Holiday week and a great book

Sunday- Church, Ellice showed Andi how to cook stir fry, grocery shopping.

Monday- Work and took some much needed chill time with the Mrs. The strain of our schedules is showing a bit.

Tuesday- Work. The kids were absolutely wild today. Fortunately, it's the last day we work until next Monday. Went to Cici's to save time, then went to play volleyball. We won pretty handily, rounding out the season in second place. That means we won T-shirts. That reminds me, we should try to pick up our shirts for walking our hundred miles. Ironic that we haven't been able to walk since hitting that milestone.

Wednesday- It's great not to work or have classes today for a change. We cleaned up in preparation for company coming over for Thanksgiving. Tiffany came over to visit with Ellice while she baked pies, seven all told. I got the opportunity to play 2 games of basketball and 1 of football on my PS2--it was great to relax like that. In the basketball, I'm playing the career mode, where you start at a small-time college and work your way up. I started at Morehead State, and had a 10-win season my first year, and a 20-win season my second. I was offered a 2-year job at Boise State, but I decided to stick it out with my guys another year and hopefully get a better offer next year.

Also went to have dinner with the parents and enjoyed the UK basketball game against Liberty. UK rebounded from their surprising loss to Gardner-Webb with an 80-54 victory. Freshman phenom Patrick Patterson led the way with 23 points and 10 rebounds.

Thursday- Turkey Day. Great food. Joel, Sonya and Evan came over for the festivities. Got a pretty serious headache in the early afternoon though. Took some Excedrin Migraine and I felt better. I think they are called weekend migraines, people get them when they start to slow down after stressful weeks at work. Rounded out the day with some games with the in-laws. Survivor was a repeat, so we skipped it and watched two episodes of Charmed (Ellice had the double play card). For those of you who don't know, we take turns watching our shows. We also have two cards that we play when we feel like it, a Double Play card and a Random Act card. When you play a card, it goes to the other person. It's a system that has saved a lot of arguments over what to watch, we highly recommend it.

Friday- Well, I just had breakfast, and the plan today is to go to Murfreesboro to visit Ellice's grandmother; should be a nice little holiday.

SW: X-Wing: Rogue Squadron by Michael Stackpole
This is the first book in the X-Wing series of books.

This series chronicles the adventures of the Elite fighter squadron in their struggles to finish off the slowly withering Empire after the Emperor's death in Return of the Jedi. The war is by no means finished, what with the Imperial forces still holding Coruscant and many other key worlds as well as thousands of capital ships. The book focuses on the reconstitution of the squadron with elite pilots from all over- Rogue pilots tend to die quickly as they are the ones sent on the deadliest missions. Corran Horn and Wedge Antilles are the main characters in this one, with a lot of other fresh faces. Many of which, die rather suddenly, as would be expected.

I've read a bunch of Star Wars books by this point and I must say, I thought this one was extraordinary. I was surprised at the quality of the book. The book had the feel of World War II fighter pilot stories, with stormtroopers as Nazi's--and it worked really well. The starfighter sequences were fantastic. The villains were innovative, at least enough to standout and be memorable for years to come. I give this one high marks. I hesitate to give it the max, just because I would like to leave room in case one of the rest in the series surprise me again. Ah what the heck, I thrilled at reading this book. ****