I believe I've mentioned before my general inability to read more than one book at the same time. Unfortunately for me, right before the new Harry Potter book came out, I had just started Ayn Rand's 1200 page epic Atlas Shrugged. I held off starting The Deathly Hallows until I had reached a stopping point in Shrugged, about 350 pages in. It took awhile to finish the Potter book, and once I did, I was out of books to read. I actually was without books for a few days before I got to the store to pick up Jon Krakauer's Under The Banner of Heaven and started in on it straight away. That's when I realized I still hadn't finished Atlas Shrugged. Drat! I have to admit, I didn't find Rand's prose gripping, but it's compelling enough to make me want to finish the rest of the book and discover - Who Is John Galt?

I talked recently about my friend's foster dog, Ray Charles. Ray was recently adopted by a family with kids and another dog. They took him home and proceeded to feed both dogs at the same time. Keep in mind, Ray is a dog who has been in a shelter for a long time, so he's kind of like a parolee. When you put food in front of him, he eats as quickly as he can because he doesn't know when he'll be fed again. So when they put food for both dogs down next to each other, and the older dog looked at Ray eating, Ray growled. The family decided immediately that they couldn't deal with poor Ray and returned him to the rescue organization fostering him. The cute little guy is still up for adoption. He's cute and sweet and lovely. If anyone knows someone who might like to take him home for keeps, let me know. Here's a photo from him hanging out in my office today. As you can see, he's dead tired.


In honor of little Ray, the song of the day is "Georgia On My Mind" by the real Ray Charles off his 1960 album The Genius Hits the Road. Everyone has been singing it to Ray, as it is apparently the only Ray Charles song that your average white guy knows. The song, written in 1930 by Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, was first recorded by Charles and then by several other artists. In 1979, the state of Georgia adopted it as the state song.