Technology Allows Flexibility

I’ve been enjoying my summer, even though I’ve been predominately hanging out with myself.

That’s kind of my own doing, since my typical evening consists of going to the lake, usually Lake Calhoun, and working. Most nights, working consists of no client work, but the work I do extra, and it’s at a highly relaxed pace, because it’s summer, Yo.

I’m saturated with technology. For instance, right now, I’m at the beach, lying down, typing on my bluetooth keyboard, that’s connected to my tablet (obvs), that is tethered to my phone’s internet, that is charging on one of my mobile chargers…..

I have a similar setup with my laptop, including a mobile AC battery charger bought 100% for business purposes (because I needed to work on the cruise ship deck).

Next Steps

Since I’ve proven that my system works, and since I have military-grade encryption on my VPN, I can actually work remotely from anywhere in the world, and have no client files on my computer. If a computer gets lost or stolen, I can easy ‘cut the cord’ (make the connection to my server inoperatble), disabling any access until it is found or permanently.

This is a pretty cool. In the near future, I’m going to begin traveling more. I just hired a full-time employee, and she needs to work with me, so for a while, I’m just going to be taking Friday’s off and having long weekends. It’s unlikely I’ll work during these. But perhaps after the fall tax season, I’ll be able to take some prolonged trips where I’ll work *gasp* in the mornings and explore the rest of the day.

I think I’ll post on my travel blog now.

Happy Fourth!

Rare Post from Summer 2017

It has been incredibly busy lately, but since I decided to not work tonight or not zone out in front of the TV, I thought I’d tell you all about what’s up.

First of all, to my neighbors, I’m sorry. I am going to cut my grass for the second time this weekend. I will cut it every weekend. Previously I cut it every 8 days, figuring I would have to mow the lawn 14% less each summer. It’s a theory that works when you are able to get home before 9:30 most nights.

For my clients, I am working my tail off. For those who I haven’t finished, I will get everything to a point of “near finished” with just a couple questions. This will be a weekend of work. As in, not even outside or at a lake. That’s for half of y clients. The other half, I’ll email you and remind you of what you need to send me (in most cases, it is “everything”).

As the last paragraph may indicate, my tale has not been worked off from tax returns. While I did things here and there, the month of May was consumed mostly by MinnesotaNow. MinnesotaNow is a new nonprofit that was formed somewhere during tax season.

It’s an awesome thing Minnesota needed, and greatness needs to start somewhere, so why not?

 

Healthy, Cheap, & Quick Lunches

One thing I start doing more this tax season was bringing my lunch.

Now, anyone who knows about staying healthy knows that you don’t want to bring junk food lunches like TV dinners, and you certainly shouldn’t eat out everyday. Most people know that when I do eat out, it’s more often then not, Leann Chin. Notably, I figured out that at Leann Chin, you can order a half portion of meat for about $3.50.

Let me translate: you don’t have the empty carbs of rice, and you get two meals worth of chicken, already cooked and ready to be reheated, for $3.50!

That’s $1.75 for a meal–it’s like school lunch prices! Except it’s not crappy school lunches; it’s natural chicken!

Throughout the week, you just reheat it, preferably in another container, and you have a lovely lunch, a delicious dinner, or dad I say, part of a complete breakfast!

Admittedly, I’ve never had a chicken breakfast, but I wouldn’t put midnight snack or of the choices….

Why Routines Are Often Unproductive

Routines are important in a lot of areas of life. For instance, you don’t need a checklist of things to do in the morning because you brush your teeth as part of a standard routine.

I do not live a routine-filled life. In some ways, I wish I had certain routines, like waking up and running, but that just doesn’t fit with my energy cycle (i.e. I hate mornings). I will add, though, that I did dance a couple Cha Chas this morning to wake up after a night of lesser sleep, and it did a decent job. Maybe that’ll be part of my morning routine.

Routines can also kill productivity. I’ll give you an example:

My friend Michelle came over to help domesticate my house a little bit–you know, make it seem less like Austin Power’s Pad.

