Author: ekkarn

A Tiring Day with Zoe?

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Uh, I Think the Run was a wee more tiring than Zoe!

 

Ok so today was not a work at Target day. It was a babysit Zoe day, which is a little more fun. Watching Zoe is a cake job. I really don’t think you can say that about most 2 1/2 year-olds! When I arrived at 9:30, Zoe had just gotten up. She was watching TV and eating her breakfast. So I look at some stuff on my Kindle for a little while. After finishing her breakfast, she grabbed my hand and said it was time to play doll house. All that really meant was I had to sit by the doll house while she played. She basically played with the doll house for the next hour until it was time to pick up my wife for lunch. We came over to our house. Zoe played nicely with a finger-stamping set. She also had some yogurt.

No Nap for Zoe means No Nap for Granddad!

 

At 12 o’clock we took my wife back to work and headed back to Zoe’s house. She finished her uncrustable while watching Paw Patrol. I kept telling her it was going to be her nap time soon. A little before 1 o’clock she said she was ready for her nap. We went into her room she got her binkie and I put her in her crib and closed the door, Typically, when I watch her I watch her through the nest cam and when I initially turned it on today she seemed to be laying down.

The next time I looked I was looking not at Zoe but the curtains and Zoe was talking wildly! Hmm, wonder how the camera got moved!  Anyway each time I checked for the next twenty minutes or so Zoe was talking a blue streak!! Finally things got really frantic and I went in her room. She popped up took her binkie out and said “I’m done my nap, done sleeping” I responded that she had not in fact – done any sleeping!!  oh well!

Zoe at the Library

Zoe on a prior visit to the library

Off to the Library

Since I had a book to pick up at the library, I decided that we would go to the library to kill some time until my wife was done work at 3:30. We had fun, Zoe played with some of the toys. Back in the summer the library had a ball toss set up in the children’s library. So today after playing on one side of the library, Zoe took off to the other. As I followed I could hear her questioning – where the balls were!!

Zoe at the library

Again , Zoe on a prior visit to the library!

Anyway, we made a quick stop ar Dollar General on the way home to pick up some hot dog rolls and then it was off to pick-up my wife. Because there were now a lot of people around to watch Zoe, i.e my wife, daughter Elizabeth and son Nicholas, I was now free to run. So off I went on a four-mile run……..

Now the reason that I have written all of this is that I always have good intentions to write about my run and the music I listened to after the run. But invariably, by the time I finish showering, taking Zoe home.making and eating dinner, watching Jeopardy, cleaning up from dinner, starting a load of laundry, my brain is fried! And now it;s time to get ready to go to bed. so I can go to Target in the AM!

Anyway, it was a good run and I listened to some really good acoustic blues. I will try to write about that tomorrow!! Static in the Wires from Martin Harley and Daniel Kimbro (Daniel plays bass!) was album that was the soundtrack for the run.Here is a video of them performing together. Enjoy! I know I did!

 

The Last Days of Night – Graham Moore

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The Last Days of Night – Graham Moore

 

The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore is in the words of Gillian Flynn….

“Mesmerizing, clever, and absolutely crackling, The Last Days of Night is a triumph of imagination.  Graham Moore has chosen the Gilded Age of New York as his playground, with outstanding characters – Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse – as hi players. The result is a beautifully researched , endlessly entertaining novel that will leave you buzzing.”

I confess that I have never read much about Thomas Edison. That’s probably not a good thing for a fellow New Jerseyian to say is it? Of course I know all about all the cool things that Edison invented like the light bulb and phonograph, What I didn’t know about are the things that form the basis of this fantastic book. Those things being Edison’s law suits 312 of them against George Westinghouse and the battle wage by those two inventors over Alternating and Direct current.

 

While Edison and Westinghouse are prominent characters in this book, the main character is Paul Cravath… a young lawyer who has been hired by Westinghouse tto defend him in the lawsuits. Young Cravath while a member of a prestigous law firm has little experience and virtually no clients. The precise reason Westinghouse chose him to be his lawyer! As Young tries to find a way to win an unwinnable case against one of the most prominent men in America, he mets some interesting people. He hires the brilliant but eccentric Nikola Tesla away from Edison. Tesla brings his invention of Alternating Current to the Westinghouse Corporation. Paul also gets a second client the beautiful Opera singer Agnes Huntington.Together they try to save the Westinghouse corporation from bankruptcy! And to take down Thomas Edison!

