The Burckart Blog

Stop PIPA

2012-01-18T06:28:00.002-05:00

My letter to our NC state Senators based on the PROTECT IP Act:

Senator Burr and Hagan,

As a technology professional who works at IBM in North Carolina I appreciate the importance of intellectual property. In fact, in 2011 I filed the most patent applications in IBM in the state of North Carolina and as you may know, IBM leads the US and world in patents issued every year for the past 19 years. I do not write this representing IBM however but instead representing myself as your constituent. So let me share my thoughts with you which do not represent my company.

Protecting intellectual property is a large concern of mine. I want to be able to innovate freely and protect those innovations which are difficult discover. I was very interested to read the PROTECT IP Act but once I did, I was appalled. The full text of what I read was from Senator Leahy's website here: http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText-PROTECTIPAct.pdf

While it is important to protect intellectual property, it is not worth opening the door to censorship this great. It is my understanding that the text in this bill will allow those with the most lawyers and deepest pockets to potentially demand that free speech be censored from the American people. This Act alone is not worth the worldwide damage it could cause to the cause of freedom of speech. In fact, there is no intellectual property that is worth the loss of freedom of speech.

Furthermore, in a worldwide economy, censorship in the United States of the Internet alone will do little to stop the bleeding of our intellectual property into products and services abroad. Foreigners may still freely access and share another's intellectual property regardless of whether the US people can see it. It has more potential to hinder US innovation due to less information being available and more legal troubles being possible within the US. For example, individuals and institutions overseas may choose to stop publishing materials such as research papers to sites available within the US because of legal fears.

As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the PROTECT IP Act. These bills will risk censoring the American Internet, ultimately stifle innovation, and provide a way for limiting freedom of speech worldwide.

Thanks,
Erik Burckart

Read more about this issue at these places:
Google's site about the issue
Stop American Censorship
Fight for the Future

Reflecting on 2011

2011-12-31T16:08:00.005-05:00

I write this on December 31, 2011 with about 8 hours left to go in 2011. Its been an amazing year and I was thinking about trying to recap this great year.

The year started with a flurry as our family bought a new house in the beginning of February and moved at the end of February. This is the third house Heather and I have lived in and second the kids have lived in. Our new home was a foreclosure, 2 miles and 1 stop sign away from our old house within Bedford at Falls River. We got a contract on our old house in April and it sold at the beginning of June.

We also became members at our new church, Harvest Bible Chapel North Raleigh, in February. Heather and I spent over 8 years at our previous church before being called to Harvest, a small church plant in our area. We have been active members and have enjoyed serving and having fellowship in the church ever since. If you are in Raleigh, come check us out at Fox Road Elementary School at 10 AM.

In April we went outside Jacksonville Florida with Heather's extended family. The girls had a blast and it was warm enough to spend most of the time on the beach. We also celebrated Maddie's 3rd birthday that month. Maddie's 3rd birthday was a ladybug party at our house.

In May, my mother (aka Oma) visited over mother's day weekend and that was very exciting. Then towards the end of May we watched our friends 4 yr old twin girls and Heather and I got to experience being outnumbered 2:1. They were great and luckily we were smart enough to expect if we had another two for it to be that easy. :-) Their stay lasted two weeks and afterward we celebrated a belated 8 year anniversary date.

We had a couple fun trips this summer including going to Figure Eight Island near Wilmington NC and going to Maine. Here are some great pictures of our trip to Figure Eight. We enjoyed that trip with Heather's family at the end of June. In early August, we flew up to Maine to visit with my family. This trip was Maddie's first flight and the girls did great. We enjoyed picking blueberries, riding on the lake, and having a sea adventure with Diver Ed.

In September, Anna started preschool for the first time going three days a week. She really loved it and has is looking forward to winter break being over. We also started finishing our attic in September. As part of that work, we cut the cord and got rid of cable. We are enjoying a cable-less household now. We capped off October by having a very small Alice in Wonderland girls only 5th birthday party for Anna.

2011 sadly didn't pass without some significant losses as well. We mourned the passing of Heather's best friend's father, Jeff, and a last grandparent, Maw-maw. These two family members will be missed and we have been praying for our whole extended family who have felt the effects throughout the holidays.

This fall/winter we also had great visits from my dad (Opa) as well as Oma, my sister, brother in law, and niece. This combined with seeing lots of Heather's family for Thanksgiving at our house and Christmas at their houses made for a great end of the year.

We are preparing for a fun new year in Raleigh, have enrolled Anna in school for the fall and Maddie in preschool for the fall, and are embarking on new adventures all over the place. For our extended friends and family, we hope that our 2012 adventures will include you.

Yee-haw - we are free of cable...

2011-12-03T19:35:00.004-05:00

We had Windstream here on Friday to have internet and a *gasp* landline phone installed. Today I drove down to Time Warners place, stood in line behind about 20 people canceling cable (many took Black Friday specials from DirecTV and Dish), and then cancelled our cable completely. Just like that, we saved over $60/month off our cable bill (which was a "promotion" rate.)

What will we miss? I will miss ESPN, although Windstream gives me ESPN3 access. Anna and Maddie will miss the Disney channel. Heather will miss HGTV. We all will miss the DVR. I will miss the speed of Time Warner's internet connection. Windstream, while faster than the AT&T DSL I had one year ago, is still significantly slower than Time Warner (see image below).

What I won't miss? Shelling out an extra $60/mo for the above services. We won't miss the abysmal customer service. I won't miss the crappy VoIP service Time Warner provided. I won't miss the worse excuse for HD I have ever seen. I won't miss having to call every year or 6 months to get a promotion rate because their normal rates are so high.

Windstream commits to not change their prices by saying if they start offering higher bandwidth, you can choose to pay more ot get it. But it won't keep increasing on you. There is no promotion rate I have to fight for yearly. Amazing!

The kids are taking it well. In the last couple of days they were choosing to watch TV on the antenna rather than the recordings off the DVR. They have been excited to watch PBS Kids and Tri-state Christian Television's Family channel.

Still have not yet signed up for Netflix or Hulu Plus..that is still to come.

What channels do we get?

2011-12-01T07:32:00.002-05:00

The common question I get is what channels do you get. My TV says it found 49 channels but only is showing 24. Here is the list of channels, each of which comes through great. Two of these don't come from the south side of my house, where my omnidirectional antenna is installed. Those are ION (47.1) and TCT (30.1). PBS (WUNC) mostly comes from the west rather than east and comes in fine.

4.1 PBS WUNC
4.2 WUNC Kids
4.3 WUNC EX
5.1 CBS WRAL
5.2 THIS?
11.1 ABC WTVD
11.2 ?
11.3 ?
17.1 NBC WNCN
17.2 ?
17.3 ?
22.1 CW WLFL
22.2 Country music
28.1 WRDC my ROC
28.2 The Cool TV
30.1 Tri-state Christian Television
30.2 different Tri-state Christian Television
30.3 Tri-state Christian Television Family
30.4 Spanish Tri-state Christian Television
47.1 WRPX ION
47.2 ION Kids
47.3 ION Life
50.1 Fox WRAZ
50.2 Me TV

Channels I am not getting which TV Fool says I may are:
24.1 W24CP
40.1 Univision
44.1 WZGS
64.1 W64CN
68.1 W68BK

Another interesting nuance is when I go to a channel like 25.1 which is another PBS (WUNK-TV), my TV takes me to 4.1 (WUNC-TV). So I don't know if that counts that as I am getting 25.1. If so, this would account for the channels it says I am getting but I am not actually getting.

Change of plans for getting rid of cable

2011-11-29T07:49:00.002-05:00

To review the steps we have done to get rid of cable as outlined when we were Preparing to cut cable

COMPLETED: Step 1: Run a coax cable line and power outlet in the attic on the southeast corner of my house. I used TV Fool to determine the right place in my house to run this line for an in attic antenna.

COMPLETED: Step 2: Install an in attic amplified antenna to pick up local HD stations. I am currently looking at the Terk FDTVO Antenna.

CHANGED/COMPLETED: Step 3: Instead of buying an $80 HD Roku box - I've decided to purchase one of the Cyber Monday deals on Blu-ray players which also support Netflix and Hulu Plus.

SCHEDULED: Step 4: Switch from Internet, Phone, and TV from my cable provider to Internet and Phone from Windstream.

Step 5: Sign up for Hulu Plus and Netflix.

Antenna based TV is great!

2011-11-25T15:18:00.006-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving y'all. As we prepare to cut cable...I installed a Terk FDTVO in the attic this Thanksgiving break. As I said last time, first I did an address check at TV Fool. It gave me an in depth listing of all the TV Channels available from my house through a small antenna, an attic mounted antenna, and a roof mounted antenna. The graph for my house looks like this:

Based on this, I needed to aim the antenna south, either slightly southeast or slightly southwest. I bought the Terk FDTVO because its multi-directional and pointing in one direction, we can get both the channels in the southeast and southwest directions. So, finding the southern most corner of the house, the Terk FDTVO took about 15-20 minutes to install. From the Terk there is a 10 ft coax cable line, then it plugs into the amplifier provided with the Terk, then it runs from the 3rd floor to the crawlspace and back up to the first floor to my cable splitters. I found the 3 cable lines we used in the house and attached those lines into the splitter with the antenna as the input.

(My phone shown for size perspective)

After turning my TV to over the air rather than cable, My TV found 49 local channels. The Terk worked great. I turned on the LSU v Arkansas game and it looked great.

That is a HD picture with quality better than Time Warner Cable for sure.

Preparing to cut the cable...

2011-11-11T15:48:00.002-05:00

I am preparing to cut the cable in our house. Here is my plan.

Step 1: Run a coax cable line and power outlet in the attic on the southeast corner of my house. I used TV Fool to determine the right place in my house to run this line for an in attic antenna.

COMPLETE

Step 2: Install an in attic amplified antenna to pick up local HD stations. I am currently looking at the Terk FDTVO Antenna.

Step 3: Purchase and install two Roku boxes. Right now I am aiming for the Roku 2

Step 4: Switch from Internet, Phone, and TV from my cable provider to Internet and Phone from Windstream.

Step 5: Sign up for Hulu Plus and Netflix.

So, step 2 is next. Total, this takes our bill from $126 (discounted rate) to around $90 per month standard rate with an initial cost around $250 for step 1-5. I'll try to keep tabs on this project out here on my blog.

Fried Apple Crepes

2011-09-16T19:18:00.003-04:00

After eating the best breakfast of my life at The Depot American Diner in Chicago, I was determined to bring home something like their apple pancake recipe. Not wanting to make a full copy of their recipe, I made up my own recipe for similar awesome taste with a slightly different context- we made it for dessert!

Burckart's Fried Apple Crepes
Makes: 7 crepes
Prep time: 20 minutes
Total time needed start to finish: 1 hour, 30 mins (lots of down time between)

Fried Apple slices
At least one hour before making the crepes, you must prep the apples.
Ingredients:
7 slices of Granny Smith (or your favorite) apple (fatter is better, 1 large apple would be sufficient)
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp sugar

Instructions:
1) Slice the apple from side to side with thin but full slices. Cut out the core on each slice.
2) Fill a 2 qt pot halfway with water, bring water to boiling.
3) Put apple slices in the boiling water. Add cinnamon and sugar to water.
4) Boil for 10 minutes on medium-low
5) Lay apples out on plate to cool and dry

Crepe batter:
Ingredients:
1 c white wheat flour
2 eggs
1/2 c milk
1/2 c water
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp honey

Instructions:
1) In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour and the eggs.
2) Gradually whisk in the milk and water.
3) Add the salt, butter, and honey
4) Beat until smooth.

Making the fried apple crepes:

Instructions:
1) Heat a griddle over medium heat
2) Place a fried apple slice in the center of the griddle
3) Flip the apple after one minute
4) Pour 1/4 cup of crepe batter in the center of the apple. Batter should cover the center of the slice, the top, and flow to each side.
5) Cook for about 2 minutes til golden brown. Flip, cook the other side for about 2 minutes also.
6) Serve hot.

In pictures:
Step 2:

Step 4:

Step 5:
It will be time to flip when the crepe doesn't look liquidy around the sides of the apple:

Step 6:

We ate our first time spoils with powdered sugar and whipped creme.

To find The Depot, we used the Flavor Town USA site dedicated to the Food network show, Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Here is the show we used to find The Depot:

Finally, I should note that the great apple we used came from yesterday's delivery to our doorstep from The Produce Box. Great apple, great dessert!

What is this about a Rapture?

2011-05-20T07:56:00.008-04:00

If you haven't heard, some people are calling for there to be a day of judgement and Rapture tomorrow with the world ending on October 21st. This is a date predicted by Harold Camping, a man who also predicted the date wrongly in 1994. This is so widely discussed in the news, I thought it might be helpful to shed a light on what the bible REALLY says for those that read my blog.

First, on false prophets: (1)

Deuteronomy 18:20-22 (ESV)
But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.' And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?'-- when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

So, if a man claims to have some prophecy and it doesn't come true, ignore that prophet. Camping in fact may not be a false prophet(2) (depending on your definition of a prophet) but I believe he is at least teaching against God's word and therefore it makes him a false teacher and I believe the same should be said of a false teacher of God's word.

Second, on whether we can know the day and time:

Mark 13:32-36 (ESV) - also in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.
"But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning-- lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.
Acts 1:6-8 (ESV)
So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

So, Jesus says multiple times that you cannot know when. In fact, He does not know, only God the Father knows. How then do these people who claim to be Jesus's followers ignore His words as recorded?

Third, what about judgement? (3)

God is holy so He has to be just and punish your sin (Isaiah 59:1-2, Romans 3:23-24).
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus

He did punish your sin, He inflicted your penalty on His sinless Son (Isaiah 53:4-5, 1 Peter 3:18).

We can receive this forgiveness of our sin alone by faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23, 10:9, Ephesians 2:8-9).
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast.

We can walk in newness of life which is based on faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 6:4, Titus 2:11-14, 1 Peter 2:2-5).

So, we will be judged but for those who put their faith in Christ, there is grace through the blood shed by Jesus on the cross and hope in His triumph over death in the resurrection.

Finally, what about the end times in the bible? (3)

The end times will get tougher – its important to make a decision and get strong in your faith now (Mark 13 - also Luke 21 and Matthew 24)

Expect more earthquakes, famines, and wars (Mark 13:7-8).
And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Jesus will rescue His own (Mark 13:26-27).
"At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

There will be an end of this time and until then wars, earthquakes, and famines will increase in frequency. Jesus will rescue those who are His own. Just as the apostles looked forward to the second coming of Jesus so do the followers of Jesus today when the world will exit its birth pains, tribulations will be complete, and we enter into eternity with a Glorious and Holy Lord. Until that day (which we don't know) we hope and pray that all will join us in our belief. We respond with the final words in the book of Revelation, "Come, Lord Jesus."

(1) Adapted from Randy Alcorn, Eternal Perspective Ministries
(2) Harold Camping False prohet? by RC Sproul. Ligonier Ministries
(3) Adapted from Pastor Mike Willis, Harvest Bible Chapel North Raleigh

So your team lost the Super Bowl...

2011-02-07T07:13:00.003-05:00

First of all, congratulations to the Green Bay Packers and their fans...especially to my cousins Amy and Hiter who were fans for years before this season. I hope you win many more Super Bowls but not at the expense of the Steelers again. :-) For those that don't know, I am a huge sports fan. I cheer on my Steelers, Pitt Panthers, Penguins, and even Pirates whenever I can. I am most seriously a Steelers fan and love to cheer them on. After they just lost the Super Bowl, the common question is, "Are you disappointed?" That's a good question, so let's analyze it a bit more.

When I was younger when the Steelers lost I would be downtrodden for weeks. My family knew and expected me to be short, moping, easy to anger and lots of other things like I had just lost my best friend. Years ago I gained some perspective, some eternal perspective, and things changed. In fact when I went to the Super Bowl in Tampa to cheer on my Steelers in 2009 and they blew a lead and were losing late in the fourth quarter, I turned to my pal John and said "Even if they lose here this was worth it." What was worth it you might ask? The time spent with a friend, the adventure of traveling to Tampa, and the fun of cheering on my Pittsburgh Steelers. They won so no Steelers fan was disappointed. But this year they lost, so am I disappointed?

I decided to start by looking up the word disappointed. In the dictionary it was defined as "being sad because something failed to fulfill one's hopes." Well, then of course I am not disappointed. Sure, I want my team to win. I even will say that I hope they win. But my hopes aren't really tied up in a football game. There are much more serious matters that my hopes are tied up in. Life or death matters.

In my life I found myself hopeless for a while. I spent time meandering through life doing what I pleased me and what I realized is that each step I took down that path was a step farther away from what is now my eternal hope. Doing what I thought pleased me moved me further from God and the further I moved away from God the more miserable I truly was. The sin that I thought was pleasing me was really just making me more miserable. While I might have instantaneous pleasure in the moment, my lack of love and hope was really making me more miserable even if only seen when looking at my entire day, week, month, or year. What I didn't know is it was far worse than I knew - my life and lifestyle was leading me down a path to eternal separation from God. Thankfully we all have an opportunity to course correct and put our hopes, love, and desire in God through Christ crucified. I did this and my life has changed. I consistently feel God's love and have eternal hopes in Christ.

So, friends, I am not disappointed in the Steelers loss because even if they had won, it wouldn't have changed the things that really matter in my life. I am more concerned about another battle - a battle for the eternal lives of my friends and family. I worry that they will miss the opportunity to put their faith in Christ and live an eternal life with peace and love in their hearts. My hope is in Christ and I pray that my loved ones will also know Him.

Oh, and I think Troy Polamalu would approve this message. ;-)

Great photographer - great experience

2010-11-18T08:53:00.002-05:00

This year's Christmas card will feature photos by the very talented Jessica Porter. I wanted to just sing her praises and recommend her for all of our friends who are looking for a local kid-friendly photographer who provides high quality digital pictures with the rights to those photos..which is the thing I was desiring months ago. Jessica also did a wonderful time with the kids and was able to get many quality shots of the girls. These aren't even the best pictures - we are saving those for the Christmas card. ;-)

Church change...

2010-10-11T13:16:00.003-04:00

Just a quick not on one of the big things that have changed for us - we decided to leave our old church. This was very difficult for us to do. We have been at one church for over 8 years - members for the past 7 years. We met at this church. Our kids were dedicated at the church. We know many people in the church and we have a great small group. The church has a pretty open and agreeable** theological stance, good leadership, good children's ministries, and lots of great ministries which help so many people. The church gives over 60% of their collected giving to ministries locally and across the globe and is almost debt free so they can give even more. It is a great church and we were comfortable there.

Why are we leaving? Because we are convinced that the Holy Spirit has been urging us to consistently for the past 12 months and maybe as many as 4 years ago. What are we hearing? "Leave what is comfortable. Seek a smaller discipleship oriented church. Find ways to better serve Me. Look to magnify Me to those I place in your path. Avoid consumerism and don't settle."

We blindly followed that and decided to leave our church over labor day weekend not knowing where we would go. We stopped going to that church completely. We were able to look at over 50 churches thanks to how people have put their beliefs and sermons online these days. That was great but it still was a difficult decision. Through online searching, we were able to compare our beliefs (and theology), look at church vision, and listen to sermons very quickly - and through that process we narrowed our church selection down to 3 churches. We went to the first one who was the front runner and it was clear we were in the right place. That place is Harvest Bible Chapel North Raleigh.

Interested in hearing more about Harvest? Check out the 9.19.2010 sermhere about the vision of Harvest. My favorite sermon thus far has been Mike's sermon on 10.3.2010 around Mark 10.

** So long as you don't have strong convictions that one specific theology MUST be preached

Credit Freezes for North Carolinians

2010-08-12T19:08:00.004-04:00

Back in May of 2008, I was lamenting the fact that credit freezes would cost us $30/person or $120 for our family of 4. What I failed to notice last October was that our North Carolina General Assembly made the necessary changes to the Identity Theft Protection Act of 2005 in order to make it free online (with exceptions below) to get a credit freeze. Here is the page from the NC Department of Justice to explain what the advantages to getting a freeze are.

With freezes, thaws (temporary unfreezes), and removal being free...this seems like a no brainer. Before I was wondering if this is worth $120 for my family plus $10 every time I had to remove the freeze. Now, all those barriers have been removed. I can't believe it took me 10 months to learn of this.

Credit Freezes are always free for those over 62 years old, have been the victim of identity theft, or are the spouse of an identity theft victim. For the rest of us, here are the fees:

Place, Thaw, or Remove a Credit Freeze online: FREE
Place a Credit Freeze by phone or mail: up to $3
Thaw or Remove a Credit Freeze by phone or mail: FREE

Here is Clark Howard's guide to credit freezes with all the links to freeze your credit.

Here is the actual text from the actual law passed by the NC general assembly:

A consumer reporting agency shall not charge a fee to put a security freeze in place, remove a freeze, or lift a freeze pursuant to subsection (d) or (j) of this section, provided that any such request is made electronically. If a request to put a security freeze in place is made by telephone or by mail, a consumer reporting agency may charge a fee to a consumer not to exceed three dollars ($3.00), except that a consumer reporting agency may not charge any fee to a consumer over the age of 62, to a victim of identity theft who has submitted a copy of a valid investigative or incident report or complaint with a law enforcement agency about the unlawful use of the victim's identifying information by another person, or to the victim's spouse. A consumer reporting agency shall not charge an additional fee to a consumer who requests to temporarily lift for a specific period of time or to a specific third party, reinstate, or remove a security freeze.

Do credit cards steal from the poor and give to the rich?

2010-08-09T07:25:00.002-04:00

Here is an interesting read for the day, the idea that credit cards steal from the rich and give to the poor. The idea is that everything nowadays has a built in uplift in the price to pay for the 2% credit card service fee. That amount is likely less than 2%. The idea is that the richest folks of those consumers paying that uplift have rewards cards; cash-back, airline mileage, points, etc.

Well, if the richest are getting back some of their uplifted price what are the poorest doing? According to these folks they are paying the uplifted prices with cash, debit cards, or maybe credit cards without rewards. If that is the case, they are paying the uplift without any reward.

Let's work an example. If the uplift at a given grocery store is 1%, for every $100 spent there $1 was set aside for the credit card processing. If the richest folks bought $50 of that and the poorest folks bought the other $50. $1 (2%) of the $50 the richest people spent goes to the credit processing company, $0.50 (1% uplift) was what the richest folks were charged and $0.75 (1.5%) of that will go back into the wallets of those richest folks. Meanwhile, the poorest people paid the $0.50 more than they should have since they didn't pay with credit cards. This means that $0.25 of the poorest people's money went into the richest people's pockets according the people that are bringing up this question.

So, if you agree this is what is happening what do you do? You realistically have two options, keep rewards cards or take a moral stand and drop the rewards card which causes you to pay to those that have rewards cards. The system is deeply established already which is part of the problem here.

I am thinking that maybe a good medium is to keep the rewards card and donate half of the rewards to charities which focus on lower income individuals.

Free Exercise Program - Fixing our drainage problem

2010-08-07T08:33:00.003-04:00

For the past couple of years its been getting worse and worse and its finally on the top of my list of things to fix now that it is washing away our backyard. We have a major water drainage problem at my house.

Rewind 5 years ago when we bought the house. There were bushes lining the driveway and 2 big trees around the bottom of the driveway / bottom of the deck. After those bushes died and the trees were deemed dangerous to our home, we removed them around 3 years ago.

In the past 3 years now, the water draining off the driveway has watches away sod and soil. Now it is extending itself further into the backyard. Now its time to take action that I should have taken several years ago. Here is a picture the morning after a rain storm:

As we have been evaluating options, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend time during the big rain storm on Thursday to watch the water flow. I know where it flows and where it is a problem now. I was able to talk to a friend, Mike, who helps fix these problems and I think I now know how to do it. I have a ton of information about french drains, infiltration drains/basins, dry wells, tortuousity, and permeable pavers in my head. Now its time for action. Next weekend I think I will begin the big dig (assuming the phone, cable, and electric company marks their lines early in the week).

Now, who wants to join me and get some exercise?

In Debt? Dave Ramsey coming to Raleigh

2010-07-30T08:17:00.002-04:00

If you are in debt or your are struggling to manage your finances, Dave Ramsey is coming to Raleigh for his Total Money Makeover event. Those who read this blog know that we follow the teachings as learned through Crown Financial Ministries. Dave's plan is an offshoot of that plan and his one size fits all plan is great for anyone struggling with debt or finances.

If you don't know how you will dig out of your mess or need a plan and encouragement to do so, please consider going....based on the many people I know who have gotten out of debt on Dave's plan - I think you will be blessed by it.

Twist on daily cost of debt - the giving possibility

2010-07-27T06:01:00.003-04:00

When thinking about how to chronicle life in the future, I decided to peruse the blogosphere for for debt free living blogs. I found this interesting blog not about living debt free (yet) but about achieving freedom from debt called Debt Free Adventures...which just so happened to be one of the site names I had thought of...

All that intro to bring you to an interesting blog that Matt wrote here entitled How Much Our Debt Costs where he records that his debt costs $37/day. This took me back to a comment by a friend that stated that he paid roughly $10,000 in interest and was able to get about $3200 back on that through state and local tax deductions. What that made me realize is that $10,000 in interest is about $27.40/day or $18.63/day if you count the money saved on taxes.

Whats amazing is that if you took that $10,000 you could sponsor 25 kids all year long, deduct the money on your taxes, and still have extra money in your pocket. Is anyone else amazed by that? Have you figured out how much your debt costs and what you would or could do with that? What else could you be doing with $25/day or whatever your daily cost of debt is?

Paying off your mortgage will lower your credit score

2010-07-26T07:52:00.002-04:00

A while back I was researching what happens when you pay off your mortgage. One of the things I stumbled on was this helpful blog in which the author shares his experience that his FICO credit score went down based on paying off his mortgage:

I’m no FICO credit score expert, but my understanding is that the decrease occurred because I no longer have any installment loans. Apparently their algorithms aren’t smart enough to distinguish between people who’ve never had an installment loan and people who’ve had one, never made a late payment, and paid it off within the past month.

Is it that their algorithms aren't smart enough or are they working as designed? Dave Ramsey calls the FICO credit score two things:

The I Love Debt Score

The "I've been kissing the bank's butt on a regular basis" score

That's right, its probably working as designed. Someone who pays off their mortgage isn't as good as someone who will pay interest on debt consistently to a bank. Its common sense and business wise for the bank. But how should consumers react?

I am writing this quick blog because I think people should know about this and be outraged. We should be outraged because your credit score is being used for other things while the algorithm is written for the bank's customer evaluation purposes. That is the most outrageous part of this. Insurance companies and (reportedly) some employers will look at it to determine the risk of an individual. The good news is that some insurance agencies don't use the raw credit score. From my insurance company's website on "insurance scoring":

How does an insurance score differ from a financial credit score?
When evaluating a person’s credit information to determine an insurance score, an insurer only considers those items from credit reports that are relevant to insurance loss potential. Both an insurance score and a credit score are derived from the same thing: a credit report; but they are distinctly different.

The main difference between an insurance score and a credit score is that insurance scores do not take into account a consumer’s income. Unlike a mortgage company, an insurance company is not assessing a customer’s credit-worthiness and therefore doesn’t consider income. Instead, an insurance company only considers those items on a credit report that will indicate future loss potential.

We recognize that people sometimes face difficult circumstances in their lives such as job loss, medical bills or divorce. When we consider an applicant’s insurance score, an isolated instance of a late payment will not have a significant impact on your eligibility. We are looking at long-term patterns and overall responsible use of credit.

Similarly, applicants who use cash for purchases or who don’t have established credit will not be scored negatively.

We should demand anyone aside from banks never use the credit score. If they use the credit report, so be it. But Should paying off your house make you more risky to insurance companies or employers? No! The only reason paying off you house makes you more risky is that you can, to a certain extent, do more of what you please. ;-)

Millennial Generation Equivalent to Mortgage Burning Parties

2010-07-18T08:57:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking about what is the Millennial generation's (born in the 1977-1982 and beyond range) equivalent to a mortgage burning party. As I did research, I found this informative blog summarizing the tradition of mortgage burning parties in the past (with quotes from the LA Times) and why that is being lost through generations. But, people are still asking for good ways to celebrate being rid of their mortgage. So, if the articles are right and many of the Boomer and Generation X generations will never lose their debt, will the Millennial generation be any different?

I tend to be an optimist but the Millennial generation seems to be in a bad debt position as of now. This article from the Futurist says:

Debt levels for the Millennial Generation are totally out of control. Before many Millennials even reach the age of 25, they’ve racked up enough debt to equal all their income for the next five or ten years, and it will take nearly a lifetime to pay off. So much for going to college to get ahead.

If that is the case, will they ever get to the point where they pay off their mortgages? Optimistically, I see this generation as people that are anti-debt because many of them have been burdened by this large debt from a very young age. I think we are seeing more and more people that are anti-debt at 25. You can even see this in some of the new up and coming "online personalities" like Shaycarl(on right) are anti-debt. On the flip side, this generation has few people to look up to who have paid off their mortgages at young ages and maybe they won't even think that the mortgage is something to pay off.

For those like me who are anti-debt, I think this calls for a new way to celebrate paying off your mortgage to make sure people know it can be a cool accomplishment to paying off your mortgage. A mortgage burning party seems too easy. I am thinking of creating a model rocket out of the paperwork and launching it in a way that it will explode. Pretty sure that is illegal in North Carolina though, so I may have to travel to South Carolina where they let you launch anything. :-)

So the rocket idea may not work, but I am looking for other ideas. How do you think the Millennial Generation should celebrate paying off their mortgages? Is there something we can do which will be not boastful but help our peers know it is possible to pay off your mortgage and not just a dream that happens if you can stay in one place for 30 years?

How to deal with your email being hijacked

2010-07-13T07:35:00.011-04:00

Last night I received an email question from a financial advisor. Heather asked me if I planned to fill it out and email it back to which I responded no, public email like gmail isn't secure. Little did I know I would wake up and experience that first hand. This morning I started at the gym around 5 AM and got back home about 6:10 AM. I sat down an cracked open my laptop a little while later to see over a hundred unread messages bounced emails.

I quickly realized my email address was being hijacked. The first thing I needed to figure out was whether someone was spoofing my email address (think of it as someone putting the return address on an envelope to be your address rather than their address) or had they hijacked my gmail account. I looked and saw familiar addresses being bounced back to me, letting me know that someone had hijacked my account specifically.

Within 5 minutes after figuring this out I had locked them out of my account, 14 minutes since they began. They sent hundreds of emails in that time but I don't think they would have had the time to reset my banking passwords or other important information. What I realized was that I should write a simple guide to how to lock out the hijackers for my friends and family since this is happening with increasing regularity.

Here is what to do if you suspect your Gmail is being hijacked:

1. Immediately change your password. Go to http://google.com/accounts and change your password. This locks out most basic scripts (thanks to the lack of Cookie support) or anyone using POP/IMAP. Don't spend a lot of time thinking of a new password, use your old password with a number at the end or your address. You can make a stronger password later - right now you are just trying to stop the script.

2. Next, check and see if you need to log anyone out. To do that, go to bottom of your email and click on the details of the last account activity:

You will see a popup with a button at the top that says Sign out all other sessions. Click that immediately.

You can see the China address which was my hijacker. The emails stopped once I changed my password which means he probably was running a script of some sort but I clicked Sign out all other sessions to make sure.

3. Check your Gmail settings for changes. My hijacker set my vacation responder to respond to every email with some message.

4. Check your machine for spyware. They may have gotten your password through spyware. Also, check the URLs you log in to your email through to make sure they didn't do some URL hijacking which allowed them to capture your password.
Update 7/13/2010 11:30 AM: Google's help page on suspicious activity itself lists some spyware checkers.

5. Finally, change your password to something strong again. Log out, and log back in.

So, how can the hijackers get to your email? Here are a couple of ways:

1. Packet sniffing - we often send our google passwords over http (not https) which means that they are essentially in the clear for people to see as they pass over the internet. They may also try to grab your cookie and make it look like they are you through packet sniffing.

2. Bad web page exploits. This could be what they call cross site scripting (XSS) or any number of other attacks to steal your password.

