Craiglist, Take 2

// August 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Brad's Life

Lots of great things going on in life, but this blog seems to revolve around my Craigslist encounters lately.

We wanted to clean up the 2nd bedroom (aka the official headquarters of BlueFuego) to make a little more room in it. Actually, it wasn’t quite like that. It went more like this:

Sunday: Jen says “I wonder if we could have more room in here if we re-arranged, or got rid of one of our two desktop PC’s and just used one desk.”
Monday: Jen leaves for work, and comes home to a re-arranged room, a missing computer, a desk in the middle of the room, and lots of stuff boxed up and taken to the garage.
Tuesday:Jen comes home to $180 on the table, a missing desk, router and monitor.

Give me an idea and I’ll usually run with it.

SO, long story short, I sold my computer monitor and decided to meet the guy in the Fry’s parking lot. Personal safety win! He ended up being 90 FREEKING MINUTES LATE, so I was naturally bored. He had asked to see the monitor in action to ensure it worked, so I brought my laptop. And I brought my Verizon MiFi so I could get an internet signal and get some work done while I waited (only expecting it to be 15-30 minutes, not 90.)

At some point, I decided…. Let’s uStream it.

So I fire up uStream and tell everyone on Twitter what’s about to go down.

And people started watching.

How many?

186 viewers came through in the 75 minutes I was streaming. Combined, they watched 32 hrs & 54 mins of the stream.

And this is what they all waited for…. The Transaction. (PS – I definitely brought along the router I was trying to sell and upsold him the monitor AND router. Ohhh yeah!) And while it might have not as been as funny as last month when someone from Craigslist drove through my yard, it was still quality entertainment.

Craigslist Fail

// June 28th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Brad's Life

We had to chop down a 30 ft tree in the backyard because it died, and I had no clue what we were going to do with the wood. (When we dug Jen’s garden, I threw several hundred lbs of dirt in the pond, but I thought the HOA might notice floating branches a little more…..)

Jen suggested we put it on Craigslist, so I gave it a try.  To my surprise, 15 inquiries for FREE WOOD rolled in within a few hours.  I had all of these people wanting my cell phone # so they could call me and ask if the wood was still there before they left.

Well, I hate talking on the phone and I really hate talking to strangers on the phone.

So, I set up my webcam from the window and positioned it on the wood pile.  I started a stream on uStream and sent them all the link, telling them to check the video instead of calling me to see if there was any wood left.

And…. I decided to record it for the heck of it.

20 minutes from when I sent the email, a few people rolled up in a car and took every single piece of it.  But the best part was their triumphant arrival……

THROUGH MY FRONT YARD.

Check out the video.  Hilarious.  Another Craigslist Success Story.

Want A Free Netbook? Check it out.

// April 27th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Brad's Life

Hey everyone – sorry for not posting in awhile. Life’s been busy, in a good way.

You might remember that a little over a year ago I got a brand spankin’ new Mac Mini for under $60: http://blog.bradjward.com/?p=266

I would never post something like this unless I have personally done it and know it works.  Trainn is a very reputable company in the ‘freebie’ world and the only one I will deal with.  Since I’ve already had success with them before, I’m going to share with you and hope you will join me as well to get a free computer for minimal work and $$$.

Well, Trainn has a new offer up, this time your choice of a netbook.  A netbook is basically a miniature laptop with a webcam.  They are great.  I have an Acer Aspire One that’s really good for travel and just surfing the web on.

So here’s where you come in.  I’m going for the Samsung NC-10 and I need 9 referrals.  9 people who can get 7-9 people to join them (Michael Scott pyramid scheme? Haha!) and get a free laptop.

You can choose between:

Inspiron Mini 9, MSI Wind, HP Mini 1035NR, Samsung NC10, Acer AOA1050, or $300 Cash

It’s really simple.

1) Create a new gmail account.  You’ll want to keep it separate from your personal account.  I made bradnetbook(at)gmail(d0t)com.

2) Go to http://www.YourFreeNetbook.com/index.php?ref=5857039 (This is my referral link, very important to click through it!!)

3) Select the netbook (or cash) that you want. Most netbooks are 7-9 referrals.  You can also do a point system, where you complete offers for points and don’t have to rely on others to get your laptop.  I did points for my Mac Mini, this time I’m going to do referrals because it’s less work.

4) Complete ONE OFFER from the Group A listings.  Some are awarded instantly, some take time.  One offer example is to become a member of Netflix. Do it for 2 months, pay $20-25, and have your laptop after getting your referrals.  Another one is a jewelry store.  Buy something for $10, get your referrals, and be done. There are other offers where you do the introductory ‘just pay S/H’ and get something for $5.  Just make sure you CANCEL in time or you’ll get charged $25-50 for the next installment.

I would do Netflix BUT there is a 22 day wait on getting your credit. I prefer to go with the offers that give credit more quickly, because it helps move the process along.
*UPDATE* 11:30am Monday -
I did the IDWatchdog offer and got instant credit, like within 10 minutes. Going to try the service for a month and see what I think of it, then re-evaluate from there.  If 9 people can take the 10 minutes to register for this service and give it a try, I’ll have my laptop offer done within the day.

5) Get your 7-9 referrals and then get your laptop.
When I did my Mac Mini, I started and 5 weeks later it was on my doorstep.

Join me? It’s legit.

Once I hit 9 referrals I will change my link to help someone else out.  Leave a comment below if you’re joining me so I can pass any referrals after my 9th completion on to someone else.