Bottom Line

The Last Days of Night was a well researched and well-written book. Moore made all the characters in this wild time in American history come alive.In his notes at the end of the book Moore:  references Empires of light : Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the race to electrify the world by Jill Jonnes as one of his main sources of information about Edison and Westinghouse and the fight that was the foundation of this book. (Note: After I wrote the above, I checked the availability of the book at my libary. It was available at the branch library I was going to this afternoon. Needless to say the book is now on my TBR pile.)

So Check it Out! I’ll leave you with more words of praise. This time it’s from author Scott Turow…

“The Last Days of Night” is a wonder, a riveting historical novel that is part legal thriller, part techno-suspense. This fast-paced story about the personal and legal clash over the invention of the light bulb is a tale of larger-than-life characters and devious doings, and a significant meditation on the price we as a society pay for new technology…… Thoughful and hugely entertaining”

Book 14 of 2017    Rating **** (4.25 stars)

Links for the Further Exploration of the Books of Graham Moore

Author’s Website
Twitter
Facebook
Goodreads
Amazon

 

 

 

 

A Slightly Different Morning Workout…..

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….With Some Great Music from Terra Guitarra and Joseph L. Young

The Morning Workout

So every non-Target working I try to do a workout that includes a tuning in warm up (Long Ek Ong Kar) followed by a 7:30 minute Kundalini and regular exercise set that includes

Lower spine flex
twists
side bends
shoulder shrugs
head rolls
alternating knee to chest
alternating leg raises
double leg lifts with a 5 lb exercise ball
arm lifts – on back legs at 90 to floor and extend up arms with the 5 lb ball (lifting head also)
bicycle
pick me up (butt raises)
expand and contract legs with legs on 45 degree angle

Each exercise is done to a recitation of the Mool Mantra (about 25 seconds)

That is followed by 7 minutes of light weights – a series of exercise with  2 – 15 lb weights, 2 5 lb weights and a 20 lb Kettle bell. The last 6 minute exercise set uses a resistance band, followed by a slightly aerobic set using a boxing type band and then another x-type resistance ban. The set ends with a 15 minute meditation. Total time is 40 or so minutes.So I typically have been starting my Fitbit tracker at the start of the routine and turn it off at the end. I end up with about 12 minutes of productive exercise and the rest well like resting (i.e the warm-up and the meditation.

This morning I started my routine with some rhythmic movement to get me moving and followed it with my regular routine. I stopped the Fitbit before the meditation. So I ended up with a 26 minute workout with 18 productive minutes. 17 minutes in the fat burn zone and 1 in the cardio zone. It was a good workout! I still did my 15-minute meditation but I just didn’t track it as exercise!

The Soundtracks: Terra Guitarra and Joseph L. Young

There was another twist to my exercise this morning. Typically, I use one album as the soundtrack for the entire workout. However, this morning I used two albums. Of Sea & Stars from Terra Guitarra was the album for the exercise portion of the routine, The soundtrack for my meditation was Etherium from flutist Joseph L Young. Both did their job splendidly! Of Sea & Stars kept my pace up during the exercising. While Etherium  relaxed me during my meditation!

While I have listened to both of these albums several times, I think I need to explore more about both the players and the albums a little more before I write about them.

Terra Guitarra is an acoustic guitar duo composed of lead guitarist and composer Bruce Heckel and Julie Patchouli. Patchouli plays mainly rhythm guitar as a foundational base to Heckel’s blazing solo’s. On Of Sea& Stars she also plays drums and bass. Ok so  have listened to this album several times and have heard their music previously. However, I have never seen then perform live or on YouTube The following video is the first time I have seen them and my first reaction to seeing Heckel’s playing was Wow!! I have another favorite!!!

So check them out! I on the other hand are going to go exploring and listening to find out more about this fantastic duo!! I’ll let you know what I find out!!

If you’d care to Explore you can start at here at Terra Guitarra’s website!

 

 

Five Books for the End of February…..

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And the Beginning of March..….

Since there are only six days left in February, I will probably not finish any more books. That means I will end the month having read five books.And I will have read thirteen books in 2017. But maybe just maybe one I will be able to finish one of the following five books. Even if I don’t finish any of the books I will a good start on March;s reads!

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Five Proposed Reads for the End of February and March

Books I am Currently Reading….

