The joy evident in this girl's life is beautiful.  Worth a listen if you have the time.

I started making this smoothie for breakfast, its very healthy and quite scrumptulescent as well, thought I would share:

8oz Orange Juice
2oz Soy Milk (regular milk would probably work but my roommate is lactose intolerant)
8oz Vanilla yogurt
1/3-1/2 cup of raw, uncooked oats
Handful of frozen strawberries
A frozen banana
A Whey protein scoop
Squirt of Honey
Spoonful of peanut-butter
1 tbsp of flax-seeds

Blend, enjoy, makes enough for about two glasses.

Sometimes I substitute Apple juice for the OJ and toss blueberries or raspberries in for the strawberries and bananas.

In May I graduated from college, 6 months later I learned how to read. 

Ill admit, in college I rarely read my assigned reading, the reason wasn't necessarily that I didn't want to read it (I didn't want to read it), cuz sometimes I did (rarely), but rather because I didn't have the time to read for each class with an 18 hr credit load while competing at the D1 level in athletics.  Often times my best approach would be to prioritize which class-reading needed to be skimmed, but certainly not read.  But that all changed after I graduated, no longer was I forced to read books that someone else thought I should read, but I was now able to take control of the books that I WANTED to read.  And if I wanted to read the book that meant I was interested in the information contained within the book.

But, I am not a speed-reader, my eyes cannot follow my hand down each page in 2.007 seconds like the handsome bearded gentleman on TV, though I did take a fruitless class on how to do that.  Even worse than being a slow reader, is that I have a hard time retaining the information.  So, what could be a bigger waste of time than sitting in front of a book for hours and walking away not remembering anything I just read??  Maybe watching TV, but not much else comes to mind.  This was a problem I never dealt with in college because I didn't care if I remembered the information beyond the time and depth required for the test, but as soon as I was able to read books that I wanted to read, I was frustrated with not being able to retain the information.  So I developed a system, and this is it:

I read with a pencil in hand, in fact I use a pencil as a book mark.  I use this pencil to underline or highlight select passages as I read through them that I thought were an example of beautiful writing, or information that I thought pertained to me in my quest for knowledge.  I read the whole book, marking the things I want to remember.

Then, when I finish the book, I go back through and write out all the highlighted parts.  For this I copy all of my highlighted notes Google Documents, because it allows me to access, work on, and save my documents from anywhere, making it easy to update your book lists while you're traveling, which is when I get most of my reading done.

Finally, I read straight through the highlighted notes one time, then at the end I write a summary of the book.  This way all the important parts to me are fresh in my mind.  It doesn't have to be a book report, just a summary of what you have gotten out of the information.  Saving this information allows you to come back to the info if you want to check it out later.

Using this method you see the information that you want to see 4 times. First in the initial read, second as you highlight it (this usually requires a brief, initial re-read), third as you copy down the passages to another document, and fourth as you read through the highlighted passages document prior to your personal summary.

You can get more intensive, or less intensive depending on the book.  For example, I am trying to gain a base understanding of real estate, so in my real estate books, when I go to copy down the highlighted parts I also indicate which page each bit of information was on so I can go back and re-read when I need to, which will likely be when I actually am ready to pull the trigger on purchasing real estate.  But when I am reading a book where I only want the "gist" I leave the page numbers out.

Two things I would like to say in regards to this very rudimentary system, buy your books, don't mark up your friends' books, or library books, make them your own, this way you can mark them, reference them later, and at the same time you are building a personal library.  To get books check out half.com, and bookmooch.com, in edition to the well-known amazon.com.  Secondly, if you are reading a novel, don't annotate it, just read it and enjoy it.  If there is a thought or a particular piece of elegant writing which strikes you in your soul, underline it and write it in your journal.  In this saturated world of self-help books, there is absolutely nothing wrong with reading a book for pure enjoyment, your heart needs it sometimes.

As a precursor, please understand that I am not trying to build myself up in your eyes or brag, but am using a personal example of achievement to illustrate a point that I believe can help each of us.

