The Start Up of You

The Start Up Of You: Adapt To The Future, Invest In Yourself, And Transform Your Career by Reid Hoffman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reid Hoffman is the co-founder of LinkedIn, so I thought this book might just be an extended commercial, but, in fact, it was quite useful. It helps the reader understand what a network is, how to build one and how to use it in a non-creepy, mutually beneficial way.

Mitt at CPAC just now:

"I served in government, but I didn't inhale."  Cute. And really good speech overall. 

Knoxville Man Arrested For Death Threat Against AZ Sheriff

Don't let your yankee friends tell you Tennessee is full of right-wing wackos.  We have left-wing wackos too:

The postings read in part: "I plan to kill Arpaio first. He will be filled with a thousand bullet holes before the year is out. I promise you this. He won't **** with Obama. He will be buried 10 feet under and his whole family will be murdered along with him."

This is like totally accurate.... you know?

I'm not sure this is a completely modern phenomenon.  I recall teachers encouraging my junior high self to make declarative statements. "Are you asking me, or telling me"?, they would inquire.  Yet still, I persisted:  "Paraguay? 42?  Thomas Jefferson?"  Whatever the question, I answered with another question.

Either way, this video completely captures the desire to achieve consensus before committing to a position.



via Bookworm

Never Enough

Am I the only one who was a bit disappointed to find out that Mitt Romney only makes $21 million a year?  We'd need at least 23 Romneys taxed at 100% just to pay off that bad loan we made to Solyndra. 

I'm generally against higher taxes, but somehow...... I thought there'd be more.  It still surprises me every time I see how little money is available to pay off our enormous debt.

Speaking of which:  Bill Whittle strikes again.

Charles Murray has a new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, on the growing cultural divide between the working class and the upper class. You can take a quiz to see if you reside firmly within the bubble of the cultural elite or if you are in touch with the rest of America. Interesting and depressing stats at the link.  

How Thick Is Your Bubble? Guest Score » 9 out of 20 (45% ) Result On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12. In other words, even if you're part of the new upper class, you've had a lot of exposure to the rest of America. Quiz School Take this quiz & get your score

How Thick Is Your Bubble? » Quiz Question Maker

I'd love my new Kindle more....

if it did the dishes after dinner, so I had more time to read.

Mission Aborted

I need an easy way of keeping track of what's happening on the UT campus.  A planned trip to the McClung Museum was thwarted by an unforeseen sporting event which made parking impossible.  I thought football season was over, so we'd be safe. UT's homepage noted nothing of interest.  What's a girl to do?

Christmas Trains Updated

Our family loves garden trains, so I was very excited to discover The Holiday Express garden train display at the UT Gardens.  Hopefully, we will be checking it out this weekend.  Hours and rates at the link.

Update:  Yes, the garden trains were lots of fun.  They had a number of different trains running on various loops, including a Thomas the Tank Engine train, a UT train, a John Deere train and, even an aquarium train with actual fish.  For an aerial view, there is a raised bridge in the middle of the display.

The display runs daily, noon to 6:00, until Dec. 29th.

If it's a nice day, you're free to walk the grounds of the UT gardens.  The grounds have lots of fun sculpture and interesting little paths to walk down. Great for kids.  Do note: that is Neyland Dr. in the middle ground, so the gardens, while lovely, are not very peaceful.  

Now Casting Role of "Friend"

Maybe I should try this:

Shoot: ASAP – 2015 [Or longer, as yet undetermined.]
DESCRIPTION: FRIEND will be funny, smart, good-looking but not too good-looking, free on weekends for hanging out and sometimes Wednesdays after work.
Must like: Thai food, Dr. Who, brunch.
Must read: Tumblr, so he can tell me about up-to-date internet memes and we can laugh at them.
FILMING: All filming will be done clandestinely so you will never actually see the camera. We will just hang out like friends and do things like go to the movies or watch How I Met Your Mother—but we’ll never tell people we actually watch that show and it will be a funny secret we have. Don’t worry, though; the web series is real, I promise. Maybe think of it more like guerilla theater. Just keep in mind that the footage may be deleted if it isn’t perfect, so that’s why you may never see it, OK?

Really, Kansas City? Again?

The Kansas City, MO. school district loses it's accreditation again.

The Ridge, by Michael Koryta

When I downloaded The Ridge, I thought it would be a serial-killer book, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover a good ghost story. 

Why did Wyatt French build a lighthouse in the middle of the Kentucky woods?  After his death, a small-town sheriff's deputy and a local newspaper reporter begin to suspect he wasn't just a crazy old drunk, but was, in fact, one of the few people who knew the secret of Blade Ridge.

