Category: Recollection

Book Recollection: One Bullet Away

Stepping up my game a little here.  This will be my third Book Recollection in four months.  Definitely an approval over my last drought.  A trip to Vegas was a big help in getting through this offering – nothing like sitting by the pool in the Vegas sun reading a book and getting grapes delivered to you by the help.  Of course that is probably more of Linda’s doing than mine but got’s me sum tasty grapes anyway (rumor has it Vegas sun does something to your brain).  If you recall from the last recollection (link here) I alluded that a superior offering was forthcoming.  Without further delay I bring you One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine  Officer.  This particular work was everything that I had hoped for with American Sniper and then some.  From all the other reads this author (Nathaniel Fick) has come the closest to matching my pedestal on which sits Lone Survivor.   It has been so long now I am unable to remember what prompted me to put this on my reading list but somewhere, somehow this book caught my attention (likely due to being a New York Times Bestseller but it might have actually shown up as a recommended read in Entertainment Weekly).  It doesn’t really matter where – just go out and get this book if you want an informative and compelling read on what it takes to be a Marine officer.  Captain Fick was (or maybe “is” – not sure you lose your rank when you leave the militarily honorably) served as a Marine infantry officer and became a Captain in the elite First Reconnaissance Battalion.  New to me was that the Marines do not have a designated elite division electing not to participate in the special operations command – “there will be no special Marines.”  Frequent readers know a lot of this blogger’s time has been spent pouring over books on the Seals and Special Forces units – the Marines were a new branch to explore.  Turns out there is an unwritten elite within the Marine ranks and that (as you probably guessed) is the Recon Unit.  From this read, these soldiers truly live up to their motto Swift, Silent and Deadly.  They are the tip of the spear and thrive there through skill, determination and all the firepower they can muster into the field.  Based on Nathaniel’s accounts the Silent part often takes backseat to the Swift and Deadly as he recounts time after time driving their Humvees directly into the heart of the enemy and establishing superiority.  While on the subject of deadly, my mouth dropped open when I read that “Marksmen” are actually the LOWEST on the shooter qualification standard – “Sharpshooter” is above that and “Expert” beyond that.  As Nathaniel points out, you don’t want to introduce yourself to the men you are going to lead into battle as just a Marksmen.

Captain Fick puts you in the passenger seat as he takes the battle to Afghanistan and then on to the hot sun of Iraq.  Much like Lone Survivor, the author does an excellent job of painting the situation and recounting the actions taken.  More importantly, Fick takes you inside his thought process, laying out the options, correlating his training, taking you through the determined action and then assessing the results.  I can’t complement the author enough on his candidness admitting his mistakes and giving due credit to his team.  Absent was the sense of pure cockiness so evident in the American Sniper book.  Nathanial was trained to be the best and characterized his superior actions as just doing his job.  This is a must read if you want to understand what it takes to be a Marine officer, what you have to endure to be considered a Marine, the expectations superiors place on you when lead men into combat and what those soldiers rely on to make it out alive.  If you are like me, you always ask yourself “could I do that”, “could I make it through that experience”, “do I have the drive and determination to endure the hardships imposed on officer candidates and ultimately be effective in the field.  In this specific situation the answer is clearly NO (as the ego deflates).  I might be able to make it through the infantry training (with a hell of a lot of luck) but the Recon training would do me in – even if I could make it through some of it, the torture preparedness would  be my Uncle.  That chapter gave me nightmares for weeks.  Adding to that, Fick provided a side of war that is often glossed over in similar works – the theater of the gruesome.  The damage that today’s instruments of war can inflict on the human body is horrific at best and hammers home the difficulties soldiers must face as they assimilate back into society.  As a hint, they literally spend time in emergency rooms during their training to become desensitized to the scenes they will experience in action – not to mention an entire class on Killology to get them mentally prepared for the “shock”.  Let’s all be thankful there are individuals out there willing to put country first and body second.  To all those we owe a a great deal of respect and unlimited gratitude.  Well done Nathaniel, well done!

