Tip of the Week: Start the New Year right! Instead of making a long list of resolutions (that you probably won’t keep anyway) focus on one resolution, and give it your all!

The New Year seems to ignite a spark in most of us to make changes. . . start anew! In thinking about this week’s article, I decided the most important thing I could share with you as we begin 2010 is my experience with people and their quest for change. Having counseled hundreds of people in the change process, I have witnessed both those who have been successful in reaching their goals and those who fell short.

One characteristic that seems to prevail in the success stories is setting realistic goals. When goals are realistic, they are more likely to be attained. Unfortunately for many of us, however, being realistic takes a back seat to speed and quantity. We want to accomplish much and do so as quickly as possible. This impatience often leads to dire consequences—burnout and reversion to our pre-goal state. In other words, back to square one!

Think about it. How often in the past have you been pumped up to make changes in your life only to be subjected to the following scenario? With enthusiasm at its peak, you devise a long list of things you vow to change in the upcoming year. Sure, the list is long you tell yourself, but I can do it. I’m ready!

So you faithfully attack your list for a week or two—perhaps more, perhaps less—giving it your all, and congratulating yourself on a job well done. You’re totally exhausted, but it seems to be working for you. Then reality sets in. (After all, you do have a life to maintain outside this list.)

You try to maintain the intensity necessary for all of those changes while keeping up with your normal daily activities, but it’s overwhelming. Something has got to go. And because daily living activities have been a part of your life far longer than the newly acquired change activities, the daily ones prevail. Your change activities are on the endangered list.

The decline may start slowly (or it may be abrupt). Regardless of the time frame, the result is usually the same—eventually the list is abandoned. You’re back to square one!

And while this scenario isn’t true for everyone, in my experience it has been true for the majority.

But before you throw in the towel, there is another way—a more successful way to institute change. As mentioned earlier, permanent change is associated with setting realistic goals. To me, realistic refers to being attainable. . .reachable. What is attainable will vary from one person to another. You must determine what is within your reach.

In keeping with the goal of this site not only to provide “tips” but also the means to incorporate them into everyday living, a 4-step process has been provided below to help you make changes in 2002.

Step 1: Select 1 thing (there will be plenty of time for additional changes after you have mastered this first one) that you would like to change in the upcoming year. Make it as specific as possible. (For example: rather than stating that you will exercise more often—which is a general statement—state that you will take a ____minute walk __times per week. You fill in the blanks according to what you are willing to do, but the point is that you specify how you will accomplish this increase in exercise.

Step 2: Make sure the resolution selected in Step1 is something of great importance to you and is fairly easy to attain. In other words, don’t set yourself up for failure. You will need to be committed to this goal in order to succeed. Save the more difficult goals for later—after you’ve experienced long-term success with your first.

Step 3: Start to work this change into your daily routine. It is important that if you forget a day—or for whatever reason elect not to include it for a day—that you don’t give up or abandon your plan. This is only a small step backward, and one which most of us experience. Tomorrow you can return to your forward progress.

Step 4: Continue to incorporate this change on a daily basis. Most experts agree that a new habit or lifestyle change requires a period of 8 weeks to become permanent. When your new habit becomes so much a part of your daily routine that you no longer have to think about doing it, you will have successfully integrated it into your lifestyle.

Permanent lifelong change is possible. For most of us it entails realistic goal setting and persistence in achieving them.

Here’s to 2010—may it be a healthy and life changing year for you!

In the halcyon days of our youth, some of us remember the bitter taste of a shitty album after three brilliant efforts. Whatever the regrettable reason for such lapses, it mars our future music buying. We may even fall prey to paranoia that another favorite band will do the unforgiveable and release a raging slab of rancid dogmeat in place of a decent album. Which is not to say that I expect, or hope, each artist will release exactly the same record for twenty years. But a bit of paranoia goes a long way in averting stupid shit and so here we are, with much trepidation and the fleeting glow of expectation.

