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Predestination Explained: a Timeline without Paradoxes
The following timelines show how the timeline we saw in the movie, Predestination, was not the original timeline, but one edited by Robertson. These are just my ideas:

Option 1
1. Time travel was invented in 1981 and Robertson is tasked with creating the perfect temporal agent.
2. Robertson researches medical textbooks and finds a case of a woman with full male parts.
3. He travels back in time, kidnaps the baby from the parents, and takes her to an orphanage in 1945 (well within the 53 year limit).
4. Robertson travels to 1960 to recruit Jane from the orphanage for SpaceCorps where she is impregnated.
5. Her pregnancy results in a C-section, hysterectomy, and a reconstruction of her male organs.
6. Robertson steals her baby and kills it. She falls into a depression. She hates her life.
7. Robertson meets Jane in 1970 after her sperm starts working and offers her a second chance at life. He takes her back to 1964 so that she can impregnate herself and be in “full control of her life”.
8. 1964 Jane has the baby, has emergency surgery, is reconstructed, and Robertson steals her baby.
9. Robertson takes the baby back to 1945.
Option 2
1. The original Jane was born with male and female parts and given to the orphanage by her original parents in 1945
2. Robertson worked for SpaceCorp, which was an organization who recruited from hookers and orphanages in the 60’s
3. While the Original Jane was at SpaceCorp, doctors revealed to Robertson her unique anatomy and she was rejected
4. In 1981 time travel is invented and Robertson is asked to find someone suitable to be a temporal agent
5. Robertson remembers Original Jane who by 1981 has already had a child ‘naturally’ and been reconstructed as a man, Original John
6. Original John hates his life, has a child, and is struggling to make ends meet.
7. Robertson recruits Original John with the promise he can help him fix his life before it went wrong.
8. Robertson goes with Original John back to 1964 in Cleveland and guides him to Original Jane, thereby changing history.
9. Original John impregnates Original Jane, which creates a 2nd Jane Doe, but with the same DNA and unique anatomy.
10. Original Jane Doe is killed.
11. Robertson steals 2nd Jane Doe from nursery and takes her back to 1945.
Possible Problems

The problem is that they both result in 2 babies being in 1945. The problem is that if you kill one, neither timeline can happen. This move has at least 3 paradoxes that I can count. Now I will see what others are saying and post that below these 2 options.

Possible Explanations

There are multiple babies and they are all temporal agents. Bartender John mentions there are 11. That could mean there are 11 loops of himself. Not sure.

Summary Explanation

The irony is that Jane thinks Robertson was her redeemer, when in reality he was her destroyer.

Other People’s Ideas

The following 2 ideas are from Reddit and Quora:

http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/2nhhou/did_i_understand_the_plot_of_predestination/

It could make sense if the original Jane was born to parents and then had a sex change due to some other occurrence and becomes John. Robertson makes John a temporal agent who eventually becomes the Fizzle bomber due to psychosis. Then, Robertson has the Fizzle bomber go back and procreated with him/herself. Then, Robertson also has the Fizzle bomber take the baby back to the orphanage. Thus the paradox begins. The Fizzle bomber then retires. So, Robertson goes back to recruit Jane/John after the post-birthing sex change. That John’s new job is to hunt down and stop the Fizzle bomber. That John becomes John(Ethan) due to his brush up with the Fizzle bomber. John(Ethan) is now asked to go back and procreate with the Jane that was birthed by the Fizzle bomber and past Jane and to then take that baby back to the orphanage. John(Ethan) forgets that he was once the other John. He is then asked to go back to the bar and help John(the one who he had a baby with) go back to meet Jane. The movie then unfolds from here.

http://digestivepyrotechnics.blogspot.com/2014/12/predestination-plot-explained.html

Barkeep makes one “illegal” jump to intercept the event that causes John to burn his face. However, Barkeep causes the confusion that ends up John burning his face.

I think there are 11 versions of John. When John asks Barkeep how many temporal agents are there? He responds with ‘there are 11 of us’ and goes on to say that we were all ‘born into it’. Each time he takes the baby back in time a new Jane/John is created.
February 9, 2015
What Really Happened in Jake Gyllenhaal’s Enemy Movie?
***Major Spoiler Alert***Do not read this if you don’t want the movie spoiled for you. It contains major spoilers.

