Alright, Brace Yourselves . . .: Because the Doc is back.

Workin' Ain't Work: Sandefur wrote me a while back with this:

Good post on hard work making success. One thing I would add is, it's true that if you enjoy what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Objectively, one might say that I've worked my ass off to get where I am--went to college, went to law school, borrowed and worked to get the money for these things, spent years studying and researching and practicing every waking moment for what I do--learning about the law, practicing arguments, doing research in very old cases, spending my weekends in the library, going to the office on the weekends, staying late on the weekdays...

But to me, none of this has been work. It's all been "easy" for me, in the sense that this teacher would probably use that word, because I've loved every minute of it, and I rush to do it again. I do it when I don't have to, because I consider it fun. So if a person were to ask me, "Do you think you've slaved your way to success?" I'd answer no--it's been easy for me. But if you took another person with the same intellectual endowments and made him do just what I'm doing, he'd probably hate it, and consider it the worst drudgery.

I think of this because I'm trying to learn to play the guitar. Then I listen to, say, Kenny Wayne Shepherd or Jonny Lang--guys who were 18 and 15 when they issued their first albums. These guys were better at half my age than I will ever be. That comes from constant, godawful, back-breaking practice. But I'm a better lawyer than they ever will be, and that come sfrom constant, godawful, back-breaking practice, too, and they probably look at the idea of reading Coke Upon Littleton as being just as awful as I do when I think "Oh, God, I don't want to play scales!"

Which shows you how jealous I am of Sandefur. As pretty much everybody knows (Including my 12 year old self, as of last week) I haven't "worked" in a field I enjoyed since I left the Children's Book department at my University Bookstore.

It reminds me of a story Henry B. Eyring tells about his father, scientist Henry Eyring.

One evening he was helping me with some physics or math problems in the basement of our home. I was in college and he had high hopes for me, as he did for my brothers, that I would follow him in science.

He looked up as he saw me stumbling on a problem and said, "Hal, didn't we work on a problem just like this a week ago?"

I said, "I think we did."

He said, "Well, you don't seem to be any better at it this week than you were last week."

I didn't say anything to that.

Then he looked at me with a shock of recognition on his face and asked, "Hal, haven't you been thinking about it during this last week?" I looked a little chagrined and said that I hadn't.

He put down the chalk, stepped back from the blackboard on our basement wall, and looked at me. He then taught me something, with sadness in his voice, I will never forget. I am just beginning to understand what he meant. He said, "But, Hal, what do you think about when you are walking down the street or when you are in the shower? What do you think about when you don't have to think about anything?"

I admitted that it wasn't physics or mathematics.

With a smile, but I think with a sigh, he responded, "Well, Hal, I don't think you'd better make a career of science. You'd better find something which you just naturally think about it when you don't have to think about anything else."

For me, that's fiction writing.

So I better get back to it.

Get Some Culture: Yeah, the Doc's got a station on Launch over at Yahoo! Have a listen, hear some stuff you're not used to.

Then rate some stuff and make your own station and never listen to the radio again.

Como se diz: Jon Scieszka, who I'm sure has a lot of experience with this problem, has created a guide to pronouncing authors' names.

Since he's the author of The Stinky Cheese Man and Squids Will Be Squids, you can guess it's funny.

Survey Says!: Over at sovietinvasionplan.com, I found another survey page to go with the one I alreadly posted about.

Soon, I'll have the whole set!

Erik's The Kid: Okay, I am now officially able to pass the "Would your 12-year-old self think you were cool?" test. Conversation goes something like this:

Kid Erik: So you're me, huh? You're a little fat.
Big Erik: Well, at least I've learned to comb my hair.
Kid Erik: Okay, okay. Let's not get personal.
Big Erik: So what do you want to know?
Kid Erik: You rich or anything?
Big Erik: Not really. I have a decent apartment, in a part of town where I don't hear gunfire.
Kid Erik: Are you a scientist? Did you go to CalTech and discover time travel?
Big Erik: No. I'm area manager for a financial services company. I don't even have a four year degree.
Kid Erik: You didn't finish school? Did you at least go on a mission?
Big Erik: Sure. I was in the Amazon jungle, in Brazil.
Kid Erik: Well, that's sort of cool. Then what?
Big Erik: I dropped out of college when my wife got really sick. I got a job to keep me in insurance. I've been in and out of school ever since.
Kid Erik: You didn't write any books or anything?
Big Erik: I write stories. I had a science fiction story published when I was in college.
Kid Erik: In any magazines I've heard of?
Big Erik: No. But hey, ten bucks is ten bucks.
Kid Erik: Did you ever do anything with your life?
Big Erik: Sure. I have the entire first season of Sledge Hammer! on DVD.
Kid Erik: What's a DVD?
Big Erik: It's sort of like a CD, only for movies.
Kid Erik: What's a CD?
Big Erik: It's sort of like a record, only with lasers.
Kid Erik: Lasers are cool. The future sounds pretty awesome.
Big Erik: Yup. Now I'm just waiting for them to release the second season.
Kid Erik: There's a second season? But how do they resolve that cliffhanger ending?
Big Erik: I'm not going to spoil it for you, man. You'll just have to wait and see.

