A Splintered Mind

I realize this post will be far off the beaten path but I hope you'll humor me. I came across the most wonderful comic today when exploring Russell Stutler's website . It is called "A Strange Wind Blowing" He captured that wonderful nostalgic feeling I used to get on a blustery day. Remember how it felt to have the wind give you the feeling you could fly when you were a child? We were so light a strong wind could move us. Dreams of flying were natural. When I was a young boy I didn't just wish to fly when the wind was particularly gusty. I actively tried to fly. Even long past when I knew that I couldn't fly I would let the wind flap my clothes and I would imagine flying. Sometime in my life I forgot about flying, even in my dreams. Instead, I dreamed of falling and being chased 1 . When I was awake this morning at 5am I wasn't thinking about flying then, either. A cold front had moved in overnight and the wind was howling and beating at my windows. I ...

The number six symptom in Hallowell and Ratey's Diagnostic Criteria for Attention Deficit Disorder in Adults is a need for high stimulation. 6. A frequent search for high stimulation. The Adult with ADD is always on the lookout for something novel, something engaging, something in the outside world that can catch up with the whirlwind that's rushing inside. My mother tells of a story where my late brother, Ryan, created a new sport one day. It involved BMX bikes and trampolines. Now, one thing you have to understand about Utah is that a family is not a real family unless there is a trampoline in their backyard. It is that important. When a neighbor moved away and left their trampoline behind, my children could finally hold their heads up high in school even though the trampoline wasn't large enough to bounce two hyperactive chinchillas on. You would think with access to a full olympic sized trampoline my brother and his friend would have been content. B...

Tired of putting your employees to sleep when you need them attentive? Have your family meetings been running on and on pointlessly? Do people dread your phone calls because they don't have an hour to waste? If so, you may be interested in this book by Milo O. Frank. It's not new. In fact, it's been in publication for twenty years. However, the lack of modern jargon and references to archaic business apparatuses don't take away from the salient points Frank has to make about communication. Terribly thin at 120 pages, you could almost polish it off during lunch break. The book is padded with anecdotal stories to prove Frank's points. I found the interjection of anecdotal stories interruptive, but without them "30 Seconds" would have been more of a pamphlet than a book. I should warn you that the book is very sales and business centric, but the principals covered can be applied to other arenas in life. Some points may seem self-evident, but then again if ...

Before launching into this week's column I wanted to follow up a bit on last week's column where I faced my fears of incapacitation and took a ride in an MRI . Well, the results are in and it doesn't look good. The doctor says that my brain is normal. I'm not sure how to feel about that. On one hand, I went through all that for nothing and we're still not any closer to understanding my disability. On the other hand, I'm normal which means I'm trading the book club for a golf club and buying a SUV. I'd almost rather go into the machine again. While I wrangle with my newfound normalness, I thought I'd explore an AD/HD problem near and dear to my heart: The ADHDer's inability to get to the point when speaking. Of all the adorable eccentricities born of my AD/HD brain, I believe the one trait that is guaranteed to cause seething hatred in my fellow man is my inability to get to the point. Oh, I start out towards the point, but somehow the point be...

Lord Peter Wimsey finds love in a courtroom when he determines to prove the falsely accused mystery author, Harriet Vane, innocent. Unfortunately, her boyfriend, the demised, was poisoned in a manner which coincidentally was the subject of her latest book. When absolutely everybody, including Harriet's defense, is convinced of her guilt how will Lord Peter Wimsey prove otherwise? Why would I read this book when I was so unimpressed with the first Dorothy L. Sayers book, "Whose Body?" ? Mostly because I wanted to see how much she had improved. "Strong Poison" was written a decade later and is a vast improvement over Sayers first offering. I'm still not a big fan of detective novels. I especially didn't like fractured narrative where we're introduced to a secretary who becomes the main character for a short while 3/4th through the story. However, I really liked Peter Wimsey this time around. Sayers didn't feel compelled to write him as an eccent...

While using a beta of Flock, this column was deleted along with all of its comments. I was managing blog entries when Flock did weird and interesting things. The next morning a reader informed me that this column was gone. How fun. I won't be using Flock like THAT for a while. I have recreated the entry using Google cache (Thanks, Sandra) and gmail. Thanks for your patience. The new year is under way and I feel like it's dragging me along underneath. Nothing can set one back quite like a succession of illnesses. The deep bags under my eyes are like rolls of cloth. The flab around my waist is gaining character. Energy is a faint memory as if I had it once in a former life.  Back then I was on this earth as a wind turbine but now I've come back as a wind sock. If I'm not careful I could develop a full blown depression, but what better way shake off depression than to contemplate my upcoming MRI? Before I get into that I should mention what I've been up to last m...