Hit the jump to read about the MANY takeaways from this read

Continue reading Book Recollection: One Bullet Away

Book Recollection: American Sniper

You can take a long deep breathe and relax because today’s post has nothing to do with birds!  Now, of course, if you like birds as much as I do you might be a tad disappointed, but I think in that case you have had a pretty good run as of late.  Going from frequent to the rare, I have another book recollection for you.  The last one was all about peace (link here), so took a book on war as the latest read.   I like to maintain a good Yang and Um state – good for the soul.   Somewhat ironic given the latest happenings in the world with the Waffle Boys falling all over themselves trying to save face.  The offering today was recommended by a number of my friends as a great read – American Sniper by Chris Kyle.  I think I might have been a victim of setting my expectations bar a little too high.  The individuals that recommended this title had all read (thanks to my strong urging) the Lone Survivor book by Marcus Luttrell.  They implied Chris’s book was just as entertaining which makes for some mighty big boots to fill knowing that I put Survivor in the BEST EVER reads category.  Before opening this book there was a little space reserved next to it on my mental bookshelf.  It is with a heavy heart that I inform you this book did not live up to those lofty expectations.  On reflection it probably was not that bad, but when you get yourself so pumped for a read and it fails to captivate to a point of not wanting to put it down… well, it tends to disappoint.  Lone Survivor grabbed me to the point I felt like I was right there falling down a mountain side with Marcus wondering where my rifle was going to end up.  Dick Couch’s works made me feel like I was suffering through the same ordeals as our elite soldiers were experiencing during their training.  In contrast I simply felt like a third person being subjected to random accounts at a guest speaker engagement.  Not sure at this point whether it is the stories itself or the ability of the writer to set a compelling framework.  The money bet is on the latter primarily due to reading about one encounter followed immediately by a recollection which seemed like an afterthought.. oh yeah, and this happened too.  That may work in blog posts (hehehe), but does not provide for a comfortable long read.

So, here is my overall summary – Chris Kyle is one damn good shot.  He is also one cocky asshole that doesn’t appreciate the decision makers above him and generally treats his family as a secondary entity to his love for the adrenaline of combat.  Is this an accurate reflection of who he was?  I have no idea but this is the picture the author painted for me.  I can’t count the number of times I sat through the civilian bar fight paragraphs and standing up for this and not backing down from that and we have each other’s back etc.  I get it and appreciate the fact he earned the right to be confident successfully making it through the training and missions.  Those that don’t need to boast about it in public are the ones that demand the greatest respect – the ability to crack open a local bar patron is pretty much in my given category and not worthy of the time allocated to it in the book.  The other element that kind of bothered me was the stunning admittance he put combat above family.  Sure, this is understandable in the context of your first few tours, but when you have a child and you are opting up for the third – fourth etc. you have to kind of wonder if you are fulfilling duties as a Father.  This is difficult for me to really harp on too much having no kids of my own and no military experience but when his own wife is quoted stating her discontent with it … you have to take it into consideration.  Oh, the last comment reminded me – one nice aspect of the book was sections added from the wife’s perspective.  An interesting viewpoint especially due to how unflattering a lot of them were to Chris.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Chris for his service to his country.  For those that may not be aware, Chris is no longer with us.  He was killed on February 2, 2013 by a someone he had brought with him to a shooting range.  If I remember correctly he was trying to help out fellow soldiers suffering from PTS syndrome and guessing something might have gone terribly wrong with whoever he brought to the range that day.  Chris is also the one that was in a defamation lawsuit with Jesse Ventura after Chris claimed to have punched him …. no surprise… in a bar.  According to our friends at Wikipedia, Jesse is even continuing the lawsuit post death against Chris’ estate.  Real class act Jesse, way to be the better man (guessing the “I ain’t got time to bleed”  dude needs money for acting classes)

If you haven’t read Lone Survivor – opt for that over this book – if you have, then wait a bit for my next recollection on another book I’m currently reading.  So far definitely superior to this offering.

Hit the jump for the takeaways from this read

Continue reading Book Recollection: American Sniper

Crushed It

Figured I’d be nice and give you a little break from the Henderson shoot (trust me, we have a ways still to go with those).  But today, I hit the road for the first run in a long week.  Why the long layoff you ask?  Good question which is best answered with a visual.

I always take a week off from the annual running of the Bix 7 up in Davenport IA and this year was no exception!  Usually the last post of July is earmarked for a recap of the results, but in what has become a rare occurrence my quota was met early last month.  No worries, time is an unstoppable entity and August will do just fine.

