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Bottom line: A must-read book for every grad (high school and college) and learning professional. The book is both wise and entertaining, but perhaps not worth the $16 (hint: get it from your local library).

Dan Pink, the author who brought us the insightful A Whole New Mind (I just realized I never reviewed here - my mistake!), may have just redefined business writing with Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need. Bunko is written as a full-length manga (the Japanese comic style; pronounced “MAHNG-ah”) story. Except for the fact that the book is read left to right (contrary to traditional manga), the book’s art uses the over-dramatic and over-stylized form, which provides a very entertaining read. I love the animated preview (below) which uses the Japanese anime style (the cousin to manga).

Just like another blogger who reviewed the book, I finished the 160 pages in a little over an hour. However, the book packs a lot into such a brief reading period. The author’s six key points are written into a singular storyline in which the protagonist Johnny finds his way from a miserable, dead-end job to a turn-around in his career and life outlook. The writing style is naturally succinct due to the comic form, but also memorable. What I love is that Pink follows points I picked up from Made to Stick (another of my favorite books) about crafting a persuasive message.

There is plenty of tongue-in-cheek as the characters often poke fun at the manga comic style itself and the author (there are a few references to Pink’s prior books). There are also more than a couple overused jokes, but these can be forgiven in light of the quality of the career advice provided.

As I mention in my bottom line above, I’m not sure the $16 cover price is justified. On the one hand, the artwork alone would explain the beefy price tag, but I think this qualifies the book as an excellent gift. Personally, I enjoyed being the first in line to get it out of the Centreville library. And since it took me no time to read (and write this review!), I’ll be able to return it tomorrow to give someone else the benefit of reading it.

Despite what anyone says right now, I love the rain! After spending a miserable weekend sneezing, coughing, and with the itchiest, burniest, swollenest eyes you can imagine, this pollen-wash-down of the D.C. area is truly a blessing.

I even had a doctor’s appointment today to see why the Zyrtec–which worked miracles at this time last year–was doing nothing this year. I knew I had it bad when I had taken a Zyrtec, a Claritin, and a Benadryl and had poured five different kinds of eyedrops into my burning orbs…to absolutely no effect. Yikes. At least the homeopathic remedies took the edge off — cold compresses and tea bags on the eyes. Yeah, I’m that desperate.

The doctor’s prognosis? “A couple day outburst like that isn’t uncommon. Stick with your current meds.” Oh man. I may actually gouge out my eyes if I get another attack like that.
She gave me a sample of some nasal steroid stuff which is supposed to help with particularly itchy eyes. Hopefully, I’ll be able to enjoy this rain for a few more days before needing to try it out.

The only downfall: I haven’t had a chance to get to the lawn yet. It’s already about a foot tall and with all this rain…I might need a sickle to get through it when the storms finally pass! Oh well, I deal with that then…

I have been with Verizon Wireless for many years now. Every two years, they send me a reminder to renew my contract. Now this is a dangerous move for Verizon: what if that’s the reminder I’m waiting for to switch cell providers? However, they sweeten the deal by giving me a coupon for a new phone (along with a contract renewal, this means I get a new phone for $50 off the new customer price).

So every two years, I examine my cell behavior to determine my best course of action. I check out all the providers, consider pre-paid plans, and look at additional services. Currently, I figure I’m using less than 400 minutes a month, but I’ve gotten more in to text messaging recently (and I pay for every message I send or receive). I would also like to send photo and video messaging. But there are so many choices…

This year, I thought it would be best to leverage all of my social networks to see what guidance I can get from my friends and family! I’m also testing a new survey service and WordPress plugin.

Please complete and submit the survey

I’d also appreciate any comments you have about the survey tool. Thanks!

Update: The WordPress plugin doesn’t seem to want to display the embedded form correctly, so I’ve included a link to the survey instead.

The video below was part of a short-lived, but complicated, practical joke I attempted to play on a colleague. It’s what as known as a “Rick Roll.” It’s an overused joke, to be sure, but in context I thought it would be pretty funny. Consider it a delayed April Fools prank…and thanks for putting up with me!

Some great news to report from the Roades homestead! First, we had a fun time celebrating Zoe’s third birthday (see photos) over the weekend. Nana spent the weekend and we invited our good friends the Pipers over for a small party. We started off with dinner and opened presents. I made a Boz cake for Zoe (photo below) - my first shot at cake decorating. Not laughably bad, and at least it tasted great!

Then, for the perfect birthday present, Zoe got a clean bill of health from her cardiologist on Monday! Yay! You may remember that when Zoe was born, the doctors heard a heart murmur and said she had a small hole in her heart. A follow-up visit to the cardiologist was inconclusive, so we were told to come back around her third birthday.

Dutiful parents that we are, the troops (all four of them now!) went in to spend yet another grueling morning getting another echo. Thankfully, the cardiologist said she looks 100% and there’s no need to come back. Praise God for answered prayer! (and thank Heaven for healthy little girls!)

Be sure to check out the March gallery! There are pics of us at the National Gallery of Art - see which painting had Rayna mesmorized (see photo, right).

There are also a couple shots of the kids at our community’s Easter egg hunt - fun!

And, as always, there are lots of cute snapshots of all the kids (one of my favs below). Enjoy!

