The power of "but"

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We've all done it. We've all said something like, "I'd like to exercise more, but I don't have the time." Or, "I'd love to get a new car, but I don't have the money." Or, "I'd like to make it to the next level of my career, but I'm afraid of having to pay my dues again, or I might fail."

'But' is a powerful word. It cancels out what comes before it. Why not put the power of that word to use for you?

I can't count how many 'but's have held me back, but they're not going to do it any more.

I'm scared to change, but I'm going to do it anyway.

I'm going to be embarrassed when I screw this up, but I don't care; I'd rather do it and say that I lived than not do it and have nothing to say.

Amazing, isn't it? I used to let my fears of both success and failure hold me back, but I don't do it so much any more, because every time I notice I'm chickening out, I say something to myself and then 'but' it out.

'But' out your bad 'but's, and see what a difference it makes! In the coming months, I'll be bringing more of these little gems that have helped me change my life, and putting many more of them into my book. It might not sell well, but I don't care, I'm going to do what I can to help anyone who has decided they're not going to settle for less than the best they can be. I've got several students already, and now you're one too. Congratulations! Now get out there and be your best!

This article was partially inspired by this recent post.

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Other articles you'll find interesting or helpful:
How to Talk Like a Trucker
Up to 5.5 Miles, and a Computer Store in a Hairdresser
The Great Organic Myths
Hey baby, what's your sign?

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A minor update on what's going on around here

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I just updated my TrueFacts about Lacey Chabert page with several new items I just discovered. Click on the link to check it out, and show a little support for my friend, Lacey! One day, she's going to be an actress! She promised me she would be, and she never ever breaks her promises! Nope, never! You can help her (and me) by linking up this page. I've even included a handy picture at the bottom of that page for you to use! Then one day, she'll be world famous, and she'll thank you for it! (She won't thank me for it, though, because that's just the way she rolls.)

I've been keeping very busy working on my books and helping others out with theirs. You gotta do that when you don't have the money to buy an editor to perfect your work for you, but at least I'm learning A LOT about different writing styles, and that means my final product will be much better.

I had really hoped I'd get some time to do a lot more work on this site this week. I've done a considerable amount, true, but I'd like to do more. Still no idea when I'll do an "official" re-launch, but I've made a lot of progress. I'm a little disappointed that all my readers disappeared just because my host was dead for several months. Really, guys, a little loyalty here? :wink:

Hey, help me out by linking up http://www.mopjockey.com/ more often, and maybe you could buy one of these products from Amazon I've linked up or you below? It supports the site and brings me one step closer to my goal of taking over the world, at which point I'll make sure things become a lot more fair for my adoring followers. (Except for Lacey, because that's just the way I roll. :-P )

And lastly, I performed my third workout under the new strength-training regimen over the two-week period. My gains increased! The percentage increases weren't quite as dramatic, but they were still pretty good. Weights I couldn't budge last week now moved without much difficulty, which is very impressive considering I did no other lifting in the intervening 8 days. (I do some running to keep burning the fat - I lost an AMAZING 50 pounds over the past year - but since muscle burns fat too, I really want to get more of that.)

I'll keep you posted, plus I'll talk more about how I lost that 50 pounds of fat and how I'll keep it off. See ya later!

You Say Piracy Like It’s a Bad Thing

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In my occasional wandering around the publishing blogosphere, I encountered this post:

You Say Piracy Like It’s a Bad Thing

And I commented on it. Should be obvious which one is me. What's your opinion? Add it here, I could use a good debate. Unless you're chicken. Don't worry, you can post anonymously.

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Flash Fiction is all the Rage

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In my quest to become a writer, I've discovered a lot of interesting things about the industry. One of the avenues of learning I've come across is something known as a writer's group, or a critique group. The one I discovered today introduced me to something really interesting called Flash Fiction. Essentially, you're given 10 random words and 15 minutes in which to write a coherent story that incorporates as many of those words as possible. I thought it was a pretty interesting exercise, and it got my creative juices flowing immediately.

