Throne of Fire

I am still reading The Throne of Fire. I am now past the part of when
the giant baboon and vulture, Nekhbet and Babi, consumed Sadie and
Carter's grandparents, and tried to attack Sadie and her mates while
she was in London for her birthday. Sadie got rescued by Bes, God of
Dwarves, in a limo which he was driving. This is the same limo Anubis
had said they would have when they were in danger. Sadie thinks Anubis
is very cute, although he works and lives in the underworld. At some
points, like when he's in the mortal world, she thinks he can be very
cute, but when he gets back down to his natural surroundings, he can
apparently get very, very, very ugly. I am now at the part when Walt,
Bes, Carter, and Sadie are being driven by Bes to somewhere where they
can open a portal. Bridges are very good, but they can't go there.
They can't go there because by the big attack by Nekhbet and Babi,
they just basically screamed out to Desardjins they were in London.
They are trying to lay on the down low while they are trying to get
the books of Ra. Ra is the sun god. Desardjins doesn't want them to
get it, so he keeps trying to send attacks ti stop them. They need a
portal so they can get to St. Petersburg, where they think another
book of Ra is.

The Throne of Fire

So the part I'm at is where Sadie was in London for her birthday, and
she was going to see her grandparents and her mates, names Liz and
Emma. When she got to her grandparents house, no one was there and she
thought it was,a little strange but she decided to put it aside
because it was her birthday, so she just went to go see Liz and Emma.
They were having a grand old time, and were walking through London,
when suddenly a giant baboon named Babi was destroying everything in
its path and was trying to get to Sadie. Now Carter or Uncle Amos
wasn't there to help her, because she didn't want anyone coming on the
trip with her, so she had to do it all herself. The giant baboon had
consumed both Sadie's grandparents, but was trying to destroy Sadie.
Sadie had quickly remembered something Anubis had told her earlier.
"The train station is not a good place. Get to or under a bridge.
Magic is easier at bridges." He also said something about how he would
have a driver pick Sadie and whoever else up at Waterloo station.
Sadie realized that was about 5 blocks away, but although that doesn't
seem like too far away, its like 10 miles when you are running from a
giant baboon. On the way to the station while they were sprinting,
Sadie told Liz and Emma all about her story. How her dad was a
magician, she and Carter were in the blood line of pharaohs, and they
said it sounded crazy enough to be true. When they got to the station,
sure enough, Anubis' driver was there.

Stay tuned for next time!

The Throne of Fire

Now I'm reading Throne of Fire. I like it a lot, and a lot more than I
did moneyball. I left off in my last blog talking about Bast, Sadie's
former cat named Muffin, so I will go frm there. At first Sadie didn't
know it, but Bast was protecting her from all the bad guys and gods.
But, Bast was freed at the expense of Carter and Sadie's mom. Bast was
sent down to the underworld to fight Apophis for ever and ever, but
Sadie and Carter's parents thought they needed her. So, the mom used
every last bit of magic in her bodnto free Bast, and she opened the
gates and Bast got out. Unfortunately, mom died from to much magic. In
return, Bast promised to keep the kids safe and watch over them in
gratitude for freeing her. Bast then became Sadie's cat, and so on.
Carter and Sadie also have an Uncle Amos, who took them into his magic
house over Brooklyn once they found out about the magic and what not.
The house is in the 21st Nome. There are Nomes all around the world,
and I think the first one is in Moscow, or somewhere in Russia. The
magic house has an alligator. It also has a baboon, named Khufu. Khufu
only eats foods that end in the letter O. For example, Doritos, Oreos,
Cherrios, etc. Its very funny.
I will continue next time!

