Tonight, for dinner, I chose to dip into something different. OK, it’s something I dip into a lot, but never by myself. I’ve been craving Melting Pot for a long time, so I threw social norms to the wind and just went by myself.

They stuck in a fairly “intimate” corner of the second floor, at a table for two. It was a bit awkward, but I was hungry. Nearby, there was a couple that was obviously on what I can only hope was a first (and last) date. I’ll refer to this guy frequently as Douche #1. Halfway through my dinner, a second couple showed up and was seated at the table behind them, but facing towards me. I’ll refer to this guy as Douche #2.

Based on my observations of these two douches tonight, and adding past douchey dating observations, I hereby present my Ten Step Guide to Douchey Dating For Men. Doing everything listed here is all but guaranteed to ensure your success with very special women.

1. Never let the woman speak. Ever. Women have no original thoughts to add to a conversation, and they are genuinely interested in every stupid thing you make up in an effort to get in their pants.

2. Speaking of making stuff up, be sure to add as much embelishment to every truth, half-truth, or no-truth story you tell. Be sure to add in as many outrageous tales of events in foreign countries as you can, and be sure to express how much of an expert you are on every subject imaginable.

3. If the woman rudely interrupts you, say, while you take a long pull on your 12th drink of the evening, be sure to slam your glass down and interrupt her back by CALLING HER OUT on her interrupting you.

4. Women don’t know what they like, and need you to think for them. Do not allow her to look at a menu, and be sure to ask your server extremely intelligent sounding questions to make it sound as if you actually know something about the style of cuisine in question.

5. If your date is not paying attention to you, but rather something else (such as reading the book she carried in her purse and pulled out while you went to the loo), then be sure to bring her attention back to yourself by physically strong arming the offending object from her grasp.

6. If your date starts to gripe about anything, remind her of her place, and tell her that she is the one that is lucky enough to be out with you, since you could apparently be hunting ibex in the far south coastal area of Italy this weekend instead of being with her

7. Be sure to mention your ex as often as possible. Women are incredibly turned on by hearing about your exploits with prior girlfriends.

8. A first date is an excellent opportunity to discuss your personal prejudices against various ethnicities, and to explain your viewpoint about why these other ethnicities are holding back white students in our public schools.

9. Tell dirty jokes. Several of them. Every girl will want to go home with you if you tell her the one about the donkey, the midget, and the Catholic priest. Absolutely, positively nothing can go wrong from telling that joke — it is a surefire winner, every time!

10. If you really want to impress the girl, pull the “I forgot my wallet” bit and make her pick up the check. This will firmly establish your dominance as a real man and ensure a second date.

So there you have it. Follow these 10 simple steps and you’ll be amazed at all the woman just throwing themselves at you!

And yes, everything here is based on actual observations in the past couple years.

[Factual note: Ibex are native to mountainous regions, such as Northern Italy, not coastal lowlands.]

The necessity and urgency in attending college is one of the greatest frauds perpetuated upon our youth over the course of the past 30 or 40 years. Your parents, teachers, “guidance” counselors, and every other adult authority figure in your life has, more likely than not, been feeding you the same line of B.S. your entire life: “In order to achieve anything or become anybody, you HAVE to go to college straight out of high school.”

This was originally just going to be a Facebook status message, but it’s too important of a subject to cram into 420 characters. Teachers, professors, academics of any sort, are all going to hate me for the message I’m writing to you, but I don’t care, because YOU need to hear this.

If you are one of the millions of 17 or 18 year olds that recently graduated high school, you can probably recite countless reasons why you SHOULD go to college. Yes, individuals with a Bachelor’s degree earn, on average, double the income over the course of their 40 year working life than people with just a high school diploma. Blah blah blah. Money ain’t everything. In fact, it’s the least important thing. But, if your goal is to become a millionaire, getting a degree so you can work for somebody else is the absolute WRONG thing to do — over 2/3 of American self-made millionaires did it by being self-employed, NOT working for somebody else.

There is one, and only one, group of high school graduates that should jump straight into college, and that group has to meet two critieria. One, you need to be absolutely, 100% positive that what you are going to study in college is truly what you want to do with the rest of your life, and you have no other interests, ambitions, or motivations. Second, that career has to REQUIRE a college degree in order to work in the field due ONLY to state or Federal licensing requirements or because of extremely specialized knowledge. The career fields that meet this second criteria are far fewer than you think. If you want to be a physician, attorney, engineer, or nuclear research physicist, then yes, you have to go to college. If you want to simply work in the general field of healthcare, want to work in the broad arena of the legal field, want to get your hands dirty on new aerospace vehicles, or want to work in a nuclear power plant, then NO, you don’t need a college degree. Period. End of story. Anybody telling you something different is either an idiot or a liar. Will it help you get a job interview? Yes. Needed? No.

So with that said, let’s talk about the 99% of you that honestly don’t have a freaking clue what you want to do with your lives. You might think you know what you want to be doing 5 or 10 years from now, but I’d put money on it that in the next few years that will change, or you’ll come to the realization that you have no idea what you want. That, dear readers, is the real world.

But see, there’s an interesting thing about the real world: There’s more than one. You, as an individual, have the ability to create your own reality. You can change your circumstances, your surroundings, your situation. And it’s really not that hard. There’s nothing that says you have to become the same things your parents were, or live the same lifestyle, or get dragged down into the same 9-5 drudgery.

You’re 18, heading off into the world. What do you want that world to look like? What do you want to experience in that world? What is it you want out of life? Especially considering the fact that you just spent twelve straight years already in school…Is that really what you want to keep doing, without even a break?

In most European countries, it is expected that young adults will take a break from studies for at least a year before going to university. They call it a “gap year”, and the idea is that they get out and see the world, broaden their experience base, and discover new interests and talents. This experience, in all reality, makes them into better adults in the long run, and helps them to see alternative viewpoints. It also helps guide them towards making a more informed career decision. Somebody that left London wanting to be civil litigation attorney and make big bucks may discover that his or her intelligence is best served coming back in 8 years to some small village in Thailand that is desperately in need of a local doctor. Or that person without much interest in formal education but with great mechanical aptitude may come back wanting to go to college to become an engineer to develop better water purification technologies for deployment to lands without much fresh water. The point is that many things can happen.

