So I figured I’d give ya’all a quick update on life as I currently know it. So here goes –

When I took the job I am now currently in, I moved to the LA area, or more specifically the Orange County area to live with the old buddy Geoff. Initially it was a tough move for me, as California was a difficult adjustment for me when I was really looking for something different after being in Hawaii for three years and California is different only in that it lacked the local charm and backwoods close proximity of the north shore. So I wasn’t expecting to enjoy myself a whole lot, but honestly I figured life could definitely be worse so I wasn’t complaining.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to me this last week, as I was told by my work I needed to relocate in an eastern direction and I packed up to move, how genuinely attached I’d grown to the area and my friends there. It’s rare to find people that accept you as whole heartedly as my friends did down there, and honestly I feel like I was just getting to know many of them. And despite my tendency to chase adventure on every front which elicits frequent moves, leaving friends has never become easy for me. It was a relatively empty drive Wednesday as I left, and I’m more motivated than ever to settle down and put some roots in somewhere. Even as a single guy, stability is a bit appealing eh’? :)

What then am I doing you might ask? So the plan is to move out east, maybe Boston, maybe DC, maybe anywhere, I’m still deciding, but that’s where I’m headed, sometime in the fall. But Geoff was already off to school again, so the housing situation needed attention, and my solution was to go on a road trip of buddies and friends until I decide to move out east. So I have about 2 months, and right now I’m back up with some Utah buddies, hanging out in Provo now, gonna go drive support car at the Latoja Classic for a Etherington (a 206 mile bike race across 3 states, pretty sweet) visit some old EFY chums, then roll on with a few musts as I make it back across the US (and I’m open to suggestions if you have anything you feel should be on the list)

Yellowstone

Mt Rushmore

Gettysburg (currently reading Killer Angels and I must see)

That’s all I have on the must see list right now, but I’ll have plenty of time I reckon, so give me some suggestions.

Anyway, that’s where I am. Miss my Orange County family out there, and am especially grateful for the friendships they extended to this lil ole missoura farm boy. I continue my nomadic journey, and will keep you posted on how it goes. Much love and aloha. :)

So…. as geeky as I am, there are still geeky things that I just have never really got into, one such thing has been podcasts. Not necessarily geeky I guess, but it’s the nerd equivalent to traditional radio, so I see it as the tech way to listen to yer favorite shows. So anyway, I’ve never really got into them until I got hooked up with a little 8g Zune for a graduation present, which was arguably the coolest gift I have gotten all year. Well I have much more music than an 8g anything could handle, and I already was toting an iPhone around with me, so I figured I’d use it for jogging or working out cause the form factor was great. Well since I’ve taken my job now, I have a few 1 hour drives a week and then several 15-20 minutes jaunts to a store or friends house. So somewhere along the way I realized I could be using the time for something a bit better than …. well doing nothing with it, and since I’m a big fan of talk radio anyway, I went searching for good podcasts to fill my time on and have since converted the Zune into my 8g’s of podcast loving updated nightly. And since I’ve been through quite a few, I thought I’d share with you what I got and why, so if you decided you wanted to hit it up, you could have a place to start. :) Read the rest of this entry »

So in an effort to just reach out and touch someone, I will now touch you… all.

So here’s what I’ve learned in the last week:

Money really can’t buy happiness

It’s true. Sometimes we forget this as we wallow in poverty but hot dang if I wouldn’t trade it all to be up with my ole boy mifsud or back with the family. It’s really funny to me though, I’ve been through this move to a new place curve a number of times and it always surprises me what a pain it is to establish yourself in a new place, find friends, etc. I mean every aspect of your life needs rebuilding, my basketball crowd for weekday afternoons, mountainbiking buddies for the weekends, church friends, girl friends, and on and on. In your mind you just think I’ll need new buddies, well after three or four new ones, you realize the roster is not yet filled and you have to keep looking. But don’t get the wrong idea, we’re making friends, just new ones that fill new roles, it’s just some of the old ones I’m missing is all. Other things,

Working from home stinks

So I always imagined this would be much more glamorous than it is. I sleep in my office and work in my bedroom. That’s not the bad part, it’s kind of nice to wake up and sit in my chair, work on a few things that need attention, get up, take a shower, come back keep working, get up go eat breakfast. There’s no pressure to look busy, and so I get tons more done because everything is done as I find the need to do it, there’s no time wasting mentality which I love. However, I get so bored! I am home, but I still have to work. It’s not quite like I can goof off all day and work all night, I still have to keep hours, so I end up feeling very much like a shut in, while having none of the work place social drama that normally entertains throughout the day. I speak to no one, I am absolutely alone all the live long day, which some people would love, but find myself giddily waiting for unsuspecting people to login to their gmail and snag them for a quick chat of “hey, how you doing, what are you doing today? anything new, anything old, anything!?” And it’s been a week! :) I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but still.

