I was out early for a ride this morning, with my camera strapped on my back, hoping to catch the morning light. I was a little late for what I had in mind, but I still found some beautiful places, like this poppy field planted in a hidden valley.

Some More Sam Videos

Here is the wild young man in full form



Playing in his pool for the first time this summer



More pool

I was out on my bike today for the first time in ages, just a 20km jaunt around the just-flooded rice fields, and I was thinking about how I haven't been posting much. One reason, of course, is that I haven't been riding much. So I was thinking about what else I could post on and I thought what is it that excites all the Lug Brothers and Sisters out there and of course the obvious answer is books. Lug Bros. World is filled with librarians and English teachers and college students and book lovers. So I thought that maybe we could post book reviews every once in a while, books we've read that we think others might enjoy. And there haven't been many books in the past few years that I've enjoyed more than P.G. Wodehouse's, so I thought I'd start with this Uncle Fred Omnibus.

Thanks to the BBC's series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, P.G. Wodehouse is best known now for his Jeeves and Wooster series. I've read a number of those books and they're certainly funny and filled with stories of Bertie Wooster getting into more and more outlandish difficulties from which he can only be extracted by the cleverness of Jeeves. I prefer the older ones (written in the 30s and 40s) to the newer ones (written in the 60s), but there's something to like in all of them. Still, more than the Jeeves and Wooster stories, I think my favorite series centers of a Wooster-like twit named Pongo Twistleton and his uncle Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham. The arc of the stories is similar to the J&W stories, with the characters becoming entangled in hilarious nets they've spun themselves but I think what I like about the Uncle Fred stories is that, since Ickenham is both the source of the problem and the source of the eventual (and always unexpected) solution, he's a bit less of a deus ex machina than Jeeves is and consequently the solutions need to be even more delicately crafted.

The true pleasure of reading a Wodehouse book, however, is the language. Not only is he skewering the British upper class and their arrogant ways, he's also skewering their foppish language. It's full of dialogue such as:

'Yo ho,' said the Egg.
'Yo ho,' said the Bean.
'Yo ho,' said Pongo. 'You know my uncle, Lord Ickenham, don't you?'
'Oh, rather,' said the Bean.
'Yo ho,' said Lord Ickenham. 'In fact, I will go further. Yo frightfully ho,' and it was plain to both Bean and Egg that they were in the presence of one who was sitting on top of the world and who, had he been wearing a hat, would have worn it on the side of his head. He looked, they thought, about as bumps-a-daisy as billy-o.

You get the sense that Wodehouse enjoyed writing; his enjoyment is conveyed directly to the reader. It's great for the train, great for the bedside, great for a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Incidentally, the titles of the three books in this collection are Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Uncle Dynamite, and Cocktail Time.

Sam Enjoying the New Childrens Library

Saturday was the Grand Re-opening of the main branch of the Louisville Free Public Library, and more importantly the opening of the new Children's and Teen's departments at the library. Kate was a real trooper last week, working 6 days in a row to make sure that everything in her department was ready for Saturday.

Sam and I stopped in during the afternoon to visit and see the sights. The library was packed (if only it could be like that everyday - well, maybe not quite that busy).

Anyway, here are some pictures from the day.

Sam (as if anything else needed to be said)

Spring Cyclocross

Here is my pit crew for the race - he was asleep on the job for most of the day.

Yes, the unthinkable has happened, they are trying to make cyclocross a year round sport - well at least a few crazies in Shelby County Kentucky are trying to do that.

Last Saturday, Kate, Sam, and I drove over to Shelbyville, KY so I could do the "There will be Mud" summer cyclocross race (though there really wasn't any mud on the course). This was a fun, low key race at a county park, it reminded a lot of what cross races were like back when I first started racing cross nearly a decade ago now.

The course had one large hill on it that we both climbed then raced down, along with a triple barrier around a corner, and run up - along with lots of twists and turns. I got lucky and had a front row position, so I took the hole shot quickly (at least if I remember correctly), but was not leading for very long as a couple of other racers got by me on the long down hill. After that I moved between 3rd place and 5th place for the rest of the race. ending up in 5th, which honestly I was quite happy with.

The funny thing was that Sam had fallen asleep in the car just as we got to the park and ended up sleeping most of my race, but we had fun playing at the park afterwards and then drove through Shelbyville before stopping at a Dairy Queen for ice cream.

More Sam Vids

So, it has been quite awhile since I posted anything - just been pretty busy lately, what with accepting a new job and life.

But, here are some new Sam videos (hopefully I can make them work this time from YouTube).




Sam loves his rocking chair from Grandpa.

Sorry about this next one, you just have to hold your head to the side.