We have met the enemy and he is us.” –Pogo by Walt Kelly, 1971

What Really Happened in Jake Gyllenhaal’s Enemy Movie?

<br /> In Enemy, both men (Adam and Anthony) are same man, a married history professor who acts on the side, and fantasizes about having an affair. In the end of the movie, in his fantasy, his girlfriend is killed, but he quickly turns back to his old ways (represented by the most scary movie ending of all time, the giant spider).

Who is his girlfriend?

The girlfriend is not real. When the door buzzes, he doesn’t get up, he goes into his head. She brings over food to his crappy apartment, hangs out, then leaves without a word. It’s all a fantasy.

How do I know they are the same man?

When the two men meet, the first meet the room they meet in is number “221”, which means “two to one”. His mother says he has “a nice apartment, a good job” and that he should quit his dream of acting. When he is with his wife, she asks, “How was school?” She asks him about having an affair.

Reasons why they might not be the same man?

Blueberries – He tells his wife he wants blueberries, but he tells his mother he doesn’t like blueberries.

Unknown Name/Location to Wife? – Anthony makes up the name “Adam Bell” and writes it on a note for his wife to find. She Googles it, goes to the school, and he meets her there (as Adam), but acts (he likes to act) like he doesn’t know her. She can’t believe how far he’s going to perpetuate this fantasy.

Where does he actually live? Which apartment?

In the beginning of the movie we hear Adam’s mother’s voicemail where she sounds Russian like the other guy’s mother where she asks of his “new” apartment “how can you live like that?” and then we see a picture of the pregnant wife sitting on the bed in Adam’s apartment. She only refers to him as “Darling,” but he’s clearly sitting in Adam’s Volvo.

There are two apartments, one “good” and one “bad”. Because he’s a school teacher and acts on the side, because of the way his mother described it (“how can you live like that?”), and because of the shot of his pregnant wife in the background, it’s more likely that he and his wife actually live in the bad one.

Although in the movie, the times we see his wife she in the “good” apartment. This could mean the nice apartment is a fantasy too. But in the movie, his mind places his girlfriend/affair in the bad/real apartment and his actual wife in his good/fake apartment. This could mean he wishes he could provide more to his wife.

How do we know when we’re in a fantasy and when we’re in real life?

There is a definite yellow hue when we see Adam, the school teacher who is with the “girlfriend” in the “bad” apartment and a more ‘normal’, white light when we see Anthony, the actor and his “good” apartment, but this isn’t like the green tint in The Matrix movies. It doesn’t necessarily mean that one is fantasy and the other is real because both have elements of each.

One ‘totem’ (to use Inception vocabulary) is his wedding ring (which just happened to be Cobb’s totem). Adam, the school teacher, doesn’t wear it, but Anthony, the actor does (except for when he’s playing Adam towards the end of the movie – it’s also partially responsible for the ‘crash’ that kills his girlfriend and ‘ends’ the affair).

If this topic interests you, read about more movies that question reality.

What are some motifs in the film?

Hallways – the beginning of the film starts with Adam walking down the hallway with a key while a guard walks behind him. When he sneaks into his own apartment, he doesn’t have the key and has the same security guard behind him who does have the key. These scenes are shot very specifically for the audience to draw the connection between the unknown guy at the beginning of the film at the club and his security guard, but you’d have to watch it again to fully get the connection.

Is there any other scenes that we’re exactly as they appeared in the movie?

In the teacher’s lounge, Adam is asked: “Are you a movie guy? In your free time I mean?” Adam responds, “I don’t know,”, but what I postulate is that the guy asking isn’t real. Here’s why: Adam tells him about a movie he’s recently seen recently that he really liked that he just happened to be in: “Where There’s a Will There’s a Way”.

On his way home he stops by a movie store to see if they have that movie, but they don’t have it. He ends up watching it anyway because he already owns a copy. Even the actor uses a fake name: Daniel Saint Claire. His real name is Anthony Claire.

What are some symbols used in Enemy?

