Working Vacation

Jessi and I are spending time in Colorado visiting family. We're here on a "working vacation". Basically, it's a combination of working and vacationing. For example:

Today Jessi and I both worked from the kitchen table this morning for a few hours. I had a phone meeting and made a report. Jessi worked on a flyer for an up-coming event.

Then we took off to go fishing. The river and canyon were beautiful! We could see the fish in the water and had a blast trying to land the fly right in front of it. Despite seeing the fish, we didn't catch anything, but it was still a ton of fun. Vinnie ran around like crazy too. Check out the scenery:

Jessi's brother, Abe, fly-casing:

Jessi spin-casting with a fly & bubble:

All of us happy after a good afternoon of fishing:

Then we went home and I worked for a couple hours more: replying to emails and such before relaxing some more.

On a different day, Jessi and I went on a double date with her parents. It's was great fun. We played mini-golf and ate a nice dinner. I really enjoyed it.

That's a typical "working vacation" schedule: work in the morning, relax or do something fun for a few hours, work some more, then have a fun evening. The trick is to have a job that can pretty much be done from anywhere. I realize not everyone has that privilege, but if you don't love your current job, working from a computer at home has some great perks. :) Since Jessi and I both have computer-based jobs, we can work from anywhere.

I also did take a couple full days off for larger outings (well... It was actually for the road trip to travel to Colorado). Vinnie was a great traveler too. He just slept and look out the window the entire time.

The advantages of a working vacation are huge! Officially, I took 2 days off, but we were gone for 11 days including weekends. It's a way to extend our time away. Since I like what I do, it's not a big deal to have to work. In many ways it's not a vacation, it's just traveling.

Some people go really extreme: they'll work from Paris for a month or two! If you go that long, you can rent out your home short term and actually break even on living expenses. I don't think we'll ever get that extreme because of Vinnie, church, and real estate commitments, but a couple weeks is very feasible.

I highly recommend trying it out. Our next step will be to try it when we're not visiting family. Maybe the next student loan we pay off will go towards that type of "vacation".

The Journey Starts With A Single Step

HP just finished another "Shape UP Challenge" where we track our steps and exercise minutes. In the past I just tracked around those times. This time I started around Labor Day because I knew I was going to run the Disneyland Half Marathon and I wanted to see how many steps I took. A lot! 45 THOUSAND steps. After that I just sorta kept going... 

As a reminder: 2,000 is about 1 mile.

Here's how to read the chart above:

• Blue dots are daily steps. Yep, I've been tracking for a while. I have a cheap pedometer and save them to Simplenote at the end of each day and then transfer them to a spreadsheet once a month.
• The green line is a cumulative average of ALL the steps. So over time that line gets more and more stable.
• The yellow is simply a 7-day rolling average with the yellow dots being the weekly average. It helps to draw out the pattern of the blue craziness.

The next chart is easy to read: It's my average steps each day of the week. The green line represents the overall average: 7,660 steps per day

A few observations:

• When I hurt my hand in November, my activity really dropped off. I think there was also a double whammy of it being winter.
• I'm definitely headed into a more active period, but not at 10,000 per day yet.
• Saturday and Wednesday are still my most active days. I typically go into the office on Wednesday and walk around the site at least once.
• I don't have periods of persistent "down time". At least once a week I get good amount of steps in.
• Vacations are good. I tend to do a ton of walking, like in Las Vegas.
• I'm probably the only person who actually finds this interesting... Jessi thinks I'm crazy.

I plan to keep going. With even more data, I can start to do some really interesting comparisons.

The Jeep Wave

Owning a Jeep is pretty fun. It has a rugged tough-guy look, a loud engine, the ability to take the top off, and it gets the occasional "nice Jeep" compliment. It's also really convenient: we can remove the back seat, pull a small trailer, and park in small spots. Pretty much the only thing that isn't awesome about a Jeep is the gas milage (~20 miles/gal). Thankfully, we also own a Prius which we use for the longer hauls (this last tank was 53.2 miles/gal!). That's made the Jeep more a "work" vehicle, and one we don't put a ton of miles on anymore.

