Believe it or not, there is a reason Lisp code looks so strange. Lisp doesn't look this way because it was designed by a bunch of pointy-headed academics. It was designed by pointy-headed academics, but they had hard-headed engineering reasons for making the syntax look so strange. -- Revenge of the Nerds, Paul Graham

I wish someone had explained that to me 5 years ago!

If you were the type to find value in learning programming languages for the enlightening value, and for broadening the imagination, i'd point you to Joy, an experimental (read academic) functional language based not off typical lambda calculus, but rather composition. The language itself turns out to look and feel like Forth on Lisp. If nothing else have a quick look at the Informal Tutorial.

I ran across High Adventure at a local book store, and couldn't resist. This was the first book i've read about ascents of Everest, or mountain ascents in general; it was quite gripping.

The book starts by very briefly discussing how Hillary got into mountain climbing, and then jumping right into him being invited into a party ready to try an ascent of Everest from the south side. It then follows the exhibitions he takes over the three year period leading up to the final successful ascent of Everest.

This is a good book, worth a read, but not something that just has to be read. I would have also preferred some more details--very little is said about financing, which must have been pretty significant.

If you've never read about such excursions, be sure to take note of the glossary at the end of the book; i found it when i had finished the book, and was then able to confirm my assumptions on the meanings of various terms used throughout the book.

I was getting tons of phone calls on my phone number, most of them asked for people I had never heard of (presumably for the people that owned the number before myself). Hanging up on them did no good, more called. Then i got the idea of refusing to speak English to them; did that twice and i haven't gotten a single call since then!