Want to participate?

Here are the 10 words I was given:


sterling
bill
hang
protest
assert
innovation
picky
meet
flamboyant
waggle

Now take 15 minutes to write out a short story that incorporates as many of those words as possible. Then post it in the comments! Best story will win a fabulous no-prize, the kind which Stan Lee used to award.

I'll post my entry in the comments, so you can write your own without being unduly influenced.

GO!

P.S. To help me pay the bills, after you've posted your story, click on one of these links and buy something from Amazon. It doesn't have to be what you clicked on as long as you click one of these links. Thanks!



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Working out is finally working out

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As I just said in my previous post, me and working out aren't exactly best friends. I started working out a little over the past year, and for a while, I was seeing some results. Hard to work out while you're driving a truck all day every day, but I found a few inventive ways to do it, which I'll tell you about in a while in the Health series. But a few weeks ago, I made an exciting discovery that I've been waiting until I got home until I could test it out. Essentially, I found a shortcut to strength-building that really works! At least, in the very limited time in which I've been putting it to the test, it's worked.

Let me give you an idea: 6 days ago, I started performing my new rapid strength-building exercises. Today, I performed them again. I got increases in performance ranging from 10% to 40%! Let me tell you, gains like that are pretty much unprecedented in pretty much anyone's routine!

Now, I'm not saying that in a couple weeks I'm going to be bench-pressing cars. Lifting 675 pounds and holding it off the ground for 2 minutes can be painful, even if you're more than strong enough to do it, so I imagine that bench-pressing a car isn't something I'm going to do on a whim. Maybe if you want to bet me a lot of money.

Once I've tested this routine out more, I'll let you know more about it. Watch out, Arnie, here I come!

To Your Health - Part 1

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Too many times, especially at the beginning of the year, we say to ourselves something like, "I resolve to get fit," and then we do just a little bit (if that much) and within a week, we've broken our resolution. On top of that, it's very hard to tell what's going to help you nowadays and what's not. Seems like every day the news is on about something that used to be healthy that now isn't, and occasionally, the reverse is true. (And then we find out who paid for the study and we're back to square one.)

Is there anything out there which can help us? Is there anyone we can trust to tell us the straight dope, give us what we need to get healthy and stay that way?

I'm not going to promise to have all the answers, but over the past year, I went from about 260 to 210 pounds - I lost at least 50 pounds of fat, and I'll tell you how I did it. It was pretty easy, and considering I'm a long-distance truck driver, it's rather incredible too! In this post, I'll reveal two of my secrets today, and then in future posts I'll reveal more, and each one is going to build on the previous ones, impacting your life in a positive way, until before you know it, people will be noticing how much better you look and feel.

Secret #1 is: take it a step at a time. Don't try to do everything at once, for in doing so, you feel overwhelmed and then fail to follow through. That's why I'm going to reveal these secrets one at a time over the coming months.


Most of you know that my day job involves driving a truck about 14 hours a day while I'm spending most of my vanishingly sparse spare time writing my books. (Sorry, Lacey, I'm not shaving the whales any more, it was too dangerous. They think it's funny to capsize your boat. Let them shave themselves! I know how much that job meant to you.) Driving a truck generally involves a LOT of sitting. You don't get a whole lot of exercise, and I'm pretty much allergic to exercise anyway. (Not literally; I just don't like it much.) While I was still in the Navy, I had the opportunity to walk a few miles all over the boat on my way to and from trouble calls, but I got so darned effective at fixing computers that my daily walks got shorter and shorter, but now that I'm out, I don't often feel like working out. What to do?

What if I could tell you there was a miracle drug that can boost your metabolism? What if this miraculous chemical compound could reduce or even eliminate your hunger? And what if it was cheap? Would you want some? Could I sell you some?

A few years back, I heard something rather incredible: Americans chronically misinterpret their thirst reflex as their hunger reflex.

