Am I the only one who just noticed that it’s Wednesday? The holiday week with the free day is completely screwing me up.
Just to make this a relevant post:
Spend less!
Save more!
Invest!
Wee!
Playing For Blood
Kris at Every Tips and Thoughts wrote a post about games and letting her kids win feeling bad about winning. I disagree. This post is an expansion of my comment there.
When we play games in my house, we play for blood. I’ve never let my kids win and they know it. From the first time the kids attempt Memory, they know they’ve got to earn a win against Mom and Dad. They know if they lose, they must do so gracefully. If they pout or cry, they lose game privileges for a while. I demand good sportsmanship, win or lose.
To be clear, my kids are 3, 4, and 11 and they are all held to the same standards of sportsmanship. Win or lose, they will do so gracefully. There will be no temper tantrums when they are Sorry’d and no pouting when the Queen is captured.
It took my son almost 3 years to beat me at chess. When it finally happened, he was almost as proud as I was and still talks about it 5 years later.
It’s not much fun playing games with his friends. They were coddled and expect to win everything. I have to take away game privileges just like I do for my 3 year old. They hate that because we have the coolest board games. Nobody else has games that involve zombies or disembodied brains.
What has the result been?
My kids love playing games. This week, my oldest has been teaching his sisters how to play Life. When he visits his friends, he’s as likely to bring a board game as an electronic game. He’s got a good mind for strategy, and I can’t remember the last time he pouted when I tromped him.
My 4 year old hasn’t mastered gamesmanship yet, but she will. When I threaten to put the game away, she wipes her eyes, and keeps playing, even if her jaw is chattering. She knows what is expected and works to live up to it.
Both of the older kids are competitive. They’ve never had a win handed to them, and they have each had wins they had to work for, and they know how it feels to win and earn it.
The youngest doesn’t care if she wins, she’s just happy to play. In my experience, the competitive gameplay gene doesn’t activate until 4.
In my mind, the real world won’t hand them any wins, so I might as well start teaching them how to work for it now.
How about you? Do you let your kids win, or do you teach them that all games are bloodsports?
Lou Reed’s Influence – More Artistic than Financial
On October 27th, 2013, Lou Reed passed away in his Long Island home at the age of 71. A rock and roll pioneer who shaped the American pop culture landscape, Reed was known for his work with both The Velvet
Underground and his solo work. His biggest hit as a solo artist was 1972’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” hailed as a classic by critics and industry veterans.
Reed’s achievements as an artist had less to do with financial or commercial triumphs and far more to do with daring and trailblazing artistry. His most recent work was New Age ambient music, a grand departure from his earlier rock sound. His New Age meditation album, “Hudson River Wind Meditations,” was overlooked by critics but popular with fans of the genre. His final album was 2011’s “Lulu,” a progressive collaborative effort with Metallica. The album was comprised mostly of spoken word.
Reed could have continued to find commercial success and grow his brand and wallet had he continued to create the rock and roll sound that many of his fans desired. However, Reed was nothing if not a rebel, unwilling to bend to the requests of even his most die-hard fans. Ultimately, his passion was to create the sound that he wanted to create – not the sound that others wished he would create.
The lesson that we can all take from the life of Lou Reed is a simple one: While making decisions based on financial and professional factors is undoubtedly important, there is certainly something to be said for throwing caution to the wind and finding one’s bliss. While we all might not be able to eschew doing what we need to do in favor of what we want to do, we could all stand to take some time to do what makes us truly happy and find our bliss. Reed is nothing if not an inspiration for chasing your passion no matter what your critics say.
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Don’t Be A Dick
Integrity is what you do when nobody is looking.
Do you cheat at solitaire, steal from an untended garage sale, or keep something a store forgets to charge you for? If so, integrity may not be your strongest trait.
Similarly, if you let the actions of others dictate your behavior, you may be integrity impaired.
If you get cut off in traffic, do suddenly feel justified in cutting off the next guy?
If you have a dollar stolen from your desk, does that make it okay to take a candy bar from the honor-system candy box?
