For about 6 years now, I've owned an Acura NSX.

When the car was introduced, it was widely considered to be one of the most sophisticated vehicles of its time - all aluminum construction, titanium connecting rods, and an 8000 RPM red line. For the ensuing 14 years, it would remain largely unchanged. The designers of the car were chartered with pursuing the ultimate vehicle - and for its time, that's what it was. It was not only a car, it was the manifestation of a dream and of one team's pursuit for perfection. Behind the AC unit of every NSX, there is a sticker that says "an eternal sports mind for you" signed by the captain who led the team that hand-built that car.

As the years have gone on, I've done literally everything I can to drive my copy and maintain it. I've replaced control panels, repainted body parts, and repaired every and anything that ever goes wrong with it. I've always felt that owning this car, was owning some person's conception of perfection. For me, that held great meaning and I took extraordinary pride in that. To boot, despite its advanced age, it is still a very fast car. Most car magazines rate it as one of the top 10 cars with the highest top speed in the world.

I have grown accustomed to life in the fast line these years, but soon that would change.

Recently, I was privy to a showing of an "Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore. The message in the film, which pertained to global warming, so moved me that I went out and purchased another Honda product: the Insight.

The Insight as it is, is one of the highest mileage mass produced car ever produced (apparently it is not actually the highest). It's diminutive engine has taken some getting used to - having driven a car that weighs the same but has nearly 3x the horsepower, I feel as if I have been transplanted into a new world.

Life, in the slow lane.

Here are some of the key lessons I've learned:

1. Changing lanes doesn't get you to where you want to go any faster. In fact, sometimes changing lanes too many times can slow you down.

2. Driving quickly doesn't save you much time. Of course, the mathematics supports this - that driving 55 mph versus 85 mph will save you minutes not hours.

3. Driving slowly is less stressful. When you drive a slow car, you are not compelled to prove anything. When people pass you up, you smile and wave. You don't have the big, fancy, powerful car that they have so it's okay.

4. What you drive makes a difference in where you want to go. As it turns out, my vehicle is blessed with one of the California approved HOV stickers. When I return home from work between 6 and 7 each night - it gives me great pleasure to see car after car in a dead stop as I zip past them.

All of this has led me to wonder, is there some analogy from this experience that I can correlate to life itself?

I'm currently in the midst of trying to prove out one of my theories regarding myself: that the conventional wisdom of a slow gradual mileage ramp does not apply to me due to my fairly flat strike, slow plodding pace, and my generally large above average lung capacity (35% greater than is expected for a person of my height and weight).

In about 5 weeks from now, I will be running in this event:

http://www.laketahoemarathon.com/20milerunwalk.html

To train for this, I'm going to be doing the following:

1. Twice weekly, I will run 3-9miles in the morning followed by the notorious Sprint-8 workout in the evenings.
   
2. Twice weekly, I will either perform Tabatas or perform 4 sets of push-ups and 4 sets of pull-ups, using a slow-burn methodology to failure.
   
3. Once a week, I will incur a long run topping out at 18 miles just before the final run.
   

I've been on week two of this regimen and approached 12 miles today. Things were looking strong for most of the run, but as the statistics show, my heart was rapidly in melt-down mode towards the end.



It'll be interesting to see if this works - and as the data suggests; my theory about myself could very well be wrong.

I have a notoriously poor memory. Over the years, I've developed a system helped dramatically by the Internet and digital cameras to improve upon this.

Often times, the things that we need to remember are visual in nature. It could be a number on business card, an address on a flier, or the location of where you parked your car. The challenge is, often times we need to remember these things in the midst of an information overload situation - we could be out and about or we might need to be somewhere quickly.

To develop a photographic memory that does not use our own minds, we need two things:

1. We need a capture mechanism
2. We need a retrieval mechanism

For a capture mechanism to be useful, it needs to be ubiquitous. For this, I would recommend using the camera on your cell phone or carry around a small point-and-shoot camera. When you need to remember something, simply photograph it.

