Prelude to A Book: Weekend with Jacob

Books I've read in 2009

-- What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
-- The Football Fan's Manifesto, by Michael Tunison
-- Eating the Dinosaur, by Chuck Klosterman
-- Brothers Karamozov, by Fyodore Dostoevsky
-- The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons
-- The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown
-- Crime and Punishment, by Fyodore Dostoevsky
-- American Lion, by Jon Meacham
-- Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
-- Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand
-- As They See 'Em, by Bruce Webber
-- Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell
-- Winston Churchill, by John Keegan
-- Boys Will Be Boys, by Jeff Pearlman
-- The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
-- Bowls, polls and tattered souls, by Stewart Mandel
-- How to Rig an Election, by Allan Raymond
-- The Breaks of the Game, by David Halberstam
-- Southern Storm, by Noah Andre Trudeau
-- The Watchmen, by Alan Moore
-- Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
-- Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, by Chuck Klosterman
-- Me of Little Faith, by Lewis Black
-- Have a Nice Day, a tale of blood and sweatsocks, by Mick Foley
-- Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express, by Robert Gallagher
-- Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin
-- Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Books I've read in 2008 (24)

-- God in the White House, by Randall Balmer
-- Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
-- The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
-- Bearing the Cross, by David J. Garrow
-- Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich
-- 1776, by David McCullough
-- Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger
-- Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama
-- Ball Four, by Jim Bouton
-- Can I Keep My Jersey, by Paul Shirley
-- What Happened, By Scott McClellan
-- Against All Enemies, by Richard A. Clarke
-- Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
-- The Great Derangement, by Matt Taibbi
-- I May Not Get There With You, the true Martin Luther King, Jr., by Michael Eric Dyson.
-- '77, Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age, by Terry Frei
-- The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, by Jeffrey Toobin
-- The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama
-- Hatemail from Cheerleaders, by Rick Reilly
-- The Kings of New York, by Michael Weinreb
-- Turning of the Tide, by Don Yeager
-- The Second Civil War, by Ronald Brownstein
-- The Last Shot, by Darcy Frey
-- I am America (and so can you)!, by Stephen Colbert

Monday, June 16, 2008

Weekend with Jacob

My dad died four years ago tonight. Right near Father's Day. For the past three Father's Days, I've had a little distraction to keep me thinking positive during that holiday.

I will always be a little sad on Father's Day, and I'll never forget going through that first Father's Day after dad died in shock just a day or two before the funeral. But, ever since 2006, I have enjoyed the holiday as the daddy and it's nice.

This year Jen and I took Jacob to the zoo. He loved watching the monkeys. We had a nice relaxing day (as much as possible for a trip to the zoo on a holiday weekend). We got to see a Tiger come right up to the window. Jacob was fascinated, and a little scared. That was Saturday. On Sunday, I just relaxed and played with the little guy.

Tonight, I took some pictures of us after a particularly rough game of "ball." "Ball" really has no rules. We just play with the ball. The one's with him in red are from tonight.