OK, so my review of The Last Lecture was pretty harsh. More to the point though I seemed to carry on more about the cult of personality than about the actual content of the book. So I would like to remedy that.
Simply put I think that the audio book was about two hours too long. This really is a compelling story and I went into this listening with the best of intentions and really loved the first half. I mean a man trying to pass on some advice to his kids knowing that he has a limited time left on this earth just has to be compelling. But it simply goes on for too long and his lessons have no real connection. I look at this book as something that he would want his kids to read because it gives them a glimpse into his childhood and some background in their family but there is no WIFM for us as the reader.
There is no logical sequence for the chapters and there are 61 of them. Why not condense the chapters and put the related themes together as much as possible?It is simply too hard to follow 60 different lessons. Which are the most important?
I also didn’t necessarily agree with his lessons. Not everyone should or should want to follow their childhood dreams. Sometimes the dreams that you have later on in life are much better than the ones you have when you’re a kid. His lessons are can be much too “right and wrong” for my taste. The world is contextual and not just “right and wrong”. For example, he gives the example that stuff is just stuff. His wife crashes into his car and he tells her that he doesn’t want her to fix it because it is just a thing. I see his point and agree that things are not as important as our relationships. But fixing the things that we break also teaches us responsibility for our actions and that there are consequences.
That being said, I am not much on self help and motivational books so take my review with several grains of salt.
I recently took a long road trip and had the opportunity to listen to a couple of books on CD. The first was “The Tipping Point” and the second was “The Last Lecture“. I really liked “The Tipping Point” but I am really mixed on “The Last Lecture”.
The Tipping Point’s premise is that change doesn’t necessarily occur slowly but instead happens quickly. His argument is that there is normally some small change that occurs that “tips” the balance of things. This small change could be a certain person getting a disease (say someone who is much more sexually active than the average), or it could be an activity that gets reduced (perhaps reducing the number of people who “fare jump” on the subway), or any other relatively small change. This theory really looks at what might be considered “drivers” for change.
Oddly enough this is very much related to what I do for a living. I try to look for the real root causes behind an event, a defect, or any occurrence. Because of that correlation to my professional life I was really able to “get into” this book and actually want to listen to it again to see what I missed. The book (in this case CD) is pretty easy and not really time consuming. The CD is just over three hours if I recall correctly and the author does a good job of making his point without really belaboring it. I won’t go over any more of the book or its theories but will simply recommend that you read it for yourself.
Ok, so this next opinion probably won’t be the most popular one that I have ever expressed. I really did not care for “The Last Lecture” at all. I thought it was fairly pompus and unfocused. I also don’t think it says anything that you couldn’t read elsewhere. I am struggling with what makes him particularly special and different than all of the ordinary men who are suffering form pancreatic cancer besides the fact his is an acedemic and wrote a book. But perhaps that is enough. Perhaps that makes him more special than that guy who goes to his “normal” job everyday day to support his family without being able to rely on book royalties.
That sounded really harsh and I don’t want you to think that his fight is not a tough one or that he is not deserving some amount of our sympathy. But cancer strikes many people here in the US and many people die from this disease every year. I agree that anything that can be done to impact it is a good thing but we shouldn’t hero worship someone simply because they have cancer. Frankly, if his words of advice were written by a “healthy” man then they would not have received such fan fare and such hype. His lessons simply aren’t that good.
I also found it extremely arrogant that all of his examples were about him. He didn’t really use any examples of other people to illustrate his points. Well he did but these were people that he taught or otherwise had some amount of influence over. I also thought that it was very telling that he was concerned that his children would not have a father. But who is to say that they won’t. Is he expecting his wife not to remarry? I thought that was an interesting comment on his part.
Read the book if you must but either buy it used or borrow it. If you want to support the fight against cancer then donate to the American Cancer Society.
This weekend I spent up in Reno with the in-laws. We had to do a bunch of different things like family photos, update our will, and visit with family and friends. I took Atlas up with me in the truck. I wasn’t going to take Atlas but with his tail being hurt and all we figured that we shouldn’t board him. This turned out to be a good decision as his bandage has now fallen off several times and we have had to re-wrap it.
