Navy SEALS Buds Class 234, Crackting the ACT, & Running the Green River

 Of the 1.4 million people in the armed forces, only 2,800 of them are Navy SEALS (acronym for “sea, air, and land”). That’s 1/5th of one percent. They are one of the most elite fighting forces in the world. However, less than 20% of those who attempt to become a SEAL ever succeed. To even try you must pass a physical screening test which requires you to swim 500 yards in ten minutes or less, perform seventy-nine push-ups in two minutes or less, and eleven pull-ups. You have to be able to run 1.5 miles in at least 10:20 minutes, and that’s while wearing boots and trousers.

Some may think: well, that’s not too difficult. I could work up to that. However, the reality is that this level of physical fitness will not be enough. Because once you get into the initial training, you’re going to be doing far more than this every day.

Can you knock out 500 push-ups in a day, along with a four mile run, hours of paddling out in a six-man raft into a ten foot wave that tumbles you again and again into chilling waters, hefting your share of a 160 pound log over your head until you can barely lift your arms, and running an obstacle course with obstacles three-stories high. You’ll do a lot of this while covered with sand, your thighs and armpits chafing. On some days you’ll have to swim a few miles in a cold sea. And then you’ve got to get up and do it all again the next day. No wimpy hour-long workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with rest days in between. Heck, on the third week, you’ll get only about four hours of sleep over four days.

Can you do it?

Maybe you can. But before you try, or assure yourself that you could have if you’d only had the chance, let me suggest you watch Discovery Channel’s Navy SEALS BUDS Class 234 to witness what it takes to become the best of the best. It’s a fascinating three-DVD set, just over five hours of programming, that follows class 234 through the initial six-month SEAL training called BUDS (basic underwater demolition/SEALS). You’ll see 114 men start the six-month course and only 17 finish it. In fact, less than thirty make it past the first three weeks, which include the most grueling and punishing training I’ve ever seen. Those initial weeks are designed specifically to weed out all but the most committed and able.

The Discovery Channel does a great job with this six-part series. And it’s not just for guys. It only took about three minutes for each of my daughters to get hooked as well. And why wouldn’t they? It’s as fascinating as any American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance. In fact, in many ways it’s far more interesting. Heck, it was so good I think I’m going to watch it again. You can get it on Amazon, rent if from Netflix, or check it out from the Logan library.

For more info on the SEALS, let me recommend you start with these two sites: http://www.seal.navy.mil/seal/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_SEALs

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My high school age daughters took the ACT last year and got good scores. But we wanted to make sure that they had excellent scores. High enough to put them in the upper levels of those applying to their desired universities. But how would we prepare them?

Back in the olden days when I was preparing to get my Masters of accounting degree, I knew I’d need some help to get a score on the GMAT that would be competitive. I looked at a number of study guides and ended up choosing the Princeton Review guide for the GMAT. I studied hard, got a great score, and became a believer. The guide made everything so easy. More importantly, everything the guide prepared me for was on the test. This is why, when I wanted to get a Masters of fine arts in creative writing, I used the Princeton Review for the GRE. Again, the study guide was easy to follow, and I got an equally good score on that test. Having had two great experiences, it’s no surprise I turned to Princeton Review again to help my two girls with their test. (BTW, some may see an attempt to get more than one graduate degree as smart, others as masochistic, and yet others as simple ivory tower bone-headery—I’ll let you decide which it might be in this case.)

The Princeton Review guide for the ACT is called Cracking the ACT. A new edition is published every year and includes general ACT test-taking tips, everything you need to know in the specific content areas, and practice tests. It also includes access to the Princeton Review’s online resources which include another practice test. It’s a big guide (this year’s edition was 619 pages), but the size is deceptive. There’s plenty of white space for taking notes, and the text is written so clearly, and everything broken down in such an easy manner to follow, that you’ll start only to suddenly realize you’ve just read thirty pages. Besides, you don’t have to study it all. You can focus on specific content areas, if that’s all you want to do.

This spring, both daughters worked through the book. We looked at their previous scores, identified areas for improvement, and set up a six-week schedule that required them to study about an hour per day, sometimes with help from Mom or Dad, but mostly on their own. One daughter studied hard, took the test in June, and improved her score by five points. The other daughter studied a little less diligently, took the same test, and improved her score by four points.