Make-a Your Own Pumpakin: New printable stencils up at Homestarrunner.com.

Man, is that Poopsmith scary.

Aragorn's Lies: Michael Moore's new documentary, Fellowship 9/11, is truly, truly . . . something.

Losing Superman: When I was four years old, I broke my arm trying to fly. I was wearing a red cape with a big S on the back my mother had hand made.

One of my first memories of my aunt and uncle is them buying me every poster Kay-bee toys had from the first Superman movie.

I knew that, when I finally got to fly, I would have one arm folded up below me and one stretched out in front of me, because that's how Superman did it in the posters.

I still plan to do that.

Thanks, Superman.

Kerry's Pre 9/11 War: I posted at Hatrack a while back with specific responses to Kerry's plan.

My argument is basically that Kerry still wants to fight terrorism the way we used to--and he recently backed me up. Apparently he told the NYT:

We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance.

In honor of that, I thought I'd repost my thoughts from Hatrack on why Kerry's ways, as outlined in the "Plan" he constantly says is on his website, are the old ways:

Launch And Lead A New Era Of Alliances

The threat of terrorism demands alliances on a global scale - to utilize every available resource to get the terrorists before they can strike at us. As president, John Kerry will lead a coalition of the able - because no force on earth is more able than the United States and its allies.

See, to me, this just sounds like buzzwords for "We aren't going to do things that will upset sovereigns." He doesn't make allowances for the idea that some nations will only align with us in hanging back from the fight.

Because he can't seriously be suggesting that he will be able to pull out the magical "Create allies" wand in the secret drawer in the oval office, and make everybody come on board with what we want to do. The only way to gain more allies is to align your actions more with their desires.

In other words, fight the war they way the French and the Germans want, just so we can say they're on our side.

This is the way we fought terrorism before, never taking a step more than we thought the international community would accept. Clinton would have loved to do more against terrorism, but he was, among other things, afraid of jeopardizing our situation in the international scene (read the 9/11 report).

Modernize The World's Most Powerful Military To Meet New Threats

John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to transform the world's most powerful military to better address the modern threats of terrorism and proliferation, while ensuring that we have enough properly trained and equipped troops to meet our enduring strategic and regional missions.

So this would be why he voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it.

Seriously, this is just more of the same. Every President says he's going to be strong on defense, amass troops and get good weapons. This is hardly innovative thinking.

Deploy All That Is In America's Arsenal

The war on terror cannot be won by military might alone. As president, John Kerry will deploy all the forces in America's arsenal - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas - to make America more secure and prevent a new generation of terrorists from emerging.

Again, this sounds like political speak to me, code words that basically mean, "We're going to be real nice and hope the terrorists will start to like us. When Islamist propaganda bombards potential recruits about what a bunch of infidels the Americans are, it will be rendered powerless by the sheer force of our good will."

Again, this is old, pre 9/11 thinking. We thought that if we stayed out of their business, they would stay out of ours. It's hard for some people to grasp that, just like the High School Quarterback, some people hate and resent us just for who we are, irrespective of what we actually do.

No matter how many kids we help who are picked on, no matter how many kids we tutor or hang out with, there are still going to be kids who hate and resent us.

As for the "diplomatic and intelligence" statements--this basically says if specific information is received, we'll take specific action against individual threats. Again, that's what we've always done. He's just saying we're going to try to do it better than we used to.

Free America From Its Dangerous Dependence On Mideast Oil

To secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Mideast oil. By tapping American ingenuity, we can achieve that goal while growing our economy and protecting our environment.

Environmentalism is hardly new. But believe it or not, this is the one I'd most support him in. I'd love to see us get away from our reliance on oil.

I drive a car that, while not a hybrid, gets over 30 miles to the gallon. My dad rides a scooter that, while not electric, gets just over 8 million miles to the gallon, or something along those lines. We're both seriously looking at hybrids.

What all of that says, though, is that this is already happening. When enough of us want to use less oil, somebody's going to provide it for us.

Kerry can either force production of these cars, which could cause companies to lose money if they produce more than what is consumed, or he could tax or ban gas vehicles, which again, I would see as an imposition, my distaste for our oil dependence notwithstanding.

It just comes across as more environmental feel-good talk to me.