- @fcn Yahoo Pipes into GReader. 50 news sites filtered to max 50 items/day–all on topic. in reply to fcn #
- @fcn You can filter on keywords, so only the topics you care about come through. in reply to fcn #
- It's a sad day when you find out that your 3 year old can access anything in the house. Sadder when she maces herself with hairspray. #
- 5 sets of 15 pushups to start my day. Only 85 to go! Last 5 weren't as good as first 5. #30DayProject #
- What happens to your leftover money in your flex-spending account? http://su.pr/9xDs6q #
- Enter to Win iPod Touch from @DoughRoller http://tinyurl.com/y8rpyns #DRiPodTouch #
- Arrrgh! 3 year old covered in nail polish. And clothes. And carpet. And sister. #
- Crap. 5 sets of 5 pushups. #30dayproject #
- Woo! My son just got his first pin in a wrestling meet! #
- RT @Doughroller: Check out this site that gives your free credit report AND score without asking for a cc# or social… http://bit.ly/bRhlMz #
- Breaking news! Penicillin cures syphilis, not debt. https://liverealnow.net/KIzE #
- Win a $25 Amazon GC via @suburbandollar RT + Fllw to enter #sd1Yrgvwy Rules -> http://bit.ly/sd1Yrgvwy2 #
- This won't be coming to our house. RT @FMFblog: Wow! Check out the new Monopoly: http://tinyurl.com/ygf2say #
- @ChristianPF is giving away a Flip UltraHD Camcorder – RT to enter to win… http://su.pr/2ZvBZL #
The Story of Sammy
As I’ve mentioned, we’re cleaning out my mother-in-law’s house. She was a hoarder who passed away a couple of months ago. As of yesterday, we’ve filled two 30-yard dumpsters. For perspective, that’s big enough to park our F150.
I’m not here to talk about that, or the 20 year old can of green beans that burst and ran down my leg on Saturday.
Last month, we put a recliner out on the curb with a free sign. A few minutes later, a couple of guys stopped by and grabbed it.
Last week, one of the guys–I’ll call him Sammy–stopped by and left a note on the windshield of one of our inherited cars, asking about buying it.
Long story short, we sold him two cars. One hadn’t been run in a year or two, and one had been parked for almost 20 years. We signed this titles and let him take the cars while he was still $50 short of the purchase price. This isn’t a story about the cars.
It’s a story about Sammy.
Sammy doesn’t have a lot of money. He’s living off of a monthly check from an old injury, and his fiancee works part-time. They’re living in Section 8 housing, and consistently have more month than money. When he was younger, he made some decisions that make some forms of employment difficult now.
On Friday, Sammy stopped by. He was supposed to give us $50, but said that getting one of the cars running had cost more than expected, and it still had a problem that was keeping it from being safe on the road. He asked about an extension.
No problem.
Then, he looked around my mother-in-law’s overgrown yard and asked if he could help. After we negotiated the price, he asked if he could a) borrow our tools for the work, and b) get a ride Saturday morning.
I am a nice guy.
Saturday, I was planning to pick him up, then drive downtown to pick up a friend who has been living at the Salvation Army since moving to the area. His friend was so excited about the work, he hopped on a bus at 6am and got to Sammy’s house.
When I got there, Sammy also had a teenager he was mentoring. He told me that his dream was to start a lawn-care business with his friend, so they can put kids to work and help them turn into productive citizens. Idle, broke, and bored teenagers are a recipe for disaster. Teenagers who grow into men not believing they have a chance to change their future are worse.
I dropped them off and went to have a chat with my wife.
We’re far from rich but, at the moment, we are fairly flush. We’ve found some cash, and a there is a bit of life insurance money. Most of that will be going into remodeling the house, but we have a bit extra. If we can take a few hundred dollars, and help launch Sammy into a business that will help him, his family, and a circle of kids with few prospects, I think it’s the right thing to do.
When I told Sammy what we were considering, he started to break down. It was a truly emotional experience for him to know that somebody was willing to take a chance on him.
I told him to put together plan. I want to know what it would take for him to get started. Hopefully, he’s serious enough to do that. I’d like to help.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-03
- I miss electricity. #
- @prosperousfool Do you still need a dropbox referral? in reply to prosperousfool #
- @prosperousfool Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTE1Mjk2OTU5 in reply to prosperousfool #
- Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: Electricity is the bee's knees, the wasp's nipples and lots of other insect erogenous zones. #
- @prosperousfool Throw in a Truecrypt partition and the PortableApps launcher and it gets really neat. in reply to prosperousfool #
- @prosperousfool Universal accessibility. I put an encrypted partition on it so any receipts or credit card info or login info would be safe in reply to prosperousfool #
- RT @untemplater: RT @jenny_blake: Deep thought of the day: "How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours." -Wayne Dyer #quote #
- @FARNOOSH So what's happening to the one good show on SOAPNet? in reply to FARNOOSH #
- RT @flexo: RT @mainstr: 1 million Americans have been swindled in an elaborate credit card scam and they may not know http://bit.ly/cr8DNK #
Family Bed: How to Make It Stop
baby on the cheek.” width=”300″ height=”199″ />For years, my kids shared my bed.
When my oldest was a baby, I was working a graveyard shift, so my wife was alone with the baby at night. It was easy to keep a couple of bottles in a cooler by the bed and not have to get out of bed to take care of him when he woke up once an hour to drink a full bottle.
Then he got older. And bigger. And bigger.
We tried to move him to his own bed a few times, but it never worked well. He’d scream if we put him in a crib, so we got him a bed at 9 months old. That just meant he was free to join us whenever he woke up. Brat.
