Category Archives: review

If you follow me on the social networks, by now you have heard me talk about DailyMuse. It was born out of an idea I floated on App.net for a web app that would send me daily, random, emails from a group of items I put into it. My friend Matthew Lang took up the challenge and built it. I like it a lot. But, let me tell you why I wanted it in the first place and how I put it to use.

A couple of years ago, I purchased a book and assessment test called StrenthsFinder 2.0 published by Gallup. Yes, the same Gallup that is known for polling data. The assessment is a series of questions designed to help you discover your core strengths. At the end of the assessment, a list and explanation of those strengths is given and they provide a personalized action plan to help you uncover and tap into those talents.

I had the thought that this series of actions would be better digested and reflected upon if I got one sent randomly via email to me daily. Almost like a daily devotional. But, I could not find a tool to do so. Now, thanks to Daily Muse, there is.

Once I started using it ( I was on the beta team) I thought it might be fun to also add Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies into the daily mix. So, I copied and pasted many of those in too.

Those are the two things I’m using it for so far but I can think of many others — daily exercise ideas, healthy snacks and recipes, writing prompts, study of scripture or philosophy, etc. Basically, anything that would be good to have a daily reminder for would be a good fit for this.

DailyMuse is free to try for 30 days and, if you like it, the price is a very fair $2 per month or $20 per year beyond that. Check it out.

This is not a review of Tinkers by Paul Harding. The reason this is not a review is because I did not finish the book.

Here’s the thing: I’m supposed to like this book. In fact, there’s nothing to not like about it. The prose is beautiful, rich, and dense. The story, about a man on his deathbed surrounded by family and drifting in and out of consciousness and time, is compelling. And, one needs to give some appreciation to the fact that this is his first novel as it is better than most writers tenth novels. It even won the Pulitzer Prize. In other words, people far smarter than me like this book. They love this book.

Here’s another thing: You will likely enjoy this book as millions of others have. Not to mention as much as those who gave it the one of the highest prizes in literature clearly did. You will likely read this post, read the book, and think I’ve lost all sense and good taste. For all I know, you might be right.

Yet, I could not get through it. I tried three times. The funny thing is that the reasons I should have liked this book are the very reasons I could not push through it. I found the prose to be too rich and the story too deep. I found that it suffers from an affliction of many first novels in that it is weighed down by too much description — beautifully described, but too much all the same. It was like a well made flour-less chocolate cake — delicious first slice but a few bites more than that and you quickly become too full and too ill to eat more.

This is one of those rare times I understand "book guilt". Most of the time, I have no problem putting a book I’m not enjoying down and moving on to another. Life is too short and there are too many great books to waste a single moment more on one you are not enjoying. But, I felt very conflicted about walking away from this one.

Because no one warns you about the ones that might be too good. Or, the ones you just might not be ready to read — those you may need more wisdom or more patience to truly enjoy. Or the ones that you know are technically great, that everyone else says are great, but for whatever reason are just not for you.

Even though it is much more difficult to admit and do, the same rules apply for these too. Books are meant to be read and enjoyed. If one is not doing it for you for any reason, put it down and move on to another guilt free. Even is it is "good".

TROVE: INTRODUCTION from TROVE on Vimeo.

The Trove wallet is a nice new minimalist wallet. The folks there were nice enough to send me one to review. I’ve actually spent the last month or so carrying it around as my full time wallet — replacing the one I have carried for years now.

In that time it has performed well and still looks as good as new. It is attractive and casually professional. It’s available is a iety of colors. I chose the “Autumn” colorway which is black elastic with chocolate ant toffee brown leather.

The concept is a simple one, executed very well. A band of elastic with a leather loop in the middle that cradles up to 10 cards and provides for a way to slip in a couple of business cards or a few bills cash on the opposite side. It’s also reversible so that one could have a way to slip such items on the outside of the wallet as an option. It’s best to watch the video embedded above to get a sense of what I’m talking about here.

If I were to take any issue with it, it is no fault of theirs, it is mine. If you know anything at all about me it is that I live very intentionally and work to hard to carry only that which I really need. This is especially true of something I carry all day every day. The truth is, I actually need to carry a couple of more cards than this is designed to hold. I pushed the Trove past this limit, and as such it made it difficult to get cards out and to finger my way to the one I needed. If I removed a couple of cards from the total, it was not an issue. So, while the Trove actually performed very well as advertised, it is just a bit too small for my needs.

That said, if you are in the market for a minimalist front-pocket wallet that looks good and the capacity fits your needs, this is a very nice option. It would make a great gift too. Check it out.