Book a week - 35/52

My book for the 35th week of 2008 is What Color Is Your Parachute? 2008: A Practical Manual for Job-hunters and Career-Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles.

Book a week - 34/52

I'm thinking about start a book-a-week program, modeled after the guy at the Largehearted Boy blog. My wife reads probably more than a book a week, and I used to do this myself before grad school. I'm going to try to do it again starting this week. There are several reasons I'm going to try this book a week program:

1. The same way I'm into running to develop my physique, I'm starting this program to develop my intellect. The habit of reading makes a person knowledgeable, competent, and articulate.

2. I already have a large collection of books, and I like books. I tried audiobooks and eBooks, these did not work out for me. I have a hard time reading eBooks due to the limitations of current eBook readers - no I haven't tried the Amazon Kindle yet - and I find that I have a hard time retaining information listening to audiobooks. I tried reading stuff on the internet - but it is just way to easy to get distracted when researching a subject on the internet - I find the majority of my internet research devolves into digg.com or youtube. The amount of information on the internet is practically limitless - I like the idea of a book as finite unit of information.

3. To develop expertise in a number of areas - these being business and finance, economics and politics, and computer science. I don't know if I'll be able to read a tech book a week, as these tend to be a lot longer than the average book and require a lot of interactivity. I guess I'll deal with that as I go along.

This is the 34th week of 2008, 18 weeks left to go in the year. This week's book is 'The Total Money Makeover' by Dave Ramsey.

5k Aftermath

I ran the 5k in 28 minutes, which is not shabby for a first race. I was not expecting the race to be as fun as it was, I was dreading it actually. But when the day came K. and I drove to Millenium park, there were a ton of people there - less people dressed as Elvis as I though there would be. And we ran the race - towards the end, when we hit the 3 mile run I started sprinting, that was cool. I'm doing an 'intermediate 5k race training schedule' now for the Pumpkin Patch race at the end of October. After that I'm planning on spending the winter and early spring training for a 10k - probably the 'Wrigley Early Start 10k run' in Lincoln Park.

Quote

'The price of great bacon is eternal vigilance.'
-David Edwards (Young Dave)

Quotes

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. --Mozart


If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford