Worth watching.

Copy + Paste:

Most of us make the same mistake with our money over and over again: We buy high out of greed and sell low out of fear, despite knowing on an intellectual level that it is a very bad idea.

The easiest way to see this behavior in action is to watch money flow in and out of mutual funds. Let’s go back to early 2000. The dot-com market had reached a fevered pitch. People were using their home equity to buy tech stocks right after the NASDAQ had a single year return of better than 80 percent!

Then, in January 2000, investors put close to $44 billion dollars into stock mutual funds, according to the Investment Company Institute, shattering the previous one-month record of $28.5 billion. We all know the story from there. Money continued to pour into stock funds, breaking records for February and March and pushing the NASDAQ to 5,000, only to lose half its value by October 2002.

This gets worse. That same October (at the low for the cycle), as investors were selling stocks as fast as they could, where was all the money going? Into bond funds, at a time when bond prices were near record highs.

Think about this pattern for a minute. At the top of the market we can’t buy fast enough. About three years later at the bottom, we can’t sell fast enough. And we repeat that over and over until we’re broke. No wonder most people are unsatisfied with their investing experience.

Now we might be doing it again. Over the last year, investors have put an estimated $506 billion into mutual funds, but $409 billion of that went into bond funds. Let me repeat that: Of the total of over $506 billion, $409 billion went into bond funds.

No one is sure how this will turn out. But with interest rates again near record lows (meaning bond prices are near record highs), you could end up losing money in that bond fund you bought for the purpose of making sure you don’t lose money.

To be clear, the solution here is not to sell your bond funds. It is not to buy stock funds. The point is to recognize that, in aggregate, investors tend to be very bad at timing the market.

It makes far more sense to ignore what the crowd is doing and base your investment decisions on what you need to reach your goals, then stick with the plan despite the fear or greed you may feel. To do otherwise would be following a pattern that has proven to be extraordinarily painful.

Link: Carl Richards

It offered insight to my story of success, as well as offered me pointers to keep in mind if I want my kids (if I ever end up having any) to succeed.

Found this picture online that perfectly illustrates Gladwell’s points.  

Direct quotes I took down while reading the book:

Opportunity 

The Matthew Effect
 
There is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success. (p.18)
 
…in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine… It is only by asking where [successful people] are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t. (p.19)
 
Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”… He started out just a little bit better. (p.30)
 
The 10,000-Hour Rule
 
It was a story of how the outliers in a particular field reached their lofty status through a combination of ability, opportunity, and utterly arbitrary advantage. (p.37)
 
…the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder. (p.39)
 
In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours. (p.40)
 
“The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert – in anything,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin. (p.40)
 
Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good. (p.42)
 
The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1
 
Once someone has reached an IQ somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage. (p. 79)
 
Intelligence has a threshold. (p.80)
 
The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 2
 
To [psychologist Robert] Sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like “knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect.” It is procedural: it is about knowing how to do something without necessarily knowing why you know it or being able to explain it. It’s practical in nature: that is, it’s not knowledge for its own sake. It’s knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want. (p.101)
 
…social savvy is knowledge. It’s a set of skills that have to be learned. It has to come from somewhere, and the place where we seem to get these kinds of attitudes and skills is from our families. (p.102)
 
The wealthier parents were heavily involved in their children’s free time, shuttling them from one activity to the next, quizzing them about their teachers and coaches and teammates…. That kind of intensive scheduling was almost entirely absent from the lives of the poor children. (p. 103)
 
[Sociologist Annette] Laureau calls the middle-class parenting style “concerted cultivation.” It’s an attempt to actively “foster and assess a child’s talents, opinions and skills.” Poor parents tend to follow, by contract, a strategy of “accomplishment of natural growth.” They see as their responsibility to care for their children but to let them grow and develop on their own…. But in practical terms, concerted cultivation has enormous advantages. The heavily scheduled middle-class child is exposed to a constantly shifting set of experiences. She learns teamwork and how to cope in highly structured settings. She is taught how to cope in highly structured settings. She is taught how to interact comfortably with adults, and to speak up when she needs to. In Lareau’s words, the middle-class children learn a sense of “entitlement.” (Pp.104-105)
 
The Three Lessons of Joe Flom
 
Successful people don’t do it alone. Where they come from matters. They’re products of particular places and environments. (p.119)
 
…what your parents do for a living, and the assumptions that accompany the class your parents belong to, matter. (p.131)
 
…if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. (p.151)
 
Their world – their culture and generation and family history – gave them the greatest of opportunities. (p.158)
 
Legacy 

Harlan, Kentucky
 
“Culture of honor” means – It’s a world where a man’s reputation is at the center of his livelihood and self-worth. (p.167)
 