Street Art – On his way home from work, he passes by a mural with the same man drawn multiple times. Behind that mural is the movie store.

Video Cameras – Even the security cameras don’t follow him around. When Adam is checking out Anthony’s apartment, he looks at the security cameras. If he didn’t want to be seen, he should have looked down, not directly at them for so long The director specifically decided to include them in the movie as the shot pans to include them and shows Adam staring at them as he walked by. As an actor, this is a symbol for how he’s not on camera (not working as an actor) as much as he wants to be.

Phones – Adam has a cell phone. He ignores it when his mother is calling at his apartment, but picks it up when Anthony calls him at school, but when he’s calling his wife’s apartment he uses a pay phone first and then a land line at his apartment. Pay phones are often used during affairs, which was highlighted in the movie by the same name.

Any other reasons why Adam and Anthony are the same person?
- He calls his wife to act like a stalker to sow seeds of doubt about someone calling later on. He’s not home when she calls because he is him.
- When she visits him at school she calls his cell phone, he answers, but he’s out of sight.
- When Adam calls Anthony he says he spoke to his “wife”, but how did he know she was his wife?
February 1, 2015
Where do I go to Learn to be a Blogger?
I was recently asked, “Where do I go to learn to be a blogger?” Here’s my response:

Blogging in it’s simplest form is just “writing” on a blog, but since you mentioned getting paid, what you’re really asking is “how can I make money by blogging?”

There are several ways to do this and even more teachers who have already written about this topic and are more than willing to share with you, but these are my thoughts.

How to Write Content that Attracts New Blog Visitors

I like to use the STAIR method, which is just an acronym for: State the problem, list your Tools, create an Algorithm, Implement a solution, and Revise the solution.

Problem: You don’t know how to make money online by blogging (let’s disregard for a second that there are other ways to make money, online and off).

Tools: WordPress for the blogging platform; Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+ for social networking; Mailchimp for email marketing; Photoshop.

Algorithm: Determine what questions people have about a topic, write the answers to those questions, repurpose the content, and then monetize the blog.

Implementation: First determine who your audience is, figure out what questions they have, choose one question, and then write a blog post answering that question.

Revisions: Once you’ve written a few blog posts, use Photoshop to create images about those blog posts and then post the blog posts on social media.

Over time, if you’re writing valuable content that people like and you’re capturing email addresses from visitors, you’ll be able to build up a audience you can monetize.

How to Monetize Your Content and Your Audience

Once you have an audience, you can do things like:
- Write an ebook
- Create an online course
- Start a mastermind group
- Throw a conference
- Create and sell physical products
There are other ways to make money from visitors:
- Ads by Google Adsense
- Affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates or Clickbank
- Asking for money and providing a “Donate” button
- Direct sale of ads to brands
- Getting paid to write about a company or product
I’ve written previously about how to make money from blogging in Blogging for Profit. But blogging for money is not necessarily the best way to make money (online or off). It should be done as a “twofer”.

Other Possible Reasons to Blog
- To become a better writer
- To get thoughts out of your head
- To journal or leave a legacy
- To share what you’re working on
- To attract attention to yourself
No matter what the other reason, to blog as a business is probably not the best way to make money. Here are 5 reasons why blogging is not the best way to make money online or off.

Reasons Not to Blog for Money
- It can take a long time to get visitors
- You don’t always know what people want to read
- It may be hard for you to convert visitors to click ads or buy products
- You might write something you later regret or that could be used against you in court or by an employer
- You could show everyone that you don’t know as much as you thought you did.
February 1, 2015
How to be Intentional about Capturing Ideas
You may have been to meeting with your boss that requires you to write something down or record meeting minutes or minutes from the meeting. You may have been driving to work and had a great idea or been in the shower and wanted to write something down, but couldn’t. These are all typical times when you might want to capture an idea.

Epiphanies, Bright Ideas, Moment of Inspiration, and Flashes of Brilliance

It’s kind of the opposite of writers block where you’re sitting down in front of a computer screen or looking at a blank screen or a blank sheet of paper and having to figure out new ideas. What we’re talking about here is capturing ideas when they come. We’re talking about being intentional about that idea capturing process.

