Book Reviews: Facts vs. Truth

This past Sunday, as an almost incidental part of his sermon, Kevin expounded on the difference between Facts and Truth. It was an idea I found interesting enough at the time but was reminded of last night as I finished “The Death of Ivan Illych.” As many of you will recall, I asked for a list of books to read in various categories. From the “Cultural Studies or Business” category I selected "The Tipping Point", by Malcolm Gladwell. From the “Classic Fiction” category, I selected “The Death of Ivan Ilych.” I recently finished both of them (to be fair, one can both start and finish Ivan Ilych in one sitting). Although it is, on the surface, ridiculous to try to discuss/compare these two books, I think that in the context of “Facts vs. Truth” there is some insight to be gained.

The Tipping Point is a book full of facts. Many of these facts come in the form of statistics, others in the form of narrative. Those of you who know me well know that I really enjoy statistics and what we can learn from them. I guess I am a descendant of the Bill James/SABR school and enjoy the obvious selections such as Steven Levitt. Nonetheless, I found this book, while abundantly rich in fact, to be lacking in truth. In theory, The Tipping Point is designed to help the reader identify those people and concepts that they can use to make their idea/product “tip,” or become epidemically contagious. To be sure, Gladwell provides numerous examples of ideas & products that have tipped, and he explains the forces that helped those ideas tip. Fair enough. What I found lacking was any sense of how to make this happen on a go forward basis. It is easy to look at success and identify factors that contributed to that success. This is reasonable, and there is certainly much to be gained by learning from the success of others. But if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it, and all but the absolute worst ideas would tip. In other words, there is the fundamental problem of selection bias in his study. By studying only those stories that are successes, he selects out those that may have used all of the same techniques yet had a different outcome. Here is a book, an interesting book, which is full of fact and lacking in truth.

The Death of Ivan Ilych, on the other hand contains no fact, yet is rich in truth. Actually, this is the central idea with which Ivan Ilych struggles leading up to his death. Here are the facts of his life, as he sees them: He is a good man. Although Ivan greatly desires (and receives) power and the status associated with it, he never abuses this power (although he loves the idea that he could abuse it if he wanted to). In his official duties, Ivan is reasonable, dispassionate, and above all fair. He has all his life done that which was expected of him by those put in authority over him, and he expects others to behave in the same way. More than anything Ivan Ilych tries to maintain a life that is peaceful, lovely, and decorous. Here is the truth of Ivan Ilych’s life: His entire life he has never cared about anyone but himself. Although his official duties require him to make life-altering decisions regarding other people (and he makes these decisions well and fair), he does not care about these people in the least. Most definitely they are forgotten by the time he reaches his carriage to return home. He does not care about his wife, only that he has a wife, which is the expected and decorous thing to do. His wife feels much the same about him, as do his children. His friends are not friends at all- not he to them nor them to him. At his viewing they all try to escape in short order as to not miss their weekly game of bridge. Ivan does not have a single meaningful relationship in his life.

So this is the central debate of Ivan Ilych’s life. He thought, based on the facts, that he was living the right way. When confronted with the truth however, he sees that he is wrong. This is like an ice-water bath for him, waking him out of his stupor but also incredibly uncomfortable. So, how, if not the way he has known his whole life, is one to live?

How are we to live? Is this not the question we are all called to answer? I believe that it is. In this way, The Death of Ivan Ilych, although completely devoid of fact, is full of truth. The struggles and eventually death of a made up person spoke truth to me in a way that facts simply cannot. I suppose this is the nature of fiction in general, at least for me. I have learned much from, and grown close to, many people who, strictly speaking, don’t exist. And that’s a fact.

The Kite Runner

I like to tease my mom about her book club. Frequently, she gives me the list of upcoming titles they are going to read to see if I would like to read any of them as well. Inevitably, the books can be summed up as follows:

"Young boy/girl/family grows up in war-torn/impoverished/war-torn & impoverished conditions. A main character is beaten/starved/raped/sold into slavery and family/social group is torn apart. Perhaps one of the main characters becomes a bad guy. Plot revolves around the strength of the human condition/overcoming heartache and redemption. Ending is, at best, bittersweet."

