438 Days

Alvarenga got into a fight with some local thugs. They were associated with the mob. He feared for his life. So he fled, leaving his young baby daughter and girlfriend behind. He headed south into Mexico. There he learned to be a proficient fisherman. Eventually he was entrusted to rent out a boat and go on deep water fishing trips of his own.


Alvarenga found a spot almost 100 miles off the coast where there were lot of valuable fish. He and his first mate pulled in a haul that brought them a lot of money. A huge storm was approaching. Alvarenga wanted to make one more big score. But his first mate was delayed. So he hired a replacement.whose name was Cordoba.


They made it out to the spot where the fish were aplenty. They filled their nets to the brim and tried to head to shore. The storm overpowered them and their single motor failed. They did radio in to shore for help. But the storm was too powerful. Rescue attempts were unsuccessful. Cordoba and Alvarenga were swept out to sea.


Both of them learned to live off the sea. They had lots of plastic bottles they used to collect rainwater to drink. They fished for food, and later turned to capturing birds that landed on the ship. Cordoba got sick from some seafood he ate. He no longer wanted to eat it, thinking the other food was poisoned too. He lost the will to live and died at sea.


Alvarenga floated in the ocean for over a year. He had enough water and food. But his mind was going crazy. He did have some injuries that kept getting worse. Eventually he ran ashore. But they did not speak Spanish there. Lots of paparazzi harassed him. He had on mission left that drove him on while he was alone. He needed to return to meet a daughter he had not seen in over 10 years. And he needed to go report the demise of Cordoba to his mother.

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

This books takes a look behind the scenes of game development. Here are the games we find out about:

• Pillars of Eternity
• Uncharted 4
• Stardew Valley
• Diablo III
• Halo Wars
• Dragon Age: Inquisition
• Shovel Knight
• Destiny
• The Witcher 3
• Stars Wars 1313

There were many lessons learned here. You can develop a game by yourself. It might take 5 years and be very lonely. You can also do a startup with your pals. You will be hurting for money and it will also take you a very long time. Sometimes the game will be cancelled.

A big time to demo your games is E3. Often times you need to change the game significantly after a demo. It is dangerous to rely on an unproven framework. It is beneficial to target new consoles as they will have much more power.

Scrappy Little Nobody

Just ready Scrappy Little Nobody. It is an autobiography by Anna Kendrick. She had a small part in the Twilight movies series as a high school friend of Bella. She is best known for her role in Pitch Perfect. Anna tells her story from being a little kid up until now.

I liked how Anna spoke to you with her words in the book. She was pretty funny at times. There are surprisingly realistic details such as the time when evil Tori usurped Anna and turned the girls of Anna's sleepover club against her.

Also, Anna tells of a trip she took on a boat to some type of festival. They sailed past some very rough seas. Everyone got sick and scared. Anna fell for her friend's hot brother during that trip. She thought she might be able to score a hookup with the bro. Did not turn out that way.

Only person who knows how to talk to you via prose better than Anna Kendrick is Mindy Kaling.

Repo Madness

Repo Madness is the sequel to The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man. This time around Ruddy finds his fiancé moving out to take a break. His boss has died. And Ruddy's brother-in-law has taken over the repo business.

Ruddy finds that although he initially did not like his brother-in-law, the guy is actually a stand up kind of dude. He gets Ruddy a new tow truck. And he comes through in the tough times for Ruddy.

Ruddy does have some tough times. A new court ordered psychiatrist is insisting that Ruddy stay medicated. Otherwise he will be in violation of his parole and will be locked up. He also discovered evidence that he man not have involuntarily killed a woman long ago. Instead it seems some other perpetrators committed the crime. Ruddy investigates.

Bruce Cameron, the author of the book, is best known for other books on dogs such as A Dog's Journey. I absolutely love his writing. Other books just pale in comparison. There is yet another sequel available only online called The Midnight Dog of the Repo Man. I will surely be getting that.

The FaceBook Effect

Here we go again with another book about FaceBook. The best part of the book focused on the time when FaceBook started getting really popular, and people wanted to buy the company. Zuckerburg was not convinced that selling was the right choice. But he liked talking with important people, which included potential suitors to buy the company.

The main question during the acquisition talks was what the company was worth. Initial low bids were somewhere around 600 million. Visionaries thought FaceBook could be worth 1 billion. Eventually even Zuckerburg thought the company should fetch over a billion dollars.

Another fun part of FaceBook history was when dissenters formed FaceBook groups. The biggest and most vocal groups were ones that protested changes in the look or operation of FaceBook itself. For example, there was a legal change of the terms of service. The change seemed to imply that FaceBook would forever own anything you share on it. Users rioted, created a FaceBook group, and protested. Zuckerburg caved in, revoking the changes.

Online Game Pioneers At Work

There was a prior book called Game Pioneers At Work. The one I read seemed to be a sequel of sorts. This was documented people who started online gaming companies. The stories were varied. Some were interesting. Like one dude was into building simulator for the government. He leveraged the business into making games for the general public.

Other parts of the book focused on how the companies were created. One guy worked for mega game maker Electronic Arts. Then he saw the advent of the iPhone. He knew he needed to make a company to get an early start on producing games for the iPhone. Turns out after a few years, he sold the company to another Japanese company. But then I think he went back out and formed another new company.

This book helped me pass the time for a couple train rides.

A Dog's Journey

This book starts out with us meeting Buddy. He is a self proclaimed good dog. His previous master Ethan has died. He takes a liking to Ethan's granddaughter Clarity, who goes by the nickname CJ. Unfortunately Buddy dies before CJ grows up.

Miraculously, Buddy is reborn into another puppy's body. It is a different breed of dog. Somehow he is able to find CJ and become one of her pets. CJ has a lot of problems. She has an abusive mother. She seems to date all the wrong boys, which causes problems with the law.

Buddy dies a few more times in this book. However he keeps finding a way to reunite with CJ in his reincarnated puppy bodies. Eventually CJ gets old, sick, and dies herself. Buddy goes on. He has found his purpose. He is there to help people (and be a good dog).

This novel is by W. Bruce Cameron, who happens to be the author for the Repo Man series of books I like.

The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man

I picked up this book at a bargain bin in a bookstore. I think I had read a free intro on Kindle before. This book is about two characters. First we have Ruddy. He is a repo man. He is also a bouncer at his sister's bar and grill. Then we have Alan. Alan dies in the prologue of the book. He then proceeds to be a voice in Ruddy's brain.

Ruddy used to be a promising football star. Everyone though he would make it big. Then a car accident and the death of a girl in his car changed everything. He served time in prison, during which his parents died. Now he lives a simple life.

Ruddy's best friend Jimmy has some checks mysteriously mailed to him. Since Jimmy is a simpleton, he tries to cash the checks. Of course they bounce. Ruddy takes on the case to figure out who would be sending Jimmy bad checks. Ruddy also gets involved in solving Alan's murder.

Along the way, Ruddy meets a girl he likes who, unbeknownst to Ruddy, is Alan's daughter. Ruddy's sister gets involved with Kermit, who devises a plan to get the bar back into a profitable state. You know this plan backfires. The future of the bar is in peril. Ruddy is caught in between.

Highly entertaining book. I have already ordered the sequel. I also just bought another book by this author. I will post a review on it when I am done.