David Brooks Thinks I’m a Superhero

I’ve always had a knack for focusing my attention on one task or project to the exclusion of almost everything else. I’m not sure where it came from, but it’s been with me since I was a kid building model airplanes in the garage. It’s mellowed somewhat over time, as the realities of work, marriage and parenthood have forced me to multitask, but it’s still very much a part of who I am.

I’ve never really thought of this knack as more than a byproduct of how my brain is wired or how I was raised. It just sort of…is. Like anything else, it has its upsides and downsides. It can give me the focus necessary to write a novel, or it can compel me to waste hours (or days) of my life playing a certain video game (I’m looking at you, Rome: Total War).

New York Times columnist David Brooks sees it a bit differently. According to him, I may as well have a friggin’ superpower. Have a read:

Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains.

Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it.

It leads to resilience, the ability to persevere with an idea even when all the influences in the world say it can’t be done. A common story among entrepreneurs is that people told them they were too stupid to do something, and they set out to prove the jerks wrong.

It leads to creativity. Individuals who can focus attention have the ability to hold a subject or problem in their mind long enough to see it anew.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/opinion/16brooks.html?ref=opinion

Little Hot Dog

Today at 1:19 PM, we welcomed little Nolan into the world. Still in shock and awe. But here he is…

More HERE.

Irony…

From gadget-blog Gizmodo:

Anti-Shark Device Eaten by Irony-Loving Great White

This is awkward…during the testing phase for the Shark Shield, an electronic device that is designed to go on the back of surfboards to keep sharks away, one of the devices was actually eaten by a shark.

Yeah, not only did this thing not keep sharks away, but it actually attracted the attention of a 12-foot great white enough that it mistook it for a tasty snack. Luckily, it was on a buoy and not a surfboard at the time.

In other news, white people like irony, according to Stuff White People Like.

Another Year Gone…

If I had to sum up 2007 in one word, it would be “eventful”. A ton happened between January 1st and December 31st. There were moments of joy, of triumph, of sorrow, and of bitter disappointment. Looking back, I would say the good outweighed the bad, though by the narrowest of margins.

First, a look at the “bad” side of 2007:

• Suffering through a miscarriage around the middle of the year.
• Failing to win pitch after pitch at work, and then losing our biggest client, resulting in a mass layoff just before the holiday season.
• Driving through Arkansas. Twice.

Now, onto the “good”:

• Pregnancy. After the grief of a miscarriage, the wife is now on the cusp of her third trimester, and Baby Nolan is doing well. The prospect of fatherhood still scares the bejesus out of me, but in a good way.
• Finishing the first draft of the novel. After toiling for three and a half years, I finished the first draft of my novel toward the end of March. I can’t begin to describe the sense of accomplishment.
• Two fantastic vacations, one to Colorado Springs and the other to Asheville, North Carolina.

I don’t claim to know what 2008 has in store (and if I did, I’d be buying stock left and right), but with a baby on the way and work continuing on the book, I’m pretty sure it will be every bit as “eventful” as 2007.

Quiet Time

I used to cherish this time of year. In my college days, the small window between the end of exams and Christmas was a time for relaxing, for doing nothing and enjoying the company of old friends. The novelty of being out of class and away from campus was still fresh. The boredom had yet to set in.

These days, however, there is no cherishing. I don’t hate this time of year, but I don’t enjoy it, either. I guess it would be most appropriate to say I endure it. Work is winding down for the year. Half the office has already bolted, and those of us left are just passing the time (with visions of the countdown clock from 24 ticking away in our heads). The roads are packed with distracted drivers. The holiday marketing machine is omnipresent and, this year, somehow more odious than usual. Perhaps that has something to do with the screening of “What Would Jesus Buy?” (excellent, by the way) I took in last week.

I wish I could look forward to Christmas and the buildup to Christmas with the same enthusiasm I used to.  I miss that enthusiasm of childhood, not just for presents, but for the trappings of Christmas. The stringing of the lights, the baking of Christmas cookies, the watching of A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation. I just…don’t have it. Not this year.

Hope is not lost, however. Nolan is on his way, and I must admit I do find myself looking forward to next year. Maybe that’s just the thing I need, a vicarious source of childhood wonder at the holiday season.

Danger: Avoid Death

BEST WARNING LABEL EVER

Mankind? Arrogant? That’s Unpossible!

Once upon a time, people were imprisoned, excommunicated, exiled, et cetera for daring to suggest that the earth wasn’t the center of the universe (or even the solar system), that diseases were caused by germs (as opposed to bad humors), and that man was descended from apes (actually, this debate STILL RAGES).  All of which, you know, flew in the face of the whole “man is the center of the universe” thing.

