Cool Nerdy or Tech Nerdy

My wife and I are generally of the nerd set.  Not having kids, we have a few more tech toys than most people.  We are tech savvy, but not social software saavy..  My wife is more social software savvy than I am especially when it comes to really social things like emoji.  

Emoji is a cool little app that changes the keyboard on an iPhone so you can send graphics characters instead of lame smiley's like :) or :-) like we used to do in the 90's with email.  As cool as emoji is, the engineer geek in me say that emoji needs memory and processor power, that slows down my iPhone.  I don't want to slow down my iPhone to send pictures.  Because of this I fall into the "lame" tech nerdy category according to my niece.

Obviously the solution is to get a newer faster iPhone that can handle the apps.  That of course is Apple's plan to take over my wallet.

Some people can't see the difference between a Cool Nerdy guy and a Tech Nerdy guy so they expect that I have it all.  My dad was a little older than most of my friends parents, so I was instilled with depression era rules on things like clothes, lights and toys.  Clothes you wear until they wear out, not until they are out of style.  Lights, if you aren't in the room, you turn them off.  Toys, if you might out grow it, you don't get it.  Lucky for me that rule didn't apply to cars.

My wife is a little different than I am in this way.  She is more Cool Nerdy and Fahionista type.  She likes new clothes daily, and works at a retail store part time just for the discount.  She of course has emoji and sends me texts with happy faces instead of :) like I send her.   On things like lights, we compromised.  I converted the house to LED lighting, and added Insteon lighting control.  When I go to bed, I hit all off, and I feel better knowing I am not wasting any energy, she feels better because she can leave on all the lights she wants until bedtime for under $1.00 a day.

Like the lights in the house, if it wastes energy or processing power, I probably don't use it.  That makes me a Tech Nerdy guy. If I were a Cool Nerdy guy I would have the latest of everything.  Are you Tech Nerdy or Cool Nerdy or Neither and don't even have a smart phone?

The (Almost) Healthy Dessert That Only Trader Joe's Can Make

Trader Joe's is a place that always has a surprise hidden somewhere in the store.  I am not talking about Larry the Lobster that kids get to go find, but rather the treats that change on a regular basis.  People who hang out in my neighborhood are probably expecting me to talk about some great wine find, but that isn't the case.

Some time ago while trying to lose weight, I found that my skin looked much better when I gave up carbs.  As I hit my weight goals, I started adding carbs back slowly and my skin broke out again.  It turns out I had a minor reaction to gluten.  I stopped eating gluten and my skin stayed clear.

So this little "desert" started with Trader Joes Gluten Free Ginger Snaps.  The problem is being a pilot, the ginger snaps were good, but I had to make them better.  The next obvious step was ice cream, but instead, I added the dark chocolate.  One square of the 72% dark chocolate between two ginger snaps turned out to be pretty good.

Of course that wasn't enough.  The next step was the Trader Joes 0% fat Greek Frozen Yogurt.  Then I added the Trader Joes Chocolate desert made with Coconut milk.

Finally I put it all together, and came up with this dessert.  It takes a little shopping to get all of this, but it is well worth the effort.  I recommend using a small bowl to keep from making a super-sized dessert.  We use very small dessert bowls to make this.

Ingredients needed (All Trader Joe's branded items)

Roasted Coconut Chips (found with the nuts and trail mix at most locations)
Gluten Free Ginger Snaps
Dried Pineapple
0% Greek yogurt
Chocolate Dessert made with Coconut milk (The strawberry is good too)
72% dark chocolate bar
Real Maple Syrup.

Grab a small bowl, a spoon and get ready.

Sprinkle the Roasted Coconut Chips to cover the bottom of the bowl in a single layer.  Break apart two gluten free ginger snaps (the triple ginger cookies will work good too) and make another layer.  Next add intertwining layers of the Vanilla Yogurt and the Chocolate Coconut Milk Dessert.  Using a spoon to make flat layers works better than using a scoop.

Break one square of the 72% chocolate bar into very small pieces and sprinkle across the top.  Cut one or two pieces of dried pineapple into small pieces and sprinkle on top as well.  Finally drizzle a light string of Maple Syrup to finish it off.