It is astonishing how many books there are, best-selling books, that can be summed up in this way. I usually reply to my mom that I'm not interested in reading another novel about European potato famine or unrelenting cruelty to innocent girls in foreign countries. Knowing this about me, she nonetheless suggested that I read "The Kite Runner" after her book club read through it. Initially, I brushed it off as just another torture book I didn't need to read. Still, she continued to recommend it to me (she's a persistent lady).

About a month ago, I requested that the readers of this blog give me ideas of books to read and that I would use their advice. Although there were many different books recommended to me both in and outside of the blog comments, my advisers spoke to me in one voice about one book in particular: The Kite Runner. So, in keeping with my commitment to those who took the time to help me out, I have read The Kite Runner.

Normally when I read, I tear through a book in a day, maybe two. It may have taken me a month to read The Kite Runner. As anyone who has already read the book could tell you, I was immediately drawn into its world and the dynamic between Amir, Hassan and Baba. I tore through the early stages of the book with my usual fervor. When Amir makes his first betrayal of Hassan in that alley, I set the book aside for a few days. I was frustrated that the book had become the genre I so detest. Nonetheless, I continued to be drawn to it and picked it up again shortly. As Amir struggles with his actions that day, it immediately became clear to me where this book was heading. The main character, the good guy, was going to betray possibly the most innocent character in recent literature for a second time.

I was NOT happy about this. So much so, in fact, that I read another book in its entirety before I returned to The Kite Runner. Still, I returned to it, partly out of guilt, as if I was betraying Hassan, too, by not allowing the story to be completed. This time, I attacked the book in my usual manner, devouring the final 2/3 of the book last night.

How do I feel now? On the one hand, I was disappointed that the book did become exactly what I had predicted. On the other hand, the book moves through these scenes quickly, trying fruitlessly to forget about them as Amir does. Although this provides a temporary relief to the reader (and Amir) it is always in the back of your mind that eventually these pains are going to have to be dealt with.

I loved the middle third of this book, where Amir and Baba try to forge a new life in a new place and gain new respect and admiration for one another. It is virtually impossible NOT to like Baba. I enjoyed the light-hearted way the author approached Amir's courtship of Saraya, which easily could have been made extremely uncomfortable.

The final third of the book was, while not enjoyable, inevitable and perhaps less painful than it could have been. It was, however, extremely educational, as was the book as a whole. I'm not going to claim that The Kite Runner helped me to understand that part of the world or even that I have new insight into that culture. If anything, it showed me just how little I understand the mindset of middle to southeast Asian cultures. What I did learn, and this is valuable, is that many people living there don't understand it either. The population as a whole doesn't understand when the soccer team has to wear pants and you are punished for cheering. Oppression, even when it is from your own people and religion, is still oppression.

So, does Amir eventually find redemption? I suppose the answer is "yes," but as with all books in this genre, that redemption is bittersweet.

UPDATE: Nancy made the correct observation that this review never states if I actually liked the book or not and if I would recommend it. One could easily get the impression from my comments that I didn't like it, and that would be incorrect. I actually liked it quite a bit and would highly recommend it. Thank you to those who recommended it to me! If I didn't think that the book was worthwhile, I probably wouldn't have finished it.

Catching Up Again

It’s been a while since we’ve written anything substantial in this space, so this post may turn into a lengthy “here’s what we did” type of writing. Feel free to read until you have something better to do, like work.

