After the meeting I had to explain the following:

• TANSTAAFL stands for “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch,” a phrase we all understand which was popularized by Robert Heinlein in his book “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”
• TISTAAFD is something I made up, namely, an acronym for “There Is Such Thing As A Free Dinner,” a reference to the multiple times that Microsoft bought us dinner when we were crunching to deliver MED-V v2
• Sci-fi is probably the best form of fiction there is, and Heinlein is probably the most notable sci-fi author of all time

Subsequent discussion led to a request for a list of what I consider the most important books to read.  I pointed out that, in truth, I mostly read non-fiction, but they were not to be denied!

So I put them off.  Until now, anyway.

In order to make this list, the book must be more than just good.  A good, entertaining story or presentation of interesting information isn’t enough.  If it were, there would be many, many more books on this list.

No, to make this list, the book must be truly influential.  It must have a permanent effect on the way that I see the world and/or the way that I approach life to make my list.

So I now present, in no particular order, a list of books that I consider most influential thusfar in my life.

• “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey. Outside of scripture, possibly the most important book I’ve ever read, and also unfortunately blamed (inappropriately) for a lot of corporate-speak like “Proactivity” and “Synergy.”  ”Seven Habits” is often ridiculed, but almost never by people who have read it.
  • Key Takeaway: This book is full of valuable lessons, on proactivity, on leadership, on stewardship, on prioritization.  But one of my favorite nuggets from the book is, “Be efficient with things, but effective, never efficient, with people.”
  • Other great books by Covey:  ”The 8th Habit”
• “1984″ by George Orwell. The concept of an all-seeing “Big Brother” comes from 1984, including the name itself.  Orwell paints a bleak and somber picture of a dystopian future in this book written in 1949.  This is not a happy book.  It is disturbing, frightening, and powerful.  But I don’t know how you could tell the message any other way, and I consider the message absolutely essential.  Everyone should read this book.
  • Key Takeaway: Freedom to choose is of utmost importance to happiness, more than fulfillment, security, or prosperity.  Once you start to trade freedom to your government for those other things, you may not be able to stop it, including giving up the freedom to choose who you love.
  • Other great books by Orwell:  ”Animal Farm”
• “Buffettology” by Mary Buffett and David Clark. “Buffettology” is primarily a financial book, wherein Warren Buffett’s ex-daughter-in-law Mary Buffett describes the investing techniques that Warren Buffett has used for decades to become the world’s wealthiest investor.  As a financial book, it is not bad, although I doubt this book alone will make you rich.  But it will teach you to think like an investor, and that will change the way you think about a lot of things.
  • Key Takeaway: Regardless of whether you trade stocks, you are an investor.  You invest your time and your money — in your career, in your family, in your friendships, in your hobbies.  Thinking about things from an investing point of view has had a significant impact on how I view business decisions, family decisions, and personal decisions.
• “The Code Book” by Simon Singh. You might be surprised at just how entertaining and valuable a book on the history of cryptography can be.  And you might be surprised at how much it enriches your life.
  • Key Takeaway: There is an ongoing race between the creation of cryptographic forms and the creation of techniques to crack those cryptographic forms.  For centuries, the two sides have traded the lead back and forth countless times.  All of which makes modern legislative efforts around cryptography seem pretty stupid.  This further erodes my confidence in all the other things they are trying to “fix” also.
• “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” by Eric S. Raymond. You might think you have a pretty good grasp on the software industry and how all of that should work.  You might think all those open-source wackos are beyond comprehension by normal, capitalism-minded folks.  You might think all of that until you read “The Cathedral and the Bazaar.”  Until you read it, you won’t understand open source.  And afterward, you will start to wonder whether there really is a better way.
  • Key Takeaway: Open source software may not cost anything to obtain, but it is not free.  How do you pay for open source software?  Businesses that do not  understand this will never be successful in open source, no matter how much noise they make about it.
• “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” by John Gray. It isn’t too popular, especially among men, to read books on relationships.  So I do realize that most men would make fun of me for admitting that I’ve read this book.  Of course, most men don’t have as great a marriage as I have either, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
