With no link, I can’t remember what it was a decade later since the embed came up blank. Maybe the Asteroids Galaxy Tour? If so, I never did buy the CD.
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13 things to work on.
I have been reading various books dealing with business and issues related to finding work. Along the way a couple years ago, I picked up a little book by Frank Bettger called “How I Raised Myself from a Failure to a Success in Selling” at a local thrift store. I finally read it this past week. And the best part was his last chapter. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues Frank Bettger made his own list of 13 key skills for selling. Like Benjamin Franklin, he then advises the reader to make his own list, and then spend a week emphasizing each virtue/skill. At the end of the year, that would mean that you’ll have gone through the list 4 times and he swears that it is a great way to grow and get better at selling/etc.
The super powerful idea behind Frank Bettger’s chapter is that he takes history and makes it useful for his own purposes. I think there is a tendency to say “if a great guy did it, then that’s how it should be done.” However, I think that often leads to inaction since the great person was doing something in the context of their life. Instead one ought to take the example of history and make the most of it in the context of our own lives.
And in that spirit I decided that it couldn’t hurt to try something similar, though I am kind of switching it a little to include fields of study to emphasize in my spare time. We’ll see where it goes, I’ll start it up in a couple weeks which will time me perfectly at the halfway mark of this year.
- Introspection
- Enthusiasm
- Architecture (conventional details and construction)
- Sketching
- Reading People
- Business
- Assertiveness
- Thankfullness
- Networking
- Silence
- Sustainability (details and construction)
- Contemporary art/design/architecture
- Brain rewiring (catch up on old hobbies, ie banjo, novels, photography)
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hmm interesting thought
what I really like to do is problem solving (concerning buildings). Along the way I need to make drawings…something I’m good at and something that I also like to do. But really its about solving problems.
I guess that should go with the other random thought from a couple months ago – I’m really more interested in what happens in a building (and building site), what goes in, goes on, and goes out much more than how the darn thing looks.
job searches certainly make you think….
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Converted into Houses, Charles A. Fracchia, 1977
Exactly what you would expect if you physically pick up the book. A cute, thin book with a short paragraph and a couple pages of images about each house. The decor is very much of its time, but still worth flipping through every once in a while.
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The Empty City, Andrew Looney, 2002
This is a fun silly little book.
It’s nothing special and the writing is just ok. But it is worth a read for people who are into the Icehouse pyramid games.
The story is just about four dudes that play the Icehouse game and the world that happens around and happens to them. The charm is found in its focus on mundane life in all its glorious weirdness.
This novel is an interesting example of how fiction can be a muse to jumpstart a creative endeavor which has now turned into Looney Labs.
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Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader, The Bathroom Reader’s Institute
Now that I have a little free time again, I’ve rediscovered goodreads. I really should just say discovered because even though I signed up a couple years ago, I never really explored the site. It seems like a really nice intuitive focused social site. Fun stuff and it will a place to help me at least collect my thoughts after finishing each book.
I wonder if this should be a 5 star because it has been in the bathroom for almost 5 years now. It still manages to entertain with quick hits as always before and I still seem to find things I hadn’t read though I must have gone through it several times by now (albeit not systematically). Fun stuff and full of weird entertaining errata about life.
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Cute!
Hehehe…since I’ve announced it everywhere its not really news, but just for the record…I passed my last test!
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The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson, 1990
There was a guy who triple-posted a highly negative review on a book that I liked quite a bit. So I ended up writing this counter review. Maybe this book isn’t perfect, but I think it’s an well written introduction to the subject.
This book is an incredibly fun read and does not take itself too seriously. If you want to read a book about the English language, and you don’t want one that is too scholarly, this is it.
There are plenty of really scholarly works out there – many of them are unreadable. And in fact, one of the things this book points out repeatedly is how various theories come in and out of fashion. In linguistics, it seems a lot of the oral history of our words are based off of ideas that are hard to prove. I have no doubt there are mistakes in the book some of which the angry reviewer has noted, but I trust that he has tried to be as accurate at possible.
Instead of trying to write a definitive work, I think Bill Bryson set out to write a mirror for us to have a laugh at ourselves and our wonderful language. He’s not a linguist – but he’s not a hack either. He is exploring this language and seeing how it stands in this world – among other languages and in its point in history (1989) relative to its lengthy past.
I find the book a great read. If you’re gonna write a dissertation or looking for a definitive work (or a book that takes Esperanto seriously), this isn’t it. But if you want to have an enjoyable read chuckling at our idiosyncrasies and learning a little bit more at how we got here, I think you’ll have a great time!
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home stretch?
down the back 9?
who knows…but I scheduled what may be my last archi test….if I pass it (and the one I took last week). I’d get contemplative but I really don’t want to jinx myself.
In other news, my girlfriend got a Netflix account. For 9 bucks a month, I’m surprised people don’t just get a decent internet account and netflix and just skip the whole cable tv thang.
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Whew there goes another test….
Hopefully I passed, but yeah, basically it was tough, but not particularly hard. Hopefully that means a pass, but if not, fair enough and I’ll be back. Fortunately the servers for my lab room (the test center has 2 computer labs) didn’t crash like the other side so I didn’t have to sit around for half an hour while waiting for them to get things running again. That must be quite a nervewracking sort of wait….
On another note, we went to visit the Friday night game group in our area and wow! Really nice group of folks and we played Tichu which is basically big 2 with partnerships and scoring. It makes for a pretty complex game but I see why that group gets addicted to it!
