Web Developer • Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Nerd • Marine Corps Veteran
I graduated high school in 1998 and enrolled in my first college class that fall. I quit before finishing the semester and joined the Marines. I tried again a few years later. It didn’t take. In the late 2000s I finally got my first college credits but that student experience would only last one semester before I quit again. In 2009 I moved to Thailand to attend university using the GI Bill. I…
When you think about how non-fiction writers make money, books seem the obvious answer. In the early 2000s authors started making money blogging. More recently, newsletters, Patreon, and other membership programs have become popular options. Most people who pursue creative work make little money. Brendon Burchard in his book The Millionaire Messenger commenting on his pursuit of creative work…
This article is the what and the when of joining the military at 43 years old. If you are interested in the why, standby, it’s coming. Some things that might be important to know going into this: I was on active duty in the Marine Corps from the late 90s till the early 00s. I have a Veterans Affairs disability rating of 20% — 10% for each knee. I had arthroscopic surgery to repair a ligament. I…
I emailed a link to a friend which prompted him to ask “how do you find so many interesting things on the internet?” I start with curated newsletters. My favorite is Hacker Newsletter . Emily Ding’s Landmarkings is good (though defunct as of 2023). So is Austin Kleon’s 10 things worth sharing this week . The flow looks like this: If there is a Now page , I read it. If there is an About page, I…
We left Zine’s house around 4:00 p.m., took the train to Jatujak and then took bus A1; this was before the train went all the way to the airport. Don Muang has gotten much better over the years. They have many more restaurants and even a food court. Mind you this is still an airport and the food court dishes that should cost 40 baht cost 120. If you arrive early enough you can go to the staff food…
We arrived last evening by train. We did very little that day as we wanted to get an early start the next morning. We awoke to a breakfast of rice soup, Thai tea, and some work in the garden that was precarious at best. I don’t understand why low wage workers are willing to take so many risks. This guy set-up a metal frame like those used by dry-wall hangers in the States. He then put a half…
As I was walking down the road that morning, I didn’t know I was about to stumble upon 240 years of Thai history sitting at one table. Sawankhalok has a street with mural paintings. It’s about the only thing tourists come to see in the town. It was a starting point for us as it was the closest train stop to the places we wanted to visit in Sukhothai . Zine wanted to take a look around before we…
I want to be a better storyteller. It’s hard. Storytelling in general is hard, but ending a story, that seems almost impossible to do well. And it’s not only me; I do a good bit of reading and most people seem unable to end a story with any kind of conclusion or punch line. Most just stop, like the author ran out of words or couldn’t be bothered to continue. I’m not sure if this is an editing…
I got my first cell phone in 2003 and was so disillusioned with the thing by 2005, I threw it away. I didn’t get another mobile phone until 2010—a Samsung Galaxy Spica—which I got only because I had started university and wanted a flashcard app. I used that app for a few weeks and realized I preferred paper flashcards. I kept that phone to make calls till around 2016 when I decided I didn’t want…
There's a longing, a craving to know more than we get to know. [Y]ou want a lot of interesting things to occur before you die; and it strikes you that rather than wait around for them to occur, you're going to have to arrange most of them. — Jim Harrison, The Paris Review
The problem with ideas is that you can't decide to have them. Certain kinds of nonfiction can be made to happen. The writer who is diligent, observant, and inquisitive enough can always find a story: you read the paper, you watch the world, you ask enough questions, and sooner or later, there it is. You have to write it, of course, but it exists with or without you. There are decisions to be…
There is a documentary called The Secret Life of Lance Letscher. Letscher is an artist. He keeps boxes of source material but purposely doesn’t organize it. He does this so he can find unexpected things when he goes back through it. This is the same reason I don’t make notes in the margins of books. It’s difficult to find new things or be surprised by something if your notes keep dragging you to…
How do you find interesting things on the web? If you are old enough to remember the web before Google, you may remember how people used to run their own websites. They might publish interesting articles themselves, but they’d also include links to things they found and often would keep a blogroll. The good stuff would bubble to the top. Three things have happened in the meanwhile: Google…
The secret of theft, which is also called "creativity," is you have to steal a bit from a lot of different places. You can't go to the same 7/11 every time because they'll catch you. So you go to the photo shop, and you go to the gas station, and you go to that little hot dog stand that nobody goes to and by the end you've stolen enough stuff from enough places that people think its yours. — Paul…
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. —Haruki Murakami
I’ve just stumbled on a book that made $64,000 on Kickstarter. How is this even possible? I’m not suggesting that it is not a fine book. I’m more curious if it’s something repeatable.