Let me tell you the story of two girls I know from figure skating. Chances are at least one of them is going to read this, and I hope they both do. They’re both great kids, smart, well liked, etc. Really, the kind of people that could most likely succeed in anything they chose to do.

First, let’s meet Amber (hi Ambers!!!). Amber is getting ready to head off to university in Arizona in about two weeks or so. She’s going to be studying Elementary Education, with a minor in Japanese. Why Japanese? Because she studied it all through high school and is fascinated by the people and the culture. Amber actually really would like to go spend some time in Japan, and keeps saying she’ll do it AFTER college? I don’t know the percentage of people that actually do something like that after college when they say they want to, but I’m willing to bet it’s incredibly low, given the pressure to find a job and make money after graduation to pay off all those student loans.

I’m getting ready to go to Japan myself for a few months, and she’s joked about wanting to come. I don’t think she’s joking — I think she really wants to go. Why isn’t she? I really don’t know. Parental pressure? The fact that her boyfriend is going to school in Arizona, also? She has an awesome boyfriend, and they’ve been together for over a year and a half — their relationship isn’t going to evaporate if she delays entry by even one semester to go to Japan. So why doesn’t she take a break and just GO? I know it’s not financial. I really wish I could understand it, because my fear is that if she doesn’t go now, she never will — it’s just sort of what happens when life gets going on around you.

Next, let’s talk about Stephanie. I don’t know Steph as well as I do Amber, but I know this much. Earlier in the summer, she was debating what to do after high school. She had been accepted to an in-state university that she was interested in going to, but when I talked to her about it, she wasn’t too excited about it. And, unlike a lot of figure skaters that burn out on skating and don’t really want to keep doing it after high school, she actually still has a passion for the sport. She’s senior tested, was a pretty good competitive skater, but everybody will acknowledge that her real self comes out not when she’s competing, but when she’s performing, and she knew that, too. She toyed with the idea of going off and doing ice shows, and she recently submitted her video audition to a company that does an ice show tour across Europe. Suddenly, college became her backup plan instead of her primary plan, and I think that’s AWESOME. Sure as hell beats sitting in a lecture hall, ugh.

So, is there something you’d rather do than go to college? I’m willing to bet that there is. DO IT! For crying out loud, DO IT! It doesn’t even matter what it is, just go do it.

Were you a successful team sport athlete in high school, but didn’t get recruited by a school? SO WHAT!! Did you know that NFL and NBA free agent rookie tryouts are going on right now? Did you know that Pony League and A level minor league baseball teams will pretty much let a player show up and try out just about any time of the year except during their playoffs? Did you know that minor league hockey teams will hire players off the street? Pick a team and show up dressed down for a tryout. GO!

Is your passion up in the clouds??? Did you know that it’s just as easy to get a student loan to cover the $95,000 to attend ATP or another big commercial flight school as it is to get the $10,000 student loan to cover your freshman year at college? Go FLY!

Are you passionate about art, writing, or some other creative talent? Don’t go to art school, don’t get a fine arts degree, don’t get an English degree. Just paint, or write, or whatever you. The degree doesn’t make you a writer — writing makes you a writer! I’ve written several books and recorded over 200 CDs, and I have no professional training in either arena, and I’ve made a living off selling what I wrote and recorded. You don’t need an MFA to get your paintings into a gallery — YOU get them into the gallery, by showing up and coming to terms with the gallery owner on a deal to get your work displayed and sold. Writer? You can self-publish a book and get it listed (and copies sold!) on Amazon for about $10.

Are you clueless about what you want to do, but just want to get AWAY, travel, see the world? Then do it! You would not believe the places you can go, and get a working holiday visa to allow you to do a little work to make money along the way, as long as you are between the ages of 18 and 30. This, this right here, is what I *want* to be doing right now, but I can’t….because I’m 32. And while I think that totally blows, it is what it is. But you…you’re 18! Take your savings and blow it on a one way ticket to some country you want to explore that will let an 18 year old get a working holiday visa.

Hey Amber…Japan is one of those countries, and there is a Japanese Consulate office in Denver. The visa application fee for you is FREE.

Do you want to be of service to your fellow human beings? Volunteer with your church humanitarian program or missionary program, join AmeriCorps, Peace Corps. Volunteer in southeast Asia — their are non-profit organizations up the wazoo that need your help, and some will even pay your airfare.

Are you environmentally oriented? Go to South America, Hawaii, really anywhere, and help protect wetlands, save species. Heck, you don’t have to leave your own area. Here in Colorado, there are numerous organizations you can spend months or years working with to help protect mountain tundra, maintain trails so people don’t destroy other areas, do climate research, study really cool animals, and more.

Kind of a hippie sort of person? Hook up with the Rainbow Gathering, find a commune somewhere, or go to Australia and live on an organic farm for free in exchange for labor and learn how to live off the land with some really cool people in a great cultural environment.

On the other end of the spectrum, are you super patriotic? Well, march your ass down to the recruiting office and there’s somebody that would be very, very excited to talk to you about career opportunities. The U.S. Navy owned me for 6 years, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. You go interesting places, meet interesting people, experience things you never otherwise would. At the age of 18 or 19, you get placed fully in charge of multi-million (or even multi-billion) dollar pieces of advanced technology that most people never even get to see. You get the satisfaction of knowing you did something that other people won’t do, which is defend our Constitution and our way of life, and in some cases defend others from tyranny and oppression that they could not defend themselves against. If you want to be in healthcare, you can do that. You can help save lives in a variety of ways.

