On this week’s “Geremy’s Peculiar Life,” I talk about how I was able to fly on private jets for two years and pay $413 per flight.
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An $8,000 dent in a Tesla Model S somehow resulted in two cars being killed in the process of repairing it. I don’t understand either, but you can see what happened in the newest “Geremy’s Peculiar Life” video…
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Last month I decided to take my car Judith on a brief trip to Massachusetts. It went swimmingly. Here’s a video of the experience in the newest “Geremy’s Peculiar Life” video…
New videos every Monday. Subscribe on YouTube if you want to.
In March 2016 I found out that Tesla came out with their Model X car and my local showroom had one. I saw it and liked it, but left it alone because it wasn’t the right time for me.
Twenty months later, I had a few minutes to spare before my appointment at the Apple store, so I stopped into the Tesla store with hopes of quickly test driving a Model X. Instead of quickly driving the car, they said “do you want to take the Model X for a few days?” I thought that the employee was joking, so I stared at him for a few moments. He stared back. He was serious. So I was serious. “Sure!!” And just like that, I found myself driving around in a super-bright red Tesla Model X.
I couldn’t get the car out of my mind, so when my sister asked me for my Christmas list the following week, it had one item on it: The Tesla Model X. Did I expect her to buy me a car? Not really, but you miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take. I didn’t get the car for Christmas, but I kept hope alive!
Then in February I made the bold claim that I was going to get a Tesla Model X by the end of the year. At that moment, I had no idea how I would get it, but I knew that it costs nothing to dream and everything not to. Then one day I found myself in a snow storm where my car was stuck on the highway. The thought crossed my mind that “if I had a Model X, I could probably drive through all of this snow with no problem.” Somehow it made sense in my mind to take out my laptop, tether to my phone’s internet connection, go on the Tesla website, and reserve a Model X online while stuck on the highway in the snow. I didn’t have all of the details figured out, but I didn’t want to get trapped in “analysis paralysis” and cause overthinking to make me miss a potential blessing.
A few weeks later, my Model X was delivered, I named her Judith and I immediately planned a makeover for her. Now it has been five months of owning Judy and I’m still in disbelief that everything came together this quickly and smoothly. From dreaming about a car in January to owning my favorite car in my favorite color with my favorite wheels in August, I’m amazed and elated.
Welcome to the family, Judith!!
Here is a video of each of the moments described above:
I was surprised with a birthday party on my 33rd Birthday. Here’s a video where I speak all about it…
Can you turn $5 into $100 in two weeks?? Well, I know some people who can, and they’re my kids! Well, not kids that I own, but kids that I teach.
At the beginning of the Summer most teenagers look for a job, but I wanted my kiddies to think like business-owners instead of employees. So, I created a challenge where they had to start and grow a business in two weeks. In order to keep things fair, I had a few rules:
So the challenge was simple: Use $5 to start and grow a business within two weeks. The business owner that earns the most profit gets to keep all of their money, as well as half of everyone else’s money. Also, if anyone chooses to continue their business after the challenge is over, I agreed to be the first investor to add additional capital in the business.
Participation was optional, but four people stepped up to the challenge. I’ve never done this challenge before, so I didn’t know what to expect, but I figured that the big winner would earn $40 at the most.
Two weeks later, the four new business owners presented their results:
Business # 1: Personal Assistant and Home Cleaning Service
In this business, she helped others do tasks that they didn’t want to do on their own. From cleaning pet cages, to painting toenails, she did it all and she did a stellar job. She cleaned houses, helped family members, and was eager to be of assistance for two weeks. Her prices were “pay me what you feel it was worth” and she chose not to spend any money at all to make sure that she earned a profit from day 1. Total profit $94.
Business # 2: Car Wash
This person used the $5 to buy car wash supplies from Dollar Tree. Then she recruited some of her friends, borrowed a hose and went door to door within her housing development to ask her neighbors if they would like a car wash. She washed 9 cars in one day and also received money from tips. No wages were paid to the friends, which probably creates a labor law issue, but I’ll leave it up to them to sort out. Total profit: $56.90.
Business # 3: Hydration
At first, he sold snacks around the neighborhood, but sales weren’t going as quickly as he wanted, so he switched his strategy. He bought a case of 40 bottles of water at Costco for $2.50, refrigerated the bottles, and went to the basketball court every day to sell the bottles for 50 cents each. Total profit: $21
Business # 4: Graphic Design
He started a graphic design business where he created digital art for people online. This included creating logos, photoshopping graphics and creating vector graphics. He got a customer who agreed to pay upwards of $100, but the money didn’t come through on time and he was left with the $5 that he started with. Total profit: $5…kinda
The winner was business # 1 who went home with a total prize of $135.45. But the strangest part of the entire thing was that no one cared about the money at all. The winner didn’t care about how much money she earned and no one else seemed to mind that they didn’t earn any money. They enjoyed the experience and were so proud of what they created in two weeks that the money wasn’t important.
I am very proud of each of them! Within a matter of days, they came up with a business idea, a marketing strategy, and they ran the bookkeeping and operations of a company that they created themselves. They were very driven and they didn’t try to sabotage each other. At first, some of them were discouraged since the sales weren’t coming as quickly as expected, but in the end, they all made something amazing that they could be proud of.
