The marvel of its presentation would not exceed that of the even recounted, for it is a warning to those who would be warned and a lesson to those who would learn.

They seek a source of gold that is cheaper than mining ore from the ground. Alchemy does describe a means to make gold, but the procedure is so arduous that, by comparison, digging beneath a mountain is as easy as plucking peaches from a tree.

In pursuing the boy, with no hint of whether he’d succeed or fail, he had felt his blood surge in a way it had not for many weeks. And seeing the boy’s tears had reminded him of the Prophet’s teachings on the value of mercy, and Hassan had felt virtuous in choosing to let the boy go.

Rather, using the Gate is like taking a secret passageway in a palace, one that lets you enter a room more quickly than by walking down the hallway. The room remains the same, no matter which door you use to enter.

It is said that repentance and atonement erase the past.

It is also possible that a man who would make use of such a guarantee would not find his older self alive when he first used the Gate.

Driven by the curiosity that impels men to look at the heads of the executed,

(more…)

It’s not auto parts that need to be fulfilled. It’s fucking art. Treat it as such. Give it a little reverence. Music used to be the thing. That is what I was doing. If I had time, I was listening to music. I wasn’t doing it in the background while I was doing five other things. And I wasn’t treating it as a disposable commodity. I don’t go into the cinema and do my taxes while the movie is playing. I’m there to watch a movie. I kinda miss the attention music got.

I’m guessing you’ve been quite courageous. But before I get into guessing, let me start with what I 100% know. I know that I’ve always enjoyed being around you and your brightness, thoughtfulness, and ease. As xxxxxxxxx became unreachable years ago, it was not just the loss of his company, but also of yours. I will always and forever cherish great times I had with you.

Now back to courage. Too often, discussions about courage revolve around the dramatic: running into burning buildings, pushing of children out of traffic. These acts are to be celebrated, for sure, but they are unthinking momentary impulses that come from who knows where. Furthermore, the opportunity to exhibit courage in this manner may never arrive. So I like emphasizing a second, more ordinary form: doing hard things for oneself that conflict with the interests of people one cares about and may well conflict with some of one’s interests and values as well.

(more…)

Work as hard as you can. Even though who you work with and what you work on are more important than how hard you work.

I only really want to do things for their own sake. That is one definition of art. Whether it’s business, exercise, romance, friendship, whatever. I think the meaning of life its to do things for their own sake. Ironically, when you things for their own sake, you create your best work. Even if you’re just trying to make money, you will actually be the most successful.

Tools and leverage create this disconnection between inputs and outputs. The higher the creativity component of a profession, the more likely it is to have disconnected inputs and outputs. If you’re looking at professions where your inputs and your outputs are highly connected, it’s going to be very hard to create wealth and make wealth for yourself in that process.

Status is a zero-sum game. It’s a very old game … And for number three to move to number two, number two has to move out of that slot.

An old boss once warned: “You’ll never be rich since you’re obviously smart, and someone will always offer you a job that’s just good enough.”

Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.

(more…)

Em-dash: use this for sentence interjections and sentence enders; can be used to replace colon. Wide as capital ‘M.’ Get there in Word with –. Can use or not use a space before and after. I like using the space. Or ctrl + alt + minus sign.

• The last time I saw him I asked him if he still believed — as he once had written — that we are at the is moment participating in one of the very greatest leaps…
• On July 22, the company was awarded the largest privatization contract ever for a prison — a 2,048-bed minimum-security facility in Taft, CA.

En-dash: half width of Em. Used to show range. Ctrl + minus in word. Often equivalent to to or versus. Width of “N.” Often represented with hyphen.

• the 1914-1918 war
• the nature-nurture debate

Hyphen: if two or more consecutive words make sense only when understood together as an adjective modifying a noun that follows, those words (excluding the noun) should be hyphenated. So special-interest money, but not special interest. Credit card  vs. credit-card application.

And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats it only prevents them from hiding.

– C.S. Lewis

• Bad now doesn’t mean bad forever
• Something that’s hard now – playing individual notes – doesn’t mean hard forever
• Really listening and enjoying the music makes you play better
• Your fingers will tremble. So. You have played hard stuff in that reality.

• T produced by Leydig cells in the testes
• T decline = hypogonadism. Causes:
  1. Leydig cells impaired or
  2. Control glands in the brain are not informing Leydig cells to produce enough T
• For #1:
  • LH & FSH: hormones that exert influence over sex glands
  • When these levels are high, the pituitary is correctly trying to get T up, but it’s not happening, hence leydig failure. You would see low T and high FSH/LH in this situation
• For #2:
  • T is low AND LH/FSH are low. The message to produce more T isn’t being sent. (CG is something to do in this scenario)
• Aromatase converts T to estrogen and goes up w/ age. Too much estrogen can reduce production of T
• Free T is 2-3% of total T
• Estrogen high = SHBG high
• T high = SHBG low
• SHBG binds to T and limits free T
• Can run into issues where injections spike T, but a disproportionate share is converted to estrogen, so the T to E ratio actually worsens even though total T is high
• Patches/pellets may be superior because they don’t cause spikes

• Rust on rocker panels
• Did they already start the car before you showed up? A bit suspicious
• Check the date on the tires. Four digits. Week and year of manufacture
• Use penny for Lincoln head tire test
• Oil leaks under car
  • And then open car and see if there is oil splattered around the engine
• Are all the panels the same color? If not, maybe an accident.
• Check oil: not burnt or low
• Check transmission fluid (yellow pull): not burnt or low
• Low brake oil may mean the brakes are worn (but they could just top it off)
• Antifreeze: should be green or pink NOT oily
• Stitching coming off on soft top?
• Check trunk rust underneath cover panel
• Check windows
• Check stereo
• Check ac/heat

How did you arrive at this number?

It sounds like there’s no movement?

You’ve been very generous. It sounds like there’s nothing more you can do.

• Find out what you can do w/ assessed value for taxes. Is assessed value less than purchase price? If so, can you just fill $0 in for purchase price and pay the assessed value?
• Be careful with license plates. Probably won’t forget this lesson. It’s fine to leave them on, but make sure you 100% know what is required to transfer plates.

But Martin knew Billy to be a generalist, a man in need of the sweetness of miscellany.

I know how it is to live in the inescapable presence of the absence of the father.

Billy went for his ball, kissed it once, massaged it, chalked and toweled his right hand, spat in the spittoon to lighten his burden, bent slightly at the waist, shuffled and slid, a bazoo-bazoo, boys, threw another strike: not just another strike, but a titanic blast this time which sent all pins flying pitward, the cleanest of clean hits, perfection unto tidiness, bespeaking power battening on power, control escalating.

He salted his oatmeal and spiced it with raisins, those wrinkled and puny symbols of his own dark and shriveling years.

She was remote cousin to Charlie’s mother and would want to lend whatever strength she had to the troubled family, a surge of good will that would now be intrusive.

a reporter whose stories were so sugary that you risked diabetic coma if you read them regularly.

Pray to Jesus, but where is Jesus? Jesus, Charlie, sits at my desk in the person of an equivocating Welsh rarebit who doesn’t understand sons because he never had any. But he understand money and news and power and decency and perhaps such things as these will help save the boy we remember. (more…)