- Happy Independence Day! Be thankful for what you've been given by those who have gone before! #
- Waiting for fireworks with the brats. Excitement is high. #
- @PhilVillarreal Amazing. I'm really Cringer. That makes me feel creepy. in reply to PhilVillarreal #
- Built a public life-maintenance calendar in GCal. https://liverealnow.net/y7ph #
- @ericabiz makes webinars fun! Even if her house didn't collapse in the middle of it. #
- BOFH + idiot = bad combination #
Zombie Wheels: How to Own a Car That Just Won’t Die
The average car dies somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 miles. My car is coming up on the lower end of that range and I’d like to see it last a lot longer than the top end. I paid the thing off in January, and I’ve grown fond of not having a car payment. Extending the useful life of your car–and continuing to use it–means fewer car payments and cheap auto insurance premiums.
Who really wants to keep making car payments month after month, year after year? I want my car to outlast me. Scratch that. If that wish come true, I’ll have a meteor fall on me the day before the transmission explodes.
How can you help your car continue past undeath, past the point when other cars have given up and accepted the True Death?
Keep Your Gas Tank Full
Here in the frozen north(though not as frozen or as north as some of you), it’s conventional wisdom to keep your gas tank full in the winter to prevent your fuel lines from freezing. Did you know you should keep it full the rest of the year, too? An empty tank is more likely to rust. Even before the rust eats a hole through the tank, there are tiny flakes of rust drifting into the gas lines and clogging the fuel system.
Change Your Oil
When you run old oil, you’re leaving contaminants and little flakes of metal flowing through all of the important moving bits of your engine. Changing your oil removes those tiny abrasive bits from the equation. I don’t recommend buying into the propaganda put out by the oil-change stores and changing it every 3000 miles, but do it regularly. I aim for about every 5000 miles, but a better recommendation is to do whatever your owner’s manual says.
In between changes, don’t forget to check your oil level and top it off when it’s needed. All by itself, that will improve your fuel efficiency and keep your car running happy.
Consistently keeping up with just these two small things will keep your car running smoothly for a long time.
How many miles are on your car? How long do you plan to keep it?
Stand Up For Yourself
Monday night, my son was struggling to get all of his homework done before bed. He had a 6 page packet of work from his advanced math class that he was supposed to have done over the weekend.
When I asked him why he hadn’t done it, he told me he forgot about it.
I wasn’t happy.
We’ve had a lot of conversations about responsibility and planning over the years. He knows better.
Cue Dad Lecture #26.
Towards the end, when I’m building up this rocking crescendo about how what he does now will affect him for the rest of his life, I stopped.
“Buddy, weren’t you sick on Friday?”
He didn’t get his weekend homework until Monday. Of course he didn’t do it over the weekend.
Dad Lecture #26 immediately transitioned to Ad Hoc Lecture #4, titled “Why did you let me chew you out for something you didn’t do?”
I’ve always tried to raise my kids to be independent. I’ve never stifled asking questions, and I am willing to explain my decisions to them, even if they don’t stand a chance of winning the appeal. As frustrating as independent, strong-willed children can be, I know it will serve them well as adults.
Now I’m trying to figure out why that fell apart on Monday. I wasn’t yelling at him and he doesn’t think I was. Sometimes, the perception of who’s yelling differs depending on which side of my loud voice you are on.
He doesn’t know why he sat back at took the lecture instead of explaining what happened. He apparently forgot that he was given that homework just a few hours before.
My question to all of you is how can I make my kid behave and obey when necessary, but still have enough backbone to stand up for himself when he’s not wrong? And know when each is necessary.
Thug-cenomics
Recently, a friend of mine told me about a friend of his who was attacked by a flash mob. This was a negative flash mob, not the fun kind.
She was walking down the street with her phone in her hand when around a dozen thugs surrounded her, knocked her down, and stole her phone before running off.
With me being the person I am with the hobbies and side-hustles I have, certain things came to mind.
- This is why standard capacity magazines should never be outlawed. Sometimes, a six-shot revolver just isn’t enough.
- Before anyone complains about #1, when you are beaten to the ground by a pack of violent thugs, the length of your life is up to them, not you. They are the problem.
- Walking down the street while talking on your cell phone is not the best way to stay aware of your surroundings. Would she have been able to get away if she had been paying more attention to the thugs on the corner than her conversation? I have no idea, but it’s certain that talking on a cell phone is a distraction.
- Walking down the street with an expensive gadget in your hand is asking for trouble.
- What were these thugs thinking? Even a $500 cell phone turns into a $50 mp3 player the moment the victim gets to a real phone to call the cell phone company. That’s a generous $50 payout. With 12 people, that’s means everyone gets $4.10 as their share. The federal poverty level is just under $12,000 per year, which means they would have to do this 8 times a day, just to get to barely enough money to survive.
In Minnesota, this is, at a minimum, 3rd degree assault, which carries a possible 5 year sentence and $10,000 fine. That’s 8 public attempts to throw away 5 years of their lives, every day. How can they consider this a good risk.
It was pointed out to me that this thuggery is probably made possible by direct government sponsorship, in the form of welfare checks, so this is probably just a way to pass the time. Somebody should tell those brutes that welfare checks stop when you’re in prison.