Let me know what you think.

The Real Cost of A Chevy Volt - 1000 Miles Completed

A month ago almost to the day I brought home my Chevy Volt.  I have a bit of an issue because I look at electric cars as an economic issue, and my friend Randy Jackson of sunpoweredevs.com looks at them as a strategy and freedom issue.  I really want us both to be right.  I find it ironic that it took a GM car to get me to drive an electric car when it was Cadillac that killed the electric car in the late 1920's.

Up until the 1920's you had to hand crank your gasoline car to start it.  Then Cadillac invented the electric starter and the gasoline powered car quickly surpassed the electric car in sales.  People go for cheap and easy.  Batteries back then weren't cheap and they weren't easy because of the limited range.

I believe that most consumers are going to go for the solution that provides the most bang for the buck as we say.  Wal-Mart proves it every day.  We want more for less, environment, made in China, it really doesn't matter and the sales of cheap imported products at Wal-Mart and Target prove it.

For me, acquiring the Chevy Volt was strictly economic.  I was looking for a new car and wanted the most bang for my buck period.  On paper, the Chevy Volt looked like a bargain.   After spending $1800 to put a new rear end in my F-150, and spending an average of $489 per month on fuel for it.  The first 1000 miles each month was costing me nearly $300 each month in gas.  The lease on the Volt is $399 per month.  With the tax credits and rebates, the Volt is essentially free, as would be a Nissan Leaf.

Admittedly, the Ford Fusion energi is a far better looking car and the sticker price is about the same as the Volt.  The problem is that the Ford only goes 16 miles on a charge before using gas.  The Volt can travel about 44 the way I drive it. My record is 48.

Since the Fusion Energi has smaller batteries than the Volt, the rebates and tax incentives are lower making the Fusion more expensive until those rebates and incentives expire.  For whatever reason, the Fusion lease programs carried a much lower residual value adding $150 or more to the lease rates with the same amount of money up front.

So I have a Volt.

As of yesterday, I have driven 1000 miles in the Volt.  Doing that I used $30 of electricity at home and $5.00 of electricity from Charging stations along with 5.3 gallons of gas according to the computer.  I also have learned about a big frustration with electric car charging.

The city of Seal Beach for charges $3.37 per kWh to charge your car. A Volt gains about 10 miles for each hour of charge, and according to the City of Seal Beach charger, I used 1 kWh in 20 minutes of charging.  That is $3.37 for 20 minutes of parking and 3.3 miles of range added to the car.  If it isn't obvious, that is crazy expensive.

Here is the rub.  The Volt gets about 10 miles for each hour of charging on a level two charger.  According to the best information I have it charges at a rate of 3 kWh on a 240V level two charger.  The simple math at home is .28 x 3 = .75 for 10 miles.  Gas at $4.00 per Gallon and 40 MPG that I am actually getting is $1.00 for 10 miles.  Easily 25% more cost effective to use electricity at home.   At a ChargePoint station charging .25 per kWh it is even cheaper.

South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa is the clear winner, I found a nice covered charging slot that allowed two hours of FREE charging.  Guess where I spent $1100 on a new Mac Mini?  Thank you South Coast Plaza for getting it.  Free parking and Free charging.  I don't think electric cars should get free electricity everywhere, but how nice is it to add a few solar panels and get customers to spend money in your center by giving away $1.50 in electricity?

To put this in perspective, assuming straight rates and Level two charging at 3 kWh, parking and charging in Seal Beach is $10.11 per hour.  The space right next to the charger is free.  Charging at home on Tier 3 rates is $.84 per hour.  The City of Seal Beach is asking for $9.37 in profit every hour!

The Grove in Los Angeles has some pretty pricey parking too, and charging there as a Blink member is $1.00 per hour.  With validation, I get two hours of charging and parking for $2.00.  In Seal Beach that would be $20.22 while my gasoline powered friends parked right next to me would be parking for free.  Maybe there should be a way to "validate" some electric charging when the people really spend money.