Think about that for a second: your body says it's thirsty, but you misunderstand that as hunger and so you eat something. So you're not hungry, but you eat something. Any chance you're consuming too many calories?

So because of this one little piece of information, I started drinking water whenever I felt a minor hunger pang. It took a little while to get used to doing that, but now it's pretty much habit.

Let's go over the benefits of water right quick:

Water makes up about 75% of your body, especially the fluids, like blood and lymph, which are very important to your health. Your blood gets moved around by your heart, but your lymph, which helps eliminate a lot of the byproducts of your cells' biology, gets moved around by your body motions. Basically, moving around helps get rid of your cells' poop.

A car won't run without oil, don't you think that if you had enough water, you could keep yourself properly lubricated? Of course it would! And don't you think you'll feel a lot better if you keep yourself properly lubricated? Don't you think that if you drink water when you're thirsty instead of eating that you'll lose a little weight? Of course you will!

Now, you may have heard lots of people try to tell you to drink a gallon or two a day, throughout the day. If you can drink a gallon a day, go right ahead, but most of us can't do that. As the saying goes, "Even water tastes bad when it's prescribed by a doctor." Me, I drink a little more than a quart a day on average, and most people will drink about that much without any difficulty or thought at all about it.

Okay, so here's what you do:

First, when you feel a between-meal hunger pang, instead of reaching for a big, sugary snack, reach instead for a glass of water made just the way you like it. (I like mine cold!) You can put some lemon or lime in it once in a while, but don't put something like Kool-Aid in it. The point is to get low-calorie water, not high-calorie sugar.

When you're reaching for a can of pop, stop and grab some water instead.

When you're eating, drink water with your meal to aid digestion and reduce the amount of food you need to eat to feel full.

If you feel a little drowsy, some water (plus some deep breathing and a little stretching) can pick you back up.

First thing in the morning and last thing at night, drink some water. A few sips is fine, no need to drown yourself.

Last thing before I go: There are a few people who may have problems with drinking water. If you've got kidney problems, excessive water can hurt you. And there are some people who drink too much water already, so if you're one of them, you don't have to increase your intake. But the overwhelming majority of people out there don't drink enough water and it would be fairly easy to drink more. If you have doubts, talk to your doctor, which is a good thing to do once in a while anyway.

And, of course, as always, I'm not responsible for anything you do or don't do.

Be well!

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More articles of interest or amusement: 
To Your Health - Part 2
Bob Parsons is a friggin' genius
You Might not Know how to Write in the English Language

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Amazon Deal Event

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Amazon.com sells just about everything nowadays, and now, those masters of online selling are running a wide-ranging sale on movies and TV shows for the next couple weeks, and I thought I'd get you in on it while it's still going on.

Here's what they say:



Amazon Movies & TV is pleased to announce our first 2010 Deals Event which will run through January 24, 2010, while supplies last. This event will feature DVDs and Blu-ray discs with savings of up to 50% off, including:

• Over 200 Fitness DVDs including yoga, pregnancy, and dance workouts, and featuring celebrity trainers such as Jillian Michaels and Denise Austin
• Hundreds of hit movies including some the biggest new releases from Q4, 2009
• Over 400 indie and art house films including Oscar® winners Juno, Milk, and Lost in Translation
• Over 450 TV shows including HBO favorites, NBC comedy, and more

 Click here to take advantage of this great deal, and don't forget, everything you buy through the links I've provided helps keep this site improving. Thanks!

(BTW, they've also got some kind of Kindle deal going on. Click here to check it out.)

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Good Thing these People aren't in Charge of our Economy

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A couple days ago, I received what I initially thought was an interesting proposal that might actually work. I occasionally get puzzles that other people can't figure out, like the triangle rearranging puzzle and the missing card magic trick and various math-based puzzles. And then I did the math on this one.


Here, let me share with you this particular spam that people have been conned into spreading, so that you can give anyone dumb enough to keep spreading it a well-deserved smackdown. (Or you could sign them up for a beatdown. I'm still running the free special.)