Of course, there’s the other aspect of the military, too. Are you looking for the most rigorous physical and mental challenge you can find in the world? Are you psychotic and just want to kill people? Are you a pyro and just wanna blow stuff up? Do you derive satisfaction from hitting a target half a mile away? Well trust me, there’s a job just for you in somewhere in the military. If you’re tough enough, try out for BUD/S (Navy SEAL training). Become a Marine or Army sniper. Wanna go Mach 3? The Air Force or Navy might have something you’re interested in.

Is business your passion? Then just go start your business, whatever it is. You do NOT need a business degree to be a business owner. You can learn everything you need to know about the legal and tax crap of running a business from any number of good, comprehensive books out there. Heck, “Running a Small Business For Dummies” is really all you need. Don’t wait for permission from society to become a business success: Just go do it yourself.

Basically, I think you get the point. You’re young — get out and do something interesting. Do something you want to do. Don’t just sit in a room full of other drones getting fed the lines of crap that academia wants to feed you. Our society as a whole is structured to create automatons that become slaves to their jobs, because they need the job to buy the crap that society says you need to buy, and college is usually what gets you that job.

Don’t become just another robot. Make your own path in life, and you’ll find what truly makes you happy. If that involves college at some point, then fine. But if not, that’s perfectly fine, too. You can be a productive member of society without ever stepping foot in a classroom.

I don’t expect my little rant here to change the minds of very many of you heading off to college. But if I can somehow encourage even one person that was on the fence about their life and help them to become a better, happier person by doing what they want to do, then I’ve accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.

Sincerely,

Jassen Bowman

P.S. In case you were wondering, yes, I have a Bachelor’s degree (in nuclear engineering technology). It took me 8 years to finish, and by the time I finished it, I had already left the profession that my degree would have “allowed” me to work in. I have also gone literally half-way through two different Master’s programs (radiochemistry and space science), without finishing either one, and am about to return to school to obtain a graduate certificate in sports management. By profession, I am currently an IRS licensed Enrolled Agent, and negotiate tax debt resolutions with the IRS on behalf of small business clients, and I make a pretty good living doing it. See how none of these things have anything to do with each other? It’s quite intentional, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I have long separated my world of “dreams” from that of “goals”. For me, “goals” have always been specifically related to business, as they need to be measurable in order to be achievable. On the flip side, I’ve long looked at “dreams” as something very hard to measure. I, like a lot of people I’ll bet, view dreams as almost unattainable.

Let’s take a quick look at very related, yet very different, versions of a goal and a dream. Somebody may set the goal of writing a novel, and another person may have a dream of making their living as a professional novelist. These are two vastly different things we’re talking about here. Anybody can write a novel. Yes, even you. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world do it every November, as part of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project. Write 1,667 words per day for the entire month of November, and bam…you have a 50,000 word piece, the minimum length considered adequate to be called a novel. Quality? Who cares! Just write! That’s the theme of NaNoWriMo. And it’s really not that hard. I’ve participated three times – finished my first year, almost finished the second year, and got way sidetracked last year.

The dream of being a professional novelist, on the other hand, requires a LOT more work, diligence, effort, and planning. 99.9% of NaNoWriMo novels produced straight up suck, and everybody knows it. A novel for mass publication can’t suck…Quality matters. On top of that, there is the whole matter of getting it published, marketing it, getting good reviews, etc. Then, once you’ve done this, you have to do it again. And then again, then again. That’s what is involved with becoming a professional novelist. I couldn’t find accurate statistics online for purposes of this article, but I’m willing to bet that the odds of making a living as a novelist are worse than making a living as a professional athlete.

Does that mean that dreams can’t be reached? Absolutely not. But how can this be? Because people achieve their dreams every single day! We are awash with stories on a daily basis of individuals that strived for only one thing their entire lives, and achieved it. To be completely honest, such stories are commonplace. Some people do it early in life and make it look easy, some do it after decades of struggle.

There’s a girl I figure skate with that illustrates this quite well. She recently told me that being a model is her dream in life. I think she’s 15 or 16 years old, and she’s already had some modeling work, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she already has an agency or manager. I also wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see her in some national marketing campaign for an apparel line or a clothing store sometime in the next few years. Although her life’s work so far, as it may be, has more to do with figure skating than anything else (she’s pretty good at that, too), her dream, her drive, and her path has to do with modeling.

Contrast that with a contestant on “America’s Next Top Model”. That show is an occasional guilty pleasure. I love the little challenges they make the girls go through, even though most of them are kind of dumb. Most of the girls on the show are dreamers. Most of them are on very different paths in life other than modeling. Keep in mind that the ones you see on the show are the ones that made it through — there are thousands of other dreamers that didn’t make the cut.

I do recall ONE girl a few years ago on the show that was a career-minded professional, mid-20′s I think, that had no interest in modeling, and her friends dragged her to the tryout for the show, and she ended up either winning or runner-up, I can’t remember exactly. THAT is a different scenario altogether, like a bonus in life, and I remember some of the other girls being pissed off because she won and it wasn’t her dream.

A note on ascending a ladder versus creating your own. The contestants on that and similar reality shows are climbing a ladder created by a specific group of people. Every dreamer that tries out for that show and fails goes home still dreaming. Skater girl, on the other hand, is a dreamer with an important addition: Action. She has her professional shots, she has her portfolio, she makes the contacts she needs to make, and whatever else goes on in that world (I really have no idea what’s involved). But, the difference is, she’s doing something about achieving her dream, not just dreaming about her dream.

When I was a kid, I had a few different things that I thought were my dreams. The most predominant was that I wanted to be an astronaut, and I didn’t grow out of that as I went through high school. I joined the Navy, eventually entered an officer program, passed the written aviation screening exam, and was all ready to make the transition from Navy nuke to Navy aviator, and that’s pretty much as far as it went. Back to the enlisted ranks I went, and it wasn’t until a few years later, as I was getting out of the Navy, that I came back around to it and started taking private flight lessons and bought an airplane. That airplane did a lot more sitting than flying during the couple years I owned it. I have made starts and stops in the aviation world ever since, even to this day as I occasionally pick up the book to study for a glider rating.

