What's Up Wednesdays: Cuppa Joe

Every Wednesday, I share some fun blog posts that I find from around the web. Let’s get down with this week’s collection.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to review the Tassimo brewbot and I commented on these single-cup brewing systems. Now, Ed Lau has taken the time to review the updated Keurig Rivo coffee machine. It goes much further than some of these other systems by allowing for cold frothing and other nifty features for a great variety of coffee beverages. Care for an iced cappuccino, anyone?

If you look behind most workstations, you’ll find an unsightly rat’s nest of cables. Buzz Bishop has come up with a simple yet ingenious solution to this problem by using LEGO minifigs as cable organizers. It makes so much sense! Those little yellow hands are just the right size for holding a variety of charging cables for your smartphones, tablets and other gadgetry and you can totally geek out in the process with the LEGO minifigs of your choosing.

Whenever I tell someone new that I’m a freelance writer, they usually respond by telling me I have an “interesting” job. As Jennifer Mattern points out, this could be a part of a bigger set of freelance buzz kills, the most notable of which is when someone tells you to “get a real job.” Because, you know, working more than full-time hours as a freelance writer is hardly a proper career, right? You have to start with a solid foundation of self-respect before you can expect other people to take you seriously.

It doesn’t matter if you work for yourself or you have a salaried position at a company. Stacey Robinsmith is taking some time to do his retirement planning. This comes down to the financials for a lot of people and there are many variables involved. What sort of lifestyle can you expect to have in your 70s and beyond? Where do you want to go? What about the inevitable increase in health care costs that you’ll have to endure?

And finally, we turn to Shane Parrish who has some inspiring words from one Hunter S. Thompson about finding your life’s purpose and living a life filled with meaning. This naturally lends itself to a discussion on goals and taking the initiative, but we must all remember to “make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal.”