Dave Ramsey

I took my sister to see Dave Ramsey today, both she and I are fans of his radio show, and I bought her a copy of his book Total Money Makeover. He's a very engaging speaker, witty and down-to-earth. He's an anti-debt crusader, he believes that you shouldn't own credit cards or borrow money to buy a car. It sounds a little extreme, but when you read that the average American family owes more than $9,000 in credit debt and that some rates are as high as 40 percent, you understand where he's coming from. I heard about Dave from some of the guys at work who are implementing his strategies, and I've already completed steps 1-5 and am working on steps 6 & 7 of his seven baby steps to financial peace:

1) $1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
2) Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball
3) Three to six months of expenses in savings
4) Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
5) College funding for children
6) Pay off home early
7) Build wealth and give! Invest in mutual funds and real estate

Most of the things that he suggests are just common sense, Depression era morals like saving money by avoiding extravegances. His advice is more for people who are already having debt problems, but I took a lot of his advice to heart. I had maxed out my only credit card when I got out of school, but I was lucky that I only had a $1,000 limit, and I paid it off when I got my first month's paycheck. Since then, I've only had a balance on credit cards one time, about ten years ago, it was about $2,000 right after I bought my BMW, but that took me about a year to pay down. If you add up all the interest that it cost me, it was pretty stupid not to have just waited a little on some of those purchases. I plan to pay my new car off early, and then save the money that would have gone to car payments and buy my next car with cash. Then you continue to save the payments and you'll never pay another cent in interest and finanace charges again. All it takes is the discipline to hold off buying a car until you can afford it, and only buying cars that you can afford.

Are You a True FERAite Quiz Answers

1) What was the alarm code of the Northpoint office?
51561 (69069 was also a valid code)

2) What was the significance of the alarm code number?
This was the street address of the Spring Cypress Building in reverse, with a one at the end to complete the 5 digit requirement.

3) What are the three initials of:
Peter S. PBS
Vince R. VXR or VR
Adrienne N. AXN or AN
Vince and Adrienne have no middle names (weird huh?)
Brian C. BMC

4) What are the names of:
TNG Bill G.
AWF Lee F.
CLS Charlie S. and Clay S.
RPM Ronnie McC.

5) Who are the following:
MILDEW Dewey M.
HALCHA Charlie H.
NICROB Bob N.
(Has everyone forgotten Don Hardy already? - TAW)

6) What did Shecky and Andy do for FERA?
Not much. ("sales" will also be accepted)

7) Name three field techs who have rolled vehicles:
Randy L.
Fred B.
Sherry A. ("Sri" will also be accepted)
several others

8) Name the two board members who left the company:
Bruce E.
Jeff W.
Steve S.
Bau Fam (sp?)
At this point, Tom W., Mark R. and Dave L. would also be acceptable

9) Name three receptionists no longer with us:
Paula H.
Shay B.
Melissa L.
April T.
Pat R.
Robin McC.
Lisa N.
Sharon A.
several others

10) Name four voices of FERA personnel which were recorded
to answer the voice mail system.
Missy S.
Adrienne N.
Delana S.
Greg G.
Melissa .

11) What is the name of the form used for incident reports:
FBUST

12) What does each letter of the acronym FERA stand for:
Frank Earl Rizzo and Associates
No points for Frank E. Rizzo and Associates since you didn't answer the question

13) Name one other thing the acronym FERA can stand for:
F----ing Engineers Running Around is my favorite, but give yourself full credit for anything

14) What does each letter of the acronym FDC stand for:
Field Data Computer

15) Name one other thing the acronym FDC can stand for:
Frank's D-mn Computer is my favorite, but give yourself full credit for anything. These were also known as "the Fera" by some of our less gifted and some of our foreign customers.

16) What was the central area of the Spring Cypress building called?
The bullpen (also known as Adrienne's or Sharon A.'s office)

17) What was the open area in the east end of the Northpoint building called?
The big blue lighted room (per Alison B.)

18) What exploded on a grill, causing car alarms to go off all over the parking lot, the police to be called and everyone to be thrown out of the hotel?
Beans (them Texas boys were shootin' it out in the parkin' lot)

19) Who shared the Northpoint office with FERA?
The Texas Parole board, but give yourself double credit if you answered with the euphemism "the State of Texas"

20) What was FERA's time management software called? How did you run it? What happened when you typed in your initials as AVA?
The Locator program
Type FERA
It sends a message to everyone that you are AVA

Give yourself 5 points for each correct answer, 3 points for partial credit.

0 - 25 points - Newbie
25 - 50 points - Regular FERA guy
50 - 75 points - FERA old timer
75 - 100 points - Bleed FERA blue
more than 100 points - Liar, cheater and a true FERAite

(I deleted the full last names of the people who are answers to quiz questions, if you want their full name, send me an email)

FERA Reunion Pictures

I wrote about our FERA reunion happy hour here, and I put together some of the pictures from the reunion here. I've been updating the page as I receive new pictures, so keep checking back. I'll post another message here to let you know when I've added a couple of pictures.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

Today is the third anniversary of this blog. You can read my first trial post on this day three years ago here. You can read more about the history of this website here. It's still pretty cool to be able to read my own words on the Internet, although I'm not sure that anyone else reads them (shameless plea for blog comments?). I'm still using the same tools to create this blog, namely Blogger.com with a custom template to match the rest of my site, and while Blogger doesn't do everything I could wish for, it accomplishes the job and is pretty reliable. I may eventually move over to one of the big-boy blogger sites, but it would take a lot of free time that I don't have right now.

I've been able to post to the blog somewhat regularly, but several of the pages are still out-of-date, especially the Work page, since I have been at the new job for more than a year. I have been able to keep up with the Books page, mainly because it's a blog of its own, and it's much easier to update than an HTML page. I created new blogs for my Thought of the Day page and my TiVo page. I still haven't had any problems with spam comments on this blog, maybe because I don't use blogspot to host my site, or maybe because I don't make the blog public in my profile on blogger. Or maybe everyone knows that posting to this blog is about as effective advertising as putting a message in a bottle and then burying the bottle. In concrete.

Some of the things I've learned since my last birthday post:

1) I can't write something every day, except for one remarkable streak from January 1st to March 3rd of this year, but I have enough good ideas to write something every couple of days about once a week, if I make the time.

2) Blogs are more fun with links and pictures and now with video. YouTube is great!



3) People you really didn't think would read your blog will read it, so you have to be careful what you post. I try not to post anything about work that they would mind, because this is not a blog about my work life. Read about how this woman was fired for blogging about her job (she now blogs for a living, ironically, and writes an excellent blog that I read every day).

4) I try not to over-share with my personal life, too, and that made some people mad, too. I've never been able to keep a diary, other than my calendar, which is not a diary but a calendar, because writing down what I was feeling seemed too self-indulgent or even narcissistic at the time of writing, but my several attempts have proved to be very interesting to me in years removed. I think that posting about being tired or what I ate or not having enough time to post is boring, and I'm not doing that anymore. I may go through and archive some of those posts. I couldn't write a diary and post it to the internet, but I don't plan to delete those posts, just to save them somewhere else, less embarrassing.

5) I have a MySpace page, too, and I use it to keep in contact with folks who don't have their own websites. The software at MySpace is terrible, but most everyone has a MySpace page nowadays, at least all the single people do. I don't usually tell the MySpace people about this site, and I'm not posting the address to my MySpace page here either, although if you know enough about me you can find it with some digging. One reason is that I keep the content on this site at a "G" or "PG" level so that my nephews or my co-workers can read it without being offended. I don't many people at work about my website, but it's only a Google search away.

So, in moving on with the traditional anniversary "State of the Blog" post, I think you'll see more of what you've been seeing in the last few months, links with something cool I ran across, and an occasional article about something I'm interested in. I have been thinking about moving the site content behind the blog, making the blog the main content of the site and getting rid of the other pages or putting them in a less prominent position, but that would be a pretty large redesign, and it won't happen anytime soon. Unless I suddenly have more free time, like if I get fired for blogging. Hopefully not.

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly.

Marked Man by William Lashner

Marked Man by William Lashner.

What's It Look Like at the Top of the World

Is this a picture of a sunset from the Earth's North Pole?



The answer is no, this scene couldn't occur naturally anywhere on Earth, because by a coincidence the Sun and the Moon have approximately the same apparent size in the sky. Because of this we have solar eclipses. This picture has been going around the internet, but you should always check snopes.com before forwarding email to see if it is for real.

Here is an actual picture of the North Pole from the North Pole Web Cam:

Past Due by William Lashner

Past Due by William Lashner.

Why the English language is so difficult to learn

Heteronyms are words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) The polished salesman demonstrated how to polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row in alternate rows.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind down the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in my new dress, I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?

One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end? (This whole discussion is odd)

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and
a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which, an alarm goes off by going on. How come when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are on, they are invisible.

Things that make ya go Hmmmm.......................................

Consider This, Señora by Harriet Doerr

Consider This, Señora by Harriet Doerr.

Falls the Shadow by William Lashner

Falls the Shadow by William Lashner.

What I did at work today

I traveled to Fairbanks, Louisiana yesterday for a field visit at our office there, Fairbanks is a small town near Monroe. I thought it might be interesting to show you a little about what I do for a living. This is a breakdown of the nine working hours from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, we're working nine-hour days because we're on a 9-80 schedule (we work an extra hour Monday through Thursday and get every other Friday off,) and lunch doesn't really count towards that goal.