The “culture of honor” hypothesis says that it matters where you’re from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parents grew up, but in terms of where your great-grandparents and great-great grandparents grew up and even where your great-great-great-grandparents grew up. (p.170)
 
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
 
Each of us has his or her own distinct personality. But overlaid on top of that are tendencies and assumptions and reflexes handed down to us by the history of the community we grew up in, and those differences are extraordinarily specific. (p.204)
 
Our ability to succeed at what we do is powerfully bound up with where we’re from…. (p. 209)
 
He offered… what everyone… has been offered on the way to success: an opportunity to transform their relationship to their work. (p.219)
 
Rice Paddies and Math Tests
 
It turns out that there is also a big difference in how number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. (p.228)
 
Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds. (p.246)

Links:
Buy the book for cheap at Amazon – $14 - Worth it.

HILARIOUS!

Just get it.

Link:
Buy it here (Amazon – cheapest)

Descartes contributed so much that the French decided to just call it a day and never contribute anything else to society ever again, and they never have.

Cooking Dinner Vol. I from William Hereford on Vimeo.

This guy animates the talk. Very worthwhile 10 minutes.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 6 Tablespoons white miso (fermented soybean paste)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)
• 1/4 cup sake
• 4 6-ounce black cod or sea bass fillets (each about 3/4 inch thick)

Start marinating the fish for this dish at least two hours before you plan to serve it.

Mix first 4 ingredients in shallow baking dish. Add fish and turn to coat. Cover dish tightly and refrigerate 2 to 4 hours.

Preheat broiler.

Remove fish from marinade. Broil until just opaque in center, about 3 minutes per side.

In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning — creating conditions where kids’ natural talents can flourish.

Funny and smart talks are my thing.

Excerpt form Adam Bryant’s interview with Barbara Krumseik of the Calvert Group Ltd:

…I think the key is that people who work for me honestly believe that there is going to be a win-win here. I’ll bring it back to my obstacle-course analogy. I believe that the whole career ladder concept is a very disruptive concept because what does it suggest? You can’t get past the person ahead of you unless you push them off the ladder. It promotes aggressive behavior.

When you think of an obstacle course, there are a lot of people on the obstacle course at the same time, and my success doesn’t impede your success. And I may be able to take a minute and help you over that next obstacle and still get where I want to get to.

I also think you have to be a little humble. You have to be maybe a little bit overly confident to break into new things, but a little bit overly humble about what you don’t know, and admiring of the talents different people bring to the table.

Link:
Corner Office: It’s Not a Career Ladder, It’s an Obstacle Course, New York Times, 5/21/10.

Entertaining 16 minutes 40 seconds…

Link:
Mary Roach: 10 Things You didn’t know about orgasm

The message is clear: Regardless of religious and political affiliation, we are all the same. 

 Copy + Paste:

When we met in 2005, we decided to go together in the Middle-East to figure out why Palestinians and Israelis couldn’t find a way to get along together.

We then traveled across the Israeli and Palestinian cities without speaking much. Just looking to this world with amazement.

This holy place for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
This tiny area where you can see mountains, sea, deserts and lakes, love and hate, hope and despair embedded together.

After a week, we had a conclusion with the same words: these people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families.

A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his twin brother in front of him. And he his endlessly fighting with him.

It’s obvious, but they don’t see that.

We must put them face to face. They will realize.

We want that, at last, everyone laughs and thinks when he sees the portrait of the other and his own portrait.

The Face2Face project is to make portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.

In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear.
We are in favor of a solution for which two countries, Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.

All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same direction. We can be optimistic.

We hope that this project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Today, “Face to face” is necessary.
Within a few years, we will come back for “Hand in hand”.

amazing stuff.

Links:
JR’s website
Face2Face Project

Copy + Paste from Bloomberg (my highlights in blue):

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) — Brandon Adams, who teaches behavioral finance at Harvard University’s Department of Economics, says some of the best candidates for Wall Street trading jobs are the professional card players at FullTiltPoker.com and similar Web sites.

“They’ve essentially been the survivors in the system, a very difficult system where 95 percent of people lose money,” the 30-year-old Adams, who plays at the site, said in a telephone interview. “Anyone smart enough and disciplined enough to survive that system is probably going to do very well in the trading world.”

An increasing number of hedge funds and brokerages are scrutinizing professional poker to find talent and analytical tools, according to financial recruiters including Options Group, a New York-based executive-search company. Susquehanna International Group LLP, the Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania-based options and equity trading company, uses poker to teach strategic thinking.