If the last guy left the water cooler empty, are you going to refuse to refill it the next time you are the one to drink the last drop?
If you’re answering yes to these questions, it may be time to examine your moral code. Doing the right thing means doing the right thing all of the time. You can’t be an honorable person if you resort to dishonorable behavior whenever you dislike what someone else does, especially if your actions are hurting an entirely uninvolved 3rd party.
You know the proper behavior. You know what the ethical choice is. The fact that someone else made an unethical choice doesn’t give you a license to be a dick.
If it’s your turn to clean the community refrigerator, do it and do it well, even if the last guy did a poor job.
If the last mom driving the car pool showed up late, don’t deliberately forget her kid.
If someone forgot to pay at a group lunch and you covered it, that doesn’t mean you can skip out on the bill next time.
Even if everything else is taken from you, no one can ever steal your ethics, your integrity, or your honor. Those things are up to you to destroy, and they nearly impossible to replace.
In all cases, in all things, do the right thing. You won’t be sorry.
Resurrected from the archives.
Link Roundup
In an effort to make sure that both of my readers can’t possibly miss the things I think are important, I’m going to start doing a weekly roundup of the best of the internet. Judged solely, and arbitrarily, by me.
On topic:
These, naturally, are the posts that fit the theme of this site.
How To Check Your Federal IRS Tax Refund Status. When I checked a couple of days ago, they were about 2 weeks out.
TurboTax has screwed up the property tax refund form for Minnesota. Thankfully, I haven’t filed this, yet, but I did verify the problem.
Where do you want to be in 5 years? Start taking those steps, now, or you will never get there. Find something, no matter how small, and do it.
Deficit Neutrality doesn’t count, if a massive initial purchase is offset by future intentions to cut spending.
Off topic:
This is just some of the random crap I think is worth sharing.
If you’re going to argue on the internet, make sure you have your sources right. Primary sources are better than secondary.
Bring back dueling to ensure good manners.
Here’s a guide to saving water-damaged books.
I am a shameless geek and reformed DnD player, so this room was exciting to see.
Annual Fees: Scam or Service?
Annual fees. For a lot of people, this is the worst possible thing about a credit card. That’s understandable, since paying interest is voluntary. If you don’t want to pay it, you just need to pay off your balance within the grace period. Annual fees, on the other hand, get paid, whether you want to or not, if the are a part of your credit card.
When I was 18, I applied for a credit card that raised an undying hatred of Providian in my heart. I was dumb and didn’t read the agreement before applying. When I got the card, I read the paperwork and nearly made a mess of myself. It had a $200 activation fee, a $100 annual fee, a $500 limit, a 24% interest rate, no grace period, and a anthropomorphic contempt for all things financially responsible.
Yes, you read that right. The day you activate the card, you are 3/5 maxed and accruing interest at rates that would make a loan shark blush like my grandma is a strip club. Instead of activating, I cancelled the card and ran away crying. It was a mistake but didn’t cost me anything.
In exchange for all of that, I got…nothing. The card offered no services of any kind in exchange for the annual fee.
On the other hand, I have a card with an annual fee right now. It’s $59 per year, but it offers value in exchange.
This card’s basic offering is a 2% travel rewards plan. With most of our spending on this card, we’ve managed to accumulate $400 of rewards, so far, counting the 25,000 bonus miles for signing up.
In addition, it offers 24 hour travel and roadside assistance. The roadside assistance itself will pay for the fee, because I think I’ll be canceling my AAA account after 16 years. The card’s plan isn’t as nice, but I haven’t been using the AAA emergency services for the past few years, anyway.
It extends the warranty on anything I buy. It includes car rental insurance and concierge service. Concierge service is sweet. Need reservations for dinner? Call the card. Need a tub of nacho cheese? Call the card. Need a pizza? Well, call Zappos.com.
All in all, the card is paying for itself a couple of different ways, so in this case, the annual fee is definitely worth it. I guess there’s a serious difference between Capital One Venture and Providan Screwyou.
How do you feel about annual fees? Love ’em, hate ’em, have a card with one?
