Moving on....

I'm glad that this site has helped people remember Mark... he was a good man, and we are all missing him. That said, I need to "warn" people that this blog typically examines my normal geeky life, and so the tone will likely change back to my own ruminations about life... I hope people don't mind.

Here we go.

Last night I started reading a memory training book by Harry Lorrayne. It gives you memory tips of a few different types, creating links between items to help remember a list, and creating absurd "sounds like" tips for remembering words. One exercise is to remember the 50 states in alphabetical order... something I've never been able to do. Now after just one evening, I can do it front to back. How? I made up a story:

I was looking through a photo album (alabama) and wondered who one of the people was, so I had to ask (alaska), when the album rose up (arizona) in a tornado (arkansas). I had to call a forensic scientist (california) who colored (colorado) in the dots he had to connect (connecticut). He stood and said "I declare!" (delaware) when he saw an alligator (florida) chasing George Washington (georgia), who paused to say "Hi" (hawaii) to a hooker (Idaho) who got sick (illinois) on an indian (indiana) who was holding an IOU (Iowa) he was going to give to Dorothy (Kansas) for some (Kentucky) Whiskey she bought in New Orleans (Louisiana). Drunkenly, he shouted "Remember the Maine!", and the Virgin Mary (maryland) appeared in church mass (massachusetts). Freaked out he jumped into his american car (michigan), drove through Minnesota, across the Mississippi, and nearly missed my eye (missouri) as he pointed out the mountains (montana). On the radio was bruce springsteen (nebraska) singing about one-armed bandits (nevada) whch had presidential candidates (new hampshire) and Tony Soprano (New jersey) instead of fruits in the windows...

Suddenly a ufo flew overhead (New Mexico) driven by the Statue of Liberty (New York) who shouted GO NORTH and find Caroline! (North carolina), and our friend's dog Dakota barked (North Dakota). We got to starbucks filled with Japanese people shouting "Ohio Gozarimas!", and on the TV was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, where Ruprecht shouted "Oklahoma!!!". Then Ruprecht turned to a computer and played Oregon Trail, but the wagon train turned into a real train leaving from Penn Station (Pennsylvania), but it couldn't reach the Island (rhode island), so we had to take the UFO, and the statue yelled "GO SOUTH and find CAROLINE!" (south carolina), and Dakota barked again (south dakota).

A truck rolled by that said "Follow me to Tennessee, dolly dolly dolly", and it was as big as Texas. It was driven by a mormon with 8 wives (Utah) and filled with Maple syrup (Vermont). One of the wives was still a virgin (Virginia), and that lecherous George Washington showed up again and chased that virgin west (west virginia) across Wisconsin to Wyoming.

OK - that's just crazy, and what's important is that each idea links to the next... and you don't need to say the story, just have a quick image, and it brings up the linkage. And of course, there are tons of personal references (the dolly dolly dolly was a toy truck my dad got from a transportation client in the 1980s, for example) And it WORKS.

I'm pretty excited to see how this develops. I did start using a similar technique to remember some harder Russian words last week: I couldn't remember "From Here", and built up "I bought my Matsuda sunglasses here" - "atsuda". Others are easier - "prichitat" is to read - and I read Terry Pratchett, so that association was automatic.

Ok - that's my geek update for the day. Welcome back to JimVentions.