Month: December 2005

As you start writing your thank you notes for your Christmas gifts, try to avoid a too commonly used phrase. Instead of writing “I just wanted to write and thank you for the shirt”, try writing “Thank you for the shirt.” It comes across more powerful this way.

It is also true when you make phone calls or deliver speeches. Avoid the “I just wanted to _________” and just get right to it.

Over the weekend, I read a book called Hübener vs.Hitler: A Biography of Helmuth Hübener, Mormon Teenage Resistance Leader. It was a fascinating book about a young LDS boy that was beyond his years. He was the branch clerk for a small branch in Hamburg, Germany during the WWII years. With the typewriter he was given to do branch reports, he typed up leaflets after illegally listening to the London BBC on a radio that he had hidden in his room. He recruited friends and associates to distribute thousands of leaflets that spoke bad about Hitler, the Gestapo, and the war in general.

As you would imagine, all of these things were incredibly illegal and the books talks about the capture of Helmuth and a few of his friends, some of the tortures they went through, a trial with the highest court in the land and 16 year old Helmuth standing strong and defiant until the very last moment. I always enjoy books on history, but this one was especially interesting to me because it was a young man taking on the great Nazi party and their sadistic leader.

It got me wondering, how would I have responded in the pages of history. I’d like to think that I would have stood up for what is right, but it’s really hard to tell. Would I have found ways to undermine the Nazis?

Over the last few days I’ve been letting my mind wander to different stages in history and placing myself in those times. Try it yourself. It is an interesting means to a self inventory.

I recognized something in my learning process that has been very very good for me. I realized that I pay much better attention to individual tasks when I am doing two things at once, rather than just trying to focus on one thing at a time. For example, if I was sitting in a class in college and trying to just listen to the lecture I would have a hard time focusing on what was being said. On the other hand, If I was listening to a lecture AND playing a little tetris game on my computer, I’d be able to give full attention to both of them. This doesn’t just pertain to school either.

When I’m just watching a ball game, my mind can wander. But if I am watching the ball game AND tracking the movement of a certain player I focus well on both.

If I am listening to a talk in church, I do much better if I am also reading a essay on photography fundamentals.

I think this is why I got into so many pranks and games in high school. The teachers were so adamant about students focusing only on the lecture and doing nothing else. In search of a parallel thought process, I’d usually resort to planning the next great prank. If the teachers had just let me play a game boy or even fold papers into shapes we both would have been much better off.

This is also why I like computers so much. It is very easy to have more than one process flowing at the same time and switching to any of them is just a key or two away.

Once I realized this (and got rid of pesky teachers) I’ve been able to learn much more thorough and effective. Strangely, focusing on two things at once helps me to give 100% to both. The alternative is to focus on one thing and only giving 50% to the item and the other 50% to the wind.

As much as I like Flickr (and if you’ve been reading recently, you know that I do), it seems that with all the pictures that are uploaded, sometimes the best ones can get lost in the mix. For this purpose, I’ve rebuilt a photoblog where I can post my favorite ones from Flickr. I hope that you’ll visit and give me any comments, including constructive criticism.

The new photoblog is in the same place as the old one, http://www.brianstucki.com/photoblog . And of course there is an RSS feed here. (What is RSS?)

Over the weekend, “The Wizard Of Oz” was on television. I had a good time watching the film, as it had been a long time. I’ll tell you what, the sets are much more fake looking when you are older. Oh well, great movie.

But after watching that film again, I added one more phrase to my “Movie Phrases That Are Often Quoted But Never Done Well” list. As you would expect, the list is quotes from movies that people always recognize, but not because they sound similar to the original. My List so far:

1. “Say hello to my little friend!” -Scarface
2. “AHHHHHHHHHH!!!” -Kevin from Home Alone putting on after shave
3. “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!” -the Wicked Witch of The West from The Wizard Of Oz
4. “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father: prepare to die.” -Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

I will add to this list as necessary.

I am constantly on the look out for new music. The three best ways to find new music that you’ll like are:

1. XM Radio- Because they don’t make money by playing the music that record producers want them to play, there is a lot more variety on the channels. And with over 100 channels, you have a lot to choose from. My favorite music channels are Hank’s Place (Ch 13), The Loft (Ch 50) and Hear Music (Ch 75). (Most of the time I listen to NPR and ESPNRadio on XM) Be sure that you have XM Radio in the next car that you by. IT makes driving much much much more pleasant when you can avoid all those annoying radio commercials.
2. Mixes on iTunes- iTunes allows for users to put together mixes of music that they like for others to pander in. I usually find an artist I like, go to his main page in iTunes, and then look at the lists that include his music. Like all other songs on iTunes, you can preview any song on the list and get a feel for the music of the artist.
3. Pandora.com– Pandora.com is the most useful website that I have seen in a long long time. You pick an artist that you like, and they will play a song from that artist and then follow it with music that has the same style. It really is quite good at getting the style and I have found quite a few good artists there that I have never heard of before. THey play the full song for you then move on to the next one. It really is just like having a radio station that is catered to your liking. It’s a free service so you can go to the website and start it up and leave it playing while you do your other work. YOu can click on any song and buy the song straight from iTunes. I suppose that is how they make the money. They figure that good music, when heard, sells itself. I agree.

Now that you know my three main secrets, I’ll expect to hear about some new gems.