There recently was an article in the St. Petersburg Fl. Times. The Business Section asked readers for ideas on: "How Would You Fix the Economy?" I think this guy nailed it!

Dear Mr. President,
Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy. Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the "Patriotic Retirement Plan":

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered. Auto Industry fixed.
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage. Housing Crisis fixed.

It can't get any easier than that!!
P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress pay their taxes...
Mr. President, while you're at it, make Congress retire on Social Security and Medicare. I'll bet both programs would be fixed pronto!

Okay, to get the small potatoes out of the way, yeah, I agree that Congress should be subjected to the same crap they subject us to, but for some reason, no one's watching these watchers nor holding them accountable, so they get to do whatever they want because no one seems to care to hold them to the higher standard they're supposed to be held to.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the reason I'm making this post: On the surface, though this seems like an unusual plan, it might be one that could work. After all, we spend billions on all kinds of ridiculous things, why not something that would actually help? Unless, of course, we do the math.

It seems that this plan has a critical flaw: We don't have $40 TRILLION to spare. That's about the size of the whole WORLD'S economy (according to this page).

I pointed this out to the person who sent it to me, and she politely responded, "I believe giving $1 million each to 40 million people would cost only $40,000,000, not $40 trillion."

See, people don't do the math, and then they wind up embarrassing themselves. They walk into some place like Taco Bell and buy off their *cough* value menu *cough* without ever doing the math to see if they're actually saving anything. (Shockingly, they're not.) They walk into a convenience store and buy... well,... anything. They create grief for other people without ever realizing that in the end, they're creating grief for themselves too.

Whether it's someone creating spam or someone hacking into computers or someone being a total jerk to others or a public official abuses his or her power or we the public let that happen, we all lose.

And there's a second issue here: unbridled belief. There are entirely too many people who have blind belief in things that they don't take a moment to examine logically. I'm talking things from believing that a million million is still a million all the way to people believing that they can't make a difference in the world, or that we should turn off our brains and disacknowledge the patently obvious around us.

Things like Evolution. It's been proven, as much as something like that can be, and yet, there are people so violently opposed to it that they have to have some kind of warning sticker on books that teach it. Millions of dollars are wasted fighting the truth. Strangely, these same people have no problem whatsoever accepting the medical benefits that the Theory of Evolution conveys. Instead these people want to teach Creationism as if it were science. Hello!?! Creationism has nothing to do with science! Science is about finding out how God (or your deity of choice) made the Universe, not about saying, "God made the Universe". Science is about discovering God's miracles; it can't possibly prove or disprove His existence unless He wants it to.

I have someone else who fervently believes that we can't possibly damage the Earth, that we have exactly how much oil we need and there's no need to worry, that someone will find the way. And yet, it's precisely that worrying about the oil running out that motivates us humans to find some other source of energy. Perhaps she's right, and God will give us the answer when we need it, or maybe He expects us to take care of ourselves and clean up our own mess. I don't know about you, but when the Big Man comes for a visit, I don't want the house He left me to be in a shambles.

"So what the hell are you saying, Jaycee?" you're dying to ask. I'll tell you... over the course of the next few years... but I'm willing to bet some of you have already gotten the gist of what I'm saying. In the meantime, keep watching this space.

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Solar System - Mars

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Things you don't know about the Solar System

I've always found space fascinating, and among my first books was a book about astronomy. It was just a small, general guide that had a number of interesting facts about the solar system and the stars and galaxies. This was 1980 or before, and we've made a LOT of discoveries since then, and I've kept up on it, partly thanks to Ars Technica, the Science Channel, and NASA.

Today's topic: the Red Planet, Mars.


Named for the Roman god of war, Mars may be the next Solar system body that humans set foot on. A few years back, the Bush administration, otherwise known for its hard stance against science, announced the race to Mars. Assuming the world doesn't end in 2012 or 2036, humans should be setting foot on Mars by 2030AD or close to that. And what do you think we're going to find there?