BUT, there's one more SUPER fun thing about driving a Jeep: The Jeep Wave. I'm going to lean on the Urban Dictionary to help explain it:

Warning
Owning, registering, insuring, or driving a Jeep implies knowledge of and intent to abide by the following rules. Failure to obey the rules may result in your being ignored by other Jeep owners as you sit along the side of the road next to your stalled vehicle in a blizzard surrounded by Saturns, Yugos, and Hyundais. 

Definition
An honor bestowed upon those drivers with the superior intelligence, taste, class, and discomfort tolerance to own the ultimate vehicle - the Jeep. Generally consists of either a raised hand waving or 4 fingers extended upward from the steering wheel, but may be modified to suit circumstances and locally accepted etiquette. 

Examples of commonly accepted modifications

• Top off: One handed wave above windshield or outside body tub. 
• Top off during blizzard: Shiver and nod, hands may remain frozen to steering wheel. 
• Southern/rural locations: No wave, just a nod. 

General Rules

1. All Jeepers are responsible for upholding the tradition of the Wave. It seems that generally the Jeep wave is only practiced by Jeep owners driving the following Jeep vehicles; CJ, YJ, TJ, JK. 
2. All Jeepers are required to return the Wave even if it's a Grand Cherokee or Compass. 
3. Do not EVER wave to Hummers, even if you know the person. 

So there you go. Now, at this point you might think I'm joking. I'm not. Just yesterday (the inspiration behind actually researching this) I had FIVE Jeeps pass me. ALL FIVE waved to me. I, of course, waved back. The Jeep Wave is alive and well in Oregon.

Image: jeepfan.com

How To Have Fun In Las Vegas Without Gambling

I recently went to Las Vegas for work and decided to stay the weekend. Jessi flew in the final day of the convention and stayed the weekend too. We both derive little entertainment out of gambling, so we decided to do other things. I'd like to share some of the things you can do with gambling.


CSI Experience

Jessi LOVES CSI. This was actually the big reason she agreed to come with me. In the MGM Grand you can go on a CSI adventure. You have to process the scene of a crime, then get lab results... follow the evidence... and come up with a conclusion on what happened. It was really well done and a lot of fun.


Coca-Cola Store

The Coke store used to be cooler when I was a kid. It actually had a museum that talked about the history of Coca-Cola. Today it's just a store. BUT they did keep one cool part. You can taste different Coca-Cola products from around the world. We got this double tray of samplers and couldn't finish it. Some were amazing, most were okay. One was so horrible we both thought there must have been something wrong with the machine. Nope. It's just that horrible. This was surprisingly a lot of fun.


M&M Store

What's super cool about this one? For one, there are hilarious posters everywhere. You can tell working in their marketing department is a lot of fun. Also, they have a wall of M&M dispensers. You can mix and match to your heart's content of M&Ms. We may have mixed in about one and half pounds of M&Ms. Yeah - we didn't eat a big dinner that night.


Visit an expensive clothing store and laugh at their ridiculous prices

There are some really nice and expensive stores on the strip. I would never dream of buying anything there. Instead, we looked for the ugliest dress we could find and see how much it costs. It was a mere $2,000. We did find a jacket I liked (pictured above), but it was $450 - a little out of my price range.


Swim at the pool
Each morning we started out with a swim in the pool. In Las Vegas, it's already hot by 9am and the pool feels great. This was a great way to start off the morning! I came up with all sorts of crazy games testing our speed, stamina and strength. Jessi was a lifeguard in high school, so she beat me most of the time.


Watch a Cirque du Soleil Show

This was on Jessi's Bucket List. We saw Mystere in Treasure Island and it was fantastic. The stunts they did were amazing. I loved the strong men and trampoline acts.


Walk around the "block" and check out each hotel

The blocks are HUGE. It takes at least an hour just to go from one end to the other without stoping. We walked from hotel to hotel. We went inside of each one and checked them out. Once you got past the casino area, there would be some cool restaurants or attractions. It was fun to see what theme each of them had. The Luxor was my favorite type of architecure. The New York hotel was my favorite inside atmosphere. As a result of all this walking, we took ~29,000 steps each day (~2,000/mile).


Bellagio Water Show

Jessi loved this. Music would play around the lake and the water would coordinate with the song. Each show lasted a couple minutes (the length of the song) and would happen every 15-20 minutes at night. We watched 4 shows which had 4 different songs. Some days I think it would be cool to be an engineer because you get to work on cool things like this.