So, did I really want to be an astronaut? Did I really want to be a marine biologist? Did I want to be a career military officer? It is an extremely long story about how I came to the realization of what my real dream is, but there are two points on it I want to get out:

1. Defining your true dream in life is a process, not an event.
2. Even once you think you have it defined, your dreams in life can change, just like everything else.

It turns out for myself that my dream has absolutely nothing to do with being anything or achieving anything. It turns out that my dream in life has more to do with being part of something tangible, and in doing a bunch of cool things I just sort of feel like doing. More than anything, my dream is a lifestyle, one that is filled with near constant change in my surroundings and experiences. I don’t really want to be an astronaut — I just want to work in space for a few months. Even if I never achieve that, I’d probably be just as happy paying the $250k for a ride on Virgin Galactic’s suborbital tourist shots.

Sometimes I get depressed and feel like I haven’t achieved anything in my life. But when I really examine it, I’ve done a LOT of cool stuff in my life that most people only dream about (there’s that word again!). I’ve jumped out of perfectly good airplanes (10 times), lost 40 pounds (and still going!), been a race car driver (SCCA Solo II in a 1988 Pontiac Fiero GT), done all the ice sports (curling, hockey, speed skating, figure skating) just to be able to say I did, climbed 14ers, served my country, been a competitive shooter, hit a 1500 yard shot, dated a model, been a competitive swing dancer, driven a HMMWV (a real one), been through a hurricane, been on the open ocean, worked on nuclear power plants, been to graduate school, trained at the Olympic Training Center, rubbed elbows with Olympians, and a boat load more. I change hobbies often, and even with my current 2 year dedication to figure skating, my interests have gone from singles freestyle to ice dance to synchronized (team) skating, and I will not stop until I have competed internationally as an ice dancer (there is an annual adult-only event in Germany that serves as a de facto “adult worlds” of sorts).

From this, it should be obvious that my dream in life is to accumulate experiences, including bad ones (like being in a drive-by shooting, crashing a motorcycle, and a few I can’t mention here). I like being able to walk away and say, “Whoo! That was AWESOME!” Actually, I guess that’s my dream in life: Accumulating a lifetime of awesome moments.

What about you? What is your dream? Can you define it in one sentence? Have you mapped out an action plan for achieving your dream?

Whether your dream is to retire as young as possible and travel the USA in an RV, or analyze soil samples on the surface of Mars, there *is* a path for achieving your dream. But nobody is going to get you there except you, and nobody is going to give you a roadmap. Particularly in this culture in which we live, in which mediocrity is accepted as the norm, the achievers that can step up and run (or even plod) towards their dreams are fairly likely to achieve them, given enough motivation and action.

So, find your dream, then get off your ass and do it!

Until next time,

Jassen Bowman

-Jassen

If A Dog Were Your Teacher

These are some of the lessons you might learn…

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy

When it’s in your best interest… Practice obedience
Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory
Take naps and stretch before rising
Run, romp and play daily

Thrive on attention and let people touch you
Avoid biting, when a simple growl will do
On warm days stop to lie on your back on the grass
On hot days drink lots of water and lay under a shady tree
When you’re happy dance around and wag your entire body

No matter how often you’re scolded… Don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout,
run right back and make friends

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm
Stop when you have had enough
Be loyal
Never pretend to be something you’re not

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it
When someone is having a bad day, be silent…
Sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

~~unknown

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/08/16/the-not-to-do-list-9-habits-to-stop-now/

Numbers 6 and 9 spoke to me quite largely, as does his quip in number 2 about finishing at least one critical to do item on your list every morning before checking email. In reality, I should combine this little group of tips (some of which I already do) with Dan Kennedy’s “write for an hour first thing in the morning” habit, since I *know* that an hour of writing every morning, day in day out, will do more to generate future revenue than just about anything else I can do in a day.

If you are a business owner, a job seeker, building a sideline income, a professional salesperson, or are in any way responsible for generating income, then I highly encourage you to take the time to figure out the several critical items you absolutely must do every day in order to grow that revenue stream.

Seriously, even if you’re a pan handler and sleep in a cardboard box, you should still do this. Not only that, but you should test and track the results of those critical action items. For example, if you’re that pan handler, it’s a good idea to figure out what your best times of the day are for being in certain locations, and it becomes a critical to-do item for you to MOVE to that location to take advantage of the traffic.

It’s been a fascinating 48+ hours. My IJS knowledge has blossomed into comprehension and application, and I have developed a sincere appreciation for pairs skating that I previously lacked.

Above all else, I finally have proof that what I want to do with my life is, in fact…THIS. I think I actually worked a half day today, about 4 hours, in spurts, dealing with this and that, doing some code, working on lead generation, product ideas, etc. I spent two hours at the rink doing the judge thing and almost 6 hours in the judge’s school.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been open to some other ideas in my life, too, but much of my evening has been spent in contemplation thereof. And there it is. In all it’s awkwardly wonderful simplicity.

In contrast, 2009 was about rebuilding, branching out, and trying new things. On the business front, it was a year for testing ideas that are commonplace in my old professional field (real estate) and trying out what might work and what won’t work in my new profession (tax representation). For the most part, things cross over quite nicely. As such, it became a time for testing marketing ideas, creating procedures, and setting up systems. The programming of a web-based practice management system to streamline our operations and improve communication amongst the various business functions (marketing, sales, production, management, payroll, account receivable, etc.) was a crowning achievement for me for the year. While it still has some work to be done, it’s in full production use by our staff and has eliminated several other expensive software programs that didn’t talk to each very well. In addition, it allows most of our staff members to continue providing client service remotely, which before was not possible.

This year, 2010, will have a very different flavor. While the core systems component, the web-based practice management system, will continue being a major factor in my, it will go from being a majority of my day to being perhaps a quarter of my working hours. That will free up substantial time for me to work on full scale implementation of marketing ideas that have accumulated throughout the past two years, as well as enable us to expand the practice into other areas.