For those that may not know me, I was fortunate enough to fulfill every guy's boyhood-backyard dream in college of playing football at the D-1 level.  I was recruited to wrestle at the Air Force Academy but I knew in my heart that I would regret not giving football a shot.  For arguably the first time in my life I approached something that I was likely to fail at, but I had to know if I could do it or not.  I established myself as a "Rudy" type of guy, working hard but never seeing the field, aside from special teams, and that kept me on the team but not on the field.  Finally, I got fed up with being the hard-working guy who never played much, so, during the off-season before my senior year, I started talking to myself.  I told myself every day when I woke up, and every day before work-outs, "I am a starter.  I will start at running back this year."  And it worked, I ended up starting over a 2-year returning starter.

Now that I have established myself as an arrogant meat-head, let me tell you why it worked.  Our subconscious mind is an extremely powerful, if not underestimated tool.  (For more on this I would recommend reading "Blink" by Malcom Gladwell).  We are all programmed from an early age by a variety of external sources.  As children we are completely reliant on other people to tell us about the world and about ourselves. 

The problem is that the vast majority of that conditioning has been negative.  By the time the average person growing up in the average home turns 18, he/she has been told no, or that he/she could not do something over 148,000 times.  In fact, negativity is so programmed into our programming that experts estimate that 77% of our thoughts are negative, counterproductive or work against us in some way.  To carry the idea further, medical researchers say that 75% of illnesses are self-induced.  Through some complex connection between our mind, body and emotions, we become our thoughts.  Our subconscious believes whatever it has been told through all of the conditioning it has received, which has mostly been negative, whether it is true or not.  The  Bible says "As a man thinketh so is he."

I loathe the vast majority of self-help books, and this is why: they don't work.   They deal with external solutions instead of attacking the root of the problem.  How many people do you know who have tried to change their lives through some external modification such as a new car, home, career, or relationship?  It just doesn't work because the change doesn't occur at the root of the problem, which is in our minds.  Whatever we put into our mind, in some form or another will come out of our mind in the some form or another.

Every thought we think, every conscious or unconscious thought we say to ourselves, is translated into electrical impulses which, in turn, direct the control centers in our brains to electrically and chemically affect and control every motion, every feeling, every action we take, every moment of every day.  Whatever thoughts you have programmed into yourself, or have allowed others to program into you, are affecting, directing, or controlling everything about you and here's why:
1. Programming creates beliefs
2. Beliefs create attitudes
3. Attitudes create feelings.
4. Feelings determine actions.
5. Actions create results.

We have been programmed by everything around us, media, culture, parents and friends, but it is time for us to take responsibility for our own minds, to plot our own course.  For us to decide who we will be.  What you tell yourself about yourself will eventually become yourself.  You can use self talk to speak to habits, situations, attitudes or social situations.  Because of the power of the subconscious, we can take control and evoke a greater change within us than we have before that possible.  You can be whoever you want to be, you just have to tell yourself that you are that person.

Jesus warns that we should "take every thought captive."  Listen to what you say to yourself over the course of a couple of days.  Then write out the opposite of the negative things you tell yourself.  Then add who you would like to become.  Its that easy.  When you talk to yourself, say it out-loud because spoken word has power (why did Jesus speak to the fig tree?) and say it in the present tense, as if you are already that person, your subconscious doesn't know the difference.

I have resolved to not only use this technique to achieve "success" but also to become a different person.  I tell myself that I see the best in people, that I see the image of God in people because I often have a hard time recognizing that, this won't directly improve my physical life, but it will help me change the way I see people and help me see them the way their Creator sees them, it will also influence how I treat them.  Not to hyper-spiritualize the issue because I will also be using it to achieve some kind of success in pilot training. 

Finally, tell yourself who God says that you are.  Tell yourself that you are loved, tell yourself that are valuable, tell yourself that you are a saint.  A bumper-sticker quote comes to mind which I think applies here, "be the change you desire to see in the world."

(None of these thoughts are my own, they were gathered from "What to Say When You Talk to Yourself", "Blink", and the good Book.)

Ok, now that I have vaguely established what a blog is, I would like to tell you the rest of what little I know about blogs, and that is mainly how to read them, and more specifically, how to read them with convenience.  In order to do this you need to understand these  2 simple, time saving tips.

