How do I live longer?

Posted on 2012/12/05 by treetrunkrick • Tagged chapter excerpt, climate, creativity, crossfit, environment, first glass, food, gratitude journal, happiness, health, healthy-living, humour, meditation, mental-health, nature, satire, story, yoga class • Leave a comment

One of the first pieces of advice you get from those who are older and have lived longer than you is to not take advice from anyone older than you, right?

Wrong.

Want to live longer, or at least pretend that you might?

Try these handy tips:

1. Drink a glass of water when you wake up. Your body loses water while you sleep, so you’re naturally dehydrated in the morning. A glass of water when you wake helps start your day fresh. When do you drink your first glass of water each day?

2. Define your top 3. Every morning Mike asks himself, “What are the top three most important tasks that I will complete today?” He prioritizes his day accordingly and doesn’t sleep until the Top 3 are complete. What’s your “Top 3” today?

3. The 50/10 Rule. Solo-task and do more faster by working in 50/10 increments. Use a timer to work for 50 minutes on only one important task with 10 minute breaks in between. Mike spends his 10 minutes getting away from his desk, going outside, calling friends, meditating, or grabbing a glass of water. What’s your most important task for the next 50 minutes?

4. Move and sweat daily. Regular movement keeps us healthy and alert. It boosts energy and mood, and relieves stress. Most mornings you’ll find Mike in a CrossFit or a yoga class. How will you sweat today?

5. Express gratitude. Gratitude fosters happiness, which is why Mike keeps a gratitude journal. Every morning, he writes out at least five things he’s thankful for. In times of stress, he’ll pause and reflect on 10 things he’s grateful for. What are you grateful for today?

6. Reflect daily. Bring closure to your day through 10 minutes of reflection. Mike asks himself, “What went well?” and “What needs improvement?” So… what went well today? How can you do more of it?

Spiking the Punch

Posted on 2012/12/05 by treetrunkrick • Tagged aviation, business, chapter excerpt, climate, environment, happiness, humour, satire, science, space, story, technology, transportation, travel, videogames • Leave a comment

If you’re going to create a real virtual world to hide your wealth from socialistic hands, you have to start somewhere in an exotic location.

For instance, draw a line in the regolith sand and drive a golden spike to claim your spot on the Inner Solar System superhighway.

Where?

Say, like the Moon, for instance.

And now, a word from those who don’t crave constant technological connections

Posted on 2012/12/05 by treetrunkrick • Tagged chapter excerpt, environment, happiness, health, humour, mental-health, nature, philosophy, satire, story, transportation • Leave a comment

Simple and easy? No, but rural living can invigorate and revive.

Innovation in Action

Posted on 2012/12/05 by treetrunkrick • Tagged business, chapter excerpt, creativity, current-events, education, happiness, humour, real education, satire, society, story, technology, teen entrepreneurs • Leave a comment

Giving teen entrepreneurs the real education they crave…

Back to Besse

Posted on 2012/12/05 by treetrunkrick • Tagged chapter excerpt, current-events, education, family, happiness, health, history, humour, satire, story • Leave a comment

Fleshing out connections, here’s a set of data points:

Besse Cooper, once the world’s oldest living person at 116 years of age, was born in Sullivan County, Tennessee, USA, in 1896.
Besse graduated from ETSU* in 1916.
My father in-law was born in 1916. He and his wife (my mother in-law, born in 1917), both also graduated from ETSU**, in the early 1930s.
My father, born in 1935, taught at ETSU as an adjunct professor for over 20 years, and died earlier this year.
Besse Cooper died yesterday in Monroe, Georgia.
My uncle, former dean of history at Valdosta State University, and my aunt live in an assisted living facility not far from Monroe, Georgia.
I was born and grew up in Sullivan County, Tennessee, USA, and attended ETSU in the early 1980s.
My sister was born and grew up in Sullivan County, Tennessee, USA, and received her master’s degree from ETSU.
My wife was born in Sullivan County, Tennessee, USA.

Question: We can create as many connections as we wish but how many of them are real?
Question: How many of us will live to be centenarians?

* called East Tennessee State Normal School at the time.** called East Tennessee State Teachers College at the time.

A Thousand Years Hence…

Posted on 2012/12/05 by treetrunkrick • Tagged aviation, chapter excerpt, climate, future, gaming, happiness, history, humour, Internet, satire, science, story, technology, transportation • Leave a comment

Maybe it was the rolling blackouts.

Maybe it was something no historian will discover.

Looking back 1000 years later, the details have faded but the facts remain.

When more than 50 percent of the people grew to depend upon their symbiotic relationships with technology, the Change began.

At first, it was unnoticeable.

A novelty.

But then, as network technology continued to spread, people’s attitudes shifted.

They no longer expected information to be “out there” somewhere.

They became the information they sought.

They created the instant wisdom they used to imagine belonged to elites.

All because of a single femtocell.

One femtocell split into two, which divided into twos again, and again, and again, until pervasive, cheap technology turned us into our own network, freeing us from the costly, slow infrastructure with tolls and fees that had inhibited the explosion of the Change.

No longer were data centers some remote place that ate up energy like hogs at a trough.

People were walking/talking data centers, thinktanks, supercomputers and network nodes all at the same time.

Thanks to exponential advances in technology.

From the perspective of 1000 years, the Change seemed to happen overnight.

Of course it didn’t.

Years and decades passed while portions of the people sped up and slowed down the socioeconomic trends that led to the Change.

A student of history digs for the details, trying not to invent connections where connections never exists.

The writer of historical fiction has full access to imaginative connections.

Legends, fables and fairy tales live somewhere in-between.

The Change happened — that’s all that matters, despite false rumours and gossip to the contrary that say we came from genetically modified plants, not electromechanical technology.

Laws on the Books of Booked Lawyers

Posted on 2012/12/05 by treetrunkrick • Tagged chapter excerpt, current-events, family, happiness, humour, politics, satire, story • Leave a comment

In what has been labeled as the Presumptuous Journalist Act, lawmakers approved a convoluted batch of legislation aimed to clarify the rights of meateaters, vegetarians and gun owners.

From now on, at least once a year meateaters must kill their own food, using guns or other means at close quarters.

Vegetarians who refuse to eat meat, let alone kill an animal for food, must pay tolls for the use of anything — every road, building or other infrastructure; any product, including food, medicine, and/or clothing; any ideas, such as business, technology, arts, science, and/or sports — that was designed, financed, built and/or maintained by meateaters.

Meateating gun owners who kill their food more than once a year are given exclusive rights to own as many guns and as much ammunition as they want.

Vegetarian gun owners are allowed to own up to as many guns and as much ammunition as they can carry to a knife fight at a broccoli slaughterhouse.

In addition, submitted at the last minute in tiny print buried deep within the Presumptuous Journalist Act, any human killed by a gun, whether through acts of war, property protection, self-defense and/or domestic violence, must be used to feed the homeless, the malnourished and/or refugees without a reliable source of food.

A rally was planned for protestors on all sides of this issue but was delayed until this year’s harvest has been brought in, counted, graded and sent to market.

CORRECTION: The rally was canceled. Everyone sat down at the tables for the Harvest Festival and resolved their differences, agreeing that meateaters, vegetarians and gunowners can exist, if not always peaceably, in the same society.

POST-CORRECTION: A family quarrel broke out at one of the tables and a gunfight ensued, offering opportunities for more presumptuous journalists to jump up and down, getting attention for themselves and the advertisers who support them.

Happiness is a warm smartphone

Posted on 2012/12/04 by treetrunkrick • Tagged chapter excerpt, happiness, humour, satire, story, technology • Leave a comment

What you say about his company is what you say about society…

Posted on 2012/12/04 by treetrunkrick • Tagged chapter excerpt, firmware upgrade, gadgets, galaxy, hallelujah, happiness, humour, satire, story, technology, world today • Leave a comment

Hallelujah! I got my Christmas present early this year!

An official upgrade of my non-rooted AT&T Samsung Galaxy S3:

Oops! Needed to reboot computer after upgrading Kies, it seems…

Rebooted computer, restarted the Samsung Kies software and started the firmware upgrade:

Everything is right with my world today!

Speaking of a just society

Posted on 2012/12/04 by treetrunkrick • Tagged business, chapter excerpt, climate, culture, current-events, economy, education, environment, happiness, humour, leadership, meditation, minimum wage job, politics, satire, science, story, technology • Leave a comment

How many people work for a structured organisation?

My brain is fuzzy this morning so I’m just making this blog entry a thought experiment.

Corporate organisational charts are typically hierarchical, especially viewed from a monetary compensation viewpoint.

The higher up the chart you go, the fewer the people but the more they’re paid.

People (employees, consultants, etc.) are just one cost of doing business.

What if we redefined the cost of working for a structured organisation?

What if we told employees that part of their pay was tied to profit sharing?

What if every minimum-wage job taught employees not only how to work together with other people as a team but also how the risks and rewards of running a company are shared so that it’s not just the CEOs and executives who get bonuses but also everyone else on the organisation chart?

What are the costs and benefits for such a program?

Could we remove the necessity for minimum wage and unions if we as a nation said that all employees were entitled to sharing the profits for a job well done as a team?

Would employees feel a better sense of ownership and pride in their work?

How could such a plan be integrated into early childhood education?

How do we instill into children that every one of us is a profit center?

Some of us profit monetarily and some of us profit emotionally/spiritually; some both; some neither.

How does this apply to people who are congenitally unable to grasp the concept of teamwork?

treetrunkdings

All about you, me, us, as usual.

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