O Christmas Tree

Style

Every once in a while a movie explains life better than you could yourself. When that happens, I find that I frequently reference the scene/characters/dialogue. This is one of those. The movie came out in 2000. It's not new. I haven't even watched it in about a year. Yet for some reason, it came to mind last Tuesday when I was at lunch with a co-worker. The movie is "The Legend of Bagger Vance".

It's a golf movie with the plot "hometown hero with issues in his personal life takes on two established and successful golfers in a pivotal tournament". Although the movie focuses on Rannulph Junuh, the hometown hero, my epiphany does not - it focuses on the two established and successful golfers.

Bobby Jones is clean-cut and straitlaced. He plays a consistent game, always hitting pretty good shots. While he doesn't hit many incredible shots, he also doesn't hit many horrible shots.

Walter Hagen is the opposite. He's rough, loud, arrogant, and showy. His golf game includes a lot of really terrible shots, with a lot of brilliant shots mixed in.

Two styles, diametrically opposed. Yet they both produce the same results in the end.

I chose to study a field related to computer technology because of the course objectives of my Intro to Programming class. Dr. Hansen got up and explained that there were thousands of ways to program the solution to a problem. No two people in the class would return with the same code. It did not matter how you solved the problem, as long as the problem was solved.

Although the problem solving aspect of the class was fascinating, my favorite part was coming to class and comparing my crude solution to the elegant solution of an experienced problem solver and coder. It all seemed so obvious and simple after the fact!

At this point in the blog post, my High School English teacher Mr. Donovan would say that I've already written to much. I did what William Golding did in The Lord of the Flies - spelled out the analogy so blatantly that all the beauty and joy of making the connection between the analogy and reality is lost.

Well, Mr. Donovan, I never really liked you anyway.

The stories above are analogous to life. There are lots of styles. If they take you to the same place, then it doesn't much matter which style you choose. Most people ignore the "if:" part of that statement.

My approach to life is a lot more like Bobby Jones than Walter Hagen. I don't take big risks. I don't do crazy things. I'm more of the slow and steady type. I invest in Index Funds. I drive a dependable Honda. I work for a good company in a good entry-level position.

Sometimes I want to be the guy who makes risky stock investments, drives a blue FJ Cruiser or a yellow X-Terra, and works on a startup company. I think I will do most of those things at some point in my life, but not until I have a comfortable nest egg. Risk-aversion. And that's okay.

Dolorean

I'm not cool enough to know about obscure music. It's just not something that ever interested me. My musical needs are completely satisfied by what the radio or Pandora play for me.

There is one obscure band, however, that I discovered and I love. Dolorean. I first heard them in 2005 (this is a prerequisite for obscure music - you must state when you first heard them, or other people will have heard of them also and think your obscurity is too mainstream). I purchased their album (note the use of the word album, not CD. Album is much more obscure. It would have been even more impressive had I purchased the Vinyl. However, as I stated earlier, I'm not cool enough.)

Yesterday Pandora played me one of their songs that I had not heard before. I liked the opposition they used with the lyrics. I listened to it exactly one time. And now it's going on my blog.

The song is titled "In Love With the Doubt".

http://www.last.fm/music/Dolorean/_/In+Love+With+the+Doubt

If you are interested in reading about obscure music from people who love things like that, I recommend that you read this and this.

Radio

On my way to work the other day some of the radio DJ's had a segment of their morning show entitled "Whatcha Doin' At The Courthouse?" They went to the courthouse early in the morning and interviewed the people who showed up. So clever. Probably more exciting in Boston than in Salt Lake ;)

I must say, however, that my all-time favorite radio feature is "Short-Attention-Span Fridays". They play 12 songs in 20 minutes, never finishing a single one.

Yes, It's Real

Living Room

I was going to kill two birds with one stone and get the living room pictures out of the way, too, but it didn't quite work. Yes, that's Brent asleep on the couch. I love how small the world is.

Kitchen

My kitchen, in all it's splendor. Mom, this one's for you.

Scrabble

Thank you, person who invented Scrabble.

