Family Introduction

I have been writing on this blog for a while now and have used some of my family's names. I realized recently that I want to change that and give them all different names to reference them by. So here we are.

My wife once told me that she was the queen of the rock hard truth and that I was the raisin of the world. I don't know what a raisin of the world is, but I thought it was funny. I had a t-shirt made for her with a design I created that said queen of the rock hard truth. She wore it to bed regularly until it was too tattered to keep any longer. I will be calling her QTRHT and maybe just The Queen from this point forward.

Our youngest daughter is very active and silly most of the time. She is always doing or saying things to try to make people laugh. She is a little shy around people she doesn't know, but quickly opens up. We have called her Cheeseball for a long time, so that is what I will call her from now on in this blog.

I am really struggling to find a name for our oldest daughter. She is athletic and was a bit of a tomboy growing up. She has become a very girly teenager and is moody like most other kids her age. I guess I will just revert to the nickname she has had off and on for her entire life. She will be referred to as Chachi whenever I write about her.

I feel like I need to use these nicknames now instead of their real names. They are not involved in this blog and do not even read it. As the old saying goes, their names have been changed to protect the innocent. I will also use nicknames for everyone else in my life that I write about on this blog. If you know me, maybe you can have some fun trying to guess who the person behind the nickname is.

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Summer Camping

I have tried several times to book a tent cabin in Yosemite for a summer camping trip. In past years, I was just never able to book it. I tried a few times this year to book one for this summer and did not have much luck. I looked on the website today and it show availability, but I was unable to book it. I called them and finally had some success. I am very excited for this trip and cannot wait until June.

Yosemite is a beautiful place to visit. I have made several trips since graduating from college. Interestingly enough, I never visited the park while growing up less than three hours south of Yosemite. I did not make my first visit until I moved to Fresno a few years after graduating from college. And even then, I did not see much of the park and only remember a long hike on a very wide trail through the trees.

I did not really get to see the park until The Queen and I started dating. She loves to hike in the park, so we have made many trips over the years. I even proposed to her on a trip to the park for her birthday.

Yosemite is amazing to visit when the waterfalls are flowing during the spring. This year, they should be flowing very strong with all of the rain and snow we have been getting in the valley. My only concern is that most of the runoff may be gone by the time we get there at the end of June.

Last year we took Cheeseball camping for the first time. It was not in Yosemite, but rather in Sequoia National Park. She loved it. She has asked me many times since then when we will go camping again. My father-in-law has talked about taking most of his grand kids camping this summer and I told him I would go with him, I just don't know what dates that will be.

I love taking photos of the park. I am really drawn to the Bridalveil Creek area. It has a wonderful shaded woodsy feel to it and there is a great bridge to photograph. I have not taken very many good photos over the years, but I keep trying. My skills and equipment have improved over the years, so hopefully I can get some good photos this year. I just can't wait.

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Upcoming Trip

Next week I will be visiting two places I have never been before. I am taking a business trip that will first take me to Des Moines, Iowa for a meeting with a potential customer. From there I will be heading out to Puerto Rico for a tradeshow. I really don't care about Iowa, but I am excited about Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico has a well established pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. I have nearly gone two or three times in my time with my current company, but things have just never worked out for me. I have heard a lot of good things about the area and cannot wait to see it for myself.

My major concern at this point is weather. I just looked at the forecast for both Iowa and Puerto Rico this afternoon and my suspicians were confirmed. Next week the forecast calls for snow and a high temperature of 35 degrees in Des Moines. The forecast for Puerto Rico calls for rain showers and a high temperature of 85 degrees. This trip will be an adventure to pack for and to survive without getting sick, but I am up to the challenge.

I already have a request from one coworker who has already been to Puerto Rico to pick him up some cigars while I am there. Who knows what else I will be asked to bring back. I hope I get to take some good photos while I am in each place.