Mirage Volcano Eruption

This isn't has cool as the Bellagio waters show, but it's louder & hotter. We could actually feel the heat from the fire of the volcano! I stayed in the Mirage a couple nights (while officially there for HP) & I could hear the eruption each night, on the hour, until midnight. It was cool.


Grab Dinner
You can spend a lot of money just eating in Vegas. We did splurge one night, but it was for creme brulee which is Jessi's favorite dessert.



Have a Drink

Vegas is also know for the flowing alcohol. We didn't get nearly as crazy as some people, but we did try an Irish Pub in the New York Hotel. Jessi's parents recommended it. It opened around the time of 911 and so there were a are of patches from NY firefighters. Over time, it looks like other law enforcement from around the US also added their patches. It's was a fun atmosphere.

So there's 11 things you can do. Two days was long enough for us. We did everything we wanted and had fun.

Celebrating Graduations

Mom's Graduation

On Memorial weekend Jessi and I headed down to the Bay Area to watch a couple graduations. It was great to get away and enjoy the sun for a little bit. The first one was my Mom's graduation. She majored in Business Management at San Jose State University. The above photos are everyone celebrating afterwards. I especially like this picture:

Lisa's Graduation

We also watched my sister, Lisa, graduate. It was a LARGE event. Check out the panorama of all the people. We counted the graduate chairs, there were 3,000 seats. There must have been 15,000 - 20,000 people in this stadium. Lisa majored in Hospitality and Tourism Management at San Francisco State University.

Lisa did a good job of letting us know where she was, so we actually got to watch her walk in and walk across the stage. We also took a family photo which I really like:

To celebrate both their graduations we headed to Santa Cruz for some camping. Jessi & I got to spend the first night there. We ate well and walked a ton!

One of the more fun sites is the SS Palo Alto ship made out of cement. It was originally intended as an oil tanker in WW I, but never got used. So, it was brought over here as an amusement attraction, but that company went bankrupt within 2 years. It then became a fishing boat because it acted as a reef that attracts tons of fish. I used to play on this all the time as a kid. As you can see from the picture, it's deteriorated quite a bit, but the fishing off the pier is still pretty good.

Congrats to Mom and Lisa!

Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN #BookReview

I LOVE biographies. I especially love biographies of impactful people and companies. Some recent good ones have been Steve Jobs, Too Big To Fail, Abe Lincoln, Richard Feynman, and Walt Disney. I used to never be able to finish biographies when I had to read them. But now that I can listen to them? It's like eating fresh chocolate cookies that help you lose weight. Magical!

Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales is another biography I loved. It chronicles ESPN's inception in 1979 to the end of 2011, otherwise known as "it's rise to dominance."

If you've watched ESPN at all, you'll love all the back stories. Did you know they originally wanted to start out as a regional station? The only reason they went nationwide was because there was a new satellite put into space and the owners were trying to sell time to broadcasters. Nobody was really interested, so they gave ESPN an awesome deal. Just like that ESPN was available nationwide to any cable provider that pointed their dish at the satellite. Now all ESPN had to do was fill the time.

I found it's impact on the cable market to be particularly awe-inspiring. Before ESPN, few households had cable - the demand simply wasn't very high. However, once families found out they could watch sports, and not just the big games, demand for cable went through the roof. ESPN was the first company to create a dual revenue stream too: fees from cable companies to carry their channel and fees from advertisers in the form of commercials. Today millions of homes have cable, ESPN created the demand and lifted the whole industry up.

I also loved reading about all the owners it went through. It really was this misfit operation out of Bristol, Connecticut that not many owners understood. At one point it was owned by Getty Oil Company. An oil company! Eventually it was bought by ABC and then by Disney during it's acquisition of ABC. It was only after Disney bought it did they realize the gem they had.

The stories go on and on.

One particularly cool way ESPN's story was told was through interviews. 90% of the book is people telling their version of what happened. You get to hear about it, and their reaction to it. It's incredible how many people they got to contribute to the book. Especially interesting was when people remembered an incident happening differently. You'd hear both versions and never really know who was right.

Did this make we want to work for ESPN?
No. I'm not a big enough sports fan.

