Posted by Tim
Fri, 28 Apr 2006 05:31:00 GMT
For the first time ever I took the day of my birthday off from work, and I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. Growing up, it always seemed to rain on my birthday, but today was nothing like birthdays past. 70 degrees and partly cloudy in Kansas City and Lawrence. Kate surprised me this morning with a cake that she managed to bake in my own house the day before without leaving any trace behind, and from there we headed off to Lawrence for a day of roaming.
We started walking down Mass Street and we quickly found Love Garden. It’s a great music store selling second hand compact discs and records. Great enough, in fact, that we left with three discs. Further down the road in another shop whose name escapes me we found what will probably end up being my wedding ring. Titanium looks great and is incredibly strong, just like the love of a marriage should be. Lunch today was at the Free State Brewery, and it was fast, delicious, and reasonably priced. Anything beer battered is necessarily good there. Roaming the streets by foot and by automobile as well as a short walk through KU’s campus reminded us both that we’d really like to live in a college town one day.
As if that wasn’t a great enough day already, I was the lucky recipient of two phone calls and one email, all from amazing friends that I’m quite lucky to have. I wasn’t around my phone to answer one call, so I’ll need to make that up, and during the other call I learned that one of those friends is going to have a boy in September. Oh, and yet another cake was cut into upon arriving at mom and dad’s house. Oh, and Jacquie told me that I’m her favorite brother… don’t mind the fact that I’m her only brother. Thanks to everyone who has helped me to have such a wonderful time all these years. I hope I manage to hold on to my good fortune for many years to come!
Posted in Travel, Food, Life | 1 comment | no trackbacks
Posted by Tim
Thu, 27 Apr 2006 04:01:00 GMT
Someone dies from hunger about every 4 seconds. I
gave a variation of this as my Toastmasters CTM speech 3, and it was
clocked at just over 5 minutes. In that time over 70 people passed away
because of hunger.
April 7th through the 9th was a physically filling and
fattening weekend. An outside observer might have guessed
that I was in the first phases of a competitive eating training
regimine. Kate and I ate out three times. Four, if
you count a visit to Grandma's house, and since Grandma always offers
heaping portions and multiple desserts, well, let's count
that. At work we always end the week with lunch at Governor
Stumpy's because it's so tasty and the people are always
smiling. Saturday Kate and I had a (*clears throat*) "light"
lunch at the Jerusalem cafe on Saturday, and we followed that with the
trip to Grandma's house. On Sunday, we ate so much at the
Ruchi Indian Restaurant's buffet that I had a belly ache all afternoon!
Right now I have a belly ache of a different sort. I learned
a great deal about hunger and malnutrition over the last few days
because Kate and I are choosing charities to put on our wedding
registry. Harvesters quickly floated to the top of our list
because of their strong presence in the Kansas City community coupled
with their incredibly low administrative overhead, and my
normally full belly had an empty and aching feeling as I read some of
their statistics. For the price of a soda, complete with free
refills, Harvesters can feed 10 people. My tuna melt and tip
at the Stump could have satisfied 60 people. Ugh... belly
ache.
I'm going to go over some of the facts and figures, but first lets get
some definitions out of the way.
hunger:
(a) a craving or urgent need for food or a specific nutrient, (b) an
uneasy sensation occasioned by the lack of food, (c) a weakened
condition brought about by prolonged lack of food
malnutrition:
faulty and especially inadequate nutrition
In my own words I'd say that hunger is a belly ache from not eating
enough, while malnutrition is a condition induced from a long term lack
of nutrients. If someone ate macaroni and cheese everyday all
day, that person would not be hungry. He'd probably even be
fat, but unless he was eating super fortified and enriched mac and
cheese, he'd be quite malnourished by a lack of important vitamins and
minerals.
Globally, 1 in 12 people are malnourished. Some parts of the
world are worse than others, with an extreme example being
Afghanistan. 70% of the population of that country are
currently undernourished according to the World Food Programme.
Remember your mother forcing you to eat your carrots because
they were good for your eyes? The special ingredient that
keeps your eyes in top notch condition is vitamin A, and approximately 250,000 to 500,000 children
go blind each year because they have a vitamin A deficiency [WIKIPEDIA].
Beyond blindness, as many as one million child deaths could have been prevented by vitamin A supplementation between 1998 and 2000 [UNICEF].
Iron is another everyday nutrient that isn't in the everyday
diet in sufficient quantities for a sizable portion of the world
population, and enriching people's diets with iron would be the single
most cost effective action that we could take to improve the health of
the world.