Frank Abagnale, the “Catch Me If You Can” guy, talks at Google:
A lot of people are unhappy with their jobs. A lot of those people want to start some kind of entrepreneurial endeavor to break away. Most people look to their hobbies for ideas. They think, as I did, that they already know so much about this topic and already spend so much time doing this thing, it should make a good business. The problem for many is their identity is so closely tied to that…
Working ten hour days allows you to fall behind twice as fast as you could working five hour days. —Issac Assimov
Early automobiles caused as much controversy as driverless cars do today.
I boarded the Etihad plane in Dallas and was immediately reminded why American airlines suck. There was a large display in the seat in front of me with various entertainment options. There was a USB port, ethernet port, and some other port I’d never seen before. There was also an electrical plug in the back of the seat for charging laptops ...or hair irons I guess. In the seat was a pillow with a…
I moved to Thailand in 2009. My intent was to use my GI Bill, experience a new culture, and most importantly, build a business. MMA Podcast In 2002 I was introduced to Mixed Martial Arts fighting. Until then, I had liked working in IT. But those VHS tapes changed everything. In 2005 I had my first MMA fight. The short version of the story is, I decided that I didn’t want to be a professional…
The American Dream is alive and well—in Northern Europe . I don’t think Americans have any idea how much they really pay in taxes, how that compares to other countries, or what we get versus what they get for those taxes.
Joe Rogan on getting stuck in life:
I’ve been using Linux as my sole desktop operating system since 2015. For years I called myself a Windows fanboy, even when some people claimed that wasn’t a thing. I didn’t come to that conclusion lightly. I spent years looking for something better but ultimately decided that Windows just worked. It was easy to set up, didn’t require “dependencies,” and didn’t hang or shut down as often as…
I just don’t find enough good stuff to write Reading List posts that often. That’s why it’s been a few years since I’ve written one. Below are seven books I rated above average in that time. Seven whole books. It is almost depressing that there are not more good books out there …or that there is no decent recommendation engine. I read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods a few years before and didn’t…
If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. —Latin Proverb
Building something interesting requires a surplus of time and money. Salaried jobs provide neither. — Rob Fitzpatrick
“I’ll Fight You For The Library” by Taylor Mali :
When I started digging into GitHub, one of the first things I noticed was GitHub Pages . After getting GitHub setup on my computer (I was on Windows at the time so I setup GitHub’s Desktop Client ) I made a repository for my personal page, bradonomics.github.io and pushed an HTML file as a test. That was exciting so I started digging for alternative ways to use GitHub pages. I had already been…
Remember, Mondays are fine. It's your life that sucks. —Ricky Gervais
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. —Cicero
Pat Flynn was the first blogger I saw publishing monthly income reports . Shortly after, a lot of entrepreneurs, especially those in the affiliate space, jumped on the bandwagon. When these reports first became popular I thought they were great, but quickly saw the limitations. As long as you intend to do something similar to the guy publishing the report they can be helpful, but what if your…
93-year-old man lives in a cabin he built by himself, 5 miles from the nearest road.
Solar Freakin’ Roadways!
