A look in the mirror

I had an interesting experience about a week ago. I recently started going to the gym again. Three times a week I do strength training and twice a week I run on the treadmill. This particular day was a running day and I wound up going a little after 10 pm.

Usually I prefer to run on an indoor track, but we don't really have that here. I used to run around the fieldhouse, which was decent, but the temporary gym is located very close to my apartment so it's really convenient to just run there (they're renovating the actual gym).

The way the temporary gym is set up is that the treadmills look out the window, which is a big improvement on the storage closet they used to be in before they started renovating the fieldhouse (not an exaggeration by the way, they treadmills were actually in a room designed to be a storage closet). This particular day it was dark out by the time I started running, so instead of looking out the window I spent the whole run looking directly at my reflection in the window.

It was a very interesting experience. I've never seen myself run before, and for that matter I don't really ever see myself when I'm going about my day. Really the only time I ever look in a mirror is when I'm combing my hair or shaving, so only for about two minutes a day (electric shaver for the win). I don't even really particularly have a "mental picture" of myself, I mean I know what I look like but I don't spend time thinking about it.

One thing that was interesting was seeing myself with a beard. I've had a beard for a little over two months now, and I'd never had facial hair before in my life. No mustache (yet), just a beard. I think it works decently well for me, definitely worth trying out. I will be doing No-Shave November for the first time in my life next month, so we'll see how the mustache comes in. I may wind up deciding to shave everything off come December.

Another interesting thing was how intense I am when I run. Wifey doesn't understand how I only listen to "angry music" when I run (there are some more positive songs on my playlist, but not many). Angry music just motivates me better! This may possibly mean I'm psychotic, but at least I know myself. Anyway, my face while running ranged from 'serious' to 'totally hardcore' to the occasional 'raging'. I wonder if I scare other people in the gym.

The thing that was most interesting about the experience was realizing that I am noticeably overweight. It's not really something that I think about a lot, but my face clearly shows the extra chubbiness that I'm carrying around. My weight is currently about 205, which has pretty much been the norm for most of my adult life. The only time I really got in decent shape was right before I started dating wifey when I was thinking about joining the air force. I got down to about 178 or so at the time, but after I passed my physical my motivation started to slide. The motivation really took a nosedive when I decided not to join the military.

I have a much better reason now to get in shape. Exercising and losing weight could help us with our infertility. It's certainly not guaranteed to help us, but it's enough of a reason that I should be able to maintain my motivation a little better. Leading a more physically disciplined life will also hopefully help me become more spiritually disciplined, something I definitely need to work more on. It comes down to a matter of willpower until it becomes routine. I'm hoping to stay on track for a good long while this time, or maybe even staying physically fit for good.

My top 10 TV shows

So I just wanted to do a fun post about my favorite TV shows. I've been procrastinating blogging like crazy, so this is a good way to get back into it. I'll probably do some more top 10 lists in the future on some others stuff, so stay tuned.

I really enjoy watching TV shows. What I mean by that is that I actually like sitting down and watching a season or entire series of a particular show. I'm generally opposed to just browsing channels on a regular basis because it pretty much just wastes time. Actually getting into a story is much more interesting. That being said, sometimes you just want to watch a comedy episode that stands alone without caring too much about an overarching story.

I'll first post my top 10 TV shows and a little about why I like each one. Afterwards I'll post the top 10 shows I'm interested in watching, and you can tell me if I missed anything. There are some shows that I would probably enjoy but choose not to watch due to nudity, such as Game of Thrones. There are too many quality shows without much nudity to justify spending a lot of time on shows with it.

So, my top 10 TV shows!

10. Futurama
Futurama (or Simpsons in space) is the only animated show to make it on my list. I considered South Park in this spot instead, but South Park is a little hit-or-miss with the offensiveness factor. South Park as a whole is funnier, but I just can't put it in the top 10 due to a few episodes that are disgusting. When I list Futurama here I mean the original 4 seasons. After coming back from cancellation Futurama just wasn't quite as good (the Family Guy syndrome). Futurama beats out the Simpsons because it just has more freedom when it comes to story (and hence jokes). Being set in the future and focused on a group of people instead of just one family means that Futurama was able to do some crazy episodes. Favorite character: Dr. Zoidberg.

