John Vanderslice

Last night Jules and I went to John Vanderslice. The opening group The Morning Benders were great too. Turns out they've played with tons of big groups like Death Cab, then touring with The Kooks and John Vanderslice and performed at Sasquatch this year. Check them out.

*note: The Morning Benders have also played with the Continentals who are coincidentally playing at the (epic) indie summer salutation party. So come on down and party with us.

As for John, he's cool. That's the first thing we decided. And his music was great too. You can actually listen to his newest stuff streaming from his website here. They also played a song for the first time and it was one of my favorites of the night - Plymouth Rock. Here's a video of it I stole from KJ off facebook. :)

Outliers

I always review the books I'm reading on Visual Bookshelf for Facebook, but I decided I would like to post those reviews on here as well and perhaps get more feedback that way.

Outliers: The Story of Success

I first heard Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour theory from his address at the Gain AIGA Design and Business Conference in 2008. (This address is available online and great, by the way.) Since that time, I have been looking forward to reading Outliers and hearing the rest of his thesis.

In Outliers, Gladwell addresses much more than the 10,000 hour rule. He sets about to show us how success is not a meteoric rise, but the result of opportunity and hard work, even for those we might consider the exception such as Mozart or Bill Gates.

Gladwell also shows us the importance of where we come from. For good or for bad, our cultures and familial legacies play a role in our present. Don't think that Gladwell is a pessimist though. He shows how acknowledging the role of those legacies can help us to overcome and succeed.

I found this book to be on my mind even when I wasn't reading it, which to me, means it was well-written and engaging. I find myself to now be studying my own life and how to recognize when hard work meets opportunity and how I can best use both of those factors towards my own success.

On to the next book!

LEGO Does Lloyd Wright

I always loved Lego. And I love these. Sign me up.