After high school I joined the Marine Corps and my first assignment was to Okinawa. I had no real interest in going, but after some months Japan started to grow on me and I became interested in learning Japanese language. I got a few books and a CD set and started learning the basics, things like: “Are you open?” and “Where is the bathroom?” It was a struggle. I had a hard time remembering words.…
My introduction to Cal Newport’s book So Good They Can’t Ignore You was in a Fast Company article which I wrote about here . I’ve been interested to read the book since but just haven’t made time. I finally got a copy of the book and the Fast Company article does not do it justice. I wrote a review of the book; you can read it here . Before you read my review I’ll preface it with this: if you’re…
I’ve long wondered why some people love what they do while others lead lives of mediocrity and boredom. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the topic as it applies to my life and those closest to me. I’ve read many books on the topic and spent many hours in conversation trying to crack the code if there is a code to be cracked. What’s interesting, most of the advice on the subject is the same.…
I am a fan of Chris Anderson’s Long Tail and when I heard he had a new book on the “long tail of atoms,” I wanted to take a look. In his new book Makers he explores the world of 3D publishing and how this maker movement is likely to create a lot of disruption in the manufacturing industry—especially for smaller companies. He talks about how small, custom, manufacturing jobs that would have been…
While I was WWOOFing in Japan I read The Millionaire Messenger by Brendon Burchard. This was a great read and gave some great insights into the “guru industry.” If you have no interest in the industry but want to be an author, this book gives good advice on building a platform. Most of the book is based on his experience becoming well known in this guru industry. And there are some candid moments.…
Keith Ferrazzi has built one of the world’s largest networks and considering where he came from, that’s a feat. His book, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time , details how he built his network and how you replicate his process if you want to build a network of your own. The Mind-Set The book opens with a story of Keith employed as a caddie in a wealthy town…
I looked for other reviews on this book before writing my own and was surprised to find so many positive reviews on other blogs. I couldn’t find a negative review on the first few pages of Google results. And while I didn’t hate the book, I had a feeling the whole time that I was being set up for something else. It felt like those “free” seminars where they sell books, CDs, or training courses at…
I read an article by Michael Ellsberg called 8 Steps to Getting What You Want… Without Formal Credentials when it was first published in September of 2011. At the time, it didn’t have much effect on me. A few weeks ago a friend recommended the article and I read it again. This time, I was ready to hear Ellsberg’s message. The book reviews on bradonomics are largely from the advice he gives in that…
Ryan Holiday works as the Director of Marketing at American Apparel. While working at American Apparel is his day job, he also advises many bestselling authors and multi-platinum musicians, people like Tucker Max and Robert Greene, in the art of media manipulation. Holiday has written a new book titled Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator . The book is split into two sections,…
The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everyone else looks for work. —Robert Kiyosaki
In a recent Fast Company article , Cal Newport talks about how Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs of Apple instead of Steve Jobs of the Los Altos Zen Center. But just as in the presentation he gave at WDS, it leaves a lot of questions. It seems that after all his research there are still no answers about how to find work we love. All [Jobs’ story] tells us is that it’s good to enjoy what you do. This…
I’ve been following Cal Newport’s blog for a couple of years. I remember when he first started writing on the issue of how “follow your passion” might not be a good idea . I was a bit skeptical at the time and I’m still not sold. He has written a new book on the topic called So Good They Can’t Ignore You. While researching the book’s contents to see if it’s something worth reading, I found this…
I enjoy reading interesting stories from interesting people and it seems most people doing interesting things are doing them on the road. If you go back to the start of many travel blogs you’ll read about the prep stages of the blogger’s journey. How long they saved for the trip or the arrangements made before they left. Some of them even talk about trying to find a job or business that will…
There are not enough good periodicals. The only magazine I’ve found to be consistently good is Sunset . I had a subscription when I was in the States and would read cover-to-cover each month. I’m always on the lookout for good magazines, blogs, and podcasts. Since I’m consistently disappointed with the offerings, I thought I’d talk about what separates the good from the mediocre. To make it easier…