For those of us with a predisposition to paranoia to begin with, greeting the demise of a band and then the later reconstitution of related bands with blind faith and enthusiasm is plain impossible, and, frankly, very dumb. It was frightening to buy the first Portastatic album after years of playing the Superchunk albums on disenfranchised weekends. It was hard to buy Breeders albums or Frank Black’s solo work and not make the obvious comparisons to the Pixies, not conjecture as to what Kim Deal would have made the Pixies sound like if she had been given carte blanche. And there will always be the lingering suspicion that somebody found God or stopped finding alcohol or thought they had found alcohol but had instead found God, and that the album in my hands at the cash register will attest to that experience. And I don’t really have the time to listen to another fucking finding-the-light based recording.

Mark Robinson’s recorded with a range of outfits over the years, and somehow I had him (in my mind) grouped with Stephin Merritt from Magnetic Fields et al. and Robert Scott from the Bats. Or the Belle & Sebastian of their debut Tigermilk or the Smiths or The Field Mice. It always seemed to me that his ear was the one attuned to pop, that his influence in bands was to make the songs intelligent and infectious. His recent solo album Canada’s Green Highways marginally supports this view. More precisely, the latter half of the album attests to Mr. Robinson’s abilities as a songwriter and his ear for pop melodies, song texture, and smart, minimalist lyrics. The former half of Canada’s Green Highways attest more to Mr. Robinson’s taste for minimalist arrangements and cryptic lyrics.

What is singular about this album is Mark Robinson’s structuring alluring pop melodies and tuneful vocals over an insistent, punk-sounding guitar. Sometimes the songs feel too loosely sketched, and they pop like bubbles before much can happen. But halfway through Mr. Robinson is more sure of his material and the songs benefit from judicious application of synthesizer lines and loping instrumental stretches (as in the last two tracks, Sylvan Cote and Arlington Station). This is an album that made me think most of the Belle & Sebastian debut Tigermilk, an album with ups and downs, promise and moments of grandeur. Particularly, I liked the the last two tracks, “Misplaced on the Kitchen Floor” and “Wonderful”. These songs are lush pop numbers, similar in spirit to Stephin Merritt when he is recording pop songs and not self-conscious cabaret shit or black angel country psychedelia or whatever. It’s an interesting approach, the slightly jarring guitar against the hushed vocals, the oblique lyrics, and occasional keyboards. The handful of times it comes together, you drift off with the song, staring around like a schoolboy. You start wondering what Canada’s Green Highways refers to, or why a DC-based musician would release an album with that name and pictures of himself feverishly enjoying grapes and donning deutsche chapeau.

There is always a temptation to begin deconstructing the album, trying hard to listen to the empty places and feel and see what is going on. One song has these lyrics:
Angels in waiting,
Angels, y’know

Another contains the tender advice:
Never wash the pollen
Off a bee’s behind

And maybe this ought to tell me something. There are clear avenues for a series here: Pennsylvania’s Black Coal Mines; Antarctica’s White Glaciers; Smoky Mountains and Moonshine; Norway’s Watery Fjords. But I am missing the point.

Mark Robinson’s new album is uneven. It is not breathtaking. But it does evidence a new approach to pop music, and it glistens in places. There is little mention of liquor God or relationships, failed or blossoming. These are oblique songs, delivered as such, and most days I feel like oblique songs that let me drift and jar me back to the frayed fabric of my seat only gently.

We were caught a bit by surprise, as last year’s X race – my first adventure race – had utilized a staggered start, but we quickly recovered and skated along at an easy pace, taking care not to overexert ourselves – after all, we knew that we had some 130 miles to cover before 4 pm the next day. Ahead of us were 15 sections of biking, trekking, paddling, inline skating and rope work, with three members of our four-person team racing at a time. We hoped not to skip sections (last year we skipped only two), but we took comfort in knowing that this was allowed – X races try to make sure that even the most inexperienced racers can cross the finish line.

After completing the inline skating section, Mark stepped out, and Brad, Luke and I trotted out for a 19-mile orienteering section on foot. We’d been advised to bring at least a gallon of liquid apiece on this section. After four hours of trekking in the unrelentingly hot sun, we’d almost drained our water, and we still had a long way to go. Steep, often trail-less slopes strewn with loose rocks made travel difficult, and bushes whipped at our legs like lashes, leaving angry red stripes in their wake.

