This Saturday, a mere 92 years after it all began, my grandpa Elmer shook off this mortal coil…

Grandpa Elmer & Toby at Grandpa's 90th Birthday Party

And just as when Grandpa Jim went on to the next great adventure, I tasked the old subconscious to pull together a memory or two of our time together. And like a good tool, the ol’ noggin provided a few…

• Minibike riding
  Many a trip to Grandpa’s involved cruising on the little minibike he had for the grandkids. Every summer trip seemed to be filled with mile after mile after mile of aimless wandering whenever we came to visit. And despite the fact that I never saw him hovering around when I was riding, he always seemed to appear whenever I managed to need a little mechanical assistance…
  Lesson learned: A little freedom is a wonderful thing. A lot of freedom is even better!

• BB gun shooting
  A BB gun, an essentially unlimited supply of BBs, lots of birds to shoot at, and lots of my uncle’s shelled out ’57 Chevys lying about Grandpa’s place. Along with the occasional not-so-shelled-out ’57 Chevys. What could go wrong? Think Nomad back window shattering…
  Lesson learned: With great power comes great responsibility…

• Bandsawing
  Some of my favorite times with Grandpa were spent in his workshop in the barn, which was filled with many a tool of potential mass destruction. My favorite was the bandsaw, upon which I was somehow let lose on with minimal supervision despite the fact that it could certainly have made short work of my young fingers if I weren’t paying attention. Much randomness ensued…
  Lesson learned: Instructions? Who needs instructions?

• Climbing trees with riding mower
  Another favorite thing to do whenever visiting the grandparents on the farm – using the riding mower.  Amazing how a job to an adult can be play to a child! Anyway, my strongest memory of the riding mower was the first time using it. Very little instruction other than how to start it, and a stern warning to be careful. Shortly followed by my attempting to climb one of the many trees on the property with the mower, as I had little idea how to stop the thing, and absolutely no idea on how to go backwards with it once head on with said tree.
  Lesson learned: Well, a little bit of instructions might be a good thing!

• Bullhead cleaning
  Somehow I always got both Grandpas to take me out to a local fishing hole whenever we made it back. And somehow, we always ended up with a bucket full of fish that we actually ended up eating. But before that, we had to clean the fish, which – to those of you unfamiliar – is just about the opposite of what it sounds like. Cleaning fish is just about the messiest thing one can do with ‘em! A bucket full of egg-laden bullheads + a curious city boy made for some oddly disturbing fun…
  Lesson learned: Sometimes, even the cleanup is fun!

• Buckets of ice cream (which grandma would later use to turn into buckets of cookies)
  No good day ends without a little sweetness. Say, with a big bowl of ice cream? Or how about a few dozen of your favorite grandma’s cookies set aside for you in one of those empty gallon ice cream buckets? Or, hell, how about both?
  Lesson learned: Never forget to recycle…

Exactly eight years ago, I was embarking on a tense drive to Omaha as Sean.

Eight years ago +2 hours, I embarked on a tense journey as Dad.

Happy Eighth Birthday to my not-so-little boy!

Toby on Vacation Last Summber

and deeper in debt. Hmmm, actually, no. Turned 41 this Tuesday without a financial debt in the world… Oh, sure, we’ve still got our monthly bills and all, but everything we own, we own free and clear. I can’t suggest it highly enough to anyone. If you’re struggling with the money thing, Dave has some good ideas to get you on that path.

Anyway, now that I’m officially a year older, any words of advice to you young ‘uns? Sure:

• Unless taking a risk is likely to physically harm you or others, lean towards taking it. My personal ratio of regrets for things undone versus those done is heavily tilted towards the undone side of the ledger. Someone feel free to remind me of this every time you see me!
• What gets measured, gets improved. Have something you’re coming short on? Measure it. In early June, despite half efforts to counter my expansion, I tipped the scales at just shy of 230 pounds. I started an online Weight Watchers membership June 15th, just used their handy dandy mobile app – in other words, no meetings or cardboard tasting food – and weighed myself yesterday at 202 and change. Missed my goal of sub-200 by my birthday, but not by much…
• Play a little every day. I don’t care if you’re 8 or 88. Life is too short, no matter how much time you have left…
• Oh, and as always, wear sunscreen…

Earlier this month, my 95-year-old Grandpa Jim drew his last breath, and in the days following the funeral, I planted the task in my mind to come up with a defining memory I had of the grand ol’ man, and I believe it’s finally come to me. While catching a bit of Pulp Fiction, of all things…

I’m not sure of my age, but I’ll hazard a guess I was somewhere in the 8 to 10 range. In those days, thanks to time spent with both of my grandpas, I had a particular, well, infatuation for all things fishing. My tackle box was absolutely stuffed with every lure I could get me hands on. The entry for the term for fishing in our encyclopedia at home was tattered. I knew far too many details on every piece of fishing gear at our local hardware store. That sort of infatuation.

