The Janitor’s Wife

I found out today a close friend of mine at work, the janitor that comes by daily at 5pm to collect trash and recyclables, that his wife has recently passed away. From what I’ve observed in the past three years, he is an easy going guy with a quiet demeanor who utters the words “Hey Chief” every time I run into him.

Even though the number of words from our longest conversation is probably shorter than the previous paragraph, I think of him as a dear friend. When he broke the news to me, it felt as if he considered me as a good friend as well. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he’s been going through, having lost a love and a friend that’s been with him for 28 years in marriage. At that moment, tasks that was so urgently awaiting my attention didn’t matter much anymore…

As I stood there on the 4th floor balcony along with my friend staring at the ground floor, I found myself at a lost for words. I reminded myself from a recent article that sometimes you just need to be there for people who are hurting. Because, there is not much else you can do when words fail.

Are you Passionate?

Find your passion and don’t let it escape.

That’s one of the orginial moism quotes that I came up with back in the good old college days at Georgia Tech. Well, but what the heck does it mean? I think that this moism can be separated into two parts.

The first part is about finding your passion. A calling of some sorts. Passion can be applicable to objects, work, hobbies, or even people. Personally, I’m passionate about working with kids. On a bi-weekly basis, I get to spend 2 full hours with a few of the cutest and craziest kindergarten-ers. When I’m with ‘my’ kids, time just seems to disappear. It’s funny, I get more joy out of these 2 hours then a full 40 hours at work. Each session starts off with some goofing off and running around, then comes a short story time, and finally ending with a time for arts and crafts. Kids are great, they’re so free and does whatever the heck they want. I feel like the more we grow, the more we hold ourselves back. We think and worry too damn much. Try to fight it. The other thing (or person in this case) I’m passionate about is my girlfriend. She is an amazing person whom I’ve grew close to and 100% comfortable with. Haha, maybe I’ll get some brownie points for sending her this blog post.

The second part is about holding on to your passion. If you’re truly passionate about something, then you would hold on to whatever it might be with your dear life. Think about it, if you’re not passionate about something, why are you doing it? Well, I guess sometimes you get stuck in difficult situations or you simply need to pay your bills. But you can still take steps and move towards whatever it is that you’re passionate about. Don’t know what you’re passionate about? Well, oftentimes I haven’t got a glue. But don’t be afraid or too timid to try new things, you’ll never know whether or not you like it. If you don’t like it, then move on. If you love it, then you’ve found something to hold on to. Don’t let it escape.

Anyway, just want to share some thoughts. Have a great Friday!

The Deathly Hallow for 11 Bucks

Want to listen to the Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallow Audiobook (that retails on Amazon for $47.97) for only 11 bucks?  Here’s how I did it:

1. Purchase Audiobook from the amazing Costco:
   $ 41.99 (39.99 + 5% tax)
2. Listen to Harry’s amazing adventure
3. Sell the audiobook on Amazon for $39.00. Well, I’m actually getting $30.81 since there’s a $8.19 commission.

So, $41.99 - $31.81 = 11 bucks and change. Not a bad deal at all. You could also try to check it out from your local library, but I’d imagine it’ll take a while before you get it.

The audiobook, read by Jim Dale, is extremely well done.  To this day, I’ve never actually read a Harry Potter book but have listened to them all.  It’s the perfect companion that keeps you awake during long road trips.

A Couple of Tips

Don’t want to loose the numbers on your cell phone? 

For those Verizon Wireless customers out there, did you know that there’s a free backup assistant you can download for your phone that automatically stores your number online? It usually costs $1.99, but it’s free for anyone who already has an online account for your phone. Nowadays, I don’t see how anyone wouldn’t already have an online account for their cell phones. I recently switched over to the Samsung SCH-u740 and transferring my numbers from the old phone was super easy because I already had the backup assistant. Also, you don’t have to worry loosing all your numbers if you ever dropped your phone in the toilet or left your phone somewhere.

Finding it hard to organize your life? 

For a simple online tool to organize my life, I use Backpack by the folks over at 37signals. Description of Backpack from the website:

Get Organize! Keep your to-dos, notes, ideas, and schedule online with Backpack.

Personally, it’s a real life saving because of the super clean and intuitive interface for organizing everything from my website ideas, to dos at home or work, and client project. Best part is that it’s free (with options to upgrade for additional features), so why not?

How Smart is Gmail?

Very. Apparently, when you type something like “I’ve attached a pdf…” in the body of you message and forget to actually attach something, gmail is smart enough to remind you.

This tells me a few things:

1. Gmail scans your outgoing email (or how else would they know you wanted to send an attachment?)
2. Apparently forgetting to attach happens to a lot of people
3. The engineers at Google likes to predict mistakes