I found myself reading a lot lately. Last month I read The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, Rework by Jason Fried & David Hansson of 37Signals, and Tribes by Seth Godin. It’s an odd combination of books for sure, especially if you compare Dan Brown’s writing style to Jason and David’s, which you really can’t, but humor me anyway. Jason & David, write to get to the point quickly, while Dan is extremely descriptive. The point is I’d be bored without variety.

I really love Dan Brown’s work. If nothing else, his books inspire me to think and do some research. I ended up reading with the laptop up so I could Google pictures of locations and scans of paintings.

Rework, makes a number of good points. After reading thought it, I was happy to see that they shared some of my own personal views on business. I’m not crazy after all apparently. Out of all the chapters, the one most near and dear to my heart is Meetings are Toxic. Nothing ever really gets done and some douchebag ends up eating everyone’s time or derailing the thing entirely.

Seth Godin writes mostly about raising an army of minions to carry out your will…. Cleverly under the guise of empowering groups with solid leadership in order to make a change. The basic premise is there are people out there who want the same things as you do, they just need leadership to unite them and blaze the path.  Now I just need to find some minions.

All this recent book reading has got be back on the eReader kick, except this time the market has more to offer than just the Kindle. I’ve pretty much decided the Sony is not even in the running. The Kindle 2 looks pretty slick, but I haven’t played with it. I have played with a Nook though, and it was pretty nice. The selling point for the Kindle would probably be the web browser. I considered the iPad, but really it’s overpriced for what you get, the battery life is abysmal compared to the Kindle and the Nook, and it weighs more. So it looks like if I do get something it’s going to be either a Kindle or the Nook.

For the first time ever, I ordered a tent that didn’t come seam sealed from the factory. Most website and forum post will lead you to believe that it’s an easy thing to do. Which I’ll admit it is, but it’s one of the most tedious tasks I’ve done in a while. Materials react to chemicals differently so check with the manufacturer to see what they recommend for sealant. In addition to the sealer I recommend a good set of rubber gloves, a plastic mixing bowl, something disposable to mix with, and a pack of Q-tips. Also the fumes are dangerous so only do this outside or in a well ventilated area like an open garage with some fans. The ingredients I used were GE Clear Silicon II, mixed with mineral spirits with a ratio of 1 Tbsp silicon to 2 Tbsps mineral spirits. Both items can be found at your local hardware store. I mixed the components in plastic container, until it had a semi-viscous consistency. If the mixture appears to thick add more mineral spirits. From there it was just a matter of dipping the Q-tips into the mixture and painting it slowly on the seams of the interior and exterior. Use the gloves while mixing and painting so the mixture does not get in contact with your skin. Typically it’s best to do the exterior and let it dry for a day, then do the exterior another day which is what I did. After the initial sealing is done, test it for field use by pitching it outside and letting a sprinkler loose on it. Check for leaks, note them down and repaint missed spots.

Well, the site was up and running, but I ran into some issues with Drupal that I don’t have the skill to code around. So I dumped it for another WP installation. I think I’ve finally learned that while Drupal and Moveable Type are cool and have a lot of features. If you want something easy that just works all the time you need WordPress. So the site may change slightly as I work out a theme. I want to make a custom one but this one will work as out of the box solution for now…