Merry Christmas

For years I have had a fascination with Bill Clinton, stemming mainly from his undeniable intellectual brilliance and my feeling that someone who has been the subject of such persistent and virulent attacks over the years must possess qualities worthy of that affront.

When Clinton’s autobiography, My Life, came out several years ago, I bought it with every intention of reading it. Alas, three years later and two thousand miles from where I purchased the book, I actually started reading it. With an all-consuming law practice and a nine-month old, finishing this 969-page book is a monumental task.

Three hundred and thirty pages into it, it is about what I expected. The book has been criticized as being long winded, and perhaps this statement shows by ignorance, but I actually find myself wishing Clinton had explained things more thoroughly.

I have learned a great deal about politics, i.e. the way elections are won on the ground. I have also had my interest piqued in various subjects. Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank is one example. Clinton’s mentioning of various books has also forced several books onto my already lengthy “books I must read” list. I picked a couple of them up at my local library last week. Suni is less than convinced that I will read any of them before they are long overdue. She is probably right, but I am going to try. The two books I picked up are ones I have always wanted to read – You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe and On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Actually, I don’t think the latter was mentioned by Mr. Clinton. Instead, I was instilled with a desire to re-read On the Road after discussion at the wedding of a good friend in Galena, Illinois, back in the fall.

A New Beginning

After having a relatively successful run at blogging a few years ago, I have decided to give it another go after losing my old domain – colestinson.com. This blog will be decidedly different from my old blog, primarily in that I have absolutely zero interest – at this point, at least – in developing a readership outside my family and friends. In fact, I really don’t want people who don’t know me reading this blog at all.

So, as I write this initial entry at 4:46 a.m. on Christmas Day, 2007, I have high hopes that this blog will be, for now, a repository of my thoughts that a few select people might find interesting occasionally. With that…