The Stand-up Philosopher

Eat That Frog! Review

To date, I’ve reviewed 3 books for Thomas Nelson, and I’ve really come to enjoy reviewing books. I’ve always enjoyed reading them, so trying to communicate about them is a skill that I believe I would do well to cultivate. I recently came across a chance to read “Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time” by Brian Tracy. That’s quite a promise. A while back I spent a lot of time reading productivity blogs, and I can remember Eat That Frog! being specifically mentioned on many of them. This book is copyrighted in 2007. It seems like I heard about it before that, but I’m at a phase in life where time has lost all meaning.

I’m assuming that I am not the only person in the marketplace who suffers from problems with procrastination and not “being all that I can be.” I base my assumption on the fact that books like this sell very well. As consumers, we spend a lot of money year after year on books and tapes and seminars on how to become more productive. To be honest, I’ve sort of soured on productivity books. Some are little more than motivational fluff designed more to pad the pockets of the author and publisher. Some provide systems that are so convoluted that following them is impractical for just about everybody. Others seem especially designed for only two kinds of people: salespeople and executives. The case studies and all the examples seem centered around those types of people, and some of us just don’t have the imagination to be able to apply the studies to our jobs as engineers, or teachers, or stay-at-home parents, or whatever we happen to do that isn’t in sales or executive level positions.

Advice Like This Frustrates Me

Ramit Sethi at the blog I Will Teach You To Be Rich is running a series about how to save $1000 in 30 days. Many of his tips are good and sound, but this one is impractical for many people, including me. The tip can be found here:

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/tip-24-cut-your-commute-expenses-by-40

Cutting commute expenses is an admirable goal. Ramit gives two tips, one is to carpool one day a week, and the other is to work from home. No doubt, both of these would save money. However, unlike his previous tip Go Cash Only for 15 to 30 days, this one is like saying “If you want to be a good stand up comedian, you have to be born with a talent for humor.” At the very least, that’s how advice like this sounds to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have somebody to ride to work with (there’s that darn $4 a day bridge toll in addition to gas), and I’d give quite a bit for the ability to work from home once in a while, but I hate to read advice that is impractical for most people mixed in with advice that is practical. Ramit includes an excerpt from Tim Ferris’ book, “The 4 Hour Work Week”  that includes a conversation about how to ask your boss to work from home. (NOTE: I have not read the book, but have included a link below if you’re interested in buying it). Obviously, this dialogue results in success. Here’s how it happens in my case:

Me: Do you have a minute?

Boss: Sure, what can I do for you?

Me: I’d like to be able to work from home.

Boss: No.

Me: Why not?

Boss: Because we need you here.

Me: I would happily come in for meetings. A lot of my work can easily be done on my work issued laptop with my work issued BlackBerry over our work implemented webmail.

Boss: No.

Me: Why not? I would be a heck of a lot more productive at home. Here I’m in the corner cubicle next to the conference room. I can’t concentrate because people are walking past my cubicle and looking in at me all day long because it’s a high traffic area. It’s unnerving. Because I’m near the door, people are constantly stopping to to talk as loud as they possibly can outside my cubicle. For some reason, everybody but me seems to get a good cell phone signal outside my cubicle, because that’s where they like to talk on their phones. I spend more time fuming and wishing they would realize that they’re being inconsiderate buttplugs than I do concentrating on any actual work. I could get so much more done if I could lock myself into my study at home.

Boss: No.

My: Why the heck not?

Boss: We have to be able to keep an eye on you.

Me: I’m a military veteran with a Bachelor’s degree and 16 year of professional experience. You’re also familiar with the quality of my work that I manage to produce in spite of this horribly located cubicle and a building full of people that I can’t describe without using words that I won’t use in front of my children. Why can’t you trust me to get my work done if you’re not walking past my cubicle, stopping and looking back at me all day long?

Boss: We just can’t.

And so it goes. I would like to note that “Boss” is not my direct supervisor, but a composition of my organization’s attitude toward concepts like working from home as well as a variety of conversations I’ve had with people about working from home. Obviously, I will admit that Ramit’s advice is sound. You can save a buttload of money on commuting costs by carpooling, even one day a week, and by working from home. However, all his advice today did was frustrate me by reminding me of the fact that I work in a cubicle for an organization that is still stuck in another time as far as a philosophy of employee productivity. The philosophy says that employees, even college degreed professionals, work best when crammed into cubicles and constantly scrutinized and constantly interrupted all day long by other employees with no concept that other people exist outside of their notice. Productivity and compensation are measured by hours present, not results produced.

I should also add that one short blog post cannot capture my entire perspective. There are obviously a lot of things about my job that I do like and there are people that I enjoy working with. This post is merely picking on the attitude about cubicles and whether or not experienced professionals with college degrees can be trusted to work without constant supervision in a fishbowl environment. And yes, the location of my cubicle is not something I enjoy, and I can’t move. I’ve asked. It’s called a “move of convenience” and is not allowed. I also have a workstation that is directly tied to my network jack and to my name, and moving that would apparently be too much work for somebody else even if I did the physical move and they just processed a piece of paper and changed a network setting on the domain.

The Chronological Study Bible- Review

After starting a trial program with The Faith of Barack Obama and Through the Storm, Thomas Nelson has decided to formalize a program of allowing bloggers to receive free copies of books in exchange for a minimum 200 word review. TN does not require positive or negative; only that the book be read through and reviewed. Don't believe me? Here's a negative review of one of their books, with a comment by Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson.

