Old Life Blog

I loved the first one, then it went down hill. Nolan's story telling is fractured and choppy. And this latest had a main character who I understood about 5% of what he was saying. It was just plain 'ole bad movie making. I actually feel really bad for this Batman because I like him. I really like this batman, and Christian Bale's portrayal. I loved Batman Begins. The worst part about this latest is that it contains about 5% Batman. I couldn't even tell it was a Batman movie until half-way through. Put plainly, I wasn't entertained. I was bored and frustrated with Bane's voice and the choppy story-telling. It was just a bad movie, worse in these respects than the second. The second had far more Batman, but it still suffered from choppiness. Ugghh Nolan's didn't direct the new Superman coming out, but he did produce it. I hope and pray that it survives the Nolan treatment. "Over-rated" is an understatement when it comes to Christopher Nolan. ...

Since I started the paleo/primal " diet " 3 months ago , I've lost 25 pounds. I've gone from 215, where I've been the last 4 years, to 190. Now, the purpose of the new diet wasn't weight loss, but I now see how unavoidable that was. I just wanted to eat healthier and more in line with how human beings are supposed to eat. I have less body aches and pains, less illness, and more energy. And I hope to avoid any chronic illnesses, cancers, diabetes, etc. What do I do every day? I eat one piece of fruit in the morning, either an apple or a banana, on the way to work. On the weekends we'll prepare a fruit and greens smoothie in the big blender, for everyone. My lunch is either a grilled chicken salad (yes, with ranch and shredded cheese, not primal), or left-overs from dinner the night before. All our grocery shopping is done at either Whole Foods or Harmon's now. Dinner is usually meat and veggies, and some or the other combination. Once in a while my...

I've been reading up on primal/paleo dieting the last few weeks, ever since Tom Woods, et al, have been promoting it. I've started Mark Sisson's " The Primal Blueprint " and have adjusted my diet accordingly. I'm even going barefoot as much as possible, and that part has felt really good. Anyway, what is the primal/paleo diet? It starts with the premise that our bodies (genus Homo ) evolved over a few million years and asks, what types of foods did these bodies evolve on? Here's the answer in pyramid form: You'll notice a few things missing: Dairy, Grains/Breads, Legumes, and processed sugars. That's correct, no more regular dairy, breads, or soda for me. In addition, I added Fish Oil , Vitamin D , and anasthaxin to my daily regiment of supplements a month ago. I'm super excited about this. My intent is not weight-loss (currently 6 foot, 215 pounds), but feeling good and preparing for middle-old age. I want to have as much control as ...

I was asked by a good friend of my wife about our unschooling, what my kids do all day, and about grown unschoolers and what they've accomplished. Here is my response: Right now, at 6 and 2, Liani plays with her dolls and toys, and takes turns watching Netflix, usually Barney, with her brother. Skyler watches anything from Bob the Builder to Power Rangers to Jeff Corwin to Mr. Bean to dinosaur documentaries to anything else he discovers. He plays a little ps2, and a little DS. He's beaten the games he has so he's not as into video games at the moment. They do playgroup on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. They do PE on Tuesdays (at the rec. center). Skyler has a game or two a week. Basketball just finished, indoor soccer is next. They see their cousins usually twice a week, and any friends that make it over (such as yourselves). When the weather is warmer, they walk to the library 2-3 times a month, or more, and go to the park often through-out the week. They'll be tak...

When kids make mistakes, even a mistake as simple as being annoying around the wrong person, they are either yelled out, cursed, slapped, spanked, or caged (often a mix of several such reactions) by their parents. In other words, they are treated as second-class human beings, undeserving of unconditional love and respect by regular human beings. And yet, through it all, kids come back, again and again, to those that disrespect them like it never happened. They are so quick to forgive and forget. If I was yelled at, cursed, slapped, spanked, or caged for making a mistake toward another adult, I would probably disassociate and have nothing ever to do with that adult for the rest of my life. Adults expect respect from other adults, and when they don't get it, they go their separate ways. But children, it's not 20 minutes before they're wanting to jump and play and giggle with the one who was just violent with them. It's like it never happened. Considering this, it'...

A concern I've heard regarding unschooled kids is that "they'll be different". What is meant by this is that they won't have the same education, the same experiences, the same memories, the same cultural influences, yadda, yadda, yadda, as their "peers". In my opinion, that's just dandy. Yes, they will be different, but to what end? Will their lives be harder? More stressful? Etc.? I don't believe so one whit. In fact, I believe the inverse is true. There are all sorts of benefits with the unschooling approach to life and learning that compulsory schooling can't match. While I believe the "education" part will actually be better, as their learning is interest-based and interest-based learning is harder to forget than rote memorization, unschooled kids develop initiative and problem solving skills far greater than compulsory-schooled kids. It's self-evident. Kids that are given the freedom to explore their curiosities are pract...