“Someone who has made a successful living as a poker player for a few years would more likely be a good trader than someone who hasn’t,” said Aaron Brown, a 53-year-old former poker pro who is now a risk manager at AQR Capital Management LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut, which oversees $23 billion. “They know to push when they have the edge and they know how not to bust, and that’s a tough combination to find.”

Skill Sets

Skills that define successful traders — rational approach toward risk, speedy decision-making under pressure, discipline and a well-trained memory — are the same ones that separate elite poker players from ones known as “dead money,” financial recruiters say.

After the World Series of Poker started in Las Vegas four months ago, Options Group recruiter Simon Satanovsky said he received a hedge-fund request for online poker players with no financial experience. He wouldn’t identify the client.

“Before, we were asking about GPA or the Math/Physics Olympiad,” Satanovsky, a former Russian national bridge champion, said in a telephone interview. “Now, we’re asking questions about poker successes.”

Satanovsky said Wall Street firms and recruiters have been paying increasing attention to poker players as job candidates since 2003, when amateur Chris Moneymaker beat hundreds of professionals to win the World Series of Poker’s No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em main event.

The Right Game

Adams, who has taught at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, each spring since 2003, said disciplined poker players can be spotted on sites such as Full Tilt and PokerStars.com waiting for particular games, not tempted by those outside their area of expertise or financial comfort level.

Their self-control and confidence would be useful in trading where large profits are possible, the probability of going broke high and the competition formidable, he said. Adams cited as an example a trader who notices a slight imperfection in the way options are being priced, then works to come up with the proper bet per trade.

“In poker, people are used to not sitting back and waiting for the fat pitch,” Adams said. “They’re used to skirting the edge of ruin and they learn the tools of how to do that.”

Susquehanna has been using poker to teach its new traders since it was founded in 1987, said Pat McCauley, who heads the privately held firm’s trader-development program.

College Friends

The company’s founders played the game as college friends at the State University of New York-Binghamton. Susquehanna has held in-house poker tournaments to recruit traders and monitor decision-making skills.

The trainees learn to use information they see in the marketplace to infer what motivates others, helping them make better prices. It’s the same way poker pro Phil Ivey, considered among the game’s greats, makes bets based on what he sees among his opponents, McCauley said.

“What professional poker players are really good at is taking this information that’s relatively subjective, quantifying it and making it objective, and that’s what trading is about,” McCauley said.

The ability to write complex poker algorithms, which either run poker Web sites or try to beat them, will get hedge funds interested, said Todd Fahey, a recruiter who specializes in quantitative finance at New York-based Exemplar Partners.

“There have been a few guys that I’ve placed in the industry that come from the poker software side of the house,” Fahey said in a telephone interview. “Two Sigma, D.E. Shaw and any of your larger computationally-based hedge funds are going to want to see people like this.”

Two Sigma Investments LLC and D.E. Shaw Group, both based in New York, declined to comment.

Begleiter’s Try

The worlds of poker and finance often intersect. Steven Begleiter, who headed corporate strategy at Bear Stearns Cos. before its 2008 collapse, earned $1.6 million earlier this month with a sixth-place finish in the main event. Greenlight Capital LLC founder David Einhorn was 18th in 2006. The annual “Wall Street Poker Night,” benefiting Math for America, was started by billionaire James Simons, the founder of hedge-fund firm Renaissance Technologies Corp. This April, the $5,000 buy-in tournament drew 100 entrants — 90 percent from hedge funds or other Wall Street jobs — raising $1.3 million.

Even though poker players make good traders, they aren’t necessarily good with their own investments, said Adams, adding that he is almost “famously unsuccessful” as an investor.

“Poker players are lazy and they’re gossipers,” he said. “If you look at the way they trade, they tend to latch onto other people’s ideas.”

Texas Hold ‘Em

One person who has chosen poker over finance is Joe Cada, who this month outlasted Begleiter and Ivey at the main event final table. Cada, who plays the game professionally, was first among 6,494 entrants and took home the $8.55 million top prize, giving half to financial backers Cliff Josephy and Eric Haber, poker pros with Wall Street backgrounds. The Texas Hold ‘Em contest had a $10,000 entry fee.

“As a little kid, I used to watch the stock markets day in and day out,” Cada, 22, said in an interview. “My parents always thought I was going to get into banking or become a stockbroker because I was really good with math and logic, and I was obsessed with money.”

Cada said he plans to remain a poker pro. AQR’s Brown, the author of “The Poker Face of Wall Street” and a life-long player, long ago gave up the game professionally after a couple years of trying.

“I eventually decided finance was easier,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mason Levinson in New York at mlevinson@bloomberg.net.

Link: Harvard Poker Pro Says Texas Hold ‘Em Can Teach Traders to Fold, Mason Levinson, Bloomberg, 11/20/2009.

