What if They Built an Urban Wireless Network and Hardly Anyone Used It?

I'm sitting in a public library in southern California and enjoying the free public wireless internet connection that the city of Fullerton provides. It's wonderful for a visitor like me, who doesn't have internet access where I am staying.

But if I lived here, I would have broadband at home and at the office, and doubt I would go to the library to get on the internet.

Maybe it would be helpful if I am out somewhere and need to check the internet or email for some reason, but that would be on rare occasions.

"Yet as Taipei has found out, just building a citywide network does not guarantee that people will use it."

Family in Monterey

My boys fell in love with the California coastline on a trip to Monterey in June.

Shaq Blames Poor Performance on Brainpower

Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat lost the opener of the NBA Championship series when "the three-time champion went 1-for-9 at the free throw line, leading Miami's abysmal 7-for-19 performance.

"'Throughout my career, I've known that for my team to win a championship, I have to step up at the line,' O'Neal said. 'I will. I was probably thinking about it too much.'"

Thinking about it too much?

Yes, sometimes we can over-analyze. Lots of times our intuition knows what our brains haven't figured out yet.

Have you been able to find that balance between your cognitive and intuitive strengths?

A Sea of Sand Is Threatening China's Heart

Wow, read the staggering statistic from this article about the advance of the desert in NW China "...its precarious state threatens to accelerate the spread of barren wasteland to the heart of China.

The national 937 Project, set up to fight the encroaching desert, estimated in April that 1,500 square miles of land, roughly the size of Rhode Island, is buried each year. Nearly all of north central China, including Beijing, is at risk."

Could it be that the crucial commodity for China's future is not oil, but water?

Attention-Juggling in the High-Tech Office

"TECHNOLOGY is having a double-edged impact in the workplace, says Ed Reilly, president and chief executive of the American Management Association. It improves productivity, he says, but it may also be a distraction that prevents high-quality thinking."

I like the sound of that phrase: "high-quality thinking."

How important is high-quality thinking to my work and life, and what do I do to pursue it?

Certainly time-management is crucial. Also relating to people that stimulate my thinking, and putting myself in learning contexts. And carving out blocks of time for thinking rather than for action.

It reminds me of a phrase I read in a bok by Eugene Peterson more than 20 years ago. "When did the pastor's study become the pastor's office?"

And back then, we didn't even have computers in our offices. Or fax machines. Or cell phones! But I think even 2,000 years ago it was easy to let activity crowd out the "high-level" functions of thinking and spiritual formation.

"We apostles should spend our time preaching and teaching the word of God, not administering a food program." Acts 6:2