Cody Staub

Last week I made a goal to myself of making more posts, and then I flopped. I shouldn’t make excuses, but I know this is because of my work/school schedule this last week, which has afforded me ZERO time for the internet. I worked almost 60 hours and had school for about 12…which left not much time for anything else. Sorry about that.

Because of my increasingly hectic life and my goal to maintain great grades this semester in school, I decided to drop one of my courses for this semester. This still leaves me at a full-time status in school, but I feel like having this one less class will help me manage stress, get better grades, and focus on all my goals. I also signed up for a condensed summer course. I plan on taking some paid time off from work during the summer classes so I can get them out of the way.

My eating also slipped up this week. I found myself eating out several times through out the week because I was too busy to stop at home and prepare a healthy meal. Along with that, I didn’t work out at all this week (maybe once or twice). Yup…I feel like crap already. It’s amazing how fast you can go from feeling like you’re in great health to feeling cruddy.

In other news, I bought a few new websites and am working on restoring some old ones, since I let all my internet hobbies drop a while back. Who knows if anything will come of them, but it’s a skill that can only benefit.

This next week is a lot less hectic for me. I work my three 12-hour shifts, but they’re spaced out better this week. My class that has been dropped will allow me to have a little more normal schedule as well. So plans/goals for this next week:

1. Write some good, quality articles for this blog

2. Practice the guitar

3. Sell my car (Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. I’m selling my Nissan 240SX)

4. Work on my other websites, especially the forum on a particular site.

Last week I wrote two separate posts on my shift in this blog’s focus and some personal goals for this upcoming year. To keep me motivated and keep everyone else informed I’ll be doing weekly recaps.

Although I gave some little tips on eating healthier and tips on getting in shape, I didn’t do nearly enough posts last week (in fact this post probably should have happened on Monday). That’s goal number one for improving for this upcoming week.

My eating habits have been remarkably improved this last week, but are still not quite where I’d like them to be. I only ate out once last week (Arby’s chicken sandwich), but I haven’t been eating as often every day as I would like. I do still notice I’m feeling a lot healthier though. In addition to eating better, I’ve been doing a little more working out this past week. I worked out about 30 minutes four or five separate times last week. It feels good, and now that it’s finally starting to thaw out here I can start jogging again (only two feet of snow left to melt!).

One personal goal I feel especially proud of this week is my guitar practicing. One of my birthday goals was to pick up and start learning the guitar this year. While my practicing has been fairly hit-and-miss up until lately, this past week I practiced a lot. I’m even learning a few simple songs (motivation)! Another goal I’ve been putting off is to finish roofing Kenya’s doghouse. Today, with the mild thaw we’ve had, I was finally able to start working on that project again today.

Look for some great new posts this week

Happy 21st birthday to me! Actually my birthday was yesterday, but who wants to work on their birthday? Twenty was a pretty exciting year for me…I moved back to Southeastern Idaho, found my perfect dog, landed my dream job, went skydiving, bought a new truck, and started into school again with a renewed determination. Life has been busy, but to me busy means worthwhile!

I’m going to try something new this year, instead of the normal “New Year’s” resolution, I’m going to make some resolutions for my 21st year of life…or things to accomplish before I’m 22. Here we go:

1. Get into better shape. As of this writing I weigh in at 205 lbs per my cheap bathroom scale. I’m 5′9″ and a pretty beefy build…not large or husky or fat, just beefy. My ideal weight I believe was 165-175 back when I was in high school. My goal for this year is to get down to 175 lbs and not go above 185 again. More on this goal tomorrow.

2. Be organized. This is sort of a tough one for me. I have a strong urge to just set things wherever and forget about them. This year I’d like to make a spot for everything and keep it there.

3. Plan out my day. This goes a little bit with being organized. I need to start planning out my days better. To me this means planning out my 3 things to do for the day the night before and keeping a monthly calendar of important days (tests, family events, etc).

4. Financial responsibility. I have no idea if that’s worded right, but this encompasses building my credit, growing savings, and learning more about smart investing. Buying my truck was really my first major purchase, and with it I have an interest in building up a good credit so I can save myself money in the future.

My fitness plan will start tomorrow (and I mean it!), as well as my other goals. It’ll be tough to get through a whole year of doing all these things, but I believe if I can force myself for at least a six months that it will all become habits I can continue for the rest of my life.

