I'm going to have two posts on the subject of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.  One to review the book as a work, and another to sort of go over the philosophies that are part of the book.  I think it's almost necessary to separate the two to some extent as both are very large, thick, and hard to get through in one post without writing a thesis length piece.

Atlas Shrugged as a book is a mixed bag to me.  The quick feeling on the matter is much the same as The Fountainhead...  There is no need for the book to be as long as it is.  There's something to be said for the amount of detail in the book, but it seems the book could be cut down about a third without loosing any major themes, characters, events, or underlying philosophies.

The copious verbiage (pretentious words combo bonus) does build a rich environment that makes it a lot easier for a reader to get the whole picture.  But it also meant that one needed to devote larger chunks of time in a given section without running the risk of coming back days later and having to go back pages and pages to rekindle the environments or circumstances of a given section.

Character-wise, the book benefits from the volume of description to build up and sustain a number of characters.  However I found the book to linger in odd ways on the main female character.  It was very similar to Fountainhead in this manner.  You could tell that Rand was making a specific effort to portray a strong female presence (given the time of publication, this is understandable), but I always felt that there were instances of obvious subjugation that remained more than what I would have felt acceptable for a book moving the notion of gender equality forward. She also seemed to take this chance to get a little more naughty at times in this book - but always with the single female character.  I also thought her writing in the mind of many of the male characters didn't hit.  I'm not saying people aren't like that, I just think that it was more of an idealized creation of the male mind in many cases than the actual mind.

I also wished the book was a little better structured.  It almost feels like it got away from her.  The Fountainhead had nicely constructed segments of the book where this seemed to blend together over time.  Where there was an intention of segments, they all washed away amidst the thousands and thousands of words.

But is the book good?  I thought so.  There are times that it's great.  There are times when you want to throw it out the window. It's obviously written from a distinct time in American and World history.  Sure, it's a picture that is not as representative of the average, but it's a perspective that has value. Obviously enough value to stick around for decades.

I'm pretty sure I'll read this again, but I need some undetermined time to think about it and get a few more books under my noggin.

I have a current contract gig that I'm really focused on.  I'd tell you where it was if we were in the same room, but I'm not going to talk about it just yet.

The other reason?  My damn laptop died on me.  Sure, it was 5 years old - which is way past its life expectancy for me.  But nevertheless, It took away where I do most of my blogging and general surfing in general.  So how am I blogging? On the wife's laptop while she's out to dinner with friends.

So anyway.  It's a really weird time.  At first I would say nothing is really going on.  But when I take a step back and change the filter...  I'm looking forward to maybe playing some cards with friends this weekend...  I'm playing in two fantasy football leagues with drafts starting in a few days.  The car lease is up in a month, so I've got a decision to make.  There's the computer replacement...  So there's a decent amount going on along with the mystery job...

It was my first attempt at starting and being part of the administration of a business.  I'm not sure I'll ever do so again, but it was certainly a learning experience on many levels.

I'm just writing here to kind of get a few things off my chest about the whole thing.

What did I learn?

• Don't count on economic conditions to be right for your business
• Banks are not to be trusted - even smaller community banks
• Watch the items on your lawyer bill, and don't be afraid to contest items
• Sales are essential, and should be in place before the doors open
• Just because you offer a good product/service at a good price, it doesn't ensure solid sales / revenue
• If you identify a market in need, don't go blindly towards it - ask yourself if there's a reason this market hasn't been tapped
• Do not count on friends and contacts - some may come through, others not so much so
• If you want to go after the bigger clients or RFP type business, you better have some contact or "in" if you want a prayer - it's more about who you know than what you can offer

Some say that you shouldn't go into business with friends. I don't feel that's necessarily true.  Without a friend, I don't think we would have tried as hard as we did.  Because we were friends and had a mutual respect for our skills and family, we knew each others limits and what we were working towards.

I loved learning about writing a business plan, setting up an office, and all the other little things here and there that you don't realize are part of the process.