When 36 is the highest possible score, such jumps become significant. However, they’re not the result of special DNA. While I tend to think my girls are everything and a bag of chips (especially when they give me back scratches), the truth is the ACT doesn’t test some mumbo-jumbo innate intelligence. It tests skills. Skills anyone can learn. What my girls supplied was consistent effort. All they needed was expert guidance in how to apply the effort. And Cracking the ACT provides boatloads of that.

If you’re looking to improve your own score or help your children improve theirs, get this book. I have no doubt that anyone who supplies a bit of effort will be able see some nice results.

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Imagine emerald pools, steep red canyons, and a gentle breeze. Imagine water so clear you can see the plants and rocks sixteen feet down on the bottom. Imagine trout swimming only feet away. Imagine swimming with those trout and then getting back into your raft to ride some rapids. Imagine picnicking a the water’s edge or atop a flat, shaded rock forty feet up that gives you a grand view of the river. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll see an osprey dive for a fish or watch a pair of river otters swim by. Imagine doing this with family or friends, all in a short twenty-four hour period.

This experience is only about three hours away from Laketown, Utah. Well, everything except the swimming with the trout bit. The fish don’t really swim with you. They mostly just flee, but you get the idea. To enjoy it, all you need to do is raft the seven mile stretch of the Green River from the Flaming Gorge dam down to the Little Hole campground.

My family and I just did this with some friends and had a grand time. Because the river is relatively slow and the rapids are relatively moderate and short, parents don’t have to worry every second that someone is going to fall in and drown in a man-eating surge. In fact, along many of the calm areas we actively helped the children into the sparkling cold water (grin), including one rafter who was only three years old. One of the most enjoyable moments was when we pulled the rafts up into the gentle backwash of a large rock in the middle of the river, climbed the rock, and took turns jumping into the current and letting it carry us downstream.

The sun was shining, the weather warm. It was a wonderful trip. A total memory-maker. We put in just before noon and hauled the raft out just before 6 PM. But we could have taken much longer to play along the way.

The experience was fairly cheap. It cost about $70 to rent an eight-man raft. Perfect for six people. But there are other smaller and larger raft sizes. You’ll need to arrange a way to get the raft to the river and back again. We simply tied our raft to the top of our minivan. You can pay the rental people to drive your car to the exit ramp at Little Hole after you put into the river, or bring two cars (or a bike) and drop one at the exit. Or you can pay for a shuttle service where they drive you to the River and pick you up.

You’ll want to bring a small cooler with drinks, snacks, and sunscreen. You’ll also want to have good footwear. The river bed is rocky, and when you pull into shore, you don’t want to be ouching it the whole way in. I don’t recommend flip flops. They’re no better than bare feet. Old sneakers are fine, but they don’t dry quickly. And they waterlog and get heavy, which makes them less than ideal for swimming. Your best bet is to get real water shoes that are made to be light and drain quickly and yet still have a decent sole–a sandal or mesh covered shoe that uses Velcro to strap up. You can be fancy and spend a lot, or do what I did and get yours at Wal-Mart for less than ten bucks.  

You could make it a long trip and drive to and from the gorge and run the river all in one day, but why push it? Just find a place to stay overnight. There are some motels in the area, but we elected to camp. The spots at the Firefighters Memorial campground were $27 per night. The campground was beautiful and tidy with restrooms and running water. One of the most surprising things about this particular campground was that I didn’t see one mosquito while I was there.

I’m one of these types that attracts the villains. If there’s only one mosquito within a mile radius, it will smell me, pass up many other suitable victims (including my wife), and risk its life and limbs to sink its #@!* proboscis into my flesh. I think my blood must be some kind of mosquito crack. There’s probably some mosquito black market out there for it, run by some nasty mosquito cartel, which is led by a murderous, malaria-ridden mosquito boss making piles of evil mosquito money and spending it on opulent mosquito yachts and guns!

Anyway, not one bite. We watched the sun set and then fell to sleep with the stars overhead and the wind gently soughing through the boughs of the pine trees.

