Here you will find things about fitness and nutrition, mainly (but not exclusively) in relation to the Beachbody programs like P90x and Insanity. And, I will start adding reviews for Books, DVDs and Blu-Rays, and other products. All views and opinions on this blog are my own.
Welcome
Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.
I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.
I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time. As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree.
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Book Review: miracles & fate on 78
Monday, March 11, 2024
Book Review: Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad
Monday, January 22, 2024
Book Review: Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Book Review: On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, & 9/11: A Story of Loss & Renewal
Saturday, July 22, 2023
Book Review: Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11
The book is relatively short, about 240 pages overall. Most fast readers can probably finish the book in a day or two (at most). The substantive portion of the book is just under 200 pages, then there are several pages of notes, a bibliography, and an index. The main text includes some footnotes that flesh out the material in the text, then there are a bunch of endnotes that mainly cite specific sources, but a few of the endnotes also provide some additional context to the main text. It is absolutely a book that I consider to be a must-read, even if you are someone who has read many of the other books and/or watched evens some of the many documentaries about 9/11.
Saturday, June 24, 2023
Book Review: The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World: The Twin Towers, Windows on the World, and the Rebirth of New York
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Book Review: Undaunted: Leadership Amid Growth and Adversity
Sunday, June 4, 2023
Book Review: Ordinary Heroes: A Memoir of 9/11
Friday, April 21, 2023
Book Review: The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Book Review: The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Book Review: The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It
Friday, February 10, 2023
Book Review: My 9/11-Through inflight Eyes
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Book Review: Flight 93: The Story, the Aftermath, and the Legacy of American Courage on 9/11
Sunday, January 15, 2023
Book Review: September 11: An Oral History
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Book Review: Last Man Down: A Firefighter's Story of Survival and Escape from the World Trade Center
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
Book Review: The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11
The book reprints transcripts of the communications which, at the time of the 9/11 commission report's release, were classified, which showed how the reality of the day conflicted with what the commission was being told by witnesses. There is also a very detailed timeline of events involving the hijackers and other members of Al Queda that at least put them on the radar of various US agencies, and sent up huge red flags that were either missed or ignored. The key takeaway from the book is that there were plenty of opportunities to find out about the attacks and stop them before they happened had the "system" not failed time and again.
Saturday, October 22, 2022
Book Review: From the Inside Out: Harrowing Escapes from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
Some interesting takeaways I had were that, while many people inside the tower did not have any idea what happened, there were definitely some who knew (or highly suspected) what did, and those who were engineers were definitely afraid that the buildings might fall based on what they were seeing inside the building. One of the people whose story is included in the book was probably one of the few people who were not killed who actually saw American 11 coming toward the building. In fact, the plane was initially at his eye level before it climbed a bit just before crashing. He ended up being below the impact zone and was able to get out of the building, but he was close enough to see the silhouettes of people in the plane before it hit. One of the saddest stories is that of a Port Authority Officer who worked with a K9 unit to detect bombs. He thought that he had missed a bomb that went off and ended up in the only portion of the stairwell in the north tower that survived the collapse. His K9 partner, however, was in a kennel in the basement of the south tower when it collapsed. The dog was given full honors when his remains were discovered months later. Probably the hardest thing to read was the accounts of the survivors seeing people falling and jumping from the building and describing just how bloody it was around the towers.
Those of us who lived through that day will always remember it, but this book really hammers home the fact that none of us who were watching on TV from the safety of an office or living room knew what it was really like in the middle of everything. Interestingly, however, more than one of the people whose story is told in the book did not realize how bad what they survived was until they got home and watched the news footage. I definitely put this book in the category of a must-read.
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Book Review: History in One Act: A Novel of 9/11
Another thing the author does is use fictional material to fill in the blanks on things that were uncovered during the investigation of the attacks but could not be fully explained. For example, when KSM was interrogated, he said he was surprised that the south tower of the WTC was hit and that the original plan was to hit the north tower, the white house, the Pentagon, and the capital. So, the author makes up a reason for why the terrorists decided to hit both towers. He also mixes in things that are known, like the fact that a couple of the hijackers who ended up being muscle hijackers were originally supposed to be pilots but were not smart enough to make it through pilot training into the story.
As I said above, it can be hard to separate the fiction from the non-fiction, but overall, it does give a high-level overview of things that did happen and details things that could have happened. There are a ton of endnotes that would have been much better as footnotes because, much of the time, they add a ton of detail. Flipping from the page you are reading to the endnotes and back can be a pain. And if you read the endnotes after finishing the main portion of the book, they can be hard to follow. Overall, it is a good book. It is very long (over 700 pages if you read all the endnotes), so it may take a while to get through, depending on how quickly you read. Ultimately, you have to take some of what is in the book with a grain of salt and understand that the purpose was not to write a non-fiction account of everything that happened in the lead-up to 9/11.
Monday, September 19, 2022
Book Review: Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back
The book does not really tell the story of the flight in a detailed timeline. It chronicles the events from the time the flight crew arrived at the airport, then cuts to talking about one of the people, and then goes back to the events of the day. So, it would be something like "the plane started boarding at "x" time" and then discuss the life of one or two passengers or crew members, and then continue with the timeline like "the plane pulled back from the gate at "y" time. The author does not speculate about events that have not been confirmed, like whether the passengers and crew successfully got into the cockpit or not. He did point out, however, that given how low the plane was flying and the speed it was going, it would have been unlikely for a commercial airline pilot (much less anyone who was likely still alive on the plane during the fight with the hijackers) to save it from crashing.
It is a very well-written book that is very sad (as all the books about 9/11 are) but does a wonderful job honoring the people and their families. It is definitely worth reading, and at just under 300 pages, it is a fairly quick read. I highly recommend it.