This is the Meta post I can make to fill in for yet another kind of topicless day, right? Well I had in mind to work on one of a couple of book reviews, but I don’t feel I’m far enough into those novels to give a good description of what they’re about.
There is one really long book I’ve been working on for some time called the slave trade: the story of the Atlantic slave trade, 1440-1870, by Hugh Thomas. It’s an incredible 43 hours of audio, and so I can’t imagine how long that would be in print. It’s interesting, but pretty sad to ponder all of that stuff. I’m still only in the late 1500’s, as the Portuguese and the folks they’d set up in the Americas to do the colonizing really began to transition from using Natives to Africans. I’ll probably be working on that one till nearly the end of the year.
And because I can never quite quench my fascination with Space travel, I’m also pounding away at yet another book about humanity’s trips to the Moon. This one is called Moon shot: the inside story of America’s race to the moon, by Alan Shepard and K. Donald Slayton. One thing I do like about this one, even more than the previous two I’ve read within the last year, is its decreased emphasis on the military side of why we ended up building ships powerful enough to boost people beyond earth’s atmosphere. I’ve always been more interested in the stories, what it was actually like to experience this very rarely engaged in form of travel.
And because I’m already racing the clock to get this in under the 12:00 deadline, I’ll just pretty much let it stand with those short reviews. I think though that one of the reasons why continuing to try this #31WriteNow challenge is important for me is to let me know that everything doesn’t have to be “the bomb!” When I get too hung up on making sure that I’m always writing to a high level, I start to clam up and not really put out anything at all. I think that if I keep greasing the wheels in my brain though, more good stuff will pour forth eventually.
I do have my trip to DC all booked, too. I’m leaving on August 21st and returning on the 23rd, primarily because I remembered at the last minute that I have to attend a membership meeting for the Norrie Disease Association on that Saturday. The Megabus should depart Durham at 6 PM and arrive in DC shortly before 11. I’ll stay at the Courtyard Hotel, located at 1325 2nd St NE. The NPR tour is from 11-12 on Thursday, and I’m already working on things to do after that. The megabus will then leave on Friday at 4:15, arriving in Durham at or after 9:30. I’m slightly curious why that trip takes longer than the previous one, but I suppose I’ll find out.
I can’t wait! Enough chatter for today, I guess. More tomorrow.