Today is April 14

It has been 7 days since I last posted on this thing. Since school got out I left to visit my sister's family. I've been at her house since. I go back to school-town in two days. The summer semester begins class on the 20th. It has been nice to be out of the desert and back to the East where trees grow freely with lots of green leaves. Grass is naturally green here; flowers and other plants thrive as well. The air is tangible with humidity. Not so much this week, but in the coming months it will be. I like humidity. The best part about all of these things might be the smell of trees. Different trees have different smells and I think I like all of them. Tomorrow I will be mowing the lawn for my brother in law. I am pleased for the opportunity. The cut grass will have a good smell of its own. It will also turn my shoes green. It has been a long time, over 15 years maybe, since I used a push mower (I wielded one in defense of my country while in the Army, but that was Texas, and grass didn't really grow, so I mowed, but there wasn't any fresh cut smell or turning of shoes green, but that's what you get with black leather boots, I suppose). As you may be aware, I've had plenty of adventures with riding mowers (see post from 20 March). Tomorrow will be a nice chance to get back to one of my favorite activities, yard work. Living in an apartment doesn't provide much opportunity for that. I thought about getting a job on the grounds crew at school, but then stopped thinking about it. I think I like working in the yard when I want to and not for the purpose of money. Just like Gerald told Scarlett, the red clay of Tara gives you life, the green plants of the East give me life.
In other news, my brother in law and I are watching a movie called Pulse on TV. It is stupid. Disjointed and poorly written, all of the scenes are not well lit. We are over thirty minutes into it and still have no idea of what the plot is about. So goes the movies these days. I miss the days when good movies were made. Thankfully there are DVD's of those movies. This Pulse thing is just about creepy images and surprise scene changes, just trying to capitalize on base emotional reaction: fear. It is what I like to call exploitation. That is what movies today try to do. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Likewise, which came first, the bad movie makers or the bad movie consumers? Oh, I don't care anymore.
I read a good book this week. It is called Cop: A True Story, by Michael L. Middleton. Middleton is a retired LAPD Sergeant. He writes of his experiences and relates stories about life on the streets of Los Angeles as a police officer. I really enjoyed the book. I bought it a few weeks ago out at school. I started reading it on the plane ride here. Yesterday I was on page 152 and as I continued on to the next page I was confused. It was as though a page was missing. I looked at the page number and realized that 33 pages were missing. I've never had that happen in a book before. 33 pages just never made it into the binding. My sister and I visited Barnes and Noble; I hoped that although I didn't purchase the book at that store, nor did I have the receipt, that I would be able to get some help from them. I did use my Barnes and Noble Member card, which I figured would be as good as a receipt (and it was). We got to the store and I explained my predicament. The woman working there was most helpful and could sympathize with my plight. She checked to see if the book was in stock and then took me to the shelf. We got the book, they swiped my card and we made the switch. Problem solved. I need to send a letter to that Barnes and Noble store to thank them for helping me out. Anyway, I finished reading the book today and it was great.
Meanwhile, this Pulse movie is still on and we are laughing at it. It is terrible, never watch it. That's all I have to say now. I need to start watching the news and stuff again so I can think of things to write about. For now, I am on vacation.