Purse your passion

Scrolling through my inbox, deciding to read or not read notices from several lists, I stopped on the first few lines of an email that said “purse your passion.” I spend many of my days editing and proofreading documents and knew immediately that the sender had been in a hurry — perhaps rushing to pursue his passion — and spellcheck doesn’t catch real words. Purse instead of pursue.

The accidental phrase reminded me of something Gary Vaynerchuk said last night at Powell’s Books, one of the stops on tour for his new book Crush It! The book is about making money  from your passions but one of his points is that you don’t do it from the “purse” side first. You do it because it’s a passion, something you want to pursue. So when people ask him what he thinks the “next big thing” will be, he tells them they’re focusing on the wrong side of the equation. Focus on what you care about.

Not new advice of course, but Gary is so much fun and so obviously passionate about what he does that you feel more enthusiastic and upbeat just listening to him.

Full disclosure, I have not (yet)  read the book so making no recommendation on that.

 

The Manual of Detection

The Manual of Detection cover

I started reading The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry on a cold, gray, rainy Portland day — which almost perfectly matched the weather described in the first chapter.  And the hero — if we think of Charles Unwin as that — was riding a bicycle, a very Portland thing to do.  Of course he was riding it with an open umbrella, which is not so ordinary.  Still there seemed to be some areas of commonality.  And I was immediately intrigued because the chapters follow the chapters of the employee (detectives only) guide called The Manual of Detection. 

 

Careful what you pick.

Went to a book sale earlier this week — not that I need any more books at all.  I’ve been going through my own stashes for months now, weeding out the ones I can bear to part with.  So in fact some of the books at this sale may have been mine to start with.  In any case, I didn’t go on the weekend when the masses were there, but drifted in on the Monday half price day to see what was left over and whether there were any titles destined for me. 

 

Halting State by Charles Stross

Wow!  I’m always pleased to find a new writer who immediately appeals to me.  Especially one who appears from nowhere — not that he’s been invisible, but I haven’t been watching the science fiction realms too much the last few years.  In one of my former lives, it was my pleasure to make sure my university library purchased the major prize winners in all kinds of fiction.  I’d have been paying attention if that were still part of my job.  More recently, my job has included slogging through reams of data and warnings/alerts about some kind of scam or intrusion or hacking attempt. Luckily for me, that’s no longer on my plate either.  I’ve had some time to play MMORPG’s — massively multiplayer online roleplaying games — but not enough to be anything more than vaguely familiar with what goes on.  I’m more familiar with the metaverses such as Second Life, and there’s some overlap between these things.  And I’m enough of a geek to know some basics of various computer languages.  Combine that with an obsessive interest in mysteries and reading and it becomes much more difficult to see how I’ve missed Charles Stross.   Granted, he writes primarily under sci-fi and not regular mystery, but I’m surprised I hadn’t run into him. 

 

A penny saved…

With apologies to Ben Franklin, do you know if you’re saving money by picking up that penny on the sidewalk?  According to an article in the March 31, 2008, New Yorker by David Owen, many people just don’t bother to even slow down.  By his calculation “Breaking stride to pick up a penny, if it takes more than 6.15 seconds, pays less than the federal minimum wage.” 

Read the full article “Penny Dreadful” at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_owen/?yrail