My Life, My Times, Our Journey

Need A Virtual Assistant? Get The Advantage!

jason — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:57:58 +0000

I have read Tim Ferris’ “The 4-hour Work Week” and picked up some useful information from it. Part of what he preaches is outsourcing personal work to a Virtual Assistant to help get things done. Recently I’ve contacted an awesome Virtual Assistant here in Omaha and it’s been fantastic. The knowledge of my VA has been stellar and a huge asset to some of the projects I’m undertaken.

Now, why did I chose someone from Omaha instead of the multitude of VAs out on the internet? Simple, I had spoken to this person before over Twitter before I even knew she was VA. i could have used someone else but I wanted to work with a local person in the event I needed to meet more face-to-face. That’s really the only reason; a VA can help you out even if they live a world away.

If you have things you need managed and can afford it, I highly recommend Advantage Virtual Assistant.

Jason

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NETWAR 16.0 November 7th and 8th

jason — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:12:22 +0000

Publicizing this for the masses.

NETWAR 16.0 IS THIS WEEKEND!!!

–Event Details–

NETWAR 16.0 will take place at The Digz Sports Arena in Omaha, Nebraska on Friday November 7th, 2008 starting at 7:00pm and going all day and night for 26 hours straight, ending on Saturday November 8th at 9:00pm.

PLEASE DO NOT COME EARLY! The event doors open at 7:00pm on Friday, no exceptions!!

You may arrive at anytime during the event and leave whenever you wish.

A large selection of food will be available for purchase from the kitchen for the entire event. Pepsi and Coke products, including Mt. Dew, will be available for purchase at the event.

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BRING FOOD OR DRINK INTO THE VENUE. I cannot stress this enough, this is not our rule. The venue staff will evict you from the premises for breaking this rule. You are welcomed to leave and grab food and drink from somewhere else, just don’t bring it back inside with you.

–Registration–

If you have registered and you find out that you are not going to be able to make it to the event, PLEASE UNREGISTER on the web site!

If you have not yet signed up for NETWAR 16.0, IT IS NOT TOO LATE! DO IT NOW!

For directions to the event, please visit the event details page and click on directions.

Registration for NETWAR 17.0 is now open! The event will take place April 10-11th, 2009 at The Digz. You can register for the next event by clicking on Upcoming Events on the web site.

–Waiver–

If you have not signed a NETWAR waiver before you will need to. Please visit our site, print it off, sign it, and bring it with you to the event. If you are under the age of 18, please print the waiver and have your parents/guardian sign it and then bring that waiver with you to the event.

— Loading / Unloading Computer At The Event—

Please park in the large south parking lot. When you are loading/unloading your computer you may park next to the door. After you have completed unloading, please MOVE YOUR CAR!! to a spot farther away so that other attendees can have an easy time getting their computers in/out just like you did.

Please use the southwest doors to enter the building, they will be marked. PLEASE WATCH YOUR STEP!! THE ENTRANCE HAS A STEP at the door that you MAY NOT SEE when carrying your computer!

When you get to the event, you may come right inside and bring in your computer and put it where you want to sit. Sometime soon come to the registration table and get yourself checked in and paid ($20 if registered on the web site). We will enter you into the raffle drawing and give you a lanyard. The lanyard must be worn at all times. This proves that you have paid the entry fee.

Here is a list of items you will need to bring to our LAN party:

1. Computer Tower (or notebook computer)
2. Monitor
3. Category 5 Network Cable (15 Feet or Longer)
4. Power cable for monitor
5. Power cable for computer
6. 6 Outlet Power Strip
7. Headset
8. Keyboard
9. Mouse
10. Mouse Pad
11. Software (Games of course!)
13. Optional: Your favorite desk chair
14. Optional: Sleeping bag and pillow if you need to sleep.

