So I am a slacker, but enjoy another post

So here with my first of what will be many posts from Little Rock, Arkansas I have to admit I have been slacking. So a quick recap of what I have been doing,

1st I went out in NYC a couple of weeks ago for Phinney's b-day and although fun not exactly the most exciting thing to cross off the list. I assume this has to do with the fact that I have been to NYC many times over my life I just never went out in the city so simply getting drunk in a city didn't get me excited enough to write this until a couple weeks after the fact.

I also was recently approved for a mortgage which brings me one step closer to owning property (#28). I also just spent today looking at houses in and around Little Rock. If you don't know me let me fill you in as to why i would ever make a decision to move to Little Rock AR from Boston because believe me if you had told me 2 years ago I would do this I would have told you that you were crazy. There is a long story and a short one, I don't feel it is prudent for me to go into the Gorey detail of how i got here but basically I was giving a choice move to AR or get WFR'd. I wasn't going to move to do the same job that I had been doing so i let my management team i was willing to move for the right opportunity and after many months I got promotion so I am moving down to LR (apparently that is how the cool kids down here write it)

Finally I started reading "Now I can Die in Peace" by Bill Simmons. I didn't realize that this book was just a collection of articles that he had wrote that he then went back and commented on but so far I am enjoyin it

Holbrook if you are gonna read this you can at least comment on it (Jerk)

2 Phish Shows and Michael Domsky

So I wanted to go to more concerts and when the opportunity to go to see Phish at Fenway arose I felt I had to oblige. Granted it took pat and becca going to sit outside Fenway at 2:30 the night before tickets went on sale, then the next weekend one Michael "the man, the myth, the legend" Domsky showed up for another Phish show down in Mansfield. And that is 2 birds with one stone my friend.

Although I will add an editors note that when creating the list one of the most difficult things is to choose numbers for items your not really sure whats a lot of something until you start doing it.h Expect some changes to list items with numbers such as the score for a round of golf, and this one although i haven't come up with a new number yet

I think for this one I am going to let the pictures do the talking but it was good to see Domsky, I hope he goes to Alumni weekend and stays in touch over the years because he can be very elusive

Mansfield Show

^Michael Domsky ^

blink - The Power of Thinking without Thinking

So I just finished blink, Malcolm Gladwell’s book about the power of thinking without thinking. It is about how we make snap judgments and how those influence our behavior. This is my 2nd Gladwell book. I read The Tipping Point a couple of years ago when I was taking some time between college and looking for a job. I had actually had the book for a few years before I finally got around to reading it but I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to try and gain a new understanding about the world around them.

So what blink really boils down to is our own judgment. How can we know when to trust our gut and when do we need to gather more information. What I found most interesting was that Gladwell actually argues that more often than not we try and use too much information to make our decisions. He uses a series of stories that if not for the common theme of snap second decisions are otherwise unrelated.

The book opens with a story about a historical statue that supposedly dated back to 6,000 BC. The museum in question spent years trying to verify its authenticity, brought in all kinds of experts to run numbers and statistics to prove it was real. Then they brought in 2 statue experts and based on seeing the statue for a split second they knew it was a fake.
If I was to see this statue I probably wouldn’t know any better then all of the other experts’ whose numbers were wrong. The main issue is that these types of decisions are made by people with a very extensive knowledge of the subject matter they are being asked about. For example one man who spent years working with couples could tell based on a 5 minute conversation if that couple will stay together with 90% accuracy.

One of the most interesting chapters was about being able to read emotions on people’s faces. Not just being able to understand how someone feels without them ever speaking, but that everyone’s real emotions are worn on their face, if only for a split second, weather or not they know it. As I have a left a few open items on my list I might use one of them to learn how to read faces.

Being able to train ourselves to trust our instincts knowing that more times then not they will be correct is a big leap. There are many different examples of snap judgments, right and wrong, illustrating how our mind can know something before we are even cognitively aware of it in this book. As this isn’t a topic I have ever thought about before I hope I am able to continue to develop my judgment abilities as they could be very valuable over the course of my life and career.

I wasn’t sure how to record the books that I read in this blog so I decided to go with this kind of format, as I just finished this book, I immediately came in and got some thoughts down. In the interest of full disclosure I started to write this blog before I read the afterword. In retrospect that was a mistake as I changed quite a bit of this blog after finishing the book. I could probably have used more of the examples from the book but I didn’t want to ruin it for anyone who is interested in it.

In the end I would highly recommend either of the Gladwell books talked about here. At some point I will get to Outliers then I can let you about that as well.

