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4 Comments Posted on Nostalgia, Storytelling, Uncategorized

The Truth and Irony about Solving a Rubik’s Cube

Somebody’s gotta be able to do it.  So I took it upon myself to become that person.

Last night at 11:15 PM, I solved my first Rubik’s Cube.  Then again, and again, again.  It all started on February 23rd when I was trying to think of a clever title for a post that I was working on about the true danger of dying of boredom and inactivity, which ended up with me questioning the small possibility that I could have a mild case of Aspergers (I’m pretty sure I don’t, though…).  I ended up naming the writing “Rubik’s Cube Syndrome”.

http://wp.me/pxqBU-zv

A few days later, on February 27th, I decided to take the concept literally: I went to Target and paid $9 for a Rubik’s Cube.  Because I realized I didn’t know anyone in my life that knew how to solve it, nor did I know anyone who knew anyone who knew how to solve it.  So I knew that meant that I would have to become that person.  I would have to become “that guy”.

For the next 11 days (which ended last night), I took “The Cube” with me everywhere.  The token running joke I kept hearing as I was learning to solve it was, “I can solve that thing for you, just let me take off the stickers…”

Everyday during my lunch break I walked over to Borders and used their free wi-fi to watch YouTube videos on how to solve it.  And, it worked.

The truth about solving a Rubik’s Cube is this:  Basically, trusting your own puzzle-solving abilities, you can not solve a Rubik’s cube.  It’s impossible.

The Cube is solved through completing a series of 7 layers, starting from the bottom up (like levels of an old school Nintendo game like Donkey Kong) and each one has a corresponding algorithm which is a set series of turns and twists (like the Konami code on Contra to get 30 extra lives or the combination of buttons pressed in order to pull of a “special move” on Streetfighter II).  But one wrong move, and you end up having to go back a few layers and start over.

The biggest hint that The Cube itself provides is that the middle squares of each side are the only ones locked into place, and each corner is predetermined.  For example, the green side will never share corners with the blue sides, because they’re on opposite sides from each other.

Interestingly, in theory, no matter what the positions are, it should never take more than 20 twists in order to return The Rubik’s cube to its original state.

The Rubix Cube has been frustrated millions of people since its commercial release 30 years ago in 1980.  Understandably.  Without memorizing the algorithms, it virtually is impossible.

So my advice is this.  Unless you’re willing to spend 11 days to memorize the exact formula, don’t waste your time.  It will be nothing but frustrating.  The Cube is either the most frustrating puzzle in the world or the most rewarding and therapeutic.  But if you don’t follow the formula step by step, you will not succeed.

The irony of being able to solve a Rubik’s cube is this: While you will most definitely be able to impress your friends when they watch you do it in front of them in just a matter of a few minutes, it takes memorizing algorithms to do it.  You must become a little bit dorky in order to become cool.

And I’m okay with that.  Because for a lifetime I have memorized the formula.  So for a lifetime, I will keep my mind active.  I called my Rubik’s Cube my “Alzheimer’s Prevention Device”.

2 Comments Posted on Health, Uncategorized

Banana Oatmush; The Real Breakfast of Champions (Contains Cinnamon and Hemp Seed)

I invented the nation’s most healthiest, most alive, most convenient, least expensive breakfast, and it’s completely non-processed.  The best part is, I can’t make a profit off of it at all.  You have to make it yourself.  That’s how you know it’s good.

We know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but it’s also one of the most difficult to pull off consistently and still be healthy.  Because after eliminating the option of the quick and easy (and deadly) fast food options, what is there that is inexpensive and fiber-packed enough to keep a person full?  And most importantly, what breakfast food is there that has no added sugar, essentially no fat, improves digestion, is easy to make, and actually tastes really good?

Oatmush.  I will share it with you.

Start with a half a cup of rolled oats (make sure that rolled oats are the only ingredient; no sugar, salt, dehydrated fruit, evaporated cane juice, etc).  Sometimes I use Publix store brand that costs about $2 for 32 oz. canister (13 servings); currently I’m using Bob’s Red Mill Extra Thick Rolled Oats that I bought from Whole Foods for just a dollar more:

3.5g fat (0.5 saturated, 0 trans), 1g sugar, 7g protein, 5 g dietary fiber

Just pour the oats in an empty coffee mug, then pour in hot water until the water is about ¼ inch above the top of the oats.  Then grab a banana:

0g fat, 21g sugar (though it doesn’t count against you when eaten in its whole, natural form, but fruit juice does because it has been separated from the fiber of the fruit), 1g protein, 4g dietary fiber

Now with a fork, set the tip of the banana on the edge of the coffee mug, cutting the banana into slices that fall on top of the oatmeal.  Then with the fork, mash the banana slices into oatmeal for a few seconds, like mashing a potato.

