Rick Manelius

a little bit about a lot of things...

Announcing My First eBook: Never Forget, Never Regret

“You should write a book.”

Although I always appreciated the compliment, but I could never tell if it was sincere or not. Was I really that good or creative at writing? Or was it simply like the words of a mother, who’s unconditional love was so strong that even a finger painting of a blue dog would land itself on the fridge.

Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. We all have things to share (thoughts, pictures, stories, laughs, hugs) and it gets boring to sit on the sidelines and let everyone else have the fun. Sure, we can be self depreciating and claim that no one will care or our actions won’t mean anything. But I disagree. Sometimes the seemingly insignificant things we in life can completely change the lives of someone else, whether we know it or not. And so what if it doesn’t? I’m not willing to take that chance!

Book Burning

The Great Bookmark Burning Experiment of 2012

I used to abhor the idea of book burning. It represents censorship, the repression of thought, and the destruction of knowledge that took years to obtain, distill, package, and transmit. And I still detest information purging when done with such ill intent.

Bookmarks, however, are a completely different story. Content is being generated at an almost incomprehensible level. Just today alone (March 12th, 2012), there were over 184 million words published on wordpress.com hosted blogs. That is 2.5 bibles worth of content produced in a single day on one web service. Multiply that by thousands of sites around the world (and in other languages) and you can see it’s literally impossible to keep up.

And yet we try…

Bike jump - Flickr - sgym@622

Want to Go from Beginner to Pro? Then Trade In Your Ego for Some Training Wheels

Let’s face it, we live in a culture that craves, expects, and outright demands instant gratification. We want to lose weight in 30 days in one day NOW. We see an amazing gadget on the internet and we want it delivered to our door by 8 am tomorrow morning. And heaven forbid if the movie we want to watch isn’t already on demand and queued up in our Netflix/Comcast account, because that means we may actually have to drive to one of those archaic brick and mortar stores to pick it up!

I wish I was being facetious. But if I am brutally honest with myself, I fit this pattern in various aspects of my life. You probably do as well.

Pile of Books by ailatan (Flickr)

Will You Actually Read All Those Bookmarks You're Hoarding?

It started like every other day (queue the ominous background music). And yet somehow a software synchronization went awry and I lost over 1200+ bookmarked links in my Safari browser. I was livid. All those articles I meant to read, all those useful reference materials, and all those things that I thought were important… all gone. And all I could think about was how many days it worth of time it would take to find and reorganize them all. It was a hoarders worst nightmare (e.g. to lose all the precious nothings that one worked so hard to collect, even if they offered no real value to one’s life).

Maxwell Equations T-Shirt - Zazzle.com

Power Dork Mode

Power Dork Mode Defined: The ability to switch (mid sentence) from an otherwise normal human being to a super geek, often to the shock and bewilderment of all bystanders.

When people think of MIT, it conjures up the stereotypical images of a college full of nerdy computer programmers that haven’t seen the light of day in weeks. And to be fair, those people do exist (and God bless them and their dedication to their craft). However, most people visiting the campus are often surprised at how ‘normal’ most students appear outwardly. These student know pop culture, they play sports, they have lots of hobbies, and they appear to be like the students you’d meet at any other campus. That is until…

Longmont, CO

How Did You Get Here?

Rick’s Rules #17a (in my owner’s manual (which is still being written)): pay attention when life brings you messages in threes, particularly when it’s an open ended question. The I-don’t-believe-in-coincidences part of me wishes to suggest that…
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… you may just find a tiny trail… that leads to avenue __ that leads to a highway ===== that leads to your next big move in life.

Or, it may just give you a moment for self reflection!

2012 Numbers - Eleek Inc

My 3 Words for 2012

I love goals. They give me targets to focus on, move towards, and (ultimately) achieve. And I agree with Jack Canfield that it’s EXTREMELY important to be very specific and clear in the wording… lest you set a goal so nebulous, lofty, or vague that one can’t objectively tell if you achieved it or not. Easy example: the goal of “losing weight” versus stating “I’ll weigh 201 pounds by March 1st 2012 at 6PM.”

A cat hanging on

Just 10 More Seconds: A Mantra for Goal Achievement

I can't stand jogging. I find it to be the most boring form of exercise there is. I would much rather bike, swim, play soccer, do yoga, lift weights, or do just about anything but jogging. So imagine my delight to discover that we were required to do a 3 'warm up' jog before each practicing during my 4 years as a varsity track and field athlete at MIT. Even though I was primarily a jumper/sprinter, we all had the same slog jog each day.

Groan...

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