So that’s all the gems so far. The job is good. It’s tough, but that’s because I’m coming into it all new and am having to work my tail off to keep up with the lingo and conference calls right now. Honestly though, I got nothing to complain about, life is good, work is solid and I’m getting tons of reading in (Currently reading “Coming out of the ice - an unexpected life by Victor Herman” and it’s great, I’ll tell more about it later) and enjoying the great food of Southern California.

whew.

Like many of you, life has been crazy lately for me. Last we spoke, I was sitting in a Chicago hotel room still relatively unsure where I’d be when Friday came and I either had to use my return ticket to Hawaii or go back to Missouri, with really no idea of where I’d end up after that. So let me catch you up from there…
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So I’m sitting in a hotel room at 5 am in Chicago IL, and life is different now.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for me, finishing school, worked till the last day I was there, and spent my final weeks working with my SIFE team trying to ensure that the success I had built is sustainable, because to quote a very dear friend Steve Gibson, “there is no success without a successor” (I don’t suspect he was the originator of that, but that’s where I heard it)

So yeah, my last days were pretty introspective. I found it rather difficult to try and compartmentalize, or place feelings I have for a place whose influence permeates almost every facet of my life. From spiritual to secular, to work success and social life, Hawaii has played a huge role in where I stand today. I really wish I had time to sit on the beach and just be grateful to a place that had done so much for me. But such is my style, work till the last minute and leave wanting more. I find that takes pretty good care of me. :)

In other news, Chicago is looking really good, there’s something fantastic about riding an L train with people and have all 15 students (white kids included) staring out the windows looking at these ‘crazy buildings’ or getting nervous around black people, or hesitantly stepping on to a train/subway fearing the doors will get them. It’s like I have 15 huge children, it’s pretty fun and I have decided I am one lucky dude.

So I interview this morning with my corporate guys, and again later this week, I think my status is that if I get that job, I’ll take the return ticket to Hawaii and try and get some more stuff / rest for a week. If not, I’ll stay in Missouri and get my move on to Toronto or something of the like. I’ll certainly let you know.

But just in way of gratitude, I need to say thanks to the Tueller family, who so graciously took me in as I was living homeless on the shores of Oahu these last two weeks. I am especially grateful for the chance to be around kids again, to camp out in the back yard and have it be amazing, cook bacon over a fire on a tin can even though the stove just beyond the screen door works fine. I’m grateful for the example of family nightly scripture study, and especially for Sister Tuellers cooking. :) Further thanks go to Audi and Holli, we formed a sort of vagabond posse that looked like hippies and acted like college students, it was a nice way to spend the last two weeks of Hawaii, with some great friends. There’s one more I can think of at five am, and that’s Jared Hinton. We’ve played one on one basketball for almost 18 months, every time things got stressful, or so busy I wanted to cry, he’s been there to work it out with me on the court. We’ve played in the pouring rain, we’ve played in gale strength winds, we’ve played night games under stadium lights, and hours past that in the pitch black under the light of the moon. There have been times when that ball has saved my sanity, and Jared, thanks for being there buddy.

Anyway, there’s tons of other folks whom I love from Hawaii, professors, roomies, families, mentors, and friends, and I hope they understand that I appreciate them, and love them dearly. Here’s to Hawaii…. /me drinks a snapple

Now, standby for the next chapter in this Doan saga.

PS - pics will be up under the photo section, if they aren’t yet, here’s one for now. :)

This is the presentation I made on a 20 page paper I have written on homeschooling entitled ‘The homeschool advantage.’ In my paper I detail several aspects of homeschooling and make a cohesive argument for the alternative method of homeschooling. In my 6 minutes speech I was invited to give, I had substantially less wiggle room so I picked a point I thought would generate the most controversy/discussion. It kind of worked, but I guess I needed more time to build the argument. Anyway, here the piece, I’d love to hear comments, if you agree, disagree, etc. I love a challenge, so don’t just read, think about it and tell me why I’m wrong. Oh, and beware, it reads how I wanted to speak it, now how it should be written
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I remember a story my mother shared with me as a child about a young boy whose family moved to a new town and he was enrolled in a big and intimidating new school. The story, which I’ve now found to be written by Mary Schramm, Read the rest of this entry »

This is a summary of a “Last Lecture” from Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon. He is a pioneer in virtual reality and CA techniques, and did pretty amazing stuff relating to technology and IT. But he has contracted cancer, and after trying everything he could, the cancer remains, so a few weeks ago, he gave his last lecture to his students, and any last lecture is a poignant showing of who someone is, but it’s even more so when it’s death and not retirement knocking at the door. If you have time, watch the full version here, or just watch the 10 minute summary after the jump
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so it’s saturday morning, I think I’m lovin life but you can never be too sure. :)  I played in a rugby tournament this morning, aussie touch rules, which I like better than tackle cause I think it takes a bit more skill and its not just who ate the bigger breakfast.  We won, which was nice, me and 5 kiwi’s and an aussie.  I just love to run with the boys, it’s a good time.  I’m pretty sure between them and flight of the conchords, I’m developing a New Zealand accent, which is great. :)  Then I hit a beach cleanup with my dive club and then breakfast at huki lau cafe.  It was a full morning I reckon. :)  I’m just in the hawaii feel right now, like the moonpools & caterpillars / Jack Johnson music going while I type and drink my passion orange guava juics (POG) and love life.  The only down is I got tons of school and work and SIFE that I’m just ignoring altogether in order to just have a rebuilding saturday.  :)  I’ll get it tonight I’d imagine. :) 

Anyway, hope everyone’s doing good, I think everyone I know is dealing with some kind of crazy stress or joy, so that’s good I guess, either we’re growing or we’re being blessed, I reckon we can take either. :)

So I’m all finished up, it’s saturday morning and once again, I sit awake before I get my kids up for checkout, and can’t help but wonder at the idea that this is my last time.  Three years of my life have been spent loving this job of EFY Counselor, THREE YEARS!  Thats a serious investment, and to look forward to my summers each year, be able to associate with some of the best people I’ve ever met, be them participants or counselors, and grow so much as a person, teacher, and friend just through sheer experience has been amazing.  So last night, I stood in Geneva New York, not 30 miles from the Sacred Grove, the spot where Joseph Smith (first prophet in our time) saw God the Father and His son Jesus Christ (read the blurb) so a pretty significant spot for me, and I stood there playing with my guys at an outdoor dance, as the sun slowly set, and looked around and thought, so what now?  What do I do with my life?  This has been so fulfilling, my job makes a difference in kids lives, I’ve seen young people come away from every bad thing in their lives imaginable, and become better people, I’ve seen young people love themselves after seeing how much others love them, testimonies of the gospel have been found, self esteem has been salvaged, and chocolate milk has been chugged.  After a job like this, what do you follow it up with?  So as I sat there thinking, I felt good, but I don’t know what could be on the horizon to follow this up.  Pretty much I’m just grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such amazing friends, and youth, and to share years of experiences with those I love.  Every picture has a wonderful memory or story attached to it, every journal entry carries meaning, and because of that I can honestly say I can’t think of anything else I’d have rather been doing.

So in closing, I love kids, the gospel, and EFY.  It’s been a great run, and though very nostalgic and loving life right now, I’m excited for what’s in store.  We’ll see.

so i’m in the middle of my first spring term, and I had it all setup to be nice and easy, then I thought 6 credits, or the minimum, would be an insult to my college prowess, so then I added another class, went to my first day of all of them, then skipped a week. I have since returned and enrolled in a 14 hour a week (in class, so like 6-9:30 every day) course teaching Lean Six Sigma, been promoted to president of SIFE and charged with turning us into a top competitor next year, and been tasked with making up all my homework/quiz’s/projects for all my classes. I haven’t been this busy in a long time, I’m either in a meeting, at work, in class, or on a project literally every waking moment. I’ve fallen asleep while eating lunch cause I can’t get to bed before 2am and I’m back up at 6am every day. Life is crazy. The Six Sigma stuff is fascinating though, and I’m finding that I really like the idea of consulting, or building value within a company, or finding and fixing problems in the system as a whole. Tony Laturner seems to know his stuff pretty well, so it’s worthwhile now, who knows what doors it will open for me in the future. It’s tough for a lot of people because the theory behind it is counter every business/finance class you’ve ever taken, and makes most economists full of garbage all of the sudden. People don’t like when 4 years of study is contradicted, for me, however, it’s kind of refreshing because every one of those classes I’ve been in has always been a strugle to sit through because it never made sense in my mind, every chart and graph seemed to be missing something key to the process, now it’s making sense to me. Kind of nice to be on the side of “ahhh, I see” instead of “so your sure, this is seriously how it goes?….. mmmkay” Pretty good times

Anyway, life is dandy, I’m alive, can’t wait to get home though.