By the time we reached the support van some eight hours later, my enthusiasm for the race was almost completely gone, along with my teammates’. Dehydrated and torched, both mentally and physically, our goal of not skipping sections was forgotten. Like many other teams, we missed the cut-off times for the third and fourth segments and opted out the next section as well, instead heading for an easy six-mile paddle in our inflatable canoe before taking on the night navigation section.

With energy to spare, Mark helped push and pull both Luke and me through the night as we hiked up the loose, dry trails. During the steady descent, I could feel blisters forming all over my feet – particularly the one that covered the entire inside of my left heel. Nonetheless, we managed a staggering run/shuffle up the final paved road to the support van, arriving at 4:15 am.

The next day we missed a number of sections, including another long trek during which we chose to catch a few hours of sleep. My only section after sleeping involved inline skating, rope work, and a hot, pounding run on pavement for about three miles. From there we moved to the final mountain biking section. As my teammates crossed the finish line in Park City, I felt proud of them for hanging in there, despite the brutal heat and the race’s overall difficulty level.

When I finished last year’s X-Adventure event, I looked forward to doing another adventure race. As an athlete involved mainly in individual sports, the race gave me a chance to be part of team – a welcome change of focus. I also enjoyed using my mental capacity for suffering as well as my physical abilities to complete the race. However, the difficulty of this year’s race took me to a mental place inside myself that I’ve never visited before – a frightening place where my spirit felt almost broken and uncontrollable tears were close to the surface. Honestly, I’m not sure that I want to travel to that place again anytime soon.

–Alzheimer’s disease is estimated to affect 13 percent of those over the age of 65, and between 1999 and 2000, there’s been an alarming increase in the number of patients under 40. Although the cause(s) continue to elude researchers in neurodegeneration, autopsy and rat model studies show that with or without drugs, the propensity towards AD is lessened with continued brain activity that require at least six higher brain functions.

Only when 85 to 90 percent of the brain tissue is destroyed do AD symptoms such as tremor, ataxic gait and progressive memory loss, appear. Currently, researchers believe that the brain can compensate for the damage over time if and only if there is continued brain activity. Geeks, especially those designing systems which have user interface as a foremost concern, meet the criteria of using at least six different higher functions on a regular basis, and continued relay and recategorization of information over most of the neural tissue.

–The tendency to sit in front of a monitor and keyboard, and concentrate on that, is a critical aspect of geeking. If our attention breaks, having to spend hours debugging something as simple as Java can be hell. But this tendency also produces men who are more likely to be aware of health concerns such as prostate cancer and the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome compared to the non-geeking male population. We navigate around the web well-enough to find the health information we need, and we can discriminate between promo-pushes and actual useful information.

Sure, male geeks are just as unlikely to visit a doctor as other guys, but we ARE more likely to ask peers, under a username or pseudonym, about the details wenotice about our health. Geeks have the same qualities doctors need to make diagnoses. While consulting a professional is recommended, geeks can recognize and diagnose objectively given a set of indications.

Today’s medical profession is based almost entirely on probabilistic medicine. Two out of three symptoms; five out of six chance for exposure to a virus, and so on. That’s something geeks can do, and as we’re about to discuss, we’re more willing to change our habits for health reasons than the average male and female population combined.

The NIH (National Institutes of Health) reports that the male volunteers for clinical studies of new drugs, treatments and medical or exercise equipment are primarily tech-improvement and design careers. The survey included men who volunteered between 1997 and 2000. This willingness to try new methods and test possibilities is inherently geeky, and bodes well for improving medical care for the general population as well as our own. We’re big contributors to medicine these days in many ways, with data mining, discovery and telehealth medicine in the works.

