Listicle

List + Article = Listicle. Or basically the easiest blog post ever, just writing a list.

Things Rowdy Is Going To Do Today
-Return RedBox movie
-Lift weights
-Mail taxes and other stuff
-Garbage day
-Water outside plants
-Practice shooting
-Play with my camera stuff
-Lunch w SuperD
-Watch the Oregon bowl game!
-Figure out the rest of the week.....

Professional Spite.

I saw a commercial tonight from Johnson&Johnson with the main tagline of "nurses heal".

Which is funny, because if you're a clinician the saying is, "Nurses comfort, physicians cure." Which aligns with my professional opinion of nurses in general. Glorified errand girls/boys, doing what others tell them.

Did the nurse in the commercial place that venous access? Did they choose the medication given and the amount? Did they diagnose the disease? Nope.

Not saying that nurses aren't good people and great professionals, but I think they believe a little bit too much of their own press and have a tendency to overstate their role.

But then again, I'm the one who failed two years in a row to get into Physician Assistant programs, so what do I know?

I got your 7 right here!

Ok, in my life I've owned a few cars from brand new, but not many. A Ford Escort, Toyota Tacoma #1, Acura RSX and now Toyota Tacoma #2.

The Escort was sold, Taco #1 was stolen and died in a fire, the RSX was sold for some inexplicable reason and I wish I still had it! But Taco #2 had lasted longer than almost any car I've owned and definitely longer than any other car I've had since new.

Both in years and mileage. My truck hit the lottery just a while ago, 77777. Yeah, I took this pic at 77mph at 707pm as well.

This truck has taken me everywhere! Deserts, snow, mountains, mud, streams. CA, NV, AZ, UT, CO, WY, ID, OR. Bikes, motorcycles, guns and anything else you'd like to haul Tommy.

Here is TacoTruck and I having some fun.

Last year at this time....

I'd just gotten back from Strasbourg France, Vienna Austria and Buda-Pest Hungary. An amazing winter wonderland tour of music, markets, history, food and sights. Wow.

This year? I look like I belong in eastern Europe as I'm sitting on the couch in Adidas warm-ups, unshowered drinking a quart of egg nog non stop.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. But my hair and beard look better than they did then, so there's that. Right?

Daily

I've used a saying in the past, "Successful people do daily what other people do occasionally," and have found another I like to add, "Winners train while losers complain."

With that in mind I actually have already started my New Year's goals a few days after I first wrote them down here. I am motivated by just wanting to do better at the things I care about. My mind, my body, my spirit, my talents. Learning a new language, working out and swimming, reading and my shooting hit each of those respectively.

Yeah for me, right? Well at the same time there are also things I wish I'd never done. The opposite of doing something good all the time, especially as it seems one bad action can undo 12 good actions.

So in all fairness, to present a more true and nuanced version of me, here are some things I wish I'd never done, let alone occasionally. Here you are, regrets I still feel............

Things I Wish I Had Never Done

-Drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.

-Sell my first motorcycle.

-Refuse to get braces as a teen.

-Came home early from my Iraq job.

-Cheat on my girlfriend.

-Say mean things to my family/kids/friends/loved ones.

-Doing poorly in high school, on purpose.

They say people can't change and I don't really believe that, I know people can change. Not easily, but it can happen and for that I'm grateful. Daily.

Not Sure If I'm Ready.......

I'm not sure if I'm ready for this, but I'm moving forward on it anyways! Because it really is something I want, just need to work through my doubts. Mind gym!!

What is it? A business in San Diego made an initial approach to me about sponsorship for a shooting team. WOOT! Yesterday I spent a few hours writing up a sponsorship proposal targeted for their company and I sent it off to my point of contact person this morning.

Getting closer to my goal of having my shooting sports become a job. With all the attending rewards and pressures.

Guess who will be practicing much much more now????????

Not a Nerd

So I just finished my recent term at Mesa College, a community college here in San Diego. I originally graduated with my BS in Radiologic Science in June of 2002. I've been to college before, I worked full time for three of the five years I went to school and I graduated with a 3.3 cumulative grade point average. In 5 years of full time class work I only ever earned 4 C grades and actually finished one term in the hospital recovering from surgery. That I had no health insurance for. And with $37,000 in student loan debt that I used solely to pay my child support while in college.

I think I understand what it means to be a struggling college student. Having spent the last 10 weeks watching numerous people flail at being successful in college and listening to, to me very obvious, poor thought processes I thought I would share some characteristics of the successful college student. From my own experiences and from those struggling whom I just witnessed up close. Stop being your own worst enemy!!

