- RT @moneycrush: Ooo, ING is offering a $100 bonus for opening a business savings account with code BSA324. Guess what I’ll be opening… #
- My kids have pinkeye and are willing to share, if anyone is interested. #
- RT @bitterwallet: If you haven’t yet, pop over to http://enemiesofreason.co.uk/ to see how @antonvowl dealt with lousy content thieves. #
- RT @zen_habits: Excellent: No One Knows What the F*** They’re Doing http://bit.ly/9fsZim #
- @bargainr RE:Hypocrites. No, they aren’t. They have paid for those services, even if unwillingly. in reply to bargainr #
- RT @PhilVillarreal: If vegetables tasted good, there would be no such thing as salad dressing. #
- RT @The_Weakonomist: w00t RT @BreakingNews: Obama announces $8 billion in loan guarantees to build first U.S. nuclear plant in three decades #
- @SuburbanDollar CutePDF. PDF export as a printer. in reply to SuburbanDollar #
- RT @bargainr: There are stocks that have paid out dividends consistently for 50+ years… they’re Dividend Champions http://bit.ly/cSYXrY #
- “Four M&M’s if I poop” Economics lessons from a toddler. http://su.pr/2akWF9 #
- @The_Weakonomist Is seaweed a meat, now? in reply to The_Weakonomist #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-05
- Working on my day off and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. #
- Sushi-coma time. #
- To all the vets who have given their lives to make our way of life possible: Thank you. #
- RT @jeffrosecfp: While you're grilling out tomorrow, REMEMBER what the day is really for http://bit.ly/abE4ms #neverforget #
- Once again, taps and guns keep me from staying dry-eyed. #
- RT @bargainr: Live in an urban area & still use a Back Porch Compost Tumbler to fertilize your garden (via @diyNatural) http://bit.ly/9sQFCC #
- RT @Matt_SF: RT @thegoodhuman President Obama quietly lifted a brief ban on drilling in shallow water last week. http://bit.ly/caDELy #
- Thundercats is coming back! #
- In real life, vampires only sparkle when they are on fire. -Larry Correia #
- Wife found a kitten abandoned in a taped-shut box. Welcome Cat #5 #
Disclosure
I’m not terribly commercial, but I do enjoy making money.
As such, it is safe to assume that any company, entity, corporation, person, place, thing, or other that has a product, service, post, or link has in some way compensated me for said product, service, post or link. That compensation–direct or indirect–may be in the form of money, swag, free trips, gold bullion, smurf collectibles, super-models, or just warm-fuzzies. That list is NOT in order of preferred method of compensation.
To reiterate: If it’s commercial, and it’s here, I’m probably being paid for it.
A Well-Trained Husband
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I am so well-trained.
I was more than a bit wild when I was younger. For the most part, that ended when my son was born. When you procreate, it’s time to put the wild on a shelf and become a reliable provider. That’s just the way it is. Anybody who prioritizes the wild over the progeny needs to be forcibly sterilized and exiled before be sold for parts.
When my mother-in-law got a membership to Sam’s Club, she gave my wife the second card, so we effectively have a membership. For those who don’t know, Sam’s Club is a warehouse store that has some incredibly good deals and a lot of things that look like good deals because you are buying in bulk.
The thing I hate most about warehouse stores is the default accusation of theft when you leave. They require you to line up so the the person by the door can look at your receipt and pretend to count what’s in your cart while they are really scanning for the most-stolen items in the store and ignoring the rest. The only thing they really accomplish is making all of their customer feel like thieves.
I used to bypass the line and the checker and just leave. My wife got sick of the indignant screeches coming from the store as we left. Eventually she got me to stop.
Last night, I went back to pick up supplies for a fund-raiser I’m helping to organize on Sunday. I went with one of the other organizers, who had some personal shopping to do later. We checked out using his account and he paid, while I took the food home to keep until Sunday. Since he’ll be getting reimbursed for the food, he kept the receipt while I headed for the door. Anybody see the problem here?
When the receipt-checker challenged me, I docilely stepped to the side and called my friend to bring the receipt to the door. I hate the feeling of submitting to authority, especially when the authority is pretending to be customer service. I just calmly did what the door-cop told me, just like my wife wanted, even though she wasn’t there.
I hate warehouse stores.
Crying is for Winners
Have you ever seen a kid come off a wrestling mat, crying his eyes out because he lost?
Often, that kid will get told to be tough and stop crying.
That’s wrong.
I’m not opposed to teaching kids not to cry under most circumstances, but just after an intense competition, I love it. It’s the best possible sign that the kids was pouring his soul into winning. It means he was trying with everything he had.
It means he is–or will be–a winner.
When a kid, particularly a boy in a tough sport, is crying, you know he’s going to try harder and do better next time.
For all of the “tough guy” ability it takes to succeed as a wrestler, I’ve never seen another wrestler teasing the crier. They’ve all been there. Wrestling is a team sport, but you win or lose a match on your own. When you step out in front of hundreds of people and spend 3 to 6 minutes giving every ounce of everything you have to give, only to find it’s not good enough, you’ll often find you don’t have the final reserve necessary to control your emotions.
This is different than a kid crying because he lost a game, just because he lost. Some kids feel entitled to win anything they do, regardless of the effort they put it. That’s also wrong.
Crying at a loss is okay after putting in maximum effort and full energy, not because the dice went the wrong way.
Mariano Rivera: Rags to MLB Riches
Mariano Rivera is the most dominant closer in the history of baseball. His cut fastball, or cutter, is considered by many to be the best pitch in the history of the game. He is the all-time saves leader, and he has five World Series rings that he can wear. Of course, he has made millions of dollars over his professional career, which has brought him a long way from his humble roots as the son of a Panamanian fisherman.
Rivera’s journey began in Panama City. He was born on November 29, 1969. His father was a fisherman in the small fishing village of Puerto Caimito. Like almost every boy in Latin America, his earliest athletic experiences were playing soccer. However, he also played baseball as well. The area was so poor that not many people actually owned baseball gloves, bats or balls.
Instead, Rivera and his friends would play games with tree branches for bats. They used milk cartons instead of gloves, and they taped together pieces of old fishing nets to use as balls. Rivera didn’t have his first real leather baseball glove until his dad bought him one at the age of 12.
Rivera liked baseball, but he never thought he would one day make a living at it. Instead, he dreamed of playing soccer professionally like most Latinos. However, he suffered a series of ankle injuries during high school that shattered this dream. He finished school at age 16 and began working on his father’s fishing boat. He had to abandon ship when the boat capsized, and that scared him away from fishing forever.
Soon after that, Rivera started playing on a local amateur baseball team, Panama Oeste. He was the team’s shortstop, and he only started pitching because the team’s normal pitcher was in a slump. His teammates were so impressed with his pitching skills that they convinced the Panama scout for the New York Yankees to give him a tryout. Rivera went to Panama City for a Yankees tryout camp, and the Yankees signed the man who would become one of the greatest players of all-time to a contract worth just $3,000.
When Rivera came to the United States, he did not speak English and was incredibly homesick. Puerto Caimito did not have telephone service at that time, which meant Rivera could only communicate to his family back home by writing long letters.
Rivera made steady progress through the minor leagues, but it was still five years before he was called up to the big leagues. His first few years in the major leagues, Rivera made the minimum salary of $750,000. This is a small figure by American standards, but it is more money than most people in Panama can dream of.
Rivera still goes back to Panama every year. He feels it is a home and that he is a part of it. His riches have never transformed him into a diva. He is one of the most down-to-earth and genuinely friendly players in the game.
