No Grocery Store Required? Amazon Prime and My Local Farmers Market – Opposites Attract
Let me just start with the simple fact that I hate going to the grocery store. I always buy more than I plan to buy and the extra always seems to come from the snack and wine aisles. I hate waiting in line. There is no true express lane no matter what they say. Self-checkout lanes? They are designed to check you out of your mind when you realize you’re taking twice as much time to look up broccoli on a touch screen.
I hate carrying bags and as much as I try not to, it seems I’m always forgetting my canvas good shopper recycled bags. I stopped clipping coupons a long time ago because I realized there was a tiny discount for products unless you are a super clipper and besides, have you ever really looked at the coupons in a Sunday paper? They are full of junk foods. Nothing even remotely healthy has a coupon because coupons are mostly there to make the public addicted to food and drugs that aren’t good for them in the first place. Once I became a vegan I quickly realized that at least 70% of the food in grocery stores is not vegan friendly and that’s probably the case for most vegetarians too. I started to wonder why I even bothered and started to think about never going in a grocery store again. Even those who aren’t vegan might want to think about joining me in this mindset. Read more…
How to Use HandBreak and Apple TV to Burn DVD’s Into A Mega Movie Library
Laptop + Apple TV+ Portable 1 tb Drive = 400 Movies on the Go
With HandBreak, Apple TV, a 1 TB hard drive and my laptop I have built a movie library that is portable and accessible on my iPhone, iPad or most any TV at home or away. Back in the day I would go down to Blockbuster and stock up on the 5 for $25 sale in order to build my movie collection. Not anymore. One reason is because Blockbuster disappeared but mainly it’s because there are better options for movie fans: Netflix and Redbox. Before Netflix changed their membership options I had the unlimited plan and every DVD I would get in the mail I would burn it into my iTunes library and send the DVD back the same day. With Red Box I rent 3 or 4 new release videos at a time, add them to my library and turn them back in a days time. I don’t make copies for friends. I only use them for my own viewing.
Over time this chunking of movies has added up and today I have about 400 old and new release movies in my library. There are so many I haven’t watched yet that movie night is always full of possibilities. Plus because they can quickly be seen over my mobile tech toys, business trips and plane rides are never without movie options.
If you want to do the same you can use HandBreak to easily build your own movie library. No super geek skills required. Read more…
Online Fundraising: Lessons Learned Along the Road to a Successful Event
Before the Dalai Lama spoke at the recent “Talk for World Peace” in Washington D.C. (see blog post) an introductory speech by Archbishop Desmond Tutu was played for the thousands in attendance. The archbishop spoke about the need to do something and reminded all present that any effort for community mobilization is appreciated and takes needed steps toward change. Read more…
Are You Listening To Your Inner Voice?
Over 20 years ago my mother and I sold nearly everything we had, piled the rest of it into the hatchback of my car and with my infant daughter in the back seat drove from the East Coast towards the West. We had the city of Bakersfield in mind. Bakersfield was my call. My mother had chosen California and told me to pick a city. I decided on Bakersfield because my favorite group at the time (Van Halen), had relocated there when they moved to the U.S. from the Netherlands. Not much more behind the simplicity of my choice. Or so I thought.
Several days later we arrived in California and found Bakersfield to be dry and rough on all edges. It didn’t look like a place we could be happy in. I clearly remember standing just off the highway outside of a phone booth, the hot Santa Anna winds rushing by as my mother and I looked at each other pondering what was next. At the top of the freeway ramp was a sign. The west arrow said Los Angeles. The east arrow said Palm Springs. My mother looked at it, said, “Let’s try Palm Springs,” and got back into the car. We drove to the edge of the town and checked into a weekly inn. When that week was up we were unable to pay more but my mother had convinced the inn owner that she would be finding a job shortly and so he allowed us to stay. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I knew she would find a job. That was just who she was. She did what she needed to do and never cared to pay attention to the so-called abnormality of where she came from, what she was doing at the time or where she might be heading. Read more…
Leaving the US and Leaving Everything Behind
It would be easy to blame Tim Ferriss and his book The Four Hour Work Week for planting the seeds of my desire to leave the US. His writings on mini retirements, where people not of traditional retirement age head off to live months or years in exciting new places before returning back home, could have come from my own daydreams. I have been thinking about it for a long time and planting the seeds in my own life so that if given the okay I would be ready to go.
