Baby Finances

Instead of talking about my new years resolutions for this year. I thought that I'd reflect on mine from two years ago or what I thought I would be doing. I didn't really make any last year - and got little accomplished in 07 - so I'll compare what I did in o8 to what I thought I would do in 07 - I'm just slightly delayed. I thought about things like running a marathon, which was going okay - until I screwed up my knee and it still hasn't recovered fully :-( I never got any closer to writing a novel that I did in writting in this blog everyday. I thought I did pretty well in terms of posting this year. I did it pretty regularly with only a few times of not posting for more than a couple days. I did find a new job and I did move - but to a cold city - not a warm one. At least I achieved part of that goal. I did take an awesome vacation to the Grand Canyon/Arizona/Vegas. It was way fun - white water rafting was the best. I haven't really volunteered anyw...

There is really very little to do here. We have done very exciting things so far on this vacation. I've chopped up ice on my grandparents drive way, help set up for our family thing, went to our family thing, went to my grandparents the next day to clean up their house after our family thing, went shopping, went to Ikea, sat around. We did make a delicious delicious corn chowder for lunch yesterday. I got The Professional Chef book by the CIA (Culinary Institute of America...) for Christmas. So we tried to make their corn chowder - it was delicious. I really want to try to make the Lobster Bisque. Mmmmm bisque. I need some cheesecloth though first and maybe a china cap. It's been really low key and annoyingly unexciting. I did post some great pics from this week on my picasa page. Check it out. Pretty hilarious. We're going to do very exciting things today though. Go pick up a sharpening stone so we can sharpen my mom's chef knife (we ran around all day tryi...

It's been snowing here for a while. Like since Friday at 1pm - and it's now 1pm on Sunday. It looks like it's supposed to continue until 8pm tonight. We have a few inches on the ground already. Like 10inches. It just doesn't quit. I walked to my piano lesson this morning - which is a little over a mile away. I then walked to Harvard square to pick up a last minute christmas gift - and then back home. Typically a trip like that would take me like 1.5 hours total including the piano lesson. It took me 2.5 hours today. The snow just made everything slow going and because it's hasn't really stopped people haven't really shoveled yet. So it makes for extremely slow walking. I was so cold and wet by the time I got home I just stripped off all of my wet clothes - either my extremely wet pants and long johns or my sweat filled shirts and sweatshirt. I'm exhausted now. It was like walking through sand the entire time. I think that was a pretty good w...

My parents recently moved out of my second childhood home - and into their very own McMansion. I think that I've gone over my thoughts of their McMansion before. They now refused to store any of my childhood memories. So over Thanksgiving break I went through all of my old stuff and packed it away to have my mom send to me. Send away she did. I opened up one of the boxes that I got and it was kind of crazy. I hadn't gone though any of the stuff she had send me other than sorting through it as keep or toss. It was a box with my high school diploma, senior year book, and newspaper clippings of stuff I did while in high school. It was crazy nostalgic. Crazy. It seems like high school was a very very long time ago. I've done so many things since graduation. Looking at the old pictures of me and my friends was really strange too. I remember doing things but not every moment. I forgot a lot of the stuff - it was interesting to be reminded of it. So many things have c...

Is extremely tiring. My muscles hurt like I just took a yoga class. A hard yoga class - not baby yoga. It's way fun and frustrating all at the same time. I made bread last night too. It came out awesome. Completely awesome. Tasty delicious cinnamon bread and normal white bread. I need to do my laundry too. There's a ton of it. *sigh* Work trip last week was boring. Hopefully we'll get a few orders out of it. Hopefully.

I need to mentally pull it together. I'm getting stressed out and over whelmed - and it's really not that difficult. I think I'm just letting it feel more difficult than it is. I took a quiz today that said I lead a high stress life style. I don't feel that stressed. I wonder what low stress feels like... Have to travel the rest of the week. Glass blowing class, piano lessons & the ballet this weekend. Hopefully amazing. Need to shower and pack... and buy christmas presents - and buy a flight for christmas - and pull together christmas cards... I'm getting there. I swear!

Last night was pretty hilarious. I was supposed to go to a surprise birthday party for one of my friends. Her husband set it up while he was away on business. He planned for them going to the ballet with another couple, then meeting up at a nice restaurant where the rest of us would suprise her, then go out to a club afterwords - and have a table reserved. The thought was nice. The execution didn't really go as planned. The birthday girl didn't show up. That's right. She stayed home. Hilarity ensued. We all went out and celebrated her birthday without her. It was pretty fun. Except finding a cab on the way home. I was pretty toasted by the end of the night. I woke up still a little drunk. Then I had to go to my piano lesson - right on the edge of sobriety and hang over. It was not my finest hour. I didn't explain to my teacher why I was so aweful. I couldn't even play scales properly. I watched the rest of season four of Weeds and ate thai food. Man...

I realized that part of the reason why I was so unhappy going home is that some of my childhood goals and dreams have been crushed. They haven't necessarily been broken by a person or circumstance in particular. Rather, I came to the realization tonight that my dreams have changed significantly since I was a kid. I remember, pretty distinctly in fact, how envious I was of one of the houses that my friend lived in. I just remember wanting to grow up and become successful enough to be able to buy a house like that. Houses like that, to me, were the signs of success that my family didn't have. I wanted all that stuff that goes in them too. The movie rooms, the huge yard, the enormous kitchen with an island, and the huge staircase. I thought those were all the things that you got and earned when you were really successful. I don't think of that as success anymore. It seems like everyone has money and everyone could buy things. Money doesn't buy happiness. I'm ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cen37qxA7E

This whole bread baking thing has got me in a tizzy. For the life of me, I can't make bread for my life at my apartment. It's extremely frustrating. I don't know if I'm trying to take short cuts or something at home that I don't do at my mom's house. I think that the chemistry is just a bit different here than in Ohio - and I'm not adjusting right for it. I made bread last night. It came out MUCH better than the previous attempts. However, it didn't rise quite as much as I would have liked it. I think the problem this time was that it was too cold out - and I didn't give it a warm enough area (the oven was cold by the end - not warm) and didn't give it long enough given the conditions. I'm thinking that next time is the charm - and I'm going to have amazing bread. I did make some awesome bread at my mom's new McMansion over thanksgiving. It was really easy. For some reason, it's really hard in my apartment. I don't...

I thought I was having a horrible day. Until I got home. I put away some groceries I bought (w00t for the Whole Wheat Vegan Potstickers from WholeFoods - Delicious!) drank a couple of glasses of milk and picked up my mail sitting outside of my room. I just have a cell phone bill I needed to expense, some spam saying that I've won either a BMW, a porshe or 49K, a Habitat for Humanity letter asking for money, some random "Nest" magazine that I can't figure out how I got on their mailing list or how to get off, and a rather thin unassuming letter. I never get thin unassuming letters. So I opened that one first. Holy crap! It was my check from the sale of the last company. Effing awesome. I feel weird having it here in my house and not in a bank. I need to deposit that puppy pronto! It was weird that there was nothing else in the letter - just the check that has my name and address on the 'to' part. Yea for having that part of my life over with! Thanksgiv...

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3999881/ I just couldn't put up with bullshit like that.

A couple of my friends are just complete retards at planning. Like how fucking difficult is it to tell me where you are going 30 minutes before? So instead of doing that. I'm going to invite you somewhere and tell you I'll call you back and let me know we're going. That's fine. But if you are going to call me on the way - and then tell me there is parking where there definitely is not parking. And oh - btw - if I would have told you 30 minutes ago when we first talked that you could have just met me at my house and could have gone together... I hate driving in boston. I hate trying to find parking. I'm just not going to deal with it tonight. I don't have the patience or the time to deal with it.

If nothing else; I am skilled at the art of picking out tasty chocolate pieces. My favorite brand, by far, is Neuhaus. It's the german version of "new house." Therefore is pernounced pretty similarly - it's german - you just say it like it sounds. They are based in Brussels Belgium. There are very few stores stateside that have Neuhaus chocolates. There are only three Neuhaus stores. And a handful of other stores - typically fancy gift shops, specialty chocolate shops, and the like that carry Neuhaus chocolates. They're extremely good, expensive, and delicious. I can't eat hershey's or nestle anymore. I want the good stuff. Anyways, I've had this gift certificate for a local chocolate shop that sells Neuhaus chocolates for a while. The problem is they are only open during business hours Mon-Friday - and of course, they are never open on holidays. So it's been a difficult time to try to get down there and actually pick up some chocolates. ...

It all started at work a few days ago. It was about 4 pm. Time for tea and crumpets. Well instead of tea I was having delicious coffee. I however decided that my desk and papers would appriciate the coffee more than my tummy. Once I cleaned it up; I promptly decided that spilling everything that was left in my mug was the perfect thing to do in that situation. Most of which was directly over my amazing calculator that I've had since Freshman year of high school. I love that calculator. It's my baby. It's been everywhere with me. All over the states, different jobs, different classes, different schools, just everywhere with me. My TI-83 is awesome. It was also so gross that every key was stuck - and I had to exert some serious pressure to get the keys to register. It still worked though. It's pretty amazing what you can do to those things and they still keep on kicking. I always thought of the TI-89 as cheating. If it can do symbolic math and do a calculus...

I have to go get something mailed via registered mail tomorrow - with insurance. I guess I don't *have* to. But it would be bad, bad, bad, if it got lost for any reason. Really bad. So, I went to look up how much it is going to cost, effing $18.10 to mail something from Boston to Minnosota. Minnasota!!!! WTF? That's a lot of money to mail something. A normal letter is only $0.42. What the hell do they do with registered mail to make it cost so much? It doesn't look like anything other than a normal letter. It's two sheets of paper. Two! What do they do? Hand carry that shit to minnosota in their beater 1988 Dodge Omni? That's like paying a mid-level mail man for 0.5 hours of his time. 1/2 an hour! What the hell do they do for 1/2 with my two sheets of paper? Stare at it? Contemplate what's in it? Contemplate how they can charge more for sending two sheets of paper? I have no idea. It's truely perplexing. The people recommended that I send it...

Too much shit to do, not enough time. I hate reading really technical articles and that's what I really need to do tonight; but I'm avoiding it. Anyone wanna bring me a couple beers so that I can do this? I get to go talk to my tax guy tomorrow. Boo! Who wants to play taxes in November?!?!?! Not me. But I think it has the potential to save me money in the long term. It's mad annoying to deal with. Finances are way frustrating. Way frustrating. I need to do expenses again. Why is having money difficult?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd8f9Zqap6U&feature=user Thank god that a president will finally freaking understand how the hell to use technology to effectively communicate. It's not hard to use technology - it just changes quickly and you have to keep up - otherwise you will be left behind. The only reasons people don't utilize technology effectively is that they either don't know it exists, can't figure out how to apply it to solve their individual problem, or are scared to try something new. The first two are semi-excusable in my book. The third is un-excusable out of a world leader. So happy that someone gets how people use the intertubes. I'm glad he's also taking steps to better communicate with the public directly. I think it's the best forum to help get rid of rumors - and the best way to motivate people as well. Get in their face and ask them to do something. Keep a watch out on how the new "New Deal" develops.

It was a rough night. I really was kind of hoping for a play that wasn't terrible. But it was. It was especially awful after seeing Wicked while I was in Chicago. Wicked was good. Really good. Highly entertaining - I would recommend it. I spent most of the play trying to entertain myself. Things like looking at the stage lights with out my glasses. Looking cross eyed - then only moving one eye to look right, look cross eye - move one eye to look left. Staring at random objects. I tried not to tap my feet and/or be to obvious or obnoxious. I watched the faces of other people in my row as they watched the play. Some people looked absolutely enthralled by the action of the play - others looked as bored as I felt. We even had to go to the cast party at a bar afterword. It was bad and annoying. I hate playing nice and interested in the play. Discussing my 'favorite parts' and talk to the actors about how they got into it and why they do it (pretty unsuccessfully ...

I've had diner tonight. But I'm still starving. It's like I didn't eat. Given the fact that all I had for breakfast was a Venti triple non-fat carmel macchiotto and then a chai tea latte in O'Hare - that might be why. But the problem is - I had dinner. I had a huge bowl of ramen. But it feels like I didn't eat. I'm not sure what chemical reactions or wahtever go on in my tummy - but I'm still hungry. What is my problem????? This week was great and aweful. I can't wait to get back to work. I have a ton of AWESOME ideas after this conference. I also am amazed once again by people's stupdity. I shouldn't - but I am. Fucking retards. I'm drunk - and having more beer. I think I'm going to stay up and watch a movie - and maybe drink some more. My favorite person to drunk dial is not drunk dialable - which blows. Whatever. Loser. It's time for some drinking and movies baby!!! Hopefully I'll sleep tonight. I didn'...

me : i want a digital piano 9:33 PM Little Bro : I want to stab hobos me : why? 9:34 PM Little Bro : it is good, clean fun me : i just want a keyboard that feels like a piano when i practice it's not really clean neither the stabbing or the hobos are clean Little Bro : it is when you ducktape the knife to a pole 9:35 PM me : how is that going to stab? it's like not going to do anything Little Bro : what? you must be doing it wrong me : probably 9:36 PM Little Bro : http://www.engine001.com/ community/resources/pole- knife-WEOCZp.gif 9:37 PM me : that's not a poll - that's a stick Little Bro : dude that was the closest example I could find in 30 seconds a knife pole is totally good for stabbing 9:38 PM me : yeah - but polls are rooted in the ground sticks aren't Little Bro : not all poles me : are you going to fly the hobos up and drop them on the poll? 9:39 PM Little Bro : dude poles != in ground me : mmmhmmm Little Bro : ok, what abo...

So - I've been trying unsuccessfully to roll over my old company 401K into a new IRA for a while now. My new place (Schwab) has been absolutely amazingly wonderful. Their customer service rocks. Rocks. There are phone numbers all over their sight - and they direct you to the right people. Schwab says to call them if you need help... so I did. The guy I had - George - was awesome. He tried all the same stuff I did - tried other numbers that he got to get a hold of my old place. He was really persistant - like way more than I was. I had called the old place's stupid automated number a million times but couldn't get the stupid pin number that I needed. I have no idea what my pin number was - or if I ever got one. I just kept going in circles. George figured out that if I got to the right menu - I could get a new pin mailed to me. That was way genius in my book. I was so frustrated by the fact I couldn't talk to a person. George even closed a second IRA account...

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3701006/10181648

If you haven't read this yet you should: http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581 Newsweek did a very interesting article about the entire election - from the primaries on out to election day. It's really long. Full of lots of information that wasn't highly publicized during the campaigns. It was extremely interesting about what they chose to include or not include. Along with some of the interesting things that were said. I think it gave the candidates a lot more personality than they have up on the political stages, and really humanizes them. It definitely makes some candidates look better than others - and some more organized than others. Extremely interesting read - though whicked long - it took me a couple hours to get through it all. Read it.

So we were out for dinner yesterday - and a friend of a friend came along who's a physical therapist. This one girl - being suprisingly similar to my aunt C-athy, went ahead and asked the PT about her doctor's diagnosis. Ummm WTF? It both shows your lack of understanding of the medical world - and it shows that you are a little rude b/c you are trying to solicit free medical advice. So, me, trying to disfuss the situation and not make the guy feel uncomfortable about the fact that there was no way he could answer that question - started asking rhetorical questions. Namely, why do people have hair on their big toes? I mean seriously. How is that useful? What does it do for us? One answer was b/c we came from monkey ancestors. But that doesn't explain why we STILL have hair on toes. Talking of body hair - it's really interesting to think about the type of body modification that societies participate in. In the US girls do things like shaving their legs, plucking ...

Confession: I haven't gone to yoga in a long time. Like months. I used to love it. I would like to sight two main reasons for this. A) After one session it felt like someone had told me there was no Santa Clause. I was just completely dissallusioned by the whole process. B) Yoga farting. I was going to hot yoga. Let me tell you - farts in a hot room do not smell good. They smell far worse when it mixed with the stupid aroma thearpy shit that they put in the air. So try bending over in some odd ass reverse triangle pose. Super sweaty - to the point were you have to wipe the sweat off your body so that you can do the pose correctly. You are held in an uncomfortable pose - and you are "breathing through" the discomfort. Then someone rips a huge SBD Yoga fart. I think Yoga farters are way worse than normal farters. I'll tell you why. Yogis in general have a better diet than the rest of the population. This means more fruits and veggies, therefore more fibe...

On the way home from work I was about 6" away from getting hit by the front end of a car. I took my normal route as always. At the first light that I had to navigate - it has a rather interesting traffic pattern. It's a T shaped crossing. So cars have to turn either right or left. I continue walking straight across the street before turning. When the light turns green - this allows cars to turn right and left and at the same exact time pedestrians to walk straight across the street. This only disrupts traffic turning right. There is no right on red. Of course some car doesn't understand that A) Pedestrians get the 'walk' signal at the same time cars are allowed to go B) Pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way in Mass and you aren't supposed to drive across a walkway when any pedestrian is in the crosswalk. Yeah - some guy didn't understand that and almost hit me. Then he has the odassity to roll down his window and tell me that he had the green li...

It's pretty effing awesome the way young voters turned out. Check out the numbers: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27562023/?GT1=43001

I rarely have dreams. I'm not sure what is wrong with me. When I do remember my dreams I don't usually have people in them. The last two nights I have dreamed of people. Two nights ago one of my friends and I were hanging out in a 70's style kitchen, and he was naked, and telling me that we couldn't be friends anymore. It was really really weird. Last night I had a dream that Barak Obama was in my kitchen eating apple pie. Strangely enough it looked like the same pie that I made a few days ago. He did not like my pie. I liked my pie. Weird. What is wrong with me? Who dreams about crap like this? I have to admit that I was really disappointed that stocks didn't go up yesterday. I was kind of expecting the rest of the world to go up after the electoral vote sweep of Obama. And the US to follow. Unfortunately month end numbers were out and that pushed people's fear button and they dipped again. It's so frustrating that these markets are just ruled ...

I had such an awesome day yesterday. And I made some awesome dinner. And someone awesome had a crazy huge victory. I feel like the smartest man in the room won. Which - as long as his motivations align with the rest of the country - which they seem to be I think we're all good. It will build confidence in the US from our neighbors. I hope he can motivate young people while he's in office in the same way that he motivated young people during his run. I also had a rocking dinner. Pasta with a spicy italian sausage bolognase sauce. It was delicious. Delicious. I love spicy pasta, and I love sausage. That's right - I said it - I love sausage. Anyways... Hopefully I'll be able to concentrate on other things at work today other than politics. Hump day people.

Can I just comment about how happy I am that Mass decriminalized the hashish?? Get your hash in mass! We also kept state income tax. The abortion bans all got defeated. The casino in ohio got defeated (not a bad thing), Michigan allowed medical hash. It's a very liberal election as far as the reported results. We won't really know for sure until tomorrow morning. It's been a really energizing day to be an American.

Eerrily - I rarely have dreams. Like maybe twice a year or so I have dreams and I rarely remember them for more than about 10 minutes. I had a dream last night. (No this is not like Martin Luther Kings' I had a dream speech...) It was creepy in a gross disgusting and why the hell am I dreaming this kind of way. I was at a vet. There was a small dog that had been there for a while. I'm not sure if it was my dog or someone else's. The vet and I then watched this small dog take a tremendous crap. Like the crap was just as big as the dog. However, it wasn't like a normal crap. It crapped ground beef. The dog had like a really hard time getting it out - and the vet said that all the strings of ground up beef were getting tied up and it made it harder for the dog to pass. It wasn't just ground beef - it was raw ground beef. How the hell would raw ground beef get caught up? I just remember staring at this bob evan's breakfast sausage tube size. Freaking hu...

Im wathcing mythbusters and they are trying to bust macgyver myths. It is the best episode ever. Absolutely hilarious. If you are watching tv right now. Which I know with the time change and the fact that it is now crazy dark outside that you are all in fact warning tv right now. Turn to discovery and warn this shit. Absolutely awesome. I forgot how awesome tv can be. Well it's either this or Paris hiltons bff. I'm going with macguyver. They definitely just picked a lock. I need to learn how to pick locks. So awesome.

Are ETF's a good idea? In my whole trying to get my financial life organized I've found some information about ETF's and I'm debating about investing in them. I'm a little confused about the benefits over buying shares in an ETF rather than an index mutual fund. It seems like there is more expenses in terms of purchasing an ETF over a standard index mutual fund. They are also bought and sold like typical stocks - which doesn't that mean that they can eventually be traded at a higher price than what their base stock value is? Maybe that's not true - but if it is - that's a little scary to me and it seems like the same thing that happened with the current mortage crisis. I'm just not sold on that there are any pros that make it make better sense than an index mutual fund. Is there something that I'm missing?

Now this is dedication to your commitments.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the use of ground turkey other than turkey chili or turkey burgers? I was thinking perhaps turkey tacos... or maybe turkey stuffed peppers. I really have got nothing other than that. Maybe burritos with ground turkey? It's really frustrating. There's not a lot that you can do with it. I guess it's the same as ground beef. I'm just not so much a fan of ground beef. I'm also jonesing for some three bean casserole. I love that stuff. I can never really make it the same way as my mother though. It's very frustrating. So the other day at work were were reminiscing about our first cars. There were the typical station wagons and civics. Then there was me. I'm sure a lot of you remember my first car. The souped up golf cart was awesome. I was like the only one of my friends that knew how to drive a stick, the steering wheel shock like crazy when you hit 70 miles and hour - once you got up to about 75 it was find ag...

I love "The Office" it is absolutely hysterical. Ridiculously hysterical. It makes me belly laugh. BELLY LAUGH! I'm a terrible person - I'm not handing out candy this year. I got out of work too late. By the time I got home people were already out trick-or-treating, and I hadn't even gone out to buy any candy yet. I don't remember Halloween involving crazy dress up costumes like it seems to now. We were all about paper hats and plastic swords and one cape. One year my brother would be a vampire - the next year I would be a witch. Then Little Bro would be a pirate or whatever. We never bought anything that wouldn't get 1K miles of use. Now kids are in complete lion, tigger , whatever costumes - nothing home made. It has got to be crazy expensive. Glad I don't have little money suckers. I learned a new slang term today. No it wasn't lollerskates or leafycaust - it was 'crop dusting.' Look it up on urban dictionary. Ingenuity...

In this new organizational phase of my life - which seems to come along about every nine months or so - and generally only lasts for about 6 months.... but whatever that's a different topic all together... This financial organization/investing/whatever you want to call it is effing difficult. There is a ton of advise out there. Most of it crappy. A lot of the advise doesn't apply to me because I'm too young. It seems like there isn't much advise out there for young investors other than "start early." Thanks retards. I got that one early on. I knew it was important to invest for retirement. My parents did a good job of banging that one in to my head. However, I never really got those lessons that are just as important in investing. Stuff like how much you need to save, how to invest it, mutual funds vs. stock, asset allocation, risk acceptance, load, fees, complicated tax law. I'm going to need a good tax person. Anyone have any suggestions for MA...

Lollerskates! Not the ceiling cat. Not even the leafycaust. Rather it's fucking cold outside. Last year it didn't snow until like Janurary. The wind chill right now, in October, is 30 degrees. That's right, 30F. Crazy. What the hell happened to fall? We got like 3 months of it last year, this year we get like three weeks. We got screwed! Election is in a week. Pretty exciting stuff. Some guy who used to be a baseball statastican applied it to the election - look at all the polls - weighting them - giving trend lines etc. Pretty interesting stuff. Look it up. I'm way thrown off by it getting dark so early. I walk home and it's dark already. It's crazy. It's going to be even worse next week when we switch off of daylight savings time. It's terrible. It will be light when I wake up - but it will start getting dark at like 4pm. I hate this time of year. Hate it. Hate it. I always just want to stay in bed and sleep and not do anything el...

How can something that used to make you feel so great make you feel so crappy? I'm super frustrated by life right now. I'm frustrated that I can't turn to the people that I normally turn to. I'm frustrated because I think other people are getting further in life faster than me. I'm frustrated because I even care about what other people are doing. I'm frustrated that other people compare themselves to where I am. I'm frustrated by success and I'm frustrated by failure or perceived failure. Why can't I be happy with what I have? Why can't people stop comparing themselves to other people? I'm the only one in this situation that has the potential to change. I need to do that. I need to figure out how it's going to work.

Ever been super obsessed with a particular song? Quite often I can't help but play the same song on repeat - for half an hour - multiple times a week. It's obsessive I know, but I can't help myself. I'm not sure if it's always the melody, the words, the message, or just the feeling the song gives me. I just can't myself. Right now I'm listening to "Northern Downpour" by Panic at the Disco for like the 1,000,000th time this week. Can't help it. I've been uber obsessed with music for the last week or so since I bought my new IPod. Fortunately/Unfortunately I found my old IPod on Thursday. I wouldn't have bought a new IPod if I didn't think the old one was gone forever. So it's unfortunate that I spent money on something I didn't really need. But I will admit that the new IPod is super sweet. Like crazy sweet. I'm impressed - and therefore don't really regret the purchase - only the dis-necessity of it. Why d...

I started taking piano lessons this weekend. It seems like everyone else took them as kids - but I never did. I always wanted to learn. As I was whining last week about not having anything to do to fill up my time - Matt suggested I write stuff down. Well, I did that. Piano lessons was up there on the top of my list. So I found a teacher (thanks CL.) Who seems really cool. And I'm going to start learning how to play. I'm really retarded at it right now - but hopefully some day I'll be able to play for real. Maybe someday I'll be good enough to play something that you can recognize . ha!

Some really basic research has me thinking that the US consumer is changed forever because of the perfect storm of rising energy cost plus a tanking global economy. Consumers have decreased spending on the fears of unemployment and recession. A short term loss of consumer confidence is neither unusual or stupid. The stock market needs to re-set after too long of unqualified over investment and therefore over spending on companies that are not actually making a good profit. Speculation is for those searching for gold, not those looking to make money. I think that this perfect storm though is going to change how consumers chose to spend their money. Not just in terms of real estate and housing but also what credit is acceptable. Most people are taking a good hard look at themselves right now to try to figure out their financial future. This is making them cut back on frivolous items they previous purchased on a regular basis. Add this to the current "going green" and ...

I had this dream where I was at a computer store and I was buying something. God knows what I was buying, but everyone kept telling me not to buy a brand. After everyone had there say there was no other brand that I could buy - everyone told me not to buy something. Then I was somewhere else and I was sitting in the car in a parking lot. We started making out. Then he asked me to marry him, then some cop came along and found us getting it on, and the cop shot him in the head and just left. Effing messed up dream. Messed up.

With my old company getting sold there are a lot of implications I'm trying to sort out. It's very frustrating because, me being me, can't concentrate on one thing at a time. I start at one end and 20 minutes later I'm doing something completely different. Not that it doesn't need to be done, I'm just not focused on the original task. So this whole thing has gotten me to look closer at my overall financial picture and I can't say that I'm extatic about it. I'm probably like every other 25 year old in the world. Haven't saved enough, doesn't have a big enough savings account, IRA/401K is pitifully small, doesn't have a lot in long-term savings. I have loans from school and my car. Basically, I'm still poor and I just graduated a few years ago. I feel like I'm on my feet, I'm not going to fall down, but at the same time I can't run a mile. So, I've been looking into everything to try to figure out how to train f...

The first real company I worked at got sold the other day. All I can say is that I just felt a sigh of relief wash over me. I felt happy - not so much because I made money - but because I felt closure about the entire situation. Like it was finally done, nothing was hanging over my head, and I could close a bad chapter of my life. It wasn't all bad there. I learned a whole hell of a lot. My boss there was pretty amazing. He taught me a ton of information. A ton. I learned a lot about how businesses work, how to do some things well, how to do some things wrong. I really took a lot away from that experience and I apply it everyday at my current place. Closure is a great thing in life. Wish I could get closure on some other situations in life. I'm not sure that's ever going to happen. I have to admit that I've been working through a lot of issues lately. I much better understand why I am motivated and what drives me to do the things I do. I'm getting to th...

I'm still like a 2-3 beer queer. It's pathetic. I'm not sure I want to up my tolerance though.

I've thought about it before but was never able to articulate it. Art is an intensely person experience, one that can be shared, but is intensely personal. It's not what art looks like, what colors are there, or what object is shown. Rather the important part of art is how you feel about it. Feelings are just there. They can be contained, but not necessarily controlled, nor should they be. Capturing feeling and intensity and utilizing them often has awesome (or horrendous) results. You can't make yourself feel a certain way. You can do the right things so that you have the potential to have certain feelings, but you can't force them. I never really got it. It's not something that needs to be controlled. It just is what it is. Intensely personal, completely honest, and just there. Similar to art.

I keep looking at houses in Cambridge. I love Cambridge. Love it. Love my lifestyle right now. Love the fact I can walk to work, and the grocery store, and just about wherever else I need to go. Love the fact that I'm so close to the city, but far enough away that I don't have to deal with it. Love the people. The problem is the housing prices. I'm not sure that I can afford a house by myself in Cambridge, unless it's a complete crap hole. Minimum for something acceptable is going to be 350-400K. I'd need to get married to someone in a similar income bracket to be able to afford that. I don't see married in my close future, hell, I don't even see serious boyfriend in the near future. So, I'm trying to face the reality of the situation that I can't afford the type of house I want. So I see two solutions, either move to Somerville, or get married. Any suggestions?

Maybe homelessness is useful in combating global warming. I was walking home today and watched a few homeless people picking cans out of the trash. They always come down the street on garbage day to collect the cans and bottles that they can refund as well. (I'm way to lazy to take those cans back to the store to get the deposit back. I'll just throw them in the recycle bin.) I bet most people are like me and are too lazy to take them back to the store, or they don't have enough room to store empty cans. So maybe homeless people are useful in terms of reducing our carbon footprint because they are highly motivated to do something about it. How do we get everyone to be highly motivated to reduce the causes of global warming?