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At a Crossroads

I am starting my second week of P90X, and I just don't feel like I think I should at this point. I ended up skipping 3 of the workouts last week due to sickness and commitments. I substituted a 2 mile run for one of the days, and really struggled after not running for a week.

I just don't feel like I have gotten the aerobic workout I was hoping for at this point in the program. I also feel like I am not losing any weight, but I know I need to give that some time. I am going to keep up with the workouts this week and next and then reevaluate it again.

I am at a crossroads, because I was really disappointed that I struggled with my run on Saturday. I had to walk for part of it for the first time in a long time. Although the walk was because I ended up tweaking my shoulder, which may have been due to the P90X workouts I did last week. I don't know what the cause of the injury was, but I felt really tight just before it happened.

I spoke to a friend of my father-in-law's last night who is a runner and he said that I was probably tensing up just before the injury happened. He said it happens to him sometimes and he just needs to drop his arms and loosen them up sometimes to prevent it from happening.

Maybe I should wake up a little earlier and run a few miles in the morning and do the P90X workout in the evening. That would be the best of both worlds and would probably do me the most good. I guess I will have to give it a try starting this week or next, depending on how I feel after my second week of workouts begins.

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How to be More Productive

I am about 2/3 of the way through my latest book, The 4-Hour Workweek and I am enjoying it for the most part. It is very informative.

I was reading some blogs using Alltop and I came across a posting titled, Everything You Know About Productivity is Wrong. This blog posting fit in very well with The 4-Hour Workweek.

The posting talked about the new rules of productivity. It is specifically referring to people who work on a computer. Here are the new rules:

1. Your productivity will vary wildly from day to day. This is normal.
2. Working more hours means getting less done.
3. Working harder means getting less done.
4. Procrastination can be good for you.
5. Happiness is the ultimate productivity enhancer.

I love the ideas presented in both this article and the book I am reading. I know first hand that I am much more productive in an office setting in short spurts. The rest of the day you are just looking for something to fill the time until you go home. It is not very productive at all and just brings you down. It makes you dread coming to work in the first place.

The author offers much more advice on how to put his new rules to use on his blog. I urge everyone to check it out.

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Youth and Deception

As you grow up, you do many things that you don't want other people to know about. You may sneak into an R rated movie before you are old enough. You may go over to your girlfriend's house without your parents knowing. Some people even sneak out of their house late at night and take their parents car for a cruise before they even have a license.

As a kid, you think that you will never get caught. What you don't know is that your parents always find out. If you knew then what you know when you become a parent yourself, you probably would not have done these things in the first place.

Lying is a tricky thing when you are growing up. You may not hate your parents, but there are always times when you think they are being unfair because they are not letting you do what you want to do. Because of this, you sometimes stretch the truth or even outright lie so you can get your way. What you don't realize is that your parents are just trying to protect you. What you want to do may not be the best thing for you, but you are too short-sighted when you are young to realize this.

Looking back now, I realize that honesty and discussion is the best way to handle this. If my parents would have encouraged honest conversation and debate, I might be a better communicator today. I am not saying that I did any of the things I talked about in this post. I was a pretty good kid growing up, but my communication style could have been much different today if dialogue was encouraged.

AS I am raising my own kids, I need to keep this in mind. I have a teenage daughter who is probably doing these things as we speak. I have to remind myself to have honest discussions with her and to always encourage her to debate the reasons why she should be able to do things so that she tries to figure out exactly why things are important to her and her communication skills improve.

I often look at kids today and feel that they are very materialistic and have warped priorities. Maybe my parents felt the same way about me when I was growing up. The difference is that I was taught to work hard by my parents. I was able to work in fruit packing houses when I was a teenager. Opportunities like that just do not exist anymore so kids are not able to experience hard work. This makes it more difficult for parents to teach them the value of work and sacrifice.

I really need to do everything in my power to make sure that I am able to teach my kids these lessons. I believe that their future rests on my ability to teach them about society and the world and to encourage their thinking and communicating.

