The system is a Down

7 years ago we bought this house.

The previous owner died in a horrible road accident. This happened 18 months before we bought it.

We’ve recieved various bits of mail for the family over the years and have put it back out on the mail box with the appropriate message.

We never got any email for the deceased until today. A CC offer for the dead guy. Not forwarding it this time.

These companies really need to stop. Is there anyone in this country that doesn’t how to find a CC if they really want one?

Let me start off by saying, I’m not a professional reviewer, I didn’t take notes and I’m totally biased.

This movie freakin rocked.

I took the middles. the oldest and youngest went swimming. big mistake. By way of definition, we have 4 children, they youngest are referred to the “littles”, the middle 2 the “middles” and the oldest 2 the “biggles”.

I saw it on the mega screen at the Galaxy theater here in town. Stadium seats. Only 6 people in the whole studio.

I have about 25 ~30 years worth of Hulk Comics. from about #300 onward. I have various earlier ones but none of the Major ones.

I went in skeptical of it, like I did with the Eric Bana one. That one was OK, and it had Jennifer Connely in it. So it got a pass no matter how horrible people though it was. I did like the classic style Tank fight. They also incorporated elements from about 7 or 8 years ago dealing with his abusive father. Sam Elliot is cool in any movie he’s in. I’m currently running through all the Louis L’amour dramatizations that he’s been in.

Back on subject… I wasn’t sure I was going to like it but I did.

Back when we got married. We didn’t need anything but love.

That was a good thing, cause we were very broke.

It was 15 years ago. I was making 215 a week if I didn’t do any extra work.

We lived in a dinky little apt that could fit in our livingroom today. It was 275/mo utilities included.

We had 2 junk cars that I probably spent $100/mo keeping running.

I don’t know what the rest of our finances were like because I didn’t have a budget back then.

All I know is I was always late on the rent. We had 10000 in CC debt because I’d never learned about the proper use of them. My dad had a theory, ‘ your always going to be in debt so it might as well be as much as you can afford’ It makes me wonder if the pressure of the debt coupled with the effects of PTSD from vietnam is what really made him crazy.

If gas cost then what it does today I wouldn’t have been able to afford to drive to work as I drove 60 miles every other day.

I don’t remember what we spent on food, but it wasn’t much as we didn’t have space to store anything.

Thats about all I can remember right now.

I think it’s either become a rite of passage or a sure way of generating page hits.

What is it?

Dispute the validity of Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps or Debt Snowball.

If you don’t know what they are, go a head and use the google. I’m to lazy to link anything.

I ran accross this blog: http://www.personalbudgettraining.com/blog/2008/06/gospel-according-to-dave.html

Which pointed to this blog: http://masteryourcard.com/blog/2008/05/23/what-i-think-of-dave-ramsey/

(Note that i could link-a-fy them but remember, I’m Lazy)

Every time this controversy is brought up it’s a guaranteed hit counter buster.

The fact of the matter is.

The debt snowball process works.

The baby steps work.

they may not work for everyone, or be the best plan, about which Dave will fully agree with you.

But they can help people that have failed in every other way to get started and get motivated to drop debt and save money

Posted in Somebody Else’s Blog over at www.creditwithdrawal.com:

We have 2 vehicles. A 5 year old minivan and a 15 year old luxury sedan. with both cars we use approx 50 gallons of gas per month. Buying a new car, even a hybrid isn’t an option at this time as any car payment would just drag our budget down and we haven’t enough to pay cash.
I’m also waiting for the new technology to stabilize in cars. I’m really hoping Hydrogen in our current ICE vehicles will become the standard.
I fill up every 6 weeks, the wife every 2.
Unless we go out of town.
We haven’t made any changes yet other than trying to consolidate trips and (for me)driving a little more sanely.
I drive 3.5 miles to work. I can’t take public transportation here because it’s a joke and would take me 2 hrs to get there from the nearest bus stop. Walking isn’t much of an option either because I work nights from 10pm till 8.
The kids all walk to school. Only one has an extra curricular thing once a week.
As far as food goes. We may eat out as a family every 8 days or so, the wife and I once a week if we are out running errands.
We buy a side of beef at a time from a local farmer every 1o months or so. We get a whole hog at auction when the price is good. The same farmer raises nice meaty chickens every other year so that is taken care of too.
we don’t buy too much in bulk, but the wife keeps track of sales and whom is selling what.
Not a lot of pre processed foods.

Other than not running the AC this summer, I’m not too sure how we could reduce costs any further.

For the past few years i’ve been phasing out our aluminium pans in favor of using cast iron and stainless steel.

Even on the so-called Premium aluminum pans they seem to flake eventually. All it takes is too many sessions at high heat and they get ruined it seems.

My 2 oldest (12 and 9) like fried egg sandwiches. They maybe cook 1 a day each.

It only took them a few times to get used to cooking with a steel pan using olive oil at a low heat.

It’s good to see that they’d rather fix a meal from scratch than grab a snack.

I’ve gone green for the next few weeks.

My Jaguar is in the shop for an overhaul.

It gets 12~13 miles to the gallon in town.

Since premium gas is $3.95/Gallon here at the moment I have also reduced my operating costs by not driving it and giving that money to the mechanic.

Hopefully this dude comes to Bloomington sometime.

Some reviewer say he sounds like David Alan Coe’s Grandpa.  But this stick is harder than that.

Check You Tube for this cat’s videos then log on to Amazon dot com and download his album.

You will not be dissapointed.

I’m still here.

Just busier than normal

the 40/hr week job has me working overtime and the side business has gotten busier.

I think i’m going to move into the blogosphere my updating my blogroll and linking and other such nonsense.

but that will happen when i get more time… like in September.

I wrote this email to a tv personality. Not really expecting a reply but just a composition of thoughts related to 2 things i’m passionate about, Music and Business.

take a read and express your thoughts if any:

XXXX,
the family and I love your show. I’ve been a XXXX fan for about as long as y’all have been in music.
The wife… Not so much so. But she enjoys the show as do the children.

One question is, and it’s really a slam to all the elitists out there…
Don’t you get tired playing the same songs for 30+ years?

It’s really a silly question. AC/DC has been doing it almost that long. So has Willie Nelson and as a matter of fact most entertainers keep bringing to their fans the same quality product that attracted the fan in the first place.

So the real question i suppose is. How does an entertainer reconcile him/herself to the fact that folks view them and their performance in a certain way?

It can’t be purely money. I’m sure thats a big part of it. But is a rut really a bad thing for a business when the rut keeps bringing in money?

As a small businessman running a fairly successful IT company I find myself getting frustrated dealing with the same issues time and time again.

Many of my peers branch out, try different things only to get burned at times. I think this is akin to musicians that “stray” from what the core fans know. Sometimes there’s a hit that brings in more fans (business), but most times it’s a bust.

My experience in the small business world, mostly in Central Illinois, has proven that people like, in order, Value, Consistency and Personal attention. That keeps them coming back no mater what.

Not really expecting a reply. In fact, I’m going to post this email in an altered form on my blog. But your thoughts on the matter would be interesting.