The trip up here was slow but relatively uneventful. I ended up sitting in traffic in the LA area for several hours as I had a late start to the day. We stopped at a little rest area just south of Grapevine to take a break after 4 hours in traffic. This should have been a routine stop. I got out of the truck, left his window down, headed off to the restroom then *BOOM*. Oh no, that cannot be good. I turn around to see that Atlas managed to jump out of the side window of our truck. So come to find out that Atlas is much more athletic than I give him credit for.
Saturday was an early morning as it was picture day for the family. In this day of digital cameras it seems a little archaic to have a professional photographer take your picture but I very much have a “less is more” type of outlook and would prefer to have just a handful of really good photos than a mess of so-so ones. It definitely not cheap but she (Gina Munda) does really good work and she took our engagement and wedding photos. So she is almost part of the family. We took the pictures in the backyard simply because Holden is much too young to really give good shots. We really just wanted to get all of the generations together and get some early shots of him. Next year we will probably head up to Lake Tahoe and take some shots of him walking by the lake. I simply can’t wait!
First off I should caveat this by saying that I’m just a total idiot. Now I know that I need to stretch on an almost daily basis. But I took several days off for various reasons and could feel myself getting tighter. Knowing this I went to the gym on Monday to try to get a quick workout in before two late meetings that I had. Knowing that I need to really warm up before I lift weights I decided that I could skip part of my warm up to make up some time. Well that was a huge mistake and I managed to strain my back. To make things worse I had taken my motorcycle to the gym. The good news is that I was able to get into my doctor that same night and got a prescription for muscle relaxers. I normally don’t take any kind of drug but I don’t have a good physical therapist here yet. Amazingly the muscle relaxers really worked and I feel much better after only a couple of days.
The lesson to be learned is that you really cannot over emphasize the importance of warming up before any form of exercise. Normally I do some light treadmill work followed by some dynamic type stretches. The funny thing is that I know how important it is for me to stay limber. Some people never learn!
OK, so it wasn’t as exciting as the past weekends but that is definitely a good thing. This weekend was summed up by the word work. Although that is not completely true and much of the work I did I actually enjoyed doing.
I did go for a ride Saturday though. The weather was just beautiful and I got to try out my new leathers and boots. I went out with Miles and Seth and we hit some of the roads that we have not been on for a while. It was really nice going out for a nice morning ride and I hope that is something that I get to maintain. Here we are stopping for breakfast:
The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning the house, doing laundry, and washing the cars. In fact Saturday night was the height of fun as Missy, Holden, and Atlas sat on the front lawn while I washed the cars. Boy, how times have changed. But not necessarily for the worst. I happen to enjoy washing the cars and find it very relaxing. Holden enjoys being outside so it was fun for him. Atlas likes being wherever we are so he also liked it and Missy likes being around Holden. So it really was a good night for everyone.
It’s also funny how we classify (or don’t classify) ourselves. I think that we sill see ourselves as different than other parents and families. We were in Target yesterday and the place was just packed with families. I mean just packed. And the families were just strolling around (literally) and taking up entire aisles. Well, we didn’t go there for our “big day out”. We went because we needed some things and we weren’t going to be able to get them during the week. This obviously frustrated Missy and she made the comment about it being “family day” at target. I looked at her and then at Holden and said “hey, that’s us now”. So, we are officially allowed to attend family day. We just don’t want to be one of “those” families.
I end this with some cute pics of Holden (because that is how families blog).
This past weekend I decided that I wanted to sand and stain our pergola. Well, it was decided for me really as the previous owner used lacquer to coat the wood with. If you are reading this thinking that you want to do some home improvements then my first tip is not to use lacquer. It will always peel and will always need to be touched up. My second tip is invest in power tools.
