Random Thoughts January 2007

There’s something about a crowded parking lot three days before Christmas that brings out the worst in people. Nothing’s better than seeing the excited faces of your kids on Christmas morning.

Car dealerships have the worst waiting areas. They could improve them by adding a television, wireless internet access, and a toy area for the kids. It actually might make going there a more pleasant experience.

Full screen movies bother me so I never rent or buy them. But for some reason the local video rental store has the need to stock 75 percent of its new releases in the full screen format. If I wanted to watch a full screen movie, I’d turn on the TV. I really need to sign up for Netfilx.

My website receives around 20 hits a day from people who Google my name. Thought I never wonder why someone in South Carolina, Tennessee or England would be Googling me, when someone from my hometown does it, I start to wonder who’s checking up on me.

It’s nice to see that the producers of LOST are discussing how long to keep the show going. Knowing when the show will end will give the writers a time frame when to tie up loose ends and answer all the questions we’ve been anxiously waiting for. There’s nothing worse than seeing a good show that doesn’t know when to end it (read: The X-Files).

Running when the temperature is just above zero is not a pleasant experience. You never really warm up.

Marathon Girl looks sexy in her Under Armour running clothes.

The NFL playoffs are always fun to watch because the teams know each game is all or nothing. Too bad college football hasn’t adapted a similar format.

When Marathon Girl and I take our kids to the doctor, they give us questionnaire to fill out. It seems like half the questions are about the health of your child and the other half are to determine whether or not you’re a good parent.

There’s nothing like cuddling up with the person you love and watching a good movie.

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

I'm thrilled to announce that Robert Greene, the best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, and The 33 Strategies of War, will be a guest on The Abel Hour Wednesday, January 17. It should be fun and entertaining show. To listen click here or go to The Abel Hour website  on Friday and click the Listen Live button from 11 a.m. to noon MST (1 p.m. EDT).

 

The Pursuit of Happyness

I might just have to amend one of my 2006 Awards. Back in December I was unable to come up with a 2006 movie that I loved. However, Marathon Girl had a rare night out alone this weekend and saw the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. By far that was the best film of 2006 – even though I waited until 2007 to see it.  (There might be some spoilers if you keep reading so do so at your own risk.)   The Pursuit of Happyness is about the true story of Chris Gardner (Will Smith) a struggling salesman who decides to enroll in an unpaid internship with the hopes of making big bucks as a stockbroker. His wife has recently left him so he has to find time to care and provide for his son while working at the internship.   We all know how movies like this are going to end. How many of us shell out seven bucks to see a movie where the guy everyone is rooting for loses? What sets this movie apart from other inspiring but cheesy flicks is the realistic struggle and emotions that come across in the film. Anyone's who ever had to struggle with the burden of supporting a family and or wanting able to provide for their children can easily relate to the emotional rollercoaster Garnder goes through. Which is part of the reason we celebrate and cheer with him when his hard work and determination finally pay off at the end of the movie.

However, the emotional reality made certain scenes difficult to watch – not because of crudeness, gory violence or excessive nudity – but because they were so heart wrenching. There's one scene where Gardner is sleeping on the floor of a public restroom with his son. Someone is pounding on the door, wanting to get in. Gardner clutches his son and weeps silently. All I could think about during that was what if it was me on the bathroom floor holding one of my kids. Let's just say the tears flowed freely.

The father son relationship is very realistic. Gardner isn’t a perfect dad. There’s times when he’s short with is son (played by Smith’s real life son Jaden) because of the stress he experiences but it’s also quite obvious he loves his son very much and Gardner does his best to keep look after the needs of his son despite the lack of financial resources. The on screen chemistry between the two Smiths is perfect.

The only complaint I had about the movie was that when Gardner’s wife left him, I didn’t feel they had shown us enough of her frustration and helplessness that we could empathize with her when she finally made the decision to pack up and leave her husband and son. The movie runs a little over two hours as is so maybe the powers at be felt there wasn’t time to go in her character more which was unfortunate. I wanted to understand her feelings and thoughts behind her decision to leave – even if it was one I didn’t agree with.

But even with that one flaw, the movie was fantastic. The audience we say it with erupted in applause as the movie ended. If you haven’t seen it already, go see it. (And when you do, bring plenty of Kleenex.)

