Frank Bettger, the author, was originally a major league baseball player, but after an early retirement due to injury, got into the insurance business. After failing miserably for some time, he eventually built himself up into a huge success.

Here’s what I’ve learned from each chapter so far:

1. Be enthusiastic! Enthusiasm, even if forced, will engender attention and trust in others.

2. Keep records of your time and activities. Check back after a while and self-evaluate. What were the most valuable things you did? What can you cut?

3. If you are bridled by fear or lack self-confidence, enroll in a public speaking course (esp. one in which you must speak at every meeting). Or start a discussion/speech group, à la Ben Franklin’s Junto.

4. Plan your week’s schedule ahead of time, and then stick to it as much as possible.

5. Find out what people want, and help them get it. Not just when selling something, but in all of life. (See Mark 10:44)

(More to come as I read further.)

I’m going to try and implement each of these things. You might read about it here.

Coming from an historic peace church, I’m not much for patriotism and the holidays thereof. But I’ve always liked watching the fireworks, and this afternoon I found myself — quite inspirationally, mind you — whistling Stars & Stripes Forever. Sometimes things just stick with you.

A family member gave us a gift card to Cracker Barrel¹ recently, and it was a fun Fourth-y place to eat brunch, even though it’s somewhat stressful to take a 15-month-old to a sit-down restaurant. Afterwards, I picked up Practices of an Agile Developer and Dreaming in Code at the nearby Books-A-Million², though I am now annoyed to see that it looks like I could have gotten them both for half what I paid, had I purchased them from Amazon’s Used section. I’m glad I got them, though. Hopefully I can find time to get through Practices this weekend.

Jennifer is sitting in her chair next to mine working mapping out our debt snowball³. I’m hoping she finishes soon so we can go crash.

Oh yeah, and I hope to make this blogging thing a regular deal.

Meme’d by the lovely Aelki. One can never have too many books (much like toilet paper).

Number of books I own: Well, there are 220 on the two shelves pictured (not counting the books in the reflection). I have a bunch more in boxes, and five more are sitting on my desk right now. See above philosophy.

Last purchased book(s): The Complete Peanuts 1955–1956 (Vol. 3)

Last re-read: Started reading my updated copy of The Illuminati. Fell asleep before I got very far.

Five books for a desert island: My NASB, This Present Darkness, The Lord of the Rings, an empty journal (with attached pencil), and … hmm … maybe How to Build a Wooden Boat. That one might be helpful.

Book I’d thwack someone on the head with: Core PHP Programming, Second Edition. 769 pages of high-performance, cross-platform pain. Nice and thick and heavy.

Book I’d like to burn: The Da Vinci Code. Bleh. Not linking it. And yet I might go see the movie, which I am also not linking. Isn’t that sad?

Book that is overrated: Left Behind, volumes 3-12. Not linking them, either.

Fun classics: The Chronicles of Narnia, any and all Sherlock Holmes stories, Treasures of the Snow, and 34 MORE Tested, Ready-To-Run Game Programs in BASIC. Good for laughs, especially since I could never really get any of them to run properly. Maybe one.

Last book read: White, by Ted Dekker, I think. I haven’t had much time to read of late. That doesn’t mean I’m not in the middle of Monster, Obsessed, Mostly Harmless, and probably six or seven others that I can’t think of right now. And I still plan to finish A New Brand World.

Five people that I tag to answer these questions and post a photo of their bookcase: Tim, Steve, Pete, Andy, and Guy. You all are it. Be there or be square.

Because of that, its near-blasphemous indictments against Christianity and Christ Himself will almost certainly confuse potential believers and give uninformed skeptics yet another reason to shun faith.

“Don’t buy this. Don’t read this because this is rotten food,” said Bertone, the highest ranking Catholic churchman to speak out against the blockbuster. “A lot of novels do good but this book is rotten food … it does harm, not good,” Bertone said in the 30-minute interview in the offices of the Vatican’s doctrinal department. Full Article

BAY CITY, Michigan (AP) — Keeping library books too long could soon land some readers in jail. Frustrated librarians want the worst offenders to face criminal charges and up to 90 days behind bars. “We want to go after some of the people who owe us a lot of money,” said Frederick J. Paffhausen, the library’s system director. “We want to set an example.”

