Glass Recycling

If you're interested in recycling glass in Kansas City, a new glass recycling company has opened for business. It is called Ripple Glass and they will have collection sites at quite a few locations around Kansas City. Their website is www.rippleglasskc.com. The website has a drop off location finder by zip code as well at this link.

Greeting Cards

Have you ever been looking for a greeting card and can't find one that really fits what you're trying to communicate? I think it should be socially acceptable to purchase an alternate card and make customizations. For example, for a wedding, purchase a Happy 1st Anniversary card and marking out the 1st and changing it to 0th. Or a Happy Birthday and changing Birthday to Wedding. Or perhaps you want to congratulate someone on weight loss. Purchase a Sympathy card and change it from "So sorry for your loss" to "Congratulations on your loss"

Life of Pi

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

I listened to this book on CD and found it to be well done. The book is broken up into three parts. The first section focuses on the life of a boy named Pi Patel and his life as the son of a zoo owner in Pondicherry, India. Much of the book discusses philosophy, religion, and zoology. Interestingly, Pi follows Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam much to his parents and respective religious leaders' bewilderment.

As the first section ends and the 2nd begins, his parents sell the animals of the zoo and make plans to move to Canada. Their journey across the Pacific begins aboard a ship that also includes the zoo animals. After a short time at sea, the ship sinks and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat with an assortment of animals such as a zebra, a hyena, a rat, some cockroaches, a chimpanzee, and a tiger. The assortment of animals fight it out in sequential battles until finally only the tiger and Pi are left. Pi proceeds to live with the tiger on the life raft and uses his knowledge of animals gained from growing up around the zoo to survive. He learns to fish, and make fresh water with distillers and has a tenuous mutual existence with the tiger in which he actually provides food and water to it and manages to stay alive. The elements, hunger, thirst, and lack of sleep are constant companions and result in a very difficult existence for him. After roughly 7 months at sea, he lands in Mexico and is rescued.

In the third section, we learn a second version of the sinking of the ship and his subsequent journey across the ocean through an interview of Pi by some men from Japan.

The first section can be a bit tedious at times but provides good context for the second and third. Good explanation of various animals and zoological information is provided as well as a relatively good overview of 3 major world religions.

The second section is outstanding and causes one to get involved with Pi and his travails hoping for him to make it through. On more than one occasion, I found myself sitting in the car after arriving at a destination to listen to a little bit more of the story.

The third section is very short and gives a bit of a change in direction from where the reader expects it to go. After getting to the end, I was interested in re-reading it to pick up on symbolism throughout the book.

One element of the book that can throw one off is the use of two narrators, an "author", and then Pi himself. An unnamed author, not Martel, is an actual character/narrator for some of the chapters. I'm not certain why Martel chose to use this style as it seemed a bit of a distraction rather than adding significantly to the story.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend it as an unusual but fascinating story.

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Fall Colors

This weekend I went hiking close to Smithville Lake, Missouri and got a few pictures of the fall leaves. I also took some pictures of the stunning fall colors in North Kansas City, MO.

Master Your Money

Master Your Money by Ron Blue
Ron Blue's "Master Your Money" is a very good resource for learning to manage finances from a pure technical perspective as well as from a Biblical basis. He shares well honed financial expertise grounded in years of professional financial planning and accounting practice.

The book walks through the basics of determining where you are financially and then developing goals and intermediate steps towards reaching those goals. Fundamentals of budgeting are covered with attention given to increasing cash flow margin to allow for funding of long range goals such as paying off debt, making investments, starting a business, paying for children's college, and giving away large sums of money.

While Mr. Blue definitely takes the approach the debt should be minimized and very thoroughly evaluated before even considering, he does not take quite as extreme an approach towards no debt as Dave Ramsey. He also offers a bit different perspective on term vs. whole or variable life insurance.

A couple sections of the book which I found to be outstanding were the discussion on giving and estate planning. He offers lots of wise counsel on what to think about when developing a plan for passing on assets to the next generation. His insight on giving and going through a process of prayer to determine what God would have the person give is excellent as well.

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Vibrato

Vibrato is kind of like ketchup. Used correctly it enhances the song. Used too much and one forgets that there's a tasty burger underneath.

Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writers Life

Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer's Life by Michael Greenberg

This autobiographical book from Greenberg provides entertaining and insightful vignettes from his life as a writer and the lives of those he interacts with. The book is composed of bite sized four page essays which are each enjoyable in themselves. This format allows the reader to proceed through the book in short five minute intervals if desired. At the same time, each section is well written enough to cause the reader to press on to the next story since "it will only take a few minutes" and after reading in this manner, one invests an hour into the book, never intending to have read for so long.

Greenberg is a skilled writer and clearly well read without giving an ostentatious air. Each essay reads like an article from a literary magazine or something along the lines of a New Yorker essay. Unless you possess an extensive vocabulary, you may want to keep a dictionary close at hand. In some essays there were a few words that I needed to look up to determine the precise definition. However, this is not overly cumbersome and helps to enrich one's vocabulary.

A theme which is present throughout but not so much that it dominates the essays is his Jewish heritage. It was interesting to learn his perspective on how his heritage has influenced his family life, identification with immigrants, career, and reflections on the world. Throughout the book, we meet interesting characters from his life and get a feel for being a writer living in New York.

If nothing else, his book is a good lesson for those considering a career in writing. Greenberg seems to constantly observe the world and people around him, taking notes to include in stories and articles. This provides a rich stock of material to draw from as a writer. Some interesting stories he shares come from various side jobs he held such as being a waiter, taxi cab driver, and cosmetics salesman. It's apparent that writing as a profession can be done financially but those aspiring to be the next great novelist, would do well to read Greenberg's account and the sometimes difficulty of procuring gainful employment despite being a skilled writer.

I enjoyed the majority of the essays and recommend the book for those interested in hearing from a professional observer of the world and his life in the writing profession.

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