From time to time, I tell someone who doesn't already know, usually extended family, that we are keeping our kids home from school. They look puzzled until I use the word "homeschooling". Like clockwork, sooner or later, they mention the social aspect of schooling and why it's important that kids play with other kids. I respond, not wanting to get into anything, that we have play groups during the week. Now, that's true, the play groups, but that's not a proper response to one's concern about socialization. Actually, I strongly believe, through logic and experience, that what kids learn in school is anti-socialization. But that's another post. What I wanted to briefly talk about here is proper socialization. From the time they're born until they're about 18, children are preparing for the rest of their lives; in other words, they are preparing for adulthood. Part of that preparation is learning to communicate with other human beings. That...

After recently reading an excellent piece on working for free by Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute, my mind was caught up on the idea that regardless of whether or not we own a "business", we are all entrepreneurs. Let me explain. Putting owned capital to work to produce something that someone else values is the essence of entrepreneurship, as I understand it. I own my mind and my body. I can use both to make myself a profit. If we consider our faculties as capital, and our employment of them as production, then it's easy to see why I would call everyone an entrepreneur. So what? Act like it! Calculate your inputs, tally your outputs, maximize your profits and minimize your losses. Whether or not you deal with consumers, you still deal with customers. Your employer is your customer. You work for him just as he works for consumers. Improving your customer services skills means improving whatever it is that makes your employer, your customer, happy. Once y...

I emailed this to my immediate family. It has some good resources on unschooling, so I thought I'd copy it here. Family, We had a 3 hour conversation with Mom and Dad on Sunday night regarding our plans to keep our children home from school. I would like you all to get familiar with the approach we are taking, called "unschooling". The purpose is not to convince you to do this with your kids, but so that you will understand what we are doing with our kids. That is all, nothing more. ^_^. I'll list a few specific resources, and then some general ones for your own perusing. And I'm happy to answer any and all questions, but keep in mind, although I'm extremely excited about this approach and the future, there's still a lot we need to learn. What is Unschooling? by Earl Stevens Grown Without Schooling? Interview with Jason Hunt, who was unschooled Wikipedia entry on "Unschooling" CNN.com report on Unschooling Free to Socialize in Real Soci...

A study published in July showed that people have become less likely to remember things that they know are only a click away on the Internet. In other words, our selective memory has expanded to exclude things easily found via a web search. I interpret this revelation as meaning that people are selectively remembering the things that matter most to them in their everyday lives. All else are easily accessible, so why waste brain matter remembering them? Small example, I remember far less phone numbers than I used to thanks to my cloud-based contact list. I'll get back to why I started with an explanation of this study. Things We Learn in School When I venture into the land of memories and journey back into my school days, I can't help but wonder about what I've retained from all the things that K-12 public school taught me. I would say that 90% of what I learned was practically useless (not to mention how much of it was wrong). Reading, writing, and arithmetic h...

March 2021: I read this essay and added commentary for Episode 464 of the Everything Voluntary podcast . Oh boy do I feel completely taken advantage of, nay, exploited! I was in dire straits. My front yard was flooding. I wasn't sure why. I figured that my irrigation system's stop-n-waste valve was broken. It's been broken before. This time, however, the lawn was soaked around that area, so I knew that digging down 4 feet was going to be super hard with all that added water weight (mud!), and it was in the middle of the week, mid-day. No way was I going to find some help from neighbors, friends, or family. I was absolutely desperate! I called my brother-in-law, and he said he knew someone that was available to help me. They showed up in a half hour. I don't know if it was the color of his skin or his lack of English speaking skills, but I knew that he was a day laborer. I've heard about these guys, and how they like to undercut their competition, the licensed pr...

December 2020: I read this essay and added commentary for Episode 440 of the Everything Voluntary podcast. My wife and I have jumped feet first into a parenting style that is contrary to conventional wisdom and everything we've done the list 6 years. It's also contrary to how I was raised. Not so much for me wife, thank goodness. That style? It's called " Unconditional Parenting ", and it's creator is Alfie Kohn . The subtitle of Kohn's book summarizes it nicely, "Moving from rewards and punishments to love and reason." Moving From Rewards and Punishments I've spanked my son. I've put him in time-out. I've even put my almost-2-year-old daughter in time-out. I've yelled. I've shouted. I've been as mean as I can be in order to get compliance out of my children. I've been a monster, and I created a monster in my wife. She's spanked, she's used time-out, and she's been loud and controlling as well. Bu...

