- Time to steal my son’s Wii. RT @fcn: Dang, watch Hulu on your Wii… http://bit.ly/9c0U8F #
- RT @FrugalDad: 29 Semi-Productive Things I Do Online When I’m Trying to Avoid Real Work: http://bit.ly/a4mcEI via @marcandangel #
- With marriage, if winning is your goal you will always lose. via @ChristianPF http://su.pr/2luvrz #
- RT @hughdeburgh: “There is no worse death than a life spent in fear of pursuing what you love.” ~ from http://FamiliesWithoutLimits.com #
- @chrisguillebeau The continental US can be done in 6 days on a motorcycle, but it’s not much of a visit. in reply to chrisguillebeau #
- Ugh. Google’s a twitter competitor now. #
- Took this morning off. Just did 45 pushups in 1 set/135 total. #30DatProject #
- RT @Moneymonk: To solve the traffic problems of this country is to pass a law that only paid-4 cars be allowed to use the highways. W Rogers #
- RT @SimpleMarriage Valentine’s Week of Giveaways: A Private Affair http://ow.ly/1oolpT #
- Your baseless fears do not trump my inalienable rights. — Roberta X http://su.pr/2qBR3P #
- RT @WellHeeledBlog: Couple married for 86 years(!!) will give love advice via Twitter on Valentine’s day: http://tinyurl.com/ybuqqtu #bp Wow #
- 193 pushups today, including1 set of 60. Well on my way to a set of 100. #30DayProject #
- @prosperousfool Linksys makes wireless repeater to extend the range of a router. in reply to prosperousfool #
- RT @MyLifeROI: Is anyone else unimpressed with Google Buzz? #
Friends and Acquaintances
“Friends help you move. Good friends help you move bodies.”
-unknown
Some people have dozens of friends. I’m not that guy.
I have 6.
Everybody in the world can be divided into 4 categories.
- Strangers. A xenophobe’s nightmare. These are the people you don’t know, whether they are passing you on the sidewalk, or newborns on the opposite side of the world.
- Acquaintances. These are the people you’ve met, mostly in passing. They tend not to have much effect on your life. You may pass a friendly bus ride in conversation, but it’s nothing that sticks. A waitress, the clerk at the store, a friend’s latest date; these are the people you interact with for just a moment and rarely think about further.
- Friendlies. Most people call these folks friends. I don’t. I’m friendly with them, hence the name, but it’s not true friendship. Often, they are either my wife’s friends, or my friends’ wives. Sometimes, they are a friend of a friend that I only see at parties, or a coworker that I get along with, but never see outside of work. We’re friendly, but not obliged. I may help with some things, but it’s not necessarily a priority. I’ll go to a funeral, but probably won’t help plan it.
- Friends. To me, calling someone a friend is a big deal. I’m willing to do a lot for my friends. They are able to command large amounts of my time, and ask any number of favors. If needed, I’ll open my home or help demolish their’s. Loyalty, honesty, trust, respect, and companionship are all a part of my definition of a friend. If a friend needs help, I’ll come running. In return, I expect the same.
Family tends to fall into the same analogous categories.
It sounds cold, but I hesitate to let people graduate into the final category. My wife used to try to “set me up” with people that she thought I’d like to be friends with, thinking I was sad to have so few friends. It took years for her to realize that I was happy. It’s a matter of quality over quantity. Most of the friends I have, I’ve had for 10 years or more. I’ve known each of them for at least 5 years, not that time is a requirement.
Moving people into the “friends” category is a lot like dating. You get along, so you invite the potential friends out for a drink, one on one. You feel them out to see if they are compatible. You meet their families, share some food, build some history. If it all works out, eventually, you consider them a true friend, even if you couldn’t mark the date of the transition.
You wouldn’t marry everyone you date, so why would turn everyone you basically get along with into a friend?
Do you have a lot of friends? What marks friendship for you?
Sunday Roundup
My girls have been riding in horse shows lately. Sometimes, it seems like that’s all we’ve been doing on the weekends, but they love it. My wife’s favorite hobby now matches my daughters’ favorite pastime. As a bonus, we’ll never have to paint their room again, with the way they are accumulating ribbons.
