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#and did this for years until the curator at the place i volunteered knew who i was and put in a good word for me'
linddzz · 3 years
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Zoos/Aquariums: we need to have another discussion on the lack of diversity in the field. Why on earth do we only get upper middle class privileged white people?
Zoos/Aquariums: 4 year degree requirements common
Zoos/Aquariums: unpaid internships with no housing provided
Zoos/Aquariums: also hold high standard for applications for unpaid no housing internships
Zoos/Aquariums: we won't say a few years of intern and volunteer work is required for a job but good fucking luck getting one without it
Zoos/Aquariums: anyway we really need to do something about this diversity problem
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nelliebrookstone · 3 years
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( BRIANNE HOWEY, 29, CIS WOMAN, SHE/HER ) * hey, i’m looking for the office of ELEANOR ‘NELL’ BROOKSTONE. they’re the EMPLOYEE who’s known around the office as THE BURN BOOK, if that helps ? not to be a gossip, but i’ve heard that they’re SUPPORTIVE but PETTY, is that true ? i also heard that they’re the one who CRIED IN THE BATHROOM BECAUSE SOMEONE TOOK HER YOGURT. anyways, here’s the coffee they ordered.
Greetings Earthlings, my name is Asha I am simply a fellow human from planet earth looking to hang out with my cool friends at the Build-A-Bear. I’m excited to be here! I have more information on Eleanor (nellie if you know here, nell if you don’t) below the cut! If you give this a lil like I’ll slide into your exclusive tumblr DMs to plot! 
So, who is Nell? Well let me tell you. As far as most people know, Nell is a former Masters Model turned Head of Talent Management for models. She’s a mix of sweet Alabama charm and scary dead smile energy, and she always has a compact for you to borrow in her purse. Most people know she always has a perfect french manicure and knows most people by first name. You might also know she recently divorced Parker and is no longer using his last name, please do not call her Mrs. Carson she’ll cry in the bathroom and then leave you a bad yelp review. You’re not even on yelp, you say? She’ll make one for you and then leave a bad review. 
But like a curated Insta, this ain’t it folks. So buckle up. (I say this dramatically but tbh she has had a pretty stable life)
Nellie grew up in a smallish town in Alabama. If you ask her, it wasn’t small at all. But it certainly was compared to large city centers, and definitely compared to New York. It was the kind of town where everyone knew your business, and Nellie had a lot of business. 
She was a teen queen! Head cheerleader, student president, shining volunteer of the county and Lady Alabama of 2010 (not to be confused with Miss Alabama, but if you ask her it’s basically the same thing). She was very involved in her community and her parents were well known in the area for their construction company. Everyone loved her that she was like the golden child of the town.
It was a great, privileged life! Her parents got married young, had a bunch of kids, and had the means to care for them! Her parents also have a very genuine love story, still passionate about each other years later. She and her sisters (all five of them) have always wanted a life like their parents’. 
The one difference between her and her parents remained her desire to roam and see the world. She wanted to travel, or at least live in a place where she could meet new people from new places. Moving to New York seemed like a great place to get some experience, though if you ask her mother she probably got the idea from some dumb TV show. She did. It was a lot of shows. And a lot of movies. There were a ton of romantic comedies that TRULY shaped this desire. 
she started sending in applications to various schools in New York. She was an honor list student with a lot of extra-circulars and passion to be at these places that shown through on all her apps. She got many a rejection, the one from Columbia was the hardest. It was the worst thing that ever happened to her at the time, so you can imagine how her life must have been. 
She DID get accepted to NYU for Public Relations! CHEERS ALL AROUND! She was so excited. She was gonna see the world and be a big city bitch 10/10. In college, she was quickly involved in everything from various clubs, to sorority, to trying to get involved with the community. It didn’t work out as well. New York was just such a different town...in that it was...big. And she wasn’t used to that. 
But she did meet a funky guy named Parker Carson! And they fell in love! And here is a short synopsis of their relationship: 
they met at a department store. Parker looked a little lost in the dress shirt area so she helped him pick out an outfit and the rest was, as they say, history. 
they had a great relationship at first, full of love and passion and fun times. he had a pokemon tattoo, she used to play pokemon snap. what a team! 
but really, they had a great time together...which led them to get married real early. In fact, for Nell, this was even a little late. She thought she’d be married with kids by 23. 
a lot of little things led to their downfall, but it can be boiled down to not fully understanding what it takes to live with another person who doesn’t mesh with your lifestyle. A big issue for Nell was kids. She wanted them, right then and there. He didn’t! No one’s fault, but it seemed to be a block they couldn’t get over. 
they’re divorced now. it’s fresh. she’s got a lot of conflicts about it. She cannot believe she is divorced before 30. she cannot believe she doesn’t have kids by now. She is under the impression she’s run out of time for everything, which is not true at all but it’s how she feels. She’s none too fond of the man at the moment. 
But listen! Nellie is a fun girl! She’s got a lot of ~zest~ for life and likes to do new things and try new places. She’s also just as comfortable spending the day at home on the couch with everything she needs within arms reach. She seems like someone who would be into partying but that’s really not her scene. She’s a brunch girl, a drive-thru movie theater girl, and an all-day 90 day fiance girl. She has an addiction to cherry cokes and always misses her stop on the subway because she gets distracted listening to her music and zoning out. She cries a lot during sad AND happy movies and can’t eat pork because she once knew a pig named Babe (no relation to the famous babe). Her favorite animal is the octopus and she volunteers with the homeless shelter every weekend. 
All of this doesn’t really come across in her work persona. She always seems like she’s extremely put together and very good at what she does. She’s quick, snappy, and not afraid to speak her mind. She’s a master at the backhanded compliment and is the master of the delayed burn (you won’t know you’ve been roasted until she’s down the hallway). She has a very charming way of speaking with a thick southern accent and tons of sayings that no one knows the meaning of, but sometimes that Nice Southern Girl smile comes out and you know she would be stabbing you if such an act were socially acceptable. Despite this, Nellie doesn’t think she’s a mean person. 
But I’m sure there are MANY people who think she is. Because...sometimes she is! No one is perfect, and she definitely has a reputation of being a major pain in the ass if you’re on her bad side. Nell remembers EVERY slight against her. Oh, she remembers when you commented on the amount of emails she sends. She remembers when you mentioned that you thought her font type was a little too bold. She remembers it all...and stores it in her mental burn book. 
This also happens often because she is...pretty sensitive. And because she’s going through a divorce, which is NOT what she had planned for in life, she’s like a stubbed toe away from a full cry every day. She’s started to invest in waterproof mascara but it’s not working out. She really DID cry in the bathroom over her yogurt. She also came back the next day and wrote a VERY angry letter on the fridge titled ‘to the person who likes to take things that don’t belong to them, I hope your mother knows she raised a THIEF.’
As petty as she can be, she’s also a great person to have in your corner. If you’re a friend, she will fight for you to the end. She’s very loyal and will often drop whatever she’s doing if you need her. She can be very generous, no expenses spared to lift up someone she loves. If you’re a friend of hers, she’s a great friend. The kind you can call at 2 am when she’s dead asleep and she’ll still come help you move out of your shitty ex’s apartment. 
Basically, Nell is a whole lot of things. Not all of them are great. But she likes to think of herself as a good person that cares about other people. She generally is! She’s also fairly good at having heart to heart conversations, and isn’t afraid to own her mistakes if she’s not still upset about the issue. But she’ll also try to ruin your career if you steal her yogurt. Fun! 
I’ll add more as I think of it, but for now I’m here for all the plots. Best friends, enemies, the person who caught her crying in the bathroom, the person who caught her angrily scribbling her name on all her yogurt, you name it! 
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Monument Woman
Pairing: Marcus Pike x OC (Rosemary Carter)
Warnings: A bit of angst
A/N: Sort of trucking along, now into chapter 4, which gets us into the meat of this whole story, so I guess this sorta qualifies as a slow burn?  Not sure.  Anyway, enjoy!
Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit.  I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.
Tag List:
@zeldasayer , @beskars , @coolmaybelateruniverse , @the-feckless-wonder , @pascalisthepunkest , @mandoandyodito , @randomness501 , @fioccodineveautunnale  , @ahopelessromanticwritersworld , @lilkermit14 [please message me to be added or subtracted]
Part 2 – Well, It’s Valuable for Starters
Coral Gables Restaurant sits right on the banks of the Kalamazoo River, serving as the perfect backdrop to any lunch or dinner date.  It was Robert’s favorite place to eat and the whole staff knew him.  So, lunch dates for the two history buffs could last hours and no one would say anything to them.
Long after the lunch plates had been taken away, Robert nursed his beer and Rosemary leaned back in her chair, letting the early summer sun warm her skin.  As she sat there with her eyes closed, Robert let himself just watched her.  She was tall with a brunette pixie cut – the only hair style he’s ever seen her sport – and he noted there was greyer hair than when they first met and finer lines on the youthful face.
She took up a lot of space with her personality and that’s what he loved best about her.  Of all the people Robert called his friends, none were close to him like she was. When he met her not long after she started at the museum and it was an almost instant rapport.
He never had children of his own, never even gotten married.  But something about Rosemary drew him to her and he felt this love for her like he hadn’t ever felt for anyone else in his nearly seventy-two years.  When the doctor gave him the prognosis, he realized the sadness that had washed over him wasn’t about his death but the fact that he had someone he was leaving behind. It both hurt and consoled him.  He wasn’t going to be alone.
“Rosie.”  His voice was soft, but she still heard him and opened her eyes.  He smiled at her and she sat up and nodded, pulling her chair closer so she was more comfortable to chat.  The waitress appeared with refills for Rosemary’s lemonade and another beer for Robert.  They stayed quiet until she left.  When they were alone again, she raised her eyebrow and gestured for him to continue.
“If there are things in those boxes that you can sell for the museum, go for it.  There are a few I want the museum to have and one item it needs to take.”
“Well, I doubt I’ll take anything that will cause me extra work, but we can draw up the deed of gift on the other items as normal.  I already have my eye on a few things, which are probably among what you are already giving us.”  He nodded. “What’s the item you want us to take for sure?”
“The Cornucopia.”  Her eyebrow raised in confusion at the comment.  “It’s a priceless art piece, a friend of mine valued it at three-quarters of a million dollars. On the low end of things.”
“WHAT?” Rosemary’s jaw dropped.  Holy shit.
“I know, I was surprised it valued so high as well.  I bought it at an antique shop in Chicago years ago and given how valuable it is, I want the museum to have it.”
“Uh, hell yeah!”  Rosemary’s eyes began to gleam with glee and Robert laughed.  He knew she was thinking of Fred and he was pleased he could help her get a leg up on the man.  While Breyers had never been anything but courteous towards the storeowner, there was an underlying hostility to the curator’s words and actions.  Something about the greedy curator never sat well with Robert and he shared in Rosemary’s dislike of him.  
“When we head back to the house after lunch, we’ll talk more.”  The two sat back and grinned at each other.
---***---
“But, ma’am. . . Ma’am. . .” Agent Horacio paused, the murderous look on their face not even showing up in their voice.  “Ma’am, I get what you are saying.  I’m asking you to set up a meeting with me to go over the case. Yes, we reopened it.  Yes, we’re working on it.  Now if you would just. . .”
The ever-patient voice of the agent faded into the background as Carmichael skirted the table with a handful of photos, a small smirk on her face. She walked up next to Pike as they filled the evidence board with the last of the pictures from the case files.  A second and third board were set up on the other side of the room, allowing the team to make further critical connections to the cases they had so recently linked together.
They worked quietly for a bit, Carmichael subtly shooting glances at Pike, whose brow was furrowed in concentration.  Finally, her curiosity got the better of her and she turned to look at her partner.
“Okay, spill.  How did the date go with Lucy in Accounting?” Her voice dropped to a whisper belying the eager look on her face.  Pike grimaced at the question as he pressed on the last of the push pins.
“There was no date. She stood me up.”  Her loud gasp caused a few of their team to look their way, but she ignored them, giving Pike a look to continue.  “I called twice, and she never answered.  Never even showed up to the date itself.  I don’t think I can go back to Bobby’s anymore.  Lindsey is starting to feel sorry for me.”
“Hell, I feel sorry for you, Pike.  That’s the third date you’ve been stood up on in, what? Two months?” Carmichael’s voice softened.  The poor man was having a rough time of it, what with Lisbon breaking his heart, his divorce before that, three failed short-term relationships after he came to D.C., and now this series of no-show dates over the last year.  She frowned and laid a hand on his wrist, which had stilled on the last pin as his words died on his tongue.
He didn’t look at her and she could feel him stiffen underneath her touch. He pushed down his growing frustration at the situation and turned to smile at her, the grin not coming close to reaching his eyes.  His shoulders squared up as if to say the conversation was done.  She had known the man for six years and just wanted him to be happy, but for the moment, she gave him a small smile to help him with his charade.
“It’s okay Carmichael, maybe I’m just not meant for a relationship.” His voice sounded almost sad at the tone and she bowed her head.
“I don’t think that’s true, Marcus.”
“Yeah, well the universe is working hard to tell me that I’m meant to be single. I should be listening instead of fighting it.”  He sighed and turned away, walking out of the room before anyone could comment on the large frown that had formed on his face.  She looked after him, a defeated look in her eyes.  No one loved as hard and as loyal as him, he deserved the world. She knew that the right person for him was out there, but she couldn’t understand why Pike hadn’t crossed paths with his soulmate yet.  
She turned back to the board, picking up the marker to begin labeling the photos they had posted.  While she wrote, she silently prayed to the universe that her partner’s heart found its home sooner rather than later.
-*-
Pike looked at himself in the mirror, droplets of water still on his skin and the strands of hair framing his face were damp.  Splashing water on his face helped cool down his skin, but Carmichael’s words of sympathy had stung, even if she meant well, and he had to leave the room before he got upset even more.  As he leaned against the sink, he bowed his head and took a few deep breaths. The small moment of zen from earlier in the day had faded and the headache had returned.
It was known that the agent wore his heart on his sleeve, that he was loyal and generous to a fault.  Most of his colleagues loved him for it and it inspired loyalty from those who worked under him.  But none of that seemed to translate into anything romantically successful.  At this point, he was certain that he was a running joke throughout D.C. and that women agreed to a date to see how long he’d wait at his favorite diner for someone to show up.
Last night, Lindsey comped his dinner because she just couldn’t take the defeated slump to the man’s shoulders one more time.  She even went home and hugged her wife, hoping a little of her joviality would seep into her bones.  If Pike knew that, he would have bitterly laughed at the idea that he can help other people love harder, he just couldn’t get people to love him back.
After letting the dark thoughts swirl through his brain for a little longer, he stood up straight and glanced into the mirror.  He wiped his face one more time and straightened his tie. Without looking back at his reflection, Marcus Pike vowed to himself that he wasn’t going to let anyone in anymore. He was here to catch art thieves and that’s what he was going to do.
He just prayed the yearning in his heart heard the declaration, too.
---***---
Rosemary huffed as she staggered up the walkway to the front door of the museum with the heavy box in her arms.  She cursed herself for thinking that she could carry such an awkward and heavy load by herself, but she was a stubborn mule and was determined to get it all done in one trip.  She sighed when she reached the top of the short staircase.
She reached out and kicked the frame of the door into the building knowing that their long-time volunteer, Bob, was at the front desk.  There was something about him that grated against Rosemary and if truth be told, he was a bad volunteer, but he was the only reliable one and so she had to put up with him and his nonsense.
She realized with a start that she’d been standing there for several minutes, and no one had come to the door.  She peeped through the glass and saw Bob sitting there, looking her way. Grimacing as she shifted the box, she kicked the door again, harder this time.
And he still didn’t move.
With a low growl, Rosemary shifted around and pressed her butt against the handicap button on the wall and with a sigh of relief, she walked through the now open door.  While the June day wasn’t particularly hot, the sun was still warm and the physical activity overheated her.  The cool air of the lobby felt like kisses of heaven on her skin and she slightly closed her eyes at the sensation.  When she opened them, she looked directly at the man in front of her.
“Bob, did you see me kicking the door?”
“Yep.”
“So why didn’t you come open it for me, you clearly saw my hands were full.”
“Kicking is rude.”  The man’s rheumy eyes stared at her and it took two deep breaths to ensure Rosemary wasn’t going to start screaming.  She gave him a tightened smile instead and she walked over to the elevator. “Rosemary, the elevator is for handicap people, you’re not handicapped.”
“Bob, the elevator is for everyone.  Goodbye!”  She entered the small space and leaned against the wall.  We need him, we need him, we need him, she chanted to herself, nothing convincing her that it was true.  The ride to the third floor was a short one, but the heavy box made it seem longer.  When the doors opened, she took a left down to the staff offices and her workspace.
She did her best to carefully set the box down on the bench, but she grimaced as she heard rattling inside.  When it didn’t sound like anything broke, she heaved a sigh of relief. She turned her head as she heard footsteps from the hallway and within moments, Helen enter the room.
“How did it go?”  She had a small smile on her face, coming closer to the work bench
“Not bad, I took one big box of stuff – good stuff, too.”  The curator grinned and Helen grinned back, curiosity all over her face.
“Nothing ugly?”
“God no.  As my grams liked to say, ‘God don’t like ugly.’”  She lifted the lid off the box and suddenly Rosemary screamed, scaring Helen and causing her to scream, too.  The latter jumped back towards the door, unsure of what was happening.  The sounds of the two women yelling echoed in the room until the scream Rosemary let out evolved into a laugh, tinged with adrenaline. “FUCKING ROBERT!”
“WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?”  Helen was now on edge and creeping back closer to the work bench, still wary. Rosemary reached into the box and lifted out the stuff monkey she passed over earlier.  Helen recoiled at the sight.
“I thought you said you didn’t bring back anything ugly!”
“I didn’t!  He must have put it in here after I told him it was worthy of the dumpster.”  The laughter continued as she looked at the stuffed animal.  Finally, she sighed and set the monkey down on the bench.
“You’re not putting it in the collections are you?”  The director still looked at the item with wariness.  It was truly ugly with its almost realistic eyes. She shuttered before looking away.
“No, but I’m going to keep it, though.  He’d probably make a better watch dog than Banana.”  Looking around, Rosemary turned to her boss.  “Speaking of which, where is that dog of mine?”
“He’s in your office, conked out on the couch and snoring away.”
“See?!  I need the monkey now.  My own dog, of whom I am his whole world, didn’t even come hither at my screams.  I am abandoned and unloved.”  Rosemary ended her dramatic comment on a sigh, her hand against her forehead.  The two women began to laugh again.
“By the way, please for the love of all that is holy, find someone to replace Bob at the front desk.  He watched me kick the door to get in and refused to get up.”
“Did he say why?”
“Yeah, ‘kicking is rude.’”  Rosemary mimicked the old man’s gravelly voice and rolled her eyes. Helen patted her shoulder and said she’d chat with Bob about it, but the curator didn’t have much faith in the forth-coming conversation.  The director left the room and Rosemary dove back into the box to pull out the rest of her treasures.
---***---
“Here is the paperwork on the history of The Cornucopia. Please promise me that you’ll list this as a restricted item.”  Robert sat down, a file folder in his hand.  “I know better than to make outrageous demands, but I want it in the paperwork that this item cannot be loaned out, it cannot be displayed, and it is to remain the collections for the rest of the museum’s existence.  I don’t even want it announced that you have the piece.”
He took a breath and Rosemary’s eyebrows furrowed.  He hadn’t been kidding when he said he had restrictions on the item.  He continued.
“The piece is valuable; I don’t want the museum becoming a target for it. I’m giving it to you because I know you’ll protect it.”  Rosemary nodded as she thumbed through the file, skimming the history of the sculpture. She looked up at him.
“Let me write up the deeds for you and we’ll note everything you want me to list in terms of restrictions.”  She got up and went to her computer set up on the table.  For the next hour, she sat asking Robert questions and filling out the forms, using the printer to create physical copies. After she was done, she sat back.
“We’ll take good care of it.  I promise.”
---***---
The next day, Rosemary sat at her desk, imputing the new collection pieces into PastPerfect, transcribing notes she had scribbled in her binder.   Most of the pieces she had taken were worth it; besides the map, she took a few pieces of pottery from a celebrated local artist, a couple of prints that dated back to the Fort’s early years, seven quilts, and several history books.  And of course, The Cornucopia.
She pulled the file out for the sculpture and sat back in her chair. After opening the folder, she began to read the files she had skimmed earlier.  The more she read the appraiser’s history more her eyebrows crawled up her forehead.
The Cornucopia was created for Russian Tsar Nicolas II by renown Ukrainian artists Artem Chumak.  The bronze sculpture was inlaid with rubies, sapphires, yellow diamonds, jade, pearls, and opals, most mined from around the Russian Empire.  Ukraine historically has been known as the breadbasket of Russia and the piece was commissioned by the Ukrainian government as a gift to Nicolas upon his marriage to Princess Alexandra of Hess.  It’s value at the time of creation was $250,000 USD.
It is known that Dowager Empress Maria took the piece, along with several other valuable items after the fall of the Empire and she sold it to the Grand Duke of Luxembourg in 1920, who in turn loaned it to the country’s National Museum of History and Art the following year. The museum returned it to the family during World War II to protect it from the advancing German army.  It was again loaned to the museum for another twenty years before the family chose to cease ownership.
The piece was then sold via Sotheby’s Auction House in 1965 to a private collector in the U.S. and has remained in private ownership since then.  Because of its history and the materials used, the value of The Cornucopia is approximately $750,000 for insurance purposes, but on the auction block, could fetch upwards to . . .
“Three million dollars?!”  Rosemary shrieked, her feet dropping to the floor as she sat up.  She looked at the sculpture sitting on her worktable and her face broke out in a grin.  Oh, ho ho ho, she really got the leg up on Fred Breyers this time.  This was the best gift that Robert could have ever given her.
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greekletters · 4 years
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Monos One-Shot Time!
Hey everyone! After spending from time talking with @dedicatedseeker, I have decided to give the one-shot business a... shot. So here we go with the first prompt!
“I think you missed your calling.”
It was that time of year again. The day of Winter and Robyn’s only child’s birthday had been slowly approaching. Just like it had every day for the last few years. And much to your surprise, Weiss had been way less resistant to going than you had been. Was Weiss Schnee excited or thrilled in any way to spend an entire afternoon in a house filled with little kids? Absolutely not. But you were even less thrilled. The mere idea of tens of children running around, screaming and being loud. And not to mention dirty. Kids always had something on their hands, no matter what. It was always guaranteed that you would be greeted by hands that were either sticky, wet or dirty in some fashion. 
But when Winter and Robyn invite you to a birthday party for your nephew, you have to show up. Regardless of whether or not you want to. It was also your sister-in-law, which didn’t make attempts to resist going any easier. 
To make matters worse, Winter called Weiss in complete panic mode the night before the party because she forgot to order a cake. How do you plan an entire party and forget the cake? It’s for kids, there could be nothing but the cake and the party would be fine. And for some unknown reason, Weiss told Winter that it was fine. That you would just bake cupcakes instead and the two of you could bring them. 
You have nothing against baking. You rather enjoy cooking. And baking. But you didn’t care for baking and decorating four dozen cupcakes until two in the morning the day of this birthday party. Also, for someone that only sets foot in the kitchen to reheat leftovers and help clean up dishes, Weiss was making some hefty promises for this party. She did, however, sit and watch while you did all the work. And you appreciated her company. The cupcakes did look flawless, but that wasn’t the point. The cupcakes could look like they’ve been run over by a car and the kids would still eat them. They were kids. 
—————
When the two of you arrive at Winter’s house, you can hear the dreadful sound of children at play long before you can see it. 
“Are you sure we can’t just leave them on the kitchen counter and run back to the car?”
“Blake! Absolutely not! This is our nephew’s fourth birthday party, and we must attend.”
“Fifth.”
“What?”
“It’s definitely Aiden’s fifth birthday.”
Weiss stops in place on the pathway to the front door. When you look back towards her all you see is a quizzical look on her face. 
“Are you sure? I could’ve sworn it was his fourth.”
“No, no. This is the fifth. Because last year I got tasked with filling all the balloons with helium, and Robyn thought it would be fun to have sparklers at the party. And I vividly remember a number four balloon turning into a giant ball of flame very close to my hair. There were many adults screaming. Lots of kids crying. And if I remember correctly, lots of muffled laughter coming from you.” She laughs quietly and a smiles spreads across her face. 
“That’s right. I remember now.” She clears her throat. “This is his fifth birthday.” She opens the door of the house and the two of you step inside. 
Luckily for the two of you, the kids seemed to be solely concerned with themselves and none of them wanted to wipe their sticky and grubby hands on your clothes, or spill their drinks on your shoes. And since you didn’t have any children of your own to watch, you weren’t obligated to take a turn babysitting as they played outside in the backyard. 
And in a desperate attempt to try and keep that distance, you volunteered to help get food ready when the time came. Putting pizza, and eventually cupcakes, on paper plates was arduous and grueling work. 
When the time comes for opening presents, you and Weiss chose a spot away from the crowd in the center of the room. Instead, leaning against the wall. 
She leans over and says to you quietly “I guess I should’ve asked this way before now but, what did we get Aiden this year?”
Rolling your eyes, you cross your arms over your chest. “We got him one of those kits to dig up your own dinosaur. Because all five year olds like two things, dinosaurs and digging in the dirt.”
“Okay. Perfect.” She purses her lips and nods her head. “Good thinking. Also educational.”
“Not really. It’s literally a block of sand and dirt compressed together and it comes with a little chisel and hammer.” You shrug. 
When he opens the gift from the two of you, he raises it over his head and yells in excitement. And when you look over, the smile on Weiss’ face is so infectious that you can’t help but smile yourself.
————
A few hours later, the party has ended and you are following Weiss around with a trash bag helping clean up after the countless little minions. 
“We definitely had the best gift. We are the best aunts ever. I mean, did you see the look on Aiden’s face when he unwrapped that book Whitley sent him?”
“Hey, I love reading. I read all the time when I was little too.”
“Not when you were five! The book didn’t even have pictures in it.”
“Now you just sound like Yang.”
Suddenly, you feel something pulling at the hem of your shirt. Quickly turning to see if you got it caught on something, you find yourself looking down into ice blue eyes. 
“Hey birthday dude, what’s up?” 
“I wanna tell you something. But Aunt Weiss can’t hear. It’s a secret.”
“Oh really?” You quirk an eyebrow and glance at Weiss, who’s mouth is hanging open slightly in surprise. “Well then let’s go over here, so Aunt Weiss can’t hear our secret.” 
You grab his hand and take him over to the patio table. Seemingly out of the way, but where Weiss could still hear from where you knew she was creeping behind the wall. 
After you help lift him up into the chair, you kneel down in front of him so that the two of you are eye level with each other.
“Okay. So what’s this big secret?”
“Actually,” he draws out the word into each syllable. It must be his new word of the week. “I have two secrets.” He holds up two fingers for you to see.
“Oh wow, two secrets. That’s a lot.”
“They are good secrets though. Not bad. So they are okay.”
“As long as they are good and you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else, there’s nothing wrong with keeping a few secrets sometimes.”
“The first one is that I think you make the best cupcakes in the whole wide world. I told my moms and they said that you made the cupcakes for my party and that I needed to say thank you. So thank you for making the best cupcakes ever for my birthday. I told all my friends that you made them.”
This makes you chuckle and shake your head. And when he’s finished with his thank you, Aiden looks over through the window and you see Robyn giving him the thumbs up. Which he gives right back to let her know he completed his mission. 
“I’m not really sure it’s a secret that I make the best cupcakes though. You and I both know that Aunt Weiss can’t cook.” You hear a small scoff from behind the wall, so you know she heard you. It also makes Aiden laugh. “So what’s the second secret?”
“This is a big one. Big, huge secret. I haven’t told anyone ever.” He motions with his hand for you to come closer so he can whisper. So you lean in. “When I grow up, I want to be a curer like you.”
“You want to be a curator like me when you grow up, huh?” You put your hand on your heart, acting surprised.
“My mom said that you work in a museum and you take care of all the old dinosaur bones and fossils and stuff. And all the other really old stuff. And I love all dinosaurs. Every single one. Like the triceratops and the t-rex. And the ones with really long necks. Even the really scary ones with razor sharp teeth.” His enthusiasm makes you smile. 
“Well, there are a lot of other things to being a curator than taking care of the dinosaur bones, you know.”
As soon as you say it, the smile fades from his face and he looks defeated.
“But hey” you poke him on his knee, “maybe one day you can come to work with me and I will show you all of the stuff that I get to do. We can walk through the entire museum and look at everything. Including all the dinosaur bones. And I will even show you all the cool stuff we don’t have on display. Top secret stuff. How’s that sound?”
“Then I can be a cure, a cur-“
“Curator.”
“A curator like you?”
“Not after your first day. There’s a lot of stuff you have to learn. But I can teach you, if you want?”
“Yes please!”
“Okay Aiden, I think you’ve told Aunt Blake enough secrets for one day. It’s time to go brush your teeth and get ready for bed.” Winter appears next to the two of you and pats Aiden’s shoulder. 
He slowly slides off the chair and makes his way towards the house. 
