I’ve been listening to Pogo and his YouTube page for a while! Great stuff and here are a few of my favorites:

Listen and watch more at Pogo’s webpage!

I spent Thursday to Sunday in Miami on South Beach and had a great time, the conference was well done and they had some great speakers! I was also impressed with South Beach, although not that I could ever live there. Unless I get an operation that infuses me with three popped collars, hair gel, fist pumping, non stop base thumping, and general douchery. I should note it did have great beaches and lots of normal people.

It also made me realize I am super burned out and need a vacation to let my mind rest. I ended up skipping the conference parties just because I needed too and catching up on reading and just nothingness. The weather was amazing, a solid 80 degrees and a gorgeous boardwalk to run on. I ran on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I did my longest run in a while with 12 miles. I’m doing a marathon training schedule Apey gave me, and going to see about a marathon later this summer I think.

Oh and Cuban food and coffee is awesome. I already knew this from my time living in Boca Raton, but I really miss cheap delicious Cuban food…

I read 4 books and I highly recommend this book that talks about factory girls in China and was just an amazing story (and very well written). Talk about hustlers, I can’t wait to see what those girls do over the next 40 years with their kids and careers. I can’t imagine leaving town at 16 to get a job and navigate such a crazy world, what an adventure!

Please pardon any spelling mistakes, I’m super tired. I’ve actually been getting up while I was there at 7am or 8am to run in the mornings or for the conference.

This chocolate was really good, I couldn’t turn it down. Someone is right, salty + sweet is good.

Oh and check out this cartoon, funniest thing I’ve seen this year.

Wow what a jam packed January! Work has been insanely busy and slowly our new business project is coming together. Just have to keep mumbling to myself that slow and steady wins the race :).

This last weekend I went to NY and had a blast with friends, although I’m feeling the effects as I spent the last 24 hours getting over a cold. I’m hoping to go again in the next few months and actually see a play and the insides of a few museums. Somehow managed to run 10 miles through central park which was great! I can’t wait to run outside again once spring comes!

Upcoming Travel
February – SuperConf in Miami
March – SXSW in Austin and WHD in Germany + Short Vacation
April – Paga Ultimate Tournament Italy + Short Vacation
May – Fayetteville for Jasmine’s Graduation.

Possibles
June – WHD Conf in Thailand
August – San Fran WordCamp and Fayetteville for a wedding.
November – PubCon Vegas
October – Octoberfest maybe?

I finished reading The Way Of Kings a few days ago and it is hands down one of the best fantasy books I’ve ever read! It was written by Brandon Sanderson and is the first book in a 10 part series which will slowly be written over the next ten years. Brandon is also the writer who is finishing the Wheel Of Time series.

The book is 1,300 pages and a little slow to start, but only because it has to build stories around the main characters who are in different locations, by mid way you are sucked in and feel like you know the characters incredibly well and are just hoping the next chapter keeps going with their story. Brandon is a genius at developing systems of “magic” or power in all his books and this one is no different. I won’t ruin it but it works well and I like it even more then the one he created in the Mistborn series. In addition the political intrigue is fantastic.

I can’t recommend this book enough!

“Life before Death. Strength before Weakness. Journey before Destination. – The Way of Kings

I finished the challenge to read 100 books in 2010 and figured I would do a list of recommended books out of all of them. I’m going to do the challenge again this year, it was nice to write little mini reviews and have something remind me to read.

5 Best Fantasy Books + Historical Fiction
*I’m combining these as there are a few that blur the lines.

1. The Warded Man series by Peter Brett. The third book is due to be released soon and the story places you in a world much like our own (perhaps ours many years from now) where demons rise out of the ground and towns have to be protected by complex wards. This story follows a very driven individual who wants to discover how to use the wards to go on the offensive and reclaim the world from the demons that emerge at night. Well written and fascinating world.

2. The Blade Itself series by Joe Abercrombie (3 books). One of the most unique fantasy novels I’ve ever read, it starts off normal but very quickly you realize that this is a dark series with a very unique outlook and sense of humor. I highly recommend it!

3. The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. The books place you in a world of revolution where some individuals can burn metals they ingest to give themselves super powers. Highly recommend, fantastic writer, and a very balanced system of powers.

4. The Long Man and The Point Man by Steven Englehart. I can’t wait for more of these, imagine that James Bond loves rock music, was in Vietnam, and also that alchemy and magic are real (and well explained) and he can live forever and so on. The universe is amazing, and the writing is fantastic.

5. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. I love historical fiction and this is one of the best novels I have read in that genre. Everything takes place in the 9th dynasty of China and reading it is like picking up pure crack, very hard to stop.

Runner UP: The Deed Of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon. A old school three book fantasy series which is a little slow to get started but sucks you into a fantastic story and world. Reminds me a lot of wheel of time. And also a mention to The Hunger Games series which is also fantastic.

3 Best Sci Fi Books

1. The Truth Machine. Imagine that there is a machine that can tell if anyone is lying, what affect would that have civilization. Great book!