When Thomas Nelson rolled out their Book Review Bloggers site, there were 8 books up for review, two of which I had already reviewed. I decided to take on the Chronological Study Bible for review. I figured if I like it, it would be an asset to me. If I didn't like it, it would prove to me that I don't like chronological Bibles. I once downloaded a piece of software called "The Bible Planner." I don't know if it's still available. I never used the calendar, tasks, or other organizer utilities, but it came with a daily Bible reading plan. The Bible was arranged roughly in order. I read it for 3 months, but didn't like it. It was in the King James, which I was using heavily at the time. For some reason, I just stopping liking the trusty old KJV for daily reading (though it's still superior for quoting and memorizing) and settled on the New King James, which is the translation used for Thomas Nelson's Chronological Study Bible.

Tim Challies Reviews Twilight

My wife’s youngest sister got hooked on the Twilight series, and in turn so did my wife. I have no intention of reading the series myself, even if I didn’t have a sizeable stack of books and magazines to get through myself. Thankfully, Tim Challies “took one for the team” and read the first book and posted a review. You can read Tim’s review here. All I know is that after reading Tim’s review, I could never get through the book myself. I need to read some MacArthur or something to get that teen romance stuff out of my head.

My Review of Lynne Spears’ Through the Storm

With their publication of Stephen Mansfield’s “The Faith of Barack Obama”, Thomas Nelson instituted a program that I hope continues, offering the first 200 bloggers to respond the chance to get a free copy of a book in exchange for a 200 word review, positive or negative. I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to read and review “The Faith of Barack Obama” and I was thrilled to see the offer repeated for Lynne Spears' new book, “Through the Storm”. At first I wasn’t going to ask for a copy of “Through the Storm”, as the only real time I have to read is in the evenings and since we’ve been busy at work lately my evenings are often cut short, depriving me of time with my family. My wife told me I could request the copy, and I did. It arrived about a week later.

I should point out right now that I am not a professional reviewer. I should learn how to better review books because I enjoy reading and writing. Having done this for two books I’m finding it to be fun, and it would be nice to either get free books or possibly earn a little money for this. Anyone know where to go to learn how to write a professional book review?

“Through the Storm” apparently generated a lot of controversy. Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson, had to delete some comments regarding this book off of his blog. I’m not sure what those comments contained. Many were supportive, but some were very negative. One accused either Mr. Hyatt or Thomas Nelson of publishing the book for M.O.N.E.Y. I have no idea where that came from. A publisher publishing books to earn money? Where does the problem enter into the equation? How can a business meet payroll or other expenses without performing those tasks for which the business was created to perform?

Quote From 1984

I recently finished reading George Orwell’s “1984.” I’ve been hearing about the book for as much of my life as I can remember. I was 10 in 1984, and I believe I had heard of the book at that point. Growing up in an Air Force family during the later part of the Cold War, especially when you lived close enough to the Eastern Block to realize you would be dead by the time the nuclear warning could be put out or the air raid sirens activated, you get to learn a little about communism and the Soviet system. I was walking to school on morning in 1983 when the Ramstein headquarters was blown up by a truck full of explosives driven onto base by terrorists. I have no idea how terrorists got a truck full of explosives as the gate guards seemed pretty sure that an Air Force noncom and his children couldn’t get on base without a thorough check. In any case, they did, and drove it right up to the steps. We lived in Vogelveh Military Housing, about a 15 minute drive from Ramstein Air Base, but I remember the ground shaking and seeing a cloud coming up over the horizon. I wasn’t in any danger. Of course, being in the days before cell phones my mom was in a panic all day until my dad could get in touch with her to let her know that he was all right.

That isn’t the main point behind this post. Orwell seemed to be very insightful into how the communist system works. I’ve heard that he was a socialist and rather than writing as a warning against communism, his books were written as sort of praise toward it. I plan to follow that up at some point, but I haven’t yet.

1984 was a good read, and I highlighted a few passages that seemed insightful to either the communist system or even into how people think today. I wrote a post last year about the lottery. I’ll admit, I have little use for the lottery. I don’t play it. I see it as a voluntary tax on people who have no ambition and little ability to process math. I don’t play it myself, and though my wife doesn’t agree with me, she has yielded to my request to find other ways to waste our money rather than buy lottery tickets. I found a quote in 1984 that seems to back up what I’ve thought all along:”

The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange.

The only part of that section that may not apply is the last, yet how much real intercommunication would have to take place in the matter of the lottery?

Technorati Tags: The lottery,1984,George Orwell

My Review of The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield

Thomas Nelson recently published “The Faith of Barack Obama” by Stephen Mansfield. The CEO, Michael Hyatt, made a very interesting offer to bloggers: Thomas Nelson would provide a free copy to the first 100 bloggers willing to write a minimum 200 word review of the book. Michael Hyatt had been linking to promotional videos by the author in his Twitter feed, and those videos got me very interested in the book. Though I am hardly a supporter of Obama, the promotional videos piqued my interest. A comment by the author stating that “Even if he loses this election, Barack Obama can run for President every four years for the next 24, and he will still be younger than John McCain is now. He’s going to be around for a long time” really gave me a desire to understand the man.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first opened the book. Thomas Nelson emailed me the introduction and the first two chapters to get started, and they only made me want to finish the book, which arrived about a week later. This is not a very long book, but I found it to be packed with interesting information. I can’t say I’ve ever gone out of my way to read a book about a candidate in an election year, but I find that most fall into one of two categories: the puff-piece and the hatchet job. This book was neither. I found it to be an honest attempt to understand a prominent man in our politics who will likely be a fixture on the public scene for many years.

