Stortz Tool Employee
I could use some help on what my family thinks I do. I honestly just got lazy.
20
May, 2016
20
May, 2016
Get Paid
A tremendous scene to start off this post. One trend I’ve noticed recently is people not getting enough money for what they perceive is a fair asking price. Since I’ve been in a business of wheeling and dealing on a daily basis, I see a lot of transactions. There is an urge to want to sell an item or service for the lowest (and presumably fairest) price but this is usually not the smartest way to go. Some examples:
A girl, who is friends with Jeff, takes care of people’s dogs as a side business when they go on vacation. The transaction is brokered by a website and she collects $30 dollars a day for watching a person’s dog. I assume her reputation is pristine and has developed a fine rating from the site. My thought is that 30 bucks is hardly compensation for having a dog invade your daily life. Me, not being a dog owner, probably looks at this as a bigger deal than it is but I’d want $50 bucks a day min to walk a dog and clean up after it if accidents occur. Even that seems generous to me.
My main man Wayne asked me to sell his dining room set on Ebay. Being a nice guy, I said I would. He wanted to sell a 5 piece set that included a china closet, a server, custom table pads, and some chairs for $580. I don’t know shit about furniture but I know it’s big and probably costs a lot. In my own mind, and going by this idea that the blog is about, I put it up there for $690. Anyone want to buy it?
I needed to order more Stortz T-shirts so I called up Custom Ink and said I’m looking to buy 60 shirts but I can’t pay $12.45 each, let me know what you can do. She came back and said we can lower the price by $50. I said, “thank you.” What she didn’t know, is that I most certainly could pay $12.45 each but I didn’t want to. If she stood pat, most likely I would have bought them anyway, thus proving my point.
Money is relative. To someone who has negative money, any positive dollar amount is a lot of money. To someone who has a million dollars, they spend hundreds of dollars like people spend 1 dollar. Everyone has their own perception but what I’ve learned is that price is only half the battle. People care more about getting the correct product or having it done right and are willing to pay more for it. Now don’t forget this when you go into your next transaction involving money. Straight Cash Homey!
19
May, 2016
Being a Tard With Your Phone
This post could probably go on for an eternity but I’ll pick a few that I find more annoying than most.
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Kill me.
Recording live concerts or events – I have no problem if you want to take a picture to remind yourself of being at a certain event. I don’t even care if you take a 10 second clip of the action surrounding you. However, what is the point of recording minutes of footage of where you are? Are you planning on going back and re-watching the shitty footage you took? You know who I’m talking about too. The person who holds their phone up real high over their heads to get a shot that no one wants to see so they can show their friends how cool they are. The process of photographing and taking video footage needs moderation.
Sharing Food on Instagram – Nobody cares what you eat. They aren’t there to try it with you. What is the point of showing what you’re eating? Normally people won’t share poor people food (this could be a billion dollar idea) so it’s only for people who are pretentious and eating a high end meal and want to show off. Pathetic. Sharing alcohol is always ok. The bigger, the better.
Playing Games Instead of Interacting – I’ve become way more lenient with people using their cell phones at functions like dinners or events but I draw the line at game playing. Not only is game playing rude when in company, it’s lame as can be. I’ve played Candy Crush. You are literally spending time in one of the lowest forms of entertainment possible. There was a guy who I bowled with who played some baseball or NASCAR game instead of paying attention.
Text Driving – An obvious problem that has to be the leading cause of accidents. It’s impossible to text on your phone and be alert when you’re driving. Rear ending other cars has to have spiked 1,000%. Talking on the phone is way better than texting and driving. Youtube watching has to be right up there. Not a good look.
Would it kill a guy for a Gourlay comment? Are you still alive?
18
May, 2016
Hard Work is the Key to Life
Do you think you’ll ever retire?
I don’t know what that is. There’s always some way to serve. And I never felt like I had a job. – Prince
Some people are born with talent and other’s work for it. On an interview with Howard Stern, Steve Martin explained how he isn’t naturally funny and it was hard work that vaulted him to stardom. Tweaking each piece of his act until it was perfect was his motive. I read similar thoughts from Prince in an article for Rolling Stone.
