antipaucity

Upon the recommendation of my friend Steven, I picked-up a cheap copy of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Body.

My first observation is that Tim Ferriss is not one to necessarily edit his speech patterns for writing. While not rife with them, there are a fair number of vulgarities throughout the book – all of which seem to have not been removed/altered just because he could.

Second, and perhaps even more importantly, this is NOT a book for kids or teens: it is for adults who are not uncomfortable with “taboo” subjects – the subtitle is, “An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman”. Some of this material is presented in an “uncut” form, and potential readers would benefit from knowing this.

Thirdly, most of the material was developed from self-proclaimed “experiments” he ran on himself trying to improve certain aspects of his body, and many are either not cheap, sketchy, or outright pointless for the “normal” person.

He does go into pretty extravagant scientific/engineering detail on several aspects of what he did and why – some of which is downright entertaining to read about. Data appeals to geeks and nerds, so it’s definitely one of the reasons I like the book.

There is a lot of name dropping, product promotion, and apparently pointless/unrelated anecdotes shown throughout. There are also some interesting testimonials and observed data.

Nothing in the book is really earth-shattering or “new” (at least to me), but it was certainly combined in different ways than I had seen previously. The “slow-carb” diet he promotes is nothing new, just renamed and slightly more focused than other editions that have surfaced before: cut carbs (including fruit and especially fruit juice), add lean protein and veggies.

The chapters on improving strength and coordination all make sense: though his focus on the “MED” (minimum effective dose) goes counter to popular thinking, but after some review and thinking, it makes sense to not overwork yourself when trying to improve strength/balance/etc – no point in hurting yourself and making the process last longer than it needs to. Likewise, eating higher quality foods (less sugar/starch especially) goes along with semi-conventional wisdom surrounding general health.

Mr Ferriss also has the benefit of being pretty well-off financially (and has been for quite some time), so many of the things he discusses just “doing” are going to be beyond the vale for the “common man”. It’d be great to just go to Nicaragua for a couple weeks of tourism and then get bloodwork and MRIs taken cheaper than the US – but, quite frankly, I don’t have $7500 to do that: and especially not just for myself.

Overall I think this is a decent book – but by no means worth the cover price. Much/most of what is contained (excluding the anecdotes) is available from other sources, but not in a compilation like this one. Personally, I think Mr Ferriss’ prior book (The 4-Hour Work Week) was better as a book. If you can pick it up for at least half off the cover price (should be simple from Amazon or eBay), go for it. If not, go to the library

Oh – if nothing else comes of having read the book, adding cinnamon to my coffee is pretty good

• Quality of writing: 3/5
• Quality of content: varies chapter to chapter, and your interest level 2/5
• Entertainment value: 4/5
• Overall: 2.5/5

Jeopardy! has been a favorite of mine for years: it’s the reason I eat fast.

I’ve tried-out a couple times in the past – once in person at Southpoint Mall in Durham NC and once online. Tonight I did again – so here’s hoping I did well enough

I hadn’t paid attention to all the things that have to be setup when you move in such a short period of time before: electric, gas, water, change of addresses… what a pain!

But it’s worth it since we’ll have more privacy, more space, and less-close neighbors

I have the electric set to switch over to my name this weekend: now I just need water, gas, banks… yay :-\

Though it’s not the ideal we have of owning our own home, my wife and I will be one step closer in a few days as we will be signing a lease on a rental home here in Lexington and moving out of the apartment complex we’ve been in since we got married.

I think she’s pretty excited

I fly quite frequently – last year I re-met Delta‘s Gold Medallion status, and made it all the way to Platinum (go me!).

One of the perks is that I frequently get upgraded from the coach tickets I book to First/Business seats instead – for free (and free == better). I was about 23k miles away from Diamond status last year when the year ended. Delta’s rules entail rolling-over your “extra” Medallion Qualification Miles (ie those over your last milestone but less than the next one) to kick-start the next year’s earnings.

For several months last year I was traveling nearly every week from my home in Lexington to Hartford CT – which was awesome from the frequent flier standpoint: the higher up you go on the status chart the more bonus miles you also accrue to your miles balance.

The tricky thing is that MQMs are not equivalent to FFMs – the “qualification” miles are actual miles flown or 500 (whichever is greater) per segment. Whereas the “flyer” miles are those you can turn-in for free flights (and on Delta specifically, you can turn-in miles as low as 25k for free roundtrips). FFMs also come from car rentals, purchases from partners, hotel stays, etc. Last summer Marriott was running a deal whereby for every stay, in addition to the “normal” miles earned, you received a 5k mile bonus, up to a max of 60k miles. I didn’t realize the deal early enough or would’ve gotten closer to the max, but it was still a nice bonus. (BTW – Marriott is doing a triple miles bonus right now.)

When I travel for work, I like to stay at one chain if available – Marriott. They’re generally friendly, the rooms are consistent, and the hotel-provided soaps and shampoos actually work (some places they, technically, clean .. but they’re quite harsh in the process). For the last several months I have been enjoying staying at the Courtyard Marriott in Cromwell CT: I have gotten to know several of the staff, and will be somewhat disappointed to no longer be seeing them on a weekly basis. With my current project coming to an end, I’ll have to get used to a new area.

I’ve also become acquaintances with the crew at Dollar rentacar in Windsor Locks (next to Bradley airport). Jeff and Ellen have been consummate professionals, and are always extremely friendly – even to customers who are anything but. They’ve gone out of their way to be nice to myself and a couple other “regulars” because a) it’s good business, and b) we’re always friendly and smiling when we come in. Every week I reserve a compact because it’s the cheapest. Almost every week, without asking, Jeff has upgraded me (for free!) to a mid- or full-size – I even got upgraded to a mini van a couple times.

