Thursday Things

November 30, 2017

What I’m Reading

I listened to Shooting Ghosts: A U.S. Marine, a Combat Photographer, and Their Journey Back from War and it nearly brought me to tears several times. One of the best narratives on wartime trauma I’ve read, told from two different perspectives.
I read The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company in about 2 hours, which means I gathered most of what I needed with a quick scan. This is geared towards big company executive development but there are some good lessons in there regarding the transition from managing individual contributors to managing other managers.
I’m using Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body to guide my weight training and diet routine. It is a bit late for me to strive for the Ultimate Male Body but there’s always room for improvement, right?
The Lies of Locke Lamora is one of the best fantasy books I’ve read in a while. Looking forward to reading book 2.
Don’t bother with Jocko Willink’s Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual as it is a poorly written, poorly formatted, shallow treatment of some simple concepts like “wake up early, eat clean, and work out.”

I worked in two different Advanced Squad Leader sessions over the past two weeks and will be playing again tomorrow. I’m joining an online league for beginners which will allow me to mix up my playing partners more, hopefully leading to more learning and tactical improvement.
Allen and I snuck in a game of Twilight Struggle after our ASL game.
Ken, Spence and I took another go at Triumph & Tragedy and we fought it out big time. Whereas last game I won without ever going to war, in this one we were at each other’s throats from 1937 on.
We invited neighbors over to teach them Tichu and it went over well.
On Thanksgiving we played Wits & Wagers and Power Grid with friends. Power Grid was a big hit with the 4 new players.
While Matthew was home we played Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game and the newish expansion to Dominion, Dominion: Adventures. Adventures is not technically a standalone expansion but we played with only cards from it and liked the new (to us) mechanics.

A Field Guide to Dudes Who Ruin Meetings – Part and Sum – If you’ve ever been in a meeting, chances are you’ve encountered one (or more) of the following dudes. Whether they mean to or not, they prevent work from getting done and irritate other people while doing so.
Mr. Money Mustache, UBER Driver – Good insight into the other side of the Uber equation: driver revenue and profitability.
Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt on How Wilco Became Wilco – My son Jacob pointed me to this rare joint appearance of Jeff and John on a podcast with my favorite rock and roll author.