Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Monday, June 26, 2023

Book Review: Star Wars: Padawan

 


Padawan is a young-adult canon novel set sometime before the events of The Phantom Menace. In the book, Obi-Wan is chafing under his clashing style with Qui-Gon, feeling that he is not learning from Qui-Gon, and is thus not being a good Padawan to Qui-Gon. In researching the archives, Obi-Wan learns of the location of a mysterious planet that was found by a Jedi Wayfinder, who believed the planet was worth studying. Since there was no record of the Jedi ever returning, Obi-Wan proposes a mission to the planet that he hopes will bring him and Qui-Gon closer together. Obi-Wan ends up traveling to the planet alone and finds a group of younglings who appear to be force-sensitive that are being attacked by everything on the planet, including the planet itself. 

The book is a very good stand-alone story. Even though the story is mostly self-contained, there are some tie-ins (some subtle some not) to the movies and animated series including how Obi-Wan first met Dex, the alien that ran the diner in Attack of the Clones. It is basically a story about Obi-Wan finding his place in the Jedi order and his connection to The Force. The book is on the longer side of the young-adult novels, at just over 400 pages. Even so, it is a fairly quick read, so if you are a fast reader you should easily be able to finish it in a day or two. The story is good but not as good as the stories in some of the other novels. If I could, I would give it 4.5 stars, but that is not an option and I think it is better than a four-star novel, which is why I ended up rating it five stars. 

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