Last Sunday, Myra passed yet another milestone: starting solids! At almost exactly her 6-month birthday (which is 4/7 - Zoe’s birthday; more on that later), we decided to give it a go. She’s been quite the champ! While she has made it known (clearly) that she doesn’t prefer broccoli (I don’t blame her) or peas (that one I don’t quite get), she happily gulps down cereal, carrots, and lentils. I’ll be posting video soon, but I just got the March photos up and I wanted to share the good news.

Myra’s also growing like a weed. She passed her 6-month check-up with flying colors and is tipping the top of the charts in height and weight (of course, what else could we expect from one of our porky-babies?!). Though of all the kids, she’s the smallest at her age (which is really just saying the others girls were HUGE at her age!). According to the pediatric nurse, “fat babies are happy babies,” so we’re all pleased that she’s growing, healthy, and happy!

I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure out that this would be a good idea, but you can now get email updates from our site! While you have always been able to use RSS to subscribe to theroades.com (it’s the big orange icon on the site), I realize that some of you (ah-hem, most of our family) are still most comfortable with email. Click the “Subscribe” link that now appears in the menu, enter your email address, and click the link in the confirmation email you receive. From then on, you’ll get an email every time we post a new article!

Now for my soapbox…RSS (”really simple syndication”) is far superior to email for managing information (I adhere to the “inbox zero” mentality that’s part of my own personal “getting things done“). For those of you who want to step into the 21st century of web technology, think of it as subscribing to web content the same way you’d subscribe to a newspaper or magazine. If you find a magazine you like, you don’t want to check the newsstands every week for the latest edition - you subscribe to it and it comes to you instead.

When you subscribe to a site (e.g., a blog, a newspaper, the weather, etc.) using RSS, you no longer need to check the site to see if there’s something new. A site publishes something new, and it gets delivered to you through something called an RSS reader. I use Google Reader - it’s easy and web-based, so I can access it from home or work. If you already have a Google account, you’re all set to go! You may need to adjust your RSS options in Firefox (what, you aren’t using it?) so the browser automatically adds feeds to that reader.

For a little more insight, I included the Common Craft video “RSS In Plain English” that shows this idea visually:

As part of our investigative journey into homeschooling the kids, Rebecca began teaching Rayna how to read and write in February. We’re using the DISTAR method, which is one of the more popular phonetic methods. I really enjoy the approach they take both theoretically and practically, as it lays out the activities in a well-written manner.

They’ve only completed 11 lessons during which Rayna has been consistently ready to jump ahead. But the photo below is a testimony to the effectiveness of their work together:

Rayna wrote this while patiently waiting for mom and dad to finish a conversation after church on Sunday. Dad gave her a piece of paper and a pen and a minute later she handed this back! You can see her first attempt at an “R” followed by a successful attempt at writing her name. Wow!

As we prepared for bed Sunday night, Rayna felt compelled to write down “a list” of things she wanted to do the next day. (I believe this was inspired by a Frog & Toad story - remember these classics?).

While this may not have actual words (except “see”?), the fact that she wrote a list of what seem to be practice letters really pleases me. And since Zoe has been paying attention as Rayna is going through the program, I can only imagine that teaching her will go even faster since much of it will already be familiar to her.

A special kudos to Rebecca who didn’t think she’d have the “chops” to teach the kids…obviously a load of dookie!

A while back, I whined about how last Fall’s network TV lineup was both inspiring and disappointing. In an update, I revised my opinion of a couple of the shows I had originally chagrined. The long writer’s strike really opened my eyes to the truth: There is very little good on television these days.

When the strike first happened, I found myself wondering how I would get along without my favorite shows to listen to in the mornings as I work out (typically the only time I watch TV). However, I quickly found alternative sources to satisfy my media fix. Namely, Netflix streaming video and Hulu.

Netflix is the online video rental service. We have had an account for several years. I love maintaining a “queue” of movies on-line, having the DVDs delivered to our mailbox, and being able to return them whenever I want via the mail. Turnaround is fast and because the site has recommendations (based on your past viewing), we’ve stumbled across indie and foreign films that have been surprisingly great.

Netflix launched a streaming video service a while back, but it was limited to a certain number of hours a month. Now, with the 3 movies/month a plan and higher, you get unlimited streaming movies and shows. While the catalog isn’t exhaustive, it has a lot of mainstream movies (I even found Batman Beyond and Superman animated feature-length films, which was fun) and TV shows. Most recently, we watched the 80s version of Annie which the kids liked. Perhaps because the site is drawing more viewers, we started to notice performance problems (pauses in the video). Hopefully, they’ll get that fixed.

Hulu is an NBC venture that offers a number of streaming TV shows and movies, too. Until recently, it was in private beta. That’s changed, however, and now anyone can get an account (free). With Hulu, you get access to tons of shows, though often with a strange selection of episodes (e.g., seasons 1 and 3 or random missing episodes in the middle of a season). I have enjoyed getting caught up on missed Simpsons episodes and seeing some shows like “S.W.A.T.” from the 80s for the first time. All shows have “minimal commercials,” which means a single commercial instead of several every 10-15 minutes. Not bad, even though you can’t fast-forward through them.

Check them out and let me know what you think!