Josh Eastburn.com

While at my parents’ house over the holidays, I found my journal from elementary school. It is fun to read my perspective on life from so many years ago.

This got me thinking about starting the habit of writing a daily (or at least semi-daily) journal again. Since I can type much faster than I can write longhand, I looked around for a program that would do this for me. In the end, I decided to go with something I already use every day: Gmail.

Gmail allows me to search and label every entry for easy access in the future. This also means that your personal musings are stored on Google’s servers, but that is up to you to decide if you are comfortable with it.

To set this up, I used Gmail plus-addressing, which lets you create unlimited personal email addresses by adding a plus sign (+) and text after your email username. Here is how I set it up in my Gmail account:

1. Create a new label called “Journal” (or whatever you’d like to call it)
2. Create a new Contact using a plus-address. I named the new contact “Journal” and set the email as username+journal@gmail.com.
3. Create a new filter. When To = username+journal@gmail.com then Archive it, Mark as read, and apply the label “Journal”

Now you’re ready to start journaling. Just compose a new message, set the “To” address to the “Journal” contact you created and type away. When you click “Send” it will not show up as new email but it will be listed under your “Journal” label. For the subject line, I’ve been using the journal entry date, but other suggestions are welcome (I’ve also added short descriptions in the subject like “Europe Trip” after the journal date).

Another great thing about Gmail labels is you can apply multiple labels to each journal entry. So if you are writing a vacation journal entry, you can apply another label, like “Travel,” and you can now easily search for just vacation journal entries by viewing those two tags.

The only thing left to do is to make journaling a habit.

I’ve been a North Carolina resident for over a year now, but I recently considered the phrase printed on both my drivers license and license plate: First in Flight.

Is that an accurate view of history? True, the Wright Brothers did complete their first successful heavier-than-air, powered flight at Kill Devil Hills, NC in 1903, but almost all of the Wright brothers’ research and testing took place at their home in Dayton, Ohio. It was only the favorable topography and wind that brought them to North Carolina for their attempt at powered flight.

Imagine that in 1950, well ahead of the Soviet Union and the United States, Canada is prepared to launch the first human into space. To take advantage of the earth’s rotational velocity, Canada looks for a launch site closer to the equator. The United States agrees to let Canada lease land in Florida, in exchange for the fact that the United States wouldn’t have to teach anything about Canada in high school history classes. After Canada’s successful human spaceflight, newspapers across the nation proclaim: United States, First in Space!

North Carolina needs to give credit where it is due: Ohio. In protest, I am going to replace my “First in Flight” plate with a “North Carolina Tobacco Heritage” specialized plate.

Google’s new “My Maps” feature now lets me do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: map out every place I’ve ever visited. To make the task more manageable, the map is limited to places I’ve been for 12 or more hours and multiple visits to a city have been consolidated to a single point. Red markers indicate places I’ve lived for 3 or more months and blue markers show places I’ve visited.

View Larger Map

Last weekend I went whitewater rafting at the National Whitewater Center outside Charlotte. Aside from being the largest man-made whitewater facility in the world, it also provides miles of mountain biking trails and the largest climbing wall in the Southeast.

Before seeing it in person, I was a bit skeptical about how fun and challenging it would be, but it truly is an impressive place. The whitewater course is entirely contained, with huge pumps moving water from the lower reservoir to the upper one. A conveyor belt carries you from the bottom to the top in the raft. From the top, you have 3 whitewater courses to follow with rapids rated class II - IV. One loop takes 10-15 minutes to complete.

The only downside to the trip was that on the very last run of the day, I parted ways with my wedding ring. Fortunately, I lost the ring in the top reservoir and when the pumps are turned off every night, all of the water drains to the bottom pool. Our rafting guide was skeptical, but after a call to the facility manager, he was able to find it a few days later right where I lost it. Phew. Just in time for our 7th anniversary.

We are now settled into our new home near Charlotte, NC. More pictures in the photo album.

A recent post on the Freakonomics Blog (thx, James) discusses the challenges and changes that lie ahead for the 1.2 million Realtors in the country. The Internet is slowly starting to loosen the grip brokers have had on real estate sales for decades.

We recently sold our home in the Chicago area by using a flat-fee MLS service from Flatland Homes and we couldn’t have been happier with the decision. Rather than pay close to $20,000 to sell our home with a broker, we paid a total of $300 (no zeros are missing in that number). Using a flat-fee service isn’t for everyone, but if you are willing to put in a little extra effort to hold your own open house and print your own listing sheets, the payoff can be tremendous. Next week we close on a new house in Charlotte that was for sale by owner. Without having a broker involved, we were able to get a great price on a house and the sellers can put more money in their pocket as well.

I don’t intend to criticize the career choice of thousands of real estate professionals, but it seems like some much-needed adjustment is starting to take place in the real estate market.