9. The West Wing
I watched most of The West Wing (never finished it) while home from college in the summers, borrowing seasons from the library. Great characters and fantastic dialogue, which should be expected in an Aaron Sorkin production. I can't say I appreciated the politics of the main characters and the somewhat ham-handed way they handled conservatism, but this is a show that made me care about the characters and how they would handle the situations that arose. Favorite character: Toby Ziegler.

8. Prison Break
Gotta start off with a disclaimer: the first season of Prison Break only. Second season was good, afterwards I stopped caring or bothering (did they have more than three?). But first season? Holy cow. Amazing. The tension, the layers, the characters, the unknown. Just learning more about who these people are is amazing. Favorite character: hard to say, maybe Linc? Abruzzi?

7. The IT Crowd
British sitcom about the three members of an IT department at a large company. The interactions of the three characters create some truly absurd situations that have to be seen. This show is completely hilarious in every way. If you haven't seen it, you owe it to yourself. Favorite character: slight edge goes to Roy.

6. Jeeves and Wooster
Another British comedy! Jeeves and Wooster stars Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry as P.G. Wodehouse's famous idle rich man and his "personal gentleman's gentleman." Amazing characters and witty dialogue (on the part of Jeeves of course) are highlights in the many stories of Jeeves extricating Bertie from the horrors of the prospect of marriage to any one of a number of over-the-top women. This show is an example of how to adapt fiction to the screen well. Favorite character: it's Jeeves and Wooster. Each is only understood in the light of the other. Favorite minor character: Spode. No wait, Gussie. No, Madeline. Basically anybody around at Totleigh Towers.

5. Lost
Lost is the show I was into the most while the show was actually being aired. I remember watching the second season at a friend's house off-campus or in the TV Lounge in Trinity Hall and shouting at the TV in amazement at various points. Lost is a show that started off just about perfectly. Season one is definitely one of the best seasons of television ever made. The show faltered in the third seasons but managed to pick it back up after then, to the point where season six is almost as good as season two (and yes, I'm one of the few people who actually likes the much-maligned ending). Favorite character: Mr. Eko.

4. Arrested Development
The only American comedy on my list, I consider Arrested Development to be the funniest show ever made. The characters are amazing, the dialogue is hilarious, the recurring jokes are great, the hidden jokes are great. There are some cringe-worthy moments that some people don't appreciate, but definitely worth it in my opinion. Among the many quotable shows and movies, this is one of the most quotable (especially anything said by Gob). The recent season on Netflix after years of cancellation wasn't great, but I wasn't really expecting it to be. The original three seasons are incredible. Favorite character: Buster.

3. Band of Brothers
Band of Brothers is a ten-part mini-series made by Tom Hanks following Easy Company of the 506th regiment, 101st Airborne division as they experience WWII in Europe, including Normandy, Operation Market Garden, and the siege of Bastogne. Band of Brothers is warfare at its most realistic. Not for the faint of heart, but the way you are placed in the action alongside the men is incredible. I highly recommend it if watching warfare doesn't bother you. Favorite character: Winters. Couldn't really choose anyone else.

2. Sherlock
Sherlock is an interesting choice in that each episode is ninety minutes long, so basically a movie. Sherlock sets Sherlock Holmes in modern-day London and manages to pull it off very well. Holmes' eccentricities are played to the maximum, but it actually works. Only six episodes so far (in two seasons), but that's a lot of TV with the length of the episodes. Sherlock manages to be very intelligent while still fun. Favorite character: Watson.

1. Firefly
Firefly is hands-down my favorite TV show. They didn't even make a full season since it got cancelled pretty early on. This is an example of a cult show that is worth the hype. The network airing it really screwed it over by not showing the pilot and starting with the second episode (which didn't include much introduction). Ratings were not there, but man is this a great show. The premise is basically a western in space (trust me, it works) where the rebellion against the evil empire people failed. The show follows a ship just barely making ends meet by taking any kind of job (even legal ones) that'll keep them in the air. The characters are amazing, the dialogue is great, and the universe is fantastic. Firefly does an excellent job of showing a future that could actually happen, not the white-washed future of Star Trek. Great humor, great action, great plot lines that sadly do not get enough time to fully develop. Watch the show, then watch Serenity (the movie made after the show was cancelled). Favorite character: hard to say, either Mal, Jayne, or Simon.