Last week we went up to Indiana on vacation, this time staying at casa Erickson. The most notable part of the trip was the timing regarding changes in Sophie. The day before we made the trip up, Sophie entered the world of crawling. At the same time, she also sprouted her first tooth. And she learned to stand up without pulling up on anything (sometimes). And she became a world class sprinter when holding on to your fingers. And she decided that she would now like to wave to everyone she sees. Sufficed to say, she was on stimulation overload for 9 days. She hasn’t slowed down since either. We have begun babyproofing the house now, but I fear I may have already trained her too well to be sneaky. So, she has now started hearing a new word, “No.” Furthermore, she has developed a strange fascination with eating my nose. Nancy thinks this is her way of giving kisses, but I think she is just mimicking the fact that I pretend to eat her all the time. In any event, these changes are, in large part, why we have not had time to update blog posts, but also why we haven’t had time to do anything else either. She has only one gear, “GO!!,” which means that for the time being, we are stuck in the same gear. She also turned 9 months old on Wednesday, so we took our now traditional every three month pictures to memorialize the occasion. Here are a few:


On our first vacation day in Indiana, we found out by accident that our former youth pastor Jim Merillat was in Granger for just that weekend. Nancy & I were very close to Jim & Pam and hadn’t seen either of them since our wedding. So, we gave Jim a call to see if we could see him, if only for a little while. He was actually available almost right away and came over to the house for an hour or so. He’s still the same Jim (well, maybe more salt and less pepper in the hair), a man who loves those he serves and is passionate about reaching the lost and helping people grow in their faith. We really enjoyed the short time we were able to spend with him and were blessed by it. We have one picture- please keep in mind that I hadn’t showered yet, because, well, seriously…My brother Mike got a puppy while we were in town, a Vizsla. He wanted to give it a foreign language name that was disc-golf related, so he turned to our resident linguist, Nancy. She scoured Hebrew, Akkadian, Egyptian, Sumerian, French & Greek for any variation of “disc” or “basket,” but none of the names were any good. Finally, we grabbed a German dictionary and the name jumped out, Scheibe (pronounced Shi-ba), which means disc. Vizslas are naturally pointer-style hunting dogs, so Mike plans to train Sheibe to track the discs he throws and go point them. What he doesn’t understand is that he needs to train Sheibe to find my discs, not his.
I also had the pleasure of again seeing Dan Weiss on my visit and then also having lunch with Mark Troyer. I am dismayed to say that Dan may never play disc golf again after his visit to Safetyville, but I hope that he had as much fun as I did. Dan is as solid of a guy as I know, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. Plus, he’s about the only person I’ve ever actually beat in disc golf… I found my lunch with Mark to be somewhat cathartic for both of us. We are at a place in life that is almost completely different, yet also strangely the same. That was quite rewarding- Thanks Mark!

After spending several days in Granger, we packed up and went camping with the Dayton clan. This was the first time in several years that we had the whole family together, and the first time that we had met Audrey or that Brian & Boualoy met Sophie. Sufficed to say, we were all properly introduced. As with our other camping trip, Sophie seems to be a natural. I get the distinct impression that she is going to be the type of girl that is into adventure activities. I get the sneaking suspicion that I am going to have to do something crazy like go skydiving with her on her 18th birthday. Anyway, we really enjoyed having everyone together. It only seems natural for Dayton family activities to be in the woods or on a boat and generally outdoors. Timothy & Audrey are two of the cutest future Cub fans I have ever seen.
I did manage to squeeze 2 books in on vacation. My Mom picked up “Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot” by Mike Greenburg at a garage sale. This is exactly what I think of as summer vacation reading in the sense that it requires no real thought or emotional investment of any kind. OK, that’s never my idea of great writing, but I enjoy him on the radio every morning and got pretty much the same shtick here, only in book length (and not about sports). The closest equivalent I can think of is Paul Reiser’s “Couplehood,” both in terms of writing style, subject matter, and general neurosis. The other book I read was from my reading list, and was my “popcorn” selection, recommended by my Mom. “The Devil in the White City” is a history book, as well sourced and cited as the best of text books, yet written in a style that almost makes you think you’re reading a novel. It tells two contemporaneous stories, both involving the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The first story is of the lead architect of the project, Daniel Burnham, and generally describes the amazing process of building an entire city in about 2 years. As someone who has done construction project management, I was absolutely blown away by what they accomplished there. Furthermore, it was a great pleasure to discover that some of my favorite buildings in Chicago are either remnants of this event or were designed by the same architects. The story is interlaced with that of H.H. Holmes, who is considered by some the first serial killer in the United States and the first documented sociopath. He performed his evil deeds at the time of that same World’s Fair, taking advantage of the chaos provided by that event. Why Erik Larson chose to tell these stories together is anybody’s guess, but they do provide a fascinating counterpoint to one another. I enjoyed this book on a lot of levels, but mostly I enjoyed learning about the history of one of my favorite cities and look forward to visiting Chicago again soon with a new-found appreciation.