  • Key Takeaway: Men and women feel love differently from each other and are therefore differently motivated and differently rewarded.  To have fulfilling relationships, each must learn to show love in ways that will make the other feel loved, not necessarily in ways that would cause the person expressing the love to feel loved themselves.
  • Other great books by Gray:  ”Mars And Venus Together Forever”
  • Note:  Despite me having read this book, I do give my wife most of the credit for our fabulous marriage.
• “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe. In this classic novel, Defoe tells the tale of the fictional hero Robinson Crusoe who lived some 28 years marooned on a tropical island at sea before finally being rescued.  It is still an epic story today full of countless life lessons.
  • Key Takeaway: What would be your outlook on life if you were in his situation?  How likely would you be to make of your life what Robinson Crusoe did in such difficult circumstances?
• “The Millionaire Mind” by Thomas J. Stanley. While Stanley is probably better known for another title, my favorite of his is “The Millionaire Mind.”  Through extensive surveys and university research, Stanley gathered the information presented in this book to expose many surprising traits about the truly wealthy in America, and what they do — and do not — spend their money on.
  • Key Takeaway: Being wealthy can be defined as having some quantity of money (usually enough to never need to work again), but it can also be defined as a state of mind, an attitude towards money.  Regardless of where you currently are financially, you can start thinking of yourself as wealthy.  Then when faced with a financial decision, you can use this frame of reference:  ”I’m a wealthy person, and that is not the sort of thing a wealthy person spends money on.”  Over time, conducting your life as a wealthy person will eventually lead you to actual financial wealth.
  • Other great books by Stanley:  ”The Millionaire Next Door”
• “The Universe In A Nutshell” by Stephen Hawking. When it requires the effort to type that it must for Stephen Hawking, you can expect that he would pine over every word before writing it out.  The result is an elegantly written and easily understood explanation of modern theoretical physics that is truly enriching.  And whether he meant it or not, Hawking’s writing strengthened my belief in God and his plan for us.
  • Key Takeaway: You can think of our universe as walnut-shaped, where the size of the universe follows roughly the shape of the nut as time moves along the axis of the nut from top to bottom.  If true, how many of these might there be?  Might not God create one of these periodically as a timed test environment in which his billions of spirit children can prove to themselves whether they choose good or evil?  Does this explain how God can know the beginning from the end and yet still allow individual agency?
  • Other great books by Hawking:  I haven’t actually read it, but I’m sure “A Brief History of Time” is excellent and is definitely on my must-read list.
• “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. This story of a young boy, a child prodigy of military strategy and tactics, is more than just a story about aliens and war.  It will make you think about international relations, the philosophy of preemptive strike, the place of diplomacy, submitting to a higher will, the right to destroy something (or someone) for the greater good, and more.
  • Key Takeaway: Do your very best work, give your very best effort, always.  You never know just how important it might be that you give the very best of yourself.
  • Other great books by Card:  ”Speaker for the Dead” and many others.
• “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s actually not his best-received book, but probably my favorite.  While he eventually provides some counterpoints to the argument, the central premise of “Blink” is that our initial analysis of a situation is usually the best.
  • Key Takeaway: You know all those times you said, “I should’ve followed my gut?”  Yep, you were right.  Pay more attention to the gut next time.
  • Other great books by Gladwell:  ”The Tipping Point” and “Outliers”
• “Starship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein. Not every Heinlein book is that great, and some of them are either too edgy or too over the top.  But not “Starship Troopers.”  This is a great book with a smattering of philosophical and societal concepts that will really make you think.  And the way he predicts, in 1959, the consequences that would come from juvenile delinquency and leniency are pretty freaky.
  • Key Takeaway: I can’t stick with just one here.  One of my favorites is the need for balance between authority and responsibility, a principle that is so blindingly obvious when you examine it, yet so appallingly absent in nearly every social structure today, especially government entities and corporate environments.  Another is his reasoning behind why, in the future world of “Starship Troopers,” military service is a prerequisite for citizenship and, thus, for voting rights:  Before you let people vote on public policy, they should learn how to put the needs of the whole ahead of their own personal desires.