Before the gun ever went off this year I was part of a record.  A record that has stood for 38 straight runnings of the Bix race.  Cursed by every Globull Warming pundit, this year was the COLDEST in the history of the race.  Take a guess at what the temperature was when I entered the staging area…keep in mind this is the last Saturday in July in the Midwest.  If you said 58 then you are right (and a damn good Google user).  Linda and I were talking through chattering teeth all the way from the car.  Linda had already opted for her new running coat (admittedly pretty cool seeing as how the sleeves attach by magnets) and somehow convinced me to go back and grab my running rain/wind breaker.  Oh yeah, I remember how – she offered to carry it for me during the race (big thanks for that by the way!).  This allowed me to save some tooth enamel on the trek to our secret pre-race bathrooms.  By the way, I was reading last year’s Bix recap and noticed that a) I was definitely not feeling the best before that race and b) Linda was even complaining about the cold last year – not sure what that was off the top of my head, but you already know it was colder this year.  I was feeling significantly better than last year, but truthfully not at 100% – felt like a cold or something was trying to dampen the day, but nothing really came out of that so guessing it was just some pre-race butterflies.  Note, to address getting sick at work like last year, we opted for a vacation the week before.  We’ll save the details for that vacation for another post, but the week before that it was over 100 for heat index – that somehow turned into a rainy 61 when we arrived at our destination spot at the Dells.

Expecting another hot one, I went ahead and took a 7 mile training run in the morning  before we left for the Dells.  Heat index was pretty wicked, but made it through so felt comfortable there wouldn’t be any issues finishing the race.  We returned that Wednesday allowing me to catch a cooler (75 degree)  final ~6 mile tapper down.  That went excellent with split times coming in ahead of plan.  I remember noting in the post race summary notes that I was ready for the Bix!

Hit the jump to see how the race turned out .. and read about some of our friends that also made the trek to Davenport this year

Continue reading Crushed It

Book Recollection: World Peace

Eeesh, this is a little embarrassing.  Apparently, I have not had a book recollection post since December of 2012 – that being Drop Dead Healthy (link here).  I have been reading, but I ended up getting caught up in a technical book which tends to be very consuming.  Reading items that don’t require a lot of retention can be parsed through pretty quick, but those requiring some validation of premise or a need to sink data into long term memory take a little more care and feeding (at least for me).  Not sure when I was going to make it through the other book, I made a small detour to a book my furry kids got me for Father’s Day.  Thanks to a destination decision for the 4th of July this year I was able to devour this book in no time.  So with no further delay, I would like to introduce you to World Peach and Other 4th Grade Achievements.  Kind of a catchy title don’t you think?  This book by John Hunter came to my attention thanks to an NPR interview which had John on as a guest.  He was brought on to explain a teaching mechanism he had developed called the World Peace Game – an interesting teaching approach he utilizes on his 4th and 5th grade students over something like 35 years.

I have always been kind of interested in different approaches to teaching .. regardless of age.  Something is definitely wrong with America’s education system evident by young adults that can’t make change at local restaurants and now high profile cases with witnesses that cannot make a coherent sentence or even read cursive writing.  I definitely do NOT have the silver bullet to fix this, but it seems obvious to me something has to CHANGE.  At first more rigid testing seems logical but then I read Freakonomics and learned how the Chicago corruption gamed the system.  Then there’s the other side that advocates for cuddle schools and want to bath the students in only positive actions and god forbid any red markers!  I guarantee you the latter is not the answer.  John has taken something more creative to the education system.  His game immerses students in an artificial world made of nations, a banking system, world organizations (UN) and various sects (religious, green etc.), arms dealers and even an overseer of weather and odds based outcomes that crop up during game play .  The game takes place on a plexiglass environments representing earth, water, air and even space.  The core objective is to resolve a tangled web of 50 crisis while increasing the assets of all the countries involved.  This is the part that intrigued me.  Here we have 4th and 5th graders dealing with adult level issue and global concerns in a fun,  interactive and truly collaborative setting.  No little circles to fill out with a number two pencil or regurgitating the word of the day.  Nope, these kids are electing cabinets, managing a country’s budget, establishing treaties and making decisions that have deep ramifications on the entire progression of the game.  In my opinion, there is a LOT to like about this – applied education which I’ve always advocated and looked for when involved in recruiting/hiring activities for my employer.  Unfortunately, we have to wait a while before these students will make it into the corporate world but looking back this would have been a significant improvement over my personal education experience.

After listening to the NPR interview, I stumbled upon John’s TED talk where he went through additional details of the game.  If you get a chance, check out that presentation, it is quite impressive.  John is one of those soft spoken individuals that has a true passion to see his students succeed.  John has a slightly different perspective on life than I admittedly possess – more open compassion for humanity which not surprisingly allows John to proclaim he is both a beatnik and a pacifist.  A lot of the latter was honed in his participation in Far East philosophies.  Generally I would be concerned that this personal belief would become an overpowering influence in the classroom which I am very wary of – insert examples of socialist educators planting garbage in the fertile minds of high school and college kids.  John’s approach is different than expected, he is not an active participant in the game preferring to let the students come to conclusions on their own and only interjecting questions and concepts to consider when an issue might arise where the kids either might act to hastily or not consider all the implications when dealing with a situation.  John believes there is a common process for learning consisting of the following phases – Overload/Confusion, Failure, Personal Understanding, Collaboration, Click, Flow and then Application of Understanding.  Based on my experiences and observations, this is very similar to the corporate world where one is faced with problems without known answers (think Engineering and IT Architect disciplines if you need examples).  Here we have 4th and 5th graders being exposed to this where there are some that make it out of college completely oblivious to what it takes to be successful in life.

The aspect of the book that really gripped me above and beyond all the things to like about the concept, was his “book of truth” err bible if you will that was leveraged as a guiding light through the course of the game.  I’d ask you to guess what this might be for the Game of Peace, but doubt you would even come close.  The answer is the Art of War by Sun Tzu.  Having spent a lot of my free time in the past learning martial arts and the associated philosophies, I too am very familiar with this  instructional manual – although admittedly I’ve lost some of the detail over the years.  So here we have a pacifist leveraging the authoritative tome on war to drive concepts in a game focused on compassion and peace.  Quite fascinating again another reason to like this approach – before anyone not familiar with the concepts in this book starts going off that this has no right to be in our school system (especially at that level) need to to spend some time reading it (or at least the referenced passages in John’s book) before proclaiming their ignorance to others.

I thoroughly enjoyed this quick read.  As alluded to earlier, we decided to go early to a 4th of July fireworks display event which provided a good 3 hours of non-stop reading which is a very rare opportunity these days.  John’s is on to something here and looking forward to see how that plays out now that his TED talk and the new documentary on it is gaining some exposure.  Will our education system embrace a method that teaches our children real world techniques are continue to wallow in standardized tests?  The ending chapter on their trip to the Pentagon was very informative both in tidbits learned about that place and the fact that an organization devoted to the war machine took time out to answer very probing questions from the students who had recently been through the Game of Peace experience.  If there is one thing that would have improved this book, it would have been additional interviews of adults who played this game.  I really wanted to know how it shaped their life, what they thought of the experience looking back and if my premise of them being better equipped to take on day to day challenges is valid.  John had a small sampling (maybe 2 or 3), but more would have left me more satisfied.

I give this book two thumbs up both from the way John introduces and takes the reader through the principles in the game.  As you can probably tell, I’m a proponent of the message and wouldn’t mind a few world leaders being forced to spend some time in a 4th grade classroom and participate in the game as well – maybe they would learn something that could make them more successful at actually being LEADERS.

Give it a read, or check out the TED presentation – if you have an open mind you will not be disappointed.

Hit the jump to read about my key takeaways.

Continue reading Book Recollection: World Peace

Concert Recollection – Spring Fling Pipes Fest

Hopefully to no one’s surprised I’m back at it.  Tonight I am going with another recollection.  One of the reasons for that is it is still fresh in my head LITERALLY.  Specifically I am talking about a concert some friends and I attended a few weeks ago sponsored by 105X, the local hard rockish yet still playing Nickelback crap station.  They were holding their annual Spring Fling Concert which typically is a multi-band mashup.  They had a decent lineup this year consisting of two bands I really like (Papa Roach and Sick Puppies), a band I wanted to see (Stone Sour) and two bands that intrigued me enough to consider seeing (In This Moment and All That Remains).  Not a bad night of entertainment and more importantly, the price was right at $42.  Ironically, I’m at a point financially where I can afford concert prices but old enough to not appreciate being gouged by greedy promoters and bands – think Rolling Stones if you need an example.

The first band of the night was All That Remains.  There are no pictures to show you being that my arrival came in the middle of their set and the remaining of their two songs was spent trying to figure out who they were and being very unimpressed.  This could have been due to some distractions having to kick some people out of our seats.  The others were still on their way but since I was already dealing with my seat went ahead and told the squaters in those seats to find another place.  They responded with annoyed faces but honestly was beyond caring – we purposely chose seats so we did not have to deal with the general admission crowd… definitely getting old(er).  There was one noted band observation – they had a female bassist.

