The Omnigeek

From the entire OmniGeek family we wish you and yours a Happy Holiday Season and Prosperous New Year!

Facebook people are at it again. There are several “lists” of things you’ve done, read, etc. floating around and you “tag” others to do their own list and continue the tagging. Its the modern-day chain letter. But these are fun and don’t cost you a first class postage stamp or add too much to your e-mail inbox.

I was recently tagged in a new pass-the-list game called “15 Books”:

Share fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Send yours!

The problem is I’m not an avid reader and frankly I don’t know if I could name 15 books. Also, its just a list and as it said books “that will always stick with you”, I thought there should be some explanin’ to do.

1. ??? — Sadly I don’t remember the title. It was something like “Dogfight”. I read it in the 8th grade. It was about a USAF combat pilot and his USSR nemisis and their run-ins over Alaskan airspace. Its importance in this list is that it was the first book I enjoyed reading.
2. The Holy Bible — Those that know me know I’m not the religious type. I used to be and this book for all its issues does have good life lessons in it. If you can get past the bad science and taking things out of context or taking it literally, it can do you good.
3. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien — This was the first fantasy work I read. Its vivid descriptions of this fantasy world along with the battle of good and evil and greed make it an all time best list. Of course this includes the three books that follow in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
4. Foundation, Issac Asimov — I read 5 of the books in this series. Each on as captivating as its predecessor. Sci-Fi at its best.
5. Neuromancer, William Gibson — This was the book that defined Cyberpunk. A portrayal of a not to far distant future where man and computers become one and a massive network interconnects us all. Gibson is a hard read, but worth it. Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive complete this trilogy.
6. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, Douglas Adams — Sci-Fi and humor rolled into one. Its a perfect match for my whacked sense of humor.
7. The TRS-80 Intro to Programming book, Radio Shack — This small “Learn BASIC” book that Tandy produced to go along with its early personal computers was my self-taught guide to becoming the Super-Programmer that I am (er. was… old age… new fangled stuff…)
8. Harry Potter Series, J. K. Rowling — Seven books, seven intriguing and fun reads. They were children’s books relative to William Gibson when it comes to ease of read and while they were intended for a youthful audience, myself like many adults were whisked to this fantasy world.
9. The Cat and the Hat, Dr. Seuss — Read them as a kid, read them as an adult. This book along with most of the Dr. Seuss books never gets old.
10. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, G. Gary Gygax — What can I say. I’m a geek. This includes the hundreds of related role playing books.
11. Core Web Programming 1st Ed., Hall and Brown — This book was my bible in learning web development back in the late ’90′s.
12. ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography, ASMP — This is the bible for the photography business, can’t live without it.
13. Astrophotography for the Amateur, Michael Covington — A fantastic primer on photographing the night sky.
14. The Unix “man” command — not so much a book, but it is the Unix manual pages, which contains all the wisdom of the Unix platform.
15. Some NASA book about Man Space Flight from the early 70′s.

So there you have it!

As some of you may know I’m traveling to Kentucky for the Kentucky Derby Festival. You can read all about it at http://www.robmiracle.com.

Normally, my wife and I prefer to take I-40 from Raleigh to Knoxville and then catch I-75 north. When visiting my side of the family first, this is the best route. However for time and distance efficiency its better to depart I-40 at Winston-Salem, take I-77 north until it turns into I-64 which will zip us straight to the Hurstbourne Road Exit in Louisville. It trims a good hour off the trip which is about 60 miles or so which at $2 a gallon saves us $17 which is several trips to White Castles for “Sliders”.

North Carolina, if you can forgive their sports arrogance is actually a nice place. Yea, its got a few ugly spots, but for the most part you see more beauty than ugly when traveling about. In our preferred way to go, we have 5 of the 11 hours in North Carolina. Kentucky is also a beautiful place. That leaves about 2 and a half hours of Tennessee. The stretch from the Pigeon Forge area west to Knoxville and north to Jerico is a balanced mix of good, okay and ugly.

Well in this economy $17 is important and we want to make sure we get to Louisville for a festival event today, so we are taking the short route which means visiting the Virginia’s.

Now you wouldn’t think it, but there is a world of difference between the two. Virginia is reasonably pretty in the spring. Most of the trees are turning green. The Red Buds and Dogwoods are blooming.

But then comes West “By God” Virginia. This has to be the ugliest place on the planet. Like any state it’s going to have some bright spots. But a measure of a states beauty is its balance of beauty vs. ugly and West Virginia is . . . well . . . ugly.

The southern stretch of I-77 south of Beckley isn’t too bad but as you head into Charleston and pass through Huntington I just want to close my eyes and dream of a happier place.

Dark brown trees, carved and weathered rock, strip mines, rusted roofed houses all just adds up to ick. My wife exclaimed as he drove “Look the river is pretty”. A glimmer of hope among the sour.

John Denver sang about West Virginia in his song “Country Roads” where he talked about it being almost Heaven. But he wasn’t writing about the train yards in Charleston.

And this trip isn’t all about the lack of eye candy either. Its a hard trip. Mountain driving is difficult. Long curved hills filled with tractor-trailers and police on every down hill slope making sure you don’t make up any time stresses the driver. Its challenging.

Of course there are mountains and curves going through North Carolina to Tennessee, and though the curves are sharper, they are shorter and your in and out of them after a few minutes instead of the long duration of fighting a 6,000 pound vehicle.

We will be through it soon enough.

Side note: We are stopping in Marmet for lunch. On either side of a busy street, two women, dressed in sundresses that look like towels were trying to walk into the road handing papers out. My wife said “Idiots!”. I responded “Where are you?” She said “That answered everything”.

I Heart West Virginia! Not!