Part of the deal was that in order to organize and rearrange things, I had to clean, with chemicals, my tax season “state of working.”

Understandable, but she came over earlier a day earlier than anticipated, plus the free time I was originally going to spend cleaning was consumed by starting my nonprofit and prepping for a great interview with the MSP Biz Journal reporter.

So I didn’t have time to clean everything. I mean, it was pretty darn spotless, but not perfect.

Well, she was going to put dishes in my sink, so I quickly disclaimed the imperfection of the left sink. The enamel of the left sink is thin, do it becomes discolored quickly, and I didn’t prioritize scrubbing it.

So I told her one of my life theories, one involving housekeeping:

There are jobs one does often. They’re done quickly and have a high impact. They are routine jobs. Scrubbing the sink is one of these.

But if one wants to make actual progress, he or she has to do nonroutine cleaning, which is what I did.

Notably, the routine cleaning will get done regardless of effort. Need silverware? BAM–dishes get done.

But if I want to make any progress at all, I start by doing nonroutine jobs. These are jobs I generally try to permanently defer, or they’re jobs for which I never find time. They are often the above and beyond difference no one will notice. Or they’re jobs I don’t particularly enjoy. These are tasks like organizing papers​ into where they actually go instead of placing them in a “file later” pile or dusting the shelves no one will see.

These are tasks like replacing your food into single serve containers.

These are tasks like making the bathroom mirror sparking clean instead of just wiped down (okay, that’s an often noticed plus).

By breaking routine, sometimes you can actually get things done. Now, a life of a million pieces seems completely random, but my routine is to point them all towards a  single, unified purpose.

That is how I handle routines, or don’t handle them, or why I choose to keep a nonroutine life.

Traveling Styles

I usually travel solo. I do what I want when I want.

I’m planning a cruise with a friend in January. She’s a very detail-oriented planner. That’s fine. But I’m learning I have a very different traveling style from her, and it’s likely different from most people.

She sent me her flight plans and asked me what flight I was taking.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I might catch a flight from MSP to Miami, but I might hop through Atlanta or Detroit, depending on how it looks at the time.”

Obviously my friend was kind of stressed by this. My traveling style of completely easy going and skewed by non-rev flying.

I went through the list of flights. Detroit was not even an option. The direct flights were pretty full, so it looks like I’ll be going through Atlanta.

Some people probably don’t understand how someone can plan a trip and not know on which flights they’re flying.

For me, it’s the only way to travel.

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S’mores Search

20161006_225711
S’mores Chips Ahoy Taste: 3/5        S’mores Authenticity: 3/5
S'mores cappuccino at Midway SA. Taste 3/5 S'mores Authenticity 4/5 (Graham flavor was present, unique for a drink)
S’mores cappuccino at Midway SA.
Taste: 3/5
S’mores Authenticity: 4/5 (Graham flavor was present, unique for a drink)
T-Rex Giant S'mores Cookies found in Capella on Thursdays Taste: 4/5 S'mores Authenticity: 2/5
T-Rex Giant S’mores Cookies found in Capella on Thursdays
Taste: 4/5
S’mores Authenticity: 2/5
Starbucks
Starbucks Taste: 4/5 S’mores Authenticity: 2/5

20160625_192216~2

My undying addiction to S’mores:

Of course, I love S’mores from a bonfire, but I’m not talking about just those succulent summer sweets. I’m talking about a weakness for S’mores anything.

I’m not kidding, when I’m driving by Culver’s, and the flavor of the day is S’mores, I always stop in to buy some. I buy pretty much anything S’mores.

So when I was in Cub and  saw these on the endcap, I had to buy it:

Smores oreos
S’mores Oreo’s Taste: 4/5 S’mores Authenticity: 4/5

Event Mastermind

Until I decided it wasn’t cool, my title in my meetup group was “Event Mastermind.”

The truth is, I design my events exactly as I design my dates. They are fun, have variety, and have the ability to talk to people yet provide distraction. Obviously, I developed this because when on a date, I need a distraction (show, traveling, or something else), because Justin focusing on a lady is overwhelming and he says too much.