For once I have a valid reason not to post anything to my blog for months on end. Over the last several weeks, we have made our transition from the Chicago area to Charlotte, NC. Thanks to my Uline employee discount, I was able to stock up on boxes, moving blankets and stretch wrap at cost (one of the first times it made the employee discount worth while). We used ABF’s U-Pack moving trailer which worked out great. The night before the move, they dropped the 28′ trailer in our driveway, leaving only a few feet to spare. They recommended that I notify the police that I was obstructing the driveway for a day and that the police “will have no problem with it.” Upon calling the Buffalo Grove police department, they told me that I would most certainly receive a citation for blocking the sidewalk and that I need to move the trailer (oops, too late). Fortunately, the BGPD never followed up on that promise.

We hired 2 movers to load the truck and they packed 19 of the 28 linear feet of trailer in just over an hour. Since ABF charges by the foot, it was well worth their expert packing to use every cubic foot of the trailer. Three days later, the trailer arrived at our storage unit where we are temporarily storing our possessions until we move into our new house. Overall, it was a fairly painless process and we paid less than half the cost of a U-Haul one-way trailer.

As we get settled in, I will try to post my observations on life in the South, which will undoubtedly include references to NASCAR and sweet tea.

I suppose I was asking for trouble when I mentioned that I would never trade in my DirecTV TiVo for the DirecTV Plus DVR. Super Bowl XLI, 3rd quarter, the picture suddenly freezes. I didn’t press the pause button and nothing on the remote seems to work. This had happened a handful of times over the last few weeks, but a reboot would always solve the problem. Not this time. After I accepted the fact that my TiVo was not coming back, I placed a call with DirecTV. I explained the situation to the rep who kindly offered to ship out their DirecTV Plus DVR in exchange for a new 2-year commitment. I said, “no thank you, your DVR is awful.” The rep asked, “have you ever USED our DVR?” I answered, “yes, have you ever USED TiVo??” He told me that he had, but I think he was lying.
As I saw it, I was left with 3 options:

1. Give in and take the DirecTV DVR (I refused this as a matter of principle)
2. Buy another DirecTV TiVo at Weaknees or eBay (over $150 to get what I have now)
3. Give up DirecTV entirely and get a standalone TiVo

After much contemplation, I went with a refurbished standalone TiVo for $50 and $13/month TiVo service. Paired with the basic, basic cable package from Comcast, I would be paying $40 less each month than I was with DirecTV. Sure, I’ll miss the excellent picture quality and the huge storage upgrade I had with my DirecTV TiVo, but now I’ll finally get to try some of the features that are only available on standalone TiVos, such as the Home Media Option and hopefully in the near future, Amazon Unbox on TiVo.

I was a member of BMG’s mail-order music service for a couple of years and then decided to cancel. After an eerie silence for a few weeks, the calls started coming. I saw “BMG” in the callerID, so I ignored the calls for a few weeks. This clearly was not working. Then I started answering the calls and stated that I was no longer interested in the service and that they should stop calling me. The calls kept coming until I had the following conversation:

BMG Rep: Hello, I am calling to present you with a special offer since you have been such a valued customer.
Me: Sure, how do I sign up?
BMG (startled disbelief): Great, let me just confirm your address of . . .
Me: Actually, I have a new address now (might as well get rid of those pesky mailings while I’m at it)
BMG: OK, go ahead with the new address.
Me: 201 North Main Street, Barrow, Alaska
BMG: B-A-R-R-O-W?
Me: That is correct. It is actually the northernmost town in the United States.
BMG: Wow, it must be beautiful there.
Me: No. It is just very cold and dark right now.
BMG: Oh, (long pause) I’m sorry. Well, I have you set up to receive 12 free CDs. . .
Me: Wait, these are CDs I am getting? I don’t have a CD player anymore.
BMG: (longer pause) I see. Well, did you know that you can also play CDs on your computer?
Me: I don’t have a computer either. We only have power for 1 hour a day.
BMG: Oh. . .OK. Well, if you ever get a CD player. . .or computer, please be sure to give us a call.
Me: I certainly will. Good-bye.

It has been over a month now and not a single call or mailing.
My sincere apologies to the kind residents of Barrow, Alaska. I hope I have the opportunity to visit your town some day. Until then, please hold my mail.

I never thought I would be saying this, but I am now an Ameritech SBC AT&T DSL customer (I think I missed a Yahoo! somewhere in there). I have always been happy with my Comcast Internet service, up until two weeks ago when my connection started dropping about every 10 minutes. After a technician visit and several tech support calls, Comcast said “there is nothing more we can do” and “we hope you are able to get it working.”

To illustrate the problems I was having, here are before/after PingPlotter graphs:

Comcast (red lines are bad)

AT&T DSL

Ahh, much better. Although I am now paying $20 less per month, I only get 3Mbps down and (at best) 512Kbps up. This is especially hard to swallow since I was somehow getting 10-12Mbps with Comcast after “downgrading” from their 8Mb service to 6Mb (oops).