Next to election day in November, this Tuesday is the most important single day in the 2008 presidential elections. Super Tuesday is when the majority of states across the U.S. hold their respective caucuses and primaries to decide which candidate from both the Republican and Democratic parties will be on your ballot come November.

Now whether you’re Democrat or Republican or even Green party, you have to admit that the United States is in sad shape. We are not well-liked by a majority of the world right now, the value of our once all-mighty USD is now paling in contrast to other currencies, health care and social security are in crisis, and our personal liberties are becoming fewer and fewer. Which one of our candidates do you think is going to address all of these problems?

The few (or maybe many) of you who have heard of the man already know what I’m leading up to, and don’t click away before you read the rest of this article…but I’m talking of course about Congressman Ron Paul (M.D. by the way), who is one of four Republican hopefuls left in the race. Unlike the other candidates (including on the Democrat side), Dr. Paul has worked his entire career to end the ever-growing power of our federal government and restore our country to what the Founders envisioned, a nation conceived in personal liberty. Also, unlike the other candidates, Ron Paul is probably the most qualified presidential candidate to run for office when you review the facts:

1. Ron Paul has served (and is currently serving) in congress for 10 terms, leaving a legacy of arguably the most solid voting record in politics.
2. Ron Paul was raised in an average family and used his own money and grades to pay his way through medical school at Duke University. He is not the legacy of a wealthy American super-power family, but comes from average roots, just like the rest of us.
3. Ron Paul served as a Captain in the US Air Force as a flight surgeon. After the Air Force he specialized in obstetrics and gynecology, delivering over 4,000 babies in his 30 years of medical practice.
4. Ron Paul has taken a special interest in economics for several decades. Some of his writings on economics have been published by the Ludwig von Mises “Ultimate Foundation on Economics” as well as others.
5. Ron Paul has served on the House Banking committee, House Committee on Financial Services, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

And from his very own website…

He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.

He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.

He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.

If you want to learn more about the President our country needs, then check out a few of these sites (only the first one is affiliated officially with his campaign):

• Ron Paul for President 2008
• Intro to Ron Paul
• The Ron Paul DVD
• YouTube
• MySpace
• Facebook

Whomever you support though, make sure you get out and vote on February 5th, 2008 at your local precinct!

Wow…a whole two months since I last posted anything. Between school and working I have had almost less than zero time to do the stuff I really want to do. Do you ever get so busy you just feel like you’re running all the time? Anyway, I suppose I should at least post a little update about what’s been going on the last two months, so here goes.

Internet Stuff

I’ve been reading a lot lately and trying to really sink my teeth into CSS, XHTML, and PHP. It’s been really interesting to watch my learning curve. Because I’ve been so busy and because I’ve set myself back a little bit by deciding to learn PHP/CSS/XHTML better, I haven’t accomplished as much in the last month as far as final product goes as I would’ve liked to. I’ve got some really big plans in my head right now, for three sites in particular. Another thing I did recently was upgrade my webhosting from just a basic plan to a larger reseller plan so that I can manage my sites a little more easily (hopefully), but migrating can be a bit*h. I’ve had a lot of downtime the last week because of it. Oh well, life moves on.

New Toys

While scouring eBay one day (I do get a little free time), I noticed that Dell Latitude laptops were going very cheap in particular. So, on a whim, I decided to bid $200 on one and guess what…I won it. It’s only about a year or two old and is in sweet condition, it was a heck of a steal I think. I’ll make a full review a little later I think :).

School (Ugh)

So as you gathered earlier (I hope), school has been in full swing for me and it’s kind of killing me. I don’t think I’m doing poorly in my classes, but between the 18 credits (I dropped them down to 12 right before mid-term), working three 12-hour shifts a week, and trying to keep up with internet stuff and everyday life…it’s a killer! I think for next semester I’m going to have to scale some things back a little. BTW, my advice for anyone considering college (because if you’ve been through the shock already, you don’t really need this advice), do all you can to avoid working while going to school. I realize it’s a necessary evil for most, but it’s so much easier if you can devote all your energy to studying.

New Year

As 2008 is approaching, I like to kind of think about what I want to accomplish in the next year. Usually I put this together into some sort of list for myself, but this year I think I will post the list on here. It’s not done yet, but it’s coming along so watch out for it.

