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. :)

One more bit on classical music, I have been trying to verse myself a bit more in what we all take for granted, I’m speaking of the great pieces of classical music that have stood for hundreds of years as masterpieces but are largely overlooked by my generation. I picked up the top 100 classical greats, and have to say, I’m shocked at how familiar many of them are, but at the same time, bothered that I don’t know who did what or what they mean. I will make myself be a skosh more cultured. :) But it’s not just culture, it’s appreciation for what we have, I saw a ted.com bit on this by Benjamin Zander (check it here) and came away thinking, we really are richer than we deserve, and it’s so fun to see people come into that appreciation. So yeah, I’m just loving the masterpieces of the music world right now.

that is all.

thx.

So I sign up anyway with a deal that gets me a year at 99 bones and I decide to try it out and see what it does. Well first they register fraud alerts on the CR’s, then they have CR’s sent to me. Cool I think, this is easy. Then my CR gets here and I look at it, and I am getting taken to town. There are tickets that have gone to collections, cars that have been purchased, and jewelry that is outstanding (the payments, not the jewels). I’m thinking ahhhh freak. So I drop lifelock an email and this dude calls and says hey, we can’t sick the dogs on em because this stuff happened before you got with us, but I’ll jump on the phone with you and we can knock all these out together to get you where you need to be. So there’s this pro chasing down these creditors that aren’t using any fraud detection stuff, and in one night, we get paperwork done on all of them. So I guess for 10 bones a month, not too shabby. The trick will be if it actually gets it off my record and clears my name eh’? I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, take a look at your own reports and make sure you’re all up to par. And thus, the moral.

and if you don’t exactly remember, here’s the game - http://www.fltron.com/index_flash.html get past the cycles and it gets crazy! :)

So first, I have

Comedy Central Stand-Up Comedy - avg length of a pc: 1:40

I do the video podcasts of this and they are great for a quick laugh when I need a break during the day, not for driving normally, but great when lunch is still 2 hours away and it feels like you’ve been working forever. (comedycentral.com)

LDS Voices - avg length of a pc: 37:00

These range from speeches to devotionals to conference addresses, but some great ones come up in the list sometimes, and I have had to go revisit in print several gems I have found in the mix. (ldsvoices.com)

Manager Tools - avg length of a pc: 45:00

Manager Tools has been a great podcast for me, going over tips, and suggestions, and etiquette for managing and more generally, for functioning in a business world. Some great podcasts come out of these guys and it’s an easy listen, so if that’s something you do (business) it’s a great way to kill the drive. I know guys who have been in the business 30 years who swear by these podcasts, and I’m becoming a fan. A great supplement for whatever else you got going business wise. (manager-tools.com) (I would recommend you get the registered member podcasts - even the free ones are worth it.

NBC Nightly News - avg length of a pc: 24:00

No I”m not showing the news source I love, this is one of dozens of places I get news daily, but I do like the nightly news podcast. It’s video, so I catch up on it when I’m on a plane, or sitting in a doctors office so I can have something to watch and not just listen to. I especially like this cause I love watching the nightly news, but I haven’t been able to be in front of the TV at 10pm in …. about 3 years. So this is how I grab it. (msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/)

NPR: Business Story of the Day - avg length of a pc: 5:00

NPR BSOTD is a nice little blip on the screen, when I’m driving to the gym (4 times already this year, :) or more often to Star Donut shop, I throw this on, it’s a few minutes, it is often a positive story if not just informative, and it gets my creative juices flowing. Just hearing other peoples views of business often help me connect my own dots, so I like it cause it keeps me focused. (npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1095&ft=2&f=1095)

NPR: Car Talk - avg length of a pc: an hour

I love car talk and let me tell you why…. I don’t know. I remember listening to it with Dad growing up and it was one of those things where we’d laugh at the same jokes and dad would try and solve the problems before click and clack, and I would stare at him like a super hero as he would diagnose the same CV joint that the brothers would. It’s a favorite memory of growing up, so I listen now and it’s just a nice reminder of where I come from and how much fun that place is. (cartalk.com/)

TED Talk - avg length of a pc: 20:00

TED is something I love, it’s Technology Entertainment Design, and they do a big conference each year and then podcase all the addresses. This is another one of those where the primary benefit isn’t what they say but what it gets you thinking about. Often these are current tech stories being followed in the news but being talked about by people who really know rather than seedy journalists. Some great presentations though (it’s also video, so I grab one for part of my lunch while I’m eating or again, on the plane or before bed) But it’s one, maybe two updates a week, so it’s easy to keep up. (ted.com)

This Week In Technology - avg length of a pc: 90:00

This is Leo Laporte who used to do call for help and screen savers on tech TV back in the late 90’s. Well I loved tech TV when it first started cause it was a tv network for geeks, so me and Jake would leave it on anytime we housesat a lady’s house that had cable. Thus where I found my Leo (I was even a caller on Call for help one time, oh yeah, that’s right) and now he’s started a podcast called TWIT, which is great. He has some great people on there and they just go over tech stories and their views on them. I like it cause a lot of times I don’t get my daily slashdot in and pc mag hasn’t been delivered for a long time, so it’s nice to have a pc that hits all the big stuff over the week and give some informed commentary. And the guys get pretty funny at times too. (twit.tv)

The Economist - avg length of a pc: 15:00

My roomie subscribes to the magazine, so through the podcast, I get the highlights of the issue and can then seek out articles and read them if I am so inclined. It’s a good spin on world issues too, so I’m a fan. (economist.com)

and with honorable mention, The Atlantic (theatlantic.com) I don’t subscribe to so I can’t get the podcast, but I go and watch their monthly video casts, and listen to their audio supplements, cause I’m a big fan of quality journalism.