I never realized how nice it would be to own an electric sander until Saturday. It took me several hours with the electric sander so I cannot imagine how long it would have taken with a block and sand paper. I probably would have killed myself at some point in that process. It was hard enough with the power tools. Maybe I’m just soft. Maybe I have gotten lazy in my older age. But maybe I am just smarter now.
I know what you’re thinking…”the Fourth of July is a time for celebration and BBQ. You should not be doing home improvement on this sacred holiday”. Well, this country wasn’t made by holding BBQs and eating burgers. It was made on hard work, sweat, and blood. So, this weekend I took after our founding fathers worked hard.
The irony is that the brushes I was using were made in China. Perhaps I should have ate burgers instead.
This is what the pergola looked like before:
This is what it looks like now:
I think that the next thing to do is to add a fabric cover overhead to allow us to use this space in all weather (not that we get much weather here).
Well, my weekend did not go exactly as planned. What I had planned to do was sand and stain our pergala, do some yard work, and go for a ride. What I ended up doing was sand and staining our pergala, doing some yard work, and take Atlas to the ER. Yup, I managed to break his tail by shutting the rear window of the truck on it. Damn.
Sat night we went to the park like we typically do on the weekend. I parked the truck like I always do but when I rolled the window up his tail was stuck in it. Well, I guess technically what happened was his tail was caught and he reacted by pulling it out as quickly as he could. This caused a fracture and a laceration. Ouch. So, his tail bleeding all over the truck and with Missy and Holden in the back seat I make a beeline for the emergency room to get him fixed up.
On the way there he is surprisingly calm…but Missy isn’t. To be fair she is getting the business end of the tail flinging blood all over the place so I understand her being upset. Luckily we live in a big city and there are emergency rooms all over the place and we were at one in 10 minutes. This was about 7 pm or so and they got him in right away. Side note: what a depressing place and I certainly don’t want to visit the emergency room again any time soon. At least not for Atlas. I figure when Holden gets older he will get into some sort of mischief but that’s what boys do.
It was a bit of a struggle getting him into the back and we had to help out (he’s 150 lbs of muscle and he was nervous). But, they finally got him into triage and took a look at it. It was bad news to be sure. It was a pretty decent size cut and they weren’t sure they could suture it. There was some talk about amputating part of the tail but I wasn’t too keen on that idea. So, they gave us an estimate and sent us home (by this time Holden was ready to eat again and we had not brought a full supply of bottles).
A couple of hours later we got a phone call. This time the news was worse and they told me that he actually had a fracture. Damn. Poor guy. That just sucks. Their first recommendation was to amputate it because they weren’t sure it was getting good blood flow. I was really uncomfortable with making a decision like that simply on “it could die” facts. I had serious concerns about keeping end of his tail closed up if they did amputate simply because the bandage would have a hard time sticking. I also wanted to spare Atlas that kind of surgery unless he really needed it. The vet wasn’t pushing the surgery that hard and she said that they could set it for us and wrap it up but that he would still need to be seen by my own vet (which we planned to do anyway). So they put him under and did their work.
At 4am I got the call that he was ready to go home. He’s sitting on his “living room bed”. He has a small pad out in the living room as well as his queen bed in our office but that bed is tall and he isn’t 100%. He has some pain meds and antibiotics and we are all hoping for the best. What a night.
He is doing much better now but it was a bummer of a Sunday to be sure. Now we have to watch for him to not bite his tail and tear off the dressing. It came off tonight but we were able to re-wrap it (luckily there is a CVS close to the house!).
I have learned to love leg exercises a lot. I especially love being able to perform them with good form (after so many years of doing them incorrectly). I see a lot of exercises done with poor form so I thought it might be useful to post up some videos that show good form. Frankly it is not that easy to do because the youtube vids show folks using a lot of weight but not necessarily with good form.
I did some searching around and found this vid that I really liked and thought was informative. As always I learned some techniques myself from this video. The one thing that I have learned is that no one source gives you enough information about an exercise and you really need to get it from several.
Well, I hope this video helps you with your routine.
A couple of weeks ago I officially started my new workout. I wasn’t getting any size to my legs using the “5 x 5″ routine and wanted to try something that would really address my legs. So I started the 20 rep squat routine.
