My $50,000 Dog

I got a dog from the pound about 4 years ago as a puppy. Her name is Lola.

Recently I hired someone to play with Lola for a 1/2 an hour per day for $10.

Now $10, doesn't sound like much until you run the numbers.

$10 * 5 days per week = $50 per week

50 weeks per year * $50 = $2,500

I need to earn $5,000 per year minus 50% taxes to have the $2,500 to spend.

10 year of this = 10 * $5,000 = $50,000.

She's worth every penny.

Daily 5 Minute Journal Jan. 23, 2016 #BlizzardOf2016

Blizzard of 2016 and about 6 inches of snow at noon.

Woke up with wt. of 165 and blood sugar of 105.  This brings me to one of my favorite quotes "If you do what you've done you get what you got."

Oldest son has went back to college and I'm happy I didn't have to take him.

January is coming to a close and for the 3rd straight month I didn't reach my goal.

• Nov. 2015 - Declutter
• Dec. 2015 - Lower Blood Sugar
• Jan. 2016 - W < 160
• Feb. 2016 - Learn more and take action on osteoporosis
• Mar. 2016 - Finish Wisdom of a Dad

My monthly goal idea hasn't been working.

Why?

Maybe the lack of a plan. It was my goal but not in an all out attempt. 

In terms of deculttering, I did throw out some stuff but not enough. Lowering Blood Sugar, I've started on Metformin but haven't seen a real lowering of blood sugar or measured it clearly. My weight has stabilized and seems to be trending. between 161 and 170.

One thing I've learned is that deadlines help.  If you wait until the last minute and don't have a deadline, you'll never finish.

I've been enjoying work more lately as I've been put in charge of the Tuesday meetings and it takes time to run them.  I spent a lot of time getting the Snapshots software which is a screen recorder to work but it's not working on my laptop.

Things are changing fast at work. I've started working with a new guy in a different dept. who was late for a meeting I set up. He had very long hair, rather young and had a weird bag with him. He also told be he managed $3 mm and was let go because his quota was $6mm. I gave him a presentation and he was yawning through it. He made a comment about the code (Python) didn't have enough "Try" statements. He also complained that (me60) chart on Excel didn't have units or a label.

New Rule: When meeting someone new never complain about their work even if it's bad especially if unsolicited.

I find out through a co-worker that there will be a presentation on Tableau at a weekly meeting that I probably wouldn't have attended. I need an easy way to put something on my calendar at work. I currently use email to send tasks to work when not at work and home tasks when not at home. I wish the email system could automatically add the tasks to my to do lists.

Recently heard 3 podcasts from +Tim Ferriss. One was with  @EricRWeinstein which was very interesting one with @PeterTheil and one with +Daymond John. It's always the same issue though whether it's from a book, podcast or comment; how do you do what someone says when it's good advice. I call this B2A or Book to Action. I have read many self-help books, marketing, sales books but have I done one thing in them. Even the Four Hour Work Week has so much highlighting but little action.

The books you have tells you about your goals. You could use the books to give yourself a good idea of what you want.

Annoyed that on twitter mobile I couldn't add someone to a list.

Atheism

Love the +Sam Harris quote. 

“#Atheism is not a philosophy, it is not even a world view – it is simply an admission of the obvious.” #quote @SamHarrisOrg

— Alec Berg (@alecberg) January 21, 2016

STS

Smart Task Selection. There are 2 questions:

• What should I do now?
• What did I do?

The idea is that we humans are prisoners of our habits which are extremely hard to change. If someone or something told you exactly what to do and when, could they increase their success?

Would they follow the instructions?  How would this program or recipe work?

I recently shared my idea of Smart Task Selection with a co-worker and he liked the idea. He thought it should be calendar based where I've always had it task based. I have thought about calendar based and maybe I should try this.

Presentations

I've been working on a presentation with a co-worker and have a few pet peeves that are done

• Define all acronyms in PPT
• Clarify terms with whole slides
• 10/20/30 - Ten slides, twenty minutes, thirty point font - +Guy Kawasaki 

New phone

New phone, Droid Turbo came in. It's my 3rd one. First one headphone jack failed. The second one would reboot all the time, mostly when walking in cold weather. I was able to figure out how to remove the Simm (me10) card, by using my finger nail and pulling it out, then replacing it in my new phone.  

Twitter

Still like twitter as I have a lot of followers and enjoy getting likes and retweets. Would like to find a way to make some friends out of it.

