Working on #30

Yesterday's 29th came and went quietly, like a thief in the night, stealing what's left of my twenties. I'll resolve to make the best of it in the upcoming year.

I celebrated by going to the doctor for a physical. I haven't had a physical since I needed to get one to be admitted into Baylor, about 11 years ago. I got a good report. I probably need to lose about 20 pounds for my height. I guess that's something to work on before I go back next year.

Cheers.

Bush & Becks Play Some Football

This...is....awesome!

Books Lining Up

Got my email notice to pick up two books I had on order at the Dallas Public Library. I'm very excited to get these.

Christianity for the Rest of Us, Diana Butler Bass

I can't remember where I saw the ad for this one. As soon as a I read a description, I headed straight over to a computer so I could put in a request for it. I've even thought that it might be an appropriate next book for our Adult Ed (read: Sunday School; I hate that moniker) class at Royal Lane. Here's a quote from the jacket:

For Decades the accepted wisdom has been that America's mainline Protestant churches are in decline, eclipsed by evangelical mega-churches. Church and religion expert Diana Butler Bass wondered if this was true, and this book is the result of her churches across the country. her surprising findings reveal just the opposite--that many of the churches are flourishing, and they are doing so without resorting to mimicking the mega-church, evangelical style...
...certain consistent practices--such as hospitality, contemplation, diversity, justice, discernment, and worship--emerged as core expressions of congregations seeking to rediscover authentic Christian faith and witness today.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver

You may recognize the Kingsolver name as she is the author of the deeply-affecting novel, The Poisonwood Bible. The non-fiction piece is part-memoir, part-journalistic investigation into good food and the foods that we eat.

...[she] makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew...and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air.

Also, I received Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, Lee Iaccoca, for my birthday. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Skyrising Vegetables

I just read a fascinating BBC article about a Columbia University scientist's project to construct a "vertical farm" in New York. The premise is that because NYC is land-locked and all the food consumed has to be shipped in, it would great to start an eco-friendly farm right in the middle of the city.

...vertical farming would allow some existing traditional farms to be returned to natural forests. Good news in a time of global warming.

"Even if it's not quite natural.... a little bit factory-like in terms of its production, here's what you're going to get back: you're going to get back the rest of the earth. And I'll take that any time."

In light of this, I was reminded of the widely-missed comedy-sketch show that aired for one season, in Summer 2005, on Comedy Central called "Stella." It stared Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain as three hapless friends living together in an NYC apartment and the hilarity that ensues. In the episode 9, entitled Vegetables, the boys find themselves in a bit of debt and figure they can save some money by growing vegetables at home. Genius, I tell you. Click the picture link below and click "Play" on the video. It's AOL Video but it's the only place I could find this clip.

Cross Country Callaway

Some friends of mine, Chris & Beth Callaway, from my Baylor days, are car trekking from Santa Barbara, CA to Portland, ME, this week. He's starting a tenure-track teaching position with St. Joseph's College in the fall. They've been documenting the trip along the way on their respective blogs. They've written about New Mexico, Oklahoma City, and [somewhere] Illinois.

Which brings me to "the picture." In Beth's haste to post pics from the road, she didn't bother re-sizing them. So, now, I have a near-life-like replica photo of Chris' head on my Desktop.

Fark the Web, I Can't Keep Up

A confession: I'm frightened by how quickly things are changing out here.

It's true. I polled a 17- and 19-year-old, last Friday, on whether or not they thought the Web was evolving too fast for them. They both agreed that it was ridiculous how many new sites were out there. And, then, the conversation morphed into a discussion of the "hidden web." The question remains: did we feel this sense of technological vertigo at the height of Web 1.0 in '99/'00?

I think the reason I feel overwhelmed is that, like with most other technologies, if I don't know about it or use it, I'll begin slipping off that slope of "being behind the times." It's what I accused my parents of, last weekend, when I found out that they didn't use eVite to send invitations to a party. I was appalled. I mean, how would anyone know how to get to this party? What time it was? Who else would be there? What to bring? I mean, seriously; does anyone have an event where an eVite isn't issued? And, then, there's my wife...