The bad part about all the travel is that my wife and I have only been married for 7.5 months – and being gone almost every week is just no fun at all. Thankfully, she’s been able to come with me a few times – but not as often as either of us would have liked.

It will be interesting to see where the next project will take me (and hopefully her!) in the upcoming weeks

Last year for my birthday, my lovely wife bought me a Keurig coffee machine.

I have used several at different places of work, and had been wanting one for almost a year when she got me one – she’s pretty awesome

I had had a traditional drip coffee maker for years, but only broke it out infrequently – mostly when company came over – because I wouldn’t finish a a whole pot (even a smallish one) on my own, and I have a fundamental problem with throwing the extra coffee away (it’s the Scot in me).

The advantage of the Keurig, and its associated K-Cups, is that it makes one cup at a time: no muss, no fuss (to quote Ron Popeil).

Prior to the Keurig, I had used a Flavia machine at a customer site a few years ago (and at a prior employer), and it was cool – but a little too complicated: it’s very specific about how the packets need to be loaded, whereas the Keurig just accepts them dropped-in.

There are myriad makers, flavors, and styles of K-Cups that be used with the machine, including one that acts as a reusable filter where you can load-up your own coffee for quick brewing. My wife has become a fan of the various hot cocoas and chais available, while I enjoy many of the flavored and plain coffees and teas.

The output of the Keurig is not quite as good as a traditionally-brewed tea or coffee, but the speed FAR more than makes-up for it, in my opinion. And as a cost benefit, grabbing a ~$0.50 coffee from my kitchen in 60 seconds is better than ~$4.50 from Starbucks in 5 minutes through the drive through or having to walk-in. Do the coffee shops have “better” coffee? I think so. Is it 9x better? Rarely – if ever.

If you’re a coffee fan, but not to the level of “snob” or “picky”, then I think a Keurig would be a pretty cool addition to your kitchen.

Gideon’s Spies by Gordon Thomas claims to be “the secret history of the Mossad”.

From the myriad reviews on Amazon, I didn’t know whether to be expecting a massive work of historical fiction, or a insightful tour de force. After having nearly finished it, I don’t know if I have an opinion of whether it’s “inciteful” or “insightful”. Of course, this is supposed to be detailing backroom dealings, secretive organizations, and national intelligence operations: so there is likely a fair amount of ego building and some fanciful manufacturisms along the way.

It is written in a conversational, informative tone and is eminently readable. The “structure” reminds me of how some of the best professors I had in college spoke – the stories didn’t seem to happen in any particular order or for a reason, but by the end you can see how they all interlink to give the picture.

Several of the items in the book I can informally verify to be true having spoken to other first-hand sources on some of the topics. Whether the entire book is “true” or not, it is certainly worth reading for at least the perspective of Mr Thomas, and the sources he has interviewed.

As with any other claimed exposé, much of what is said needs to be taken with grains boulders of salt, but it is very well written overall. It starts with an account of folks surrounding Lady Diana’s death – Mossad agents, MI5, MI6, Dodi Fayed, etc etc. What this has to do with the rest of the book… I don’t know, but it was still an interesting take. Some would say this is to support conspiracy theorists and their beliefs that intelligence agencies are all-powerful, and that they will actively withhold information that could benefit their allies just because of personality clashes. Personally, while I think some of that happens, it can’t really be as wide-spread as some would claim, or some countries would have been removed from the gene pool.

My biggest complaint is that for a professional journalist, Mr Thomas CANNOT use the phrase “try to” properly – almost invariably he says “try and” instead! GAAAHHH!!

Should you read the book? I think it’s worthwhile, even if it turns out to be 90% fiction. If you approach it as a book in the strain of the Jack Ryan universe created by Tom Clancy, and it turns out to be true – cool. And if not, you at the very least had an entertaining time.

• Quality of writing: 4/5
• Quality of content: unknown, but I’d guess at least 3/5
• Entertainment value: 4/5
• Historicity: unknown, but between 2/5 and 4/5
• Overall: 3/5

From the reading-more department, I’m going to attempt to put one review of a book out every week, with a target day of Wednesday. Might end up putting a couple out on some books because they take a longer time to read, but that’s the goal.

Today started with a quickie overview of Aesop’s Fables which I read thanks to the Kindle app on my Mac. Next up will be my take on Gideon’s Spies by Gordon Thomas. There’s a whole slew of books on my to-read queue, so here’s hoping some external motivation will help push them off the list

To help fulfill my stated goal of reading more, I have installed the Kindle app on my laptops. So far I’ve found scores of free ebooks that I’ve either always wanted to read, or figured I’d give a chance since they’re free. The first one I read was a collection of Aesop’s fables.

Some reactions:

• They’re all really short – rarely more than two paragraphs
• I’ve heard the vast majority of them (perhaps with some characters changed) and never knew they were an “Aesop fable”
• Reading with the Kindle app requires NOT using the arrow keys until you want to change *pages* – it doesn’t scroll like Word or a web browser – you *have* to read all the way to the bottom of the screen before “changing pages”
• Not being able to linearly scroll is annoying because it’s how I read on a computer
• Bookmarks are cool – being able to come back to where you were quickly
• “Whispersync”™ – Amazon’s autosynchronizer is pretty cool, too: allows all of your Kindles to be at the “same” place in an ebook

I finished debugging the regex for a new wordpress plugin I’m now using on my blog – it will take a “tagged” block of text (in this case inside double curly braces), and link to a target website (duckduckgo.com, amazon, etc) based on the ‘type’ of content (another tag inside the curly braces).