Sarah Kohl - A Nerd's Commentary on Life & Travel

One Year Older With More Friends Than Ever

October 19, 2015 / Sarah / 0 Comments

I was astounded yesterday to receive a flood of birthday messages from people all over the world. Often times I feel as though there is no way I could make a lasting impact on people. I’m just me after all. It’s heart-warming to then receive so many well wishes from both distant and new friends as well as the old and close ones I have.

If you know me well enough to have gotten into this conversation then you likely know that I do think of people as the most important thing in life. They are the driving force behind changes all around the world for thousands of years. [More]

The Eternal Flame of Orchard Park

October 14, 2015 / Sarah / 4 Comments

Not far outside of Buffalo, NY is a place called Orchard Park. I often say that I’ve lived in this state my whole life and continue to find new things. This is exactly one of those times. Orchard Park is about an hour from where I grew up and this weekend I discovered a beautiful bit of nature with my family on a hike.

The sight is called the eternal flame and it’s pretty magical to see in person. The hike is a bit difficult and requires a trek through some mud, across some shale, and over a lot of fallen trees. [More]

Yelp for People App Earns Worst Idea of 2015

October 13, 2015 / Sarah / 1 Comment

If you’re unfamiliar with the app, it’s an app that aims to let people review other people in the way that yelpers can review restaurants. The idea itself isn’t new, there have been numerous sites that have been created to help you rate ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, rate professors, rate politicians, or really rate any other person you interact with. Heck, LinkedIn to some extent allows you to rate your professional connections by their proclaimed skill set, so how is this any different? [More]

Casual Lyft Drivers Thanks to Hertz

October 12, 2015 / Sarah / 1 Comment

What if you had a license, but no car and wanted to get in on the game of driving people around for money? Well thank goodness, the casual driver can now be a Lyft driver thanks to the partnership between Lyft and Hertz.

Lyft has been trying all sorts of things to keep and expand their driver fleet. They announced a new bunch of perks for their drivers including instant deposits and fuel rewards, but this one seems a bit crazy. Lyft drivers will now be able to rent cars from Hertz for discounted rates. The rates shake out to be $25 per day, $150 per week, or $540 per month for an SUV. [More]

October 10, 2015

Men brave and generous live the best lives, seldom will they sorrow; then there are fools, afraid of everything, who grumble instead of giving. [More]

The Horror Movies You Need to Watch on Netflix

October 8, 2015 / Sarah / 5 Comments

That’s right. It’s that time of the year when watching horror movies is mandatory. While you’re planning for the best holiday of the year (Halloween duh) these are some movies that should help you get excited and maybe a bit scared. The best part? They are all on Netflix!

I’m a firm believer that the less you know about a movie before watching it the more you will enjoy it. With that in mind I’ve given a list of just titles, no spoilers and then given each movie a score of 1-5 for scariness. [More]

We Love Rochester NY

October 7, 2015 / Sarah / 1 Comment

I recently gave a quote for the site We Love Rochester NY and I thought if it wasn’t clear yet, I should state. I do love Rochester, NY. If you’re too lazy to read through that blog let me summarize the awesomeness of this city.

The People

The people are amazing. There are a lot of young people here for college which means there is a whole lot of educated young people. Who doesn’t love to be surrounded by that? And what makes it really great is the schools here are all fairly different. For instance you have U of R which tends to bring in a good number of ivy league contenders from wealthy backgrounds. [More]

Watching Great Friends Get Married

October 5, 2015 / Sarah / 1 Comment

This weekend was the first of many weddings I am going to this month. The weather broke just in time and everything was simply beautiful. The speeches where heartwarming, the food fantastic, and the setting simply stunning. What more could you ask for?

In all seriousness, this was one of the happiest weddings I’ve attended. I have known the groom since I was a kid and the bride for the past few years and they are truly a perfect match. Such an inspiring union brought out the sappiness in pretty much everyone there. [More]

LinkedIn Classaction Lawsuit Over Emails (Perkins vs LinkedIn Corp)

October 4, 2015 / Sarah / 4 Comments

I have been a LinkedIn member since the mid to late 2000’s. Over time it hasn’t evolved as much as say Myspace or Facebook, but the guts of the site have undergone a number of changes. One of these was and is the way in which LinkedIn gets you to connect with other people on their site.

When joining the professional social network you have to provide at least one email address. The site then prompts you to sync your contacts with their system and finds all of your friends in their network. Of course, this isn’t really that much different than any other social network. [More]

October 3, 2015

…there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. – Machiavelli

[More]

Still in Love With Loyal3

October 1, 2015 / Sarah / 4 Comments

Okay, so I already did a post where I talked all about how much I love Loyal3. I felt it was time to reiterate my love for this investing platform after a few different experiences I have had with them.

Let’s start with some good events. Good stuff is always easier to talk about right? So shortly after making my last post Loyal3 updated their platform. I can now see the actual % or $ amount I have made or lost with a particular company. It’s great. It made it a lot easier to make sure I was making a profit with my sales. [More]

September 28, 2015

OK so this weekend I picked, cooked, and ate a wild puffball mushroom. I tried to cook it up a whole bunch of different ways because I’ll be honest, I’d never cooked one of these before. After lots of internet research and dirty dishes I came up with a few ways to try cooking it up.

Stir-fry with Coconut Oil – I’m not a huge mushroom eater so I wanted to start out with something that I figured had a low chance of being disgusting. I’ve been addicted to coconut oil the past few days and I’m a firm believer that if you add enough onion to something it will taste just fine. [More]