The workout is the model of simplicity (which is important in a work out that I try) and revolves around one set of 20 repetitions of the squat. That sounds pretty simple and it is. But it is not easy. One of key principles of this workout is to add 5 lbs to your bar each session for as long as the cycle lasts (I chose six weeks) until you are at what was your 5 rep max. In my case I chose an ending weight that was less than my 5 rep max. I did this intentionally because I wanted to work on my squat form as I still feel that it is not as good as it could or should be. So I wanted to end this 6 weeks doing a set of 20 reps with 225 lbs. I knew that I would have 18 workouts (3 workouts x 6 weeks) and multiplied that by 5 to get 90 lbs. 225 lbs less 90 lbs is 135 lbs so that is what I started the workout with.
The workout started out easily enough and 135 for 20 reps was simple. I am now up to 160 and it is definitely getting harder now. I can feel myself getting more winded now and I have to rest after 15 reps. My legs were a tad wobbly after this workout too and I can only imagine what it will be like when I hit my 225 mark. Ouch.
The other key to this workout is that it is for your legs so keeping the other body parts to a minimum is important. It seems like my back and chest will grow easily but my legs don’t so focusing on my legs should allow them to grow (at least that is my theory). I follow the squats with pull overs (as a recovery exercise). Then Straight Leg Dead Lifts (being very careful on my technique). Those two (squats and straight leg deadlifts) are the only two exercises that I am adding weight to for this six week period. I could add weight to the others but I want my legs to get all the benefit. I also do 2 sets of weighted dips and two sets of bent over rows. I then follow up with abs, calves, and stretching and call it good.
I am hoping that at the end of this six weeks I will see some decent growth but time (and the tape measure) will tell.
james
Wow, I simply cannot believe that seven weeks have come and gone. I would love to say that it has all been peace, love, and happiness but it obviously hasn’t. In fact he often looks like this
Which obviously makes me look the same way. In fact this entire fatherhood thing has been considerably more frustrating than I imagined it would be. It’s not so much that I’m tired or that I am worried about him but it really comes down to being used to apply much more reason to a situation. For example, if Atlas acts up I typically understand why he has and I understand (somewhat) how to communicate with him. The same goes for Missy. I typically can reason with her (I know you’re reading this…that was made in jest…). But with Holden I have had to throw out all of my assumptions and realize that he cries for everything because that is his only means of communication. As much as I rationalize his behavior it still can be mighty frustrating at 3am when he’s crying for some unknown reason. The crying isn’t necessarily that bad but combine that with his “wriggling” and it gets super frustrating because all I want is for him to go to sleep so that we can all go to sleep.
I’m the type of person who needs some feedback in order to really have a relationship and that feedback needs to be positive. I have never understood the concept of “unconditional love” because for me all love comes with some conditions. Holden has forced me to look much longer term to see that feedback. I know that someday he will look to me with love (or at least toleration) and that is what I need to keep in mind now to get me through the tough patches.
Missy has been a total saint through all of this. She is feeling much the same way I am but is much better at giving Holden that unconditional love. But I sorta think that’s her role. My role is to look out for Missy and make sure she is eating right, getting some sleep (which means I take some of the night time feedings and do what I can to allow her to get her naps in), feeling good about herself, etc. Because I know that Holden won’t do that and if given the chance his demands will overtake her own needs. So I am there to temper it and to help give her that balance. I know people always say that “the child always comes first” but I don’t believe that. There has to be a balance in there for the entire family unit to function and thrive. Otherwise someone is unhappy and feels resentful. We sometimes forget that parents have needs and wants to.
But I can see to the future and it is much brighter. Every week Holden gets more and more alert and that bond builds. Every week I learn more and more about him and his behavior which makes it easier for me to cope. Every week Missy becomes happier too and we both become more secure with our choice to have a child. So I keep looking forward waiting for that day that he says “I love you dad”.
On that note I will leave you with this picture of Holden, Atlas, and me.