Great Architect

Luke Hutchison emailed this photo out and I had to share it.

"Looks like somebody creatively altered the sign outside the construction site for the new Stake Center :)"

Light Reading

You will enjoy this.

Grit

An acquaintance of mine posted this article on his Facebook status. Something about the word "Grit" caught my attention and I read the article right away. It's fascinating.

It’s the single most famous story of scientific discovery: in 1666, Isaac Newton was walking in his garden outside Cambridge, England - he was avoiding the city because of the plague - when he saw an apple fall from a tree. The fruit fell straight to the earth, as if tugged by an invisible force. (Subsequent versions of the story had the apple hitting Newton on the head.) This mundane observation led Newton to devise the concept of universal gravitation, which explained everything from the falling apple to the orbit of the moon.

There is something appealing about such narratives. They reduce the scientific process to a sudden epiphany: There is no sweat or toil, just a new idea, produced by a genius. Everybody knows that things fall - it took Newton to explain why.

Unfortunately, the story of the apple is almost certainly false; Voltaire probably made it up.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/02/the_truth_about_grit/?page=1

Grit is the ability to trudge through things. Don't complain, don't whine, don't flit from one approach to another. As Nike would say, "Just Do It".

Too often in my life I search for the perfect approach or dabble only on the surface. I know a little about a lot of things. I've started and never finished thousands of things. Grit is the ability to start and finish. Less breadth, more depth. Specialization, if you will.

"Perfect" is the enemy of "good".

My focus the past three weeks has been "grit". Grit at work. Grit at home. Stick with things. Dedicate the time necessary to solve the problem. Don't try to do too many things, just do something well.

As a result, I've been telling more people "no". I've spent more time alone. And I like it.

Net Gain

So I donated $20 to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundataion as part of the team we put together a team for Spin for Diabetes. But as I was doing my hour on the bike, I won one of the $25 Visa giftcard raffle prizes. Should I feel guilty?

AOL is Still Useful for Something

http://music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/#/1

How do you pronounce Peugeot?

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

My latest read is a book by Chris Anderson, Editor of WIRED magazine. I read one of those Soundview Executive Book Summaries about it, then read the original article that started it all on WIRED.com, and finally found the book at The Salvation Army this past Friday!

The Long Tail or long tail is a retailing concept describing the niche strategy of selling a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities – usually in addition to selling fewer popular items in large quantities. The concept was popularised by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article, in which he mentioned Amazon.com and Netflix as examples of businesses applying this strategy.^[1][2] Anderson elaborated the Long Tail concept in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (ISBN 1-4013-0237-8).

The distribution and inventory costs of businesses successfully applying this strategy allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The total sales of this large number of "non-hit items" is called the Long Tail.

From Wikipedia - The Long Tail

I'd like to elaborate on just a few points from that synopsis. Chris Anderson hypothesizes that the age of the "hit" is over. People no longer watch the same TV shows. Even if they do watch the same show, some people TiVO it and watch it at a later date. Many follow TV series online or by purchasing the DVD's after the season has ended.

This is evident also in the realm of record sales, movies, etc. There are more alternatives, and people are turning to them. We will never see another band like The Beatles. There will never be another show like I Love Lucy.

And here's where my thoughts digress from the long tail. What are the effects of all these niche markets? We're all splintered into individualistic groups. We have less and less in common with each other. Hundreds of years ago, the vast majority of the population (let's say 80%) grew up on a farm or in a rural area. Their fathers all did the same things. Their mothers all did the same things. It made finding a spouse a whole lot easier, because everyone had roughly the same expectations.

This is no longer the case in society today. We all come from different backgrounds and have different expectations. And although we may be intimately familiar with our own scenario, we are often woefully unaware of the scenarios of those with whom we interact.

Another digression - happiness. More choice does not lead to more happiness. In fact, contrary to what most people assume, more choice generally leads to lower satisfaction with the choice which has been made.

So where does this lead us? Everyone now comes from a different background. Everyone listens to different music and watches different television shows and movies and can find whatever they need to be an individual. And then they wonder why they're alone.