Being Prepared to Capture Ideas When they Come

In order to be intentional about capturing ideas, you need to be prepared for when ideas need to be captured. For example, let’s say you are in a meeting at work. What materials are you bringing to capture that material? For those ideas you typically would have a notepad and pen and you’re jotting down ideas as they are spoken. But if you’re really intentional about idea capture you might have a notepad in the car and a marker system on a suction cup in your shower. I recorded this blog post using voice recognition on my phone while driving, for example.

A Repeatable Method for Capturing Ideas

What I’d like to propose is a repeatable method for capturing ideas in any environment using a variety of tools. For example, you may find that for a work meeting it is better to record ideas on Post-it notes instead of lines on a paper or you might find that it’s better to use Evernote or to record the audio on your phone while driving rather than using the voice recognition function in a Note. However you might find that the voice recognition software built into modern smartphones can help you record ideas while driving, but you might find that the crayon in the shower is the best technology for that environment.

How to Process New Ideas Once You Have Them?

This prompts the question: What do you do with the ideas once you have them written down or recorded in some fashion? That brings us to the next part of the method: organizing the ideas that you’ve captured. Captured ideas can be organized using an even wider variety of tools than the ones used to capture them. Typical tools to organize ideas include:
- pen and paper
- software like word processors or spreadsheets
- apps like Evernote
- Post-it notes
What matters is that you create a system that’s useful to you to turn the ideas into action.

Turning Ideas into Action: Execution

The third phase of the method is to turn ideas into reality. After a meeting, typically what happens is you’ll come back to your desk and you’ll type up the notes from the pen and paper into a Word document or an email and you’ll send those out to the attendees of the meeting. They might store the document on the file server or Dropbox and then it may or may not be referenced sometime before the next meeting to remember what you did at the previous meeting. What if instead each idea was treated as an individual object instead of a line in a document? This is similar to how a database works and a simple database creation tool called “Trello” works. It’s similar to creating bulletin boards and a bunch of white note cards that go on those bulletin boards. Since every idea is an object, it can easily have an owner and a next-action step. From there, it’s all about accountability.

The 3 Step Method from Idea Capture to Execution
1. Capture the ideas however you can
2. Treat each idea as an individual object
3. Assign each idea a next step
January 25, 2015
Mexican Food Principle

Mexican Food is great, but it can teach us lessons far beyond gastrointestinal delight. I’m talking about the Mexican Food Principle.

Mexican food’s great, but it’s essentially all the same ingredients, so there’s a way you’d have to deal with all these stupid questions. ‘What is nachos?‘ ‘Nachos? It’s a tortilla with cheese, meat, and vegetables.’ ‘Oh, well then what is a burrito?‘ ‘A tortilla with cheese, meat, and vegetables.’ ‘Well then what is a tostada?‘ A tortilla with cheese, meat, and vegetables.” -Jim Gaffigan

When CBS News reporter, Amanda Schupak, was describing Google’s new modular phone she said, “It sounds like a taco truck. But instead of picking a filling, sauce and side, your choices are a camera, a speaker and an extra battery.”

This is a metaphor we can all understand. There are basic building blocks to make something ‘delicious’. In the kitchen, it’s cheese, meat, and vegetables. In a smartphone it’s a touchscreen, WiFi, and bluetooth. Sometimes you want more or less of one or the other, but it’s never going to be bad. That’s the Mexican Food Principle.

Mexican food is great, but it is all the same, it’s almost a conspiracy. It’s almost like they had a meeting 200 years ago in Mexico City and one guy stood up and he was like, ‘Hey, the reason I got everyone here is pretty simple, I figured we could rename this one entree seven times and sell it to the North Americans. The French said it would be a good idea.” -Jim Gaffigan

This is not a conspiracy, it’s standardization. Peter Drucker said the greatest invention of the twentieth century was container shipping. Containers allowed ships, ports, and equipment to move easier than the random assortment of crates and boxes that preceded it. But the Mexican Food Principle isn’t just for standardization, it can also be used to create new outputs from the same inputs.