Once they were done, the roadies took to the stage and started building an elaborate set.  Out came a bag of skulls, a pikes full of skulls, a platform, a large fan, some dumb looking trellises that looked like wedding props and a few more knickknacks scattered about.  Eventually they uncovered the drum which had a barely readable In This Moment logo.  Ah, time for the screacher!  Based on a few samplings it was apparent they had a front woman that could belt it out.  Turns out she was pretty pleasing to the eyes no small part due to the fact she came out in a one piece number giving proper attention to her assets.  Of course, for some strange reason, she chose to stand in the middle of a dry ice jet stream which made it difficult to see her most of the time.  No stranger to a stripper pole, she gyrated her way through her incredibly long FOUR or FIVE song set accented by her walking off stage after each song and attempting to add some form of dramatic flair to her re-entrance.  Summary – she can indeed belt out some notes and at least one of her songs was halfway decent, but her constant gesturing to have the fog blower fiddled with degraded the overall impression – you are trying to watch the “artist” perform yet constantly having to be distracted by a roadie continually coming on stage to jerk around with the fan to fine tune a gimmick that wasn’t adding any real value.

With those two bands out of the way it was time to get into the part I really paid the money for.  Sick Puppies came out and to my surprise it was only a three person band.  Drummer, guitarist singer and surprise surprise another female bassist.  3 for 3 with women as an integral part of the band (translated.. not simply eye candy as witnessed in the past Crue concerts).  The puppies did not let me down.  They played with a lot of energy, interacted with the crowd and most importantly played all the songs I came to hear.  Kudos to the female bassist pounding away on the strings.  They bring a LOT of bass to their songs which is why she surprised me at first, but looked like she had an interesting claw like style which delivered a lot of power.  Additionally, there is new found appreciation for their singer’s ability to hold his old against the power voices in the industry.  If you have not heard of this band before I highly recommend checking out Long Time Coming – could be my all time favorite bass beat.

Hit the jump to read about the rest of the bands that night.

Continue reading Concert Recollection – Spring Fling Pipes Fest

More Power

Apparently the loyal readers are getting restless based on the emails hitting the inbox as of late.  For those that were concerned I have not fallen off the face of the earth and for those expressing a complete loss in faith I’ll miss my quota this month … you may be right, but what is life without a few challenges every once in awhile.  We have a few photo shoots coming up in the not to distant future which translates to devoting more time to getting in flight projects to a point where they can be put on hold.  This is hard enough, but May brings with it a start of a new season.  This month involves donning the orange and hitting the racing circuit!  As in previous years, the first race of the season was the Caterpillar Power Race.  This relatively flat 5K allows me to ease into the season and make sure the off season training regiment properly prepared me.   This year brought with it a little more optimism and conversely a concern standard with the previous 5 or so years.  First of all I opted to keep the road endurance higher than usual, committing to at least one long run a week outside through the winter months.. BUURRRRRR.  The second change was a little more dramatic… here goes.. Hi, my name is Brian and I partook in Performance Enhancement procedures.  Whew, what  a load off.  On the road work side of things, I can attest to how much of a pain that was especially in the sub 20 weather (sub teen windchill) runs but the treadmill just doesn’t prepare you for the stress of the pavement.  Pretty comforting I am already at 1/2 marathon endurance levels this early in the season.  With regards to the enhancing component… well, before you call the governing committees, these were all legit and didn’t involve any forms of illegal substances or transfusions. Truth is I grew tired of always running in beyond normal levels of pain and literally damaging myself during every race.  Runners can be stubborn and hard headed but I could argue that is probably a pro when it comes to running.  It does take some commitment to the discomfort of training and the annoyance of nutrition regiments.  But there is a time when  you have to let your guard down and admit something is wrong.  For me, that moment was during a conversation with my chiro attempting to once again calm down an aggravated left hamstring.  Ever since experiencing a nasty injury in the middle of a Bix and “stubbornly” refusing to fail the race and pounding through it, I’ve been fighting continual tears in that region and worrying about it during every race.  Enough was enough and decided it was time for full on gait analysis.

After questioning a number of fellow runners and talking to my local running store, I decided on Accelerated Performance.  Wanting to make sure this was the right fit, I opted for their free fitness assessment.  This is a 20 minute test of your physical capabilities – balance, stretching, strength etc.  Piece of cake, I consider myself fit and work pretty hard to keep myself in that condition.  Wrong!  it didn’t take long and they had pinpointed deficiencies on my left side…I purposely didn’t say anything about my problems there not wanting to bias the test.  By the end of that assessment I was committed to enrolling.  Next up was a follow up session where they dived deeper into each of the areas they tested previously as well as doing a detailed assessment on the rest of the joint and muscle groups.  Definite issue with the left side and easily recognized the issue with the hamstring.  For one thing there was 3.5 inches of scar tissue embedded right in the middle of it.  Add to that flexibility restrictions and you have the recipe for problems.  From there I was scheduled twice a week for deep therapy message to break up the tissue followed immediately by isolated strength training.  I won’t go into it, but for those who have not have the pleasure of deep therapy message let me sum it up in a sentence.  The entire time I repeatedly tell my inner self not to cry.  I’ve learned to snowboard, broken ribs during martial arts, hell even had my arm ripped out of my socket during a black belt test, but nothing … and I mean nothing compares to the pain I’ve had to endure during this process.  Good news is that scar tissue is practically gone now.  While all this was going on I was also doing gait analysis.  They utilize the Dartfish process involving videotaping you from all angles on a treadmill and then creating an interactive DVD highlighting problem areas.  To my relief, there were plenty of problems.  Sparing you the details, here are the highlight:

  • Not enough forward lean
  • Arms too high
  • Arms swinging too much forward and not enough backwards
  • Arms crossing body
  • Cadence too slow

I was basically braking on every stride with a full on heel strike sending massive jolts into the hamstring and back.  Not good.  For the last four months I’ve been breaking my form down and adopting the new style.  This is not an easy project and immediately highlighted the muscles that were not pulling their fair share of the load (like the ankles).  My weeks have been spent on the road changing behavior, on the table getting brutalized  and in the gym strengthening up.  All of this in an attempt to get better.. and better I did.  On all out days I was able to bring my pace from 8 to 6.30’s however holding that was difficult over 2 or 3 miles.  The cadence (180/min) means your legs are working very hard.  The best news of all is my hamstrings felt great after every run.

Last Saturday it was time to put this all to the test.  The gun went off and I ticked off the internal checklist and got to work.  One mile done .. feeling good.   Two miles done feeling okay.  Third mile and getting winded and the high humidity wasn’t helping.  The clock stopped at 23:06.  A personal best but 6 seconds over my ultimate goal.  No need to feel disappointed, I had just ran the first race faster than ever without injuring myself!  The retooling was complete – a new foundation to build upon.

There was another reason to be happy that day.  Turns out my time was good enough to take second in my age group (by the way, first in my group had a 19 so something to shoot for next year).  This is the first time I’ve ever won anything in a race.  Now, some of the runners had opted out of this race for another being held the next day, but I was there and ran to the best of my abilities and therefore not going to let that put an asterisk on the record books.  A little bummed they gave money prizes instead of trophies (as you get older your perspective changes hehehe).  My loving wife actually made me a little trophy to commemorate the accomplishment.  That little trophy now stands tall next to my other medals.  Yes, I needed a performance enhancement but I wish I’d done it years ago!

See ya’ on the road my friends!

Cinco de Blog Celebration

It is celebration time around LifeIntrigued!  With the end of 2012 I am proud to announce that LifeIntrigued is officially FIVE years old.  Just remembering back it seems like yesterday I decided to jump on the blog bandwagon and flood the internet with my musings.  On the other hand, looking at the output it is pretty stunning at the amount of words and images that have piled up over those 5 short years.  Mimicking last year the goal was to minimally hit at least 6 posts a month.  As was pointed out to me over the holidays, a large number of the posts start out with references to racing the clock to make that happen…. and happen it did.  Fulfilling another New Year conviction, each month in 2012 indeed had at least 6 posts – one could argue over the quality of some of them, but there was no guarantee on that (that would be downright crazy).  For the record, the posts did tend to be more robust than the previous years so the fingers were cranking away.   Along with the quota, the image commitment was also met.  Every post had at least one graphic whether that be a custom graphic (like the header on this post) or a photo.  Photos continue their dominance in this category but there is a hidden agenda for that.  I am trying to grow my photography skills and being able to compare images throughout the year is a good indicator on what’s improving, what is regressing and areas that could use some renewed emphasis – flash photography is definitely in the latter category.  It is also very useful to get other people’s opinion on what they like, what makes them ill and most of all which ones to submit in the UB competitions – Note, that didn’t work out so well for me this year.  The blog format also provides some background on the various photographs which would probably be lost forever without it.  I said it last year and I’ll repeat it again this year.  LifeIntrigued would be meaningless without the loyal readers.  You carve out the time from your busy days to process my musing and provide validation and new perspectives with your many comments.  I’ll forever be indebted to you and extend my sincere appreciation.  With that, let’s keep another blog tradition going and provide the year end summary.

Hit the jump to see the 2012 stats!