So, if you’re still reading (don’t you have a job?), let us close by saying we really enjoyed our time with our family & friends and anxiously await our next opportunity to see you all again.

Game of Shadows

Is it ever right, or even necessary, to do what you know is wrong? Game of Shadows is an interesting case study in this very issue, in two different ways.

The first way is the actual subject of the book, which is the win at all costs mentality in sports. If everyone has an advantage, does anyone really have an advantage? If everyone else is lifting weights, then I need to life weights. If everyone else trains year-round then I need to train year-round. If every other team is building great facilities, then we need a great facility. If everyone else pays for private coaching for their kids, then my kids will need the same thing, just to stay competitive. As someone who works in, among other things, sports, I see this every day. The fact is, this mind set keeps me employed. So, where does this line of thinking eventually end? Quite clearly, it ends in the events described in Book of Shadows, which is wide-spread cheating through, in this case, performance enhancing drugs. In the eyes of the athletes, trainers, and "nutrition consultants" involved in the extremely widespread BALCO case, they saw themselves in a position where they simply had no choice. To them, everyone else had an advantage that they did not and to stay competitive, they had to cheat as well. It was, in their words, "cheat or lose." Of course, from the outside there are several glaring flaws to this line of thought. The first, and easiest, is that they throw around the word "everyone" so casually. The fact is, "everyone" was not cheating (actually, I do have some tiny sympathy towards the Track & Field athletes, as it appears as though everyone actually was cheating). In the case of Barry Bonds, his "everyone" was Mark McGuire, who Bonds viewed as a lesser player, but was baseball's glory boy. In his eyes, the only way to claim what he saw as rightfully his was to use, really, really use, steroids.

The obvious flaw in the "cheat or lose" philosophy is that there are worse things than losing, one of which is cheating. With that said, cheating in sports has long been a large gray area. Most athletes will tell you that "if you're not cheating, you're not trying." But this cheating "grace period" has boundaries that most athletes know. Q) Is it OK to grab someone's jersey, even though it's against the rules? A) Yes, until you get caught. Q) Is it OK to steal the other teams signals? A) Yes, unless you get caught. What do these two infractions have in common? They both happen within the game. In general, rule-breaking within the flow of the game is not frowned upon within the athletic community. If anything, they see it as the responsibility of the referee or umpire to enforce the rules on the playing field. If the referees allow you to get away with it, then it must be legal, right? The boundaries end with cheating that happens outside the flow of the game. Gambling, the classic example, takes place outside the flow of the game. There is nothing a referee can do within the flow of the game to enforce this rule (there's no 10-yard penalty for "gambling" in football). Steroid use also takes place outside the flow of the game. Again, if these players are allowed to play in games against non-steroid users, there is no recourse from within the game. Referees can't whistle a player for steroids, and the other team has no in-game cheating equivalent to steroid use. So, steroid use clearly falls outside the boundaries of the cheating which is "generally accepted" in the world of sports. More importantly, the athletes who are cheating in this manner know that. They can try to pawn themselves off as victims who had no choice, but they know that is simply not true.

The second question about doing wrong to achieve right is about the book itself. The authors of this book relied heavily upon grand jury testimony that was illegally obtained. The grand jury process is extremely important in the American justice system and is done in secrecy. We must protect this institution and the vital role that it plays in the aiding of investigations and the protection it offers to those who testify. If this secrecy is violated, the system will die and many investigations will end before they even start. Quite plainly, the authors of Game of Shadows are complicit in a crime against the very fabric of our democracy. With that said, this book (and the ground-breaking articles that preceded) it was necessary. Even President Bush told them that they "did a service" by writing it. By making this secret testimony public, a groundswell of public and political outrage was generated against the major sports leagues to fix this problem. Had this information not been made public, it is all but certain that baseball would not have instituted the drug policy they now have (judgments on its effectiveness notwithstanding). The integrity of athletic competition is being restored. Awareness of the dangers of steroid abuse is on the rise, and lives will be saved because of it. These are big deals! Surely leaking a little testimony is worth that price, right? Right?