I have already started two of the five books I currently have checked out from the library. Here are the two that I have started

Long Days of Night – Graham Moore

From Goodreads….

A thrilling novel based on actual events, about the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America—from the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian

New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history—and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul’s client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country? Read More

I am about 80 pages into this book and have found it really interesting.I must confess I didn’t know a lot about the competition between Edison and Westinghouse, so hopefully I’ll learn a little from this read. It also may encourage me to read The Age of Edison:Invention of Modern America that has been sitting on my TBR shelves for a while now!

Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution – Nathaniel Philbrick

This is the first book that I have read from the popular author Nathaniel Philbrick. I love those shady characters from those early days of our nation, i.e Aaron Burr, James Wilkinson and of course Benedict Arnold.  Like The Last Days of Night I have already started this book and I’ve already learned a lot about the American Revolution! From Goodreads:

From the New York Times bestselling author of In The Heart of the Sea, comes a surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution, and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold.

In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental Army under an unsure George Washington (who had never commanded a large force in battle) evacuates New York after a devastating defeat by the British Army. Three weeks later, near the Canadian border, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeds in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have ended the war. Four years later, as the book ends, Washington has vanquished his demons and Arnold has fled to the enemy after a foiled attempt to surrender the American fortress at West Point to the British. After four years of war, America is forced to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from within. Read more

So maybe next up is Philbrick’s The Last Stand: Custer,Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Big Horn another book on my To Be Read shelves! And another book about an intriguing and infamous American!

The other three books…

….that I have checked out from the library are all from authors that are relatively new to me. They are:

The Crucifix Killer (Robert Hunter #1) – Chris Carter

Carter’s An Evil Mind – Robert Hunter #6 was one of the best books that I read in 2016. So I am really looking forward to starting at the beginning of this series!

When the body of a young woman is discovered in a derelict cottage in the middle of Los Angeles National Forest, Homicide Detective Robert Hunter finds himself entering a horrific and recurring nightmare. Naked, strung from two parallel wooden posts, the victim was sadistically tortured before meeting an excruciatingly painful death.

All the skin has been ripped from her face – while she was still alive. On the nape of her neck has been carved a strange double-cross: the signature of a psychopath known as the Crucifix Killer. But that’s impossible. Because two years ago, the Crucifix Killer was caught and executed. Could this therefore be a copycat killer? Or could the unthinkable be true? Read More

Red Right Hand (Michael Hendricks #2) – Chris Holm

I read the first Michael Kendricks novel The Killing Kind in January of 2017. I discovered the book and Chris Holm via the Mystery Scene magazine that my son Andrew and his wife Meaghan gave to me for Christmas. It included in an article about award-winning books. It won an Anthony Award for Best Novel. From Goodreads….

If the good guys can’t save you, call a bad guy.
When viral video of an explosive terrorist attack on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge reveals that a Federal witness long thought dead is still alive, the organization he’d agreed to testify against will stop at nothing to put him in the ground.
FBI Special Agent Charlie Thompson is determined to protect him, but her hands are tied; the FBI’s sole priority is catching the terrorists before they strike again. So Charlie calls the only person on the planet who can keep her witness safe: Michael Hendricks. Read More

Assassin’s Silence – Ward Larsen  (David Slaton #3)

Hot on the heels Assassin’s Game by Ward Larsen comes Assassin’s Silence and it may be hard for me not to start this book right away!! Hmm, I actually am on page 60! That’s where I stopped when I decided that I should read Assassin’s Game first!! So I guess this book actually belongs with the first set of books!! Oh, well!!

From Goodreads:

When it comes to disappearing, David Slaton has few equals. Police in three countries have written off trying to find him. His old employer, Mossad, keeps no forwarding address. Even his wife and son are convinced he is dead. So when an assault team strikes, Slaton is taken by surprise. He kills one man and manages to escape.

Half a world away, in the baleful heat of the Amazon, an obscure air cargo company purchases a derelict airliner. Teams of mechanics work feverishly to make the craft airworthy. On the first flight, the jet plunges toward the ocean. Read More

Ok so now it’s time to turn on some Jazz and do a little reading!

 

Assassin’s Game by Ward Larsen is a Home Run!