“Wait! I almost forgot.” He turns and runs back toward you and wraps his arms around your neck and gives you a hug, which you quickly return. “Thank you for letting me tell you my secrets, Aunt Blake.”
“You got it dude, any time.” You pat him on the back when he runs off. 
—————
Later that night, when you walk down the stone pathway in front of Winter and Robyn’s house toward your car, Weiss hooks her elbow with yours. 
“You know what?”
“What?”
“I think you missed your calling.”
“Oh yeah? And what would that be?”
“Blake Belladonna, kid whisperer and world’s best secret keeper.”
“Oh come on, really? He tells me one secret, and suddenly I’m the kid whisperer?”
“Let’s be real, you folded for that kid like a lawn chair. Miss ‘I hate all kids, they are dirty and gross and yucky.”
“So what? He’s our nephew. If he wants to talk to me about dinosaurs and working at a museum, who am I to dissuade him?”
“Fair point.”
“Or maybe I have discovered my true calling, as the cool aunt. And you are just jealous that I’m the cool one.” You tease, knowing Weiss would never be bothered by it. 
“I am not! And there are plenty of other fun kinds of aunts that I could totally be like…”
“The wine aunt.”
“Yes! Exactly. That sounds great. I volunteer to be the wine aunt. I’ve been practicing.”
“There is one thing we will never have to worry about though.”
“And what is that?”
“As long as Whitley keeps sending books, we will always be the favorites.”
“That’s true, the competition is very slim.”
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artisticallys · 5 years
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              omg hey... what’s going awn  ?  i havent dont an intro in soooo long i dont even have anything fun or interesting to say about myself errrrrr my name is sam  !  i use they/them pronouns we big chillin.... im real bad at answering messages but i get to them eventually i schwear. yep that’s all if anyone wants to plot or whateva just lmk okie  ?  there’ll be a tl;dr at the bottom before plots if u dont wanna read all this it’s a lot-_____-  without further adieu may i present miss scout kang.... 
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﹤𝙺𝙸𝙼 𝙲𝙷𝚄𝙽𝙶𝙷𝙰, 𝚂𝙷𝙴/𝙷𝙴𝚁, 𝙲𝙸𝚂𝙵𝙴𝙼𝙰𝙻𝙴﹥; * - hello SCOUT KANG. long time no see. i know a lot about you. like how you're TWENTY TWO, how you're a GAME DEVELOPMENT major,  and in fact.. how you KILLED YOUR TWIN BROTHER AT HIS REQUEST AND LIED TO YOUR FAMILY ABOUT HIS PASSING AWAY TO STAY IN THEIR GOOD GRACES. would be a shame if it got out, wouldn't it ? so let's play a game. 𝚃𝚁𝚄𝚃𝙷 𝙾𝚁 𝙳𝙰𝚁𝙴 ?
ok so yeaaaaah her secret is kindve a lot ! we gone get there... but first i gotta discuss her childhood u kno ? set things up <3 scout was born to 2 vewy loving parents with a twin brother. there were complications in the pregnancy some medical shit i cba to research but basically her brother wasn’t getting all the nutrients he needed to develop with a good immune system. scout was born two minutes before him, he never let her forget it with his hag jokes and she never let him forget when it came to calling shotgun. 
as i said her brother was born with an auto immune deficiency it left him in a place to get sick very, very often. almost anytime he caught the flu he was hospitalized and generally his life was lived through a glass case from the outside world. and oddly enough it made scout feel trapped too as he was her twin flame, they were the best of friends and wherever he was she wanted to be. there came a time where his health plummeted drastically, doctors weren’t sure he’d make it and the pressure of it all finally cracked down on their father
not being able to watch his own flesh and blood rot away in a hospital bed he took his chance to get out while he still could and vanished into the night never to be seen again. scout remembers hearing an argument between her parents before pretending to be asleep when he came into her room and gave her a final kiss on the forehead and secured her blankets about her body.
it was a shock, really, when her brother pulled through and was somehow stronger than ever. an elaborate hoax was curated by their mother but scout knew, and deep down she thought her brother knew too. but it’s hard to give life to such a grievous monster and so it stayed in a grave.
life went on, doctor and hospital visits became routine and her brother never let things get in the way of living his life. in high school they were quite the pair. mostly it consisted of conversations about where they wanted to run off to after graduation, who their dream spouse was ( he always wanted to marry the student body president while scout had dreams of marrying some degenerate *her brothers words* ), things theywanted to do before dying. they wrote that stuff down on an old study guide scout was using to cheat off of for ap chemistry....
which was something she did often as early middle school days, her mother planted the seed of her going to medical school. to find a way to help people like her brother and at first it was a welcomed idea, do good for people like the one she loved more than life. time went on though and the pressure to have a 4.0 to get into a good premed school with tuition help was mounting. it made dreams that had been forced upon her to morph into something ugly but there was no hopes of standing up to her mother, not when she was already looking forward to such a future. but scout didn’t have the best work ethic when she wasn’t really invested in something, she was smart yeah but that just... wouldn’t cut it and she found that out real fast
her scenes changed quickly during the summer of junior year. her brother had fallen incomprehensibly ill, worse than she had ever seen him and the fear she had as a child slowly crept back, licked up her neck and nested on her shoulders making a home there. reports came back soon enough and he was diagnosed with leukemia. at first it was manageable, some chemo and radiation should do the trick, they said. then it became bone marrow transplants and blood transfusions and fluid drips. she was the first to volunteer, obviously as his twin, for marrow transplants, blood, any organs he might need. 
desperation came in the form of a crying mother after news that he wasn’t going to live past christmas came. it came to scout as her mother accused the doctors of knowing nothing and doing nothing for her son. and it lastly came to her brother when he had been going through these treatments for 2 years and he still could feel how his soul was rotting away. how he was just a carcass in a paper thin nightgown. 
it was then he proposed the idea they travel and cross things off their bucket list and scout both ready to escape greyed walls and sterile affections as well as their small town agreed, readily. took every penny she earned from working, even opened up a gofundme for this trip and was lucky. things went well, so well in fact, that the pair forgot that half of them had one foot in the grave already.
until one day his pain became unbearable, too much for him to handle anymore, and he asked scout as she was helping him into bed after an attempt at leaving the house that day. it was hushed, whispered in shame and fear. had what he just said really happened? was the summer sun getting to be too much? it wasn’t until he had cleared his throat and said it with his chest, “i want you to kill me.” 
call her wrong but she actually laughed. retracted from him with brows creased and a confused laugh slipping out. there’s no way he could be serious. but when he didn’t laugh too she knew he meant it and that’s when she knew she had a choice to make.
it took a week of pondering the thought before she came to the conclusion that she’d end her brothers suffering. they spent the next few days doing something that haunts scout to this day really: planning the best way for her to kill him. for her to end her twin flame. 
their last night together was something memorable, spirits were shared and tears were shed. he left her with only 2 promises to keep.   1. never reveal to anyone that she ended his suffering and 2. to stop letting their mother decide scout’s life and future
she didn’t go to his funeral. didn’t want to replace what she had left of him with what was in that coffin, spent the night drinking homemade sangria and watched star trek. his 2 favorite things. 
this obviously didnt go over well with her mother, went even worse when scout announced she had dropped from pre - med and planned on becoming a video game developer. she was called an embarrassment, a failure, and that she would end up nowhere. and for a while she believed it, still does. 
she got really lucky though when the streaming community got more recognition and now she plays video games for a living and attends classes to make good games. 
TL;DR 
scout grew up w a really sick brother, their dad left, and scout basically became her brother’s keeper. was forced into studying shit she had no interest in and when her brother had enough suffering asked her to take his life, which she did. now she streams video games with hopes of making her own and somehow finding her mother’s love again. 
𝑃𝐿𝑂𝑇𝑆𝐼𝐸𝑆  ? 
got the songs it’s you & bang bang stuck in my head rn maybe some romance shit off theeeees? dunno...
dudes... some people who knew her AND her brother growing up like maybe they went to hs together idk maybe they’re like girl what ever even happened...
ex’s yupppp gimme
her bestest friend(s) maybe even shares her world w them u kno? im in it...
maybe something unrequited or like some sort of clueless sheet who knows!
frenemies...? like enemies that actually just have some weird tension they gotta get through :kissing:
literally anything u think scout would be good to fill like if u got any wcs?
OMGGG wait last one. i really want someone who her brother was in love with or like had feelings for and shit got crazayyyy after he died we can discuss
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roshellrp · 5 years
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NAME: Theodore ‘Theo’ Milford
AGE: 28
GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis-Male, He/His
LENGTH OF TIME IN ROSWELL: eighteen years / two years
OCCUPATION: Curator for the International UFO Museum
FC: Ryan Guzman 
your world keeps spinning and you can’t jump off
the milfords were a family with a long history, stretching back in roswell long before it became a hot-spot for tourists. that long history was told with laughter and warm interjections and embellishments at every family gathering  ( family gatherings included: birthdays, weddings, holidays, and the every-other-week sunday dinners. )  for as long as theo could remember.
this cousin tripped on her way down the isle when the whole town had been invited to the wedding, even the mayor, and made front page news. that great-aunt traveled two towns over to compete in a pie-making contest and won, but earned so much scorn from the win that no milford can ever visit that town again. it went on  —  theo was always meant to love history. he was raised on his family’s history, fed a steady diet of passed-down stories from anyone who had something to say. and he was raised on the town’s history, because you couldn’t live in roswell and not steep yourself in its myths.
there were family secrets, he was sure. there were a lot of milfords, and milford-adjacent people, who flitted in and out of theo’s life growing up. he was a smart kid  —  he knew how to read a silence that fell over a room as soon as a kid walked in. he knew how to tell when a scrapbook was missing pages. but there were other things on his mind and he knew that if there were things he needed to know, someone would tell him. family was important to theo, that sense of community he found he could find almost anywhere in roswell. adults kept things secrets from kids, but he didn’t think it was malicious; it was just a sign of being human.
theo’s childhood was both snail-paced and lightning fast. there were moments that buzzed lazily by, summer breaks spent in the drowsy heat of the town, daring other kids to sleep out in the stars and hunt for ufo’s. there were months that sped by theo so fast he could barely recall what his fourth grade teacher looked like. theo was un-bothered by time; he was always running an hour late or an hour early, never could quite tell if it was tuesday or friday. he was a go-with-the-flow kinda kid, and he never quite shook that mentality off.
the thing was: it was all well and good to know a lot about roswell, and to know a lot about his family. it was another thing entirely to be fascinated with the way ancient egyptians honored their dead, and to be obsessed with the bog bodies of northwest europe. theo found out at around age ten that his friends could only spare a little morbid interest for the idea of mummies before everyone wanted to move on. he kept learning; he’s sure he kept every teacher, librarian, and bookseller on their toes throughout the entirety of his childhood. but he learned to keep his learning under wraps.
he wasn’t really made fun of in school for the way he’d spout history facts as readily as the stats on his favorite baseball player. but he knew that no one else liked history as much as he did, and as he grew up he learned to keep his mouth shut. it was fine. in middle school and high school he played basketball and baseball, and everyone forgot about the weird hobbies he’d had as a kid.
he was a senior and looking at different schools when it hit him: when he left for college, somewhere cold and old and far from new mexico, theo was sure everyone would about him, too.
the thing was: theo wanted to study history. he wanted to be an archaeologist. he loved living in roswell and having a dozen relatives, close and distant and blood-related and not-so-blood-related all as close as could be. bu he just couldn’t be what he wanted there. the town was filled with dust and stories of alien sightings. he loved it; he loved the people and the stories they all had inside of ‘em. but he just didn’t think it was where he was meant to be.
at school everyone was fascinated with his origin story. theo himself had never thought much about being from roswell. the place was filled with kitschy restaurants and the occasional history-channel film crew, but it was also filled with his high school teammates, his family, his friends from growing up. he recalled being a stupid teenager and doing normal stupid teenager things, and he thought his stories didn’t sound all that different from the tales his college friends shared from their own hometowns. but everyone was stuck on the idea of roswell, and aliens, and government conspiracies. all the things about home that theo had never paid much mind to. eventually, it became a fun fact about him  —  people moved on from asking him if he’d ever been probed. but he had a new understanding of home in the back of his head. he looked at it with new eyes.
it became a little harder to imagine coming home.
he graduated his program with a glowing recommendation from his favorite professor and a few small digs from semesters abroad already under his belt. theo moved out to the united kingdom for two years as he did a master’s program, exploring the secrets of old castles and glens. then theo traded one desert for another and spent another chunk of time in egypt where he hung out with other people just as obsessed with history and archaeology as he was. he fell in love; he fell out of love. he couldn’t recall a second where he didn’t have sand in his hair, under his nails, and a broad grin swept across his face. those years confirmed for theo: this was where he was meant to be.
but family was family; roswell was roswell. he’d been an oldest child and frequently called his four younger siblings, sent postcards and joking text messages regularly. he kept up with his other family members on and off but knew, always knew, that the love was strong and steady. his father called him in a panic at four in the morning and said his mother was having a health episode  —  those had been his words. theo flew home in a rush, crowded into the hospital room with a dozen other milfords for as long as the medical center staff would allow.
when she died, he stayed in the thick of his family, ready to be there for his siblings while his father couldn’t be. theo oversaw funeral arrangements. he was the one who tried to get his family’s lives back on track. he said, I’m not going to stay too long, just until everyone is back on their feet. he said, I really do need to get back to the site. he said, I’ll stay until christmas but then I have to go. two of his siblings were already college-aged and were called back into the thick of university life before their grieving period was really over  —  but they went back all the same. and then his father had an unexpected heart attack and theo was the last adult milford in his immediate family left to look after his two youngest siblings.
he had a dozen great-uncles and cousins and grandparents and god-parents and aunts volunteering to take the two of them in if theo had to get back to his job. but he couldn’t leave them. maybe it was just survivor’s guilt, but theo hated the thought that he’d been halfway across the world for so long that his last memories of his mother were hasty holidays he penciled in between red-eye flights. he hated that his last memories of his father were as a man in grief who died of a broken heart. he’d be there for his siblings because he hadn’t been there for his parents. when they grew up, maybe they’d get the hell out roswell too. maybe it was a town too built on history for any milford to stick around, now. but this is where theo was until that time came and he could cut ties with his roots to,.
he had a bachelor’s and a master’s degrees in archaeology, but during undergrad he’d minored in history. it was enough to get a job as a curator for the international ufo museum. his co-workers told him that he was, perhaps, overqualified. but the thing was that there were no dig sites in roswell, and nowhere else he could go while his siblings still needed him.
this was never how he imagined his life turning out when he was growing up, but it was  —  it was fine. he felt like a stranger around people he’d grown up with, wasn’t sure where he stood with his family. but, theo figured, things could always get worse. this wasn’t so bad.