We finally got him to voluntarily move to his own bed after his sister was born. Shortly after she was born, I woke up to see him using her as a pillow. To paint the proper picture, this kid is 5’9″ and wears size 12 shoes. At 11. When I woke him up to tell him what he was doing, he decided to sleep in his own bed.
Method #1 to get your kids in their own bed: Have kid 1 try to crush kid 2 and feel bad about it.
Method #1 isn’t a great solution.
Soon, baby #3 showed up and we had 2 monsters in bed with us again. Once they started getting bigger, it became difficult for the 4 of us to sleep. We tried to get them into their own beds. Unfortunately, even as toddlers, my kids had a stubborn streak almost as big as my own. Nothing worked.
Eventually, they got big enough that I was crowded right out of the bed. At least we had a comfortable couch.
Sleeping on a couch gets old.
When the girls got old enough to reason with, we had a choice: We either had to find a way to convince them they wanted to sleep in their own room, or we had to have a fourth brat for them to attempt to crush at night.
We went with bribery. Outright, blatant bribery.
We put a chart on the wall with each of their names and 7 boxes. Every night they slept in their own beds, they got to check a box. When all of the boxes were checked, they got $5 and a trip to the toy store.
It took 10 days to empty our bed and it’s been peaceful sleeping since. That’s $5 well-spent.
Have you done a family bed? How did it work? How long did it last?
A Perfectly Maid Home
Last night, I got home after a 13 hour day at the office and found a spotlessly clean house. The laundry was folded. The dishes were done, and everything was put away.
It was great.
I work 80 hours a week, 90 if you count commuting time.
That’s about 50 hours at my day job, 10-15 hours working on this site, and 20-30 hours working on my other side hustles. Some weeks, my volunteer geek skills get put to use for a local non-profit, too.
My wife works at least 40 hours every week.
We chase our kids around, plan or birthday parties, visit family, take care of the yard, and do everything else that every other family does.
The difference is that, if I take work in all of its forms out of the equation and give myself permission to get a full night’s sleep every night, I have a total of 20-30 hours per week to eat, socialize, and spend time with my family. That not a lot.
I hate cleaning.
Between my work schedule and my cleaning aversion, I’m not always a lot of help around the house.
Half of my work time is spent at home. It’s hardly fair to expect my wife to clean up after me.
This has been a huge point of contention between us. She sees me on the computer and gets frustrated when I’m not helping her clean up. I get frustrated because I’m trying to make us some extra money, but she’s complaining that I’m not cleaning.
About a month ago, we hired a housekeeper. She comes every other week for a few hours and does a phenomenal job cleaning our house. We pay her about $150 per month for the work.
It’s been great.
My wife is happy because the house is clean. I’m happy because the complaining has stopped. Our housekeeper is happy because it’s more money. It’s a win/win/win scenario.
Now, $150 is a decent amount to add to our debt snowball, but paying for the cleaning services facilitates my side hustles, which bring in quite a bit more than $150 per month, so it’s even a good idea financially.
Even if it’s not, the peace of mind of knowing that I didn’t have to fold all of the laundry that was waiting for me yesterday makes it worthwhile.
How about you? Would you consider hiring a maid? Why?
The Obligatory Thanksgiving Post
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is also Thursday, and I don’t post on Thursdays, so I’ll be posting about Thanksgiving today.
Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful for–first and foremost–capitalism.
When the Pilgrims first landed, they set up a communal farming arrangement, figuring that a good Christian community could take care of its own. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, and all that. Everyone worked for the good of everyone else, so everyone benefited, right?
The Pilgrims, like every other group that has ever advocated communism, neglected to consider human nature. If you have no incentive to work, you don’t. If sleeping in and making babies still gets you fed and clothed, why work?
On the other side, if you work hard, only to see your hard work go to benefit your lazy neighbor, sleeping in and rattling the headboard, but never doing anything productive, why bother?
It didn’t take long for the Pilgrims to notice this tragedy of government wasn’t working.
The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails and cloaths, then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter the other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, etc., with the meaner and yonger sorte, thought it some indignite and disrespect unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, etc., they deemd it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well brooke it. Upon the poynte all being to have alike, and all to doe alike, they thought them selves in the like condition, and ove as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those relations that God hath set amongest men, yet it did at least much diminish and take of the mutuall respects that should be preserved amongst them.
It didn’t take long before nobody was working. Neighbors resented each other, because everyone had a right to the work of the other, with no need to compensate each other. That’s a case of “I’m starving because you aren’t working hard enough, but it’s not my fault you’re starving.”
At one point, the production of the colony was down so much that the colonists’ ration of corn was just 4 kernels per day. That’s how you kill a colony.
But they learned from their mistakes before they all died.
Yet notwithstanding all those reasons, which were not mine, but other mens wiser then my selfe, without answer to any one of them, here cometh over many quirimonies, and complaints against me, of lording it over my brethern, and making conditions fitter for theeves and bondslaves then honest men, and that of my owne head I did what I list. And at last a paper of reasons, framed against that clause in the conditions, which as they were delivered me open, so my answer is open to you all. And first, as they are no other but inconvenientes, such as a man might frame 20. as great on the other side, and yet prove nor disprove nothing by them, so they misse and mistake both the very ground of the article and nature of the project. For, first, it is said, that if ther had been no divission of houses and Lands, it had been better for the poore. True, and that showeth the inequalitie of the condition; we should more respecte him that ventureth both his money and his person, then him that ventureth but his person only.
The slavery of working for the benefit of others didn’t work, unless you were “theeves and bondslaves”. Then, it was great, living off of the sweat of others.
To make a long story short, the starvation ended when the Pilgrims were given parcels of land and told they could keep what they built from it. They went from the edge of extinction to being prosperous in a short time. The old and weak were cared for, not by the governor’s decree, but by the generosity of their neighbors.
Everybody in the colony won.
