#77. Finish bagging and boarding funny books

What is it?

Back when I was in 3rd grade I had a tonsillectomy. As I spent a week laid up in bed recovering, my mother purchased some comic books to keep me busy and in good spirits. Around the same time frame, my father found some of his old comics in my grandfather's house, including Amazing Spider-man #121: The Death of Gwen Stacy. Reading through these comics got me hooked. I asked for a variety pack for Christmas the next couple of years and my collection was off and running.

Now in order to "protect" the comics from damage while they are in storage, people typically place them in a plastic bag with a piece of cardboard backing (i.e. bagging and boarding them).

Why is it on the list?

Well, of the 1750 comic books in my collection hardly any of them were bagged and boarded, including some of the most valuable ones my Dad found so many years ago. A buddy who also collects comics called me a heathen and demanded that I start bagging and boarding my collection.

The Process

Nothing too exciting to say here. It takes a long time to bag and board comics, and as the supplies cost some money, I spaced it out over the course of a year. But as of today, the 1750 comics in my collection are all safely bagged and boarded and placed in short boxes (13 of em!). It was a fun trip down memory lane and I got to reread a bunch of good comics.

Nowadays, I still visit the comic shop every Wednesday. It blows my mind that people will watch Heroes on TV, see the latest Marvel Movie, and play superhero video games, but consider comic books to be "kid stuff". This might have a lot to do with the stereotypical comic nerd who is a 45 year old virgin living in his Mom's basement. I wish we could get past this because there really are a lot of great comics out there for all ages and interests.

If you like horror, Stephen King's son Joe Hill is publishing a wonderful miniseries called Locke and Key. In fact, King's Dark Tower series is being adapted in comic book form (with original stories!) and a comic book adaptation of The Stand will be out soon! If you like smart science fiction try out Pax Romana from Jonathon Hickman, the first issue of which can be read for free here (click the page to advance to the next one). If you like Westerns, Dynamite has a sequel to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (the best western ever). We find Blondie immediately after digging up all the Confederate Gold. He's on the run from the Union for blowing up the bridge (in the movie), is running from the Confederates from who he got the gold (in the movie), and now is heading back to the Mission (from the movie) to save them from some bandits. Can't wait for Tuco to show up! And if you like noir, Ed Brubaker's Criminal is a great read.

I could go on and on. But I already know you won't pick up a comic book. But in the immortal words of A Christmas Story, I TRIPLE DOG DARE YA!

#86. Participate in Relay for Life

What is it?

Relay for Life is an event that raises money for the American Cancer Society. It is usually held at a track and the goal is to have someone from your team walking for the entire duration of the event(usually somewhere between 12-18 hours)

Why is it on the list?

I have participated in Relay for life since the year 2005. That first year I think I walked/ran around what a marathon would have been (26 miles or so). It was really inspiring to be there in the middle of the night with the luminaria (lighted candles in bags with names of cancer survivors and cancer victims) and walking with cancer survivors. At the time of my first Relay, my grandmother was battling lung cancer and anytime I got tired I just thought that no matter how tired it was nothing compared to her fight.

Shortly afterwards my grandmother passed away, and I dedicated Relay For Life 2006 in her memory. I became very involved with our team's organization and raised over $500 personally thanks to the generosity of many friends and family members. That year my team managed to raise the most money out of all the teams at the event.

In 2007 I managed to participate in Relay, but only at a low level. For the third year in a row I helped bag groceries at a local grocery to raise money and I walked some laps, but because I was busy planning my wedding I didn't get to participate as fully as I would have like. I vowed that I would return with a vengeance in 2008.

The Process

Now that I was no longer physically located at my graduate school, I knew I needed to find a different Relay locale. Also, I knew I wanted to do more than just join a Relay team... I wanted to lead one. I decided that I would form a team of friends and family members and do the Relay For Life that was happening in my hometown.