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Assassin’s Game – Ward Larsen (David Slaton #2)

 

I went to the library a couple of times last week to pick up books that I had on hold. I of course had to look at the new books, while I was there. One of the new books, Assassin’s Silence by Ward Larsen caught my eye. I had never seen the book before and was unfamiliar with the author. Anyway I picked it up and read the rave reviews on the back and decided that it was my type of book!.

I discovered, when I got home, that it was only book three in the David Slaton series. I went to my library’s website and discovered that they didn’t have book one in the series but they did have book two Assassin’s Game. One of the copies that they had was an e-book. That was fine with me. It saved me a trip to the library! It  also meant that I could start it quicker! So start it I did and it was a real page-turner for me! I loved the book and finished it in a couple of days!

About Ward Larsen

 

Since the release of The Perfect Assassin in 2004. Ward Larsen has released seven more novels. Two of those Stealing Trinity and The Messenger are stand alone thrillers. Of the remaining five books, three are part of the Jammer Davis and two are part of the David Slaton series. Jammer Davis is an aircraft accident investigator and of course David Slaton is an assassin.

Ward Larsen is  former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, Larsen flew over twenty missions in  Operation Desert Storm. He has served as a federal law enforcement officer, airline captain, and is a trained aircraft accident investigator. Larsen is also a three-time winner of the
Florida Book Award. And I better get started on The Perfect Assassin because it is currently being adapted into a major motion picture by Amber Entertainment!

About Assassin’s Game

 

David Slaton is a kidon or assassin for Israel’s Mossad. In Assassin’s Game, Slaton is brought back into the game by Mossad. His target is an Iranian scientist who is one the verge of providing Iran a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile. Mossad has made several attempts to kill the scientist, but they are thwarted each time, by Iranian intelligence. Because they fear there is a traitor supplying Iran information about the hits, a decision to go outside their service is made. Since the world thinks that David Slaton is dead he is the perfect choice for the assignment.

But David is living a quiet life in the Virginia suburbs. He has a new wife and is adjusting nicely to that life. After David’s ex-Mossad boss’s meeting with David’s wife in Sweden, ends in a shoot out and David’s wife’s disappearance, David is forced back into the game, to save his wife and to keep the bomb from Iran. The shoot-out in Stockholm left his boss in a coma and several agents dead. And it put a Swedish police detective on David’s trail!

Bottom Line:

Assassin’s Game was a terrific page-turner! I loved all of the well-drawn characters. David Slaton and Swedish detective Arne Sanderson are both characters that you could root for! The storyline was superb. with some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming!! It kept me guessing right up until the final pages. Bravo Mr. Larsen!

It’s been many years since I read Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, but I agree with Stephen Coonts who wrote…..

“Ward Larsen has written a stunning thriller, one that ranks right up there with The Day of the Jackal. Frankly, this is the best nail-biting suspense novel I’ve read in years.”

So Check it Out! As for me I can’t wait to get started on some of Larsen’s other books. I already have Assassin’s Silence checked out of the library now. So I can I can start that right away, while I’m searching for those Jammer David books!!

Book 13 for 2017 – Rating: **** (five-stars)

Links for the Further Exploration of the Books of Ward Larsen

Author’s Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Amazon

February Reads Take Me All Over Europe!

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 February Reads – Books 12 to 9…..

 

So far this month I have finished four books. Those books have taken me to a variety of counties where I met a lot of interesting characters. I am writing about the books in the reverse order of when I read them…

Book Number 12 The Hermit by Thomas Rydahl took me to the Canary Islands.There I met a 65-year-old taxi driver from Denmark, Erhard Jorgenson. Erhard lives alone in a shack near the resort of Fuerteventura. Erhard’s life is changed forever,after a car is found washed up on the beach. A dead 3 month old baby is found in a cardboard box on the back seat. The police try to quickly and quietly close the case by having a prostitute  claim she was the mother. Erhard knows that is wrong and for the sake of the baby he wants to prove what really happened!

During the course of his investigation Erhard makes some questionable decisions are in the name of advancing his investigation. At times I thought the story dragged a little and some of  Erhard’s actions bothered me. But In the end I The Hermit was a great read. Others thought so too. As The Hermit won the 2015 Glass Key award as the best Nordic crime novel! Rating: 4 stars

 

Black Widow - Chris Brookmyre a2017 reading challenge book

Book Number 11 – Black Widow  -Christopher Brookmyre.