Continue reading Cinco de Blog Celebration

Book Recollection: Drop Dead Healthy

Let me guess, you probably thought there was never going to be another book recollection.  Figured since it’s been like September since you’ve seen one of these come through that I’d tossed away the reading light and spend my free time watching cartoons on the boob tube.  Truth is, I’ve actually been reading a book just taking a really really really long time to get through it.   A big thanks to the Peoria Plague for allowing me to get the task done – a silver lining in every cloud.  One of my favorite authors A.J. Jacobs brings us today’s recollection.  If you don’t recall his other reads, check out his link here, here her…

Huge thanks to my brother Ron who made me aware this new book was on its way.   The latest offering could not have been more tailor made for me if I’d been able to pick his next topic myself!  His latest self-experiment is to become the embodiment of health and fitness.  A book devoted to experimenting with various theories and products to transform himself into an in the back of old comic books (the guy kicking the sand, not the puny dude whining because he got sand in his shorts).  Anybody who reads this blog knows I also enjoy trying different things to tune my body for whatever activity my Life List has set in front of me.  Last year being a huge hurdle in that journey getting through two half marathons and the previous year of dropping some major poundage to enable it.  Add in all the experiments on what to eat, lift or stretch and you can compile quite a few years of successes and … sigh failures.  Now here was a book that chronicled a similar journey written by the king of guinea pig journalists.  I could hardly wait to start reading it knowing the minute I cracked it open I’d never put it down until every page was consumed with vigor and laughter…. well, that is what I thought.  The truth was I did put it down… a lot.  Granted a lot of that was due to some busy times but it was a HIGHLY anticipated read.  Thinking back it is hard to determine exactly what the issue is.  At first I thought it was due to not getting much out of it while compiling the takeaways, but after doing that realized it was a pretty healthy list so doubt that is the problem.  Maybe it was a majority of experiments didn’t interest me.  That can’t be it because that is the part I enjoy – experiencing something I would never do myself  from a safe distance away.  Was it not believable?  Don’t think so – talk about similarities, he was on the same weight loss journey that I was on at about the exact same age (41 vs 43 when I did it) and his numbers were slightly off of mine (I beat him actually! hehehe).

If I have to provide a hypothesis I’d have to say depth and sadness.   On the depth front he tended to rush through some of the experiments.  The book was set up in chapters devoted to a specific topic like the brain, the feet, the ears and yes, even the gonads.  On average, those chapters only really lasted on average about 10-15 pages and then on to the next topic.  This provided a much too convenient stopping point where longer chapters tend to extend my reading window.  As mentioned, I found myself putting this book down all the time.  It is hard to really get the experience out of such a short time – divide that up into an understanding of the experiment (intent of the product or test he was going to try), some details on the highlights and the results and you do not have much time to put yourself in his shoes make you a passive observer at best.  I was hoping to spend time mentally comparing and contrasting with all my experiences.  Now, this may be a completely different experience for a casual reader so take that within context.  I am eager to have someone else read this book and let me know their opinion.  Okay, now for the more difficult part.  There is an undertone of this book that I couldn’t shake.  This is not something I really want to go into detail here because I get very uncomfortable. In short, here is a guy on a journey to become the embodiment of health but the people around him seemed to be going through a quite different experience.   While writing this book (and soon after) A.J. lost hist Grandfather and Aunt.  Add to this recollections of some lost acquaintances and an expert he had planned to interview make it all more difficult to get through.  I’m leaving it there but I think it did have an impact on my overall feeling of the book.. and maybe the title now that I look at it.

In summary, I did not get the amount of enjoyment I had anticipated out of it.  This could be setting the bar to high (think Expendables 2) or too much going on at the same time.  Maybe a a second account will help set me straight but for now that is where I am.  I still had some laughs and man, do I feel for what his wife has to go through during these experiments.  I’m still eager to see what he comes out with next!

Hit the Jump for the takeaways (oh.. for the record, just crossed over 100,000 words for this year’s blog posts!)

Continue reading Book Recollection: Drop Dead Healthy

Concert Recollection: A Christmas Shredfest

Since once again SNL is pure crap (with the exception of Maroon 5 tonight), I’m back in post mode.  For a change, tonight we have a recollection from an event that happened a mere 2 days ago.  Norm for these is at least a month or two later.  That is self imposed wanting to give some soak time to see what really left an impression.  If I still remember it then it is probably something that struck me as interesting… and gives an excuse for any embellishments that might creep in ha!  The sad truth of it is two days seems like a month with the pace going on around here lately so it fits the model anyway.

