Daily Ramblings – Reading, Watching, and Learning

Tags

Civil War, Dark Time, Ian Douglas, Learning, MS Excel, The West Wing, Udemy

I’m really enjoying the Dark Time book. The main plot has just begun to take off and it’s great. I enjoy well-written sci-fi books, particularly the ones written by this author. He presents a technical background to the story, explaining concepts like near-light travel, and is also really good at breaking his story down into bite-size chunks. It makes it easy to read, and it is a great way to describe multiple stories, which overlap each other from different sides of multiple galaxies.

Sis and I are still enjoying the West Wing. We’re in season 3. This is a show I’ve watched about 8 times. I just can’t get enough of it. The acting, the writing, and all the rest is just superb.

West Wing Episode 10 – Bartlett for America

This week I learned the Left(), Right(), Mid(), Search(), and Len() functions. These are really helpful functions in Excel. Particularly if you are trying to break up an entry in a cell to accommodate setting your data up for sorting. The example the instructor provided involved a cell with first and last name. If you’ve ever tried to search through a list with first and last name combined, it can be problematic because searching is ineffective if your data is not configured well.

The civil war documentary I’m watching is also fascinating. We are at the part of the war, where Grant and Lee are going at it. Interestingly, the battles that were fought were named after landmarks or farms where the battles took place. Names like Spotsylvania, The Wilderness, and Shiloh are all familiar now. Great documentary!

Well, that’s it for today, folks. Have a great Thursday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Gaming, Reading, Watching and Learning

Tags

Amazon Prime, Call of Duty, Civil War, CODM, Dark Time, Diablo Immortal, Grand Master, Ian Douglas, Star Carrier Series, The West Wing, Udemy

The Call of Duty Mobile saga continues. I am currently at the Grand Master level in both Battle Royal and Multiplayer and have a few more levels before I hit legendary. It’s a real grind. For those of you who do not know what grind means in this context, it is the literally playing and playing and playing until your objectives have been met. I grind to get ranked and I grind to get my diamond camouflages for my weapons.

I have also started a game called Diablo Immortal. Boy, that is a great game. All kinds of things to do, all kinds of weapons, gear, gems, and gold to collect. I am really enjoying the Role Playing Game (RPG) genre again. These guys at Blizzard really know how to create great games.

I’m started reading Dark Time, another book in the Star Carrier series. It’s another great read so far. The way Ian Douglas writes is terrific. The characters are awesome. The weapons and military craft descriptions are the best. I highly recommend this series if you are a SF fan.

My sister and I are in season 2 of The West Wing. It’s terrific. I never grow tired of The West Wing. The characters are so terrific! Sam, Toby, Josh, Donna, CJ Craig, Danny, President Bartlet and Leo are terrific. I won’t give away any spoilers, in case any of you are interested. The entire show is on Amazon Prime Video, but you’ll have to pay. It’s about $25 US per season.

I’m watching a new documentary on the Civil War and continuing with my Excel class on Udemy. Yesterday I learned about HLOOKUP. Today it will be INDEX(). I enjoy this class because of the short session lengths and the easy example files to work with.

Have a great Thursday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Frederick Douglass

Tags

Abolition, Civil War, Frederick Douglass, Freedom, Human Rights, Juneteenth, Oratory, Slavery, Struggle

Photo Credit: George Kendall Warren – This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 558770.

In light of Juneteenth’s national recognition this month, here are some quotes from Frederick Douglass.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

Frederick Douglass

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

Frederick Douglass

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Frederick Douglass

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.

Frederick Douglass

If you’d like to learn more about Frederick Douglass, check out his Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

Have a great Wednesday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Rambling – Book Review Wednesday – Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Tags

Civil War, Harriet Beecher Stowe, History, Slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Here’s another book I just started reading. I was prompted to reading this book because I have become very interested in the topics of slavery, the Civil War, and other topics of this nature. I learned that this book provides a really detailed look at life as a slave and was very interested in learning about this.

I’ll keep you updated on how the book turns out. I also discovered what is called the Amazon Classics collection. All of the classics are available in Kindle format for free. I am going to tackle reading and re-reading all of them.

I hope your week is going well.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Book Review Thursday

Tags

Andersonville, Civil War, Hell on Wheels, John McElroy, Ken Burns

Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons by John McElroy

This the first book review of Daily Ramblings! I wanted to add this type of content into my weekly regimen because I do read a lot of books and thought it would be nice to pass this along to my readership. Today’s book review is a book I just started.

This book is about one person’s experiences in a Military Prison ran by the Confederacy during the Civil War. I was prompted to read this book after watching Ken Burn’s documentary on the Civil War. If you’re interested, you can find it on Netflix. This book is also free and can be found on Amazon in the Kindle section. I tend to read a lot on the Kindle because it’s easier on the eyes.

So far, the book is describing the soldier’s experiences with the Union Army and has not been captured. The book is written in the language of the 1800’s but is put together quite well and reads very easily. If you are a war buff like I am, the reading is fascinating.

I did not know about Andersonville until seeing the Civil War by Ken Burns. This prison camp is also mentioned in the Netflix Series (AMC) Hell on Wheels. I won’t drop any spoilers here, but the series is also worth a watch. I’m in the second season out of 5 seasons available currently.

Well, I’m not that far along in the book, but will use Thursday to discuss any books I’m reading. I hope this provides a little variety and perhaps points you in a direction of reading that you’ll enjoy.

Until next time…

Dave