To make campsite reservations, go to www.utah.com to get a good map view of possible camping sites. Then go to www.recreation,gov to make the reservations online. Make sure your specific camping spot has everything you need. Our campground was very rocky and not all of the sites had tent pads. If you want to scope the lay of the land, the recreation.gov site will give you GPS coordinates of the campground. Enter those into Google maps then switch to satellite view and zoom in. You see exactly what you get. This way you can avoid accidently booking the site right next to the bathrooms or road or the one that features no trees.

Finally, when you’re done, you might want to top it all off by stopping at the The Flaming Gorge Lodge restaurant, just a few miles south of the dam, and enjoying a monster-sized cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream and one of their fabulous desserts. The blackberry cobbler and ice cream was delicious.

Czech Rights to Servant of a Dark God sold to Laser Books

Great news! Laser Books has just purchased rights to print Servant of a Dark God in Czech for their Masters of Modern Fantasy imprint (click on the link to see other authors being published by them). The Czech Republic has just won a special place in my heart, seeing it’s the location of my first foreign sale, ever. We luvs the Czech Republic, Precious. 

Here’s a photo of Prague, their capitol city.  

More lovely and interesting photos here. For those who need a little bit of help with their geography, click on the map below. The Czech Republic is right in the middle of Europe.

And here’s a wiki on the Czech Republic.

Writing update: Servant proofs & cover, Curse battle finished, events

Two bits of news about Servant of a Dark God. I received the proofs for the paperback version in the mail this week as you see below. The cat is used because he deserves a cameo. This is Panther giving us either his “Sigh, whatever, I’ll submit to your weird human ways” or “Umm, scratches” looks. He’s the last of the original eleven cats we inherited when we moved to Laketown back in 2003 (nine of them were black, one was a gray tabby, another a sort of tortoise color). Dutchess, the one who liked to tear open our bread bags while we weren’t looking and eat the bread, got run over. Three others, including our talker Tabby, we think were stolen by a woman looking for “stray” cats because, golly, the rattlers keep getting all hers. Ours were obviously strays because we live in 2.5 acres surrounds by dozens and dozens of acres of open land around us and we let them roam the hills! A few were shot, we think, by a kid who came to visit his grandfather who lived 1/2 a mile down the road. We think coyotes might have gotten the rest. So Panther is the last survivor. 7 years old. We love the old man.

I have just a few days to go through the proofs and find any typos and punctuation errors and get it back. The paperback version is scheduled right now to be released in November. And here’s the cover the publisher is using on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can see the difference between it and the hardcover by comparing it to the image in the sidebar.

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As for Curse of a Dark God, I typed the last word of the final battle and climax on Saturday. As it now stands, the final battle required 34,429 words to write. Holy schnitzel! Again, many adult novels average around 90,000 – 110,000 words total. So this is a significant sequence. For those of you who like to think in pages, it’s going to be anywhere from 100 – 140 pages depending on how the publisher configures the book. I have one more short chapter to write and the draft is finished. Well, I have a few things to seed into earlier chapters so that the ending etc. works, but that’s small stuff. The next step is to have a few readers go through this draft. Make any necessary edits. Then get it out to my agent as quickly as possible. Once my editor accepts it, we’ll be able to set a release date. And I might feel the sword of editoral doom lift just a little from my head.

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Finally, just wanted to give folks a heads up about the following events I’ve committed to.

Date What Area Details
Saturday, September 18, 1-4 PM Book signing Orem, UT The Orem, UT Barnes & Noble is having an authorpalooza. Come meet a boatload of authors.More details here: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/store/2626 University Crossings Barnes & Noble
330 East 1300 South
Orem, UT 84058
801-229-1611
Saturday, October 9, 2010, all day Writers conference American Fork, UT The American Fork Arts Council writers workshops have become so popular that they’ve decided to start holding one conference in the spring and one in the fall. These conferences focus on giving concrete advice and encouragement to aspiring writers. I’ll be giving a keynote speech and participating in some breakout sessions. I was really happy to be invited back since I had to bow out of the last one two days before it was scheduled to run because of a death in the family.

The Blind Side, Blink, Tandoori Oven, Bischoff Cookies

The Blind Side

Every time I see a sports movie advertised, I groan. Gee, what could this be–yet another story about an individual who, through pluck and determination, overcomes great odds to yadda, yadda, yadda win the game, yea, go team?

Yawn.

I enjoy sports, but only those where the outcome really is in question. Only those where I don’t already know the story. If I want a scripted win, I can watch some long-hairs and freaks on WWF.  