One patron from Bad Axe owes $1,190 for 73 items — mainly science-fiction books — hoarded for more than a year, Paffhausen said.

Chilling. (cue ominous music and crash of thunder)

I’ve had some substantial library fines in my day, but that one takes the cake. I think my worst was for a Sherlock Holmes treasury, a couple years ago. I think the book had been lost and/or forgotten, and then found some time later.

When I finally did return it, the librarian behind the big desk looked it up on her computer.

“My goodness,” she said involuntarily. Then she was a little embarrassed for me, and whispered the rest. “It’s twelve dollars!”

I paid it, but such episodes have further driven me to used book stores instead of libraries. I now have the Complete Sherlock Holmes (two volumes) and the Complete Works Of Edgar Allen Poe, for an outlay of only about $10. For as long as I need them.

Reading the above article reminded me that I actually have a book out from our local library right now. It’s due Monday. And I’ve only read the first three chapters.

Sigh. Such is life, I suppose.

MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA – The first non-governmental rocket ship flew to the edge of space today and was piloted to a safe landing on a desert airport runway here.

Civilian test pilot, now turned astronaut Mike Melvill brought SpaceShipOne down to the Mojave Airport tarmac after flying to 100 kilometers (62 miles) in altitude, leaving the Earth’s atmosphere during his history-making sub-orbital space ride.

It reminds me of Tom Swift and his Rocket Ship, which, as far as I can remember, was the first science fiction book I ever read. It chronicles Tom’s participation in a contest to build and fly the first privately-built craft to orbit the earth (similar to today’s X-Prize). Interestingly, it was first published exactly 50 years ago this month.

“With the rationalism of the Renaissance came a certain skepticism about dreams.”
- Celebration of Discipline, by Richard J. Foster.

Now you should do the same thing:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

click photos for enlarged nastiness

Kind of disgusting, isn’t it? The one on the left is pea soup, the middle one is macaroni with spaghetti sauce, and the right one is both of them upside-down in the pizza box so you can see their true natures.

After that fun, I left the dishes to soak in the sink (hopefully not for a month this time), and went to buy replacement food, baking soda, and Glorious Appearing. What place could possibly have all these things? Wal-mart, of course.

I was shocked at the state of our Wal-Mart. They just finished doubling the size of the place, and I thought things had settled down a bit. Now they’re ripping the store apart again, presumably to add the rumored grocery department. And just inside the new entrance is the nicest McDonalds I’ve ever seen, with paneling, and brass, and nice seating. And someone was peering around at me while standing in line to order. She wasn’t in her optician smock, so I initially didn’t recognize the cute girl from the eye department. But kudos to her for noticing me first. <smirk> We kinda know each other because of me going there so much for glasses and contacts. She’s rather older than I, though. (Speaking of which, my contacts are due for a re-order. Note to self for when taxes are finished.) I did not speak to her.

So returning home with book, milk, bread, and Cheerios, I fell asleep on the couch reading Glorious Appearing at like 9:30. I slept fitfully (after all, I was on the couch), and woke up at 6:30am — which is a big deal … for me.

Sweet! I thought, I can actually do something that grown-up, responsible people who want to improve themselves do, namely, jog. So I drove down Wesley Drive and found a nice, wide, mile-long shoulder, and parked at a gas station. I found out just how out-of-shape I was when I wiped out after barely 0.2 miles … though it should be noted that was 0.2 miles uphill. Guess I’ve got my work cut out for me.

On a related note, I’ve found out what’s wrong with me (via Rhesa):

abibliophobia (\eh-bi-bli-ee-FO-bee-yeh\), n.—The morbid fear of running out of reading material.

Ain’t it great?