Top 10 shows I'm interested in watching: (some of these I've seen a few episodes of, but not a season or anything)

10. Parks and Recreation

9. Alias

8. Mad Men

7. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

6. Once Upon a Time

5. Twin Peaks

4. Fringe

3. Farscape

2. The Wire

1. Dollhouse


Thoughts? What did I leave off that I have to see?

Starting the job search again

Well, I've been a Residence Director for about three and a half years now. It's certainly been the best job I've ever had, but I'm getting to the point where it's time to move on. I'll be graduating with my MBA in December, so I won't be taking classes anymore. Wifey and I are also a little tired of living on campus.

As well, my earnings potential is much higher than what my current position offers. Come June (when my current school year will be done) I will have six years of management experience and a master's degree in a relevant field. I know that having the ability to make more money is not a good enough reason in and of itself to leave a job, but it certainly is a consideration. I have a bunch of student loan debt, wifey and I both have medical issues, and the possibility exists of starting an expensive adoption process. Money may not be the most important thing in the world, but it sure comes in handy!

I've started some preliminary work for my job search already: touching up the ol' resumé, expanding my LinkedIn profile (still needs work), setting an appointment with Career Services here on campus, and making a few decisions as to where to look. I will begin searching in earnest in January since I'm in this job until June.

The last time I was doing a major job search was when I graduated with my undergrad. At that time I was looking to move to Pittsburgh but didn't really know what field to look in. Completely different now, we're not looking for any particular area but I have a couple of fields I'd like to be in.

When it comes to where we'd like to be, we're fairly open-ended right now. There are certain considerations like proximity to our families, proximity to our friends, areas of the country we like better than others, etc. There is also an idea of ours that it would be nice to live in Europe for a few years since we both love it so much, so at least we have it narrowed down to two continents!

As far as a field to work in, there are two main areas that I will be looking at. I am definitely interested in higher education administration, as in working for a university. The thing with that though is that I would only want to work for a Catholic university, there are too many things I don't agree with when it comes to other schools. The other issue there is that there are a lot of Catholic universities whose Catholicism can be called into question, so it's also tempting just to keep the search to those universities on the Cardinal Newman Society's Guide to Catholic Colleges.

The other field that I'm interested in is Human Resources. I am very interested in employee relations, hiring, firing, incentive management, and labor disputes. Personally I only have experience in employee relations, hiring, and firing; but the other two are very intriguing to me from studying them in classes.


They say that most jobs you get through networking. Back when I was a recent college grad that always frustrated me because I just didn't know many people in the work force. Now almost everyone that I was in undergrad with has a job somewhere, so hopefully that will make things easier. There are also quite a few people that I know from my time working as an RD who have already graduated and gotten themselves jobs, so that might work out too. In the end, I both know more people AND the people I know are older.

Things are very different than the last time I was doing this whole job search thing. More experience, more education (with better grades), better networking opportunities, and (of course) wifey. I'm excited, it will be a lot of work but I think in the end things will work out well!

On poor presentations and some solutions

(specifics are intentionally withheld)

I went to a presentation not too long ago on campus that was quite bad. I was sitting near the back and I was very tempted to leave by about twenty minutes in. At that point we were still in the introduction and hadn't gotten to the body of the presentation.

I decided that it would be rude to leave early and that I should set a good example (several students did choose to leave early). I stayed for the entire hour and a half presentation, which turned out to be quite the feat. I had to fight myself to stay attentive and to stay in my seat. I contented myself by deciding to blog about it later and hopefully offer some constructive ideas to avoid some of these presentation mistakes.