Black Widow is set in Scotland, Over the last several years, I have visited Scotland many times, via the books of Peter May and others. Black Widow is book 7 in Brookmyre’s Jack Parlabane series. In this book Lucy Elphinstone hires Jack to look into the disappearance of her brother Peter. Peter went missing after his car slid off of a snow-covered road and ended up in the river. Lucy and two police detectives feel that Peter may have met with foul play. And the likely suspect is his wife of six months,successful surgeon Diana Jager aka bitchblade!

It seemed to me that the story took a long tine to develop. I had a little trouble with Brookmyre switching back and forth from the first to the third person in the narrative. I thought it was a little strange that Jack Parlabane didn’t become an important part of the story until the second half of the book! The last half of the book certainly made up for any of the shortcomings of the book in its first half! And the ending was great!

Black Widow won the 2016 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime book of the year an honor it rightly deserved. Rating- 4.5 stars

All that Man Is - David Szalay

Book 10 All That Man Is by David Szalay

All That Man Is took me to many places across the European continent. It is a collect of short vignettes of nine different men all at different stages of their lives. With each vignette the man in the story is a little older than the previous one. Typically I don’t read books  like All That Man Is,  And for that reason, I’ll let Goodreads tell you about it……

A magnificent and ambitiously conceived portrait of contemporary life, by a genius of realism.

Nine men. Each of them at a different stage in life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving–in the suburbs of Prague, in an overdeveloped Alpine village, beside a Belgian motorway, in a dingy Cyprus hotel–to understand what it means to be alive, here and now. Tracing a dramatic arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, the ostensibly separate narratives of All That Man Is aggregate into a picture of a single shared existence, a picture that interrogates the state of modern manhood while bringing to life, unforgettably, the physical and emotional terrain of an increasingly globalized Europe. And so these nine lives form an ingenious and new kind of novel, in which David Szalay expertly plots a dark predicament for the twenty-first-century man. Read More

All That Man is was a Man Booker Prize Nominee (2016), and a Gordon Burn Prize (2016 )winner and once again deservedly so! Rating: 4 stars.

A Foreign Country - Charles CummingBook 9  A Foreign Country  – Charles Cumming.

A Foreign Country is book one of Cumming’s Thomas Kell series. The settings for A Foreign Country include France, Tunisia and England. Thirty years ago a young au pair walked away from the family she was working for. She left without a word of good-bye. Now the reason that young girl left could rock the world of the first woman director of Britain’s MI6. From  Goodreads..

On the vacation of a lifetime in Egypt, an elderly French couple are brutally murdered. Days later, a meticulously-planned kidnapping takes place on the streets of Paris. Amelia Levene, the first female Chief of MI6, has disappeared without a trace, six weeks before she is due to take over as the most influential spy in Europe. It is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced in more than a decade. Desperate not only to find her, but to keep her disappearance a secret, Britain’s top intelligence agents turn to one of their own: disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell. Tossed out of the Service only months before, Kell is given one final chance to redeem himself – find Amelia Levene at any cost. Read More

I really enjoyed this book. The book moved at a brisk pace and I like the character of Thomas Kell and others around him.There was a fair amount of suspense particularly at the end. I believe I will be visiting with Thomas Kell again and again. I already have  checked out from my library the Kindle edition of A Colder War (Thomas Kell # 2). While  A Divided Spy (Thomas Kell #3), was just released on Valentine’s Day! So maybe when I finish A Colder War,  A Divided Spy will be available at the library,

Final Thoughts

Summarizing I have read twelve books so far in 2017. That puts me ahead of  schedule to reach my goal of 60 books for the year. I had never read any books written by any of the authors I have read  so far in February. Additionally, Black Widow and A Foreign Country are both part of a series, that I will definitely be reading more of!

I noticed after writing this post that none of the books I read this month are set in the USA. I guess I needed a vacation from all he turbulence in our country since January 20th……..

 

 

2017 Reading Challenges Mini-Update (Feb 6, 2017)

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An Amazing Start on My 2017 Reading Challenges

 

Ok so I do believe that I would be hard pressed to find two months in the last 15 years where I have read more books than January and February of 2017. In January I read  books and so far in February I have read three more! Bringing 2017’s total of books read to 11! In order to achieve my 2017 Reading Challenge goal of 60 books, I need to average 5 books per month.  I am already above that average in the first week of February!! Goodreads says that right now I am 5 books ahead of schedule! Woo Hoo!