–Geeks have the highest compliance to prescriptions compared to the average adult population. Whether it’s because we put a reminder in our PDAs or have confidence in a prescription based on logical diagnosis, geeks follow through on antibiotics, antiviral drugs, pain medication as well as vitamin supplements two orders of magnitude over the average American population. A Weight Watchers survey also found that New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight and stick to an exercise regiment were carried out by more men in technical fields than non-technical fields of work. See, we can concentrate on something other than kernel coding.

–The only major concern our study brought to light was the stress placed on geeks in their work environments. Not only are we given more work and stressful deadlines, geeks are also ‘expected’ to be able to handle the pressure without cracking because many employers and co-workers think we think and dream in binary. That what people who don’t understand opensource think, anyways.

There is very little stress management and psychological support in the workplace for most geeks, which can, in part, account for the high job-hopping rates seen in the high tech sector. If your company has perks like an exercise room, free trips to a spa or yoga or stress management seminars, take advantage of them.

Often a combination of stress at work and at home push geeks over the edge to retaliate in the only way they know how: by shutting down entire networks with viruses and so on. Geeks are actually not unemotional or unsociable, we’re more sensitive to the responses of people to who we are, and the whole idea behind open platforms and Napster-like creations is to share, be nice, and create communities and friends. Check out our quirky insights on a male geek’s social life.

There are only a few minor changes our study suggests geeks should make in their lives and eating habits. Being a geek is a lifestyle and a choice we all love. For maximum health in our life over the long term we have just two suggestions:

–Have you taken a look at our suggestions for yummy but healthy snacks? Remember, experiment and see what appeals to you. The snack suggestions you choose are useless if you won’t like eathing them. If you feel you absolutely must go on a diet to manage your weight, check out our tips.

–If you walk so that your heart rate gets up for just 20 to 30 minutes a day, you’re doing lots of exercise. So it’s sort of negating the convenience tech has given us, but park your car and walk a short distance to your destination. Take a flight of stairs instead of the escalator or elevator. And find a buddy to walk with. You can talk about that software you’d like to patent while you’re walking instead of a sitting in a posh restaurant or whispering at your cubicle. Instead of having your printer right beside you, try putting it a few feet away, so that you have an excuse to get up, walk around and stretch.

–We’ve said that geeks have the qualities that make great chefs. And we meant it. If you’re thinking about trying something new, how about a cooking class or two?

Health problems associated with consumption of fast food, junk food and other prepared items.

-Garry Kasparov uses 350 to 400 calories per hour during a chess match. The concentration it takes for error-free coding uses 250 to 300 calories an hour. Typing, surprisingly, already uses 130 calories an hour. Compare that to 30 calories an hour for standing still, 90 calories for casual walking and 300 calories for shoveling snow. Not bad. So the sugar and energy we take in IS being used.

The average (not triple cheese) pizza that is medium-sized only contains 350 calories. You can use that up easily with all your brain power needs. As we’ve previously said,the fat and cholesterol you eat is not what causes weight gain. Regardless of your weight or shape, it’s the amount of heart and muscle activity you get rather than your food intake or genetics that determines your likelihood for heart conditions, stroke, and so on. Thin people can be just as unhealthy as fat people if they don’t exercise. In fact, the fat surrounding your neurons must be replenished from time to time to keep your brain functioning properly.

The average geek diet is no more unhealthy than that of the average American. Find out what’s in the fast food you eat here. Frozen food gets a bad image, but it is certainly nutrient-filled, as much so as pizza. As long as the frozen meal package says it’s under 300 calories, has adequate portions of meat and vegetables, and contains under 8 grams of sodium, there’s nothing inherently bad about eating frozen meals on a regular basis. Dietitians tell us that all you need to do is add a cup of fruit yogurt, fresh fruit or salad for a complete meal, so head to your grocer’s freezer and experiment till you find the brands that suit your tastebuds.

–Let’s take a look at the common myth is that geeks and technophiles in general have a low sex drive and high incidence of impotence. According to the research papers we’ve reviewed, geeks have a larger sex drive than the average male population. Intersex.com pegs its visitors at about 60 percent who work in a tech, engineering or R&D related field, which tells us geeks have a normal male sex drive.