Those of us living in the United States may find hunger and
malnutrition to be remote problems that deserve the attention of
international organizations and think tanks. We don't have to
deal with hunger and malnourishment here, right? Although
hunger
isn't as pronounced in the United States as in many parts of the world,
over one tenth of our population experienced insecurity in their food
supply in 2004. Many of those affected by food insecurity
lead normal lives otherwise; people with jobs, homes, and
hobbies for whom something went wrong. A missed paycheck or
an unforeseen medical emergency is all that it takes for many people to
have to make tough decisions between food, rent, or medication.
Let's zoom in just a little more. When asked why
they like Kansas City, many people mention the small city feeling and
the friendliness of most residents. Hunger may exist in rural
areas or in overbearingly large cities, but surely in such a personal
and friendly city as KC we manage to feed those who hunger.
Not quite. Harvesters is our only area food bank,
and through a distribution network that includes 550 not-for-profit
organizations they help approximately 60 thousand people each week.
About 3% of our metropolitan population seeks assistance each
week, and 43% of those in need are children. All of this
support adds up to some pretty incredible numbers. For
instance, 23 million pounds of food were distributed in 2005.
My dad always, always, always made sure that we were not only
fed, but fed incredibly well. He picked up this habit from
his own father, and it seems to have induced a condition in our family
that causes us to get incredibly grumpy or just plain mean if it has
been more than about six waking hours since we last ate. My
pampered palate caused these facts about hunger and malnutrition to
really resonate with me. It was an eyeopener to see how many
people go without food at all for a day or more, especially when I get
edgy after six snack less hours.
There is a bright side to this situation. Since the
1960s the world has produced enough food to sufficiently feed everyone,
we just have to figure out how to distribute all of the food
appropriately.
Many people are still digging into Easter baskets and indulging in
treats that they may have voluntarily gone without for 40 days and 40
nights prior to Easter. I hope we will all take a moment to
remember those people who involuntarily go without by contributing to
an organization dedicated to feeding people at an international,
national, or local level. Food is
not only necessary, food is wonderful. Enjoy indulging in
life's nourishing pleasures, but be careful to avoid overindulgence or
you may end up with a belly ache.
Posted in Food, Life, Toastmasters
Posted by Tim
Wed, 26 Apr 2006 05:10:00 GMT
We danced tonight. Closely. Last night we learned all about body contact in dance, and we were practicing our dance positions at tonight's open practice session. What a difference such a small distance makes. After going from 8 inches of space to 2 or less between us, we're stepping on toes again. It is better now compared to when we started -- I've learned to step lightly in the last year.
After practice was over we got to talking with Darren, our instructor, about artistry. Kate's mom is a visual artist, and her dad writes, and she mentioned that she thought the creative gene must skip a generation. Darren put for the the idea that everyone has creativity locked away inside of them somewhere, if only they find out how to best express it. His personal example was his talent on the dance floor, and he also mentioned cooking. "When someone beautifully presents a dessert that you just can't get enough of, that's artistry." That example really resonated with me because I love the process from cooking to consumption, and it's even better sharing the experience with friends and family.
Artistry and creativity are not meant to sit on a pedestal for only the creative elite to participate in. Certainly, there are people who exhibit artistry and creativity in all manners of expression that are worthy of examination upon a pedestal, but we all have a right and a duty to participate in the creative process. Find your Muse and create a little bit, or a whole lot, of beauty and joy in the world. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some beautiful code to write... :-)
Posted in Music, Code, Food, Life
Posted by Tim
Mon, 24 Apr 2006 02:44:00 GMT
This blog just got a new name and a new theme. Although I am "Easily Entertained" by the smallest and simplest of things, it doesn’t really describe what I am about or what I am trying to accomplish with this weblog. When I stop and think about it, I actually enjoy working at most of my hobbies. Although I enjoy the effort, my entertained isn’t often easy.
I am trying to expand my horizons in life, and so that’s what this weblog’s theme and name will reflect. The first step toward a goal is taken when we embrace the goal and what it means to chase that goal.
The look and feel was converted in a couple of hours this weekend from a rough HTML template into the Typo theme that you see now. There are still some quirks, probably most of which will show up if you’re using Internet Explorer. Why are you using Internet Explorer? Get a safe and powerful browser.
I’d love to here feedback from the four of you that are regular readers. Yes, I hope there’s more than four of you, but no, I’m not counting on it. :-)
Posted in Life
Posted by Tim
Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:45:00 GMT
I read this great post on "I Will Teach You To Be Rich" the other day, and I wanted to share it with anyone who comes across my blog. I love the idea of "Call Your Ass Out" day, and I would like to see it as a holiday celebrated at the end of every quarter, not just the first quarter of the year. We might need a name change before the day gets a selection of Hallmark cards, but I think the name really serves its purpose, so I’d rather skip the cards all together.