3. Spyware. Spyware on your machine can capture keystrokes or packets.

4. Other sites that store your Gmail password get hacked and lose your data.

5. Gmail exploits (doubtful). If there was some exposure on Google's servers, they could use this to log in.

6. Password crackers (even more doubtful). Only really works in movies :-)

Update: 7/13/2010 11:30 AM
Four hours later, Google notified me that I had suspicious activity on my Gmail. I am glad they caught it even if it was 4 hours after I had caught it.

will drive to talk

2010-07-12T18:01:00.000-04:00

I am writing this real quick while in the parking lot of kid's exchange, a big local consignment deal, waiting for heather to drop off some clothes she is selling. I am sitting in the parking lot because the 35 mins it took us to drive down here was valuable time where Heather and I could actually talk. So, I will take a long car ride with her merely to have the opportunity to talk to her longer. Anyone else experience this?

Bush tax cuts expiring will affect you!

2010-07-11T19:53:00.005-04:00

This (shouldn't be) just in - Bush's tax cuts put more money in your pocket! Based on the normal readers of my blog, this is a fairly safe statement to make. These tax cuts expiring will mean you will be paying more money to the federal government. I have said this to many people and people continually had accused me of being far right or fear mongering - but you can read a good in depth article here at Yahoo! Finance courtesy of the Wall Street Journal's SmartMoney. Here are some of the top ways you will be paying more, quotes from the aforementioned article when possible:

1) Higher tax brackets for all. "The current six rate brackets of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% will be replaced by five new brackets with the higher rates of 15%, 28%, 31%, 36% and 39.6%." Your first dollars will be taxed at a higher bracket. You can see the tax brackets here at MoneyChimp. The 10% tax brackets currently covers the first $8375 for singles and $16750 for married filing jointly. Thats immediately another $400 for single and $800 for married couples just for the first tax bracket.

2) Higher capital gains and dividend taxes. "Right now, the maximum federal rate on long-term capital gains and dividends is only 15%. Starting next year, the maximum rate on long-term gains will increase to 20%. The maximum rate on dividends will skyrocket to 39.6%." "Right now, an unbeatable 0% rate applies to long-term gains and dividends collected by folks in lowest two rate brackets of 10% and 15%. Starting next year, those folks will pay 10% on long-term gains and 15% and 28% on dividends (compared with 0% now) unless a change is made. "

3) The end of many more specific fixes to the tax code. The marriage penalty comes back. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions. begin to be phased out again for higher income individuals. You can check out the article for more specifics.

I hope this helps you understand better that we all used to benefit from these tax breaks and losing them will hit all of our wallets. I hope that it doesn't affect YOUR budget too much!

Siblings and best friends?

2010-07-11T14:10:00.003-04:00

My sister is one of my closest friends which is odd considering we are four years apart and haven't lived near one another in over 15 years. For years I had wished we were closer in age so that (I thought) we could be better friends. Realistically what that means is I had an (possibly unrealistic) expectation that we could have kids very close in age who would be best friends. I pictured them skipping through the grassy meadow on a nice sunny day....

Our girls often are 18 months apart and close friends and have yet to act as bitter enemies at any point. They help each other in life. Madelyn is Anna's security - Anna is comfortable often so long as her sister is near. Anna is Madelyn's teacher and sometimes her second mommy - Madelyn learns from Anna and is comforted by Anna. That why I love this picture we snapped of them yesterday (that I altered above) - it shows the fun they have together even when just posing for pictures for their daddy. My prayer is that this is how it will always be.

Planning for your worst moments

2010-07-08T07:27:00.005-04:00

Seven years ago when Heather and I got married, we were two independent people trying to learn to live together. Today, we work together in a much different way. When I am rash, she is well thought out. When I am disorganized, she has a checklist. When I am tactless, she is graceful. When I am arrogant, she humbles me ;-). It doesn't always work this way, some times she is rash (maybe twice in our marriage) and I am well thought out. She is my compliment and we are dependent on one another's natural talents and abilities now.

I found myself uttering a similar pitch recently when talking to a friend about estate planning. If you are in any way like me, estate planning is crucial because if anything happens to your spouse you will be out of alignment. A Heather-less Erik would be lost in so many ways. Many of those ways, Heather is the only one who knows. For example, Heather is the bill payer in the household. Do I even know how or when I am supposed to pay which bills? If you aren't the bill payer, do you know? But, I worry more about an Erik-less Heather. I want to make sure this woman I love so much is okay and taken care of. How do I do that?

A lot of people don't even know where to start with estate planning. Most people believe that some life insurance is enough estate planning. Others go further but stop at a will. The reason I write this is that its not enough. You should have all the information your spouse would need should you pass away. Account numbers, passwords, budgets, bill payment schedules, life insurance, health care information - anything that your spouse can need. Then, if you both have put that information together, look at it and see if it is enough for the person you willed you children and/or possessions to if something happens to both of you. Put it all in a fireproof safe or safety deposit box. Update it (this is where we have failed) yearly.

I can't state how important estate planning is. Your death will be the worst moments of your spouses life. If you and your spouse die, it may be the worst moments of your child's life. A little bit of planning can make those more bearable.

There are many biblical references to estate planning. Perhaps first mentioned here in Genesis 25:5-6 where Abraham had prepared his estate:

5 Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. 6 But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

1 Timothy 5:8

If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

I also found this to be an interesting article on biblical estate planning.

Inspirational Art - beyond Hallmark

2010-07-07T20:24:00.003-04:00

I was looking for an inspirational picture and I decided I would start with a simple Google search. What I found was an awesome story about a woman, Julie Chen, who is a stay at home mom and makes some art that I just absolutely love. I first stumbled upon Julie's Etsy store, Life Verse Design. For those that don't know Etsy, think of it as a massive consignment store on the web. They allow people to sell their homemade, vintage, and unique gifts to the world through the Etsy store.

I immediately loved Julie's art and thought I would do some more research before I bought it. I then stumbled on to her blog, which tells much more of the story of this inspirational stay at home mom that first created her art as an act of worship, found her way to selling a couple designs as a church craft show, started an etsy store in 2008, and now has her own line of DEMDACO art. DEMDACO is the brand that sells the very popular Willow Tree Collection that you will find at many small eclectic stores and Hallmarks around the country.

After finding that no where in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill for you outsiders) area sells Julie's DEMDACO Collection AND she didn't have my favorite pieces in DEMDACO yet, I decided to buy some prints from her Etsy store and frame them for now. After I bought them I had the unique experience of emailing back and forth with Julie who is obviously a wonderful and genuine woman who is passionate about her art and very friendly as well. Please go and check out her collection and support Julie Chen's art.

Beyond tithing - sharing God's blessings

2010-07-05T13:55:00.004-04:00

I have been thinking and praying about what it means to be a good steward of our money and share the abundant blessings we have been given. I have a heart for giving and have read many things on the subject. If you are ever looking for giving and tithing articles, Crown financial ministries has a great set.

Beyond the tithe, we should still be looking to sharing God's blessing. Here are some verses I have been spending time reviewing regarding what it means to share our blessings and what are we called to do. Here are some of the verses I have come up with:

Luke 16:9
I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Matthew 25:34-40
34 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' 37 "Then the righteous will answer him, 'LORD, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' 40 "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Luke 12:22-34
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? 27 "Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. 32 "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 14:12
12 Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

From those passages I get that its not only in obedience that we give our first tithe back to God but that we view the rest, the remaining 90%, as money he has blessed us with that should also bless others. We should take these blessings and use them to help others which are things with eternal consequences often instead of things which are of short consequence. I don't have many other brilliant revelations yet, but I'll finish this by paraphrasing part of Matthew Henry's commentary on Luke 16:9 which I found insightful:

Our Lord Jesus here exhorts us to provide for our comfortable reception to the happiness of another world, by making good use of our possessions and enjoyments in this world. [...] It is the wisdom of the men of this world so to manage their money as that they may have the benefit of it hereafter, and not for the present only; therefore they put it out to interest, buy land with it, put it into this or the other fund. Now we should learn of them to make use of our money so as that we may be the better for it hereafter in another world, as they do in hopes to be the better for it hereafter in this world; so cast it upon the waters as that we may find it again after many days, Eccl. 11:1. And in our case, though whatever we have are our Lord’s goods, yet, as long as we dispose of them among our Lord’s tenants and for their advantage, it is so far from being reckoned a wrong to our Lord, that it is a duty to him as well as policy for ourselves.

Blueberry Picking at Herndon Hills Farm

2010-07-04T12:34:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we had a fabulous time blueberry picking at Herndon Hills Farm in Durham, NC less than a mile from Southpoint mall. I should start by saying I had no idea there were local places to blueberry pick in NC. About 2 weeks ago, Anna began asking if we could go blueberry picking. On Friday, I happened to ask one of the ladies at the gym what she was up to this weekend and she said she was going blueberry picking. Needless to say, we were in and actually even saw her there.

First, why did Anna want to go blueberry picking? It has everything to do with a book called Blueberries for Sal. Anna and I read it often.

Once we got there, we got a couple of buckets with bags in them. The farm had both blueberries and blackberries to pick. I was told they had like 4 types of blueberry bushes there you could pick from. Also, several websites indicated that Herndon Hills is an organic farm but I didn't confirm. Both blueberries and blackberries cost $2.75/lb there.

Anna enjoyed picking them and nibbling on a few herself.

Madelyn (2 years, 2 months old) immediately understand how to select which blueberries to pick and really was wonderful at it.

In the end, we spent 40 minutes and had less than 2 lbs of blueberries and blackberries. It takes as long to pick a blueberry as it does a strawberry - and you need a lot more blueberries. It was a great time.

Digital Photographers for the Millennial Generation

2010-07-04T11:50:00.003-04:00

In the past couple of weeks I have realized how much the photography industry must be hurting. Cameras are getting cheaper and through easy editing and the ability to take hundreds of pictures without consequence, people are starting to question the need for photographers. I think this should cause photographers to rethink their business but it doesn't seem to be actually happening. I think as my generation becomes a higher percentage of the buyers that photographers will be forced to change or become like travel agents, a very niche profession which is tough to make a living off of.

When I was born, my family was having photos captured as slides and slowly moved to prints. About five years ago, my father embarked on an adventure to scan all the important family photos when he realized that digital photos were what he needed to pass down to his children. While we and many others have prints around the house, its the digital photos which are the real high value items that we want to keep around. So, how does a photographer that hopes to make his/her money off prints and doesn't sell digital photos hope to make money when myself and my friends put their long term value in digital photos and not prints?

I was confronted with this recently when my wife won a family photo session from a local photographer. Afterwards, we asked simply how much it would cost for some of the photos as digital prints and they stated that they were not for sale as digital prints. To put it bluntly, this was preposterous to me. The only thing that has real long term value to me is the digital photos and, if they don't share my strong convictions about copyright protection, all their customers will scan the photos they sell them to digitize them. Prints have little to no value to me and in the end they received a lot less money then I would have been willing to spend because of this absurd position.

Having thought about this a bit, I did some research into what other photographers are doing. Here is a good blog about a new pricing model for digital photos where the photographer charges per photo he sells, relying on his skills to make attractive photos that his audience will want to purchase. He also points out in the comments that another variant of this which relies less on choosing the right clientele is to charge an up front fee and include some number of digital photos in that up front fee. That up front fee would then guarantee that the photographer is compensated for their time.

I think this latter model, paying for the photo session but receiving all digital photos, is a reasonable model and it is what I will demand out of any photographer I pay in the future. I see no reason to pay extraordinary amounts for prints which I view as having a limited lifetime. Based on conversation with many friends, I feel that many people in my generation feel the same way. If I understand my generation at all, photographers may need to change how they make their money and assume they will be selling the digital rights to photos rather than prints.

Nags Head Beach Trip

2010-06-29T07:17:00.004-04:00

Last week we went on a beautiful vacation to the Outer Banks, Nags Head NC. We stayed at La Tortuga, a Village Realty managed home near MP 14. While I would highly recommend the management company (who was extremely responsive to AC problems and cable problems), I wouldn't recommend the house for everyone. La Tortuga (I learned it meant the turtle in Spanish) was a nice and large home but had an extremely unusable kitchen and also was next to public beach access. If you are a light sleeper, the 2 AM visitors via the public beach access could wake you up. Also, if at any time you expect to have more than 2 people in the kitchen - think again. The kitchen barely can contain 2 people let alone 2 people actually cooking. Other than that, the house was wonderful. Even though it was oceanfront, we found out how nice an ocean front pool was when the sand was almost too hot to walk on and with all the little ones (2 mo, 1 yo, 2 yo, 3 yo, 8yo) at the house.

Because of the kitchen constraints, we ate a lot of meals out as Heather wrote about. I am going to categorize the meals the whole family had into three categories, best of the beach, good, and served its purpose...

Best of the beach:
Black Pelican (tried eat in only - tuna bites were excellent)
Mama Kwans (had both takeout and eat in - fish tacos were great even as takeout)
Basnight's Lone Cedar Cafe (had both takeout and eat in - crab cakes, buffalo popcorn shrimp, tuna, and soft shelled crabs were top notch)
Austin's seafood market (Great take out and market. The only bad thing was the crab cakes had ham in them)
American Pie for ice cream (chocolate and butter pecan were hits)
Duck Donuts (made to order donuts? IMO better than Krispy Kreme)
Front Porch Cafe for coffee

Good:
Awful Arthur's (take out - oysters didn't stay crisp with takeout but flounder was A+)
Adrianna's Restaurant in Manteo (Great fresh food, not kid friendly)
Blue Point in Duck (Great Food, Not kid friendly, small menu)
Takeo Japanese for Sushi (take out and eat in - good but not anything to write home about)

Served its purpose (not going out of way to get there)
Kill Devil's for frozen custard (Goodberry's has set much higher expectations for us)
American Pie for pizza/subs (they should stick to ice cream ;-) )
Capt'n Franks (expensive oscar mayer hot dogs)
Owen's (Despite raves about their crabcakes, everyone at our table thought they were horrible)
Big Al's Soda Shop in Manteo (burgers, sandwiches, like you would expect...)
Dune's (breakfast buffet not very exciting)

Choosing family over career?

2010-06-17T09:15:00.002-04:00

"Its impossible to find examples of people who have chosen their families over a career that was taking off," one of my friends recently lamented, "but perhaps thats just a statement of how our parent's generation choices."

Father's Day is coming up and I try to reflect on what type of father I have been during this time. It just so happens I have had several conversations relating to the work versus family tension in life. The above conversation happened a couple weekends ago. Impossible is not the word I would have chosen but it is the word that was used. It certainly can be difficult to find people who have stopped mid take off in order to be with their families more often or be with their kids as they grew up. What it had me wondering was whether it was "impossible" to find or if these people were hidden because no one was making an example out of them. Magazines and web sites are dedicated to those with success as defined by our American society and are not dedicated to those who spend the most time with their families. However, in an age with high divorce rates, heavily medicated children, and record childhood obesity from inactivity - maybe we need to define success in a different way.

"When I leave IBM it will be because of my family," an IBM executive told me a week ago, "not because of money or the promise of a more powerful position."

What does it mean to pick your family over your career truly? I know a couple of IBM executives who have made potentially career limiting decisions to keep from moving their families or to move their families near their extended family. However, there are fewer examples of people who tossed their careers out the window. Few of these folks who have dropped travel next to nothing and protect their nights and weekends for their kids. Its this latter definition that my friend and I were looking for during our discussion. What does it look like to truly choose your family over your career?

"I'm retiring from software on June 18th to relax and spend more time with my family," wrote an IBM Distinguished Engineer last night in an email to myself and others.

I am not sure of the situation above, but based on that statement that individual could be a candidate for an example of this decision. I currently am not an example of this either. I try to minimize travel and I start my days at 5 AM in order to get to the gym and be done with work at a reasonable time in the evening. While those things are probably evidence that I care about my family, they are not evidence of me choosing my family over my career in my opinion. That's a tough thing to admit with father's day around the corner.

A lot to like about working at IBM

2010-06-14T07:33:00.003-04:00

I think in most workplaces, people tend to focus on the negatives of their work environment especially when things are hard economically. I found myself being asked a lot recently about what it is like working for IBM or why I like working for IBM. I think we need to focus on some of the good things and, for this reason, I felt the need to list some of the benefits to working as a software engineer where I work, at IBM. Caution: The views below are my own and do not represent my employers

1. Water cooler time. This varies depending on your position in IBM, but for the organizations I have been a part of this is a benefit which is extremely valuable and would be tough to adjust to something different. At IBM, the expectation is that you will get your work done - whether it takes 40 or 60 hours. Checking your personal email, facebook, youtube, instant messaging, blogging, etc is allowable during this time as long as you get your work done. While people will complain that other employers are a more strictly 40 hours, I hear that most of those employers are also more strict about people being heads down working during those 40 hours and those 40 hours are typically on a more rigid schedule.