“The Kid” in Purple Rain
Prince had to be reminded to eat. He’d rather not interrupt his work than eat. This is the devotion you have to have to your craft in order to rise to the highest levels. It’s the same story over and over again. Grow up with some struggle with your family, fall in love with whatever it is you were born to do, don’t stop doing it until you are the best. Literally spend every second of every day performing your craft. How hard can it be?
Unfortunately not many people are given the opportunity to do this. Life gets in the way. The large majority of us may be moderately talented but not ungodly gifted. So it is possible for us moderately talented people to achieve next level status we just have to stop eating.
Put those advertising dollars to work.
There’s this other little problem that’s called work. I love when people say, “I love my job. It hardly feels like work because it’s what I love to do.” Most of us don’t feel that way. I like that my job gives me the flexibility of a non-corporate environment but I’d rather spend my time Photoshopping ridiculous pictures onto celebrities and writing about news stories. All I’d have to do is take a few writing classes and blog incessantly. I bet I could get more readers than I have currently.
Is there any point to this post. Not really except that it’s the same idea for success. Work hard. Give your entire being to your work. It’ll take months, years, or decades, but eventually you’ll see the fruits of your labor as long as you aren’t a pussy and understand what work is. Most don’t.
17
May, 2016
17
May, 2016
The People-less World
2 examples from this weekend that show that activities are better when it’s just your group, and no one else around.
On Friday, the forecast called for rain and I was looking to play golf with Bud and Chris. We arrived at the course and the employee said he was expecting heavy showers shortly and didn’t think it was a great idea to play. We decided to give it a try considering we drove an hour to get there. The rain was on and off for the first 6 holes and then stopped completely. We had the entire course to ourselves for the final 12 holes and it was a golf dream come true. No waiting. Perfect pace of play. No distractions. We walked the course in 3 hours. You can’t ask for a better round of golf.
On Saturday, I bowled with Sam and Jordan. Any experienced person working the register staggers the lanes when it’s not that crowded. We were one of the first people there and they put us on 11. In the next 15 minutes, the cashier put groups on 16, 15, 14, 13, and 12 leaving the middle lanes completely open. Instead of bowling next to Liu Kang and his 2 little ninja’s, we asked to move lanes and bowled with no one else around until we were just about finished. Bowling can be fine when you are surrounded by people who enjoy improving but can suck when you have little tykes using the Stegosaurus and bumpers.
Both examples point out how it’s better to be doing activities when it isn’t crowded. Aside from a bar, and even this has to have an ideal number, more people equals less fun. More waiting. More time wasted. More chance of idiots.
This leads me to the next topic which is going to be driver-less cars using the GPS to take you from A to B. No more Uber where you have an insane driver who is blasting music and going 100 mph. Based off of previous experiences, I won’t be against not having to deal with a person taking me places. As I mentioned, dealing with people you don’t want to is not one of the joys of life. This will be my future mantra, the less people = the more fun.
13
May, 2016
Finally Out of the Winter Funk
Picture from this morning.
It’s 6:51am and I’ve been up since 5:06. I went to sleep at 11pm after watching the Spurs make efforts to come back but OKC kept finding momentum killers. I haven’t had a drink (I had a beer at dinner) since Monday and am firing on all cylinders this Friday. I went for a 40 minute run this morning because I wasn’t going to be able to do so this afternoon. I’m golfing with the Schmidt’s this afternoon which is an event I always look forward to. I’m hoping it doesn’t rain. I also will be purchasing a new driver in the near term which adds excitement to golf.
Now that the weather is starting to warm up, I’m feeling like I can back in the groove of productive living. I started my Photoshop studying so you can expect more contest posts as I experiment with filters and adjustments. I know I made the last one too easy if Mark got it. I also started reading again which I haven’t been doing. I seem to switch through phases of TV and movie watching vs. reading. The reading is much more thought provoking but the movie watching is much easier. Obviously I tend to feel better about myself during the reading phase. On one more side note, I watched Commando for the first time. I couldn’t possibly maintain a blog without mentioning this scene.
I need you to shoot a 59.
