Justin

Sunday Trends

You can tell certain things just by my coffee trends on Sundays. Back in the day, I used to make Sunday my caffeine-free day.

I still considered Sundays a day off. That ended about a year ago, as Sundays magically turned into a Mad-Dash-to-Finish-Everything-You-Need-By-Monday day. It’s also the day when I finish doing things around the house.

One look at my house (okay, the kitchen table, which I am cleaning today. I’m going to start to use y office as an office!) will quickly tell you where my priorities are.

You can tell when I am busier than usual because I drink at least two cups of coffee. That’s where I’ve been since August.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I have a perpetual sweet tooth and have large quantities of Dark Chocolate Truffle Coffee at home.

This stuff is amazing. It’s not like flavored coffee, where they add flavors, which have an artificial taste to them that makes your nose crinkle up like bad beer.

No, this stuff is like they just shoved some dark chocolate in with the coffee.

Sometimes I make it to go, and I forget it. I can then just take the cold cup of coffee and just drink it, because it is wonderful, delicious, caffeinated chocolate milk.

And Now….

Tomorrow is the first day when I won’t get up to and go to work, and I’m super excited because I will finally get to work!

The reason why I’m wrapped up at my work is because there is so much interest. On excited because I can follow up with people I met networking, people who have found me on Google Maps, or small business owners I randomly meet going through life.

The timing is perfect. I have time to get some things ready for tax season. 2016 is going to be incredible. I’m just excited to not have to go to work so I can actually get some things done.

Excited to Work

If You Didn’t Hear My News About the Strib

Since only 40 people clicked my email blast of 1,200 about my news about the Strib, and my social share may have been corrupted – without all the self-promoting language and getting right to it:

Yesterday was my last day at the Strib. My firm has gotten so busy that I can’t maintain both. So I left the Strib to pursue my own venture with all of my focus for the first time ever.
I think I’ll be able to do very well.

That is all.

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Sleeping In Every Day

Some of you (okay, probably most of you) have noticed that I am a late riser. I’m just sleeping in every day, right? Often I don’t get to work until 10:00 or even 11:00.

After talking to me for a minute or two and hearing about my hobbies, some people may conclude that I’m out late every night, painting the town red, so to speak. Party But that’s not the case. Nowadays, I’m not the party closer. I could be, but I get bored. Moreover, my focus has been to be another kind of closer.

Well perhaps I’m just kind of old, washed up, and lazy.

lazy

That could be the case. I’m certainly too lazy to crop that image, but it would’ve gotten rid of the nice white border and taken time. But I honestly don’t think anyone thinks that.

I probably just struggle to focus, or when I work, I’m halfway working and halfway sleeping, Facebooking, or doing other overly-social or distracted tasks. Well, working from home, this is how I can do client calls. It’s pretty neat.

Working Early

Not really.

My dad thinks I need more of a routine and to be more disciplined. Maybe he’s right. I’ll go ahead and go through my routine.

First of all, I don’t usually skip out on sleep too often. My job has way too much thinking and reading to do off of only a little sleep. I usually sleep 6 to 7 hours every night.
Since I’m often up until 1:00, this means I don’t wake up until 8:00. In the morning, I wake up, iron a shirt, cook an egg, and have coffee. When I have time, I often check my email. Usually I’ll get back to clients and tell them that I’ll get back to them in the night.

Sometimes I get up much earlier and go to networking events that go anywhere from 7:30 to 10:00.

Then I go to work. I usually work until 5:00 or 6:00, or lately I’ve had a couple of 8:00 pm nights. After work, I frequently go to networking events or similar events. I’ve been building a lot of varied and high-value connections recently.

After that, I go home and run. Sometimes I lift weights. Usually wound 9:00, I have dinner, which is very often just a protein shake. It’s quick, easy, and doesn’t really have much junk in it. Or I have Chinese. Or Noodles.

Then I work. My nights are divided, pretty equally, between doing client work and administrative work. Sometimes I break routine and hang out with people, at which point I work once they end their night.

I usually work until 1:00 am or 2:00 am.

