least 5 days a week and at least 5 miles a run. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t preparing for a race or a marathon. I just found myself enjoying the time spent running. I wasn’t obsessed with numbers, but I kept track of them all and liked seeing improvements in time and distances. It was good physical health and mental health. Then I tweaked my knee. Not bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it, just a tweak that told me I needed to back off of running for a little bit. So I decided on 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks I aborted a run very early as the pain was still there. 2 weeks became 3, became a month, became 5 years. 
Post a Comment

Vampires and Abraham Lincoln?

I don't usually do book reviews. Basically I think they're pointless. For every review that is positive for a book there's an equal review that is negative. Unless we're talking undisputed great works, like... OK, maybe there aren't undisputed great works out there, though I think there should be. But this book is certainly not an undisputed great book, but it was a fun book that caught me doing what I'm not supposed to be doing; judging a book by it's cover. 
In case you haven't been keeping up with the media scene, vampires (and werewolves) are a dime a dozen these days. And having not watched a single vampire show or teenage angst movie, I was afraid Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was going to be somewhat similar. A teenage Abe, shirtless, built like a Greek god, hunting vampires, and falling in love with one. Now I'll be the first to admit that my knowledge of Abe prior to his time serving as President is limited to the picture of a kid (possibly in a stove top hat) reading by candle light in a log cabin. What happened between then and him becoming President (with the exception of some time spent debating Stephen Douglas) are a mystery to me. This book fills those gaps with, what I hope, is a little mixture of fact and fiction. 
I won't give too much away, but Abe's mother died at the hands (teeth?) of a vampire, and from that moment he vows to rid America of all vampires. It seems that America is the new place for the European vampire to come and continue their bloody ways, and to influence the growth of the country. Abe, with the aid of a friendly vampire, begins to hunt. What started off as a personal vendetta soon becomes a political and national problem. No, not a vampire uprising directly, but it seems vampires are the biggest backers of the slave trade, as it keeps them with fresh supplies of blood. I had been wondering how the author was going to handle Abe's Presidency and the Civil War, but clearly wasn't expecting this. 
The book is sometimes funny (Edgar Allan Poe is mistaken as a vampire), but is well written and, once the story got moving, engrossing. I will say that the ending wasn't really satisfying, and I'll leave it at that so as to not spoil it for anyone. So, if you have time for a quick read I highly recommend Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I don't think it will disappoint.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Running... Again?

Image
  If you know me you know there was a time about 10 years ago or so where I was running. A lot. At least 5 days a week and at least 5 miles a run. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t preparing for a race or a marathon. I just found myself enjoying the time spent running. I wasn’t obsessed with numbers, but I kept track of them all and liked seeing improvements in time and distances. It was good physical health and mental health. Then I tweaked my knee. Not bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it, just a tweak that told me I needed to back off of running for a little bit. So I decided on 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks I aborted a run very early as the pain was still there. 2 weeks became 3, became a month, became 5 years. 
Read more

The Pros and (Mostly) Cons of Upgrading to a 4K Monitor

Image
I'm in the process of getting back into photography which will mean a new camera, more on that in a later post. But the first step for me was a new computer, one with the horsepower to handle a modern day camera and its RAW files. Along with the computer comes a new 4K monitor. 4K is great for media consumption, right? Your characters on your favorite show or movie really look detailed and realistic. Scenery looks wonderful. Everything looks great, right? Wrong. You know what doesn't look great? That photo I took in 2012 that I thought was sharp but is very much not. I transferred over my past catalogs of photos over to Lightroom Classic and eagerly began opening up some of my favorite photos. At first I was happy with how the colors looked and how the scene was composed. Then I noticed it was a little soft. Well I had just gotten a new contacts prescription so that must be it. Changed to my glasses and the photos were even blurrier! I went through photo after photo and most ca...
Read more