I thought about the team name and what sort of team theme we should have. I remembered how cool it was that a team in 2007 ran the event. As my group of friends are fairly athletic people I decided it was doable. Thus, the 100 Milers were born. Our goal was to run the entire Relay For Life Event from 7PM to 7AM and to ask people for donations based on miles ran. Additionally, we would have several fund raisers at the event to raise money. I found an awesome video game called Re-Mission, where you play a nano-bot who fights cancer cells within a person's body. I decided that at Relay our team would setup a few computers and allow people to play a mission for a fee, with the highest score of the night winning a prize. We also decided that a bake sale would be perfect for an event where people are going to be moving all night long.

I gathered a group of friends from all aspects of my life, from childhood up through graduate school, along with many members of my family. Every single one of my team members was extremely helpful in accomplishing our goals. Before the event we raised over $1700 online through donations and around $200 through other fund raisers. The day of the event, everyone showed up on time and in shape for their run. We smashed the 100 Mile barrier, totally 108 miles from the 7PM start to the 7AM finish. I ran over 14 miles from 3AM - 5AM, which was the longest I've ever ran.

In the process, we raised another $500 from the bake sale, video game, and on-site donations for a total of $2400 raised for the American Cancer Society. I am very proud of all my teammates who ran further and raised more money than they thought possible and also every one of our generous donors.

Relay is always an emotional event, and nothing was better for me than being with some awesome friends and family while my wife high stepped the final lap to complete a very successful night.

#80. Get a barcode scanner and start Project Home Library

Why is it on the List?

I have a dream. One day my wife and I will own a home that will be big enough to have a library. I've always wanted my own library. A room that has nothing but books from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, with some nice comfy furniture to settle in and perhaps a roaring fire in a brick fireplace.

I already have 4 bookshelves overflowing with books and I have an embosser with my initials and "Library Of". With so many books, the fact that I lend them out from time to time, and because I am a giant nerd, I decided the next thing to do would be to catalog the books. Now, entering in ISBN's by hand is a pain in the ass so I decided that a bar code scanner would be the way to go!

The Process

I've wanted a scanner for a long time, but not just any old scanner. I wanted a handheld USB scanner that could read the barcodes off of books and some software to link that bar code to an ISBN. Unfortunately, a nice scanner costs quite a bit of money. Sure I could have bought some bootleg software for $20 and a Cue Cat bar code reader for $5, but it would have been a huge pain in the ass to scan in the hundreds of books I own.

Thankfully, I married the greatest woman of all time. She not only got me an awesome bar code reader for my birthday (the thing can hold 500 bar codes at a time, which means I can take the reader over to the book shelves and not bring the books to the computer... saves a ton of time) but also a sweet software package that is perfect for my ever growing home library. So Project Home Library is well underway. I've got about 2 bookshelves completed and about two more to go!

Progress Update: Adding tricks to the rotation

I knew it had been awhile when my wife asked me, "So when are you gonna add some more tricks to the rotation?". I quickly assured her that it wasn't my fault! How am I supposed to add tricks to the rotation when my main source of recipes, The Common Culinarian, has been slacking! With no new recipes in sight and a wife tired of tacos and spaghetti I decided the only thing I could do was type pork (for some reason I'm really comfortable cooking w/ pork and chicken...everything else frightens me) in the search field of the Common Culinarian's website and hope for the best.

BAM! Pork Curry in a Hurry! I read through the recipe and thought, "Hell I can make this". I searched the pantry, found most of what I needed, decided that curry powder couldn't be that much different than red curry powder, and headed to Kroger to score some green beans, a bell pepper, lime juice, and coconut milk!



I cut up the pepper, snapped the beans, and cubed the pork. Now even though multitasking in the kitchen isn't one of my strengths, I put the rice on and started to skillet (that's the technical term) up the pork.