**** stars (out of 4)

 

A Letter to Elizabeth January 2007

Dear Elizabeth, It is 3:30 in the morning and I’m sitting on the couch trying to put Molly to sleep. Through the slits in the blinds I’m watching the wind blow the snow through the neighborhood.  Molly is cuddled close to me, staring at my with her big owl-like eyes. She has no interest in sleeping right now. She just stares and sucks her pacifier. At time like this, I wonder what she’s thinking.

I’ve been meaning to write you for some time but three kids keep Marathon Girl and I very busy. It seems like there’s always two of them that need something. And when all three of them are fussy or having a hard day, sometimes I wish that, for a few minutes, life would just consist of Marathon Girl and me. Don’t misunderstand. I wouldn’t trade my kids or my time with them for anything. One day they’re going to be grown up with lives of their own and I know I’ll look back on these times and long for the days when I could cuddle with Molly on my lap and see the joyful looks on the boys’ faces when I come home from work.

I appreciated the email you sent me and the family the week before Christmas and the happy and sad memories it brought back. It’s been years since I thought about that long hearse ride to the cemetery and you leaning on my shoulder from sadness and exhaustion. It’s hard to believe that all that happened five years ago. It’s also strange to think I’d be married to Krista eight years if she hadn’t died. Sometimes those days and memories seem so far away like they happened a different life time ago. I guess in some ways they did.

Marathon Girl is running again. She always does better when she can run. Right now her mileage is short – three or four miles a day – but within the next 30 days she’ll up the mileage and start training for the Ogden or Salt Lake marathons. We’re unsure at this time which one she will run. We’re also looking at other marathons in late summer early fall outside the state that she might want to run too.

I’ve been making the push the last few weeks to time my runs in the morning. I thought that if I concentrated on speed for a little bit that I’d be able to keep up with Julie. I’ve been able to shave nearly a minute a mile off my time since Christmas. It’s not enough. Already Marathon Girl running faster than me. (She just had a baby six weeks ago!) She ran three miles yesterday and beat my best three mile time by two minutes. The woman is an amazing runner. My only wish is that I could run with her. But the weather and my work schedule does not allow for that right now. Hopefully, after the weather warms, I’ll be able to run with her on Saturdays again.

After her runs Marathon Girl comes home and does crunches. (Her stomach is looking great, BTW.) Aidan thinks crunches are cool and tries to imitate them. It’s so fun to watch him struggle to do things as well as his mom. What a fun kid.

At work, one of the things they always ask is if you’re a person that loves his or her life. If you do not love your life, what can you change about yourself and how you’re living so that you can love it again? I think about this from time to time and realize how much I do love my life. I don’t mean to imply that I’m perfect because there are many things that I still need to work on. But I’m trying to do the right things. The Lord has blessed me so much with a beautiful and understanding wife and three wonderful kids. I really do love my life. I wouldn’t trade it or any of my experiences for anything. I feel so blessed to live the life I have lived.

I will write you more tomorrow. I need to give you an update about my book as I have both good and bad news about it. I hope the holidays treated your family as well as they treated mine. My eyes are heavy and I need to put Molly, who is now sleeping peacefully in my arms, to bed.

Abel

The World Series of Pop Culture and The Abel Hour

MY radio show co-host, Jon, is going to try out for The World Series of Pop Culture on January 27. To help prep him for the tournament, I'll be peppering him (and maybe some others) with pop-culture related questions on my radio show Friday, January 12. It should be fun and entertaining show. To listen click here or go to The Abel Hour website  on Friday and click the Listen Live button from 11 a.m. to noon MST (1 p.m. EDT).

Pizza for Pesos

 

Let’s say you own a pizza restaurant. One day I come in to your restaurant hungry for some pizza but have no money. Instead, I offer you my baseball hat. Since you like the hat, you agree to trade a large pepperoni pizza for my baseball hat. Is that a fair trade? 

What if I had no money or hats to trade for your pizza? What if I said I would spend an hour washing dishes in exchange for the pizza? Is that a fair trade?

What if I had some money in my wallet but instead of U.S. dollars I had Mexican pesos. You agree to give me a large pepperoni pizza in exchange for my pesos. Is that a fair trade?

In a free country, people should be able to trade whatever they want for another’s products and services whether it’s one’s time, labor, money, or something else. So long as there is no deception or coercion involved when I trade my baseball hat, labor, or pesos for a pepperoni pizza, we both come out winners. I satisfied my hunger and you received something that you considered more valuable than the pizza.

One Texas business owner understands this. Antonio Swad, president of Pizza Patron, announced over the weekend that his restaurants would now accept Mexican pesos for their pizza.

