Entries Tagged 'Choose My Adventure' ↓

What happens when you lose your car keys? Can a lock-smith fashion you a new one? Do you have to get a new ignition thing installed? Today I had a panic attack when I could not find my car keys because I did not want to have to discover the answer to my questions.

I had a feeling I left them at my office so I decided to take a walk in the snow (yay climate change) and retrieve them; I love walking in the snow – it’s very peaceful. I took this opportunity to think about the future of this site (and I found my keys!).

Firstly, I have no intention on giving up the “Choose My Adventure” aspect of my blog. I really like the idea and still strongly believe this has potential to be a fun, interactive, and exciting adventure for all of us.

I have decided to develop this site into a resource for backpacking, adventure, and travel. I want to highlight cool places to go, tips and tricks, fellow adventures… give people a reason to come to this site other than to boss me around and read about my lost car keys, ha ha. Why do I think this is a good idea? Because when I did a search for different backpacking and travel resources, I found many of them very confusing and covered in too much advertising – I questioned their impartiality and validity. I’d like to make a service that I would use myself – and I shall.

Since there were no submissions for adventures this weekend, I am going to send myself on one: do some thorough research and start to pull together resources for this blog. Every time I make a post I plan on incorporating it into a wiki so organized and readily available.

Have a great weekend, and I will see you on Monday. If you have any question, ideas, or feedback, please leave a comment!

If you buy Starbucks coffee every day, this little tip might ends up saving you a lot of money. The irony of this scheme is that no matter how much money you inevitably save, Starbucks will still be laughing all the way to the bank.

1. Ask for a Tall coffee of the day, in a Grande cup ($1.75)
2. Ask for a shot of whatever flavour you like ($0.35)
3. Top up the cup with milk, or ask for cold soy milk ($0.00)

For example: a Grande Mocha costs about $4.00 in Canada.

• Ask for a Tall coffee of the day in a Grande cup ($1.75)
• Four pumps of chocolate ($0.35)
• Fill up the cup the rest of the way with milk ($0.00)

  You pay $2.10!

Try it with vanilla, or pumpkin!

Dear Visitor,

Thank you so much for visiting my website. I honestly and sincerely appreciate your time.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this site and ways to improve it. When I created it, I was really looking forward to the Choose My Adventure aspect of it – excited to do random, fun, and unusual things. Unfortunately, right now it does not seem to be working as well as I had hoped.

Here is what I am going to do about it:

• Make suggesting ideas easier
• Recognize people who suggest ideas
• Collect feedback on ways to improve the site
• Build relationships with other bloggers

I have started to question whether or not the random video blog is a good idea. I really like the idea of using video to document the adventures you send me on, but I am neither Ze Frank, nor Rocketboom. I do not think I should try to re-create what these vlogs already do.

My goal for this site is to create an interactive adventure travel video blog – go where people tell me to, do what they suggest. I hope to meet a community of interested readers who have fun with the site. I also hope for the blog to eventually become a resource for people who are embarking on their own adventures.

I have complete confidence that once August arrives many people will be keen on sending me around to different places. The question I have right now is “what I should do for the six months until then (other than finish university, ha ha)?” I am currently leaning towards researching and becoming an expert on backpacking and adventure travel, blogging about my findings during the week, and doing Choose My Adventure stuff on weekends. People need a reason to come to this site and I am not confident that reading about my life is good enough.

However, what I think is not an island unto itself. Tell me what you think! Your opinion is what really matters. What do you suggest I do? Please email me, or comment on this post. I would really, really appreciate it.

Cheers,

Jeremy David

There’s a blog (problogger.net) that is having a contest for bloggers to reflect on their year and/or make predictions… so that’s why yesterday’s post started with my petit celebration of the future, ha ha. Part of the contest is linking to other blogs that seem interesting, so here are some title’s that have caught my attention. I have to go catch a bus soon, so I may not be able to post all of them. Again, if I cannot update the site until Friday, sorry!