It wouldn't be too hard to tell you something you might not know about Mars that comes from recent news releases. We've got some rovers and probes exploring the planet, and they make discoveries almost every day. As of this writing, the debate still rages whether or not there is or was life on Mars, and whether or how much water is on Mars, but one thing is definitely clear: it had water in its ancient past, and so there may have been microbial life.

But I'm going to tell you something that you can't find hardly anywhere, and certainly not in the news: the Martian atmosphere is a natural laser.

Yep, you heard right! It's a laser.

Laser, as I'm sure all of you know, is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, and it's so commonly used nowadays that it's become a word in its own right.

The Mars laser was discovered back in 1981 (according to this article, which also mentions that Venus' atmosphere is a natural laser too, so hey, I learned something new today too) and since then, it's been one of those little-known facts. The article I linked explains how the lasers work, so I won't repeat them.

Something else you might not know about Mars is that it has two moons. They're both really small, more like captured asteroids, though we haven't studied them well enough to know that for sure yet. The neat thing is that one of them orbits so fast that it crosses the Martian sky twice in a day. This is the moon Phobos, and it's the larger of the two. It's so fast, it travels from west to east! The smaller one, Deimos, is further out and behaves more like a moon should, except that it's so small, it's hard to see.

In about 10 million years, Phobos could crash into Mars, assuming we don't do something about it, though it will probably be torn apart and become a ring a couple million years before that. Deimos, like our own moon, is eventually going to escape its parent planet.

If you missed the start of this series, you can use the links to the left and select the SPACE tag to show you all the space-oriented postings I've done. Our tour starts at the Sun and proceeds outward.

Next time, I'll move outward again and learn you something else you don't know about our solar system. Until then, keep reaching for the sky!

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Further reading to whet your appetite for knowledge:
Solar System - Asteroids
To Your Health - Part 3
Solar System - Earth

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Maps Maps Everywhere!!

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I've had a love-affair with maps for pretty much all my life. I've been able to read road maps since before I could read. (To give you an idea, my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Mays, gave me a book because I was the best reader in her class at age 5. I still have it somewhere.) I've spent many an hour poring over them. So you could say I like maps.

As most of you know, the more of the world that a map shows, the more distorted it becomes. The only way to show an accurate representation of a sphere is to use a sphere! Not much help when you're on a computer screen.

Several years back, when I was a regular player of the RPG Traveller, I had need to draw maps of entire planets, yet I didn't like all the available projections. None of them did a good job of showing the world I was creating. Then I discovered a wonderful little tool called an icosahedral map. It was awesome! It allowed me to make whole maps with a minimum of distortion, and as a bonus, I could print it out, cut up the page, and fold it into a sphere-like object (an icosahedron) and see what the whole planet looked like! Miraculous!

A few years back, while I was still playing GURPS, I discovered someone had created an icosahedral projection of the Earth! I quickly made use of it, turning it into a hexmap that could be used in a boardgame.

Unfortunately, the results were a bit mixed. I redid it and got much better results, but still, I wasn't all that happy with it. Then, last month, during one of my few breaks, I decided to see if it was possible to make my own ico-earth projection from scratch so the landforms wouldn't be all broken up, and low and behold, I found that someone had already done it! Created by no less than Buckminster Fuller! He calls it the Dymaxion projection, and it's pretty cool.


So here is a site that has scads of earth projections in almost every conceivable projection you can think of. And here's another site that has some blank maps for you to use. I made my own from scratch, and these maps should give you an idea how to do that. Have a good time! I know I did.

For those of you wanting my icoearth maps, I can't post them at this time because they're too big - blogger automatically reduces the size to 1600 pixels maximum dimension, so the above maps will not look right, nor will the maps I made for playing games. Sure, I could break them up, but I don't have time for that kind of work. If you write me, I'll see if I can email them to you. At some point in the future, I want to make an equivalent using the Dymaxion projection, and then use that for the game I'm making from it.