I honestly don't see how Google+ threatens Facebook. I don't think I'll ever use one OR the other. They'll be used in tandem. Does everyone you know shop at the same grocery chain? No. Which is why not everyone you know will use either Facebook or Google+ (or Twitter). They'll both grow and innovate. I'm sure 90% of their users will actively use other services as well. Now someone just needs to develop a super web app that puts all social network sharing and news feeds on one page ^_^.

I finally made the plunge. A few weeks ago I put together two square foot gardens. I don't know if I'll be posting updates on their progress, we'll see, but I thought I'd put this small post out there to encourage others to follow suit. My recommend'd text is Mel Bartholomew's " Square Foot Gardening ". It's been an excellent resource. Here're my gardens with a list of what's in them. (I've yet to trim the weed guard that hangs over the edges. It will be trim'd someday!): This one's got: zuchinni, squash, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber. This one's got: silver corn, jalapenos, spicy peppers, string beans, red onions, broccoli, cauliflower, and cilantro. This is my wife and my first foray into any sort of gardening. I'm sure it will be a learning experience. I've got these two boxes position'd perfectly between my rows of sprinklers. They get douse'd every night...

Now that I've had my Android phone for quite some time, I thought I'd list a few apps that have either stayed or been added to my favorites list. About 2 months ago, Cricket pushed out the Android 2.2 (Froyo) update, and a lot more apps have been available to me that weren't before. Here we go. Google Reader - I've loved the official Google Reader app. I've used Google Reader on the web for almost 5 years now, and the app is a wonderful addition. I've got a folder link on my screen that takes me directly to my "All Items" list and loads the new items quickly. Must have app if you use Google Reader to follow your favorite websites LauncherPro - This is a home screen replacement app. My favorite part about it is that it rarely restarts. Once in a while it will get into a funk and restart every time I close the Browser, but restarting my phone fixes that. The stock home screen constantly restarts, wasting all sorts of time.

Hot dang! Following these steps, I was able to turn my Android 1.6 infested Sanyo Zio into a wireless access point: 1 - Rooted my phone by downloading "Universal Androot" from the Android Market. 2 - Once installed, I launched it and selected the option to "Go Root". 3 - Then I downloaded "Barnacle Wifi Tether" from the Android Market. 4 - When I launched that, it asked for superuser permission (root access). I granted it. 5 - I hit Menu, then Settings, then enabled "Skip wpa_supplicant". 6 - I changed my SSID to "collins". I exited the Menu. 7 - I clicked the Start button, then Associate. 8 - My laptop recognized it and started connecting to it. Then I hit Associate again. Viola! I'm creating this blog post from my laptop tethered to my Android. I understand this isn't necessary for Android 2.2 and above, but Cricket has yet to release that for the Zio. UPDATE: Cricket's Froyo release didn't include wifi ...

So it's been almost a month since I bought my Android -based Sanyo Zio . Here're my short reviews of both Android in general, and the Zio (zy-oh) in particular. Android - Unfortunately, I'm stuck on version 1.6 . Though Cricket says they will be updating these eventually, nobody knows when. Even so, I've loved everything about it. I love the Google contact and calendar synchronization. I'll never have to transfer contacts, so long as I own an Android-based phone. I also love the Gmail and Facebook apps. Here's a finer break-down of various applications that I've found useful: Handcent SMS - This takes the stock text messaging software and upgrades it. It's fully customizable and allows message threads to be viewed as conversation bubbles. It also integrates Google's talk to text to make sending messages keyboard-free. Aldiko - Reading is my favorite hobby. And with Aldiko, I can read any free online book. My favorite economics/libertarian des...

For just over a year, I've been using Blogger, the blogging platform I use for this and my other blogs, to keep an online personal journal. I've simply set it up as a private blog, only viewable by the author, and send an email to it, to create entries. Here's how to set it up for yourself: Go to www.blogger.com . Signing in to Blogger: If you have a Google account, simply log in with it at the top. If you don't have a Google account, click "Create a Blog". This will take you to a form to create a Google account. Complete this step. Once complete, jump to Step 4 below. Once signed in to your Dashboard using you Google account, click "Create a Blog" at the top. The first step to creating your journal is to give it a name. I used "Personal Journal of Skyler Collins". Put your name in the space for Blog Title.

Great short video recapping the 2009 season for the Dallas Cowboys, NFC East Champions!

These cars just can't seem to stop sliding, LOL.