Mini Marathon Tomorrow

I will be running in the Kentucky Derby Festival Mini Marathon tomorrow morning. Alright - "running" may be a bit of an exaggeration - I will be jogging, shuffling, walking... participating in the 13.1 mile run. I'm really crossing my fingers hoping that the rain will end by tonight. The race will be enough of a challenge without having to deal with soggy shoes.

Obesity in Middle Age Raises Dementia Risk

Uh oh. There's a Reuters story out of London about how obesity in middle age can increase the risk of future dimentia. Looks like yet another reason for me to work on getting rid of the, er, excess baggage around the waist line.

This story doesn't address it, but I wonder if obesity itself is the risk factor for dimentia, or if it is merely an indicator of a larger chain of risks and poor overall health habits.

Here's the link to the story:Obesity in Middle Age Raises Dementia Risk - Study - Yahoo! News

Use Your Brain: Intention Calendar

There's a terrific post at Creating Passionate Users about how our thoughts create new neural pathways in our brain. The post is about using an "intention calendar" to get your intentions on your to-do list. By getting your intentions in writing and then going back and reviewing them regularly, you actually begin to form pathways in your brain related to those intentions. This allows your brain to begin formulating concrete action plans to bring your intentions to reality.

The post also references A Tour of Your Brain: Thinking About Thinking, which is part of a very interesting series of articles about how your brain works. I plan to explore the parent site (the thinking business) in more detail, because it looks fascinating.

It's Derby time in Louisville

The Kentucky Derby Festival officially kicked off last night with the annual Thunder Over Louisville air show and fireworks display. For those of you who may not know, the Derby festival is a two week party that involves the whole city of Louisville. It begins with the Thunder Over Louisville, then continues with dozens of community events, and then culminates with the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May.

I gathered up the family and attempted to head downtown for Thunder this year. I had tickets for the Louisville Bats baseball game, and had planned on spending the afternoon at the river front and then watching the fireworks show from Slugger Field. Unfortunately, the weather had different plans for us. We made through to the end of the baseball game with 20 mph winds and a temperature of around 38 (with a little cold rain and sleet thrown in for good measure). At the end of the game we still had almost three hours until the fireworks started, so we decided that rather than suffer through the weather we would go back to mom and dad's place. We ordered pizza and enjoyed the fireworks on the big screen (and as an added bonus, the fireworks show was broadcast in HD for the first time).

All in all, not a bad day. The air show was taking place almost directly overhead while we were at the ball game. Many of the aircraft that were scheduled to participate bailed because of the low ceilings and high winds, but the planes that did fly put on a great show. The military planes that participated (including an F-16, F-18, F-15 and B-2 Stealth Bomber) put on a low show which was spectacular. It was deafeningly loud at times and wicked fast. If you've not seen the stealth bomber before - wow! It flew right over our heads at less than 1000 ft and we barely heard it.

New blog from Mindjet

The folks over at Mindjet are now blogging! These guys are always at the cutting edge of finding new ways to employ mind mapping techniques and new applications for mind maps. I check out the news on their site pretty frequently to find out about their latest innovations, and I always come away impressed.

I must confess that I don't actually own a copy of MindManager. I download the trial version every time there is a new release of the sofware and I absolutely LOVE it, but I get sticker shock every time I think about ponying up the cash for the full version. I will buy the software eventually, but until then I guess I'll have to keep drawing my maps by hand or using FreeMind.

What I'm Hearing - Blink

With this month's Audible.com Listener credit, I picked up Blink: The Power to Think Without Thinking by Malcom Gladwell. This is a book which examines the power (and pitfalls) of our subconcious decision making. The author uses the term "thin slicing" to describe our ability to make instantaneous "snap" judgements with limited amounts of data.

I'm about halfway through the audio book already, and I'm really enjoying it. The author uses numerous stories about people making quick gut decisions using just their instinct and experience which turn out to be better decisions than those made by people after they have fully analyzed all of the available data. It gives a lot of creedence to the old adages of "Go with your gut" or "Trust your instincts". Gladwell also talks about how our biases and preconceptions play into our snap judgements and gives some pitfalls to try and avoid.

This book has turned out to be a real eye opener, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in exploring the power of their instincts.

My Stomach Has a Mind of Its Own

I always knew that my stomach could think for itself! Check out the post on The Second Brain at Creating Passionate Users.

