So many books, so little time!

The past week has been somewhat good.  I found out I made it to the next interview for the job I want, and I was asked to be a godfather again for a couple of my best friends next child.  Both of those are very exciting, and to be honest, I am not sure which I am more excited by.  I have also been kind of busy with various other things.

I decided to try to read a book a week this year... So far, I have only read three books.  I am way behind! I could have sworn there was one more book I had read, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what it would have been. Overall, I don't feel like this is something I have to be too overwhelmed by if I don't meet my goals. Really, I just want to read more, and having a goal helps keep me motivated.  While my books tend to be somewhat varied in nature, lately they are almost all at least semi-nonfiction.  I say "semi" because one was a bit of a biographical fiction.  It was mostly true, but with some details modified here and there to make it a little more allegorical.

The books so far:

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 
• The Art of Asking (Amanda Palmer)
• Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC  

I have actually been going through some old physics text books as well.  It has actually been fun reviewing without the pressure of school behind them.  On that note, I am also thinking about doing some electronics review.  I will probably spend some time on YouTube over the next few weeks watching electronics videos to get back into the grove of things.

I have also been trying to keep active with yoseikan.  I forgot how much fun it was, not to mention the added benefit of exercise. The past few weeks have been largely review as I haven't practiced in over five years, but I feel like I am not as far behind as I could be.

I visited VBAS yesterday for the members meeting, and they had a talk about their expansion into radio astronomy.  I am mildly interested in radio astronomy, so I may try to get involved some if time allows. I actually have a book on radio astronomy published by the ARRL that I started to read and never finished.  I may have to bump it up on my list of priorities now!

Overdue Update

The past couple of weeks have been somewhat busy and exciting.  I have been working on a few different things, and I haven't been able to really sit down and collect my thoughts for a post, but I think it is overdue, so I am going to give a quick update.

Most excitingly, I had a phone interview for a position that I am very excited about.  I am not going to go into much detail right now, but this would be a dream job for me.  This week I expect to hear back and find out if I made it to the "onsite" interview.   Overall, I think the phone interview went ok, but I am sure it could have gone better.  I blanked on a couple of parts.  The one that bothers me the most was the electronics questions.  I don't have a ton of hands on experience with electronics, but I have some, and when I was being asked the questions, I started to overthink them.  The first questions were so easy, I was afraid that I was missing something obvious, so I wasn't as confident in my answers as I should have been.  Lesson learned.  At any rate, I am optimistic, and if this doesn't work out, I am just going to have to keep looking for that next awesome job!

I have also been doing a little more astronomy lately.  I know I have already posted some on this.  I went out again a couple of nights ago with an old friend of mine and did some observing.  We spent the night hopping from one Messier object to another and discussing science, astronomy, and astrophysics.  It was a ton of fun, and I think I was able to identify over 20 objects.  I also visited VBAS and the UAH Astronomy Club a couple more times over the past few weeks.  I think I am going to try to get trained on the VBAS telescopes.  It would be nice to have that experience.

Finally, I have also started to get back into Yoseikan.  It is a martial art that I started taking years ago, but quit because I didn't have a place to study during grad school.  It has allowed me to get a little more exercise, but in the process, I hurt my shoulder last week, so I have been a little sore.  That being said, I have been enjoying it, and I hope to be able to continue it.  Here is an older picture (before they changed the gis and before I started grad school).

Other than that, there have a been a few little things going on here and there, but I won't bore you with the details, at least not now!