If the city of Seal Beach wants the sales tax from my business, they are not encouraging me to stay long at $10.11 per hour for charging are they?

At $4.00 per gallon and 40 miles per gallon, charging at $1.00 per hour is about the same cost economically speaking since I get about 10 miles of range per hour of charging.  At the normal retail level, electric and gas cost me about the same.  When you include the annual fee for Blink, it is actually more expensive slightly.  At some point electric rates have to go down because states are going to tax electric cars for the fuel tax they aren't paying.

It is all about balance, if electricity costs more, people will stop buying electric cars plain and simple.

This economic problem has created another issue.  Electric cars that plug in and don't actually charge.  I noticed that two of the there electric chargers in Seal Beach were occupied by other cars, and when I read the charger they were not actually charging.  I was the only guy dumb enough to pay $3.37 per kWh I guess.

I would think that cities, attempting to encourage use of clean electric vehicles would charge .20 or .30 per kWh, and $1.00 per hour of charging at most like the Grove and Carl's Jr. locations do.  Why is Seal Beach charging so much to plug in?  Don't they want my business and tax money?

Speaking of Carl's Jr., I stopped in for lunch, plugged in and walked over to the Citadel to get a pair of Jeans.  The Citidel hasn't installed any chargers yet, free or otherwise.  Fortunately, the Carl's Jr. Manager was very nice and just asked that I don't stay for more than 2 hours even though the other two cars in the Blink charger spaces were not electric at all.

So far I have found two Carl's Jr. locations on my way home that have Blink Chargers.

Economically speaking, I won't be plugging in at a City of Seal Beach location until they get reasonable with the rates.  Gasoline is way cheaper and parking isn't that big of a deal on weekdays.  If the City Council wants to say the chargers failed, they are doing the right things to make that happen.

South Coast Plaza on the other hand will keep getting my business as long as there are free electric spaces even if only for two hours at a time.  Talk about getting it.

At the end of the day, after 1000 miles, I haven't filled the tank so I have to trust the computer in the Volt when it says I have used just over 5 gallons of gasoline, $5.00 in paid electric charging and two hours FREE at South Coast Plaza and my electric bill that went up $30.  Round up and call it $60 for 1000 miles v. $289 for 1000 miles in my F-150 and the Volt is clearly the economic winner.  Just in case you think the F-150 isn't a fair comparison, I also have a Mercedes SL that also gets 14 mpg in the real world.  I just don't drive it enough, And the Volt is saving a few miles off of that car too.

And yes, the Volt is fun to drive, has a great stereo, and navigation that is better than the SL or my wife's ML.  My favorite feature is sending an address from my phone to the car so I don't type it in at all.  The voice command part stinks.  Ford is the hands down winner here.

The real monthly cost of driving a Volt 1000 miles is $399 for the lease, and $60 for the gas.   The F-150 or the SL would be $289 for gas alone.  Is the Volt a winner?  Yes.  Is electricity the winner?  Yes, that is as long as you don't charge up in Seal Beach.

The Volt at the Airport - No Chargers!

The Power of Direction aka Getting More Done In Less Time

With the right direction you can get a lot more done in a lot less time.  At least that is what I have been saying and writing about for many years.  So yesterday as I was running off to one of my four "jobs", and a neighbor stopped me.  I could see the question before he asked it.  "Isn't it a little hypocritical that you have four jobs and call yourself a focus coach?"

Without question on the surface it looks a little odd, but I have a couple of secrets that I will share from my current book project, and a little perspective to boot.

My four jobs aren't the only things that I do. I also have written books, edit websites and write articles outside of my blog.  Also, my house is a giant toy store for big boys.  Classic rag top car, surfboard, paddle board, four beach bikes (everyone that visits likes to ride the beach path), skateboards and a radio controlled helicopter.  I like toys, and yes they are for many people a distraction to getting focused.  That is because they use them wrong.

Focused Doesn't Mean No Life.

Being focused simply means that you can see where you are going, you have a "destination" as I like to call it, and you are making progress.  It doesn't mean you are stuck in front of a computer for thirty hours at a time.  Writers block is famously cured by leaving the writing office.  