Now the one bad thing about this is that I have been reading more than writing. Consequently, I am  seven books behind in writing reviews. The table below lists that books that I have read so far this year. (The links are to my review of the book)

No Title Author
11 Black Widow Chris Brookmyre
10 All That Man Is David Szalay
9 A Foreign Country Charles Cumming
8 Livia Lone Barry Eisler
7 Ruler of the Night David Morrell
6 A Puzzle in a Pear Tree Parnell Hall
5 How to Run the World Parag Khanna
4 The Lazarus War – Artefact Jamie Sawyer
3 The Killing Kind Chris Holm
2 In the Midst of Death Lawrence Block
1 The Critic Peter May

 

I am going to group the books according to the Reading Challenge that they fit into. So the future posts will look like this:

2017 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge

 Series that are new to me

Jack Parlabane – Chris Brookmyre – Black Widow
Thomas Kell – Charles Cumming – A Foreign Country
Livia Lone – Barry Eisler – Livia Lone

Series that I am Behind on/ Series that I am Current with

Puzzle Lady – Parnell Hall  – A Puzzle in a Pear Tree – 
Thomas De Quncey -David Morrell –  Ruler of the Night –

2017 Literature Reading Challenge/ Nonfiction Reading Challenge

General Fiction

All that Man is – David Szalay

Nonfiction

How to Run the World – Parag Khanna

So now I’m off to pick out my next few books and start to read!!! Be back later with the first of the above posts!!

RGranddad’s Anti-Aging Efforts Showing Dividends?

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Anti-Aging Efforts Update – February 14,2017

 

Ok so once again I need to apologize for not writing on this blog for a while….. (Short Break)

Ok  I’m back I just had to figure out how to download an ebook from my library. I haven’t done it for a while and I needed to reinstall the Overdrive app on my iPhone to do it! Anyway I did it and just now downloaded the book! Now the question becomes do I want to read The Perfect Assassin, book one in the David Slator series from Ward Larsen first, or continue Assassin’s Silence book three in the series, that I checked out of the library yesterday!! Can you say too many books to little time!! oh, well, I think book one has to come first!!

Now back to my original comment about my lack of writing on this blog. When I did write a post a few weeks ago I wrote that won of the reasons that I had not posted anything was that I felt guilty because of my lack of effort in attempting to slow down  my biologic clock! Well it appears that my efforts to do do over the first few weeks of 2017 may have erased that guilt!!

This Year’s Check-Up 

Last week I went to my belated 2016 yearly physical and had blood work done and an EKG. My fear was that my cholesterol level would have climbed over 200! In 2015 it had reached its highest level at 196. So that is why I started eating a little better no late night cakes or cookies an d a few more fruits and veggies. It is also why I started exercising a little differently in the mornings by going back to my old routine that included Kundalini yoga, light weights and resistance bands. The exercising and dieting has also has made it easier to start running again.

The bottom line is that my total cholesterol level dropped to 176. That is the lowest its been since 2013!  My triglycerides level also dropped 14 points from 106 to 91, The only negative was that my LDL Cholesterol level. It was still high, but the good news is that it dropped 15 points from a high of 125 to 110. The target level is 100, so I am not that far above the normal level. So I need to look for those foods that lower your LDL levels!

My EKG and blood pressure were both ok, so my doctor even suggested that I may not need to go back to the cardiologist! However, I think I will still make an appointment with him!

Running

So far in February I have run four times. The last two runs have been over a 3.25 mile course. They have both been slow steady runs with a pace between 11:20 and 11:30 min/mile. Today I will be hitting the road a little after noon and I will tell you about it later today! Maybe I’ll try for 4 miles!!

To keep me going I started to look for 5Ks scheduled near the end of April. The one that I think that I may shoot for is  the Collingswood HS Athletic Hall of Fame 5k. It’s scheduled for Saturday April 22nd. And since it’s in Colingswood maybe I can even get my wife to go with me!!

Featured Image from Lifeaura.com

2017 Reading Challenges Mini-Update (Feb 6, 2017)

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An Amazing Start on My 2017 Reading Challenges

 

Ok so I do believe that I would be hard pressed to find two months in the last 15 years where I have read more books than January and February of 2017. In January I read  books and so far in February I have read three more! Bringing 2017’s total of books read to 11! In order to achieve my 2017 Reading Challenge goal of 60 books, I need to average 5 books per month.  I am already above that average in the first week of February!! Goodreads says that right now I am 5 books ahead of schedule! Woo Hoo!