System Check List Before Attending:

1. Scan your computer for Viruses with Trendmicro Housecall or other software before attending! We don’t want what you might have on our network.
http://housecall.trendmicro.com

2. Scan computer for Malware with Ad-Aware and/or Spybot-S&D before attending!
Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoftusa.com
Spybot-S&D - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

3. All windows updates installed. (Important! If you do not want to catch a virus at the event)
4. Anti-Virus software installed and updated.
5. Installed all games you wish to play.
6. Patched all games you installed to their latest version

–Tournaments–

Instead of doing Double or Single elimination tournaments we will be using the Swiss Round Robin System for all of the tournaments. The Swiss tournament system has NO ELMINIATION, it will allow all participants/teams to be able to play in every tournament round of the tournament no matter how good or bad you are doing.

For more information about Swiss Round Tournament go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_system_tournament

Tournament Games:
Call of Duty 4 - 5 vs. 5
Counter-Strike: Source - 5 vs. 5
Team Fortress 2 – 6 vs. 6
Guitar Hero World Tour

Please be aware that tournament participation is completely OPTIONAL, you can choose which tournaments you want to play in or you can choose not to play in any tournaments. We cater for both the competitive gamer and the hobbyist gamer who just enjoys playing his favorite games with many other gamers just for fun while winning big door prizes. With so many gamers at the event you will easily be able to find someone else who enjoys playing the games you do.

If you wish to participate in tournaments while at the event but you are not part of any team, you can easily join a PUG (Pick-Up Game) team or join a shorthanded team. We will help you with this during registration for the tournament at the event.

— Suggested Game Period —

This will be a period of time listed on the schedule where we select one game and urge everyone to play this game on the many game servers that we will have running during that time. The purpose of this is to get as many players at the event playing the same game at the same time. It is not required that you play the suggested game, as the name states, it is only suggested. This is not a tournament; you can join and quit the game at any time.

–Prizes–

To make the prize distribution fair and make the tournament atmosphere less tense, we have decided to shift all prizes to raffle only. This will allow anyone to win something no matter what skill level you have as well as bring the fun back into the tournaments. Tournament winners will be awarded with a trophy, some prize or swag and bragging rights. Then you can win large prizes in the raffle.

— Sponsors —

This is a list of sponsors supporting NETWAR, for a list of what they are donating please visit the event details section of our web site. We are excited at the amount of prizes we will be giving away for this event. You would have to be crazy not to attend!

Cox Communications
FSP Group
D-Link
Computer Power User
Computer Geeks
University of Nebraska at Omaha - IS&T
TRENDnet
UGO Game News

For more information about sponsors, prizes, tournaments, directions to the venue, and the schedule for the event please visit our website, click on event details. While you are there you can get yourself registered.

Feel free to sign in to our forums to post about tournaments, teams, upcoming game releases, and pretty much anything else that sparks your interest. Don’t forget about our IRC channel and Ventrilo server as well.

Web Site: http://www.netwar.org

Jason

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Fallout 3

jason — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:41:06 +0000

Fallout 3 is growing on me. I can feel hours of my life starting to slip away…

Jason

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Stop Drinking Soda

jason — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:02:56 +0000

I’ve decided, once again, to cut soda out of my life. Some people have nicotine as a vice, I happen to have a love hate relationship with our friend, the caffeinated beverage. This is probably the third time I’ve attempted to intake less ascorbic acid and fructose corn syrup. I quit at the millennium for almost two years, picked it up again and then quit again in the early 00’s. Now, once more, I am sick of drinking it.

As a corollary, that means I am also cutting out caffeine. Now, I’m a realist and I can’t go cold turkey on caffeine. Several years ago I got to enjoy caffeine withdrawals and it was horrible. I’m not going to do that again so I decided that I WILL be drinking coffee as a substitute. Anyone who knows my coffee habit knows that it’s only something I drink in the mornings and no more than a cup or two. I think that’s fair.

I am going to keep a journal, hopefully, about how I feel as I cut this out over the next 30 days so that anyone who wants to know how to cut caffeine can read what I did and how I felt from day to day. I’ll start posting these tomorrow. These will be a couple of days off until I post everything all at once.

