Day 300: Dress Rehearsal for My Next Backpacking Trip?

So I am taking a camping trip with my mom this week. This is the first time in years I have either gone camping or camped with my mom. I am now in Pinole, CA, at my mom’s. It’s strange because so far my trip has more resembled a backpacking trip than a camping trip. Could this be because I stuffed my hiking backpack with camping gear–tent, sleeping bag, pads, pillows, stove, etc–in order to take a trip on Amtrak to the Bay Area? I think so! My wife even…

Day 299: Happy Thoughts Produce Happy Lives

If you want happiness, you must think happy thoughts. It might seem childish, like something out of Peter Pan designed to save Tinker Bell, but the fact is, happy thoughts produce happy lives. The trick is to actually be emanating happy vibrations. You must actually feel happy in order to be vibrating happy. One could say all kinds of nice-sounding things, but unless you feel it, unless you believe it, it is just words. Words don’t manifest. It is vibration that manifests. It’s not enough just to repeat positive platitudes…

Day 297: Chernow’s “House of Morgan” and the 1929 Crash

I’m reading Ron Chernow’s “The House of Morgan,” which follows the Morgan banking dynasty (yes, as in JP Morgan) from its start in the mid-19th Century through the 1980s. This is my first time reading Chernow in four years (I posted here and here about his excellent Ulysses S. Grant biography). Chernow is an excellent writer who manages to keep the reader’s interest all the way through his historical tomes. Reading a Chernow book means much more than following one man’s life story. It means entering a thoroughly-researched world from…

Day 296: The Book (Update #2)

This is a follow up to my last update on the book. The book is going well! Last time I said I wasn’t sure I would need three months of 1000 words-a-day writing to create the first rough draft. Well, I was right. A week ago I realized I was done with the initial phase, which was a “dump” of ideas onto a Pages document on my computer. This week I went through my ideas, labelling each idea segment and creating a table of contents using bookmarks at the top…

Day 294: Netflix’s “How to Get Rich” (I Dig It)

I’m enjoying watching Ramit Sethi’s “How to Get Rich” on Netflix. Back when I was first educating myself on financial matters, I read Ramit’s* book “I Will Teach You To Be Rich.” I found him interesting, although other authors clicked with me more. At some point I ended up signing up on his email list, and I have been on it for years. The title “How to Get Rich” may seem a bit glitzy, even crass. But this show is no glamorized spectacle. Ramit is the real deal, a financial…

Day 293: Shifting Your Vibration

I was listening to Abraham in a recording talk today about how if you want something different than what you’ve got, you need to shift your vibration. You need to move your habit of focus towards the essence of what you want, rather than continually activating the awareness of what you already have (assuming it is not what you want). Since the Law of Attraction gives us what our thoughts are focused on, and thoughts become habitual, the momentum of previous thinking will continue to impact us as long as…

Day 292: “In the Rhyming Zone” (Original Rhyme)

It has been awhile since I have done any sort of rhyming. I was looking at some older rhymes (such as here and here), and decided why not go for it again? “In the Rhyming Zone” Here’s a quick burst of a witty verse I was feeling the urge to quench this thirst No need to rehearse, I just immerse myself in my deep creative purse And see what I can pull out, I’ve got a full mouth of rhymes ready to roll out Without a doubt, I can spin…

Day 291: Bay-to-Breakers 2023!

Today I had an incredible time running the Bay-to-Breakers, a 7.5 mile run through San Francisco with 20,000 other runners, with my brother. I say it was an incredible time–and it was–despite my being tired out going into the event. Okay, I was even a bit whiny about it (witness: last night’s post). And it worked out great, overall. What Worked About Bay-to-Breakers 2023: What Could Have Worked Better: