Second Quarter 2022 Quarter-in-Review

It was a hectic quarter, even if thinks have started settling down as the baby transitions from newborn baby to just baby.  The big wrench in my plans here was my wife and I both finishing leave but only having two days of childcare for the baby each week.  I haven’t figured out a sustainable, reliable posting pattern for that new reality (although by the end of the coming quarter the baby will be in childcare five days a week).

Life was good last quarter (and it was a particularly good quarter for babies).  We took a couple short trips.  The first was to Atlanta for JordanCon.  I barely saw the Con, but I did give no-angel her first Con and first cosplay experiences.  The second trip was a long weekend in D.C. for a weekend.  It was the baby’s first plane ride and, unlike his sister, he didn’t throw up six times.  Or even once.  My in-laws finally got up here to see the new baby, and we got lots of quality time with my side of the family.

I spent a lot of time doing a lot of fun things other than reading.  Maybe I can turn it around in the second half of the year, but I am currently on pace for my worst reading year since I was in law school (by books read—by pages read it is much worse).  The only good news was that I acquired so few books that I actually managed to not only get Mount TBR down for the quarter but also for the year.

My Foundations project reading has been awful.  I really need to focus there this coming quarter.  I took a big step back, instead of forward, in Q2 when I lost my place in Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  Remarkably, Audible keeps no record of the last place you got in a book.  Once I lost my place, there was no recovering it.  And we’re talking about a 126-hour book.  I gave up.  I will return to Gibbon in the future in print.  The only good news is that I was able to return the book and get my credit back.  But I was so annoyed I almost cancelled Audible.

I don’t have much to say about my blogging plans, because I don’t have any real plans.  Hopefully I will do better than in Q2.  I do think I will retire the Newborn Watch Party section from my next quarterly update since the newborn isn’t a newborn anymore and my TV watching is back to normal levels.

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Newborn Watch Party

• The Witcher (Netflix) (second season)
• Winning Time (HBO Max)
• Ozark (Netflix)
• The Sopranos (HBO Max)
• Fleabag (Amazon Prime)
• The Chair (Netflix)

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April, May, and June Reviews

• Firestarter by Stephen King (Throwback SF Thursday)
• The Sweet Goodbye by Rob Corbett (Hillbilly Highways)
• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (Hillbilly Highways)
• The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith
• In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan
• Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

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Books acquired

• How to Heal our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, About Racial Reconciliation by Derwin L. Gray
• Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald (review copy)
• African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals by David Hackett Fischer
• Big Whiskey: Kentucky Bourbon, Tennessee Whiskey, the Rebirth of Rye, and the Distilleries of America’s Premier Spirits Region

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Books started

• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Templers: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors by Dan Jones
• In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan (review copy)
• African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals by David Hackett Fischer
• Big Whiskey: Kentucky Bourbon, Tennessee Whiskey, the Rebirth of Rye, and the Distilleries of America’s Premier Spirits Region
• How to Heal our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, About Racial Reconciliation by Derwin L. Gray
• Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald (review copy)

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Books finished

• The Sweet Goodbye by Ron Corbett (review copy)
• Shogun by James Clavell (reread)
• Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam by Vivek Ramaswamy
• The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It by Mark Bowden
• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Templers: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors by Dan Jones
• In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan (review copy)
• Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald (review copy)

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Books discarded (unread only)

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon (audiobook)

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Mount TBR Counter

• Second Quarter: -4
• Year-to-date: -1