shocauto.com Blog

My friends CO and AnnMarie were featured in an article in a Duluth News Tribune article written by Linda Hanson that was published today. It’s an article about their life in Brevig Mission, Alaska, a tiny village in way northern Alaska. Brevig is a fascinating place stuck partially in the 19th century and partially in the 21st century.

Brevig is only slightly closer to the closest town, Nome, than it is to Russia as you can see in this map:

The article is short, and doesn’t have a lot of detail about life in Brevig, but it’s cool to see the interest. Linda called me last week for some more information about Brevig and CO and Ann, which is mentioned in the article as well.

Here is a link to the article, which includes a photo of CO, AnnMarie and their son Harold in Brevig:

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=71110&section=homepage

You can also see more about life in Brevig on the Rudstrom’s Blog.

I don’t know why I didn’t do this before, but I finally started a log of all of the great, and not so great, business and product ideas I’ve had over the years. I’m currently recreating it from memory and notes I’ve saved. This does not include any presonal projects but includes anything that could, should, or would bring in income.

So far, operating off of memory and a few saved spreadsheets and such, I’ve come up with about 70 things that I’ve thought about or really planned. My next step is to start adding info about what I did with each idea. Some were merely thoughts, some had rough sketches, and some I actually tried, with varying success. So far, I haven’t found “the” business idea that’s really taken hold, but it will happen. Perhaps I’ll start posting some of the ideas I’m sure I will not be using, along with my sketches and original notes.

In any case, I’m excited to revisit some of the ideas I’ve had and start to get an idea of just how many there have been over the years.

AnnMarie recently called me, and a few others, out on her and CO’s blog, to post “Seven Random Things About Me.” While I normally avoid the emails encouraging you to answer these questions about yourself and email it to everybody you know, I thought that AnnMarie’s Challenge made a lot more sense, since it was blog based. I’m not sending this to you, telling you to look, but I‘m putting it out there for you to read, if you so choose.

So here are seven random facts about me that you may or may not know. They are in no particular order.

• If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll know this already, but I have no credit card debt, and no credit card. Although I use a debit card regularly, the last time I used a credit card was in 2005. After seventeen years of credit card payment, I am now credit card free.

• I’m mentioned in an article on the United Nations web page. My cousin Chris French and I did a design competition and got, basically, an honorable mention in it, but when a writer for the UN Chronicle did a write up about the competition, we were one of the competitors mentioned, presumable due to Chris’ basic idea of using converted military vehicles to create mobile hospitals to treat and prevent AIDS in rural Africa.

• I first played the now popular sport of paintball in 1989. I still own my first paintball gun, along with a dozen others. I haven’t played much in the last several years, but I still consider myself a paintball player, and one of the pioneers of the sport.
• I am an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church and have performed one marriage as such. The ministers in my family probably would frown on this, because it is a mail-order ordination, but it is legal, and possibly even acceptable in the eyes of God.

• The fastest I’ve ever driven is 125MPH on the Autobahn in Germany. While I know several people who have bettered this in their lifetime, most have been on a racetrack, or has been illegal speeding on a US highway. My top speed was completely legal, and on an open highway. If only I had rented something a little more powerful.

• I have one tattoo, and it has a very important to me.
• Except a few months in 2005, I’ve have a beard since I was 18, in 1991. It’s been a goatee at times, fuller at timer, and thinner at times, but besides the brief experiment with a cleanly shaven face, I’m been a beard guys my entire adult life. I even had a mustache at age 16, but it was pretty weak.

Details are sketchy, but it seems like my fortwo has been built and at least started it’s journey from France to Minnesota. My estimated delivery is mid to late May at this point. I just hope it gets here in time for a late May roadtrip that will be pricey with my Jeep.

For those that are interested, here is the history of my order:

April 19, 2007 – $99 reservation was made at smartusa.com (This makes me a “1204″ in reservation-speak)
June 17, 2007 – Attended one of the first “road show” events in Minneapolis and got a chance for a brief test drive.
November 30, 2007 – Recieved email to configure car
December 3, 2007 – configured car
April 22, 2008 recieved an email from the dealership that my car as “shipped” although, unlike other buyer, I have yet to see a VIN number that would allow me ot track the car on it’s journey. 

Overall, I’ve been quite dissapointed in smart’s ability to track my order and communicate that to me. They made a Delivery Date Estimator (DDE) available on March 31st, but it gives you only a 90 day window. Every time I’ve looked at it, it’s given me a different date range, which makes this a pretty useless tool it you ask me.

I’m excited to get my car and will keep the blog posted as it gets closer to it’s delivery to me.

They’re evil, but it’s hard to live without them. Today, many people do not even carry cash or checks. I was once in that camp, but have migrated my spending to another form of plastic, the debit card, which never lets me spend more than I have at any given time. And I still like cash, as I spend it I can visually see the money dissapearing from my wallet. It’s a good reminder for a guy who has been less than frugal in times that should have been more frugal.

But today is a big day for me. Today I wrote a check to pay off my last credit card. I have not used a credit card since 2005, but I’ve had a balance hanging out there for a long time. Today, April 2nd, 2008, I am finally credit card debt free. Today is a day that will live in infamy, at least within the context of my financial freedom.

This all started, as credit card debt often does in my college days. In the months before going to college I got a credit card with my parents to help me pay for things at school. That summer I started charging things based on income I didn’t have yet. I thought I was merely pre-spending the money I would make that summer, but it turns out that, while I’m good at math, I would often forget to add some items I had purchased to the total of all of my charging. At the end of the summer, I had a balance on my credit card. From there it only got worse. That was the summer of 1991, almost seventeen years ago.

For seventeen years, various credit card companies have been profiting on my inability to balance my own budget and spend within my means. While I’ve been spending within my means for at least the last 8 years, it’s taken me this long to pay off the credit cards whose total debt once reached almost $40,000.

Today that balance is zero, what a great feeling.