2. Freedom by Daniel Suarez. This is the sequel to one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read Daemon. If you want to glimpse the future pick up these books.

3. The Lost Fleet series of 6 books by Jack Campbell. A classic old school space adventure, a quick fun read!

3 Best Business Books

1. Build To Last by Jim Collins. A lot of people have mentioned this book and I am happy to say it was a fantastic book. I have already digested through third parties and my own goals a lot of what he talks about, but this book is a must read for anyone trying to build a company or business. My copy has bookmarks every other page and I had to pause to write notes on my iPhone every few pages.

2. Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization by two authors. Since I manage a customer service company this was a great read and it really generated a lot of ideas. Plus I think over the coming years with FaceBook and twitter customer service is going to become more and more important to any organization.

3. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh. A great book that gave me a lot of ideas on how to improve our customer service. Tony did a nice job on this book and it spawned pages of ideas.

3 Best Non Fiction Books

1. War by Sebastian Junger – This is a must read for everyone, Sebastian lived with a platoon of soldiers in one of the most violent areas of Afghanistan. If you want to know what soldiers go through in combat read this. I haven’t seen the documentary Restrepo which is based on this but I would imagine that would also be good to watch.

2. The Coming Population Crash by Fred Pearce. A fantastic book that examines the growth of the world’s population and what we have done in the past and the impact of future growth. Great book and it will be an interesting 20 years with some of the demographics changes. I agree with him that we are going to reach a max population point in the next 50 years and then things will stabilize.

3. My Father, the Captain: My Life With Jacques Cousteau. I love Jacques Cousteau and found this a fascinating read about a really impressive character.

3 Best Travel / Learn About Other Countries Books

1. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France But Not The French. One of the most fascinating books I’ve read in the last few years. France has an amazing social and political system and this book explains it from a micro and macro level with writing that is easy to digest. Read my full review of this book here. I learned so much.

2. Peter Hessler clinches second this year with Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time In China and Country Driving: A Journey Through China From Farm to Factory

3. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. Bill is one of the funniest amazing writers I’ve ever come across. I’ve read a few of his books and plan to read them all but this one clinches the bronce this year. The book is hilarious while showing you Australia. Like did you know that Australia has 12 foot long earth worms? Probably not, Bill Bryson fixes that lack of knowledge. Also check out A Short History Of Nearly Everything, I wish I had that in college.

Runner Up: Julia Child’s My Life In France. Not only is she a fascinating person who I admire, but she also shows you what France was like after WW2 as well as American politics. What I saw was not something history has shown from such a personal level (especially some of the anti communist McCarthy era politics they went through).

So I decided to move to Washington DC and after a 3 day car ride that seemed to last forever I have arrived! Just needed a change up from Denver, plus I have a lot of friends here, and I obviously like to move around :).

More updates to follow, work has been super busy especially with a new startup we have been working on for a year that is beta launching in February 2011! Really excited!

I had a random thought today, I would like my tomb stone to read “Mildly Competent”.

The NY Times released this awesome tool that allows you to go through and apply different items that will help to fix the budget and shortfall for 2015 and 2030. Check out the tool here but be warned it is super addictive!

Here are my my choices! And a couple notes:

1. Farm subsidies, Joel made a convincing argument on these, and I left them only because i want the subsidies moved towards promoting better eating. So away from corn…

2. Reduce the federal work force, this one I’m a tad split on and left it unchecked. I think we need to lower it but do it smartly. There are some offices that need more resources and some that do not. Personal need to go towards areas such as education, energy policy, SEC and bank monitoring and investigation, and other protective areas. I did however cut the 250k in government contractors.

3. On military I reduced our nuke and space spending, duh. I feel strongly we should keep troops in Asia and Europe and really push that up, its good for the country and for our ability to project force abroad. Which is also why I didn’t vote for reducing the navy and air force fleet as they enable us to do that. I cut some of the terrible programs like the osprey, we need to drop the cold war race against our self. And not cutting veterans benefits as that seems insulting. And I voted to reduce the troops to 60k by 2015, I’d love to do 30k but I don’t think that is as feasible.

4. With health care I voted to cap medicare growth as I’ve read some on that and it makes sense, and to enact medical malpractice reform. I also wanted to vote to reduce tax breaks on employer provided health insurance, but this should be done once we have a base government provided health care or at least something that you buy yourself. Then the added extra insurance through your employer should be taxed.

5. Social security… I voted to reduce social security to those with high incomes and use an alternative measure for inflation. I’m not huge on increasing the retirement age just yet.

6. Existing taxes. This is a big one for me and I would vote for the most moderate one by Lincoln, the Obama one is good too as its the same as Bushes. Investment taxes, we need to go with Obama’s proposal. And on the bush tax cuts I want to allow expiration of taxes for incomes above 250,000 a year. And allow the payroll tax for those above 106k a year.