Since 1972, the Himalayan nation of Bhutan adopted an economic policy that stressed wellbeing and the quality of its citizens’ lives, termed Gross National Happiness (GNH), over material growth, or Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

The idea of General National Happiness rests on four pillars: economic self-reliance, a pristine environment, the preservation and promotion of Bhutan’s culture, and good governance in the form of a democracy.

Sounds pretty cool. I could get behind that.

Random Fact: The current King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, is the same age as me.

Links:
Ann Muller (where the photo in this post came from)
Gross National Happiness: Centre of Bhutan Studies
The Kingdon of Bhutan

 Link: Stand up Economist

Like the above painting depicts, I felt a tremendous pressure on my chest, but it was not static. Instead, it was a penetrating force, a spirit if you will, that seemed to want to invade my body. I could imagine an opaque spirit stream enter and exit through my head and chest, all the while, my arms and legs lay limp.

During the episode, I recall thinking, “Fuck, an evil demon wants to take over my body to do some bad shit on earth and then leave me holding the bag.” Instinctively, I had to fight it, telling it, “Fuck you, you’ll never take me!”

I was pretty scared. The whole thing lasted for a good 5 minutes or so.

Since then, I have experienced attempted demon possession a handful of times (most recent being a few weeks ago), usually when I sleep on my back and my arms are stretched above my head, leaving my body fully exposed. 

These days, I’m much more calm about these experiences, sometimes to the point of even welcoming the sensation. Once, I even granted permission to the demon, saying ”Go ahead and take me. I’m ready to cause some mayhem!” Of course, nothing of consequence has happened since.

Or perhaps, I am possessed and the demon in me is just lying dormant, waiting for an opportune moment to reveal itself….

I should probably curb my imagination right here for real fear of some of my overly religious friends trying to kidnap me to exorcise my demon(s). =P 

In any case, I recently found this really good Wikipedia entry on Sleep Paralysis that talks about the phenomenon.

Worth the Read!

Why don’t we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies — far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity — are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. It’s a message with deep resonance. Robinson’s TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? “Everyone should watch this.”

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government’s 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009.

Pretty inspirational if you ask me.

Links:
Fast Boy Cycles
Swipelife’s interview with Ezra

Here are the ones that stoodout to me: 

•  Take a Laugh Break: Watching 15 minutes of funny video can improve bloodflow to your heart by 50 percent, report researchers at the University of Maryland. “This may reduce blood-clot formation, cholesterol deposition, and inflammation,” says study author Michael Miller, M.D.
• Indulge Your Chocolate Craving: In a 15-year study, Dutch scientists determined that men who ate just 4 grams of cocoa a day had half the risk of dying from heart disease than those who ate less. That’s the equivalent of two 25-calorie Hershey’s Kisses—an amount that can fit into any diet.
• Set a 3-Drink Limit: Harvard researchers determined that downing more than three drinks in a 24-hour period increases your risk of atrial fibrillation, a condition that may boost your odds of a stroke fivefold during that time. An important note: When the average man pours himself a glass of wine, it’s typically twice the size of a standard drink (4 ounces), report researchers at Duke University.
• Plop an Alka-Seltzer…: It contains 325 milligrams of aspirin, the same as a regular aspirin, and begins fighting blood clots almost 3 minutes faster than a pill, according to a study in Thrombosis Research.



• …and Call a Ride: Walk-in patients wait almost twice as long in the E.R. as those who arrive by ambulance, according to a University of New Mexico study.
• Treat a Killer Bee Sting: You may not know if you’re allergic to the venom of a bee, wasp, or hornet until you’ve already been stung. But if you start to experience the symptoms of a life-threatening reaction—hives, wheezing, abdominal cramping—you can save yourself in 3 steps:

Step 1: Call 911.
Step 2:Take a Benadryl.
Step 3:Lie on your back and elevate your legs while you wait for help, says Steven Kernerman, D.O., an allergist at the Spokane Allergy and Asthma Clinic. An allergic reaction can constrict your blood vessels, and our three-step strategy counteracts that by improving bloodflow to your heart.

• Think Positive: Purdue scientists discovered that constant worrying shortens your life span by 16 years.
• Keep Your Cool: Men who frequently express anger outwardly are more than twice as likely to have a stroke than guys who control their tempers, according to the journal Stroke. If you have anger-management issues, try fish oil. National Institutes of Health scientists found that hostile, aggressive men often have low blood levels of DHA—one of the main omega-3 fats found in the oil. We like Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega (nordicnaturals.com). Take 1,000 to 2,000 mg every day.
• If You’re Attacked, Hit the Shark in Its Eyes or Gills: These are its most sensitive areas. The snout might work as a target, but this tactic often results in a bitten arm, according to a University of Maryland study.