“The Faith of Barack Obama” contains 144 pages of content, plus acknowledgements, references, and a bibliography and index in the back. It totals 164 pages with the “back matter.” Keep in mind that the definition of “content” in this review is my own, and I do count the endnotes and bibliography as valuable. The book is organized into an introduction and 6 chapters.

Chapter 1, “To Walk Between Worlds,” is about the man: his background and upbringing. It traces the formation of Barack Obama’s background through his grandparents, his mother, his father, and stepfather. It deals with the “urban legend” that Obama was raised as a Muslim. I do personally know Christians who believe that because Obama has a school document from Indonesia declaring his religion as “Muslim,” then obviously he must be part of some Islamic plot to take over America from the inside. I’m all for a good conspiracy theory, and I do believe several that are very well documented, but this one is easily handled by Mansfield in this chapter. Barack Obama also attended a Catholic school, but does that make him part of a plot to take over America for the pope? His mom was an Atheist, does that mean Christopher Hitchens will be Secretary of State? Anyway, I’m getting off base here. This chapter also traces Obama’s growing up and going to college, trying to find his way between worlds of black and white. What was his identity? The chapter ends with Obama sitting in Trinity United Church of Christ listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Chapter 2, “My House Too,” speaks about Obama’s longtime church, his pastor’s background, and black liberation theology. The concept of Black Liberation Theology is not new to me. I have heard and read of it in the past. This is a key to understanding Barack Obama.

Chapter 3, “Faith Fit for the Age,” speaks about Obama’s conversion and his beliefs and politics. Obama clearly does claim that he believes the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and his words to me as an “Evangelical” clearly do indicate an honest belief and conversion. Obama also seems to subscribe to a postmodern philosophy, and claims to believe that there are other paths to God. This chapter examines these issues, as well as the issue of why Obama remained at Trinity when some of his former pastor’s statements made it out into the media. I must admit, Stephen Mansfield’s explanation of this made my ears pick up. I came to realize that I could not make the same claims currently about my church. Stephen Mansfield says that Obama stayed at Trinity because the church met his needs. The church was his family, and it fed him intellectually and in other areas. My wife and I are struggling with an issue at our church with whether it is meeting our needs or making us feel like we truly belong to the group, and when I read those paragraphs to my wife, we were about ready to just not go back to our church. I even wrote a note in the book “If only our church met our needs like that.” That has no bearing on the review; I just can’t help but adding TMI (Too Much Information) every time I open my mouth or start pounding on a keyboard. Our personal reasons for our reaction go very deep and I have no idea if I will blog about it or not, ever.

Between Chapters 3 and 4 are a series of pictures from Obama’s life, from childhood to present.

Chapter 4, “The Altars of State,” explores the formation of Obama’s political career and how he had to reconcile his Christian faith with his politics in the Democratic party, which has been secular for a long time. Even men such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, with claims of being “born again,” have tried to push faith and politics far apart. This chapter explores Obama’s race against Alan Keys, a man I have supported in the past, for the Senate seat from Illinois. Obama did win, but the race against Keys, a very eloquent and well spoken man, left him shaken. This chapter examines that.

Chapter 5, “The Four Faces of Faith,” contrasts the faith of Obama against John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush. I found this chapter particularly fascinating, though I think I’d rather open another discussion on them rather than sidetracking this review.

The final Chapter, 6, “A Time To Heal,” speaks of the issue of healing and Obama’s desire to help with some of that healing in our culture and our politics.

All told, I thought this was a very good book. It did not inflate Obama, nor did it skewer him. I took it as an honest attempt to understand the man and the issues surrounding him, and to pass that understanding to others. To me, this is what journalism should be. This book did help me to better understand Barack Obama. It challenges the seeming notion that Christianity in American politics belongs to the “Religious Right,” and that Democrats can’t be Christian and Christians can’t be Democrats. (I dropped my normal facetious “Demoncrats” for this review.)

This book did not in any way give me a desire to support or vote for Obama, but I believe it gave me something much better: it gave me the idea that I could like him. It even gave me the thought that perhaps I could like Hillary Clinton. Yikes! Our two party political system (I currently support neither, though I once considered myself part of one of them, you guess) seems to encourage demonization of the “other side.” I can’t say I haven’t fallen prey to that idea in the past myself. I’m finding it to be liberating that I can disagree with somebody and still like them, that disagreement does not need to mean lack of association. This is something I have been thinking through on my own prior to this book.

My final comment about the book itself is the price. During one of my discussions with my wife about my use of time during the evenings, as in, should I be reading a book or doing something she prefers, I said “Look, Thomas Nelson GAVE me this book on the promise to write a review. This book would have cost me…” I looked at the back and saw the price listed as $19.99. This is the MSRP, but my eyes must have popped out of my head and I had to restrain my urge to make a comment about some variation of “sacred fecal matter” in front of the kids. I’ll be honest; I have absolutely no idea what goes in to the pricing of a book, but I have bought thousands of books in my life so I can only go on the relative cost of them. $20 for a 6 chapter, total of 164 page book does sound kind of high. It is listed for $13.59 on Amazon with “39 new and used from $9.25.” Maybe some fellow Michael Hyatt readers can join me to ask him for a primer on how books get priced one of these days. I find him to be a very open CEO and I believe he would respond if we asked him. His blog has been a tremendous source of inspiration and advice to me over the years.

I would like to make one final comment on our political system. I’m not sure why, but so many people seem to treat the Presidential election as if we’re choosing our Messiah (already got one, thanks.) It’s as if we put the right man in and he’ll save us all, and the wrong man will destroy our country, ruin our lives, and make George Orwell’s 1984 sound like the recounting of a stay at a vacation resort. Please, people, read our Constitution and keep this all in perspective. Don’t look to the President to save you. He’s only the head of one branch of government. You still have one Representative and two Senators that you can call or write or email about any issue you wish.

If you’d like to read The Faith of Barack Obama, I highly recommend it. You can buy it from the Amazon affiliate link in my sidebar on the left under “Books I’m currently reading.” I’ll probably move it to the “Books I’ve recently read” sidebar at some point. I know, that’s a shameless plug, but if you buy enough of them from my affiliation, maybe you can help feed my gadget habit.

Technorati Tags: The Faith of Barack Obama,Faith of Obama,Obama's Faith,Democrats and Religion

Free Chuck Smith Books Online

I do enjoy writing about Bible topics, although I often don’t on my blog. Sometimes I feel the urge to, but I tend to stay away from them. Part of it has to do with my behavior, part of it has to do with I’m not sure who the audience for my blog is. People stumble across through all kinds of search terms. Recently I came across a comment about God speaking through Balaam’s ass (donkey in the King’s English) and I realized that perhaps I am qualified to occasionally speak on such topics on my blog.

When I first started studying the Bible, I had all kinds of questions and a huge Internet. I spend a lot of time on sites that today I frankly would avoid. Sometimes the site is just not well made, other times the site uses poor logic and writing or takes a strange doctrinal stance. I’ve never really enjoyed searching for a certain topic, finding a site in Google that seems to have the answer, and landing on a page promising if I spend $150 for a DVD series, I’ll get my answer. I’m not disparaging anybody’s attempts to make money from research, work, and production, but that did me little good when I didn’t have the money.

There are lots of good, free resources for studying that Bible online, but finding them is not always easy. I’ll start you with a good one. Calvary Chapel of Hope on Long Island offers several of Chuck Smith’s books for free in online format. I’ll post some of my other resources later.

Interested in Christian Self-Publishing?

I got an interesting email today. I have no idea how I get on some of these lists. I guess when you have a broad range of interests and find yourself constantly chasing down something new, your email address pops up to a lot of marketers. Actually, I got two weird emails today. One had to do with a business school. Somehow I got on the mailing list of BioPharm. Why, I have no idea. My occupation and interests don’t really cross many lines with biology or pharmacology, but somehow BioPharm sends me magazines and sells my contact information to all of their “partners.” I unsubscribed from that marketing list immediately.

The second email was slightly more interesting and could actually be useful to me at some point, God willing. I’ve always for some twisted reason wanted to write a book. A book about what, I have no idea. At one point, I wanted to be a right wing political writer, until I realized I could fart out the window and be slightly more coherent and productive in the public discourse. It’s a long story, and no I haven’t switched to the other “wing.” That’s why you see little political content on my blog. I do occasionally put up something I feel like commenting on, but I try my hardest to either stick to the facts or find some way to make it humorous. Anyway, I’ve thought about other areas I could write a book in, until I realized that I have absolutely no knowledge of how to write a book, or what to write about, so I pretty much stick to posting on my blog as I work on my writing skill.

I read the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, Michael Hyatt's blog. I subscribe to his RSS feeds. He posts some interesting content. I could care less about his half marathons, but he write a lot of interesting posts about leadership and Christian publishing. One thing I have gathered from him is that if I ever did assemble a manuscript, I probably wouldn't have good odds of getting it through Thomas Nelson. I figure if I did write anything, I'd probably just post it online and ask for $5 from anyone who was blessed or informed or even mildly amused by my book, or just read it and enjoy it. I've come across a lot of good books that way, and it wouldn't bother me to do the same, especially for a first book, which probably won't be that great. I have no editor or professional assistance. I'm normally the guy people I know go to for help with writing, so where could I go for help?

The email I got was from Inspired Publishing, a Christian publisher that seems to specialize in print on demand, self-publishing. It sounded interesting. If you have a manuscript that you've considering publishing, give them a look. It will probably be a long time before a book from me is anything more than a dream.

eBook Headaches

Brad Isaac wrote a blog post the other day about ebooks. His intent was to ask if the Amazon Kindle is worth it. He reads ebooks on his Pocket PC, something I've always wanted to do but I have discussed my other blog. I haven't reached the point of trusting ebooks enough to spend money on them. I'm starting to open up to Mobipocket, which at least offers a free reader and a free converter, but other than converting free books I've already downloaded to this format, I'm not yet ready to purchase content. I just discovered something interesting on the description of Mobipocket Reader:

Personal eDoc Publishing : Beyond eBooks
Tired of scrolling through this 250 page technical manual in PDF? We've got the answer. Drag and drop it into the Reader Desktop and read it on any mobile device. It also works for Microsoft Office files, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and RTF TXT files as well. You can compile your favorite lyrics into an eBook or your best cooking recipes.

I will have to try that when I get a chance. Up to this point, my attempt to read ebooks and other content on my Pocket PC has been to convert to Repligo format. Repligo is designed to mobilize office documents, but I've found it efficient for publishing public domain books into a mobile, mark-upable format. However, Repligo is abandoneware, as the company has abandoned all but the Blackberry platform. I can't even get the print client to run on Windows Vista, so I have to keep an XP machine or XP virtual machine around in order to maintain it as a platform. I invested in Repligo while I was working on my degree at the University of Phoenix so I could take my textbooks with me on the go while my wife dragged me around (or while I took my beautiful bride about the town on errands.)
I think I will experiment with dragging and dropping pdf documents into MobiPocket Reader to see how well and how quickly I can convert my content for syncing on my Pocket PC.