Like any good business owner, Swad knows his customers. Roughly 60 percent of those who patronize his pizza restaurants are Latino and Swad realized that some of them had pesos in their pockets and would spend them if it was convenient to do so.

Unfortunately there are many people who view Swad’s business decision as an insult to our nation’s immigration laws or being unpatriotic by accepting foreign money (a common occurrence in many towns on the border with Mexico and Canada).

Yet there’s nothing unpatriotic about Swad’s business decision. He works in a highly competitive business and competes against national chains. Because he was thinking like a capitalist, Swad noticed an opportunity to get a leg up on the competition while providing his customers with a valuable service. Thanks to his innovative thinking his customers can now spend their pesos while receiving something they want to eat. Instead of being ridiculed, Swad’s decision should be celebrated.

Swad not only understands that exchange creates wealth but that a unique business move combined with some savvy PR skills can do wonders for business. Because of his decision, his pizza chain received millions of dollars in free publicity in local and national press which will give him a chance to grow his business even more.

Time will tell if Swad’s decision to accept pesos makes some dough from his Pizza patrons. In the meantime we should all be glad that capitalists such as Swad are working to come up with innovative ways to improve our lives.

 

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This essay was originally published on FreeCapitalist.com. You can read all of Abel's FreeCapitalist essays here.

Lo! The Writer

Read this today and thought it could apply to much more than writers and writing.

Many young writers give me a pain when they complain about how hard writing is and how tough it is to make a living out of it. They talk too much, bellyache too much. Of course everyone knows that good writing is the most difficult of all occupations; but it is a self-imposed one. Writers should be writing instead of talking.

  -- William Targ, Indecent Pleasures: The Life and Colorful Times of William Targ

Lost Plane

From an Associated Press story:

An Indonesian jetliner that vanished with 102 people aboard did not issue distress signals or report any mechanical problems, a top aviation official said Thursday, contradicting earlier reports.

Meanwhile, a fleet of aircraft took to the skies, ships scoured the sea and soldiers battled rugged jungle terrain for the third day, searching a 28,000-square-mile area -- roughly the size of California. But by late afternoon they had seen no sign of the wreckage.

Let’s hope everyone is okay and that the plane didn’t end up here.

LOST: The Game and That Guy Named Prince (Again!)

One of the many things I love about Marathon Girl is that she’s an excellent gift giver. She has this second sense about what people need or want so when it comes to your birthday, Christmas, or any other reason to give a present, you can be 99 percent sure that you will be pleased with what Marathon Girl gives you. So this Christmas after opening all my presents, I happy with everything she gave me except one: a game based on the LOST television show. I usually go out of my way to avoid games that are based on TV shows. Not much thought is usually put into them and they’re simply an excuse to make a couple of extra dollars off those who like the show. I was a little perplexed as to why Marathon Girl bought this game for me. She knows I love LOST but also know that I despise games based on pop culture sensations. However, later in the day I opened the game and read how to play, I realized that LOST: The Game isn’t your typical, run of the mill TV show game. Some actual thought went into making an entertaining and very addictive game.

The best way I can describe the game is that it’s a mix between The Settlers of Catan and Risk. The game comes with Location Tiles that you use to build the island. (The size of the island varies depending on the number of players and how long you want to play.) It’s nearly impossible to draw the same island tiles over and over again so each game you’re playing on a new island. You then have a main character that you move around the island exploring, trying to survive, trap other players, or picking up other characters to become part of your time. The object of the game is to become the leader of all the other characters on the island. It’s not as easy as you think. To do this requires a lot of strategy, planning, and a lot of luck. There are also things like The Monster and The Others to contend with and if you’re not careful your character or those that are following you could end up dead. (During one of the first test games I played, my main character died off after two moves. Talk about bad luck.)

The best thing about the game is that you don’t have to be a fan of the show to enjoy the game. I played it with two of my brother-in-laws last week who have never seen an episode of LOST and they both really enjoyed playing the game. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll understand the why some characters have certain special abilities and why The Monster is so powerful and unpredictable so it simply adds to your enjoyment of the game.

My only complaint about the game is that the instructions that initially came with it sucked. Not only did they do a poor job explaining how the game was played, they were poorly written and could have used some diagrams. (I can say this since I’m a recovering technical writer.) Fortunately the people that put the game together realized this and released some updated instructions (links to PDF) on the LOST game website. (Thank goodness for the Internet.) These instructions to a much better job of explaining how the game is played and erase a lot of the confusion I had when first learning the game.

