time keeps on chugging along… i only wish i could keep up… and still get sleep… i’m really trying to get more posts written up that don’t involve football, because i know that my fantastic insights don’t really appeal to everyone… and that’s okay… i’ve just been adjusting… today, i’ve got a few books to talk about and soon, i’ll have some things that i want to hash out with the written word… something i saw on a television show that’s normally unengaging, something i’ve learned from the Redskins, and more… i may also talk a little bit about the redesign that i’m working on for the main site… if you sign up for the newsletter, i’ll send you an email when it’s back up to speed… you’ll also get the newsletter, if i ever send them out… anyway, no time for the dilly-dally… let’s move on…

LIGHT IT UP

now playing: Illuminate Pt. 1 – Lightheaded

Illuminated – Matt Bronleewe

a while ago, i read and raved about House of Wolves and now, finally, i managed to buy and read a copy of the first book of the August Adams series… and guess what?… i’ll rave about this one too… Matt Bronleewe certainly puts together a mean story… fast-paced, thrilling, intricate and well-detailed… Illuminated kept me flipping through the pages as though i were cooling myself off… (maybe not THAT fast)…

Anyway, it is, again, or perhaps first, a great piece of writing and at 300 pages, it’s a manageable length for those of us who can’t keep our schedule in order… certainly there are themes that are similar to storylines such as the National Treasure franchise and books like, duh, the Da Vinci Code, but it’s a special tale that stands on it’s own despite any other books about secret societies and mysterious symbols… Cheers to Matt… looking forward to book three..

SECOND ROUND

now playing: The Hard-Knock Life – Original Cast of Annie

Knockout Entrepreneur – George Foreman (with Ken Abaraham)

i gotta admit… i love watching George Foreman… i think there’s a part of each of us that feels that way… and now i know that it was by design… George opens up with a very enjoyable book telling his story of success in the business world… one piece of advice that stood out? When you answer the phone, keep a smile on your face – it comes through… clearly, Foreman wrote this book with a big smile on his face, because that’s exactly how it reads…

Granted there are times when the book feels a little repetitive (revisiting the same events) and almost like a sales pitch – for instance, the grill is mentioned by its full name (with adjectives) several times – but that’s the nature of the game… Foreman is very up front about the fact that he’s using every opportunity to sell his products and continue to be successful… that’s fine, because, overall the book has plenty of good advice tucked away in each chapter…

It’s also worth noting that this is a Nelsonfree product – and yes, by the way, this is based on a free promotional copy – which means that with the book in hand, you can click over to the special webpage, answer a question or two and get a free PDF and audiobook version of the book as well… (George Foreman does NOT narrate the audiobook, but it’s still a rather lively reading)…

Anyway, the bottom line, as with many career/business/self-improvement books is that you won’t find too much here that you can’t find in many similarly-themed… the difference is that this is someone else’s story and the more times you hear success stories from different voices, the more you’ll start to believe that soon enough, it can be your voice telling the tales… plus there’s the whole smile thing… and George has a lot of mouths to feed in his family…

CAN YOU DIG IT?

now playing: The Pleasure Principle – Janet Jackson

The Treasure Principle – Randy Alcorn

the section title is from the cornerstone illustration for this book, by the way… the parable of the man who finds a treasure in a field, sells all he has, buys the field and, presumably, lives happily ever after… it’s a passage from the Bible that i feel is somewhat betrayed by the application here and the book tends to further unravel from there… but let me back up for a second…

i feel like i came upon this book under false pretenses… pretenses that keep me from being at all unbiased (as if i’m ever unbiased) and that said, my attitude when reading this book was more of a cynic than of a reviewer… and, honestly, i don’t want to spend too much time talking about it right now because i’m pretty sure it will be part of the focus of another piece of writing that i have brewing but i will say this… (that was a long sentence, sorry)… i will say this… bottom line, i feel like this is the prosperity gospel repackaged and framed from a “more spiritual” perspective… that’s not to say that there weren’t some parts that i agreed with, but largely i’m pretty sure that htis book misses the mark…

NO MAS

time’s up… well, over up… beyond? long since past?… whatever… good night…

peace… love… bdg…