I read a book this weekend. Used to be that was no big deal, but unfortunately lately it has been. Another unusual thing about it was I read the whole novel online. The book was Sleeeping Dragon by Joel Rosenburg. [ his main web page has horrible layout but interesting content, and he also has a mostly second ammendment related blog]. It is actually part of Guardians of the Flame put out by Baen. They have a sample online. Since Guardians is a three book omnibus, you can get the entire first novel online. So if you want to read it follow the link above.

This is the first time I read a whole book online. I have to say my body rebelled against it. You are suppose to read books laying down, and that’s hard to do with a computer. But I do have a laptop, so eventually I ended up laying on my side with the computer on its side in bed.

I went to every Half Price Books in north Houston looking for either the omnibus or individual books. I called all the bookstores. I was able to find the second book at one of them. I’ll probably order the omni today.

I was a good story. I read it because I’m getting more interested in role playing games and this book is about a group of role players who get transferred into their characters. Its fascinating and the characters are interesting.

One thing I learned from the book was the term dilettante. They used to to refer to the main character who had had five majors, gets deeply involved in a particular thing till “he got what ever it was he needed out of it” and moved on to something else.

Seriously reminded me of me. In college I had 3 majors, some of them a couple of times, Psychology, Computer Science, Radio/TV, and Computer Science. I have two bachelor’s degree, one in Radio/TV and one in Computer Science. I have much of a master’s degree in Domestic Missions.

I like to bounce from thing to thing. I considered it to be a renaissance man kind of thing. I know a little about a lot. You can see it on this blog too, just look at all the categories.

Right now I’m kind of having a second mid-life crisis. I can have more than one because the middle of my life keeps changing. What I really want to do is change careers. I want to do real estate investment, glamour photography, or maybe open a role playing game store in north Houston. And that’s just today. Some days I want to be a SF writer or a TV writer too. Or a professional poker player.

But for the most part I can’t do that because of financial concerns in my life. I just make too much money. I guess I could cut back my lifestyle, but right now I have two boys that are homeschooled and will need to go to college. After they get out I guess I’ll have the chance to take more risks.

Of course dilettante’s like me have a tendency to … snap isn’t the right word. Decide to do something no matter what the risk. But we’ll see.