Malcolm Gladwell at Town Hall

I went to see Malcolm Gladwell of the Tipping Point and Blink fame on book tour for his latest book, Outliers.

While his world view is solidly liberal, he is an amazing speaker. He achieved empathy with the audience very, very quickly. His wide variety of facts and figures he was able to reference off hand were quite impressive, although somewhat transparent to those not particularly sympathetic. I'm not sure that he is worth the vaulted speakers' fees he usually commands, but I certainly did not feel ripped off paying $5 a head.

New Year's Resolutions

This year, I'm going to be doing 12 New Year's resolutions, just like last year. Unlike last year, where I stopped coming up with new ones half way through the new year, I thought I'd come up with a full compliment beforehand.

Jan: Get rid of 1/2 of my possessions by weight
Feb: Talk to 1 stranger every day for at least 5 minutes
Mar: Double my push-up count
Apr: Get to 3 sets of 8 pull-ups max
May: Read 2 books every week
Jun: Do at least 2 20 mile runs at > 6 mph and 2 50 mile bike rides at > 14
Jul: Climb 3 different mountains
Aug: Be finished with my Toastmasters Competent Communicator and at least 1 other book
Sep: Purge the list of blog posts to write
Oct: This line intentionally left blank
Nov: Write at least 30 pages of well polished fiction
Dec: Make sure all holiday preparations are done by the 14th