The benefits of a digital photograph are:

1. The information fidelity is high. You may find that you notice things in the photograph that you did not notice in the moment.
2. The information does not degrade over time (unlike human memory) and can be shared readily via email or on the web.

If you use your cell phone as your capture mechanism, then you also possess an always ready retrieval mechanism as well. In addition, I will also employ a web-based photo hosting account so that I may retrieve images anytime I have web access.

In addition, occasionally the information we need to retrieve is in document form. For this purpose, I have in the past employed a scanner and placed the resulting image on the web.

In practice, I've found this to be a highly effective technique for capturing the obscure bits of information that we're interested in that bombard our everyday lives. Hopefully, you will find this useful too.

Everyone's definition of greatness varies because as individuals we all admire different people. This post is presented here as a general theory of greatness in the manner in which you as an individual define it. I present this theory in a three step program (to be clear by my own definition, I am nowhere near greatness - yet):

Define greatness

First and foremost, "great" - requires a definition. Precisely what will you decide to be "great" at? A pre-requisite of greatness is understanding what you want to achieve. Without having that underlying notion guiding one's pursuit of greatness, no desirable result will come. In this sense, greatness is a choice that we individuals can make. One has to decide that they want to become a virtuoso musician before they become a virtuoso musician; the same could be said for an influential scientist, a shrewd businessman, or a famous celebrity. If you decide that all you shall be is [insert undesirable outcome here], then that may very well be all that you achieve.

Believe in your own greatness

Great people always believed that they were before they became so. Said another way, the pre-requisite for greatness requires that the great person unabashedly believes that they are destined to be so. From Darwin, Newton, Einstein and Hawking to Lincoln, Jefferson, and Kennedy to Jobs, Gates, and Ellison - read their biographies and you will find this to be true. The blind confidence that you are great is necessary to slog through those times when everything is at their bleakest. This confidence also inspires those that work with you and those that you work for.

Pursue greatness

Inaction never resulted in greatness. We all know people in life who say they will do [insert accomplishment here] some day if only [excuse] wasn't holding them back. Inaction is a crutch to greatness. To become great, you must pursue greatness continuously because every step forward you make (no matter how small) is a step towards destiny.

The good news is, the vast majority of the population is convinced that they are destined to live pedestrian lives. This leaves the competition for greatness whittled down to a select few.

In the 70's there was this show called the 6 million dollar man. It chronicled the life of a fictional astronaut named Steve Austin who is "rebuilt" into the world's first bionic man. The goal was to make him better than he was before: better, stronger, faster.

Now, for the bargain price of reading this blog I too will show you how to be better, stronger, and faster! Some years ago, I turned 25 and found myself to be in a flabulous state brought on by 100 hour work weeks levied by a pre-ipo software company. Although I was never particularly athletic, I had slowly fallen into the depths of obesity (on dating sites, I believe the term is "average" build). One day, while suffering from yet another bout of sleepy leg due to my crushing weight at the time (220lbs on a 6'3" frame), I decided I had enough and began studying how to make myself like the 6 million dollar man. Below are the results of what I did to lose weight, develop superior agility and endurance, and increase power.

Losing weight

At first, I tried to lose weight by diet restriction and I soon discovered that that was a failing proposition. You see, all calories are not equal. To lose weight, you must find a way to increase your metabolism. Despite the controversy around Atkins and the South Beach diet, the harsh reality is: in our normal day to day diet we eat far more carbohydrates than we need. I didn't begin to lose serious weight until I altered my diet around the following basic principles:

• Do not eat "white" carbohydrates - at all costs avoid white carbohydrates (instead opt for wheat and other complex carbohydrate variants).
  
• Avoid eating carbohydrates at night - as much as possible have your feed of carbohydrates during the day when you're more likely to burn it off.
  
