Starting my first company

So I am on plenty of adventures this semester, starting my engineering classes, getting a job to drive buses up in alaska in a little over a month in Alaska, and now I am going into my business adventure.
My mom has probably been one of the greatest sources of inspiration, she is sure to remind me that I should always go for my dreams and never give up. Since I was young, I was the one that tried to think of every way to make money. I have very vivid memories in my mind of going around the neighborhood selling in my little red wagon. It is one of the memories I thoroughly enjoy having because I was doing something on my own, and felt successful. I would buy from Sams Club and sell out on the streets only going back around to invest all my earnings to buy more product. I don't know why it has taken me so long, but finally I am back in the entrepreneurship market, only its no longer candy that I am selling. I am making a business that sells wooden sunglasses. Right now I am planning on just doing resell, but eventually I plan to make my own product, becoming a name brand. So many ask...wood sunglasses? Well let me show you how cool these are.

Anyway, I like them, and honestly, they aren't very popular yet, but I think they will be. The biggest thing I am doing right now is research and figuring out all of the logistics. I have had one BYU student express interest in being in charge of my advertising, and my friend's in China is planning on being our source for the product. Anyway I have been excited to get into entrepreneurship again.
Some of the things that I have been facing so far at I haven't quite figured out yet: what import tax laws are, what the product actually looks like in real life, how much I will sell it for, what customer base I am focusing on, if I am going to stick with online store or spread out to other individual owned stores (that even includes putting something in the shopping mall), what kind of employees I will be looking for, etc. I will figure it out with time though, I have no doubt.

HOLA~! Future Alaska Job

So once upon a time I decided to look for summer jobs, actually I am always looking for summer jobs, I tried Boeing (I'm too early in the program to get even considered haha), I tried the Government internships(....I think they lost my application or thought me applying was a joke? haha I don't know.), I went to career fairs, but ya know, deep down none of them really felt right (except the DOD scholarship I applied for, still waiting on that one since I just applied) and Ben actually did a really great job at helping me out, he would call me about jobs or internships he would hear about. So long story short....this is what I will be looking at for 4 months in Alaska this summer:

BOOOOOYEAAHHHHHH

It was actually a pretty funny story.  Ben told me that he tried for the job a couple years ago, and got it, but then rejected it because he had some school stuff to do or something like that. Anyway, he told me I should do it, so I just piddled around on the application, and then one day I just finished the application. Literally a couple hours later I walked into the Wilk, and there they were, Holland-America/Princess trying to advertise for their Guide/Driver positions. I said, hey I applied for you today, oddly, she knew way too much information than I expected, and told me that they may or may not have a possition availiable for me....yeah well they called me that night saying they had a few open positions (I think it is a sales tactic or something...because when I went to my first orientation they said they could still hire tons more people.) So I got interviewed, they loved me, got hired, etc. So then G-ma called me and said that I needed to go work with some dude named Mel Ashton, and then I just got confused, because he called me and told me I should go to Skagway, so after a day of freaking out (because I HATE making decisions, and I knew I would have to call Tiffany, the hiring manager and tell her I was switching over to Skagway line.....booo) I decided to go to Skagway....then a huge pressure was lifted off of my shoulders...it was great. So this is also what I get to look at for those 4 months :)

This is probably the weirdest and funniest job I have ever applied for, but I am not complaining at all. Some day I will be married, and PROBABLY wont be able to do this again! 

MEAT PIES and BLOG SPOTS

So I have decided to keep blogging mainly because I never write in a journal, and that isn't very good. I know that the Church leaders encourage us to keep a journal of thoughts or what is happening in our lives, so here I go, BLOG STYLE.

I just had my first meat pie in like a year, it was a little dry but definitely good! And obviously it didn't look as pretty as the pic that I posted with this. Secretly I want to open a meat pie shop, but the problem is that I don't have the money to do it, and I need to actually figure it all out. I am planning on figuring out how to make them and maybe I will start selling them on the side, and if I get really daring, I will go to Jdawgs' manager and ask if I can rent out their little shack outside their store...that would be sick.