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The Road to Recovery

Here is a chart that the Obama administration recently released. The chart basically backs up Obama's point that he inherited the economic mess and that he has taken steps to correct the problem.

Here is a link to the image and a description on the Obama website. Obviously, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has worked to a certain extent. It was not the only factor in the recovery, just as Bush was not the only factor in the initial mess.

I still don't believe that the Obama administration has done enough. Banks are not making the loans that the administration had hoped for. Jobs have been created, but they are mostly construction and other blue collar jobs. Education spending is still being cut in California and I don't see that trend reversing before the end of the next school year.

Inflation is inevitable in 2010. What this means to the general public is that if people still have trouble finding jobs, then the economy will be worse off. That could be a major disaster!

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P90X

I started a new exercise routine on Monday night. I bought the P90X program a few months ago, but just have not been able to start it. I have been lazy. I started running again a few weeks ago, figuring that I need to exercise more again. Last week some people at work started talking about someone else who started the program.

I am motivated to continue with the program, but the first night was really tough. I took all my measurements, starting photos and previewed the first DVD, back and chest. It really did not look that tough and the people on the video were not doing very many reps of the push-ups and pull-ups. I thought is was going to be challenging, but that I could complete it.

I was very wrong. I could not keep up with the number of reps they were doing. I had to use their approved cheating methods for most of the exercises and I was still not able to do them all. It is much tougher than it looked and it almost took a full hour.

At the end of the back and chest exercises I moved on to fifteen minutes of abdominal work with the Ab Ripper X. They do twenty-five reps of all of the exercises and I could not finish any of them. I had to take breaks, which they allow, in the middle of each one. Some I really struggled with because I have never attempted anything like them before.

During the workout, they encourage you to record your number of reps and wight that was used. I did this on paper then transferred all of the numbers into a spreadsheet when I was done. I really need to keep records so I can track my progress.

I mixed some Lemon-lime Accelerade with water after my workout as a recovery drink. It was tough to drink because it was a little grainy, but I got through it. I was very tight the next day, but was not sore at all. I think the Accelerade really helped me in this respect, so it was well worth the money.

I will keep writing about my progress with this exercise program throughout the 90 days.

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...Four Days Later

Wow! It has been four days since I wrote anything. It feels like I am coming back from vacation, but I am not. I have just been a little busier than normal and my blogging has suffered.

QTRHT had a party on Friday night at our house. I was madly ripping out dead flowers and planting new tulips, calla lilies and some other shrubs. I also planted some bulbs that we bought from Costco in both the front and back yards. The plantings in the front yard turned out great. I am struggling with finding flowers that will survive in the front yard because it is very shady.

Saturday was really the first weekend day we have not had anything to do in a long time. We just relaxed and watched some movies. You just need to recharge from time to time and Saturday was a great day for that.

Some friends invited us out to brunch for Valentine's Day and we took them up on the offer. We ended up going to a little, very little, restaurant in a town near us. The restaurant was named Monet's. It is one of the best restaurants I have been to in some time. The food was fantastic and the atmosphere was fabulous. As we sat there we made plans to go back this weekend for dinner.

Monet's only seats about twenty-two people. The decor is French and is very well done. They try to only use local ingredients and feature wines from Central California. They also have a beer selection that features some that I have never seen before. The owner, waitress and chef were all very friendly and provided good service. The chef, Fred, is French and does a great job preparing the food. I don't say this often, but I can't wait to go back for dinner.

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Inefficiency

My wife and I were driving by our local community college the other day and saw a monstrosity of building going up right next to the road. This was the back side of the campus near the track. I have watched the progress of this building for months now and have been interested, but have never really thought about just how large of a building it was.

It has some yellow underlayment on it now and the color really makes it stand out and gives you a sense of the size of the building. It is huge! It will be used for some sort of sports activities. I don't quite remember the exact use. At this point it is an eyesore.

From the moment they broke ground on the building I questioned its need. The college is cutting classes and enrollment, but it is building this new facility for sports. How does that make sense?