As a former military competitive marksman, I used to say you could see your target clearly.   When I moved back to the west coast, I realized two problems with that metaphor.  First, any competitive shooter knows that you don't focus on your target.  The front site right in front of you is the focus.  Second, not enough people on the west coast have guns, and if they do, not enough are technically proficient at shooting to understand the metaphor.

The truth is, shooting is still a great metaphor for life.  Looking at the front site is like looking at what you have right in front of you.  The tools you have today, here and now are what you have, nothing more.  Seeing a blurry target is also a great metaphor, because life is a little blurry.  Those who get things done know exactly what they want to do, just like a shooter knows exactly what he is shooting at.  At least that is true for a successful shooter, just ask Dick Cheney about now knowing what you are shooting at.  

So now I use my second life to teach focus.  As a military and airline pilot, we never start the jet without a mission or a destination.  Hopefully in the military you accomplish both.  Starting out, I don't always know what the place I am going to looks like.  Every place I have ever been is new at least once.  Some change making them new again.  I know enough to get there, and have a plan.  I also have a backup plan in case there are obstacles that are too big for my current plan.

The first time a pilot goes to an airport, he has no idea what it looks like, yet thousands of times every day pilots land safely at new airports hundreds or thousands of miles from where they started.

So how does all of this relate to the power of direction and getting more done in less time?

When you have a direction, or a destination, you have a reason, a purpose, an intention or a burning desire to get there.  If you want to get there bad enough you will.  

The problem for most people is distraction.  Those little daily fires that pop up.   My two dogs are sitting here staring at me waiting for a morning walk.  Because of my burning desire to move my business forward and help more people, the dogs have to wait, and I keep typing.

See if this sounds familiar in any way.  

Saturday morning you are going to sit down and re-write your resume so you can get a big promotion or move to another company.  You get up, and the kids want to have breakfast.  You tell yourself, just after breakfast, you'll sit down and fix your resume.

After breakfast, your spouse reminds you that Jonny has baseball and Janie has ballet and you promised Janie you would take her.  Not wanting to let your child down, you take her to ballet.  You can do the Resume when you get back.  After all it is just a couple of pages and the old one isn't that bad is it?

After ballet the other parents are going to have lunch at that new girls store across town, and Janie is screaming to go.  So you do.

At 3 pm you finally walk in the door dog tired of running all over town when you are told, the Jones want to get together for dinner, the sitter arrives at 5 and the dog needs a walk and the dishes need to get done, which would you like?

At 9:30 you get home from dinner, tuck the kids in, sit down and realize it is 10:30.  Tomorrow you'll get to your resume.

Sound Familiar?  Even without kids this has happened to me more than once.  

Building a business isn't any different, you can map out a business and plan it down to the exact color blue on your business cards, and wake up a month later with a great plan and no business, or a business with no income.

The Secrets

My first secret to keeping sane with four jobs is that I don't have children.  Just two dogs.  It isn't by choice, it just is my life.  Any parent will tell you that having kids is a job on it's own.  Many parents are overwhelmed by the kids and make excuses to get out of the house that make things worse not better.  This isn't really a secret, but it is something you need to understand as you set out on your journey if you want to stay sane.

My second secret comes from the ability to harness that internal desire.  It takes a lot of practice, and a litte discipline.  Each of my four jobs only gets one major item for the day.  The reality is, if I focused on just one job*, I would make a lot more money at it.  I have made the decision based on my white board to create dozens of small streams of income rather than one large one.  You have to make that decision based on your own "wants" and "don't wants"

The flying job at the airline often gets none.  The advantage of that job, for the most part is when I am not flying I don't have to think about it.  With over 25 years of flying in the military and the airline, flying is now second nature.  All jets are basically the same after a while.

Even if you have kids and a day job, you can pick one major goal and make a destination out of it.  If your family understands where you are going, why it is important to you and how it helps them, they will understand the next part.  I suggest the white board method for this.  

