Curve balls and the future

Why is it that just when life seems to be going good it has to throw a curve ball at you? Seems like these days life is full of curve balls. Even just a few years ago it seems like life was a lot easier. I'm not just talking about my life here either. I'm talking about the lives of everyone. What happened in just a few short years to cause the world we live in to get this way? Seems like there is so much despair in the world these days. There are so many things to blame but there doesn't seems to be any one thing that happened to cause any of this.

I still try hard every day to have hope that the world will get better soon. I know I am going to have to work hard and fight to get where I want to be with my life and with Dustin Cowell Enterprises. I really appreciate all of the support of family, friends and the open source software community. I have some exciting ideas planned that I'm hoping will get me closer to my goals!

Posted by Dustin Cowell in Life on 08/26/2010 at 11:09 PM

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Lincoln Edward Cowell

My second child, a son, Lincoln Edward Cowell was born at 3:21 AM on 8/20/2010! He weighed 6 lbs, 7 oz. and he is 19 inches long. I had a lot of enxiety going into the hospital expecting a long stressful labor like what we experienced when my daughter Lucy was born. It was the complete opposite though, very quick and easy (for both of us)! I guess having gone through it once helped a ton. We are now home resting and making small ventures away from home. I'm so glad to be a father to a little girl and a little boy now! Lots of photos can be found on Flickr... http://www.flickr.com/photos/dustincowell.

Posted by Dustin Cowell in Life on 08/22/2010 at 4:35 PM

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Living in a Google world

I use Google as much as possible. I love everything they come up with! I use Google Chrome for my web browser, Gmail for my email, Google Calendar, Google News, Google Shopping, Google Docs, Google Groups, Google Reader, Google Analytics, Google Voice, Picasa, You Tube and I also like checking out Google Labs to play with the creations that are still in the works. I even have a Google Android powered phone so I can get my Google fix when I am away from a computer.

I have a serious Google addition and I'm not afraid to admit it. If they had an office around here somewhere I would probably apply to work there. I think a better name for their "offices" would be playgrounds. That's what they look like anyway. They are always in Forbes top 5 companies to work for in the nation too.

Posted by Dustin Cowell in Life on 06/04/2010 at 9:30 PM

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Living in a Google world

I use Google as much as possible. I love everything they come up with! I use Google Chrome for my web browser, Gmail for my email, Google Calendar, Google News, Google Shopping, Google Docs, Google Groups, Google Reader, Google Analytics, Google Voice, Picasa, You Tube and I also like checking out Google Labs to play with the creations that are still in the works. I even have a Google Android powered phone so I can get my Google fix when I am away from a computer.

I have a serious Google addition and I'm not afraid to admit it. If they had an office around here somewhere I would probably apply to work there. I think a better name for their "offices" would be playgrounds. That's what they look like anyway. They are always in Forbes top 5 companies to work for in the nation too.

Posted by Dustin Cowell in Life on 06/04/2010 at 9:30 PM

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My idea of freedom

When I think of personal freedom, I think of a life where you don't owe anything to anyone and where you are not able to be held accountable by anyone but yourself or possibly your immediate family.

Ultimately, I want to have some acreage, pay off my home, pay off my car(s), pay off all other loans, live off the grid, have a large garden, a large green house, and raise animals. Once I accomplish all of this my family and I could live off our land and there would not be the pressure of having to make a large salary to support ourselves.

I know it sounds like a lofty goal to a lot of people, but in my mind it is not. I also firmly believe that when you set your mind to something you can accomplish anything. It's not going to be easy, but who ever said anything in life is easy?

Posted by Dustin Cowell in Life on 04/21/2010 at 1:45 PM

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Cable TV, friend or foe?

Amanda and I made a decision about 6 months ago to cut our cable television. This decision was made for many reasons. Cost savings, all the crap on these days, and just to see if our family could go without it in this modern cable addicted world. We saw ourselves and our 2 year old daughter Lucy sitting in front of the TV for way too many hours per day, often not even watching anything we really cared about. So the decision was made.