So that’s me, I’d love to hear any other good ones you guys have found or what your experience with podcasts have been. Let me know!

Note: if you don’t know how to get podcasts to your device, whatever kind of player you have (ipod, zune, etc) you can go into your player, and there is a podcast section, there you can add a podcast, and it will automatically go fetch new episodes when you open the program up, and then sync them to your device as you plug it in. I plug the zune in each night, and in the morning, I have all my news and commentary for the day ready to go.

-the beast

oh pickypalate.blogspot.com how I love thee.

After charging through this book in a matter of about a weeks worth of evenings I can say it is one of the most perspective changing books I’ve ever read. Well actually, I’m not sure if perspective is the right word, maybe inspiring, maybe gratitude inducing, I don’t know exactly what role it played in me these last few days, but I find myself oddly moved by this mans true story. He tells of struggles he faced in Russian prisons, wrongfully charged and committed and the story is how he lasted through an ungodly amount of time under these circumstances, and how he found his resolve to go on. It caused me to look at the struggles I face and realize how terribly easy it should be for me to just persever, to just suck it up and power through. It makes me much more grateful for the opportunities I have and life and freedoms I’ve enjoyed. I don’t know exactly why it stuck with me so, perhaps its the Russian politics, mentality, and mannerisms that he describes that can only really be understood through experience, or the fact that it’s just a good man book to read, but it is very profound to me.

Honestly I read a ton of books each year, many good ones, but I can’t tell you when I last read a book that gave such insight and actually moved me. I hope you all get the chance to read it at some point. Be forewarned though, it deals with issues that are a bit unsettling some of them, and theres about a dozen swearwords to watch out for through the course of his story, just so you know. But I would recommend this to anyone.

I don’t know why I’m on a review spree either, it won’t last, but enjoy it while you can. :)

So I bought my car recently from carmax as it was recommended to me by a good friend out here as a decent place to try. So I started by doing my online research, and honestly, everything online feels expensive, and since I’m used to the ole town country style of barter and haggle to get the price down to what we’d think is reasonable, carmax’s one price policy made me a bit apprehensive about the experience. I searched online and found a car that looked good, had a decent asking price, and low miles. The deal looked really good, and carmax has this great policy that says if you don’t like the car for any reason, you can return it within 5 days and the deal is dissolved, no questions asked, you get out of the sale quick. Which in California is very generous because the state has dissolved the 3 day cold feet law that most states still have in place. So with plans to take a monster road trip back to Missouri and back, I figured I would go get the car if I liked it, and take it through the mountains, through the desert, through the hills and back again, and try and load test it, cause if something were going to break I wanted it to break within that 5 day window.

So I went in and the guys there were great. No pressure, a couple of “have you been helped yet”s that stopped with a “yup” and away they went. I test drove the car, liked it, wanted to take it home. I’d lived here for 22 hours, and hadn’t yet started the job that was promising to provide money to make the payments, but they ran a credit check, pulled some strings to get me through the residence drama, and I signed away. They took care of all the checks and registration stuff for me, and I was outta there with plates on the car and then drove it 4000 miles in a week. The car was great, I really like it, a few quirks that I would do differently, but I wanted something modest and comfortable that didn’t run 20k+ to get. This was it.

Knowing that I was going to keep the car, I let the 5 day window close, and fell back on the 30 day “we’ll fix anything” warranty that came stock with the purchase. So after 4,000 miles, and a few potholes, the alignment was off, not bad, but it pulled to the right a bit, and my passenger side window wasn’t going up and down like it should. So I called them and they said they could fix it, just bring it in sometime before 6pm, well I countered with I work all day every day, what else you got, to which they countered bring it in anytime before 9pm, get a loaner, and we’ll fix it and get it back to you. Sweet! I cruised in, picked up a granny impala on saturday morning with the promise that my car would be taken care of first thing Monday morning. Monday came and I got about 4 calls from Ephraim, the mechanic, letting me know how the car was doing, that they ran into a bad part, and were reordering, but Tuesday it’d be ready he guessed. Well, it wasn’t fixed till today (wednesday) but it wasn’t too big of a deal, I had a car still, and they gave it to me with a full tank of gas and no obligation to refill it before I returned it, but it was a bit of an inconvenience.

So I went in today, returned the loaner, again with no questions or problems, and picked up my car. The window worked perfect, they balanced and rotated the tires and fixed the alignment. Great. They also refilled my gas tank (which was on empty) and washed the car (which after the road trip was noticable) and I drove outta there a day later than I wanted, but a huge fan of carmax. Seriously, with the extra 60 bones to fill the gas tank and 30 minutes to wash the outside and vacuum the inside of my car, they bought me for good. Best experience buying a car ever. It’s nice to buy something of that magnitude and be worry free. If somethings wrong, they’ll fix it, if somethings not just there, they take care of it. I love it. So sorry if this sounds testimonial ish, but the experience of buying has made the car. wtg carmax.