Woops!!!!

The following video covers a very sensitive subject that is near and dear to my heart.  Especially lately with the unusually 'lasting' winter.  Most people know that living in the Treasure Valley is a great thing during the winter months.  It will snow and everything will be pretty, but the end of the day, or even a few days later it will all melt away.  This year, the snow has been around for weeks!  The roads are covered and it's not going away.  With that in mind, we actually had freezing rain the other day, thus the following video has been provided for your enjoyment.  Please note that the people most likely suffered injuries for your entertainment.

Monday morning I went out to my car to let it warm up, on the way I pulled a graceful move, like what you just watched.  It is not funny, I did not laugh, and it hurts.  Three days later, it doesn't hurt more, it doesn't hurt less...it's like death and taxes...always there.  I didn't break anything, but my 'personality' definitely took a bruise.

W Claire St

On the bright side, it was a balmy 38 degrees today, that means the snow is on it's way out, for now anyways.  All things aside, winter time is beautiful here!

downtown Boise

For your consideration...

So my business is off and running, and I'm in the process of giving quotes, writing policies, and meeting new people.  There are literally hundreds of ways to run a business like this.  The rule of thumb is to have at least 5 different marketing strategies going at the same time.  I'm not there yet, but I'm working my way up to it.

My latest en devour is a seasonal drawing for Valentine's Day.  Let me quote your insurance and you are automatically entered into the drawing, regardless if you let me write your policy or not.  And as a little extra incentive, I do know that some of you are already with Farmers, so if you refer someone to me who lets me quote their insurance, I'll enter them, and you into the drawing.

I'll be drawing for the winner on Feb 10., so don't wait till the last minute

Yellow Snow

Good Morning!!! Are we there yet?

So when I last left off, I was enjoying some quiet time in our hotel while Isaac was swimming at the indoor pool.  The rest of the night was very peaceful and relaxing...of course I had a dread the next day and something I really wasn't looking forward to...

...we all travel, some take planes, some take trains, and other by car.  Please don't get me wrong, I love a good road trip, I was raised on them, either with my family in our old Chevy Pickup, or one countless church trips to Mexico and beyond.  There is a down side to road trips, and that comes in the form of weather...more specifically snow and ice.  When you travel by car, that means you wither need 4 wheel drive, chains or cables.  In my case, it was cables....on a new car I've never put cables on before.  I've actually only done cables once before, and that was on my Honda, the tires were much smaller so it was a bit easier to navigate.  As you can see below, after 3 attempts, the cables were finally installed and we set off over the mountain pass.  When traveling you tend to realize the advantages of being a guy...as both Isaac and I took part in the long honored tradition of removing chains from our tires, and creating the colorful yellow snow that is so popular. (Not Lemon)

Best $20 I ever spent to have a professional install these for me!!!

"You'll Shoot Your Eyes Out!" is a phrase I've heard several times, and will probably be hearing for a while.  My Father-in-Law always kept a bb/pellet gun by the back door.  I'm not sure why, perhaps to shoot targets out the back door when he got bored?  It turns out that in recent months, he got a new bb/pellet gun from the local Freddies, but he wasn't very happy with it.  He said if I liked it, I could keep it.  Who am I to say no to awesome weaponry?  It's a long way from my 30-06, and definitively no Glock, but Isaac loves it.  I think it's a great way to teach him gun safety and proper etiquette for handling a gun.  After all, we do live in Idaho!  Turns out that he is a really good shot (after his Uncle Sam taught him how to line up the shot)

The drive home was much easier then the trip there.  For some reason, this is always the case.  Despite the thermometer being much lower than the trip there, the roads were much clearer and chains were not required.  What's funny is that when we stopped in Burns and I took this photo, I thought 19 was cold.  I'm looking at my weather forecast right now and it was it's sunny and 1 degree today...now that's cold!