I wouldn't consider Kelley a very avid web surfer. She remains blissfully ignorant about most of the Web 2.0 stuff out there. Heck, she recently confessed that she hadn't read this blog in "a while." Somehow, she's surviving this massively migrative, malleable, media milieu. I had to look up "migrative" in the dictionary, too. And, "milieu?" I just like saying it.

So, while Kelley's catching up on doomed-to-be-canceled-before-4th-episode-airs television shows (see: Justice, The Nine, The Wedding Bells, Big Day (another wedding show!), I'm busy trying to figure out what digg, flickr, del.icio.us, Reddit, Newsvine, Technorati, and Fark are. And, once I get done combing through that mess, I've got 1,200+ more Web 2.0 sites to go through, hoping to catch the next latest-and-greatest before it's a been-there-done-that.

Okay, now for those still clueless, a primer:

• digg - user-driven ratings and repository for content on the web (news, videos, podcasts); conceivably would benefit from group-think popularity of the masses but, more realistically, it only reflects what's popular amongst 17-39 year-old males.
• flickr - Yahoo!-owned photo-sharing site; you can look at anyone and everyone's photos from anywhere.
  
• del.icio.us - the mobile bookmarking site; a brilliant and obvious innovation.
• Reddit - another user-driven ratings site for web content.
• Newsvine - user-driven ratings for news; "what news people are most talking about..."; they have the very unworthy tag-line: "Get Smarter Here"
• Technorati - ranks the most popular blogs and blog subjects.
• Fark - Popular news aggregator? I'm still not sure. It's ugly looking, I know that.

One of the problems with the concept of ranking, presenting, aggregating, etc. news-by-popular-vote is that you're limited to your constituents. This sounds self-evident but the reality is that the primary visitors of these sites are that demographic that I listed above--your 17-39 year-old, predominantly male tech-head. Until they can drag my wife away from barely-breathing TV shows, they'll never get a true reading on what's popular across the board. And, why is that important, you ask? Because that's where the revenue is. If you can get the Great American Oprah-watching Wife off of the couch and over to the computer, where she can "digg" this and "del.icio.us" that, then you'll never make a dime off of this stuff. It'll just be "cool-looking, web stuff."

I guess awareness is the key; no necessarily being familiar with how to use it all.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some pictures to post on Flickr.

MyFaceSpaceBook

After watching this podcast from Loren Feldman at 1938 Media, I found myself arriving at the same conclusion he does. If you've never heard Loren, his gravel-y voice and sometimes-shirtless attire are difficult to deal with. But, he's grown on me. I love his sardonic and irreverent observations on the tech world. I have no idea if posting this video is "legal," by the way. I've never posted a video on my site. Warning! Loren is a salty dude so don't take offense at the language.



I really liked what a Commenter named 'verspers the grate' had to say about it:

MyFace is just another dating hookup site for college kids. You may safely ignore it. It’s not [yet] a toilet of pseudo-bloggery ugliness and dysfunction like MySpace, but give it time.

Try adding colleagues and getting panel “how do you know this person” and have to click on Met Randomly then explain “met them via blogging or another socnet site like Twitter or JetSet Mix”.

FaceBook is vomit.

My observation is:

