The Life List

Almost sixty years ago, a thoughtful teenager named John Goddard sat down at his kitchen table on a rainy afternoon and began to write a list of all of the things he would like to accomplish in his life. Some of his goals were prosaic (type 50 wpm), some were fanciful (appear in a Tarzan movie), some were predictable (climb Mount Everest) and some were profound (study native medicines to discover useful ones). Today, at the age of 74, Goddard has achieved 109 out of the 127 goals from his original list and lived an extraordinary life in doing it.

Goddard's purpose was not to circumscribe his future by focusing solely on his list, but to define the kind of person he sought to become. Being the type of man who would map the length of the Nile River was more important than the journey itself.

Depending on our age, a life list can have can have different meaning for each of us. Goddard had his whole adult life before him when he compiled his list. For those with more years behind than ahead, a list can be a tool for assessment and redefining what is truly important in our lives. It is an exercise worth attempting. You may discover that many goals that you assumed were unattainable are actually within reach.

Have you always wanted to build your own house? For less than the cost of a winter beach vacation, there is a school in Vermont that will provide you with all the basic skills in two weeks. Ever wanted to ride in a rodeo? A former world champion bull rider offers a weekend course for $328. He just puts beginners on the less belligerent livestock. Do you dream of sailing the ocean? There is a party in San Diego every autumn where yacht owners and people looking for crew births mingle and match up to sail south for the winter. Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Workweek, was able to live cheap in Buenos Aires for six months and hire one of the top dancers in Argentina for $8/hr to teach him tango. He made it to the semi-finals in the world championship.

Take out a clean sheet of paper and sharpen a pencil, then open up your imagination and see what comes out. You may surprise yourself.

300 Workout

When I saw the film 300, based on the historic Battle of Thermopylae, one of my first thoughts was that the actors must have spent six months in the gym, full time, to achieve the kind of musculature they displayed. I recently came upon a video that demonstrates what they went through to look like the greatest warriors of all time.

The programme is similar to the CrossFit system described here in an earlier post; high intensity, compound movements and constantly changing routines. The results speak for themselves.

Technorati Tags: 300,fitness,workout,exercise

History Lesson II

While talking politics with an American resident of San Juan del Sur, also named John, we agreed that the US military will be in Iraq for many years to come regardless of who becomes the next president. I pointed out that Britain had tried to subdue Iraq for forty years and failed, finally withdrawing in 1954.

To my tremendous surprise, John attributed the British failure in Iraq to their historic lack of martial prowess. How could he believe a country that conquered the largest empire in human history and maintained itself as the world's pre-eminent superpower for over two centuries was a military lightweight? In answer to my question, John admitted that his history tuition had come mainly from movies and was very likely inaccurate.

Out of curiosity, I asked John if he perceived his own country as having exceptional war fighting skill. "I would think so", he replied, "except for Viet Nam, the US has won every fight in its history." I told him that his assertion was somewhat mistaken and John asked me to explain, so I quickly walked him through a reverse chronology.

The wars that the United States has fought in the past thirty years have been embarrassingly one-sided; Grenada, Panama and even Iraq. In each case it was like watching Mike Tyson beat up a five year old. Viet Nam was the last real war and resulted in a humiliating defeat to a far weaker, but very determined, opponent. In the Korean War, the US held on by its fingernails and managed to pull out a draw.

Contrary to Hollywood mythology, America's military cannot take much credit for the outcome of the Second World War. The US didn't become involved in the European conflict until it was already half over, but did render some belated assistance to the Soviet Union in its final victory over Germany. General Eisenhower said the liberation of Europe cost America 80,000 lives. The USSR suffered 24 million dead. In the Far East, the United States required almost four years to defeat Japan in an unequal contest that the Japanese knew they had lost even before it started. Both the Germans and the Japanese held a low opinion of American fighting ability.

The First World War was a similar story. The United States army showed up in the last year of that struggle when it had already been decided, in time to witness the final collapse of an exhausted German Army. In the early years of the twentieth century there were several incursions into Latin America, essentially punitive expeditions to assert American dominance over the region.

The Spanish-American War in 1898 was a opportunistic land grab taking Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines from a hapless, crumbling Spanish Empire unable to offer more than token resistance. The Americans didn't have it all their own way, though. A few thousand Filipino guerillas tied down a US army of 100,000 men for several years in a fight for independence and were never defeated on the battlefield.

The American Civil War is not relevant here, so the next previous conflict with a foreign power was the Mexican-American War of 1846, another one-sided fight which the United States took advantage of to seize vast territories from Mexico, later formed into several new states. Prior to that was the War of 1812, in which the Americans attempted to invade Canada to force concessions from Britain and were thoroughly repulsed, twice.

In summary then, the United States military has failed in every conflict in which it faced an opponent with the capability and determination to defend itself, succeeding only when the result has been a foregone conclusion against a much weaker adversary.

