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Our house came with a fireplace. A typical brick chimney and open hearth meant for burning wood. Due to various reasons, we haven’t used it. But earlier this year we got a wood-burning insert, so we will use it, so now I need to stock up on firewood.

The good news is we have a couple acres of trees that I can harvest. So far I’ve been taking already downed trees. Most died and then fell over but a storm took down two live trees so some of this wood needs to age first.

But I thought the stacks of firewood were scenic, so I took some photos of them and am sharing them with you now. I had a plan for two of the stacks but I ended up with more wood so we basically ended up with random stacks of firewood around the yard. My goal is to consolidate them a bit, maybe next year.

That last one is not as pretty as the first or fourth photos, but some may appreciate the rusticness of it. Those are big logs, so it will turn into a huge pile of firewood once it’s cut and split, and I don’t have a spot for it yet, so that’s waiting.

With a couple different trips this year, I’ve had time to read some books. Half of these I picked and half of these were recommended to me by the kids.

I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: Exhalation by Ted Chiang

This book was a mixed bag. It is a collection of short stories, and most of them had interesting premises but the stories had objectionable material. Most of the stories could have been saved by changing some of the side topics or characters situations without changing the premise, but my guess is the author was going for pushing a diverse cast of lifestyles.

There were a couple of short stories in there that were fine, but overall there were more things I didn’t need to read.

Next up: Winterhouse by Ben Guterson

This was actually a review of two separate books, Winterhouse and The Secrets of Winterhouse. I read Winterhouse first then when I saw the library had another Winterhouse book I grabbed that.

I liked these books. They are mild mysteries, nice easy reading with nothing bad, meant for lower middle grades I would think.

Next up: Sky Raiders by Brandon Mull

This was tremendous. Out of all the middle grade fiction books I can remember reading, this series was my favorite.

I didn’t come to that conclusion after reading the first book. This is a series of five books. I read the first one and was intrigued enough to read the second one. And then so on.

And then after I finished the last book, I was sad about it. Partly because of how it ended but mostly that it ended. The last time I got so involved in a series was the Little House on the Prairie and that was decades ago.

I will note that Gamma said that Five Kingdoms is his favorite Brandon Mull series. And Beyonders is his second favorite, so that’s in the queue.

Next up: The Land of Elyon: The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman

This one was a random book I found on our shelf. No one seemed to know anything about it, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

It was okay. It’s the first in a series, but it wasn’t interesting enough for me to want to continue with the remaining books in the series. Part of that might have been because I had recently finished the Five Kingdoms series and it would be hard for anything to follow that.

There was nothing wrong with the book, and I assume the rest of the series would be fine too. So if you need something to try, this should be an option.

That’s it for this review. Got some more planned for winter.

I was considering a variety of ballot proposals that have passed in a number of states in the last few elections, and I noticed the common theme of a smaller group getting the votes despite the larger population not being on their side.

The larger population was not necessarily against their side either. But a minority of people wanted something, and it passed, and thus became the law of the land.

Modern democracy caters to the squeaky wheel. And it is due to a lack of moral authority in individual people.

This wasn’t the case in the good old days (not going to get into specific timeframes). People back then knew right from wrong. Maybe they didn’t agree with other people on what right and wrong was, but they had their stance on topics.

People these days are less firm on what is right and wrong, and are more willing to let other people do their thing. So a strong-willed minority that is pushing an issue can get it passed, because the majority of people will take the attitude of “hey, if that’s their thing then who am I to tell them no?”

And so something passes and becomes law even if most people don’t agree with it, because they don’t want to take a stand on what’s good for society or what’s morally right.

I’m not saying you have to care about every issue, but I’m saying do be informed about the ballot proposals to know if you should take a stand on them. All that is needed for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing, and not vote.

Being a University of Michigan fan whose kid enrolls at Michigan State is like the situation in the Sound of Music. In the picture below, MSU people are like Herr Zeller and I’m like Max Detweiler. They are zealous for their cause and I don’t really care for it, but I don’t want to upset them so I give a half-hearted reply.

I think in the movie it was actually Rolf that gave the Nazi greeting that Max Detweiler somewhat returned, but Herr Zeller looks more appropriate for this image.

I’ve mentioned people leaving bad reviews before. Not reviews with a bad rating of the product, but the review itself was poorly done. Here’s a previous example of how to write reviews.

But I was looking at something on the Home Depot website and of all the reviews, this one had me shaking my head. For the most part, people who are bad at reviewing things don’t know it. I think they mean well but are clueless as to the uselessness of their review.

This guy, however, was not clueless. He just straight out admitted he shouldn’t be leaving a review. But yet he still left one. I can only guess he was either being blackmailed or threatened with violence that he had to leave a review right then. Or maybe he got some kickback for leaving a 5-star review and that was the last day the kickback would be available.

I was behind a Honda Element at a stoplight last week, and I was mildly amused by its license plate

Here is what I saw:

And here it is zoomed in a slightly enhanced:

So there you have it – the elements are Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Honda.

Not love, despite what that movie tried to claim.

When the boys get to high school age, we give them their own laundry basket and tell them they’re responsible for their own laundry. So we have only one child left who throws his dirty laundry in our hamper.

It makes it much easier to sort now, before that I had to check if this shirt was Gamma’s or Delta’s.

And socks. Socks were the worst because there aren’t sizes to go from like the shirts and shorts.

But sorting is easy now – my wife’s stuff is pretty distinct compared to mine and Delta’s. And I know which clothes are mine, so anything left goes in Delta’s pile.

Until…

We were at Costco and someone remembered that Delta needed new socks. Well, he had seen my Weatherproof socks and felt them and they were comfortable so he asked for those.

I was against it – I thought he should get a set of socks that were unique to him. But I lost that one and he got a set of socks that matched mine.

I thought I would be able to tell his socks apart from mine because his would be newer and wouldn’t be getting threadbare in the heel and ball-of-the-foot areas.

Not all my pairs of socks were worn enough for that to be foolproof. But I did find a foolproof method.

He takes his socks of by peeling them off, so they’re always inside out in the laundry. I always takes mine off by sliding them, so that they don’t go inside out and that saves me work later because I don’t have to turn them back inside in.

So now it’s simple – any socks in the basket that are inside out go into his pile, and any that are outside out go in my pile. Hasn’t failed me yet.