The next part is setting priorities every day.  Each day at the end of the day I look at the small white board in my office.  Not the big one in the garage that has my "Wants" and "Don't Wants" on it.  Here too are three columns.  The first is the daily task list.  One major item for each of my four main "jobs".  The second is my Open or Follow up list.  Sort of my brainstorm of things that should become something on the daily task list.  These are things I haven't done, and haven't put a deadline on but are important enough not to "dump".  Some will get delegated when I find the right person.

The third column is my notes and big picture items to work on when I have completed my daily tasks or hit a road block and need to let my subconscious do some work.

Here is the big secret that takes a little practice.  When I get stuck on a task in column one like "Write a New Chapter for Book Project", I focus on it for just 5 or 10 minutes.  If I don't see a solution, I tell my subconscious to work on it, and then I either go to the far right column and work on something like "Solar Panels for the roof" or I go grab a toy and play or exercise for 45 minutes.  I find that almost every time I do this,  a solution will just "pop in my head".  Oddly solutions for the other three items on the list show up as well.  

Using this method, I work three to four hours a day on three of my four jobs.  I believe if you use this method, you can easily start a profitable second career or business in just a few hours each week.

*Because the airline job is union and a straight trade of time for money, none of these rules apply.  I can't work any smarter to get paid more and work less than the contract will allow.  As much fun as flying is, I do plan to leave commercial flying and purchase a private aircraft in the next 24 months.  I will be too young to retire just in case you are thinking that is the reason for 24 months.

Living the Up Life, Jawbone Up That Is.

The Jawbone Up is the nerds jewelry.  It doesn’t tell time, and it doesn’t even have a display like a Nike Fuel.  Techies like me spot them across the room, and non-techies stop me to ask regularly.

I received a Nike Fuel as a birthday gift, and as cool as it was, the privacy policy was totally unacceptable to me.  I clicked “do not accept” and a window popped up to return the Nike Fuel.

After reading the Jawbone privacy policy, I decided to get the Jawbone Up instead.  The idea of tracking activity smarter just makes sense when you are trying to get in better shape or lose weight.  

The Nike Fuel is a more comfortable design and is less bulky, but after living with a Jawbone Up on my wrist nearly 24x7 for a week, I guess I am getting used to it.  I have also learned a lot of cool tricks and found a few annoyances.

On the annoyance side, you have to tell it what you are doing all the time.  Nike Fuel owners feel free to chime in here if it is the same or smarter.  For instance, I really like the idea that the Jawbone Up monitors my sleep patterns and makes sure I wake from a light sleep rather than a deep sleep.  The problem is I forgot to tell it I went to sleep last night, somehow it should know.

I also have been watching how activities are logged.  If I ride my bike for an hour and forget to set it into “stopwatch” mode, I’ll get some crazy number of steps added to my day which I haven’t figured out how to edit and change into bike riding.  Even flying airplanes, I get credit for some steps.  I plugged in the Up to sync before the flight moved and again when we landed.  I did 456 steps according to the Jawbone Up.  The reality was I didn't move my butt out of the seat at all for over three hours.  I expected the "idle" alert to go off.

If I put the Jawbone Up in stopwatch mode by pushing the button once and then holding it in on a second push until it buzzes allows me to log all kinds of land based activity.  It would be nice if I could swim with it.

My favorite feature on the Jawbone Up is “power nap”.  I had about a  two hour break today, and only slept four hours last night due to my crazy life.  I found a nice reclining chair, put in earplugs, and 23 minutes later my power nap was over.  I didn’t feel like I got all of my sleep but I did feel notably better.  Normally I would have been afraid to wear earplugs because I have been known to crash so hard that I don’t hear dogs barking or the alarm going off and have missed important appointments due to it.

Fully reclined and totally unaware of the world around me, I felt a gentle buzz on my arm and just woke up nice and easy.  The power nap feature is reason enough to own a Jawbone Up for me with my crazy life.