Jason

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Let’s Talk About The Weather

jason — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:14:00 +0000

We all know that Omaha is north, but not quite the Great White North. Of all of my siblings I live the furthest north, barring my sister who lives in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. A location, in my opinion, not really fit for humans to inhabit. Way too close to Canada.

Anyways, it’s almost the end of October and the weather sucks. It’s been cold and rainy for the last few days and it’s going to warm up into the mid 50’s and then drop again.

Where the hell did the spring go? It was cold until almost June. The summer rarely saw the 90’s and it started to cool off in the beginning of October. Are there two seasons or are there four?

I swear I need to move back to a more tropical climate. Especially as I look outside at the cold rain falling right now.

Blerg.

Jason

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The Economy Crisis

jason — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:07:28 +0000

My thoughts are simple on the latest Economy Crisis.

I mean, it’s a complex situation. I’m not an economist but, like every other average Joe, I know that this impacts me. There’s a few different truths about the economy that we all need to keep in mind that are universal (but still opinionated).

So let’s do some further digging on what is going on.

The economy crisis is really hitting home, no pun intended, on millions of people. The housing markets are troubled and homeowners are defaulting about as often as many of us change our underwear.

My Economy Crisis Truths:

The World Economy Runs On Credit
Money has no real value other than what we give it
Spend More
Save what you are not spending in a well-established institution

I’m not an economist so I’m not going to delve too deep into what we have all read online and seen on TV. Debt makes the world go round. The current crisis has developed because we LEND more than we can AFFORD.

Example: The Central Back (Federal Reserve) regulates the interest rate in which banks lend to each other. So Bank A lends Bank B a sum of money at 1.5% interest. You go for a loan or mortgage, which the government made easier back in the 1990’s, and get a decent rate of 5%. Bank B now makes 3.5% interest on your mortgage.

So now Bank B owes Bank A a debt. Sure, Bank B is making money but, like you, they owe a debt to someone else.

Now comes the tricky part. To get your mortgage rate you locked in at 5% for only three years to get on your feet. After three years it jumps to 9%. You were betting you’d get that job or promotion or married and someone would be there to help.

But it never happened.

Your mortgage just jumped up another four percent. Bank B is going to make some serious cash on your house over the next 10, 15, or 30 years. New problem, you can’t afford it so you default on it. The bank now has to foreclose your mortgage and try to sell it because they still owe Bank A.

Money is all numbers these days. No one has gold to back it. Banks have been lending at a 1:30 ratio. For every dollar they could back they lent 30. If gold backed the dollar like everyone thinks this wouldn’t have happened. Look up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those are the TWO largest institutions that back 90% of all mortgages. Why do you think the government bailed them out first? The US economy literally banks on housing. There’s a finite amount of real estate.

None of this money exists, that’s why markets rise and fall, interest rates change, etc. It’s all in ‘the system’ and is part of why your credit is important. Not everyone has the ability to save up huge sums of cash to purchase so we have to lend. Debt is backed by more debt. It’s a great pyramid scheme. If one or two people at the bottom can’t pay it evens out. If millions don’t pay that’s a different story.

What are MY personal concerns for my fellow Americans in this economy crisis? Simply put, unemployment. Unemployment rates have jumped over the last quarter. Some states are running out of money to continue to pay unemployment.

Oddly enough, oil is down to $83 a barrel and under $3.00/gal for gasoline for the first time in almost a year. I guess we need to count our blessings.

Jason

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The Denver Bronco’s in 2008

jason — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:43:22 +0000

I haven’t started writing my thoughts on each and every Bronco’s game this year (yet) so I’m going to start by mashing the first three games together with my thoughts.