Health

Neck pain is waning, which is from sleeping on a couch and twisting my head. Having pain in left knee when walking up/down stairs.

sin

Dog Training

This week I tried to train my dog to bark and identify objects that we can't find like her collar and the remote. I did the training using a clicker. At some point she got it. When I asked my wife to come watch her do it she couldn't.  She was picking stuff at random and getting a treat. Next time I have to only reward her if she picks out the item the first time and not after trying all the items

Daily 5 minute Journal. Jan. 2, 2016

Woke up with blood sugar 107 which is still too high. I'm not sure the Metformin is working. I've upped my dosage of metformin to 1000 mg but it hasn't seemed to lower my blood sugar.

Weighed 166 this morning which was higher than I'd like.

I have set my goal for this month to weigh less than 160, but I've been stuck where I am for so long I'm not sure if I can reach it. I have stopped putting butting and coconut oil into my coffee.

Still have a messy area and thought today that I should do the following:

1. Come up with life's goals
2. Come up with 10 year plan
3. Come up with 5 year plan
4. Come up with years goals
5. Come up with monthly goals
6. Come up with week's goal
7. Come up with day's goal
8. Do most important thing on day's to-do list

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time watching Youtube videos. I learned how street performers levitate and watched many of Project One Life videos and saw very funny Jesus pranks. This guy  I have that http://Time-creator.com software that would every 15 minutes remind me to log data about what I did the previous 15 minutes.

question of "What did I do yesterday?" I feel like I did a lot of nothing that was goal related. I had an alarm in my

• What did I do
• What goal?
• My rating for review
• Exceeds Expectations
• Meets Expectations
• Below Expectations
• What an Exceeds Expectation would have done
• What to put on resume

Walked the dog and it was very cold. Watched Larry David with son.  I'm into compiling Larry David songs and he sang two:

1. Jaiya Jaiya Jaiya I made it out of clay
2. N-E-S-T-L-E-S song (The Terrorist Episode)
3. Ah Yapa doody Ya Ya

September 7th, 2015

I woke up at 7:00 AM today. Yesterday I went to a dog beach with my wife and dog. Worked on Listi.net conversion. Ran a blood sugar test.

Blood Sugar

Had pizza for dinner. One slice of Buffalo chicken. My blood sugar (bs) hit 166 but may have gone higher. I thought I could have pizza but not candy or sweets. The problem is once I have pizza it sets me off to seek out other great tasting food. My wife went to the ice cream store 16 Handles but I didn't buy anything. I'm so glad. I tried to do so weight lifting, curls and presses and it didn't seem to lower my blood sugar. I was going to test my bs but I thought it was too high at 109. I'll wait 1/2 hour so it comes down before I test a Zone bar.

Listi.Net

Worked on Listi.net conversion to SQL Server and can finally see lists. Ran into issue with bit vs. boolean values, but resolved it by changing the code.

Excel Diet

Got a new user yesterday and was reading through the book. It's not that bad. I'm thinking of printing out a copy of it. I've been afraid to reach out to users and follow up with them. So far only one user reached out to me and I assume he failed his diet. 

I've stalled on my weight loss as I weighed 165 today, due to the Buffalo pizza yesterday.

Wisdom of a Dad

This project has stalled while I'm upgrading Listi.net. My next goal is to proofread the book but this is a daunting task as to the size of the book. You can see my progress at WisdomOfADad.com. 

Home Chores

Desk is pretty messy, I have to clean the poop and do the yard, boxes of stuff, garage.

Fun

This may be the most important goal of all. You want to have longevity and $ so you can have fun. I'm still looking for ways to have more fun. I like blogging but am not getting enough feedback to make it enjoyable. 

Problems are opportunities

I now have experience converting from access to sql server maybe a business possibility?

Overdue books. I keep running into this and could use a better/easier way to add books to some mechanism of reminding me to renew them.

Writing the book WOAD has been difficult and this could be a business or I could develop a tool to assist with the issues. 

Blogger doesn't support shortcut keys.

Could use a system to better analyze and improve my tweets to get more clicks on Twitter.com, 

• What times are the best?
• What copy gets the most tweets?
• What if I do some A/B testing

My website getting a 500 error means there's an issue with the code. This is very difficult to find. I wish I had better version control and could easily identify what changes I make and to easily go back to a previous version.

Book

I'm reading 2 books:

1. $100 Startup (reread)
2. The Power of Now

Key Principle

Today's key principle is Time Balance. 

Liking

Shortcuts in Excel. Learning from Blood Sugar Meter.