1) First things first, you need to subscribe to what is called a Reader.  Since I have a gmail account, and subsequently a full Google Account, I use Google Reader.  What a reader does is it gathers all of the blogs and articles from sites, authors, and bloggers that you know and love in one simple place.  Think of it as a customizable newspaper.  Each time a blog, article or site that you have subscribed to updates, you will be updated simultaneously.  Instead of browsing through ten or so web pages to find the articles and blogs that you like to read, they are all gathered and saved in one place for you to read at your convenience.  With this tool you can also stay up to date, simplify your internet reading, discover new content, recommend articles to friends, share articles, and label articles that you read which relate to certain topics, called a tag. All these tools only make it easier for you to share ideas and articles with your friends and vice a versa.  Afterall, "Man's flight through life is sustained by the power of his knowledge."
(that was for all you Academy guys and gals :)

2)  Secondly and finally, If you have spent anytime on the internet  in the near past you may have noticed a few small details on certain web articles.  The first of which is the orange box with what looks like a white speaker inside it.  You can see this in the upper right hand corner of this very blog post.  This is called an "RSS feed icon" (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication).  Feed icons enable you to subscribe to blogs, news articles from specific sources or authors,  bank accounts, and various other items you might want to be updated on.  Once you have subscribed to a reader, such as Google Reader, you just click on this icon and the updated blog posts and articles will appear in one easy to read place.  Thats it, just click the button and you will be updated everytime your favorite blogger (me) updates his/her blog.  Also, towards the bottom of nearly every scholarly article and blog is a link which enables you to save the specific article.  This is called sharing or social bookmarking and it is most commonly done through del.icio.us.  With del.icio.us and Google Reader you can save, share, and tag almost any article you find for future use.

So, using those two basic and easy steps you should be able to find blogs that you like to read and stay current on them without ever having to waste time surfing through 10 or so different sites to stay informed with your friends and your world.

Go ahead, click the feed button, you'll love it.

Why I started a blog...

To understand why I started a blog, its best to understand why I didn't want to start a blog.  First of all, I hate the idea of sitting in front of my computer for hours on end and to that end I have been extremely hesitant of engaging the internet for all that it is worth.  Being a computer geek may be inevitable but I will not go down without a fight.  In fact, as I am writing this blog, I just received an instant message from a female friend.  She says, "fyi for future conversations with girls, never admit that making a website is fun." 

Secondly, I think that "blog" is the most unattractive word in the English language.  Finally, one of the problems with the internet is that anyone with a connection can say anything they want to about anything they feel like and to the untrained eye its very difficult to determine if they have any authority or real knowledge of the subject.  I always saw bloggers (second ugliest word) as very arrogant people, I mean who would think so highly of themselves as to post everything thought they had to the internet as a guiding light for the masses?  If Alan Greenspan or Warren Buffett want to write a blog, fine, Ill read that anyday because they have established themselves as experts in their respective fields, but you sir, posting blogs after your 9-5 job at Dunder Mifflin?  Why on earth should I listen to you?  And why on earth do you think you should be heard?

Now, heres why I started a blog.  My good friend Cameron Schaefer has been urging me to for months.  He calmed my fears about the word, explaining that "blog" is actually short for "web log", and I have no problem with logs, whether they be web logs, Linkin Logs or logging logs (actually I might have a problem with logging logs, unless your replanting those trees).

I have come to really appreciate the internet, thank you Al Gore for inventing such a contraption.  The web offers so many valuable resources if only we know where to look.  Blogs, I have realized, are an incredible medium for idea-sharing in a technologically advanced, if not personally disconnected, world.  It takes a certain sense of humility, not arrogance, to publish a blog because you are submitting your thoughts and your writing to the largest audience of critics ever assembled. 

Sharing your ideas and allowing your peers to dissect them is a win-win situation.  When reading a blog you can take bits and pieces of each idea and deposit them for later use, meanwhile offering your 2 cents to build on the idea.

Finally, I am always thinking and I just like to write.  I want to share what's going on in my head and heart, and in the meantime become a better writer and thinker. 

So that's why I started a blog. 

I am not sure what to tell you to expect from this blog, it will most likely be a random assortment of delicious flavors.  Take what you want, leave what you don't and feel free to rip my ideas to shreds, thats why I started a blog!