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UPDATE: Woot!  It worked.  We’re now back up better than ever with Wordpress v.2.5.1

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Hachette Book Group USA has graciously offered to supply the books.  Books that it specifically selected for dad’s everywhere.

The only catch here is that you must live in the USA or Canada.  To win, first subscribe to Long Days and Pleasant Nights in your favorite feed reader (a donation would be nice, but is not required.  You can donate by clicking the donate button to the right, just above Jason’s Shared Items) then leave a short  paragraph in the comments about your own dad.  I will select five winners next week.  You must have your paragraph in the comments by the end of Wednesday, June 11th.

Here’s a rundown of the books with links to more info on the Hachette website.

Sports

1. Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember By John Feinstein. Read an Excerpt here.

2. The Last Real Season By Mike Shropshire. Read an Excerpt

Military & History

3. Lone Survivor By Marcus Luttrell. Chapter Excerpt * Available in Audio format

4. A Tale of Two Subs By Jonathan McCullough. Watch the Video View Photo Gallery

5. A Terrible Glory By James Donovan. Chapter Excerpt

6. The Training Ground By Martin Dugard. Read an Excerpt

Memoir

7. The Film Club By David Gilmour. Chapter Excerpt

Fiction

8. The Whole Truth By David Baldacci. Read an Excerpt * Available in Audio format

9. Child 44 By Tom Smith. Visit Child44book.com Read a Chapter Excerpt * Available in Audio format

10. The Adventures of Slim & Howdy By Kix Brooks, Ronnie Dunn. Read an Excerpt

For Father’s-to-be:

11. The Dudes’ Guide to Pregnancy By Bill Lloyd , Scott Finch.

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• TechCast, my tech news podcast
• Make Use Of, my cool websites and software podcast
• Music (Springtime) graciously provided by: Grammy award winner Doug Smith

If you like what you hear, then please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

I’d love to hear what you have to say, so please leave me a comment.  I’ve started using a new commenting system called Intense Debate.  Please let me know what you think.

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I’m not advocating sitting on the bus mumbling to yourself, but I am suggesting you have a frank sit-down with yourself to think about what it is you want to accomplish and how you expect to accomplish it.  A notepad and writing implement are not necessary, but can come in handy to jot things down.

Visualisation can be a very powerful and useful tool for a lot of things in life, so why not in this area.  If you’re having a tough time keeping things organized around the house, then sit down for a few minutes a day and create a picture in your mind of what you think your kitchen, bathroom, storage room and the other less-than-organized rooms of your home should look like.  Sometimes it’s difficult to hold that kind of image in your mind for long, so try adding movement to the picture — make it a movie.

Walk towards your clear counter, towards the sink that has no dishes in it.  Open your cupboards and see how neat and organized they are, every pot in its place and every dish neatly stacked.  Move to the pantry and see the oils all neatly placed on one shelf and the cereals on another.  Move something from one place to another making the pantry that much neater.

Move out of the kitchen into the bathroom.  See how the shower door is closed and there are no towels on the floor.  The toothpaste and toothbrushes are neatly in their place.  Towels are stacked and there are no empty rolls of toilet paper around.

I think you get the picture — or the movie.  The idea is to see your home as you want it to be.  See things as they should be.  See things as they can AND WILL be.  All actions must start with a thought.  Your brain must first decide it is going to pick up that cheese wrapper  sitting on the counter, before your hand makes the move to place it in the garbage.  Visualization is just thinking on steroids.   See it in your mind and you will see all the possibilities, all the great things you can do to put things in their proper places.

Once you’ve visualized, once you have that movie in your mind of what your home will look like, it’s only a matter of making it look like that.  You know what needs to be done.  You have the before picture sitting in front of you and the after picture in your mind.  You just need to fill in the middle parts.  Yes, yes I know this is the part involving the work — but with the clear roadmap now in your mind and the powerful motivation of seeing the final product — the doing part will be that much easier.

Seeing really is believing.

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If you want to try it now, my best advice — short of watching the movie — is this. Ask for what you want. Ask the universe for a clean, uncluttered home. Ask only once and be specific about what you want. Use positive wording like “I want an organized basement” instead of negative wording like “I don’t want a messy basement.” Now, believe and feel that you already have a clean basement. Act as if it’s already come true, that you have a clean basement already, even if it’s still a mess.

The idea is that the universe acts as your genie, the “your wish is my command” guy, but the universe mirrors your thoughts and feelings exactly, giving you what you think and feel, but in the real physical world. It’s not up to you to figure out how your basement will get cleane, that’s the universe’s problem. Your job is just to think, feel and believe.

Yes, this process involves a leap of faith, but if you take that leap and believe it will work, then it will work.

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Subscribe in iTunes or go to the site

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You can listen to it by going over here or by clicking the little audio icon below.  It’s not on iTunes yet, but as soon as it is, I’ll let you know.

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It’s a little on the pricey side at the moment, about $400, but it should soon eventually start coming down in price.  Really all they need is a little competition from someone else to get a price war going.  I must admit, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to test it out, but I’ve heard from people who have and most seem to really like it.

There are other e-book readers, but this one seems to be the “latest and greatest.”  I sure would love to hear from you if you’ve tried it out, or if you use another type of e-book reader.

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