By this point, the Oatmush may not be as hot as the oatmeal you’re used to eating, so that means you may need to find hotter water to begin with.  Don’t reheat the Oatmush in the microwave; that “kills” the life in it.  At least 55% of the food we eat in a day needs to be alive.  Live food helps our bodies fight off cancers and diseases (fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, and nuts in their whole form); dead food doesn’t (meat, processed food, etc.).

If you want to keep things simple, then you’re done.  Enjoy your Oatmush.

However, if you’d like to add more flavor and nutrition to your Oatmush, here’s how I do it.  Mix in about a half a tablespoon of cinnamon (loaded with antioxidants).  Next, get your hands on some hemp seed, found in your nearest Whole Foods.  I use Nutiva’s Organic Shelled Hempseed from the refrigerated section of the store.

Hemp seed is extremely healthy and a major part of a healthy, daily diet:

13.5 g fat (1g saturated, 0g trans), 1g sugar, 11g protein, 1g dietary fiber

It contains more fatty acids than any other nut or seed found in nature (which is a very good thing).  Hempseed contains all 9 essential amino acids and is high in phytonutrients, which support and protect the health of our body’s immunity, bloodstream, cells, tissues, organs, and mitochondria (our body’s “life cells”).

*Flax seed can be substituted in place of hemp seed, which is comparible in nutrition but not equal.

So every morning now, I start off with a good healthy cup of Oatmush.  Complete with hempseed, here is the unofficial complete nutritional value:

17g fat (the good kind), 1.5g saturated fat, Og trans fat, 24g sugar (the good kind), 19g protein, 10g dietary fiber

And that’s with nothing man-made or processed.  A completely alive breakfast.  The best part of it is, I can’t sell you Oatmush.  It’s not a marketable product.  Because if it was, it would have to come in a bag or box and the bananas would have to be dehydrated.  No one can sell you Oatmush.  You have to make it yourself.  And that’s another sign that it’s really good for you.

It’s really quick and easy to make.  Only takes me about one minute, literally. And I dare the entire world to find a healthier, more convenient, less expensive breakfast that is completely alive and not processed in any way.

…I’m waiting.

Oh, and, you’re welcome.  For my secret recipe, that is:

 

Nick Shell’s Famous “Oatmush”

½ cup of rolled oats

1/3 cup of hot water

1 banana

½ tablespoon of cinnamon

3 tablespoons of hemp seed

1 Comment Posted on Spirituality, Uncategorized

The Perceived Idea of Complete Control over Our Lives

Bummer, man.

I’ve learned something about disappointments that has recently helped me to deal with them a whole let better: It’s not so much about the fact that I’m not getting my way. It’s more about the fact I had already set my mind on one thing and now am getting something else instead.

Let’s assume we’re not childish. Let’s assume that we don’t let our day become ruined because they were all out of Hazelnut syrup at Starbucks and we had to settle for vanilla, which when it comes down to it, we like just as much.

The problem is the change itself in the plans. It’s not my way that got compromised, it’s my plan. My plan got compromised.

Looking at it this way has helped me realize the problem isn’t necessarily the fact I’ve been duped or got the short end of the stick. The problem is that I’m being forced to recognize a part of life I keep forgetting:

I have direction over my life, but I don’t have complete control.

Control is a perceived thing, not an actual one. I can never have complete control over my own life. And that is one of the most relieving yet at the same time stressful things about being alive.

“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.”  -Proverbs 16:1

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The Problem with Rear View Mirrors and Binoculars

“Don’t worry, darlin’. No baby, don’t you fret. We’re livin’ in the future and none of this has happened yet.” –“Livin’ in the Future” by Bruce Springsteen

“It’s such a drag when you’re living in the past.” -“Even the Losers” by Tom Petty

Some things (and people) look and seem a lot better from a distance, until you get more familiar and get to know them better.  That’s a lesson everyone has learned at some point. And we file that information away and are more skeptical because of it. But these “better-looking things” in life don’t just apply to right now, they apply to the past and to the future.