• For God’s Sake, Don’t Pee in the Ocean: Bodily fluids attract sharks.
• Drownproof Yourself: If you’re dumped in the water without a life preserver, the key to survival is staying warm and conserving energy. Use the method taught to U.S. Navy pilots: Float facedown in the water with your knees tucked against your chest in the fetal position. (This slows the drop in body temperature.) Exhale bubbles slowly, turning your head to one side only to inhale deeply. Repeat until help arrives. 
• Light a Jasmine-Scented Candle: Men who did this for just 1 minute before bed fell asleep faster, tossed and turned less, and felt more refreshed in the morning than those who didn’t inhale the aroma, report scientists at Wheeling Jesuit University. That’s important, because insufficient sleep boosts your risk of diabetes, and restless sleep increases your odds of a stroke.

• Don’t Get Blown to Bits: Keep bleach, paint stripper, fabric softener, glue, and sidewalk salt away from gas appliances. The chlorine or fluorine in these products breaks down into ionized gas, which can eat holes in the pipes that deliver the fuel for your furnace, range, or dryer. Think you smell fumes? Don’t call for help from inside your house; using your phone could create an electric spark and set off an explosion.
• Find time to Exercise: Scandinavian researchers have observed that deep depression (and its spinoff, suicide) is often caused by job stress. Here’s how to lower stress, boost your mood, and simultaneously improve your overall health.
  People who exercise at any intensity for 2 hours a week—an average of about 17 minutes a day—are 61 percent less likely to feel highly stressed than their sedentary counterparts, according to researchers in Denmark.
• Douse Your Salad with Oil and Vinegar: European scientists determined that unheated olive oil reduces cancer risk. As for vinegar, eating it prior to a high-carbohydrate meal (like pasta) slows the absorption of carbs into your bloodstream. This prevents the spikes in blood sugar and insulin that signal your body to store fat.
• Stash a Cinnamon Air Freshener in Your Car: The strong, spicy smell can help you stay alert as you drive. Researchers at Wheeling Jesuit University found that a whiff increases alertness by 25 percent. Sucking on an Altoid may work, too.
• Take a Noontime Nap: Breaking up your day with a 30-minute snooze can reduce coronary mortality by 37 percent, report Greek researchers. Why? It reduces stress that can damage your heart. Even a short nap once or twice a week was found to decrease the risk of early death.
• Enjoy Your Joe: Brooklyn College researchers recently discovered that drinking 4 cups of coffee a day lowers your risk of dying of heart disease by 53 percent. If you like Starbucks, choose a Caffé Americano: A grande counts as 4 cups and contains just 15 calories.

Ok, I republished almost half the list. I hope you found it as interesting as me. Cheers!

For the complete list, go here:
50 Ways to Add Years to Your Life by D. Watkins, A. Granell, and H. Loeb, Men’s Health. Last accessed 8/17/2009.

To calculate one’s life path number: 

Take the birthdate in the format, mm/dd/yyyy, add each digit together (m+m+d+d+y+y+y+y), and then add the digits of the result(s) until there is only a single number left.

For example, the life path number of Octomom’s last batch of kids, who were born on 01/26/2009, is 2.

Showing work….
0+1+2+6+2+0+0+9 = 20. 
Breaking 20 down… 2+0 = 2
…. which, interestingly, also happens to be chobimay’s number.

Anyways, based upon my birthdate, my life path number is 5. According to Christine Delorey, a well-regarded numerologist and author of LIFE CYCLES: Your Emotional Journey To Freedom, the 5 Destiny is the life-long path of experience.

[It] is the exhilarating path of RESOURCEFULNESS, CHOICE, CHANGE, FREEDOM, and the PHYSICAL realities of life…[learning], by trial and error, about your own physical presence on this Earth and the effect your presence has on others…[emphasizing] your physical body, your sexual intensity, and the impressive way in which your body, mind, and emotions are able to adapt to changing environments.

She goes on to say other pretty cool things about my path, such as that it is a very active and unpredictible one (that excites me!) but that’s okay since 5s are brilliantly adaptable, which makes others feel so relaxed around them and allows them to experience more variety than most others. Variety is indeed the spice of life!

Of course, 5s are not without faults. For one, they can repeat the same old [mistakes] over and over due to a stubborness that is rooted in the fear of denial. To get over it, they have to let go of what is safe and familiar (accept that mistakes are an inevitable part of life); only then will they be able to branch out and discover alternatives. And this is how mistakes turn into experience (which is what this life path is all about). Powerful stuff, eh?

