Yup, that’s another year and another birthday for me. This time it’s the big 3-0. To be honest, people around me are making a way bigger deal about my age than I am. Yesterday I was 29 and today I am thirty, so what? I don’t feel any different. Fine, I’ve packed on a few extra pounds and lost some hair in the last 10 years, but that doesn’t mean I’m any different on the inside! I still read comics, I still watch movies, I still play video games, I still play card games, I still play basketball, I still listen to music, I still read novels, and I still got love for the streets!

Then it got me thinking, sure I still do all those wonderful things and more, but have the years changed the way I go about them? Does reading a Spider-Man book still make me fantasize about climbing buildings and peeping into bedroom windows? Do I still watch movies thinking I’ll be a movie star one day? Part of living is growing, learning, changing, adapting… so how is Osama version 3.0 any better than his version 2.0 equivalent? Read on …

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I wanted to share with you this series of books I’ve been devouring for the last year or so. It’ll seem like I’ll be revealing some spoilers here but that’s not the case.

1632 by author Eric Flint is the first book in an expending series known as the Ring of Fire. It’s a feast for history and technical buffs. To make the introduction short, it’s about a small (about 2000 souls) West-Virginian town being thrown back from the year 2000 to the middle of the Holy Roman Empire (Germanies) smack in the middle of the Thirty Years War.

For those who lack background in this war, it was a turning point in Europe. Its conclusion, the Peace of Westphalia, was the cornerstone of the balance of power in Europe up to World War I.

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Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who was dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture.“Journeys” are special University Lectures in which Carnegie Mellon faculty members share their reflections on their journeys — the everyday actions, decisions, challenges and joys that make a life. (more…)

Today, I finished reading David Gemmell‘s Echoes of the Great Song for the second time. I read a lot of books but there are very few that I’ve read more than once. I’m a huge fan of the late David Gemmell as I have read nearly all of his books and Echoes is by far my favorite of his works and one of my favorite books of all time.

If you like Heroic Fantasy, you’ll love this book. The characters are unique, the story is superbly written, and the world is both believable and surreal at once. There’s really not much more to say … go out and buy it!