So Thursday night Linda and I went to see Trans Siberian Orchestra.  This has become a traditions of sorts since we’ve made an effort to see them for the last 6 or so years (maybe more).  If I recall, last year we saw their show in the January timeframe which was entirely too late – once Christmas is past, the desire to see Christmas themed shows drops faster than Charlie Brown trying to kick a football.  This year they passed through on the other side of that equation – a week before Thanksgiving.  The merchant bastards have all but destroyed Halloween and Thanksgiving holidays making it more tolerable I guess.  The good news is they promised a whole new show!  So the first question is … have you ever been to a TSO concert?

If you said “No”, then you are probably in for a surprise…. and you might want to call up your shrink since you have apparently started talking back to the web.  If you were like me, you assume any show with Orchestra in the name would consist of curved rows of penguins performing a synchronized ballet with strings and wind instruments playing technically perfect classical music – probably Bach, Mozart and others from the days of cinched up waists and powdered wigs.

Let’s see:

  • Penguins – umm I guess you could call them tuxes but rented from Alice Cooper’s closet
  • Curved rows – there were 8 seats in the corner of the stage
  • Strings – definitely, the traditional kind and the 6/4 string axes
  • Wind instruments – not so much
  • Classic music – yes.. well, technically, just imagine that sheet music being kidnapped by heavy metal rockers, given enough coke to stay up a month straight, percolated in a vat of pure energy and then spit out on a wall of light, smoke and fire.

Get the impression this isn’t your everyday trip to the symphony.  Nope, this is really an all out assault on the senses.  At the beginning of the concert members come out on stage to hand out a huge (literally) check to a local charity.  They have done this ever since they started playing and a nice touch especially in these trying times.  One dollar of every ticket (not the walk ups) is given back to the community – this year it was over $6K for the Children’s Hospital which was very fitting based on the story line of their new show.  The other key part of this pre-concert event is they always ask who has never been to a TSO concert.  I think this is purposely done for everyone in the audience that has seen their show before – it points out the people we should keep an eye on.

These are the people that become either a little panicky or excited the minute the show starts.  Why is that?  Well, that is when the stage starts revving up, the backdrop begins to shimmer, the chillers push out the heavy fog, the light pods raise up high into the air, the digital backdrops begin their bombardment of visuals and the lasers (that’s right.. .lasers) start tracing the stage.  First new item of the show, a huge timepiece begins moving across the stage … spewing fire.  Back to the newbies.  At this point, there is really only two expressions.  There is either absolute panic that they made a wrong turn somewhere and they are about to be sacrificed to some metal god or pure relief that being dragged to this event isn’t going to feel like the dentist.

Hit the jump read and see more of the show!

Continue reading Concert Recollection: A Christmas Shredfest

One Screaming October

I must admit, this was one of the scariest Octobers I have experienced in a long time.  If you recall from the last post (link here) , every day this month was packed with task after task trying to get everything done for the big party.  If you recall from that post (or looked at the comments) you might remember that there was a quick mention of an “event” I was training for.  That was a tad understated since the event was actually a half marathon… and it was scheduled for the DAY BEFORE THE PARTY.  Actually, check that… it was literally the NIGHT BEFORE THE PARTY.  I am not exactly sure what came over me when I decided to enter this race, but I had a Life List entry for this year to make it through 2 halfs sometime during the year.  As you know, I made it through the first one back in September (link here).    That didn’t leave a whole lot of time to get the second one in before the end of the year.  Originally the thought was to hit the Vegas Rock and Roll 1/2 in December, but then I stumbled on the Screaming Pumpkin Race.  First of all, it was at night which is my favorite time to race.  Second it was a course I was familiar with and the cherry .. it was Halloween themed.  You can’t go wrong with that can you?   ummm, actually you can if you forget about all the other things that had to get done around that time.

The main issue was getting time to keep the maintenance runs up.  I was already trained up for the half in September so it was really a matter of keeping the legs fresh and the endurance up.  My runs were cut down to three a week – if I could even get that many in – and the miles were backed down into the 7 to 9 range which made it sliiiightly easier to get in between tasks.  Unfortunately, sometime at the beginning of the month something bad happened … to the point I would have argued with any doctor that tried to convince me I didn’t give myself a hernia.  That was the last thing I needed.  I did make the training runs, but found myself going slower and slower at the splits.  CRAP!  The interesting thing is there was no visible sign so there was some optimism that it was just a nasty muscle pull.  As race day approached, I became so busy that I actually forgot about it and somehow it ended up feeling pretty good  – nothing like mind over matter – if someone could bottle that the medical industry would be devastated.

Hit the jump to read all about the event!

Continue reading One Screaming October