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Showing posts from March, 2018


17 Hard and Soft Skills I Got as an LDS Missionary That Make Me Extremely Hireable

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Should I Put my LDS Mission on my Resume? I put my LDS mission on my official resume, and on my LinkedIn account. It's not because I think my religion is inherently better in the business world. Some might make that claim, but I'm not that pretentious. The reason I put it on there is because of the things that I did that transfer to the business world. People who have served the LDS 2 year, or 18 month mission understand the level of work that goes into serving a mission, as well as the hard and soft skills you develop while you're there. Now, every missionary and mission is different, but below is a list of 17 skills that every missionary has the opportunity to develop on their mission, skills that are very valuable in the workplace. 1. Hard work I was never more tired than I was on my mission. The mission has a rigorous schedule. We start with our assigned tasks at 6:30 in the morning, and our assigned tasks end at 9:30 at night. Most days I would put about 10 mile

Car Insurance Hacks: Save Hundreds

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I've been in one accident while I was driving. I was on the freeway in Utah, at the S-curves between Provo and Orem. There was construction going on (when isn't there construction going on there?). I rounded the curve and traffic was at a complete stop. I slammed on my brakes. I hit the car ahead of me. It wasn't a bad hit. I got mostly stopped. I crumpled my hood, but didn't damage any of the internal components. The car ahead of me had some white paint on his bumper from my car. He was driving an SUV. His car was just fine. Or so I thought. I learned after the fact that the guy had his alignment fixed from the accident, and had a couple other things done on his car. Luckily, my insurance paid for it. In most places you are required by law to have some level of car insurance. If you have a car on a loan they require a certain level of car insurance, generally above what is required by law.  Last year I switched my insurance company.  Geico really did save me

My Startup Failed!

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For Valentine's day I made my wife a really cute window planter box. I bought her a potted rose, which is nearly dead now, and I bought some herbs. The herbs have been doing alright. I was most excited about the box. I love to make things from wood. I had some leftover pine from a previous project and so I slapped together this box. I antiqued the wood using a blow torch, and it looks awesome if I do say so myself. I figured that this is the sort of cutsey, craftsy thing that people would love to buy. I currently live in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University (go hoosiers!). This place is made for window gardens. There are so many apartments, so you can't really grow things outside. I thought this was the perfect idea. I thought that since it was spring, people would be more interested in growing things! I figured I would make them and sell them over spring break. I also wanted to buy a new power saw for the project. I figured I better have some customers lined

How I Stopped Getting Sick Every Week

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I had a paper due in 30 minutes, a hard copy in class. I was finished with it and I was happy with how it had turned out. I put my laptop in my backpack, turned off the lights in my apartment and was heading out the door when it struck. The rumbles. The quivering and shaking in the plumbing that means things are about to get serious. Montezuma's revenge. The porcelain throne awaited. I had no choice. I answered its call. My paper was still due, so in between "waves" I opened up my laptop and emailed my professor, sending him a copy of the paper, as well as a less wordy explanation of my condition. The ironic part was that the paper discussed the workings of a sewage treatment plant. When I moved to Indiana for graduate school, I was sick for about half of my first semester. It was miserable. Perhaps it was due to the added stress. Maybe it was because I had moved over 1000 miles and was in a new germ pool. Whatever it was, I hadn't been here two weeks when I got

No Food, Only Ingredients

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"Ughhhhh. We don't have any food. We only have ingredients."  This is what my wife and I have started to say every time we open the refrigerator. We're on a diet, and we've found its much healthier to cook foods from good ingredients instead of buying packaged or boxed dinners. They taste better too, but it doesn't help when you're hungry NOW! Cooking food takes forever. Especially when you're hungry. The things that break my diet break my budget I like to eat out. Sort of. I don't like being in restaurants very much, but I like their food. Take out was designed for me. If I find myself away from home, or without the time to make food I find myself wanting to eat out. This is both expensive, and makes me chubby. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Arby's curly fries and my kryptonite. They also cost about $3. This doesn't sound like much, but I can make a pretty good meal for myself for $3. I'll drop some examples be

Stop Renting Movies Off The Internet!

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My dad likes to talk about when he used to get a candy bar for a nickle. Now they're 85 cents from the vending machine at my school. Movie rental pricing is inflating much faster though. In fact, the way the cost for movie rentals are raising in price, I feel like an old person.  Remember the days when you could rent a movie for a dollar? Heck, i used to be able to get a movie from the library for a quarter, and have it for a week!  (Insert line about walking up hill both ways in the snow) There are now a few websites where you can rent movies online, and it costs between $4-6 dollars to rent a movie. You can rent on Amazon, vudu, fandango, iTunes, and there are others. The point is, it's expensive, and I like movies! I know there are some of you out there that get pirated "free" movies from the internet, and this isn't the place where I want to teach that. I like to have legal movies, but I also don't like paying the outrageous prices for them. Enter the