Technorati Tags: ebooks,Windows Mobile,Pocket PC,pdf,adobe,Repligo

A.W. Tozer- Troubling Book Review

I recently came across this book review about a biography of A. W. Tozer. I didn't know very much about Tozer. I know he  was a preacher and evangelist and wrote many books. I've read a lot of quotes from him in other writings. Apparently he was some kind of spiritual giant. I've heard a lot of recommendations for his books, but I've also heard comments that his books can make you feel like he's beating you up for failing to live up to a very high standard.
The book review pointed out something interesting. He did not have much at all if any relationship with his wife and many of his children. He apparently had enough of a relationship to have several children, but his devotional and travel schedule left little room for his family. That troubles me. I obviously would love to be some kind of "super saint", walking hand in hand with God. I would love to spend the time reading and learning. I do the best I can, but what kind of testimony would I have if I neglected my job and my family?
I've heard that Martin Luther took to family life with a passion after a life as a monk. He truly enjoyed domestic life, and I've heard a quote from him that "a housewife washing diapers is more pleasing to God than a monk going through his prayers." On one level, devotion and worship to God are highly important, but on another, should they eclipse everything? No doubt, I should probably choose reading the Bible or a worthy book over watching Grey's Anatomy, but should I choose spending 4 hours in my closet praying over spending time with my boys, building a relationship and trying to demonstrate to them how to relate to the world as a Christian? I honestly never understood how people can pray that long. Should I spend my evenings reading theological works rather than try to take some of the load of raising the children off of my wife?
No doubt, these questions may seem easy on the surface, while they may go deep in exploration. We can find extremes in both directions. For a Christian, isn't living out faith in the day to day actions of our lives at least as important as outward demonstrations of piety?

What Exactly Is A "Nice Guy?"

I've been teaching John Eldridge's book "Wild At Heart" on Wednesday nights at my church this quarter. This Wednesday will be the last class, when we finish up with "An Adventure To Live." If you've read the book, you know that John brings up often that Christian men are often told by our churches that our highest aim should be to become a "really nice guy." He says that being a nice guy is not what Christian manhood is all about. Men have a wild side, and are dangerous, and we should let our strength come through. I'll let you read the book because I obviously can't do the book or the points contained in it justice as I'm winding down and getting ready for bed.

The discussion came up in our class about what exactly it means to be a "nice guy." Possibly some of us have a tainted image. I can remember as a teenager and young adult being that one guy that all the girls thought was a "nice guy", but would not be "more than friends" with. I can remember parroting the timeless phrase "nice guys finish last." What does that all mean?

We came up with a definition that we can work with. This is not the be all, end all definition of a "nice guy", but possibly it is a point to continue a discussion from. A nice guy, as I put together, is a man with no real boundaries. A "nice guy" is a man who is afraid to anger or upset other people. A "nice guy" is a man concerned with pleasing others, and can only deal with his own anger and frustration in a passive-aggressive manner, at least, when the objects of his anger are around.

Honestly, that used to be me. It probably still is me to a point, in many ways, but I have outgrown quite a bit. There was a time when one of the worst things that could have happened in my world is to have somebody become angry at me.

Now, obviously, neither John Eldridge nor I are advocating license for men to run around acting like complete jerks; oblivious to others around them. There is a difference between being a passive-aggressive nice guy weenie and being kind. I believe that is what got our conversation started, the implication that kindness could be confused with the "nice guy" that John Eldridge says not to emulate. Real men, strong, dangerous men, can and should be kind. There is a place for tenderness in a real man. But there is also a place for being strong, for being dangerous. There is a place for taking charge and for going head to head when a situation requires it.

I recalled an image, which may have been from a previous generation, of a "nice guy" putting up with a lot of frustration at work and going home to take it out on his wife and kids. I'm not sure if many from my generation are like that. Most of us grew up wondering why Dad doesn't just tell his boss that he's an idiot. I have no problem asking people, even if they have power over my career, if they are smoking crack. Normally the stories sound better when I tell my wife, or tell some friends over beer, but if I have a question about a rule or policy, I will speak up. I usually lose, but I've never been afraid to share my opinion; at least, not lately.

I've leave anyone who reads this with two questions: what is a "nice guy", and was it more of a baby boomers generation issue to be afraid to speak up at work?

Changing Economic times: Nelson Pulling Out of BEA, ICRS - 4/16/2008 8:38:00 AM - Publishers Weekly

Nelson Pulling Out of BEA, ICRS - 4/16/2008 8:38:00 AM - Publishers Weekly

My wife and I have been trying to sell our house since last June. I've blogged about it before on my former main blog, which I've stopped using because publishing now requires CAPTCHAS. I'm slowly importing my posts from Blogger, but it's a slow, manual process that may not be worth the time.

Like many Americans, my wife and I used our home equity to pay off and consolidate debt, then of course add some more debt and then consolidate it again. Then the decision/agreement was made to sell our house and move into our in-laws house. Hey, the market was going great. It took us about two months to get our house cleaned up and prepared to go on the market. We didn't have the equity to price our house factoring in a 6% realtor commission, so we listed with BuyOwner. BuyOwner wasn't exactly cheaper, at least not by much, but it was an up front payment and we had the money on hand. Then the market dropped out from under us.

By February, we were getting frustrated, so we listed with a realtor. Still, in the almost two months, we've had two showings and no return calls. I wish the other realtors would at least return my realtor's phone calls requesting feedback on why our house didn't get an offer.

This leads me to the Thomas Nelson announcement linked in this blog, which I already knew about because I follow the CEO's Blog and Twitter feed. Changing economic times are causing a Christian book publisher to pull out of tradeshows and switch to open houses and face to face meetings.

