The Killer Angels

Today was a nice relaxing study day. I've been reading over notes and exerpts from the book for my Heat Transfer final tomorrow, and I think I'm close to being ready. Dr. Antar gave us the topics he'd be covering on the final (which suprisingly, are the high points of the course). The problem here is that the subject matter lends itself to really simple questions or really really really hard questions. Personally, I'm hoping for the former.

I went ahead and bought the books I'll be needing for next semester. Well, sort of. I bought my Inviscid book & Missile Design book with no problems, but it turns out I purchased the wrong edition of my Machine Design book - that's a first for me. Well, the vendor was kind enough to email me to let me know that there is a more recent edition out there, so I emailed him back that I'd cancel my order. Actually doing that on Amazon.com is essentially impossible. It turns out that the actual vendor is the only person that can do that. He emailed me at 6:30 tonight, and I got back to him a little after 8:00. If I don't have an answer by COB tomorrow, I'll raise some Cain. Anyway, once I get the right edition, I'll have spent less than $180 on books. Not too shabby, eh?

In other news, Brent's fiance' refers to Jeff and I as Rocky & Bullwinkle. That's pretty funny, especially since I called dibs on Rocky.

I'm about a third of the way into The Killer Angels, which Jennifer gave to me for my birthday. It's written by Michael Shaara (father of Jeff Shaara). Most of you know the film version - Gettysburg. Its a little different than what I'm used to from the younger Shaara; his novels cover months or years at a time, Killer Angels covers less than a week. Its very cool though, seeing the battle through the eyes of Longstreet, and Lee from the South, Buford, Hancock, and Chamberlain from the North. Good call, Jennifer.