Tag: bedtime reading

September 16, 2025 – What My Bookshelf Says About Me

September 16, 2025 /

In the picture below, you see all the books that are on my to be read list. One month ago, I was laying in bed and looking at the titles when I had a thought. What if an alien came to earth and entered my room and looked at what was on that shelf? What kind of conclusion about the kind of person that I am and what I am all about would they make?

In case you cannot read everything I will give you a quick run-down. On the top shelf, there are two items. I actually will talk about the recipe card tomorrow so hold on for that. The book below it I have also read. It is called “Where the Wild Dads Went”. A father’s day gift and it is a fifteen minute read so that is an unofficial entry. It is really what is on the second shelf that is on my to be read.

Going from top left to bottom right, the first book is “Atlas of the Heart” by Brene Brown. I have not read that because my wife forbid me from reading it without her. I tried to read some when she was in the hospital last year but it was not the time or place. At some point, I will probably read it anyway because at this rate we will never get through it.

Beneath that, there is a couple of magazines. They are not actually periodicals but the hunting and fishing synopsis published by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. They contain things like law changes for the new year, unit boundaries, season start dates and bag limits. I pick these up at the end of each year and reference them periodically throughout the year. One is for big game hunting, one is for fishing and the third is game birds.

Beneath that is a book that I actually purchased for my wife. It is a idea book for home dates that include recipes to make for dinner. I imagined that we would start at the beginning and work our way through. I think that she thought it was better for me to take the initiative on that front since I tend to be the cook and have zero romance naturally.

The last book is called “Steak”. It was a Christmas present that I will eventually get around to. You see how thick it is, who knew that there was that much to actually write about steak? I have thumbed through it and there are some recipes so that takes up some space. A lot of it is about the cuts and the handling etc. I will likely read this maybe this winter and like many cookbooks, I will probably not read it cover to cover.

The middle stack is mine. I will definitely read “Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. I wanted to put some space in-between this book and “Anthem” since what I know about it so far is that it is going to be a very similar tone as her other work. The next book was recommended by a former co-worker. I think it is going to be a short read and up my alley in personal business development. The last one on that stack is “Deadly Force” by Massad Ayoob. This is an update to “In the Gravest Extreme” that I went through earlier this year.

The stack on the right is a little bit deceiving. The top book is “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. I am currently reading this book and I am about half way through it. This will be my next book review in series after I finish “Boundaries” this week so I won’t say too much more on that.

The book below that is my weekly journal. In it I sort of summarize the previous week and look forward to the things I need to do in the next week. I use this book as an organizational tool to plan on what things I need/want to do as well as track progress. It also captures a few personal things usually as they pertain to social activities and how they effect my time and attitude. I have been writing in it on Sunday Nights since probably 2012.

Finally, there is the Bible. This is the same one that I received at my Baptism in second grade. To be honest, I will probably never read it completely but I do keep going back to it. It is the translation that I read Revelations earlier this year as an example. I do really prefer the NIV translation because it is so much easier to understand but this one is not too bad, it is much more modern than King James.

And so I ask again, what does my bookshelf say about me?

End Your Programming Routine: While possibly not perfect, I think that my bookshelf represents me exactly. It is complicated and diverse: Christianity, libertarianism, self defense, personal and relational development as well as food. It is mostly non-fiction but not completely. They are all my interests and so they are me.

July 23, 2025 – Old Habits, Dying Hard

July 23, 2025 /

She knows that she is not supposed to be on the bed without invitation. But when Mom is not around to monitor, the rules get a little looser. In fact, she has a habit of jumping on the bed as soon as I come around. As if I am going to just stand by and let her take my space on the bed. Usually, I am just passing by and I have to shoe her back down to the floor.

The real reason that I took the picture was actually the book. But, since the dog was on the bed, she got in the shot as well. I had an extended weekend of babysitting a couple of weeks ago. One of the things that we did was read books on Thursday night before bed. Friday was a work day for me as well as camp for her. We definitely needed a normalcy strategy.

The first book we read was Where the Wild Dads Go. It is a take off or recent release of the book Where the Wild Things Go. That was the book I read when I was young. It was very short and so on to the second book, If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss. This was one from our library of books that comes from the era of reading to my own kids every night.

Reading time was something that I looked forward to every night. We started very young at even infant age. Some nights, I would read the book that I was reading. I figured that they really didn’t know what was going on and so reading was part of the routine. But, as the kids aged into comprehension, the focus shifted into age appropriate books and If I Ran the Zoo was on rotation of forty or so books.

As my kids got out of lap size, we migrated to more mature books like the Harry Potter series. But, they learned how to read themselves and we found that they would read ahead and even finish the book before we could read it as a family. And so, reading before bed shortly came to an end.

We even tried to incentivize reading as a family by trying to wait to rent the movie before we had completed the book. But, this was the time that I was travelling heavily and eventually those standards quickly got bent. My wife was also running the dance studio and bedtime as well as family time became significantly less routinely structured and idealistic.

Its funny, I haven’t read this book in the neighborhood of eight to ten years. Despite that, the words roll of my tongue like it was yesterday. I know that Dr Seuss can be a sing-songy. But, he also uses made up words that trip you up if you are not ready to pronounce them correctly. I anticipated those things because I was so familiar and we breezed through the book as if was a normal reading night.

I know that Dr. Seuss was taken down by the woke police. I understand that the way people talked and acted in days gone by are not exactly acceptable in today’s paradigms. This book is actually one of the titles specifically identified as controversial. But, I actually believe that Dr. Suess didn’t necessarily mean harm any more than good.

History is just that. You can easily search the term ‘historically racist presidents’ and find the argument that Thomas Jefferson was one. Yes, it is a complicated subject. He was a slave owner and yet coined the phrase ‘all men are created equal’. I really don’t want to expand the discussion into a whole new dimension and so I will leave all the specifics here. My point here was that I think that is clear that Jefferson contributed significantly more good than bad.

It is pretty hypocritical to celebrate the first amendment and condemn the dangers of book banning and such only to turn around and censor work that has been in the public orbit for up to ninety years. I think that what is lost here is that our culture has forgotten its historical origins For instance, the legal system requires intent for a crime to be present. We have changed the burden of proof from intent of harm to ‘I feel bad as a result’ and that is good enough.

Of course, our legal system has different aspects. For instance on the civil front, then there is a lessor standard of guilt. However, a civil case must have damages to valid and have a case. What are the damages from offensive words or pictures, especially when there is a right to say whatever you want? You see this is the problem, we have succeeded philosophical, moral authority on all issues.

End Your Programming Routine: This is not an endorsement to be racist or even offensive. I am advocating for things to be the what they are, like children’s stories from a past era. Maybe we should choose to throw away books where we encounter such feeling rather than mounting campaigns based on our own insecurities. At least, that is what I would do if I ran the zoo.