The argument I always get is that it is a grant or there is a specific budget for buildings of this type. Those arguments just make me mad. Why do you cut back on education, but still fund sports? How does that make any sense at all. You are in the process of eliminating classes and students, but you are building a large, new facility for sports. This is just ludicrous.

Here is my argument to the asinine budget argument. Suppose you have a personal budget that includes $200 for food and $200 for clothing and $100 for entertainment. Your income remains the same, but you add twins to your family. Do you keep your budget the same? Or what if your family stays the same, but your income drops by 10%. Do you keep your budget the same? Of course not. Rational human beings change things on the fly as necessary. Why can't the government do the same thing?

It is just very frustrating to see education spending is getting cut while we are still spending money on buildings like this one. Education spending is getting cut, but we are still resurfacing roads. Education spending is getting cut, but we are still fighting two wars. Education spending is getting cut, but we are still bailing out banks and car manufacturers. I think we need to get our priorities straight in this country and start taking care of our people. We can't abandon our children and our future to rescue people and companies who make foolish decisions that affect all of our lives.

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Is a 4-Hour Workweek Realistic

I am currently reading The 4-Hour Workweek and I have to say that so far I am finding the book interesting. But, I don't know if it is realistic. Tim Ferriss is an entrepreneur who no longer needs to work a forty hour week to guarantee his income. He has automated his income by starting a company that he does not need to be involved with on a daily basis, which frees him up to lead the life he wants to lead.

I am a full-time employee, not an owner or a telecommuter. I am in the office every day. I cannot just work for an hour a day and leave. I am also in a position where several people rely on me to make decisions on a daily basis. How can I possibly apply all of the teachings in this book to my situation? At this point I cannot.

I have to admit that I am just over one hundred pages into the book and I have already read about some things I can start using. For instance, Tim suggests that you only check email, voicemail and return calls twice a day. I really could start doing this without too many problems. I just need to train people to accept this. I guess at this point I am being to helpful to people and need to make them a little more independent.

I can see how making this one change could really make me a lot more productive. It would allow me to focus on the more important items for the day without interruption. That alone would increase the quality of my work. The problem is that most people in my company do not have two or three really important tasks to complete every day. Instead, we spend our days putting out fires and accomplishing a few important tasks every week. I have seen for some time that this needs to change, so maybe this book will get me started.

He also recommends that you get rid of the busy work. I currently have a lot of busy work, as do most of my coworkers. This is work that I could very easily pass off to someone else. The only problem is that I work for a small company and we do not have the money in our budget for me to hire someone to do these things. The people who are already working for my company do not have the time to take on additional tasks, so I am left to do them. Maybe if I work with them to get rid of their busy work I can pass mine on to them.

As I am reading the book, I notice that my boss is accidentally doing a lot of the things that Tim suggests. He has not read the book, but he has embraced many of the practices and incorporated them into his work life. He is really pretty hands off on most aspects of the company. The only problem is that he is very reactive rather than being proactive. This means that he is hands off until something goes wrong, then he has to get involved in a hurry. He does not have the systems in place to automate the work like Tim suggests. I just don't think he has the mind for that.

At this moment a four hour workweek is not realistic for me. I hope to be able to achieve this within the next five years. I would like to go back to school and start another career in that time. I have always thought that I want to start my own business, so maybe this book will encourage me to get up and do that.

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Annoyances

I was listening to a podcast earlier today at work. One of the topics that was discussed was what mispronounced words annoy you. The word that started the whole topic was mayonnaise. It was being mispronounced by hosts as mannaise so someone called in to complain.

Here are some of the other words that were mentioned:

1. February - mispronounced Febuary
2. specific - mispronounced pacific
3. across - mispronounced acrost
4. for all intents and purposes - mispronounced for all intensive purposes
5. ask - mispronounced axe
6. kindergarten - mispronounced kindygarden or kindergarden
7. Valentine's day - mispronounced Valentime's day
8. moot point - mispronounced mute point
9. frustrated - mispronounced fustrated

There are so many of these that I can't list them all here. I would bet that there is even a regional and cultural influence on some words that could appear on this list. I know that some of these bug me, so it was funny to hear them discuss them. My particular pet peeve is pronouncing the word comfortable as comftrable. I even have Meg saying that one correctly.

