I moved into a new place last week! It’s great, I love the change. This apartment is WAY better in so many ways. It’s bigger, newer, has laundry inside, and I get my own room. The closet is pretty bomb-diggity as well. You walk into it and there’s all this space and things belonging to you. Love it.
Man I love that new piano. When I was 13 years old I saw a Ben Folds Five song come on MTV and I thought “Hey! I could play that!” so I sat down at our piano and sounded it out. For years all I knew was that first little part until today when I looked up a ‘how to’ you tube video.
Here’s the song:
Man I can’t wait to learn more stuff. A while back I had a friend teach me Claire de Lune one little bit at a time until I had the whole thing memorized. It pains me that I’ve lost so much of that song but it’s coming back little bits at a time. Great song.
Eric bought a brand new Sony laptop costing $1700 recently. I thought it looked a little stupid for being such a supposed high-end machine. Another surprise was that the trackpad for mousing about felt really dumb. It had an awful texturing. Yet another unhappy surprise was when you picked it up with one hand while the computer was running the screen would freak out and show nothing but garbly garble because the garphics card would disconnect as a result of the computer frame flexing. Piece of crap!
Man what a drag. Eric called Sony and after frustrations with an individual hard of speaking English he requested a full return.
It wasn’t 2 hours later that we were back at the house with a new 13.3″ Macbook Pro 2.7Ghz duo 500GB hard drive wonder machine with 7 hours of battery life. Yup. It’s a tough transition to go Mac but golly there are some things about those fruit-puters that are high quality and convenient. I bought mine in 2008 and I’ve had no probelms with it. I’m still using it now! The thing is still worth like $700, too! That’s truly amazing for a computer. Usually stuff is outdated and crap within 18 months. I dare you to take a look at the resale value of any other computer.
And get this- the apple was CHEAPER than the Sony!
That being said there’s no reason for the mac superiority complex. They don’t do everything right and are in need of scrutiny to keep the quality up.
CHECK – Thank my brother for the sweet book
CHECK – Test drive 2011 BMW 335i DOUBLE CHECK. I was rippin’ around a roundabout and the salesman said swear words ha ha ha
CHECK- Get haircut from Molly at Sport Clips
CHECK- Make progress on my wonderful business
CHECK- Eat at a fancy pants restaurant with my parents
CHECK- Hang out with my buddies down here in P-town a.k.a Provo
WORKING ON IT- Buy myself a Piano if I don’t have one by the end of the day Ha!
Ever heard of a Palm Pre? It used to be my main smartphone squeeze until I got an iPhone 4 last September. Recently at Parker Planners we’ve been developing what will be the best planner application for the iPhone. The calendar app from the Pre, though, was fantastic; lightyears ahead of the sorry excuse for a calendaring application that comes standard with Apple’s iPhone/iPod touch.
I want to use the Pre’s planner app for reference in creating our iPhone app but my old Pre’s screen was tragically cracked while breakdancing last fall. I bought a used Pre on ebay for $25 last week and I thought I was off to the races but you can’t even use the thing unless you hook it up to Sprint’s service plan (and we all know how much I love Sprint).
So blast. I had a broken screen Pre and one that wanted service. What was I to do? I looked into hacking the operating system but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth so I ended up disassembling the two phones and using the motherboard and memory from the old one and the screen and touch-sensor thingy from the new one. It worked!!! I was truly amazed I didn’t break something while working on these phones. The little connectors are like attaching synapses in a mouse’s brain and the wires are like hairs on a flea. Miracle of miracles and a few you tube instructional videos later I had a fully functioning Pre once more. BOOYA. $30 and I’m back in business. ($5 for this crazy little tool to remove the torx-head screws the size of half an eyelash) Here are my Prees post-op:
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to make something with my hands as my planners are printed in China and everything else I create these days is made of electrons. I’m used to working on motorcycles or cars but this was still way fun. Can’t believe it worked! What’s nifty is that the Pre is a great camera, video recorder, and Mp3 player, too. Plus the files are 120x easier to access than an apple device.
Can’t wait to keep going on the app. The plan is to debut at Tech Crunch Disrupt in San Fransisco this September.
Oh yeah, and THIS is what I really really want for my birthday.
Nope, not the dad from Family Matters, not Carl Carlson from the Simpsons, Carl the paper cutter and office supplies company. They got their name from the inventor of a spiffy camera lens from about 6 decades ago- Carl Zeiss. The founder of the office products firm named his company after the camera lenses because he thought they were of superior quality. Carl’s motto is that they do superior quality. I agree!!