1. I've never joined one of these sites--except getting the obligatory account that you have to create in order to check out content on some other people's sites. I just don't see the value in spending time on it. How is it positively contributing to our culture?
2. In reaction to a recent article in Fortune on GenYers in the workplace, Kelley and I have been chatting over the last few days about us, the generation born between 1977-1995. We fall on the cusp of this generation, both being born in 1978. She and I agreed that we straddle the Gen X and Gen Y cultures more often than not. I tend to personally relate to GenXers. My best friends are all GenXers. I feel like, if I had been attending college between 2002-2007, I would care about this social-networking stuff a lot more. But, I didn't, so I don't.
3. I value blogging. Blogging is a creative outlet that is worth something. It's also revolutionizing the way people publicly convey ideas. While blogging is a feature on MySpace, it gets lost in all the other bulls@#$ that clutters up those pages. I don't want to fight through that s@#$ to read a blog. I'd much rather everyone linked blogs together than link all the peripheral crap that goes with FB/MS.
4. Ultimately, FB/MS is a personal liability. We're living in a culture where there's no such thing as a private life. That idea is manifest in FB/MS and I find it repugnant. At the risk of sounding self-contradictory, just follow me, here. The creative liberties you take in representing yourself on FB/MS, however realistic they may or may not be, will be first impression made upon people who don't know you. We've already heard the horror stories of recent grads being passed on jobs offers when their perspective employers find their FB/MS accounts. I'm not saying their aren't other methods to finding things out via the web but FB/MS just happen to be the easiest. Note: I realize this is a weak point, as blogging could be construed the same way, but the track record has trended towards people screwing up because of their FB/MS pages.
   
5. I'm interested in social networking, but the reality is that virtual networking is still not as effective as live networking.

Will you be my friend, now?

Hands-Free Dark Side

My resolve to steer clear of wearing a Bluetooth headset for my cell phone has broken.

Actually, it broke two weeks ago, when I was looking through some reviews on c|net and read about one that I really liked: the Samsung WEP200. First, I'm a sucker for Samsung products. I'm a brand loyalist. It's a Sony product without the Sony name. Of course, I just had a techie from Best Buy tell me that LG was a Samsung product without the Samsung name (manufactured in the same South Korean factory). Secondly, I've had my eye on getting a headset for a while. I really wanted something for the car or for when I'm sitting at my desk working on something and I don't want to hold the phone to my ear. Thirdly, I'm hedging my bet that I'll be saving myself brain cancer caused by harmful electromagnetic waves emanating from the phone. Note: unsubstantiated, quasi-scientific claim by me.

The WEP200 is a compact, light, piano-black, ear bud-style headset. It was a bit of trick to get it to stay in my ear but, after finagling with it for while, I found a sweet spot where it won't fall out. Kelley thinks I look stupid with it on. No argument there. A little blue LED blinks intermittently while it's powered ON. All aesthetics aside, the function is dead-on. I can hear calls very well (not sure about how well they hear me but I've gotten no complaints, yet). The headset allows me to roam away from the phone for a good 10-15 feet before the static sets in. There are only three buttons; a rocker-panel volume control and a single all-purpose button that seems quite robust. Sprint offers the ability for you to make voice-command calls and the technology has gotten very accurate. I can say the name of a person in my Contacts list and it will find the three closest matches. It has proven to pull the name I actually say about 80% of the time and, if it's not the first choice, it's usually the second. Overall, I've been pretty happy with it.

It made it's public debut in Sunday School class over the weekend. That was met with a chorus of groans. No, I didn't wear it during class. I sprung it on them at the end to see what the reaction might be. I guess I'm not surprised. Everyone I've talked to has some level of distaste for them. I think a few are spoiling it for the many, out there. My dad told a story about approaching a customer at Lowe's, who was on the phone, wearing the headset. Dad thought the guy was talking to him and when Dad responded, the guy startlingly glanced his way and pointed to the headset mouthing the words, "I'm on the PHONE!" Yes, he yelled without making a sound.

Moving forward: I resolve not to wear it conspicuously in public places like the mall, the library, the grocery store, or church. Well, okay, maybe sometimes in church. But, never the store. I don't want to become "that guy." You know, the obliviot (oblivious idiot) who "talks to himself" anywhere and everywhere. The guy who, when you think he's asking you a question, is really asking his wife a question...on the phone. The guy who looks at you like YOU'RE the idiot for talking to HIM while HE'S ON THE PHONE! Pardon me. You're absolutely right.

Oh, what an age we live in.

Withdrawl Symptoms

Yesterday was a tough day. I intentionally abstained from my usual 22 oz. of coffee in the morning. Whoa. I wish I knew what would be a very slow-moving and headache-plagued day. I didn't realize what a grip that caffeine in the morning had on me. I've lulled myself into a purely intellectual trap--I can quit anytime and it won't bother me; I just enjoy it. Physiology has a way of sucker punching us right between the eyes, sometimes. And, that's exactly where I felt it. I tried sipping on green tea throughout the day to mollify my inflamed, pounding head. Its effects were somewhat soothing, however fleeting.