THEO is penned by ZOE
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hostilidadesveladas · 5 years
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meet jakob.
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basic information.
FULL NAME:  Jakob Nathanial Warren.
NICKNAME/ALIAS:  Jake, Jakey, Warren, etc.
BIRTH DATE:  April 25th.
ETHNICITY/NATIONALITY:  Caucasian-mixed. / American.
GENDER:  Cis male.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION:  Pansexual.
RELIGION:  Non-denominational / ‘believer’. 
SPOKEN LANGUAGE:  ( American ) English.
CURRENT LIVING CONDITIONS:  Actually owns a relatively nice house on the NW side of Portland. 4 bedrooms, 2 and 1/2 bath, an office to which he’s padded for some recording sessions, and a garage fully furnished for band practice.
OCCUPATION/AFFILIATIONS:  Drummer / Singer in ‘1-legged Fun Stuff’ & ‘A Hope 4 Home’.  Curator/Manager of his mother’s bar “The Rabbithole” & sound tech for various venues, including his own & an up and coming music producer. 
ABILITIES/SUPERNATURAL:  Super strength. ( He seems crazy strong even after his weakened state from chemotherapy.  He has had various versions of cancer throughout his childhood and life... ) 
relationships.
PARENTS:  Catrina ‘Kit Cat’ Warren. Jakob sadly never really knew his father, he left after his younger bro was born. His mother is widely known among the Portland area, band scene as she’s thrown many festivals and was/is heavily involved in her son’s career ( in a good way, Jakob is super close to his mom. )
SIBLINGS:  Tyler Michael Warren ( younger by 1 year. )
SIGNIFICANT OTHER:  N/A / verse dependent. 
CHILDREN:  N/A / verse dependent. 
PETS:  An Australian Shepherd named ‘Charlie’ or ‘Chuck’.
physical traits.
EYE COLOUR:  Blue with flecks of bright green. His eyes almost appear green.
HAIR COLOUR:  Brown.
HEIGHT:  5″9. 
BODY BUILD:  MESOMORPH.
TATTOOS + PIERCINGS:  Celtic cross on the inside of his right wrist.
NOTABLE PHYSICAL TRAITS:  Well, he is missing his right leg, had to have it amputated in 8th grade due to an aggressive form of lymphoma that latched onto his knee and ankle and no form of therapy/radiation ( at the time ) was powerful enough to rid his body of the cancerous cells. So, to spare his life, they took his leg. He limps about but walks relatively normal and you usually don’t notice right away, unless he points it out himself or shows it off ( which he loves to do, to be honest! ) 
phobias and disorders.
PHOBIAS:  He’s generally not scared of much -- not even death as he’s come to terms with how short life is. 
MENTAL DISORDERS:  He has his head screwed on pretty straight, but on occasion deals with anxiety and mild depression. 
WHEN WAS THIS DIAGNOSED?:  Found at a fairly young age, around 10 years old.
personality.
INTELLIGENCE:  Jakob is a very smart boy. He studied hard, and though often offered it he never partook in any form of drugs until he needed medicinal marijuana for sake of his chemotherapy. 
LIKES: ( favorites )  DRINK: peppermint tea.  FOOD: Italian.  DAY OR NIGHT: Night owl. SNACKS: general sweets, sour patch kids & licorice ( the licorice helps with the nausea due to treatment. )  COLOR: Blue.  FLOWER:  He doesn’t generally care, thinks daisies and carnations are nice.
DISLIKES:  Dishonesty, disloyalty, anger, resentment. 
DISPOSITION:  Even in his hardships, he’s one of the most bubbly, vivacious people you’ll ever meet. He really is just an all around nice guy. He attempts his best to see the light in every given situation, especially when it comes to his peers. He wants to be their stronghold in every situation. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t allow himself to grieve or to hurt, because he’s had a good break down a time or two, but for the most part he’s simply a happy-go-lucky dude. More often than not, he allows music to speak to him and for him. He will create mix-tapes for just about anyone, or Spotify playlists, especially when attempting to get his point across. Music is his first love and his life.
biography. 
     Jakob met his band of misfit besties one Sunday morning at none other than ...church! Growing up within a non-denomination household, he was always ever encouraged to contemplate life’s little miracles, especially considering since the mere age of 3 he’d been battling it out with cancer. The first hit was relatively small, a patch of MCL lymphoma found within his right leg. Luckily ( or as his mother would put it -- due to answered prayers... ) the lymphoma was not as aggressive as it could’ve been and with a few radiation treatments the cells seemed to clear up.       Jakob never met his birth father, as he left when Tyler, his younger brother was only just born ( he shares in this instance with Kaila, it’s one reason why the pair are so close. ) He found father-figures within the likes of Windsor’s dad, Alex, and a few of the pastors at the Foursquare & Calvary Chapel he often visited. Jakob never had ‘religion’ shoved down his throat. In many ways, his faith enabled him to cope with the harshness of his reality. Death is far less scary when you can envision where you are headed, at least in his mindset. Because of this, he’s always had a softer heart, giving and well typically one of the sweetest guys most people have the pleasure of meeting -- not necessarily in his own eyes, but to Winsor, and any of the girls, he’s always been one gigantic teddy bear, brimming with life and love. It’s humbling to hear such feedback.       Music has always been a huge part of Jakob’s life. He grew up with a musician mother and her squad of merry misfits ( much like his own. ) Catrina, otherwise known as ‘Kit Cat’ both professionally, through the town and networking, for as long as Jakob can remember, owns a bar/venue that she aptly named the ‘Rabbithole’ after one of her favorite books -- also because, in her very words “I used to do a lot of Molly...weird stuff happens...” The redhead had always been candid and open with her boys and their friends, never one to sugarcoat the circumstances of her life. She was/is the voice of reason among the group, always there to offer a helping hand or homemade cookies.  Cat’s also ( still to this day ) a very well known songwriter, having collaborated with the ‘Tooth & Nail’ label. She is also an established booking agent/manager at her little venue, which has housed some of the most well renowned bands and artists, mostly from the indie persuasion/scene.       Windsor & Jakob met in 7th grade, when Windy was newly transferred to his school. She’d been known around town mostly because of who her father was, one of the school officers who volunteered their time for coaching community & club sports, heavily involved in the youth. The pair hit it off rather quickly and one night mid youth-group, after the couple had finished leading the worship team, he casually asked her out on a date. A couple of formal school dances and band practices later, the pair was inseparable.       Jakob’s second stint with his form of MCL was in 8th grade when the cells attached far more aggressively to the bed of tissue/lymph-nodes in his knee and ankle of the same ( right ) leg. It was due to this that he had to have the limb amputated. -- Shortly after, to cope with the entire experience, he formed the band ‘1-Legged-Fun-Stuff’ which included the vocal stylings of Windy & Kaila. The third and final scare ( so far ) happened his Senior year of high school. The infected lymphocytes found a passage behind his lungs and nearly harbored a home in the tissue beside his heart. If the doctors hadn’t discovered this when they had he would’ve been given a warning of 6 months at best -- luckily after one of the most excruciating circumstances of his entire life, Jakob survived. In his mind, only God knows why ( quite literally! )  When Jakob was on the operating table, the anesthesiologist did not properly inject him, and due to this -- though he had been asleep, he felt every prick, every tug, every crack, every pull, every single savage and agonizing pain due to them opening and tearing his chest apart. Safe to say, upon this knowledge, Cat was absolutely livid ( to say the very least ) with the hospital whom ended up settling the situation with a substantial sum of money.       With said money, Jakob had the choices of attending college or pursuing his dream, and finding that life seemed abundantly shorter than he’d like to perceive, he chased his dreams of becoming a producer.        When Windsor’s accident went down and the inconclusive oddities began to surround their lives, Jakob became the slight founder of the group’s pact of well-being. He’d never let any of them fall short of whom he knew they could be -- if Kaila failed to take her medication for her own issues, he was there to help pick up the pieces. And just like the countless hours Windy had spent at his bedside during his toughest days, he was there for her.       The romance between Windy and himself never truly fizzled, they just recognized what was best for each other. She yearned to be free from any ties at home, and though he’d been aware of her deeper, dark secrets & never once judged, Windy ultimately was the one who pulled the plug for her own fears and concerns -- for her it was better to get away...run away.  They both deserved a clean slate, and he’s never blamed her for it. Especially when she lost her older sister Hannah.  Considering how close Tyler and Jakob were/are, he could never imagine that kind of agony.       Whilst Windsor found herself touring the world, within a cover job he had helped to formulate ( a roadie/tech support... ) ( aside from all her ghost-hunting/adventures... ) Jakob began to take on the managerial duties at his mother’s club, as well as partake in small tours with his band newly named ‘A Hope 4 Home.’  They mostly played around the Portland-metro area and in some places within California and Colorado as well as partook in events such as the ‘TomFest’ and ‘Vans Warped Tour’, with very few EPs recorded and no full album to speak of just yet.       Since the surgery behind his lungs, he’s checked every few weeks for any cysts or tumors and has been in the clear/in full remission for a few years. Jakob is the type to live every day to it’s fullest, no amount of worry tends to sour his mood and it takes a lot to upset him. That doesn't mean he doesn’t have a temper, he’s merely slow to anger. This definitely tends to aid others in his group ( *cough* Kaila *cough* ) -- since Kaila was one of the few in their original ‘squad’ to still remain mostly around town, their kinship is exceptionally strong. He’s turned into a brother of sorts. And being band-mates they’ve come to see the worst and best sides of each other. There’s never been any romantic inclination between them because they are far too much like family to one another.       He remains a charismatic spirit with an odd and at times insane talent when it comes to his bodily strength. He’s never really considered that he harbors any supernatural or... ‘special’ capabilities but, he’s not closed off to the idea. If anything, he’s the kind of guy you’d want to have a conversation with when it comes to ‘off’ topics -- especially considering he could go on and on about the possibility of the Sasquatch and other phenomenal oddities... 
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brehaaorgana · 7 years
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hello! i understand you've studied art history and i am currently finishing my 3rd year of undergrad and i have a few questions about art museum internships. i've looked some up and some sites say to "contact ---" person to apply, usually by email. what's the best way to ask to apply to be an intern? should i attach my resume with that first email or should i wait until they send me a response email? thank you!
Hi! First, good luck with getting an internship! The application process for museums vary wildly - a "big" museum may have a very detailed application process (I.E. Submitting your transcripts, three recommendation letters, essay, resume, etc), a smaller place may just want your resume and an interview. Here's my advice: if you've looked on the museum website and they don't outline a specific process for applications, and only say "contact X about internships," then just contact them for internships information politely. You don't want to send them a resume where you emphasize your interest in say, Medieval European art when they want someone interested in Contemporary American. Or you'd rather showcase your awesome social media skills when they say they want a P.R. Intern for the museum, etc. Unless they are truly very small and have like *a* curator, then you're going to want to find out what departments actually want interns, and tailor your resume accordingly. This will also help you determine if you'd rather take a curatorial department internship in an area of art you don't like vs say, applying to work with the registrar or something. Some might have a general internship application and then ask you where you want to end up and put you wherever, but I'm trying to remember the internships/volunteer positions I had/got (more or less all unpaid, because I don't think I made more than $80 from any of these) and they were more like:1.) College-Kid's museum volunteer program anyone could apply for. It was very small, and if I'd stayed there, the director-curator had said I could go forwards and intern because she already knew me, it would just be "more time" there? There was no formal process. 2.) internship application for a specific internship position (kid's museum, so I applied specifically for education rather than like, development, and I emailed the educator directly with my resume because I knew the position I wanted.) 3.) Friend offered me volunteer position helping her in a really busy point in her year at the museum 4.) Internship at a small local gallery - I was a "generic" intern, and did curatorial stuff, research, installation work, gift shop sales, etc. I also lamented their terrible closet storage a lot. I think I just asked about internships because they were a focused Latino art gallery and so I didn't have to specify any further than that? They were too small for "departments". 5.) Docent volunteer program was "anyone can apply and do the training" 6.) local art museum I applied to had list of departments you could intern with. I applied and specified who I wanted to work with and why. I think I never ended up applying to the larger art museum local to me in undergrad because it had an application fee AND wanted an official transcript so like, probably $35ish to get a job I wouldn't get paid for.... And I also applied for a specific internship position at the uni museum's Registrar's office which I didn't get. But I think the running theme is they either had specific departments to apply for or curators you could work with listed online, OR they had an application process where you could mark that on a form, OR they were too small for any departments. If they don't have any positions/departments listed that take interns online, email and ask who needs interns!
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harpsicalbiobug · 7 years
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Science ask! 1, 2, 11, 21, 38 I... tried to narrow down my curiosity as best as I could :D
Aw, thanks for asking! 
1. What’s your major/field?
I have a bachelor’s in biology, and I’m getting my PhD in biology as well. I suppose my focus is animal behavior and physiology, but I fit the stereotype of being in an integrative biology department and loving/using a lot different fields and techniques. My current research is on the impact of monoamine disrupting contaminants (like antihistamines, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, illicit drugs, some pesticides) on insect development, behavior and physiology. My research interests include ecotoxicology, neuropharmacology and neuroscience, entomology, environmental policy (esp. wastewater treatment plant systems), animal behavior (esp. monoamine mediated behaviors which is pretty much everything), and the use of insects as bioindicators. I used to work on seminal fluid proteins, courtship, and endocrine disruptors in flies, and I was a tech in a circadian rythms neuroscience lab for a while and a pancreatic cancer lab for a hot second, still fond of both.
Short answer: Biology forever. I give drugs to bugs.
2. What made you choose your major/field?
I just always loved animals. That’s the simple answer. I liked animals and I’ve been fucking lucky to turn that into a career (so far, we’ll see how finding a postdoc position goes).
I was the dinosaur kid, the cat kid. I did well in science classes, and I loved nature, bird watching, cat shows, animal documentaries. I taught myself mendelian genetics in middle school so I could understand the inheritance of cat coat colors. I read about (and edited wikipedia articles about, yikes) extinct cats. I read falconry books. I volunteered at a zoo, a vet clinic, a humane society. I fostered cats with my family. I wrote stories about wolves and cats and birds.
