The most important things needed to live a good life are:
A dependable bike. Pickup trucks are a necessity if you are a tradesman for work, but no one is buying new ones anymore because the sticker price is sticker shock. 2. Have a bus pass, ride a bike, or walk.
Better yet, 3. be a bus driver and get a free pass for life! P.S. It’s good money and a steady paycheck.
Having your rides in a bus allows you to meet new people, and look at your phone legally. The price of fuel isn’t going down.
Dear Joe–With Techron, Doug
Take time to add up repairs, insurance, fuel, parking, tolls, tickets, and all the monthly payments–and put down the yearly cost. Now, add up the monthly fast pass for a public transportation and subtract that from the cost of owning a car. What else could you do with the money? Do you claim to be a friend of the Earth–and an advocate for reducing climate change? Well . . .
4. Widen your path. If you’re in a rut, put down the remote and climb out of the sofa.
5. Take in the sunset. They say the vitamin D you get is best at dusk.
6. And finally, the most important part of any steady diet–and the key to good living–is find a good Mexican Restaurant!
I hope you find this sage advice to guide you to a better way of life. If you’re going cuckoo in traffic,
–Pack it up and take a road trip!
Driver Doug is the author of several books about finding a life path in public transit that can lead you to the good life:
If you mean, do I pray to God and meditate daily , then yes, I follow routines similar to a devout Christian or Muslim or Jew or Daoist or Buddhist. Note how many different religions I just mentioned. How about Hindus or the Arabs? Religion is for people who don’t want to go to hell. Spiritual people I know in AA differ from the majority of churchgoers in that they have already been to hell and don’t ever want to go back! Hi, I’m Doug, and I’m an alcoholic!
I don’t burn bridges behind me—I burn them in front of me! See, I’m not one to sit and wait around for life to come to me. Nor do I blaze new trails and make things happen. I wake up from a debauch and say, “What happened?”
Recovery from alcohol and drugs in the Twelve Steps program of action has shown remarkable results in reducing my mental twists and allergy of the body. My spiritual malady of fearful thoughts feeling and emotions means I have no choice in having a moral morning practice of meditation and quiet time. So yeah, I’m religious, but I don’t tell you what you got to believe. I don’t ask you for money or demand anything. I offer my experiences in going through hell—and not going back!
Like Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Star Trek Voyager, I’d like to follow in the footsteps of great woman role models. I could only wish for Jane Curtain’s legacy series on SNL of being, “A Coffee Achiever.” And although I was told never to begin a new sentence with the word, “and,” I nevertheless, shadow in the footsteps of glory for all of us–men and woman included, who move forward in life with coffee. To me, there’s nothing like getting into editing or blogging on a venue such as Word Press and smashing the ‘Publish’ button. And coffee was there.
My legacy in photography is to take pictures of persons, places, or things before they disappear.
Getting its start around the turn-of-the-century by bringing books to the people online–and now number one in the world–is the largest and widest river in the jungle out there–Amazon. I can take my manuscript and upload it direct and set my own royalties! I can produce an audiobook using the mic on my iMac (Apple my second favorite brand), and upload it to audible dot com–an Amazon company:
What’s becoming very evident, though, it Microsoft’s incursion surrounding the walled garden of Apple’s Safari browser. Shopify apps. and KD Pilot–KDSpy, Abundant Scribe–all work best on Chrome in a pc loaded with Microsoft. You can try to download the apps on a Mac, but good luck when the iOS is no longer supported on your device. Indeed, Word now clearly out-Trumps Pages. Apple is losing the app battle competition. Good luck using the search function in locating files. Who knows where the disappearing iTunes library files and iCloud Photos go? Indeed, Samsung is looking pretty smart!
The best brands for being a writer is Microsoft Word and Kindle Direct on Amazon. The best for art is FineArtAmerica using an iPhone.
The best for search and apps for your brand website and video rendering is Google and YouTube. Chrome, Microsoft and Word now beats out Safari, Ventura and Pages.
The biggest brouhaha with network brands is the sickly attempt by Paramount Plus as yet another ten dollar app draining our pocketbook every month with streaming controls vastly inferior to Netflix. The talent setting-up the controls and metrics just don’t have what it takes. Disney was able to hog up Marvel and Pixar, and have enough content to keep us from deleting them–but it’s almost like there should be a law against the Redstone estate to break up or block CBS, or Viacom. The Star Trek franchise–which started in Desilu, and went to Fox / CBS –is now left for dead on Paramount. Tom Cruise should be sad his Mission Impossible series is no longer to be found on Netlix.
Netflix should be able to have a studio section for Warner Bros. Paramount, Universal, and MGM, with rotational ups so we never have to delete, and never have to keep chasing studio product. Or start a classic television series with our favorite TV shows, with a series payment for access.
And don’t get me started on this fee structure for ad based streaming. Have you seen the way they interrupt the episode with ads? And the type of ads displayed are indicative of Diabetic Nation and Sedentary Nation. Fortunately, Audible is bringing up the fresh change once we say, “Enough!”