All in all, I just miss being in Aussie, it has been a year, and I have just been down here in Provo since then (which don't get me wrong, Provo is great, but definitely different....and not as exciting most of the time.) Anyway, happy Australia day a couple of days ago, may all my Aussie mates enjoy the festivities!

Drill, Or No Drill, That Is The Question. Blog #10

I am going to write my issues paper on the controversy of whether or not increasing of oil drilling would be beneficial to the US. This has been an issue that has been discussed and argued about for quite some time. There is so much oil to be mined up in places such as Alaska, Colorado, and North Dakota. The fact is that the world, and the government needs to be more efficient in both energy and in expenses, and importing oil from foreign lands is taking its toll. By shipping it over to the US, it wastes energy to ship all that dead weight in, which also costs us money, and the costs of labor and for the actual oil is inflated as it goes through the oil companies to the US companies, which makes the US spend way more than necessary. People are also afraid of the risks of drilling for oil, whether it is casualties of workers, destroying the environment, or causing more oil spills. But whether we do it here in the states or spend money by getting it in from foreign countries, these risks are there. Now on the flip side, there are a lot of complications. Even though there are no residential neighborhoods out in the drilling fields, the animals that are disrupted by the machinery need to go somewhere else, but will that cause problems? Also the process of strategically finding the best place to drill, and then the construction it will take to follow through with the plans may be too costly. Especially in this economy, it is a big risk to put so much money into something that will probably not yield results for several years. Overall, if the US decided to drill, it will take a toll on us financially, but in the long run, the billions of dollars spent a day to supply America with oil will someday be cut down dramatically. The money that used to be spent going into paying other countries can stay in our country, boosting the economy. That money can also be spent on research focused on improving the safety, efficiency, and reduction of pollution in oil drilling, so that the environment may maintain its cleanliness.

Blog #9 -Words on finishing analysis paper

So it is nearly midnight and I just finished my my paper that is due tomorrow. I feel like I did a pretty good job, except for a few of the sentences that I added to connect the tools to the appeal may need a look over. Lets be honest, writing is not my "Forte" but I learn a lot when I have opportunities like this. I think my favorite thing I have learned during this assignment how to effectively argue your case based on Rhetorical tools such as diction, allusions, imagery, etc. I also realized that a lot of rhetoric is used in missionary work. I don't know why that is exciting to me, but it is. :)

Blog #8-Rhetorical Analysis Paper

The paper that I have decided to write a Rhetorical analysis on is Hubert Humphrey's 1948 speech to fight against racial segregation. I have written the whole thing, and I am actually feeling pretty good about it. Writing a rhetorical analysis is very straight, to the point, and in order to get a good grade you have to cut the fluff...or the stuff that doesn't matter. I learned that this isn't a summary of the speech, but a analysis of the tools used, and how they created an effective arguement.

Letters From Birmingham Jail

“Letters from Birmingham Jail” is an astonishing piece of literature with all forms of Rhetoric overflowing from its pages. In this letter written to his fellow white clergyman, Martin Luther King Jr. takes his understanding of moral and human rights to powerfully write a persuasive letter in order to correct the ways of others. He goes on to use ethos, pathos, and logos to construct a strong argument.

Martin Luther King Jr. is a very passionate human rights activist, and a clergyman. He understands that the equality of Blacks and Whites are clearly out of balance, when they should be the same. In order to fix this, he uses his God sent gift to persuade those who read this letter that they need to rethink what they are doing and what other whites are doing.

In this letter, the bulk of what King says is not only in his defense for why he has broken the law to support black human rights, but also to show his colleague that everything that isn’t being done by whites in regards to the subject stated above, is morally incorrect. He gives a brilliant example of how the things that Hitler did were legal, yet we all know that the illegal freedom fighters were in the right, and Hitler in the wrong.

King does a fantastic job at including strong points of rhetoric throughout his letter. His argument was so forward; pointing out how wrong and incorrect the ideals of the government in relation to the blacks. He used mostly pathos to create the foundation of his argument; being able to heavily rely on Christian ideals and morals to back up his forward approach. I absolutely loved his call to repentance as he invited everyone to join God in a cause to do what is right: “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”