Hello Everyone!
My name is Josh Pasholk and I just got hired by Paul so I'm here to tell you all little more about myself.
One of my first jobs while I was still in high school was in the Deli at a
local Natural Food Store. I literally got a note from the office with a message from their manager at the time to "Call so and so to go work" THAT DAY! This was the start of something much more than I realized at the time. I knew the manager from being friends with her son, she knew I wanted a job and needed someone that day so I went to work. Fast forward about a year and I was offered a job in the produce department after I helped out with a remodel they went through. The produce manager was thoroughly impressed by me and my work ethics so I quickly
rose to assistant produce manager. Now, taking a step back - I didn't know anything about what organic even meant let alone the difference between that and commercial - I literally had McDonalds for lunch on my first day in the deli.
This job was the foundation for what I now believe about everything really. The way that the general manager seemed to care about what his customers purchased in terms of health and wellness really resonated with me. I was beginning to understand a much larger picture about how food fit into more than just our mouths. Working in the produce department, I saw the end result of a chain of distribution that is fundamentally broken. I didn't fully realize how and why until I later discovered
permaculture. Simple things like not growing things in rows and using cover crops and mulches to improve everything made so much sense to me.
It wasn't until I discovered Paul's podcasts that I took
permaculture seriously. Until then, I didn't see it as a professional thing - the person who introduced it to me was literally a white dude with dreads that was taking deli food scraps for his
chickens - not exactly the best first impression. After listening to about a dozen or two podcasts I realized that this was for me. Something about Paul's attitude regarding everything from not using
cardboard to larger things like taking a longer approach to short term problems. He is also super entertaining to listen to as he doesn't put up with bullshit and has a titanium backbone. I like the fact that he's known as the "bad boy of the
permaculture world", it deters the idiots to some extent. I'm a huge fan of him and his work.
Anyway, I also worked for a while in the technology education-corporate sector for a company called Lynda.com. Now, let me just be the first to say I wasn't a software engineer or even an educator - I worked in the shipping department at first. I had about 3 or 4 hours of actual work a work a day but had to be there for the full 8. This allowed me a lot of time to learn about things online. I literally watched
Facebook go from the dorm rooms to the boardrooms of major companies. Watched as all of the products around me began to grow social media logos everywhere. It was there that I discovered my tech side. Before this I never spend too much time on computers and didn't have a smartphone. This was also before the launch of the iPhone - which I also watched with reticence. Everyone around me was getting one and I just didn't see the point.
After a little under a year I remember getting my first smartphone, a Blackberry Pearl. I didn't really fully understand how to use it and probably didn't need it. It did however make me want an iPhone. When the iPhone 3g came out I dove in and bought one through AT&T, I've been on that cycle ever since. I am now active in whats known as the "jailbreak" scene. This basically means that I can customize my phone how I see fit, and install things that aren't released in the App Store. An example of this is I have deeply imbedded software to prevent anyone I don't want calling me from reaching my screen. They can still call but it doesn't make it though. This, working with Do Not Disturb, makes it so I almost never get calls from numbers I don't have.
Back to
permaculture, I was living in a great little place that had a decent size
yard so I began the process of converting it into a
polyculture system. I started a bunch of small hugelkulturs and swales as well as a keyhole garden and a bunch of herb spirals. I got about two years into this
project and my life sort of fell apart. My wife didn't believe in the tenants of permaculture and thought it was just a phase I was going through. We split up after a number of fights and all that icky stuff. I also lost my job around the same time. This sort of catalyzed my brain in the direction of the lab. I have worked to position myself to be able to move out there and am now almost ready to visit. I just need to buy my plane ticket. I've been picking up building and construction skills along the way of working a bunch of side jobs as well as starting my collection of power and manual tools.
I plan on setting to work on a bunch of different stuff for Paul in the coming weeks, a lot of
affiliate stuff and social media - mainly reddit. He and I just had a great talk last night about reddit and things we can do there. It was very motivating and daunting at the same time. Paul has tasked me with growing the homestead sub by a factor of 10. With 46,000 subscribers that would mean growing it to be around 460,000 people! I'd be happy to double the subs by the end of the year. I will be spending a decent amount of time at first trying to set things up to accomplish that along with all the affiliate stuff. Wish me luck people! Later tonight or tomorrow I will be posting in the inner circle forum about some things I'm going to do in the reddit space along with some more information on what everyone can do if they'd like to help.
Alright, if you made it through my rambling there you deserve something, maybe pie? At least an
Apple...
Thanks again for all the help and support I'm sure everyone here will give me. I hope to help permies and Paul's empire take over the world!!
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