Did this make me want to get cable so I could watch ESPN?
No, but I definitely enjoy it more now that I know the history.

Will you enjoy this book?

If you're a sports fan and enjoy biographies, then you'll enjoy this book. There's a lot of sports history along with ESPN. Plus, chances are if you're a sports fan you also already know a lot about ESPN and will recognize many of the names. I did, and I don't even watch it regularly.

Images: businessweek.com & usatoday.com

Building Sweat Equity

I've been a bit of a recluse lately. I'm not hanging out with friends and not writing regularly. I even had trouble finding time to host the Furlo Bros Tech Podcast with my brother.

It's not that I've been slothful. Quite the opposite! When we bought our home, it also meant that I needed to fix up our duplex unit to rent out. We're doing all the work ourselves, so it's taking up all my free time (sweat equity!). I'm not done yet, but I wanted to share some photos of what I've been up to and what's planned.

The first step was to remove the carpet from everywhere. What a thankless job! There were a bazillion staples holding it down! I did recruit Jessi to help some, that for that I am REALLY thankful.

We did reveal some hardwood in the living room, but it's in horrible shape. Fixing that is a project for another, much later time. Instead, we're going to cover half of it with a floating floor and the rest with carpet. That'll create a dinning area in this large space.

Next, we discovered some problem areas with the subfloor in one of the bedrooms.

That's been ripped up and new plywood has been put down. It's much more solid now.

I also tore a hole in our utility room.

Previously it was covered up by a piece of wood. A very ugly piece of wood. Even worse, when you walked by it, you could feel a draft. Here's the template I made of the hole:

Right now I have the sheet rock cut and ready to be installed. I also added a mini-access panel so I can get to the plumbing in the future if need. My access panel will look MUCH better than a piece of wood slapped up onto a wall.

And now for the big project. The kitchen.

I know you remember my sander fight. Well, I'm back for round two. Here's what it looked like when I started:

It's hard to see, but the counter top is starting to pull up from water damage. So we're replacing the counter. Because the sink is in the corner, it means I can't buy a pre-made piece. So we're making them ourselves, and they look awesome!

Here's a wall in the kitchen:

Soon, that wall will have the refrigerator, and a nice cabinet right next to it. Here it is in progress:

The drill, the massive drill, it sitting on it. You see, my dad came up last weekend to help build it. We got really far, but had a slight accident with the table saw that required a few hours at the hospital. So, my dad is driving up again this weekend so we can finish.

Here's another feature of the kitchen in progress:

We're making a chop block for part of the counter. We priced them out, and decided it would be cheaper to make our own out of oak flooring. We're also using the oak for the trim to pull everything together. ALL of the brand new countertops will cost less than $250 when it's done (sweat equity!).

Here's a teaser of what the new counter looks like on the new cabinet.

It's been awesome to have my dad's help. Not only does he have awesome tools we can use, add an extra set of hands, provide his expertise with creative solutions, but it's just been fun to hangout and work together. It's times like this I wished I lived closer to family. I really appreciate all of his help (and don't worry, the doctor thinks his finger will heal mostly normal).

Many more projects remain. For example, we're going to replace this window because it doesn't actually shut. Let's just say I followed MMM's advice and wore long underwear all winter. We taught a finance class this January and everyone laughed at me. Laugh if you want, but I saved money on heating, and now I get to write off this expense and increase my rent.

We're also going to clean, paint, and re-caulk everything.

It's a ton of physical work, but that's the point. We're building sweat equity into this unit. That'll increase the rent and lower our maintenance in the future. It'll take about 18 months to pay for these repairs from increased rent. After that, it's all positive ROI. And really, we've been saving part of our other unit's rent for 3 years to pay for this, so we won't feel it in our monthly budget - it's already paid for.

Jessi was talking with some friends at work about remodels they're doing. In some cases, they're spending over DOUBLE what we are on just a bathroom because of the labor costs. For their own home that won't pay them back! I'm fairly certain if I paid someone to do all this work, it would be 10 times the cost. Instead, I get to keep my money and invest it further. That's building sweat equity.

Home Sweet Home

We bought a house!