This year has seen great weeks and horrible weeks in terms of my goals. I seem to be really good at sprinting through problems for a week, and then I extract a week’s worth of slacking even if I try to work. The sprints are great, but I need to figure out a way to deal with my tendency to slack afterward.
I have done a lot of good things in the first quarter. Toastmasters is helping me to improve my verbal communication, I’ve started writing bid proposals for programming jobs, I’ve written an application that is just waiting for our new server, and I’m installing that new server tomorrow. May will see me running my first 5K since I was in high school, and the wedding planning moves along. All that stuff is great, but I don’t feel like I’ve fully tapped my potential yet. I have a long way to grow, and I’m excited about raising the bar in this second quarter of 2006.
Posted in Life, Entrepreneurship, Toastmasters
Posted by Tim
Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:13:00 GMT
I’m told that means "shaking the house", and it is a thorough cleaning process that Iranians go through each year before celebrating the Persian new year, which falls on the first day of Spring. From this practice, and from tracking mud, salt, and sand indoors all winter long, we Westerners get our fascination with spring cleaning. I’m not Persian, so my perspective is a little different. In my family spring cleaning wasn’t an activity done in anticipation of a holiday, but instead a task undertaken begrudgingly because "your mother said so."
With age comes an acceptance of the annual deep cleaning. Now that I’m a home owner I have seen first hand clutter taking over a room as well as all of the weird places that dirt tends to collect. My big problem is that I am the latest in a line of pack rats. This spring ritual is a favorite time of mine to overturn the house with trash and donation bags in hand. Small shirts, expired canned goods, broken computer parts? Donate, trash, and why’d I have broken computer parts in the first place? No matter, it’s spring cleaning, and it’s my time to start fresh with a clean slate.
What about those knick knacks and paddy whacks that we pick up as souvenirs? Tesuaro and Mollod, the authors of The Modern Gentleman, provide us with the Arc of Archivability in which, as they put it, "Heartifacts must be plotted on three axes before they are alloted shelf space in the den." If an object doesn’t provide a sufficient combination of uniqueness, meaningfulness, and familiarity then away it goes.
Let’s not limit our exploration of spring cleaning to our homes. What about ourselves? With wonderful weather on the way we have a great opportunity to clean out our cardiovascular system with healthy doses of fresh produce and fresh air. The weight loss commercials are out in full force, so I will leave physical fitness as an exercise for the reader. We have bigger thoughts to ponder.
Think for a second, what’s been on your mind lately?
At today’s pace, there are probably a whole lot of things are racing around in there. There is a parallel between our physical world and our minds: just like a clear workspace enables intense focus on important work, a clear mental space enables intense focus on important thoughts. How many of the thoughts, dreams, goals, and aspirations running around in your head right now don’t really belong there?
Let’s pick some low hanging fruit first: turn off the television. I turned off mine last Thanksgiving, and my only regret is that it took so long. Television is designed to dull our senses and replace real experiences with flattened generalizations, filling our heads with visions of low, low prices and our satisfaction guaranteed. Reclaim that mental space and in the process stop watching other people live.
What about thoughts that have overextended their stay in our minds? I have projects swimming in my head right now that have been there for years, and they can be distracting at times because each project is an open loop in my mind craving attention. If you have read David Allen’s Getting Things Done you probably see where I’m going with this. To be proactive about managing your mental energy you need an action plan to deal with old ideas bubbling up from your subconscious. Do it or dump it. When an idea surfaces I either take a step toward implementation, even if that is just writing down my thoughts, or I take the time to remind myself that I am no longer interested in the idea. In this way I am crudely able to communicate with my subconscious, and it greatly reduces the anxiety that comes with things left undone.
On a grander scale, what about your dreams? In his essay "What You’ll Wish You’d Known", Paul Graham disparages the commencement speakers who each year tell kids to "never give up on your dreams." A more appropriate message would be keep moving forward, keep growing. Never giving up on a dream can be counterproductive or futile.
Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Rico is a perfect example of a man who has dreams that need to be put to bed. He continually relives the championship football game of his senior year because that’s where his dream of an NFL contract was derailed. All the while he’s throwing streaks at Napoleon and claiming to have the ability to throw footballs over mountains, he’s missing out on life today because of a long dead dream from the past.
