R Scott Jones

Professor Srikumar S. Rao discusses why you already have what you need to be happy. You just have to ditch the “if..then” mental construct of happiness and focus your attention on the process itself.

I think he’s on to something, though his explanation of how to re-configure this mental challenge is a bit inadequate.

You can watch some similar videos over at the TED Talks archive.

Worth the ten minutes.

Local businesses can really rock sometimes. Case in point: the Arizona Hiking Shack.

The Arizona Hiking Shack is what you might expect from an independent outdoor retailer jammed into an awkward, ill-conceived corner of a strip mall dedicated to antiques and other worthless items. Once inside, you’ll find the trend continues. No sexy display racks, ADA compliant pathways, and not much effort given to displaying or stocking merchandise—just plain and simple, like your uncle’s attic. They don’t have much of a selection, and the items they do have seem more expensive that you might otherwise find them.

They clearly don’t compete with REI for the trendy gearhead crowd.

[Side note: I overheard the REI new employee training the other day, and distinctly heard them encourage employees to recommend the AZ Hiking Shack: “We’re a Co-op, we’re here to help our members, even if it that means passing along a sale to what others think is a competitor.” I love REI.]

Nonetheless, they are genuinely friendly and laid back, and they rent kayaks for cheap. And that’s what had brought me to the store, which is conveniently located just a couple of miles from my house.

Single-person inflatable kayaks—including pfd, pump, paddle, and throw bag—are $25 a day. Well, kinda. The rental also includes a “travel day” for getting to and from your destination, so it’s in effect a 3-day rental.

For only $25.

That’s one helluva deal. They also have two person kayaks (more commonly referred to as “divorce boats”), rafts, and other outdoor gear for rent.

But that’s not the only reason that I’ll return as a repeat customer.

I had planned to spend last Sunday kayaking up at Barlett Lake. It was finally my chance to bring my kayak out for its inaugural voyage. I rented an inflatable for my friend Laura who was joining me on Saturday (and will be joining my other friend Tiffany and I on a river trip next week). Unfortunately, I had some significant trouble getting my kayak secured on the Forester, even after trying multiple carrying systems. The morning was quickly disappearing, and we ended up bailing on the outing.

I showed up to return the kayak and gear—which never even left my vehicle—on Monday and was asked the obvious question of how my paddle had gone. I explained that I had to cancel, and without hesitation, the guy said that he wouldn’t charge me.

I had the kayak and gear for three days, but he wasn’t going to charge me because I didn’t get to have any fun with it.

Awesome.

And that’s why I’ll be back to the Arizona Hiking Shack the next time I need to rent a kayak—even if it’s going to just sit in my vehicle all weekend.

[caption id=“attachment_577” align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The Simpsons House in Henderson, Nevada (now repainted)"][/caption]

Salon recently published an interview with author John Ortved about The Simpsons entitled “Why ‘The Simpsons’ no longer matters.” It’s a short but good interview and worth the quick read.

Like many people my age, I grew up on The Simpsons.

I remember watching it while it was still an odd series of shorts on the Tracy Ullman Show, I remember when the show launched, I remember when I bought my Bartman shirt, I remember when I ran across the treasure trove that is The Simpsons Archive. The Simpsons have always been there.

Thursday marks the show’s two-decade anniversary – an event that serves as a reminder not only of the show’s extraordinary staying power, but also the extent to which it’s disappeared from the cultural conversation.

How true. While the show has remained popular enough to remain on the air, spawn a long-awaited movie, and sell tons of stuff (including the Pin Pals shirt I often wear bowling, a reference to an early episode), the ubiquitous discussion of the show has vanished. I’ve been disappointed in the show for years, yet I’m entirely unable to remove it from the DVR…even though I haven’t watched a full episode in years. It’s a friggin' institution and an old friend you can’t quite give up on.

While the show’s trajectory is clearly barreling downward, it’s hard not to step back and acknowledge the sheer brilliance, courage, and influence of the show. After because of The Simpsons, it doesn’t even feel weird anymore to say that about a cartoon. That’s a testament in itself of how much of an impact the show’s had on our culture.

I would add that "The Simpsons" made audiences a lot smarter. They really raised the bar for what you could put out there and what audiences were ready for. I can't say with any authority that we wouldn't have "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" without "The Simpsons." But I doubt it.

Indeed. And when asked about which current tv show is the hier to The Simpsons, I thought he hit the bullseye:

Without sounding too cheesy, I think contemporary television is itself the heir. I think "The Simpsons" in one way or another gave us most of what's smart and progressive in television.

It’s a bit sad to watch as the show slowly declines. But only because it set such a high bar over an incredible length of time. And for that reason, The Simpsons will probably always remain my all-time favorite tv show.

