Kate's Perspective

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Sunday, June 26, 2005

More Books Worth Reading

I'm on a run of good books lately-- good because they make me think about old things in new way. Poor John is having a hard time keeping up with all this reading (he works full-time), so I tell him my favorite parts as I come to them. (I read while the baby sleeps, because I work full-time too.) I'm not sure what the next selection for the family book club will be yet-- maybe I need a little break to absorb all the emotions back in. I'm like a sponge that's been wrung out and then set down in the puddle.

posted at 4:54 PM # (3) comments

Monday, June 20, 2005

Happy Father's Day!

posted at 7:49 AM # (0) comments

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Another great weekend....

Usually I look like this...

tired, slightly disheveled, and doing two things at once. But this weekend I got to look like this...

like a mommy who spends all her free time shopping, dressing for dinner, and leaving the childcare to the governess. Which one is the real me? I'll never tell!

[Oh come on, pretend you had to think for a minute!]

While we were doing this:

our little Pisces was enjoying summer water sports:

I have more photos from the weekend to share. Just have to wait for the photo editor to finalize the selections.

posted at 8:57 PM # (2) comments

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Private Book Club #1

I just finished reading a trilogy of books about Amazon.com and have spent the last week or two alternately feeling validated in my suspicion that I was never suited to the dot com madness (and that's okay!) versus feeling inadequate because I am never going to be the type of person who thinks that big and forges ahead to great success (what's wrong with me?). I am content with old technology and too busy entertaining myself to have any interest in building the future or raking in piles of money. Just self-centered, I guess.

In the order I read them, the three books are:

The first book is by an editor (liberal arts writer type) working at the new dot com, the second is by a customer service rep (younger, gen-x slacker type), working at the already booming dot com, and the third is by a business analyst (rah-rah get rich quick type) reviewing the company's first five years without any knowledge or prediction of the 2000 bust and the 2001 terrorist attacks. Reading the books in this order was great for me, since I could identify with the editor (more interested in books than technology, doesn't see or appreciate Bezos's vision for world domination) and with the young customer service rep (I was looking for work in Seattle in 1998 and almost responded to the help wanted ads which required a BA for telephone customer service. I thought it might almost be worth it since they were seeking highly educated people, and after all it was a book store! Phew-- close call on my part. I had already worked for a Microsoft cofounder in two different and equally unsatisfactory capacities.) The final book, which focused on business strategy and success helped me see the other side: Bezos was never trying to just be a good book store! Oh! But wow, what an amazing job he has done.

If nothing else, I still find Amazon.com a very valuable resource. Like a library, it allows you easy access to the entire available selection of books by subject, author or title. At the local bookstore you'd have to ask the advice of a staff person to find out if any books exist beyond what sits on the shelf. I enjoy the idiosyncracies of my own free-associative search style. You never know where a search might lead. In fact, I was looking for Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore, at the recommendation of a friend when I found the Amazon books on the same shelf at the local library. I got John interested and now we are convening our own private book club. The next selection is Limbo : Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano.

I have to admit I haven't bothered to read Shelf Life after all. I'm too busy indulging in some 20/20 hindsight, armchair quarterbacking, and nostalgia for my college days in early dot-com Seattle. Too bad everyone else got rich-- I had to move out!

Knitting News:
It's so humid, my sock yarn won't slide off the needles. Which is a shame, because the only other project I have going is the long-promised Pirate Sweater and I am not happy with the fabric I'm getting at the recommended gauge. Methinks I'll be making something else with this yarn. Bonus: no need for intarsia.

posted at 9:26 PM # (3) comments

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