These guys had a booth at the tradeshow I was at last week and I started playing around with the stuff on the table. WOW. I was so impressed. I first realized I absolutely loved office supply products when I was on a mission I think. We went into an office max to get some note cards and I came out with more stuff than I thought I would. Those 3-hole punch reinforcer things, tabs, dividers, paper clips, etc. Mmmmmm.
They had this hole punch that was the most beautifully working piece of office supply equip that I’ve held in my hands. It had multiple hinges and worked so smoothly, I could have punched paper hundreds of times and not woken up a sleeping flea. Flea, the bassist from Red Hot Chili Peppers, is a very light sleeper.
Carl makes products of the gods. They are superior and wonderful. They don’t have pictures online of their new stuff but at the very least I can take a pic of my VERY OWN CARL paper trimmer!! Yes! I was admiring this thing at the show and asked the guy if I could have it. He wasn’t too keen on that and referred me to his higher-up who was visiting another booth at the time. I pondered for a second how I could convince them to give me one and then I thought of the 300+ people who visit my blog every month! I said I would blog about it and now it’s mine!!! HAAHAHAHHHA!
Behold. What’s different about it is the blade doesn’t come out unless you push down on it, but that also holds the paper in place! Believe it or not this thing can cut 15 pages at once! Oooooo yeah.
Here’s me at the show after claiming my prize. I felt a deep sense of accomplishment with this cutter safe in my arms.
Here’s a closeup of the cutter. It’s 15″ tall so I can cut legal documents, too!!
This is insane. I just checked ebay on this day of Monday, March 14, 2011 at 10:33 am and saw something that made me cringe a little. It’s an iPad 2 selling for 242% of its suggested retail price.
Holy cow guess I should have bought like 10 of these things and sold them on ebay.
Nope, not for me but for other people. We’re looking for someone to help out around Parker Planners so I’ve been reading resumes and interviewing people these last few days. It’s fun, I love being able to see how creative people are and how they react to things. Most business stuff is very not fun so I’ve tried to keep things interesting for the interviewees.
First I asked them what they thought was the funniest you tube video out there. Then we would watch part of it together. I got some interesting responses, oddly of all the videos I had only seen one before. Then I would ask them if they played guitar, only one taker there but he played Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” which was inspirational, he was actually a pretty good singer.
Then came the art project test. I had them look at my website (the prepared ones had already studied it beforehand) and draw me a new one with a blank piece of legal size paper and a bag of markers provided by me. I wasn’t judging their artistic ability, but rather their ability to have fun with something new and stand behind their ideas.
After that it was pretty much a discussion of their schedule and if they were a fit for the company. Good times. Today I let the lucky winner know they will be a part of Parker Planners and thank the rest for applying. It’s been really hard to decide because everyone is so qualified for the position. We got mostly PR majors this time.
The biggest thing we need help with right now is contacting college bookstore buyers in preparation for the trade show we’re attending in Houston at the end of the month.
My brother got married 2 weeks ago and my other brothers and I were getting our tuxes in a shop when we found this:
Eric and I thought it may have been the new style that hipsters nationwide were turning toward. We thought it wad funny. We laughed. We joked with the store clerks. Ha ha, yeah who would wear two ties? . . . we would jest. . . . Who?
THIS PERSON! FROM THE FUTURE!!!!
Daaaaaahhhhhh! Marty McFly from like 2015! It’s real, folks. The days of dual tie adornment cometh and little can be done to stop them.
I snapped that photo of our TV the other night as Eric and I were watching. Holy cow what a bizarre coincidence.
Here’s a commercial I just finished for Parker Planners. I hope it can make a few people laugh, a few people join the facebook page, and a few more find a planner that is very useful for them.
Today marks the day of this blog also becoming a vlog. That’s a video-blog. Once a week there will be a video of the proceedings of Parker Planners. I pledge to be brief, random, and interesting. I was doing a weekly newsletter for my partner and accountant and employee gone Kraft marketer person but I’ve decided this is much more appealing. The blog is called “Living the Dream” right? Well it’s about time I show the world the ups and downs of running your own very small business with dreams of making it big.
You heard it here first. In the future all computers will be replaced by elaborate systems of beetle shells stuffed inside our pockets like a handful of peanuts. Just ask this BYU student.
This picture is on my grandma’s wall by the kitchen. I imagine my grandfather put it up there because he had that kind of humor. They have lived in the same house since I have been alive, so this picture has sort of been a constant for me. It makes me laugh but also makes me think. Maybe it’s where I get my entrepreneur tenacity?
“No” is never the end unless you give up. I say that all “no” means is that you got their attention. The second “no” means that you might be serious, the third one means you actually want it, the fourth “no” means that you’re determined to get it, and the fifth “no” means that you understand persistence. There usually aren’t more than 5 “no’s”.
ha ha ha
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