(I've grown frustrated with answering questions from people who have found me on LinkedIn, so here's a general rundown of my thoughts about BrainStation and their Digital Marketing Bootcamp.)

Fifteen thousand dollars. FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! That is so much money, dramatically more than other bootcamps. Is it worth it? Absolutely not. I deeply regret my decision to participate in this program, and I encourage you to think long and hard about your decision before signing up.

In my recent cohort, almost 70% of students dropped out after realizing that what the program offered was far short of what they had been promised. And BrainStation, seemingly knowing that they hadn't lived up to their end of the bargain, gave each of the former students 100% refunds. This is completely contrary to their stated policy on program withdrawal. Reputable programs simply don't lose 70% of their students. And they also don't offer full refunds to those who make allegations such as plagiarism and gross incompetence.

Specific issues I had with the bootcamp:

1) Even though you are paying $15,000 for the course, they provide you with essentially no tools. Instead, they'll tell you to create numerous email accounts so that you can repeatedly sign up for demo versions of the tools you'll be using. Also, you're putting your own credit card down on those demos, so you better not forget to cancel and switch to a new email, or else you may be paying hundreds of dollars for a subscription you don't want.

2) You will spend a ridiculous number of hours searching for benchmark data that could otherwise easily be accessed if the school were to actually spend some of their revenue on student tools. But they won't, so you'll spend hours sifting through questionable websites with questionable data, trying to find something you can work with. It's an inefficient use of time, considering how demanding they keep their schedule.

3) For certain units, their tool choice is questionable at best. Why are you building websites on Mailchimp? It's certainly not because it's the best, most useful, easiest, or most highly-adopted industry tool. To myself and other students, it felt that maybe this was due to some sort of undisclosed Mailchimp partnership rather than the best interest of the students.

4) The lecture slides are quite often lifted wholesale from other websites. You can do a google search of key phrases and see where the content is just lifted from others. How they at all think this is appropriate just boggles the mind. They are also littered with spelling and grammatical errors, which isn't just embarrassing but also hypocritical as the instructors will constantly remind you that those same errors in your work are unprofessional and will result in lower grades.

5) Speaking of the lectures, there are simply better places to learn this information more efficiently. At the end of the bootcamp, they'll tell you that you need to go out and get a bunch of online certifications. When you do seek out those certifications you'll discover that you'll need to take their study courses anyhow, and that the information is presented more intuitively than it ever was at BrainsStation. Not to mention at a dramatically lower price.

6) The posted curriculum and schedule can't be trusted. The entire reason I stuck with the full program was because I wanted to learn about marketing budgets, which was part of the final unit. Once we got to that unit, they cut the marketing budget lectures and project because they had run out of time. They literally said that was the reason. Cut for time.

7) If you're an American, their career services are pretty useless. I knew it was a Canadian school, but considering they had offices in NYC and Miami, I anticipated more opportunities for Americans. But overwhelmingly the job opportunities are based in Canada and not available to US citizens.

8) Unless you are incredibly early in your career, their career success department is irrelevant. I certainly didn't need to be instructed on how to dress for an interview, and they literally had us practice small talk. It was embarrassing. For somebody like me who is mid-career and simply wanted to upskill, there was absolutely zero value in these services.

Honestly, I could go on and on. I just know that every month when I get $500+ automatically deducted from my bank account, I feel this anger in the pit of my stomach, knowing I've been ripped off.

I will say that it's possible that BrainStation is a quality bootcamp for the other disciplines. Coding and WebDev just more naturally lend themselves to a bootcamp format. But for digital marketing, this just isn't a good investment.

Sunday with the boys, and I'm prepping to go out of town for a little beach thing. At least for my nelly little crew, that means pedicures! After a bit of a Yelp search we ended up at Royalty Nails, and I'm glad we did. The staff was very friendly, skilled, and speedy. The prices were right. And the massage chairs were OMG good.

As of this writing, they're appointment only. The recording that starts off when you call says this is because of COVID and the "political climate" which I read between the lines as meaning "it's effing scary these days to be an Asian business owner." This world sucks. Anyhow... it was easy to make an appointment for exactly when we wanted, and they were ready and waiting for us when we arrived.

First things first we picked out some polish colors, and they had plenty to choose from. We did the slightly upgrades pedicures so they came with callus removal, which is really what we all needed in the first place. My hooves were ROUGH. Thankfully they were able to smooth them right up, and the paraffin dip that followed up was a delight. So was the hot stone massage. The leg massage was great, and the massage chairs were heaven.

I was helped out by Tu, who is the owner. She's a delight, and was also eager to recommend other businesses that she felt we might like.

We were out the door at $40 a person, before tip. A reasonable price and I'm happy to support Tu and her staff, who do excellent work.

You know who has been killing it all through COVID? Bar Bar, that's who.

A huge, mostly-covered patio where it's easy to social distance and feel safe-ish with plenty of air circulation (and heaters to keep you warm), they were one of the first places I saw to have a good system of ordering and paying from your table, with staff running out your food and drinks. Speaking of which, they have a better than average beer and drinks list, and the food is reliably good "bar food". They serve a damn good burger, which I feel most of PDX knows by now. If you don't, go get you one.

They still show fun movies projected up against the wall, which is a nice treat. And they play reliably great music. Bar Bar is one of those spots that was able to make the transition seem not quite so jarring, and drinks on their patio feels dare-I-say almost normal. Good job.

While we had originally planned on going elsewhere in the neighborhood, I'm happy that we ended up at Kangaroo & Kiwi. It was a fun bar, with a great (and dog friendly!!!) patio. Solid beer selection, tasty food. I'd definitely return.

As an Australian-owned business, the menu def reflects that. I was impressed to see things like lamb chops on the menu, but I went for the relatively more casual steak sandwich. It was really good! It came out medium, and if I had been asked I'd probably have wanted it a little less cooked, but it still had a great flavor. The fries on the side were pretty blah, but whatever. I think you could select other options?

Large beer selection, though I stuck with a local pilsner.

The patio was the biggest draw for us. First, it's huge! So much seating, wrapping around the whole building. They have it nicely partitioned off with plexiglass so that you have a little more separation and security. You scan a code to order, but still pay your server. Pretty good system, all things considered.

I really like this bar. I'd definitely enjoy another sunny day on their patio.