Taco Bell is for Closers

SmartBrief on Social Media editor, Jesse Stanchak first coined the term in May of 2013 when referring to the “Mexican Food Principle” of repurposing content. “It’s pretty simple: Mexican food takes the same core ingredients, mixes them up and packages them in different ways. You can do the same thing with your content. If you do a good job remixing and reusing your content, your audience won’t see it as leftovers.”

Forbes’ contributor, Nadia Arumugam, calls the Mexican Food Principle of product development, “Breeding“, which, “Has been seriously neglected in previous brainstorming sessions for new product development.” James Altucher calls this process of coming up with new ideas, “Idea Sex“.

Whether you’re trying to create a new breakfast menu item by using a waffle as a tortilla or a doughnut as a bun, you’re using the Mexican Food Principle.

January 25, 2015
Outdoor Ben Beard Oils, Handmade Combs, Bath Salts, and Body Scrubs

Today I’m highlighting a fellow local e-commerce entrepreneur, Ben Lawrence, who runs Outdoor Ben, a Indianapolis area maker of beard oils, handmade combs, bath salts, and body scrubs.

Ben Lawrence came up with the name Outdoor Ben after the realization that he was unhappy in my professional life. It took him a long time to pinpoint the main reason for his unhappiness until he took a moment to reflect on his life. He determined early in life that he wanted to go into construction after visiting construction sites with a family friend. He was fascinated watching his friend manage crews and activities in muddy boots working outside. It was a far cry from the typical office position and that intrigued him. Ben went to Purdue and got a degree in Building Construction Management. He thought he was realizing his dream until he ended up behind a computer screen or a set of drawings, day after day…looking around at the same set of walls, day after day. It wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but he never made the connection between his unhappiness and his career until he took a moment to reflect and realized that the problem was far simpler than he imagined. Ben was unhappy because he was always indoors. He found that he was much happier, much more energetic, and much more in his element when he is outdoors. It really is that simple.

Ben just recently got started with the business after talking with his wife about their common interests. He wanted work to feel less like work and more like a part of his life. “People talk about a work/life balance. For me, going forward, it is not going to be so much about finding that balance as finding that union. I want my career goals to be in line with my personal goals. I want to make a difference in peoples’ lives, as does my wife. She helped me to realize this after she took similar steps in her life.” Ben’s wife’s background is in IT and website development, but after becoming allergic to basically everything she was ingesting (wheat/gluten, dairy, soy, yeast, antibiotics, etc.), she was forced to change her lifestyle. She had to learn how to cook all over again. She had to read the ingredients in everything she picked up at the grocery store. When it was all said and done, these drastic changes resulted in her feeling better than she has ever felt in her life.

Outdoor Ben is concentrating on natural care products but eventually they want it to be more encompassing. They believe everyone has a right to know what they are putting in and on their bodies. They believe that people should know the basics behind growing their own produce and becoming more self-sufficient. They believe people should have preparedness plans in place and know how to react in a state of emergency. They believe that people should practice mindfulness to be fully connected physically and emotionally to their life and environment. So that is, in general, the grand vision of Outdoor Ben. For now, they are starting with beard oil and sugar scrubs, but they just want to offer people healthy alternatives to products they find on the shelves of the local store…free of harsh chemicals and toxins. It’s a start in the right direction.

Ben develops and formulate the products using the highest quality carrier and essential oils that he can source. He sources organically as much as possible, and researches all of the ingredients to ensure their safety and therapeutic benefits. Their main product, beard oil, basically grew out of Ben’s desire to have a better looking beard. Ben has had a beard for about 5 years and stopped trimming it about a year and a half ago. It has grown out well, but it was very dry, crunchy, and hard to get a comb through. Ben noticed each day he was losing more and more hair from his beard to his comb. So Ben did some research and experimenting and put together scented beard oils using only carrier and essential oils that are known to moisturize and soften the skin and hair, naturally cleanse, and stimulate growth. He also sourced the highest quality hand-made, hand-sawn and hand-polished combs. Since each tooth of a Kent comb is saw-cut and polished by hand, your hair is not damaged and split – a usual result with use of cheaper, injection-molded combs.

January 22, 2015
Explaining the 2015 Internet to 1995 Me

Dear Erich from 1995,

I can listen to whatever I want whenever I want. When you’re 20 you’ll get excited about being able to share MP3 files with complete strangers on the Internet, but in 2015 music is streamed over the Internet whenever I want.

