(These killers are heart disease, cancer, stroke, and immune disorders including diabetes.)

Specifically, the simple method of ‘vegistentialism’ will give you a way of daily eating which will provide you with high energy, tasty and enjoyable meals, a feeling of lightness, and you will have radically altered the odds that you will live far longer. You will feel good.

A ‘vegistentialist’ is a person who has discovered ‘the essential truth about humans and vegetables.’ This approach answers the puzzle of: “What should we eat?”

Main Entry: human
Function: noun
: a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens)

Main Entry: vegetable
Function: noun
1 : a plant
2 : a usually herbaceous plant (as the cabbage, bean, or potato) grown for an edible part that is usually eaten as part of a meal; also : such an edible part

Main Entry: ex·is·ten·tial·ism
Pronunciation: -'ten(t)-sh&-"li-z&m
Function: noun
: a 20th century philosophical movement centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.

The food industry in the United States alone is a 17 billion dollar enterprise. So it is no surprise that the advertising streaming at you every day gives you information which has more to do with food-industry profits than with the truth about your health.

It’s not so much that there is some sort of conspiracy to lead you into illness. Rather it is the selective presentation of information and partial information. As an example, realize that rarely will a man go up to a pretty woman and say, “Hi, I’m Joe, and I’d really like to take you out, though I should tell you that I’m lousy in bed.”

Rather, he’ll ask her out and let her find out on her own, later.

And unfortunately, this very understandable bias of the food industry has led to most of us being … shall we say … let down?

The truth is simple, and using the truth to enhance your health is simple. And the truth has been available through immense scientific studies for many years. It is only because the truth had a very limited advertising budget that we’ve not heard much about it.

What works as a dietary guideline, to maximize your health and minimize death, is covered nicely in a book called The China Study. It boils down to minimizing eating animal products, specifically animal protein, and eating lots of vegetables. Get the book. Read the science. Live long and prosper.

You’ll find the truth. The truth is Vegistentialism. Eat your damn vegetables! Watch your health improve.

The post What is Vegistentialism? appeared first on The Adventures of Bloggard.

However, it’s easy to become misled about this. You don’t need to know everything. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase; just take the first step.” And likewise, if you’re driving from Los Angeles to New York, just knowing that you’ll drive to the East is actually enough to start making a plan. In fact, you could just gas the car and start driving East.

And, lots of times, you simply cannot know everything.

Sometimes you cannot even research things very well. And if you take no action because the complete details of your plan are unclear, then very possibly no beginning step will *ever* be taken. And you’ll not reach the end of the path unless that first step is taken.

There are excellent ways to make a plan. [This is Step Two (Targeting) of my Five-Step Abundance approach.]

But there’s a step that must come first! And, often, it’s overlooked!   What is it?   

What must come first is … Decision.

If you’re going to Do Something in the world, the very first step is to DECIDE that you’re going to do it. This harkens to the oft-quoted Law of Attraction. So often, discussions of the Law of Attraction center on how you can “get a lot of stuff.”

This is all very well and good. There’s nothing wrong with being, doing, and having things that interest and inspire you. In fact, the ability to be and do and have what interests and inspires you is a wonderful way to live. But let’s ignore “the stuff,” for just a moment.

::: YOU MUST DECIDE

The first thing that happens — that must happen — is that you’ve got to CHOOSE what you want. You’ve got to SELECT your target. You’ve got to DECIDE what you want.

Now maybe you decide and then do some research. Or maybe you decide and then ride off madly in all directions, and by observing your results you can correct your direction and eventually arrive at your target. The wisdom of your plan, the cleverness of the details, and the speed of your arrival are not the point.

The point is that the first thing that has to happen is that you DECIDE.

Sometimes people are afraid to decide, because just thinking about such things triggers habitual unpleasant mental responses (failures and flops and embarassments!). For more about how this becomes built into the brain, see my articles “How to Approach a Woman” and “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.”)

To shy away from wanting to re-experience unpleasant memories is an understandable human aversion to further pain. However, shying away from something you’d like will just never get you there. And the first step is to DECIDE.

::: WHICH CAME FIRST — THE DECISION OR THE EGG?

It was the Decision.

Do you want to, in general, improve your life? Do you want to be more, do more, have more?

Then your first step is to decide to be more, do more, or have more.

If you’re not quite sure exactly how you’ll do it, that’s fine.

Ghandi didn’t know exactly how he would get the British out of India. Columbus didn’t know exactly how he would land on the shore of the Americas. They had to first decide, and then, in a way, everything else was just details.

If your targets aren’t exactly clear, or if you have an idea what you want, but no clue how to go about getting there, don’t worry. Just decide. That’s the first step.