Now the one bad thing about this is that I have been reading more than writing. Consequently, I am  seven books behind in writing reviews. The table below lists that books that I have read so far this year. (The links are to my review of the book)

No Title Author
11 Black Widow Chris Brookmyre
10 All That Man Is David Szalay
9 A Foreign Country Charles Cumming
8 Livia Lone Barry Eisler
7 Ruler of the Night David Morrell
6 A Puzzle in a Pear Tree Parnell Hall
5 How to Run the World Parag Khanna
4 The Lazarus War – Artefact Jamie Sawyer
3 The Killing Kind Chris Holm
2 In the Midst of Death Lawrence Block
1 The Critic Peter May

 

I am going to group the books according to the Reading Challenge that they fit into. So the future posts will look like this:

2017 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge

 Series that are new to me

Jack Parlabane – Chris Brookmyre – Black Widow
Thomas Kell – Charles Cumming – A Foreign Country
Livia Lone – Barry Eisler – Livia Lone

Series that I am Behind on/ Series that I am Current with

Puzzle Lady – Parnell Hall  – A Puzzle in a Pear Tree – 
Thomas De Quncey -David Morrell –  Ruler of the Night –

2017 Literature Reading Challenge/ Nonfiction Reading Challenge

General Fiction

All that Man is – David Szalay

Nonfiction

How to Run the World – Parag Khanna

So now I’m off to pick out my next few books and start to read!!! Be back later with the first of the above posts!!

A Recap of This Week’s Runs! (Jan 23-29)

  By Uncategorized

Week of Jan 23-29 – Three Runs Woo-Hoo!

What a week! It’s the first week in I don’t know how long that I actually run on three days! Maybe just maybe my biologic clock slowed down just a little this week. I know that  I am starting to feel a lot better. The trick will be to keep it going.

In addition to this week’s three runs,I also did a 20 minute stationary bike workout on Tuesday. I really don’t use the stationary bike much and when I do I always think that it doesn’t do much for me. But after doing that 20 minute workout with TriJake Fitness I think that the problem is me and not the bike! I do believe that I will be doing more bike workouts in the future!!

But now back to the runs. I ran on Wednesday, Friday and again today. (I start my week on Monday)

Wednesday’s Run

Wednesday’s run was a 2.5 mile run over the same course that I have previously run earlier this month. I just added a little to the 2.1 course to bring up to 2.5 miles. It is an out and back course over a route I usually run.My overall time for the run was 25:11 which is an average pace of 11:13 minutes per mile. The splits were 11:09, 11:29 and 10:20 over the last half-mile.

The soundtrack of the run was the new release 3 Minutes to Midnight from New Age  guitarist Lawson Rollins.

Friday’s Run

Because it was really windy on Friday, I created a new 2.5 mile course. I laid it out to minimize the distance I would be running into the wind! So the majority of the run was cross-wind. The total time for the run 28:02. Average Pace 11:10 /mile. The splits 11:07, 11:12 and .5 @11:14. The good thing about this run was that my average heart rate went down to 144 bpm!

The soundtrack for the run was Talk About That – the latest release from the legendary John Mayall.

Sunday’s Run 

Today I ran the same course as Friday. The good thing was that it was not quite as cold or windy! The good thing was that I ran. I could have put it off because we had to go to a viewing this afternoon around the time that I usually run. But rather than just putting it off until tomorrow I laced them up and ran earlier in the day! Yeah me! Ah, life’s little victories!

The run started out a little slower than my previous runs this week, but that was a good thing. Because mile number to was faster than one and my overall all time for the run went down to 27:52. Not very much but when you’re 65 every little second counts!! My average pace for the run was 11:07 right around the pace for the first mile on my previous runs! The splits were 11:12, 11:07 and the final .5 miles was 10:56 a very little kick!!

The soundtrack for the run was Tangled in Dream the 2000 release from an Australia Progressive Metal band from Australia!

I know that all of the above is actually pretty boring to most of you, but it helps keep me focused and moving forward! Now what I have decided to do is to review the albums at Freewheelin’ Music Safari. I will provide links to the reviews on this site and to the runs on Freewheelin’ Music. So in the future I will try to do the reviews first!! But for the above albums you will have to check back!!

The featured image is me battling a stroller several years ago at a Halloween 5K!