PS. Once I gather the pic’s I need to blog about Phish & Michael Domsky, crossing things off left and right

MICHAEL DOMSKY IS HERE!!!

Domsky is in the building and we are about to leave for Phish, He told me at 11:54 he would be here at 1:30 and hit it to the minute. Absolutely shocking. I am excited to get Domsky in his natural habitat. I couldn’t ask for anything more when decided on wording it “hang out with Michael Domsky”

Getting Back into Golf + notes

So I put a number of golf things on my list because I used to play a lot when I was younger but once I got into high school I just slowed down and basically stopped playing. It seemed like a good idea to start playing again since it is a great way to network and spend time with family. So I started talking about it last fall although didn’t play. My dad got me new Nike clubs, a new bag and a Taylor Made Burner driver for Christmas probably to encourage me to play with him.

I finally went out the Saturday before my sisters wedding with my uncle Peter Belanger, my grandfather Peter Belanger, and my grandfather’s nephew (whatever that makes him to me) Peter Belanger (my 3 partners) my brother, my dad, my dad’s cousin Denis, and my now bother in law (still weird to say that). In the end shot a 101 on the day. 57 on the front 9 and 44 on the back. So you might say that I needed to shake the rust off, as that was my 1st time playing since last yr for father’s day. Also probably my 1st time keeping a legitimate score in at least a decade (also weird to be able to say that).

Overall I am pretty happy with the performance. It may cause me to have to change one of my list items though. Since I shot a 101 on my 1st legitimate time in a decade I am going to drop number 46. Play a round of golf under 100 to 85. I picked 85 because I figured that my baseline, which I will use as the back nine, since I was properly warmed up, times 2 is 88. So I would like to improve on that since I think it is unlikely I will start throwing up compete rounds of 44 on a regular basis but with some more practice we will see

So some other random things to make note of:

38. Try 5 different types of Sushi- I have tried a California Roll, a Spicy Roll, and a Tuna Roll – Overall I am warming up to Sushi, and hopefully fish in general, we will see

55. Learn How to make 2 appetizers really well- I will declare my Taco dip ready to be consider “really well”. I should have worded this one better but what are you gonna do. But for all future events if you want a Taco dip, I am your man

Cleaning up Simarano Dr.- 2/101

So I have started on my 101 hours of volunteering with 2. Today I went with our employee programs and cleaned up Simarano Dr. which is the road right outside of our office complex. I’ll be honest and couldn’t believe some of the things we found out there. Large laundry detergent things filled with some kind of oil, someone’s week worth of dirty diapers, used tampons, at least 4 tires, 2 hubcaps, a sink, and a ton of beer & liquor bottles and coffee cups. On a side note I like that I get to triple count it as volunteering for my list, YEN and HP.






Kind of gives you a new perspective on throwing shit out your window

Bruins Vs Canes, Game 1, Eastern Conference Semifinals 2009

So I picked a good time to cross off going to a Bruins game w/ gear. When I was working on the list a Bruins game was on there but then I went for Pat’s birthday in November so I edited the list item to get some gear. I have always liked hockey more than basketball but when the Celtic’s got Garnett I felt compelled to pay more attention to the Burins

So yesterday, the day of the game, I finally get around to picking up some Bruin’s gear. I ended up picking up a hat and a Chara t-shirt jersey, I was between Big Z and Lucic, Just made a game time decision. Almost bought an old school style Neely t-shirt jersey b/c there were signs all over Olympia that said buy one get one ½ off but apparently that was only for red tagged items, which I didn’t see any. Since the shirts were $20 I felt it was a good time to use the economies of scale in my favor. As it turns out I could have gotten the same shirt for $12 from a guy set up in North Station.

On an amusing guy on the street side note after the game one of the guys selling shirts on the street and when he was moving his cart a random guy grabbed one of the shirts that was on display. It took a minute for the vendor to realize it and he grabbed some other guy thinking he had stolen it. But the guy who did steal it was stupid enough to just leave 60% of the shirt hanging out of his back pocket. Before to long this lead to the vendor strait up tackling him and getting his shirt back. James of course had his camera ready

The game was fun, people enjoyed the stach. I didn’t get put on the Jumbotron, prob b/c I wasn’t drunk enough to dance around till later in the game, I did meet a camera guy close to the end of the game and he tried to get me up there but no luck. Bruin’s won 4-1, Holbook has an RI license and won’t be 25 until July so he couldn’t buy beer at the garden so me and James had to go get beers constantly. One of these trips lead to me missing the 3rd Bruins goal.

Personally I thought the game would be more up tempo given that it was a playoff game but a W is a W.