Quarterly Report to the Shareholders, Winter/Spring 2011, part I

Blogging

I have continued to run this here blog as a daily and intend to continue doing so for at least one more quarter, while letters of the alphabet hold out. I have also initiated some new long-term features, notably Michael5000 vs. Shakespeare, and have a few more in the bag.

Michael Reads the Bible has shown signs of life, but is not yet stabilized. Isaiah, lamentably, is followed by Jeremiah. State of the Craft is in mothballs. Vexillophilia just had a big splash with the March Madness tomfoolery, but that will probably prove to have been the high point.

Reading & Movies

I consumed 27 books over the course of the quarter, same as last quarter. Seventeen of these were audio books ranging, as usual, from the fairly serious (For Whom the Bell Tolls, Anna Karenina, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) to the fluffy, with the usual generous sprinkling of Scandinavian detectives. There were ten books that I eye-read, the most virtuous being Crime and Punishment. A Patrick O'Brian naval potboiler and the new Iain Banks “Culture” novel carried some weight in the Respectable Genre Fiction division, and winning the prize for Most Disappointing Novel was the spectacularly uninteresting Booker Prize winner The Finkler Question.

I hardly watched any movies at all this quarter! Everlasting Moments was pretty awesome, though.

Geohashing

There were only five geohashing expeditions this quarter, and of those only three were successful. It’s mostly a summer sport, though, and in the City of Roses we’re having trouble even drumming up a spring this year.

The Chess Project

I actually played several new countries this quarter: Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Malta, Peru, St. Thomas, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, and Sweden. That brings me up to 133 countries out of the 240 on chess.com’s rather quixotic country list. And I’m proud to announce reaching an important milestone of the project, indeed really the closest to “finished” the project is ever likely to get: as of last week, I have now at least issued a challenge to someone from all 240 countries. That was trickier than you think, I assure you.

Quilting

A little thin on the ground.

House and Garden

Nothing.

Music

An experiment with my new camera kicked off a funny little “Live from Castle5000” series on MY Facebook. I don’t know if that signifies sap rising in the musical tree, or if it’s just a flash in the pan. We’ll find out in time for the next quarterly report.

Counties

I did not visit any new counties during the quarter.  By the way, nichim, how is your map coming along?


Any questions before we move on to the physical fitness categories?