I like coffee. I don't want to give it up. I need to scale back, though. I'd like to just be down to about 12 oz. per day. I believe that's all I need: a kick-start, then I'm out the door. 22 oz. just seems to be overload. I know, I know. You, the masses, out there, need at least 32 oz. to even see straight! Riiiight. Well, you've conditioned yourself that way. I always feel like that second cup is overkill anyway. "They say" after two cups, the effects are diminishing, anyway. Still think it takes 32 oz.? Drink stronger coffee.

Me? I had a cup this morning to placate the craving and, you know what? It worked. Now, it's on to a steady dose of green tea (20 mg of caffeine per 8 oz.) all day and I'm good to go.

What's your affliction?

Wanna Live Forever? Try This Routine...

While working through my backlog of Fortune mags that are beginning to pile up, I came across an article in the May 14th issue entitled, "The Smartest (or Nuttiest) Futurist on Earth." It was a profile of inventor, musician, and "futurist" Ray Kurzweil. Yes, for all you keyboard players out there, THAT Kurzweil. He invented the first electric piano, the flatbed scanner, and some speech recognition software. Smart guy. Well, that's an understatement. He may be a genius. Or he could be crazy. You find out in a minute.

In the article, it says that he is interested in living forever. With a bedrock faith (certainty?) in the development of nanotechnologies and biotechnologies, he believes humans, through science, will have the ability to reverse the aging process by 2050. This is all based on models resembling Moore's Law--the idea that computer processing power increases, theoretically, every 24 months. Kurzweil's theories are called the Law of Accelerating Returns. And, before your eyes glaze over, just know that this all means that, according to this L.A.R., by 2027, computers will surpass humans in intelligence. Let the Terminators proliferate! But...seriously, this guy also predicted in the 80s that a computer would beat the world champion human in chess and he was only one year off (predicted it to happen in '97 and it actually occurred in '98). I don't know if that brings any credibility to his futurist ways or not. Read the article and you be the judge.

In 2005, he published a book, along with a medical doctor friend, called Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever. In it, he details very minute points about human biological processes and draws conclusions about how to eat optimally, for long life. Essentially, he's trying to slow his aging down to a crawl so that he'll live long enough to see some of these revolutionary de-aging technologies come to pass. Sure, it's a bit kooky. Okay. A lot kooky. But, you can't blame the guy for having lofty goals. What I wanted to give you today was a run down of what his daily schedule is like. You won't believe this. Here's an outline of how to slow the aging process (and get ready to choke down some pills):

• Breakfast: low-carb cereal (w/ Stevia for sweetener), unsweetened soy milk, and some berries; fish (?) and, occasionally, some egg whites; green tea
  