Best Posts
It is possible to be entirely too connected.
My life is now complete. It’s possible to buy 95 pounds of cereal marshmallows for just $399. Breakfast at my house just got perfect.
I wholeheartedly agree with Tam, “You don’t need to make any excuses for crashing things into each other at the speed of light in an underground tunnel longer than Manhattan that’s had the air pumped out and been chilled to a couple degrees above absolute zero. That doesn’t need a reason. “
Carnivals I’ve Rocked
Credit Cards: My Failed Experiment was included in the Best of Money Carnival, the Carnival of Wealth, and the Totally Money Blog Carnival.
My niche site article on how to Make Extra Money with Keyword Research was included in the Totally Money Blog Carnival.
Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.
Resolving Legal Disputes
Dispute resolution has to do with the impartial rectification of conflict between individuals or parties. More specifically it is the utilization and execution of methods that are designed to resolve conflicts. In a case in which there is a dispute between people or groups, often times a third, neutral, party is selected to be an impartial representative for the disputing persons. Although dispute resolution can refer to resolutions both in and out of the court, it mainly applies to disputes that are settled outside of the legal framework of the judicial system.
Two of the most common types of dispute resolution are known as adjudicative and consensual. While adjudicative resolution requires a third party to mediate the outcome, such as a judge or jury, and usually involves some form of litigation, consensual resolution is the attempt to solve the issue between the two disputing parties without involving a third party, although at times a neutral arbitrator will be selected to preside over the case, though they will often be there not so much for authoritative purposes but more as a council to keep things fair. There is also a third upcoming type of dispute resolution, online dispute resolution, or ODR, which has become more popular in recent years with the rise of the internet’s prominence in daily life, but it is mainly the application of traditional consensual resolution practices, only adapted to the online environment.
Many disputes can be solved simply through adherence to the law, however, sometimes issues arise that the legal structure isn’t equipped to handle, and so a third party is chosen to resolve the conflict. These types of conflict fall within the jurisdiction of the law and so will be relegated to the political system for arbitration. Judicial resolutions are conflicts that will be, hopefully, settled by the court. In the United States, this is often the case with dispute resolution. This form of resolution usually involves litigation. This is the use of outside individuals to argue for or against the disputing parties. In a courtroom, the lawyers are the litigators, while the judge and jury listen to the arguments in order to come to their decisions.
Extrajudicial resolution is non-court settlement of conflict. Also known as alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, this is what people are usually referring to when discussing dispute resolution. ADR is usually more efficient, cost effective, and less time consuming than judicial resolutions. Extrajudicial resolution concerns various types of ways to settle conflict. These include arbitration and mediation. In arbitration neutral individuals will listen to both sides of an argument and render a decision based on evidence. Unlike the court systems, this proceeding doesn’t necessarily include a binding agreement with the parties.
Mediation is used in extrajudicial resolution as a way to open a dialogue between conflicting parties. The idea is to use a trained neutral third party in order to come up with unique solutions to solve the issue. A mediator is trained to be both an effective negotiator as well as an excellent communicator. A mediator is like a judge in that they cannot take sides, and they do not give legal advice either. Their decisions are not obligatorily followed, though they tend to be followed since the mediators are trained to make decisions that benefit both parties.
The techniques used in dispute resolution can be used both in and outside of the court room. It is often used by individuals who wish to speed up the process by not having to get into the political system. However, they are useful in many cases where individuals wish to come to the most beneficial agreement for all the parties involved.
Why Jodie Sweetin’s Latest Divorce Should Make You Start an Emergency Fund
There’s lots of people talking about former Full House star Jodie Sweetin these days. Recent news reports are telling us that this 31-year-old mother of two is now on her way to filing for her third divorce. Yep, that’s right. Divorce #3. Sweetin got married in 2012 to Morty Coyle, and reports say that she is already on her way to filing the legal documents necessary to ask for a separation, which she claims is due to irreconcilable differences.
