My Four Hour Workweek Experiment

So I started reading the Four Hour Workweek a second time (if you haven’t read it, go to amazon.com right now and order it! Warning, however — you should only buy it if you want to quit your job.), and I’m starting to put some of the principles into action in my life:

The 80-20 rule:

This rule says that 20% of all your actions produce 80% of your results. Or 20% of all input equals 80% of all output. This isn’t set in stone, and the output number is often higher. Tim cites an example in his own business where 90% of his customers were causing him most of his headaches, yet were only bringing in 5% of his profits. He subsequently “fired” his headache customers, concentrated on his big customers (10%) who were making him over 90% of his profits!

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Moving? Ten Steps To Create A New Social Circle In 2 Weeks

I’m moving in two weeks to Osaka, Japan — a city I’ve spent a grand total of two nights in my whole life. I have no apartment lined up and my previous connections in Osaka have all relocated. Am I worried? Nope. How am I going to make friends? No problem. I have confidence that I’ll be more than fine. This is my fourth time relocating, and I’ve created great social circles in less than a month that revolve around me and people I enjoy being around. Having done this a few times, I’ve noticed there are certain patterns that I follow to successfully create a large, high quality social circle in just two weeks. Here are my 10 steps to creating and being the center of a fantastic new social circle:

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Don’t Get My Motorbike Wet…

I’m addicted to montages.

This one is of Kim and I on our $300 motorbike in Southern Vietnam, off-roading, crossing a river and checking out some waterfalls… just before we got arrested and detained for the better part of three days (story coming soon).

The dirt roads that we drove on for the first week of our trip were a little hairy at times. We crashed twice — once while trying to dodge a rogue cow and another time trying to slowly cross a wooden bridge. The funny part was that Kim actually got the crashes on video (she used to take a lot of videos while we drove — something about being bored because she couldn’t see around my big helmet).

I’m going to post the crash videos (they’re pretty hilarious) as soon as Kim emails them to me.

(UPDATE: The videos were on Kim’s laptop, which got stolen…)

Oh yeah, and that picture of Kim driving: She’s faking it. I didn’t let her actually drive the bike until much later on in the trip…

Camping Was In Tents

Josh, Liam and I went camping in the Cape Breton Highlands this past weekend.

Road trip. Music. Hiking. Camping. Photography. Moose.

Brilliant time.

(I should note about the photographs near the end of the video that look professional: it’s because they are. Josh took them, and he’s an amazing pro photographer. Check out his site: www.jwebb.ca)

Disunee Rando and the Gaijin Zoo

Since I’m moving to Japan in precisely two weeks, I thought it would be appropriate to look at what I wrote about the wonderful and mysterious land of the rising prices, on my first trip way back in 2002 (reading my old writing, I get annoyed with my too-liberal use of brackets… aw crap.)

-To Japan-

Early morning on April 25th I drove to the airport with my Mom, Dad, and friend Skye, a student from China (originally on exchange to St. Mary’s) who would be participating in the same exchange program as me. After a bad taste of 80`s rock, typical of an unnamed Halifax radio station, the news came on: seems that scientists have discovered evidence to back up the phenomenon of “Spring Fever” — the theory that says males are more aggressive in pursuing females in the Spring season — typically thought of as an old wives tale. They said something to the effect that male hormones actually increase involuntarily in the spring season. “Good,” I thought to myself, as we pulled into the airport parking lot, “not even on the plane yet, and already I’ve got an excuse ready.”

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Very Fucking English Lesson

Observations from my Japan stint in 2002:

In Japan, English is a much-cherished language. Not because it is spoken well, or even much understood, but because it looks and sounds good (This may actually be a wonderful metaphor for the interplay between the Eastern and Western cultures — the lack of deeper meaning of imported Western culture – but who am I to say…). In fact, English is actually considered “sexy,” and is therefore used to advertise anything pertaining to sex (and everything else, for that matter). Struck me as a little strange in a place where English is not the first language. (I believe that if the Japanese ever found out about an actual sexy language like Italian or French, complete amorous chaos would ensue. Within a week it would be changed to the official language and people would walk the streets wearing berets, French-kissing complete strangers.)

The following is a by-no-means-comprehensive list of interesting T-shirt sayings that I’ve seen firsthand in Japan, which demonstrate the level of comprehension of the English language:

- Mild Sweet Lover
- Stay Honest Heart
- Afromantic

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Vietnam Motorcycle Diaries

Tet holidays in Vietnam and everything shuts down for a good ten days. My good friend Marc and I used the opportunity last year to do a trip to “the end of Vietnam,” meaning the southernmost tip. Having never really rode my motorbike more than around the block before, I was thrilled at the proposal.

I only really “crashed” once, and it was into a river. After boarding a mini ferry, I went to get off of my bike and my foot got caught on the baggage attached to the bike rack. I lost my balance, tipped the bike on it’s side on the ferry, which tossed me clear into the river head first. The locals, who had likely never seen other foreigners traveling those dirt paths, didn’t laugh. They just looked concerned and bewildered as Marc and I cracked up.

Other follies include our celebration at achieving the Southernmost Point Goal: Marc decided to take off his shoes and walk in the tidal mud. He made it a whole three steps before slicing his foot open quite badly on a barnacle. There’s a picture of him lying down getting his foot cleaned up at the “doctor’s office.” There’s no picture of my folly, as my camera fell in the water with me and had to be dried out…

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