Brian Guy

Web Developer, Writer, Dad, Aspiring Adventurer

brian nelson

So, I Had an Idea

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So, I had an idea. Yeah. That might not be the best. Nonetheless I’m going to try it. First up a link to this story I wrote about Cookie Rush Kingdom Cookie ranks and my ridiculous attachment to an amusement I started working on because my kids wanted me to be able to send them a mostly meaningless daily gift within the game.

Next up is one of my disclaimers. This is only here to pad out some word count, so please ignore.

Brian is a former Certified Financial Planner and financial advisor. He writes for the Finance Gourmet and other financial publications. The material provided on this website is for informational use only and is not intended for financial or investment advice. At the time of publication, Mr. Nelson did not own any securities mentioned above, however, that may change at any time without notice. ArcticLlama, LLC, FinanceGourmet.com, and Brian Nelson, assume no liability for any loss or damage resulting from one’s reliance on the material provided. Please also note that such material is not updated regularly and that some of the information may not therefore be current. Consult with your own financial professional when making decisions regarding your financial or investment options.

Then I’m going to randomly say some things about my local grocery store situation because the King Soopers is on strike. That is fine, but that means that they go to the Safeway across the street. This is an issue for me because the smaller Safeway that I go to in order to avoid crowds at the bigger King Soopers is now swamped under by KS shoppers trying to support the strikers by not crossing picket lines.

Also, I’m supposed to be scheduling my kids’ dentist appointments and rescheduling tennis lessons because the wind ripped down the Littleton tennis bubble.

There we go. That’s enough words.

Enjoy not knowing my idea.

Can my Level 42 Sorbet Shark cookie really defeat my Level 46 Cotton Cookie?

Making Ferrari Money

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I have a whole social media campaign planned out around the concept of me using various platforms and strategies you always see people on the internet insisting they use to make tons of money, and you can too!

The idea is to make enough money to buy a Ferrari like this one YouTube kid I randomly saw using different money making ideas and platforms that influencers say put them in a place to travel the world, buy sweet houses, and yes, own a Ferrari… or two… with a Bugatti. It even turns out that I drive past a local Ferrari dealership all the time. When the time comes, I can just drive up and say, “How much money is a Ferrari?”

I have some scripts to write and some TikToks to film to start the campaign off. But, as they say, a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum.

red ferrari money
Turns out there is a local Ferrari dealership on my usually driving path. Even though this Ferrari is on hold for someone else, and I took this picture through a window, it’s a solid example of what I’m shooting for.

Amazon Flex For Flexing Dollar Bills

One day, I was sitting in my chair scrolling through my phone, like my wife hates, and I came across a Facebook ad for Amazon Flex. Amazon Flex doesn’t need drivers everywhere, but apparently they were hiring in the Denver area, and even though I haven’t recorded my TikToks, or sent out my tweets, or put together a email list for people to subscribe to, I signed up.

Acorns is a good way to save and invest money.

I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal because I could sign up and get while the getting is good, and then just wait for the appropriate moment in my social media and content management campaign to document using Amazon Flex to make money. However, I didn’t really PLAN on doing Amazon Flex at all, and after getting through the sign up and on-line training process, I had this app just burning a hole in my pocket.

So, I started doing Amazon Flex.

Amazon Flex First Delivery

Usually, using Amazon Flex is a bit of commitment, at least when you’re used to being your own boss at your Denver-based freelance writing business.

You sign up for 2 hour, or 3 hour blocks, for the most part. As it turns out, the warehouses you start at are in my city, but not close to my house, per se, so not only am I signing up for a 2-hour shift, I’m also signing up for a 30 minute drive there, and a drive of who knows how long from wherever the route ends.

But, Amazon Flex has this setting where you can indicate that you are “Available Now.” Then, if some sort of delivery comes up with a bit of urgency, it pages you to say there is an immediate delivery available in your area. As it turns out, my house is about halfway in between two Whole Foods stores, so I’ve gotten a couple of buzzes. I declined the first one, but the second…

It was a delivery from Whole Foods to somebody, and I basically blundered the whole thing.

Despite watching all the training videos, my brain went, “I know what to do next,” and just took off. What I was supposed to do is click the button on the app that says, “I’ve Parked.”

You see, Amazon Flex is structured as a step by step process that requires you to indicate that you have done each step. So, when you get to the customer’s house, you don’t just get out of the car and take the bags up to the door, you click, “I’ve parked,” and THEN it tells you that the customer wants the packages a certain way. Then, it tells you to scan the bags to show you’ve delivered them.

I floundered around outside the house for a while before I noticed the “I’ve Parked” button. When I clicked it, everything because crystal clear.

The good news is that I had a chance to learn from my mistakes on a baby delivery and not on some long route that I fell way behind on.

Amazon Flex Second Delivery

I signed up for a second delivery today. It’s also a small one, but this time I get to practice going to an actual Amazon fulfillment center rather than just a Whole Foods. This time, I will look for a button to press every step of the way.