If you haven’t already checked out a Culture Pass, you need to. They’re available for “check-out” from your local Phoenix-area library and will admit four adults for free to one of several museums:

• Arizona Historical Society
• Arizona Museum of Natural History
• Arizona Museum for Youth
• Arizona Science Center
• The Bead Museum which is now closed
• Cave Creek Museum
• Children's Museum of Phoenix
• Deer Valley Rock Art Center
• Desert Botanical Garden
• Desert Caballeros Western Museum
• Heard Museum
• Mesa Contemporary Arts
• Phoenix Art Museum
• Phoenix Zoo (only two admissions)
• Pueblo Grande Museum
• Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art

It’s a great way to get in your culture fix without spending any extra cash. However, you’ll need to get a bit lucky, as the passes aren’t always easy to come by. In fact, the rack is nearly always bare at the popular libraries, less so if you’re willing to travel to some of the ghetto locations.

But you shouldn’t despair if you can’t snag one of those passes - many of the museums participating in the Culture Pass also have regular free admission days. Here’s the list, which is current as of May 20, 2009. I’ve included links and phone numbers so you can verify a museum is still participating before you show up.

Arizona Museum of Youth Noon - 5pm first Sunday of each month 35 N Robson St, Mesa - 480-644-2467

Arizona Museum of Natural History Noon - 5pm first Sunday of each month 53 N MacDonald St, Mesa - 480-644-2230

Children’s Museum of Phoenix 6 - 10pm first Friday of each month 215 N. 7th St, Phoenix - 602-253-0501

Desert Botanical Garden 1-8pm on the second Tuesday of each month 1201 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix - 480-941-1225

Heard Museum 11am - 5pm second Sunday of each month 2301 N Central Ave, Phoenix - 602-252-8848

Mesa Contemporary Arts Noon - 5pm first Sunday of each month & 10am - 8pm Thursdays 1 E Main St, Mesa - 480-644-6560

Phoenix Art Museum 3pm - 9pm Wednesdays & 6pm - 10pm first Friday of each month 1625 N Central Ave, Phoenix - 602-257-1222

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art 10am - 8pm Thursdays 7374 E 2nd St, Scottsdale - 480-874-4666

This is a great way to check out some great museums - leave a comment if you really enjoyed a particular place or if you find any other locations with free admission days. Thanks!

Update: As mentioned in the comments, Bank of America customers can now show their cards at the Phoenix Art Museum and The Phoenix Zoo the Musical Instrument Museum on the first full weekend of every month to receive free general admission. Check out more details here.

Photo credit: Rail Life

I received an interesting email a couple of days ago from some guy named Jason. It read:

I know this is a random question, but I have a friend in Denver that has been looking everywhere for Dublin Dr. Pepper and I found a photo on your flickr stream of a Dublin Dr. Pepper on tap somewhere in Denver's Central Business District from last year. Do you happen to remember where exactly you found this?

President Obama: ASU’s in, U of A’s out.

For the last few months, I’ve had trouble joining cd tracks before importing a cd into iTunes. I do very little book-reading these days, so instead I listen to audiobooks. I’ve enjoyed being an audible customer, but in an effort to cut down on expenses, I have since re-discovered the public library. The Phoenix Public Library in particular does a great job of getting in new audiobooks or books on cd. However, books on cd are annoying split into dozens of tracks per disc - well, annoying only if you’re going to listen to them on an ipod as opposed to a cd player. The key is to select all of those cd tracks, head up to the Advanced menu in iTunes and select “Join CD Tracks.” Voila, all of the tracks are ready to be imported as one. That simplifies playback significantly, as now you only need to manage a few tracks (equal to the number of cds the book required), which is a helluva lot easier than managing hundreds of individual tracks (some of which are seriously short - like less than :10 short).

This has worked quite well for me for, well, years. At least until last month, when the “Join CD Tracks” command was dimmed. I tried everything I could think of: different discs, restarting iTunes, reinstalling iTunes, searching the Apple help and support files, even calling AppleCare. No luck - I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

I was following the instructions and the only caveat seemed to be that you had to select contiguous tracks. I wondered if there was some sort of new anti-piracy inclusions that were preventing me from copying the files - nope, iTunes would still let me copy the tracks, it just wouldn’t let me join them first.

And then I managed to stumble on the answer. The key is that the files must sorted properly for the “Join CD Tracks” menu item to be available. This seems weird, and certainly didn’t seem like a problem - the track numbers were in order from 1 to 99. But since this was a book on cd, it was not in the track name database. iTunes was simply giving the tracks a temporary number in what appeared to be the proper order, while in reality it was sorting by a different column. This is really difficult to spot unless you put in a music disc that’s in the name database and you notice the track order is different.

The solution here is to sort by filename until the “Join CD Tracks” command is active again. That usually involves two or three clicks on the first column. You should find that this solves the problem.

You brought much-needed social commentary into our lives and managed to make it funny, too.

A great update to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth presentation was heard at TED in March. It’s about 27 minutes long, but his updated thoughts are well worth every second. Check it out below.