Free time

I haven't posted in something like two weeks, so I figure it is about time I do so. I bet you've been wondering to yourself, "What DOES QM do in his free time in Kansas City after work? Does he golf? Watch mindless TV all evening? Drink his troubles and cares away?" Ok, you probably haven't been asking those questions, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

During the summer, I like to read books. In fact, I have made a list of the books I'd like to read this summer - twelve books in all. That's about one book a week all summer long. It won't be easy, but patience and dedication will win the day. Here's my summer reading list:

Wild at Heart - Eldredge (finally getting around to it)
The Attributes of God - Arthur Pink (guess who asked me to read that?)
The Design Revolution - William Dembski (gotta keep up with ID)
Building the Bombs - C. Loeber (a history of the Nuclear Weapons Complex)
The Iliad - Homer (Don't go see Troy - read the book)
Sleep Thieves - Stanley Coren (on the science of sleep)
The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
The Four Loves - C.S. Lewis
The Pilgrim's Regress - Lewis
Surprised by Joy - Lewis
Till We Have Faces - Lewis
Miracles - Lewis

Why all the C.S. Lewis books? Jaired and I are going to be leading the C.S. Lewis gel group version 2.0 next semester at school, and we haven't decided yet what book(s) to choose. We found out that the sum total of Lewis books we haven't read was about 10, so we each of us took half of them to study over the summer.

All these books are in addition to my regular reading of Scripture and daily reading from the "Year with C.S. Lewis" book I got for Christmas. All in all, this is about 3800 pages of reading. If for some strange, sick, or twisted reason I actually read all of this before the summer's end, then I have another 10 books after these...

Now, you are probably thinking "Well QM you aren't going to be doing ANYTHING but reading this summer, you loser." Ok, so you aren't thinking that but I do other things too, like play guitar... I'm working on cutting a full length CD by the end of the summer, so I'm learning some new music in addition to keeping up with my old material. First off, I am finishing off the Suite del Recuerdo by Jose Luis Merlin. The last two major pieces in the suite are pretty difficult, but nothing I can't handle. Second, I'm learning numerous Celtic guitar pieces. I would like to do an exclusively Celtic CD too. Third, if you're familiar with jazz music at all then you know Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Well, actually it was written by Paul Desmond and was made famous by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Great piece of music, and fortunately for all of us my friend Jorge Morel arranged it many years ago for solo guitar for Chet Atkins. John included in his biography of Chet the version that my teacher Kirk transcribed, and so I am working on that too.

Other than that, usually over dinner I watch an episode of Farscape. What a fun show! Speaking of which, it's time for dinner... Later guys...