Archives for July 2008
The Heavy Bag Work Out
Spent a while working out on the heavy bag in my garage. Covered in sweat, but feeling very good now. There is nothing like pounding on a bag to help you release your frustrations. It is one of those exercises that will leave you gasping for breath with your muscles aching.
Try throwing punches consistently for three minutes straight. It is not easy. I usually go through about a 25-30 minute long workout. One of the key elements, truly among the most critical is the music that accompanies me.
Here is a glimpse at some of what I listened to:
Wicked Garden– Stone Temple Pilots
Cowboy– Kid Rock
Chariots of Fire-Vangelis (This always makes me want to run a race in slow motion.)
Desert Rose– Sting
Baby Please Don’t Go (1963)– Big Joe Williams
Just Can’t Last– Natalie Merchant
Keep Hope Alive– The Crystal Method
Walk This Way– Aerosmith and Run-DMC
Girls, Girls, Girls– Motley Crue
Back in Black– AC/DC
Ok, off
Goodbye Randy Pausch
CNN shared the sad news that Randy Pausch has died. You may recall that I blogged about him this past April in a post called The Last Lecture- Remarks of a Dying Man.
The most important part of that post is the YouTube video of his presenting his Last lecture. It is well worth watching again so I’ll repost it at the bottom of this entry. Before I do let me share an excerpt from the CNN obituary.
“Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007 garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.
In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.
“The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful,” Pausch wrote on his Web site. “But rest assured; I’m hardly unique.”
The book “The Last Lecture,” written with Jeffrey Zaslow, leaped to the top of the nonfiction best-seller lists after its publication in April and remains there this week. Pausch said he dictated the book to Zaslow, a Wall Street Journal writer, by cell phone. The book deal was reported to be worth more than $6 million.
At Carnegie Mellon, he was a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design, and was recognized as a pioneer of virtual reality research. On campus, he became known for his flamboyance and showmanship as a teacher and mentor.
The speech last fall was part of a series Carnegie Mellon called “The Last Lecture,” where professors were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical final talk. The name of the lecture series was changed to “Journeys” before Pausch spoke, something he joked about in his lecture.”
Watch the video, it is really worth the time.
Thursday Night Roundup
Here is what showed up on the blog today:
Using The Blog To Build A Community
Uh Oh, This Is Too Much Fun
The brain In Love- A Scientific Study
“Happy Flu†meme
Reasons Why I Am Not a Pulpit Rabbi
And here is a link to yesterday’s roundup:
Altogether that should give you a ton of posts to sift through.
Using The Blog To Build A Community
Two events took place this evening that made me spend a few minutes engaged in more serious thought about blogging. The first was a conversation that I had with a friend about why I blog, and what purpose Facebook serves.
The second event was Leora’s post The Blog Challenge. Upon reading it and the comments more carefully I decided that it was time to consider a few things;
1) What do I consider the most important elements of a blog to be.
2) Does my own blog meet the standards that I look for in other blogs?
3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of my blog?
Here is a bare bones list of what I want to see in a blog in order of importance:
1) Compelling content.
2) Community of readers that add to the blog.
3) A design/template that makes it easy to read and to interact.
Content is king. I don’t care how cool your template is, if you don’t have compelling content it won’t hold my interest. And while it is always nice to have a ton of comments they can help and hurt you.
Many people rightly see their blog as a virtual living room in their home. If you have a home in which the guests are rude/obnoxious to others you’ll find it very difficult to attract and keep other guests.
So I suppose that what I am really saying is that a successful blogger uses their blog to build a community in which dialogue about various topics take place.
If I take a critical look at my blog I think that it is fair to say that I haven’t done as good a job building the community here as I could. Some of that is because I have a habit of producing an enormous amount of content. When posts keep getting pushed down the page you hinder the ability of the community to respond and engage you and each other on various topics.
In addition I could do a better job of responding to comments in a more timely fashion. That raises a side issue of sorts. If you generate enough comments it starts to become difficult to respond to those on your own blog and to leave comments on other blogs.
This has been a challenge for me for a while. If you take the time to read and comment on my blog than I try to extend the same courtesy to you. The trick lately is that I find myself jammed for time. It is hard to respond here and go to your blogs to reply.
I suppose that you can attribute this as a leading cause of why I am sometimes slow to respond to comments here. One day someone may pay me handsomely to blog or I may win the lottery and find time to do what I want on my schedule and things will change.
If the meantime I encourage you all to continue to leave comments and I’ll do my best to reply in a timely fashion.
Uh Oh, This Is Too Much Fun
Juggling Frogs is to blame for turning me onto Wordle. I am having way too fun with it. The image below is my blog. Click on the image to make it larger.