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Continue reading →: Do you deserve comfort?
When I started writing this I had more questions than answers. What is comfort? Where do you get it? How much does it cost? When do you seek it out and when does it seek you out?
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Continue reading →: I went to Detroit and it wasn’t as bad as everyone said
Should I be disappointed? There are Starbucks and hipsters and distilleries in Detroit. I went to the convention center, there was a convention happening. Some environmentalists were there. It wasn’t dripping with moss and there were no urban wolves. I went to the waterfront, there was a jazz festival. It wasn’t crumbling into the river and there were no scavengers spear fishing on the rocks. I tried to find parking during a baseball game so I could pee before driving back to the suburbs, the sports bars were packed. I didn’t get mugged. Should I have expected something different? I…
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Continue reading →: 5 Keys to Making a Living from Freelancing
7 years ago when I was working in a cubicle in Bellevue I thought I had made it. Good money, good benefits, interesting work at a fast paced company. Then came the crippling anxiety and quietly building rage. Those side effects seem inseparable from high profile agency jobs with six figure salaries. When I was laid off I saved my last line of code, packed up my desk, and on the mid-day summer drive home I wept as relief washed over me. Looking back I was in no shape, emotionally or physically, to be working 80 hour weeks in a…
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Continue reading →: Top 10 Facts About Horses Every Startup Should Know
First, my apologies, loyal readers. You are probably wondering why I didn’t post last week and I’m excited to tell you why! This week I’ll be cross-posting content that I’m composing for my new business. It’s called Unstoppable Startup and our sole purpose is to help startups succeed. That’s right, I’m getting paid to do what I love. Shameless self promotion: Discover why total strangers are joining my mailing list. Now to the Top 10 Facts About Horses: Horses can sleep standing up What does this have to do with startups? Always be prepared. In some part of the world…
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Continue reading →: How I Get Unlimited Internet for $2.26 a Day + I Review Coffee Shops
I went to Starbucks. They are everywhere. On the highway, downtown, in Safeway, even Albertsons now. The coffee is always the same and they all have free wifi. Here are some other places I’ve been so far. Saint Regis Travel Center St Regis, Montana What’s in a name? The St Regis Travel Center is all that your highway crossed heart could desire: truck stop, gas station, gift shop, casino, grill, smoothie bar, art gallery, trout aquarium! That nut flavored espresso from a self service machine… If we called it by another name, boiling hot coffee from a corrugated paper cup…
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Continue reading →: Critical Thinking vs Critical Feeling
That feeling when you know someone is wrong on the Internet… It’s the overlap in the middle of the Venn diagram between Critical Thinking and Critical Feeling. On one side you think they are wrong and on the other side you feel that they are wrong. Combine those two experiences and you’ve got a self-righteous cocktail like a dropshot of everclear into strong beer. That kind of mixture triggers an emotional response that you can’t just ignore. You have two options: either you need to take action and post an incendiary comment in response or you need to slap the…
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Continue reading →: Best Advice: Don’t Take Advice
If you want to get better at making good decisions practice making your own decisions. Maybe you’re lucky and you already make good decisions. Maybe you don’t need to make good decisions because you are good at football, baseball, and lacrosse, darts and basketball, and poker, golf, and chess. The rest of us learn to make good decisions by making decisions. Lots of them, every day. Most are small and less risky like whether to wear the same jeans I wore yesterday (and the day before). But some are big life changing decisions and I’m here to tell you that…
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Continue reading →: How to Watch Almost Any Video in an RV with Chromecast and Raspberry Pi
Sometimes when you are in the middle of nowhere you want to watch the latest episode of Cosmos. There’s just something about resting under the stars watching Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about the stars. Northwest Montana isn’t exactly the middle of nowhere. There is less light pollution (ranked 48th in population density) and the air is clearer (due in part to altitude) making this region perfect for star gazing. They don’t call it Big Sky Country for no reason. My setup started with a few goals: Runs on batteries No laptop required Will stream Netflix when we have Internet access…
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Continue reading →: Want to Get More Done? Head East.
Have you read that to be more productive you should wake up earlier? Me too. I’m in Montana and I’m starting to believe it’s true. We’re crossing time zones and I’m waking at the same time of day so I get up a whole hour earlier now. My primary team and almost all of my clients are on the west coast so this makes me super prepared for the day. Traveling takes time. I can’t write docs or code while driving (There are no voice-command development tools that actually work. Before I had a handle on my carpal tunnel and…
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Continue reading →: RV Life Week 0: Packing for Worriers
Will I need this? I’ve asked myself a million times in the last few weeks. I know this because I have come to learn that I had a million things. Had a million things. Now I feel lighter. Donate it. Goodwill Industries now owns most of my worldly possessions. What’s the worst that could happen? … or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Road The worst that could happen is pretty bad, but we’re risking becoming a statistic. Over 33,000 people died on the highway in 2012 according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. I’m not consciously…
Hello,
I’m Aaron
Engineering Manager in Seattle
