“Escape from the Happy Cannibal”

I had the pleasure of meeting Ron Miller, the Author of a few weeks ago. During that meeting, we talked a bit, but not a whole lot. At the end of our time together, he gave me an autographed copy of his book.

I will be honest, I took it with some apprehension, as I’m not strong on history or religion and felt this book was a lot of both subjects.

Ron did such a GREAT job putting this book together, that neither of those topics were an issue for me!! I literally did not want to put this book down. (I had to several times, for the finishing of and defense of my Dissertation, travel for meetings, and work in general.) I finally finished it on my trip to Seattle this past weekend, and enjoyed it immensely!

Ron has a great writing style, and is able to tell a great story of his adventures and search for his inner meaning!

The story line is about his travels around the world, looking for the meaning of life as it pretains to him. He recounts his adventures, scary times, fun times, and the meeting of “long lost” family members. During his adventures he found that other countries, while harsh in many cases, are as harsh as he thought they would be, which kinda mimics my findings.

I HIGHLY recommend this book to on and all!!

Year in review, next year at a glance, goals wise.

Well,

I didn’t post my goals for this past year, but they were basically:

1. Lose weight, with the over all goal being 210lbs, from a starting weight of about 300lbs.
Status: Down to 248 as of last night.
2. Raise $500K for the company I run, Interactive Digital Multimedia, Inc.
Status: We have raised $100K, and the rest is pending on a certain event happening, which SHOULD be ANY day now (although I’ve been saying that since June…).
3. Exchange my Jeep for a car that is more business like, and better of fuel
Status: Friday of last week, I acquired said car. (Once I get my camera found, I will take a picture of it, or two, and post it here on the blog, with the details. )
4. Write a book.
Status: Well, I wrote a few paragraphs on it… Not happy with myself on this one, if I SIT DOWN AND DO IT, it will get done. I have it pretty well mapped out in my brain, and actually have two books worked out. Just need to buckel down and do it!

Goals for 2007

1. Continue the march to 210 lbs, hitting it this year.
2. WRITE the first book, and start, if not finish, the second book, getting the first published by Interactive Digital Multimedia, Inc.
3. Re-establish some connections from the past.

That time of year again.

Ok, Santa came across the screen yesterday at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, so it’s officially (in my eye) the Christmas Season. Not that many people wait for that to happen as they use to. Things started popping up here in South Florida about a month and a half ago.

I still don’t like this time of year, aside from the music, as I very strongly feel that it is no longer in context of what it was started for. Aside from that, we are shown by history that Christ was actually born in June or July (from my vague memory of reading the text on that research), so why are we celebrating his birth in December?

We are WAY too commercial in our celebration of this season. Let’s get back to what the season is supposed to be about. I’m even not overly into the gift giving at the level it’s grown up to! Let’s get back to celebrating the gift of life (of Christ) and the growth of a new year, not the gift giving and hard feelings.

Education…

As you probably know by now, I run a company that is working on a new product (well the product is done, and ready for market) that we feel will revolutionize the education process here in the US and abroad.

In this job I have been doing a LOT of research this past eight months on education in the US and abroad. Today I read something that had me dazed at it’s stupidity:

Florida court ruling against vouchers came after teacher Ruth Holmes Cameron and advocacy groups brought a suit to block the program.

“To say that competition is going to improve education? It’s just not gonna work. You know competition is not for children. It’s not for human beings. It’s not for public education. It never has been, it never will be,” Holmes said.

Where does Holmes get the idea that competition is not for our children? Why is competition bad for anyone? I STRONGLY feel that competition is what made the early US much better than the rest of the world at that time, the ability to compete and make things happen is what shaped the early US into a super power!

Education needs to go back to allowing kids to be flunked out if they don’t muster up and get good grades. Competition needs to return to the classroom, gym, and in general to most aspects of life. I am sickened by what I see at schools where you can’t fail, or get an F anymore. (I’ve seen some school districts do away with the grade.) Yes, your child CAN fail, and will fail in life if they are not challenged to excel! It is, from my findings, human nature to be lazy if you can, but if you are challenged (read have competition) you will succeed.

Wake up US (and world) bring competition back into life and challenge yourselves (against others) to do better and better!

Let’s get our education back on track, get our kids learning again, don’t let them fail from lack of trying!