Caffeine, of which we consume a great deal, also has been found to have an aphrodisiac-like effect. It is still unclear whether caffeine works to increase and enhance erectile function, or whether it affects the male sexual organs because it stimulates the central nervous system overall.

Testosterone is also elevated in geeks compared to the average male population. British researchers believe the excess testosterone also increases left brain such as mathematical, musical and spatial orientation functions, as well as the ability to concentrate on an idea, concept, game or product with single-mindedness only men have displayed so far in neuroscience studies of brain function in gamers and coders. Check out our Boys and Toys articles on increasing testosterone.

Environmental toxins have been implicated in cancer, impotence and asthma. But so have an overly clean living environment. Studies show children who live in households that regularly use solvents, detergents, air fresheners and antibacterial cleaning soaps have higher incidence of asthma, attention deficit disorder, antibiotic resistance, as well as colds and flus. In our two-year study geeks who seldom wipe the dust off anything except their monitors had fewer colds and general health problems. Geeks also have little exposure to meningitis and other viral afflictions compared to the average male population.
to be continued…

I might say I’m leaving in May - don’t listen whatever I say.
Birds they die, river rolls on. I been dyin’ way too long (now)
How do you get to Babylon? - roll on around the bend.
Can I make it by candlelight? - yes, and back again.
How many miles to Babylon? - Four-score miles and ten.
Can I make it by satellite? - sure, and back again.
Can I make it by Cadillac? - yes and back again.

words and music by Ted Porter

Size Matters

In the spirit of honesty and delivering a clear cut message, I would like to make the announcement that this article is not about:

a. Sex

b. People’s concern about weight control.

There. Move along will you…those of you who are looking for the secrets of being big in one area, or getting smaller in another.

I’m up to something else in this article—and trying very hard not to feel like a female Andy Rooney, complaining about things that aren’t worth our Limited Worry Time. Life is too short as it is, but I cannot help noting that even after all these years, there are some things I just don’t get.

I don’t understand what SIZE actually means. By what do we measure?

What I don’t understand about SIZE, is what people and products intend when they determine what size something is.

Here are the questions that are bothering me:

1. When I buy the large box of cereal, why is there a Family Size box looming, right next to it?
How big is a Family when determining how large a box is large enough.

2. Why is a junior size an odd number of any size ( 7, 9, 11) while “ladies” department sizes are even (8,10,12,14). How odd is it being a junior? And wait! If you are a woman, not a lady, you have a separate department to shop in: Women’s World. And get a W attached to your size number.

You can only be a lady AND a woman if you are a 14-16 (which is a Large size, but larger than a box of cereal) because a size 1X is pretty much also a 12-16, except you might often have to pay a couple of dollars more to be a woman instead of a lady, if you order from a clothing catalogue.

3. Why is a man’s size 8 shoe a different size than a women’s size 8 shoe, even if we are talking about sneakers, and not a snappy pair of pumps?

4. If you buy large shrimp are you being a cheapskate? Because you could have bought giant shrimp, which cost more, but are fewer in number. Don’t even talk to me about why I might want colossal shrimp, which are bigger than giant shrimp. It’s way too much opportunity and tension in the seafood section for me.

5. Which naturally leads you to consider candy.

After all, despite such size dilemmas in both food and clothing, buying good food and clothing ARE most satisfying reasons for anyone to go shopping, unless you are a man who hates shopping in favor of convenience stores. Then all you might care about regarding size is checking out the six packs. Cans of beer—good. Fosters? Big as a can of 30 weight oil? Better.

Oh, yes. Candy. What does “Trial Size” mean? What does “Bite Size” mean? What in the world does “Fun Size” mean? You have yourself enough fun in the candy department, you can go from a junior to a lady to a woman within a fashion season.

All this confusion is enough to make someone say, “Make that a Jumbo,” just to cover all of the bases, and possibly one’s butt.

So far, the strangest man I have ever met was someone I met in real life. We went to a movie and I spent the next two years trying to get him to stop calling. When I told him I didn ‘t want to see him, he said he loved me and sooner or later, I would love him too.