September 8th, 2008 - Denver Broncos vs Oakland Raiders

The Broncos obliterated the Raiders with an awesome passing game by Jay Cutler. Not only was Cutler throwing bullets through the air, but Selvin Young ran the ball unchallenged by the Raiders’ defense. The Bronco’s out-scored the Raiders in three of the four quarters until each team scored two touch downs in the fourth.
Final tally: Broncos 41, Raiders 14

September 14th, 2008 - Denver Broncos vs San Diego Chargers

This game was definitely not a shining example of Jay Cutler’s skill. He threw several interceptions, the sheer volume of turnovers was ridiculous. The Bronco’s controlled the ball well for the first half of the game and then ran out of steam in the 3rd quarter. After a bad call by the ref’s on a fumble by Cutler, Denver kept the ball and threw it in for a touchdown, ultimately pulling off the two-point conversion and winning the game in the final minutes.
Final tally: Broncos 39, Chargers 38

September 21st, 2008 - Denver Broncos vs New Orleans Saints

I’ve got nothing good to say about this game. It shouldn’t have been as close as it was. The Broncos fired on all six cylinders for the first quarter and then traded in their ride for a Pinto. They squeaked by the final three quarters to win.
Final tally: Broncos 34, Saints 32

Overall the Bronco’s are coming out very strong this year. They have a great passing game and Selvid Young is tearing up the turf as their RB. He’s practically unstoppable and has quick feet. Cutler is connecting with the receivers and doing a good job of keeping an eye on the field and his feet moving. I’m hoping that they can continue with their momentum and have a great season.

Jason

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My Anathem Review

jason — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:07:07 +0000

I’m a big fan of Neal Stephenson, author of The Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon and other assorted books. A few weeks ago I picked up Anathem at the store the day it was officially released. His previous books have been rich in story, diverse in character, and a blast to read. Anathem does not disappoint.

The events in Anathem take place on the planet Abre, an Earth-like world that has seen its’ ups and downs. Science and logic rule in the ‘maths,’ which, on the surface, are the ultimate university in which individuals are chosen to serve and live there for possibly their entire lives, separated from society and cloistered together to pursue science at a theoretical academic level. They are not allowed to use any ‘praxics’ or technology, even as the world becomes more advanced around them.

The story is focused around ‘Fraa’ Erasmus, a man who has been in the Math of Saint Edhar for ten years after being selected as child. Erasmus is an average scholar who gets swept up into a whirlwind adventure that never happens to these secluded academics.

Without warning, Erasmus and several of his friends are ripped from their sheltered and secluded society, one that is required to avoid technology, to take part in an effort to save their world. With only his three belongings, basically the clothes on his back, he sets off across Abre to find his mentor and to find a way to save his planet.

This book is not for the faint of heart, it’s over 850 pages long with a great emphasis on thinking about the mysteries of the universe. Not only do the main characters struggle with these, Neal throws in plenty of diagrams and mathematical proofs in an appendix. Similar to Cryptonomicon in this regard.

Another warning, this book starts out almost agonizingly slow, but the pace picks up. There is plenty of back story to pick up in the first quarter of the book that builds up after the first 200 or so pages.

I really liked how the book balanced science versus religion. Religion is such a nasty topic these days and Stephenson really brought it to the forefront comparing the pursuit of science as a pseudo-religion. He proved neither wrong and neither right, but he does tell an enthralling story that marries the two together.

The book is only in hardback so you’ll have to spend around $15-$25 to pick it up at the store. I do recommend it, even if you wait for paperback.

Jason

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Summer 2008 So Far

jason — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:19:35 +0000

Last Saturday I drove down to Oklahoma City to pick up Emma. The drive down was smooth and I spent most of the southerly drive listening to “Execution: The Discipline Of Getting Things Done” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. Not gonna lie, if you’re not interested in business and learning how to execute your visions the book is a snoozer to listen to.

Anyways…Got to OKC around 3:00 PM and her mom showed up around 3:30 PM. Four minutes later we’re flying back north dodging thunderstorms. We jammed to the radio and the iPod and caught up.

It’s amazing how much her grammar and language has improved in just three months. She can really carry a conversation and we spent the whole drive talking about everything she’s been up to.

Northern Kansas got interesting as the storms got closer but we were able to duck most of them (Thanks, Corey and Dave, for the weather updates). Driving east from York I was able to watch the lightning flicker and flash in my rear view mirror as we headed towards Lincoln and then on home.

