IKnow! Espanol! Online Language Lessons.

I have always encouraged Molly, my youngest daughter to study most anything she wanted, as long as she included learning to speak Mandarin. I shared this with Andrew Smith Lews, the CEO of IKnow! and he chuckled.

"Yes, you may just be hitting on something there Gary." he responded.

Iknow is a new language program on the internet that is free to end users, a reader introduced me to it and I gave it a try the other night. Later I was asked to interview Andrew who was most gracious to introduce me to the future of learning 2.o.

Iknow! can teach anyone wanting to learn a new language on a format that is individualized. So while I struggle through Spanish, Mary is breezing through it and given tougher lessons, and it's all free, but more importantly it was fun.

A year ago I purchased CD's that include the most boring and illogical conversations that you can imagine, but the Iknow! program takes content of interest, including recent movies. Imagine learning japaneese to Tropic Thunder.

There is a lot more about Iknow! that is really worth checking into, like its networking features that create learning formats.

If you are like me and interested in learning a new language, I invite you to try Iknow!.

Here is the link Iknow!

Let MeKnow! what you think.

Tranforming Travel into Journey

Not much happening here as first Myself then Mary had visits from a cold bug. We were both finally getting well when Princess, our thirteen year old terrier-mix, decided to jump off a neighbors twelve foot balcony. No one really knows why she jumped. I blame Dawgzheimers.

Fortunately she landed in a pile of sand and missed a wood picket fence. A $500 vet bill got us a bottle of pain medication and the assurance that no broken bones were involved, though you would not have known it by the way Princess wailed for the past week.

The crying has settled down of late though and now a limping gate is her only hindrance, that and a temperament requiring Mary's constant presence.

The past two weeks I have been caring for Spanish speaking patients and have renewed my goal of learning the language. Some argue that they have no intention of this as they feel English should be learned by immigrants.

"If I were to move to France, I would make a point of learning their language." says another nurse to me.

Yet I actually have two motivations for learning the language. First, is my intention to visit Spanish speaking countries in the future, so why not learn while I have opportunity with fellow employees and patients. The second reason is from reading that learning a new language is great mental exercise, some people consider this part of the inner journey.

Volunteers for the peace-corps and mission trips have suggested this by saying, they went out to change a small piece of the world and returned realizing it was them that had been changed.

A recent conversation with a nurse who volunteered for a mission trip to Africa shared with me that when their medical supplies ran out mothers kept bringing their children anyway.

"All I had left were my hands to lay on them in prayer" she said, "and yet they still kept coming". "I realized, I always have something to give", she concluded.

Interacting with the world you find yourself placed, transforms travel nursing into a journey. There are always new sights to see even if you don't travel, but to allow new places to change you, that's the key to inner journey.

So learning Spanish is my way of taking the smile of the lab tech with me after accomplishing a new phrase. Mary is inspiring the landlord of our home to make improvements to the wall, (click here if you have not seen pics of it) and had him and multiple neighbors involved with a project on it yesterday. Actually, I find that Mary creates inspiration of all kinds, regardless the situation.

Traveling without working on inner journey is more akin to wandering, like footprints in the sand swept away with a single tide, having cast no memory and leaving no trace of presence.

Inner journey knows no location, but opens our awareness to allow new locations to transform and broaden our own personal horizons.

Have you been contemplating travel? Is it time for you to explore?

An afternoon off.

The time for low tide had come. Mary, though still not well from her cold was dressed for going out, a fleece jacket and black shorts. She had spent most of the day resting, but searching for sea glass has become a recent obsession, and so we set off to the nearby shore line.

The ocean had pulled further back than ever we had seen, well beyond the usual row of beach gravel; a good hundred feet further. The sandy floor had actually raised up a bit and left a pool of sea water trapped, and then further out were dozens of birds racing back and forth with the tide to snatch up sand crabs.

I crossed through the stranded pool and on to the sand that was further out, sometimes my feet sinking a foot or more in the soaked sand. I waved to Mary as I jumped up and down celebrating walking at the very spot where early morning surfers rode waves.

I turned to see the holes left by my feet in the sand were already filling up. That is the one thing about the ocean, it rounds and smooths most everything, whether it be markings in sand, or sharp pieces of beach glass. All eventually are rounded, smoothed, with gaps filled and ridges worn.

Princess and I walk close to the shore. At times an errant wave washes over my feet, I do not mind, but the water is cold. Finding glass so close to waves washing up is a bit trickier than further up the beach. I spot a glimmer of brown or green and must reach for it fast otherwise a wave will wash over it and then I try to follow it up with the tide and then keep an eye on it as the water recedes.

"Is it there?" I think.

No, I lost it.

No point in continuing to look for it. I assure myself, that just as easily as that piece is washed away, another has washed up, and I keep looking.

Today it seems warmer. A bead of sweat falls into my eyes and I use my shirt to wipe it away.

"No breeze!" I realize.

How odd that two days ago there were constant thirty mph winds that blew sand into every crack and crevice, left a fine silt covering on every flat surface, even in the house, and dunes crossing the streets. Yet now; no breeze.

Usually the breeze blows and cools off those exposed to the sun, even on the warmest days, today though, the air is still and I soak up the sun without it.