The came has quite a bit of a learning curve and takes a few times before you get the hang of it and understand some of the strategy needed to win. Anyone who wonders if this game is something they’d be interested in playing should check out the website and instructions on how to play. For those who are willing to invest a little time into learning the game, it will give you hours of fun.

(Jon you need to come over and play this game. I think you would love it. Bring your friends.)

Speaking of Jon and good Christmas gifts, he gave me Prince’s Purple Rain CD for Christmas. This is significant for several reasons: 1) I can actually say that I now own a CD. 2) If I ever thought of owning a CD, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought it would be one by Prince 3) I’ve been listening to it quite a bit. In fact, I had it turned up rather loud at work in the mornings before anyone else comes into the office. From six to eight a.m. I’m partying like it’s 1999. 4) I’m starting to look forward to the Super Bowl halftime show.

Can Marathon Girl and I accompany you and Maria to Vegas to see him perform?

2006 Awards

It’s time to hand out the best and worst awards for 2006. Best Movie: 2006 was a bad year for movies. I can’t think of one that knocked my socks off. There were a lot of movies I wanted to see but never had a chance to. Maybe when some of them arrive on video I’ll find one that I really like. But there were several good movies that I enjoyed. They are: World Trade Center, The Lake House, and Pirates of the Caribbean 2.

Worst Movie: Lady in the Water. This movie was disappointing in every possible way and having my favorite filmmaker responsible for making it was like rubbing salt in the wound. Do better next time Mr. Shyamalan. Honorable mention: Superman Returns.

Favorite fiction book read this year: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly. Connelly is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. This book, about a defense lawyer, is a break from his Harry Bosch novels, but enjoyable to read. I really enjoyed the complexity of the main character Mickey Haller. Honorable mention: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Neffengger and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.

Favorite non-fiction book read this year: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell. Sowell does a great job of showing the roll of cultural evolution in economic, social, and political development. Well researched and written and not the least bit boring. I’m looking forward to reading some of his economic books this year.

Favorite political columnist (aside from myself): Orson Scott Card. Though I don’t always agree with him, Card is at least honest and thought provoking in his beliefs. Card’s columns are a refreshing change from those who simply regurgitate Republican or Democrat talking points. Honorable mention: Peggy Noonan.

Best blog (aside from my own): Hit Coffee. His unique perspective and clear, concise always make it an enjoyable read.

Best blogger that I met in person: Chicago Jo. She ran the Salt Lake Marathon in June. Marathon Girl and I enjoyed having dinner with her and getting to know her better. She’s just as cool in real life as she is in her blog.

Best podcast: Extra Life Radio. You don’t have to be into video games to enjoy this podcast. These guys are really funny.

Favorite TV show: LOST. Did anyone really expect me to pick something else?

Best game: LOST: The Game. I got this game for Christmas and will have a full review of it in the next couple of weeks. This game is hard to learn but hours of fun once you understand the rules. Stay tuned.

Best Chinese restaurant that no one has ever heard of: Rice King Express. Food is good, the portions are perfect, and also very affordable (a plus when you have two boys that eat like there’s no tomorrow). I recommend Mongolian beef. Marathon Girl loves the pon pon chicken.

Best Italian restaurant: Ottavio’s. Took Marathon Girl there for her birthday and we were both impressed with the food and its quality.

Best sports moment: The Detroit Tigers post their first winning season in 13 years and make it to the World Series.

Worst sports moment: The Detroit Tigers lose the World Series to the lowly St. Louis Cardinals.

Favorite magazine to read: The New Yorker. Aside from their fiction (usually pretentious and boring) most of the content in The New Yorker is enjoyable to read. Honorable mention: Sports Illustrated.

The New Year’s resolution I had the hardest time keeping: Not drinking any carbonation. Yeah, you’d think it would be easy considering how little pop I drink. But I did make it all the way until September. This year I’ll do better.

The other New Year’s resolution I had the hardest time keeping: Benching my weight. I flatten out at about 80-85 percent of my body weight every year. Maybe I need to get a trainer or something to get me over the hill. This year I’ll do it!

Best moment of 2006: Having Molly come into the world alive and well. So glad she’s part of our family. Honorable mention: Finishing my book.

Worst moment of 2006: Can’t really think of any. This has been a great year! I’m looking forward to 2007!