Maybe the BORG had it right. You will be assimilated.

Dave Matthews also put it well in his song Typical Situation

It's a typical situation in these typical times
Too many choices, hey yeah
It's a typical situation in these typical times
Too many choices

Everybody's happy everybody's free
Keep the big door open, everyone'll come around
Why're you different, why are you that way
If you don't get in line we'll lock you away

Ghetto Superstar

I work in an extremely nice suburb of Boston. It's very affluent and well-kept. Which is precisely why I can't understand why this truck has been sitting in the parking lot next door for the past year.

My Favorite Part of Winter

REI Down Booties

Commencement

I love commencement speeches. Perhaps it's because those who give them have lived incredible lives. Some have overcome impossible hardships, while others have innovated, dreamed, and succeeded.

Although I may never give one, I am in the process of writing one. Why not?

This one is my favorite.

http://marriottschool.byu.edu/marriottmag/fall02/features/robertgay1.cfm?loc=feature

Office

This was my view from the office today. Fenway Park, the Mass Pike, the Charles River, the Citgo sign, Heartbreak Hill off in the distance. I love Back Bay. I walked past Trident Booksellers and Cafe on Newbury Street, which is one of my favorite spots in Boston. There's so much character here.

I must comment, however, that my building location is rather strange. My company office is in the Prudential Center, which is the second tallest building in Boston. There's not a normal entrance to the building. The entrance is smack dab in the middle of a shopping mall. So in order to go to work, I have to walk through a shopping mall. Does that strike anyone else as strange?

Laptop!!!

Today is kind of a special day because I got a laptop upgrade at work! It's a Lenovo (I had an HP). They're ugly, the keyboard texture isn't the best, and the Fn key is where the Ctrl key is supposed to be, but it's a new laptop!

A few facts make this more exciting:

1) My current personal laptop at home is a 2005 Dell Latitude D610 which I upgraded to 1 Gig of RAM and a bigger HD. I reinstall XP every year or so, so the computer is actually surprisingly responsive and fast. And it has stickers all over it. But it's starting to get old :(

2) I have two work laptops, one from my employer and one from the client. I use the one from the client on a daily basis. The one from my employer generally sits on the top shelf of my closet with Dell Inspiron 2200 that has seen better days.

3) I purchased a new hard drive from NewEgg.com yesterday.

4) I purchased Windows 7 last week.

5) The new laptop has 3 Gig of RAM, a Core 2 Duo processor, and supports a 64-bit OS.

So, in layman's terms, I'm getting a really sweet laptop from my employer, putting in a different hard drive, and installing Windows 7. I hear it's awesome. I can't wait to get it all set up!

Is it sad that, on any given day, I have 5 laptops in my room? To be fair, two are for work, two are really old, and one is personal. That's normal, right?

-------------------------------------------------------

Update:

I spoke too soon. They decided not to give me a new machine, they're just giving me a new hard drive with Vista and Office 7.

:(

The good news is that my current laptop is also a Core 2 Duo and has 2 Gig of RAM. So while it's not quite as fast as the Lenovo would have been, it'll still run Windows 7.

Brooke...

Illustrate

I decided to learn Illustrator. My friend Anita was kind enough to spend an hour and a half with me tonight to show me the basics. I like it.

Things You Should Be Doing

Let me preface this post. Although I wish I could take credit for this list, the 10 points were actually organized by Paul Brockbank. Brooke took some notes in his class and was kind enough to share them with me.

I copied the notes into my Moleskine and folded down the corner of the page. For some reason, I find that I re-read them fairly often. Here they are, in typed format. I've taken the liberty of adding some of the a's, b's, and c's.

The title of this post is Things You Should Be Doing. The "You" refers to you.