This weekend should be pretty fun too with the Players going on and my need for Henrik “King Crab” Stenson to not get cut. I also have a golf outing early Sunday morning which gives me a perfect reason for not getting hammer drunk on Saturday. I expect to throw some bowling in there as well. Since I got a fresh haircut yesterday, it’s the start of a new season. I ended up with Gerry, even though I prefer Nick, but never seem to get him because I the other guys always look at me hoping I’ll choose them whereas Nick doesn’t give a fuck. Aside from that, all is good and I’ll try to get a Saturday post in.
11
May, 2016
Game of Thrones Contest
Name the Character
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4.
5.
11
May, 2016
Setting a Standard
After reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, I developed a better understanding of quality. Quality is how good or bad something is. In life, you should always be striving for the best quality of any and everything.
Self
I chose the Arnold featured image because it speaks to exactly what it means by achieving the greatest quality body. Your body is your vehicle through this life. Those that don’t maintain it immediately speak to their value system. We all aren’t going to be Arnold but setting a high standard for yourself and your body is as good a place as any to start.
User Comments
One thing I’ve seen going to the gym, is you never see people laughing or making jokes on your expense, for lets say, not lifting enough or not doing the exercises perfectly. This is because all those people that look great now and lift 100kg, they had to work hard to get there and know how it feels to be a newcomer.
This might seem shallow, but this is exactly the reason why I (and probably many others) don’t find overweight women attractive. No one wants to be fat, if you are that tells me that either you don’t care about your own well-being enough to work out, or you do care but are too lazy to work for a change. Either way I value personal health and work ethic too much to be in a relationship with someone that doesn’t. (And let’s face it, being obese isn’t attractive either)
# of Views
Depending on how many views or comments content gets speaks to the quality of the subject. If I write a post that generates 0 comments, I can be fairly certain that I didn’t do a very good job. Videos on YouTube that get millions of views aren’t randomly getting these views. There is a compelling factor to these videos which is driving said traffic. Being able to know ahead of time whether content will go viral is an incredible skill that shows your ability to see quality. The smart minority of civilization strive to understand this.
Betting
The perfect golf swing
Betting is a good way of showing that you can identify quality. Betting on sports is more of a “fuck you Vegas” than it is about making money. I want to prove that I’m smarter than the odds makers. This is obviously not the case as I’ve lost thousands of dollars sports betting over my lifetime but I don’t play over my head, so I got that going for me. This is why you see me recommending golfers like Louie and horses like Exaggerator. I see quality and want to make a name for myself as being able to identifying quality. Alas, I seem very good at picking 2nd place which is a great way to lose money.
My High Standard
All I want to do is bowl a 300 and I’ll be satisfied. I’m not going out to bowl and have a good time (which I do anyway). I want to start every game with a string of strikes until eventually I roll 12 in a row. I’m well aware that I’m not going to be a professional bowler but I’m also not trying to be a squid. Once I get tired of bowling, I’ll move on to another endeavor but for now, I like to bowl to continuously improve my standard. I try to do this with all that I do.
10
May, 2016
You Didn’t Ask For It, You Got It
Google Maps is Better Than Waze
Clear as day.
Apple users just muttered, “you’re an idiot” but hear me out. First of all, know that Waze is owned by Google. Most IPhones don’t have Google Maps installed on them and Waze is significantly better than Apple Maps, so IPhone users are going to be biased towards Waze because they haven’t even tried Google Maps (what else is new).
I’ve seen both in action and prefer Google Maps because I don’t care much about the social interaction that Waze users revel about. Contemplating that people in their cars are reaching for their phones and tapping in that they just passed a police officer so that hundreds of other users can also be distracted by their phones to agree with this sighting is beyond me. From my understanding, Waze does provide a more sophisticated means of wrapping around traffic which I’m sure is great if you want to save 2 minutes off your 30 minute commute.
The real reason I’m dropping the hammer on Waze is that it’s strictly for driving. I want an app that does it all and I can’t begin to tell you how important Google Maps was when I was abroad. Seeing a map, entering a destination, and then having walking directions was incredibly useful. I’ve also driven hundreds of miles on road trips and have never, ever found Google Maps to provide false information. It’s reliable and rarely misses its time estimates.
User comment:
They try too hard to turn themselves to a social app while all I want to do is get from point A to B…