Slow progress

Today it was nine miles around White Rock Lake. I finished in 97 minutes, a few minutes behind Luke's pace. I wish it were easier to find the discipline to wake up and run, or while running, to push myself a little harder.

Pasadena is five weeks away, and I'll lose at least one of those recovering from a tonsillectomy.

Marathon training

Unlike the first two marathons, I am beginning training more than ten days ahead of the race date. Nov. 16 is now five weeks away, and so far my best 9-mile run was just under 11min/mile. This morning it was a 6-mile run, and I wasn't too sore running sub-10min/mile.

P. Diddy ran in 3:58, so if I want to beat a gangsta, I've got to run under 9min/mile.

Slowing down

I was driving 75 miles an hour on Interstate 30 this morning. The speed limit is 60. I was pulled over by an unmarked police vehicle.

Tonight I was driving 43 miles an hour through downtown Bonham. The speed limit is 30. I was pulled over by a partially obscured police vehicle.

On both occasions I was let off with a warning.

I drove slowly the rest of the way home.

Consumer Action: How To Kick A Scammy Car Dealer In The Nuts

Consumer Action: How To Kick A Scammy Car Dealer In The Nuts: "How To Kick A Scammy Car Dealer In The Nuts"

"What do you intend to do with those?" he asked..

"Mr. Smith," I said coolly, even though my hands were sweaty and shaking, "at this point, it doesn't really matter to me whether I get my money back or not. I am going to exercise my First Amendment right to stand on that public sidewalk in front of your dealership. I'll hand one of these flyers to anybody walking onto your lot. I'll be carrying a picket sign with the same message."

Now, if I can just figure out how to do the same to the Craigslist scammer. Nigeria 419, Advance Fee Fraud, whatever you call it, has cost me about 90minutes of phone calls, which I consider to be a cheap price at education. Bank of America sent a copy of the returned check and so far has not charged the $5 fee they told me I would see.

I spoke to UPS, and then the holder of the account used to mail the check to me. I have to followup with UPS why they say the account holder was charged, but that person tells me they spoke to UPS who said they WERE NOT CHARGED! WTF!

There are two people (with fake addresses, probably), but real www.zabasearch.com entries who may or not be unwitting moles (remember Dateline about those people who re-mailed packages?) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17713446/

The Secret Service and FBI have said, don't waste our time. I can file a police report, but the detective I spoke to said he doesn't make much progress on them. Maybe he can help me find the internet cafe used to send the emails.

Ways to stop it:
1) Get involvement from Western Union. Flag the authorities when the recipient tries to pick up the money. Credit card machines do something similar. Good luck, as WU makes $189 every time a victim sends money, but spends little to stop it.

2) Have the depositing bank verify electronically that the check is drawn on an OPEN account. The check I received was fraudulent, drawn on an account Author House closed three years ago.

2007 In a nutshell

How did 2007 get in a nutshell? What an incredibly large nutshell! –AP
Microsoft Paint –BW

In January, we and Craigslist teamed up to find Zoe about 20 miles away in Terrell, Texas, bruised and battered, and just a few days away from being dropped in a 24-hour kill facility. She is now happy, healthy, and double her weight. Our white carpet survived a few dozen onslaughts with minimal permanent record of the carnage.

In March we went to Clearwater, Florida for Sheree’s birthday. Thanks to the serendipitous fact that Orlando’s Discovery Cove was just 90 minutes away, Brett’s failure to find a Clearwater dolphin-swimming venue in Clearwater was saved with a quick drive.

In July we joined Sheree’s family in Missouri for the Udells’ 20th annual Lake of the Ozarks vacation. Boating, drinking, boating, drinking, jetskiing (whatever spellcheck, that’s how we spell it in the Show-Me state!), and sunning was a nice relaxing vacation, and our first after missing the last two years honeymooning and moving to Texas.

We were blessed to attend a couple of weddings, and couldn’t be happier for our friends. Here’s wishing them all the best!

Brett started a new job at Nice Systems, whose name is a seemingly endless amusement for every client who likes to entertain his sense of humor. “You guys sure are Nice to work with.” et cetera, ad infinitum. And so on.

We went to yoga religiously. In fact, we were named co-Students of the Month at Rockwall’s Body Synergie. Sheree found it so fulfilling, she began a practice teaching L-3 coworkers.

Sheree surpassed her duty as Class President, and had more than half attend the Lemont Class of 1997’s 10-year reunion.

We finally put some of the space in our house to work, hosting Sheree’s family a few different times, and for Thanksgiving, getting Brett’s family all together in the same place!