The introduction did in fact take longer than twenty minutes. Someone was there to introduce the presenter, and that lasted approximately fifteen seconds. The presenter then took the time to tell us all about himself, his credentials in the field of his presentation, the people he was dedicating his presentation to, and the sources of his presentation. Let me just reiterate that he had not made a point until more than twenty minutes into the presentation.

So, some constructive things: keep it short and to the point! That applies to the actual content as well, but an introduction should be very short. In fact, a lot of presentations don't even need an introduction! Going straight into the content tends to hold people's attention much better.

That brings up another point: holding people's attention is essential. You can have a fantastic presentation content-wise that will have absolutely not impact on those listening if you do not hold their attention. Length is a key aspect of this, people lose interest quickly. In fact, in a presentation to college students it is ideal to keep it to under half an hour. It's not always possible to do so, but it is something to strive for. As for this particular talk, the presentation lasted for about eighty minutes followed by five to ten minutes of Q & A.

Visuals are important in presentation. You don't always have to have visual aids, but you should have something for people to look at. You can be your own visual aid if you walk around and talk animatedly. It's fine if you are the kind of person who is nervous enough to need a podium to stand behind, but if so you should have some sort of electronic visual component. In this case the presenter had powerpoint slides of his outline projected during the talk. Powerpoint can work, but an outline is a lackluster visual aid. Putting up just key words and phrases is better. Another option is prezi, which is what the wifey uses when she gives a presentation. Even just a simple outline can be visually stimulating when using prezi.

The presenter did have a few videos to use as audio/visual aids, but the videos did not happen until after an hour of presentation. At that point it was a welcome addition, but there were some problems there as well. The videos were presented without the presenter telling us WHY we were watching the videos. They clearly did fit in the presentation, but more explanation was necessary as to what point was being made with the videos. Also, it would have been better to space the videos out rather than speaking for an hour and then watching some videos.

A final critique: presentations must have a point. This presentation had an interesting title that didn't make any claims or points (which is fine), so I was interested to find out what points the presenter was going to make. I left the presentation and still didn't know what points were trying to be made. It was very haphazard with bits and pieces of things but no main point. Because there was no main point there was very little for me to grab ahold of as a takeaway. When I'm running a meeting (or in one) I try to reiterate the takeaways I want my subordinates to have so that action can come from the meeting. In this case I did not retain much of anything due to a lack of things to grab onto.


It was a frustrating experience, hence the post. A few people occasionally mention to me that I should do more than complain about problems in my blogging. Point taken, but my counter-point is that problems are wonderful things. Problems show us the opportunities to do things better. If you are never shown the negative side of things you will never achieve excellence. I hope that in this post I was able to actually give you some takeaways or positive ideas as to how to present better. While I am no great presenter myself, I certainly have the critic's ability to see problems with presentation. I will endeavor in the future to point out the opportunities corresponding to the problems I blog about.

New diet and my thoughts on cooking

So wifey and I have been making some changes lately in an attempt to boost our chances of conception. One of the changes is our diets, which we started today. Mine is basically the diet outlined here (thanks to my brother for the idea). The basic idea is to boost my testosterone, and how that plays out in my diet is the following:

Breakfast every day will be three strips of bacon and three eggs. Lunch will be a large salad with meat (some form of steak), veggies, and nuts. Dinner will vary day to day.

Sounds pretty tasty to me! Time will tell if I get sick of it. There was a time a few years ago when I was considering joining the air force that I had to lose some weight so I changed my diet. At the time I pretty much ate the same thing 6 days of the week. I ate oatmeal for breakfast, chicken with rice and veggies for lunch, and steak with rice and veggies for dinner. Fruit was also interspersed. It worked pretty well at the time, with regular exercise I lost around 25 pounds.

The current diet will give me much more flexibility, with different snacks I can have and no set dinner. I think I'll get used to it very quickly, shouldn't be a problem. Exercise is the harder thing to get into, that starts next Monday. Urgh.


I don't really cook much anymore now that I have wifey around. She is certainly a much better cook with me. Don't get me wrong, I'm a decent cook, but she is excellent. She also really enjoys making new dishes or just experimenting and seeing what happens (almost always a success).