That's right, it's a cute 2 bedroom 1 bathroom place with an attached garage a little over a mile away (~20 blocks) from downtown Albany. It's definitely a fixer-upper with some funkiness, but that's the kind of place we wanted. We're doing some minor repairs this week, packing next week and moving on May 5th. Then we'll turn our attention to fixing up our duplex unit to rent. It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyways) that we'll be busy the next 6 weeks.

Here's a panorama of the kitchen:

We're super excited about having more counter-top space and a dishwasher. Ah, the simple pleasures in life. :) By the way, this place was actually Jessi's fault. We were at a restaurant waiting for our food and decided to flip through my latest listing alerts for entertainment. This listing came up because of a recent  price drop. I read the price and description and then moved on.

Jessi practically yelled at me to stop. I looked at her quizzically. In my opinion it was a dump that needed a lot of repair and she said a few months back that she didn't want to move into another fixer-upper. Well... apparently it can be a fixer-upper if it looks cute.

Here's a panorama of the living room:

BTW, that plastic on the floor is straight, that'll give you an idea of the kind of curve the panorama has.

Fast forward a short month later and we're now the owners. It definitely needs some TLC, but most of it can wait a few years. That'll give us time to finish paying off our student loans and plan out the bigger projects.

Here's the view out our front window:

The price we paid was excellent and it means our monthly expenses will actually be less than if we rented in Corvallis. That's a big win. Plus, through some financial wizardry the cash required to close was pretty close to what we expected to spend to start renting. I have another post already in the works talking more about the financial logic.

The bathroom:

I'm a little concerned about the counter space... Oh wait... There is none. I guess there's nothing to be concerned about. One of the perks of downsizing in home size is that everything is smaller.

OK? Ready for the funkiness? Feast your eyes on this stair case:

First, yes there is a door that opens to the side of the stairs. I guess we'll use the space below the ladder err... stairs for storage.

Second, I'm pretty sure those stairs are not up to code. We would like to do something with the second floor in the future and the biggest hurdle is going to be figuring out what to do with the stairs. We have some ideas, but we'll take a few years to feel it out.

Speaking of upstairs, we're not sure what to call this. I like "unfinished bonus room":

That's right. It comes with its very own model train set. The real train is a block away.

Oh! before I forget! If you know anyone into model trains who might have a use for old tracks, send them my way. I just recently came into a treasure trove of model train tracks.

Unfortunately, I'm not a trained conductor (get it?!) so I couldn't figure out how to get it to turn on.

We'll leave it alone for now, but some day in the future, once our student loans are paid off (really!) we'll rip all this out to make space for another bedroom and bathroom.

I did think this picture was cool. It probably won't survive the wrath of Jess though...

Super fun! We've been talking about moving out since October... Then I hurt my finger... But now it's happening for reals! If you want to help us move, you're more than welcome to come help. Also, if you have any experience building a new countertop or replacing a window (for our duplex), I'd love to pick your brain. I know I can do a functional job, but if I could make it look good, that would be a bonus.

Fun fact: Bonnie and Clyde died in 1934 during an FBI ambush of their hideout (the address number of our home is 1934).

The Slight Edge #BookReview

When a friend hands you a book and says, "You have to read this, but return it when you're done." You know you're in for a treat. The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson lived up to that promise.

The punchline of the book is right in the sub-title: Turning simple disciplines into massive success. Like I talked about during the Furlo Bros Tech Podcast a few months back, the idea is to take small, simple actions every day towards a goal. Those actions compound over time to create extra ordinary results.

For example, you might decide you actually want to be able to do a crazy amount of push-ups. You decide to start with 1, but every day add another 1. If you do your push-ups every day, you'll slowly build the required muscles to do 365 push-ups by the end of the year. Of course, it's just as easy NOT to do the push-ups. At first, you won't even notice, maybe not even for the first couple months, but slowly you'll start to notice the impact of your decision.

Another classic example is saving for retirement. Just save $5 a day and 40 years later you'll retire a millionaire. It's easy as a young adult to put off saving for retirement. It's only $5! You won't notice this simple error in judgement at first. Most don't notice it until they're 40 or even 50! By then, that simple error has compounded into a big problem. On the positive side of the curve, that effortless decision means you'll be able to retire and enjoy life.

