Practice

The Magic Words of Flossing

Do you floss? I’ve found that there seem to be two kinds of people: those who answer that question with an incredulous look and “Of course! Who doesn’t?” and those who get a kind of wistful/guilty look on their face and say “Well…sometimes…” unwilling to admit they’ve had the same box of floss in their …

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Practice

The Magic Words of Flossing

Do you floss? I’ve found that there seem to be two kinds of people: those who answer that question with an incredulous look and “Of course! Who doesn’t?” and those who get a kind of wistful/guilty look on their face and say “Well…sometimes…” unwilling to admit they’ve had the same box of floss in their …

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Life

A Message from a Veteran of the Truth & Health Culture Wars

This post is a couple of days late, and it comes after an astonishing “science march” in which thousands of researchers and teachers in the STEM fields protested what they saw as government interference in fact-based research as opposed to the influence of faith-based institutions controlling resources devoted to education and further studies. It also …

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Practice

Practicing Micro-Changes

This morning, in the midst of grumping about a lot of things that really didn’t need grumping about, my phone was brightened by a photo from a reader of this blog. The title of the photo was “Gray-induced Micro-Changes” and it looked like this: Confused? I was. She quickly explained: “First visible parking spot. Even …

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Practice

Practice in Practice

This entry is being written from a hospital bed, so I’m not going to make it very long. It’s a minor procedure, just a little hernia repair, but it is a different situation. I don’t usually spend a lot of time in hospitals, at least not as a patient. It means I’m outside my comfort …

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Practice

the power of the next “no”

A Simple Plan I started a relatively basic but drastic life hack last week. I call it “no obvious sugars”, and basically the idea is to cut out the blatant sweets in my diet. Things like donuts, candy, cookies, cereal, I’m even going so far as to eliminate things like ketchup or soda with high-fructose …

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Practice

review of Misfit Shine Activity Tracker

I aim to misbehave… I confess, I’m a sucker for marketing. I’ve taken the plunge into the world of the quantifiable self and purchased a wearable activity tracker. After doing a lot of research, I ended up going with the Misfit Shine. The reasons for my choice, in no particular order: Doesn’t need regular charging …

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Practice

why cheat when you can win

“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’!” That sentiment, from one of my favorite close-combat instructors, is an incredibly useful mantra when in a struggle. It’s a reminder that in some situations, the only rules that matter are the ones that matter to you – and that playing by your opponent’s rules is giving them …

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Life

living the life you wish

Freelancer’s Fantasy Paging through Fast Company Magazine, years ago, trying to answer the gnawing question: “Gray, why aren’t your living the life you wish?” There is an ad for a resort in Northern England. Not the tropical kind of getaway, obviously, but playing on the beautiful scenery of the region. It shows a man in …

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augmented Life

Quantify Hard

I don’t want you to think, from my last post, that I’m some anti-number Luddite. I’d love to have a Fuelband, I love the sensor on my nephew’s car that shows how many miles I can still travel on the gas in the tank, and I can spend hours playing with Google Analytics and feeling strange wonder at the …

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