  • Other great books by Heinlein:  Be warned, these are progressively more edgy, but still pretty amazing:  ”The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,” “Farnham’s Freehold,” and “Stranger In A Strange Land”
• “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. “Freakonomics” claims to explore “the hidden side of everything,” which is a lie (one that both authors admit to in the follow-up book).  But they do explore the hidden side of many things, which makes the book interesting.  In my world, however, interesting doesn’t mean great.  What makes it great is, well, the key takeaway below.
  • Key Takeaway: No matter how confusing the problem or how perplexing the situation, there is probably a fairly simple and logical explanation, if you just can obtain the right information.  This learning is key in a number of ways.  In politics, for example, whatever confusing story you’re being sold is probably not the whole story.  At work, your boss’s erratic behavior probably makes perfect sense if you just understand his motives.  So question everything, and seek for the hidden side of everything.
  • Other great books by Levitt and Dubner:  ”SuperFreakonomics”
• “Linchpin” by Seth Godin. I wrote before about Linchpin and how meaningful it was to me.  Godin does a masterful job of encouraging you to be more than you are today, and while he doesn’t tell you exactly what to do, he gives you a framework to work within to achieve it.
  • Key Takeaway: No matter what career you are in, you have a choice.  You can either become a Linchpin, wherein you make yourself indispensable and therefore worth increasingly more, or you can participate in the race to the bottom, wherein you become worth increasingly less.
  • Other great books by Godin:  ”The Dip”
• “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. Funny, interesting, insightful, and influential, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” is a must-read for everyone, especially people in technology.  Once you read this book, you will understand where fjords come from, why “42″ is the answer to any question, why Altavista named their language translator “Babelfish,” and why towels are so important.
  • Key Takeaway: Perspective.  Among all the other greatnesses of this book, the one thing I come away with every time I read it is a better ability to see things from a different perspective.
  • Other great books by Adams:  ”Life, the Universe, and Everything” and “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe” are great too.  Actually, I’d recommend just buying the leather-bound “Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide” which contains all of the books in the series in a beautiful package.
• “The Cashflow Quadrant” by Robert Kiyosaki. Kiyosaki isn’t exactly a fantastic writer, but the concepts in Cashflow Quadrant are excellent.  Even if, like me, you don’t actually get around to putting them into practice for a while, the Cashflow Quadrant provides a great frame of reference for understanding how money is made and how the business world works with respect to you personally, and it helps you know where you are trying to go.
  • Key Takeaway: If you want to make more money, you have to be willing to take more risk.  You might not be willing to take more risk — that’s perfectly fine.  Just don’t be too upset when, after shunning risk, you find money shunning you.
  • Other great books by Kiyosaki:  ”Rich Dad Poor Dad”
• “The Book of Mormon” (Scripture). On one hand, it seems weird to discuss scripture in a post that has otherwise discussed secular books; on the other hand, no set of books has influenced my thinking more than my scriptures, and no scriptural book has done this more than the Book of Mormon.  Compared to the Bible, the messages are comparable and complimentary, but the writing style is clearer and the lessons more obviously relevant to us today.  If you have not read it, give it a good old college try.  You might be surprised.
  • Key Takeaway: There are a number.  The most important is that Jesus Christ is the Savior and did truly atone for the sins of all mankind.  But there’s a couple of others that I like.  One is that a society cannot exist forever by choosing to condone only some sin.  All sinful behavior eventually leads away from peace toward war and destruction.  Another is that, aside from life itself and the atonement of His son, God’s greatest gift to us is our freedom to choose what we will do with the life we are given and the time we have to live.  Specifically, freedom to choose is more important than personal safety.  How are we honoring that gift, both individually and as a society?
  • Other great scripture:  Obviously, the Bible, the original testament of Jesus Christ, to which the Book of Mormon is a companion.