So, I loved animals. But as a kid, I was exposed to the TV Careers- mostly lawyers, doctors, cops, generic office workers- and apart from “guy who narrates nature documentaries + Steve Irwin” none of those people worked with animals. And the people I met in real life who worked with animals were veterinarians, vet techs, zookeepers. I didn’t know about research careers, or how much behind the scenes stuff happens at museums and zoos, or that animal scientists work at government agencies and in industry. I had the weird experience where lots of my friends parents had doctorates, and one even worked as a bat taxonomist/curator at a museum, but I had no idea what graduate school was until halfway through college.So I went to college and thought I’d be a vet. Maaaaybe a paleontologist (but then I learned that most paleontologists get their undergraduate degrees in geology). And then I sucked freshman year and learned the getting into vet school is harder than getting into med school. I learned about graduate school and research careers from my professors. Literally I wrote a biology paper and the professor asked if I was considering graduate school, because, you know, if you can write like this it might be a good place for you. I did research as an undergraduate, and I loved it. I worked as a tech in a R01 lab and loved it, but wanted to do more research. So, grad school!
11. Who’s your favorite scientist?
Rachel Carson. Silent Spring is a fucking gift that anyone in the sciences should read. She was a brilliant science communicator, and was beloved for her writings on marine life before Silent Spring. She wrote wrote broadly, was published in academic journals and popular magazines, wrote for conservation causes and also wrote lovely descriptions of fisheries and wildlife refuges (like this one about Chincoteague pdf warning) for the government. Oh and she was in love with Dorothy Freeman and there’s a lot of obnoxious hand waving about how it was just a close friendship but y’all they burned a lot of their correspondence, and what we have left is like, guys, Carson was maybe an ace lady and definitely romantically entwined and in love with another lady. She was gay. “Never forget, dear one, how deeply I have loved you all these years.�� Fuck off hand waver people. Oh yeah, and she kickstarted the grassroots environmental movement in the United States and was such an important figure that the press were asking Kennedy questions about DDT and he refered to “Miss Carson’s book” because everyone just knew about it. And when the men in government and the chemical industry dismissed her extensive research and her understanding of the impact of pesticides and herbicides on the environment and twisted her message (she never wanted to get rid of all pesticides or human made chemicals, she just wanted any amount of monitoring and regulation and intelligence behind their use) and called her hysterical and a “Priestess of Nature,” well, she testified to before Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee while dealing with radiation treatments for breast cancer, and the committee basically said “yep, she’s right.” Oh and she’s part of why we even have the Environmental Protection Agency. So yeah, the original ecotox and environmentalism goddess is my favorite.There are others of course. Caroline Herschel the astronomer. Tyrone Hayes is important to me. Jane Goodall of course. Patricia Brennan (duck penises, yes), Corrie Moreau, John Wingfield, Peter and Rosemary Grant, May Britt Moser. Like, pretty much any scientist I meet? Beloved college professors. My current advisor. My friends in my cohort. Science is a group activity, so even admiring Rachel Carson is admiring her mentors, editors, collaborators, sources.
21. If you had infinite funding, what would your research be about?
I mean, if I had infinite funding I’d set up a new funding agency and probably emphasize basic research + science communication + cross discipline research. But I get that that’s not the real question.I want to know what pharmaceuticals and other contaminants are in the bodies of invertebrates in human impacted waterways, and how the changes according to the gradient of landscape usage and also how the life history (diet, lifespan, place in water column, respiration style) affects the accumulation and excretion of those contaminants. We just do not have that data. I mean step one, we don’t even have data for “is there X pesticide or X personal care product found in X insect” so doing a whole battery of assays across a lot sites and species is a whoooole lot to ask. I’d also follow it up with comparing some behaviors and anatomical traits and development and trying to see if there’s any connection between contaminants and those traits. Also do some gene expression measurements, because toxic response pathways/neurotransmitters/all sorts of stuff may be sensitive to exposure to lots of the fun bioactive stuff in the water. Also do lab based experiments with exposure to single compounds and then combinations. Probably throw in some mobile lab stuff too, why not? Oh, and look to see if any contaminants are moving up the food chain and getting into birds, fish, whatever. Also see if emergent insects like mayflies, dragonflies, etc are carrying aquatic contaminants into the terrestrial environment. Oh and see how different wastewater treatment plant types and the geology/hydrology of the water impacts all this stuff. And hire a giant team of people, because I could not do this all on my own, and good science is collaborative, and there are smart people out there who would have great new ideas, aaaaand I think I might be describing my dream lab.
38. Is math a little bit too mathy for you?
Yep. But I kind of love that too? A lot of science is feeling dumb and then figuring something out. So I wish I were better at math, but it’s taken until fucking graduate school for me to both love it and accept that I don’t need to “get” a math thing immediately. So, I’m real slow at math. I’m not sure if I believe that anyone intrinsically has a “math brain” or “is just good/bad at math” because that’s such a dumb yes/no binary but there are definitely people who probably have a low aptitude to start with who are not well served by how math is taught to them and ooooh boy, that was me. I don’t think I ever laid down a solid foundation of math skills; I did not learn either the practical tools for doing math or actual concepts that underpin it. I struggled my ass through upper level classes in middle and high school, but nothing really stuck for me. Even when I learned to perform something, I didn’t get the concepts. I was horrible in college and only took one physics course. And it honestly felt like, why does this matter for biology?Turns out, it matters a lot. Physiology and statistics were what opened me up to caring about math. Learning the equations that can describe exchange of gases, or the flow of blood, or ion exchange made me care. But that was still pretty much plug and chug type math. Graduate level statistics made me care about the math itself. Understanding probability, understanding the concepts behind why this mathematical tool is used in this situation, or that there are different philosophies about the use of statistics (like, woah, Bayesian, hello abuse of p-values)- that was all very delicious. And hard. I love hated that class. Intuitive Biostatistics is a good good book.Loooong post sorry.EDIT: Also seriously thank you for asking. Articulating this stuff is honestly so good for me, even if I get long winded. It reminds me how much I and others care about science.
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topicprinter · 5 years
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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Chez Brungraber of Gobi Gear, a brand that sells outdoor gear.Some stats:Product: Outdoor gear.Revenue/mo: $20,000Margin: 58%Started: 2014Location: Bend, OregonFounders: 2Employees: 1Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi guys! Thanks for stopping by. I’m Chez, the founder of Gobi Gear. I started Gobi Gear about 4 years ago to make organization easier and more fun, specifically focusing on the outdoor adventure and travel markets. Rummage less, explore more!Our gear bags are designed to make staying organized easy, no matter where the adventure takes you. We take pride in selling high quality gear - expecting our items to last. We are a 1% For the Planet partner, and we use no plastic in our packaging - having saved over 70,000 plastic bags (and counting)!Our first product was known as the Hoboroll - a super cool bag that works as a stuff sack or a day bag, with 5 inner organizational compartments and a secret stash pocket. Made of ultralight, water-resistant nylon, this bag fits in the palm of your hand but is ready for adventure at the drop of a hat.Even though we design our gear for the outdoor adventurer, our fans also use our bags in everyday use, from the gym to their kids soccer games. Thus we are launching a brand new line of every-day bags! Ready to serve anyone with an active lifestyle, from mom’s needing diaper bag organization to gym-goers and kite-boarders alike!The best measure of success for isn’t just the bottom line, but rather walking through an airport and seeing a stranger with a Gobi Gear backpack on. Or learning that the owner of other, big brand name outdoor gear companies have heard of you. The idea of outfitting all kinds of people with our gear, all across the world, and putting smiles on their faces - that is what success is to us!A better organized sackWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I started Gobi Gear just before my big trip through Asia. My husband and I had a 3 month trip planned - also known as “travel until the money runs out”, and we were starting out with a 100-mile trek in the Nepali Himalaya. We had already decided we wouldn’t use porters and instead carry our own gear.I had also committed to collecting botanical specimens, as part of my volunteering for the local University in Kathmandu. Never collected plants before? It’s waaaay slow. Ever the impatient hiker, I had to come up with an idea to still be able to cover a lot of ground even while collecting. I realized that the slowest part of the day would be packing/unpacking every morning/evening, and looked for a solution to make this go faster.When I was not satisfied with the solutions out there (stuff sacks mean scattered gear, plastic bags rip and = trash later) I decided to just make my own. I thought a stuff sack with inner dividers would be great - all my gear in ONE place, yet still separated. I got after it on my sewing machine, using leftover curtain fabric, and made the world’s heaviest stuff sack. But it worked!Thanks to my nifty divided stuff sack, I was always ready to go, knowing where my gear was. Packing was a non-event. I was ready to go each day before everyone else! Lots of time for flowers.I showed the bag to other trekkers, who immediately wanted their own. Shortly after our trip I decided to put the idea to work, and created a version that could sell to other folks who also wanted to stay organized while on-the-go.Soon Gobi Gear was born, and I embarked into a crazy world that I had never know - branding, marketing, web design, graphic design - whoa! I have a dual degree in Biology and Economics, and thus knew nothing of how to grow a company. My full-time job at the time was botanical work (and still is). Gobi Gear has been an incredible journey of learning and being pushed outside comfort zones.Describe the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing the product.Turns out… manufacturing is one of the hardest parts of running a business. Not only does inventory mean you are cash poor (or vice versa), but any delays or issues with manufacturing can drastically hurt your bottom line.Gobi Gear started slowly, very slowly, as I was limited to a small initial investment ($20K), meaning a small quantity order to begin (3000 units). In retrospect this was good for us - it allowed us to not overextend early, and maneuvering to meet customer wishes was easy.We found our first China factory on Alibaba, through months of research and prototype samples. We have also worked with agents, local to China and the USA, and in the end, decided it best to just work directly with the factories.Manufacturing is a complex thing, especially for our ultralight product line - we have to specify everything down to the type of thread, and lead-times on fabrics can be up to 9 months. This complexity, however, is why we found it best to ditch the agent - things got lost in translation, and the questions were still just as numerous, only filtered through the agent and thus adding to the complications.A manufacturing disasterIn fact, we had an agent out of Boston that turned from great into total disaster, from one thing to the next. They were late on a very important order of 25,000 bags - meaning they had to air freight the goods instead of ocean freight them.Then they messed up our packaging for 5000 units: a hole had to be cut into a cardboard tube to allow for a hang-tag, and the samples we received had burn marks and ash stains.I brought this up as a concern and the agent assured me it was only for sampling; the final product would not use that technique. But of course, when we finally received the goods, what do we have? Burn and ash... And not just the packaging, but it damaged the bags inside, rendering them unsellable. It was a huge waste of time and money.Later we then found that all of the products in one color scheme had the cord-lock and drawstring mis-threaded, so we had to pay USA labor costs to get those fixed, too. To be fair, the agent did pay for a lot of these issues, but wasted no time in pointing out “errors on both parties”, implying a lot of this was our fault. All we did was place an order…Playing the waiting gameWhen Gobi Gear gets ready to place an order, we now work directly with the factory, and hold the production spot 6 months in advance with a down payment, even if we aren’t sure exactly what we are making! Then we start sourcing as many of the product parts as possible, such as gray drawcord and cord lock, leaving the other details for later.Word of advice: The factories are just about always late on big orders - if they quote you August, you count on September. Just the way it is. Never have a promise date of early March if you’re EXW-China - their Chinese New Year is not only several weeks long, but there can also be a lot of employee turnover, meaning upon vacation return, there aren’t enough workers to finish the job in time.Once production is done, and 166 emails have changed hands, the goods get shipped! And then the real fun begins.Describe the process of launching the business.Just launch it! So many people want it to be perfect the first time - and it probably won’t be. Once on the market, your customers will have ideas or thoughts that you’ll want to add to the next production round - so just get started! That is for us what helped - we dove it!Launching Gobi Gear was a moment of excitement and trepidation - as well as one full of opportunity to learn. We built our first site on Dreamweaver, long before Shopify. And here is the thing - it could always “be better”, but honestly, it’s probably good enough! I fussed and tinkered so many times I finally broke the site, and had to just go back to basics. *New rule: if it is too hard, we don’t do it. *The first orders that come in are so exciting! Even if it is friends and family… and then the one dude whose name you don’t know. Who is this hero??!Over time we re-launched our website on Shopify, but eventually left that for WooCommerce and WordPress, as they allow much more flexibility in design (and hey, gotta put all of my coding skills to work now, right?). Might go back to Shopify. TBD :-)We also love Amazon - first we sold as “seller fulfilled”, but I still recall the day we got approved for Prime. What a difference! Now we ship boxes of 100s of units to Amazon and they do the rest (okay, not that easy, as they make errors too, but it is still awesome). Amazon is a huge marketplace, and who doesn’t live Prime?To get started, I financed the business with my savings. As the business grew, we sold our inventory (recovered our cash), but then needed more inventory, and thus more cash. The best platform was Kickstarter! We launched in July of 2014, and raised over $80,000! This was great cash as it allowed the funding of a new inventory order, as well as other things such as a new patent, a website redesign, and paid for a good PR team for a year.From the beginning, Gobi Gear has always been very good at paying its own bills from its sales; but pushing growth forward is where the extra cash comes in - always finding that next customer.So we learned three important things about launching and money spent:1 - Do it as cheaply as possible.It is so easy to spend it big to get started, but you don’t need to! Word-of-mouth, referral campaigns, and 5-star reviews are great ways to get new customers. Good customer service keeps the previous ones coming back for more.2 - Have multiple products or colors.As long as they are curated and not just any old thing. It really helps sales, as customers like choices.3 - Get your brand out there from the start!We did not know this, and didn’t have a logo that was prominent or even have our website on our packaging! How do you find us? We now have a backpack with our logo on the outside - this is huge.