The only other real annoyance, and it could be that I have a bad one, is the battery life.  My Jawbone Up, never turns green after charging for well over two hours.  The manual online says a full charge should take about 80 minutes.  My wife’s Jawbone Up turned green after just 60 minutes on the initial charge and 70 minutes the second time and her battery has also lasted the advertised 10 days.  My Jawbone Up is only going about five days between charges.  Maybe I’ll call Jawbone about a replacement, but not until after I take another little power nap.

Life Mapping With a White Board aka White Board a Great Life

I can year you now, "Life Mapping With a White Board, Yeah Right!".  I know this because I get the same response just about every time I bring it up.  People ask me for advice all the time, and they ask the wrong questions.  I hear things like, "You race cars,  I want to do it too." or "Hey your website is making money, I want to build a website that makes money too." or "I want to write a book, you wrote a book, will you help me do it?"

My answer is always the same "You can't be me".  How boring would that be anyway?

So how can a White Board help you map out a great life?  To start with, the human mind is a funny thing. This little three part computer we carry around in our heads needs a little guidance from time to time.  I say three parts because we have the instinctive part that is our Freeze-Fly-Fight computer whenever we encounter things we don't know or understand.  Then we have the big part we use to think about problems.  That big part has a conscious part and a subconscious part.

All together I count this as three parts, the amygdala or the little primitive brain, the subconscious mind and the conscious mind.

When you read books about becoming an "expert" at something, and getting those five or ten thousand hours of experience, what you are really doing is training your big brain or your mind as I like to call it to overpower your instinctive little amygdala, your little brain.  The Mind fails us when it encounters something it hasn't seen or thought about and then defers to the little brain which knows to Freeze like a possum and hope nothing happens.  If that doesn't work, then it moves to Fly, like a scared cat being followed by a German Shepherd, and finally as a last resort it turns to Fight, like a deer in the corner.

So how does a white board help the Mind?

My technique of Life Mapping with a White Board gives the big brain another perspective on what you really want.  It is one more step to keeping the big brain in control of your life.  The key is to replace fear with knowledge.

What is the white board technique?

The white board technique is a way of finding a destination if you don't have one.  Even if you have what you think is a clear destination, the Life Mapping on a White Board method can help you see problems with your destination and help get your family on board if needed.  It brings it all together for everyone.

Originally I used just two columns.  "I Want" and "I Don't Want", and drew a line down the middle.

The first time I did this, I did it by myself.   Doing it by yourself isn't a great plan because we'll say things like "I want a Ferrari", and the truth is, we don't.  The Ferrari is just a status thing representing something we really want.  You still might get a Ferrari but it isn't necessarily a destination of itself and your friends and family will help bring clarity here.  Just keep it to direct family and very close friends.

You can do this with your business partner too.

When you involve others, be prepared to sell it a little.  If you put "one million in cash by the end of the year" on the "I Want" side, you might get laughed out of your own house if the most you have made is $50,000 a year and your savings is empty.  Involving others takes more internal strength too.  It helps you to say out loud those things you really want and might be embarrassed or ashamed to say.  By writing them down it helps you overcome that fear.

Our culture has grown to believe that "I Want" is selfish and is looked down upon.  It is a big reason we are in the trouble we are in.  Go back to Ben Franklin and the Founding Fathers.  The Declaration of Independence is an entire list of "I Want".

You Must "Want" on the "I Want" Side

Think back to being a kid, you wanted everything.  Today when you want something, you feel guilty.  When I wanted a new car and put my truck up for sale I believed my dogs gave me the evil eye.  I could hear them saying "NOT OUR TRUCK, DON'T SELL OUR TRUCK".  Our brains are trained to avoid pain, not seek gain.  We aren't taught to try and get A+'s in school, we are taught not to get F's.

My parents didn't reward me for getting A's, they rewarded me for not getting C's.  A B was my standard.  When I tried college for the first time, and there wasn't a carrot for the B's, I quickly got to the mental state of avoiding D's, C's were good enough.

The difference between me and the valedictorian was simple.  She had a destination going into college of being number one when she got out.  I didn't.  My destination was to fly jets, nobody told me that jet pilots needed good grades.  Lucky for me persistence beats grades once in a while.