2. Flexible schedule. If you need to get home early, go to the doctor's, run an errand, or whatever - just as long as you get your work done its no big deal. IBM used to call this part of their work life balance (work life integration now) initiative. Here is a snippet on that initiative:

Today, the interactions of a global workforce—with 24/7 activity spanning the world’s time zones and accommodating a range of local holidays—require a far more flexible environment. Flexibility matters just as much to individuals. Our 2007 Global Work/Life Survey confirms that as IBMers’ flexibility increases, their difficulty in balancing work and personal life decreases. And we’ve also learned that flexibility is a key reason people choose to remain at IBM. So we are innovating again. IBMers now have a range of flexible work options, called Flexibility@Work, enabling them to create the lives they want by devising individual work schedules and integrating their professional and personal responsibilities. Our Global Work/Life Fund provides IBMers’ families with resources such as day care, elder care and summer camps. We’re doing more to enable IBMers to find new assignments with fresh challenges.

3. Opportunities. IBM is not only a company with 400,000 employees worldwide, it is also a company with enough projects for 400,000 employees. If you are a motivated individual looking for challenges and new learning opportunities, there are few companies with the number of different opportunities that we have as IBMers. While mobility within the company can be a little more restricted during times of economic trouble, IBM still offers more opportunities than most companies.

4. Cultural diversity. The product I used to work on, called WebSphere Application Server, had over 10 development groups in 6 countries at one point. The opportunity to work with people across the world is a mind opening experience that you get at few other places. Sure, many companies are "international" but often being "international" means they have 5 sales people in Europe rather than having a development team spanning the globe. At one point, I had the holiday schedule of three countries on my calendar which alone is a learning opportunity.

5. Compensation. IBM has a great set of benefits and is very competitive when it comes to base salary. The 401k starts employees today at dollar for dollar matching for the first 6% of their money. Every year we have a bonus opportunity as engineers called Growth Driven Profit-sharing or GDP for short. IBM rewards engineers for the patent applications they file and the issued patents they receive. Also, IBM gives out a fair number of cash and stock based awards, more when the economy is strong obviously. Overall, IBM is a great compensator and tough to comparable compensation for the same job in the same city.

6. Time off. IBM starts its employees with 3 weeks paid time off plus 12 holidays, 4 of which become "personal choice holidays" in the group I work at in Raleigh. That essentially if 4 weeks off as a starting employee. At ten years, which i hit this year, you get another week off. When a lot of employers start at 2 weeks plus some holidays this ends up being an additional two weeks off. Official external text on time off is here.

7. Life support. As a large company, IBM has many programs that we take for granted. We get discounts on cars, TVs, mobile phones, computers, vacations, and more. IBM helps families with adoption and education expenses. They give employees life insurance, short term disability, and inexpensive long term care options. Leave for education, paternity, maternity, and other life events are also baked into their employee well being plans. Oh yea, and reasonable medical, dental, and vision - especially when I compare it to what my friends pay for similar plans in the area.

There are more benefits than those listed but off the top of my head, this is what I could think of. We need to spend some more time thinking about all these great benefits rather than focusing on the stuff that bothers us. Thoughts?

Happy Anniversary Heather

2010-06-07T11:35:00.000-04:00

I find that this is a special anniversary for Heather and I. Its not because I am away on our anniversary for the first time :-( or because seven years is some magical number - I think its because we are really clicking in line with each other and we are able to really communicate better than we have before.

Here is a picture of a very lucky guy almost exactly 7 years ago.

Life in the fast lane

2010-05-29T07:35:00.002-04:00

Sometimes you have to get in the slow lane to realize how fast you were driving in the fast lane. This week was a big week for me as my new job in IBM was announced. I had spent most of the last eight years working on a product called WebSphere Application Server. In the last 6 months or so, I have been working both that job and a new job in acquisitions which led to my new role as integration architect for one of our new acquisitions. Not only that, but I had been working closely with 2 other growth projects (not acquisitions) in a business development sort of role. What I didn't realize until this week is how fast I had been going trying to keep up with what was essentially four jobs.

On Monday this week they announced my new job - which essentially meant I could transition my old job plus a significant part of my two other part time jobs away to other people. I had the opportunity to spend much of the week catching up and engaging fully on my new job. This may not have been a move fully into the slow lane, but certainly slower which allowed me to sit back and see how fast I had been traveling. By Wednesday I began to realize how burned out I really felt and started to look forward to a long three day weekend.

I think what bothers me the most is that I spent numerous weekends and vacations without ever realizing how fast I was traveling which makes me realize I wasn't really stepping back far enough from work to see how much I was doing. Work crept into my thoughts while in the gym, on the beach, and playing in the backyard with my family. I need to spend this weekend not only enjoying my friends and family but separating work out of my life a bit. But, I need some help and suggestions if anyone else has been in a similar situation and knows better how to gauge where they are at.

Have you been in the fast lane and not known it? How do you make sure this doesn't happen in your life?

Slow down!

2010-05-26T06:09:00.003-04:00

In the past two days, we have a great video of Anna and a great picture of Madelyn that I think should be shown:

First, here is a picture of Madelyn from yesterday. She now puts her arms together and shows you her pouty face on demand. This is normally immediately followed by giggles. She is adorable and has lots of personality, as you can clearly see in this picture.

First, here is a picture of Anna riding her new bike. Heather chronicled her new bike find this past weekend on her blog

The squeaking is Madelyn's tricycle behind Anna. The amusing thing to me is at the very end you hear me say slow down to Anna. And I think I mean it...my girls are growing up too fast. I don't think you realize how this can be when the first 6 months you are partially waiting for them to do something. Then, before you know it, they are walking, talking, going to school, everything.

Decisions at the Crossroads

2010-05-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

On the TV show Flash Forward, they have been struggling with whether the universe balances itself out and always ends up on the same path regardless of whether certain decisions change the path for which we get there. When one of the characters Olivia decided to go to one college rather than another, she ended up marrying Mark instead of Lloyd. But, according to the TV show lately, ultimately Olivia and Lloyd are together. Every path chosen ends up at the same major end.

This is a deep matter which could involve huge philosophical, scientific, and religious debate. Certainly there is evidence of this in my own life, for example, with how my wife Heather and I got together. I had several "opportunities" to move to North Carolina before I did. We also vacationed in the same city, Virginia Beach, each as children. For someone from North Carolina and Pennsylvania to have the same yearly vacation spot is certainly very convenient. When we finally did meet, we fell in love very quickly and now have been married almost 7 years.

I believe life is a continual series of crossroads, where we continue to make decisions which affect the path which we travel. Some of the crossroads can radically alter the path with which we were headed. Others can do so in a much more subtle manner. Whether or not the end destinations truly changes is a source of continual debate for centuries, but I believe the destination is already drawn for us.

In the past few years I have seen several of my friends make the minor and major life altering decisions. My friend Drew decided several years ago to leave IBM and enlist in the army. It was, of course, a radical change in direction. If he had decided at that crossroads to stay with IBM or even change jobs, it would have been slightly less dramatic of a change. Another friend, John, recently came to a major decision point and decided to move from rural Minnesota to New York City and change jobs. Another major decision at the crossroads. These are huge life changing decisions but its interesting to note that the other choice each of them had was to plod forward on their current direction. Even if they continue on their current direction, those decision makers are at the crossroads nonetheless.

I see myself at the crossroads often and I see that now as much as any time. This month marks my 10th year at IBM (May 8), 8th year in Raleigh (May 22), the last month of my 7th year of marriage, and my 31st birthday. I feel as if this is a good time to check our family's direction and speed to see if we are heading in the right direction. Another factor in the equation is that we hope to pay off our house this year and with that comes some flexibility - what we choose to do with the education for our children, what investments we might make, and where we might give more of our time, talents and treasures. In the next year of my life, I feel that I will sit at many crossroads making decisions that will affect us even if the decision is to bear down and stay the course.

So, how do I make these decisions at a crossroads? I try to use my faith (although am far from perfect) and try to allow God to show me the way in these decisions. Some time ago I read this blog where the author laid out 5 steps to make good decisions for people who have faith in God based on Acts 16. Here is my adaptation that I go through.

Consider the circumstances and alternatives carefully - weigh the options and list pros and cons.
Conclude (make a decision) what you believe is a good course to go. This means 99% and not 100%. Pray until you reach near certainty.
Commit your way to the Lord in prayer. Invite Him to block the wrong way and open the right way. Prepare your heart for change if needed.
Try to go do it. Keep praying. Do not assume all roadblocks are from God but know that some may be. If you feel God putting up that roadblock, go back to prayer and if that continues, go back to step 1.

With age comes...

2010-05-22T15:32:00.004-04:00

Gray hair! Today is my birthday and its been a great day. Right now I am relaxing, catching up on some blogs and news online, and enjoying some quiet time by myself. As part of that, I looked at the last 2 years of my blog. I know its not a very active blog so if in fact you are reading this I should be thanking you for your interest. Thank you! But, as much as anything my blog is to chronicle life and what has happened. So I read the last couple years of my blog in addition to the last year of Heather's blog. So, what has happened over the past year?

On the home front, Anna turned 3, Madelyn turned 2, and Heather turned (gasp!) 30. Anna got a real bicycle today. Madelyn moved into a big girl bed. Anna and I were in Derick and Emily's wedding. Anna had semi-oraganized soccer. Madelyn got her first haircut. Both Maddie and Anna learned their letters and letter sounds. We had a couple snows in Raleigh. We travelled and explored - to Sea World Orlando, the NC Zoo, the NC Museum of Life Science (twice), Boone/Blowing Rock NC, Connecticut, Virginia Beach, and Ponte Vedra Florida.

On the work side, my team released the IBM WebSphere Communications Enabled Applications feature pack, an idea I had been working on for a couple of years before we released it. This was a piece of innovative work I really enjoyed working on. Also this past year I have been able to work on some cool new projects with partners. One of the partners I worked closely with was Akamai. This allowed me to take many enjoyable trips to Cambridge to work with very talented people and culminated in an initiative we call "Akamai Ready" software. I also have worked on several projects I can't yet talk about, everything from new organic projects to acquisitions.

On the spiritual side, I had a men's bible study I participated in end last summer and then recently Heather and I have started a small group at our church. We have 4 other great down-to-earth couples in our small group and have enjoyed meeting now for about 3 months. I do miss the weekly Friday morning bible study I was in and may have to look to replace that this fall.

As is usual, I took a day off around my birthday. My mom (aka Oma) flew in to town on Thursday and we spent yesterday morning enjoying the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science. As an IBM employee, we got two free passes to the museum which saved us $25. After that, I got my free birthday lunch at Moe's and then we stopped at Page Farms for some strawberry picking. Today has been a much more low key day but in a couple of hours we are headed to the always great Nantucket Grill with my closest friends for dinner. Its been a good birthday and I look forward to many more good times to review with you in the future. Here are some pictures of the past 2 days...I included the only 2 pictures with me in them even though they weren't good...I was the primary picture taker :-)

When your hometown doesn't seem like home

2010-05-13T08:08:00.002-04:00

I moved away from Pittsburgh, my hometown, now almost 8 years ago. With every passing month, Pittsburgh becomes the place I know best even less. The last time I was there (about 2 years ago) I stayed in a hotel not even 2 miles from where I lived last just outside of Pittsburgh in Cranberry and could barely find my way around. Last night I went to bed after my Pittsburgh Penguins lost, subsequently playing their last game at the Igloo (aka Mellon Arena or the Civic Arena) which will be torn down. In a way, I was heartbroken that not only was this icon of my childhood closing, but that I haven't seen it in years and wouldn't see its replacement (the Consol Energy Center) for potentially years. This left me asking, when do you change your hometown? When do I stop being a Pittsburgher?

Its easy to calculate how much of my life I have lived in Pittsburgh. But what is probably more important, is which years I spent in Pittsburgh. All of my formal schooling was in Pittsburgh, Kindergarten through 12th grade in North Allegheny School District and 4 years at the University of Pittsburgh. Those years helped form me into the person I am today - everything from my accent to my love for sports. Maybe more importantly, I am a Pittsburgher by nature. What does that mean? Pittsburgh is a unique and inviting big city. People are nice and care about others...unless you are from Cleveland. ;-) People from Pittsburgh are known for amazing deeds within and outside of Pittsburgh. As far as I know, this was established many years ago with Andrew Carnegie, a Pittsburgher at heart even though he didn't move there until he was 13. Now, in the same spirit as Andrew Carnegie, Pittsburghers consistently do amazing things to help others. A good example of this is the recent Here You Go, 1000 umbrellas initiative. People giving away umbrellas to those stuck in the rain in the name of helping one another. Another example is Make Room for Kids, an initiative by a popular Pittsburgh blogger to raise enough money to bring gaming and laptops for sick kids. They raised an amazing amount of money in a short amount of time from Pittsburghers across the globe. Helping, Giving, Caring - these are things engrained in Pittsburghers as deeply as cheering for the Steelers is.

So, when do I stop associating my hometown with Pittsburgh? Is it when I have lived longer somewhere besides Pittsburgh? When I stop missing the city where I have so many wonderful memories? When I don't know my way around it any more in the name of progress? Or, when I stop acting like a Pittsburgher? If its that last one, I hope to God that I never see the day when I don't call myself a Pittsburgher.

Credit Karma review

2010-05-11T20:02:00.002-04:00

This evening my friend and coworker Frank told me about Credit Karma, a site that allows you to get free credit scores. This site was apparently reviewed by the News and Observer this past weekend that explains a little more about the service but was fairly wordy as a review goes. So, here is my review:

Pros

Free credit score, something you normally have to pay for
Nice modern website look and feel
Lots of clear information pertaining to your credit score, how it is determined, and what it means
Uses your credit report information for targeted advertising rather than charging you
Does not store your social security number and does not ask for credit card information
Easy to read credit report card helps show you the areas that negatively affected your credit

Cons

Advertisements for new loans, mortgages, and credit cards only account for "lower my payment" based financial situations and lacks intelligence to meet other people's goals (maximize rewards, eliminate debt, etc)
Credit score simulator is missing basic things like what happens if I pay off a specific loan
Credit report card lacks certain vital information. Showing you the number of accounts opened but not listing them or suggesting which to close to help your credit for example seems an obvious extension.
Suggestions can really lack intelligence and you wonder what thought if any was put into it.

Overall the service is useful for seeing your credit score for free and I am eager to see what or how much it emails me based on activity.

Why do you work where you do?

2010-04-28T06:24:00.003-04:00

A friend recently asked this question and we came up with a short list of answers:

1) Passion - You love the work you do
2) Loyalty - You believe in your company
3) Job Stability - You feel your job is safe and protected
4) Money - You can't earn as much elsewhere
5) Options - Haven't found anything better

It could also be a combination of those. Did we miss any?

This friend was basically saying his reasons were #4 and #5 but he wasn't looking to know if his these reasons were true. I think as an employer, you should want your employees in the first two categories. I can't imagine anyone working better than if they have a passion for what they do and believe in their company. Its what all employers who look for high retention should aim for, right?

Insurance update...

2010-04-12T14:56:00.001-04:00

We tried the good people at Hartsfield and Nash and are now staying with Erie and saving $390 for the year on the exact same policy. We were eligible several discounts our previous agency had not put on our account.

Insurance shopping

2010-03-31T14:46:00.002-04:00

So, for the first time in over 10 years, I find myself looking at new insurance companies. I have been a faithful Erie Insurance customer for over 10 years. However, in the past three years I have seen some large rate hikes (10-15%/year) including one that I feel was handled dishonestly. Every year I have called my insurance agent and last year I didn't even get a call back. So, while looking for new insurance I decided to start with another Erie agent. My call seemed to be fruitless as once they heard I was with another Erie agent they lost all interest in helping me. So, I am now looking outside of Erie now...mostly because of their agents. I found these complaint ratios from the North Carolina Department of Insurance nice to have when evaluating new companies. It seems to me that those companies with below a 0.5 complain ratio seems to be on the "good" side. I also find the rate calculator on the DOI site to be useful.