The week has been wild so far. Unfortunately on Sunday evening my car tanked. With lack of time, I was able to borrow a car from a friend while I repair the FreeCar(tm). Today I had time to replace the fuel filter and Saturday I’m going to replace the fuel pump when I have the morning to take care of it (and I don’t have to work).

Battling a sinus infection that appears to be on its way out the door. Today is the first day I’ve been able to breath without having a Kleenex attached to my face. After a week it’s a huge improvement.

Haven’t had a chance to do much dancing the last few weeks. I’m missing my Cha-Cha time. Dancing is such great stress relief for me and normally Thursdays are Salsa night at Rednecks–I just have to get organized babysitting so I can go next week.

Hopefully things will work out. Emma needs pool time and a trip to the zoo. Considering a trip to Oceans of Fun in a few weeks. We went and saw “Kung Fu Panda” last night which was a total blast. The summer is just starting and, if a bit rocky, it’s full of promise.

Jason

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Debt Consolidation Book

jason — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:18:09 +0000

Hey everyone, this is Garry Conn here and you have probably heard the news that John Cow and I are going head to head in a make money online competition to see who can build a blog and sell it for the most money in SitePoint after 30 days. I just unveiled my niche blog titled, Debt Consolidation Book and I want to briefly tell you about the blog and how you can win some really amazing prizes by contributing and telling people about it.

Debt Consolidation Book is a web site where you can read articles written by people who provide their opinions and tips on how to get out of debt. Additionally, you can get 13 high quality debt consolidation books for free. These 13 free debt consolidation books will teach you some amazing debt consolidation, debt elimination and debt reduction strategies. Many people have all kinds of debts and one of the most common is credit card debt. Debt Consolidation Book is geared towards helping people who have credit card debt as well as most all forms of debt.

In this competition against John Cow, you have a huge opportunity to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm. This is an educational make money online study course worth over $520 dollars.

How Do I Win Secret Classroom

Winning Joel Comm’s Secret Classroom worth over $520 dollars is very simple. As you probably already know, I am not a very complicated individual. When I run contests, participating in them are very easy to do and take very little amount of your time. Your time is one of many things I respect and I don’t want to take up a lot of it. It will literally take you all of five minutes to participate in the contest. Simple, quick and easy.

If you would like to have a chance to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm here is what you need to do. It’s very simple.

Download a copy of this article that you are reading here and then publish it on your blog. This is a Zip File. Simply extract it and copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post.
Join the Debt Consolidation Book mailing list and score your free copies of the 13 free eBooks! You will get over 275 pages of high quality material for free!
Subscribe to the Debt Consolidation Book RSS Feed by Email.
Drop a comment on this post to let me know that you have entered the contest by doing the above three steps.

Optionally, I would really appreciate it if I could get some votes:

Click Here to vote on Digg.com.
Click Here to add to StumbleUpon.
Click Here to add to your Google Bookmarks.
Click Here to add to your Technorati Faves.
Click Here to add to FaceBook.
Click Here to add to Del.icio.us.
Click Here to add to your Yahoo Bookmarks.
Click Here to add to Propeller.
Click Here to add to Mixx.

Remember the first four steps above are not optional and you have to complete step four by dropping a comment on my post which will let me know that you have officially entered the contest to win Secret Classroom. The second steps 1 thru 9 are totally optional but will literally take you less than a minute to complete.

Join My Make Money Online Newsletter

I invite you to join my make money online mailing list and you’ll receive a free copy of the AFFAdMax WordPress theme. This is the same high quality and professionally designed WordPress theme I designed from scratch that I am using on Debt Consolidation Book! You’ll be the first to score a copy as soon as I release it in the next week or two.

Good Luck Winning Joel Comm’s Secret Classroom

Good luck with winning Secret Classroom. I will be assigning each participant in the contest a number and on Monday June 2nd, I will use Randomizer to generate the winning number. It’s a very simple random draw contest that could potentially win you a prize worth over $520 dollars. Also be sure to join my free make money online classroom so that you can learn more about how to make money online and stay in the loop with future events in the competition against John Cow.

Jason

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