It was the process of becoming a pilot after being told I didn't have the grades to become one that I started thinking about the Life Mapping process.  It was dominated by "I Want To Fly Jets".

You Must Know What You "Don't Want" Too.

The "I Don't Want" Side is important too.  If your "I Don't Want" side includes "I don't want to be at any Disney Park on a weekend or Holiday ever again" and you build a business that requires you to be there Monday through Friday for life, what happens?  You have a conflict.  It is these little conflicts that cause problems.

When you list out all of your "I Want" and "I Don't Want" items and life style choices, you start to see problems and conflicts.  Dreaming up the Wants and Don't Wants is fun, now comes the work.

The work is to look at the conflicts and set priorities.  In the example above, which is more important, the business, or time at Disney on a weekday.  Which one gives and how?  For me and my wife it was easy, we chose to work weekends and play on weekdays.  Easier to do when you don't have kids, and it can be a hassle when family wants to visit.

The New Third Column - The Mission

Recently I added a third column to my board, and it is my "mission" listed in three major goals.  I look at them two and three times a day.  They are also in a card in my wallet.  My goal sheet used to have ten different things on it, and I realized that ten was too many.  I wasn't doing any of them.

Gary Keller in his book "The One Thing" suggests that you only have one goal at a time.  I think we have more power than that, but this book is a great starting point.

The way I see it, we should have the primary goal and two on the bench.  When we hit an obstacle with the first goal, we have something to take our minds off it, and let the subconscious mind work on it.  While we are focused on the primary goal, the back of the brain is working on the other two in its off time.

When I reach a primary goal, it gets removed, the other two move up, and I start looking for a new one.

The big white board with the "I Want" - "I Don't Want" - "Goal Column" is revisited every time a major goal is achieved.  I make sure the major goal fit my "wants" and "don't wants" and then use those two columns to work on a new third goal.

When I come up with a new third, I let it sit at least a week and look at it again to make sure it fits.  It it does, I change it from black to blue, indicating a change from a "penciled in goal" changing to a "real goal" and the process starts over.

Just like flying jets, things change in life constantly.  Weather changes just like life changes, so you can never put away your white board and forget about it.  Every month or two my wife and I sit down with a nice glass of wine and a cheese plate and look at the white board, we review our "wants" and "don't wants" and talk about progress towards the primary goal, and if the other two still should be on the bench.

We don't change or mission or goals often, in fact it only happened once.  If you keep changing your goals, you are changing direction, meaning you never get anywhere.  You don't need to Life Map on a White Board to go nowhere, you can do that quite easily without trying.  People do it every day.  The reason you are reading this is so you don't become one of those people.

We do change "Wants" and "Don't Wants" from time to time.  Why? Simply put, life changes.  We learn.  Something that sounded good at first ends up being wrong.  For instance we wanted to be more "water conservative".  Following that we bought a very nice low flow toilet for our bathroom downstairs.  Quickly we found out that it didn't always flush everything and at a party our guests were embarrassed.  Not embarrassing guests, outweighed water conservation, so the toilet hit the curb.  Funny little things can tweak your list.  The trick is to make sure those little things don't guide you away from your destination.

Setting Priorities.

When you get the white board filled up with wants, don't wants and goals, now is the hard part, setting priorities.  You have to remove all of the conflicts first.  All of the wants, don't wants and goals that aren't consistent with the overall scheme.

Next is to list the "Wants" from most important to least, then do the same with "Don't Wants" and "Goals".

With that done, sit back and ask yourself "Where is this taking me?  Is this really where I want to go?"  If you did it right, what you have is a clear picture of where you are and the tools you have, and a pretty solid description of the place you want to go.

Just like flying a jet, every time someone asks you about doing something, you look at your list and ask a very simple question, "Does what they want me to do help me follow my list, or does it conflict with my list?"  When it conflicts you simply say "No Thank You" and move on.  This takes practice, and as you see results don't stop.

What you have just created is your own magic compass that points at what you really want.  When you get knocked off course or a storm is in the way, look at the compass on your white board, go around or over the obstacle and keep going to your destination.