Centering

Many people do not live a centered life, and living a centered life is important.

What is a centered life? Good question! To me, a centered life is one in which the following areas are equally shared:

Physical (exercise, eating correctly, etc.)
Mental (expanding the mind, and not by drugs)
Social (Significant other, interaction with others)

If one were to be active in these three areas, their emotional aspects of life will be positive, and they would be living a fairly centered life.

All of this needs to be balanced with the need to earn protection (housing/clothing/etc), sustenance (food/drink/etc), and cash in general to cover the various needs above.

So, your goal in life is find the job you LIKE doing that you are happy to get up in the early in the morning to exercise, eat right (Physical) then head into work, and that allows you to interact (social needs) with those around you. In the evening read that book (it has been found that your reading is comprehended better if read right before sleeping) to expand your mind (Mental).

If you aren’t working the job you like, you will find that you are not centered, and are lacking one or more areas needed to be centered in life.

Find that job that you like to be doing! It is key to the rest of your life! If you don’t like your job, begin looking for the right job, it’s out there for you, you just have to look! Also, till you find it, do what you can to make the job you are currently in better for you!

Places to be..

A friend of mine, Jamie made a comment to me about a comment I made on her blog that got me thinking today.

Her comment was, “You live on a beach, kind of; at least a hurricanes sneeze away. You crew on the Second Star. And you want to trade that for a kayak on a mountain lake. Is the salt air getting to you?”

That had me sit back and think about it. She’s right, I’m in a great place, have water around me all day, get to play on it often via the boat or just by going to the beach, neither of which I do enough of, but do get to do often, and I’m dreaming of being on a kayak in the mountains?

Yes, I’m dreaming of being in the mountains. My ideal location in the world is a mile or less to the ocean (along the lines of Stenson Beach or Pompano Beach) and a mile or less to the Rocky Mountain Range foot hills. I love both the ocean and the mountains, and want to have the best of both worlds. I could live the summers in the Rocky Mountains, North and West of Denver Colorado, and the winters in Pompano Beach Florida on the beach. I’d be one of those ever present (in the winter months here) Snow Birds that come down. (And I guess I’m getting to that age as my hair is turning grey and white each and every day…)

My Shaman always told me I was centered in two areas of the elements, Water and Earth, and that both called to me, and spoke through me. I guess that is why I like these two areas so much in the physical world. (He did say that Air (via the Wind) played big in my life, which is why I blew all over the world, but I think he was jesting there…)

I feel well grounded when I’m on or near the ocean, on or near a lake, hiking or sitting or just plain being, in the mountains. Having both water and mountains around me is a great feeling that I like having about me…

So Jamie, yes, I’m dreaming of being in the mountains on a kayak looking at and absorbing the area’s aura and feelings!

Communications.

Bi-directional communications are very important in every venue in life. By this I mean all people you come into contact with, do business with, and basically just interact with, should have the respect of bi-directional communications.

Bi-directional communications are when both side talk and more importantly both sides listen. I don’t see much of this going on these days.

And the sad part I see the lack of it killing business deals, killing companies, and just plain ruining personal relationships.

Yes, I’ve had problems with it at times myself, but when I see myself not listening I mentally slap myself and settle down and listen. And when I do, things start working themselves out, provided I can get the other side of the conversation listening too.

Can everyone agree to start listening, start opening bi-directional conversations? Please?

Having Fun.

While I’m not a programmer, I know how to program. In many cases I can do well, but I’m mainly a Hacker. Not in the sense of hacking into computers to break in, etc, but in the sense of hacking at code to make the code work. My best work is taking someone elses code and improving (in my eyes anyway) on it, often making it more compact and getting rid of un-needed code, while adding “features”, etc.

For the past few weeks I’ve been able to do just that, both at work, and at home. And I’m LOVING it! Add to that, I’m learning new things every day while doing this! I am renewing my skills in Visual Basic (Yes, I know, a dead, soon to be non-supported language by Microsoft), and I have been coding a LOT in GCC on a linux box.

The fun stuff is the C++ stuff. I’m working on a “visual” world application using VRML and C++ code. It will probably be ported to Java or some such, but for now, I’m working on it in C++, server side. It’s been fun and it’s coming together nicely!