• Eat massive amounts of protein - protein is crucial for several biological functions and when it comes to weight loss that also includes building muscle. To increase your metabolism, you must increase your muscle mass (muscles consume far more calories at rest than fat). Also helpful in weight loss is the fact that it takes more calories to process protein than the protein molecule itself provides.
  
• Drink 32oz to 64oz of water a day - drink as much water as you can. Often times, thirst is mistaken for hunger. If you're hungry, try to drink water and see if it remains.
  
• Avoid drinks with calories - calories are often hidden in the drinks we consume. Avoid any drink with calories.
  
• Eat your vegetables - vegetables are good for you, eat as much as you can; particularly dark, green, leafy vegetables like spinach.
  

Through this vehicle (and the exercise prescribed below), I was able to lose over 40 lbs in less than 2 months.

Develop superior agility and endurance

When I was in college, I played on 3 intramural basketball teams. I was unfortunately nicknamed the "scarecrow" due to my embarrassingly poor lateral movement. As a result, I was only capable of covering the biggest, slowest players. During my rebuilding process, I discovered one of the most efficient exercises one can do is jump roping. Jump roping provides the following benefits:

• Increased core strength - the up and down motion requires one to constantly work the abs in fairly high cycles.
  
• Increased agility - a typical cadence requires the athlete to hop up and down at a cadence of 100 to 150 times a minute.
  
• Increased cardiovascular fitness - some studies have shown that jump roping is one of the most efficient cardiovascular work outs per unit time (the other oft discussed exercise is of course jogging).
  

Jump roping unfortunately requires a bit of a learning curve to start. At first, you'll be frustrated because you'll be messing up constantly. Instead of aiming for how much time you spend jumping, use the number of revolutions as the barometer instead. Start off slow by setting modest goals: 50 revolutions, 100 revolutions, etc. Slowly build to 500, then 1000, then 5000. As you become more proficient in roping, it will be nigh impossible to keep count. Therefore, I recommend buying a counting jump rope such as this. Aim to jump for 30 minutes straight twice a week.

Nowadays, I can keep up with almost any guard on the basketball court. I can't even recall when someone beat me off the dribble without help anymore. The increased agility has not only helped my man-on-man coverage, but has also given me the ability to recover quickly on rebounds and be able to bounce at a moments notice to block shots (my favorite pastime in basketball). My resting heart rate these days is under 60 and has been for several years. I'm still a generally bad rebounder and shooter (which are skills that a basketball player needs to develop) but I'm considered to be a superior lock-down and low-post defender in most pickup basketball games.

Increase power

Physical power has little to do with the size of your muscles and much more to do with so-called practical strength. After having read innumerable articles on the web, I realized that I could craft a program to increase power substantially without any gym membership. The key to this realization is two basic principles:

• Real power is based on multi-joint motions.
  
• Work = Distance x Time. To increase work, increase the amount of time your body is performing the exercise (i.e. maximize the time your muscles are under load).
  

Some people believe the most efficient exercise one can do is the pull-up. I won't go into the medical proof of this assertion, but I will only ask you to consider the following. Next time when you're at the zoo, go check out the monkeys. From a power/mass perspective, there are very few mammals that are stronger than monkeys. As it happens to be the case, we humans are primates as well - so the exercises that work for them (pull-ups) should work for us. A proper pull-up regimen will develop your abs, back, chest, shoulders, arms, and your overall core.

To get started with pull-ups, I highly recommend the door gym as sold here. For most folks, even doing 1 pull-up can be a challenge. As a result, beginners may want to practice the motion of a pull-up followed by a dead hang until 1 pull-up can be achieved. From there, attempt pull-ups every other day until you can do 8 straight. If you're disciplined about this, you should be able to achieve this level of strength in 2-4 weeks (if you can do absolutely no pull-ups at the start).

The second exercise that I used was the push-up. The push-up again requires core strength, abs, chest, and arms.

