Every summer I plan a flurry of projects that I finish as often as not. I pick a reading list, read about half the books - finishing only about half of those I read. I buy a pastel kit and resolve to learn to draw (that kit is still unused). I buy some athletic equipment and resolve to learn some new sport (this year it was fencing). Summer is fading though and now I must look back and see how I faired against those optimistic plans I made in June.

As far as my reading list goes, I give myself a B-. I finished The Rise and Fall of Paradise about Andalusia in medieval Spain. It struck my fancy because in light of current events, it was encouraging to read something about Muslims, Christians, and Jews living in harmony. Along the Old World lines, I am still reading a fictional account of Omar Kayyam's writing of the Rubaiyat Samarkand. This is a Great Book - one that you might be expected to read in an advanced literature class.

If you've followed these pages at all, you won't be surprised that I also enjoyed very much the Audubon's Guide to Mushrooms and In the Company of Mushrooms.

Other books I read include The Hidden Life of Dogs which was, as one Amazon reviewer put it - garbage. I really enjoyed Sherman Alexie's fabulous stories from The Toughest Indian in the World. The one book that I bought that I didn't read was DNA: The Secret of Life by the fabulous Dr. Watson himself.

The book that I will probably most regret not reading is Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5, which my in-laws gave me as a father's day present. We are expecting the baby any day now so I better get started. So much for DNA - the Macro scale of life science will be my master in the coming, well 20 years. A wise ex-colleague from Pharmacia gave me the best advice yet on parenting, "Love them and encourage them and they will turn out all right."