So I’m considering launching a basic economics class for thugs and street rats. I want to teach them how to do a risk assessment by comparing the level of loot to the possible outcomes of getting caught.
Possible test questions include:
- I could stab that guy for the $10 in his wallet, but if I get caught, I’m facing 40 years in prison. Should I do it?
- My flash mob makes $50 per phone we steal from defenseless women. Would my buddies rat me out to avoid 5 years of hard time, and do I consider that worth $4?
- Meth makes the faces of my customers dissolve from the inside before killing them. Is it possible to build a sustainable business based on slowly killing my customers? What marketing skills do I need to develop to replace the natural attrition of poisoning my customers?
- Meth labs explode. Is it better to hire my own junkies, or should I outsource that risk and take a smaller profit margin?
- This is a shall issue carry permit state. There are nearly 100,000 carry permit holders here. That’s 1.87% of the total population and 2.6% of the adult population. Statistically, how many people can my friends and I jump before getting justifiably shot? Is that number times the $4 profit considered a good return on investment? What would the ROI have to be to make this a worthwhile career choice?
Anybody know any violent thugs willing to beta test my new class offering?
Can I Sell My Lottery Payments for a Lump Sum?
This is a guest post.
Winning the lottery is everyone’s dream. You hit the lotto, cash in your ticket and kiss all your troubles goodbye, right? Actually, that might not be true. Just look at the number of lottery winners who’ve ended up worse off than they were before they hit it big. There are several problems here. One problem is that people often spend their money unwisely, without learning how to manage it properly. Lottery annuity payments were designed to help with this. However, those annuity payments might not actually be enough to make a significant difference in your life. If that’s the case, you might be wondering if you can sell your payments for a lump sum. The answer is, yes, you can. But there’s a catch. Actually, there are a couple of catches.
Buyers Matter
First, let’s talk about buyers. They’re the ones who’ll be paying you a lump sum for your lottery payments. Now, you can’t expect a buyer to offer the full amount you’re owed from the lottery, but you should be able to expect a significant percentage of the winnings. That’s not the case with many buyers. They recognize your desperation and have no qualms about taking advantage of your situation. That’s not true for all buyers, though. You need to recognize qualified buyers from those better left alone. Obviously, that’s tough to do on your own. Most people have never been in the position of having to sell lottery payments before, and it’s easy to get lost in a world with which you’re not familiar.
Sell Only Part of It
Another important consideration is whether you need to sell all of your lottery winnings or only a percentage of them. You can easily sell just a specific portion of your winnings, enough to cover your immediate needs, and retain the remainder as regular ongoing payments. This ensures that you have the money you need right now, as well as a financial cushion for the future.
Work with a Go-Between
The ideal solution to your quandary is to work with a firm that acts as a go-between. The company will vet and investigate buyers, ensuring that you only have the cream of the crop to choose from. Not only that, but working with a reputable firm will also ensure that you get the highest percentage possible of your winnings, rather than leaving you with a mere pittance.
Of course, not all such firms are the same, and you need to recognize a reputable company. Look for a firm that’s been in business for a number of years – one with an established reputation and a list of satisfied clients. Second, make sure the company doesn’t work for the buyers – the firm should work for you, the seller. This ensures there’s no conflict of interest. A company that works on behalf of the buyer has no incentive to go above and beyond to ensure you get a fair deal. One that works for you certainly does.
Book Review: Turning Pro
I’ve got a big to-read pile. It’s got approximately 200 physical books and 400 ebooks on it.
I may have a problem.
I’ve also been going through a massive decluttering/organizing phase. It must be a phase because I’ve never been so dedicated to cleaning out my stuff before.
The combination is interesting for me. I can’t throw out the books because they’re books. Books aren’t for the garbage, they are for reading, savoring, sharing. Gotta read ’em.
Since I want to organize and declutter, the books need to be read before they can be moved to my “already read this” bookshelves with their 2500 new brothers and sisters.
Did I mention I may have a problem?
My solution is simple. I put a book I’ve been meaning to read in my upstairs reading room. I put another book I’ve been meaning to read in my downstairs reading room. Depending on where I am when the…err…need to read comes upon me, I’ve got a book that isn’t my current fiction read ready to go. I just have to make sure the book doesn’t fall into the sink. (If you’re slow, this means my reading rooms are what other people call bathrooms.) Other people bring their smartphones into the reading room, but I’m trying to better myself. Facebook isn’t going to do that for me. And yes, this means I’m currently reading 4 books at once. (Reading room #1, reading room #2, kindle[fiction], kindle[non-fiction])
The first book in the series is Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield.
Hated it.
That was easy.
Now, I like Pressfield’s fiction. Gates of Fire was one of the coolest takes on one the most bad-ass battles in recorded history. It’s good.
I’m not a fan of his non-fiction, though. Turning Pro is all about how to “Tap your inner power and create your life’s work.” Wonderful! I want that.
The problem is that he forgot to include that part. The entire book can be summarized as “Drop everything and make your work happen. You can do it! (cue hippie-woo-feelings). If you don’t succeed, it’s your fault. Go flip a burger.” It’s all true enough, but hardly worthy of the time spent writing a book. I’m glad I got it free.
Read Gates of Fire instead.