-Make success a positive goal. Change from saying to yourself, "I hope I do good. Man, I wonder how I'm gonna do?" and such ilk to phrasing things in a positive. Always frame things in a positive statement. Whenever you catch yourself saying something negative about school, find a way to rephrase it as a positive statement.

-Get the right amount of sleep.Not too much, not too little. The biggest causes of lack of sleep I see in students? Partying and procrastination.

-Manage your time wisely. This is a key component of everything on this list. It's like carbon, it makes up everything. If I were ranking these in order of importance it would be one of the top three.

-CFL. Chronically faulty lifestyle. If you're continually getting bad results, it's probably "you". So you need to change some things about yourself. Stop getting drunk or high soo much. Stop waiting till the last second. Stop skipping. Look at what the people are doing who you think are the smart ones, do what they do if you're not already.

-Check the boxes. By this I mean do the stuff you're supposed to do, ALL THE TIME. Go to every class. Be on time, every time. Do every homework assignment. Read every page assigned. You need to be consistent and doing these little things, continually, daily.

-Know your learning style. I take in information poorly from reading. I do best when seeing something or hearing something. Followed by my writing it down. With reading a distant last place. Honestly self assess and see how you best learn and retain information. Then study in that style. If you look at my college notebooks, a whole 10 weeks of classes equals and most 4 pages of notes for me, across almost any subject. But I am super attentive in class, as I need to see the presentation and hear the lecture, that's the best way fro me to keep the information in my brain. I know my style.

Couple this with being well rested, in a positive frame of mind, having done all my homework and on time and you are giving yourself the best chance for a successful start.

Please don't be the person cheating, late, not having done the work, unable to concentrate 'cause you're tired and pissy about the whole thing. If so, the reasons you are doing poorly are really all your own.

Per the US Census 33,808 people died in the US in 2009 from fatal motor vehicle accidents.

Per the CDC There were over 500,000 deaths in a year due to heart disease in 2010. And 11,708 homicides by firearm in 2010.

Cars kill three times as many people per yer as guns and heart disease kills almost 50 times as many. If you wanted to save human lives, where do you think the most benefit would come from?

Not a political agenda, not a reaction to tragedy but a reasonable cost-benefit analysis. You really want to save people's lives from deaths too soon? Look somewhere else before firearms as the reasoning rings hollow.

I hate my mouth a little less now....

One of the nice thing about having your friends for the most part having professional careers are that their specialties can help you out. Break some toes, good thing I know a podiatrist. Computer issues? I call my man G-ride. Under medical restrictions where I can't leave the house? My hair stylist comes to the house. Develop sleep issues? Boom, I'm friends with a Stanford trained sleep specialist. Bust out your sister's teeth with a surfboard? Call up my orthodontic surgery friend who went to Harvard. You get the idea.

The old adage being it's not what you know, but who you know. Kinda like you don't have to know the information, you just have to know where to find it.

Well I know perfectly I hate my teeth. Their shape, their crowding, their color, their seeming fragility. If I was offered an extra two inches (take that both ways cheeky monkeys) or perfect teeth requiring nothing but brushing and flossing for the rest of my life........... Man, that'd be a hard decision. I'm pretty sure I would take the perfect teeth.

I'm already used to my other shortcomings.

If you know me in real life, you know I'm often very chatty. So at a gathering of guys and pizza last month Mr Harvard said, "You know, I could get you straight teeth in just 6 months if you let me do your orthodontic work." Wow, really? So I ask, "Well I also really hate how yellow they are, my dentist right now wants $400 to whiten them. What do you think?"

Dismissively waving his hands he says, "Just come with me to my office as soon as we're done with dinner and I'll give you a professional whitening kit. You can have it and it will be perfect." Oh heck yeah I am all over it man!

I used the kits this past week and my teeth are now white and with none of the side effects you hear about from whitening. Not like TV star white, but easily 70% whiter than they were before. A visible improvement.

And I hate my mouth just a little bit less now...................

Waiting!

Argh! I hate waiting for things to be delivered. And I have a handful of things out there, in the ether. Stuff I really would prefer to have right now. I have little patience for things that take weeks, if not months to get here.....

-riding suit
-projectiles
-powder
-holster
-other gun stuff

grrrrr, and the fastest of this stuff is still weeks out!

Continuous Quality Improvement 2014

With the bit of self reflection about my competitive attitudes and actions still in mind I had lunch recently with one of my friends, CQ, who is pursuing a MBA degree. As usual our topics ranged from guns to jiu jitsu to corporate espionage to girls to food to school.