Ultimately, I don't know that any of us are in the position to make that kind of a judgment. Frequently our view of right and wrong is based on our position. Our founding fathers, who we revere as heroes, committed treason against their country, which was England. To us, they did right, yet to England they are the worst of sinners. Are either of us wrong? For sports fans everywhere, we thank these authors for the service they did. Yet our criminal justice system is now weaker because of it.

Maybe it's only a matter of time. History will make a judgment about the moral appropriateness of their actions. Yet, history is written by the winners and is always biased. History is rarely a fair judge.

Even turning to the Bible we find little clear guidance. In the book of Joshua, we find Rahab, who lied to hide Jewish spies, thus committing treason against her own people. Still, Rahab is esteemed not only in this story, but in the New Testament as well, where she shows up in the lineage of Jesus! Ultimately, the message, I guess, is that only God can judge these types of situations. Although I strongly agree with the truth of that statement, I feel lazy just saying it. Still, I'm glad that I'm in the position to think about these types of issues, pray about them, discuss them, debate them, and generally analyze them to death. But at the end of the day, I'm NOT in the position to pass judgment on them, and I'm thankful for that.

Reading Lists

As many of you know, I love to read. I tend to devour books in short order but then not read another for a while. In other words, when I decide to read something, I'll read it cover to cover in virtually one sitting and then not read a book for a month or more. This is a habit that I would like to break. I would like to always have a book that I am working on, but not necessarily so voraciously. So, I am committing myself to reading 10 books I have never read by the end of the year. I at first considered 10 books in 10 weeks, which is certainly doable, but would involve ignoring Nancy & Sophie, which is probably unwise.

To accomplish this task, I am requesting help from the reader(s) of this blog. I am actively soliciting suggestions for reading material. It is my hope that I can find all 10 books to read through suggestions that YOU make. So PLEASE help me out and suggest a book that you have enjoyed, spoke to you in some way, or that you think I could benefit from.

Now, all suggestions are welcome, but I would like to read 10 books in 10 different categories as described herein:

1. Modern Fiction
I could go for a good novel, preferably something written within the last 5 years or so. A representative sample of books I have recently read that best describe this category would be Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Life of Pi.
2. Classic Fiction
These are the types of novels you are made to read in school and don't appreciate until much later. Think A Tale of Two Cities, The Great Gatsby, The Brothers Karamazov, etc...
3. Modern Christian Literature
I used to read quite a bit from this category, but have largely avoided it over the past few years, as the sheer volume of books being written here made finding the ones that are actually worth reading somewhat difficult. At least, that's what I told myself. That is an attitude both cynical and lazy and attests to the very reasons why I should be reading these books more! I would prefer something written in the last 5 years.
4. Classic Christian Literature
I have read a great deal of this, and obviously there is no new classic literature being produced. Nonetheless, I have certainly not exhausted this treasure-trove of teaching. Although I would prefer older books here (think Imitation of Christ) we could possibly entertain authors as recent as Bonhoeffer or C.S. Lewis.
5. Business Book
In general, these books say basically the same thing and are of limited usefulness if you have read more than one. Still, one should try to keep up to date. I have heard good things about Blink, so I am thinking of entering that in this category. Don't hesitate to add others though!
6. Cultural Studies
I really enjoy books in this category. This is probably what I have read the most of over the last few years. Think Freakonomics & Fast Food Nation.
7. Sports Book
As posted on this blog, I have recently read Moneyball and The Blind Side and enjoyed them immensely. I am interested in reading Game of Shadows, which seems appropriate at the moment.
8. Fatherhood Book
9. Marriage Book
It would be nice to find a book here that we could read together. So, I'm not really looking for husband-specific books here.
10. Popcorn
I am looking for something here that does not fit into any of the above categories OR a second book from one of them.

