I have the predicament of wanting to do everything before I die. Number 234,220 on that list is writing a novel, so we’re going to get that one knocked out this month.

Why November? Because it’s NaNoWriMo, the unfortunately acronymed National Novel Writing Month. You can go sign up at the web site and pledge to write a 50k word novel in one month. Usually 1 out of 6 people actually finish it. I’ll be one of those people. Will you?

I have a pretty cool idea for a story, and I think I’m already a pretty good storyteller. What’s really exciting, though, is that writing 50k words apparently makes everyone who completes it a much better writer. Remember the practicing thing from yesterday? Let’s practice being good writers. Get ready for some kick ass stories up in this piece.

I’ll post bits of the story as I go, and will keep you updated on how my progress is. I have two flights this month so that’s a solid 8 hours of story writing time right there.

I was sitting around this weekend thinking about practice. I had just read an article that said that to get good at something one had to spend ten years practicing. Studies show that practicing is the one strong predictor of success in nearly any field.

Then I thought, “what am I practicing?”. I’m practicing eating healthy. That’s good. I’m practicing rapping. Good too. After a nice long pat on the back I thought of a more important question. What am I not practicing?

I realized that every time I practice a bad habit, I’m enforcing it and making it harder to break. I guess that’s obvious, but for some reason it hit me like a ton of bricks. I see myself, down the road, being someone who keeps his living space really clean, pays bills as soon as they come in, gets ready fast in the morning, and doesn’t procrastinate. Every day I continue to not do those things I’m making it harder to start doing them.

And what about this mystical 10 years? I’m sure that’s accurate for things like sports, being experts on topics, ninja fighting, etc., but some things don’t need to take that long. When people talk about personal development they talk about slow and gradual change. Why? I can be a proactive tidy person for one day - anyone can. And if I do something one day, I can do it the next day too. It’s like when I started eating healthy, or when I went vegan. I just changed my beliefs on the matter, and that changed my actions.

In a second my beliefs changed to be repulsed by my previous behavior. Having a messy house wasn’t about having a messy house - it was about clinging to old habits that detract from my life.

I got up, and did 6 loads of laundry - enough to wash every article of clothing I have. I cleaned up the boxes of stuff that I brought over when I moved in. I did all the dishes and scrubbed the sink. I went into my bathroom and scrubbed the counter and sink. I (with the assistance of the lovely Evan) hung some prints I had bought three years ago. I vacuumed everywhere, including the floor of the closet. I went through my computer and deleted old files, combined iterations of backups, and uploaded 4gb of important files to my online backup.

The weird part is that I was enjoying it. Every load of laundry made me happier. Organizing my closet made me feel good. Getting on the computer didn’t appeal to me - I wanted to do all these things that I normally hated doing.

My new approach is to instantly develop new practices. When you decide that it’s ok for a change to take years it WILL take years, or it may never get done at all. It becomes too easy to put it off. When you institute a new practice and demand that you stick to it from day one you feel empowered, excited, and immediately accountable. Try it!

I’ve been wanting to write this story for a while, but I can’t find the one picture I have of it. Oh well, when I find it I’ll just add it on to the end.

Full from dinner, we get into the elevator as we always do. The rumor is that the more likely one is to cause trouble, the higher in the dorm you’re assigned. The first year I was put on floor four. The next, floor 24. I guess you could say that we became acquainted.

As the elevator brings us closer to our dorm we notice that the hatch in the roof of the elevator appears to be unlocked. We push the hatch open and stare at the dark above us.

We look at each other. We hit the jackpot.

The building is 27 stories, so we send the elevator up to floor 27. We didn’t know at the time that elevators must have enough clearance above them to ensure that maintenance men can’t be smooshed, but once the elevator reaches 27 we realize this on our own.

After hoisting ourselves onto the roof, Allen (name changed) and I become giddy. We look through the vents in the roof of the elevator car to see what people are doing in there. We can hear them too. The hatch is closed now.