What is my criteria for choosing links? The title. I am a big choose a book by it’s cover kind of guy.

http://www.littlemummy.com/2006/12/19/tiny-dancer-a-year-in-pictures/

http://www.artbybethrobinson.com/journal/2006/12/19/one-hundred-footsteps.html

http://worshippl.us/2006/12/19/preaching-unicycle-broken-ankle-and-swearing/

http://www.spinneyhead.co.uk/2006/12/oh-weather-outside-is-frightful.php

http://fosterparentmaze.blogspot.com/2006/12/hamster-is-back.html

http://www.moneytortoise.com/set-it-forget-it-for-the-future/

http://www.fibromyalgiaexperiment.com/2006/12/18/why-i-won-times-person-of-the-year/

http://fullfigureplus.com/11-reasons-why-2007-will-be-the-year-for-plus-size-fashion/

http://medicalstudy.blogspot.com/2006/12/incursion-into-blogosphere-post-fairy.html

Yesterday was certainly a busy day. It was the Student Society’s “Permanent Staff” Party, so I ate an absurd amount of food – literally nonstop for 3 hours.

Today warranted two posts because the blogging community never ceases to amaze me. I’m always looking for ways to improve this site, so I decided to seek some input from people well versed in the world of blogging. First, I fired off an email to Aidan Henry – an up and coming blog expert and author of one of my favorite blogs: mappingtheweb.com. I have incorporated a lot of what I’ve learned from his posts and our conversations into this site. Thanks Aidan! You’re a star. My site wouldn’t be the same without your hard work, ha ha.

I’d also like to send out huge a thank you to Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch (the 6th most popular blog on the Internet). Who better to seek input from than someone at the top? I sent him a random email and he literally responded within 45 seconds: I was very impressed. We emailed back and forth a bit and I found his insight very, well, insightful:

“Just write about whatever you like. That’s what I did, and it slowly evolved into what techcrunch is today. The key thing to remember is that you are just a node in a community. You have to be a part of the discussion for others to notice you. So I always take a lot of time to read other blogs and link to them when they have something interesting or controversial to say.

What you write about is completely up to you. Just make sure you love it, or else you won’t stick with it.”

And that very well may be what I am missing. I am not participating enough in the blogging community, and that has to change. Starting now, I am going to make a concerted effort build relationships with bloggers, participate with comments and link love, and be more active in the community. Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help.

As one final note, I thought I would highlight another lesson Michael provided me through his emails:

“you are welcome, and thank YOU for reading my blog.”

I am a blog nobody, but he responded to my emails, took time out of his busy schedule to give suggestions to help me become a better blogger, and personally thanked me for visiting and reading his site. Wow. I’m also going to make a concerted effort to be a helpful, friendly, and genuine blog community member.

I have this terrible habit of drunk dialing people when I’m, well, drunk. I heard about this phone that has a built in Breathalyzer that stops you from making calls when intoxicated. I think that might be a wise investment, if it exists. I wish they had an invention like that for MSN.

Last night I went to my staff party. Open bar, buffet… it was pretty sweet. Plus, I listened to 8 Pimsleur lessons this weekend. So thanks a lot for voting for French! I am pretty excited about the whole duel language thing. I have 90 lessons to go through, and tomorrow I’m going to buy a French book from my school’s used book store. I hope to be fairly proficient in 3 months. Je comprends et parle en peu le Francais, mais je ne bien pas.

Today is the last day for voting on the Twelve Holiday Acts of Nondenominational Kindness. There were only 13 suggestions, so the vote is actually for the one that I am not going to fulfill. Tomorrow I have get to start enacting them.

If you were an executive board member on a university’s student society and your slate had a majority on the board, what would you do? Email me with your ideas.

