breddy.net

Last week I had what might be the strangest air travel experience I’ve ever had. I was flying from Raleigh to Ft. Lauderdale via Atlanta. Before the gate agent in Raleigh opened boarding for the flight, she found out that our plane was called in for maintenance. It wasn’t fifteen minutes before she changed our gate to the next one over and told us we’d be on a different plane. No problem, we thought.
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I was listening to the radio the other day and it occurred to me that there may be some problems with the American health care system. Just about every politician is talking about it and about as much as we can grok from all the rhetoric is whose plan isn’t going to work. But it seems to me that we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
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Marissa decided the house was way too quiet without our furry friend around. Even the cats were looking at each other, waiting for someone to challenge their reign of the house! That’s when we found our new friend in the online classifieds. A family in Port Charlotte, FL (about 2.5 hours drive) had been surprised with a litter of nine purebred rottie puppies! They had only one left — the one they’d considered keeping as their own.

We drove that day to look at the little guy and fell in love. He’s just over eight weeks old and his name is Guinness.

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Last week our 9-year-old rottweiler Bodi was diagnosed with cancer. He had two large tumors and we were forced to make the choice that no pet owner ever wants to make. Bodi did not come home with us.

Bodi was at Marissa’s side almost every waking moment from the day he came home with her in college. He protected the house, his owners and his dog pals. He always knew what was going on and would not tolerate violence. He’d step in to break up a fight regardless of whether it was human or canine.

We will miss him dearly.

Paul B. Farrel, in a recent article published on MarketWatch.com, posits that everything you need to know about personal finance is contained in nine simple steps. In a Dilbert book. He goes so far as to praise the ideas as worthy of a Nobel Prize in economics.

Paul, you may be onto something. I won’t get into too much blabber, but I certainly agree that these simple bullet points are essential and bear repeating. For the lazy readers (and because I think this is so important), I’ll quote them here:

1. Make a will
2. Pay off your credit cards
3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support
4. Fund your 401k to the maximum
5. Fund your IRA to the maximum
6. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it
7. Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account
8. Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement
9. If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio

There you go. That’s it. Do these things and you will retire worry-free. Furthermore, you’ll live the rest of your life not having to worry about losing your job or being able to pay the bills.

I realize these things aren’t easy, but work towards them. Most of the people reading this post can go 9 for 9 if only they prioritize a little. If you’re not making much money, you can always save a small percentage somewhere you can’t touch it so easily. Do you smoke? Quit — and put away the $4 a pack. You’ll kill 2 birds with one stone that way (and maybe even save yourself).

This interesting post raises this very question and even makes the case that no, they should not be. Keeping salaries under wraps is the default protocol here in the U.S. of A., and I now wonder if it does more harm than good. Here’s one of the key points that made me think:

And here’s the problem: If Johnson’s salary is (unfairly) higher than mine, and secret, I can’t complain to my manager about it because I can’t admit that I know about it. When a company sets up a situation where people can see the unfairness but can’t address it directly, or even discuss it openly, they’re rigging the system for maximum frustration.

The author cites another potential problem, one I have experienced first hand:

I have worked at two different companies where salaries were secret and guess what: They weren’t. Most people knew what most others were getting. In one company I consulted for, the IT department had even found the Excel spreadsheets HR kept the salaries in. They knew what everyone was getting.

This blurb speaks to the larger issue of information asymmetry, the term given to a situation in which those who possess information can choose to use it against those who do not. Leaked information becomes contraband and fosters even more frustration. And as Young MC says, “From frustration first inclination / Is to become a monk and leave the situation”. But every dark tunnel has a lighter hope, so maybe transparency is the way forward.

What do you think? Would you prefer working in an open environment like this?

Good thing my wife and I were able to catch Bodies, the Exhibition in Manhattan last month, because it isn’t coming to War Memorial Auditorium any time soon. In a blunt move sure to rescue innocent children from actual education, the city commission blocked the show from using the facility. Mayor Jim Naugle had this to say:

“It makes me think about what happened during the Holocaust,” Naugle said at a Thursday conference meeting. “These are the bodies of oppressed people.”

Really? What does the Fort Lauderdale Gun & Knife Show make you think of? Lollipops and teddy bears? The mayor doesn’t seem to have a problem with the display and free sale of thousands of deadly weapons inside the venue. To be clear, my dissatisfaction about gun shows in general is one of inconsistency, not philosophy.

So let’s hope another venue picks up the show, because it is by far the most informative display of human anatomy one can experience without going to medical school.

My wife and I came across the strangest billboards in Chicago this past weekend. The oddest of the bunch is shown here; others say “I Pooted” or “Yes”. Clearly we had no idea what this was about, but a little Googling reveals what I think is a new breed of viral marketing. I won’t ruin it for you, but check it out: