Austin's Thoughts

Life Experience versus School

As my son starts his edu­ca­tion jour­ney, I am start­ing to iden­ti­fy the same issue in the cur­rent pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem that turned me off from school. Instead of speak­ing to the stu­dent, school speaks down to the stu­dent. Instead of being spo­ken down to, ear­ly in life I decid­ed to pur­sue life expe­ri­ence over academics.

I am not say­ing that school is a bad thing, though. I learned the val­ue of edu­ca­tion once I was pay­ing for it. What I am chal­leng­ing is how the cur­rent pub­lic school com­mu­ni­cates with stu­dents. It is catered to edu­cate the mass­es, not the indi­vid­u­al’s need or inter­est. It will be my respon­si­bil­i­ty to fill the gaps and ensure he stays moti­vat­ed dur­ing chal­leng­ing times.

October 11, 2015  Leave a comment

New Direction

I am going to sep­a­rate the IT arti­cles from my per­son­al blog, ClintonAustin.com and move the tech-cen­tric arti­cles to AustinITConsulting.com/blog. When I first made this deci­sion, it comes with some reser­va­tion. Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy has long been an intel­lec­tu­al pur­suit of mine that has car­ried me far, but I am try­ing to sep­a­rate the two from my oth­er pur­suits. I would like to shape my per­son­al blog to be more like oth­er great blogs like Brett and Kate McK­ay’s Art of Man­li­ness or Tim Fer­riss’ Four Hour Work Week. Both blogs have influ­enced my life in the past four years (even list­ing the authors in my grad­u­ate application).

So please fol­low ClintonAustin.com to know what I am try­ing to pur­sue in life. Please also fol­low AustinITConsulting.com/blog for the tech reviews and opin­ions on the IT indus­try. Regard­less, thank you for reading.

April 17, 2015  Leave a comment

Get Better

“You can build your time bet­ter when you find a passion, 

The Inter­net and pub­lic ser­vices give free education,

So it real­ly ain’t a case of rich or poor,

It’s a case of self-moti­va­tion and noth­ing more,

Like Bil­ly says, whether you have or you have not wealth,

The sys­tem might fail you, but don’t fail yourself,

Just, get better”

~ Scroobius Pip

April 15, 2015  Leave a comment

80% Solutions

When I decid­ed to start my grad­u­ate pro­gram two years ago, I had a young fam­i­ly, a full-time job, and a con­sult­ing busi­ness.  This peri­od has taught me the val­ue of the 80% solu­tion. The 80% solu­tion means that all things do not need to be per­fect if it is not a mat­ter of life and death.  Do you spend the extra hour doing home­work or get­ting your son ready for bed and read­ing him his bed­time sto­ries?  My GPA has low­ered, but my qual­i­ty of life has increased.

April 13, 2015  Leave a comment

First Kettlebell Workout

So start­ing today, I am back on the 4‑Hour Body / 4‑Hour Cook­book work­out.  I put togeth­er Tim Ferris’s cheap ket­tle­bell and did a ket­tle­bell work out for the first time.  Need­less to say, this after­noon I am set­ting down to write this blog posting.

July 8, 2013  Leave a comment

Continuing On The Path

Since March, I have con­tin­ued the path of putting a fire under­neath myself both pro­fes­sion­al­ly, per­son­al­ly, and phys­i­cal­ly. For the pro­fes­sion­al fac­tor, I have enrolled at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tam­pa to get my Mas­ters in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion degree. Because of my GPA was high enough, the Uni­ver­si­ty waived the GMAT require­ment, but the Uni­ver­si­ty required me to com­plete sev­er­al Har­vard Busi­ness Pub­lish­ing cours­es online before I could start school in August. In hind­sight, I do not know which one would have been sim­pler to complete.
 
For the per­son­al fac­tor, I have moved to a new house with a big cov­ered porch and a fenced yard for my son and dogs to play. I also made the effort to take time to spend with the fam­i­ly. This is includ­ed trip to the Dinosaur Worlds, Sun­day after­noons watch­ing 3D movies at home, and tak­ing my son on my day busi­ness trips with me.

Phys­i­cal effort is the thing that I have failed in the past cou­ple of months. Work­ing out was the last thing on my mind while I was main­tain­ing a nor­mal 9‑to‑5 job, com­plet­ing the Har­vard cours­es, run­ning my con­sult­ing busi­ness, and fin­ish­ing the move. This is a per­fect exam­ple of burn­ing the can­dle at both ends. My nutri­tion dur­ing this time frame was piss poor. My goal for the month of July and August is to get the phys­i­cal aspect back on track while find­ing a bal­ance of run­ning every­thing in my life. How does Joe Rogan, Tim Fer­ris, and Ben­jamin Franklin does it?

July 8, 2013  Leave a comment

Hearts of Palm Recipe

So after one month of Tim Fer­riss’ slow carb diet and going to Title Box­ing Gym three times a week, I have lost a total of 14 pounds.  The biggest chal­lenge of the diet is the diet restric­tions of no dairy, fruit, or starch­es.  I have worked around this by intro­duc­ing new meals into the diet.  One of my favorite meals so far is the Hearts of Palm Sal­ad. It is such a quick and easy meal.

Heart of Palms Salad

1. Rub the cut sides of the gar­lic clove all over the inside bot­tom of a large sal­ad bowl; dis­card the gar­lic or save for anoth­er use.

2. In the bowl, whisk togeth­er the 6 T (90 ml) vine­gar, 1 t salt, and 10 turns of black pep­per until the salt is dissolved.

3. Add the 2 cans hearts of palm, 2 chopped toma­toes, and 2 diced avo­ca­dos. Driz­zle the 8 T (120 ml) extra vir­gin olive oil  around the sides of the bowl and toss to com­bine. Taste and sea­son with more salt and pep­per if need­ed. Serve. The sal­ad can be made up to 1 hour before serv­ing; keep at room temperature.

Reference:

“Fer­riss, Tim­o­thy (2012–11-20). The 4‑Hour Chef: The Sim­ple Path to Cook­ing Like a Pro, Learn­ing Any­thing, and Liv­ing the Good Life (Kin­dle Loca­tions 13033–13040). Ama­zo­nEn­core. Kin­dle Edi­tion.”

Start­ed Weight: 236 lbs.
Last Weigh In Weight: 224 lbs.
New Weigh In Weight: 222 lbs.

March 3, 2013  Leave a comment

4 Week Weigh In

The new offi­cial weight is now 224 lbs.  Actu­al­ly, I have hit 224 lbs in week 3 and have plateaued in week 4.  The rea­son­ing why I think that I have plateaued is because of the head cold that had stopped me from from work­ing out for two weeks.  Since I have start­ed back in the gym, the recov­ery from my “cheat” day has been a lot quick­er.  My wife, Audrey, see­ing the results has also decid­ed to join the diet also.  Her first week, she lost 3 pounds.  (Editor’s Note:  My wife’s weight will not be men­tioned in this blog out of respect and com­mon sense.)  My goal for the month of Feb­ru­ary is to hit 220 lbs. This gives me 11 days to com­plete my goal.  I look for­ward to the challenge.

Start­ed Weight: 236 lbs.
Last Weigh In Weight: 230 lbs.
New Weigh In Weight: 224 lbs.

February 19, 2013  Leave a comment

Next Step

The thing that I am focus­ing on now is the phys­i­cal con­di­tion­ing of the body.  I am try­ing to tack­le this in two steps.  For the diet­ing por­tion, I am doing Tim Fer­riss’ “Slow Carb Diet”.  The jest of the diet con­sists of just eat­ing meat and veg­eta­bles with­out bread, rice, pota­toes, dairy, and fruit.  Half the food that I like is now lim­it­ed down to one day a week which is clas­si­fied as my cheat day.  This is a major test of dis­ci­pline because all the good­ies that my son has in the house is now off limit.

To match the diet­ing prac­tice, I had to do an inspi­ra­tional work­out pro­gram based on Joe Rogan’s phi­los­o­phy of doing some­thing tough to make your­self feel like a man.  I looked at the options around me and decid­ed to learn box­ing.  I learned quick­ly that I am out of stan­dard.  I have not left one time with­out hav­ing that puk­ing feel­ing but it is good to have the sore feel­ing in the body again.

Update — So after one week of imple­ment­ing the diet­ing and work­out pro­gram, I have lost six pounds and feel great.  I was look­ing to start the next week like I did the week before, but I have a hel­la­cious head cold that is slow­ing me down.  I have stopped going to the gym but con­tin­ued with the diet.  I hope I feel bet­ter again so I can get back into the gym next week.

Start­ing Weight: 236 lbs.
Weigh In Weight: 230 lbs.

February 7, 2013  Leave a comment