Thank you in advance for your comments and suggestions! I'll post the list here when it is assembled.

Divination Class: Deathly Hallows

In approximately 8 hours, this post will be entirely foolish in retrospect, but I had to have a bit of fun. Anyway, with the pending release of the the final Harry Potter book tonight, I thought I would have a bit of fun trying to predict some of the outcome. Please note that in an unusual move for me, I have not tracked down all of the spoilers, even though I am aware they are readily available. All predictions are guaranteed to be either true or false or possibly some grey area in between.

HARRY
J.K. Rowling has been hinting for many years now that Harry would die in book 7. There is all sorts of internal evidence to suggest that he will die and Rowling loves to throw that idea out there in interviews. All of this leads me to believe that Harry will not die. As far as his fate is concerned, I've always thought he would become the new (permanent) Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

RON & HERMIONE
One of them will die. My money is on Ron. Harry has saved the lives of members of the Weasley family for years now, so I think this is the book where that may end.



VOLDEMORT
I think it is fairly obvious that he will meet his demise, but the method of that demise is very much up in the air. In the tradition of super villains dying, I don't think that Harry can/will kill him directly. I have several possibilities: 1. Harry kills him indirectly, perhaps through some sort of trap or accidental "old magic," 2. Snape kills Voldemort (he did kill Dumbledore, so this would make sense in a dorky math-major type of way), 3. Wormtail is somehow involved in Voldemort's death, but I can't say exactly how.

SNAPE
I don't think there is any way on earth that Snape is a legitimate bad guy. I am more convinced of this after Book 6 than ever before. He probably dies though.




R.A.B.
There certainly seems to be enough evidence to suggest that this is Regulus Black.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Rowling is big fan of the Red Herring. She loves to give you fake clues and then introduce something in the end that makes everything make sense. Of course, she provides a few real clues along the way to keep the reader honest. I think we are in for a MAJOR deux ex machina revelation in book 7. Otherwise, I think that there are enough crazy fans dedicated to this type of thing that it would have already been figured out if there were enough "honest" clues along the way. Furthermore, this is my way of copping out of further speculation, which is just as bad...

Catching Up

It’s been a while since our last blog post, so there are a few things to catch up on. Many of them stem from…

1. My Mom and sister have been in town visiting since Thursday night. They left this morning. Between Nancy, Mom, Kelsey, Sophie, and Phoebo, I was severely overwhelmed by Erickson women. We had a great time hanging out with them, and Sophie got a lot of valuable Grandma time.

2. As we had people staying at the house who were simply dying to have alone time with the baby, Nancy and I were able to actually get out and go on a date Friday night. Turns out that wife of mine is a nice lady who I really enjoy hanging out with. I think I’ll keep her. Anyway, we decided to start our date by visiting the UK Arboretum. In almost 7 years of living here, we had not only never gone there, but never even thought about going there. We definitely won’t wait 7 more years. At over 100 acres and 2 miles of walking trails, this shrine to Kentucky’s native plant life is probably the most beautiful place in Lexington (no small feat given how beautiful of a city we live in). The evening provided a much needed break from the heat & humidity we had been experiencing of late, so it was the perfect occasion for a walk through the flowers and trees. I don’t know anything about flowers or plant-life in general, but I do know that they are pretty and that girls like them, which is a plus on date night. So, if you are in Lexington on a beautiful summer night and are looking for a free and different romantic activity, I highly recommend the Arboretum. (Note to UK Arboretum: Make the check out to “Sophie Erickson college fund.”) After the Arboretum, we hung out at Barnes & Noble for a while and then the Half-Price bookstore. We then enjoyed a late dinner and movie. Since we were spending an evening out away from our own baby, it only made sense to see a movie about somebody else’s, so we saw Knocked Up. My one sentence review: As funny as it is inappropriate, and it is plenty of both. All in all, it was a wonderful night.

3. The free babysitting service also allowed Nancy to get out and do some work on her dissertation. We have actually been hiring a babysitter a couple of afternoons a week to help facilitate the research & writing process, but any additional help in that department is always welcome.

