Daily Ramblings – Reading, Watching, Learning – Dark Time, The West Wing, and The Civil War

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CJ Cregg, Dark Time, Ian Douglas, Josh Lyman, Josia Bartlett, Leo McGarry, Sam Seaborn, Star Carrier Series, The Civil War, The West Wing, Toby Ziegler

I’m still reading Dark Time, Book 6 of the Star Carrier series. Wow, what a ride. Currently, America, the central ship in the series is pursuing an alien ship that has just left earth, to try and figure out what this ship is and how it got to earth without being picked up by any of the security satellites and other protocols used to prevent this type of thing.

West Wing Season 3 has President Bartlett working on getting reelected. Leo McGarry just testified in front of congress, Donna got involved with the wrong Republican, and Josh is starting to get involved with Amy Gardner a woman’s advocate who is a big political player in Washington.

The Civil War series is talking through Grant and Sherman’s actions to get the victory Lincoln needs to get reelected. Sherman’s “March to the Sea” is highlighted, along with some other battles that occurred during 1864-1865.

I hope some of you find these to be good recommendations. I’m a huge war buff, so you’ll see plenty of documentaries about war, history, and sprinkled with some science. West Wing is my favorite show ever. I could watch and re-watch this series over and over again. I enjoy reading scifi and also action-adventure books. Every once and a while I’ll read a mystery novel or thriller, but typically stick with scifi.

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

Until next time…

Dave

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 – Reading, Watching, and Learning

Tags

Ian Douglas, Learning, MS Excel, Reading, Star Carrier, The West Wing, Udemy, Watching

Well I’ve done it. I’ve decided to focus a gaming post on the weekend, and pull it from this posting. That way, those of you who are interested in hearing about the games I am playing can get some exclusive content. The new posting will be on either Saturday or Sunday (I’m leaving that option open), and will start out with what I’m doing in the games I’m playing, and then add in some pointers and things I’ve learned playing them.

I’m still reading Dark Time. It’s in the sci-fi genre and is about a space carrier called America and a whole host of characters that have developed over the previous 5 books. I don’t like giving away the story, but if you enjoy the sci-fi genre, you will enjoy the Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas.

My sister and I are on Season 3 of The West Wing. What a great show. I can’t speak enough about it. I’m also watching a great Civil War series on Amazon Prime.

Daily Ramblings – Gaming, Reading, Watching and Learning

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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 – Gaming, Reading, Watching, and Learning

Tags

Book 6, Call of Duty Mobile, Deep Time, Diablo Immortal, FPS, Ian Douglas, RPG, Star Carrier, The West Wing, Udemy

Believe it or not, I found another game to play. It’s called Diablo Immortal. It is a mobile RPG game produced by Blizzard. Wow, what a game. The stories are so detailed and the world is really immersive. What is really cool, is that you have other players who you can see that are all logged in and doing their thing. Call of Duty is still my favorite First Person Shooter (FPS), but Diablo Immortal is great fun! Another game I highly recommend if you are looking for a good one to play and keep you busy for a while.

I finished book 5 of the Star Carrier series and will start book 6 today. It has been a great series for sure.

My sister and I are still watching The West Wing. I also finished the history of Quantum Physics and need to find another documentary to start watching today.

My EXCEL course just covered some more conditionals like the many IF functions in EXCEL. It is great learning all this stuff. I use EXCEL quite a bit and this course will prove to be helpful for years to come.

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

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Hobbies, Games, and Movies – CODM, Better Call Saul, and Dark Matter

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Amazon Prime, Better Call Saul, Dark Matter, documentary, Ian Douglas, Star Carrier Series, WWI

So, here we are again, folks. It’s Thursday and it’s time for an update on all things watching, playing, and reading. I just started Dark Matter. It is a book in the Star Carrier Series. I’m taking a break from Remo because I started this series way back when and want to finish it. It falls within the Sci-Fi genre and is one terrific book.

