I managed to snag a Bag of Crap from Woot! last week. This is the first one I’ve got in a while, so I figured I would do a little unboxing video and share what I got!
Look at all that crap!
And a coffee pour-over contraption, because I forgot to put it in the last picture.
I obviously have lots of reason to love my wife, but here’s a good example of just one of them. I convinced her to do a blind taste test with Pepsi and Crystal Pepsi tonight. She didn’t know what either drink was ahead of time. Enjoy!
I was boiling water for the baby’s bottles tonight and decided to snap a few shots. Click on the photo for the full size.
A quick shot of a pot of boiling water
A second shot of the pot of water boiling
So my wife made a pretty good Obama joke this morning. We were up early, the baby had been eating and she was holding him and rocking him to sleep. The baby was swaddled, so I walked in and said “He’s my little burrito!”
Somehow that turned in to me pointing out that burritos are wrapped up, and tacos are totally open, so what do you call it when the tortilla is rolled on one end but open on the other?
Her response was “I dunno. A burr-aco? ….Bama.” 🙂
I only felt bad that I couldn’t laugh more because the baby had just fallen asleep.
Last night was a weird night flying back home. We boarded the plane and then two women left. They seemed to be pleasant enough about it, but as I listened in on the flight attendants I gathered that these ladies were pretty intoxicated and were asked to leave the plane. We ended up a little delayed while their checked baggage was pulled out. Not too big of a deal, it was already a late flight and we only lost about 10 minutes.
Where it could have been disastrous is that I later found out the airport we were arriving at was shut down shortly after we arrived due to fog. Apparently being able to see the runway and your approach path is a big deal or something. Fortunately we landed safely, but we came pretty close to being diverted to another airport, which I gladly would have blamed on these total strangers, just because.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I wanted to take a moment to write about some of the reasons I am thankful. This year has been very good to me, and I have many many things to be thankful for, but I wanted to put a few of the more prominent ones out there.
I’ve recently gotten into crypto currency, specifically Dogecoin and Bitcoin. Here are some of the places you can get some free Dogecoin and free Bitcoin through faucets (Want more information on Bitcoin? Visit https://bitcoin.org/ Want more information on Dogecoin? Visit http://dogecoin.com/)
Free Bitcoin Faucets:
Feed the Zebra: http://faucet.bitcoinzebra.com/?ref=5125db0388bc
Free Dogecoin Faucets (To the Moon!):
I’ve currently got two books out on Amazon, available on Kindle. The first, All is not as it Appears, was released in May of this year. The second, Life of a Cat, was released in August of this year. I’ve been curious how the new Kindle Unlimited has affected sales, since it seemed to have helped me.
Today I did some breakdown on borrows of my book. I can assume that everything before Kindle Unlimited came out was from Amazon Prime users. After that I don’t know (the Kindle Direct Publishing dashboard doesn’t break down which type of borrow it is).
Let’s start with “All is not as it Appears” which is priced at $0.99. I know that Kindle Unlimited has been out for a couple months but I haven’t really seen the extra borrows come until this month (September). In September, my book has been borrowed as many times as it was from May-August combined. Is this because word is spreading about my book, or because of something else? I don’t really have an answer with the limited sample.
“Life of a Cat” is more interesting. I’ve had more people borrow this book, which is priced at $3.99. I’m really limited on sample size because the book has barely been out 2 months, but in August the book was borrowed once. It has been borrowed 3 times in September (three times as many). Now again, is this because of Kindle Unlimited? I’m not sure. The higher price point may make it more appealing (borrowers feel like they’re getting a better deal maybe?).
All-in-all, the increase is a little less than I thought it was, but I still find this intriguing. As time goes by I will keep checking out the data to see if there are any potential patterns. I’ve got a couple other places to look (like Twitter analytics, to see what tweets are getting interest).
If you’d like to check out my books, you can get them for Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/Jaime-Horio/e/B00LG8XV3I/?tag=jaimwrit-20 or search for me, “Jaime Horio” on your Kindle to borrow for free!
I never do “rant” posts, mostly because I get over things pretty quickly, but after some pretty crappy shopping experiences yesterday I just need to get this out. The fact that it’s still bugging me today is pretty rare.
The day as a whole started out pretty well. College graduation for my brother-in-law, lunch with some family then off to run some errands.
The first stop was Lowe’s. We were just running into grab one quick thing for the backyard. We walk in and immediately there is a guy pitching solar. I’m pretty sure it was an outside vendor (can’t remember the name of the company), but he had a prime spot right inside the entrance. He starts his pitch about “Are you interested in solar?” and we continue walking saying “No thanks”. We’re going already turned and heading toward the section we need and he keeps going on with “But it’s free installation!”. My wife yells back “No thank you!” and we keep going. Nothing too big, but the fact that I’d already said “no” and kept going, and kept yelling after us really pissed me off. I already have solar installed, but I don’t owe this guy an explanation. Unfortunately for Lowe’s, it’s their store, and this affected my shopping experience at their store.
The next stop was Best Buy. We’re checking out TVs as we prepare to move to a new house. We’re looking at a couple when a sales guy comes up to ask if we’re looking at TVs. I explain we’re comparing different models and wanted to get a visual. He offers to show us a special deal they’ve got going on. As it turns out, he doesn’t work for Best Buy, but he’s a DirecTV rep. This part actually worked out because I was going to shop for deals on TV packages for the new house anyway. The pitch goes well enough, and we’re going through the paperwork to switch over when we move. The sales rep has to call in to DirecTV to get everything set up. As he’s giving information over the phone, I’ve corrected him 3 or 4 times on things I’ve written down (I know my hand writing isn’t the best in the world but a 2 and a 4 do not look the same).
While we’re waiting another sales guy comes up and asks if we’re doing OK. We say yes, and he explains that we look mad. I try to explain that it’s been a long day and we’re just tired. Which I never should have had to say. The fact that this guy had the balls to come up and say we looked mad is driving me nuts.
I know this doesn’t seem like too big of a deal, but I’m blown away at the crap this guy came up to say. And I realize this was a DirecTV rep, but amazingly I never had a single Best Buy employee say anything to me the entire time I was there. Clearly a great sales team.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for putting up with my ranting. Like I said, I rarely stay upset over things like this, but this all happened yesterday and I’m still really angry over this.
Another NFL draft has come and gone. I’d say I paid more attention to this year’s draft than I have in several years. I think it was more about the Fresno State ties, waiting to see where Derek Carr and Davante Adams ended up. I can’t recall “top-of-the-draft” prospects out of Fresno State since Ryan Mathews, and the draft in general is such a crapshoot that I can’t get too excited about it.
Nonetheless, here are a couple random thoughts regarding Fresno State and my San Diego Chargers from this year’s draft:
As a Chargers fan I can’t think of a worse place for Derek Carr to go. I always like to root for former Fresno State players, but it’s going to be really hard to root for a Raider.
Same thing with Isaiah Burse being on the Broncos.
I may not know much about a lot of college players, but it was nice to see the Chargers draft positions they needed to fill.
I know I’m obviously biased, but I felt like Isaiah Burse and Marcel Jensen were worth a 7th round pick.
I imagine lots of college football fans think this about players at their school.
The Chargers didn’t get anyone too flashy, but that might be a good thing
I can’t help but wonder at what point the NFL will cross that line and get too much over saturation. More games on more nights, and now the draft spread out over two evenings and a third day. I just feel like eventually people are going to stop caring. It may not be soon, but it will happen.
Only 4 months until the season starts!
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