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?Google, Facebook AdsMarketing used to be far outside my comfort zone, but I am getting a lot better at it. And we really have tried it all - Google Ads, Facebook, YouTube, paid PR and social media teams to do it for you.In general, I have not seen a good ROI on most paid advertising. It could be that my ad graphics and messaging are not spot-on, so they don’t convert as well, or that our products are not super photogenic.It could also be that our average product sale is $20 - not a lot of meat on that bone. Our ad spend hit $16k/mo at one point, and barely moved the needle. Bummer. At least we tried!Amazon AdsWe have had success with Amazon ads, as well as with retargeting ads on Google. We spend about $200-600/mo now, and get and ROI of 1.5-6x, depending on the season. Advertising on Amazon is so much easier than Facebook or Google.You don’t add graphics or copy. You can only bid on keywords, and they do the rest. Either it works, or it doesn’t. I actually love the simplicity. I find better than changing keywords is changing the time of year that you run the ads - some months, like September, are just quiet, so we don’t bother running ads anymore.Amazon SalesAmazon itself is a fascinating sales channel - they do a lot of the work for you, and you get in front of a huge marketplace.But there are knock-offs, and Amazon has mixed up our inventory more than once, then shut down our account because customers were receiving products “not as described” - well, yea, because they mixed them up!Detangling these issues can cause a lot of headaches. Overall? Worth it.EditorialsBut our biggest success for attracting new customers has been bloggers and editorial reviews of our product - we’ve had some as big as the Chicago Tribune, Men’s Journal (print edition), and Cheap Flights work with us! That brings the product to new eyes.Pop-upsAnother huge marketing tactic that turned a corner for us was pop-ups on the website. By not having a pop-up, visitors who aren’t ready to purchase are lost forever.This may seem “duh” now, but years ago it wasn’t so. Sumome made it very easy to get your own pop-ups that integrate directly with automatic email campaigns.SEOThere are other things that I feel are necessary but harder to quantify: SEO is something you always need, and could spend thousands if you aren’t careful - or you can download Yoast (Wordpress sites) and do it yourself. Better than nothing yea? After obtaining numerous quotes on SEO, and deciding it was unaffordable, I went with Yoast and took it upon myself to learn all about it.Moving forward, I think Google, with its overly complex platforms and too many ways to track tiny variations of the same thing, will be losing ground to Amazon and Facebook - which are much easier to advertise on. So, I did the SEO myself, and didn’t worry about the rest. I am focusing my energy instead on easier platforms. If it’s too hard, I don’t pull my hair out trying to make it work - I just move on.Viral ContestWhen launching a new product we have found that viral campaigns or giveaways really help get a solid email list. Before our last Kickstarter we gained 2500 new email addresses through a viral campaign & landing page we made through KickoffLabs. We sent out an initial eblast to 5000 people, and got 2500 new email addresses - so a 50% increase!Email ListOnce grown, our email list has been the best for sales. We cherish it, nurture it, offer special discounts and sales, and encourage social sharing and referrals to friends.Customer ServiceTaking good care of customers is important to us and helps our sales - many times I personally reply to customers, and not just about their particular issue, but I ask for pictures of their last vacation or find out what adventure they’re looking forward to. Gobi Gear is a company, but it is also an extension of me, and I am just another adventurer like you :-)How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Our gross margins are 58%, on average. This is after cost of goods, shipping and fulfillment costs, and include a blend of B2C and B2B sales.Most of our business is B2C (direct to customers), through our website and Amazon. While we do have retailers and work with subscription boxes from time to time, we enjoy the higher margins of direct sales.One variable for us is ad-spend, which as mentioned before is usually relatively low, but can increase during holidays or during a Kickstarter event.We have a new website visitor rate of about 85%, and they usually browse for over 90 seconds, with a bounce rate just under 50%. Monthly traffic averages 2500 users.Once we get new customers to our website, we do the following:1. Obtaining their emailWe use SumoMe to offer various discounts or sales in the form of a pop-up. We have an average of 4% opt-in during most of the year, and 15% during Black Friday and Christmas sale events. Even if the customer doesn’t convert right away, we can follow up later with emails, offering incentives.2. UpsellAs the customer adds goods to their shopping cart, we have little messages that appear letting them know they “only need to add $15 more to get free shipping”. This helps us sell more goods in each order, keeping fulfilment costs down.3. Follow-throughAfter the customer makes a purchase, we send them follow-up emails to ensure they are happy with what they received and suggest uses for the product they just purchased. We feel this helps them make a more meaningful connection to the company they just made a purchase from.Email marketing is hugeI mentioned it already, but our email list is our biggest converter! We use ActiveCampaign to enter customers and potential customers into email funnels, sending them various messages based on their behaviour - we can get more targeted this way, instead of sending out a generic message to everyone over and over.Our daily routine involves checking new orders and getting them shipped out, replying to customer service messages (if any), some social media posting, outreach to a few key retailers/checking in on current ones, PR outreach, and planning for the release of our new product line in 2019. Perhaps a little accounting if I need a nap (just kidding).New Product LineGobi Gear will be entering the lifestyles marketplace - taking the high-quality, durable gear to the everyday consumer, with a new line of affordable, multi-purpose organizational day bags and tote bags.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?You know your brand better than anyoneIn the beginning, it is easy to outsource, thinking that other people will be better than you are at various tasks. But in the early stages it behooved me to do those things myself. Outsourcing costs money, which is tight for a start-up. And they’ll never be quite as good at selling your brand as you are. I know because I tried it both ways. Others might seem more professional or have all the “tricks”, but everything more genuine when it comes from you - and early on, that is what customers want, to connect with you and your brand.It also helps you really dive in and understand what your value proposition is and what you are providing to people. And it allows you to be a better manager later, having some understanding of the task you have just assigned.Resisting outsider moneyTo this day, I am still resisting the offers of investor money, and instead keeping it all in-house and in family. That is really hard on the bank account sometimes, and we are strapped for cash more oft than not, but, you learn to get scrappy, get clever, and get by. No one owns us - I have no one to answer to, and that freedom is worth a lot!This might not be the best path for everyone; we are a small family business and I am happy to keep it that way. Aggressive growth would be very hard without extra inputs from investors.Manufacturing is always going to be a headacheIt seems that no matter how on top of it we are, things always come up. Whether it is hiring the wrong agent, or having the factory deliver an entire month late (and missing your subscription box deadline and losing the entire sale - eek!), these things are out of your control sometimes and the best you can do is damage control. And that in itself can be very important. How you respond to issues can make or break your business.We have learned over the years to 1) work with the factory directly for as long as possible; 2) add in 2 months cushion; and 3) have a contingency plan!Don’t try to do everything perfectlyWhen I first got started, I would get paralyzed sending out a MailChimp eblast to my 146 subscribers, because I didn’t love the font, or the border color, or maybe “this image could be brighter”. In the end, what mattered was that I sent the email in the first place.Fretting over the details - from emails to product features - wastes time. Just get it out there. Don’t overextend yourself on your first product production. Just go for it! Your customers will tell you what they think. Then you can make necessary changes.Helpful SkillsI taught myself web coding and design, graphic design, marketing, branding, and how to automate as many processes as I could. These skills have greatly helped me because I do not need to outsource, and now that I’ve given up on perfection, I am very happy with where the company stands today and the lack of cash burn.What platform/tools do you use for your business?We have tried both Shopify and WooCommerce. I prefer Woo as it is more flexible and you host your own domain, which is better for SEO.When you are on Shopify, your site is actually “website.my-shopify.com” - meaning Shopify gets a lot of your SEO. That being said, Shopify is way easier to use as everything is all part of the package deal.With Woo, you need to download plugins and connect the dots. We are considering a homepage in Wordpress and a checkout cart in Shopify.Sales Platform: WooCommerce3rd party apps: Abandoned cart; X-theme as it is the most flexible and responsive!Email Marketing: ActiveCampaignEmail Capture: SumoMeAffiliate Program: AvantLinkInternal Organization: BasecampFulfillment: CliqueHere & In-HouseCustomer Service: ZenDeskWhat have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I really like books that pull out my creative flow. There are of course books that were great for me as it directly relates to business, Poorly Made in China is one, but in general I find it more valuable to get lost into books about the botanical explorations of the Amazon, or journies by motorbike through the Congo. These type of books allow me to relax and step outside of my world, and then later I find it easier to focus on the creative flow of Gobi Gear.I also dive deeply into daily meditation, yoga, and exercise. These activities help me clear my mind and give me the ability to tackle issues that may arise, as well as have the right perspective going forward.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?Just go for it! The products you see today are not the first iteration - but you have to start somewhere.Listen to others, but in the end, remember to hear your own voice. You will know deep down what is best for your company. At least for me, it seemed that everyone had an opinion. Some were right, some not. And be wary of those just trying to sell you their services. Their advice may be skewed (naturally).Don’t worry about the mistakes - and use it as a chance to bond with customers. Some of our biggest fans today were our angriest customers - good service and old fashioned caring turned them around.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We are not looking to hire, but anyone who is interested in marketing/branding and has clever ideas for us - we’d hear you out, and possibly work out a gear-for-work exchange.Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos.
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disc-golf · 6 years
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Startup Success Stories: How Ari & Elle is Revolutionizing Gift Giving
The energetic, remarkably well-spoken, 26-year-old Shai Eisenman is nothing short of a prodigy. She finished college at the age of 18, managed an international company before the age of 20, and founded gift-giving company Ari & Elle in August 2017.
She’s also the wife of a driven entrepreneur and mother of a very lucky daughter.
How has she managed such success before the age of 30?
We had the same question, so we invited her to sit down with us to talk about her entrepreneurial journey, and how her newest venture, Ari & Elle, is changing the gift-giving industry as we know it.
Let’s start with a bit of personal background. You accomplished an impressive number of things before you turned 25. What all did you do?
Well, I won’t go back all the way, but I started college at age 15 and finished when I was 18. I was already working fulltime at that point so I had quite the hectic life as a teenager.
I’ll bet. What was the job?
I was managing a bullet-proof plate company—the kind used by a lot of security firms. I was in sales mostly, which meant I was flying all over the world, talking to military organizations and governments.
How on earth did you get into that line of work?
It’s actually a family business. I was running my dad’s company.
And then you transitioned into your first CEO position at age 20, is that right?
Well, I volunteered with the Israeli military for a year first. But then, I started working for a company called Babylon as a business development manager. I was promoted very quickly, and ended up as head of compliance before moving on to another job as a manager of several companies for an Israeli tech billionaire.
It’s hard to imagine that kind of success by your early 20s. It was also during this time that you met your now life partner, right?
I actually met him at a security conference when I was only 18. He was—and still is—a very career-driven entrepreneur with his own company, so the relationship moved slowly. We actually didn’t think anything lasting could come of it, but it did. And after six years together, we decided to have a child.
How do you manage parenting and a demanding work life?
My partner and I both understand each other and we work very hard. He understands that my travel and schedules keep me working until 2 a.m. and I understand the crazy demands of his work life.
Long ago, we decided that we would combine our careers and our parenting—not keep them separate. We look at it this way: Our daughter fits into our lives, not the other way around. That means we’re not changing our careers to accommodate her, but that we work together as a family to make our lives a success together.
To make that possible, she travels with us, goes to sleep very late sometimes, and works within our schedules. But we also make sure she gets three hours with us every day.
Have you faced any prejudice or disadvantage in your career because you’re a woman and a mother?
Oh, yes. When I was 8 months pregnant, I started attending investor meetings. At one point, one of the Indian investors said, “Whatever you tell me, I’m not going to buy it. I’m just not going to help you because the moment your daughter is born, you’re not going to want to do anything but spend time with her.”
I’ll admit—without shame or apology—that my daughter is the most important thing to me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to fulfill my career dreams and goals.
When I first heard this kind of feedback, I wanted to apologize. In fact, I wanted to keep all of my private life away from work. But at some point, I realized that if the person I’m working with doesn’t understand how committed I am to my career and what I’m willing to do to make it a huge success, then it’s not someone I want invested in the company.
We need more role models like that, I think. Hats off to you for taking that stand. And that’s a good transition, too, because it’s your commitment and vision that ultimately led to the creation of Ari & Elle. When did that launch?
The company was started in August 2017, but we launched the website and app in June 2018.
Ari & Elle’s AI-driven application
Oh wow—quite a new venture!
Yeah, and it’s so much fun because we’re now starting to experience some customer love. That’s amazing to me, because in all of my time running companies, there wasn’t a lot of gratification from people you were helping. What I love about Ari & Elle is that it’s all pure good—all we do is make people happy.
Can you briefly talk about the concept?
Sure. The whole idea behind Ari & Elle is to create a special, curated gift-giving experience that matches people’s personalities. It just makes the gift-giving (and receiving) so much richer.
How did you determine that this was a good business idea?
When I was living in London several years ago, I bought everything I needed online. At one point, I was shopping around for presents for a cousin and a friend. My cousin loved comic books, but I had no idea what I could get him that would fit that mold. And my cousin had just had a baby. I didn’t know what to get her either.
That’s when I thought: “What if there were a service that knows what kind of gifts to get certain people?”
I researched it, but couldn’t find anything. So, I decided to build the company myself—a gift-giving business designed around personalized gifts packaged in a very attractive way.
That sounds like a huge win for a lot of people who don’t have time to put together thoughtful gifts. But how exactly do you figure out what fits the recipient?
We have two different channels that we use—our website and our app. Both incorporate a very unique AI engine that asks questions to capture the gift recipient’s personality. Basically, it’s an avatar/bot that asks questions in a messaging format (“Ari” for male gift recipients and “Elle” for female). They’ll ask things like, “What does the recipient like to do for fun? Are they into a luxury lifestyle? Are they a free spirit?”
Based on the answers, the engine will then suggest several gift collections fitted to the personality the customer has defined.
Do you have enough gift collections to match all of the possible personalities?
I think we’re hitting most of them, and our selection is always growing. Right now, we have more than 800 different collections of more than 6,000 individual products.
What kind of market research did you do to determine what you would offer and how you would deliver it?
We went through a broad-scope research process at the outset, and determined that 45% of the gifting market is taken up by holidays and 55% by occasional gifting—for birthdays, anniversaries, and so on.
After we discovered this, we dug into the various occasions that might be important to customers. We knew that a house-warming gift, for example, is given in a very different context than, say, a get-well gift. So we wanted to see what has historically been successful for each occasion.
This research inspired our gift collections, and we continued researching and building the collections until we felt we had enough to launch the business.
Why is it necessary to create gift collections instead of single gifts?
We want to tell a story. So, for example, we have a box called “Take Me to the Movies.” It includes a small projector, an inflatable couch, and a Bluetooth speaker. It’s a cinema in a box and offers a complete experience to the recipient.
How did you land on price point? I noticed that many of the collections are $100+, which might be a bit steep for a casual thank-you or get-well gift.
We’re still working on that. We definitely want to add more collections in the $70-80 range, because we know that some people are not going to want to spend more than that on a friend or colleague they’re not all that close to.
You’ve also mentioned that you offer a picture of the final package to the gift purchaser before shipping. Why?
The first impression is important, and we know that places like Amazon don’t let you know what a gift will look like once it’s shipped. We want customers to feel confident in the gifts they’re giving—both how they’re displayed and what’s inside.
What kind of marketing are you doing to promote Ari & Elle?
We’re advertising on most of the platforms you’d expect—Good AdWords, Facebook, and so on. But we’re going to be focusing a lot more on influencer marketing in the coming weeks and months.
Part of the reason for this is that a landing page is a hard space to explain our service. But an influencer can show an audience how our service works and what you get. Their photos and videos can capture the unique elements of Ari & Elle.
Are there any lessons you’ve learned in the development process that you can share with other entrepreneurs?
Our industry is getting very digitally sophisticated. The data that’s available allows companies to find out exactly who is using their products and what their demographic information is. Because our products are so personal, we’ve tried to use that to create very targeted campaigns.
I would recommend more companies do this. It’s more work, but the conversions are higher quality.
Also, as you begin your company formation, seek out once-were founders who have become successful to help guide you through the process of building your own company. Thankfully, I did that and was able to avoid a lot of mistakes because of it.