Speaking of cold, my band auditioned two new people this past week, out in my shop of course.  I have a small oil heater that definitely will not heat up my shop.  Rehearsal was a bit chilly, but we got through.  Sadly neither audition worked out, but that is part of life, we can't always get what we want.

RoadTrippin'

On the road again...

It's early...as i write this, I'm sitting in a hotel room listening to my family breathing while they sleep.  Another Christmas has come and gone, and we are headed feet first into 2013.  Yesterday we began our trek across the Northwest with a destination of Roseberg, OR to see the In-Laws.  And like clockwork, that is when mother nature decides to through a bunch of snow and ice in the way.  Not wanting to take any chances, we watched the weather, and road conditions like any normal people would do.  Our van is packed with blankets, chains, shovel, food and drinks as I like to be prepared for anything.  As we got going the roads were pretty good.  Snow was falling, but only small flurries, so we were making good time.

Good things never seem to last too long as the picture to the right, mutated to the picture below.  Don't get me wrong.  Becky was driving while I took these pictures.  We were going at a nice slow pace.  Despite the weather warning, snow on the ground, we passed several vehicles that had slid off the road.  Ironically, there were all trucks.  One of which was a full size P/U, probably with 4-wheel drive and a driver who was too over confident.  No matter what you do, you can't beat physics.  When you slide, you slide.  I didn't stop to take pictures, but I did wonder if they had sufficient coverage in their insurance policies.  Yeah, I have to do a plug as I'm now an agent for FARMERS.  Let me give you a free quote!

"Roads?  Where we're going, we don't need roads"
- Dr E. Brown

As we chugged along, I finally took over driving and we pulled into Bend, OR around 6pm.  Not wanting to drive over the mountain pass at night (again), we opted to stay the night at a hotel.  Having been on this same trip multiple times, we are becoming quite familiar with Bend and some of the lodging/dining options available.

Once we had cell service, Becky jumped on her phone and began looking for deals.  This year we ended up at the Shilo Inn.  I'm actually very impressed with the features available considering the low price we paid.  Centrally located, indoor pool (Isaac got to go swimming last night), restaurant (that will provide a free breakfast in a few hours), and free wi-fi that is letting me post this blog.

As for the dining option, this time I went to FaceBook to ask the locals as I do know some people that live here (ironically, non of them responded.)  Most of the recommendations were for local breweries, however neither of us are beer drinkers.  The first suggest was for a placed called "Taste of Thailand".  Thai food sounded good so we ventured out to find this place, the only problem is that instead of Thai food, we found a Dry Cleaners.  And as Gollum said, 'they don't taste very good, do they precious'  (in reference to orcs, but you get the idea).  With visions of Pad Thai on our brains, and armed with not one, but two smart phones, we quickly found ourselves walking into a little place called Angel Thai.  The food was awesome!  I ordered the Mongolian Beef (I know, not traditional Thai) with a spice factor of 3, from a scale of 1-5.  It came with a mound of white rice.  I needed 5 cups of water, and some more soup, and some of Becky's Pad Thai to put our the flames.  My lips still burned for a good hour afterwards, but it was well worth it.

I made the picture bigger so you can see the flavor...and all the little red pepper flakes

Have a fun and safe New Year!!!!  Till then.....

And so it begins...I bought a Farm!

You know, I couldn't tell you WHAT my last blog was...without looking, I couldn't even tell you WHEN my last blog was.  But I do recall stating that I would be writing more, so here goes . . . .something.

Many changes have occurred over the last 6 months.  My life went from a predictable 8-5 job, making enough $ to cover life's expenses.  I was suddenly released from the predictable, and entered the "less than exiting" stage.  I spent nearly two months looking for a new job.  I had lots of interviews and lots of disappointments.  My family had to re-evaluate how things were done.  Thank God for the Dave Ramsey class we took that helped us become debt free and build an emergency fund for just such an occasion.  As the money slowly disappeared, I started to look for jobs that weren't exactly in my field.

