Letter Never Sent Tell me when to go.

Dumping my browser tabs, Paul K. style.

• Sad, Sweet One-Act Play, Told Entirely By a Burger King Receipt I Found This is the kinda thing I worry about when I think about being old. Though, as J. pointed out, it doesn’t have to be interpreted in a sad way.via
• Occasionally I will get a large chunk of copy a client wants to use, but which needs to be converted from ALL CAPS, the case many people insist on writing in. Convert Case is a good website to use for this. Very handy.
• New to me: The concept of “t-shaped creativity“. I like the distinction between being t-shaped and a jack-of-all-trades. Hat tip to Jeremy Johnson.
• Bridging the gap between the online and the offline: Use postful to send snail mail to any address from the web. $1 a letter. I like things like this. Just wish I had someone to send mail to. I’ve also been using Fresh Books for my invoicing. I love it! Now when I need to send someone an invoice via snail mail I can do it through my Fresh Books account and it only costs $1. Everyone else can just pay online. They even send the invoice with a return payment envelope and a printed link to pay online. This is way easier than printing everything out from Microsoft Money and mailing myself, which I used to do and why I only invoiced every 2-3 months. Use this referral link if you’re interested and you will make me rich. Other ideas for bridging the gap: The Cheap and Easy Way to Go Paperless.
• Now I get it: Sometimes I’m slow to understand things. Things like Facebook, Twitter and now OpenID. When OpenID first came out, I just didn’t get it. But, if someone had just told me, “Now you can use one login for everything” it would have made more sense to me. I’ve started using OpenID with Basecamp and a few other things and it’s pretty incredible. I actually hope more sites start supporting it, although I need to find out how it works if you decide to move to a different OpenID provider.
• Kevin Kelly had a nice post on changing his mind about Wikipedia: Believing the Impossible: “How wrong I was. The success of the Wikipedia keeps surpassing my expectations. Despite the flaws of human nature, it keeps getting better. Both the weakness and virtues of individuals are transformed into common wealth, with a minimum of rules and elites.”
• Confirming, but not all that surprising: “embodied cognition“: “A series of studies, the latest published in November, has shown that children can solve math problems better if they are told to use their hands while thinking. Another recent study suggested that stage actors remember their lines better when they are moving.”

One of my friends, Scott (aka Soft Charisma) did a good cover of the Cat Stevens classic, Wild World. Listen, if you please.

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” – Benjamin Franklin

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, but I need to start so everyone can see if I’m full of hot air. Here’s my list:

1. Get more exercise

In a paper titled “Why we get fat”, Arthur Devany proposes that as human beings evolved in an environment where food was scarce and required a lot of work to acquire, the best evolutionary approach was to eat as much as you could when food was readily available and to use as little energy as possible to reduce your caloric output. Now that food is cheap and modern life requires zero physical exertion, our evolutionary strategy is broken. To stay healthy, we will have to overrule our evolved instinct. Keeping physical activity fun and interesting is the key to getting regular exercise, especially if our natural tendency is to avoid unnecessary work. If we can trick ourselves into having fun with our health, the results should improve. Maybe through exer-gaming, maybe through collecting exercise data if you like numbers, maybe by combining exercise with something else you enjoy like audiobooks or chatting with friends.

As I hope to live to see my 100th birthday, I need to take care of myself.

2. Write more and work to get better at it

I get frustrated when I have trouble expressing a particular thought. I admire and envy people who can express their thoughts in a way that is clear, interesting, and enjoyable to read. My personal writing goal is depth, clarity, and concision. To do this, I will use this blog. If you read anything you like or dislike or if you have any tips, please let me know.

3. Make new friends. Be a better friend. Put more work into relationships.

“A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.” – Don Corleone, The Godfather (1972)

My social life could use some work. I have a tendency to avoid social situations where there is a potential for discomfort and I have been reluctant to meet new people since I have lived in Dallas. Rather than improving the quality of social interaction, this has resulted in a self-imposed exile. In 2008, I will get out more and will work on being better company by sharing more of myself and my attention.

4. More ideas. Bigger ideas. Realize ideas.

Neil Gabler’s biography of Walt Disney blew me away. Disney’s vision is inspiring to anyone who wants to do something Big before they die. Walt Disney was not just a pioneer in animation and business. His influence on American culture is so pervasive that it is largely unknown or forgotten by most people. On the flip side, Disney’s example reminded me of how little I have accomplished in 30 years. If I don’t get busy now, I will miss an opportunity to do something important with my life; something of lasting significance and value to the world. Ideas and plans are important, but in the end all that matters is what you do and how well you do it.

5. Increase income by 100%. Invest more and better. Use money in the service of larger goals.

While Greed is bad, money is the distillation of value. It is a means to an end and necessary in achieving big things. The more access to money you have, the more you can do. I am disappointed when I read about billionaires and the ways they spend their money. It is a waste that so many focus on boring things like material possessions or physical enjoyment when they could be inventing new products or changing human life forever. Their idea of lasting accomplishment is a foundation in their name. Who will build our modern cathedrals? Who will invent our next revolution? Who will inspire the next generation?

In reading about Walt Disney, the one thing that struck me is how much he did with little. At most times in his life, he wanted to do a lot more than he could support with the revenue from his company. Most Disney films took years to produce and often the studio lost money. Disney struggled constantly with financing new projects, but he did more with what he had than almost anyone I can think of.

Either you bootstrap yourself or you borrow money from others to create your vision. At this point in my life, I am focusing on turning myself into an efficient cash-generating machine. Not for greed or material comfort, but to enable free action and the ability to do something worthwhile.

On the investing front, I have done a pretty good job. I save and invest regularly using scheduled drafts from my accounts on a weekly basis. I have zero debt aside from what I put on the Amex each month. I do need to improve my revenue and I do need to contribute more to charity.

6. Read more. Share what I’ve learned.

I’ve been reading more lately, but I need to get better at sifting and sharing what I’ve learned. Having a library nearby has been a real pleasure. I keep an Amazon wishlist of books available at the local library.

If I think of any more resolutions, I will let you know. If you have any resolutions of your own, I would like to read them. Please leave a link in the comments if you want someone to hold you to it.

Anyone who knows me knows how crazy I am about animals. I don’t love animals in the sense that I want to hug them or talk to them like children. I love them in the sense that they are the living embodiment of this amazing natural world that we live in. Each animal is a reminder of another view of existence, one that is distinctly different from our own. Animal life is fascinating in its diversity and in the way each animal is designed to exploit a specific way of life, a specific diet, a specific environment, etc.

Anyway, we went up to spend time with Jody’s family in rural Oklahoma for Christmas. Oklahoma is a secret of sorts. Until I started going I was unfamiliar with its beauty and austere charm. For a nature lover, there is a lot to love. Jumbled slate hills and oak trees and tons of animals from cougars to glow worms. It seems like every time I go I see something different. This time I was able to watch a bald eagle tearing at a fresh deer carcass from about 30 feet away on a frosty Oklahoma morning.

Unfortunately, the photos are fairly low-rez due to a camera inadequate for the task. Missing such an opportunity to take good photos has galvanized my desire for a good digital SLR and zoom lens. Any suggestions?