Our December visit to Chicago was warmer than Dallas! And the weather was two days late delivering a White Christmas.

Please let us wish you a Happy New Year! (hopefully one better than Apollo and Thor will have, now that they have a new pack leader – their worst nightmare!)

Keyboard Shortcuts - Google Search

Google Experimental Search:Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
J	Selects the next result.
K	Selects the previous result.
O	Opens the selected result.
<Enter>	Opens the selected result.
/	Puts the cursor in the search box.
<Esc>	Removes the cursor from the search box.

Too bad that right now you can only choose one of Google Labs' experimental search offerings. Timeline view and autocomplete would be great additions, but at least now we have a choice. Not too long ago, Google had removed the option.

I love saving ¼ of a second at a time, thousands of times a year.

Churning

I feel like I'm in a barrel bobbing in a bile ocean.

Simultaneously stuck because there's so much I want to do but don't know where to start and overwhelmed because I don't think there's any way I'll ever finish it. I wish I had Calvin's attitude:
"God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die."

I think I first read it at Lifehacker last week, but I've made some strong gains by writing down each night before I go to bed the 3-5 things I'm most committed to accomplishing the next day. They recommend a 3x5" index card; I just use my catch-all journal. I've attempted so many systems for self motivation, and struggled to maintain them with any consistency, I can't help but worry about this one. But in the last week, I have found it to be both easy and helpful.

Just one of those days

I love active weekends. Knocked Up last night was great. Hilarious and inspiring. This morning a couple of yoga classes and some errands are a good start to the Saturday and leave me feeling good about the weekend, and bring some hope that soon everything will be okay.

Google Reader give me Lifehacker, yoga brings me peace of mind, and Sheree provides satisfaction to my life, something I'm starting to bring on my own. I know it's just a little while until I can bring it all together and begin to feel normal again.

Wayne Curtis - of Hillhurst Mortage, a CPA company

A quick shoutout to my accountant. Hoping to increase his pagerank:
Wayne Curtis at Hillhurst Mortgage

Wayne is reachable at
Hillhurst Mortgage
1662 N. Hillhurst Avenue, Suite A
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Telephone 323.522.1020

Wayne Curtis - of Hillhurst Mortage, a CPA company

A quick shoutout to my accountant. Hoping to increase his pagerank:
http://vertabrett.com/wayne.curtis-hillhurst.mortgage.com.htm

Wayne is reachable at
Hillhurst Mortgage
1662 N. Hillhurst Avenue, Suite A
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Telephone 323.522.1020

Wayne Curtis - of Hillhurst Mortage, a CPA company

A quick shoutout to my accountant. Hoping to increase his pagerank:
http://vertabrett.com/wayne.curtis-hillhurst.mortgage.com.htm

Pale Blue Dot

Sometimes I feel important, like I will make a difference. Then I read this:

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

<from Wil>

Simple enough to save a dollar today

David turned me on to The Simple Dollar

23 good ideas to clean up and save/make money. I've held onto some old VHS movies for almost a decade now, even though some of them have never been watched!

4. Purge a media collection.
Many people have a large collection of some media type or another, whether it be book, CD, DVD, video game, or whatever. Spend several hours purging the collection and selling the excess on eBay or your selling site of choice. This can easily absorb a pair of weekends, but you’ll usually wind up with a lot of cash and more room simply by getting rid of things that you’ll likely never look at again.

In that tone of voice,

Some insight to Google Fascinating

This document is a guideline for translating according to the Google style.
Overall Translation Guidelines

It is very important to us that all translations maintain the appropriate Google tone. Our site in English is written in a tech- and web-savvy, upbeat and friendly style. We want all our non-English content to reflect this style; however, we recognize that what is considered polite and appropriate varies by culture. Therefore, we want the translator to understand the English content and style first, and then rewrite it such that the tone is maintained within the framework of the particular language/culture.
General rules:

1. Don't use a heavy, staid, or arrogant tone; translations should be upbeat and friendly
2. Avoid awkward or unprofessional wording
3. Try to capture the essence of the message. Don't translate literally or word-for-word.

Specific Guidelines

1. Do not translate proper names or product names. Examples of these include "Google" and "SafeSearch".
2. Google has a function, "I'm Feeling Lucky" that presents a particular translation challenge. The function takes the user immediately to the first result for a search -- so, a user selects "I'm Feeling Lucky" when they are willing to take a chance that Google's first result will be what they are looking for. The phrase in English has a specific tone -- daring, confident, and playful. This has been a hard phrase for people to translate. If you can't come up with a way to translate this phrase while preserving its tone just leave it in English.