We are in Season 4 of Better Call Saul. Wow! What a great series. It’s great to watch this character’s arc, along with all the rest of the characters sprinkled in from Breaking Bad. I wanted to touch on a documentary series I started watching yesterday. It’s on WWI. If you have Amazon prime and interested in military history, here’s the title: The First World War. So far, it’s been pretty informative. I enjoy watching one documentary a day, so when I hit a series like this, it’s terrific, because it’ll last 10 days (10-day series). I watch an episode a day.

Call of Duty Mobile continues to satisfy. There’s a new challenge in Battle Royale that I’ll be starting today. I’m still continuing to work on weapon camouflages. I work through all the weapon classes – sniper, shotgun, assault rifle, submachine gun, and melee weapon. It’s great fun! I didn’t play as much with Zombies this season, but will get right back to that next season, which starts in June. Well, that’s the update on the gaming front.

Have a great day, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Hobbies, Games, Books, and Movies

Tags

Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, CODM, Gaming, Hobbies, Ian Douglas, Science Fiction, Star Carrier

Well, my sister and I are in season 3 of Better Call Saul. What a great series. I think it is so good because we watched Breaking Bad first. No spoilers, but the back stories on some of the characters in Better Call Saul is awesome!

CODM is still a blast. I got to Grandmaster in Ranked play and hope to get to legendary this year. All kinds of challenges this season and some unique events that have been an absolute blast to play. I’m still grinding weapon camos for the most part. It’s tedious at times, but there is such a large variety of weapons, it’s fun to really learn a weapon as I work through diamond camo.

I’m reading another book in the Star Carrier series. It’s a page turner. I like this guy’s style of writing, and the plot is awesome.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. I hope you have a great one!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thinking Thursday – Book Recommendations

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Bolton, Book reviews, Goodreads, Ian Douglas, Kindle, Reading, Scribd, trump, Warren Murphy, Woodward

I enjoy reading fiction and non-fiction. Here are a few books I’ve read that some of you may enjoy:

The Room Where It Happened – John Bolton

Fear – Bob Woodward

Rage – Bob Woodward

Singularity: Star Carrier Series – Ian Douglas

The Destroyer Series – Warren Murphy

The John Bolton and Bob Woodward books are political. They both describe the Trump Whitehouse. These were really good reads. I believe that every president is right for the times. Every president deals with the awesome responsibilities of their job in their own way. Many in the Trump camp disparaged these books before they came out, but after reading these books from two different authors, the feeling and descriptions both authors offered were pretty close. This leads me to believe that the descriptions in these books are pretty accurate. Anyway, I hope you take a look at these.

On the science fiction end, the Singularity: Star Carrier series is terrific. The Star Carrier series is 9 books. 8 of them are finished. I am currently on book three. I enjoy how this author delves into the scientific explanations about faster-than-light travel and all the rest he discusses in this story. They are very entertaining.

The Destroyer Series is also another great one, if you enjoy action and adventure, mixed with some of the funniest prose I have read in a long time. If you like action and writing that will make you laugh, these are terrific. This series is composed of 140+ books, but all are really quick reads. Usually I finish them over a weekend.

I’ll provide these book recommendations once in a while. For those of you in my audience who are avid readers, feel free to reach out to me on Goodreads. I use Goodreads because it helps me keep track of all the things I’ve read. I also recommend Scribd, if you are ok with reading books in digital form. Many of the books on Scribd are pretty recent and are part of the subscription. I read enough that Scribd pays for itself. The Woodward and Bolton books by themselves cost about 45 USD. I pay 9 USD a month for the subscription, which also includes audio books and magazines.

Here is my Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/60448547-david

Send me an invite if you wish. I’ll accept.

Well, folks that’s it for this week’s Thinking/Thankful Thursday.

Have a great day!!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Book Review – Earth Strike

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Book 1, Earth Strike, Exciting, Good Story, Ian Douglas, Science Fiction, Series, Star Carrier, Terrific

For those of you who enjoy Science Fiction, this is a book you’ll want to read. I found it on Scribd, but it’s also available on Amazon in the Kindle version and in paperback. Wow! What a story.

If you enjoy Science Fiction, particularly outer space stories, you’ll enjoy this one–promise.

Until next time…

Dave