Lastly, don’t be in a rush to launch. In retrospect, I would have spent more time marketing and fine-tuning the user interface on the site and app. The small problems we saw in beta testing didn’t seem like a big deal, but they became a big deal when we went to market.
And how do you keep happy customers coming back? What kind of ongoing communication do you have with them?
Since we’re learning about our customers as they chat with our AI engine, we can reach out and ask specific questions about searches they’ve done without purchasing a gift collection. And even when they do, we offer coupons inside gifts to encourage potential new customers to sign up with us. We also offer discounts to customers who post unboxing videos on Instagram and other social media platforms.
And, of course, we encourage feedback from customers if they have ideas on new gifts we can include.
How do you plan to grow Ari & Elle over the next 5-10 years?
We’re going to be focusing on two things: technology and merchandising.
We want to continue to improve our AI engine so users can tell us exactly what they want. That will be an ongoing process.
On the merchandise side, we’d like to round out our offerings with something that fits with almost every personality out there. As part of that, I hope to bring on a bigger team of researchers—experts who know specific careers, jobs, and industries inside and out. That will help us dig deeper into the diverse interests of our growing customer base and create the prefect gift collections for them.
For more information about Ari & Elle, and to snag the perfect gift for an upcoming holiday or special occasion, visit ari-elle.com.
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The post Startup Success Stories: How Ari & Elle is Revolutionizing Gift Giving appeared first on Early To Rise.
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marriagelawrp · 6 years
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« THE BESTIE » ❝ WE STOCK TOGETHER AND CAN SEE IT THROUGH, ‘CAUSE YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME❞
Full Name: Keely Diane Harper
Age: Twenty-Five
Gender: Female
To Marry: The Ex
Occupation: Teacher
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Faceclaim: Emily Bett Rickards
✕ BACK IN THE DAY, WHEN I WAS YOUNG ✕
Keely Diane was given to Michelle and Howard Harper in Manhattan, New York on October 31, 1993. Given the circumstances surrounding her birth and adoption, her parents worried that she would develop learning problems later in life. Luckily for the Harper’s, Keely’s boisterous personality quickly became apparent. She loved to laugh, was easily amused, as most babies are, and was fascinated by things going on around her. It wasn’t hard to hold her attention and she was always eager to learn. Her parents did the best they could with what little money they made, her mother a teacher and her father a museum curator. They weren’t poor by any means but they also weren’t up there with the businessmen and women she’d see walking in and out of the museum. It was here where Keely fell in love for the first time. Learning all the stories behind some of the most famous exhibits, watching her father set up the displays and inspect the new arrivals was fascinating to her and she wanted to be just like him. He was her hero and in her four year old eyes, was going to change the world.  
Fast forward five years, Keely is now a nine year old fourth grader. She was bubbly and bright, friendly towards just about everyone, and could always be found with some type of textbook in her hand. She didn’t have many friends but the ones she did make, she kept close. She was coming home from school one day when she heard about the virus. She didn’t understand what it meant or how bad it was until schools were closed, businesses shut down, and most of her classmates, like her, had to continue their educations behind closed doors at home. She missed her best friend Audrey but through the magic of the internet was able to stay in touch. They remained friends and vowed to stay close after graduation.  
Keely wanted to be like her father so much but the amount of schooling and the workload that it required was too much for the young 20 year old so she dropped out of college momentarily to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. It was during this brief period that she started working at a local school as a tutor and she quickly fell in love with the kids and the sense of pride she felt watching their faces light up when they accomplished a goal. It wasn’t the museum but surprisingly she found herself really enjoying what she was doing so with a new found purpose, she decided to go back to school and work towards a teaching degree.  
Now, she has been employed by a local school in Manhattan teaching 1st grade. Its not glamorous but it makes her feel accomplished and like she’s making a difference. She has also been volunteering at schools teaching underprivileged kids who might not have the means to attend school but that have a desire to learn. It makes her feel special in some small way knowing that for a couple of hours everyday, she is making another kid’s day seem not as bad. She has been considering going back to school to finish the path she started five years ago but with how busy her life is right now, she doubts if she’ll have the time.  
Keely is aware of the law because her best friend was one of the unlucky ones picked and it breaks her heart to know that Audrey didn’t have a choice. She, however, isn’t too focused on the law because she hasn’t received her letter yet. She has a ten year plan that doesn’t involve marriage and children and if she can avoid it at all costs, she will. It probably doesn’t help her stay off the radar when she logs on to the marriage law website almost everyday. She can’t help but be curious about it all and if she can garner insight into how people might have been picked, then she can figure out a way to keep it from happening to her.  
✕ THE STORY ABOUT MY LIFE IN THE PRESENT ✕
✕ WHERE THEY LIVE ✕ ,You grew up in New York, on a nice street near the school. During the outbreak, you stayed indoors, and your mother kept up your education. Now you’re older, you have your own place, its small, but its something to call your own.
✕ THE JOB THEY HAVE ✕ You have always enjoyed learning and teaching. Your mother spent a lot of time during the outbreak teaching you. After graduation, you went on to become a teacher. You love your job, being able to learn and guide children as they look towards their future.
✕ THE MARRIAGE LAW ✕  With nearly eighty percent of the population dead because of a virus outbreak, the world is in dire need of repopulation. The government stepped in and created a marriage law, giving people eight weeks to marry a stranger chosen to them by the Government. Your letter came this week, and you have eight weeks to marryThe Ex.
✕ THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN MY LIFE  ✕
THE SINGLE MOTHER - You knew each other in high school and kept in touch. When she become a mother, you offered support and friendship. You have both been close ever since.
THE SPITFIRE - She’s your best friend, and you’re both like sisters. You’ve known each other since kindergarten. You supported her through the breakup with her ex, and now you feel awful you’re being forced to marry the person she loved.
THE EX - He’s your best friends boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend. You couldn’t believe the letter when you saw his name. You have both spoken and become friends, but it never been anything more than that.  
                THIS CHARACTER HAS A FLEXIBLE FACECLAIM                        & IS CLOSED FOR AUDITION
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ronaldmrashid · 6 years
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Why I Bought A Business After Retiring: The Rockstar Finance Acquisition
Let’s say you don’t have the capacity to build a business to boost your wealth like the richest people on Earth. You can always just buy a business instead. The following post is by John, an early 50s retiree from ESI Money, a blog about achieving financial independence through earning, saving, and investing (ESI). He recently purchased Rockstar Finance, a leading curation site for the best personal finance articles.
One of the main questions I’ve received since I bought Rockstar Finance is simply, “Why?”
Sometimes it’s phrased as, “I thought you were retired” or something similar, but at the heart the meaning is always, “why would someone buy a business after he retired?”
Since Sam talks about owning web businesses and the various options to pursue after retirement, I thought a guest post on Financial Samurai would be the perfect place to explain my reasoning.
Background
For those of you not familiar with my history, here’s a quick summary:
I retired in August 2016 at 52 after a 28-year career in business. I was actually financially independent in my early 40’s and should have retired then, but that’s for another post.
I didn’t really know what to expect when I retired, but I discovered there were several positive surprises awaiting me.
After a year a series of events conspired to allow me to buy Rockstar Finance. I decided to proceed and finished the transaction in December 2017.
Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s get to the details.
What is Retirement?
Recently I did an interview and was asked, “How do you define retirement?”
My response was as follows:
I define it as the freedom to do what you want.
Back in the day retirement was generally defined as 1) you quit work and 2) you indulged in leisure activities like golf, bowling, traveling, and so forth until you eventually died.
Today I think “retirement” is getting rebranded, especially by those of us doing it earlier than the traditional age, to mean something else. Or perhaps I’m not “retired”, I’m just “financially independent.”
Whatever you call it, I don’t work for an employer and spend all my free time on what I want — some of those things being investing and running a couple websites and some of them being more leisurely like traveling, reading, and so forth.
This is the gist of my answer for the “why?” question.
The definition of retirement is changing, even for those retiring at a more traditional age. People are living longer. And they are remaining in better health longer. So while retirees at 65 used to sit back and take it easy, these days they are having hips replaced and running marathons.
Today’s early retirees are just an exaggeration of this trend. They have even more time, energy, fitness, and so on for activities. Some of their interests are recreational and some are work-related. The only difference now is that the work is something they choose to do versus something they have to do.
Here are the mains reasons why I bought a business after retiring.
Seven Reasons I Bought A Business
Let’s dig in a bit and examine why I took the plunge:
1. I needed something enjoyable to do.
I remember my pastor used to say how he was never retiring because he’d be bored to death. He had plenty of hobbies, but felt that there’s only so much time you can spend in recreation.
I used to think he was full of it. After all, who wouldn’t want to sit around and just chill for the last 20 years of their life?
Uh, me. I wouldn’t.
Once the stress of 28 high-power work years melted off (which took about six months), I realized that I needed something enjoyable to do with my extra time. In my case “enjoyable” and “challenge” go hand-in-hand. Owing a business seemed like a perfect solution for both.
You don’t have to go far to see that I’m not the only one who thinks this way. For example, look at the author of this blog. Sam is certainly wealthy enough to retire now and do absolutely nothing.
And yet, if I’m not mistaken, he still:
Actively manages his rental properties
Coaches high school tennis.
Consults with businesses now and then.
Volunteers as a foster kid mentor.
Publishes regularly on Financial Samurai.
Spends at least 40 hours a week taking care of his son.
I’m probably missing one or two things but you get the idea.
You could classify at least three of the above as “work.” So I’m not the only one who has created jobs for myself after retirement. And I think as time goes on and retirement is further redefined by a younger set of people we’ll see that some sort of job, business, or side hustle will increasingly become part of the equation.
Also consider the traits that it takes to become financially independent at a younger age and you’ll notice that many of them are also qualities often required for business success. In that light a post-retirement business or money-making hobby seems very natural.
If retirement is truly about “the freedom to do what you want” and business is enjoyable to you, why would you NOT want to own a business after retirement?
2. I needed something to keep me sharp.
You’ve heard the phrase “use it or lose it”, right?
Well, that’s what appears to happen with your mind. And retirement can be especially hard on the brain.
A major British study which tracked 3,400 retired civil servants found that short-term memory declines nearly 40 per cent faster once employees become pensioners. It appears that the lack of regular stimulation takes a heavy toll on cognitive function and speeds up memory loss and dementia, researchers warned.
Yikes! This is scary stuff! It turns out that I not only wanted a mental challenge but I need one too.
Yes, you can keep you mind active from other sources. This is why I also read more than ever, write a ton of articles, listen to podcasts, and do my daily chess puzzles. They all help, for sure. But there’s something unique about running a business that challenges the mind in an awesome and beneficial way.
Sure, my own blog could fill some of this need for me, but it wasn’t enough on its own — I needed a more complex business to challenge me mentally. Turns out that Rockstar Finance was just the right fit.
3. I was looking for a great way to invest some cash.
Because I generate more than enough income from my website and rental properties to cover our living expenses (with zero drawdown of assets), I was starting to accumulate quite a bit of cash during retirement.
I had thought about re-deploying some money into buying more real estate, but the two markets I was considering (my current city and the one where my properties are located) are too, too hot for my taste. Prices are simply CRAZY!
My cash kept piling up in a “high yield account” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) earning a whopping 1%. It was killing me to watch it sit there. I had a load of money earning virtually nothing.
So I decided to take money that was yielding 1% a year and turn it potentially much more. Assuming the asset itself wasn’t going to lose value, it seemed like a no-brainer. Even if the value of the site went to $0 it would not impact my lifestyle one bit. So why not?
Generally sites are valued at two times annual profit. If a site earns $50k a year it’s value is somewhere in the $100k range.
I ended up paying five to six times earnings and I still felt I was getting a good deal. The reason is that I estimated what I thought the site could make each year, discounted it a bit, and then paid roughly two-times THAT annual profit. In addition, I knew I could use Rockstar to drive traffic to my own site. My best guess is that ESI Money will earn an extra $10k this year simply because of both the traffic and relationships that Rockstar has. This is all gravy and was not part of my estimations.
It seemed like a great way to take low-performing dollars and transform them into high-performing dollars. Five months later, it appears this estimate was correct.
Sam’s note: below is an income statement I put together guesstimating what a site like Rockstar Finance could or is making. If ESI Money bought the business for $100,000, he would make back his entire capital in just 2.6 years, assuming no revenue or profit growth. After 2.6 years, he would earn a 39% annual return for his efforts.
Related: Real Estate vs. Blogging For Maximum Returns
4. I wanted to help personal finance bloggers.
Most people outside the personal finance blogging community don’t know this, but I began blogging in 2005. Yes, 2005. It was a looooong time ago.
Eventually it was discovered I ran that blog by people at work. I was the president of a company at the time. To say it was a bit awkward to have my money life open to all 800 employees is a bit of an understatement.
I still have that site but now simply post basic money stuff there. A few years after being outted I re-started my blogging escapades with ESI Money.
As a result of being around so long, I have made a lot of blogging friends and I love the personal finance blogging community. In particular I like helping new, motivated bloggers achieve their dreams and become better faster. Rockstar Finance gave me a platform to help others like never before. It’s very rewarding.
One service we created at Rockstar was a VIB (very important blogger) program where site owners sign up (for a fee) and receive various benefits relating to site traffic and revenue generation. The program just started on March 1, but we have already seen some tremendous results. The future is very promising and I’m thrilled to be part of helping bloggers reach their goals.
At some point in your life simply giving back to others is the reward in and of itself. Owning Rockstar is a way I can do this on a much bigger scale.
The first blogger I helped out by purchasing Rockstar Finance was J Money from Budgets are Sexy. He is the founder of Rockstar who sold to me. He wanted to free up some time since he and his wife were about to have their third child. I was excited that this extra benefit was part of the sale — that I could pass along funds to a good man, help expand his legacy, and be part of his plan to achieve one of his life goals.
5. I wanted something I could pass along to my kids.
As I was considering buying Rockstar, one thing that kept going through my mind was that this site was something my kids could run one day.
My daughter is a very good writer and my son has some amazing creative skills, so both of them already have traits that would help them.
Now whether or not they want to take it over is another thing (they will need to learn quite a bit about money in the meantime), but at least this gives them something to think about.
There are many advantages to a web-based business and if one of my kids decided to rise to the challenge, they could own a site that can be run anywhere in the world, would pay them more than they will likely earn in their jobs, and would only require a handful of work hours each day.
They could literally “retire” (at least from working for the man) at a very young age.
Sounds great, right?
Related: How To Stop Worrying About Your Child’s Future In This Brutally Competitive World
6. I wanted something that wasn’t too much.
Piggy backing on the above comments a bit, Rockstar Finance is a perfect retirement business for me because:
It only requires 3-4 hours each day. Yes, I have help (Steve from Think Save Retire runs the operational side of the site) but the revenue supports that. My commitment is a few hours a day on average — just enough to be enjoyable but not too taxing.