I'm pretty sure I could easily write thousands and thousands of words about the experience, and I just may.  Not here though.  It's not the right forum.  I learned so much from the experience despite it not being a success.  I have a different respect for business owners than before - mostly positive but also a little bit of skepticism.  I think it makes me a much more valuable in that I now know what it takes in great detail to run a business.

This transition from thirty three happened last week.  I'm not much for the traditional notion of a birthday.   Don't get me wrong, I appreciate any acknowledgment of the day for the thought and consideration, but it's just something I stopped caring about a long time ago.

But the birthday is one of those times of years when I can't help but become more than a little pondering about life and where I am amongst the whole journey.  Some people do this primarily around the new year, but I find myself doing it more around my birthday.  There's such a clamor about doing so in late December / early January that I rather do so more privately in mid-July.

It's been a very interesting year for me.  I've got a lot more to be happy about than not, but it's still hard to discount the negative.  Live and learn, that type of thing...  I'm going through a rough time professionally for a myriad of reasons. It's obvious that this takes a toll on my personal life, but I'm doing my best to try to keep it to a minimum. I'm thankful for what I've got, and I've got no illusions about what I don't.

My goals for the next year are pretty personal.  The basics are that I know that I want to move closer to long term goals, take more pictures, spend more time with friends and family where there is a mutual respect, and find a job that reaffirms my notion of a career that I can be proud of.

Activities I know are on the books...  Zoo on Friday.  Sushi sometime. Family reunion. Some fresh tortilla  action.  A very busy wife.  Then the guarantee that I won't be catching up on the sleep that I've not been getting.

I've been sans MacPro for over a week, and I miss it dearly.  Sure, I have the 4-year old laptop and iPhone to tide me over - but it's like having a hand trowel when your backhoe is sidelined for the time being.

This is the perfect place for one of those ponderings about how technology rules our lives...  Blah, Blah, Blah...  Unless you live in a cave without a wheel or fire, then you're letting technology in.  I'll just admit it straightaway that I'm in with technology in a big way.  Such a big thought for the end of such a meaningless blog.

Boo hoo, right?

No real biggie, because I have everything important backed up and on external and non-system drives.  There's just a few little files on my desktop that I hope can be recovered in the process

It's just the going without a main computer while Apple has the computer (I had one month left on my warranty).  Oh well...  I think I'll go spend some quality time in the garage cleaning / re-organizing.

There's the initial wonder at how cool hummingbirds are.  After a little of that, we started anthropomorphizing about their temperament or how their physical characteristics reflect them as living entities.

When we venture into the patio to garden or grill, it's most times that the little birds fly around the corner and become quite vocal about us being there hindering their ability to eat.  The wife talks back to them.

Then, there's the territorial pissing contests.  Yeah, they are quite territorial.

But anyway, with the new camera, I decided to try and take some pictures of them.  Here's two different birds in one image.

It's not that hard per se.  I'm just quickly being reminded of the limitations of switching camera platforms before having comparable bodies and lenses.

Anyway, I highly recommend setting up a hummingbird feeder if you're in the right area for it.  I go through a gallon or two of water and maybe a pound of sugar in a year.

Graphic Design geekery - 1/0 Letterpress on Crane Lettra 220 lb stock.

If you're not into the design details, just know that it's super thick stock and all the information has a slight indentation because it was pressed into the paper.

It's by far the nicest card I've had, and it was a little pricey, but not compared to all other comparable services I've been able to find.

I've got a similar card in mind for another long term client I have, so we'll see after I get their impression on this card.

It was a friend reading Atlas Shrugged that got me thinking about it and looking into checking out Rand's earlier novel (Fountainhead) to see if I would like her style.  Unabridged, this Audible production is 32 hours long.

I'm very conflicted about The Fountainhead.  It was both a lot better than I thought, but it also exceeds all the stereotypes that kept me from reading it long ago.

The reason I went so long without reading any Rand was because it was so attributed to a style of thinking and reasoning that I always felt was overly intellectual in an annoying way.  In high school and college, it always felt like an author championed by those who did nothing but read, ponder, and gather with the like minded while slighting those that they didn't accept as equals.  I favored the notion of experience in addition to educational rhetoric and philosophical topics.