This book brings a nice creepy vibe without being terrifying.

East Tennessee History Fair

I'll be missing the East Tennessee History Fair due to a prior commitment, but it sure looks like fun.  Friends of the Library is having a history book sale and Jack Neely will be signing books.  There will be music, free trolley rides and open houses at the various historical sites near downtown.  Maybe next year.

Pork Carnitas Tacos

My husband used to have a job where he was pretty much never home for dinner. If he did show up, it was on 30 minutes notice.  So now, he's coming home for dinner every night. Suddenly, I need to cook.  Having a repertoire of four meals just doesn't cut it when you need dinner 7 nights a week.  So, I've been trying a lot of new recipes. The results have mostly been "meh" and have occasionally been "well, who's up for pizza?" 

But here is one that rocked.  Pork Carnitas Tacos, made in the crock pot with a Boston butt roast and a few spices.  So yummy.  Kroger only had a roast much larger than the one called for in the recipe, but I just cooked it all and ended up freezing enough for 2 more meals.  Yay!

By the way, I did not make the salsa from scratch.  I just bought a jar.

Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Even though Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is classified as young adult, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's part mysterious ghost story and part coming-of-age adventure tale.  Jacob is nearly 16 when his grandfather dies violently.  His last cryptic words send Jacob to an island off the coast of Wales where his grandfather, as a child, had taken refuge from WWII.

Old photos, meant to be the ones Jacob's grandfather showed him, are included throughout, adding to the creepy atmosphere of the story.  The clues are laid out and secrets are slowly revealed as Jacob unravels the mystery of his grandfather's youth, discovering in the process that his grandfather's grisly fate could also be his own.

There are a few violent deaths that might make this inappropriate for younger children, but the gore isn't excessive. It should be fine for junior high and up.

Regularly scheduled elections...

happen every 2 years in every state in the union, except in Wisconsin, where they happen over and over until the Democrats win.

Washington's New Clothes

The Emperor didn't actually have a problem until that little sh*t pointed out that he had no clothes. So, technically, it is correct to blame the Tea Party for the downgrade.  Until the Tea Party Caucus forced the issue, everyone, including S&P, was willing to go along with the polite fiction that we were just about to address that looming debt problem.  Any minute now. Perhaps after the next election. Or the next.

I suspect the problem was less the Tea Party Caucus threatening not to raise the debt-limit and more that even with the Tea Party Caucus threatening not to raise the debt-limit, this Washington-style spending cut ("we were going to borrow $10 trillion we can't pay back, but we'll be frugal and only borrow $7 trillion") was the best offer available.  That essentially told the markets that we have no intention of putting on some clothes dealing with the debt.

I.O.U.S.A.

The documentary I.O.U.S.A is currently available to stream on Netflix.  It's a nice overview of the problem with the size and rate of growth of the national debt.  It doesn't focus on how to fix the problem. Instead it mainly focuses on convincing people that there is a problem which is only getting bigger.

This film was produced in 2008, well before the election, so it does not contain any distracting attempts to fix the blame for the current budget debacle on Bush or Obama. Just understand that the numbers are nearly twice what they were then. It's almost quaint to watch people freak out over a "mere"  $8 trillion in debt.  I guess those debt clock guys had to buy a new clock, because the debt clock in this film only had space for 12 digits.

Even though it's only 3 years old, this film is a valuable primary source document on the rapidly changing politics of the debt. First, many people from both parties were concerned about the debt, even before the election of a black man.  Someone tell the New York Times.  Second, Paul Tsongas, candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1992, co-founded The Concord Coalition, a non-partisan fiscal responsibility group. In this film, he sounds like a Tea Partier.  Fiscally conservative Democrats are not the unicorns of the Washington, D.C. They really did exist.  Third, Republicans love them some deficit spending.  That's why there's a Tea Party.

Recommended

Avoid This

Do not get the audio version of David Brooks' The Social Animal. The. narrator. speaks. in. a. very. slow. monotone.   I narrowly escaped slipping into a boredom-induced coma. 

Perhaps the producer was going for a sophisticated tone.  "We don't need all that vocal variation to entertain our erudite audience." Yes, yes you do.

Is It Just Me?

TARP: OMG! We need $800 billion right now or we're doomed!!!!
Stimulus: OMG! We need $800 billion right now or we're doomed!!!!
ObamaCare: OMG! We need (trust us, you can read it after we pass it) right now or children will die in the streets!!!
Debt Ceiling: OMG! We need $2.4 trillion right now or we're doomed!!!

Perhaps the wolf is among the sheep this time, but how could we ever know?