by Con Coughlin
The author, instead of getting to deep into the details of Khomeini’s life, included a lot of information on what was going on in Iran during his life, which made the book much more interesting. Kudos.
by Randy Pausch
Pausch was a computer science professor who contracted pancreatic cancer. He decided to do one final lecture, primarily aimed to teach his children some life lessons.
Pausch was a brave man with some interesting insights. It was a bit too uplifting for my tastes.
We took a family trip to Wintergreen, close to Charlottesville, Virginia. Rented a fairly large five bedroom home at the top of the mountain. The main purpose was to share some family time. Mission accomplished.
We took a few hiking trips. A short hike within Wintergreen, the Shamokin Springs Trail. Nice little waterfall at the end. We also went to Crabtree Falls and Humpback Rocks, both a short drive away. Both worthwhile. Crabtree Falls was especially nice, one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi.
We played tennis a few times. Nice. The kids played golf.
A few lessons learned.
If you’re going through hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill
It’s one-on-one out there, man. There ain’t no hiding. I can’t pass the ball. – Pete Sampras
by Robert Frost
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.”
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don’t have her. To feel that I’ve lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else’s. She will be someone else’s. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never had so few lost so much so stupidly and so fast. – Dean Acheson
by Stephen Kinzer
A history of the 1953 U.S. led coup in Iran.