Listening to his comments about what he is learning in his MBA and my own self analysis I have decided upon my New Year's Resolutions (NYR). Early.

But they aren't really resolutions in the traditional sense, nor will I set about accomplishing them as I have in the past when I've successfully met my NYR goals. This comes from honest self reflection because the last couple of years I haven't made my NYR. At all.

Let's look at why this is, come let us reason together. A goal should be Measurable, Achievable/Realistic and have a Time component. The past couple years I think I ignored this sage advice in planning my goals. I also didn't take into account who I am as a person currently. My drives, desires, motivations, abilities. As I look at myself over the past few years there is absolutely nothing voluntary that I could say I've done every day for a year. Heck, I'm not even in the same state for a continuous 90 days, let alone doing something every day for 365 days! Often my goals have been one requiring something to be done every dang day. I don't think this is realistic for myself.

Using the business concept of CQI I'm going to tweak 2014's NYR a bit. Continuous. OK, so this means "all the time", but history shows I can't do something all the time. So I'm going to try looking at things on a per week basis. So if I have a goal of every-day-do-whatever what that really means is 6 days out of the week and to be accounted for only once during the week. For an example let's say I have a goal of flossing my teeth every day. (which is an admirable goal for us all) What I am really saying is I have to do it 6 out of the 7 days per week and if I don't have that as the week nears ending then there is going to be a day where I'm flossing my teeth like 4 times that day. This will allow me to make things up as it were, give me flexibility and yet still remain accountable to a time limit.

Quality. It's got to be something good. Worthwhile. Again, back to what do I really want.

Improvement. Can I do better? Can I measure that change?

With all these things in mind, here are my CQI goals for 2014!

-Exercise every day. Exercise defined as a minimum of 20 somethings. 20 laps in the pool. 20 minutes running. 20 pull ups. Just 20 reps, minutes, miles, pounds, yards, whatever. Per earlier, every day means averaged out for 6 days of the week.

-Read something spiritual every day. Not a page, or a verse or a paragraph. Just read. NIV, Torah, Koran, Old Testament, Book of Mormon, New Testament. It doesn't matter what, just something spiritual. Hmmm, maybe I should add a unit of measurement to this..... Ok, I'll say a column or half a page depending on the source's format. Daily of course meaning averaged for 6 days of the week. That's just 3 whole pages a week. Simple right?

-Learn the Russian/Cyrillic alphabet before my class starts on January 27th. This was the big obstacle and reason why I dropped out of my other Russian class. I just like the oral part and I need to buckle down and do the written part to make it happen. If I can get a jump on it before class starts I think that will really help me.

-Practice my pistol skills everyday for 5 minutes. Yep, so if I do 30 minutes one day then I did the whole week's goal. Shooting well is a perishable skill. You have to practice it constantly to stay on top of the game. I may not always enjoy practice or even guns themselves, but I ALWAYS enjoy winning.

There you have it, just 4 goals for 2014 and one of them will be done before the 1st month is over. I have other things I want to do, but I don't think of them as goals, especially in the new format about it having to be something that makes me better. Improves me. Growing my hair longer or shooting in 5 major tournaments are some examples, but they are more just scheduling things, not goals.

Calm. Confirmed. Quick. And now starring Quiet.

My shooting coach and I had an After Action Report (AAR) about my shooting for the past couple tournaments and practice sessions. The main point of it was something like this:

Coach, "So do you realize what you need to work on?"
Me, "Yes, I know where I am weak technically and the drills I know I need to do to improve. I also need to properly deal with my finger injury. I also have my major matches planned out for 2014 and my goals within each one."

Coach, "Do you know what else I think you need to do?"
Me, "No, what? Not hurt my finger?" (laughs)

C, "Well why did you hurt your finger?"
M, "Showing off. Trying to alpha male the other dudes around me. Make a statement. Kinda like physical trash talking."

C,"And how did that work out for you? Or the times you talk trash? Or that time we went to Alabama and you were sure you were going to win and you got smoked? You realize you can't do that, that sort of thing. Has it ever gotten you any gains? Have you ever won after that type of behavior or attitude?"
M, "Well no, but it's who I am. It's my personality. I love doing that kind of stuff."

C,"And again, how has it worked out for you? What you need to be, and what I think of, is being a 'quiet professional'."
M, "OK, you're right. Hubris and my attitude has screwed me in the past. I will work on this. I have a mantra I use when things are going bad or I need to calm my jitters, so I will find a way to add this to it."