The person most on point right now is Francis Hunt as the Gold Sniper. His technical analysis with the Gold to Silver ratio is telling about the smack down we in the West have been experiencing–keeping the precious metals price too low to prevent us from seeing how much purchasing power we’ve lost from endless wars. Tom Bodrovicks is also an admirable YouTuber, especially–
–with his Palisades Gold Radio channel. His guest list and interview style is better than any mainstream media pundit. Francis’ site is worth a look: especially with Bill Holder in a more recent video:
This video above should knock your socks off.
Are you In it To Win It? Then Sunday nights should be spent watching Steve Barton. If you don’t know what RSI, the Stochastic indicator or the MACD crosses are, you don’t have to know, because Steve has the best chart presentation making it easy to see when it’s a good time to get in to buy. His breadth on commodity stocks is a nice spread and the time stamps with the symbol descriptions on the progress bar make for easy fast forwarding to any position you have.
Fortunately, most countries aren’t engaged in ridiculous energy policies and know a good value when they mine it–and here’s just a great example of bringing a guest on, such as Matt down below to take a deep dive into coal:
Run through the coal mines and diversify your commodity portfolio with Matt and
Let’s not forget David Morgan:
Be Prepared is the Motto of the Boy Scouts–and Silver Stackers!
I’ve just been sent to the hallelujah mountains with Jordan’s channel of being able to get past all the financial terms to do thoughtful analysis on the miners–and he breaks down all the gobbledygook financial values into an easy to understand whiteboard analysis in plain English. Check out these gold nuggets as the Mining Gold Monkey:
Do Fortuna’s executive board need be paid north of one million? What about future production? What about the so called “safe jurisdictions?” Jordan’s got you covered in this recent video:
It’s hard not get captured by his subtle but infectious excitement during his breakdown analysis. Step over from Bitcoin and the sinning side to the winning side.
Indeed, Google has finally taken away the restrictive barriers of entry into the world of radio and television–and has allowed anyone to transmit their world view in podcast style over the internet–and to make a living at it without having to be censored by media holding conglomerates. God bless the Freedom of YouTube! Go Indy and be your own commentator!
For me, I love being published on Amazon and Audible. There are no middlemen between me and my writing.
Most of those I admire sit behind the wheel of a large automobile.
I feel creative and most productive when I’m on the way to a movie I want to see. Recently, it was on the way to the Dune 2 movie. Better go see it now ’cause it’s leaving the silver screen after this weekend! Don’t worry, it’s available in DVD already!
As for time of day, I’m most productive from 3:30 AM to 9:30 AM. Lately. Note that I live in Hawaii, and many of us on Oahu, in Honolulu, are among the happiest residents of any state. Even if we have strange sleeping hours. Residents of the Fiftieth state are coming in a close third to Utah, the second happiest US residents at number two, and Massachusetts, Boston, numero uno! Who knew? The World According to Briggs doth know if you check him out on YouTube.
The best of times or the worst of times can be found by my alarm clock. If I punch in PM and not AM when I’m really tired, waking may not be my most productive time–sometimes staying up late can be productive–especially for renaming files or doing busywork. It never ceases to amaze me how much of life is busywork. Especially in editing tasks on WordPress or in rendering on Movavi for posting a YouTube video. Anyway, lately I be doing most work early, and 10 am seems like time for a nap.
The photo above of Mount Rainer is from Pier 64, miles away from the beautiful spring flowers that bloom in fiery colors all over the scenic drive around the side of the mountain. My mom asked me if I wanted to go on a scenic drive around the mountain when I was visiting them in Seattle around 2006. Being self-centered and without regard for my Dad’s feelings on the suggestion, I said no. I said no about five times–as my mom wouldn’t let up.
Now that my dad has passed, I sadly realized I lost the opportunity to share a wonderful experience with my parents, and take some great pictures. Below, is a shot of Dad when we as a young family toured the Rockies in Colorado. I’m sad dad–I missed out on being with you on a scenic drive around “The Mountain.”
We passed the basket as we do every day at our meeting. A man who I had not seen at the meeting before, came around to me as I was sitting next to the treasurer and handed me a coin as the treasurer was busy counting the paper dollars contributed. I looked at the coin. It was a dollar. A silver dollar. The date was 2012. That was my sobriety birthday year. I got the message immediately. It wasn’t a coincidence or an accident about the coin he handed me. It was the last coin I had used to buy a rock by a dealer on the street in San Francisco. My hard work and goodwill was coming back to be after I had lead a meeting twelve years later.
I looked at the date again. Here was a birthday coin with so much more power than a typical chip or medallion. I had to keep it. I handed a fifty to the treasurer and said this was a late contribution. I knew this silver dollar would soon be worth fifty dollars and that this talisman would be the beginning of a new life of abundance.
The message on every anniversary coin given to an alcoholic at every announcement of clean time rang true through my head as I put the coin in my pocket.
The Dao of Doug: A Bus Driver's Perspective 