Mid-year review

This entry is more for me than anyone who stumbles upon it, as I wanted to do a mid-year review of some life resolutions which will some day become habit. I'd give myself an arbitrary grade of B-, as good progress has been made in some areas while others are untouched. Below is each area with its respective grade:

- Pare down: F. I'm preparing for an October and November barrage of eBay activity, but that doesn't help in the interim.

- Make running a habit: A. The real evidence is that when I pack running gear on a business trip, it gets used; I now run at least twice a week and more if the schedule allows. I've shed over 15 pounds and moved from "Overweight" to "In Normal Range" according to the WHO and CDC, which defines overweight as having a body-mass-index/BMI of 25 or more. A good BMI calculator can be found here.

- Travel more for leisure: B. Gasoline over $4 a gallon doesn't help, but we've been on three trips so far this year with a big vacation scheduled in early December.

- Reduce exposure to media/news: B. I'm a political news junkie, but you won't find me at a methadone clinic as long as I can get my fix of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

- Invest more in community: D. It's not what I originally had in mind, but right now this investment in community is through time and money directed at helping to get Senator Obama elected President.

- Manage ADHD rather than having it manage me: A. Just after the first of the year I switched from Dexedrine to Vyvanse, and it's much more effective with zero side effects.

- Simplify investments: B. I'm down to just four individual stocks considered long-term holds (DIS, MRK, SHPGY, and MSFT). All other holdings are in the form of exchange-traded funds. Unfortunately I'm still down 14% since the first of the year compared to a 12.7% decline in the Dow Jones and a 13% decline in the S&P 500. Fortunately the rental properties are all occupied and throwing off good cash flow.

Two Milestones

Starting something and "sticking with it" isn't a trait people with ADHD are known for so I'm both surprised and pleased that I've now been blogging for over a year, the first milestone (and my first blog posting remains one of the most frequently-viewed pages).

The second milestone is one to really celebrate. The punchlist from my project house only has two items left: a second coat of paint on the garage doors & replacing two rails on the deck, which will take about an hour to complete. As a result, my family finally gets me back on the weekends. Today we had breakfast together and then went to the park to play T-ball and swing. In celebration of this momentous occasion, my wife and daughters presented me with two iTunes-created CDs, the first entitled, "Thank God It's Over".

Here is the playlist:

1. Burning Down the House / Talking Heads
2. Paint It Black /U2
3. Crumblin' Down / John Cougar Mellencamp
4. Sledgehammer / Peter Gabriel
5. You Wreck Me / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
6. Finest Worksong / R.E.M.
7. Hammer and a Nail / Indigo Girls
8. Digging in the Dirt / Peter Gabriel
9. Building a Mystery / Sarah McLachlan
10. Fix You / Coldplay
11. Wonderwall / Oasis
12. Over My Head / The Fray
13. My Own Two Hands / Ben Harper & Jack Johnson
14. Who Needs Sleep? / Barenaked Ladies
15. Room Without a View / The Smithereens
16. In Your Room / The Bangles

The Da Vinci Code

I'll let you in on a secret: I don't read books. No, I'm not illiterate. I'm ADHD, and one of the ways it manifests itself in me is that I lack the ability to concentrate and absorb a story whenever I'm reading a long text. I may be able to finish a chapter with good recall, but shortly thereafter, I'll realize that I've finished another 5 or 6 pages with absolutely no recollection of the words I've just read... so I have to flip back in the book to the last thing I remember. It's really frustrating and not enjoyable at all, so I've given up on reading books. I have no trouble reading & recalling information from newspapers or magazines because the articles are much shorter.

Multimedia is an entirely different matter. Of course I have no trouble paying attention during a movie unless it has Nicolas Cage or some equally annoying over-actor. I have no trouble concentrating on the spoken word (except for weekly conference calls at work, and who doesn't?), so I also enjoy books on tape/CD. And when I'm on a family road trip, sometimes my wife reads out loud while I drive.

During one such drive, she read me The Da Vinci Code. I liked the book. From a Christian perspective, I especially like the premise that Jesus Christ may have been married and conceived a child. Jesus was a Jew, and to be an unmarried male Jew in his 30's would have been very unusual. In fact, my reading of the scriptures doesn't address his marital state, which lends credibility to the argument that perhaps he was married (since being unmarried would have been more unusual, and therefore more likely to be addressed). I personally believe that Christ was both God and man, and one of the reasons He became man was to experience life as a man, with all of its joys, sorrows, experiences, and temptations. I can think of no other experience that would make Christ more "man" than marriage. This concept doesn't undermine my beliefs at all.

To many Christians, though, this book really shakes their faith. This is from an email exchange with a community group leader at North Point and friend of mine:

The reason I stopped reading it [The Da Vinci Code] is basically due to my personality. I am VERY easily swayed when somebody offers me evidence. And, I don't go to the next step to explore the topic further and understand other evidence. I get too bored and give up. However, I know that there is a lot of contradicting evidence to the things he proposes in the book, from sources that I trust. I've researched some of it on the web. Since I trust these people, (Max Lucado, Charles Stanley, the Bible, etc...) it's hard for me to read something that, to me, totally contradicts my beliefs. To me, it's a very dangerous slope to get involved with things that contradict the Bible, even from a strictly educational perspective. I can't separate the two in my mind. Of course, that's because I believe the Bible is completely infallible. It's hard for me to believe that God would let a book (the Bible) be so misleading for so many years and that this "evidence" hasn't ever really reached the mainstream. The Bible, along with prayer, is how he communicates with us. Why would he choose for it to be incorrect??

And yes, I find it disappointing that someone wouldn't pursue an idea because it contradicts their existing beliefs, especially one who has a position of leadership within the church. Such individuals choose to live a life of self-imposed ignorance.

And now to the real point of today's blog.... with my parents visiting, my wife and I got an unusual reprieve from bedtime duties and decided to go on a date last night. After dinner at Bahama Breeze, we went to see The Da Vinci Code. I was impressed at how closely the movie mirrored the story line of the book. Two thumbs up.

Memory

As someone with ADHD, sometimes I feel like my brain is like a sieve. So after reading this story, how I wish I could have just half of the memory recall she seems to possess.