7. New taxes… The millionaire tax needs to happen. In terms of overhaul I’m very for the Bowles Simpson plan, we need to bring corporate tax rates down while cutting loopholes and other tax deductions. Plus reducing mortgage deductoins for high income households.

This puts me at 43% savings from tax increases and 57% from spending cuts… It puts me around 42 billion over the 2015 shortfall and it puts me 185 billion in surplus over the 2030 shortfall.

Now, I am very interested in a national VAT tax of 5%… I like consumption taxes as right now Americans just consume consume consume and this might break that a bit and bring in much needed money we could focus on doubling teacher saleries and redoing our energy grid…

So here are my results to view.

This is a really sad vote right here, click here for the names of 19 Senators who want to censor the internet. Sad day.

This is hardly a surprise but, this morning (as previously announced), the lame duck Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to move forward with censoring the internet via the COICA bill — despite a bunch of law professors explaining to them how this law is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

Hopefully the courts knock this down if it even passes out of committee… Al Franken how could you? Although maybe they didn’t read the proposed bill… Or maybe this was slipped in, regardless this should never have been voted aye on. (Although maybe they just voted this way to get part of it out of committee and then will strike this BS out or count on the supreme court removing it).

Because you should be!

And luckily I learned this fact watching Dead Snow. Click prior link to see the trailer. Premise of the movie? Nazi zombies emerge from the snow in Sweden or Norway or one of those? And a group of nice medical students having fun for the holiday in a isolated mountain cabin get in a little bit of trouble.

Some amazingly awesome scenes of gore. Entertaining as hell.

Over the last few weeks I’ve have had a blast, I played Fright Flight with Liquor and Cleats, went to the Rally To Restore Sanity, and then played Harvest with our college alumni team back in Fayetteville. Liquor and Cleats got second at Fright Flight and our Alumni team lost in semis at Harvest, but we did win the spirit disc (and both were costume tournaments with great people which are always fun). Fright Flight is one of the funniest tournaments I’ve played in and I’m really looking forward to playing Paga in Italy again this year.

Some pictures of the DC rally below:

I just reread a book my dad recommended to me as a kid, that book is Wolfen and it is hands down one of the scariest fracking books I have ever read. I strongly recommend reading it and then trying to walk around in the dead of night without wondering if you are being hunted, or sleep and try not to dream of the wolfen stalking you.

I also love this book, and any book, that takes a myth and turns it into our reality. In this book they take the myth of werewolves and try to explain them scientifically, why we haven’t discovered them, and a lot more. And it seems pretty believable.

Fun fact, I wrote was a short sequel to Wolfen for an english clash in 7th grade. It was what you call a “classy” short story involving a native american rambo type character, gatling guns, explosions, and Wolfen hunting pack tearing people apart. A real thinker.

I don’t often post book recommendations on the blog, in fact I’ve only written two full blog posts on books this year, the rest just get a small blurb on the big list. So keep that in mind as the title of this book I’m about to recommend should scare you away, the title is Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French.

So the title sounds a bit retarded but the book is absolutely amazing! I’ve visited France three or four times over the last couple years and I’ve been trying to learn more about french culture and history and this book is the answer, it is as if someone forced a book on french history, french politics, and french business outlook to have menage a trois and this book is the baby. The book is well written, well researched, and well laid out.

And a quick example, I’ve been involved with computers for a long time and I’ve never heard of the Minitel yet after a chapter of reading about it in this book I was stunned. This was basically a very successful precursor to the internet that launched in 1982, a mere year after I was born. This little networked device could do online dating, message boards, buy airline or train tickets, order stuff, porn, etc. Crazy that I’ve never heard of it.

So go buy this book if you want to learn how France works. It is great to learn more about another democracy that continually chooses a different path then the USA. And hopefully we can pull some ways to change our system out of the mistakes they have made, and the things they are doing very well.

And…

The other book I strongly recommended this year is War (Click Here to learn more about it). A documentary is also going to come out about the author and the soldiers he wrote about.

St. Maartin was beautiful (as expected) and I had a great trip. The plane had a small bit of trouble landing and we had to spend the first day in Puerto Rico before the high winds died down. But after that all was good. I read a ton of books, tried a lot of different rums, and didn’t work too much. It also reminded me why the south got nothing done prior to the invention of air conditioning, it is impossible to work a job where you sit for more then a few hours in hot humidity. I walked around ~1/8th of the island and made it to the French side, the entire coast was amazing, and some of the houses are insane. And somehow I managed not to get sun burn.

Florida is getting hit way worse then Denver or Arkansas or other places in the USA I’ve visited lately. I’m guessing because the real estate market had so much further to crash… I was pretty stunned. Washington DC was awesome as usual, played in a beach tournament which was a blast and had a great time visiting friends! Looking forward to moving there late this year.

Great trip!

And btw if anything on my blog is misspelled, or the grammar makes you wince, just suck it up. I usually write these pretty fast and I’m only half as bad when I slow down.