Never Forget
Category: Thinking (Page 13 of 14)
So the big move is (halfway) over, but I’m still not feeling like we actually live here yet. However, I’ve noticed several things that are the same and many that are different:
Same
- Rain during rugby practice means only 7 people show up.
- The club is trying to find a lighted field for practice
Different
- No hills
- No RSS feed for the local paper
- Not many people on Twitter
- Haven’t heard anyone mention firing the coach of the local college football team yet.
- Property taxes are higher.
- Sales tax is lower.
- There is a beach.
- No red light cameras
Not the Security and Exchange Commission–I’ll straighten them out next week. I’m talking about the Southeastern Conference.
Now, these are just the simple-minded observations from someone with absolutely no formal training in marketing:
- If someone is excited about your product and wants to talk about it, you should be happy.
- If someone is excited about your product and wants to talk about it, you should encourage them.
- No matter who you are, you have bigger PR problems than someone who is excited about your product telling the world about it.
Michael Silence has been diligent in covering their decision to threaten bloggers, Tweeple, people with phones, and YouTubers, and you can get a ton of information on this from him and others.
I saw this comment to a comment on Facebook and thought it was pretty powerful…
So far this month, 10 members of our military have lost their live in Iraq, and 22 have lost their lives in Afganistan.
These were mostly young people in their 20s and 30s who put themselves in harm’s way to perform a job most of us don’t have the courage to perform. The fact that they were willing to do so affords us the opportunity to watch 24 hour “news” coverage on the deaths of entertainers who are at least 50 years old.
Yeah, 50 is young too. And it’s shocking. But let’s keep this in perspective.
I’m not saying I’m any less guilty than anyone else is of getting distracted by day-to-day life–I don’t mean to cast any stones. But it is shame when so much emphasis is placed on the death of a few celebrities while we all but ignore the sacrifice of people who, at the very least, deserve to be recognized on television/radio/print by news organizations.
I have to give props to George Stephanopoulos. He recognizes all of our fallen service people every week on his show.
I remember watching an episode of Cheers a long time ago, and one of the characters made the remark that, “you can get more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”
Woody responded, “Yeah, but a dead squirrel gets the most.”
I think there’s actually some wisdom in that statement. A dead squirrel is much more useful to a fly than honey is. Honey just feeds the fly, but the dead squirrel provides it a place to lay eggs and reproduce–to allow its genes to continue. And you get used to the smell after a while I’m sure.
I think what I’m getting at here is that you don’t always have to be sweet, as long as you are useful. Or something like that.
Someone who’s articulate should take that idea, expand on it, and write a book.
A posted this a while back in a longer post over at that other place. Looking back, I think this graph which illustrates Jay Z’s problems is my favorite part of the whole post, and I can’t even take credit for it.
As you can see, “fools” and “foes” seem to be the two major stress points. We’d be wise to take note and do our best to avoid both whenever possible. The bonus is that doing so would leave us more time to deal with paparazzi, riffraff, and critics.
Just a few of the brilliant thoughts I had yesterday on my roundtrip journey to the ATL yesterday…
- If HHH didn’t repeat himself so much, that 3 hour show would only last about 15 minutes.
- Where did all these people in Atlanta come from?
- Are they actually going anywhere, or are they just trying to impede me?
- I’ve never seen so many deer eating on the side of the interstate. Do we need more either sex hunting opportunities to cull them?
- Why am I not seeing many dead deer? With this many live ones it seems like a lot more of them would get hit.
- How is it that I always end up stopping at this same gas station coming and going every time I come down here?
- When you get right down to it, Hank Williams really is still the most wanted outlaw in the land.
- Carlos Santana–I give him several chances, but he just doesn’t do it for me.
- What happened to that Seventh Day Adventist billboard? You know the one. It always used to catch my attention.
- Did we ever learn who it was that let the dogs out?
From No Silence Here.
Blogging is often cited in the obits of newspapers. Twittering is often cited in the obits of blogs. And now I’m hearing Facebook and MySpace cited as the killers of Twitter. Some soon-to-be freshmen in high school told me last week they’re not on blogs or Twitter. They’re strictly Facebook or MySpace.