As for the regimen itself, simply perform 4 sets of pull-ups and 4 sets of pushups to failure (keep going until you can't do anymore). In order to increase the load on your muscles take 5 seconds to go up and 5 seconds to go down. In other words, each repetition should take you 10 seconds.

For most people, this work out will take 30 minutes. Do this twice a week.

...And that folks is all there is to it. As for results, my own weight varies between 180 to 190 lbs and I have had as low as 7% body fat in my prime. In peak form, I can bench press over 240 lbs and perform 25 pull-ups straight without rest. Occasionally, I stop working out due to the stresses of life, but it takes little effort for me to re-engage this formula and to regain my fighting physique each and every time. At age 32, I am far faster, stronger, and better than I was when I was 18 (the supposed pinnacle of every man's development).

Half-silly and remarkably wise and spot on, I listen to Everybody's Free (seen below in its original form courtesy of YouTube) from time to time.




My favorite nuggets:

• Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes
  you're behind... the race is long, and in the end, it's only with
  yourself.
  
• Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you
  should hold on.
  
• Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
  fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the
  ugly parts and recycling it for more than
  it's worth.
  

The last point is particularly poignant. I find myself dispensing way too much advice - both at work and in my personal life. It's amazing that people put up with me.

I'm a big fan of lifehacks - the tricks you can do to make your life easier and more efficient. Each Monday I'll post a lifehack that I've employed to manage various parts of my life.

This week, I wanted to share an easy way of maintaining a sparking clean bathroom:

1. Don't use bar soap. Bar soap has a tendancy to create soap scum. Instead use shower gels.

2. Use a toilet tablet like 2000 flushes. Toilet tablets are great for sanitizing the toilet and minimizing toilet stains.

3. Use a disposable toilet brush like Fresh Brush. Traditional toilet brushes have a tendancy to trap bacteria and if kept in the bathoom create odor. Its much cleaner to use a disposable toilet brush.

4. Keep a towel or better yet Tent Sponge near the sink. Its important to continuously keep the counters wiped down dry so that no bacteria forms.

If you do steps 1-4, you can easily go up to a month with minimal wear on your bathroom. When you do have to clean, you'll find that the effort is minimal: 10 minutes to clean the tub, 5 minutes to sanitize the faucet fixtures, and 5 minutes to clean the floor (instead of using a mop use a Swiffer.

Recently, I've been reading a true classic in the self-help realm of books called How to Win Friends and Influence People. Based on the title of the book, I had thought incorrectly that the treatise would be on so-called "personality ethic" techniques. However, after having finished most of the book, I have found several useful nuggets that transcend mere mind tricks.

The most useful epiphany that I took away from the book was the futility of argumentation. I realize now that argumentation is often an ego-driven vice that in most cases serves very little purpose beyond hurting feelings and creating ill will. It's tempting to voice your disagreement on various matters, and in reflecting upon my own behavior, I do this everyday! However, in the end people rarely will stray from their position and if they do - often it is because they were bulldozed to your point of view. I don't want to live my life as an intimidator who wins arguments because my voice is louder.

The book suggests to seek first to understand then be understood as an alternative tact to gaining mindshare. Its hard for me to say how successful I will be renouncing my disputatious ways; but I'll try.

Those who know me, know that I've gone absolutely bonkers for the iPhone. To me, the iPhone is the closest thing yet to true wearable computing. Back in the mid-90s, I was sporting a Libretto 50CT and a Metricom Ricochet radio modem (an era when 28.8 kbps was still the dominant mechanism to get online); so I know a thing or two about wearable computing and ubiquitous Internet access.

One of the biggest knocks that people have levied against the iPhone is the total cost of ownership (TCO). I've long maintained that the data plan for the iPhone is cheap - given what's out there. Today, a Palm user justifies this claim comparing and contrasting the TCO between a free Treo 680 and the iPhone: Which is more expensive: a free Treo 680 or an iPhone?

Check it out and eat your heart out all you iPhone haters!