• Lunch: nothing big--miso soup and more green tea;
• Drinks about 8 cups of green tea per day, throughout the morning and afternoon;
• Dinner: protein main course (fish, tofu, sometimes lean chicken or turkey); low-starch veggies and salads with olive oil-based dressings;
• Couple of glasses of red wine per week;
• Exercise: 3 miles of fast-walking, 20 minutes of weights and one 4-minute session on the $14,000 ROM Machine (!);
• 8 hours of sleep per night;
• meditate / messages;
• Doesn't smoke / avoids smoky places;
• Drinks 10 glasses of alkalinized water--water that's had its pH levels increased to 9.5;
• And, now, for the "Nutrionals," as he calls them:
• alpha lipoic acid,
• coenzyme Q10,
• grape seed extract,
• reservatrol,
• bilberry extract,
• lycopene,
• silymarin (milk thistle),
• conjugated linoleic acid,
• lecithin,
• evening primrose oil,
• n-acetyl-cysteine,
• ginger
• garlic
• l-carnitine,
• pyridoxal-5-phosphate,
• echinacea
• miscellaneous Chinese herbs,
• chromium,
• meformin,
• gymnema sylvestra,
• policosanol,
• gugulipid,
• plant sterols,
• niacin,
• oat bran,
• grapefruit powder,
• psyllium,
• lecithin,
• Lipitor,
• arginine,
• trymethylglycine,
• choline,
• baby aspirin,
• lumbrokinase,
• EPA/DHA,
• curcumin,
• folic acid,
• B6
• trimethylglycine (TMG),
• "intrinsic factor"
• B12 shot (weekly) AND B12 sublingual (daily),
• n-acetyl-carnitine,
• PtC,
• DHEA,
• testosterone,
• I-3-C (indole-3-carbinol),
• chrysin,
• nettle,
• ginger,
• herbs (to reduce conversion of testosterone into estrogen),
• saw palmetto,
• l-theonine,
• beta sitosterol,
• phosphatidylserine,
• green tea supplements,
• GABA (calming neurotransmitter),
• melatonin,
• acetyl-l-carnitine,
• vinpocetine,
• phosphatidylserine,
• ginkgo biloba,
• glycerylphosphorylcholine (whew! I felt like I was just typing consonants, there),
• nextrutine, quercetin,
• lutein,
• bilberry extract,
• HCL,
• pepsin,
• gentian root,
• peppermint,
• acidophilus bifodobacter,
• fructooligosaccharides,
• fish proteins,
• l-glutamine,
• n-acetyl-d-glucosamine,
• n-acetyl-carnitine,
• carnosine
• Weekly intravenous sessions!! Yes, he spends one day a week at a clinic (provided with free wi-fi so he can work):
• EDTA,
• DMPS (monthly),
• vitamins,
• alpha lipoic acid,
• glutathione IV,
• phosphatidylcholine (PtC),

I did not make this up. The man consumes 400 of his 2000 calories per day in pill form. Amazing. I guess.

Most of us will just stick with our Flintstone vitamins and call it a day.

We'll keep track of ole Ray. I just hope he doesn't get hit by a bus.

Battle-Worn and Weary

Kelley and I have both been plagued by an extended edition of "weekend hang-over." It was difficult getting out of bed and into the shower, yesterday and today. I made some famous Bill Ferguson multi-grain pancakes on Sunday morning and had enough left over to freeze and eat on this week. That helped. Although, I'm out of my rhythm because I'm temporarily forsaking my daily breakfast that is Dr. Oz' Magic Shake.

Yes, I've been on the Dr. Oz shake since October 2006. I know drinking a shake for breakfast doesn't sound all that appealing to most, but it's been really key. One thing that it's forced me to do is eat smaller meals during the day--a cornerstone of real dieting. I haven't so much altered much of what I've been eating, rather, I've tried to stretch out my metabolism by eating smaller items throughout the day. The "Magic Shake" is a big part of this. If you drink a smoothie or shake between 6-7:30AM, your body is going to be screaming for something at 10:00 or 10:30. I've found that an apple does the trick. Today, I didn't have any apples left, but we bought a watermelon on Sunday. I had that and it worked great. Actually, the watermelon was probably even better because of the WATER content, which is a natural appetite suppressant. No worries about spoiling lunch either. Trust me, you'll be hungry for lunch by noon. Right at 3:00PM, I try to eat something as well. Lately, it's been Kashi Go Lean bars. Although, the bars are a little on the high side of saturated fat content (4.5 g), it has NO partially hydrogenated oils in it. It tastes good, too! Goes good with a banana. Talk about a fiber-licious snack.

Sorry that I delved in to "diet" talk, today. I'm not really on a diet, per se. Just trying to eat better. I've got a long way to go before I can get rid of this "omentum" (another Dr. Oz-taught idea). Omentum is that fat around the belly that guys (and gals) can pick up so easily. It's VERY easy to build it up and VERY difficult to lose. Or so I'm finding out. And, yes, I realize that I've mentioned way too much about a doctor featured on Oprah. I apologize and someone out there can put a notch in my Man Card, if they want.