I got an unlisted number, moved and had my mail forwarded to Mailboxes, Etc. so the post office couldn ‘t give him my new address. After that, he called me at work instead. He has even sent gifts to me at work.

Yes, caution is advised when meeting people through the Internet. It ’s hard to know what someone is like through chat, e-mail and talking on the phone. It doesn ‘t stop there, though. When meeting anyone, through the Internet or not, be cautious about how much personal information you give out, especially your home address.

And if someone you go out with says they don ‘t want to see you again, by all means, please leave them alone and find someone who enjoys your company as much as you enjoy theirs.

A safe and popular treatment for HGH level imbalance to treat deficiencies in growth hormones, HGH pills have been around for over 20 years.

Let’s learn how HGH works: HGH is a complex endocrine hormone consisting of 190 amino acids. The pituitary gland, which is located in the center of our brain, uses pulses to secrete these amino acids that are linked in a certain sequence. HGH pills can take the place of the body’s requirement for balanced HGH levels, which are needed for the body to function at an optimal level, and things related to naturally occurring growth hormone - repair of tissue, hearing, growth of muscle, brain workings, physical and metal health, strength of bones, metabolism and energy levels. And so we notice that the adolescence period is a time when HGH supplements like HGH pills are not required because the body produces enough of it - HGH production is at a peek level during puberty; during adulthood the pituitary gland reduces production of HGH and it produces less HGH that deals with the stress of everyday life. As HGH levels that are balanced are critical to stop aging signs and for livelihood, and the fact that HGH levels decline as a result of the natural process of aging, it is necessary to restore these vital body functions. This is how HGH pills play a part in helping change the problems of low HGH levels over to a controlled, effective and safe maintenance of the same, and for those having diseases that deal with natural aging issues and diseases and also stunted growth of children, persons wanting to bulk up their bodies, people recovering from a serious injury (HGH pills accelerate the healing process as do HGH injections, but injections are costly over a long term) and more.

HGH Injections vs HGH pills: overview of HGH, supplemental nature, problems and advantages to use

While the human growth hormone has been studied for years, it was in 1986 when Eli Lily came to the conclusion that this new, miracle product can affiliate or stimulate the hormone to reverse the aging process. Eli discovered the solution in finding the exact match of the 191 amino acid hormone, which is biosynthetic in nature, yet indistinguishable from human growth hormone. Ever since then it has been thoroughly studied and used by athletes, children with growth issues, and adults with growth hormone deficiencies.

A lot of people choosing HGH therapy are told by a doctor to use prescribed HGH, which is injected everyday as biosynthetic hormone therapy. These can have possible side effects such as cardiovascular malfunctioning, can cause pain, and be very expensive — $10,000 and up for therapy for one year, although positive results can be swift. For persons requiring a lesser potency of HGH, the pills are a wiser and less dangerous option, along with HGH powders and spray supplements. Non-prescription with an essential amino acid blend that is balanced, and cheaper by a fraction of the price of injection of HGH, these HGH supplements and pills, less the side effects, show slower, but sure results in 3 to 6 months.

The use of foot detox patches quickly brings about results. You will notice an improvement in one night, but it is recommended to wear them for two weeks.

Foot detox patches assist with:
• Prevention of water retention
• Excretion of toxins
• Pain relief
• Immune system fortification
• Fatigue prevention
• Boosting metabolism
• Improvement in sleep pattern
• Improvement of blood circulation
• Revitalization

Following are some things to remember when using detox patches:

1. You can apply detox patches to other areas that need relief.

2. Do not put them on open wounds, mucus membranes, or around the eyes.

3. You can use foot detox patches during the daytime, but it is better to use them at night.

4. To keep the foot detox patches in place overnight, wear socks over them.

5. When placing detox patches on sweaty, curvy, or active areas, cover them with adhesive tape.

A build-up of toxins can be avoided with the use of detox patches. Keep in mind that the fewer toxins in the body means the greater an immune system, and better overall health.

Don’t let yourself get sick; try detox patches.

Now your health can improve via natural detox with detox foot pads!