Delorey concludes the 5 destiny chapter with….

When you are a friend, you are a friend for life. You possess a very special knack for saying or doing something that comes from your big heart, which can profoundly change another’s life. While it is true that nobody can own you, those you have  touched with your special open expression will never want to lose you or be able to forget you because you exemplify what everybody wants – freedom, sweet freedom.

From what I have read so far, Delorey’s book is pretty amazing and is worth picking up. It has certainly made me interested in numerology. I can see future blog posts on this topic.

BONUS:

chobimay and I @ LAX airport, before she headed back to Tokyo.

Until next time…. =]

Links:
Chobimay
Christine Delorey

1. A picture of you in your room.
 

2. A picture with someone you don’t really like.
Most moms take their kids to get their pictures taken with the mall Santa. Mine took me to see Rainbow Bright. Why?!?

3. A picture with you very drunk.
Fortunately, I do not have any of these.

 4. A picture of you on your birthday/favorite holiday.
My dongseng Jane threw me a mini birthday party. 2003 =)

5. The youngest picture you can find of yourself in digital form.
My shoes look like the ones Givenchy showed for the Spring 2009 collection.

6. A picture of you in one of your favorite outfits.
I like dressing up.

7. A picture of you making a goofy face at the camera..
…. here’s a smoking face… =X

8. A picture you might have edited to make yourself look more attractive.

9. A picture of a night you regret.
A Thursday night drinking in Koreatown-Los Angeles once turned into a spontaneous 4-day Las Vegas vacation/trip – nothing too unusual at that time in my life. However, given that it was the week before Finals Week at UCLA, it could be a contender for a regretful night…. but it’s not – I don’t have any regrets. Unfortunately for this entry, there are no Pictures. In case you’re wondering, I graduated with honors =P

10. A picture of you truly being yourself.
I’m a bit eccentric.

11. The most recent picture of you.
Few weeks ago in Little Tokyo – Los Angeles.

12. A picture of you being absolutely ridiculous.

13. A picture of you showing off a new haircut/color.
Getting a haircut in Japan. What an amazing experience =)

14. A picture of a time in your life that’s over, but you wish it wasn’t.
Days when we gathered to make short comedies. I miss the NTT days.

15. A picture of a time in your life that’s over, and you couldn’t be more thankful.
Playing too much in Koreatown. =)

16. A picture of you when you were anything but happy.

17. A picture of you when you were nothing but happy.

18. A picture of you when you were a different person than you are now.

19. A picture of you with someone you love.

20. A picture of how you’d like the world to see you.
Smart and somewhat responsible.

21. A picture that describes how you’d like to spend everyday.
Chilling/Sleeping

22. A picture of a time when everything was changing.

23. A picture of you doing something you are good at.
Actually, I am not. But doesn’t it look like it? =X

24. A picture that makes your heart smile.

25. A picture of one of the best days/nights of your life.
San Diego Comic Con – so fun!

26. A picture of your past.

27. A picture of your present.

28. A picture of your future.
Traveling around the world.

29. A picture you couldn’t leave out.
THAT’S RIGHT!!

30. A picture of just you.
….trying to lick my elbow.

I came across this Roast Chicken recipe by Thomas Keller, of Per Se and The French Laundry, and am posting it for future reference.

Anyways, here is a straight copy and paste from Epicurious:

Ingredients:

• One 2- to 3-pound farm-raised chicken
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons minced thyme (optional)
• Unsalted butter
• Dijon mustard

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Rinse the chicken, then dry it very well with paper towels, inside and out. The less it steams, the drier the heat, the better.

Salt and pepper the cavity, then truss the bird. Trussing is not difficult, and if you roast chicken often, it’s a good technique to feel comfortable with. When you truss a bird, the wings and legs stay close to the body; the ends of the drumsticks cover the top of the breast and keep it from drying out. Trussing helps the chicken to cook evenly, and it also makes for a more beautiful roasted bird.

Now, salt the chicken—I like to rain the salt over the bird so that it has a nice uniform coating that will result in a crisp, salty, flavorful skin (about 1 tablespoon). When it’s cooked, you should still be able to make out the salt baked onto the crisp skin. Season to taste with pepper.

Place the chicken in a sauté pan or roasting pan and, when the oven is up to temperature, put the chicken in the oven. I leave it alone—I don’t baste it, I don’t add butter; you can if you wish, but I feel this creates steam, which I don’t want. Roast it until it’s done, 50 to 60 minutes. Remove it from the oven and add the thyme, if using, to the pan. Baste the chicken with the juices and thyme and let it rest for 15 minutes on a cutting board.

