Allow Me to Show You

July 22nd, 2008Blog2 comments

I’m finally settled at home. All I want to do is study, play video games, watch the rest of the first season of 30 Rock, and write.

Upon returning from a long trip, various administrative tasks always need to be taken care of: Grocery shopping. Getting my car washed. Tending the incubus (his water bottle with the ball bearing tip needs to be refilled with the blood of a virgin). Also my router broke during my trip, so I finally upgraded the WiFi in my pad to G. Yes, I had been operating with an old 802.11a Airport router since… Well… Since Airport first came out. It’s pretty cool how the base station has remained working all this time.

I also need new running shoes. I’ve run on my current shoes for a year now and the treads are wearing and the padding is weakening. They’re Mizunos (I got the recommendation to switch to them from Hieu), and I think I’m going to stick with a new pair of Mizunos to replace them.

I used to be a New Balance man. New Balance shoes are fairly good; they run well and feel good. Nikes are garbage. They fall apart incredibly easily. Slave children are really terrible at making shoes.

Mizunos are extremely light and well put together. The padding is also very good, which is important since I do all my running on roads.

While I was in Chicago I was running every day — six miles in the morning as soon as I got up.

I believe very much in the unity of the mind and the body. You can reset your mind by resetting your body — by running or resting, by changing your state. This can be extremely important when your mind feels “stuck”.

For instance, when I’m stuck on a writing problem or I’m trying to figure something out. I either zero out my mind and body by resting — in other words, not thinking about it or doing something completely different for a while — or I reset my body with a run.

Usually, strangely enough, something will come to me. State changes tend to make new ideas appear.

It goes back to the first rule of programming: You should never do the same thing over and over and expect different results. The state must be changed.

By the way, I installed a Flickr badge just to the left under the control box for my site. I have resolved to take more pictures and upload them. I see a lot of weird stuff and I would like to share these things with you. Give it a click and see what you see.