There it is, Dad. That’s my ‘laxed routine that needs some discipline.

Reasoning
Sounds weird to some, I’m sure. I simply believe in doing things naturally. In the mornings, I don’t have the focus to work on taxes. I am extroverted, so I get energy from talking to other people. Writing emails is okay, but actually going to networking events is great.

Working at work is, well, time consuming. It’s challenging, too, but I really do enjoy it! The people are great, even if half of them have mustaches like they’re from the 80’s.

stache

I pretty much make fun of them all the time, and it’s likely they’ll read this.

After work, I either exercise or go to a networking event. Both things give me a ton of energy… energy that lets me keep going until 1:00 doing client work!

In short, the reasoning for working super late at nights is that I always have energy and focus. This is when I should work, according to my crazy energy cycles. On the weekends, I go out with this kind of crazy energy.

I do work a bit, it’s true, and while my routine sounds kind of boring, I have fun! I’m guessing the people at my work know what I mean – can’t bring me down.

Meetup Events

My meetup events are a good hobby. I’ve grown a group to be the second largest 20s & 30s social group in the cities in one year, and I didn’t do anything.

I like to do a bunch of random stuff, and I guess that’s what everyone else likes, too. Unfortunately, we live in a stand-on-the-esculator kind of world.

After growing the group (actually, there’s another group too, 7,000 total, some doubled members though), the organizers wouldn’t talk to me. So I just started my own group.

I made it mid 20s so I don’t have kids come to it. I made it “or so” because friends were 39, and I wanted it to not have a hard line. I’m sure other groups have that in their description, but who reads the description when looking at groups? Perhaps everyone but me.

The group is going to tailor more to, well, my kind of people. Truth is, I just want more friends. Not just friends, but awesome friends.

I’ve made some from my events, and I sure have introduced a lot of people to each other (you’re welcome to all my Ukrainian friends).

My events are starting off in the North Loop. Why North Loop? North Loop is an area I want to explore more and rarely get the chance to do so.

Previously, I did that with Uptown.

It’s also really good because I’m learning about venues and making contacts, as I plan on making business events very soon, meaning before next tax season.

History-buff friends may be looking at my event location and thinking I’m looking back in the history book, but I’m only going forward. Speaking of which, I’ll be announcing the next chapter on Friday.

Clean Food

With all of the improvements, new roads, mass transit, other things of which I’d probably be aware if I read my neighborhood newsletter, Midway is not any more hospitable.

What’s my issue?

The compete lack of clean food. I mean food that IS ACTUALLY clean and TASTES clean.

For insuranc Leeann Chin is supposedly actually clean. They’re all natural, use no MSG, etc. But it doesn’t taste clean, meaning it tastes impure and it’s definitely not healthy. It’s deep fried. Yeah, all most Chinese food is fried. That means it’s not healthy.

The only saving grace is Noodles. Tonight I’m having whole grain pasta Fresca with a side of broccoli. Yum.

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Wild About Wine

wildaboutwine On Wednesday, the advertising department at work had a lot of extra tickets to an event at the Minnesota Zoo. It was a great event with wine and food sampling. I’m sure my parents would have loved it, but I took A. I knew she would love it because she use to be the manager at the Saint Paul Hotel’s food hospitality service, or whatever the fancy name they have for the kitchen.

The event was tonight, Saturday.

I tried 14 wines. I’ll list a few I liked:

True Grit Petit Sirah – this was very good. One of the only Petits I saw there
Gruet Demi Sec – this was a bubbly, white dessert-escque wine, but not super sweet like a moscato d’asti
Chateau Beneyt Bordeaux Rouge – full flavor, but neither bold, sweet, or dry
Blanc de Bleu – get this, it was a blueberry sparkling. I heard someone comparing it to UV Blue. It was unique, but it didn’t give me flashbacks to college parties (as UV Blue would surely do)
Spring Valley Frederick Red – this was a red blend that had a likeness to Louie’s Wine Dive House Red (Cab, Malbec, Petit Sirah, other miscellaneous reds). I thought it was really good. Coincidentally, it is also the most expensive bottle they had available
Ferrari Carano Siena – I can’t remember much about this wine. I marked it as good and to buy it in the future.