We have already started the wheels turning on two major business expansions for us: Offering professional continuing education to other tax professionals, and expanding into the world of business tax return preparation. Last Thursday, I mailed off the application to the IRS to allow us to offer continuing education programs, and will tackle the various state Boards of Accountancy this week. We have also started reviewing tax preparation software options, since we currently prepare tax returns by hand using PDF forms, since we do very, very limited scope tax return preparation for our existing client (most of whom owe back taxes and also have unfiled returns, which their CPA normally prepares). One of my tasks for today is to prepare a postcard mailer for tax preparation and assemble an appropriate mailing list to send out to THIS WEEK.

Back in 1999, Dan Kennedy published a tiny red paperback book that was included in some of his other programs as a bonus item. It was a self-published book, and is not available in bookstores, which is a travesty, because I think it’s the single greatest piece he’s ever written. It’s called “The Ultimate Success Secret. The book is about one thing: action. In a nutshell, goals without action are just words on paper. On top of that, it’s not about just doing SOME actions, it’s about MASSIVE action. That means if you can think of ten ways to grow your business, don’t just do one at a time, DO THEM ALL!

In a nutshell, that’s what 2010 is for me. If I fail to take massive action on all the things I have planned, I will have nobody to blame but myself. And it’s not just in business, either. If I have any real chance of making the U.S. Olympic team, it will take nothing short of massive action. Everybody else has a tremendous head start on me, so I have no choice but to dive in massively.

Speaking of implementation, the past three weeks have been a period of massive action in another business venture. I am happy to say that after many late nights, burning the candle at both ends as the saying goes, the new business is open and productive. The revenue goal for the enterprise is such that it comprises fully 1/3 of my goal income for the year. There is a huge fear factor to me, since I’ve never been involved in a retail operation, as I have always operated service type businesses. It’s also strange for me to be involved in an outright partnership, as I have a difficult time accepting having to rely on other people. However, the partners need this to work out significantly more than I do, as it is their primary livelihood, so there is incentive all around for it to work out.

Now, I have some implementation to go do. ~||~

Make it a great day!

Jassen Bowman

Here are the notes:

Check with cruise lines for free cruises in exchange for offering services to other passengers that you do already, such as teaching aerobics, organizing ballroom dancing, doing catering, or, for me in particular, preparing tax returns or hosting marketing seminars

Carry packages and documents – Check out courier.org or call them at 308-632-3273 – clearinghouse for courier services

FreeTravelCenter.com

Participate in archaelogical digs — these often require tons of labor, and they are under- or un-funded digs, so usually need volunteers – PassPortInTime.com

They had some travel savings stuff at the time — CoolSavings.com

Happy New Year to everybody!

Sincerely,

Jassen Bowman

I’ve spent time over the past several days consolidating all my b2evolution blogs (dozens of them) down into one site. It was a difficult decision process to consolidate to one domain, and I did so gradually. I will now forward the old domains to specific categories on this blog.

Once I had all the posts and categories cleaned up on b2evolution, I had to figure out how to migrate it all. There are no easy ways to do this. There are instructions out there for exporting b2e data using a Movable Type skin, then importing that into WordPress. However, these methods don’t work with b2evolution 3.x.

After unsuccessfully trying the skins method, I went to wordpress, and used their instructions, actually, including their database import script, located at http://codex.wordpress.org/Importing_Content

Here’s how I did this:

1). Remove domain as a parked domain, added back to my hosting account as as add-on domain.

2). Upload WordPress 2.9 files and configure it, using the database name, login, and password of my b2evolution database. Yes, install the WordPress tables into the b2evolution database.

3). Run the WordPress installer script.

4). Run the WordPress migration script for b2evolution. It worked with b2e 3.x!

5). All my b2e pages imported as posts, so I manually recreated the 2 pages and deleted their post copies.

6). Deleted all my old b2e users.

All my categories (10 of them) and posts (160 of them) look to have imported correctly. The only downside was that the post dates all say today.

I also need to look at my .htaccess files to try and preserve old inbound links. It’s almost 1am, but I’m going to tackle that right now anyway.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Sincerely,

Jassen Bowman

There are a lot of common sense things that you can do to increase your gas mileage. Here’s a brief list off the top of my head:

1. Avoid rapid acceleration – the green light isn’t a drag strip.
2. Don’t race to the next light – as soon as you see the next red light, let off the gas and coast to the light.
3. Learn the street light timing patterns and/or speed settings for your city. Call the city traffic department if you have to, to learn how lights are timed at various times of day and in different parts of the city. Use this information to plan your trips.
4. Combine all your errands into the minimum number of trips.
5. Park & walk inside rather than idling at a drive-thru.
6. Turn off the engine when stopped for a train.
7. If you’re going down a hill, kick the tranny into neutral and coast down the hill (this may be illegal in some places, so check your local laws before doing this).
8. Travel at a speed that provides optimal gas mileage for your car, even if it’s below the speed limit.

These tips are a start, but hypermiling involves going above and beyond this. In fact, many of the techniques used by hypermilers can be downright dangerous. I’ve tried some of the techniques, especially in regards to taking corners at higher speeds than I normally might in order to preserve kinetic energy. There’s also ridge riding, where you ride the tops of the ridges in the roadway to reduce surface area contact (and friction), instead of riding in the ruts in the middle of the lane like most drivers.

However, many of the more interesting and outrageous methods used by hypermilers are often illegal and, more importantly, dangerous. For example, turning off your engine when you coast down a hill can be dangerous because most modern cars have power assisted brakes that are powered by the engine, and therefore turning off the engine can drastically effect braking ability.

The point here is that there are things you can learn from “professional” hypermilers, and make better driving decisions, but don’t do so at the expense of safety.

For some interesting articles on hypermiling, check these out:

• http://www.hypermiling.com/
• CNN article with tips
• Negating highway traffic jams
• Wikipedia article on hypermiling

One such device is the GasBuster. The inventors of this gizmo don’t claim tremendous fuel gains, just 10% or slightly better. However, for some people that might justify that $200 to $500 price of the unit, which at $4 a gallon gas can pay for itself within a month or two for some folks.