What I'm Reading - Head First Java

Last week I picked up a copy of Head First Java. This is quite possibly the BEST technical book ever written. I’m trying to learn Java as an extra language to play with on the side. I probably won’t use it at work (I use VB, VB.Net and C# at work), but I want to know it for some projects I’m working on at home. I’m about half way through the book, and I’m amazed at how easy and (dare I say it?) fun this book has made the process of learning a new programming language. There are humorous picture, drawings, puzzles, mock interviews and a host of other items throughout the book that really reinforce the learning and help you commit the material to memory.

I’ve been so impressed with this book that I’ve begun reading some other materials from Kathy Sierra. Along with Bert Bates and the other authors of the Head First series, Kathy writes the impressive Creating Passionate Users blog. This blog has been added to my daily reading list, and I really recommend it for the variety of detailed entries on how the mind works and how we learn. Kathy also founded the JavaRanch, which is a good forum website for Java learners (and experts, I suppose).

On a different but somewhat related note, I’ve stopped reading Dianetics. I read close to half of the book, but I stopped in the section on Dianetic therapy. Hubbard has some interesting theories, but I really had a lot of trouble getting past his penchant for calling them “scientific facts” without a shred of evidence to back his claims. I learned some things from this book and I’m sure that a lot of Hubbard’s insights are correct, but I’m finished with this book for now.

How is Dianetics related to the topic of this post? Glad you asked. It so happens that Kathy Sierra recommends a number of books on how the mind works and how to think and learn better. Since that was the original reason that I started reading Dianetics, I think I’ll pick up one or two of the books that she recommends and try them out. I’ll let you know how it goes.

What I'm Hearing - Atlas Shrugged

I recently finished listening to the audible.com audio book of Ayn Rand's mammoth
Atlas Shrugged. The book is broken into three volumes (in other words, three month's worth of audible listener credits), with each volume broken down into three parts. Each part was around seven hours, so the total listening experience for all nine parts was well over sixty hours!

This book does have a plot, but it's almost beside the point. It would be better to consider this as a disertation on the philosophy of Objectivism rather than a fictional novel. Objectivism as laid out in this tome is fairly complex, but I'll try to capsulize it here and then give my thoughts on the matter. Basically, the philosophy begins with two tenets - existence exists, and man is a rational being.

The philosophy begins with existence, it does not make any attempt to explain how/why the existence came to be. In other words, there is no presupposition of a creator or a higher power. More on that in a minute.

The second key is that man is a rational being, and the rest of the philosophy grows from this fact. Man, being rational, has a moral duty to analyze and attempt to understand his surroundings (existence). According to objectivism, the rational being's highest objective is personal achievement. In fact, the catch phrase of objectivistm as repeated many times in the book is "I swear by my life and my love for it that I will never live for the sake of another or ask another to live for mine."

Personally I find a lot to like in this philosophy, but it certainly is not without its flaws. I very much like the idea of man analyzing existence for himself and drawing his own conclusions. Man's greatest gift is his ability to think critically and to understand - a gift which in my humble opinion is shamefully underutilized by most (myself included).

There are a couple of areas that I see as weaknesses in objectivism. Rather than "existence", I tend to think of the world around me as "creation". The term creation, in turn, presupposes a creator of some type. For all it's emphasis on rationality, objectivism makes no rational attempt to explain how "existence" came about.

A far greater shortcoming, in my opinion, is the philosophy's exclusive reliance on self-fulfillment. Objectivism promotes the individual's promotion of self to the exclusion of others. Decision making is therefore bases only on what is best for the individual - with no accounting for the benefit (or consequences) to family, social groups or society. I think that the best decisions can be reached only when all of the benefits and consequences for all stakeholders are considered.

Play guitar? We'll see.

I've been working on learning to play guitar for about two weeks now. It's been a slow process, but I've learned a little bit so far. Mostly I've learned how little I know!

So far I've been playing on a guitar (Fender DG-7) that I borrowed from a friend, but soon I'll be buying my own. My plan is to go to a local guitar shop and try out several guitars to see what feels and sounds good. I think all ask someone at the store to play several of them as well, so I can hear what they sound like in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. Any other suggestions on what I should be looking for? Any recommendations on what models I should be looking at?

Congratulations Cards!

Congratulations to the Louisville Cardinals men's basketball team on an outstanding season capped with a trip to the final four! This basketball team has been more of a joy to watch than any in recent memory. They have played with so much heart that you never felt like you were out of a game (just ask WV).

Special thanks to all of our seniors Ellis (Easy E), Otis (Big O) and Larry (threeeee Ooooo'Bannon), and to our outstanding junior Francisco (Cisco) who will be leaving us this year for the NBA. Thanks for the memories guys; it's been a great run!