The hours are flexible. I can work 7 am to 11 am, noon to 4 pm, 9 pm to 1 am, or any combination of hours I like in a day. I often work more on some days and hardly any on others (we went to Grand Cayman for nine days in January and I worked on the site maybe an hour during that time.) BTW, Steve was in Mexico at the same time, so we were pretty much on auto-pilot. But we had done the work in advance, so it all ran like clockwork.
The business is location independent. If I had wanted to, I could have done everything site-related in Grand Cayman that I do at home. The internet was great down there and I had my laptop, so I was good to go. Don’t tell anyone, but I may just test it out next year — my nine days could turn to three weeks if it all works out. Or if Sam would just buy that place in Hawaii, I could stay for free, and that would be even better! :)
When people hear that I bought a business in retirement I think much of their angst is because they assume I spend 40-50 hours per week in an office somewhere chained to a desk. No, it’s nothing like that. If it was, I would not have bought it.
7. I wanted to give more.
I’ve talked about the balance between doing all you can to retire early versus slowing down that progress by giving along the way.
It’s an issue that everyone needs to sort out for themselves, of course, but we decided to simultaneously give and save. In fact, we gave away 26% of our gross income while saving for early retirement. The world is a tough place for so many. We feel blessed to be where we are and want to help as many in need as possible as soon as possible.
I’d like to ramp up our giving in retirement and Rockstar gives me a great opportunity to do so. In fact, Rockstar has always had a large charity component as part of the site, and I want to lean into that heritage. This Christmas season we’ll turn it up a notch or two in this area, so stay tuned.
Buying A Business Can Be The Perfect Solution
In the end, retirement is about freedom of time and doing what you choose to do. Buying a business fit the bill for me. I hope you find the same in retirement.
Along those lines, what do you think you’ll enjoy doing when you retire? Or what do you enjoy doing now if you are already retired? If you’ve ever bought a business, I’d love to hear how that went.
– John, ESI Money
The post Why I Bought A Business After Retiring: The Rockstar Finance Acquisition appeared first on Financial Samurai.
from https://www.financialsamurai.com/buy-business-after-retiring/
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My Buddy.
Back in March, Linus went through a rough patch that landed us, late one night, at the emergency vet’s office. The situation didn’t look promising. In discussing treatment with the doctor, there were a lot of qualifiers—“if he even makes it through the night” or “if we can administer his medication”—that kind of thing. Before departing, the vet warned me of the “difficult decision” I would likely be faced with in the morning, if nature hadn’t run its course. It was devastating. I was a disaster.
For me, grief tends to take one of two forms. There’s the more typical version: a lot of crying, wallowing in general despair, foggily moving through the motions of everyday life when loss is all you can really think about. And then there’s the arguably more productive kind, wherein I distract myself with some large but detailed task in order to fleetingly create the illusion that something in this terrible fucking situation is within my control and that things may, eventually, return to normal. On this night I gravitated toward the latter. I’d recently read the majority of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo—a 200+ page self-help volume that could (ironically, perhaps) easily be condensed to a set of bullet points in a pamphlet. Kondo’s book promises a better life if you can train yourself to abide by the simple principle of keeping only that which “sparks joy” and disposing of, literally, anything else. This is a person who threw her hammer into the trash but found that a cast iron skillet worked just as effectively for driving nails into the wall if she felt compelled to hang up a picture—so maybe take it with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, with Crisis Zone emotions coursing through me, I started in on my entire wardrobe. That’s how I found myself months later getting dressed for a wedding, only for a vague recollection of donating my joyless suit pants to surface. Grief messes you up.
He did make it through the night. In Brooklyn there were emergency vet offices that remained open 24 hours a day, but no such option exists here—meaning that for real round-the-clock care, you have to transfer back and forth between the vet that’s open during the day and the vet that’s open at night. We did this for a few days. Having dealt with my clothing, I moved onto my books.
His situation hadn’t improved, medical options beyond his normal regimen of pills had been exhausted, and the doctors felt that there was nothing left to be done. And that if I wasn’t ready to make that Tough Decision, I should consider taking him home for one last night—where, they warned, he was likely to pass on his own accord. So that’s what I did. I wasn’t ready, not remotely. And in spite of his condition—unable to stand or walk and exhibiting no appetite—something inside me felt that he wasn’t, either. Maybe he’d turn a corner. And so I bundled my roughly 15 year old dog in my sweatshirt, hoping for just a little more time.
Within 24 hours, Linus stood up. He walked around a little, and started to accept food in the form of boiled chicken breast and rice. He wasn’t keen on returning to his regular food, so in the ensuing days and weeks and—to the shock and awe of the staff at the animal hospital—months, he gained back the weight he’d lost on an increasingly elaborate diet of chicken and rice and raw beef tripe and human baby food and the occasional can of sardines. Long ago, I’d made a simple pact with this dog: as long as he wanted to stick around, I would do whatever it took to take care of him. Which, honestly, is a helpful thing to remind yourself of when handling raw beef trip first thing in the morning.
We needed more time, and we got it. Remember how I said this was back in March? That’s March 2016. A year and a half ago.
Linus stumbled into my life at the ripe age of around 10 (I’m taking for granted that you’ve read everything I’ve ever written, which is maybe unrealistic, so here’s that whole story) back in 2012.  The gist of the story is this: a tiny dog in horrible condition was mid-capture by Brooklyn police; a woman interrupted the encounter because she believed the dog lived on my block; I happened to pass this woman while she was trying to return the dog home; the dog didn’t live there after all; she couldn’t keep the dog; I volunteered to take care of the situation; I did so by eventually deciding to keep the dog. That night, I sat with him on the bathroom floor in my Brooklyn apartment and, for seven hours, worked to free his little body from what looked like years of matted fur and filth. Looking back later, this struck me as a bad idea on a number of levels. Imagine it: being taken off the streets by a strange person, brought to a strange place, and being subjected to hours of what was surely uncomfortable and painful grooming and bathing at the hands of that strange person. He should have bit me, and I couldn’t have blamed him. He should have cowered in fear and confusion. He could have given me rabies, or infested the apartment with fleas or bedbugs. But he didn’t do any of those things—instead I remember his patience and seeming understanding of what I was trying to accomplish. I remember him starting to lick me with this determined fervor, like he was trying to return the favor. When I nicked his paper-thin skin, he yelped once and licked my face, as though he knew it was an accident and forgave me immediately. After it was over and time for bed, we tried to confine him to the kitchen for the night but instead he stood by the door and barked until I let him into the bedroom. All he wanted was to be close.
I didn’t know how much I would grow to love him. I’d always had big goofy dogs, but after getting cleaned up Linus looked like he might have fallen out of some rich lady’s Prada on the Upper East Side. He didn’t chew or fetch or tug or really play at all. At the dog park he just sort of trotted around on his own. And despite what people will argue, teaching a dog that old new tricks is…well, he wasn’t interested, so I didn’t push it.
His joys were simple and small. Occasionally if he was feeling particularly active, he might start humping a throw pillow. He liked shredding (but not really eating) leafy greens like kale and lettuce. Sometimes he could really get going on gnawing a pizza crust—a rawhide for the dentally disadvantaged. But mostly, he just wanted to be close to me—really close—at all times. Even as his faculties dissipated, he somehow maintained the ability to detect my absence and track my whereabouts as soon as I would leave him alone in a room, even if he seemed to be sleeping soundly.  Evidently, this is a common trait with small dogs—to bond really strongly to one person, even in a family setting—but I couldn’t help but feel like he was abnormally fanatical about me. Maybe because the feeling was mutual.
Without question, he was the most good-natured animal I’ve ever known. One thing that always stuck in my mind about the account of his rescue was that allegedly officers were afraid to approach him because they didn’t want to get bit. Because he was showing his teeth and snarling. “He looked mean.” I literally cannot imagine this, because Linus greeted everyone—man, woman, child, dog, cat, rabbit, etc.—the same way: eyes bright, head upright on his stocky little shoulders, ears alert, scraggly little tail wagging in this circular helicopter motion that pretty much defines that phrase “I can’t even.” Exquisite cuteness aside, I think this is what I most love and cherish about Linus. That thing, right there—that approach to the world—that even now I have a hard time articulating.
I never got to know what the first decade of Linus’s life looked like, and I highly doubt I ever will. All I know is what I can surmise from the condition he was in when he found me, which remains hard to think about. That somehow my little man ended up that way. That someone allowed him to. It’s the kind of shit that can fuck someone up—human or animal. That can make the world seem scary, or threatening. That can make people seem bad and untrustworthy. That can make the task of survival feel like an extended exercise in fear and reclusion and anger. It seems to me that it takes a certain rare and resilient kind of character to bounce back from that. To move on from it all with love and kindness and the ability to trust when experience has taught you the opposite. I think that’s called grace. I think that’s strength. And bravery. I think that’s being a total badass. I never thought a 12 pound dog could show me that.
As anyone who’s reached this point with a pet can likely attest, caring for a geriatric dog can be challenging, particularly when the health issues begin accumulating. Due to his background, we’ve always had our share of medical challenges—starting with probably never having seen a vet, been vaccinated, neutered, trained to live in a house or eat dog food; the list goes on. His teeth were so badly rotted that nearly half of them came out during his first cleaning. His first night off the street, Max and I quickly noticed a muffled, huffy kind of cough that we feared might be contagious to Mekko, but learned was actually symptomatic of a collapsing trachea—a condition evidently common among small dogs. “Imagine your throat is like a camping tent,” I remember the doctor telling me, “and then all of a sudden the poles collapse. That’s more or less what’s happening.” Great.
Shortly thereafter, a heart murmur was detected, and then congestive heart failure entered the picture with an attending handful of prescription medications designed to keep his ventricles pumping and fluid from building up in his lungs. His liver and kidneys began to struggle—difficult to treat because those medications would interact poorly with the ones for his heart. At some point, any advances we’d managed to make with potty training went out the window, and the composition of my trash can became about 50% used diapers (or, more specifically, an unbelievably absorbent female incontinence product called Poise Pads that I bought by the hundreds, which happen to be the perfect size to line a “tinkle belt” made for dogs). Gradually he lost the great majority of his hearing, reacting only to very loud sounds. His sight, too: the left eye was declared worthless, while the right seemed able to detect changes in light and the movement of large shapes. He began to have a difficult time with his right front paw—arthritis, perhaps. He lost a few more teeth. The doctor thought he might have emphysema. At home, I wondered if he was afflicted by canine dementia, since he seemed unable to recall why—other than sunbathing—we spent time outside at various points in the day.
I realize to some people this all might sound crazy. Like I’m a Crazy McCrazy dog person who couldn’t accept what was plainly obvious. And at various times, I struggled with this—because I don’t see myself as a Crazy McCrazy dog person who would prioritize my own selfishness over the suffering of an animal. Quality of life is a hard thing to evaluate, particularly when the one living that life can’t speak for themselves. But he really did still seem like a happy dog, content to live out his golden years with his ten pills a day and his diapers and his collection of plush beds scattered around the house.
There are people who adopt elderly dogs on purpose, which I find exceedingly admirable. At 22, I know I wasn’t one of those people, and at 28, I’m still not sure that I am, though I wouldn’t dismiss the idea out of hand. If you’re a dog person, I probably don’t have to tell you what terrific companions old dogs can make. But the inconvenient and surprisingly taboo fundamental truth about adopting an older dog almost goes without saying : the more time that’s behind them, the less they’re likely to have ahead. So in taking responsibility for that life, you’re also sort of immediately confronted with the inevitability of death. Which, of course, could apply to all living things, but I think is much easier to ignore when you take home a puppy instead. I realize this probably sounds miserable—to live constantly with this sort of unpredictable specter of death, looming ahead at a distance that feels impossible to gauge. But I think in some ways it’s the opposite. You’re forced to face the thought of it, and as a result it becomes less scary. Less threatening. Another part of being alive. Time is precious and beautiful because of its limited quantity. Because it runs out.
Blunt as it might sound, I sort of hoped but also fully expected Linus would someday die in his sleep. It just seemed to fit with the order of things: this dog that slyly worked his way into my life, who followed his own rules and never seemed interested in observing mine. Who could bark endlessly—never, not once, out of fear or aggression, but because he wanted something and “no” did not register as an acceptable answer. Linus’s way or the highway. I always had this idea that I didn’t really own him, that he wasn’t really my dog. He had this whole past that belonged only to him. He might live in my home and accept my care and affections, but he’d still never really be mine. The idea of choosing to end his life for him seemed, for a long time, like an impossibility. It just didn’t fit.
After that scare in March 2016, it seemed apparent that our time left together might be very short.  He’d go through a few difficult days, and then he’d bounce back, and part of me began to believe that maybe he really would outlive us all. But the other part of me—the part more acquainted with reality—recognized that the time we had left, at this point, was borrowed, and I had to accept that it would soon come to a close. That he’d no longer be here. I think he fought for so long to make sure I was ready to handle that. That I’d be OK.
About a month ago, Linus’s slow decline seemed to speed up rapidly. It started out essentially the same as episodes we’d weathered before, but this time just felt different. I can’t really explain it. We went to the vet, who calmly and quietly confirmed what I already knew. It still hits you hard, to hear it. It’s still shocking to be presented the option of either doing it right there and then or waiting. I realized I’d spent more time trying to ready myself for the time after this—going home to one dog, filling one food bowl, being alone on the sofa while I wrote or watched TV—than the moment that precipitates it. The one where you have to say goodbye, the one that I hadn’t anticipated because I still expected to find him one bright morning, lifeless in his bed, gone on his own time. And again, I found myself unprepared.
There’s a Yiddish phrase that translates to “the way it begins is the way it ends,” and maybe the reason I deluded myself into expecting a different ending to this story originates from my misreading of the beginning. We decided to go home. The doctor could come to the house the next day. I held him all night and into the next morning, which turned into one of those perfectly crisp but sunny fall days where you’re warm as long as you stay out of the shade. We bundled up and sat in the sun for a while, and he seemed content. It’s weird, trying to fill that time when there’s an actual countdown. It feels really fast and really slow at the same time.
The doctor arrived. Mekko settled into a chair across the room. I held him close to me, and it ended the way it began—with him in my arms, safe, and granting me all the trust in the world that whatever I was doing was the right thing.
Choosing this conclusion wasn’t a punishment, I realize now. It was a privilege—one that he extended my way the night he walked into my life and chose to trust me. Chose to love me. Chose to be my dog.
Being your person was one of the great honors of my life, my handsome little man. I miss you more than words, and I’ll love you forever.
My Buddy. syndicated from findqueenslandelectricians.wordpress.com
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