The question becomes, however: Do these things actually work?

The mechanism and concept has been around for literally decades. Popular Science and Consumer Affairs have both recently tested home built HHO generators mounted in test cars and have labeled them as “bunked.” However, Internet forums are full of people reporting the advertised fuel economy gains through the use of the devices.

The problem with measuring a 10% gain in fuel economy is that there are so many other variables within the drivetrain, routes, and driving habits of the drivers. Readers of this blog know full well that I routinely increase my fuel economy by 10-20% just based on my driving habits, which is nothing compared to hard core hypermilers that often DOUBLE their fuel economy.

I haven’t ruled out testing one of these devices, but I’m more likely to do such tinkering under my hood once I have a backup vehicle. In another month or two, I’ll be obtaining an early 90′s Chevy pickup, which gets about 12 mpg city and 16 highway. That’s a far cry from what I’m used to, but it can do things and go places my little put-put car can’t.

• Drive sensibly. Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid accelerating, and braking) wastes gas.
• Combine errands into one trip. Several short trips for a cold start can use twice as much fuel as one trip covering the same distance when the engine is warm.
• Replace clogged air filters to improve gas mileage by as much as 10%.
• Keep tires properly inflated and aligned to improve gas mileage by 3.3%.
• Clean out your car. Extra weight decreases gas mileage.
• Use air conditioning only when necessary.
• Use cruise control.
• Avoid high speeds. Above 60 mph, gas mileage drops rapidly.

People are constantly amazed at the fact that I get in excess of 40mpg in my car. The primary things I do to achieve are to drive 55 on my short stretch of highway commute instead of 70, keep my tires inflated, and suffer in the heat. I achieved my two personal record MPG marks on a full tank by driving under 60 on long, flat highway segments after over-inflating the tires at the time of fill up.

As I have discussed on this blog before, the single biggest problem with most drivers wanting to achieve greater mpg is their own driving habits. The article above cites this as a factor in the gas mileage the test drivers are achieving.

In my own tests, I have achieved a high of 52 mpg in a vehicle designed to achieve in the high 30′s. With a dedicated hypermiler behind the wheel, I’m willing to bet somebody could eek 70 or 80 mpg out of my car. My results are largely due to being easy on the gas, and slowing down far before red lights and still keeping momentum once the light turns green again.

The 1989 Honda CB-1 motorcycle which I recently acquired was originally rated for 40 mpg. I have made no special effort to achieve higher gas mileage out of the bike, but I’ve been averaging 55 to 60 mpg out of it just with my normal riding habits. By any measure, I’m a conservative rider compared to most folks on crotch rockets.

The point here is to demonstrate that technology coming down the pipe isn’t a panacea: It still requires the user to use it right, and users can achieve better results out of their current technology simply by modifying their own behaviour.

I ended up going through Rocky Mountain National Park, up Old Flowers Road, through Grand Lake Village, north to Walden…and just kept going north. Ended up in Laramie, Wyoming, then picked up 287 and came back down to Boulder. Seven plus hours of driving, and all of it filled with Roop/Doran seminar audio.

It’s been almost two years since I was really all that excited about real estate. I know that right now will probably be the best time to buy that I will see in my lifetime, but having been through the ringer once already, I’ve been fairly afraid to get back into the game. Roop/Doran have some incredible strategies they are teaching for buying free and clear properties with either owner carry or private lender financing, and still walking away from the closing table with cash. Over one third of homes in America are owned free and clear, so it’s a viable strategy with a pretty big market. I’m going to spend some time in the next week or two looking into it further.

The drive gave me my first real look at the gas mileage for the Ranger. Keep in mind that this was mostly mountain driving, but also highway. My average speed the whole day, with the exception of RMNP, was about 60. The truck is rated for 15 city, 19 highway. After 351 miles today and a 15.914 gallon fillup, the gas mileage comes in at 22 mpg. I’m happy with that for a baseline measurement, and the next week will give me a baseline for city mileage. Ultimately, it’d be nice to average 25 mpg out of it, and if I could convince it to give me 30 mpg on the highway, I’d be thrilled. It may require some much more aggressive hypermiling techniques than I’m usually comfortable doing, however.

All in all, I was happy with how the truck ran. Cornering was good, and the 4WD was fun, although it was completely unnecessary on Old Flowers Road. I’m sure that removing that hour long, 11 mile drive from the equation would have bumped the gas mileage for the day up significantly.

I took some video of the Park and the adjacent National Forest, mostly to document the current state of the pine beetle infestation. I’m going to need to check statistics on it, but I get the feeling that at the current rate of devastation, Colorado isn’t going to have any forests left within a few years. That makes this tree hugger very, very, very sad.

Miles for the past 8 days: 1,455

Gallons placed in tank: 28.22

Do the math: 51.56 miles per gallon!!!!!!

My previous record was two weeks ago, when I eeked out just over 42 mpg.

I think that one of the things that really helped was that on the trip I had a tail wind across Wyoming on the way back, and it was perfectly calm on the drive out. Crossing I-80 tends to be dangerous with crosswinds, and fighting those crosswinds at highway speeds is a gas mileage killer.

I also cut back speed on the both legs of the trip, keeping it down to 70. Driving back and forth to Boulder and work, I keep the speed at 55, which I’m sure also helps.

After getting back from Utah, I changed my oil and filter and rotated my tires for the first time in 8 or 9 months and probably twenty or thirty thousands miles. I know that boosted gas mileage during the past week.

I’m also a big fan of keeping the weight down in the vehicle. I keep very little in the trunk, compared to what I used. Also, I have no back seat, and have reduce weight in other areas, also. I have an aerodynamic issue that I need to fix, and I’m sure that will make a difference.

This is the first post of this blog, and I hope to report in the future the results of actual tests with various devices and techniques purported to increase mileage.