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A Day of Lows...and Highs

Saturday was a day of extremes for my wife and I. We started the day with her shopping for food with a good friend of ours for a post funeral gathering. As I mentioned on Thursday of last week, our good friend's father past away recently. His funeral was on Saturday.

It was a rainy day. I was thinking that would be a fitting type of day for my funeral when that day comes. I guess it is weird for me to be thinking about my own feneral, but I could not help myself.

The funeral was interesting since it was the first one I have attended where there has not been a body. His dad was cremated per his wishes. Our friend is an only child and his parents divorced when he was young. His dad never remarried. All of this added up to an intimate funeral.

There was a slideshow of photos and then people spoke about his father. Our friend was the last one to speak and he was very emotional. His relationship with his dad had suffered a lot over the years, but they were just in the process of trying to rebuild their relationship when his dad died.

We went back to their house after the funeral. They had some food and drinks. I felt really bad for our friend. His mom lives out of state, so now he only has his wife and daughter. His wife's father has told him that he will never be without a dad, so that has made him feel pretty good.

We had to leave their house early to get to my mom's sixty-fifth birthday party. I guess I didn't eat before because I knew there was going to be a lot of food at my parent's house. It turned out to be a pretty good gathering of about thirty to thirty-five people. After a long emotional day it was great to end the day on a positive note.

After dinner, my sister stood up and spoke about my mom. It was a pretty good speach, but it left me itching to say something of my own. I waited patiently for the right moment. After everyone, including my dad, spoke, it was my mom's turn. She thanked everyone and mentioned something about her favorite child. When she was done, I seized my opportunity. I started off by telling everyone that I was the favorite she was referring to.

I talked about how fair she has always been. She has been fair when dealing with my step-daughter and has welcomed her into our family from day one. She has always done her best to treat her like her other grand daughters. I really appreciate this as I know how hard it can be to accept a new person into a family and to try to treat them all equally. It really takes a special person to do this.

I made a joke or two about what my sister had said earlier in the evening and then ended it. We sang to her and then had cake and ice cream. It was a great evening for her and she had a lot of fun. She has waited to be "old" for a long time.

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Life, Death and Emotion

The father of a good friend of mine died last week. It really hit him pretty hard even though he did not have a great relationship with him. He was actually in the process of rebuilding that relationship when it happened.

When something like this happens to someone you know, it really makes you think about your own life and the relationships you have. You realize that you don't want someone close to you to die while you have a bad relationship with them. My problem is that I don't have a good relationship with too many people.

I don't know what it is about myself, but I just don't need people and relationships like most people. As I say that though, I have to think about what would happen to me if I had no relationships at all. I don't know if I could survive the way I am now. People are hard coded for relationships.

The Limbic System is the center of emotions. It supports many functions including emotion, behavior, long term memory, and the sense of smell. I joked to my wife yesterday morning that I think my Limbic System is broken. I think she would agree with me.

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National Signing Day

Today was national signing day for high school football players. It is the day that they can formally sign with the college of their choice. It is a day that I usually look forward to and start following as soon as I get to work. I usually keep an internet window open as I work and get updates from time to time.

Today was different. I did not even get a chance to browse the internet until about 10:00. By that time, a lot of letter of intents(LOI) had already been faxed into the college athletic departments. I only had the chance to get updates about three or four times throughout the day. I was just too busy at work.

I was looking forward to today because it was the first time USC alumni were going to be able to judge the new coaching staff. Lane Kiffin and company did not have very much time to try to rescue the Pete Carroll recruiting class and add to it with their own players. I was worried that they were going to lose a big chunk of the recruiting class.