::: FIVE STEP ABUNDANCEÂ

And, (ahem!) of course you could always use the Five Step Abundance method. It has five parts:

In the first part you learn how visualization and the Law of Attraction can be put to work for you.

In the second part you learn how to set targets and then work backwards to make a plan for getting there, and how to continually increase your energy, time, and money power.

In the third part you’ll learn how to simply and easily tune your body so that you maximize your energy, and enhance your health and your outlook on life.

In the fourth part you’ll learn how you can tweak your diet so as to avoid disease, extend your life, and feel better all the time.

And in the fifth part you learn two methods for clearing out all the old stuff from the past. This not only feels good, but produces increasing calm and focus in your life, and many physical ailments are often improved.

But, although this sounds like a plan, it’s not the first step.

The first step is … decide.

The post But I Don’t Know How to Begin! appeared first on The Adventures of Bloggard.

(Ladies, it will seem silly to you, but it’s going to make sense to most any guy.)

But what?

What can I be?

And what can I have? And what can I do?

And … what do I want?

Actually, if you’re not immediately in touch with what you want, then you’ve just covered it over with old hurts, old failures, old disappointments, old … something. Because when you were a child, you knew what you wanted. And it’s still in there.

The sellers of Manifestation Marvels! will tell you that you can be, do, or have anything that you want. And, most likely, you can.

But some people, faced with this radical idea, usually their lifetime of experience and their past decisions and perceptions have given them a more mechanical view of life, just can’t immediately think of anything they’d like to have. “Huh?” one fellow said. The lady sitting next to him, I think it was his wife, just shook her head.

“Not a thing,” she said, “I’ve got just everything I need.”

Do you believe that?

HOW TO UNCOVER THE TRUTH

There are actually several ways to open the door and see what it is that you’d like to do, have, or be …

1. Think back to when you were a teen, just past puberty. What interested you at that time is often something that is near to your heart. At that age, you’re adult enough to perceive things in the adult world, and you’re still child enough to tune into what interests you rather than what is practical, what is reasonable, what is mature, what is sensible, or what you think might be attainable.
   .
2. Sit and close your eyes and relax, and imagine that some relative you never knew has departed this plane and left you immensely wealthy. You don’t have to work. You don’t have to worry. You can buy anything you want. You can spend your time any way you wish. And now, wealthy and idle as you are, just let your thoughts drift and dream up some things that you might do just for the heck of it. And keep these thoughts going for a few days, because when you open this flood gate, a lot may pour out.
   .
3. Get some paper and pencil and start writing down possibilities, no matter how crazy or stupid they sound. Do not allow your habitual focusing squelch the idea factory; every single crazy idea gets put down on the page. Just by the practice of admitting all crazy ideas, you’ll find that you can begin to see possibilities in these ideas, once you get out of the habit of throwing them out automatically.
   .
4. Take three pieces of paper, and on one of them write “People are …”, and on the next one “People can …”, and on the third one write “People have …” and then, over a couple of days, just jot down all the various things you think that people, other people, might be able to be, do, and have. Now on this list you may discover some of your self-limiting thoughts becoming exposed, and if you suddenly realize that you have the belief in this or that limiting factor, then ask yourself “Why not?” and “What if …” And of course on these pieces of paper you may find yourself listing things that other people could be, do, and have. And if they can have them, why not you? What if …

A half hour on these things will start turning up useful ideas.

A few days will work even more powerfully.

And then, when you start becoming more clear on what you want, then you can start thinking about how you might be able to be, do, and have these things.

It’s a good start.

The post But I Don’t Know What I Want! appeared first on The Adventures of Bloggard.

A few months back, we were transferring websites from one server to another. It was a good idea — getting faster response and greater stability, better efficiency — and it’s worked out great for those things. But as it happened ..

While we were transferring, to clear some space we erased some unneeded backups.

And as it happened, a few days after that, one of our sites was hacked. Probably not a true intrusion. I’m pretty sure it was somebody who once upon a time had a passcode, and it got into the hands of somebody, probably somebody with a grudge. (If so, that would probably be from the tapping-instrument wars of fifteen years ago.)

Along came a Spider …

He completely eradicated the site, and as it happened, I was not aware of the damage for several days, in fact learning about it the day *after* the hosting company did a backup. Now, of course, the copy of the site being backed up is the wiped-out site, and it’s overwriting the old (good) copy.

No problem, we have a remote copy in Denver, just part of our process. Except that …

On the new server, the backing up process works differently, and I discovered to my dismay that the latest backup to Denver … had completely deleted that safety backup of the site that was trashed.

No matter, we have backup backups. Except that … those were the unnecessary ones removed temporarily to reclaim space during the move.

