Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Principle #2 - Go Ahead and Be Picky
May 24, 2009

Today's entry is next in line of my personal principles, after yesterday's rule, "Give Love Freely". This principle starts with bananas.

A few years ago, I loathed bananas. Couldn't stand the smell, much less the taste. I don't know why, but that's just the way things fell out. But in discovering that I didn't like bananas, it turns out there were a lot of other foods that I don't like: Nuts. Strawberries. Soup. Watermelon. Anything flavored with lemon.

Wow. I'm really picky. What the heck, Owen, don't you like anything? Sure, I like stuff. In fact, I just don't like these things as much as I like other things. What I'm saying is that since I'm being given the choice, I'd rather not waste my time with things that I know I don't like, no matter what other people think of them.

This is much different from avoiding new things. In fact, it's almost the opposite, since I usually love trying new things. But if I've done something, there's got to be a really good reason for me to re-try it if I didn't like it in the first place. When given this world full of pleasures, why torture myself with things that other people insist I should like that I know I don't?

Principle #3 - The Tetris Principle
May 24, 2009

Yesterday's principle on being picky was part of a series I'm writing on some unrefined personal principles; some general rules that I follow day-to-day. As I mentioned yesterday, today's is my favorite of the bunch.

I went to college at the University of Pittsburgh in Johnstown. It's kind of like the ski lodge remote campus that you see in the National Lampoon movies. Really, the dorms looked just like ski lodges. I mentioned before that I was a DJ in school, and one of the perks in my second year (since, the year we before basically turned the radio station from a bumbling classic rock joke into a burgeoning modern/alternative contender) was having the opportunity to live in "Radio House" - basically a fraternity house for people involved in radio.

Principle #1 - Give Love Freely
May 22, 2009

Yesterday, I announced I was going to list a few of my personal principles. This is the first. This is a new one for me, and I think it's perhaps the hardest principle of the lot for me to follow. The idea seems pretty obvious, but I think - as with all these principles, and with most things from which you can derive wisdom - there are undertones and tributaries that make it complex.

How did I discover this rule? It's an odd story, as you'll likely discover as I tell the story of each of these rules.

Owen's Unrefined Principles
May 21, 2009
principles

It would be unfortunate to have to be dead before my thoughts on life would be taken "seriously", even if that's the usual way you come to be aware of people like Randy Pausch. Since I've been thinking about this more lately - not the dieing part, but the passing on of wisdom even if it's not quite ripe - I thought I would get a head start.

As it turns out, there are a few "rules" that I follow to help get through my day-to-day existence. I talk about some of them with reasonable frequency. Others are fairly new, but I can see a pattern of positivity in my historically ignorant application of them -- and negativity when I failed to. Rules like these are sometimes obvious, but many of these feel ridiculous sometimes. Some of the rules I know and don't talk about because I know without a thorough explanation they'd either not make any sense or make people upset.

My New Bike
May 18, 2009

I’ve got a backlog of stuff to talk about from last week’s legendary “retarded week”, and I figured I’d kick this off with the bike news.

We decided to get Riley a real bike with pedals last week. He’s been scooting around on this thing called a “Runner”, which is a two-wheeler, but has no pedals. He can balance himself just fine on it, and he’s outgrown it so it was time for a new two-wheeler with pedals.