The Throne of Fire

Wow, I am so glad I am not reading Moneyball anymore. That quite
possibly could be one of the worst books that I have read in a while.
I was searching for a book, and I had already seen the Moneyball
movie, so I thought I would read the book. Turns out, the movie was
much better than the book. It was just really, really terrible. But
now I am reading a better book. A good one. It is called The Throne of
Fire, and it is by Rick Riordan. It is the second book in the series
called The Kane Chronicles. The first book is called The Red Pyramid.
It features 2 young kids named Carter and Sadie Kane. They are brother
and sister, but in the beginning, they were but they weren't brother
and sister. Technically, they were, but they never really saw each
other, so they sort of weren't. Carter, who at the time didn't know
about anything he would come to know, traveled around the world with
his dad, who said his job was an egyptian archeoligist, but is really
a magician. Sadie lived in England, with her grandparents, and her
cat, Muffin, who is really an Egyptian God named Bast. The first one
was a pretty good book, and I hope the second one will be better.

Moneyball

By the time Billy became the A's general manager in 1997, he had read all 12 of Bill James' Abstacts. James had something to say to Billy specifically: You were onthe recieving end of a false idea of what makes u a successful ballplayer.

By June 4, 2002, the day of that years amateur draft, there were still big questins about baseball crying out for answers, a baseball diamond was still a field of ignorance. No ne had established the mostefficient way to use relief pitchers. Someone came to a conclusion that college players were better than high school players by a huge, huge, laughably huge margin.
Billy arrived at the Coliseum earlier than usual and took the place he had held for theprevious seven days. At dawn the room seemed more glaringly impersonal than usualits cinder block walls were the bright white of an asylum cells. The only hint pf reality outside were the four cheaply framed posters of former A's stars. Ricky Henderson, Mark McGwire, Dennis Eckersley, and Walt Weiss.
Its against Major League Baseball rules to negotiate with players before the draft, but every team does it anyway. The scouts trickile in, one by one, to report their savings. It was about an hour before the draft.

Moneyball

Billy found himself with no wife, and out of a baseball uniform. His wife moved back to San Diego with their daughter, Casey. Billy spent his weeks scouting, and his weekends driving from Oakland to San Diego, and back again. Billy couldn't afford plane tickets. His life was filled with anxieties. He now had 2 of them. One was he wouldn't know his own daughter. And the other was he wouldn't cut it in the front office. When he wasn't traveling from Oakland to San Diego, he was speeding around the whole country watching games and listening to other scouts talk about players. But what Billy hadn't lost was his need to win. He just transferred it to a different place from playing to making decisions about players. Except this time he had guidance from someone who went to not 1, but 2 ivy league schools. That man, is Sandy Alderson. Sand py once said that Billy finally figured out he wanted to be Sandy more than he wanted to be Jose Canseco. In 1993, Sandy was impressed by the way Billy attacked every task he was given, so he brought him into the front office and made Billy his assistant. Sandy told him that his job was to find undervalued minor league players.
Billy wasn't one to waste a lot of time worrying about whether he was motivated by a desire to succeed or the pursuit of truth. To his way of thinking, the question was academic, sicnce the pursuit or truth was, suddenly, the key to success.

Moneyball

Billy was changed. He was 27 now and he married his high school girlfriend. She was seven months pregnant with their first child. He felt like he was a man now. He was no longer a boy. He now had reponsibilities and no real future. He went from very promising to disappointing but could never figure out why. He blossomed into the physical shape the scouts dreamed he would be, but somehow the game had shrunk him. Some people thought he would spend the season shuttling from the bunch to Triple-A. But he did something completely different and unexpected. He went to the A's front office and asked for a job as an advance scout. An advance scout is someone who traveled ahead of the MLB team and analyzed future opponets' strengths and weaknesses. He was entering what should be the prime of an MLB players career, and decided he wanted to watch instead of play. He always said he loved playing the game, but wasn't sure if he really did. When he said that to the front office, they didn't know what to make of it. The A's general manager was mad, he said nobody just quits as a player. Nobody says i quit, i want to be an advance scout. But he hired Billy anyway. He didn't think there was much risk because he didn't think advance scouts did anything.