Once the pork was finished I started cooking the green beans and the bell pepper while continuously futzing with the rice. When it came time to add the coconut milk, I realized the electric can opener was broken and I couldn't find a mechanical one. I was "in the weeds" (as they say on Top Chef) as I tried to pry the lid open while keeping an eye on the veggies and the rice. Thank god my wife arrived home from work in time to save the day.

With her assistance I finally got the can open and added it along with all the spices:



I heated it through, added the lime juice & sugar, and then served it up!



(Well that was a blurry photo) I think it tasted great and my wife seemed to agreed when she immediately said, "Add this to the rotation!" My only complaint was a lack of spiciness, which may have been due to choosing curry powder over red curry powder. I like my Thai food spicy and next time I'll try to kick it up a notch.

Book Review (7/34) Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

The old joke goes something like this:

A tourist is wandering around New York city and he is clearly lost. He walks up to a local and asks, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”. “Practice, Man, Practice” responds the local.

Despite the groans this joke elicits, there is sure to be a few wry smiles because of how true the statement is. If you want to be good at something you have to practice. Sure it helps if you have some natural talent, but the desire to be good at something and the will to keep practicing is just as important. Chris Ballard writes of Kobe Bryant in a recent article in SI:

There’s a difference between loving basketball and liking basketball. There are only about 30 guys in the league who love it, who play year round. Allen Iverson loves to play when the lights come on. Kobe loves doing the shit before the lights comes on. This thing, this freakish compulsion, may be the hardest element of the game to quantify. There are no plus-minus stats to measure a player’s ruthlessness, his desire to beat his opponent so badly he’ll need therapy to recover. One thing’s for sure: You can’t teach it. Is so Eddie Curry would be All-NBA and Derrick Coleman would be getting ready for his induction ceremony in Springfield, Mass. But people know it when they see it

Despite similar levels of athletic ability, his ability to practice more and harder than anyone else is the reason that Kobe Bryant is the best player in the NBA. The importance of practice isn’t limited to sports. Atul Gawande, in his book entitled Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance states that studies have shown that the difference between the ability of elite performers (from violinists to chess players to athletes) and lesser performers is the amount of deliberate practice. In fact, Gawande cites a study by Ericsson who claims that the most important talent is the willingness to practice! Incredibly, elite performers hate practice just as much as their less able peers. However, they are somehow able to push through and will themselves to practice anyways.

Thus, if a person is to become exceptional at their profession, the best thing to do is to practice practice practice. This is obviously easy for Kobe Bryant; it just means more time in the gym. However, Gawande raises an important question: How do we teach surgeons? Obviously, to become an expert surgeon, one must have lots of hands on practice. However, how ethical is it to allow a surgical intern to practice on someone whose life is at stake? Study after study has shown that a patient is more likely to have a successful operation the more experienced a surgeon is. Yet the fact remains that as a society we need to train new surgeons. Additionally studies have shown that when new operating procedures are introduced, patient mortality increases in the short term (but decreases in the long term). How can we train surgeons on new procedures without putting patients at risk?

Gawande does a great job describing these problems and speaks of how he understands the need to train surgeons but he himself has refused to let an intern operate on one of his family members. I can see how much of an internal struggle this would be. I understand that we need to train new surgeons, but I sure as hell don’t want to be the first person a surgeon has ever operated on.

And all that thought was brought on by the first chapter! As usual Gawande’s writing stimulates the mind and the rest of the book is a quick read. Gawande discusses the problem of bad doctors, what should happen when a doctor makes a mistake (and every doctor will eventually make a mistake), the purpose of medical conferences, and a series of interesting case studies. I found the final chapter (about a young girl who may or may not have contracted the flesh eating bacteria) especially interesting. Gawande compared his successful diagnosis to the situations described inGary Klein’s work on firefighters in the field.

But the dilemma that stayed with me was how can we train surgeons without putting patients at risk? It is clear from studies of elite performers that the only way to become proficient in a profession is to practice practice practice. Yet who would want to be on the other end of the knife when a mere novice is holding the scalpel?