Travis Eneix

File this under cautionary tale: I was doing my morning blog crawl and read a piece over at diet-blog entitled The Top 10 Sources of Stigma. In it they list the top 10 sources of negative reaction to overweight people. They also included the title of the research paper that list was based on which I found and read. The most amusing factor is this - Of the various coping mechanisms utilized by overweight folks when dealing with negative reactions 25% responded that they had used Physical Violence to deal with such comments. That’s right folks, be careful whom you disparage - They may punch you in your skinny face with a beefy appendage. The laws of physics put the favor on the fatty. These thoughts keep me warm at night.

I love writing. Fiction writing in particular, but all forms in general. I love reading. I love reading about writing. My shelf at home is FULL of books about writing. Thus, and entry on my Google homepage LifeHack.org add in brought a smile to my face this morning when I read the title - 5 Rules of Effective Writing, by George Orwell. This article was based on a post over at PickTheBrain.com, a webiste of which I am also a fan. I keep a copy of Orwell’s rules, along with Heinlein’s on a little sheet of paper pasted to my cubicle wall and another in the back of my writing Moleskine. The note also includes Edward Tufte’s Presentation Rules, Orwell’s Questions, Strunk and White’s: Principles of Composition and a list of Evil Passive Verbs. Whenever I get stuck on a sentence or paragraph this tips sheet helps me immensely.

George Orwell’s rules are -

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I find that if I can obey these rules in my fiction writing I at least do well, of not down right good.

Equally useful are the rules of Robert Heinlein -

1. You Must Write
2. Finish What Your Start
3. You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
4. You Must Put Your Story on the Market
5. You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

You can find an excellent expansion on Heinlein’s rules over at Robert J. Sawyer’s site SFwriter.com entitled - On Writing. Robert concludes by adding a sixth rule, “Start Working on Something Else”, which is excellent advice that I also got from Stephen King.

The only rule I would add is -

Travis’ rule of writer’s attitude - Any rule isn’t.

‘Rules’ like the ones listed above are guidelines. Damn good ones discovered by masters of literary skills over long years of sweat and passion, but simply guidelines and nothing more. Good advice. The beauty of fiction writing, like any kind of creative endeavor, is that in truth there are no rules. You can get away with whatever you want to. The only question is - will it be of sufficient entertainment quality that someone else will be able to enjoy it? The above ‘Rules’ are indispensable guidelines and landmarks for finding ones way to that goal.

Well, not really. I haven’t put banana on my cereal for quite sometime, and when I did it was not Chiquita, but… check this out - Chiquita banana company admits paying terrorists to protect operations

Indeed, the world is an odd place.

Breaking news today - Treatment To Prevent Migraines Boosts Work Productivity

The title alone gets a big - Well, yeah.

But the leading paragraph is pure “Ya think!” gold:

For workers with migraines, taking a daily medication to prevent headache attacks can reduce lost productive time on the job, reports a study in the March Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

So, if I get this right, not having a migraine in the middle of the work day makes your total productivity for the day go up.  Wow!  Who would have thunk it?  Seriously, I understand how medical research scientists can feel pressured to justify their existence and income by producing studies, but is this really their best effort?

I just came across a post by Jamie, over at the Really Useful Fitness Blog, about an article by Mike Geary from his TruthAboutAbs.com website - Unique Lean-Body Workouts for the Time-Crunched Individual

Read it, love it.

A few years back I became a half-fan of Matt Furey, and specifically his championing of the traditional Indian wrestling exercise moves, the Hindu Squat and the Hindu Pushup. I don’t agree with large portions of what Matt Furey proposes, but his fitness stuff is solid. Mostly.

In any event, I have found body weight exercises to be of paramount use to me over the years and whole heartedly recommend them. A few years back, while attending a gym and going to my Aikido dojo very regularly, my knees began to give me problems again. Due to my past weight issues, and my ‘push my body until it breaks’ attitude I have blown both knees out a few times over the years. A chiropractor finally clued me into the most probable agitator of the situation. She said I probably had what is called a ‘joint mouse’ in both knees - an errant bit of hard cartilage build up that floated around inside the joint, and when positioned near the middle of the joint was pushing the it open in a way that made it vulnerable to dislocation. She, and a doctor of sports medicine I had examine my knee after one really bad episode, recommended a strict program of strengthening the muscles around the joint and upper leg to keep the joint supported, tight, and strong. I already knew that squats were the single most strengthening exercise a human can do, and had read some of Matt Furey’s articles in Black Belt magazine about the wonders of Hindu Squats.

Ta dah!!

I began a practice of doing sets of both exercises throughout the day. At my peak I was doing 7 - 10 sets of 100 reps each and every day, often in my cubicle. Well, it worked, and my knees have never given me a problem since.

Later I went through a period of training with Jim Schmidtz for Olympic style power lifting, and again the daily squats were very useful. In five months time my weighted squat went from 8 - 10 reps of 120 pounds to 3 sets of 2 - 3 reps at 325 pounds. Not a bad increase. Jim had to move his operation after a falling out with the gym’s co-owner to a location I cannot fit into my schedule. But, the lessons I learned during my stint as an Olympic lifter have stuck.

In subsequent years I incorporated bodyweight exercises (calisthenics) into my routine more and more, and combined them with my sessions at the dojo as well. After not setting foot into the gym for a year while still paying monthly dues I finally quit, and have never regretted it once.

Bodyweight exercises work. Well. They are obviously not the best solution, but anyone who is suffering from waning motivation in there fitness quest would do themselves well to give these exercises a try.

One of my favorite routines for when I was bored with my regular routine is the Deck of Cards Round Up: Take a deck of cards with two jokers. Shuffle them. Pick three exercises, one of which should be a high-rep possibility. For me the exercises were - Hindu Push up, V-Up, and for the high-rep Hindu Squats. Flip a card. If it’s black do the first exercise that many times. If it’s red do number two. If it’s a joker, hit the high-rep. Face cards are sets of ten, Aces are 20s.