Hello 2016

Seven days into the year, I figure I should get back to this blog.

It's been a delightfully-wet start to the year. I almost believe the weather forecasts of El Niño. Glad my boots are waterproof.

I'm now starting Caliban's War as my latest BART book. I'm 126 pages in as of this morning and can see I'm going to have trouble pacing myself to make this story last.

I've finished The Traitor Son Cycle by Miles Cameron. SCA-laden insanity aside, that was a fun fantasy read.

I'm glad to be switching gears to sci-fi for a bit in my reading. Then I think I'm going to go back and re-read the Song of Ice and Fire series to refresh my memory of Martin's insanity.

I'm really glad I've got a few more books in the Expanse series to read in my backlog. All my other favorite authors are fantasy and are a bit... slow... in getting stuff out. There hasn't been any kind of realistic ETA for the latest Martin book, The Winds of Winter for ages. I could get huffy about it, but Neil Gaiman insists George R.R. Martin isn't my bitch, and I can't say he's wrong. Patrick Rothfuss doesn't even discuss the third Kingkiller Chronicles book on his blog. He just talks about his charity work, which is lovely but doesn't even remotely interest me. Scott Lynch has postponed the latest Gentlemen Bastards book due to health problems and I don't even know WTF is going on with Saladin Ahmed at this point.

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Oh, I got one of my lingering Kickstarters in 2016. That was nice. Owltac Flashlights is wrapping up fulfilling their Kickstarter obligations and then will apparently start selling their light. It's a nice little flashlight. Bright (200 lumens on high beam) and takes two C123 batteries to power it. That's all fine-and-well, but what sets the Owltac apart is that the two batteries are tapped independently of one another with a control toggle. So when the battery for one setting dies, just flip the toggle and - in theory - the second, fresh, battery kicks in to give you illuminating goodness.

Seems pretty cool. I'm a sucker for flashlights, so I can't complain and I'm just pleased and mildly-surprised that any of my Kickstarter stragglers came through.

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I jogged today in an effort to take advantage of the break in the rain. Holy crap I'm out-of-shape. I have goals to address that in 2016. Jogging (weather-permitting) is part of that. I'm hoping to build up a bit more core and upper-body strength as well with a push-ups/chin-ups regimen. We'll see how long this well-intended bit lasts.

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I finally saw Kingsman: The Secret Service over the break. How did I miss this flick in theaters? Sweet FSM this was brilliant!