Go find some music to play. I’ll wait. Get the From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah album and put it in the CD player. Play “Sliver”. It’s track 8. I’ll listen with you. Because I can. I looked that up on Wikipedia.

Whenever I want, whatever I want. That’s what I need you to understand. Let’s say I want to know what a street corner on a remote island in the Atlantic looks like. I can see it in 5 seconds using Google Street View.

This is Erich from 2015. It’s different here, but most of the stuff is the same. For now, lets focus on how the Internet, or more specifically the way we access the Internet and how people are using the Internet has changed.

You’re still on dial-up and your favorite browser is Netscape. AOL is still popular and information is still hard to find. Well now Netscape doesn’t exist anymore (thanks to AOL) and now we have so much information we have to use software to help us sort it all out.

Instead of dial-up we have broadband, which I think you heard was coming. Strangely enough I still use the tech you were looking forward to: cable modems. But once it gets in the house or business it’s broadcast over “WiFi”.

You may be wondering how our desktops are wireless or how I could afford to have a laptop. Well laptops are like $250 now and the phones are the more expensive items to own. They are equally powerful, they just vary in screensize (but they are increasingly equalizing).

You’d think everyone would be taught and know how to create their own web pages by now, but programmers made it so they never had to learn. For example, I’m typing this in a “Word”-like document and the software adds the code on the back end automatically.

But the biggest change is the phones. Everyone has a cell phone. Everyone. And all cell phones get online and run “apps” like browsers, but there are MANY apps and many don’t talk to each other. Its kind of like all of the CD-ROM software you have at Wal-Mart now, except they all cost 99 cents.

Let’s compare our days for a sec:

1995: You might wake up around 6:30 to catch the bus around 7, arrive at school at 8, go to 7 classes (of course there’s lunch), and then repeat the bus ride on the way home. You might get online in the school library, but if not you’re dialing up at home with Windows 95 on your Gateway 2000 desktop.

2015: My phone wakes me up around 6, I check my text messages (short messages made of text sent to phone numbers or email addresses) and email on my phone. I might check social networks (I’ll get to that in a second) or check the news. And then I’m basically always online for the entire rest of the day.

Social Networks and Cell Phones

The Internet is like a utility now. How much time do you spend thinking about how electricity works? The President just asked the FCC to start treating it as such and now one of the biggest companies in the world (Google) wants to take broadband wireless global with a private space company named SpaceX (more on SpaceX and Google later).

Nowadays people think “Facebook” is the Internet and they demand access all of the time. By the time you’re a grandpa, it will be added to the Bill of Rights. Facebook is a social network. That’s a place online for people to share things with anyone or very specific people. Almost everyone on the planet is on Facebook.

By 2009 Facebook had either connected everyone you know or ruined your life. Those who survived went on to trim their friends list to actual friends and their kids moved on to new social networks like Instagram, Tumblr, and direct message systems like Whatsapp, Skype, and Snapchat. But who cares, right? Because phones.

“Grandma take me home…Wanna be alone.” I love that song. But it’s so true. We are more connected than ever, but we never talk anymore. Why visit an old friend when you’re already caught up to date on Facebook? Why call someone when you could just text?

When I get a phone call I have to assume someone has died. Unfortunately I’ve gotten 2 phone calls this month. Don’t worry, it was your wife’s family. She actually had the same Nirvana album when you first met her. That’s partly why you liked her. But she never listed to it. Not once.

But seriously, the phones

I could be inside a building I’ve never been in my life, do one Google search, and get the layout of the building. I could be stuck in traffic and know exactly what’s happening 1 mile ahead. I can see exactly where my wife is at all times. I can even pay for things with my phone.

That brings me to SpaceX and Google. When you’re busy going to college, a South African man is coding up a way for people to email each other money while two other college dropouts are making the worlds best search engine. The first guy sells Paypal and creates a private space company to replace NASA and the other two later give him 1 Billion dollars to give the world Internet access.

