January 24, 2010

What it takes to be financially fit: baby steps

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness Dave Ramsey I finished Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover this weekend. In the book, he demonstrates the simple (but not so easy) Total Money Makeover (TMM) plan of getting out of debt and becoming financially fit by using baby steps. It's an inspiring read, except most of the time I felt like I was reading a not-so-subtle ad pitch for his other books, audio cds, etc. It had the feel of the type of ad in the back of a magazine that screams lines like "Find the cure for exhaustion on page 45! Take years off your life by doing this tiny step on page 98!" I didn't actually get to the first financial baby step until page 95 of the 223 page book. At the beginning of the book he's even written a section as if the reader is standing in a bookstore wavering on whether to spend money this book.Use filler copy much? My time is valuable. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

I admit that I've never listened to his radio show, so perhaps this book is geared toward his avid followers and I just happened to have picked it up from my local library on a family member's recommendation, hence the emotional disconnect. Though anyone can and should follow this very valid advice he offers, I don't feel that I fit his target demographic (and no, a target demographic cannot be everyone). I get the impression that while he believes he's writing to everyone, he's really targeting married couples with kids who can afford the luxury of a stay-at-home spouse and who have somehow managed to get themselves tens of thousands of dollars of negative debt. Basically, people who now live like he used to live. That's not me. This probably puts me ahead of the game in some ways, but that's not my point here. My point is that I didn't relate to most of the anecdotes in the book, though he does have solid financial advice.

Overall I liked it, and I will focus on a couple of baby steps in 2010: save up a 3-6 month emergency fund and put 15% of my income toward retirement. I'd recommend it to anyone who's interesting in learning about the TMM plan, but if there were a condensed version of the actual TMM steps without all the testimonials and shameless self/cross promotion then I would recommend that version a whole lot more.

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January 15, 2010

Design tip: How to make a great flyer

I have a little How-To of the Day module on my iGoogle page and more often than not I find those WIKI How articles useful or otherwise informative. Today's gem:
How To Design an Event Flyer

Since I find myself creating these from time to time, this will come in handy for the next event that calls for one.

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December 31, 2009

Did you catch a glimpse of the blue moon?

If you missed it, here's a view of the moon from my part of the sky (SoCal).

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December 26, 2009

Too cute!

This was done by an artist named Pogo from Australia: "Video for my track 'Upular', composed using chords, bass notes and vocal samples from the Disney Pixar film 'Up'. Enjoy!"

I love how this composition turned out and yes, now, I want to watch a Disney movie.
More of these songs are here.

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December 24, 2009

Christmas Eve. Feast (for the eyes and tummy)

Christmas Eve. Menu
dressing w/ vegetarian stock
apple chicken sausage stir-fry w/ fresh green veggies
carrot souffle
panettone bread
vanilla maple tea

It took 1.5 hours total to prepare the whole meal.
It took 4 minutes total to polish off a plate.

Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season to all.

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November 30, 2009

NaNoWrimo 2009: Pwned!!

Nano '09 Winner Congrats to the participants of NaNoWriMo 2009! I just finished my novel with a couple hours to spare and it feels so good-- just not at the moment. I'm so tired right now, but I'm sure it will really feel good tomorrow!

If you want to know what my story is all about, you can view my profile page here: KwaS

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November 30, 2009

Spared

What is your driver score?

You know of those rear-enders that you can see coming in your rear view mirror? I saw one coming in my rear view mirror this morning on The 101 freeway.

I saw a damaged off-white older Toyota pickup with a shell on the back approaching way too fast. The driver hadn't noticed that my lane had slowed to a stop for a few moments, even though all the other lanes were still moving. Next, I heard screeching tires and saw the smoke from the pressure applied to the brakes. I watched the car sort of veer from side to side in order to slow down but not enough to leave the lane. I remained calm and just prepared for impact.

Then it was quiet.