Well that’s it for the moment. I’ll try and be more dilligent about posting, but I can’t really guaruntee anything

In lieu of Cool Music Tuesday, I thought bringing everyone a cool music gadget might just get us through this Tuesday (that and I just have way too much going on this week to do a bunch of music bios). Usually I’m pretty on top of things when it comes to Apple releasing new products, but somehow this one snuck up on me. Apparently Apple released sometime in the last week a new iPod…the iPod Touch.

The Zune Just Wet Itself

I’m pretty sure the folks over at Microsoft were just thrilled (sarcasm) when they heard about Apple’s latest brain child. Wi-Fi music sharing? How about fully functional wireless internet browsing, streaming video, and the ability to download music right from your MP3 player. All of the above without ever connecting to a PC? Not to mention, this latest iPod comes with the breakthrough touch technology that’s featured on the iPhone. In fact the iPod Touch seems to be nothing more than an iPhone without the GPRS antennae. I think it’s safe to say that the Zune can now, officially, be declared defeated. iPod Touch goes above and beyond anything we as consumers have seen before. Apple has set the standard again.

The Nano Goes Square

Not only did Apple unveil a great iPod touch and give some polishing accents to the iPod Classic, the Nano got some well-deserved attention as well. Instead of the familiar stick-of-gum we’re used to seeing, the Nano just got square. Why square? Well to fit the new widescreen for viewing movies. That’s right, you can now watch video on your iPod Nano! And the price didn’t change either…Bonus!

If you want to check out the rest of the lineup, head on over to www.apple.com/itunes to see the whole iPod family lineup.

In what appears to be the largest mass-prize giveaway in blogging history, David Airey is celebrating his blog’s one year anniversary by giving away over $4000 in goods and services. David is a great logo designer and blogger, but how he managed to get all these services and bloggers involved seems a small miracle in the making to me. You can check out how to enter for yourself Here. Now, take a look at this list of prizes!