The creative process of cooking really appeals to me. I don't consider myself to be a very creative person, I'm more of an optimizer than a creator. Still, taking raw materials and transforming them into something that they're not is very fulfilling, especially when it's something you can enjoy afterwards. And let me tell you, I'm a man who enjoys his food.

When I was growing up I did a lot of baking, but I kind of stopped doing that when I got to college. I've found that baking is not as exciting because it's so precise. Baking is a science in which precise measurements are needed in order to get chemical reactions to happen properly. Cooking  is much more of an art form where experimentation and exploration can lead to delicious discoveries. In baking you always need a recipe (unless you're an amazing baker of course), in cooking you can take a dish or a concept and just start heading in that direction until you get somewhere you like. The last time I made a nice dinner for wifey I decided to make stir-fry even though I never had before. No recipe needed, just made some choices based on previous cooking knowledge and wound up with a decently good stir-fry. That's a lot more fulfilling then following a recipe and getting the result the recipe promises.

Clearly some kitchen experience is a good idea before trying to make dishes without a recipe, but I definitely recommend some experimentation in your cooking. If nothing else, at least buy a bunch of spices and find out how you like to use them. Cooking is a life skill that will serve you well throughout your life.

A forced post

Here I am forcing myself to start writing this post.

I feel so unmotivated today. I feel like I should be talking about procrastination or something since that's what I'm doing. It's not so much that I procrastinate the important things though. I've been doing my work and getting stuff done pretty well, despite still having a long to-do list.

I'm just not doing the less-important things that I should be doing. Blogging is a prime example. I was in Canada over the weekend without a computer, so I took a little hiatus. Then when I came back I was exhausted yesterday, and now I'm really just forcing myself to keep typing.

Another thing I should be doing is reading. One of my goals for this semester is to read three books I have not read before. I started "The Octopus" by Frank Norris in the Vancouver airport but I haven't touched it since coming home. The first chapter was very good, the descriptions were beautifully done.

I should also be doing some more cleaning around the house. A couple of my areas are falling behind and I just haven't done what I should on a timely basis. I definitely do have a problem with laziness. It's just so much easier to turn on a video game or the internet and content myself with that then to actually challenge myself to do something worthwhile.

I don't want to be too much of a downer, so I think I'll just end this post. My writing is so much better if I start before 11 PM, but tonight I started around 12:45 AM. Urgh. I need a good night's sleep and the clarity of a new day. Carpe crastinum.

The segregation of information

The advent of modern communications technology has brought an incredible availability of information to your average American. If you want to know about something, you google it. If you have a particular interest in something you can join any number of communities on the internet that support that interest. I myself am a member of boardgamegeek.com, the best resource (and community) out there for board gaming.

In addition to interests, the internet makes it easy to surround yourself with similar opinions. People generally do not like to be challenged in their opinions, so they become friends with those who hold similar beliefs. Social media is a prime example of this, in that you choose who you "follow", and therefore the information you receive.

Now, some people do choose to follow and pay attention to people and organizations that they do not agree with, but these people are in the minority. Most of us only really like to pay attention to those who agree with us. It's far more comfortable to only talk to and listen to people who agree with you. You don't have to have your opinions challenged.

Despite the people and organizations you affiliate yourself with, there always do crop up a few ideas that you disagree with. I feel that most people do not actually take the time to consider ideas that they disagree with. Far more often people simply read things just to disagree with them, like waiting for a break in a conversation so you can tell someone how wrong they are. Reading the comments section on most websites is like walking through a minefield of hatefulness.

I'm not claiming that we should all just hold hands and sing around the campfire and forget about our differences, but what we should do is actually give respect to other people's opinions and beliefs. No one person has perfect knowledge. We all have many opinions on various issues, and statistically speaking some of our opinions are uninformed. Some of my current beliefs will be simplistic or ridiculous to my future self. That's part of growing older, becoming more informed. This process does not happen on its own, it requires actual effort. You must read, you must learn, you must understand different sides to issues. To not seek out new information is to allow your mind to become stagnant.

Take some time to consider different viewpoints. Truth is outside of yourself.