1. Be relevant. Have substance. Matter.
1. Have an opinion
2. Know what's happening in the world
3. Learn new things
4. Discuss ideas, not just people, events, and things
5. Be involved in important causes
6. Be educated
7. Be well-read
8. Connectedness
9. Three kinds of people
1. Make things happen
2. Watch things happen
3. Ask "What happened"?
10. Be loyal
11. Talk about positive things
12. Matter to someone
13. Contribute

2. Adventurous - thirst to learn, change, and explore
1. Be obsessed with growth
2. How do you know if you're growing? Things no longer fit.
3. Be passionate about something. It can be anything. Just let that fire burn within you.
4. Leave your comfort zone
5. Do exciting things

3. Love now - do what you love, love what you do. Love the moment you are in.
1. Story about the two men who travel to the new towns. How was the town you just left? You'll find it is the same here.
2. No amount of money can compensate for unhappiness
3. Sometimes we do something we don't love for a short period of time because it will open doors in the future. Make the most of it.
4. Make the thing you're doing something you love
5. You are the one who chooses to be happy or unhappy

4. How do you define losing/failing? Winning/succeeding? - humility, pride, growth
1. Be authentically happy when others succeed
2. Success is not a zero sum game. You do not lose because someone else wins.
3. Which destroys more people? Losing or winning?
4. Do both with grace
5. Sometimes when you're born on 3rd, you think you hit a triple
6. Learn how to celebrate

5. Re-creation, Reinvent yourself - change before you're compelled to change, while still loving the person you are today
1. "There is no career path." - Bill Gates
2. Whenever you feel comfortable, reinvent yourself
3. Appreciate what you have when you have it

6. Bias for action - sometimes you need to start moving in one direction and adjust to where you want to go
1. Newton's laws of physics
2. I will go and do, not I will sit and stew
3. Indecision is a decision
4. Don't graduate from college and move in with your parents again. Don't waste your time in a dead-end job. Find a career. Experience life on your own.
5. Hamlet thought too much - just kill your uncle already!
6. A strategy with a D execution v B strategy with an A execution

7. 90% of the experience is the journey. Make time for dating. Smile at the guy in the toll booth. Do your calling. You're never too busy. Make the person in front of you happy.
1. How you treat everyone
2. Get caught up in things

8. Charity - true love that motivates how you live your life
1. Don't get caught up in the thick of thin things
2. Be selfless and transcend yourself
3. Model v. critic
4. Bless v. impress
5. Light v judge
6. We're all functionally blind to our own defects. We suffer from the cancer of selfishness.
7. People we love being around. We seek these people out.
8. Life is hard. You choose how you deal with it

9. Be a Renaissance man/woman. Be a beautiful human
10. It takes 10,000 hours to master something. (Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers)

Smart Time

I'd like to take a moment to thank the folks who make Smart Time, my favorite iPhone app, for sending an update to undo everything they screwed up in the update they sent out a few months ago.

They had added advertisements to the main screen, which nearly ruined the functionality of the app for me. It took longer to load, wasted valuable screen real estate, and killed the aesthetic appeal of the app. I spent multiple hours looking for alternative time management apps, but couldn't find anything which allowed me to put so many tasks on one page.

Since that update several months ago, I stopped updating any of my iPhone apps for fear they would be ruined. For some random reason, I decided to see which apps had updates this morning, and Smart Time was one of them!

They must have listened (or watched as everyone uninstalled their app) and realized that their old business model (free lite version > paid full version) was more effective than their new business model (advertising on the lite version).

not a bad way to spend a saturday

Mark came to town. Whenever Mark comes to town, you pretty much know that the weekend is going to be incredible. He's worked for the Forest Service in some function or other for the last 5 years. When you spend that much time on the trail, you get pretty good at planning trips.

Mark was a geography and geology major in college.

We were about a week late for the fall colors.

The trail was a loop. 8.4 miles, 3500 vertical gain, three peaks, and some snow. Yes, we went up that mountain behind us.

The trail was covered in a blanket of ice in some places. I had a slip and landed flat on my backpack. I was fine, but the rolls I packed for lunch didn't fare quite so well.

Mmmmm... hat hair!

The ridgeline.

The wind had blown the snow into incredible formations.

The blue stripe of the Appalachian Trail.

Don't go chasing waterfalls.