I thought sales would be fun, so I ended up in an interview with Farmer's Insurance and was very tempted by the possibilities of working in an industry that doesn't sell Insurance, but helps people become whole again after the worst situations.  That was the bright side of the coin, the less shiny side said that I needed to get my own license, pay for courses, testing, and other fees.  While we couldn't decide what to do, I found myself up in Fruitland, ID selling used cars.  I found satisfaction in seeing good people drive off in a good reliable car.  I enjoyed meeting new people and helping them meet their needs.  Seeing the "under belly" of the auto business really left a bad taste in my mouth, and I knew it wasn't something I could do for a long time.  So I started thinking about an exit plan.  The problem I had was that when you are working almost 13 hours a day 5-6 days a week, there isn't much room to do anything else.  Because of a blessing, I was able to go back to Farmer's and say that I was interested after all, and proceeded with the interview process, and began studying for my Licensing exams.

BING!

I'm happy to say that I am now licensed in the state of Idaho, to market, negotiate, and sell auto, home, and commercial insurance on behalf of Farmer's Insurance.  I am not license to say "BING" as part of a sales pitch, and if I ever do, please slap me.  One of the top 3 Insurance Provider's in the Nation, with a District Manager who is one of the top 3 DM's in the company, not just Idaho, but the whole company!  I am honored and humble to be working with this team of people.  It's a far cry from the shark tank I worked at in Fruitland.

So today I had my first day of training and I now have an excellent handle on Auto Policies and how under-insured most people are, and I'm also super excited to get out there and start working with people.  This is the beginning of a new career, and hopefully a new life for me and my family as the opportunity that is ahead of us is wide open.

Have you missed me???

It's been a while since my last post.  Needless to say, life over the past couple months have been...interesting.  I hope to start writing more in the near future, but for now, here is a quick tidbit of what's been going on...in no particular order

• My employer of 13+ year decided to let me go, it's an interesting sensation being unemployed after so long
• Still a foster parent
• Sold cars for a while
• Isaac is gonna be a movie star
• got to meet an actress that we've watched on TV for at least 5 years
• Working on a new career
• Got a haircut

Stay tuned peeps...

          -Brian

Word Association?

My last blog go me thinking a lot about the mind and how it works, I know each person would respond differently to what I am about to propose.  I'm going to 'google' a phrase, and go to the first results, and see where that leads me.  Before I begin I would like to point out the scientific research community is NOT in support of this and I am responsible for any outcome that may ensue here on out.

Random Phrase: 'Random Thoughts'
1st Google Result: www.randomthoughts.ws
Page Entry: "Jealous of what."

On Your Marks

 GO!!!!

When I hear the work 'Jealous' the first this that comes to mind is the song 'Hey Jealousy' by the Gin Blossoms.  In that song there is a line, 'we could drive around this town, and let the cops chase us around'.   Given I have never been chased by cops, I have spent time just driving around.  One memory is back in my high-school days when we would hang out at 'Neon Lyons' and then go TP someone.  A few of us would throw toilet paper all over Joan's house, while Mark would be in his little white truck with the bed open, and engine on....it was inevitable that someone would come out, we would bolt to the truck and take off before we could be identified.  And these were my church friends...classic. (/br> This one time I was out with another friend from school, let's call him Mason.  A friend of ours was moving away and we through we would give them a send off with TP.  It was S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedure) for this kind of activity, except for two small details.  

1. This was is Clayton, CA.  Small town with bored cops.
2. Our friends dad was a prominent figure in that city, and not a fan of exterior decorating.

We were teenagers, what did we care, right?  Right?

Just as we were about to fling the tp into the trees a cop pulls up.  You know TPing someone's home is an art.  It not some Frat prank where you just toss paper wherever.  Great care should be used, with an artistic flare.  I learned how to properly TP a house from my parents.  How many people out there can say that?

I love my parents.