The concept is simple, and probably something you already intuitively know. Olson spends the 200 pages in the book giving examples of it in action (highly motivating!) and diving deeper in the details of how it works. By the time you finish, you'll be able to articulate the concept and act upon it. Check out the image above for a visual representation of it.


My Personal Application
At the end of the book, Olson gives areas to focus on. It starts out with regular goal setting, but then ties them to specific simple actions you take every day. Here are mine since it's also good to write them down and share them.


Health

• Goal: After I hurt my finger, I stopped being as active and put on an extra 10 pounds. I'd like to lose it. At the same time, I allowed my portions to get out of control. The holiday season is a bad time to lose focus!
• Action: Go to sleep every night slightly hungry. Eventually it will morph to something else, but for now this is an easy gauge at the end of the day.
• Action: Floss. Every. Single. Day. This will improve my oral health and is an area I slacked off on.

Personal Development

• Goal: I enjoy listening to audiobooks, but listening to technical/self-imporvement books is hard to do while just listening because I can't easily take notes and refer back to the material. So, I've been shying away from listening to them. As much fun as it was to say I don't read anymore, I need to get back to reading. Perhaps I can say something about digital vs. paper reading. :)
• Action: Read, with my eyes, just a little bit of a technical/self-improvement book each day. Olson suggests 10 pages a day. I'm not there yet, but perhaps I will as my actions compound.

Relationships

• Goal: I'm leaning on my annual goal for this one. I want to read the whole Bible, which will reveal more of God's will to me and thus improve our relationship.
• Action: Read 1-4 chapters of my Bible each day. I'm still on track to finish sometime next year.

Finances

• Goal: The BIG goal is to become financially independent. That way Jessi and I can work on what we want, when we want. This involves two parts: money in and money out.
• Action: Find one way to save money each day. It might be turning the heater off for a couple hours during the day (last month was our lowest electricity bill so far!). Decisions NOT to buy something also count. For example, the power cord on my external drive needs to be replaced. I did a quick search and didn't find a US replacement. So I started looking into a replacement drive. Jessi pressured me to look harder for a power cord replacement. After 30 minutes of looking, I found a US version. I spent $20 instead of $80. I say it counts.
• Action: Work on my side business a little bit every day. Progress is being made slowly, but at least it's being made. By the way, as my friend pointed out, this is a great companion book to The Go-Giver.

My Life

• Goal: This one is a little more nebulous. So my actions are more general.
• Action: Meditate each day. This consists of sitting quietly for ~10 minutes and focusing on a couple things: the greatness of God, nothing, or sometimes just letting my mind wonder. People say good things happens to those who take time to mediate.
• Action: Wake up by 6:30am every day. I'm a morning person, so the earlier I wake up, the better I feel and the more productive I am (plus, I tend to accomplish all my other daily actions). The problem, is that Jessi is a night person and I like hanging out with her. One of the perks of working from home is that I can be flexible with when I wake up for the late nights. I need to instead focus on limiting the late nights.

Lift iPhone App

That's a ton of information to track! Thankfully, there's an app for that. Lift is an app that provides a simple way to track your progress, and get the support of your friends. The picture shows what it looks like. You create a list of simple daily tasks you want to complete. As you do them, tap the check mark. Finished ones are green. Simple. I actually started using it before reading the book (because I'm cool like that) and the book really helped me focus and be more purposeful on the daily activities I choose.

They're coming out with a web version in a little bit if you don't have an iPhone.

One of the things I love about technology is that it helps us do those things we know we're supposed to do, but never do because it's too hard to get started. Apps like this (and Mint for tracking spending) reduce the barriers to action, which is awesome!


Recommendation
So... uh... yes! I HIGHLY recommend this book. If you're interested in slowly improving your life, this is a great book to show you how to do it. I like to call it a meta-self-help book because it really teaches you how to apply other self-help books. Check it out, you'll be glad you did.

PS. I wrote this post in 3 short writing sessions because I knew I didn't have the time to sit down and do it all at once. As a result, I actually finished it.

Images: blog.kw.com & brentmkelly.com & forbes.com

The Caterpillar Mustache

According to Jessi, I look horribly disgusting.

According to this photo, I look awesome.

I'll probably hold onto it for a couple more days, but it'll be gone by next week. Thanks for a fun Mustache March!