Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Starting a new adventure in reducing debt.

Over a year ago, I said that I was going to start up my blogging, but that did not happen. I am again going to give it a try, and a major theme will be my efforts to improve my finances. I intend to pay off a lot of accumulated debt.

A large part of it will be following a budget. I followed a podcast by a company called "You need a budget" or YNAB for short. I will get into it more in a future post, but the aspect that was a game changer for me is that the software only has you allocate the funds you have in your bank account right now.

I therefore worry about future income when it shows up and not until then.

When I have spent some time between jobs, I ended up charging to credit cards and just not getting the balances to come down. I am now in a concerted effort to retire my debt. I will share things that I have learned, and things that have helped me make progress financially.

Again I highly recommend the YNAB software. They offer a 34 day free trial, as well as weekly online workshops, as well as a helpful blog. Check it out!

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Coming back to my blog

It has been a while, and a lot has happened. I am now in Taylorsville Utah and working for Elsevier in Salt Lake City as a QA Engineer. Lots of exciting things going on that I am reading and trying to do. I am past my first half century and am following the "Younger Next Year" Exercise program. With that and improved diet. I have managed to get my cholesterol within bounds, without taking statin medication. I also got my blood pressure way below 120/80 which was surprising. since I thought it was already optimal. When I gave blood recently they measured 94/60!

There are some interesting things that I want to delve into, so I hope to talk about  my work in those areas in this blog.

Thursday, June 05, 2014

Getting exposed to some new stuff

I have yet to take advantage of this service, but I think that it is pretty cool.

Quarterly is a web site that features Curators that will periodically send you a package. You do not find out before-hand what it contains, but it you do get to choose your curator, and many are already well known on the internet for their design chops (hope you know what I mean there).
I have wandered onto the web site every so often, and it has really been growing, with new curators joining on. The most recent wandering was from www.thisiscolossal.com whose curator is now associated with Quarterly.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Learning about Other Countries, or A Dangerously Distracting Web Site

Since my geography skills are rather poor, I was looking for some worksheets that would allow me to brush up on countries and related information. I found Sporcle which has some games where you have to come of with the names of all the countries on certain continent, as well as matching games and other related things to do.

This reminded me just how ignorant I am of many other countries. It brings to mind the woman that set out to read a book from each country of the world. I guess a similar task would be to travel to each country, but that would be expensive, if not because of airfare, at least in terms of time.

I wonder what else could be done in a similar style, maybe eat a meal from each country, or buy a handicraft, or listen to a song.

Any suggestions?

Sunday, February 02, 2014

The Online prescription eyeglass experiment!

I read this book a while back (Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder). It was pretty good. I am interested in the DIY, or Maker revolution, and maybe his was a good example of an everyman trying his hand at things. I subsequently checked out his blog, and he talked about getting eye-glasses online. It was a little risky but I decided to get some extra glasses, I am always shocked by the markup on frames at my local eye doctor. So I tried Coastal.com and got a pair of prescription sunglasses, and a pair of regular eyeglasses, for about $137.00 and $48.00 respectively. The frames are a little funky, and my wife does not really like the red ones, but I think that I fancy myself stylin' like Seth Godin.

Here is what my new glasses look like:
Kind of a Men in Black sort of look. 
A little of the detail of the frame

 
Red eyeglasses

A side shot to show the checkerboard pattern.

So far I have been happy with them. From what I have learned they are made in the USofA

Sunday, December 01, 2013

These shoes are magical

I do not get too many compliments about my attire except for two things:
  • My Star Wars t-shirt (certain to get compliments at Vons (like Safeways))
  • These Shoes (fake Vans)

Friday, September 06, 2013

Seth Godin stepping into the MOOC realm

Following Seth regular blog, I saw that he is starting a variation on the Massively Open Online Class. Although it might not be strictly online, and he calls it Krypton Community College
.
He observes that there is a 97% dropout rate for classes such as Coursera. I can attest to this because I have started a number of them and have dropped out of all when I realize that I just had not accurately determined the time I had available.  Seth is looking at creating courses that are taught as people meet in small groups in homes. I have yet to read through all the information, but it is interesting. Check it out.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/krypton_community_college/