The car behind me stopped mere inches behind me and a couple seconds later, my lane started moving again. I drove on and watched my rear view mirror and I as drove away, untouched. The driver changed lanes and as the guy passed me (quickly) on my left, I was left with the smell of burnt rubber.

I am a defensive driver and I try to give cars, especially visibly-damaged ones, a wide berth on the road. Even this doesn't prevent all possible collisions. Sometimes I can't do anything but trust others' ability to either pay attention to where they are going or react in time if they don't. I can  do that or I can figure out a way to get one of these for my next car.

Fully-loaded WITH the voice-activated Bat Shield. Batmobile from the front  

You know you want one too.

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November 13, 2009

A week of A+ live music

First, I want to state that I have this lofty goal to eliminate my credit card dependency. However, my compulsion to support certain 'why-are-these-people-still-under-the-radar?' musicians @ established music venues makes it quite difficult.

Tuesday night when I saw Ari Hest play at the Hotel Cafe I knew the online ticket purchase was worth it-- as are all my purchases, of course. The opener from Ireland, Declan O'Rourke, told the audience that this was his first time playing (or first tour playing?) in America. He had a great sound and one novelty song stands out. It's about an old black crow and it was highly entertaining because there was a fun song introduction and then part of the chorus was him cawing. Not counting that particular song, to me, live, his style was like an Irish version of Ari's so it shouldn't be too surprising if he gains a large following here fairly quickly.

"I can make you move against your will. Don’t it make you sad to lose control?" Broken Voices by Ari Hest

Ari was fantastic with his band, and played a bunch of songs from his early material and CD The Break In, plus newer songs from his project, 52, which included my favorite song, Broken Voices. At some point Amy Kuney came up to sing Cranberry Lake which she co-wrote and sang in a duet with Ari. That was great because I've been wanting to see her live for a while now too.

Ari's vocal ability is amazing. His tone ranges in his songs from baritone to falsetto with impressively flawless lung control. It bowls me over me every time I see him live.

I ran into @KristinJuel during the evening which is always refreshing. Sitting with her I discovered my new favorite bass player, Rob Calder, who has an interesting way of dancing to the beat while he plays.  Very entertaining to watch!

The only downer of the night is that there's a rule that non-flash photography is allowed in Hotel Cafe, but video recording is not. Kristin got busted for taking video with her digi cam at some point. That was too bad but at least they didn't confiscate her camera. She had also taken a bunch of still photos. Overall, it was a good night for live music.

"You're the song that I sing that I don't need to practice." from In the Creases by Amber Rubarth.
Tomorrow is Amber Rubarth show @ The Mint-- http://themintla.com is their site. I refuse to hyperlink to it because it has music that auto-plays and defaults to the loudest volume setting. Way to facilitate an obnoxious user experience.

I love Amber's lyrical ambition and like Ari, she is now based in NY so I try to see her whenever she's playing here. Can't wait to hear her new songs and old ones again that I like. A lot.

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November 2, 2009

Have you caught the (Google) Wave?

I received an invite this morning for Google Wave and with no idea what to do with it. So, I'm watching a Google video on what the intended use for Google Wave is. The video is an hour and twenty minutes long. *smh*

At first glance it seems like a glorified e-mail account, which is what I thought G-Mail was.

I don't know if I like the 'view text while typing' feature being a default setting. I'm a bit of a messy typist. I also wonder about the implications of data mining for users of this service. I am mostly concerned about how Google is planning to use, archive, catalog, and ultimately monetize this potential goldmine of user generated content (UGC) with a EULA (by using this product you consent to *anything the company wants to do*) agreement. I'm going to give it a chance and see what happens.

G-Wave users, what are your initial thoughts?

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October 28, 2009

An expected NaNoWriMo path next month

Nano '09 participant

begin
stop
get behind
assess

begin
catch up
stop
get behind

begin again
stop
get really behind
begin again

begin
once more
don't give up
end.

If you're doing National Novel Writing Month in November, feel free to add me to your buddy list! I'm KwaS on the nanowrimo site.

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