4. Kelsey visited IU on the way down to see us and UK while she was here. It has long been our hope that she picks UK. As she is my sister and I love her, we would very much like to have her nearby. I’m not going to lie though- it’s mostly about the babysitting.

5. I just finished The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis, who also wrote Moneyball, which I discussed here. Ostensibly, this is a book about how the economics of football have changed to emphasize the importance of the left tackle position. It discusses the history of how football has become increasingly reliant on the pass (and on offense in general) and how this has lead to a reprioritization of certain positions. This is all interesting enough, but the real value in the book comes from the story of Ole Miss left tackle Michael Oher. In fact, most of the book is concerned with Oher’s background and how he came to be a near sure-fire first round NFL draft pick. Oher was essentially discovered at 15 years old as if he had been dropped onto Earth from another planet altogether. He had no education (no exaggeration), no possessions of any kind, no food, only the clothes he was wearing, apparently no personal history, and a 6’5” 300+ lb freakishly athletic body. He was taken in by a rich white family, put into private school, and was essentially not allowed to fail. This story sounded only somewhat interesting to me before I read the book, but it is really fascinating. This book is an intriguing look into modern inner-city life, modern upper-class life, class & racial struggles, and what it takes to make a star athlete these days.

6. We are leaving for vacation after work on Friday and are very excited. We will be heading up to Indiana to visit family and friends and generally crash for a week. The pre-vacation vacation highlights include: Nancy and I going to Chicago for the weekend alone; going to a Cubs game on Sunday (birthday present from the Daytons); disc-golf with Dan Weiss on Monday (let the trash talk begin: You’re going down Dan!); visiting with Jason & Andrea Gingerich and their children; seeing Matt Peterson who will be in town for a wedding; Sophie’s first fireworks; my cousin Jason Bilbrey’s wedding; a Dad Dayton cheeseburger; the Transformers movie; & repeatedly losing to my brother Mike in disc golf. This should be a good time.

7. Just in case this post led to the impression that we are all about ditching Sophie, here are a few pictures of the cutest baby in the world. We sure do like her…

Moneyball

One of the books I received as a gift for my birthday was Michael Lewis' Moneyball, the new textbook on how to run a professional baseball team. Written in 2003 this book (and the philosophies contained therein), while by no means universally accepted, has changed the face of major league baseball.

Michael Lewis is a former Wall Street investment banker with expertise in market inefficiencies. This expertise makes him the ideal communicator for the "radical" ideas of the Oakland A's management team and the Bill James/sabermetrics foundation on which they are based. For lack of a better comparison, imagine if the author of Freakonomics ran a major league baseball team.

The main idea of the book is that baseball has traditionally placed too much value on the wrong things (stolen bases, batting average, home runs, and defense, among others) and not enough emphasis on what the A's consider the right things (on base percentage and slugging). Since baseball traditionalists place value on those "wrongs things," players with those characteristics are overpriced in the marketplace and players with these new "right" characteristics are undervalued. This is how the A's, with baseball's 2nd lowest payroll, have been able to remain consistently competitive- by taking advantage of what they consider to be an inefficient marketplace. They even adopted a new batting statistic to more efficiently evaluate the success of hitters, OPS (on-base + slugging). It is now widely accepted the best indicator of individual offensive production. I won't bore you with the analysis, but it is rather convincing.

The book has been a huge success not only because it is an interesting read about baseball, but because the central message is one that people in walks of life would like to be able to take advantage of. Surely there are areas in my business and in my personal life where I have placed too much value on the wrong things and undervalued the right things. If I can properly identify those "inefficiencies" and make the appropriate changes I can be more successful and spend less resources (time, talent, treasure) in the process.

So, not to sound like a bad preacher, but "what are the inefficiencies in your life?" In other words, where in your life do you overvalue the wrong things and undervalue the right things, and how can you change that? I have been asking myself that question since I finished the book on Sunday. I'm not going to pretend that I have the answer to that yet, but I'm working on it.