Derick and Emily's wedding

2010-03-29T08:30:00.005-04:00

Well the madness is now over. Anna made it down the aisle as the ring bearer. My wedding day duties as best man were complete. More importantly, Derick and Emily are married and on their way today to honeymoon on a tropical island. Congratulations to both of them!

We used both Google Docs and Google Wave when I was helping Derick and Emily coordinate things. That was a learning experience, and I now know when Docs is useful and the few times when Wave is useful. Google Docs provided both help managing the guest list (and emailing people for their updated address information) AND a basis for RSVPs forms. The idea to use these in this way largely came from a Google employee's own experience in this video.

Derick and Emily certainly had a fun reception. They had an inflatable bouncehouse at the reception, the XL Fun House from PartyHopperRentals.com. They had EyeFi cards to automatically upload pictures from a couple cameras up to a slide projector. Unfortunately, this didn't work quite as easily as hoped. The technology will soon catch up and I am sure we will see this at more parties soon.

It was certainly a memorable experience and I think with the amount of cameras, there will be plenty of memories available to be shared. Here are some great ones that ended up on twitter:

And finally, them leaving...

playing with stop motion video

2010-02-21T13:05:00.005-05:00

So, I have taken a small interest in stop motion video. I have always had an interest in photography and whether is be my friend Derick's influence or just my own curiosity, I have started to play with doing real stop motion type videos. I have a 6 year old Canon Digital Rebel and when connected to a computer, it can do timed captures. Although it seems to fail at anything less than 20 seconds between capture (which seems to be related to the speed of data transfer :-/), you can create a decent little stop motion feel with it. Here are some videos I put together with the Canon remote Capture and iMovie:

First try was a time lapse Maddie and I creating a quick Mega bloks tower.

Then, I took a a time lapse set of 500+ shots throughout the day yesterday while helping our friends Suzanne and Aaron clean out and reorganize their garage.

Then, today I made another quick time lapse video of Anna, Madelyn and I making a mega-blok tower.

Finally, while Maddie was napping and Heather and Anna were at the mall, I tried a fun little puzzle adventure stop motion style.

I think I have figured out a few things, one of which is I need a tripod and maybe a newer camera to do cooler stuff :-) Not being able to take pictures quicker than 20 seconds apart because of the speed of transferring data from the camera to my laptop AND not having a tripod really makes this more difficult.

Also, here it is on Vimeo in case you prefer Vimeo over YouTube...

Eat Mor Chikin Stop Motion Puzzle from Erik B on Vimeo.

Car seat dilemma

2010-02-16T07:29:00.003-05:00

We have two kids, a 3 yr old and a 21 month old. We have bought 4 car seats (for the car) and we may have wasted money in doing so. :-/ As a guy who is known for researching product selections among friends and family, I can't believe that we may have screwed up our car seat selection this bad. Here is what happened...

Our first car seat for Anna was a Chicco KeyFit 22. It was a car seat that went up to 22 lbs. Before her first birthday, Heather was 3 months pregnant and Anna was not looking comfortable at 20 lbs in a 22 lb car seat so we went shopping for a convertible for her to move up in. At first we bought the highest rated one from Consumer Reports, the Evenflo Titan 5. It was a bit too big for Anna and the usability was horrible so we soon bought a Britax Roundabout and the Titan ended up in our second car for the past 18 months. When Madelyn was about ready to move up out of the Chicco to the Britax, we moved Anna to a Cosco Deluxe Summit which we bought. The Chicco has been passed to my sister in law who will soon be using it for the second time and will have gotten its fair share of use. Unfortunately, the Chicco KeyFit 30 wasn't around or it could have been used even longer.

So, there is the short story of how Heather and I have 3 car seats, the Evenflo Titan 5, the Britax Roundabout, and the Cosco Deluxe Summit. All three of those have one thing in common, their forward facing 5 point harness weight limit is 40 lbs. The Cosco has belt positioning, the other two do not. Why is this important? As of November, as Heather wrote here, Anna was 36.5 pounds. She was weighed again in January at 36 pounds...but how long until she hits the 40? Certainly possible before she turns 4...

Before we realized that yesterday Heather and I were blindly looking for another deal on the Cosco/Safety 1st Deluxe Summit to move Maddie up into. She isn't uncomfortable in the Britax Roundabout, but is more comfortable in the Cosco and Evenflo. Around the same time Heather saw the weight rating on the Cosco and we realized the mistake we had made, I saw this report on booster seats from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. To summarize, they think all the booster we have are horrible when it comes to seat belt positioning. Everything I read says to keep them in 5 point harnesses as long as possible. So, here are our choices in the next 6 months...

1) Buy a Britax Frontier which seems to be able to go on as a harness for much longer (80 lbs) and gets the IIHS Best Buy.
2) Buy her a Booster like the Maxi-Cosi Rodi or Recaro Vivo and switch her to belt positioning
3) Buy a 65 lb 5 point harness like the Safety 1st Go Hybrid and decide what to do in the future.

Right now I am leaning towards #1, buying a Britax Frontier. Thoughts?

Silly bets on the TV Show Ed

2010-01-13T14:49:00.002-05:00

I always liked the short lived TV show Ed and have often quoted it..although many don't have any clue where the quotes come from. Today I googled for all the silly $10 bets made on Ed and found a list of some here on tv.com. It makes me laugh reading them and so I thought I would pass on the humor...

Season 1
Ep 2: $10 Bet: Mike challenges Ed to meow loud enough to make a guy sitting on a bench turn around.
Ep 3: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed that he cannot drink a bottle of pancake syrup.
Ep 4: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike to order a burger using only two words: burger me
Ep 5: $10 Bet: Mike dares Ed to walk up to a woman at the bar and ask to buy her a drink -- with nuts in his mouth
Ep 6: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike to go up to a man and call him "Mommy"
Ep 7: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed, in the supermarket, to ask the clerk where the lettuce is - but he has to call it "let-oos".
Ep 8: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed that he can't rhyme his lunch order at the diner. The waitress is the same one who took the "burger me" bet.
Ep 9: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed that he can't eat some of the dog food pate that he has made for his dog, Troy.
Ep 11: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike to walk up to a stranger and start singing "Tonight I Celebrate My Love."
Ep 12: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to order a shirley temple when he goes out on a date with Bonnie Hane.
Ep 13: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to go up to a stranger on a park bench and touch his bald spot.
Ep 14: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed he can't call Reverend Carver "Padre".
Ep 15: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike can't speak in a British accent to a girl from high school, Hillary Sanders, who is at the Smiling Goat.
Ep 16: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed he won't give him 10 bucks to give him 10 bucks. Ed turns it around and bets Mike he can't give Ed twenty bucks for ten bucks.
Ep 17: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike ten bucks to go upto a bunch of people waiting at the bus stop and do the Snake Dance.
Ep 18: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike ten bucks to finish eating his dinner in the restaurant without wearing his shirt.
Ep 19: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike to cover his face in wedding cake after giving the toast at Ari and Barbara's wedding.
Ep 20: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to yell "I love kitties" as loud as possible in the bowling alley.
Ep 21: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike to kiss Kenny on the cheek.
Ep 22: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed ten bucks to stop talking about Carol. Ed keeps talking so Mike increases the bet to $1000. Ed doesn't accept the bet and keeps talking. This is the first time either one of them has declined a bet.

Season 2
Ep 1: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to kiss a garden gnome in a neighbor's lawn - while the neighbor is watching.
Ep 4: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to ask the waitress to wrap his one last french fry.
Ep 5: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed $6 to go hug a chicken who is advertising for a restaurant. Ed wont do it for $6 so he bets Mike to do it for $10.
Ep 7: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed ten bucks to go over to two women at the farmer's market and introduce himself as a jackass. Ed walks over to do just that, when one woman turns around and asks, "What do you want, jackass?" Mike has paid the woman ten bucks to say this to Ed, who insists Mike pay up.
Ep 8: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed $10 to eat a potato chip, despites Ed's 20 year quest to "eat just one". Ed initially refuses, but backs off when Mike calls an end to the ten dollar bets, declaring Ed the loser.
Ep 10: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed that he can't get a person at StuckeyBowl to say "tater-tots" in 30 seconds. It takes 32 seconds and Ed loses.
Ep 15: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to order a brandy at the bar by saying brandy 20 times.
Ep 20: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike to go up to a man at the Smiling Goat and ask for his autograph pretending the man is Kenny Rogers.
Ep 22: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to whistle like a wolf at a man. Ed doesn't want to at first but does it after seeing Dennis and Carol.

Season 3
Ep 2: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike to ask a man on the street to tell him where he can find a hotel - while consistently turning the radio volume up so the man has to shout the directions.
Ep 4: $10 Bet: After a discussion on how male ostriches court females, Mike bets Ed to court a woman at the bus stop, using his best ostrich impression. Ed goes up to the woman, rests on what he supposes are his hocks, flaps his "wings" and screams like a banshee.
Ep 7: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to play song A55 on the jukebox. Ed does and the jukebox starts playing "It's Raining Men". Everyone stares at Ed. Mike laughs.
Ep 11: $10 Bet: Ed bets Mike to stand on a chair and bark the song "Jingle Bells".
Ep 13: $10 Bet: Mike bets Ed to go up to someone at the snack bar of StuckeyBowl and do a commentary of their behavior just like a sports commentator.

Photo Hangover

2010-01-11T08:29:00.002-05:00

We go through this every year...between the end of Anna's birthday and Christmas we have taken hundreds of photos and it almost wears us out such that we go through this period I will call a photo hangover. Thats a period where we avoid taking pictures because frankly we are exhausted of pictures. Does anyone else experience this?

Stripper Free Bachelor Parties?

2010-01-05T20:43:00.003-05:00

There is a vast misconception in this world that one cannot have a fun bachelor party without strippers and alcohol. For the second time in my life, I find myself directly battling that misconception. If you missed my last post, one of my best friends, Derick, asked his girlfriend to be his wife right before Christmas. The images link to their website where you can read about the proposal and see a countdown to their wedding....also, you can watch a slightly updated video on his site or on my last blog post which I updated.

So, last night Derick asked me to be his best man which is an awesome honor for which I intend to work very hard to complete. Being a best man to me is more than just standing beside your friend at his wedding, but a commitment to help him achieve his objectives and uphold his commitments, short term (getting married) and long term. Long term is often lost in our culture but vitally important in my opinion. Imagine if every best man felt it was his responsibility to keep in touch with the groom and ensure he was doing his best to honor, love, protect, and cherish his wife. The world may look a bit different.

As for the short term, there are lots of lists. I found this one which I thought was useful. On the phone last night the first thing I thought of was the need to plan Derick a bachelor party. Knowing Derick, he and I are similar in that bar hopping and strippers were not on the list of activities we are interested in for our bachelor party. My first thought was what did I do? I went jetskiing with my friends in Wilmington and then had a nice dinner. Since Derick is getting married in March...that wasn't happening. What did my brother-in-law do? We played basketball. Not really Derick's thing. So, I started to compile lists of other things to do. Here are some of the things I thought of as I was trying to get to sleep last night..

Paintball
Go Karts/Laser Tag
Large scale poker night
Camping / Geocaching

Then I was out of ideas and came across some others through friends or this helpful website.

ATV or Jeep offroading adventures
Rent and fire machine guns at the range
Ziplines in the mountains

Here were things I had to cast off because of the time of year:

ski/snowboarding (might be too warm in March, especially in NC)
jetskiing
white water rafting
sea kayaking
hunt

And other things that fell off my list:

Basketball
Football
Video Games
Golf
Skydiving
Sports event or concert

Congratulations Derick and Emily!

2009-12-24T07:22:00.006-05:00

My close friend Derick proposed to his girlfriend, Emily, last night. I am thrilled for them as Derick and I have had many great conversations about relationships and specifically even her before they actually started dating. He was attracted to her from the beginning and to see that work out into a marriage about 2 years later is amazing.

I was blessed with the opportunity to help him with his project on how he was going to pop the question. Derick is a professional movie maker (editor, animator, and more) who works for a company called Centerline locally here in Raleigh making, amongst other things, videos for what I work on at IBM. Since he is a production guy, everyone expected something big out of him and he delivered. He and some of his friends including myself spent two late nights filming light writing out of the 18th floor of the Clairon Hotel in Downtown Raleigh from 6 PM to 6 AM last Thursday and Friday nights. Fortunately these were some of the darkest days of the year, meaning two all nighters would be all that was needed since it took almost the whole 24 hours. Then Derick edited for about 4 days straight...my estimated guess.

Light writing is the idea that you leave a camera lense open (exposed) and capture all the light that comes in. In doing that, you capture certain intentional light which eventually when merged with another photo (or 500) can spell a word, phrase, or sentence. There is more info on it here on wikipedia. For this project, Derick chose to do it in downtown Raleigh which meant going over the natural terrain of the city. Some of these letters are partially up walls (the WILL, The M, A, and Y in Marry, and the M in Me), through bushes/brush (Emily's whole name), and across busy streets.

Please check out the video he made of the proposal and rate it 5 stars...he deserves it!

Light Writing Proposal from Derick Childress on Vimeo.

Most importantly, congrats to Derick and Emily! Heather and I couldn't be happier that you two will be together and look forward to your friendship for many years to come.

Before you make that purchase...

2009-12-18T23:06:00.004-05:00

Heather and I have come up with a system that has really started working to jointly control any compulsive spending and I thought I would share it. It started off with the first two questions but we have expanded it to 3 questions we ask one anothee in order to better think our purchases out. I added just some of the sub questions which have come up in my mind when thinking out the answers recently.

1) How often would you really use it?
-- Is it worth buying another item for how often it will be used?
-- Do you need it or just want it?
-- Can you borrow or try it out before committing to spending the money?
-- Is there something that you can sell or get rid of first to offset the cost? We do this with cars all the time, but not other things we buy.
2) Are their cheaper alternatives?
-- Does this purchase have reoccurring costs such as supplies being more expensive than alternatives?
-- What are the tradeoffs to the cheaper alternatives?
-- How long will the cheaper alternatives be good enough?
3) Can the money be better used elsewhere?
-- If you used the money to pay down debt would you end up being able to afford something better in the long run?
-- If you aren't going to use it often, would it be better to support a charity or a friend in need?
-- Would letting the money grow in a savings or an investment account be better while you think it out?

Try it and let me know if you come up with other short questions to add to the list

Mountain getaway

2009-11-18T07:35:00.005-05:00

As Heather said here, we had a real enjoyable mountain getaway. I thought I would label some of our favorite and least favorite things.

Lodging: We stayed at Parkway Vacation Rental's At Home with Nature. I would issue a Buyer Beware on these folks. While their service was excellent during the sale - when we got to the location we found all sorts of problems in the house. Once told about it - they promised to fix them the first day we were there and never did. Here are examples of what we found:

Mold in the kitchen sink and shower
Bedroom doors without handles
Toilet Seats split in half
Hot tub that never worked
Phone service (which we were supposed to have in our contract unlimited loca+long distance) which was turned off
DVD Players without cables. Remotes without batteries.
An oven door that doesn't shut (great for kids, eh?)
Lack of playground and tennis courts prominently listed on their site. Two guards at the gate confirmed this.
Broken dining room chairs

The place was once beautiful - its a shame this management team is running it because its falling apart.

Food: We ate in a lot - but had some yummy food out...
Kojay's cafe in Blowing Rock - Loved it and ate lunch there twice. The coffee, however, was not a hit.
Higher Grounds in Boone - Best Coffee. Heather complains about other lattes now after having theirs.
Dan'l Boone Inn in Boone - Great southern all you can eat family style breakfast. We had 14 people which they accommodated in about 20 minutes and it was a blast.
Kilwin's in Blowing Rock - best ice cream.

Things to Do: We kept it low key and were there in November when some things like Tweetsie were closed..but there were things we loved.
Grandfather Mountain. Its a zoo and a scenic getaway all in one, what's not to love? They do push the fudge a bit much though :-)
Playground in Boone - this was the most incredible playground we have ever been to. See the pictures on Heather's blog.