So let that be a lesson to parents— if your kid ever says that they want a summer job, just hand them $5 and tell them, “you have two weeks…start something!!” If they don’t come back with at least $50, feel free to lock the refrigerator and charge them rent until they start bringing home the bacon. That’s free parenting advice from Geremy.
Remember my beard experiment? Well, it’s over now…
I thought that I would be very uncomfortable with facial hair, but I didn’t mind it at all. My level of comfort remained the same throughout the entire experiment and the goal of removing myself from my comfort zone never happened.
Here are some photos of me during different stages of my beard…
This was about seven days into the experiment with just a slight five o’clock shadow
A few days later, that shadow grew into this and I felt like I looked 10 years older.
Then this happened and I was debating on whether I wanted to keep it at this length, or go full Rick Ross/ Rick Rubin.
At this point, my facial hair was growing so quickly that it required regular maintenance and pruning. I used beard pomade, beard oil, trimmers, combs and other beard-scaping tools. All of this was consuming too much of my life, so I ended the experiment and went clean shaven again.
So now I’m back to no facial hair. When I learn how to have facial hair with minimal grooming, the beard might make a reappearance, but for now it’s gone. Too much maintenance required!
And that’s the story of my weird beard.
In my head, I’m a rapper/producer. I don’t have a rap name, but if I did, it would be “MetalGearLiquid” or “Ampersand&.” But even though I’ve only officially made one song as a fake rapper/producer (which was 23 seconds long and made as a joke), I decided to accept the challenge of creating another song…a real one this time!
I was involved in a theater production as a co-director and part of the script required a dance performance to a song. The only problem was that the song didn’t exist and everyone who accepted the job of creating it backed out at the last minute. I thought “it can’t possibly be that hard,” so I accepted the task.
I called one of the most talented rappers I know and we formed two-man team. I was the producer and he was the rapper. After giving him a summary of the song and a script of the play, we went to work. He wrote a few versions of the song and we tweaked the lyrics via email and text messages for a few days. During the same time, I worked on refining the beat into something that would work well in the play. About a week later, we set-up a makeshift studio and spent about 5 hours recording.
When we were finished, we both listened to the final product and it sounded decent. Just as we were packing up, I played him another beat that I was going to use on a different project and he immediately said, “WE NEED THAT BEAT ON THIS SONG!!!” He was right.
We immediately went back to work—he reworked the lyrics and I refined the beat. Within 45 minutes, we had a finished product and the song was done. This time around, we were much more excited about the outcome.
The song was then sent to two dancers who choreographed a dance performance and a few weeks later, I watched as the song that we made come to life on stage in front of ~500 people.
Here is the song called, “I love His Name,” which is based on the book and play “The Day I Died But Now Live.”
“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” This is a terrible quote! Don’t make the same mistake as I did and actually take it seriously. Here’s what happened…
I had a wonderful, two-month-old iPhone X that had a cool feature: Water resistance. So I figured that if I can splash it with water, then I can dunk it in water. And if I can dunk it in water, then I can throw it in water. So that’s what I did.
I was swimming in my parents’ pool when I decided to put my phone’s water resistance to the test. First I took it under water in the three foot deep part of the pool. All was fine. Then I took it underwater in the five foot deep part of the pool. All was fine. Then I threw the phone about 20 feet into the air and let it fall 15 feet under the surface of the water to the bottom of the pool. All seemed fine, so I repeated that process three times. All wasn’t fine!
After leaving the phone at the bottom of the pool for about five minutes, I went to get it. But that’s when the screen started to flicker like the stage lights at a rave concert. Immediately after, the phone made a weird buzzing/crunching sound like a bumble bee being zapped by a 2,000 watt bug zapper. Then the screen had the same grey static that I saw when I turned the TV on Channel 77 when my family didn’t have cable TV.
Then I put the phone in a plastic container filled with rice and I left it there overnight. The next morning…nothing. The following day, nothing. He was dead and on his way to see Tupac in thugs mansion. I didn’t know if the rice was there to help the phone or to bury its remains as it died a slow painful death. All because I overdid it!
Now it’s a few days later and I got another iPhone to take its place. With this new phone, one thing’s for sure…I’m not overdoing ANYTHING! In fact, I might not even use it for telephone calls because I don’t want to accidentally spit on it and destroy it with water damage.
Lesson learned: Don’t overdo it. Just do it. Nike.
Here’s the last picture that my phone took before it died. Rest in Pieces.
Is there any such thing as a professional graduation ceremony attendee? If so, then I think that I’ve got enough experience for the position!
In addition to my own three graduations, my sister is a doctor so I attended all 49 of her graduations (discussed here, here, and here), I attended numerous friends’ graduations, and now the latest addition to my graduation résumé is my brother’s high school graduation!
The same kid who was was just 3 years old the other day and holding his breath underwater for “15 minutes” is now a high school graduate and I was there to witness it! Now he’s off to college and adulthood. Life comes at you fast!
Congratulations, Jordan!
A Peculiar guy named Geremy