After that, we went to Red Robin, a restaurant in Apple Valley that I love. We split a Chicken Teriyaki Burger, which had mozz and pineapple. It’s been my favorite burger since high school dates. You know, when the good theater was still open in Apple Valley.

She went to her friends house for a movie night or something. I went home.

The drive on 35E at midnight was strange because it was so normal and uneventful. I’m not sure why. I think it’s just that everything is good.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

It was a good Halloween. Multiple parties, and a fire has been lit.

Happy Halloween Vector Illustration. Hand Lettered Text with Hau I’m going for stable weather so it stays lot this time.

Regardless, I’m probably getting user to windy weather. I’d bet that i can broadcast in any weather!

Greatest Automotive Accessory

It allows me to drive around with the windows down in the summer. It ensures that the car wash does a great job. It has a low cost and can be easily washed. It even cleans up random accidental spills!

Of course, I’m talking about an ordinary dish towel.

White rag

My car usually has miscellaneous paperwork in the back seat. I don’t sit back there, so what do I care? No I don’t know what it is, but I can’t just throw it away. It might be important!

I can’t drive with my windows down or papers will surely fly out, and we can’t have that! Luckily, I have a nice dish cloth in my back seat, so in the summer, it’s used to cover papers so they don’t blow away.

Or after the car wash does a shabby job drying my car, I just pull around to the pumps (sheets there’s light, because it’s naturally 10:00 at night) and hand-dry my car (before it freezes in the winter!).

Tonight I had a problem worse than I’ve had before. My window fogged up worse than ever. I wasn’t able to see, and of course the window got worse on the 94 on ramp from 6th Street.

I pulled over on Riverside. I was stranded. Hot air didn’t work. Cold air didn’t work.

I finally thought back to my 2nd grade school bus driver who, in poor weather, would wipe the front window with a rag from a bucket of water.

So I reached back to my trusty car rag and started scrubbing down the windshield.

Eventually, I figured out that the best way to keep my window so I could see through it was scrubbing it and having the cold AC air blow on the window plus have the driver’s window down.

Now I know what you’re thinking, and yes, that is a great way to cool down.

Getting Things Going

On my birthday, I told all of you Facebookers “thank you for the wishes” and that “for 31, it’s time to get going.”

You may have wondered what I meant by that. While it could have meant a lot of things, as I am getting a lot of things in gear right now, but it didn’t.

Naturally, I was talking about events. My social events aren’t a big deal, but I brought a couple groups from initially less than 600 members and no events to over 5,000, just from my events. I kindly asked the organizers if I could talk to them. I basically wanted more control over the groups. They kindly didn’t get back to me, which is Minnesota Nice, I guess.

So I formed my own group, Mid 20s-30s (or so) Twin Cities Social on Meetup http://www.meetup.com/Mid-20s-30s-or-so-Twin-Cities-Social/

Basically, I had some friends who were 39, so I wanted them to still come. Also, I didn’t want as many college kids. Not a big deal, but I wanted everyone to be in the same place in life. I also wanted to help build collections. My friend D complained that meetup people are just at meetups. I wanted to make my group integrated with FB, so you could make a new friend and they could keep in contact by likes and such.

I kind of don’t think my friend will commission anymore since I introduces him to a friend at an event and he dated her for a couple weeks. Who knows. But there’s more.

I’m also using it to get closer to restaurant management. Not so they can be my clients, but for the main thing on which I’m going to start to get going: business events.

I’m great at events, I’m great at teaching, I go to business events a lot, and I know exactly what’s missing in the business event world.

I’m going to have two kinds of events. Without giving away things while they’re in the development stage, I’ll have one type of event that will teach people the basics. The other one will teach them how to kick it up a notch.

The latter one needs more development. The fist one is about 30% created. It is fully conceptualized and it’s infrastructure is being made.

But that’s what I meant. I want 2016 to be another year of unprecedented growth. So far, YTD sales are only up 28% over 2014.

Kicking it up a notch keeps me busy!

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