I’m not trying to be a dream killer. Don’t give up on dreaming. Dreams, goals, and aspirations are a healthy and vital part of life. They excite us and energize us, they enable us to make this world a better place. I’m asking you to recognize when you have grown at a faster pace than your dreams and goals. As outpaced dreams are put to rest, celebrate! Enjoy the fact that you continue to grow, and use your celebration as a time to set your sights higher still.
Don’t begrudge your lengthening list of TODO items as you go about your spring cleaning. Don’t curse your clothes for "shrinking" through the winter. Instead recall that spring is a time of rebirth and renewal for all living organisms. Embrace the challenges that await you and rejuvenate vigorously as you are in good company with all of nature.
Posted in Life, Toastmasters | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Tim
Wed, 15 Feb 2006 12:35:00 GMT
Sometimes things get through the little filter between our brains and our vocal chords that would otherwise be stopped in their tracks because those things seem somewhat helpful in a given situation.
When this happens it’s probably best to defer judgement back to the internal filter as it would rule in any other situation. I was reminded of this today.
In other news I was also reminded that it is almost always a good idea to bake cookies, especially for the most wonderful woman in one’s life. Hi Kate!
Posted in Life | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Tim
Tue, 17 Jan 2006 12:44:00 GMT
Kate and I travelled to Richmond to visit her parents over the (long) weekend. Not only were they wonderful hosts for the two of us, but they were also the wonderful hosts of about 40 other people at “Tom and Santa’s Mid-Winter Party” on Saturday night. The house was so packed that Kate and I weren’t anywhere near each other when our engagement was toasted. Kate apologized for “throwing me to the wolves” by leaving me to socialize with so many of her parents friends while she was socializing with still more friends, but I had a great time. It is easy to socialize with strangers when they are all so friendly and interesting. If my memory serves me, the night started to wind down around midnight, but the party didn’t actually end until 2:00 AM.
The most important part of the trip was spending a chunk of time in Kate’s home town with her parents, but I certainly didn’t mind getting out of Kansas City and attending a great party as bonus activities. This was the first time Kate returned since Fall of 2004 during which I was able to have dinner with her family, but two hours isn’t a lot of time in terms of meeting my bride-to-be’s parents, and she wasn’t even my bride-to-be at the time.
Richmond is a very cohesive old city. It feels much less compartmentalized than Kansas City, and I really enjoy that. I don’t enjoy all of the toll roads, but no place is perfect, right? We toured a large portion of the city, but we didn’t make a dent in Kate’s suggested restaurant list. We’ll return and try again.
Posted in Travel, Life | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Tim
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 13:34:00 GMT
One of the great things about the holiday season is seeing people who just aren’t around all of the time. Tonight was a great example—Grant, Kenny, and Missy were all in town at once with Sarah, Christina, and Adam. Sure, everyone was only in town all at one time only for tonight, but we’ll take what we can get. It had been so long since I last saw Grant that he didn’t even know about Kate, so he was especially shocked that we’re engaged. I really appreciate him doing the leg work to get us all together.
Posted in Life | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Tim
Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:19:00 GMT
PROCRASTINATION. The habit of putting off until tomorrow that which should have been done last year. Spending enough time in creating alibis and excuses to have done the job.”
That was from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (TAGR). I read The Little Red Book of Selling while I was out of town on business, and the author suggested reading TAGR continuously until the concepts really started to sink in. He did this for one whole year, reading the book about 15 times in the process. I enjoyed The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill so much that I think an immersion in TAGR could be quite helpful.
I attribute much of my entrepreneurial energy to the Law of Success. The point is made quite clearly that each of us can positively impact the lives of others and improve our own lives in the process if only we focus our thoughts and efforts on making the world a better place. After reading TAGR this week I realized that I had lost some of my drive since last reading The Law of Success. There is such an abundance of diversions and negativity in the world that constant reinforcement of positive thoughts and potential is almost required to succeed in big ways.
I’d like to take a moment and point out that the “Rich” in Think and Grow Rich is so much more than just money. The book is really about infusing a holistic richness into people. It could have been appropriately titled Think and Grow, but Napoleon noted that most people wanted to specifically grow rich.
Now, after some procrastination, a thought on procrastination. The definition at the top of this post from TAGR really resonated with me. It sent me on a quick trip through the last year. How many items have been on your action list for weeks, months, or even years? Too many to comfortably count in public if you’re like me. Inaction rooted in indecision is very powerful. Do your research and then get busy. It’s all about fire and motion. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some code to write…
Posted in Books, Life | no comments | no trackbacks
