Where the hell is Jonathan?

Installed a new iPhone app called InstaMapper. Trying it out. It uses my iPhone's GPS to place me on a map including my path. So if you've always thought about stalking me, here's your chance.

UPDATE: it doesnt work constantly, only when the app is on, which is pointless because then you cant use the rest of your phone.


GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

Feedflix.com - justifying my netflix subscription

Just learned about a site called Feedflix.  What it does is accesses your Netflix account and analyses your rentals and returns and gives you an overall estimate about how much money per dvd netflix is costing me.

Looks like its $1.38 per movie.  Not bad. Beats blockbuster and Hollywood Video.

oh, and if you do the math, it looks like I've spent $364 dollars over the past 5 years at netflix......shocking.

Business 2.0

The last week few weeks I was on vacation and problems arose with a few of the local movie theaters websites that I manage. The theaters inform me of changes to movie times, etc, by fax. Faxing is a antiquated technology I wish would just roll over and die. Anything faxing can do, email can do 100 times better. Regardless of the future impending doom I wish to see happen to the fax technology, it's still a necessity in my website updating life.

Up until today, I've used a free version of efax. The free version would allow a certain number of pages(I think 20) per month faxed to me at a non-local fax number. The faxes would then be sent to me via email as a file type only accessible through their efax software.  I even had 2 efax accounts to spred the faxing quota between different movie theaters.

It's worked fairly well until recently. Due to special show times during the christmas holidays I maxed out my monthly quota of pages in one week. Plus the straw that broke the camels back, when I was able to get a few unprotected wifi bars on my iphone in Big Bear, the faxes that contained crucial information was not accessible to me as I didn't have the efax software loaded.

So I weighed the pros and cons and realized that since this is such a crucial part of me being able to give my customers the customer service they deserve, I signed up for a faxing service by RingCentral for $7.99/month. It's a local number and they send the faxes to my email via a pdf which I can access anywhere on any computer. Plus now I get 300 pages a month so I'll never run out of fax pages.

With this purchase I've moved another step closer to being able to handle my business from anywhere, vacation or home, at anytime.

All the "Business 2.0" services I use and can access from any computer, anytime:

• Mint.com to manage my finances, bugeting and account balances (FREE)
  
• San Diego Credit Union online bill pay, I never have to write checks (FREE)
  
• BlinkSale.com to manage my invoices for services and products (Subscription)
  
• RingCentral.com for pdf online faxes (Subscription)
  
• Google Docs to manage and host my letters and various documents (FREE)
  
• Gmail For Domains for free email with the best spam filtering (FREE)
  
• Blogger.com for personal/business website information updates (FREE)
  
• WebHost4Life for website hosting (Subscription)
  
• ConstantContact.com for newsletter and subscriber management (Subscription)
  
• flickr.com pro account for image and photograph hosting (Subscription)

LCR, my new gambling addiction

The last night at the cabin we played a game called LCR, short for Left, Right, Center, with one variation: Instead of chips, we used $1 bills! Anyone at any age can have fun winning and has the potential to win, no strategy just luck and tons of excitement.

Everyone starts out with 3 dollars laid out in front of them. Taking turns clockwise, each player rolls a dice for each dollar they have up to 3 dice. Each dice either has an L, C, R, or a dot. If you roll a L, you pass one dollar to the left, R passes to the right, C puts the dollar into the "pot" and a dot means you keep that dollar. If you loose all your dollars you're still not out, a neighbor may roll a R or a L and your back in. The game ends when all the dollars are put in the pot and only one dollar remains, and that person wins the pot.

We played two games, the pot was around 80 bucks each time, I didn't win but had a fun time playing.

Chances:
C: 1 in 6, 16%
L: 1 in 6, 16%
R: 1 in 6, 16%
Dot: 1 in 2, 50%

Snow Day!

On Friday Aaron went snowboarding with a few people from the cabin, I stayed back as I'm still not confident with my herniated back situation. I spent most of the day outside in the snow. There was tons of snow on the ground, and all the little kids staying at the cabin wanted to go sledding. So I grabbed a shovel and and started to engineer a sweet sledding course. I started with a jacket and gloves but quickly shedded them as shoveling snow is a great workout.



Heres one of my "Risk Takers." She was fearless, always willing to attempt my turns and jumps.





Heres my friend Steph, Margies daughter, probably 3 seconds before getting hit by a snowball, look at all that snow!



My friend Becca, Margie's other daughter, brought her friend Briana up for the week.


And here's Becca attempting to go down my sledding course:

Big Bear Vacation

My most favorite coworker Margie invited me and Aaron up to Big Bear with her family for the week. Her family rented a cabin for the week and we joined them on Thursday through Saturday, and thanks to the winter storms the past few weeks, there was a ton of snow.



When we entered the door we were greeted with the best tacos, tamales, and homemade spanish rice. Needless to say we didn't go hungry all week. Also played a few rounds of Bingo, one of which I won, taking home the "Spice Rack" prize. Games with prizes are always fun!

The cabin was quite large, I should have counted but there was around 25 people staying there, yet it didn't seem crowded at all.

New Years, a time to start off on the right foot.

I have been neglecting this blog for quite some time now as my facebook.com addiction has grown.

Also during the past year I've seen a gimmick people do sortof called "365" where they post a picture a day and talk about it for a year. I'm gonna try that. Whether it be a picture, video, or just a text blog posting, I'm gonna attempt at least one blog post a day. It could blow you away or bore the hell out of you, you'll never know! And with all New Years "Resolutions," I bet this one lasts 3 weeks.

And since I've been phone and internetless for the first 3 days of the year, I'll cheat and postdate the last three days.