What’s the catch? Not giving it a try. When I did the Mac Mini, it was valued at $600 so I had to pay tax on it (I believe it was a 1099-MISC at the end of the year from Trainn).  Since these products are valued at under $600, you shouldn’t get taxed on them at the end of the year!
Let’s do it.

*note* – While I can help and support you with what offers to do and how to get the free netbook, I can’t be held liable for your participation.  Just wanted to throw that in there.

Spring has arrived.

// March 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Brad's Life, Photography, video

It was 5:30pm.  Jen has just gotten home from work, and supper was on the stove. I hear a sound in the faint distance.  Bells. Jingles. Circus Music.

In the friendly suburbs of Fishers, Indiana that can only mean one thing… THE ICE CREAM MAN!!

I threw my shoes on, grabbed my wallet, and busted out the door towards the glorious delicacy on wheels.

2 blocks down the road, the Ice Cream Man finally stopped. “Sorry dude, I thought you were just out for a run.”  Yeah, that happens.

The ice cream was delicious, and Spring is here.  Bella gave me a total “You forgot to take me with you…” look when I got back.

I love Spring.
Click to Enlarge

Singapore

// March 10th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Brad's Life, Travel, video

I had the awesome opportunity to spend Feb. 20-26 on a trip to Singapore. I spoke at a higher education conference, and it also was a time for Matt W and I to get together! He flew in and we got to spend 3 days together. It was awesome, just like the good ol’ days at UIS.  Here’s a quick video of the first few days of the trip.  Working on the rest of the footage and uploading photos to Flickr. I’ll have more up soon!

Utah

// February 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // Brad's Life, Travel

Had a chance to go out to Utah a few weeks ago to meet with the folks at Zinch.com for some meetings and brainstorming about future projects.

It’s beautiful out there!

Reality Check

// February 1st, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Brad's Life, Technology

You might remember about 10 months ago when I wrote about earning my evangelism wings. Well, the story doesn’t end there.

Last week I found out that my email to Guy Kawasaki was turned into a chapter of his latest book, Reality Check.  I got the book for Xmas and have yet to tear into it (It’s sitting behind Outliers in the queue).

Chris at GotShoo.com talks about it on his blog, because he wrote the code behind the site, bloghighed.org, which is the premise behind the chapter, titled ‘The Art of Sucking Up.’  Me? Suck up? Hah.

Fun Fact: There’s something wrong with the very first sentence of my email to him in the article.  It should read ‘Here it goes.’  Instead, it reads ‘Here goes.’  I doubt many people even notice, but I sure did.  Also, there were some URL links in the email that don’t come through in print.  You can see the original email here.

(Photos by GotShoo.com)

To read it, check out the book or sneak a peek by clicking this link and typing my name in the search box.

So make that 2 books for 2008. A photo on the cover of Tribes by Seth Godin and a chapter in the book Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki. Not bad company to be around.

Chile, Interviews, and Life

// January 21st, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Brad's Life, Butler, House, Travel

The trip to Chile was absolutely amazing.  I had such a good time and had so much good wine.

You can see my ~500 pictures from the trip on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradjward/sets/72157612120022247/

On Monday I did an interview with the CBC (Think NPR, only for Canada) about the FacebookGate situation.  What’s FacebookGate? Get the full story on my other blog:  http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2008/12/18/facebook-pay-attention/

The story spread all over the internet, with over 50,000 visitors to the post in a week.  It hit sites like Mashable, TechMeme, Reddit, CNET, Wired, Conde Nast, and many more.  I tried to bookmark what I could find, here are 101 websites about the story: http://delicious.com/bradjward/%232013

Here are some photos from the interview:

And here is the interview!
‘Spark’ Episode 63

The coolest thing for me was that I’m on the same episode as Seth Godin, my favorite business author. (Remember the book cover?)

Hmm…. let’s see… what else is new……………

oh

yeah

i

almost

forgot

to

tell

you

.

I quit my job at Butler.   As of Feb 1st I’ll be working out of the house on a new startup called BlueFuego. It’s a consulting company that will help colleges and universities use the internet to market and recruit students and connect with alumni.  I’m really… REALLY excited.

More information is on my other blog if you’re interested:

http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2009/01/21/big-news-leaving-butler-university/

Hope things are going well for you, everyone! (all 10 readers? haha) Give me a call sometime to say hi.

Holiday Snacks

// December 17th, 2008 // No Comments » // Brad's Life

I love this time of the year.  Jen made chocolate-covered pretzels and cranberry pumpkin bread. Yum.

(PS – I did the sprinkles.)

Tonight our small group delivers gifts to our ‘adopted family’ for Christmas. They are from Jen’s school. A mom and 5 kids. We had fun picking out the gifts and wrapping them!

Graphs of life

// December 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // Brad's Life

The analytic side of me has been pretty active lately. Looking at numbers and trends of my life. Here are a few that have peaked my interest lately.

1) Miles per gallon. I talked about FuelFrog back in July. I’ve been using it for 7 months now, and here is the interesting trend. As the cost of gasoline decreases, so does my miles per gallon. I become less sensitive to the cost of driving efficiently, and it also costs less to not worry about it. My tanks of gas have been around $16 instead of $40 lately. So if I get 20 less miles on a tank, it’s costing me $1.80, not $4.25. I can justify the few extra minutes at home every day to drive like that.

2) My word cloud from Twitter.  Twitter is pretty much engrained into my life.  Chatting with friends, updates on what I am doing, etc.  I’ve updated about 15 times a day through 2008, so this is a pretty good look into my life through 2008. The bigger the word is, the more it was used.  I’m glad the big words are things like “good”, “great”, “think”, “thanks”, “love”, “time”.  Better than “hate”, “sucks”, etc., right?