During one of our many trips back to my parents’ home range, Grandpa Jim thought feeding my infatuation was the order of the day, and off we went to some local fishing hole for the afternoon. Excited to catch as many fish as I could, I grabbed my aforementioned tacklebox, borrowed one of grandpa’s rods out of his garage, and loaded up what little gear one needs for such a trip into the back of his old pipe tobacco scented station wagon.

For whatever reason, that day the fish just weren’t being agreeable. A couple hours in, and with many a lure change gone by, not even a nibble. Sensing my growing frustrations, grandpa reeled in my rod, cut off whatever monstrosity I had attached to my line, put on a simple bobber, sinker, and a worm-threaded hook, and handed me back my rod along with an orange soda. And said to me,

‘Son, the point of fishing isn’t really to catch the fish…’

The rest of the afternoon was spent quietly watching a bobber bob, drinking orange soda, eating bologna sandwiches, with but a few words spoken in between.

I couldn’t tell you whether the actual catching of fish got any better that day. But, it was my best day fishing.

‘That’s when you know you’ve found somebody really special: you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share silence.’
– from Mia in Pulp Fiction

RIP Grandpa… I’ll miss you!

The ‘ad’ to the left was in our local newspaper this week, which primarily was composed of a large section saluting Nebraska corn growers. Now, I don’t have a thing against our local corn growers. They’re providing what their market — and the government via subsidies — is apparently requesting. But I had to laugh — and cry a little — at the ad, ’cause, well, eating corn certainly doesn’t add any flavor benefit to that hunk o’ meat you’re enjoying. The farmer feeds ‘em corn to get them to the market faster.

Cows, in the natural, don’t particularly care for corn — they much prefer grass.

Corn allows cows to get fatter faster and be ready for slaughter sooner. But there are downsides, including the fact that cows have trouble digesting corn and must be fed antibiotics to prevent them from becoming ill. What’s more, beef from corn-fed cows tends to have more fat.

Apparently, beef is on the mind — the ad brought forth thoughts of the recent brouhaha surrounding Taco Bell and the non-beef beef they use. Is it 35% beef or 40%? Whatever the actual beef content, you can bet that that ‘other’ 60-65% of filler is just wonderful for your health.

Methinks it’s time to spend more on the food we put in our body and less on all the useless crap we fill our lives with…

Most of my posts here have focused around my efforts to earn an income online (for example, the whole Weekly Kick In The Ass series). I’ve recently decided to move those discussions to a new horse in my stable, and use this site more as my personal randomosity collection, as befits a website named after, well, an individual. After all, I’m not trying to build a brand around myself, so why expound on my efforts at doing business as myself?

That said, I certainly haven’t given up playing around in that field. If you’d like to continue following my efforts in the online marketing arena, feel free to check out my ramblings on The Year of Passive Income.

As you were…

Keeping things like important files and bookmarks synced between multiple computers took just a little planning. For instance, the ever-wonderful Dropbox keeps all my important – and not so important but still useful – files available anywhere I am while backing it all up to the cloud for me. Saved my ass more than once!

Bookmark sync is another of those areas I absolutely need a synced backup between my various systems, and have been a long time user of Xmarks, even back when it used to be known as Foxmarks. The recent announcement of their upcoming shuttering left me scrambling for a replacement. Everything I’ve tried has left me frustrated at best or pissed off at worst. (Yes, I’m looking at you Firefox Sync –your inability to do much of anything wasted far too much of my time over the couple days I attempted to get it working!)

But news of Xmarks potential resurrection brought a smile to my face today. I’ve pledged my support for them today. If you ever find someone who provides a great service that just flat out works for you, don’t hesitate to pony up a few bucks to support ‘em!

While nowhere near back to functioning at 100%, I’m at least slowly starting to feel human once again. My major health complaint of the day: ‘Why does everything taste like burnt coffee?‘ Nonetheless, sure beats ‘Where in jeebus’s name does all this nasty multi-hued phlegm come from, and when will it stop?‘ any day. Apologies for that mental image!