It was in 2008 when Sweetin filed for divorce from husband number two, Cody Herpin. She blamed the breakup on an already rocky marriage, as well as extreme financial hardships. Sweetin’s first marriage to Shaun Holguin, who she married in 2002, ended when she entered a treatment center for her longtime drug abuse.
Divorce
Because the life of a celebrity is more often than not on display for the whole world to see, there tends to be a belief that famous people get divorced more often than us other ordinary everyday folks. Although this isn’t true, when the news is telling us about a celebrity who’s getting ready to file for their third divorce and they’re only in their early thirties, it tends to make people start thinking! Thinking about what they would do if they ended up being in a similar situation.
Emergency Fund
Although everyone of course intends to stay married forever once they exchange those sacred vows, reality tells as that of least half of all marriages are going to end in some type of separation or divorce. This is the reason why the vast majority of people who plan on getting married one day don’t even bother to plan for what they would do in case of a divorce. They simply don’t think that divorce is something that will happen to them, just everyone else.
Although Sweetin surely didn’t believe that she would have three failed marriages by the time she was 31, her failed marriage situation is helping other people by letting them understand how important it is to have in emergency fund in case such a situation comes up. An emergency fund is going to allow for a lot more freedom of choices if the instance of divorce does happen to come up.
Good to Know
Money struggles have been an issue in all three of Sweetin’s marriages, which is still the number one reason for divorce in America. It’s not hard to start an emergency fund and is something every newly married person should do asap. Well, waiting until they first return from their honeymoon might be a good idea.
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Michael Gergenti: Paying for Paternity
Model Michael Girgenti, filed paperwork in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging that he is the father of Kourtney Kardashian’s son, Mason Disick. According to Kardashian’s lawyer, the three-year old boy is the son of
her boyfriend, Scott Disick, who also fathered her daughter, 13-month old Penelope. Girgenti is requesting DNA testing of Kardashian, Disick and the child, and if it is determined Mason is his son, he is demanding joint custody.
Photo Shoot Meeting
According to the lawsuit, Girgenti met Kardashian during a 2009 photo shoot, where they began a texting relationship. Girgenti claims that Kardashian told him that she and Disick were separated. A report in US Weekly states in a bio of Scott Disick that he and Kardashian split up in February 2009 after two years because of rumours he was cheating. The court documents state that in March 2009 Kardashian and Girgenti had unprotected sex, which is nine months prior to the birth of Mason, who was born in December 2009. Kardashian announced her pregnancy in August 2009, claiming that Disick was the father of the baby.
Kardashian Denial
Lawyers for Kardashian claim that Girgenti’s accusations are “preposterous and an outrageous lie.” Kardashian attorney, Tod Wilson, told E! News that Girgenti has been “selling false and fabricated stories to the tabloids for years about Kourtney Kardashian and her son, Mason. “ Wilson also claims that Girgenti has been seeking payment to publish the court pleading, indicating that Girgenti was more interested in payment for reports of his alleged paternity than actually proving that he was Mason’s father. However, the suit filed in court indicates that Girgenti is seriously seeking proof of the child’s paternity.
Girgenti Claims Resemblance
Court documents also claim that Girgenti tried to reach Kardashian after she announced her pregnancy in August 2009, but she did not return his calls. He claimed he began to consider that he was Mason’s father when he saw photos of the child, stating that the boy resembled him more than he did Scott Disick. Girgenti also stated that Mason looks nothing like his younger sister, Penelope, who is Disick’s child. Months prior to filing the lawsuit, Girgenti wrote to Kardashian, requesting a DNA test, claiming that if there was no response, he would pursue legal action to determine Mason’s paternity. In the letter, Girgenti claimed that his intentions were not to “hurt the family you’ve created,” but that “Mason deserves to know the truth.”
A Los Angeles County judge has set a hearing for the case in late August. At the hearing, the judge could dismiss the case or order DNA tests for Girgenti, Kardashian, Disick and the child. In California, unmarried fathers do not have legal rights or responsibilities until legal paternity is established, and naming a father on a birth certificate may not legally establish who a child’s father is. Since Disick and Kardashian were not married at the time of Mason’s birth, Girgenti may have the legal right to demand a DNA test.