Finally, I'll say this...even if the place you stay in isn't meeting your expectations - when you wake up to this its wonderful:

Petco and Natural Balance Dog food

2009-11-18T06:37:00.002-05:00

I know I haven't blogged in a couple of months so I plan to do a mini-blog series on what's been going on in our lives. The first thing to mention is that sometimes us common folks know more than doctors and veterinarians...or at very least the latter. We have had our mutt Cassie for 6.5 years. When we got her, she had mange and she basically never stopped itching since then. Two vets have told us that our dog Cassie has dry skin - the latest told us to try fish oil in her diet. Fish oil can be real expensive, so we went to Petco to see if they had foods with fish oil. The employee there told us that sometimes the dogs keep itching because of allergies (we should have thought of this but never had) and recommended this (expensive) organic food, Natural Balance, with no wheat in it. Since Cassie went on it she has stopped itching...or at least itches very infrequently like a normal dog.

Just so you realize how bad it was..we found out 2 weeks ago that Cassie had a staph infection because she scratched herself bad enough. Now, she doesn't itch/scratch and her infection is practically gone. Thank you Petco for being more knowledgeable than our veterinarian!

My media stand

2009-09-19T15:37:00.002-04:00

One of my projects this weekend was to create a media stand. We just switched from Time Warner Cable to DirecTV this Friday and that left my receiver sitting on top of my blu-ray player which I didn't like. In general - its a bad idea to stack AV equipment on top of one another because they all generate heat and heat is bad for electronics. So, I needed to create some space between them but our Pier 1 entertainment center only had one shelf..and they don't sell it or the extra shelf for it any longer. So, I decided to make a simple stand for the receiver...

I started by getting a 4 ft long dowel rod from home depot that was 1" in diameter. This cost $3.35. Next, I reused a piece of particle board I had in the garage that used to be shelves in our garage when we bought the house.

That particle board was perfect, just less than 1 ft wide. I cut that board to the right length, 20", and the dowel rods for legs at 7.5" high. I attached the dowel rods with some wood screws I had around the house and used some plywood left over from when we refinished our kitchen to create a small DVD shelf on the front 2 legs of the stand. Then I used a cheap $1 can of flat black spray paint to paint it so that it would be unnoticeable in the cabinet.

It is very stabile and fits perfectly. I am going to enjoy being able to look at that stand and think I put it all together for less than $5...while people that don't read this will never notice it :-)

With a light shining on it:

Normal view with the speaker above:

Saving for college

2009-09-16T11:13:00.002-04:00

Reading this Sunday's Wall Street Journal article on saving for college, one might view our children's future ability to have a debt free education as hopeless. In the article, there were some important facts:

For the 2008-2009 school year, the average cost of attending a four-year public school for in-state residents -- including tuition and room and board -- rose 5.7% to $14,333, according to the College Board. The cost was up 5.6% to $34,132 for a private university. (These numbers aren't adjusted for inflation.)

Well, if you round up to $15,000 for public school and 6% per year, in 12 years that will double to $30,000 per year. If you have younger kids you might have a couple of extra years but let's assume those last few years won't get much interest as you pull the money out into conservative investments. It would mean that you have 12 years to save $120,000 per child. This is amazing to me and I can't even fathom at this point being able to save $10,000 per child per year. But, you have interest on your side, right?

Using an investment calculator, I figured that if you could save $430 per child per month for 12 years at 10% return per year, we could save our $120,000 in those 12 years. If you assume 12% return, you only need $375 saved per child per month. At 8% return, you need $500 per child per month. And that's just for an average public school!

What were we thinking having 2 kids only 1 school year apart? I can hope that we are able start saving $1000/mo within a couple of years for the kids but it can't be easy. I can also hope that we, as a society, get control of these college expenses and don't continue to let them grow at such a high rate assuming our children can bear the brunt of it through student loans. Until then - this is something to think about for sure..

2 years of exercise with the last 6 months of frustration

2009-09-14T07:11:00.004-04:00

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this month and the one special thing it means to me. See, as of this month i have been working out consistently for 2 years. I have never worked out for 2 years straight without a break of at least 2 weeks. I always slacked off at some point and going into this, I unfortunately expected to do the same. In the last 2 years though, I haven't slacked off. It started at 4-5 days a week and has grown to 6 days a week with a couple of exceptions for vacation and business trips. Even on vacation and during business trips, I try to squeeze in workouts every time I can. When I went to the Venetian in Las Vegas last Spring, I knew I wasn't willing to pay the outrageous amount they were asking for their gym...so I brought my Perfect Pushups and did those plus some in place cardio and ab workouts.

People often ask about results and I am pretty happy with mine. You have to first understand that my primary goal when I began was not to lose weight. I had started and failed at that goal way too often. I didn't want to go on a special diet that I would eventually fall off the bandwagon. Instead, my goal was to be able to be active with my family again. You might remember when I wrote extensively about this goal in January of 2008 when it seemed to be working. I didn't want to have to hesitate when doing something active with my girls. I didn't want to make an excuse when asked to help a friend and I thought I was too out of shape to help them. I wanted my daughters to grow up in a physically active and healthy environment.

Within one year of having a normal exercise routine, I was comfortable doing whatever. I wrote extensively about that last October. I was able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted at the time. In that first year I had lost 40 lbs without going on a diet and I felt great.

One might expect similar success this past year. But in the past 6 months, I have had to deal with a lot of frustration. From that October timeframe til April, I gained about 15 lbs back, theoretically all muscle. Then, in May, I went to Las Vegas for a business trip...the one I mentioned above. Two of my good friends went with me and we were supposed to go indoor skydiving. The indoor skydiving place put us on a scale when signing in and I weighed too much to do it. I had been looking forward to it for weeks and I couldn't do it because my weight. This was the first time since I was back in shape I couldn't do something I wanted to do because of my body. It wasn't that I wasn't in shape...it was just I weighed too much.

Since that point I have had nothing but frustration with myself. I have been pretty hard on myself as my wife would probably attest. My goal is and has been to be in good enough shape to do whatever I want to do. But it wasn't about physical fitness, it was about weight. Unfortunately I don't have the answer to my frustration. I know how I can lose weight, either by focussing on pure cardio and not building muscle or by going on a diet.

Until I find an answer I will make my primary goal to stay in healthy enough shape to do whatever I want. I do have a secondary goal to lose enough weight to do the indoor skydiving I missed out on last next May when i am back in Las Vegas. However, I don't plan on altering my diet or exercise routine, so I don't know if this is feasible. However, since May i have lost another 5 lbs.

For now, I will be bouncing in inflatable toys with my girls - something I wouldn't have felt as comfortable doing two years ago:

What's driving, priorities or life?

2009-08-17T16:05:00.002-04:00

I'm not particularly old but I have lately been in a position where more and more people are asking my advice. At least, I have found this one piece of advice seems very relevant for my generation. That advice is very simple, let your priorities run your life and do not let life run your priorities. I won't make this a conversation about what are the appropriate life priorities but am willing to have that conversation with anyone who wants to know my opinion...but instead, I want to talk about keeping your priorities first and let them run your life.

How does that work? I think so much of my generation hasn't set priorities and often thinks this is something "old" people do. But flying by the seat of your pants leads to one thing, life dictating your priorities. Some examples I have seen are people claim they can't do what they want (pay off debt, go on vacation, stay at home with their child, work less hours, have family dinners, eat healthy, exercise, etc etc) because they don't have the time or money. More often than not though its a decision they make to not make the sacrifices necessary to do what they say they want to do. Yes, you may have to eat beans and rice for dinner more often to pay off debt for go on vacation. Yes, you may have to move to a smaller house than you'd like to stay at home with a child or have a less stressful job. Yes, you may have to sacrifice career advancement or even get a job that pays less to spend more time with your family. And yes, you might have to sacrifice watching TV (even DVRed TV) to get more exercise! :-)

From my limited life experience I have found that when I can follow this advice above (and I fail consistently and am far from perfect) my life goes particularly well. My children are happier, my wife is happier, my focus is better, and the results of my work are even better. When I don't follow it, there is more stress at home, more fights between my wife, less happy children, less fulfilling and rewarding times at work, and overall I fail at life.

So, how do you get started? Make a list of your priorities in life. Check them daily as to what you, in reality, made your priorities. Try your best to correct it in your current life without drastic changes. If you find something just isn't working like you can't work less for fear of getting fired and you need that drastic change...make a 2-5 year plan to change the course of your life. I am not suggesting you just quit and hope that everything will work out. But a multi year plan could include downsizing your house, paying off debt, and changing to a job that fits within your priorities. If its to get out of debt or you can't save for a vacation, check out Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University to learn how to get out of debt and live your life without debt.

And because everyone needs a plan mapped out.. :-)

Step 1: Set your priorities
e.g. God, Family, Friends, Health and Exercise, Work, Play

Step 2: Keep a log of where your time is spent and where your focus is during your "downtimes"
e.g. 60 hours of work, ate family with dinner 2 out of 7 times this week, spent 2 nights in a recreational sports league, watched 8 hours of TV

Step 3: Analyze how to reorganize your time and investments in order to meet your priorities.
e.g. 2 less nights in sports league would allow for 2 more nights at home.

Step 4: Look for hard to solve problems and decide how to approach them.
e.g. Does work each week have to be 60 hours? Can you spend less time away at work, work your email instead of watching TV, or do you need a new job?

Repeat :-)

On social media and personal websites

2009-08-13T10:02:00.005-04:00

One of the interesting things I have noticed these days is a lot of software developers in my generation (early Gen Y, late Gen X) have their own websites and spend as much time publicly marketing themselves as the companies and products they work on. In these positions, these people often blur the lines of their professional and personal lives.

When I joined twitter, I debated heavily whether twitter would be personal or professional for me. I had been trying to take a hard(er) line on Facebook and LinkedIn, much like my colleague Billy Newport stated here, where Facebook is for friends and family and LinkedIn is for professional contacts. I got enough Facebook invites from colleagues eventually that I made the rule that I would accept those who I would seek out to have a beer with if in town. I thought that was a good qualification...but I realized that this line was getting hard to maintain. And that is about the time I was joining twitter.

Well, when I joined twitter I decided this would be my first experimentation at having one point of contact that was both personal and professional. So far, I have no idea how it is working. Most of the people that I regularly communicate with on twitter are those that I would also gladly be Facebook friends with and some of them I am Facebook friends with. If I had to declare what is happening one way or another I would declare that twitter is more personal and less professional for me because it is personal at all. I think once I let my personal life bleed into it, it was mostly personal. But, I still have regular professional postings and there is a chance that my microblogs on twitter have some professional followers.

I come back to the original reason I began this blog post. Do I need a website? In this new day and age, is it more important for me to market myself? Years ago it wasn't needed because of corporate loyalty. These days it seems more common and in my age group corporate loyalty is not the norm. I don't know if I have a public enough presence to switch companies in a heartbeat or to be recruited by the top software engineering firms on a regular basis...but I am also not sure that is what I want. For now, this is something I heavily debate and try to make a decision on.

And, since I blurred the lines with this post on my personal blog...I thought I would also show off the cool stuff I have been designing as part of my product. Here is a recent video (only 1 min long) I made to show off the user experience we created with the function I designed:

Localvore challenge complete...

2009-08-08T07:28:00.002-04:00

So, we finished the localvore challenge. We had tacos last night on our last localvore day and made some corn salsa with fresh off the ear corn. The ground beef was from Angus Acre as I had written before. Here is what we learned:

1) We don't know what is in season anymore. I am not sure if this is a generation Y thing or it spans generation X as well. But, growing up I remember my mother always knew what the seasons for various fruits and vegetables are. I have no idea but need to learn. I think this chart from the NC Dept of Agriculture will help. but I hope to raise children that are knowledgeable of their surrounding farming...which leads me to the second point.

2) Its obvious that my suburban life has positioned us too far away from those that have the very important job of growing our food so that we are out of touch. One thing I hope to do is visit more farms with the kids and one of the primary ones on the list is Homeland Creamery where we get our milk from. As milk is one of the words Madelyn knows and can say, I think that this is something she can more readily understand.

3) We need to continue to look for local replacements for things we missed this week. Whether it be yogurt (our favorite is made in CA), food bars, tortillas or bread, if a local replacement is available we should try to shift towards it. Likewise, we need to reconsider how often we eat bananas and apples which seem to all be from far away.

4) We enjoyed the beef, thought the chicken was not so great, were indifferent on the eggs (farmers free range vs our normal Egglands best free range.), and always like fresh seafood. The vegatables were all great and Heather is sick of cantaloupe :-) In the end, we may keep trying to eggs and expect we will try to get the large quantities of beef like 15 or 30 lbs batches.

It was a fun experiment in which I learned a lot. If we do it next year, it may be a challenge for dinners only as it seems more reasonable and maybe would encourage more participation.

Pure localvore failure

2009-08-06T06:35:00.003-04:00

I told Heather that we couldn't be strict localvores anymore after seeing this tweet of hers:

Over halfway through the challenge and I don't think I have ever craved food so much in my non-pregnant life

The point wasn't for us to be hungry or go hungry. The point was to try to eat local. I am sure that I will be able to analyze this further in the upcoming days and weeks but here is our problem:

1) Heather and I got into a pattern of not eating as many carbs and having healthy mid-morning/mid-day snacks. We lost this when we went local. The "snacks" ended up things like toast or bagels with butter and jam or a hard boiled egg.
2) We bought lots of food for great dinners (over a week's worth in fact) but utterly failed at breakfast and lunch. Breakfast we had bagels, toast, eggs, and homemade waffles. With the time constraints we are on in a normal week, that often doesn't work. Not only that but for lunch we had tomatoes (which we ran out of), cheese (which we ran out of) and PB&J + leftovers. Some days we didn't have leftovers so what do you do?

So, as of yesterday we started straying a bit from the localvore menu and ate healthy snacks when hungry. For dinner we had a completely localvore meal though - chicken in Bone Suckin Sauce, butter beans, and mashed irish potatoes from the farmer's market...with Lumpy's ice cream for dessert.

We are going to try to close out our week with as much local food as possible but I don't think we are going to continue unhealthy eating or being hungry for the sake of eating local.

Localvore update

2009-08-03T07:20:00.003-04:00

Today as I was eating breakfast I found something unique - for the first time in my life I could name where all the food and drink I was consuming came from. What a difference. Last night we had swordfish from Southport Seafood Company. This company actually brings their seafood to the North Raleigh Farmer's Market which is less than a mile from our house. We also had green beans from a vendor at the farmer's market in Raleigh which came from Wilson NC. For dessert, we had some delicious chocolate cherry Lumpy's Ice Cream. This morning I had 2 eggs from Acre Farms in Plymouth, NC and whole wheat toast made at Great Harvest off Six Forks Road with butter and a glass of milk from Homeland Creamery.

For the past probably 6 months we have been getting our milk at Fresh Market from a local creamery called Homeland Creamery. This week we also got a huge tub of butter. This Creamery is out in Julian southwest of Burlington but before Greensboro...about 75 miles from our house. Heather and I were considering a trip out to the creamery to take a tour. We figure that since we so often are drinking milk (and now eating their butter) it might be valuable for the kids to see where their milk comes from. Thoughts?

Localvore challenge

2009-08-02T12:37:00.002-04:00

As Heather talked about here, this week we are undergoing a challenge to buy all local grown or produced products for our meals. So, I thought I would start chattering about what we bought and what we ate.

Friday at the Raleigh Farmer's market we got Cantaloupes (3 for $5), green peppers ($.50 each), irish red skin potatoes ($.99/lb), red peppers ($1 each), german johnson tomatoes ($2/lb), butter beans (2 pints for $7), green beans ($2/lb), corn ($.50/ear), zucchini and squash.

We also picked up stuff in the indoor side. First we got a block of sharp cheddar cheese, peanut butter, and strawberry jam from the berry patch market. Later I realized once we got home that it being from Colfax, NC is outside the 150 mile radius. :-/ This was at the Berry Patch. We also got ground beef ($5/lb), london broil ($8/lb), and free range eggs ($3/dozen) from Acre Angus Beef at the indoor side. They are from Plymouth NC. The actual meat is packed in labels from Riverside Meats in Trenton NC. Both of these make it within the 150 mile radius.

On Saturday, we started at the North Raleigh Farmers Market (open 8am until noon) and got a whole chicken (3.7 lbs at $4/lb), chocolate cherry ice cream ($4/pint) from Lumpy's, a loaf of whole wheat bread ($4.25) from Great Harvest, and about 2 lbs of fresh swordfish ($16.50). There was also some cheese there for the first time. There are 3 places that sell fresh eggs from $4-5/lb. The guy who sells fresh lamb at bratwurst for the first time and there are vendors like Cane Creek Farms who was featured recently in the N&O.

