Book Review: 48 Days to the Work You Love, by Dan Miller

I checked out this book because it is recommended by Dave Ramsey, and quite honestly there was a scare several months ago at work, and I became interested in career books. The book is so popular at the library, that I waited 3 months to get it, and I had to read it in about 3 weeks, or else I was going to wait another 3 months to finish it. The fear and died down and things have settled, but I was still interested in reading the highly recommended book.

• I recommend it for Christians, because it speaks to issues that Christians have. It particularly addresses the misconception that you can sit on your butt and wait on God to provide for you. You should go out and work hard for the career that you want.
  
• Addresses the changing workplace. Due to changing technology, most of us will be doing jobs in 7 years that do not currently exist.
  
• Otherwise it is a typical career book - tries to apply to every career - and never written by an IT person -mostly directed readers who are unhappy in their careers or unemployed and has a section on starting your own business - sections on finding a career, changing careers, and applying for jobs, and interviewing. Along the way, it has lots of inspiring anecdotes and stories.

I recommend it as a one-size-fits-all "find a career book". By the way, the name "48 days" has nothing to do with the book. They just wanted to make the title catchier.

Good videos

I am posting some videos outside of my Best of the Month posts, because I came across a few good ones.

These are all thanks to Kim Komando's Video of the Day - see my Video of the Day link on the right-hand side of my blog.


What would happen if your local bank failed? Scott Pelley and ''60 Minutes'' were given extraordinary access, as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation moves in to take over a failed bank in Chicago.





This YouTube video is about an unusual photography technique. A photographer can snap pictures from the ground. And a plane can carry a camera high into the air. But that leaves an interesting low-flying area in-between.

This is where Architecture Professor Chris Benton likes to take photos. And he has some unorthodox methods. He uses customized kites equipped with a camera control rig. Benton builds this equipment himself in a basement workshop.





Here’s a look behind the scenes of home foreclosures. When a bank takes a home, the occupants have to go. They are given time to make plans and move. But many residents end up leaving in a hurry.

Few actually clean the home on their way out. In fact, some barely move out at all. Foreclosed homes are often left full of abandoned belongings. Cleaning out these homes has become a lucrative business.

The men hired to do this work are called trashout squads. But what is it like, throwing away other people’s things? Follow a Trashout Squad in this video.

Restaurants of Arkansas

We visited 3 new restaurants in Arkansas.

Big Whiskey's Bar and Grill Located in the River Market Area of Little Rock, right down the street from the Clinton Presidential Museum, which we visited immediately before. It offered a smoke free environment and good food - I had a loaded baked potato - good stuff. Jennifer (cousin) treated us to the meal - I was going to pay for her - but that was so nice! It started pouring when we were inside, and we ended up running in the rain to the shops nearby.

Carino's Italian Located in West Little Rock and was really great Italian food. You know what, they had a gluten free guide online! I had the lemon rosemary chicken, and it was better than that sounds - it was stronger on the lemon, weaker on the rosemary. It was a nice environment with good service. And it provided for a good evening activity and one last time spent with Jennifer. (Found out while writing this that one of these is by the Legends in KCK)

AQ Chicken House We were cruising around Fayetteville looking for a place to eat. The original planned place looked like a dingy bar, but down the street we found the AQ Chicken House. The inside is decorated in a weird way - the wallpaper on the ceiling, golden borders, chandeliers - I am not an observant person, but I noticed that the decor was wacky. I wasn't sure if I could eat anything. The waitress plopped down a basket of buttery rolls at the beginning - kind of the chicken house version of chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant. But there were several possiblities on the menu - I had the lemon catfish on rice. I enjoyed it.

Busy week - renovations, Easter, friends, and Arkansas trip

My strong desire is to document our trip extremely well on this blog. With many pressing things to do, that probably won't happen. But I will get pictures posted somewhere. Until I can get something better here is my sketched out notes about our week

4/11/09 Finished trim in living room, then we moved furniture back. Hung some doors back on

4/12/09 Easter at CCC. Andrew Taussigs visited our house. Then we spent the evening with the Bades.

4/13/09 Went to Audrey's parents' house and played Blokus and Rock Band

4/14/09 BJ and Natosha stayed at our house and we ate at OK Joe's and toured the Plaza.

4/15/09 Took the day off but spent most of it doing finances which I hadn't touched for March and April

4/16/09 Left on time for Arkansas. Stopped at Osceola Cheese. Drove through Branson, through mountains, and arrived in Bradford. Talked with Uncle Paul, and Aunt Martha arrived later. Aunt Martha's mother had fallen and gotten a fracture. I was really tired (look at the 5 previous days), so we didn't do much in the evening.

4/17/09 Walked around the property. Played disc golf in Searcy (I need GPS). Had dinner, and drove down to Little Rock.

4/18/09 Picked up Jennifer (got lost - need GPS). Walked on pedestrian bridge. Went to Clinton Library. Had lunch afterwards at River Market. Went to Jennifer's apartment and played Settlers. Had Italian dinner. Took Jennifer to get her car. Went to hotel.

4/19/09 Visited Little Rock Central High School museum, across from the high school. Visited riverfront, while it was raining. Took picture by the river. Visited Peabody hotel with the ducks. Visited Old State House next door. Visited submarine museum. Drove to Fayetteville - took scenic route on 71 Hwy.

4/20/09 Went to Devil's Den State Park and hiked a trail. Stopped by Fayetteville National Cemetary. Went home. (Wrote this post!)