I was pleasantly surprised with the job they did. They hauled in a couple of players who were not verbally committed to USC and virtually kept the entire class in tact. A few players slipped away, but that was expected with a coaching change. If I had to give them a grade on the class, I would go with a solid A.

They had a lot of excuses for not keeping the class complete. Nobody could blame them if it happened. The timing of the coaching change was just not ideal for them. They did not rest and did not accept any of the excuses and did a great job. I can't wait to see what they are able to do with spring practice.

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The Start of My New Hobby

We received the catalog for the services offered by our city parks and recreation department in the mail over the weekend. I browsed it and noticed an acrylic painting class at the senior citizen center. I am intrigued, but I was thinking that it might be awkward to be the youngest person in the class. I am not the most social person as it is, so if there was nobody in the class near my age it would not be much fun.

I am a very fast learner, so it is very easy for me to get bored in a classroom setting. I have painted in the past and I think I remember enough that may allow me to be at the top of the class as far as pure painting skills are concerned. I may not be the student with the best art skill, but I should be close to having the greatest technique.

I used to draw all of the time when I was growing up. I drew in class when I was bored. I drew at home when I had some down time. Remember, I grew up before computers and at about the time home video games just started to be introduced. I did not have many indoor distractions other than TV and I just did not watch very much. If I wasn't drawing, I was usually on my bike somewhere around town. I am not saying that I was great at drawing, but I could hold my own.

I haven't drawn much in years. Every once in a while, Cheeseball or Chachi will ask me to draw something for them. It is very awkward to start again, but I usually end up with something that is passable for the object i am drawing. I think this will translate to painting well. The only thing holding me back is that I often question my decision making when it comes to color. I rarely colored my drawings and I have very little experience with color choices. Most of the time my color choices in the graphic design work I do can be considered very boring. I really need to work on that.

I don't know yet if I will take the acrylic painting class or not. I need to make a decision so that I can enroll in time if that is what I decide. It is just a two-hour class one day a week, so it would not be that big of a time commitment.

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What I Am Reading

I just finished reading the book Superfreakonomics. I read the original, Freakonomics, in 2008 and was really looking forward to the follow-up. I really enjoyed this book. Much like Malcolm Gladwell, the authors of these books find really interesting problems to apply microeconomics to.

Freakonomics featured research done on drug dealers in Chicago. In Superfreakonomics they discuss research done by the same economist on prostitution in Chicago. If I would have known that economics would be so interesting, I might have majored it econ rather than business.

I ordered several books from Amazon.com before I finished Superfreakonomics so I would stay on schedule for reading twelve books this year. As it happened, I waited too long to order them. It took six days for the books to arrive, which meant I went two days without reading. I really wanted to get ahead of schedule, but I guess I will just have to keep trying.

I am currently reading The 4-Hour Workweek written by Timothy Ferriss. This book was recommended to me by a former coworker who is now doing engineering consulting. I ran into him at our last trade show in Las Vegas. He told me that he was working three days a week and that was too much. He really embraced the ideas in this book and recommended it to me several times.

Since that time, I have done some research on Tim Ferriss and have read his blog and watched some of his videos. He seems to be an interesting person. He has some different ideas on life and success. He speaks multiple languages. He seems to be a bit self-absorbed, but that may be why he has been successful.

So far, the book is not very easy to read. It is not written like a traditional book, but more like a book you order from an infomercial that is supposed to teach you how to get rich. This is a bit of a turnoff to me as it seems like a method to get rich rather than a useful book. I am not going to stop reading it, so I have to keep an open mind.

I would love to lead the life he talks about in his book. In his ideal life, you are not tied to a particular place. You are free to move about the world freely, using technology to keep your link to your career. He says that it is best to take mini retirements along the way rather than wait until you are old enough to retire. I agree with him in that I would love to experience things now, while I am still fully functional rather than wait until I am retired. This book aligns perfectly with my current lack of satisfaction with my career.

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