Although it may not seem so, I actually like Americans and admire many things about their country, but their uninformed, unquestioning belief that the USA is and has been a great benevolent force in the world often makes them difficult people with whom to have a conversation. John now says that he wants to learn more about the history I described and will have to revise his thinking about the United States' self-image as a great warrior nation. If more Americans had a realistic view of their poor fighting record, it might have been more difficult to convince them to send troops into Iraq in the first place.

Technorati Tags: history,military,american,war

Back Road to Rivas

Trips to the regional capital of Rivas are an occasional necessity for things not available in my very small town. The bone shaking highway from San Juan del Sur has been described in a previous post, but there is also a winding dirt track through the countryside, rough in patches and muddy at this time of year, that will get you there just as quickly. With no traffic or construction and a relatively smooth surface, it's a far more enjoyable alternative.

As soon as I turned my motorcycle onto the Chocolata Road, I stopped briefly to remove my helmet and stow it in my backpack. No police bother watching this route, so no chance of a ticket. Of course, I wouldn't ride without a helmet in North America. The roads are much faster and you never know when a police car will appear. It's one of the little things that I enjoy about living in a place where the rules and regulations are in practice more like suggestions and rarely enforced.

The forty kilometres to Rivas turned out to be a unexpectedly entertaining ride, all the more so without the sweat and restricted peripheral vision caused by protective head gear. Was it foolhardy of me to ride that slippery road without a helmet? A little, perhaps, but I consider it a worthwhile risk.

Puddles had formed after the recent rains, some the size of swimming pools, that had to be waded through with my feet on the handlebars, but after a few kilometres they became fewer and small enough to be easily avoided. In some places I was forced to slow for a rut in the track or where a portion of the road had washed away. A couple of rambunctious young bulls were rough housing in the middle of the road at one point and I was content to pull over, waiting with the engine quietly idling for them to tire of the game and move on. As their play continued, one of the beasts put its horns into the other's side and started to push. In a moment a ton of beef was five metres away and careening towards me as I stamped the gear lever down into first and twisted the throttle open. The Yamaha leaped forward as the two animals surged past, still tussling, and a flailing hoof struck the rim of my rear wheel with a loud clang as I accelerated.

As the houses and pedestrians became more numerous, I knew that I was in the outskirts of Rivas and slipped my helmet back on. No need to give the local cops an opportunity to make a some extra income. My business in town only took an hour and I pulled off my helmet again as soon as I was back on the Chocolata. A few kilometres along the road I saw a young girl, arms straining with the weight of shopping bags, put her thumb out. She looked so exhausted I had to stop and offer her a ride. Christa had gone into town to do the grocery shopping for her family and was now making the four hour walk home. As she was explaining this, a movement caught my eye and I noticed a baby grey squirrel pop its head out of her purse. The tiny creature scurried onto her arm and surveyed me curiously as I laughed in surprise. A few minutes of trial and error were required before I had Christa and her bags arranged precariously on the motorcycle. As we moved off, her pet squirrel climbed up onto my shoulder and she began singing softly in a lilting soprano. Without my helmet to deafen me, I could hear every note.

Nicaragua Supports Obama

Hillary Clinton has just dropped out of the Democratic primaries for the United States presidential race and it will be Barak Obama facing John McCain in the November election. The primaries have been front page news in the Latin American press, followed with obsessive detail that visitors to the region might find surprising, but Latinos are very aware of the influence that the U.S. wields over their counties and their lives.

Even though none of the candidates has addressed America's relationship with Latin America and foreign policy discussion has focused exclusively on the Middle East, people in this part of the world hope for a U.S. leadership that is not as aggressive or reactionary as previous administrations. Less sabre rattling from Washington towards Venezuela and a more conciliatory tone in its relationships with Latin America's populist governments would be a welcome start towards assuaging popular resentment for America's history of harsh rule in the region.

During the Cold War, a political dissident in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe could have expected to be harassed and possibly jailed for their activities. In America's sphere of influence, Latin America dissidents feared being abducted by a CIA-trained death squad, not to reappear until their body was found horribly tortured, shot in the back of the head and dumped at a landfill site.

In 1968, when a new liberal government in Czechoslovakia began enacting policies of which Moscow did not approve, the Soviets executed a military coup d'etat, arrested the government leaders and imposed a repressive regime that curtailed recently acquired freedoms. A few years later, when a new liberal government in Chile began enacting policies of which Washington did not approve, the U.S. executed a military coup d'etat, had the government leaders killed and imposed a repressive regime that murdered an estimated 136,000 people. Latin Americans might reasonably question which superpower more deserved to be called 'The Evil Empire'.

President Richard Nixon was once quoted as saying, "Latin America doesn't matter. ... People don't give one damn about Latin America", and little appears to have changed around the Whitehouse in the decades since. In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination, Barak Obama stated his ambition to, "...restore our image as the last, best hope on Earth." Understandably, Latinos view such statements with bitter irony, but they still hope that a day will come when the United States will stand for ideals like democracy and freedom, as it has always proudly claimed it does.