For the next half hour we join conversations, sing our favorite gangsta rap songs, make weird noises, and generally harass the occupants. It’s great fun and no one seems offended.

Then it happens. On floor twenty, three girls get into an empty car. One tells a joke and the others laugh. We laugh along with them. Suddenly they stop laughing and realize that there’s still laughter coming from somewhere.

They scream.

We scream.

They scream louder, press some buttons, and get out at the next floor. We laugh so hard that we can’t gain our composure enough to prank the next passengers.

Whenever the elevator reaches the lobby we go silent. There are poorly trained security guards there who may not approve of our antics. When they ride on the elevator we’re silent.

This time, however, the elevator stays in the lobby. No gets on, but the doors stay open. A security guard comes into view through the tiny ventilation grate. He looks up at the ceiling.

“It’s this elevator? You’re sure someone’s up there?”

He’s talking to the girls. They were freaked out, so they reported us.

“HEY! GET DOWN FROM THERE!”

We remain silent.

“I know you’re up there. You can’t go anywhere.”

He’s right. On most floors we could just open the door and exit one floor up. The lobby is right below a massive concrete foundation of sorts which doesn’t look climbable.

He starts banging on the hatch and trying to push it open. The latch is broken, but Allen is pushing back down with all of his might. To the security guard it appears to be locked. Allen and I stare at each other, panicked. Finally he gives up.

“Fine. I’ll wait for you to come out.”

He gets a chair, puts it in the middle of the elevator, and sits down. He’s not going anywhere.

We whisper as quietly as we can. Maybe we can call some friends and have them lower a rope or distract the guard. Neither of our phones get service. We consider climbing the cables of the elevator, but if they sent the elevator up a floor, we’d get crushed. We think about shimmying between the wall and the elevator to get down to the floor below. But what if we can’t open the doors down there? We’d be trapped.

Half an hour passes. They’ve called the elevator security emergency number, and a technician is on the way. I later find out that this costs $1000.

Another guard comes in to consult.

“How sure are you that there’s someone up there?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Let’s just call the cops. It’s trespassing.”

“What if there’s no one up there? We’ll look like idiots.”

“I think we should call.”

With the threat of cops, we’re even more worried. I can handle any battle of will power, but if police are trying to get up there, they’ll find a way.

The elevator person finally arrives and looks down from a higher floor. We cower among the machinery and somehow avoid getting detected.

I want to surrender, but Allen doesn’t. He doesn’t take the threat of the police as seriously as I do.

Finally I decide to go for it. Although I’m wearing sandals and shorts I start climbing the rail that the elevator rides on. There’s not much to grab on to. Finally I reach the next floor. I stretch my arm trying to the doors on the adjacent wall, but they won’t open.

Looking closer, I realize that there’s a strange latch in the middle of the doors that the elevator triggers. Can I do it myself? I assume that I can, but I’m not sure. The only problem is that if I jump over to the doors, there’s no way I’ll be able to jump back onto the rail - it’s too small.

In a literal leap of faith I jump to the wall, and grab onto the doors. After a minute of wrangling with the latch the doors slide open. I pull myself onto the floor outside and help Allen do the same thing.

We feel invincible. There’s a security guard sitting in an elevator with no one on top of it. He’ll be waiting a long time. Unable to cope with temptation, we take the stairs down to the lobby.

Only one elevator is in operation. The other two have been decommissioned until we come down. I walk up to the security guard in our elevator.

“What’s going on?”

A smug grin spreads across his face. “Someone’s up there playing pranks, but he can’t get down. We’re smoking him out.”

He’s proud, but not as proud as we are. I take the opportunity to join him in the elevator and yell at the imaginary troublemakers. Our cake being both had and eaten, we move towards the only operational elevator to go home.

It opens and we’re greeted by about fifteen faces. It’s a busy night. One of the faces is our friend Ben. While we were stuck on the elevator our friends started coming up with theories on what had happened.