And just wait for Wave to ramp up. I think it may eventually kill email, along with marginalizing all of these other communication tools. Ok, “kill” may be a strong word, but the future of communication definitely lies in a One-Stop-Shop, real time type of communication instead of these various distributed and semi-connected tools we’re using now.
In the future, every communication tool will be useful for 15 minutes.
I’ve linked to this Seth Godin post about meeting efficiently before, but it was probably on Twitter. Here’s more than 140 characters worth…
I’ve noticed a typical script most meetings follow:
- Lots of time spent waiting on people to arrive
- Meeting then starts with people absent anyway
- Issues are identified and discussed relatively quickly by the folks who were on time
- Someone shows up late, and they inevitably want to rehash the issues that have been identified and discussed while they weren’t there.
- Issues beyond the scope of the meeting are raised, usually by one of the people who was late.
- At least one person feels the need to continue the meeting for the entirety of its scheduled time with “filler” material.
It all pays the same to me–just some things I’ve noticed over the last 15 years or so. What is strange is that this seems to be a relatively predictable situation, yet there haven’t been many attempts to correct it or make it more efficient.
Maybe if a fist fight or sumo wrestling match were scheduled to begin on time at the beginning and end of every meeting people would be anxious to get their on time and get the meeting over with as soon as possible?
I don’t know what the answer is, I’m just throwing ideas out there.
NOTE (2.7.2014): I get lots of traffic on this post, but please remember it was written in 2009. I’ve learned a lot since this was written, and have gained some valuable race experience along the way. There’s much more sound advice in the articles listed here.
For example, I talk a lot about bricks in this article, but have since developed the opinion that traditional bricks aren’t that valuable for long distance triathlon training, at least for me.
Most of the text below is probably a lesson in what not to do, so read at your own risk. I leave it posted for two reasons–to give me a way to remember how much I’ve grown and improved, and because it’s probably good for a laugh here and there.
What’s “my” way? The fat and lazy way.
My buddy “Dirty Matt” is training for a half iron distance triathlon in May and was asking me for some advice. Why would he ask me instead of his other friend who does full iron distance races on a whim? Because I’m going to let him off easy. See, my training regimen relies heavily on rest and tapering. In fact, I like to start my taper a couple of months before the actual race. You definitely don’t want to show up tired on race day, right?
I did a half iron distance race in 2006, and I learned quite a bit about training for regular people who are short on time and long on injuries. It doesn’t hurt to be a little lazy and have a propensity for sleeping late either. I used this training guide as my base, but after a few weeks I tweaked it to fit my lifestyle body shape laziness schedule.
I’m making a couple of assumptions here about the person who wants to train my way:
1. You aren’t trying to win the race, but you want to finish with a respectable time
2. You can already run 8-10 miles at an easy pace without much trouble
3. You’re an ok swimmer. My method will NOT improve your swimming much. You don’t have to be fast, just comfortable with swimming 1000 yards.
4. You are fat or lazy by triathlete standards–it helps to be both
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Swimming
If you’re like me, when you first hear “1.2 mile swim”, it’s very intimidating. I promise you that when you finish training it will seem like nothing. In fact, my whole training philosophy is based on the premise that the swim is nothing.
Here’s the thing–if you didn’t grow up swimming, chances are you will probably never be great at it. In order to get fast you have to swim A LOT. I’m not really interested in that because (a) it’s boring and (b) planning for a 6 hour 1/2 ironman means you’ll be swimming from 30 to 40 minutes on race day. It’s just a warm up for the rest of the race. Losing or gaining 2 minutes or so in the swim is pretty negligible, and I want to get the maximum race time reduction for each minute spent training.
I went to a master swim class for a few weeks when I first started swimming, and the coach helped me work on stroke efficiency. The first day I swam one lap, and she counted 23 strokes for a length of the pool (25 yards). She stopped me, told me two things to change, and I was immediately down to 19 strokes per length. I kept going back until I was down to 15 strokes, then left with her tips and eventually got down to 12-13 on my own. All the while, my speed was improving. Makes sense, because I was not tiring out as fast.