Unfortunately, I can see exactly why her work achieves this type of devotion and stereotype.  There are a lot times in the book that feel so over thought or over rationalized - which I attribute to the time it was written.  This was embracing too much of the then current theories in psychology and sociology.  Way too much Freud (so much reference of ego this and ego that).

Thousands of words could have been omitted with little to no effect to the reader.

Some of the length is good in that the book shines is in its depth.  Its depth in character.  Its depth of description.  Its depth of reasoning.  I got a much better understanding of the characters, places, and surrounding things than the over metaphor laden works considered to be classics.

I didn't expect a book like this.  I expected an older writing style that made the work feel more stale and dated.  Instead, I found it to have stood the test of time with the exception of all the Freudian ego stuff...  Sure, it was dated for clearly being a period piece, but not so far as to not be

I think I liked it so much because there was a pretty large part of me that identified with a lot of the themes.  Much of it was the place of originality, creativity, art, and architecture in society.

The characters aren't something that I necessarily identify with, but I defiantly can attribute some of their traits to myself or those I have known.  I've met many that have the Peter Keating quality of skating by on the talents of others with no apologies or acknowledgment.  I know those that think they are all knowing and manipulating in a Ellsworth Toohey sort of fashion.  I've never met anyone totally like a Howard Roark or Dominique Francon.  There have definitely been  a few Gail Wynand wannabe's in their supposed building of an empire.  It's an interesting character study taking place in an interesting time in American history.

If you're into architecture, then you should give this a chance at some point.  It's at least mildly interesting for Rand's take on that alone.  But I'm a geek like that I guess.

Atlas Shrugged will be my next audible selection.  I liked The Fountainhead, and I hope Atlas will be the same if not better.  I know it's not a book for everyone for different reasons, but I'll actually pick up a hard copy to keep.

You probably know the basics.  We like sports and games so much because it's a symbol of society in that there are easy to follow rules.  These rules are more black and white than society rules.  These rules make it easier to learn and participate in.  The lack of rules would destroy the point of sport.

To protect these rules, sport have people simply in charge of enforcing rules.  These people can be called referees, umpires or even judges...  These persons are usually highly esteemed, and sometimes considered beyond reproach within the sport.

So what, eh?  It's just been a weird month with two judgment calls within sport that show the best and worst with the need to evolve sport.

The first was the perfect game broken up on the last play of the game.  If you live in the US, then you most likely saw it in some kind of news broadcast.  If you're a sports fan, then you saw it hundreds of times with as many opinions.  This shows the best of what the bastion of sport rules could be.  The umpire apologized profusely, knowing what he had mistakenly taken away.  He didn't have to apologize, and it's a rare, refreshing occasion of a person in such a position admits their fallibility and their screw up.

The second instance is more fresh, and I have less time for it to really sink in.  This morning saw a referee of a World Cup match make numerous errors, but most aggregiously were two - a yellow card where the foul claimed didn't come close to occuring (a hand ball was called when it actually hit the players face) - and another call that stopped what would have most likely been a game winning goal in the closing moments of regulation time.  The umpire, and the regulating body of the sport have offered no explanation of the foul, nor is there any reason to expect them to do so.

So what can we learn from this? I'm not sure.  It seems this whole thing has to do with the fact that it's so obviously easy to see every angle of every sport the moment it happens.  How we watch and interact with sport has changed.  Sport has changed to maximize profit.  Rules for most sports haven't changed much except in the realm of equipment.

It's time for sport to change.  It's time to make the games more reflective of the times. In their pure forms, sport is about participants and rules.  The enforcement of those rules was a need at a time without the aid of all our new fangled techno widgets.  Why have things never really changed about the enforcement of those laws?  A little communication device here, a little instant replay there...

But there's still way too much subjectivity for any sport to be pure.  I guess there always will be as long as there's dishonesty among participants to need judges.  It's these judges which make sport imperfect in the worst ways.