I am greatful for:

1. The fresh financial start that I have before me right now, this month.
2. The excellent health that I am in.
3. The opportunity and means to do new and wonderful things, such as figure skating.
4. The relative peace and security which exists in the corner of world which I inhabit.
5. Being able to successfully live an unconventional lifestyle in a nation where doing such is socially looked down upon, and being able to do so with no social repercussions.

1. Other people stepping up and getting the job done.
2. The sensibility of my figure skating coach.
3. The patience of clients.
4. The rapid drop in acquisition costs of consumer digital technology.
5. Ibuprofen.

It has been high on my mind the last 6 months or so as to whether Sadie was reaching the end of her life. I bought the car with just under 70,000 miles on it, and I have put over 175,000 miles on it in the past eight years. This car has been with me through thick and thin over that time, and she’s taken me everywhere. She took me from ocean to ocean, Long Island, NY to Seaside, OR. She’s seen nuclear power plants, and been to the summit of two fourteeners. She’s taken me over prairie in the Pawnees where she had no business being with only front wheel drive, and she’s taken me up gnarly 4×4 roads to remote trailheads, most notably Laramie Peak (got a flat tire) and up to the Gray’s Peak trailhead (tore the front bumper off and bent a tie rod). She’s suffered through two head on collisions with grown deer, including one that tore up the front end so bad that the radiator, headlights, and everything else down to the hood latch was destroyed – had to leave her in Nebraska for nearly 2 months before I could get back out to pick her up from the shop that bandaged her up.

Above all else, that car has been home to me on many a cold night when I had nowhere else to go. After the divorce, Sadie was home for nearly 6 months before I upgraded my accomodations to a full size cargo van. After my business went under and I lost everything to foreclosure and bankruptcy, she was home again for nearly 8 months, entirely out of choice, not financial necessity (yeah, I’m a freak – deal with it).

Sadie has been having difficulties for a while. The front windshield has been spider webbed for almost 2 years. The rear tires are probably 10,000 miles past when they should have been replaced. The front end was never totally fixed after the deer on I-80. The O2 sensor has been dead for 5 years, after replacing it twice. The rear shocks are shot. The headliner has been sagging for years, and finally got so bad I ripped it out two days ago. The dome light hasn’t worked since a few weeks after I bought the car. The clutch has been slipping occasionally for nearly a year. The piston rings are shot, and oil blows past and burns up in the combustion chambers every time I climb up through the Eisenhower tunnel, very predictably. The first gear synchronizer is shot, and has been for a while. Over the past 6 months, I have grown increasingly concerned about the transmission, with some gears occasionally being hard to get into or out of, and it’s been gnashing teeth more and more.

But it’s all been ok, because Sadie is my baby, and she never lets me down. Most importantly, she’s been my little gutless gas sipper, from as low as 32 in town to as high as 55 mpg on the highway, but usually averaging 42 mpg. I can’t buy a new car that is guaranteed to get me that kind of gas mileage.

Today, however, she may have taken her last ride down the glorious yellow striped road.

Today after work started out rough. One of the most renowned tattoo artists in Colorado not only blew off my appointment, but kept me waiting for almost an hour. No email, no phone call. Nothing. I finally left and drove to Longmont to meet with Adam, a tattoo artist that had been very helpful earlier on in this year-plus saga towards me getting my first ink done. I’m just going to let him do it. It’s not only going to be cheaper, but I know he’s always there. That’ll be Wednesday.

On the drive back down from Longmont, I hit these railroad tracks that I’ve driven over hundreds, if not thousands of times in the past 8 years. Some of you know the ones I’m talking about, roughly 2 miles or so north of Arapahoe on 287. They have a sharp, pronounced drop as you go over them, almost like a small speed bump. I hit the tracks at 60 miles per hour, and as the car came back down and settled into the shocks, I heard a loud metallic “claNK” from underneath the car, as if a piece of iron had fallen off and hit the pavement.

I was concerned for a moment, but then brushed it off, thinking there must have been some metal in the road that flew up from my tires or something. A half mile later, however, I started to slow down for the red light. I normally shift from 5th into 2nd and use the engine to help slow down a little bit when I come to a light. When I tried to shift into second, there was no second to found — there was just emptiness in the stick shift where there should have been a soft thud as the car eased into car. I braked to a stop, and tried shifting up to third – it wasn’t there either. Same for 4th. In fact, for a second, I couldn’t find ANY gear. I finally wiggled it into 1st right as the light turned green, and I threw on a turn signal to get out of the fast lane and over on to the right shoulder.

Sitting on the shoulder, I poked and prodded for gears, and could only find three: 1st, 3rd, and reverse. Third was a random find as I wiggled the shifter around, so I left it there once I found it again, and eased back on to the highway, riding the clutch and revving the engine hard, and lugged it up to 40 miles per hour in third gear. I drove the remaining 4 miles home this way.

Upon getting home, I checked under the car, but didn’t find anything missing. I grabbed some tools and tore out the center console. The cables are intact, and the rolling friction point for the gear shifter is intact. The gears just aren’t there to grab.

I hopped on the CB-1 and went back to the railroad tracks to try and see if I could find any missing pieces of my car laying on the pavement. I didn’t find anything, so I can only surmise that the slamming of the car back onto the pavement after going over the tracks either made the gear box bottom out or made something internally come lose and rattle around inside the transmission.

I will continue to monkey with it over the next few days, but I have the feeling that she’s dead. Repairing a transmission is beyond my mechanical capabilities. If it’s something in the shift linkage, MAYBE I could do it, but if it’s the shift rail or an actual gearing component, there’s no way. Even the shift rail requires transmission removal, and the repair would cost more than the car is worth. A new transmission would cost a couple grand, most likely. In all likelihood, Sadie is DOA.

The real issue isn’t that I can’t afford a brand new car, it’s that I’m only a year out of bankruptcy and my credit is still in the toilet. I could pay cash for something decent, but I’d really like to get something that is going to last another 8 years.