• Professional logo from David Airey. Add a touch of professionalism to your business with one of my logo designs.
• Custom WordPress theme design from Nate Whitehill of Nate Whitehill dot Com. It’s vital to set yourself apart from the crowd, and Nate will help a great deal with your very own custom WordPress theme. By the way, Nate Whitehill is the one who recently redesigned both John Chow and Shoemoney’s blogs.
• Personal marketing / advertising plan from Maki of Dosh Dosh. Maki is an expert where blog advertising is concerned, and he is kindly donating his time to help you make the most of your new custom blog.
• One year’s hosting and blog setup from John Boardley of I Love Typography. John has kindly donated his time and will do everything you need to get your new custom blog hosted on one of Media Temple’s dedicated servers.
• Signed copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress. David bought this book himself, and it contains excellent blogging tips for beginners to pros.
• A second logo design from Tara Roskell of Graphic Design Blog. You only need to visit Graphic Design Blog to realise that Tara really knows a lot about great design.
• Website critique from Randa Clay of Randa Clay Design. If you want some expert advice on how to improve your website design, you won’t be disappointed by this offering.
• One hour SEO consultation with Lyndon Antcliff of Cornwall SEO. Lyndon will conduct a Skype consultation with the winner of this prize, and he comes highly recommended for search engine optimisation and linkbaiting.
• $60 of books from Amazon courtesy of Darren Rowse of ProBlogger. Is there a book you’ve been meaning to buy on Amazon? How about getting it free? A great donation from a professional blogger.
• Logo / blog header design from Jonathan-C. Phillips of Smart Wealthy Rich. Jonathan has donated his expert skills to help your blog stand out from the crowd.
• One hour blog optimization consultation with Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips. This consultation will cover design, SEO, monetization and blogging strategy, from the author of one of blogging’s most useful resources.
• Revolution Premium WordPress theme package (personal package) from Brian Gardner, WordPress designer and consultant. Brian’s WordPress skills are second to none.
• Blog review and email interview published on Make It Great! with Phil Gerbyshak. The man to ‘make it great’ will critique your blog and feature you on his very own PR5 blog.
• Behringer Podcastudio USB Podcasting Kit, kindly donated by Fraser’s Affiliate Marketing Blog. Looking for a new way to express yourself? Ever wanted to be a famous producer? Then podcasting is the answer and the BEHRINGER PODCASTUDIO USB bundle has all you need to make high-quality podcasts and home recordings.
• $25 via PayPal courtesy of Gayla McCord of Mom Gadget. Free money! Who doesn’t want free money? Very kind of you Gayla.
• 2GB USB storage key x 3 courtesy of Jamie Clague at Terinea Weblog. Three USB sticks will make up three separate prizes, with free worldwide postage. Jamie, Edinburgh Computer Services, has also kindly donated his valuable time to helping with the prize draw administration.
• Full blog review with deep links and images published on Blog-Op with Chris Lodge. Chris knows how to piece together an excellent blog review, giving you an added insight into the impression your website is giving.
• Blog review from Aaron Russell of miLienzo. Aaron has been coding WordPress themes for a while now and certainly knows his stuff where blog design is concerned.
• Expert WordPress blog help from Lakshmi Mareddy of Chilligavva. Have you ever had any ideas for your blog that you haven’t been able to incorporate? Lakshmi has kindly agreed to offer her WordPress skills, helping you out with either code or graphics.
• Blog review from Hock Ng of Marketing Tools Review. Hock will focus his review on your blog content, design, SEO and usability.
• Blog makeover from Charles Jordan of The Queer Chef. Charles is proficient with design for the Blogger platform, and can also design WordPress. He’ll tantalise your taste buds with one of his blog makeovers.
• Blog writing consultation with Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog. Ben has offered his expertise to review 3–5 of your articles, providing tips and giving suggestions on writing, plus a quick guide to social media and how you can benefit from it.
• Two 45 minute coaching consultations with Mark McGuinness of Wishful Thinking. Mark specialises in coaching creative professionals, and is a real expert in his field. The first session will involve goal setting, with the second session reporting on progress and making adjustments.
• 4 hour business growth consultation with Rebecca Caroe, via telephone / Skype, or face-to-face in London / Cambridge. Rebecca is a business growth consultant for creative agencies, so if you’re looking to expand your company then this is the prize for you. If you want Rebecca to visit your offices simply pay her travel expenses.
• Tele-Coaching with Tammy Lenski. A one-hour, private telephone consult with professional mediator and conflict coach Tammy Lenski. Figure out how to deal with a challenging client, strengthen your contract negotiations, or confront difficult conversations with more confidence and success. Free call within the U.S., via Skype outside the U.S.
• One hour product launch consultation with Design Translator (DT) of Design Sojourn. Whether you’re launching a line of t-shirts, custom furniture, electronics, or any other product, DT will lend you his product launch expertise.
• Blog improvement or monetization advice with Easton Ellsworth of Business Blogwire. You choose, do you want to generally improve your blog or do you want help making money from it? Easton has kindly offered his help.
• Two premium quality books designed and produced by David Hyde of david the designer. John Hinchcliffe, internationally acclaimed designer-maker, is the subject of the richly illustrated first of two quality books. Crafts in the 20th Century is the second book kindly donated by David.
• Copy of Brand Aid by Brad VanAuken of The Blake Project. Brand Aid is a practical how-to guide on building winning brands. Derrick Daye was kind enough to offer this great prize.
• Watercolour print from Ed Roach Watercolours. Ed has quite a talent, and will graciously ship your favourite print from his watercolour studio.
• 728px by 90px banner ad for 30 days above the fold on The Blog Experiment, courtesy of Sara. This is quite a new forum for bloggers, but already there are approximately 5,000 posts! You must supply your own artwork.
• 125px by 125px image ad for 30 days on Smart Wealthy Rich. An excellent donation from top blogger, Jonathan.
• Ad icon located site-wide in the top left of Blog-Op, courtesy of Chris Lodge. Another kind gift from a fellow blogger in Scotland.
• 30 day text link ad shown site-wide on Contest Blogger. This is a great way to advertise your very own blog contest. Blogging is about giving something back, so get your contest featured.
• 125px by 125px image ad for 30 days on Freelance Folder. Another superb offering from Jonathan a.k.a Smart Wealthy Rich
• Lifetime membership to the paid membership site that Andy Beard, WordPress SEO and Niche Marketer, will launch on Andybeard.eu (eta and value yet to be determined). If the prize winner already qualifies for membership (some people will), then Andy will kindly come up with an alternative prize.