Personal Organization Redux

Living on a beach in Nicaragua allows me a somewhat detached perspective on life in North America and from here personal organization websites and blogs like 43 Folders appear almost comical. There is endless advice offered on the minutiae of how better to structure your time and information, to the point of fetishism. Should you carry a Blackberry or a personal digital assistant to keep your days on track? How about the low tech Hipster PDA version using a stack of index cards bound with a bull clip? You can e-mail notes to your computer from your cell phone, or leave voice messages that will be automatically transcribed into text and sent to your e-mail inbox.

What's all the fuss? The incredibly complex ways people find to do simple things are astounding. Some years ago I was in an office supply store and came across a flip top cover that holds a standard 3 inch by 5 inch note pad. In black microfibre with kidskin leather over the hinge, this item from the Cambridge 'City' series by Meade is a handsome, pocket-sized organizational solution that costs a mere $9 and looks just as appropriate in a classroom or in a boardroom. I have never considered using anything else since. Pockets on the outside and inside of the front flap are the perfect size to hold 3 inch by 5 inch cards with my schedule and other quick reference information. A loop beside the pad holds a pen always conveniently ready for use.

As a page of the notepad is filled, I turn up the right hand bottom corner until the bottom edge of the page is aligned with its left-hand edge. When the next page is complete, the left-hand bottom corner is turned up to align the bottom edge with its right-hand edge. This practice is continued as the notepad fills up. The folded pages reveal the lower part of the next unused page, so that opening the cover and placing your thumb on the next page allows all of the filled pages to be flipped back, out of the way. Well structured notes make it easy to refer back among the folded pages. It's a note taking method common among police and military personnel.

If you follow David Allen's popular Getting Things Done programme, the notepad becomes your Inbox and a few cards serve to hold your categorized Next Actions list and Waiting For items. Project pages and Reference materials belong on your computer and your Contacts are already in your cell phone's memory. Updating your computer files from each days notes takes only a few minutes and requires you to review and organize your information. If your days are so hectic that you need more than this to run your life, then a PDA isn't the answer. Hire an assistant, or perhaps a virtual assistant

After years of being carried in my pocket the City notepad cover still looks like new. The compact pen that came with it was too small for my hand, but an excellent replacement that fits the pen loop perfectly is the Pilot G2 Mini gel pen. It's push button design allows for one-handed use and many online reviewers have praised the smooth writing G2 as their favourite writing instrument. If you want something more elegant and are willing to spend the money, the Porsche Design P3140 pen is an alternative.

Leave the Blackberry at home. Organizational experts warn that e-mail is a distraction and should only be checked twice a day anyway. A wad of index cards makes you look like a chump. Expensive high-tech gadgetry isn't necessary to keep yourself organized. All anyone really needs to carry with them is some basic reference information, a clean sheet of paper and a pen. Of course, if you want to radically improve your productivity, you could try "The Four Hour Work Week"

Technorati Tags: 43Folders. organization,PDA,HipsterPDA,GTD

The Well Traveled Home

A house by the ocean is a popular dream and the real estate developers in San Juan del Sur are happy to encourage it with promises to build your own white stucco hacienda with clay tiled roof for about $100,000. If your budget doesn't go that far and your esthetic sense cries out for something different, an intriguing solution is being offered under the term cargotecture, architecture that employs standard shipping containers as modular building components.

Due to China's trade surplus, empty shipping containers are piling up in dockyards around the world simply because they are cheaper to replace than to ship back empty. Currently, over four million more containers arrive in the United States each year than are shipped out and the resulting surplus has driven prices down to as little as $1,000. Constructed to precise international standards, containers are strong enough to be stacked nine high while fully loaded and some imaginative architects are seeing a world of possibilities in these sturdy 40'x8'x8' boxes.

Its steel frame is the container's load bearing component, so the corrugated steel panels that make up the sides can be cut away partially to install windows and doors, or entirely to combine two or more containers together, without weakening the structure. Virtually any configuration is possible. Once it is lined with sprayed foam insulation, installing wiring, plumbing, interior surfaces and fixtures can make a container ready for habitation at a price of about $75 per square foot in North America. Compared with the $200 per square foot cost of on site house construction, cargotecture starts to make sense.

Pour a concrete pad as a foundation and the finished containers can be trucked to the site, put in place with a crane and bolted into position. A structure of two containers side by side has 640 square feet of interior floor space, more than sufficient for a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living area. Extending the roof creates an additional outdoor living space, usable year round in Nicaragua's climate.

Perhaps not ideal for urban applications, cargotecture can deliver a cottage or beach house faster, far cheaper and with lower environmental impact than traditional building. With the addition of a well, composting toilet and wind powered electrical generator, you can step off the grid with only the lightest of ecological footprints.