The complexity of waiting for two people to be ready for such a thing at the same time is nothing new for those in committed relationships where one has a little more wanderlust than the other. It works great for those couples closely paired in that department and I know of a couple or two who are about to head off on their adventure together. Most long-term travelers I follow are single or travel alone with spouses back at home. I never wanted this in my relationship but the itch to disappear is always right at the surface for me. Read more…
Working From Home- 3 Simple Strategies
The other day I was walking through the mall doing something that can be pretty stressful. I was buying clothes to wear to a friends wedding. The wedding was less than 2 days away but I couldn’t bring myself to worry. I knew I would find something. I was completely relaxed, walking slowly with hands in my pockets. A mall maintenance guy noticed me and said, “You’re walking like you don’t have a care in the world.” I said, “I don’t.” “Must be nice,” he replied. “It is,” I said.
It’s true. Now of course my life is not perfect and of course I do worry. But the structure that I have built around my work life allows me to feel pretty darn good about how I make my living. In fact, work is such a small part of my day that I feel like I’m not working at all. How do I do it? I follow 3 simple principles. Not 10. That’s too much to remember. Not 5. I go simpler. Just 3. Start Early. Work Efficiently. Walk Away. Read more…
A Return to Peace of Mind
A couple of weeks after completing a personal goal of running an 8k race, I had a scheduled blood test. Six months earlier my doctor had noted low calcium and my usual iron deficiency. He wanted a re-check down the road before clearing me to resume yearly physicals. Since that time I had been feeling increasingly tired but I had been watching my diet. I believed my lethargy was due to some temporary stress and an elevated workout schedule. I expected the re-check to go well. Not so lucky. I was shocked when told that while my nutrients were now in order, my iron levels dropped even further and reflected a “profound” anemia. I was told to take it easy and scale back any exercise to no more than a weekly walk. I had to dramatically increase iron, B12 and vitamin C intake outside of my diet. Finally, I was to come back in 6 weeks for another test. If things weren’t better I would have to have a blood transfusion. Scary stuff.
Gone Fishing…
Well, kinda. No, I’m not going on a fishing trip other than the trip to try and catch all the deep water goodies in the back of my mind as I work on my book, “Guide to the Road Less Traveled.” I’ve written nearly 160 blog posts in a little over a year and I’ve come to see that the intensity of coming up with ideas and writing good posts can often take away from the hard work of my book. So, I’m going to take a break from posting on the blog site, focus on the book, and post micro-blogs over on my facebook page for Observations from the Road Less Traveled. Plus keep everyone up to date on Twitter. Roll your curser over @spencerhope and you’ll be locked in. Read more…
Writing My Book on an iPad
Sometime long ago, between my grading mounds of papers and the arrival of email as the death of letter writing, I lost my ability to write legible words by hand. Not that I ever had a sweeping, beautiful cursive or print style to begin with, but at some point you could at least figure out what I was saying. It’s been quite a long time since my grocery lists made sense. I know it’s bad when I can’t read what I’ve written. Near humiliation when my partner asks me to dictate my message for family cards out of fear that they will take the scribbling I’ve come to produce as a hostile act.
So when I started to work on my book, I began on my laptop and as many aspiring authors do, used its portability to craft work spaces in corners of my home, in the back yard, and at the random book store or coffee shop. It was when I traveled that things became less simplified. I have an iPad, and I love it. It’s an internet source for all my online activities from teaching to surfing. It holds all my games, and many of my magazines, movies, and books. Sometimes I even use it as a phone with the Skype app. But I’ve never felt that with the onscreen tap keyboard I could really fly with my thoughts from hand to page as quickly as I could with my laptop. So, I would carry them both on trips. Cumbersome proposition. Then I began traveling with my iPad and writing long-hand in a paper journal. That was a headache inducing disaster. Upon returning home I would try to translate my scratch and then type the words I had written. Ugh. Read more…
Fiona Zedde-The Road Less Traveled Leads to “Dangerous Pleasures”
Dangerous Pleasures is the sixth novel from Fiona Zedde. This work will come to mark her transition from exhausted corporate employee who wrote and followed her dream in every spare moment possible, to that of a full time writer completely dedicated to earning a living through her craft. Fiona shared with me, “Though the money was great, the job wasn’t fulfilling any of my other needs so I took a leap of faith. I left that job with a few dollars of savings in the bank and never looked back.
These days, I live simply. I also give talks, workshops, lead discussions at conferences and universities. My first book, Bliss, has been taught in a few graduate programs, so professors have invited me to come and speak to their classes. I also sell books directly to readers, write short stories, do freelance writing, and am building up my client list for ghost-writing. A bit of everything that adds up to doing what I love.”
A joyous transition and leap of faith that perhaps began with a journey down a road less traveled. I’m excited to have Fiona as a guest on the blog to share with us her intimate story of the physical and emotional challenges behind the crafting of Dangerous Pleasures. Read more…
