Mike's Missive

Dear Santa,

Here's my Christmas letter. Hope you're doing well! I'm doing just great, and while I don't think I've been so good this year as to deserve anything for Christmas, here's a list in case you're interested.

My interests change surprisingly little from year to year, so please take a look at my posts from the past couple of years to get an idea of the types of things I enjoy. Lately I've become slightly less well-rounded of a person, so my new requests all kind of congregate around maybe two main ideas (books and math). Here we go:

I've been thinking lately about books I'd enjoy reading. Besides books listed in previous years, I'd love to have a copy of one of the following:

* Counseling with Our Councils, by Elder M. Russell Ballard
* In the Eye of the Storm (aka The Other Side of Heaven), by John H. Groberg
* Mathematics and Religion, by Javier Leach
* Any book of quotations from Albert Einstein or Sherlock Holmes (seriously--the man had a lot of good things to say!)
* Choral scores to Handel's Messiah or Mozart's Requiem, or piano books containing church music arrangements.

As for the math, I've really enjoyed the math-themed gifts I've gotten in past years. If there's a game or puzzle or physical object (like the kind at mathartfun.com, for instance) that seems like it involves logic, I'll probably really like it. (You might want to check with Michelle to see if I have it--but don't worry, my collection is pretty small.) The same goes for books you'd find in the math section of a typical bookstore or nonfiction movies--I'm not looking for textbooks, but if there's a recent book or film that looks to you like something a geek would like (or even, deep down, though you'd never admit it, you), then I'm sure I'd love it.

I want to stress that while what I've listed above is stuff you can find in a store, money makes me uncomfortable, and I would also love to instead receive anything secondhand or homemade (especially secondhand books or homemade items dealing with math--call it the teacher in me, but, Santa, it's cool to think that you might learn something while you make my Christmas present :) ), and really, if your creativity takes you far away from what I've mentioned above, I'm not going to mind in the least.

Well, I think that's about it from me. Merry Christmas!

Mike