- Up at 5 two days in a row. Sleepy. #
- May your…year be filled w/ magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you…kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful. @neilhimself #
- Woo! First all-cash grocery trip ever. Felt neat. #
- I accidentally took a 3 hour nap yesterday, so I had a hard time sleeping. 5am is difficult. #
- Wee! Got included in the Carnival of Personal Finance, again. http://su.pr/2AKnDB #
- Son’s wrestling season starts in two days. My next 3 months just got hectic. #
- RT @Moneymonk: A real emergency is something that threatens your survival, not just your desire to be comfortable -David Bach # [Read more…] about Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-09
George Zimmerman: The High Cost of a Legal Defense
Most people have heard of the controversial nature of the George Zimmerman murder trial. Zimmerman, who defends his actions and is claiming self-defense, is on trial for murdering Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old with a social media profile that projects anything but innocence. While his defense attorneys claim that race had nothing to do with the murder, the prosecution thinks differently. In fact, a majority believe that Trayvon Martin would still be alive today if he hadn’t attacked Zimmerman. Regardless of your stance on the case, there is no denying the fact that Zimmerman’s trial is building strong emotions from both sides.
In an effort to get a not guilty verdict, Zimmerman has hired a top-rated legal defense team to argue his case. Trials are expensive and the average person may not be able to afford a team willing to take a case for the fame. If you are charged for a crime, you have to consider the cost for legal defense. Here is what you need to know about how much you can expect to spend on a legal defense team.
Fixed Prices Versus Variable Prices
Not everyone has a group of supporters raising money to pay for their legal defense. Just because Zimmerman has bad credit does not mean that he had to leave his legal defense up to a public defender in Sanford. If you do not have a Legal Defense Fund where people can donate money to your defense costs online, you will need to distinguish between fixed prices and variable prices for legal defense. During your consultation, the defense attorney should be able to quote you a fixed price based on the case details. Experienced attorneys do not charge on a pay as you go basis because they are confident their abilities. The actual fixed price of the attorney depends on the case, and can range anywhere between a $1000 and hundreds of thousands of dollars. O’Mara and West, who are defending Zimmerman, have quoted $1 million for their services in total. While they have not be paid completely by the Zimmerman Defense Fund, this is money that is due to them.
The Cost For Expert Witnesses
Zimmerman’s team introduced several expert witnesses including an animator, a medical examiner, and a self defense expert. All of these witnesses are paid to testify, and the cost is not always included in the initial quote. If your case is complex, there may be a need for an expert witness. When you are pricing the cost of defense, see if this is included. Assume that you will spend about 10% more than quoted so that you can cover all of the outside costs.
Zimmerman may have been unemployed and working as a volunteer neighborhood watch member, but he does have one of the most experienced legal defense teams working for him to get a not guilty verdict. You may not need a million dollars, but legal defense is not cheap. Keep in mind that you get what you pay for when legal defense is concerned.
Insurance
If you must use lethal force, you should be prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars defending yourself. It’s worth looking into self-defense insurance. The USCCA is the only such company that offers up-front expenses and is willing to cover bail.
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Monica Wright Gets Engaged: How Much Ring is Too Much?
It’s love in the land of basketball. If you are a true basketball fan, then you have already heard of the recent engagement of NBA star Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder and the WNBA star Monica Wright of the Minnesota Lynx. These star basketball professionals have known each other for years, according to recent press reports. The newly-engaged couple has not decided on a wedding date yet, but everyone who is in the world of celebrity basketball knows that the Durant-Wright wedding is going to be one of the top 2014 weddings.
Mums the word on a lot of the details, and that may be because Durant and Wright are trying to adjust to a time of engagement and are trying to let the excitement of this season soak in a little before going full force into wedding planning. Certainly, their busy game and workout schedules are going to keep them busy and make it difficult to plan a wedding. An engagement period should be a time of relaxing with your loved one and celebrating with family and friends through engagement parties. Durant and Wright are sure to have an all-star line up at both their nuptial celebration parties and their actual wedding, but before they get to the big plans, can we please talk about that ring on her finger?
No one has written about Monica Wright’s ring, and there are few details about how large it is. But from photos, it looks huge. Monica Wright has gorgeous hands, and that massive diamond looks great on her slender basketball woman hands. However, we have to ask celebrities: How much ring really is way too much? Celebrities have money to spend, but it a culture that promotes materialism while most of the country struggles to pay for food and to just get by, can’t big-time stars like Durant and Wright make the decision to make a different kind of statement. Cannot there be a celebrity out there who chooses a small diamond, or better yet, a simple band for an engagement ring? Cannot celebrities put there money into projects and people who really need that money? Does every engagement ring have to be dripping with expensive diamonds?
No one is doubting that Monica Wright is beautiful and talented. No one is doubting that Kevin Durant and Monica Wright together can use their money to help those in need. But they also can make a difficult decision to have a different kind of celebrity wedding and engagement ring. I personally would like to see positive role models like Kevin Durant and Monica Wright take a stand for those who are in need through the unconventional way they approach their upcoming nuptials. Who says that a beautiful wedding and engagement ring has to be worth millions of dollars? It is time for celebrities to think through these issues before they start writing endless checks for extravagant affairs. Congrats to the couple!