Gosh, doesn’t it just make you want to giggle at the absurdity.

No More

Never again. That’s my plan. I thought I was a backup nut before. Mama, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

As of now, we have triple-backup for our sites and those of our clients, not counting the usual weekly backup on the server. One of our triple backups goes to Denver. One goes to Amazon’s storage facility. One to our office.

But wait. There’s more …

Security Services for WordPress Websites

WordPress is clearly the best platform for building a website these days. It’s power and flexibility is the reason you can now get a professional website custom-made for $1200-$2100 instead of $3000-$5000, and done in a few weeks instead of a number of months.

But, hackers are alert to every new opportunity, as WordPress gets revised and as plugins get revised. But there’s good news …

With a regular program of updating — new versions close down holes found by hackers — and by doing some security hardening, it can be easy to make your wordpress website unattractive to hackers. They’ll just move on to easier pickings. Because there are hundreds of thousands of easy pickins.

If *your* website has never been hardened, then *you* and your business are the easy pickins. And we can fix that.

SweetLife SecuritySquad

Here’s our new SweetLife Security website. Read the shocking facts: http://SweetLifeSecurity.com

And then, if you’d like to make your website safe instead of wide open to danger, give me a call. If you have a wordpress website, we will do a quick 8-point security check for you … for free.

(Or, if you have the nerd gene, and can install a wordpress plugin, I’ll give you a copy of our proprietary 26-point comprehensive security tester … for free … IF … you will send me a funny story about something that happened in Henrietta Texas, or your hometown if you’re not lucky enough to be from Henrietta, Texas. Don’t try to weasel me, now. Them’s our terms: No funny story, no free $47 security-check plugin.)

But one way or the other, unless you just don’t give a damn if vandals walk into  your office and spray graffiti on your desk-  oops, I mean your website, unless you just don’t give a damn what happens, then contact me today.

Don’t let what happened to me … happen to you.

The post SweetLife Security appeared first on The Adventures of Bloggard.

March 2013, Weed, California — For months, or perhaps it’s been a few years, I’ve been cutting my hair with some clippers. It’s not that I’m too cheap to pay for a haircut, but I don’t like waiting around, and I don’t like sitting in the chair.

(Which is funny, because I sit in other chairs frequently, with no problem at all. Go figure.)

So last week, out of the blue, I thought, “Why not get a haircut?” I just thought that. For no reason.

And you know what?

I couldn’t think of any reason not to get a haircut, and for some wild reason, I suddenly wanted to.

So I went to Mt. Shasta, and a nice lady named Shelly at Studio B gave me a haircut.

I suppose that’s not very exciting … but I don’t want to be secretive.

I suppose now it will be on the evening news.

Oh, well. Stuff gets out.

The post The Bloggard gets a Haircut appeared first on The Adventures of Bloggard.

Not content to buy full-page spreads in local newspapers or to saturate television images with photos of affluence, long automobiles, and scantily-clad breasts and body parts, large hotels such as the MGM Grand and others sport humongous advertisements on the multi-story facades. I suppose this means that Mr. and Mrs. Struthers from Iowa City are peeking out their hotel window through the huge left eye of Kris Angel, Illusionist Extroidinaire.

Maybe.

We’re hanging out with Susan’s daughter Kristina, plus two highschool granddaughters 18 and 15, and Mitch, who’s a regional sales manager for the Southwest for a really-slick heavy equipment manufacturer out of Europe. The granddaughters are fun, brilliant in photography and robotics, and of course the inevitable learning curve of boys, growth, and the info-dense nature of modern life, rock music, and the Vegas infotopia.

And toward the end of the day …

Evening grows beneath
fat moon beaming from orange clouds,
indigo hills lurk below.

There are many absolutely fabulous shows here, large than mere life, clubbing us with imperative summons. Like those lunatic hypnotists who scream “Relax!”

But we remain steadfast. The trip’s highlight so far: We had the worlds best nap, ever.

We’d hijacked a bedroom from one of the girls, and slept like happy zombies.

This morning we foraged in the unknown kitchen, and after breakfast, I discovered that some things remain the same. Because toward the end of breakfast, Susan said, “Oh, look at that,” pointing far to my left. While I’m oogling, seeing nothing unusual, she’s stealing the last sips of my coffee. Ha! I’d let it go cold. Serves her right. The rewards of crime are cold.

It’s still winter here, but it seems a mere technicality.

Peeking at the Mt. Shasta newspaper, I see folks back home are enjoying a day-long power outage. I’m not missing the cold and wind and freezing rain. Yet. But I reckon, in a couple more days, I will be.

The post Bloggard and Bloggette in Vegas appeared first on The Adventures of Bloggard.