Below, I've found a few interesting maps for sale over at Amazon, plus a cheap one. Buy anything through one of those links to help me keep this site up and always improving; and you don't even have to buy what I linked for you!

Free Wifi Hotspots Accessible to Truckers (Updated)

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Do you drive a truck? Would you like to be able to access the internet for free? Are you sick and tired of the obscenely overpriced options that the big-chain truckstops offer? Then I've got good news for you!

In my travels about the country over the past 4 years, I've gathered together every location I could find that offered free WIFI access to truck drivers. This list has every truckstop and rest area with free wifi that I have encountered, plus a few I got from doing searches on the internet. There are probably still several I haven't found - in 2009 alone I discovered about 20 new ones, and I'm sure more and more of the small-timer truckstops are seeing the value in offering for free something that doesn't really cost them anything to provide. Contrast that with the exorbitant rates the major chains charge - several dollars an hour! - and it's easy to see why the small-timers are still in business.

Best of all, I'm posting this list for free! That's right, I did a ton of work, and I'm giving it away because I'm just that awesome!

I posted earlier renditions of this list before, but now that 2009 is over with, I think it's time I posted my latest rendition of the list of free wifi hotspots on my shiny new website. Consider this my Christmas and New Year's gifts to all you hard working truck drivers. Enjoy! And if you have any comments or information to share about this list, please feel free to let me know so I can keep this list up to date.

In the meantime, you can repay my kindness by passing the word out about my site, ok? Thanks!

Click here to see the list.

A couple caveats: I don't list motels and restaurants that aren't part of the truckstop, first because it's rude to use their wifi, second because in some places it might be illegal for you to do so, and third because sometimes they lock up their airwaves to keep unauthorized users off which would invalidate the list. Also, I don't list any malls or restaurants because you never know when someone's going to get offended about parting a truck in a mall parking lot.

There are a few restaurants scattered about that have their own truck parking lots and also offer free wifi. I didn't list these because most of these places don't want you parking overnight, or even for long periods, and as with malls, you never know when someone's going to get pissy about you parking there, so I'd rather not be the cause of unnecessary grief unless I'm going to profit big time from it. :-)

Most of you are probably well aware of what places like that you can park at or near anyway.

Last caveat: there are a few towns that have city-wide wifi. These were initially going to be free, but almost-free isn't quite free, and so they decided they needed to recoup the deployment costs. I've been to two of these towns, and both of them offered a 5-minute free usage, which was enough time to swap emails and proteins, and check the weather. No point in mentioning them if that's all you can do.

Below I've linked up a few netbooks available at Amazon, one of which is embarrassingly cheap. They should all have the appropriate WIFI devices built in. I personally use a large laptop, but there are so many of them out there that recommending one would be a full-time job. Netbooks are currently pretty simple, stripped-down laptops, and they're really small. I'm probably going to get one soon, as soon as I figure out what exactly I want. That cheap one looks like I might want it.

UPDATE 7/6/12:

I stopped driving a truck for the past couple years, and then over the past few months have been on the road again and found out the free wifi landscape has changed significantly. The biggest change is that McDonald's wifi has become free nationwide, even in California. True, it's almost impossible to connect outside the wals of the restaurant, but the fact that there are so many of them and so many near or in truckstops, or that have truck parking, that it's very easy to get internet access almost any time you want to.

In addition to that, Lowe's also offers free wifi, AND you can park in most of their lots like you can in most Walmart lots (although, good luck with that in California). Most of the time, you can get signal from your truck too.

Because of this, even though I've found a couple more rest areas and truckstops with free wifi, I have decided that I'm not going to update the list any more. I may change my mind in the future, but for now it doesn't look like there's much point to the list or to updating it.
















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Other articles you may find interesting or helpful:
10-4 Good Buddy!
Expose Yourself #1 – Smilin’ Bill
Maps are freakin' awesome

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