So the saying I previously said to myself before matches to ease my jitters and to focus on the task at hand was "Calm. Confirmed. Quick." Calm was to not let my mind wander. To breath and focus on the task at hand. Confirmed was my way of being in the moment. Seeing my front sight, seeing my shots. Knowing what I was doing, not doing things prematurely. And of course Quick. To then also do this stuff as quickly, but not too quickly that I make errors, as possible.

And now it is time to add Quiet in there. Be a quiet professional. Let my shooting and results do the talking. To act like how I do when I'm teaching kids shooting for NRA camps. How would I act if they were watching? I need to be a quiet professional.

Like today, some of my competitors who know me well tried egging me on. Getting me going. And normally I jump at that sort of thing, getting all trash talking and showing off and such. I resisted as best I could, since this is a new change for me, doing probably 60% less of that behavior that I would have otherwise.

The result? First place in my division of 16 shooters and first OVERALL of 25 shooters. Calm. Confirmed. Quick. Quiet. I was probably 70-80% of where I'd like to be on all of those attributes today. It was my first real day back with my finger injury after all.

And while the competition was admittedly light at this particular match, I still had to beat everyone else.

Veni. Vidi. Vici.

Luvz

I love my cat.

Fortune Cookie

Yesterday on my lunch break I ate at Mitsuwa, a Japanese market here in San Diego that also has a small cafe inside it. After my meal of shrimp and rice I went and bought a bag of small fortune cookies. Not Japanese I know, but I like them as a snack.

Eating them like it was my last meal I only stopped to look at one of the fortunes, which read "You will prosper today."

Hmmmmm, so I go to school and on the way to class I find $700 dollars on the ground. Well, someones uncashed paycheck for that amount. Stub still attached and with a recent date.

Then in Algebra/Geometry the teacher passes out a take home test and what test hits my desk? The one that is her answer key!

Wow, in one hour I got a free check and all the answers to a test!

But not really. I called the business on the check and they called their employee who came to school and got his paycheck from me. He was dumbstruck as to how he lost it and it got there. But I'm glad he got it back. If you're only making $700 every two weeks you need all the money you can get.

And while the students around me clamored to take cell phone pics of the test key, I waited a beat and then gave it back. She acted as if I had already completed the test, and I said no but rather it was her own key. She gave me a blank test with a curt nod of thanks.

Did I prosper? Not really in the physical sense. Spiritually? Karmic? Nothing?

The riddle of Rowdy

As you know, I've been taking a match and art class at community college here in San Diego to help fill some of my free time and for personal development. College Algebra and Digital Imaging, in which I am currently getting A's in both classes with just finals left next week. My A in algebra is a 92, so if I get a B on the final I might get a B in that class, but oh well.

I've enjoyed it, even on long homework nights and I've gotten soooo much better at photoshop and definitely back to speed on algebra. A good mix of left and right brain things.

This has been so much fun that I decided to register for classes in the spring as well. Some people I know shake their heads in dismay at this, going to school when you don't have to. But I actually enjoy learning and improving myself. But to what extent? This next semester will test that as the two classes I enrolled in are previous difficult areas in my life.

Russian and swimming. I've dropped out of a private Russian class once already. Aaaaand I didn't learn how to properly swim until I was an adult. Ergo within the past 4 years. Do I have what it takes to be successful this second time around? I think so!

Starting January 27th I'll be swimming for 90 minutes (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and then going to Russian for the same amount of time every Tuesday and Thursday night. Wish me well in getting fit and learning a new language!!!

Motociclisimo

Some good motorcycle news!

1. Check out this amazing footage from a guy on the 163. Next time you get irritated at a motorcycle who is lane splitting LEGALLY and you decide to be an utter A-hole and squeeze them with your car, think again after you watch this video. I can't count how many times people have actively tried to harm me while I was riding my motorcycle.

If you saw a rider who had crashed would you do what this guy has done?


2. Adding a piece of quality gear finally! I know it's not really that big of deal living in San Diego, but it does get cold and rainy here sometimes and this will just make it soo much better to ride year round. What is it? A nice RoadCrafter 1 piece riding suit from Aerostich. For a cool $1,000 you know I'm gonna wear the hell outta this thing!

Mine is gray with silver accents. Whereas the picture is gray with black.

3. In my quest to find something as a gap filler, I'm entering the process to teach motorcycle riding for the State of California. An official, real position. The process takes about 2-3 months and has you doing some things to 'prove' you really want the job, but I do and I'm gonna go for it.