Since I’m feeling marginally better the last couple days, I decided to at the very least catch up with my stats collection for my blasting income. While doing so, I let the ol’ mind drift for awhile, and made a few observations.

Owning a Job

Doing tax work this time of the year, as well as via relationships with people in the little rural communities around me, I personally know more than a few who call themselves business owners who really aren’t. What they’ve done is created for themselves a job. Yes, indeed, occasionally a very well paying job. More often than not, a very demanding job. Sometimes even going so far as to surround themselves with an extensive support staff that they consider their employees. Nevertheless, it isn’t truly a business in my mind; it’s a job that is heavily dependent on the owner being there day in, day out, month in, month out, for the ‘business’ to run smoothly. Oftentimes, for it to run at all.

I’ve got one of those ‘businesses.’ In addition to tax work and the online biz, I do a fair bit of PC tech work a good chunk of the year. And a day I don’t walk into the office and get my hands dirty inside a computer is a day when that business makes precisely zero dollars. Just about the farthest thing from passive income as one can get. Honestly, there are plenty of days that I’d be just thrilled to never crack open a case again. And soon enough, I won’t, unless the mood strikes me to add another petabyte to my next PC.

The graveyards are full of indispensable men. — Charles de Gaulle

In a scarier position yet are those employed in one of these ‘businesses’. The day the owner decides to call it quits, or the vagaries of life i.e. death forces that decision on the owner, so goes the business. The owner was the business, and now that s/he’s gone, time for the employees to find a new line of work. Or take on the task of recreating the owner’s job for themselves. Methinks a rather precarious position.

Owning a Business

But while pulling in my stats and massaging them into the desired format, the part about this online income gig that just rocks my world became abundantly clear: While I accomplished almost nothing over the last week+, my online business continued to chug merrily along in my absence, almost as if that fact didn’t really matter. Because, in all honesty, at least on a continual basis, my being present working in the business doesn’t. By design. I have taken great pains to make it so.

It, like any well-designed business, doesn’t need its owner aka me sitting at a desk continually micromanaging every little thing going on within it. What I do isn’t rocket science. And even if it was, to do that well takes a similar process.

Namely, I have systems in place that explain, in often excruciating detail, most of what I do. And what isn’t explicitly explained today gets written down and added to my system as I further optimize what I’m doing. Truthfully, I see that process a more vital part of the business than the actual business of the business.

And why bother? Because, if I can systemize my business, I can do something like hire or outsource to complete those parts of my business that I’ve tired of doing personally. Or, for that matter, all of it. Or multiply my efforts for the price of an employee or two or freelancer or two. Or, pull my system together, pretty it up, put a bow on it, and sell the system itself. Or if I’m tired of all that passive income, sell the whole thing off.

So, I’m left waiting for the bugs to get killed off so I can get back to working on my business. Can’t wait!

Unless you’ve been living under a particularly remote rock, you have been following news concerning the ongoing tragedy in Haiti. Even with my general distaste for the major 24-hour news channels, I’ve found myself watching as the disaster unfolds, trying to decide what I can do. Like all things I focus my attention on, I’ve over-analyzed the whole thing. As my skill set doesn’t encompass anything that I could do on the ground there, I’ve instead been trying to find that perfect charity.

The thing is, there are no perfect charity for this situation. Instead, there are likely dozens of efficient ones doing what they can. So I finally broke the mental stalemate and picked these three:

• UNICEF USA
• Doctors Without Borders
• AmeriCares

CNN set up a page where you can find a ton more…

Really, no need to over think this folks. Just do what you can.

I’m in the process of replacing my computer at the office, and am going through it to find where I hid all my good stuff so I can transfer them over. Amazing the amount of digital bits we collect over the years.

Stumbled across a little program called SilkQuit that I installed around five years ago at the end of the year my son was born and my father had a stroke. Running it today, this is spit out to me:

You haven’t had a cigarette for four years, ten months, one week, six days, 1 hour, 15 minutes and 50 seconds. 44,451 cigarettes not smoked, saving you $11,112.57. Life saved: 22 weeks, 8 hours, 15 minutes.

A habit I had for over half my life at the time, that I rarely consciously even think about anymore. Nevertheless, I still catch myself, about once a month, driving down the road, reaching into my pocket to grab that long gone smoke.

Habits are an incredibly powerful thing. Develop a few good ones!