“I hear you guys are having fun with the elevators…”

I give him a face that says one thing - “not now!”. There’s a security guard in the elevator behind him. He finally gets the hint after a few other misguided comments. Allen gets into the elevator with his back facing the guard. I get in and face him. It’s an awkward ride up. It almost seems like the guard is suspicious of us.

When we get to our dorm free and clear I realize why we were getting looks. Allen has a clear impression of a twisted steel cable imprinted on his back from elevator grease.

That’s all for now, but another adventure happened in the same elevator shaft… coming soon!

People often complain about how difficult it is to navigate the site. To make it easier I’ve made a list of what I consider are the best posts on the right. If you have another favorite you think should be there, let me know.

Right now I’m cleaning my house so that I can do a photoshoot with Tynan’s Angels here. Get excited - pictures coming soon.

Today is a big day for btyb. Why? I have an actual advertiser besides google. Actually, google has recently been paying me about twice what I used to get. I have no idea why. My best guess is that they’re getting better at figuring out what sorts of ads are appropriate for my site, and people are clicking them. Either way, between my advertiser and google, I now make enough to justify the time I spend writing. What a cool feeling!

Here’s how I got my advertiser:

Steve, my boss / compadre, belongs to a group called “Hill Country Outdoors”. It’s a group that you can join for $15/month or something and they plan cool trips and activities. One such activity was hang gliding, which he invited me along for.

I won’t get into the details of hang gliding lessons (in short - not that much fun), but the class was broken into smaller groups, each with its own volunteer teacher. Our teacher was a guy named John who was about our age. Also an entrepreneur, we quickly started talking about business and dropping out of school.

Steve mentioned my article about dropping out, and John paused for a minute.

“Are you the guy who went into the UT tunnels?”

It turns out that he had read my blog off and on in the past. A few months later, he saw the redesign of the site and asked if I’d consider advertising his new site. Pretty cool how these little coincidences stack up, eh?

Unfaced is a sneaky survey you can put on your facebook account to see who’s looking at your profile and what they’re putting into the survey. If you use facebook, you should definitely check it out and write your thoughts about it here. I’m sure John would be interested in some feedback.

PS - if anyone else wants to advertise, let me know!

Instead of writing a million more posts about Japan, I’m going to finish it off here so that I can start writing other things. When you boil all of my experiences in Japan down, you’re left with one common theme - Japan is way better than the US.

In America we’re all so proud that we’re such a tolerant society. We tolerate each other’s differences because that tolerance is passed on to us and we get to do whatever we want.

Japan is different. More than tolerance, they have an overwhelming underlying respect for everyone and everything. It’s almost crazy. The best example is the subways. In the subways there are advertisements hanging from the ceiling of every subway car. They aren’t plastic, tyvek, or even laminated paper. They’re just paper like a poster.

Any one of the thousands of train riders each day could easily rip the ad, crinkle the paper, or pull it down. It would take a trivial amount of effort, and there are no authorities in the subway. Yet no one does. Ever. It’s the craziest thing I’d ever seen. In New York these ads would last for about 4 seconds before they were torn down.

In Japan there is no tipping anywhere, and tax is always included. Did you order something that cost 1000 yen? Then you pay 1000 yen and leave. It’s that easy. We went to only one restaurant that had tipping and it was 10% that was added automatically. That might have been an outrage if we didn’t have a chef cooking at our table for the entire meal.

Think the service suffered? Nope! The service is WAY better than any service I’ve had in the US because they’re helpful and genuinely care if you’re having a good dining experience or not. They’re not putting a fake smile on their faces while they tolerate you like our waiters. Even better, there are little buttons at the tables sometimes which summon a waiter. Once we pressed it and we had a waiter at our table in 10 seconds, with another coming 10 seconds later to see if he could help. Amazing.

Even the police in Japan are better. Since there is basically NO CRIME, they don’t have a lot of crimefighting to do. Japan is so safe that people leave their bikes everywhere unlocked with their belongings in the baskets. People don’t even litter - who is going to take a bike? I would feel totally safe leaving my laptop on the sidewalk for an hour while I walked somewhere. It would be there when I got back.