So tonight I had my second date with a very intelligent woman. We decided that Saturday night would work.

I called her this morning to talk about options. I live in the Twin Cities, so naturally there werected a ton of options.

She is newer to the TC. I mean, she’s lived here before, but that was before medical school.

So naturally, she asked me about what to do. I mentioned the Fringe, but not in a great way.

I proposed a pub crawl with just her and me based around the Green Line.

I’ll leave or details of smiles, etc., and I’ll tell you where we went.

We met on the Green Line, and we continued to Lowertown Saint Paul. To make it faster, here’s the stops and bars:

Union Depot Station: Axle Ox Cart rooftop

Central Station: Vieux Carre Cocktail Bar and Grill

Also at Central Station: Amsterdam Bar

Stadium Village: Stub & Herbs

Walked to East Bank Station

There was live music at two places.

Night ended. There may have been another bar in there too, but I doubt it. We arrived in North Loop at 1:00. It was a nice night.

Beating the Rain

Crash!

Flash!

GRUMBLE!

I already knew what needed to happen.

It’s been far too long, and being a man of efficiency, I try not to spend time fixing high maintenance situations when they’re just going to get bad again. But it’s something every property owner does unless they’re a posh city-dweller.

So I ran to the garage, filled up the tank with fuel, opened the garage, and went as fast as I could.

I knew I had to mow the lawn quickly if I was going to beat the rain. I also knew it was long because I find it more efficient to not mow it too often (when I apologized to y neighbor for letting it get so long, George replied, “that’s okay. I like grass.” Best neighbor ever!)

Needless to say, this wasn’t my first time mowing long grass quickly (did I mention efficient earlier? Why take time mowing when you can take less time?). So I thought I’d share the secret with you.

When you mow quickly, you basically run behind the lawn mower and jump to the side to turn it (picture rotating very quickly on the outside of a lever). There’s a problem:
The blades slow down and eventually stop. If it’s warm out, the lawn mower will overheat.
I pay attention to the sound of the blade, and when it slows down, I quickly (because everything is quick) throw up (lift) the handle of the lawn mower to raise the rear wheels off the ground. This releases all the grass clippings out of the mower centrifuge, the high density of which is the reason for its slowing down.

I hope these tips help you waste less of your life doing lawn maintenance.

Cheers!

(Yes, I just wrote 2 pages about how you should lift the back of your mower when mowing fast. But the video before the storm didn’t turn out)

Canton Hong Kong Festin de Chine

Google just sent me an email out of the blue:

Your photos reached a new record on Google Maps!

When I went to a little Chinese restaurant in the Colonel Fabien area in Paris. It was another rainy day (yes, there were many this trip), so I was the only customer in the restaurant.

It was newer, open for less than a year. I noted it when I went for a few days in August, but I didn’t get a chance to eat there.
This time, I took the liberty of adding it on Google Maps, a strange thing I do for many new small businesses.

I also took a couple of snapshots to add to the Google Location.

My photo has received 119 view last week and 1,017 views since mid-June.

I generally like to be useful and helpful, and even on vacation, I love small businesses.

Here’s the thumbnail that was in the Google email:

Canton Hong Kong Festin de Chine

 

 

Winning Randomly

I love smiles.

I love being random.

I went for a run, and during my cool down, there were a couple young ladies, about my age, taking groceries out of their car across the street.

I overheard one of them say, “Put your hands on your hips.” I have no idea about what they were talking.

So, naturally, without even looking at them, I sang, “You put your hand upon your hip,
when I dip you dip we dip.”

I heard them ask “What?” obviously confused because that’s just not expected.

I just explained that it’s a song from the 90’s…..

They were just giggling and laughing because they thought it was just hilarious and silly.

From experience, I can be randomly silly or even be randomly nice, but if I’m with someone or if others are observing, they won’t laugh. You need to have a mature demeanor, be cool, and not expect or even want to talk to them. Otherwise it’d be creepy.

By creating smiles that wouldn’t be there otherwise, I believe I’m putting positivity in the world that otherwise wouldn’t be there.