I can't help but wonder if changing economic times don't necessitate a change in house selling as well. I'm also opened to the possibility that my house is priced too high and there's no way out without losing money. I know that people are looking at and buying houses, and that people are getting mortgages. I just don't understand why they're not looking at and making offers on my house.

Technorati Tags: Housing,realtors,BuyOwner

How To Master A Book

I recently read Mortimer Adler's "How To Read A Book." The book pretty much changed my life. I've always been an avid reader, but I thought that the only way to read a book is to start with page 1 and read all the way through to the end. I also follow the habit most of us were taught as children to internally verbalize each word, so I can only read as fast as I can "talk" to myself.

 

One of the first ideas I learned from this book (actually, from a couple of books I read which recommended "How To Read A Book") is that every book does not deserves the same level of  reading. Every book you read does not deserve to be read word by word and page by page. I wish I had known this when I read Kevin Trudeau's books a couple of years ago. Don't get me wrong; he has a lot of good information, but if you took out all of the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" lines, you'd be left with two chapters. Had I known the lessons "How To Read A Book" gives back then, I could have torn through both books rapidly and moved on to something else.

 

Another idea I got from the book that could be valuable to society is that a reader should reach a level of understanding of the subject matter of the book before providing criticism. We seriously need to teach that lesson in our schools. For an example of what I mean by criticizing a work without reading to a proper understanding, see this post. Philosopher and professor and author J. P. Moreland wrote a paper called "How Evangelicals Became Overcommitted to the Bible and What can be Done About It." The paper was presented at a meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. It was a paper written by scholars for scholars. Much of the criticism that I have read about the paper doesn't seem to take into account any more than the title. I'm not here to open up another debate on this subject or point any fingers; I'm just using this as an example of my point.

 

I've been meaning to create an outline or cheat sheet of "How To Read A Book", but other things seem to be more important each week since I got the idea. In the meantime, I've read several books and although I've learned many interesting concepts and absorbed new ideas, I haven't felt like I've mastered any of these books. I've even unearthed some of the books I read last year to attempt to sift through them for mastery.

 

Greg Koukl from Stand To Reason released his latest "Solid Ground" newsletter, which turned out to be exactly what I needed. Titled "How To Read Less More", this newsletter provides a process similar to "How To Read A Book." I've been slowly following this process as I read through James Emery White's "The Prayer God Longs For." As a very short book, this one seems ideal for learning to apply the process presented by Greg Koukl before I attempt to take on something more challenging like "The Complete Works of Josephus" or "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

 

How To Read A Book The Prayer God Longs For

 

If you're interested in learning how to master a book, check out the 4 page newsletter. A Summary of the process proposed is as follows:

 

Overview

 

   
• Get a sense of the book in 10-20 minutes.
   
• Read jacket copy, contents, skim preface & introduction, read conclusion (last 3 pages) and skim the index. Note publisher and date of publication
   
• Quickly read through the entire book at the rate of 2-3 seconds per page.
   
• Determine if you want to read the book more thoroughly, give it away, or file it for future reference.

 

Preview

 

   
• Skim the entire book at a slower rate (4-10 seconds per page), breaking the book in as you go.
   
• Look for structure, outline, key facts, and concepts.
   
• Write a quick summary for the book in pencil on the title page.

 

Read

 

   
• Preview each chapter again before you read it to get the structure (4-10 seconds per page).
   
• Read each word at the fastest comfortable speed using a pointer so you don't wander, hesitate, regress, or lose your place. Mark the margin, but don't underline the text.
   
• Write a 1-4 sentence summary in pencil at the beginning of the chapter. This serves as a quick overview of the contents of the chapter.
   
• Sketch a quick outline or recall pattern.

 

Postview Immediately

 

   
• Re-read the chapter quickly, focusing on marked sections, interacting with the text.
   
• Refine your 1-4 sentence summary at the beginning of the chapter, if necessary.
   
• Review at regular intervals, looking over recall patterns and summary materials.

 

I may print a few copies of the sidebar from the newsletter and make bookmarks out of them.

 

As I said, I've been working through this with a small book to get the feel for the process. I have found some positives and negatives. For instance, I do enjoy reading casually, but this is a highly active process. Even with a short book, I find it hard to keep up with this process in between my kids jumping on me or other interruptions. Most books that I read these days must be read in between family interruptions. The chapter summary helps me to remember what the author said, but when I'm halfway through writing my summary and get a "Daddy, I want a sippy with juice", I can often forget what exactly I meant to write for my summary when I get back to the book. OK, I can sometimes put off the sippy, but when one of my kids throws a choo-choo at the other's head, I sort of have to drop the book immediately to dispense comfort and discipline.

 

What was written above, with the exception of minor edits, has been sitting for a couple of weeks. I have not gotten back to the book I was reading since. I've had a few reasons, like a huge stage of magazines that has piled up over the years that I've attempted to plow through. All told though, I find this method to be a little too challenging for my current stage of life. In order to follow this format properly, a lot of discipline and dedicated reading time is required. I'm simply not able to follow it in a few minutes at a time at home. I may have to make some modifications. I like the idea of "mastering" a book, so I'll keep working on it. If you don't have small children or if you can dedicate yourself to following a process like this, let me know how it works out.

   

Technorati Tags: How To Read A Book,Reading,Books

 

Labels: Books

A Tech Confession

I have a technological confession to make.  Last year while chatting with a friend of mine who used to be a Apple Service Rep at CompUSA, I became intrigued by the concept of the Mac. Last week while browsing some ads on Craig's List, I came across an iBook going for $100. The power cord had shorted, and the hard drive had been removed and the computer was being sold for parts. I inquired about the system and asked if the original install disks were available. I have a couple of extra laptop hard drives, so I figured with a power cord I could make this system work. I went to pick it up.