As sport can be a microcosm of society, it's too bad the participants of society can't play the games within the rules, or without the need of judges.

While the NHL and NBA have international players, it's primarily a North American thing.  There's no question that the World Cup is anything but a global phenomenon.

I completely understand why soccer is the most popular international sport. It's a game that you can practically play anywhere with only one piece of equipment needed. Most other sports are much more complicated in terms of the equipment and rules.

But I've never gotten past the healthy respect stage.  I'm not a fanatic like many others seem to become about the sport.  I'm not sure why or how.  I used to play as a kid, and I've played in a few indoor leagues recently.

I wonder if it's my exposure to too many sports in my younger days.  There was soccer, baseball, golf, skiing, basketball, tennis, racquetball, football, volleyball and probably a few more here and there.  Only one of those sports was favored over the others, so there was no real specialty as it were.  Oddly enough, I never played hockey, but I probably enjoy watching it more than almost any other sport.

Who knows?  I know that I'll enjoy the World Cup.  I just know that I will not be getting as much enjoyment as most of the world or my soccer friends.  I hope they aren't going to be disappointed.  Now I'm off to watch the US vs. England.

How could it not?  There's very few characters in the book, and equally few in the film.  Having said that, it's an impressive gathering of the actors you see the most (with the exception of the child).  The notable cast members include Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, and Guy Pierce.  I also recognized the lesser known actors Garret Dillahunt and Michael K. Williams.

All things said, the film was cast very well with good performances.  It was shot well with a great production value.  Taking the book into account, it was adapted brilliantly.  Unfortunately the flaw in the movie is that it was based on the book which I felt was flawed.

The same flaws in the book persisted in the film.  The only real difference that I can think of is what felt like a bigger role of the wife / mother character played by Theron.

I can only assume that the reason this film seemed to come and go without notice is because of the flaws in the story.  How else can you explain how a film with good production value, a great cast and performances can do so poorly?  I guess you can point to a lack of marketing support, but it's a great cast of a film based on a popular book...

I'm not sure who to recommend this film to.  If you like apocalypse films, you'll want to at least see this.  If you want to see how a Pulitzer Prize winning novel can be adapted, then check it out.   If you're some Lord of the Rings freak that can't not see a movie with a main cast member, you'll have to see this (one cast to rule them all).

It's just a movie that I'm not going to bother seeing again as it didn't really do much but kill a few hours on a meaningless weeknight.

[link to my book review of The Road]

It used to be the entire month, but it's been whittled down to half of what it was.  While it's not as a result of this shortening, I fear that the race (and the Indy motorsport mystique) is much less than half what it was.

I'm a little in the midst of it all, so objectivity is like Palin talking about oil.  But it's no surprise that the Indy 500 in general is a shadow of what it once was up to about the 1980's.

The reasons as to why such a decline happened are numerous.  The most popular is the CART / IRL split that fragmented open wheel racing in the US.  Some point to the rise in popularity of NASCAR at around the same time the decline in popularity of open-wheel racing.

Big deal, right?  To most, is is kind of a "who cares" type of thing.  But this is a really big deal here, and the 500 is the biggest reason why anyone knows of the existence of Indianapolis outside of this country.  It means millions upon millions of dollars to the local economy both in the month of May and year round since a lot of race teams are located here.

So far, non of this is opinion, and it's all been beaten to the ground around here.  My little perspective is that the spirit of Indy is dead in that the 500 is a highly regulated sporting event more about minutia than technological progression as it was for many, many years.  You used to have teams testing and trying so many different technologies to win the race.  A turbine engine would have won the 500 in 1967 if it weren't for a $6 ball bearing.  That kind of victory and press could have had an impact on the evolution of consumer cars.

Can it change? I don't think so.  The 80's show why.  It became such a big deal race teams were so far apart depending on the amount of funds available to a team for better engines and other parts.  The result was the CART / IRL split where the IRL wanted to try to become a more regulated sport with standardized parts to make it more competitive all around.  And it was, for a few years.

