Life Rule: You are always moving

This life rule is more of a universal constant instead of the usual rule to live by. I picked it up from my uncle (link should tell you a little about him), and I am learning from experience in more than one area of my life.

You are always moving.

You are either moving forward, practicing learning, doing. Or you are moving backwards. You don't stay at the level of expertise you stopped at. You're moving ahead or falling behind. The old adage, "use it or loose it" is another way to put it. No matter how you look at it, if you want to be good at something... never stop doing it.

Life Rule: Embrace Change

This is one that has come up a lot recently. Recently as in TODAY!

Embrace Change

Do it or you'll die from high blood pressure. Because, guess what, there are a lot of things that are out of your control that effect you. Get over being force feed health care, the MS Office Ribbon Bar, the potential loss of the Windows Start button, and the fact you are going to end up paying too much for that smart phone you don't even want... and focus on the things you have control over in life. There are a lot of them, just look around.

Life Rule: When in doubt, stick with what you know

I've had this one come up a few times recently.

When in doubt, stick with what you know


It became worthy enough to write down when I discovered this indecent, which of course has a corresponding XKCD. Seemed appropriated since the other dude just got back from California. I can only hope your return trip will be better than theirs.

Life Rules: Manage your tank

Manage your tank.


This life rule I came up with the other day while getting gas. It started out as "Fill up your tanks", but as I extrapolated the hidden meaning in the wisdom I made up at Bucee's, I realized this was too specific.

Image courtesy of a clever guy with a dollar.

When applied to your gas tank, yes, it should be filled. When you refer to your stomach, fill it for sure. But what about tanks that should be empty? Looking at you bladder! Then there are the tanks that have to be between certain levels like oil and coolant. Clearly this rule can apply to more than anatomy and automobiles, but at the gas station this is all I could think about.

Want me to bust out some economics that validate my rule (at least at the pump)? The gas you buy now, no matter what it cost, is cheaper today than at any point in the future because of inflation. Therefor, when you are at the tank fill it up all the way. No pansy $15 now and the rest on pay day.

Life Rule: Headphones limit you

Survival trumps headphones.
(also you look stupid)

I see many young people these days roaming community college halls with trendy ear-buds sealed in place by their natural wax (do not use if freshness seal is broken). Yeah, they’re gross. More importantly, you only have five sen six an indeterminable amount of senses. Why limit, arguably your first, second, or third most important sense to listen to a singer (interpret that word loosely) whine about their life while you walk?

What makes matters worse, this headphone business is often combine with staring at a cell phone while walking. What are you doing, watching the seconds of the MP3 tick by?

Being aware of your surroundings involves all your senses (however many you may think you have). Next time you meander aimlessly through life, try taking out the ear-buds and listening to the roses. You’ll be surprised what you can pick up on when you pay attention.

Man Principles

Photo Courtesy of the ingenious minds of Eric Kallman
and Craig Allen, and used without permission
per my feeble interpretation of fair use laws.

The Man Principles:Also Referred to as the Three P’s

I learned this from an interesting guy I used to work with. Really fit into many of the things I was thinking at the time. I’ve expanded and elaborated on his basic premise. The idea is, a man’s purpose in life can be summed up by the follow.

• Protect 

• Provide 

• Procreate 

The order matters as well. The reason I feel this is important is because it’s very apparent to me that many people have bought into the modern dogma that they have to go out and get an education and a good job. While these things are important, they all fall under provide and ignore the order.

The rules I post from time to time are general things I've learned in life. I've found many of them fit into the three categories here in some way.

Protect - This is the category where you get to be the crazy gun toting coot that prepares for the end of the world, but that’s the idea taken to one extreme. More realistically, it means eating right, staying active and fit. If you don’t take care of yourself you are unable to protect. If you are dead because of some illness, you fail at protect. Things like hygiene fall in this category. There is no use worrying about the second two principles if this one is not in place.

Provide - This is where most guys start. Even if you build an empire to provide for your family and loved ones...it’s pointless if you can’t stop others from taking it away by force. This is the category were education and money making activities (notice I didn’t say job) fall. This is also the category where things like manners fit in. How you treat others and act in society is directly related to how people treat you. Showing common courtesy goes a long way.

Procreate - If you take care of the first two, this one will take care of itself. If you have successfully protected and provided for, some woman will notice despite your looks (beauty is only skin deep remember? works both ways).

I have recently become more aware of sex and race issues that plague our world. Not that they haven't always been there, just now I am enlightened. It has brought into question the sexist nature of my man principles.

After careful consideration, I'm going with "not sexist." Just like feminist promote equality of women, the man rules promote equality of everyone. Real men are not sexist, but recognize the different biological roles we play. You will notice these principles say to treat everyone courteously. It's not about "macho" it's about living my an established set of morals. Like anything, it could easily be contorted into something it's not.

Life Rules: Wash Your Hands

Picture brought to you courtesy of employees
washing their hands in restaurants (we hope).

We haven't posted anything this month, so here is one for the rule collection.

Wash your hands.

Women are disgusted by the fact most men leave the bathroom before the toilet is done flushing. Women notice. These simple steps put you in the top one percentile when compared to other men by this statistic. I almost added “after urinating” to the end, but let’s keep it simple. To impress women, wash your hands. When in doubt, wash your hands. It's hard to go wrong with this one. It's not like other men will look down on you. It's win/win.

Oh yeah, I guess you can do it for hygiene too.

As far as man principles go (future post on this subject), this falls squarely under protect just like any other hygienic activity.

Life Rules: Collar Stays

This is a new segment and the first rule I just made up today:

Never buy a collared shirt without built in collar stays.

Yeah I had no idea what they were called either, but Google figured out what I meant by collar sti...

Image blatantly stolen from random online retailer
who sells rips off metal you put in your collar.

Usually, as enlightened individual, I try to see the argument from both sides. In this case I have made an exception. I don't care why these dreadful simple contraptions even exist. The plastic ones break in the washer. If I remember to take them out I forget to put them back in so I look goofy at work. I am certainly not spending money for the real ones. Seriously, look at those prices; for a strip-of-metal-you-put-in-your-collar. Why the freak do they make matching cuff links? You can't even see them! Is there some truth that eludes me? Is my socioeconomic status so unrefined I can't grasp a concept? Maybe, but I don't care. It's a new rule I just made up so that I don't have to waste brain power on the subject ever again.

The plan is, once I get a number of these rules I'll organize them in a hierarchal structure. I'm already seeing this one fall under \clothing\fashion (as opposed to \clothing\utility and \clothing\comfort...let's just say that is a whole different blog post).