I also started noticing that swimming “harder” didn’t gain me much time. It gained me a little, but not a lot. But swimming hard was jacking my heart rate up to ~160, while I could swim easy and keep it at ~120. All this work and training for, at best, a 5 minute gain on race day? No thanks. I worked my way up to 2,200 yard (1.2 mile) nonstop swims, and then did one swim a week of the full distance, making sure I kept my heart rate down. This was basically to keep myself mentally prepared to do it.
Cycling
The bike is where you can gain the most time. Again, I was aiming for a six hour race, and that was going to mean around three hours to cover the 56 mile bike ride. Ride your bike! Ride it some more! If I could change one thing about my training, I’d have spent more time on the bike. It’s not just that the bike is the longest leg of the race either. The bike doesn’t tear up your body like the run does, and it isn’t as boring as the swim, so the training is much more enjoyable, at least for me.
I also know that Dirty Matt is coming from the same place I was coming from as well, which is a pretty solid running base, and I think cycling is a great way to build on that. For me, the bike takes weight off too, which helps a lot with the injury issues I can have with training for the run.
I worked on controlling my heart rate on the bike too, due to the way I trained for the run.
Running
I love to run, but it tears me up, mostly because of my weight. And to be honest, these triathlon schedules take up a ton of time. Again, I’m just looking for a way to minimize my time on race day. Instead of doing separate run and bike workouts, I decided to just brick the mid-week bike rides with a 10% run immediately after. So a 30 mile bike ride would be followed by a 3 mile run, a 40 mile bike would be followed by a 4 mile run. It’s actually one thing I’m glad I changed from the training program, I’d done a few sprint tris and thought that those short runs would be no problem after a short bike ride.
I was wrong. Bricking the runs not only help your legs get used to the transition, but they give you a feel for how far into the run you will be before you legs feel normal again, which is a nice thing to have mentally.
Another change I made was to swap the weekend runs and bikes–doing the long bike on Saturday and the long run on Sunday. Sort of a “rested” brick. Maybe not a super smart move, but I was fighting off some injuries the whole time, and they didn’t get any worse, so maybe there’s something to it.
Other Considerations
I didn’t do ANY quality workouts. I think that’s something I would consider if I was going in to training fit enough to do the race, but I was building fitness for the entire duration of training and didn’t want to overdo it.
I don’t go back and pick up missed workouts unless they are the long ones. Missing a short bike ride or a short run isn’t that big of a deal to me, but the long ones have to be done. I probably would have been ok with even less swimming, but it helped mentally to do it at least once a week.
I did a few open water swims, just to practice spotting and going the right direction, which is tough for me. I still probably lost a couple of minutes in the race zigzagging. Dirty Matt lives on Maui, so open water swims are probably more convenient (and fun) for him than pool swims are.
Sorry this was so long. You could have probably already completed the whole damn race along with the training it the time it took you to read this.
I’m not going to even begin to bore anyone with the old cliche’d things I’m thankful for. Family, health, friends, etc.–anyone can think of those. Besides, I wrote a nice Thanksgiving post last year. Nope, I’m going to get real. I’m thankful for a lot of things most people probably aren’t, so why not list those and make my Thanksgiving post a little different? Ok then, I will.
- Nice ladies with coffee–I like nice ladies, and I like coffee, but when you put the two together you get magic! Nice ladies with coffee just give it away sometimes (I’m still talking about coffee). Other times, they will break the rule that says “you can’t get $.59 refills in Styrofoam cups” and let you do it anyway. This is especially helpful if you are driving to the ATL and are stopping for your 2nd or 3rd cup of the day.
- Muscle memory–It’s frustrating to get older and not be able to the things you used to do as well or as fast as you could when you were younger. On the other hand, it’s nice to still be able to do them period.
- Twitter–one of the downsides of working from home is that you are all alone. Twitter gives me the ability to turn on that “office small talk” whenever I want (links to some of my favorite Twits). Even better, Twitter lets you decide who you want to listen to, so none of my “coworkers” are annoying–at least to me. Also, Twitter is a great way to learn about lots of other really cool things like Twhirl, Twitter Grader, and Qwitter.
