On Quicktrim

I look around my room and I see SEASON OF THE MACHETE by James Patterson, and I'm sorry because I had succeeded in forgetting it. I've heard that he was better earlier in his career before he collaborated with so many other writers, but this book is over 30 years old and it seems to me to have his virtues and faults. It's very gory and dramatic, but also confused and un-credible. He didn't even present all his back story. I still have no idea why the husband and wife team did what they did. Or what the CIA and the Mafia wanted them to do. Or why. I think it had some buried message of anti-imperialism, but it was too far buried. It did succeed in grossing you out -- using a machete to kill and chop dead bodies up. They didn't need quicktrim to lose weight. Though, actually, the man killed the people with a gun first. Why? I don't know. Those questions are never answered. Maybe he matured later. I suspect co-writers do most of the work these days.

On best wrinkle creams

I'm sure that from now on will be a good time to sell the best wrinkle creams, because we baby boomers keep getting older and none of us want to look our age, even us men who are more careless about such things than women. I don't focus on it, but I would like to have the time and money to spend not only on exercise for my heart and lungs and muscles, but on rejuvenating my skin as well. I'm hoping I'm at the nadir of my health, or rather that was June 2009 when I retired from my first job. That's when I stopped eating horribly and went on something close to the Zone diet. I'm not a consistent or thorough as I want to be, but I'm a lot better than the days when I ate a large fast food meal complete with a quart of soda every evening for dinner.

On project management software

Recently I spent some time doing a description of a course on using architectural software -- not project management software. It was sort of interesting to see how sophisticated this software was in handling all the elements of designing buildings. I wonder how architects did it when they had to use blueprints, especially when they did innovative things. One famous architect used to live in Alton Illinois where I grew up. His daughter Toni Flippo was in my high school class, but I didn't know her. We didn't run in the same crowd at all. I doubt she knew I existed. One relative of his second wife was selling cars at a dealership in Ballwin when I took my mother around to look for a new car.

On migraine treatment

One thing I'd like to do is re-listen to the email writing seminar Matt Furey gave years ago for AWAI. Although most of it is teaching by example rather than with much in the way of formulas or techniques. And he gave a long talk extra for free the night before that was pretty incredible, especially when he describes what monks in Japan do to achieve some kind of sainthood. It's an incredible series of things such as running many marathons about two out of three days, then going through periods of fasting and going without sleep. It's exhausting just to imagine. It'd be a good migraine treatment, because if you can do all that you're stronger than most diseases. The monk he was talking about actually did it twice, and once had to kill some animal. Snake? Wild pig? I forget.

On Enzyte

Ah, if only I could relive much of my life knowing what I know now. I'd become a highly paid copywriter, author and speaker, making tons of money. I'd invest it in income producing investments and would be worth an incredible fortune by now. Maybe I'd retire even before the Internet came along, and switch to writing horror and fantasy novels while living in The Philippines on a tropical beach paradise with my family. Now I know how frustrating it is for older people to give advice to young people who think they know it all, but are blinded by the present, and don't realize how fast the future comes. All the enzyte in the world won't stop it. But you have to learn these lessons the hard way. You're lucky to learn them in time to profit from them. Lots of people don't seem to ever learn them.

On acne on neck

I'm re-reading CASH COPY by Jeffrey Lant, a fantastic book on copywriting which I wish I'd fully appreciated back when I first bought it from him. If I'd bought that and his book on marketing and promoting myself, I believe I'd be much wealthier, happier and healthier today. I could have put myself in business as a copywriter back then, and made money from it part time, then full time, and taken advantage of the Internet as so many others have done. Or perhaps I could have wound up working for Boardroom, Phillips, Agora or one of the other big time mailers. Maybe Rodale Press, since I'm interested in alternative health. I didn't appreciate the potential of the opportunity and of my own writing skills. Some people regret acne on neck. I regret not being rich yet.

On pool pumps

I'm looking forward to having a small swimming pool in The Philippines, but I don't know what kind of pool pumps are available. And the water needs to be purified, but I would prefer not to use chlorine. I know there's some way of doing it with ozone, but I don't know much about it, or whether it would be available, or if it would be the same cost or more expensive. And I wonder if I could buy enough land to make it a full twenty-five yards long, the length I'm used to for working out. I do know of some large pools, but they are connected to resorts. Maybe I could just buy the resort. That may be cheaper than having a new swimming pool constructed, buying the land and all.