Today you get to choose an interesting adventure for me – what language I am going to learn over the next three months. I’m tired of only being fluent in one, and I somehow came across three complete 90 lesson Pimsleur language courses in Mandarin, French, and Japanese… so make me a better person and help me choose!

• Mandarin has the benefit of being one of the most spoken languages in the world
• Japanese is the language of Anime and Japanese people
• French is the language of my favorite country in the world… and it would be very useful during my trip in Europe.

So yes, choose wisely, as this decision will greatly influence the rest of my life!

It looks like I am going to be writing letters again. I’d like to thank all 8 people who voted, ha ha. And I’d also like to thank people for the new THANK submissions. It’s going to be better holiday for at least 12 people in Victoria this year.

I have a pretty powerful desktop computer – it’s a Pentium 4 3.8 GHz. Dell made a mistake, and offered me a really good deal because of it. I re-priced it on Dell last week and it was worth $1790! Suh weet! Today, however, I found out that they stopped selling P4s… and that really sucks. I hope I can get at least $1100 for it. Considering it was worth nearly 1800 last week, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

I posted it on Craiglist last night, and I already had a random person try to scam me .

** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY — AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

Hello and Good day i saw the advert of this item and i will like to knowif this item is still for sale and also the last price on it and also getback to me and let me know if it is going up for sale.

Hey there!

Yes, the item is for sale – I just put it up last night. It is $1,100.

Did you have any more questions?

Cheers,
Jeremy

Hello thanks for the mail..all you need you will have to send you full name address phone and zipcode so that i can foward you full detail to MoneyGram..and once my payment is approved.i will send the fedex shipping prepaid document that you will use to ship the item.and you will email the shippment tracking number to MoneyGram so that they can verify the tracking number and once the tracking number has been verify..they will get back to you with the refrence number that you will use to recievce your Money…so get back to me with your full detail as soon as possible…..
I decided to offer you $1150 to win the list.
Hope to hear from you soonest.

*Tears* I was really hopeful for a few hours today.

I had another person try to barter with me:

f you might be interested i have a pro dj setup worth over 2000 for trade
two x gemini turntable
two x set’s of needle’s (ortophone scratch and other)
one x numark scratch mixer (optical fader)
two x DOD equalizer’s (not cheap)
200 + record’s (nice library.trance,break’s,scratch,drum n bass)
was about 10 to 20 dollar’s each)
one x geni sha-50d (sparkler style light) need’s bulb=cheap
AND
1 xbox original black (barely played as i have a ps2 and p.c)
4 controller’s and 12 games
nhl 2003
mechassault
grandtheftauto 3
crimson skies
tom clancy’s splinter cell
star wars knights of the republic
star wars clone war’s
grandtheftauto vice city
halo
tetris
silent hill 2

What is with the Internet? Oh well, I’m not exactly in a rush. I just want to sell my computer so I can afford to buy that laptop you voted on.

Twelve Holiday Acts of Nondenominational Kindness
email ideas to thankdays at gmail dot com.
or click here and use this form.

Last night I saw Manufactured Landscapes, and it was a fantastic visual narrative about our world. It wasn’t full of catastrophic end-of-the-world commentary – just pictures and clips of the world we are creating. Movies like this always make me think about how privileged and fortunate I am to live where I do, be in the company of my friends and family, be healthy, and all that other mushy stuff. It also made me really happy that I am trying to use the web to do some good for people this Holiday season. Yay us!

Watching the movie really made me question how I am going to effectively document my travels. Do I want to make videos? Or are pictures more captivating and powerful? Right now I’m thinking that a very good quality digital SLR would be a wise investment because low-quality videos would not be as engaging. Ha ha, and I think the problem with videos is that that they focus too much on me and I’d rather be documenting the trip. Oh well, ultimately the decision will be yours and you can expect to vote on it in the coming weeks.

I take ownership of the car in January, and I still have to dig that hole. Tomorrow when I’m working on my Internet Business final paper I’ll take a break, and find somewhere to dig.