Delicious

I am struggling to modulate my emotions. I feel bad, and I think I know why, but I can't figure out how to get past it. Donuts and breakfast sausages just arrived at work, and when I eat them, I feel better, even though I'm not really hungry.

Drinking, eating, working are some of the ways I have used to cope with pressure, and it doesn't take a genius to know the ways that each one of those can lead to problems.

Alcohol helps me to suppress emotions, usually the negative ones (though incentive this isn't always acknowledged as a craving's biggest factor), and perpetuates depression for hours or days after the drinking stops.

Destructive eating can help for a minute, and its negative effects - especially obesity - take longer to arrive than alcohol's.

Working is probably the healthiest of the three, not because it's the one most accepted in our culture. If I could quell anxiety/sadness/loneliness through a heavy bout of achievement, either at work or at home, I would be well on my way to a healthier life. The negative aspects of workaholism are subtle, and can be easy to manage if the -aholism is removed. An eight hour bout of intense work as a means of coping with life's pressures is good when any accompanying stress is kept out of a happy home life. Sixty hours a week that lead to a lonely spouse or unguided child is often rationalized, and regularly admired, and something I hope never to do for more than three or four weeks in a year.

I just took the last snack, even though I knew it wouldn't help. If I could think of it as a guilty pleasure, I would avoid the extra pain brought by perfectionism and self-punishment. Being aware of what was happening is a big step forward. Next is to learn discipline enough to stop before my stomach explodes, or never to start the guilty pleasure as an escape mechanism. Today it was easy; I hope tomorrow they don't bring more!

Another woman in my life

We picked her up last night. She woke us up a few times - no whimpering, just bladder control. This afternoon she conveniently takes advantage each time we let her out.

Things are getting better almost every day!

The run around

Thanks to the there and back cross country drive in '96, I have 80% of the states - I'd give it a B. In a few decades it would feel good to have traveled through that many countries.



create your own personalized map of the USA

ad astra per aspera

The first day was somewhat positive. Some patience is helpful; if I want a million dollars, I cannot expect it within the first week. The Secret uses the word 'manifest', but the process is easier for me when I hold on to the feelings. How will it feel when I have this thing I want? If I could focus on this a bit better, I would have more positive results. Interruptions and lapses in the focus make it easy for the old ways to return, aargh!

I am doing some paperwork, and it could use some strengthening and polishing, maybe 8 hours of dedicated work (a couple of days). I spent 90 min on it, and during the work my mind would drift. This is a better result than the day before, as I would usually find a way to check email or work on unimportant/unurgent tasks.

A great bisector for life is work and home. I cannot bring the problems from one into the other.

Having such a well balanced partner makes this part so easy. I am reminded again of how lucky I was to find Sheree. Goals at home are much closer, and we are already making great progress.

Life is full of both good and bad, and for years I have doubled the bad by self-punishment, often pushing me into sullen withdrawal. The escapes from such bouts of depression are rarely healthy: alcohol and television are life-destroyers, 4 hour bouts of poker and scrabble can interfere with close relationships.

My ability to handle setbacks is improving. There are just a few tricks I use, but they start with replacing the negative.

Belief

Sheree and I watched last night the DVD 'The Secret' (non-flash homepage). The content is remarkably similar to what I learned at Tony Robbins' seminars, and at $30, is more Costco-like in its chances of 'results per dollar' value. The optimism I felt is similar, and existed at the same time as the cynicism from trying it once without lasting positive results.

Emotions are powerful, and I have been in the grips of negative ones for so long, I am desperate for a way out. Adding to the frustration is knowing the way, but being unable to take a step forward. A handful of therapists have been helpful, but there has always been a glimmer of hope that some paradigm shift could help me make drastic changes for the better.

I will try this new tack for a few months. I predict positive results. The 'Secret' should be free, and I look forward to sharing and discussing it with anyone willing.

The Grinder

It's not just the nickname of this year's best poker player.

I have been a prisoner for years, handcuffed in a dungeon of my own design. In spite of knowledge about the problem and how to solve it, I remain stuck. It's time to get out, and since I have been unable to make progress on my own, the vision of a powertool provides sufficient help. I can wear down these shackles, and get back into the open.

Al Pacino gives a great line as Lt. Col. Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman:

I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.

I look forward to learning as much as I can during this quest for freedom, and I feel liberated that I can use this metaphor as an anchor. It is energized by expert assistance, a strong network of friends I admire, a loving family, and an outstanding wife who backs me with infinite faith. I feel a strange sense of religion when I think The Lord is my shepherd