Then, later Saturday morning we went to Fresh Market to get milk and butter from Homeland Creamery in Julian, NC. We also got locally produced bagels.

So, what did we eat for meals? Saturday morning I made homemade waffles. For lunch we ate cheese and tomato (german johnson) sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, cantaloupe, and some purple hull (pink eyed) peas. For dinner we ate at Heather's dad's house so we didn't have a local only meal necessarily but I believe most of it was.

This morning (Sunday) we had bagels, hard boiled eggs, and cantaloupe. For lunch I made some homemade flour tortillas and ate london broil on it. Made a quesadilla for the girls who also had peanut butter. Heather had some tomatoes.

The tough things so far is the lack of snack foods and fruit for the girls. As a regular part of my diet I had been eating fruits like apples and bananas, food bars from Odwalla and Kashi, and almonds. None of these things are available locally so I am forced to learn of new snacks. I also don't want to eat unhealthy just for the sake of trying to eat local. As for fruit, watermelon, honeydew, sprite melons, peaches, blueberries, and cantaloupe were the only real fruit options this week. That is a lot of options but when bananas, grapes, apples, and pears are part of the regular staples in the household, its tough to switch.

Loving my new BlackBerry Tour's Camera

2009-07-24T19:52:00.003-04:00

So, I have had my BlackBerry Tour exactly a week and I already love it. My previous BlackBerry, the 8830 world edition, didn't have a camera. I was really starting to realize how many opportunities I missed not having the camera. The BlackBerry Tour has a better screen and a whole bunch of great stuff, but what really mattered to me was getting the camera. Its a 3.2 megapixel camera with a 2x zoom and a great flash..and above all that it takes great pictures. Here are some pictures so you can see the quality. First, I took this one at the farmer's market this morning. Just a quick snap and it came out great. For those of you not used to Flickr, you can click "All Sizes" above the image to see it at larger sizes:

Next is a picture from this afternoon under the shade in our backyard of Anna and Madelyn playing at the water table:

Finally is a picture of a butterfly I took at the NC Museum of Life and Science's butterfly house:

I was able to quickly snap these photos and upload them to facebook and flickr. I am glad to have the camera phone now and now have no excuse for not capturing more of life in pictures!

Class Warfare in the grocery store

2009-07-07T07:47:00.003-04:00

Heather and I have spent a lot of energy lately pursuing a diet of more natural and organic foods, looking to remove the chemicals in our lives as much as possible. This started with the birth of our first daughter and looking to provide her with the best foods and drinks. Organic produce, organic milk, and more. We inevitably found that our children's eating pattern models directly after our own eating pattern and started to more and more push ourselves to eat more fresh, natural, and chemical free foods. We also have been putting more of an eye to environmentally conscience products, buying detergents like Seventh Generation, aiming for local foods when possible, and avoiding some of the farmed fishes that have apparently been a problem. We are near the end of this journey with just a couple of items remaining to be changed out once we finish the last of our previous supply.

This journey has come at an expense, both to our wallets and our cravings. The cost of eating natural has nearly doubled our food budget. We still are looking for alternatives when we want certain things like a Cherry Coke. In the end we have been blessed with the means and will power to work through this transformation. However, one thing has been paining me for the last couple of months. If natural and organic foods are better for you, then why sell any others?

There is a fundamental issue if these foods are indeed healthier for people...that issue is with the fact that most natural and organic foods are priced such that lower income individuals cannot pay for them. I believe that this needs to be a new battleground for those concerned with the lower income earners rights to pursue a healthy life.

The far left pundits would say the establishment targets the poor as shown by things such as more fast food establishments in poor neighborhoods. Frankly, the right to prepared food is not my concern and I do not believe a low income individual has the right to eat at the most expensive restaurants.

The far right pundits would say that all foods in the grocery store are governed by the FDA and they have established firm rules to ensure people's health. I think that is crap. The FDA hasn't been doing enough and America is getting fatter. Children are going through puberty faster. Something is not right.

The bottom line in my opinion is that the government needs to step in enough and start declaring all of the chemicals we are throwing at our children to be bad and create some new rules for food producers. I don't want them to wait until its too late as they did with the tobacco industry. I want them to make a decision based on the best information and start to influence the industry. The health of my children's generation depends on it. The health of those who cannot afford to do it themselves depends on it.

My political position disclaimer: I do not believe in class warfare in the Robin Hood sense or that we should balance out incomes so that someone who is uneducated and not trying in life (see the guy in "Swing Vote") would make the same as a top CEO. However, what I do believe is that all Americans have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and when the system fails to provide that right then the government should step in as minimally as possible. Amongst other things with the right of life comes health, right of liberty comes freedom of oppression and the right to bear arms, and with the right to pursue happiness comes family, religion and education. I believe that ideally in a capitalist environment all of these needs can be met by entrepreneurs and charities however I acknowledge that the right to life and specifically health care has not been met properly through these means and while I agree with the government getting involved, I believe they should do so as minimally as possible to solve the current issue.

Private school is expensive

2009-05-31T21:05:00.003-04:00

Heather and I not thrilled with the state of the public schools here in Raleigh. Our neighborhood has been redistricted so we pass other schools to get to our kids and things don't match my expectations coming from a great school district in Pittsburgh. There are some great charter and magnet schools but they are pretty much entirely by lottery, so we have to hope we get selected. If our kids are not selected for a magnet or charter school, we can enter a lottery for our very nearby year round school or go to the traditional school. The other options, of course, are private schools or homeschooling.

We just recently have started to research private schools. We have a bias towards the nearby North Raleigh Christian Academy (NRCA) where many people we know have gone. We also have several secular schools like Ravenscroft. I actually found a great list of private schools that includes teacher to student ratios. The problem is we just have realized how expensive these can be. Excluding the new family fees, NRCA is about $8000 and Ravenscroft is $17,000 for grades 1-5. Since Madelyn and Anna will be back to back school years, this would be around $1350/mo for NRCA and $2850/mo for Ravenscroft. Wow! How do people do this? Ravenscroft is more expensive than my alma matter, University of Pittsburgh, is right now. Both are more expensive than Pitt was 10 years ago when I was in college.

Anyway, Heather and I were hoping we could figure out how to make this work but so long as we have a mortgage we don't see how we can. So, I guess for now we concentrate on getting rid of the mortgage and trying to get the right charter/magnet school.

Vote for my wife

2009-05-20T09:55:00.002-04:00

So, Heather's blog randomly got selected as one of Nickelodeon's best local blogs. Take a minute and go vote for Raleigh Mom at this site: http://gocitykids.parentsconnect.com/parents-picks/raleigh-durham-nc-usa/best-raleigh-durham-local-blog.

The floor is on fire

2009-05-12T06:44:00.003-04:00

As a kid, I had a great imagination. One of the things I used to pretend is that the floor was on fire and I needed to move my feet as quickly as possible to keep them from burning. This morning, I found myself playing a similar but opposite game.

So, we just remodeled our master bathroom. Pictures will follow this post. In remodeling, we added a new shower, new vanity, tile floors, and a new throne. We also debated adding a heated floor. See, my mom has one of these in her place and doesn't find it overly useful. After having talked with our contractor, he said they were very useful so long as you have a thermostat...which my mom doesn't have. So, we went with it. Installed is a Nuheat thermostat. Until today, I was questioning the value.

Well, last night got into the 40s here in Raleigh...for the first time since we had our new bathroom. Well, that floor got cold. Unfortunately, not all the floor is heated and, in fact, I need to walk to the "cold" section to get my towel for the shower. I found myself dancing over that ice cold part...like the floor was on fire.

Dryer Vent Booster Fans

2009-03-18T08:04:00.003-04:00

Since we moved into our house in April of 2005, we have never had a perfectly working dryer. See, when we bought the house we bought a new washer and dryer as the person who bought our previous home had wanted ours. The GE dryer we had worked okay at first but just would not work on bigger loads like the same model we had at the previous house would. It got worse and worse where even a small load of laundry would have to be dried more than once. Eventually, it was obvious that the dryer had died at less than 4 years old. Before having a new one installed, we got Sears to come out and clean our dryer vent while cleaning the carpets. The things the technician said made it clear to us that the problem is only partially the dryer.

In our house, the washer and dryer are in a small closet in the middle of the house on the second floor. The vent goes up into the attic and out the roof. Overall, I have measured this vent at over 20 feet with a 90 degree turn at the very beginning and one 30-45 degree turn in the attic. Because of the position of the vent, the hose connecting the dryer to the vent also has a 90 degree turn. Thanks to our friend Scott, he got me looking into dryer vent booster fans.

Yesterday we had a Dryer Vent Booster Fan installed at out house by our friend and contractor Scott Smith of RWS Construction. The fan I choose was the Suncourt Centrax 4" booster fan. I did a lot of research on these devices and this was my favorite. I found this iaqsource.com site to be the best in terms of information and it includes one of the largest lists of these devices.

As near as I can tell, there are a variety of differences between these devices. The basic differences, if I were to sum it up, are the power of the fan (cubic feet per minute or cfm), the way the switch works, and how protected it is from lint. For switches there were three types, manual, pressure sensing, and current sensing. Reading reviews of these devices at various places including Amazon led me to believe that the pressure sensing swicthes could cause the fan to be turned on at the wrong time (like a hot muggy day or a windy day) or not turned on at the right time. I decided immediately after reading all of the problems that I would stay away from these. This left the current sensing or the manual switch as my remaining options. I focused in on the Suncourt because of its price and the current sensing switch. When reading the iaqsource page on the Suncourt, I saw the following:

Boosting may be necessary when the total duct length exceeds the following:
No Bends - 25 feet
1 Bend - 20 feet
2 Bends - 15 feet
3 Bends - 10feet

Another important fact about this device included that it was UL tested meaning it was safe and should not catch on fire.

So, its installed, operates very quietly, and hopefully in a year I will write more about how I like this device. It took Scott about four hours to install but it is my expectation that the savings in electricity (and from broken dryers) that this device may give us will be fully worth it.

A sad reminder

2009-03-06T14:16:00.002-05:00

I never knew Kristi Walker, but I wish I had.

Heather and I were a part of a group called Triangle Leadership Forum and "graduated" from that in 2006. It was a meaningful experience that to this day has sculpted our marriage, parenting, and my leadership at home, work, and in church.

Chuck and Kristi Walker were taking that same Triangle Leadership Forum journey to be completed in 2010. On October 22nd of 2008 we got an email about Kristi and asking us to pray for her. She remained in our prayers for the less than four months she had from diagnosis until she passed. I didn't know Kristi and knew little about her situation. I knew she was a young mother and had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

In the past few days I decided to learn more about Kristi and her situation just because I didn't know much. I read her obituary and found she was just 6 months older than me, a mother of three boys, and a local to Raleigh. Here is a professional blog on Kristi that tells women, even young women, why they need to get screened. For a mother of three young boys to have passed all I can remind myself is that God is in control and has a reason. Also - women should get checked consistently and early.

I am not sure why I am writing this other than I think that as many people our age as possible should hear this story. I will try to come up with something more cheery to blog about next.

Madelyn walking

2009-03-04T18:59:00.001-05:00

This video of Madelyn walking is the great news of the day. She is 10 months old and just took her first journey over 3 steps and did it on video! I am a proud papa!

New Green home tax credit info

2009-03-01T09:04:00.002-05:00

Warnings have come out not to trust salesmen alone as to whether their products meet green home requirements for the 30% tax credit up to $1500. Here is a website that talks about the specific requirements. If you are looking for specific information on heating and cooling for example, you could look at this table which has information about windows, storm doors, insulation, roofs, AC, furnaces, heat pumps and more that when installed can allow you to claim this credit.

Feedback on facebook worlds

2009-02-18T06:49:00.003-05:00

I got numerous pieces of anonymous feedback and perhaps the best was that I needed to start using friends lists. I was sent this very good article on how to use friends lists and manage the different relationships you have with people. I am going to try some of these things out and see how they work but I think that article is worth reading if you use facebook with any regularity and are concerned with your privacy.

Facebook presents the colliding worlds

2009-02-16T16:34:00.004-05:00

This article reminded me of the reality that facebook is really causing colliding worlds for so many people. I mean, I post personal pictures of my kids and have friends from high school reconnecting there. As Stephanie tweeted (below), we really might regret some of which is now popping up on facebook 10 years later.

A colleague from work also recently said on his blog:

I wanted to use facebook to share family photos etc which are, clearly, private so I had to enforce the family friends only on facebook as the photos are private (photos of family etc) in nature which are of no interest to anybody but close friends and family. So, this is what I'm up to in case someone invites me on facebook and wonders why I don't accept. Professional is linkedin, close friends and family is facebook.

I think thats a reasonable distinction but I am going to take it a step further. Those that I am friendly enough with at work to go to a movie with, have a beer with, or eat lunch with can "friend" me on facebook. But those using it as a business networking thing, perhaps I will respond suggesting we connect on linked in instead. What do you think?

I close with this seinfeld clip:

20 things I did in My 20s...

2009-02-05T07:37:00.003-05:00

This year I turn 30. In fact, its less than 4 months away. I started thinking about all those things which happened in my 20s - some major changes...and I decided to write them down with some ages. These are in no particular order, just in the order I have been thinking of them

In my 20s I...

1. Fell in love (23) and then got married (24) to the most wonderful, caring, beautiful woman
2. Left my hometown of Pittsburgh on my birthday (23) and moved to Raleigh, NC
3. Bought my first (22) and second (25) home.
4. Lost a best friend and gained a best friend. (23)
5. Found out what it was like to be called daddy (27)...twice (28).
6. Lost family, a grandfather (22) and grandmother (25).
7. Reconnected with family thanks to blogs and social networking sites. (27)
8. Reached one of my early professional goals of being named a Senior Technical Staff Member (28) at IBM.
9. Saw my Steelers win two Super Bowls, the first on TV (26) and the second in person (29).
10. Became an uncle through birth (22), marriage (25), and soon birth again (29).
11. Gained a lot of great new family through marriage (23)
12. Graduated with honors from the University of Pittsburgh (21)
13. Traveled with my wife to Switzerland (23) twice (25).
14. Traveled to many other places like Jamaica (23), Hawaii (26), Bermuda (27), Montpellier France (26) and the UK (25, 27, 28).
15. Got my first dog, Cassie (23)
16. Taught a college class (28) at East Carolina University
17. Refinished our kitchen (27) and bathroom (hopefully 29)
18. Broke one bone - my foot (22) and still went skiing for a week with a broken foot
19. Purchased multiple cars, a Jeep Grand Cherokee (21), VW Passat (22), Honda Prelude (22), Toyota Matrix (25), and Honda Pilot (27)
20. Got out of debt (aside from our house) and lived debt free since (24).

Child Care credits/deductions

2009-01-29T08:21:00.004-05:00

I was doing some reading up on the economic stimulus plan that passed the house yesterday, looking for specific details about how it might put money in the pockets short term for the non-business owner like myself. I read this article and a couple others which all mention the same sort of thing with no fine details:

The bill also gives most taxpayers breaks of $500 each on their payroll taxes and increases tax breaks for college tuition, first-time homebuyers and child care.

So, it appears that there is some notion of getting $500 tax credits on payroll taxes as well as additional tax deductions or credits that are given for college tuition, first-time homebuyers, and child care. I never read much on the child care credits and was wondering how sending you child to preschool might be accounted so I read up on it.

Preschool is a valid child care tax expense however there are implications which may disallow claiming it for certain people. The child care expense tax implications are all explained in only a way the IRS can explain something, by calling it "IRS Publication 503" which can be found here. One of the interesting things is that if you have a stay at home parent with no earned income you cannot claim any child care expenses including preschool. To claim all of the preschool expenses, the stay at home parent would need to have an earned income of at least as high as what you are attempting to claim as expenses or you can only claim as much as they make. Here is an example from the IRS with some minor edits.

Your earned income for the year was $18,000. Your spouse's earned income for the year was $2,000. You paid work-related expenses of $3,000 for the care of your 5-year-old child and qualified to claim the credit. The amount of expenses you use to figure your credit cannot be more than $2,000 (the smaller of your earned income or that of your spouse).

See, its designed to be a "work related expense." the IRS says this means that both of these have to be true:

They allow you (and your spouse if you are married) to work or look for work.
They are for a qualifying person's care.