I’m going to miss the memories that this car has for me, and I’m going to miss thumbing my nose at vehicles with lesser mpg disposition. Thankfully I have the motorcycle, but first snow might well be here within a couple months.

On top of that, Burning Man is in less than 3 weeks, and I’m definitely not riding the motorcycle to the playa.

I have some difficult choices to make in the next week or two. Sadie is now a project car, and building a chopper is something I’m likely going to have to put off. I’ll keep her around until winter hits, see if I can get her fixed up myself.

So, now I have to decide what to get. For mpg happiness, I have the motorcycle to fall back on, and I’ve been using it as my primary transportation for two months anyway. I could get a trike, which I could then ride during the winter (yes, you can get studded snow tires for motorcycles). A trike would be fun and cool anyway, but it would be sort of cold. I could get another big van, for hauling, car camping, and heck, maybe even go back to living in one. There’s also the big part of me that has wanted to join the Toyota Tacoma culture for a few years. And last, but not least, there’s the part of me that misses the race track, and wouldn’t mind getting something low and fast again – it’s been years since I owned a sports car. Eight, in fact.

Thus ends an eight year affair with the car that has been better to me than any other I’ve ever owned. Good night, sweet Sadie, with all my love, may you rest peacefully curbside now.

From a purely capitalistic perspective, it’s a wonderful thing! However, most of those gym memberships will go unused after February or March, and any weight that most people lose will come right back in a few weeks or months.

Rather than adapting New Year’s resolutions, why not instead focus on real, measurable, and achievable GOALS?

A goal is different from a resolution, because a goal has measurable progress and a defined date for achieving some benchmark. This is in stark contrast to a “resolution”, which simply states the desire to make a change.

My own two fitness related goals for the year are incredibly simple:

1. Drink soda only on “free” days
2. Avoid eating from a drive through window except on “free” days

These two goals are not only simple, measurable, and achievable, but also incredibly powerful. Let’s take a look at just the soda factor. I’m a heavy Mountain Dew addict, and have been for years. I’ve gone weeks without it before, but pick it right back up again when I give up the crash diet. A 32 oz. Mountain Dew contains 440 calories, and it is not uncommon to drink one of those, or two 20 oz. bottles per day. Since one pound equals 3500 calories, you can see that eliminating that 32 oz. Mountain Dew on all but one day per week (my free day) will allow me to lose 3.5 pounds per month. That’s 42 pounds in one year! Not bad for a simple habit change. I’m constantly dehydrated anyway, so I need to drink more water as it is. Fortunately, I love water. The other side of the Mountain Dew equation is the cost. I’ll save $546 a year by only drinking a gigantic Dew once a week instead of every day. That may not sound like a lot, but that will cover an entire month of my figure skating training , including ice time, and that’s something that I place a high personal value on.

So, if you’re thinking about jumping on the annual weight loss bandwagon, I would encourage you to take time to seriously evaluate your lifestyle and identify one or two simple, measurable, and achievable GOALS that you can implement to work towards.

Happy New Year!

Until next time,

_

Then, right after work, I skated another 45 minutes until 5:30, then drove back down to the YMCA rink and skated for about 30 minutes. Needless to say, by the end of that third session at the Y, my feet were aching, thighs were burning, and I was exhausted.

However, I feel great! I skated for two solid hours today, including two essentially back to back sessions. It feels good knowing that I can do that, especially when I know I’ve been practicing things that require more muscle engagement for me at this point. I’m sure that I’ll regret it come morning, but doing a self-check right now, I feel fine, and don’t have any more muscle or joint pain than I normally would.

Unfortunately, adult skaters have two things going against them when it comes to practice, that the little kids don’t. These two factors are:

1. A job.
2. The normal aches and pains of aging.

How often should skaters practice? The real answer is, “As often as you can safely physically handle — and afford.” Most of the adult skaters I talk to say that they practice 2 or 3 times per week, usually for 45 minutes to an hour each session. In studies I’ve seen regarding skill retention and advancement, this really is a minimum level to make any sort of progress in skills over the long haul. For most adults, skating one hour per week is likely to be sufficient to maintain recreational skating skills, but if your objective is gain new skills and improve proficiency, additional ice time is likely needed.

For the kids that I skate with, there are definitely three very distinct levels of commitment that I see. Based on hours skated weekly, they are:

1. “Recreationally Competitive” — these kids seem to skate 8 to 12 hours per week. They all seem to love skating, but they have other hobbies as well, and probably active social lives. They tend to realize that they will never compete at Nationals, but they have fun and do their best and skate in several competitions annually.

2. “Competitively Competitive” — these kids skate 2 to 4 hours per day. Several of the girls that skate my morning sessions do back-to-back morning sessions, then back-to-back afternoon sessions after school. These kids are on accelerated testing and competition tracks, and, frankly, they are the ones that bring home the medals from all of our regional competitions. Some of them have been to Sectionals, and the occasional one might make it to Nationals at their test level, skating 15 to 20 hours per week.

3. “National / International Competitors” — Being so close to Colorado Springs, I am fortunate to be able to rub elbows with elite skaters on occasion. These kids are national and international champions, and their lives literally revolve around figure skating. If they are still in middle or high school, they all have some sort of shortened academic day. For example, U.S. ladies silver medalist and reigning World Junior Champion Rachael Flatt attends class for 5 periods per day at her high school, and skates approximately 24 hours per week, plus has off-ice training for jumps and spins, plus time in the gym for weight training, running, and probably ballet, too.

Personally, I’m comfortable being in the first group. I’ve been skating for 10 months now, and I’ve probably averaged 3 hours per week on ice. My goal is to bump that up to seven to ten hours per week, effective, well, immediately. As I continue to lose weight, the stress of skating on my hips, knees, back, and ankles will diminish, which will ultimately be what enables me to practice that much.

Of course, remember that taking up figure skating as an adult IS the start of a new fitness program. Therefore, you should definitely consult with your physician before starting to make sure that you are healthy enough in the necessary respects to engage in a sport like this.

Until next time,

Jassen Bowman