Mike Meyers goes from Wayne’s World to making a hilarious set of “Austin Powers” comedies, but he makes most of his money from voice acting a green ogre for kids. The world does not make sense, but this is the world you find yourself in 20 years later.

Software is eating the world

Our daughter is 10 years old and she’s learning to code. You know those guys who were coding instead of chasing girls in college? You know, the ones who made Facebook, Google, and Paypal? You didn’t do that. You didn’t even invest in those companies. Bad Erich. Bad Erich!

In 2015, money is not earned, it is created by writing software. We have a new type of currency called “making apps.” One requires learning how to develop for Apple (yeah, they don’t suck anymore) and the other for “Android” (Google’s mobile operating system).

Android is like “Windows” and Apple’s “iOS” operating system is like a Mac. Mac’s still exist, but they are shiny and cool. They are cooler than Nike. I asked my 8 year old what “Nike” was and she had no idea. I asked her what “Apple” was and she said, “A computer and phone store.” Get it?

Microsoft is still around and still making a boat load of money, but they’re doing it the same way they’ve always done it: by selling Windows and Office. All attempts at making new products have failed (Xbox gaming console, Bing search engine, and the Surface tablet PC).

The elephant in the room is of course, Amazon. Imagine an online store where you can buy anything and have it delivered to your house next day (sometimes same-day) for free. You know them as a place to buy books. You can still buy those too. I just bought one last week.

Some advice for you, Stauffer

Get a job, any job, then put all of the money into buying Apple stock. Work there until the year 2015 and you’ll be a millionaire. Seriously. The stock goes up like 1400%. You could work at McDonald’s for 20 years and be a millionaire.

Learn to code. Knowing how to write software is like knowing how to type in 1995. Your local library won’t have books on it so you’ll have to go to the university library and get around people in the computer science departments.

Don’t go to college. There is nothing there for you but heartache and student loan debt. (SEE working for McDonald’s above.) By 2015 if you didn’t invest in Apple, but instead learned to code, you could make 2x your student loan debt a year easy.

Final words

Are we better off? The movies are better. I can time travel letters back to you. That’s pretty cool. But I don’t know. I kind of miss having to get home to call someone rather than getting off the phone because I’m home. I kind of miss having to stop at the gas station to buy a paper map to get where I’m going and not exactly knowing how I’ll get there.

I suppose me telling you all of this kind of proves that point. You’ll never get this letter because you use Juno to check your email and they lost your email when the server crashed. You’ll go to college, get on CollegeClub.com, and get married. Life will happen exactly as it happened. And the world won’t care.

January 21, 2015
If You’ll Have Me

The living room glowed with excitement. They had bought bagels and cream cheese. It was a historic moment.

Two weeks ago I had walked into my job, poured a cup of coffee, and been escorted out the door. Now I’m sitting on a couch.

As Matt went around the room he mentioned each of the team members. Jennifer and Joy were sales. Michael was outreach and product development. Marcella was wholesale. Madeline was Marketing. Madeleine was finance. Joseph was logistics. And I was IT.

“If you’ll have me!” I said, immediately embarrassing myself. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? Turns out it didn’t matter.

I worked there full-time 6 weeks while I continued to look for another job. Eventually the job ended and I was still looking.

But the bagels were good.

January 21, 2015
Freestyle – A Country Musical
This jukebox musical is on Spotify. I’ve weaved a story out of the following country songs. It’s something I do for fun. Previously I’ve done it with pop/rock songs, but this is my my first attempt at country (by request).

Listen to Freestyle on Spotify

[Act I]

1. Freestyle by Lady Antebellum – Thursday night, Charles, Pete and Kelley are rolling down a river road in a Chevy van listening to their favorite songs from Fleetwood Mac and Macklemore.

2. Down This Road by Cam – Unbeknownst to them, Hillary passes the boys as she is driving to her childhood home. She lives in the city now, but has come home for a long weekend to visit her parents.

As night falls on the town, one by one the lights go out. Just before Hillary turns her light off we see her pour an engagement ring out of a white paper envelope and look at it through the light.

3. Drinking Class by Lee Brice – A rooster crows. Charles gets up for work on Friday while looking forward to going out to drink after work with some friends. To him, every night is “Friday”.