- La Gallina Turuleca and Zoboomafoo—La Gallina Turuleca has been viewed 11.5 million times. I think I’m responsible for about 9 million of those. It stops the screaming. Zoboomafoo, while popular with the kid is actually a pretty decent show. I was just saying last night while flipping through channels that Zoboomafoo is better than most of the other stuff on TV. Which brings me to…
- Rock of Love Charm School–I’m thankful for this show because it makes me thankful for so many other things. First, it makes me thankful for Rock of Love, without which this show would not be possible. Secondly, it makes me thankful for every ex-girlfriend ever. Yeah, even “that one” wasn’t anything like these chicks. And all those ex-girlfiends make me thankful for my current girlfriend. Sure, technically we’re married, but since we still like each other so much it’s more like dating, which I’m very thankful for.
- WordPress–Not just WordPress (which is free), but all the free WordPress plugins and WordPress themes as well. What a great, easily extendable platform! I’m thankful more people are catching on to how flexible and easy it is for people to get things done on the web with WordPress. The more people are empowered, the easier it is for them to get information out, and we all win.
- Free speech–I’m really greatful that we’re able to sit behind our keyboards and cry “Socialism!” when we see it closing in on us. I’m really not sure why we’re still allowed to do so. It’s probably because big government isn’t efficient enough to stop us yet–they’ll have to spend a few years doing a study, creating a department, hiring a huge staff, and creating some regulation first. Oh, and taxing the shit out of us to pay for it all. Of course, it’s entirely possible that they really don’t know that all this stuff they’re doing is socialism. I never considered that possibility until this week.
- Space…Fight!–This is quite possibly the greatest Facebook app ever produced. It’s a game that has no apparent purpose and cannot be won. What’s the point? I believe the point is to see how long you can stand to play this game. Can you stand to play it longer than your friends? Out of spite, I believe I can. However, I’m getting some stiff competition from one Space…Fight!er who just won’t give up.
- “Change”–This word has given me so many opportunities to laugh this year, and the hits just keep on coming. Only in America can more of the same be marketed as change and be bought by so many. It reminds me of Mick Foley rasslin as Cactus Jack, Dude Love, and Mankind. He wore different costumes as each character, but once the bell rung you just had a crazy sumbitch dishing out pain, no matter the getup. That’s change I can believe in.
- People Who Subscribe to My Blog(s)–thank you, thank you, thank you!
Have a great, safe, and happy Thanksgiving!
SVD is documenting his forays into these mediums (where else) on his blog. All of these things mean so many different things to different people. Here’s how I like to describe them…
When I send you an email, it’s the equivalent of me inviting you over to the house for a cup of coffee. We’re sitting at the kitchen table having a conversation. This has a few implications. For instance, “thanks” is not acceptable for an email in its entirety. I wouldn’t invite you over to my house to say “Thanks” and then slam the door in your face would I? Don’t be surprised, however, if I come banging on your door to borrow an egg or some milk though. These are the emails where I ask stupid questions.
When I write something on my blog and people comment, it’s the equivalent of me standing out in my yard and talking to whatever neighbors happen to drop by to talk. I’m lazy, so I’m probably sitting in a chair instead of standing, but you get the idea. Anyone is free to drop by and discuss, even if they don’t live in my ‘hood. This has implications too. For instance, driving by and yelling “F You!” or walking up and trying to sell me Viagra means you’re going to be ignored. Also, my “yard” isn’t as nice or visited by as many passers by as some. See, my yard isn’t near an interstate–it’s more like a gravel road–so there usually aren’t as many people stopping by. On some days, I just sit out there whittling and taking naps all by myself. Other days I just stay inside and nap. If you stop by, it helps to bring beer.
And Twitter? Twitter is like all of us are piled into a bunch of eighteen wheelers and talking on CBs with antennas so big that the whole world can tune in. Anytime something important happens, it will hit Twitter as fast as news of a Smoky seen setting up a speed trap. Anyone with their ears on will definitely know about it.
Wait, I have a better description for Twitter…
Twitter is like ham radio for people who can get a date.