Waking up Canadian

I found it interesting that Canada changed some laws, and now some people "woke up Canadian" today. It is of special interest to me since I am a Canadian citizen. My citizenship was never in doubt since I was born there.

This ad that they made to spread the information seems to make fun of Canada


The government web site here, to see if you are Canadian: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizenship/rules-citizenship.asp.

arkansas is beautiful

Arkansas is beautiful, and Paul and Martha's house/acreage is as well. The property goes back about half a mile, and the house is back from the road, with a long driveway. We are going to play disc golf with Uncle Paul. He had never heard of it before. But there is a course in the town where Martha's mother lives, about 30 minutes away. It's really warm, so I might wear some shorts. It's going to be rainy when we are in Little Rock, so it is good that we are playing disc golf now, in case we don't have the opportunity later.

Together for 5 years

Courtney and I have been together long enough to have 5 years of pictures!!

Here are pictures from around April each of the past 5 years

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Movie Review: Bound for Glory, Not Blades of Glory

This movie was nominated for Best Picture in 1976. I knew it would be a risk for a waste of time, because as we know even today nominees can be not worth watching. But what pulled me in was that the movie reviews said it was a good depiction of the Dust Bowl. Courtney just read a book called The Worst Hard Time about the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, so I thought this movie would be a good bookend on our learning about that. It is also a movie about Woody Guthrie, and musicians interest me.



The movie indeed was interesting about this time period. Woody Guthrie left his family for California when the economy was suffering in Oklahoma. His journey was amazing. But the second half of the movie documented Woody Guthrie's California life in painstaking detail. This California isn't even the time period where he became famous.

Ironically you end up hating Woody Guthrie after the movie, even though it is based off of Woody Guthrie's autobiography. He left his family multiple times, and had integrity with his music and with "the people", and no integrity in other areas of his life.

I don't know if it was worth watching or not. Let's say not.

Not to be confused with Blades of Glory, which I don't plan on seeing:

Best of March 2009

Best Movie That I Saw for the First Time: Jaws

Best Book I Read: Not any

Best Life Happenings:

• Joined a small group at church
  
• Dr. Kwon fixed my car for free - putting a bolt on a part that was loose
  
• Played bass for children's musical "It's Cool in the Furnace"
  
• Courtney made fajitas with some really nice big gluten-free tortillas!
• Watched RiffTrax to the Matrix.
• Church passed vision statement 155-17.
  

Worst Life Happenings:

• 
  
• A couple of coworkers quit

Best online video I watched for the First time: Kittens Inspired By Kittens





2nd place: Miniatur Wunderland


Picture(s) of the Month by our camera.
Ice Storm in Late March

Bday

Here are some pics from my birthday

Book Review: The Obama Nation

I finally finished this - it has been popular with library patrons, so i've had some extended times of waiting to get the book. I think I started reading it in November.

The 2nd half of the book was a real bore - I felt like I was living through the Presidential campaign all over again, and we've all had enough of that!

The 1st half was really good - explaining Obama's history from childhood to Chicago.

Short points:

• It is extraordinary how dysfunctional Obama's family was during his childhood. His father had three wives at the same time, left the family to go to Harvard. Eventually he died while driving drunk in Africa. Obama's mom then married an Indonesian muslim. Then she left Obama by himself in Hawaii to be raised by his grandparents. The one good thing that came out of it was that Obama's grandmother made a good income and they were able to send him to a good private high school. I wonder if there are any other presidents with such a broken family life.
• For a lot of his life, Obama has hung around and admired people who were Communists and socialists
  
• The author was really cocky about how certain issues were going to bring down Obama's candidacy. "...and this is why McCain will win in November...
  
• Obama was good friends with a former terrorist, Bill Ayres, starting his political career in his house.
• He won his first election by getting everyone else disqualified from the ballot, including the person who generously introduced him to people to get him started in politics.
  
• Obama was part of a church for years that is anti-American and that has strong anti-White rhetoric. Not only that, but they are kooky, thinking that the American government created the AIDS virus to hurt Black people.

On this side of things, Obama's socialist tendencies are really disturbing. We can only hope that his policies don't screw up the country too much.

Typical Chinese place and Riff Trax

I have some catchup to do here...

Last weekend we hung out with some old friends of Courtney's as has been documented many places. It snowed, as you all know.

Instead of going out to eat, we went to go eat Subway. Since I can't eat anything there, I went next door to Chinatown Restaurant. It is one of those hole-in-the-wall chinese places. It was so typical with the ghastly pictures of all the plates above the counter, and a big picture of a Chinese mountain with a tree. It was very fast - 5 minutes. Unfortunately, I didn't think it tasted that great. I should have tried Fritz's Chili which is a little bit further down.

Then Brian got a movie projector, and we watching the Matrix, except we turned the volume down on the Matrix, and also played something called RiffTrax. RiffTrax is guys making wisecracks during the movie - by the same people that did Mystery Science 3000. It's really funny - you should try it out. http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/matrix

Poll: Pizza

Should I get

• Sausage and onion
• Veggie: Mushrooms • Onions •Green Peppers • Black Olives • Red Peppers • Artichokes
• Or, something with Sun-dried tomatoes...

I went about 5 years (2002-2007) without eating pizza from restaurants, and then I ate at Waldo Pizza three times last year. I'm excited to go again for my birthday dinner tonight.

Here's the menu: http://www.waldopizza.net/glutenfree.pdf