As Charles opens his lunch pail and begins eating his lunch, he secretly opens a small paper notebook full of plans and diagrams for opening up his own business, but quickly puts it away when someone walks by.

4. Everything to You by Caitlyn Smith – Hillary is eating dinner with her father and she notices how gray his hair has become and she wants to tell him about the ring, but instead sings her father a song.

She gets a phone call from “Joe”, but she declines the call.

5. Country Bumpkin by Cal Smith – Her father detects that something might be wrong so he tells her a story about how he met her mother and what she said to him on her death bed. He wanted to know that they had a good life.

6. Neon Light by Blake Shelton – When Hillary finally listens to the voicemail, she hears Joe singing about how he misses her. He tells her he was looking for a sign and he’s finally found one, in the window of a bar.

[Act II]

7. Medicine by Shakira, Blake Shelton – Hillary tells her dad she’s going out for the night and she heads to bar for “medicine”. At the same time, Joe is sitting at a bar back in the city.

At the bar she runs into Charles and before he can hide his notes, Hillary asks him about them. He quickly hides them before recognizing her and embracing her with a big hug. They begin to talk about old times.

8. When the Right One Comes Along by Striking Matches – Hillary explains to Charles that she’s only home for the weekend to visit her dad, but the real reason is that she’s running away from her boyfriend, Joe, who asked her to marry her.

9. Mess is Mine by Vance Joy – Charles tells her that he will take her problems from her for the night and that her “mess” is his. After the song, Charles asks Hillary to sing karaoke with him for fun.

10. Momma Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys by TR Dallas – Charles chooses “Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” and eventually the whole bar joins in with them as they sing together.

11. Dirt by Florida Georgia Line – Charles asks Hillary if she’d like to take a walk and as he’s walking he kicks the dirt and starts telling Hillary about a time when he almost got married, but didn’t.

12. Remind Me by Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood – Hillary asks Charlie if he was talking about her. She reminds him that they used to date and it was actually him who took her to the airport when she first left town.

Charlie asks her to remind him. She said, “We didn’t sleep. I remember I’d wake up in one of your old t-shirts. You’d kiss my neck. I can remember that, but I want you to remind me.”

13. Drunk Americans by Toby Keith – Instead of kissing her, Charlie says their all just “Drunk Americans” and that, “We just came here to drink.” He walks back into the bar and begins singing with all of the people in the bar.

Act III

14. Can’t Get Away from a Good Time by Logan Mize – Saturday afternoon Charles is working on his truck when his friend, Pete, stops by on his way to the gas station. He tells Pete how he “can’t get away from a good time.”

15. Feelin’ It by Scotty McCreery – Pete drops off Charles and calls up his girlfriend, Kelley to say he’s feelin’ like going out to the beach this afternoon. She’s friends with Hillary and invites her to the beach.

Pete texts Charles to meet him there that night for beer and a bonfire. Charles responds “I can’t get away from a good time,” and we see him incorporating his new business online before grabbing his keys.

16. Make You Miss Me by Sam Hunt – Hillary calls Joe and tells him she wants to break up. He says he will make her miss him and that she’ll miss sleeping in his t-shirt. She puts down the phone and cries into her hands.

When she pulls her hands down she sees her bikini laying on the bed.

17. Sunshine & Whiskey by Frankie Ballard – Pete sings to his girlfriend on the beach, reminiscing about the good times they had cruising around in his Chevy. Charles arrives and sees Hillary coming out of the water.

18. Cruise – Remix by Florida Georgia Line, Nelly – Charlie asks Hillary if she’d like to take a ride in his Chevy and they go for a cruise. Charlie tells her he doesn’t want to be a blue collar worker anymore.

19. Where Your Road Leads by Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood – Hillary thanks him for being there for her last night and tells him she’s broken up with her boyfriend. She said she would help him with his dreams if he would love her.

20. Love You Like That by Canaan Smith – Charles tells Hillary that he can love her the way she wants him to and they ride off into the country sunset in his Chevy. As the taillights grow dim, the music fades into the night.

1 Hour, 12 Min

If you liked this, you might also like this rock musicals:
- One Night
- Sleepless
January 4, 2015