So you’ll understand why I didn’t rush out last year to see The Blind Side. What? A monstrously huge kid plays high school football as a lineman? Wow, he must have really worked hard at that. Is the paint still drying at the Zeyer’s house? Maybe I’ll go watch that instead.

And this was my response even though Sandra Bullock plays the leading role. I usually enjoy the movies Bullock stars in. Well, except for the last two–The Proposal and All About Steve–which I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than ten minutes of combined. But besides those, she’s probably been one of the most enjoyable actresses since Katherine Hepburn. This is because she actually plays real women, interesting characters, people with personality.

This is opposed to some actresses who don’t really play people at all, but are put in movies by directors who must think that if they can make the eyes bong out of male heads, those very males won’t notice that the story is dumber than a bag of rocks. These gals have lips that are so puffed up they look painful (e.g. Angelina Jolie, ouch, ouch, OUCH, somebody help her) or have seemingly nothing else to bring to the table besides their looks (e.g. Megan Fox, oooh, look at her shirt ride up over her belly, oooh, another shot of her eyes, oooh, white teeth), and so all their roles end up including very little besides posing for the camera so that we can see that, yes, Timmy, these women really were born with some mathematics, i.e. symmetry and facial proportions conforming to the golden ratio. Are your eyes bonging out yet, Timmy? See, that’s why you should study algebra and geometry. Math lets you do things like that.   

Anyway, so it was a Bullock film, yet I still didn’t want to see it. But my real-man brother-in-law suggested it for a date night, and so I reluctantly went to watch. (Date night as in double date with the wives, not him and me. Sheesh, you people.)

I’m so glad I went. The movie was excellent. Probably because it was not about the plucky athlete winning the game, but about something far more important and enjoyable. It’s based on the true story of a rich southern white couple–Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy–who try to take a homeless teenage African-American, Michael Oher (“Big Mike”), into their family. Michael’s mother is a crack head. His father is unknown. Michael himself is not doing very well. He’s failing school. He doesn’t even have a place to sleep sometimes. And he’s got the good old boys of his neighborhood wanting to hook him up with their gang and drug scene. But Leigh Anne soon takes charge.

And, boy, does she take charge. She’s one of the most delightful characters I’ve seen in a long time. I laughed again and again at her lines and personality. She also made me think about what I’m doing with my life. This woman and her family did something significant. I won’t tell you what happened with Michael–blah, blah, blah, yea, go team. You can find out for yourself. That wasn’t the important story here. The important story, the one that touched my heart and funny bone, was the one about a delightful family who went way out of its way to try to give a complete stranger a chance at a happy life.

Go see this show. No, it’s not in the theater, but you can buy or rent it. Me, I get all my films via Netflix. If you haven’t subscribed, consider it. Then you too can feel the excitement of seeing the happy little red Netflix envelopes waiting for you in your mailbox.

By the way, I have enjoyed a number of other great sports films over the years. If you like The Blind Side, I think you’ll enjoy Coach Carter, Miracle, Invincible, and Cool Runnings (a Brown family favorite).

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

We are told to make decisions based on logic, not emotion. Reason must prevail. The closer we are to Spock, the better. At least in our decision-making, right?

Well, no. That’s actually wrong.

Over the last two decades researchers have found that the vast majority of our decisions are made by our gut, in the blink of an eye. And even those we make consciously, we make with a large input from our emotions. In fact, people who have the emotion centers in their brains damaged seem almost unable to make good decisions. Give them seven types of apples to choose from, and they can’t seem to pick one. Ask them to schedule an appointment, and they’ll go round and round listing the pros and cons of different dates and times. Let them know one deck of cards is stacked against them, and they still choose to play with it. They have logic, but lack judgment.

The rapid, emotional part of our brain is critical for good decision making. Of course, out guts can often be spectacularly wrong. In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell explores both sides of the choices we make in the blink of an eye.

But this is no tome of dry erudition. Gladwell writes with fantastic simplicity, clarity, and power. He explains what we now know about human decision-making by letting us meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on just a few minutes of observing the couple; the tennis coach who knows a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; and the art experts who can spot a fake at a glance. He helps us see why New Coke failed, how we pick presidents, and how it was possible that the police shot down Amadou Diallo, who was simply coming home one night. He shares the story of Paul Van Ripper who beat the Pentagon war-gamers in a massive defeat and why.