Being the romantic and nostalgic person I am, this tends to be a weakness of mine. Anyone who has known me since 8th grade has known that I am obsessed with the year 1983. While I was only 2 years old in 1983, I remember enough about it and have seen enough movies and heard enough songs from that year to know it seems to be the coolest year for me to live in.

It’s not just 1983 though, it’s just about every year I’ve been alive. My mind mainly only records the positive memories, not the boring and bad ones. So I have this massive slide show collection in my mind of all these funny quotes and moderately interesting stories that I tend to compare today to.

With countless files in my head of positive times in the past, it’s easy to look around right now and think, “Things were better two years ago” or “ten years ago” or “fifteen”. But it’s not a fair comparison.

And with the future. I have a great imagination. So many plans and ideas for the future for my life. I subconsciously tell myself, “Things will be better when…” Then I fill in the blank that I want to happen that may indeed never actually happen. Another unfair comparison to the present day.

Living in the now is a hard thing to do, especially when you’re prone to time travel.

2 Comments Posted on Nostalgia, People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

The First Steps on the Earth

I like to be where no man has gone before.

Ten years ago during the summer of 2000, I travelled to California for the first time in my life.  The plane landed in Sacramento (which ended up being the hometown of my wife, whom I would meet six years later), then I took a 3 hour bus ride north to Redding.  It was the token instance in my life where the airline sent my luggage to the wrong city.

Meaning that I, along with the group of ten or so others I was with, had to wait until the next day until our clothes and toiletries arrived.  Since that flight, I have always made a point not to bring on any luggage onto a plane other than my carry-on.  (I even spent an entire week in New Zealand in 2007 with just one bookbag of my belongings, which I was able to stuff into the overhead compartment for the flights.)

That summer, age 19, I was part of college singing group that got to spend two weeks out in the mountains of northern California as we performed songs at a summer camp and were the actual camp counselors as well.  Best I can remember, we thought we were pretty cool at the time.

Christi Soderberg, one of my friends from the group, always called me Peter Brady, because in an attempt to mock the college’s dress code, I “permed” my long shaggy hair, so that it would appear that my hair was short enough to be deemed acceptable (above the eyebrows, off the ears and collar).  And even after my hair eventually grew back straight, I was still Peter Brady.

During the weekend between the two weeks of work we were rewarded with a hiking trip to the top of Mount Lassen, which is an active volcano that’s peak is 2,000 ft high.  Because the volcano is so steep, the only safe way to climb it is to hike around and up it, which takes a good two hours minimum.  We started at the bottom in the hot summer sun, but by the time we reached the top, we were marching in snow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lassen

It was definitely my kinda thing.  Spending a Saturday morning hiking a volcano, shimmying up and over to the most dangerous and scenic spot once I reached the top, finding some weird satellite-type device in the process and wondering how few people in the world have been at that exact spot. That’s something I often think about.

How many people have stepped on the exact spots of the Earth I am standing on right now?  How often (seldom is the better word) do I step on “unstepped” spots?  I try to visualize all the ground around me covered in blue footprints, seeing random spots that have never been stepped on.

I realize the Earth is really old and that billions of people have lived here during its lifetime, but surely sometimes I take the first step on certain corners of the world.

The Winter Olympics is coming to an end.  These athletes (and ice skaters, whom I watch mainly to see fall after they do a Triple Axel jump and also to make fun of their sequin-infused outfits) live for the opportunity to break the current record.  I’ll never know the high that Shaun White gets to experience as he flies through the air on his snowboard.  My only experience snowboarding was in Maggie Valley, NC back in 2001 and involved me constantly falling over every 4.3 seconds.

I’m not an athlete who finds freedom and thrills in breaking records of Olympic history.  Instead, I am an explorer who finds freedom and thrills in discovering new niches of the world.  I may not be able to discover something new, but I can discover something rare.  It’s nothing impressive, really, to the rest of most of the world.  But for me, I thrive on those places and those moments.  Then I can take snapshots of the scenic route.

Related Posts by the Same Author:

The Scenic Route http://wp.me/pxqBU-pL

Parks and Rec http://wp.me/pxqBU-jw

WOLBI Florida Ensemble 1999-2000

My friend Christi Mack and I at the top of Mount Lassen in 2000 and 2001