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Homeland: What does it cost to make a hit TV show?
When you are producing your own TV show, you can do whatever you want to cut costs. However, you must realize that making a hit TV show is something that is very expensive to do. You must pay your actors handsomely because they are usually Hollywood A-listers, but your actors are only the beginning of the payroll.
You have a very large staff that works on the show to make sure everything works. If you have ever watched the credits at the end of a TV episode, you know that there are many people working on the show. You must remember that every single person on the credits was paid a salary to work on the episode. You must now imagine looking at your balance sheet and deciding how to pay all these people for each episode.
There are many people who wonder why their TV shows do not look as well produced as others. This is something that is left up solely to money. Homeland has Showtime behind them, and Showtime can afford to pay for the exotic locations and all the effects that are needed. However, there are other shows that have to shoot on a much smaller budget. They use a smaller amount of locations, and they use a smaller amount of effects. This does not hurt the show in all cases, but a lack of money would make a show like Homeland impossible.
When Hollywood was equal parts television and movies, Homeland would have become a movie because of the budget. The budget that is spent on just one episode of this show could be used to make a decent movie. In today’s Hollywood, there are many TV shows that would have been movies 20 or 30 years ago.
When you watch Homeland, you need to remember that there is a ton of money behind every episode. You may not like every episode, but you must remember that the producers and studio paid handsomely to have that episode produced. The money that fuels Hollywood today is off the charts, and we must respect that when every new episode come on the television.
Crack
I guess I’ve been feeling pretty domestic lately. This is the second food post in two weeks. I wonder what that means? It probably means I’m hungry.
If I’m bringing a dessert to a potluck, or I need a dessert for a party, I bring crack. I’m absolutely sure that wasn’t the name on the recipe when I found it, but it’s been renamed by everyone who has ever tried it. I’m sorry, Mr. Potato-Chip-Man, but I can eat just one of those. This stuff needs to be restricted by the government. It’s an addictive, sell-your-first-born-for-another-hit bit of salty-sweet yum. I’m gonna make you fat.
Ingredients
1 cup of salted butter – $2
1 cup of brown sugar – $1
2 packs of saltines (That’s half of a box) – $2
2 bags of chocolate chips – $4
2 handfuls of toffee chips (broken Heath bars) – $1
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cover two cookie sheets in foil. Spread crackers over each sheet in a single layer.
Mix the butter and sugar in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat until it starts looking like caramel, then stir for another minute or two. You still want it kind of runny, so don’t let it get thick.
Spoon the caramel over the crackers. Get some on each cracker. Try to get it even, but don’t worry about it too much. Sloppy is good. Remember, half the caramel for each cookie sheet.
Put the cookie sheets full of crackers and caramel in the oven for 10-15 minutes. The caramel will spread out and flow through and around the crackers. You’ll know it’s done when the caramel starts bubbling evenly.
Pour one bag of chocolate chips over each pan. Try to spread it out evenly, but–again–don’t sweat it.
Go away for 10 minutes.
When you come back, the chocolate will be all melty-good. Spread it evenly with a rubber spatula.
Sprinkle some toffee chips over the chocolate, then put the pans in the freezer to cool and set. It will take at least a couple of hours.
When you pull the pans out, peel off the foil then break it up into snack-sized pieces. Don’t break it up first, or you’ll spend the evening moaning over the candy and crying over the foil hitting your fillings.
Depending on how long you cooked the caramel, it will get soft when it approaches room temperature. I always store it in the refrigerator to avoid that.
When you bring this to a party, always pack it two containers. When the first one is empty, you can auction off the second. You should be able to turn the $10 you spent on ingredients into at least $50 of guilt-ridden goodness.
The Proper Amount of Clothes to Own
I own a dresser full of clothes, plus about a dozen button-down shirts, and 1 suit. On top of that, I own two pairs of winter boots, 2 pairs of everyday black boots, 1 pair of sneakers, and my beloved Vibram 5 Fingers.
I do not own 60 rubbermaid containers full of clothes.
Unfortunately, my mother-in-law did.
This picture is of rubbermaid containers stacked 4x5x3, with around 20 garbage bags full of clothes, hangers, and shoes thrown on top. And a little girl who was asked to pose to provide scale, but decided to run around the pile instead.
We’ve got about 50 bags of garbage waiting for the dumpster to get delivered, and a garage full of enough stuff to hide two cars.
This is how I’ve been spending my weekends. Hopefully, by the end of the coming weekend, we can get a contractor in the house to discuss fixing it up as a rental unit.
Hoarding is a serious problem. As we go through the house and her collected papers, I’m realizing how little I let my mother-in-law’s mental state play into my interactions with her. We had a rough relationship, and I’m only now starting to realize some of the foundations of that. I doubt we would have gotten along, but there would have been less stress if I had been more forgiving.
Until you can get in someone’s head, try to keep forgiveness and compassion in your interactions(barring outright evil). You may be surprised at how your relations unfold.