Overall, I would say it was not missed. We still had our cable internet and still had the ability to watch the shows we really cared about. The difference was that to watch something required more effort to find it online, so we tended to only watch what we really cared about. While watching shows online, we also discovered that we were no longer being subjected to commercials due to them being cut out of most shows. We also had our trusty DVD and VHS players so we discovered an even greater love for movies than we ever had before.

Not being subjected to about half the advertising in our lives on it's own was very interesting. My family's desire to shop and buy things went way down! When someone I knew would ask me if I had seen the latest funny commercial I wouldn't know what they were talking about and it felt great! Saving money was at an all time high for my family and I relate this directly to not having cable. You see people on TV with all these things and it makes you want them. Jealousy is human nature.

One week ago from today we had our cable television connected once again. There were several reasons for this decision. Mostly for Amanda's mom who is living with us and recovering from surgery, but also because we thought it might be nice to have every now and then. For the first few days I didn't even turn it on to watch myself. I have since watched a few shows, but only ones I really like, no crap. I have also found myself being really careful to not be sucked in by commercials when they come on.

I don't know if we will ever turn the cable off again or not, but I will say not having it has taught me a lot and I will not be soon to forget what I have learned!

Posted by Dustin Cowell in Life on 01/15/2010 at 12:28 AM

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Country life is the life for me

Amanda and I have been talking for a long time about where we might like to live someday. We know that were we are living now is not that place. It's not that we don't like our house or our neighborhood, they are both just fine. It's just not us anymore, or at least not who want to be. We both thought we wanted to live in a nice little neighborhood in a medium size town. Turns out we are not really "neighborhood people". We don't really know our neighbors, we don't like living so close to other people, and we want some land that we can have more fun on. If we move though, we want it to be before Lucy goes into school, if possible. She is turning 3 this year so we want to make up our minds in the next couple of years.

For the last year or so I would say Amanda and I have been really seriously talking about wanting to live in the country on some acreage. We have been casually looking at different places all over Central Oregon just to get an idea of where we might like to live, figure out how much land we are actually going to want, and what we might be looking to pay for what we want. We still don't really have much of an idea except I think we have at least decided we want to live somewhere north or northeast of Bend (Powell Butte, Prineville, etc.) where the climate is a little more mild and better suited for growing and/or animals.

We have been talking about what we would want to use the acreage for. I don't really see us being into growing crops. Maybe a nice size vegetable garden and a greenhouse. What I think we really want to use the land for is to raise some animals. I have really enjoyed our small chicken operation that I setup in our backyard and could see myself raising chickens on a much larger scale. Many have called me a successful egg farmer just with my small flock of 13 chickens. I have done a ton of research on them and know just what it takes to get the most out of them while keeping them happy. We can legally have up to 16 chickens where we live now, so I can't do much more than I am currently. Amanda on the other hand would really like some alpacas, sheep, and/or goats. Can't have any of them living in the city. Even if we could I think we would get some pretty funny looks from our neighbors. Amanda makes all kinds of knitted things and has an interest in learning to spin and dye yarn. I could see our interests turning into a nice little secondary income.

It's funny because when we were younger we used to talk about how fun it would be to live in or near a big city. We moved to Oregon City (close to Portland) when we got out of high school and lived there for a few years. Then we moved back to Bend to get away from the city. Now we live in Redmond to be even further from the city. Next we want to live even further away. Funny how that has changed!

Posted by Dustin Cowell in Life on 01/13/2010 at 2:13 AM

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First Entry

Welcome to my new personal blog!

I am writing this using my new blogging software that I wrote (FreePHPBlogSoftware). It took me about 3 years to complete my new blog software and my shopping cart software (FreePHPShoppingCartSoftware), but they are both finally done! Well, they are not totally done, but they are both ready for their initial version 1.0 releases.

This blog will mostly be about my personal life to share with friends and family. I will have a separate blog over on each of my business websites to keep personal and business separate.

Well, it's very late at night and I should turn in right about now. Just couldn't wait to setup my new blog though. Ha ha!

Posted by Dustin Cowell in Life on 01/08/2010 at 4:28 AM

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