We’re putting together some structure and a website for our local coworking group, and were kicking the idea around about how to include people (or not). I’m a big fan of keeping rules as simple and minimal as possible. I figured eight rules were plenty…apologies to Chuck Palahniuk.
- The first rule of coworking is that you must talk about coworking
- The second rule of coworking is that you MUST TALK ABOUT COWORKING
- If someone brings in a box of donuts or pulls up a cool new website, work is over
- Any number of people can work at any time
- Any number of projects and businesses can be worked on at the same time
- No shirt, no shoes? Well, can you at least throw on a t-shirt and some flip flops?
- Work will go on as long as it has to
- If it’s your first day coworking, you have to work
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Patrick Beeson has a nice article with some tips for drivers. It’s a good, quick list of pointers, but I’m assuming this will be of interest only to the drivers who don’t make a habit of yelling “Git off da roa-ohd!” or throwing stuff at cyclists.
I was riding a lot on the roads a couple of years ago when I was training for longer triathlons. I decided it just wasn’t worth the risk of getting hit by some a-hole after a guy was killed on one of the routes I rode often. I started riding on Cherokee Boulevard exclusively–plenty of space, and people are aware and considerate of cyclists there for the most part. That kind of sucks for longer rides, but the monotony built up my mental fitness and it paid off in races.
Sure, a cyclist has just as much right to be on the road as a motorist, but I’m still not comfortable putting my life in the hands of someone who doesn’t know or care about that fact. Drivers should actually be happy that more people will be on bikes. The decreased demand for gasoline will have prices falling in no time.
I’ll never be able to forgive myself for watching both seasons of Rock of Love in their entirety. The only thing I can do that would possibly atone for my actions is recommend a few shows to VH1 that may allow me to gain some of my self respect back. In no particular order, here are eight shows that would be more interesting and more entertaining than Rock of Love.
The Purity is Right With Nikki Sixx
Contestants shoot heroin with the Motley Crue bassist and try to guess it’s purity. The contestant closest to the actual purity level without going over gets to spin the big wheel, which contains various rehab packages. The grand prize includes detox and a spot on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. All contestants receive a complimentary double dose at the methadone clinic good for one visit only.
Survivor DLR
Contestants are stranded on a deserted island with David Lee Roth. Instead of being voted off of the island, contestants remove themselves voluntarily. The contestant who can stand DLR the longest is the winner. The game gets harder as more contestants leave and survivors are forced to spend more and more time with Diamond Dave.
The Ultimate Fighter with Kid Rock
The concept is pretty simple–we follow Kid Rock as he tours the country’s Waffle House’s and nightly challenges drunks in pugilistic competition. A game show? Not really, although I guess you could consider anyone who doesn’t get Kid Rock’s bodily fluids on them a winner.
What’s My Line with Ozzy Osbourne
Unlike the original “What’s My Line”, contestants on this show simply listen to Ozzy and translate. Contestants accrue points based on the number of words in each sentence they are able to correctly identify. The winner gets to avoid ever having to know anything about Ozzy’s annoying offspring for the rest of their lives.
Name Buy That Tune with Lars Ulrich
Lars hosts this new version of the old classic, but with a catch. When a contestant successfully names a tune they are immediately swarmed by lawyers and retired concert security guys with RIAA t-shirts (sleeves rolled up of course). If the contestant is not able to produce proof that they actually purchased the song they’ve just heard, they must choose between being sued by Metallica’s attorneys or having the security guys bludgeon them with those big flashlights (after which you will be sued anyway).
The Roadie with Axl Rose
This one is sort of like The Apprentice. Each night, Axl Rose will either cancel an appearance, no-show the event, or storm off stage pissed off. Axl will then decide which contestant was responsible for the mishap and fire one. The winner of The Roadie earns the right to be blamed at the next concert for Axl’s behavior, and subsequently fired.
Celebrity Arm Wrestling with The Drummer From Def Leppard
No commentary necessary. On second thought, why did I even post this?
The Biggest Loser
This one is special because it actually pits celebrities people who used to be in bands against one another to see who truly is the biggest loser, literally. It should probably feature the members of bands like Faster Pussycat, Enuff Znuff, Britny Fox, and Vixen