thenyelabs.com

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…
(continue reading…)

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
__________________________

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, (continue reading…)

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
(continue reading…)