Do you ever get frustrated with how tied to your computer you are? Unless you tote your laptop around with you EVERYWHERE, more than likely you’re constantly in a state of wishing you had something from your home computer with you. Well, I think I’ve got just the solution for you. It’s called PortableApps. No this isn’t a paid post, nor is it sponsored in any way. I just tried this last week and really like it, so I’m spreading the word.

What is PortableApps? It’s a set of open-source software that installed onto a flash drive. Some you may have heard of, like Firefox, some you may not have, like Nvu or GIMP. All of these free softwares perform like software you’re already familiar with: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Notepad, Outlook, and many more. All these apps run right from the flash drive, no need to install them on a computer. The best part of all, you can store all your personal information on the flash drive without leaving any behind on the host computer. That’s right, all your bookmarks, settings, and files are saved on the flash drive as well. All you do is plug in and have access to all your files and programs without leaving a thing behind on the host computer.

I did this last week just to try it out. I went to Wal-Mart and got a 2GB flash drive for $15. The whole PortableApps folder takes up about 325MB of space, so I have over 1.5GB of space left on the drive for files and settings to be saved. This is nice because I can carry this little drive around anywhere, it’s only about an inch long, and I have everything I need anywhere I go. The only downside, the PortableApps suite only works on Windows. Even so, I’d encourage you all to go out and give this a try.

I wish I had the time to post this sooner, but I just didn’t. However, I just wanted to let everyone know that I did survive sky diving…and it was AWESOME! I just want anyone who is thinking of going sky diving to know that it’s something they’ll never regret doing. So here’s how it went down:

Me and some co-workers from the ER went down to Skydive Ogden in Ogden, Utah (www.skydiveogden.com) for a dive booked around 4 pm. Since there was four of us jumping, it cost $170 per person to jump. There was a LOT of people there, more than they had expected even, so our jump was actually delayed until 7 pm. Although that put us getting home rather late, it was worth it because we got to jump with the sun setting…cool experience. Anyway, back to the story. We all jumped in tandem, which means you’re attached to an instructor for the jump and they control every aspect of it. On the ground you get basic (really basic) instruction on how to exit the plane, what to do in air, and how to land. Since the tandem controls everything, there’s not much to remember. Then you’re geared up with a harness and a cap/goggles and loaded on a plane for a 20 minute flight up to about 13,000 feet (in our case). We had a rear-exit plane, so jumping was literally just walking off the edge…nothing to it really. Now I have to tell you, the only part that was rough for me was immediately after stepping off the plane. I think it’s best described as like diving into a cold lake. Not only was the air kind of chilly (I dove in plain clothes), but the initial shock is almost the same. I just took a couple deep breaths and I was totally fine after that. The view falling to earth from 13,000 at 120 miles per hour is amazing. You’ll never see another thing like it. We were in free fall for about 60 seconds before my tandem pulled the chute and he began to teach me the basics of steering and speed control, then kind of let me take the ropes. Landing was a breeze and no one was hurt on our jump.

I bought a dvd to go with my jump, so I’ll write another post and put the movie up as soon as I get it this week. If anyone has questions or is thinking about going, just ask me. It’s an experience I’d do again (and probably will) in a heart beat.

Update: Here’s a few pictures of the outing. I’ll still make a new post when I get the video in the mail.

Sky Diving Pics! (click here)

Well this weekend should be a very exciting one for me. After working my 12 hour shift in the ER tonight, I’ll be headed down to Utah to go skydiving tomorrow afternoon (Saturday). This is my first time trying this and, little fun fact, I’m terrified of heights. But, I figure I need to conquer my fears. To get over my fear of needles, I volunteered as a guinea pig for a phlebotomy class and donated plasma/blood…I guess this is kind of the same thing? Anyway, don’t anyone try and scare me out of it until AFTER tomorrow.

To add to the excitement going on this weekend, I’ll be releasing a few sites into the wild before Monday, 3 to be exact. One is my first stab at a site designed solely for affiliate marketing, another is the home site for my new media network (I had to give all these random sites a name and purpose right?), and the third is the project site for a local organization (which I mentioned in this post). I also plan on releasing a photo section right here on this site, so you lurkers can all get a personal shot of my life.

And to top off all this excitement, school starts Monday, adding insult to injury in my already-busy life. Well I can’t complain too much, it’s one year closer to getting that silly degree they make you earn to be a doctor!