Aug. 24, 2015

At home my son Nigel is away at college, we dropped him off 2 days ago. I miss him a lot. I feel an emptiness and miss all the little things we did together from just helping me sweep up the dirt in front of the house to seeing him each day. I miss the way he would play with Lola and I want to try to get Max to do the same. Max came home from a Jet practice at Hofstra and got 11 signatures but didn't pet Lola. I asked him to and he did.

We took the dog to a dog park in Massapequa and no dogs were there. Lola sniffed around for a while and then we walked a little and left.

Had dinner at a outdoor place that's hard to find with Cheryl and Lola. Had a chicken wrap and a beer and blood sugar was at 144. Now that Nigel is in college I have to fix my health.

Earlier in the day I walked Lola to her friend Stella's house. I did it completely off leash. It's a short walk. I've been practicing with Lola going down stairs with me. She's not allowed to go until I go. If she does I give her a correction.  I've been working on leaving the curb. She's not allowed to leave curb and go into the street until I do. I can even fake it and she knows to wait for me. She's a very smart girl.

Wrestling

I watched wrestling with Max. We watched the Undertaker vs Brock Lesner. I predicted that the Undertaker would win. Since Brock won the first contest if the Undertaker wins the second fight they could have a rematch. The fight ended in a surprising way. Brock got the Undertaker in a submission move and the Undertaker tapped out. The ref didn't see it because he was checking for a pin. The bell rang but the ref said there was no tap out as he didn't see it. While the ref was talking to the bell keeper, the Undertake knocked Brock in the nuts, and then put him in a submission move. Brock didn't tap out but gave the Undertaker the middle finger. Brock eventually passed out and the the ref stopped the fight at that time.

At 50 years old it's pretty amazing that the Undertaker could wrestle. There was another match Kevin Owen vs. a Flying Scotish Guy. I was surprised that the KO won as he's fat and out of shape.

WOAD - Wisdom of a Dad

I worked on the book trying to organize the chapter on Success which in the table of contents went from page 40 to 105. It was very boring and difficult to do this. I'm thinking if there's a way to monetize the book. 

I worked a little on the cover and it needs work.

 I'm not ready to spend money on it. 

Listi.net

Go the website to use Sql Server in a little over an hour but it was just a sample program. http://Listi.net/dbtest2.asp.

While developing the code I got a -2147217843 error This login failed because the password to server login(user) fails. The problem was caused by the password having single quotes around it but it didn't need any password.

Health

I mowed the lawn and walked a little yesterday, but my left ankle by the Achilles tendon still hurts. I played tennis 2 days ago against Max and beat him 6 - 0. I want to start working out with weights but don't yet have a plan. I woke up at 4 AM to pee and thinking about website.

News

Story in News yesterday about 3 guys that saved a train from a crazy Muslim I think, they didn't really say that, with an AK47 and lot's of ammo. This happened in France.

Reading a story in the Generational Dynamics blog about Obamacare and the Fraud that was committed by John Xenakis.

Stocks

Big losses on Friday, Market was down 530 points. 

ASP Code

<html>
<head>
<title>My First ASP Page
</head>
<body bgcolor="white" text="black">
<%
'test access to database
' from https://www.webwiz.co.uk/kb/asp-tutorials/connecting-to-an-access-database.htm
'Dimension variables
Dim adoCon         'Holds the Database Connection Object
Dim rsGuestbook    'Holds the recordset for the records in the database
Dim strSQL         'Holds the SQL query to query the database
response.write("dbtest2.asp")


'Create an ADO connection object
on error resume next
Set adoCon = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
if err <> 0 then
 response.write( err & " " & err.description)
 response.end
end if
response.write( "after adocon

")



'Set an active connection to the Connection object using a DSN-less connection
on error resume next

response.write("connecting to sql server")
'adoCon.Open "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; Data Source=" & Server.MapPath("../access_db/xd.mdb") 
'response.write("

err = " & err & " " & err.description & "

")
'response.write("")

on error resume next
response.write("connecting to odorDBuser2")
adoCon.Open "Driver={SQL Server};Server=<server name got from Godaddy>;Database=odorDBuser2;Uid=odorDBuser2;Pwd=*********;"
response.write("

err = " & err & " " & err.description & "

")
response.write("")


'Create an ADO recordset object
Set rsGuestbook = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")

'Initialise the strSQL variable with an SQL statement to query the database
strSQL = "select * from test_table;"

'Open the recordset with the SQL query 
rsGuestbook.Open strSQL, adoCon


'Loop through the recordset 
Do While not rsGuestbook.EOF 

    'Write the HTML to display the current record in the recordset 
    Response.Write ("

") 
    Response.Write (rsGuestbook("test_one")) 
    Response.Write ("