The last day we were there, Todd and I wanted to make sure that we knew where the Narita Express train was to the airport so that we could go check out the Imperial Palace and then go straight to the train. We asked the police where the train was and they showed us. We then left the station to check out the palace.

A block later a policeman stopped us. He had been following us and trying to catch up. What was the offense? None - he just wanted to make sure that we knew where the train was. That would NEVER happen in the US. Even though we were ugly Americans he still had the respect to come help us when he thought we needed it.

Remember my post about cell phone etiquette? Everyone in Japan already does all that. Other than our when our guide, a beautiful girl dressed in a traditional Japanese kimono who walked around with us all day for free, was trying to find out from her friends which restaurant was best, I don’t think we ever saw anyone talking on their phones in public. It just doesn’t happen.

Everyone in Japan is skinny and healthy looking. Their food isn’t particularly healthy, but the portions are small and everyone walks miles each day to and from train stations. As soon as we got back to the US we were amazed at how fat and obnoxious everyone was. Now I finally understand why people don’t like Americans.

The subway system, by the way, is totally amazing. It’s a hodgepodge of several privately owned rail lines that criss cross to cover the entire country. I’m pretty sure that you can get within walking distance of anything in a remotely metropolitan area for a few dollars from anywhere by train. Even though they’re owned by different companies, it’s seamless. Each station has the same features and lets you transfer painlessly. It’s not fair to compare this to the US since we’re a lot bigger, but it’s still amazing.

Oh, and for one last reason why Japan is amazing, check out this video:

A monday afternoon some time ago, she texts me with, “Call me. It’s important.”

Strange. I’m in the car, so I ponder what’s so important as we drive back to the office. I can’t figure it out.

We get to the office and I step into the echoey stairwell for some semblance of privacy. I sit down on the stair and dial her number.

“I have to tell you this, but please wait to react.”

An odd request. I’m probably one of the most calm-under-pressure people I know, thanks to years of professional gambling. In the split second before her next sentence I try to recall a time I overreacted to anything with her. I can’t.

“The doctor called today,” she begins. She had just been to the doctor for a routine blood test, “and she asked me whether or not I knew I was pregnant.”

“What?”

“Tynan, I’m pregnant.”

It’s simultaneously the worst and most unexpected news I’d ever gotten. It seems impossible that she could be pregnant. We always use condoms and there hadn’t been any sort of incident which would be cause for concern. No point in thinking about that now - the reality is that it somehow happened.

The news is based on a blood test, not one of the error prone take home tests. This is serious. Instantly my life is seen through a new filter - through the perspective of me being a father in nine months. This is insane. I love kids more than anything, but I’m definitely not ready to have one of my own.

I have nothing to say. No amount of talking about my feelings or “how could this have happened?” is going to change the impending disaster. The result is an awkward conversation with more dead space than conversation.

We hang up and I walk back into the office. Todd asks me if everything is ok. Yes, I reply.

Every waking minute of the next day is occupied with thoughts of the pregnancy. I know that, like everything, everything will be fine in the end. I will somehow look back at this as it being a positive experience.

The next day she and I have breakfast, and alternate between normal conversation and tense conversations about the pregnancy. It’s uncomfortable, but probably necessary.

She gets a call and leaves the room.

When she comes back she has a huge smile plastered across her face. It seems inappropriate.

“What?” I ask, impatiently.

She doesn’t answer.

“What?”

“I’m not pregnant!”

“What?!”

I dont believe her at first. For the past 48 hours I’ve known that I was going to have a kid, and unraveling that sort of realization isn’t easy.

She goes on to tell me that they switched one of her files by accident with a pregnant woman, and they they were profusely sorry. Reality sunk in and we were overjoyed, laughing and talking about how fortunate we were. It’s tough to appreciate the wonder of not being headed down fatherhood road until you’ve driven on it.

I’ll tell you one thing, though - I’m done with sex for a LONG time. Having any chance of that happening for real isn’t worth it. Sorry ladies!