Blink reveals that great decisions makers aren’t those who have the biggest brains and highest IQ, but those who have perfected the art of “thin-slicing”—focusing in on the factors that make the biggest difference.

The book was fascinating. Read it. You’ll start seeing the world differently.

The Tandoori Oven

While living in Orem, UT, Nellie and I got our first taste of Indian food. When we moved to the San Francisco area, we found a few Indian restaurants and really learned to love the cuisine. So you can imagine how excited we were when we moved up to boonieville Laketown and were told that just an hour away in Logan was a great Indian restaurant. So we followed the directions to the address we were given and ended up at the gas station just south of the USU football stadium on 720 East and 1000 North. And there above the gas station was the sign for the restaurant.

We both looked at each other and rolled our eyes. Were the people who told us about this kidding?

But I decided to just go look. Sometimes the little holes-in-the-walls can surprise you. Maybe in the back by the Hostess rack and chips we’d find some great food. I entered the gas station and found it run by a pleasant Indian fellow. I thought, dang, we’ve got our very own Apu’s Quiki-Mart (Apu being one of my favorite characters on the The Simpsons). However, there was no restaurant. I looked around and saw nothing but racks of normal gas station snacks. I was confused. “I was told there was an Indian restaurant here?” I said.

“Right over here,” he said in his Indian accent and pointed me to an entryway in the far wall hung with strings of beads. “Through there.”

Intrigued, I passed through the beads and did indeed find a small restaurant. They’d simply sectioned off a part of the original gas station. I also found that there was a separate door to the outside which I’d missed. I examined the buffet, which looked pretty good, went outside and waved Nellie in. We were going to give it a shot. We let them seat us, and proceeded to enjoy a fabulous meal.

The restaurant is called The Tandoori Oven: http://TandooriOvenLogan.com. Nellie and I go there regularly. It’s been updated since the first time we went and dished up our soup into treacherous styrofoam bowls. Now they use real cutlery, but the good food and friendly service hasn’t changed.

If you know Indian food, you can go in the evenings and order a number of dishes to share. But if you want the best deal, go for lunch. They put on an all-you-can-eat buffet which will let you sample a number of dishes. We love the kurmas, saags, vindaloos, curries, naans, and, dude, the spinach soup! Heck, it’s all good. Especially when we can sweeten it a bit with their tamarind or mango chutney. And make sure you leave room for their saffron helwa (spiced cubes of farina) smothered with cardamom rice pudding for dessert.

Bischoff Lotus Cookies

I recently performed a taste test. I got a package of Oreos and a package of Bischoff Lotus cookies, and I am here to state that the Bischoff Lotus cookies spanked the Oreos and sent them back to kindergarten for some schooling.

After the taste test, I had to force myself not to eat the rest of the Bischoff Lotuses in one sitting. I succeeded in lasting for two sittings. Yes, they’re that good—crisp, caramelized, sweet. They have none of the bitterness of gingersnaps, yet have enough spice to delight the tongue.

But these aren’t new cookies. The Dutch and Belgians have been enjoying them for years. Over there these types of cookies are called speculaas and are probably the most popular cookie around. I can testify they’re great with milk, hot chocolate, and Pero (hey, this is Mormon country). I understand they go great with coffee, even though I have not imbibed in that Aztec concoction and, therefore, cannot vouch for it personally. And for two years I enjoyed them, along with picturesque scenes of cobblestone streets, bicycles, and windmills.

When I came home, alas, I couldn’t find these delights anywhere except at specialty Dutch stores. And when we moved away from Utah, I never found them again. Then Delta Airlines started serving them on their flights. Oh, joy. But I don’t fly that often. So I’m excited to report that recently I was walking in Macey’s grocery store just across from the Stadium 8 movie theaters in Logan, scanning the packages along the cookie aisle and finding nothing appetizing, when the heavens parted, and a beam of light illuminated a white package with red lettering. I believe I heard a choir.

Bischoff Lotus cookies.

Could it be?

It was.

I heard reports they were also in Wal-Mart, but I didn’t see them there. So for the sure bet, go to Macey’s, buy, enjoy. And consider yourself Dutchified.