A little something called the Enlightenment fixed that right up.

But lately…I don’t know. Maybe mankind is in the throes of some massive guilt trip. Maybe all the various radio waves flying through our skulls every few milliseconds have driven us around the bend. Whatever the case, we seem to have fallen into this delusional mindset that we, as a species, are responsible for EVERY BAD THING that happens anywhere. In essence, we are the center of the universe again, only this time in a bad sort of way.

Now…you already know we are responsible for Global Warming, and unless we offset our carbon emissions and buy organic stuff and whatnot, the polar bears will die.

You know about this, but I bet you don’t know that we’re also destroying the universe. That’s right. Mankind is destroying the frakin’ UNIVERSE.

When I first read the headline, I figured some scientists must have watched that Star Trek episode where Picard and crew realize their going here and there at Warp 9.8 is ripping space-time to shreds and, I don’t know, confused it with modern day or something.

But no. Apparently we’re destroying the universe by attempting to observe it at a quantum level. Like Shrodinger’s cat. Seriously.

“If we attempt to apply quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole, and if our present state is unstable, then what sets the clock that governs decay? Once we determine our current state by observations, have we reset the clock? If so, as incredible as it may seem, our detection of dark energy may have reduced the life expectancy of our universe.” Prof Krauss says that the measurement of the light from supernovae in 1998, which provided evidence of dark energy, may have reset the decay of the void to zero – back to a point when the likelihood of its surviving was falling rapidly. “In short, we may have snatched away the possibility of long-term survival for our universe and made it more likely it will decay,” says Prof Krauss.

And that’s not all. Apparently, our observations of the universe have also resulted in it losing about one-fifth of its mass.

This is not the only damage to the heavens that astronomers may have caused. Our cosmos is now significantly lighter than scientists had thought after an analysis of the amount of light given out by galaxies concluded that some shone from lightweight electrons, not heavyweight atoms. In all, the new analysis suggests that the universe has lost about one fifth of its overall mass.

Uh…can somebody tell me how this is damage, exactly? Because the cosmos is lighter than our scientists THOUGHT? Humanity has thought all sorts of absurd things over the years. Hell, we still do.

Let’s apply Occam’s Razor here. What is more likely? That our mere observation of the universe is hastening its decay into nothingness, or that our methods for measuring and observing the universe are improving, and we are – gasp – realizing previous assumptions and estimates may no longer be valid?

Upside the Head…

My life has a curious tendency of puttering along at a certain pace until all of the sudden events converge and change smacks me upside the head. I can’t really explain how or why so many different things come together around more or less the same time, but they do.

I can’t help but feel that one of those convergence periods is crashing over me this very moment.

Last week, the agency laid off a whole bunch of people. We’ve known it was coming for awhile. We’ve known it had to happen. But I don’t think anyone expected the cuts to be as broad or as deep as they ended up being. I lost a number of friends, some of them close. My own fate is still somewhat uncertain. I think I’m safe. As of today, I still have a job. But no one has told us when this will all be over. Whatever the case, whatever happens, this sucks. It’s an experience I never want to go through again.

On a happier note, Jamie traded in her Mustang on Saturday. She loved that car, but it wasn’t exactly what you would call baby friendly. The new Honda CR-V should be a different matter altogether. We haven’t put even 100 miles on it yet, but so far it’s been fantastic.

And finally, I picked up the crib yesterday. We’ve registered. We’ve had the baby room (Jamie refuses to call it a “nursery”) painted. We’ve bought bedding. We’ve bought and returned to changing tables. But the crib is different. If one piece of furniture could ever drive home idea that, holy crap, we’re having a kid, it’s a crib.

Judgment Day

Tactless? Probably.

But curiously satisfying, all the same:

A SUICIDAL motorist who led police on a hair-raising 100mph chase on the A19, writing off three police cars, has been jailed.

Stephen Arnold, 38, was told by a judge: “The next time you want to commit suicide, find somewhere quiet to do it.”

At Least They Had an Ethos…

Step 1: Autoblog runs a story about how Audi has partnered with a German fashion designer to create uniforms for its employees. They look like something you could probably put together yourself at Target for $50.

Step 2: Someone makes a rambling and rather humorous (uninentionally) post in the comments about how it’s high time that somebody stand up for uniforms besides the military, damnit! This progresses into an incoherent rant about country music and individualism, and how individualism is all a front because they’re all in the same band anyway, or something.

Step 3: I step in with the cautionary voice. Maybe it’s not the best idea that Germans try to foist uniforms on people. I mean, look how well that turned out the last time they tried it.