Audiobooks!

I LOVE the idea of audiobooks. I love to learn new things, but reading books takes time and concentration. After a long day, my eyes don't have the ability to stay focused and read for hours. Audiobooks to the rescue.

There are a lot of other great uses for audiobooks. Driving, especially in traffic, is possibly the biggest time waster. Although I have seen it done, you shouldn't be reading while driving. Audiobooks are perfect! Another great benefit is that they make the time pass VERY quickly. Since you are busy listening to the CD, you don't get as stressed out and angry at traffic. It's perfect!

Audiobooks aren't cheap. Because of the extra work involved in making them, an average books costs anywhere from $20 to $100. The best alternative? Audible.com monthly subscription. You pay $14.95 a month and get one book and one periodical (magazine, newspaper, radio, etc.) per month. So you could get the $70 civil war audiobooks plus the $13 daily Wall Street Journal for the same $14.95! They have a premium service as well that offers 2 books per month instead of one. I just got a MyFi as a birthday gift, but since I already get my XM radio fix in my car (mostly listening to Opie and Anthony), I plan on returning it and getting a year's subscription to Audible.com. Heck, they'll even throw in a free Apple iPod Shuffle if you sign up for a full year!

Another great thing is that you will at least learn something new each month. Since you already have the subscription, you will end up listening to books you wouldn't ordinarily buy.

Another option is to listen to Podcasts and free audiobooks. Now, these aren't going to be as professionally read or as well planned out, but it's a great way to get into the scene of learning by listening without having to spend any money. Check out LearnOutLoud.com and hear what all the fuss is about.

Check out the Audible.com website and tell me what you guys think.

Skydiving vs Driving

A lot of people have... "complained," to say the least, about the statistics in my AIM profile:

There are 110 fatal car accidents every day in the United States.
Each year 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States

The biggest comment being that there are more people driving than skydiving, so that voids the statistics. Not really.

Each year, roughly 3 million jumps are made. During the same year, roughly 30 people die from skydiving. The cause is usually due to an attempt to do a rapid landing and misjudging how high you are. If you want to know what these landings are like, go to Skydive Elsinore and just watch. It is FREAKY! This isn't something I'd be willing to do for a long time. Nonetheless, 30 people out of 3 million jumps die each year. That is 1 in 100,000.

Each year, 40,000 people die in auto related accidents. That equates to a 1 in 6,000 chance of dying if you drive 10,000 miles a year. Since I drive closer to 30,000 miles per year, my chances are 1 in 2,000 of a car related accident, MUCH higher than if I were skydiving.

I will agree to this though: Driving is a (mostly) necessary risk. Skydiving is not. In addition, you have to drive to the drop zone, so you are adding the risk of skydiving to your already risky business of driving.

The point I'm trying to make isn't that skydiving is safer than driving and so everyone should do it. It's that skydiving isn't as dangerous as people make it seem. With relatively few fatalities per year, each one gets a lot of media attention, whereas car accidents are as common as papercuts.

Throwing yourself out of a plane and falling to the earth at 120MPH is never going to be 100% safe. But it's not as dangerous as people make it seem.

Starting December!

Hi to the few who remain to read this. I have been a HORRIBLE host. I know. Writing an entry once or twice a month is not acceptable. Starting December, I will make every effort to write at least 5 times a week. Why December? I'm glad you asked!

Starting December, I will start working on a contract basis with Vigen again. Having worked with him for almost a year on a day-to-day basis, I feel like the only way to make an progress on the management company is to go back to a contract basis until he is ready to start.

Starting December 12, I will also be taking insurance classes so that I can become a Farmers or State Farm insurance agent. We send out insurance proposal requests about 10 times a day to 3 agents we work with. Why not do it ourselves and profit from our good connections?

Over the last year, I've had quite an experience. There is a lot I've learned, and I will start writing about my experiences as I free up more time.

Of course, there are a lot of non-work related things I'd like to do as well, such as exercising again and getting out of debt. Since I am expecting a major life change within a year and a half (having something to do with the woman I love :-X) I need to get my life in order!

On another note, I've been reading the very popular Getting Things Done by David Allen. He's got a lot of great ideas about how to manage time. One of the best stress reducers he mentions, which I had actually been doing for a while now, is writing down everything on your mind at the moment. It is pretty much a To-Do list you write, but with no order or timeline. Mine ranges from something I need to do tomorrow at work to learning how to fly an airplane. Whatever is on your mind, write it down. For me, it relieves stress instantly! Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes!

Oh, on another note, you will now see some Google advertising on my page. I'm sorry if this annoys some of you, but I am going cold turkey on spending so that I can get out of debt. Any side income can pay for things I am always dying to have, such as more books! In another post, I'll discuss Audiobooks and why I feel like they are to books what forks are to chopsticks.

That's it for now, please post comments with any suggestions on blog topics, debt reduction (no spam about lowering mortgages and increasing penis size please), and anything else that is on your mind.

Last Day of Being 20

These are the last 2 hours before I turn the big 21. I have never been as excited about my birthday as I am right now!!! AHHHHHHH!!!

Anyways, yesterday my sweetie and I celebrated my birthday. Can you say "BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT EVER"? Can you? Thanks to her, I flew a plane!!!





It was also my nephew's christianing on Saturday. I was the Godfather, and Araks was the Godmother. He's so damn cute!! Pictures coming soon, no digitals yet.

I've been waiting to be 21 for so long that, now that it's here, it doesn't feel like it's here. It feels like the final frontier to crossing over into adulthood (except Hertz, still can't rent a car from those assholes until I'm 25).

That's it for now, stayed tuned!

Saw II Review

Emin and I just saw Saw II and... oh what a movie it is. Unlike other gory films, this one has a very good plot and is very well thought out. The ending is truly surprising. I found myself having to look away a few times since often the movie don't leave much to the imagination. Tobin Bell plays his role beautifully and the movie isn't bogged down by too many explanations (unlike Final Destination 2).

In summary, it's a very good movie if you want to be disgusted to hell. Who doesn't want that, right?

Hello, Michael. I want to play a game. So far, in what mostly could be called your life, you have made a living watching others. Society would call you an informant. A rat. A snitch. I call you unworthy of the body you possess. Of the life you've been given. Now we will see if you are willing to look inward, rather than outward, to give up the one thing you rely on in order to go on living.

The device around your neck is a death mask. The mask is on a string timer. If you do not locate the key in time, the mask will close. Think of it like a Venus Flytrap. What you're looking at right now is your own body, not more than two hours ago. Don't worry, you're sound asleep, and can't feel a thing. Taking into account that you are at a great disadvantage here, I am going to give you a hint as to where I have hidden the key. So listen carefully. The hint is this: It's right in front of your eye. How much blood would you shed to stay alive, Michael?

Live or die... Make your choice.

A Time For Change

Sometimes you come to a crossroad in your life and it becomes time to make an important decision. Too often, people don't know when to cut their losses. People are in unhappy relationships and unhappy jobs. They don't make any changes because they have become too comfortable with the situation. They fear change and the uncertainty isn't worth it to them. I'm lucky enough to have found the perfect woman. It was no easy task. But there are other aspects of my life that need to be reconsidered.

As Mark Slouka states in his beautifully written essay "Quitting The Paint Factory":

The business of business is everywhere and inescapable; the song of the buyers and the sellers never stops; the term "workaholic" has been folded up and put away. We have no time for our friends or our families, no time to think or to make a meal. We're moving product, while the soul drowns like a cat in a well.


Close your eyes and make a change. Rarely do people look back and regret what they did, but almost everyone can say that they have regretted something they didn't do.