Now that CART has gone the way of Lehman Brothers, the IRL has been rebuilding its image and fan base.  The Indy 500 is still the most popular part of the series by far.  I really don't see a manner in which it can change to get back to where it was.  It unfortunately needs to be highly regulated in order to attempt to be a competitive event / series.  My point is that there should be something associated with Indy or even the 500 that is a link to its progressive past.

I can think of a few things off the top of my head that could be cool to do at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that would show a nod to the progressive past.  One is a race with real, consumer cars like the ALMS which has a few classes of real cars racing alongside prototypes that have seemed to produce real consumer technology.  How cool would it be to have the 12 or 24 hours of Indy race?  Another would be starting a new race or series of races that rewards new technology.  Have a race on the track for electric cars or hybrids like the Formula Hybrid Competition at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway [NMHS or WMUR].  Include a social aspect to a race to engage fans more with the drivers and the cars.

I love the 500 and hope it's always around.  I just feel like there used to be a nice relationship between racing and innovation where it's now just a relationship between racing, marketing and racing innovation.  There's a massive disconnect with the audience that NASCAR was able to capitalize on for awhile.  While Indy and the IRL are doing better, there's nothing to say that whatever progress has been made can't be erased very quickly based on how the wind blows.  I want something better for Indy than it currently has.

The first thing we did was just go around to dealerships when we had spare time, or a few specific trips out to look.  This started months in advance.  Once we went out on a Sunday.  Why a Sunday?  Because Indiana laws don't allow for the sale of cars on that day of the week.  Since dealerships are closed, we could walk around and look at cars without the harassment of sales persons.  I have a very love-hate relationships with automotive sales persons.

Once we had done that with a lot of internet research, we went out to get in the cars and gather brochures.  Let's think of what cars in no particular order...

• Ford Fusion
• Volvo S40 & C30
• Mini Cooper & Cooper S
• VW EOS
• Honda Accord, Civic, & Insight
• Audi A4
• Smart ForTwo
• Saab 9-3
• Nissan Altima & Altima Coupe
• Infiniti G37 and G37 Coupe
• Subaru Impreza & Legacy
• Toyota Corolla & Camry
• Acura TSX & RDX

I may have missed a car or two in that list, but these were the ones that we considered in this phase.

The earliest removals from considerations were Audi, Saab, and Toyota.  Nothing personal about the cars - they just didn't make the cut.

The rest graduated to a test drive with the addition of a few surprises along the way...  Stay tuned or not...

While I chose it based on the synopsis and the recommendation of some podcasts that I listen to, I didn't think it would really address so many of the same basic themes as my last book, Outliers.

It's a hard book to get through, even when listening to it.  The style is dense and more technical in nature.  The result is that the book is harder to internalize or to relate to.  Why? Because the book is so oddly balanced.

About 80% of the book is concentrating on the biological nature of how decisions are made.  This large chunk of the book is so hard to get through, and feels so overwhelmingly single minded.  Dopamine here... Amygdala there... Prefrontal cortex everywhere...  Take this quote:

We all need to know about the innate frailties of the prefrontal cortex so that we don't undermine our decisions.

This is typical of the book in such a way that annoys me.  It's more than fair to say that statements like this are overly broad in their implications.

The other 20% of the book oddly take on the value of creative thinking and the value of experience.  I have a hard time really giving this portion of the book much credit because it feels like such an afterthought.  The vast majority of the specific, situational, cases brought up are only discussed in terms of the bran biology and chemistry that lead to their decisions.  The few cases discussed in terms of creative thought or experience are just so weak in comparison to the earlier cases.  A case of a poker player (poorly written at that) is a joke when compared talking about commercial pilots facing extreme cases of adversity (which would mean the deaths of many).

The very end of the book really made me scratch my head when the early cases are revisited.  All of a sudden, all the previous examples are referenced in a manner that references the necessary component of experience.  Huh?  It was only about biology before, but now it requires experience?  Make up your mind!

So in the end, I'm not too happy for wasting so much time with this book.  It's poorly written, obviously slanted, overly detailed where it shouldn't be, and severely lacking in other places.  I do not recommend this book in any capacity.