Tao Student – A Personal Site for Gary Ardito

Today was an interesting day. I started the day in the emergency room in Livingston, NJ. More specifically, the Saint Barnabas Medical Center. As much as I did not want to be there, I have to admit the people of Saint Barnabas were top notch. I have had a few ER [...]

So, I knew it would happen.  I have been working to get myself healthy in body, mind and spirit.   This includes working out, diet, meditation, and allowing time for creativity/innovation.  I travel a lot and am not home some weekends because of visiting my kids or other family so making new connections with people is [...]

Everybody loves superheroes, young boys and probably some girls want to be super heros. The adult comic industry is booming and yes, I admit it I still love superheros, although my love is buffetted by my two boys, ages 6 and 8.
Here is a picture of a mural now in their bedroom….go go [...]

Today I was in my Chi Kung and Meditation class and despite my continued attempts to empty my mind, I found myself attaching to the words of my Sifu (teacher for those not familiar with this blog) and thinking about their impact on my daily life in the real world.
He talked about looking within and [...]

The idea of an all encompassing Private Identity Network that we can plug into whether on the net, using our cell phones (or pick any device), or interacting with a merchant is a nice vision. Add a benevolent overseeing agency insuring all is well with our important identity data and the vision nears utopia. [...]

I came across this quote from one of my favorite books and I think it is good to remember:
“Reality is subjective, and there’s an unenlightened tendency in this culture to regard something as ‘important’ only if ’tis sober and severe. Sure and still you are right about your Cheerful Dumb, only they’re not so [...]

As I have described here before, my martial arts training has a very strong Taoist foundation. This means that the physical training we do is based on very traditional Chinese arts and also the core texts related to Taoism including the Tao Te Ching, Inner Chapters of Chuang Tsu, and the iChing.
All of the [...]

What a train wreck!
I embarked on what I thought would be an easy process this evening. I started out changing my personal email from gary.ardito@gmail.com to Gary@taostudent.com. Seems fairly painless. My next step was to notify personal contacts of this change and ask them to start using the new email address.
This is [...]

Well, nothing great was built in a short time so my expectations for The U this year were a bit, shall we say, emotional rather than logical.
We lost to Georgia Tech today and it was heartbreaking.  However, my commitment and resolve are not wavering.  Randy Shannon is doing all the right things with this team.  [...]

There is nothing quite like reconnecting with an old friend, especially when the old friend is somebody you look up to and have a mountain of respect for.  I had the joy of just such an event recently when I reconnected with Gola Wolf Richards.
Wolf and I first met something like 10 years ago during [...]

I came across this video today via another blog entry and I feel compelled, to add to the public accolades I am sure it has already received.

This is a video of Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, giving his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007. He [...]

We have all seen the result of different mashups like property with craigs list, the taxi mashup for Chicago/NY, even our own attempt at a mashup showing where all the architects, strategists and PMs live (thanks Niel).  They are all interesting, amusing and sometimes useful.
I think the link below is a great example of where [...]

Interesting title huh…
I have been thinking a lot about this lately.  We all have internal battles that prevent us from accomplishing all we know we can.  For some these are life threatening – drug and food addictions or other compulsive behavior.  For others it is more subtle, ability to focus and excel at work, motivation [...]