Too much music

According to my iTunes, if I hit play right now and left it running for 14.4 days, I wouldn't hear the
same song twice (nearly 5200 songs).  But if I ventured a guess I would say I don't listen to more than 300 of them on a regular basis.

So I'm going to try something, a sort of music experiment.  During this deployment I'm not going to listen to the same thing twice.  It won't be difficult, because in reality I'll listen to approximately an hour a day while I'm in the gym, and maybe a bit at night before bed.  Even if that's 100 albums, I'll barely be scratching the surface.

We've talked about music management in the past...  are you guys still using iTunes?  How much music do you have loaded?  Are you still buying CDs?  I'm still pretty "hands on" with my iTunes.  I still rate music, and I still like to make sure that every song or album has associated cover art.  I know, I'm crazy.  I do buy CDs occasionally, but not new.  The CDs (and tapes) that I buy are from thrift stores, flea markets, and garage sales.  I rarely buy new music at all, but if I do it's digital.  When I started buying digital, I would burn a CD as back up in case my hard drive ever bit the dust, but I haven't done that for awhile.  For being a bit of a technology geek, you would think that I back up my computer, but I don't. That's pretty bad, huh?

So what are you guys listening to these days?  I just finished listening to Outkast's The Love Below.  Mostly garbage.  I'm not even sure how it's on my iTunes.  Maybe it's one of those CDs I bought at a garage sale.

Reading plans - yep

Well I have had 6 years running a goal of reading a certain number of books each year. I've succeeding in averaging 12-15 books a year read. Although I'd like to read more, other priorities perpetually take precedent.

I was however excited that I've read a number of these books, 13 in fact. Here are my results:

Born To Run - A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown - about 3,000 times to my girls at bedtime!
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley - I had an odd affinity for Malcolm X my sophomore year in high school. I read this and used to listen to a CD of all his speeches.
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank - inspired read after my visit to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan - all of Michael Pollan's books are a great challenge to healthy dietary habits. Great read!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle - a kid staple.
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein - a kid staple.
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - a kid staple and all around great book.

In addition to the "have reads", here are the ones on this list that are on my "to read" list:

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain - Controversial figure in the culinary world.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - incredible medical story, Sheila has encouraged me to read this book. Also recommended by others.
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

What about the Good Reads list? This one seems to be a bit more classics focused. Of this list I've read 15:

1984 by George Orwell
The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings, #1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) by Suzanne Collins
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2) by Suzanne Collins
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) by Suzanne Collins

Any plans for reading??

Amazon has come out with a list of books that they've titled: "100 Books to Read in a Lifetime."  I flipped through them out of curiosity, and I've read four of them, in addition to seeing three others in movie form.  The four that I've read:

Hunger Games
The Little Prince
The Lord of the Rings
To Kill a Mockingbird

I might have read Great Expectations too, and 1984 (in school) but I'm not sure.  Brad, I noticed that Born to Run was on the list and I know you've read that one.

To be honest, there aren't a ton of things on the list that I saw and said to myself, "Ooooh, I want to read that one."  But there are a couple:

Catch-22  -  A classic that I've never read.
Daring Greatly  -  Brene Brown is one of the speakers that I loved from that leadership conference.
The Book Thief  -  What can I say, looks like an interesting story based on the movie preview!
The Catcher in the Rye  -  Another classic that I've never read.
The Looming Tower  -  I would like to understand the history of Al-Qaeda a little better.

I can live without reading the others.  Anything catch your rye?  I mean your eye?