Chevy, We Have a Problem - Retail Electricity is EXPENSIVE

Yesterday I wrote about my experience to date with my new Chevy Volt.  One of the reasons we selected a Volt was the ability to use gas when a charger wasn't around or we didn't have time to charge the car.  I argued that a Leaf could make 90% of our trips in one charge.  The Tesla is just a smidge out of our budget now since we need a new roof and want to add solar at the same time.

My wife won the argument with this simple rebuttal, she said "Ok, so I get finished at 11 pm at Fox Studios and then have to go find a charger because for some reason I am four miles short of the battery needed to make it home.  Do you want me to find a charger at midnight and stand next to the car for 45 minutes?"

We got a Volt.

In my post yesterday, I didn't really explain to much about the three gallons of gas I used so far.  The reality is I only needed to use one of them.  I could have charged up at Blink or chargepoint quite easily instead of using the other two gallons.  So why didn't I just plug in?

The answer is in my wallet and is simple economics.  At my house I pay .13 or .16 per kWh.  At A chargepoint station after paying $25 per year membership, I can charge for Free, $1.00 per hour or .25 kWh.  Each station is different and you have to look at an app to see which each station does.  Some chargepoint stations are only 120V 12A also.

The Blink stations I have seen are all $2.00 per hour for non members and $1.00 for members.

Since I used dollars per mile yesterday, I will use that method today.  Using gas, I am getting 10 miles per dollar and electricity at home I get 13.8 miles per dollar.  If I hit tier 4 at .32 per kWh, I might be at exactly break even.  For now the savings is well worth plugging in.  When I go solar my savings should be greater.

At a public Blink or Chargepoint station using the better 220V 30A plug, the Volt is limited in its charging capacity.  I got 8 Miles added after an hour, so how does that work out in miles per dollar?

8 miles for $2.00 for non members is only 4 miles per dollar, making gas 60% more cost effective.
8 miles for $1.00 for members is 8 miles per dollar, making gas 20% more cost effective
4 miles for $1.00 for members on a 120V 12A station makes gas 60% more cost effective.
4 kWh for $1.00 for members at Chargepoint was nearly 14 miles on my range meter,  making electricity almost 30% more cost effective than gas.  This is very close to the dollars spent at home. and the .25 per kWh chargers are the ones I look for.

So as a member for $1.00 you might get 4 miles, you might get 8 miles or you might get 14 miles with a Volt.  For the $30 per year at Blink and $25 per year for Chargepoint, it is more cost effective to drive on gas then it is to pay for electricity.

Now, that said, I did find several FREE Chargepoint Chargers for members and even a few at civic locations for anyone. WallyPark at LAX is offering FREE charging if you valet park. That is just enough to get me to Valet.  If WallyPark LAX starts charging for plugging in, then I'll go back to self park and use gasoline to get home.

Unless I find free Blink chargers anywhere, I am not sure I will pay the $30.00 for Blink next year.

Thankfully several studios my wife and I work at allow free charging as well.  For now Disneyland is looking the other way if you find a wall plug in the Mickey and Friends garage and plug in.  I only live 10 miles away so if I stay at least two hours, I can top off.  Looking at my credit card bill this arrangement is definitely in Disney's favor.

Like most electric car owners I have already met and talked too, I don't think I should get a free ride or free electricity.  Plugging in and charging up just needs to be cost effective to keep the trend growing.  Since a Leaf and a Tesla have faster charging capability, hourly rates might be more effective for them.  Volts tend to charge a little slower, making the free or .25 per kWh stations the only way to save money.

Popular Mechanics magazine stated that a Leaf at .38 per kWh was only .026 per mile in energy costs.  I don't know how that works out, but they claim it does.  This means a Leaf charges at a rate to get 38 miles of range added in an hour while the Volt is only getting 8?  Is the Volt charger that slow, or did I get bad charging stations?

Any Leaf or Tesla Owners want to pipe in on how much range you get with a 1 hour charge at a level 2 station.  For that matter any Volt drivers getting more than 8 miles per hour when plugged in at a public station?