Frank and Stephanie got married on Saturday October 21, 2006 in Florida.  Not only was the wedding itself a lot of fun, but the lead up and the reception afterwards was even more fun.  It was my first time as a groomsman.

I had a great time meeting up with old friends that I had not kept in touch with.  There was so much fun being in Florida at that time of the year, I got to escape the dreary weather of Seattle at the time.

Pictures from the week long event are here. (Sorry for no captions, I’ll try to add them later).

Read in October 2006.

Macolm Gladwell’s first book, and it is as excellent as Blink. Highly recommend reading it to anyone.

Using the same writing style as Blink Gladwell discusses the causes of epidemics. He covers social, economic, and biological epidemics. The insights are keen and the writing style is fun to read. The perfect mixture of academic research and well written novel.

Gladwell’s writing made me a subscriber to The New Yorker and brought me out of reading pop-culture magazines and into reading magazines that actually involve using my brain. After this book I went through a small turning point, realizing that life was too short to spend time on television and other things that just make the clock tick by. Since reading this book I have watched very little television and instead focused on reading a lot more.

Visiting Chris, meeting Tara, and partying with friends in Washington DC on Columbus Day weekend in October 2006.

Pictures from the trip can be found here.

Listened to in October 2006.

I listened to this on my trip to Washington DC in early October 2006.  Go KCLS for allowing e-audiobooks to be checked out and listened to.  This is the fun and exciting story of card-counting in Las Vegas done by six MIT students during the mid 1990s.  They were able to develop a team blackjack strategy and make a lot of money, in legal ways.

Card counting isn’t cheating, and this book talks about how the team recruited new members, how they worked each casino, how they became different roles as they entered each casino to throw off the employees and pit bosses.

The author follows one student’s entry into the team, his rise through the team ranks, and his eventual departure from the team.  The story was very captivating since it is centered around a typical anti-hero (MIT EE student) who rises up to defeat the corporate monstrosity of Vegas and in doing so is also highly confident and boisterous in many of his personalities.

Hollywood could make a movie of the story, and only change a few parts of it to make it exciting enough for the mainstream audience.

I highly recommend this book for fun exciting reading about how nerds can rise up and take on the system - and win.  You can read more about it and buy it from here.

Read in September and October 2006.

These are a collection of short non-fictional stories Chuck Palahniuk encountered when traveling around the country during his book tour for Fight Club. The stories themselves are entertaining and interesting, and as always, his style is a fun read.

This is a great book to read in between other “heavier” novels. I enjoyed it and it reads very quickly.

You can read more about it and purchase it from here.