Remove the twine. Separate the middle wing joint and eat that immediately. Remove the legs and thighs. I like to take off the backbone and eat one of the oysters, the two succulent morsels of meat embedded here, and give the other to the person I’m cooking with. But I take the chicken butt for myself. I could never understand why my brothers always fought over that triangular tip—until one day I got the crispy, juicy fat myself. These are the cook’s rewards. Cut the breast down the middle and serve it on the bone, with one wing joint still attached to each. The preparation is not meant to be superelegant. Slather the meat with fresh butter. Serve with mustard on the side and, if you wish, a simple green salad. You’ll start using a knife and fork, but finish with your fingers, because it’s so good.

Link:
My Simple Favorite Roast Chicken by Thomas Keller, Epicurious
French Laundry at Home
French Laundry
Per Se

Here is an excerpt:

[Bill] Gates is a doodler, and he’s not alone. Lyndon Johnson doodled. Ralph Waldo Emerson doodled. Ronald Reagan drew pictures of cowboys, horses and hearts crossed with arrows. Most of us doodle at one point or another. But why?

To understand where the compulsion to doodle comes from, the first thing you need to do is look more closely at what happens to the brain when it becomes bored. According to Jackie Andrade, a professor of psychology at the University of Plymouth, though many people assume that the brain is inactive when they’re bored, the reverse is actually true.

“If you look at people’s brain function when they’re bored, we find that they are using a lot of energy — their brains are very active,” Andrade says.

The reason, she explains, is that the brain is designed to constantly process information. But when the brain finds an environment barren of stimulating information, it’s a problem.

“You wouldn’t want the brain to just switch off, because a bear might walk up behind you and attack you; you need to be on the lookout for something happening,” Andrade says.

So when the brain lacks sufficient stimulation, it essentially goes on the prowl and scavenges for something to think about. Typically what happens in this situation is that the brain ends up manufacturing its own material.

In other words, the brain turns to daydreams, fantasies of Oscar acceptance speeches and million-dollar lottery wins. But those daydreams take up an enormous amount of energy.

This brings us back to doodling. The function of doodling, according to Andrade, who recently published a study on doodling in Applied Cognitive Psychology, is to provide just enough cognitive stimulation during an otherwise boring task to prevent the mind from taking the more radical step of totally opting out of the situation and running off into a fantasy world.

Andrade tested her theory by playing a lengthy and boring tape of a telephone message to a collection of people, only half of whom had been given a doodling task. After the tape ended she quizzed them on what they had retained and found that the doodlers remembered much more than the nondoodlers.

“They remembered about 29 percent more information from the tape than the people who were just listening to the tape,” Andrade says.

In other words, doodling doesn’t detract from concentration; it can help by diminishing the need to resort to daydreams.

It’s a very good strategy for the next time you find yourself stuck on a slow-moving panel with an aging rock star and verbose former president.

Link: Bored? Try Doodling To Keep The Brain On Task, Alix Spiegel, NPR, 3/12/09.

============================================== 

Here is a picture………………

President Reagan took great pride in his doodling. He liked to draw babies and horses and often used gooey terms of endearment when writing to his wife Nancy. (Nancy Reagan is probably depicted in the center bottom of this page, which she had framed and kept on her desk). Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Perusing the Timezone forum to get my weekly watch fix, I came upon this post where a father wanted to give a couple of vintage watches to his twin boys on their 21st birthday; they are currently 5 months old. He was set on getting a vintage Rolex Submariner (model 6538) and a Rolex “Paul Newman” Daytona. Both very awesome watches. Well, recently, he tracked down the Submariner. He met the seller, told him the intent of his purchase, and convinced him to write a letter describing the watch’s history to be packaged with the gift. The letter turned out to be pretty amazing. Not only does it have historical tidbits about the watch, and its passing to the next generation, but also portrays a father’s love for his son, as well as give profound life lessons. Here is the letter the previous owner wrote: 

Dear Oliver,

I hope this letter finds you well. Your father has asked me to write you a note to tell you what I know about your gift from him. As you can see it is an old watch. My guess is that by the time you receive it, it will be about 70 years old and you are very fortunate as this is no ordinary watch. Indeed it is a very special watch. You are holding a rare vintage Rolex model 6538 from circa 1958. It has a calibre 1030 movement in it. This watch is much sought after as it is the same model of watch as the one worn by Sean Connery when he portrayed James Bond in the 1962 film Dr No.

It is my understanding that the watch is in original condition and was owned prior to myself by a gentlemen who lived in Australia. It is obvious that he wore this watch for countless hours in the sun perhaps scuba diving or sailing because the dial on it shows a deep rich bronze patina. I have myself owned the watch for many years, saving it for something special though I had no idea what.