It looks like my 1998 Kawasaki KX 250 will belong to someone else tomorrow.  I bought that bike, worn and beaten, six years ago.  I brought it into my garage, took it apart, cleaned it, painted it, put new graphics and a new seat cover on it, gave it a new rear race tire, had the forks rebuilt by Pro-Action, and gave it a new Renthal rear sprocket.

This, my friends, is how you show your motorcycle just how much you love it.

I’ve loved every minute I’ve ridden it.  I love that rush of adrenaline I feel when you kick the engine to life and you feel the motor revving beneath you.  I love the awesome power as you launch off the line and the pull you feel in your arms as you climb through the gears and that amazing 250cc two-stroke powerband.  I love that feeling of soaring high above the ground (where “high” means “a multitude of inches”).  I even forgive my bike for that time I was trying to learn to double-jump and instead I broke my collarbone.

If any girls read my blog they probably think this is so dumb.  And to that, I say this:  I had a fair number of girlfriends when I was single, but when I found one that I felt this strongly about, I married her.  And if that doesn’t show you up, well, I don’t even know what I meant by that.

Seriously, I really wish I could keep it.  Maybe someday, when my career doesn’t require every spare minute of my time and investments of large sums of money in laptops, maybe then I can have another one.

Until then, there’s a part of me that will be dead.  There’s a part of me that will ache every time I watch motocross or supercross racing live or on TV.  There’s a part of me that will feel like I sold my soul in order to try to move my career forward, and that part will let me know how disappointed it is with me for the rest of my life, especially if I fail.

It will definitely be a bittersweet memory.  Like the CRX, I’ll love it forever.  And I don’t care if you think that is stupid.

So, for posterity’s sake, here’s some pictures to remember my baby by:

Catching tons of air at Bunker Hill Raceway in Delta, 2004-ish.

I love this picture.

So I did.  And it is awesome.  No — it is Freakin’ Awesome.  So, without further delay, I present instructions to make Matt’s Freakin’ Awesome Trail Mix, mostly so I don’t forget.

You need:

• A BIG container, at least two quarts (bigger is better)
• About 1 pound of granola, with or without raisins
  • I just buy a 28 oz. box of Quaker’s granola, use just over half of it and then eat the rest for breakfast deliciousness
• In the snack section:
  • About 1 pound of salted cashews
  • One 6-8 ounce package of shelled, salted pistachios
    • You can get these at Wal-Mart, I could not find them at Albertson’s though
• Get the following in the baking section, not the snack section:
  • One 6-ounce package of RAW pecans or pecan halves
  • One 6-ounce package of RAW almonds
  • Three 5-6 ounce packages of dried fruit
    • Choose whatever fruit you like, but I think fruits with stronger flavors taste better.  I like mixes that include dried cherries, cranberries, and blueberries.

Pour it all into the container and mix.  You don’t need salt – the salt that comes with the cashews and pistachios is just enough.  Just mix it well in your container and enjoy.  This will cost you about $30 to make, but it will last you a good month or so, if you don’t let your kids eat it that is.

Here’s some nutritional facts about this trail mix.  Each one-cup serving has:

• No grams of fat
• No cholesterol
• No calories
• No sodium
• 750 grams of fiber
• 400 grams of protein
• 200% of your daily recommended allowance of every essential vitamin and mineral

Okay, those are nutritional opinions, not facts.  But it is a most excellent snack nonetheless.  And definitely better for you than a candy bar.

Amber said yes, and I was pretty stoked.  So I bought myself and XBox 360 from BestBuy.  I’d heard about the now-famous Red Ring Of Death, so uncharacteristically I decided to pay for the extended warranty.

Unsurprisingly, our XBox 360 eventually decided to sport the Red Ring Of Death – a fate, much like real death, that is unavoidable for older XBoxen.  What is pretty amazing about this experience is that ours chose to manifest the Red Ring Of Death about one month before the warranty expired.

Really.  That is pretty incredible.  That’s how I know it has been almost two years since Guitar Hero II came out.

Microsoft, I hear, has been pretty cool about handling this Red Ring Of Death thing, and since my machine was less than two years old I figured I could get Microsoft to replace it.  But then I remembered having purchased the extended warranty.  So I took it in to BestBuy today to see if they would replace it.

(By the way, can you guess what the customer service associate typed into the “Reason for Return” field on the return form when I brought back my XBox 360?  ”Red Ring Of Death.”  I don’t know if that is funny or embarrassing.)

So here’s what happened:

• On April 6, 2007, I purchased my XBox 360 from BestBuy for $399.
• Some time ago, Sadie gave one of my XBox 360 controllers a drink of orange juice.  It got heartburn and never recovered.  After that, we let Oakley play with it since it was completely non-functional.
• Last night I packaged up the XBox 360, with all the accessories and the non-functional controller, to take back to BestBuy.
• Today they gave me a brand new one, which means:
  • My new XBox 360 has a 60 GB hard drive instead of a 10 GB hard drive.
  • My new XBox 360 has an HDMI output where the other did not.
  • My new XBox 360 came with two new video games where the other did not.
  • My new XBox 360 comes with a brand new manufacturer’s warranty – clock reset.
  • My new XBox 360 only costs $299. So I got also got a sweet BestBuy gift card for the difference, which I am thinking might be well used to buy something like Fable II.

Yeah, this Red Ring Of Death thing ended up being pretty sweet.  I completely upgraded my XBox 360, got some new games, a new controller, and reset the factory warranty for, uh, negative $40?  Sweet.

Only bad thing:  I lost all my old saved games, because I can’t figure out how to save them to a memory stick.  Am I a doofus, or is it just not doable on the XBox 360?  It seems like a software engineer should be able to figure that out.

Oh well.  It is a small price to pay for such a sweet deal.  I’m looking forward to 23 months from now, when hopefully my XBox 360 will Red Ring Of Death again.

Therapy. ]]> http://www.mvryan.org/2008/09/ahhhh/feed/ 0 http://www.mvryan.org/2008/08/three-new-things-i-learned-today/ http://www.mvryan.org/2008/08/three-new-things-i-learned-today/#comments Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:41:00 +0000 matt http://blog.mvryan.org/?p=101

This picture was taken at a local track. This track is a fairly easy track, with nice big berms and easy jumps. No whoops anywhere on this track. Hey, I’m not a professional racer or anything. I just want to go ride and have fun. This track is plenty challenging for me.

I haven’t ridden my bike for a few months now. Last time I went riding, we went to a different track than the one in the picture. This track is a lot more difficult, with whoops, rhythm sections, and double jumps.

It was bad timing cause I’d just come home from the US Open of Supercross in Las Vegas the weekend before. I’d spent all this time watching guys, even little kids, jumping these double jumps like it was nothing. I was thinking, “These little 8-year-old kids can do these doubles on a 50cc – I should be able to do this on my 250 no problem!”

Well, I’ll admit it – they are much better riders than I am. After clipping the front tire on the top of the second jump, I almost rode it out before I lost control and went over the top of the berm. All I really know is that I landed really hard on the back of my left shoulder, and when I got up I had a huge bump on my collarbone where there shouldn’t be one (see above). I now have a metal plate on my collarbone. Hey, sometimes it hurts to be a half bad boy.

Oh, and by the way, if you ever break your collarbone and the doctor says they can’t do anything about it, don’t believe it. That’s what my doctor said also. Then I referred myself to an orthopedic surgeon who told me they do this all the time. If I had listened to my first doctor I would have been crippled in my shoulder for life. No kidding.