The specifications of this laptop are fairly impressive for $100. It's a G3/600Mhz with 256 Megs of RAM, a Combo drive (CD-RW/DVD) and an Airport Card, 2 USB, and 1 Firewire port. The battery is apparently shot but I'll see. I was able to reassemble the iBook in an afternoon, although I didn't bother with very many screws. For a company that was started by computer hobbyists, Apple Computer doesn't seem to like hobbyists messing with their computers. The same computer toolkit that I have used for years to rip apart PC's and laptops (including some star screws on a Compaq notebook) did not contain a jeweler's screwdriver small enough to turn the tiny little screws from the iBook. That turned out to be a minor problem, because for an electronics tech/wannabe engineer I have short stubby fingers and was not able to line the little tiny screws up with the little tiny holes anyway. I put all the pieces back, put in about 3 screws in strategic locations, and snapped the plastic back in place as best as I could.

Now I just have to wait for a power cord. The iBook came with the original install disks and a Jaguar update CD (Max OSX 10.2). Up till now, my only experience with Mac comes from the Apple IIe that I used in a computer class in the 7th grade (almost 20 years ago!) and the iMac that my friend gave me last year. It's a G3/333Mhz with 32 Megs of RAM. It came with Mac OS 8.6 and I got my hands on 9 which was automatically upgraded to 9.2.2 with the built in update feature. Considering the animosity that Mac fanatics have for Microsoft, Mac OS9 sure has a lot of Microsoft products on it. It came with Internet Explorer 4.5 for Mac, which I upgraded to IE 5 for Mac right before Microsoft discontinued support. When I clicked on mail, I got Outlook Express 4.5. This iMac is very slow and painful to use, and I really only play with it when my laptop bogs down and I need something to do. I'm sure if I upgraded the RAM and put OSX on it the iMac would be a lot more useful, but for now the system is little more than a toy.

I still see the whole operating system thing being a shell game, but I keep hearing how great OSX is and I would like to see for myself. Every sysadmin I know who has to support Macs hates them, and when I read forum posts and even opinions in the Apple online store, I read about a lot of hardware failures. Apparently these iBooks suffer from failing power cords and exploding batteries. The batteries don't last very long at all. I'll see once I get my power cord.

I'm currently reading the book iCon by Jeffrey Young and William Simon. This is a very interesting read. Steve Jobs is a very interesting a colorful character, and even though I imagine he was very difficult to work with or work for, I highly doubt that the personal computer would be what it is today without his influence.

Labels: Apple, Hardware

My Thoughts on The DaVinci Code

I've largely stayed out of commenting on The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown's popular book that has not yet outsold the Bible. As a Christian, I do frequent some Christian sites. I also notice that Dan Brown has caught a lot of people's attention with his story, which I have not read. I don't know if I ever will, but right now I just have other priorities.

I was reading a commentary the other day about the book, and the writer claimed that people keep asking him if there is any truth to The DaVinci Code. I will repeat and slightly paraphrase his response to that question, with appropriate emphasis, in a moment.

I find it almost humorous that many Christian websites and ministries have a feature that in one way or another resembles the following title: "The DaVinci Code: Seperating Fact From Fiction". You can't go anywhere these days without seeing it. Entire volumes of books and study guides have been written in an effort to debunk The DaVinci Code, which is going to be released as a movie this year, I believe.

OK, here is my public comment on The DaVinci Code and whether or not there is any truth at all to it whatsoever:

IT'S ON THE NEW YORK TIMES' FICTION BESTSELLER LIST! Doesn't that make it, by nature, fiction? If there were truth to it or if the book were intended as a serious theological treatise, would it not be on the NON-FICTION LIST?

Seriously, if you're going to base your views on Jesus Christ from a fictional bestseller, you have much larger problem than whether or not there is any truth to The DaVinci Code.

Labels: Bible, Misc comments

Imagine Kevin Trudeau With Substance

Earlier this year, I wrote two blog entries and dedicated my only podcast to Kevin Trudeau's book, Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About. A lot of people think the material in Trudeau's book is quackery. I did not really come across anything in his book that I had not heard somewhere else and better documented.

I was incredibly frustrated, however, to find at every turn Trudeau claiming that he can't give specifics so you have to join his website if you want more information. He did give s nice springboard from which to continue your investigation into natural cures and alternative medicine, but in the end I thought it was a big let down. Trudeau does claim that he is building up money to "fight" the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies, but as much good information as he claims to have it is impossible to get your hands on any of it unless you're willing to pay.
Enter Dr. Mercola, author of The Total Health Program. He has an animated video, The Town of Allopath, which is designed to get you thinking about what might be going on. After you've watched the video, check out his website and his free newsletter. It contains a lot of good and useful information. He maintains a lot of good info on his website as well. He also sells products. You can buy products from Trudeau also, but you can't even find out what products he has without paying for a membership.

Labels: Health

The Wonders of Text Searching

I took my wife to the mall last night.  While there, we stopped in the book store.  She was interested in a book called Feed Me, I'm Yours, which she read about in the discussion forum that she frequents.  We asked the girl behind the counter if they had the book and where you could expect it to be, and the computer revealed that it was in the store and located among the cookbooks.  We searched the entire rack, and I even went back to search it again, but we could not find the book.

At that point, I began to reflect on how easy it is to find items like that book online.  Looking for that book amongst all of the others on that shelf, having to pull books out when their spine isn't clearly labeled is so, well, analog.  We never did find the book, but when I got in to work this morning I decided to search for it, and it came up on the first try: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/068402862X/qid=1138191222/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-0252250-6755205?s=books&v=glance&n=283155.

Believe it or not, even though I am a gadget geek, I have not entirely adopted ebooks yet.  When I am sitting at my computer, I can always find other things I would like to be doing than reading a book.  I haven't really found a free ebook reader for the Pocket PC that I like yet either. uBook isn't bad, but still has a long way to go in formatting.  I tend to stick to the freeware/open source side of the spectrum because my wife would flip if I tried to drop $15 to $30 on every single program that I thought was cool or highly useful.

Labels: Misc comments

8 Hours Of Sleep?

Perhaps my current sleep deprived state is a good reason to begin this blog entry. I try to make my writing relevant, but sometimes a good, old fashioned rant has it's purpose. Anyone who has been following my blog (seriously, does anyone read this thing?) knows that I have devoted about 3 entries and 2 podcasts to Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About. I notice a theme in his book that I've seen in many others. It is a theme that I have almost always found to be impossible to live by. I could sooner change my diet completely over to grapefruit and soy milk before I could actually live by this often given advice.

Let me recap. I served 6 years in the Navy. I tend to gravitate toward jobs that require my presence before 0700. OK, my current job is very flexible, but I find that getting in at 0630 saves me a lot of trouble in traffic on both ends of my commute. I'm not a morning person, but this works. I have two small children, currently 17 months and 5 months. My 17 month old has been sick lately, which makes for troubled sleep. He can't just take Nyquil like I can, and I can't really take Nyquil anymore because even when sick I need to be able to function to help my wife out if need be. The baby, of course, is not exactly sleeping through the night. No matter how the kids sleep, I'm up at 0500 each workday. Oh, yeah, I'm also in my "spare" time taking classes toward my degree from the University of Phoenix.

And so, with my family and work responsibilities, and my military background, when I read over and over again in books such as Trudeau's that you should get 8 hours of sleep a night, I honestly wonder who in this country has time to get 8 hours of sleep a night? I would like to take a flying leap with my foot (it doesn't matter which one; whichever is extended at the time) into the stomach of someone who can say with a straight face that I should get 8 hours of sleep a night. I have come to the conclusion that most people who are able to get 8 hours of sleep a night

1) Can't be married
2) Definitely don't have children (at least small ones)
and
3) Don't have a job with enough responsibilities.

I can understand retirees and maybe childless couples who don't watch TV and can set their own work schedules being able to sleep 8 hours is one thing, but to tell an early or mid career family man (or woman, gotta take that into account) with children that they should get 8 hours of sleep a night is frankly a denial of reality. Would you like to come watch my children and keep up my house maintenance while I get those 8 hours?

Labels: Misc comments

Natural Cures Update

I've been reading more of "Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About". As I said in my earlier post, I have yet to come across anything that I haven't heard yet, although Kevin Trudeau does seem to not feel a need to document some of his claims. He claims to have been present in board rooms while CEOs were loving money more than the welfare of customers, but he has not laid out qualifications to make me believe he would be in those board rooms in the first place. I'm not saying he hasn't, just that I don't think his background has required him to back up claims with documentation. When he begins talking about cures, he will give a little bit of information and suggest his website, which requires a paid membership, or another website that more often than not is little more than an advertisement for a book or product. However, thanks to the miracle of a web search engine, it's easy to find free and useful information to learn some more about what Kevin Trudeau claims.

If you're at the point in health where you're wondering why prescription drugs just aren't helping you, this book is a great place to start. Everything is laid out in a simple and easy to understand manner with plenty of repetition to allow it to sink in. You can start here and work your way to more comprehensive and informative sources of information.

I'll report again as I read some more.

Labels: Health

Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About- First Impresssions

I have seen Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About on infomercials for quite a while. The book raised my interest at first, as I have done some reading into natural cures and some of the "conspiracies" surrounding the health care and food industries. I Tim 6:10 says "For the love of money is the root of all evil:..." Many decisions made are not always made with anything other than money at heart. It's unfortunate, but true.

I had wanted the book, although when it hit the shelves in mainstream retailers it kind of lost it's value to me, since the FTC had not completely buried it as the author seemed to allude to on the infomercials. I opened it this past Sunday and began to read it. I am currently on page 79 in Chapter 5, "Why are we sick?" So far, I have not come across anything that I did not already know. However, a lot of the book to this point is repetition. The author, Kevin Trudeau, mentions corruption and love of money among the FDA (why is it the Food AND Drug Administration?), the FTC, and the drug companies. He will repeatedly mention that the love of money is the root of all evil and repeat "so now can you see why I'm mad and I'm not going to take it anymore?" That last statement is not an exact quote but a composite.

The thing that bugs me the most about this book up to this point is the lack of references. I do a lot of reading about the New World Order, global conspiracies, and other wonderfully dark plots to try to take over the world, and I'll be the first to tell you, when you're dealing with allegations like this, references are your life's blood. Even with documented evidence, nobody will believe you anyway, because "it just can't be true. There's no way our government doesn't have our best interests at heart." "We're from the guvment, and we only wanna hep you." So far the two best documented comments made refer to "early this year on Fox News" and "in the New York Times in January". Try running those down to verify them. I remember as a 19 year old sailor falling for a very well known yet shall remain unnamed network marketing program because "The Wall Street Journal said this business is the wave of the future". Aw, to be naive and too unsophisticated to ask which edition ran that article again.

I always avoid trying to pass off information like this if it can't be corroborated, no matter how much I believe it. Fortunately, as I said, Kevin Trudeau has not yet mentioned anything I have not heard before.

I will report back as my reading progresses.

Labels: Health