Recently word came to me that your father was looking for a watch such as this and it turned out that he had a special purpose in mind for it; that it should become a gift for you on your 21st birthday. And since I believe a watch like this needs purpose and deserves more than a solitary existence spoiled away in some dark locked box, I released it to your father. Albeit for a fairly tidy sum.

Once, a good many years ago while holding this watch and contemplating its lessons I was struck by five thoughts. I d like to share them with you with the hope that they might help you on your journey.

The first thought I had was of the beauty and art and emotion expressed by it. These are all the things that give our world life and colour and love. It is a reminder that we should paint the world as we go, returning the love that were given and sharing the love that we have to give.

The second though I had was for the marvel of engineering and human perseverance that made this watch possible. Boundless are the limitations of human mind and determined spirit combined. This watch should serve as a reminder that we must be the engineers of our lives, doing what is right in life and persevering to leave all things better than when we first came upon them.

The third thought that I had as I held this watch was of its value and the power of saving and investing. Surely without saving there is no future nor any prospect of security for yourself or your loved ones. Nor is there the ability to help the man who has stumbled that he to might go on to help others. This watch should serve as a reminder that wealth with conscience is a powerful gift.

Fourth, I thought that this watch represents the importance of practicality and purpose in our lives. There is an old saying that goes If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. The same holds true in life. This watch should be a reminder to remain free of the burden of things that serve no good purpose, things rob us of our happiness, our dignity and our time.

Which brings us to the fifth and final thought that I had which was about time itself. This watch like all time pieces should serve as a reminder to us that time is the great equalizer and it is all we really have. In time all will be lost for each and every one of us but for the good deeds we have done. Your deeds of hope are your seeds of hope; plant them everywhere you can.

Remember Oliver, God winds our hearts but once, just how tightly is his secret. I hope you spend your time wisely and that your deeds carry both you and the lives you touch to great and wonderful places.

Wishing you well in your travels.

Sincerely,

XXXXXX XXXXXXXX

Link: a vintage watch for my son…, Timezone.

Back in my undergrad years at UCLA, eating at Mishima was part of my routine, and every meal started with their famous Tofu Salad. The dish is a refreshing mix of tofu, chopped lettuce, tomato slices, wakame seaweed, daikon sprouts and dried bonito flakes. Clean! What gives it its punch though and takes it over the top is most definitely the dressing. =)

Sadly, many of the locations I used to visit have since closed or changed management. The one on 3rd street, next to Beverly Center, to my knowledge, is the only Mishima restaurant left. Fortunately, the ones that have changed management have pretty much kept the same menu. In particular, the Torrance branch, now known as Matsui, continues to serve the good stuff like I remember it, while including additional, yummy items.

Oh, something I found cool - one of the waiters from the now-defunct West L os Angeles branch is now a manager at Matsui so the experience and ambience is pretty much the same. Actually, I’d say it is a bit better. =)

Anyways, I stopped by Matsui today to indulge in the tofu salad and reminisce over the first time. I like how these days, they serve the dressing on the side.

When everything is mixed up….mmmm mMmmm mMmmMmMmm.

Here is the Tofu Salad recipe that used to be on the old Mishima website:

Ingredients:

Oil
2 Cups Rice Noodles, or Won Ton Skins thinly sliced
2 T. Sesame Seed Paste or Creamy Peanut Butter
2/3 C. Mayonnaise
1/4 C. Rice Vinegar
1/4 C. Sugar
2 T. Sesame Seasoning Mix (Mishima’s Goma-ae)
1 1/2 tsp. Grated Ginger Root
1 T. Soy Sauce
1 1/2 tsp. Sweet Rice Wine (Mirin)
1 T. water
1 (14oz.) pkg. Tofu
2 Japanese cucumbers
2 Tomatoes
Radish Sprouts
Dried Bonito Flakes
Dried Seaweed (Nori)

Instructions:

• Heat oil for deep frying and add won-ton strips or noodles. Fry briefly until golden brown. Immediately remove with slotted spoon and drain. Set aside.
•  Blend together sesame seed paste, mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, seasoning mix, ginger root, soy sauce, rice wine and water. Mix well and set aside in refrigerator.
•  Drain excess water from tofu and cut into cubes. Slice cucumbers and tomatoes thinly. Chop off root ends of sprouts and discard. Divide tofu, cucumbers and tomato slices among 6 to 8 plates. Garnish with sprouts, fried won-ton strips or noodles and bonito flakes. Chill. Pour dressing over flakes and sprinkles with minced dried nori.

Makes 6-8 servings.

Links:
Mishima
Matsui, 21605 S Western Ave, Torrance, CA 90501