") 
    Response.Write (rsGuestbook("test_two")) 
    Response.Write ("

") 

    'Move to the next record in the recordset 
    rsGuestbook.MoveNext 
Loop

randomize
x = int(rnd() * 100)
response.write("x = " & x)
on error resume next
strSQL = "insert into test_table values('xyz'," & x & ",'zzz')"
response.write("strSQL = " & strSQL)
rsGuestbook.Close
rsGuestbook.Open strSQL, adoCon
response.write("

err = " & err & " " & err.description & "

")
 'Reset server objects
rsGuestbook.Close
Set rsGuestbook = Nothing
Set adoCon = Nothing
%>

</body>
</html>

Aug. 8th 2015

Spent a good 4 hours working on BFN - Book for Nigel as he's leaving for college in a few weeks. I changed the title today from Wisdom of a Scott to Wisdom of a Dad.

This project hasn't been that exciting and I've spent a lot of time on it. I've been writing on the train in the morning. At lunch hour at work and train in the evening and also when I get home.

Sat outside on my deck an wrote. Very enjoyable. My dog Lola was there by my side. She's so wonderful. And to think I use to be afraid of dogs. It's a beautiful day outside, low humidity. The crickets are very loud and I have to prepare for party for tomorrow. We're having my relatives over to say goodbye to Nigel who will be going to Cornell. I'm very proud of him and will miss him.

Time goes by so fast. I remember the day he was born. I hope I've been a good father to him.

I feel good today. Had my Bulletproof coffee for breakfast. My current goal is BFN. And this has helped me make decisions on what to do. It helps a lot to have a deadline as if I want to finish the book I have to focus on it. I've skipped walking to work and having lunch with people because it's against my MIG - Most Important Goal.

Did the lawn. Picked up the poop. Tested Cheryl's blood sugar and it was 69. Pretty tired now. Will continue working on book.  Already cleaned the dishes. I felt like my blood sugar was low and it was 94. I ate some cheese, nuts and diet grape drink.

Took dog over to Stella's house for a play date.

Watered the lawn and a baseball catch with Nigel, my son, went shopping for chips, beer and soda and took a one hour nap.

I acquired the domain WisdomOfADad.com. Tonight have plans to see Mission Impossible movie.

I took Lola out for a walk and we saw 2 cats and 4 dogs. Lola seemed afraid of the cats as they were on leashes and they weren't afraid of her. One of the dogs, was small with a Russian woman, growled and after smelling Lola, I asked if he was friendly to owner and he lunged at me and it scared me. There was an Irish Setter with an elderly guy and the dog was barking at us and pulling the owner. I didn't think he could control the dog well so we avoided them. We saw a fluffy dog behind a fence who Lola smelled but the dog growled at me. I squatted next to the fence with my back facing the dog, which I saw Cesar Millan do and it worked in calming the dog. I let him smell a treat I had, but didn't give it to him.We then saw a guy on the sidewalk who freaked out my dog. He was in a tee shirt and shorts and was looking at his phone. When Lola is freaked out her ears go way behind her head. We then saw a small white fluffy dog that kept barking at us. Lola laid down on the grass. I didn't approach because there were 4 women talking.

In the news

• Jon Stewart did his last Daily Show on Comedy Central Network
• The republican debate took place on FOX network with 24 million viewers
• Donald Trump was very entertaining.I think people are sick of politicians and like his honesty and political incorrectness

In stocks

• Planet Fitness had their IPO. I can't see how this is a viable business that charges $10 a month for members. 

Creativity

I came up with the acronym PURGE - Prioritize yoUR Goals Everyday. Another recent acronym was DAMAGE - Don't Ask Me Ask Google Everything.

Health

My weight was 163.6 this morning. I'm having trouble getting below 160 lbs. I've been on a low carb diet for a while. My blood sugar hasn't been great. One strange thing I've noticed is that the Oreo Questbars raised my blood sugar to 154, but the Smores only to 101. I'm wondering the cause of this. Didn't walk that much this week. Still having foot pain.

Found a bunch of videos while looking for +Tim Ferriss, I found Tim Ferriss's Top 10 Rules for Success by Evan Carmichael. It was done very well and worth watching.

Reading

I'm currently reading Sam Harris's book "The Moral Landscape." I recently finished "Waking Up" by Sam. excellent book also.

Goals

Some Other upcoming goals I have are:

• Make Listi.net more usable especially for new users
• Declutter and clean up the house
• W < 160 lbs.
• Lower my Blood Sugar
• Resolve my foot pain