I catch up with Mary. From our pockets we pull out our new found additions to the sea glass; only a few pieces of blue, mostly brown,some green and lots of clear. No red of course.

Mary and I walk ahead. Sometimes we hold hands, but always watching out for colors in the sand.

"How could I take a picture of this and do it justice?" I ask.

"I suppose you could take it from the back of the beach." says Mary.

The problem with that idea though, is the drop off that the camera would be unable to show in a picture, and beyond that is still another fifty or more feet of sand.

If I took such a panned out picture, how could I also include the close ups of the birds and gravel edges which is where we find most of the glass?

Would the picture tell you how cold the water is as it washes over my feet?

Could one picture explain how a piece of brown glass in the right sunlight looks red, and how our heart races with excitement, until it is held up in the sunlight and is only brown?

Could one picture do all that?

Maybe this short post will.

401k rollover

It has been a year since leaving my permanent hospital job in the Ozarks, and every three months I receive a statement regarding my 401k account. Now I am just the kind of person to leave things as they are, not because of patience on my part, but more like a severe case of procrastination.

I have no idea how many travel companies I will be working with in the future; I love the one I'm working with now, but most likely I will have a handful over the next several years. The idea of leaving a trail of 401k plans tagging along and multiple quarterly mailings to keep track of sounded less appealing than even my procrastination could stand.

So I finally made the phone call to the company holding my plan and learned how to make the rollover into an IRA. The rep on the other end of the phone walked me through filling out the form correctly. He also gave me the name and phone number of the plan administrator, an employee at the hospital. I then called her for the fax number and sent the papers her way, where she signed them off and forwarded them to the holding company.

I elected to have a check sent directly to the IRA broker so as to prevent a heavy tax penalty and the deposit was made. All told, it was only about fifteen minutes to accomplish and was completed in about two weeks.

I have a separate IRA which is a Roth that I make monthly contributions to; but the traditional IRA I keep just for rollover funds. Now I have a way to keep all those past and future plans in one easy account and only one quarterly statement to keep track of.

Travel Nurse Pay

Recent friends at our Halloween Party

Mary and I love to invite acquaintances over to the beach house. Actually we make acquaintances out of complete strangers. They may slow down and admire the wall surrounding our courtyard (if you haven't seen pics of it click here) and Mary invites them in for a tour, or they are strolling along the beach and we start a chat and end up sharing cool drinks around the fire pit. We enjoy making new friends.

After seeing our home and the multimillion dollar house across from us, I am often asked how much does a travel nurse make.

Without giving a dollar per hour amount I explain about taxable income verses the nontaxable travel stipend, but I also share about Mary's and my outlook on the travel lifestyle.

One lure travel companies use is the high salary and tax advantage programs available for travel nurses. The prospective nurse then figures how much better their weekly paycheck will be as compared to the take home pay from the local hospital. With calculator in hand, they estimate how much debt can be eliminated over the next three, no six months and then they will finally be free.

I recall a story I heard a few years ago of the nursing couple who had the goal to pay off their home mortgage in two years by working travel assignments together. To save even more money they decided to live in a fifth wheel trailer rather than apply the nontaxable stipend to an apartment.
Sound like a great plan so far?

Here is what ended up happening. They did not own a trailer so they purchased a new one and a year later decided their first pickup wasn't large enough to pull it, so they bought a new model. Then the cramped space was not practical for their box TV and so purchased a large flat screen (remember this was a few years ago when they were still expensive).

The story ended up that after a year the couple had payed nothing extra on their home mortgage and were now more in debt than they were when they began. How sad.

I have also heard of nurses, desperate for extra income, travel to high paying assignments and work extra hours for the overtime pay while sharing an extended stay hotel room with a nurse working the opposite shift. No doubt they earn great pay.

My question is; what are they going to do with it?

Perhaps their reasons are legitimate; it is possible that things such as medical crisis can put a crunch on family budgets.
Here is my take though. If you are using travel pay solely for the purpose of inflating your personal budget, you may be walking down a very disappointing path.

Missing out on your family and friends while spending long hours at work just to increase your pay is costing you time that can never be replaced. On your days off; when you take one, you will find little solace in being away from the ones you care about.

I often wonder if those who complain most about travel nursing, perhaps started their venture with misplaced assumptions and then blame inhospitable staff. Perhaps nerves would not be so edgy if the stress to make over extended bill payments were not so real.

Each nurses' experience is unique of course, but I know that when combining stress of extra hours with separation from love ones, you lose that sense of connectedness and are set up for failure. Is extra money worth it?

If extra pay is your only goal, I suggest reconsidering travel nursing.

Mary and I actually set and accomplished the goal of being debt free before we started travel. I have written about how to achieve this in an earlier post (click here).

When I talk to a recruiter about a travel assignment I make it clear that I am more interested in a positive assignment experience than the size of my paycheck.

Even after explaining this I am surprised how many recruiters continue the conversation about how great the pay will be. One recruiter even had the nerve to say that I can endure anything for just thirteen weeks for this great pay. What audacity!

My posts will continue to be about how to enjoy the travel experience by learning how to maximize your assets of money and time spent in wonderful places.