📚 The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold

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54/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1991 Hugo Best Novel

Miles’s adventures continue, with all the twists, fun characters, double-crosses, and humor that make this series so enjoyable. The adventure is fun, but it really is the characters and how they relate to each other that impress the most. Four books in, and so far the only disappointment is that I didn’t find this series earlier.

Me holding The Vor Game

Year 50 Day 149

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Me sitting on a small outdoor stairway, with bushes and trees in the background, some of which are starting to turn fall colors.

Day 149: Sat and waited outside for a few minutes as my wife wrapped up her day. While we’ve definitely been getting the fall rains for a few days now, it’s nice to see the fall colors starting to come in around campus as well.

Year 50 Day 148

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Me on a running track, with a flock of Canadian geese snacking in the grass in the center of the track.

Day 148: Back walking on the track again, but this time, with company! The geese kept an eye on me, but didn’t seem terribly concerned. Probably because they know they can kick my butt if they want.

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Year 50 Day 147

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Me walking along a running track under cloudy grey skies, wearing a black cap and hoodie and with AirPod headphones in my ears.

Day 147: Managed to catch a few minutes at the end of my lunch between bouts of rain to head out and take a few laps around the track. I discovered a while ago that walking down the three floors from my office to the building entrance, down the hill to the track, three laps around the track, and back to the building and back up the stairs ends up just under 1.2 miles. With my headphones on and listening to my “quick” exercise mix (songs between 125 and 130 BPM), I can generally get that done in just under 20 minutes. Not a bad mid-day exercise break at all.

Year 50 Day 146

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Me sitting at my desk in my home office. I'm working on a Windows laptop with a second screen arranged above it. To my right are two more screens for my personal Mac Mini. Speakers are mounted on the wall above me.

Day 146: Mondays are my work-from-home days, which don’t always lend themselves to terribly interesting “here’s what I did today” photos. So, well, here’s what you’d see if you were hanging out in my home office watching me work. Except for the times when I’m turning around, looking at you quizzically, and asking what the heck you’re doing in my home.

Year 50 Day 145

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Me sitting in our living room in a comfortable chair with my feet on an ottoman, reading a book. Books and vinyl records are visible on the shelves behind me, and green trees can be seen through a glass sliding door leading onto a deck.

Day 145: Got lots of chores and housework done, and still managed to spend a very pleasant amount of my day curled up with a good book. Great way to spend a rainy fall day.

📚 The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold

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53/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This series continues to surprise and satisfy me. Lots of adventure that’s somehow both ridiculously improbable and entirely believable within the story, and characters that feel much more real than in many other books. There’s an underlying humor throughout, but also manages to handle resolving one troubled character’s fate in a way that respects their past and the present they had built. I’m increasingly glad my Hugo reading project started me reading these books.

Me holding The Warrior's Apprentice

Year 50 Day 143

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Me standing in front of some bushes and ivy, holding a full trashbag and a 'grabber' used for picking up trash.

Day 143: My part of the last day of opening week: campus cleanup duty! Last year, my most interesting find was what appeared to be a full suitcase’s worth of women’s clothing. This year, it was a full dozen 22-oz. Heineken beer bottles in the same basic spot; apparently someone in the apartment building on the other side of the fence has a pretty serious “drink it dry and chuck it over the fence” habit going on.