I don’t think Amazon Flex will earn me Ferrari money, but we’re going to see a movie this weekend, and it should pay for the tickets. I’ll need another delivery to pay for concessions, though.

My Library Closing

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OK, the headline is overly dramatic. For starters it isn’t MY library, it’s the library I go to in order to work while my kiddo is still at school. And it isn’t closing so much as temporarily shutting so that it can be remodeled.

It’s odd too, because it is a very nice, very modern, seemingly up to date library. The “after” artist drawings don’t seem like an enormous improvement. Maybe a bunch of behind the scenes stuff is out of date, or whatever.

Check out my Acorns reviews.

Anyway, that sets me up for finding a new work locale after the Christmas break. There are numerous coffee shops, but I prefer libraries and I don’t have to feel guilty for taking up a table for 3 hours while ordering a single coffee. (However, papa does need a gingerbread latte every now and then.) Turns out there are two libraries pretty close. Ironically, the closest one is apparently in a different city of the Denver metro area because it is not part of the same library system.

library
Easiest Clip Art ever. Just turned and took a picture 🙂

Colorado libraries (at least the ones in the Denver area) are pretty chill about giving library cards to people from another city, but it still means getting another library card if I want to check out books or reserve a room, or whatever. I mean, I just got around to getting a library card for this library after two months of coming here pretty much every weekday.

There is another library from this library district in the area. It’s ten minutes away instead of my current three minutes, and the other library’s six or seven minutes, so hardly a big deal. I’ll probably try both of them out and see which one I end up liking better.

Can you really earn money with Ebates?

Still finding and getting comfortable in new digs always takes a while. I turns out that a seemingly great spot can have too much sunlight on one side, or it’s so close to the elevators you constantly hear the machinery turning inside. Eventually, you find “your spot.” Then you find a backup spot in case someone is in your spot, or in case that turns out to be the area some chucklehead uses while on the phone. (Seriously, it’s a library. How hard is it to figure out that you can’t just jabber on your phone?)

On the upside, I really am not a fan of the hardwood chairs without cushions that are placed at all the tables at my current library. There are padded chairs, but then no desk or table to use. Maybe one of these other libraries has the ability to offer comfy seating, while still using a table or desk.

Check out my article on freelancer taxes.

The Kitchen Project of Infinite Completion

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One of the major difficulties in my life recently has been a kitchen cabinet updating project. It’s almost done, and it is going to be worth it, but it wasted so many hours of so many days when we could have been doing cooler, funner, better things.

These cabinets were once that light brown oak color that was all the rage in the early 90s. They made the kitchen look small and dated. Now it looks open, bright, and bigger. Most of all, it looks clean and contemporary.

kitchen cabinet painting

Now, hopefully, my life can get back to some sort of normal.

Check out my Marcus savings account review at Finance Gourmet.

Windows 10 Update Breaks PC

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If I’m being fair, it’s been years since I had any trouble with a Microsoft automatic Windows update. But, when it happens, boy it sucks.

In this case, I just got back from a 12 day vacation in Florida (Disney World, Universal Studios, and a few days at a beach house.) I turned on my computer, and it was bogged down and unusable. This is par for the course when Microsoft decides my PC needs an update. It hogs the bandwidth, and it hogs the hard drive downloading, and it makes my PC all but useless. I suppose I could configure something to fix it, but I haven’t gotten around to it.

This time, however, it jacked up my computer in a way I can’t seem to unjack.

Windows 10 Update Breaks DNS

The good news is that I’m a computer professional. Yes, my mortgage paying job right now is freelance writer, but I used to be a high-level systems administrator, and I still do a lot of IT stuff in the form of programming and web development. That means that USUALLY I can fix whatever goes wrong with my PC, even if it takes a half-hour of Google searches to find the answer.

But, not this time.

This time, my main work PC — and only my main work PC — are showing connection to the WiFi, but no internet connection.

system restore error

This isn’t entirely true, because I can ping internet addresses like 8.8.8.8 and others. That means that I have internet connectivity, but the DNS is not resolving names, which basically means that the internet is connected, but useless.

Now, the weird part is that I have several laptops and dozens of Amazon Fires, Galaxy Tablets, phones, iPods, Echo and Echo Dot, and the like, and they ALL still work completely fine. It’s just my WORK computer that is messed up.

So, now I’m spending all morning running ipconfig commands and netsh commands and trying new adapters, reinstalling drivers, and changing DHCP, and DNS, and static IP addresses, and everything else, but NOTHING is working.

I’ve tried resetting the Network Settings. I’ve turned off the Windows Firewall. I’ve uninstalled MalwareBytes, and so on and so forth. Nothing is changing. My WiFi icon show connectivity but with an exclaimation point that means no internet access for me.

Now, trying to do a restore to pervious system restore points is generating errors as well. I’m pretty upset, as you can imagine.

Back to it. If you want to make me feel better, go check out my Acorns review on Finance Gourmet. Maybe I can earn a little extra dough.