But it seems that according to the IRS the stay at home parent isn't working unless they have earned income. Tell that to a stay at home parent and you might get slapped ;-) I thought this was the last interesting part:

Volunteer work. For this purpose, you are not considered to be working if you do unpaid volunteer work or volunteer work for a nominal salary.

Snow Day

2009-01-21T07:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the biggest snow day (~4") since I moved to Raleigh in 2002. Here are some pictures of our house and us in the snow:

Yes, much to my disapproval my daughter was wearing jeans in the snow. At least they were lined. She lasted about 10 minutes, she is a good little warm weather southern gal :-) I was wearing m snowboarding gear and Heather was wearing what she called a snow bib and what we would call something else like snow pants.

Interest Rates

2009-01-12T08:45:00.004-05:00

So, like many "homeowners" I have been watching the interest rates plummet and preparing to refinance. I finally began the process of refinancing on Tuesday when 15 year fixed rate mortgages hit between 4.25% and 4.5% locally. Heather and I are on an aggressive track to pay off our house and so we had to make sure our closing costs were as low as possible. I called many companies and here is my anecdotal occurrences with each of them:

One of my friends had luck with Citi using our employee referral program and I contacted them. I immediately had the phone answered and they took my name and number on Tuesday. On Thursday, after having not received a callback, I called again and got someone after less than one minute on hold. They quoted me nice rates, gave me their contact information, and told me they would be available Friday and Saturday morning. When i called Friday the lady's voicemail said she was on vacation.
Two companies never returned my calls - Wells Fargo and Chase.
The current company who holds my mortgage, HSBC, had rates 3/8 higher (4.875) than the next highest person I contacted (4.5%) and still wanted a full origination point.
My credit union, Coastal Federal, was the only one who came through. They had low closing costs, low rates, and gave me no hassle. You can check their rates here. They charges 1/2 pt origination, no discount points, no application fee, and I locked in a 4.5% 15 year mortgage which is a substantial savings from my current 5.875%. Overall closing costs were around $2100 which in NC seems to be a great deal.

Also on the interest rate front, the high interest online savings accounts are rapidly dropping their interest rates in the 2.5-3% range. My credit union has a pretty cool program called "Go Green Checking". The biggest issue I have is that who wants to put your real savings, like emergency savings and long term savings for cars, in a checking account with a card you use frequently. See, you have to use this card 12 times a month, which means you have 12 chances to get your numbers stolen. Sure, Visa says it will replace your money if stolen but reports say that this can take 2-4 weeks sometimes. This is my emergency savings, I don't know if thats secure enough for me. Thoughts?

Not the water cooler

2009-01-06T09:10:00.002-05:00

Everyone here at work is outraged. Why? Because as of January 1st, we lost our "drink subsidy" which was a benefit not very well defined but often used. I often don't write about work stuff, but I think it says something about the state of the economy. Allow me to expand...

In early December we all got a note saying that the drinks were costing the company too much and the drink subsidy would be going away. We had $.25 sodas, free cheap coffee, and water coolers. We have had these things since I have been here in RTP, so almost 7 years. As of Jan 1, the sodas went to $.75, coffee was pay per cup at $.50, and the water coolers disappeared.

The money is only the start of complaints. The water fountains which were not really used for the past 7+ years do not chill or filter the water, in fact the tap water in the kitchen tastes better. Sodas are < $.25 per can if bought in 12 packs at Target or Walmart on sale, so justifying that $.50 hike is hard to do while trying to claim they are just stopping the subsidy. So, many people seem up in arms.

My sensible side, Heather, says that in the grand scheme people are losing their jobs left and right and here we are complaining about the water cooler. I guess the more I think about this is it is our first loss of benefits. Some companies have lost their 401k match and others have even lost part of their salary. I guess this little benefit seems to hurt because it is something tangible daily...but if put in perspective, its not as bad as it could be... :-/

Thoughts anyone?

Does your stay at home wife get vacation?

2008-12-19T08:23:00.004-05:00

Through a minor disagreement earlier this month, I came to the realization that while I get vacation days, Heather does not. She is with the girls every day. In the little time off she has gotten in the past two years, she has often spent them with others on girl's nights out or at church events. But, for Heather, true vacation is relaxation, serenity, and some seclusion. Our vacations now include the kids. Weekends include kids. Every day she is with the kids.

I for one couldn't stand working 365 days a year and it made me realize that we need a change of plans. I need to allocate some of my vacation days to allowing Heather to have days off. She needs a break to do whatever she wants that helps her to relax and get downtime.

Today is the start of my last vacation for the year. I have until January 5th off. We started this vacation with that new focus, allowing Heather to take two hours at the beginning of today to herself. I don't think thats anything like the full days off I want to make sure she gets in the future...but its a start.

Anyone else have a similar situation? How do you handle it?

Fun with Anna

2008-12-17T20:55:00.004-05:00

Anna is totally our little helper these days. She sets the table, puts away dishes, throws away trash, and so many other things. Tonight we made strombollis and she helped me add the toppings and enjoyed playing with some pizza dough.

After that while getting ready for bed she started playing with a cardboard wrapping paper tube. I showed her to look through it, in part so she wouldn't swing it around, and she loved it. After seeing she was having trouble looking through it with one eye, I crafted it into a pair of binoculars and we went on an adventure around the house looking at things like the Christmas tree and stockings. Once she seemed to be getting bored of that, we colored the binoculars. In the end, she had so much fun she wanted to take them to bed with her.

You can only hope to contain me...

2008-12-13T15:05:00.002-05:00

Its like Madelyn has said to us, "You can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me." She has been everywhere. Today she figured out that she could crawl through the foyer and living room to get to the dining room where the dog's food is kept. Here are some fun pictures showing her everywhere:

Anna was helping put lights up outside, and Maddie not wanting to be kept out climbed to the window next to the front door to see her sister.

When attempting to take Lily's picture, Maddie crawled over to get into the picture. She cannot be stopped!

Maddie likes to try and chase her sister up the stairs. Lucky for us, she hasn't figured out how to get up the steps.

Finally, a way to contain her, in her high chair. Here she ate so much she got tired, and went to sleep. :-)

Micro-blogging and life update

2008-12-05T08:19:00.003-05:00

Just a week after beginning, micro-blogging has taken over my blog power. As you can see on the right of my blog here, I have been micro-blogging and able to keep streaming whats going on in my life. It does mean though that my actual blogs have become less frequent and perhaps more meaningful.

Anna and Madelyn are still as adorable as ever. Now, they play together all the time. We thought it was Anna wanting to play with whatever Madelyn was playing with, and perhaps it was at first. But, after telling Anna to play over with her stuff away from her sister when she is playing too rough, Madelyn immediately crawls to Anna and is all over her toys..so it seems they both want to be together, its adorable. Here they are playing with dolls together:

This month may end up a blur by the end. Heather and I have activities every weekend and nearly every day on the weekends. We are looking forward to it all though. More updates another time..

Thanksgiving and new life

2008-11-27T07:30:00.003-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! This morning I got up with the girls at 6:30 and let Heather sleep a little bit longer. I am thankful for the fun time we had in the last hour before I wrote this. I found myself with a lot to be thankful for this year, a beautiful caring sweet smart loving wife, a couple great healthy active very fun kids, my personal relationship with Jesus Christ, an interesting job I like most days, a warm and inviting home, and so many close friends and people I can talk to. Yesterday, I hung out with Derick, one of my closest friends, something I am very thankful for having been able to do.

But, as I thought of the many things I was thankful for, I thought of all the new life we have experienced around us this past year. I perused my facebook list of friends and found that at least 8 (Heather, Suzanne, Katie, Jill, Nicole, Kate, Regina, Ann) of them had babies since last Thanksgiving and 3 (Stephanie, Jessica, Jessica) of them that we know of are pregnant including my sister in law. Among Heather's friends there are about 6 more babies that were or will be born in the Sept-Dec timeframe. Some of my friends at work have just had babies like Aditya and others like Millie are just about to have one. I am thankful for all that new life that God has put in and around us. I lost my count at about 15 babies born in 2008 and 6 waiting to be born in 2008/2009. What a glorious time and I am excited for the potential more to come in 2009. But as I looked at my own little miracles this morning, I was thankful for them and the joy they bring to my life.

Micro-USB and the LG Lotus

2008-11-25T09:15:00.006-05:00

So, I missed this minor technological revolution, where Micro-USB, just standardized last year, started to replace mini-USB in devices. So many of us tech guys knew that mini-USB was too thick and would need replaces one day. I for one didn't realize the day was already here. Welcome micro-USB...may I not have to buy a bunch of new cables now.

How did I find out about micro-USB being the new chosen form factor? We went phone shopping...

Yesterday, I got Heather a LG Lotus from Radio Shack. I started to feel bad at the lack of connectivity my wife had. She is a gadget person at heart and we just never spent the money to get her really connected with a sweet phone..or even text messaging. That changed yesterday when we got her the LG Lotus and changed to Sprint's family data plan, $130 for 2 phones, 1500 anytime minutes, free nights after 7 PM and weekends, unlimited text, unlimited data, and a handfull of other features which are standard on all the cell providers. Its a real cool device, beautiful screen, nice camcorder ability, and a 2 MP camera. But, the one issue is that I was used to the Blackberry which has infinite application support. Not the cool games that are on the iPhone, but Google Talk, GMail, Twitterberry, etc. So, Heather's phone surprised me not having as man applications for it. However, the mail as integrated with the phone was cool. Google Maps, YouTube, and others things have native support. Maybe its just a matter of time, the phone has only been out for a month. But, its a cool device which Heather will gladly show off to you.

As for those who knew I considered a move to AT&T. I have been with Sprint for almost 10 years and I thought about changing. In the end, AT&T's plans would have cost me $25 more for the same thing. I have corporate discounts both places, so that may not be for everyone. But, Heather loves the new phone and if finally connected to the modern era of communications...and thats really what matters. :-)

Started using twitter

2008-11-24T10:43:00.002-05:00

I decided to start using Twitter. I held off for a long time since its yet another trendy tool. However, I found that I wanted something to push status updates to do what they call micro-blogging. What is micro-blogging? Its where you are basically posting whats going here and now in your life. Wikipedia suggests a micro-blog is 140 characters or less. The idea is simply that you update what is going on in your life at a more granular level. So, over on the right of this blog I put a widget that streams my twitters there. If you are my friend on facebook, its the twitters that will update my facebook status. We'll see how it all works.

Homemade cinnamon rolls

2008-11-22T09:02:00.007-05:00

My wife has a love for cinnamon rolls as her favorite speciality breakfast food. Unfortunately, the best we had been able to do before was the Pillsbury out of the can cinnamon rolls. Recently, we have been starting to make breads and doughs of all types in our Zoji bread machine. Well, I woke up this morning at 6:30 AM and starting making cinnamon rolls for the family. I started with this recipe and modified it.

How did I modify it? I like lots of swirls, so I rolled out the dough longer than the 9x8 it suggested, but rather around 9x13. Because of the increased surface area, I had to double to amount of filling, using their amount of filling for each amount. Additionally, I took the softened butter and smeared it out on the rolled out dough except for the last inch, which remains dry to . Then, I sprinkled a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon on the butter. I then cut them into smaller rolls than were described, into 9 rolls per half rather than 6, made 2 8x8 pans with 9 each, and baked it for only 20 minutes. How did I decide to make these changes? Mostly it was that I have some experience through the thousands of cinnamon rolls I made at my time working at Loafer's Bread Company in Pittsburgh.

Here are some pictures:

Cutting the cinnamon rolls

Proofing the cinnamon rolls

Baking the cinnamon rolls

Out of the oven

Glazed and Gone

I probably will continue to adapt this recipe, but it was good for this first round. I'd like to perfect them by Christmas for Heather.

God's reminder

2008-11-21T07:27:00.002-05:00

Yesterday night around 11:15 PM I found myself missing Pittsburgh. During that day I found that my favorite way to keep in touch with my home for 20 years was shut down. PittGirl, the anonymous Burgh Blog author, had her identity revealed and decided it was best to shut down her website. It is the only blog I found that was entertaining, fun to read, and kept me in touch with the happenings of Pittsburgh. Then, last night I found myself in a sports bar with a couple of friends watching the Steelers game. Now, had I gone to one of the many Steelers sports bars, I may not have felt the same way, but while Steeler fans greatly outnumbered the Bengals fan, the enthusiasm wasn't there. On top of all of that, it was snowing in Pittsburgh.

I was sad. I missed my hometown. On the 10 minute trip home last night, I thought of how much I missed Pittsburgh. How much I want my girls to love Pittsburgh as well. And how I wanted to return...

This morning, I feel that God sent me a reminder. As I went to the gym, it was snowing. When I got home, I took a picture of the house with a slight snow dusting. Here is that picture:

If you look even closer, you may see this:

Another part of the sweet reminder that I am home, where God has me deployed in His service and to enjoy life here in North Carolina.

Crawling check. Walking...

2008-11-18T18:38:00.001-05:00

Maddie has decided to move on. She quickly perfected crawling to the extent she wanted to, so now she is pulling up on things and ready to start standing and walking...

She seems way too small for this, just 6.5 months!

On the homefront..

2008-11-16T12:59:00.001-05:00

Big news on the homefront, you can read/watch about it on Heather's blog by following this link.

The Elmo Collective

2008-11-16T12:25:00.002-05:00

Anna got a Elmo Live doll for her 2nd birthday and after getting it out of the box, it seemed to be defective. With the factory batteries or new batteries, it wouldn't do what it was supposed to. But, mysteriously, if you but it next to the TMX Elmo we had..it would start to act. It was sort of freaky...so we caught it on video tape before the Elmo Live was returned.

I want a 3% mortgage

2008-11-14T13:56:00.003-05:00

So, if you haven't seen it, the FDIC released a proposal to modify mortgages that people can't pay for to be as low as a 3% mortgage (5 year ARM) with no principal reduction allowing people to reduce their mortgage to 31% of their gross take-home pay and stay in their houses. Here is the FDIC page with the official proposal. While I understand the need to help people in these bad mortgages to stabilize the housing market and therefore the economy, I wish they would make a general program that allowed a 3% 5 year ARM instead of only offering it to those who can't afford it. I gladly would take a 3% 5 year ARM and nearly cut my interest rate in half. Instead, the current proposal is that unless I miss 60 days of mortgage payments, I am not eligible for this rate cut. Sad...

When I say this is an ARM..it really isn't. It raises 1 percent per year until it hits the prevailing market rate. Better than an ARM.

Cool Mommy Stuff

2008-11-14T06:57:00.003-05:00

My cousin Lori is starting her own business sewing handy Mom stuff. Check out her blog to find out more. Here are the diaper totes:

and here are a couple pictures of her wipes case:

I think its great that she is taking something she is passionate about and trying to make it work for her as a side job while having the more important job of raising her adorable little girl Kelsey. If you need a cute little baby shower gift, please think of her ;-)

More on product recalls

2008-11-13T09:54:00.003-05:00

Andy pointed me to this website that allows you to get notifications about recalls related to your automobiles, tires, and child restraints. I added this to my list of subscribed to recalls. As I blogged about before, I also watch the Consumer Product Safety Commissions list.

Heather and homemaking

2008-11-12T07:23:00.004-05:00

I am very proud and appreciative of my wife. She has consistently amazed me in our 5.5 years of marriage, but no more than she has as the mother of our kids. From my view of her job as a stay at home mother, her easier days can be worse than my worst days. Yet, she handles Anna and Madelyn with grace, love, and gentleness that amazes me.

A couple of months ago we were at her ten year high school reunion. Of the people that had come, we seemed to be the only ones with more than one child. The "Heather with all her kids" comments made Heather feel like she was an eccentric person with 20 kids. About the same time, we began feeding Maddie baby foods.

As Heather has written about a couple times here and here, she is making most of Maddie's food for her. Some of her friends gasp at this as if she is again eccentric, but I see a lot more sense in it than they may realize. To make Madelyn bananas as Heather points out in that first link, you take a banana in a bowl and smash it with a fork for 30 seconds. Considering the alternative is about $.50/container and normally has additives, namely absorbic acid as a preservative, this seems like an easy way to save a little bit of money AND help our child to avoid some chemicals. But, does it make sense for everything?

This past week we wanted to give Madelyn some more apples and upon seeing the prices of apples were over $1/lb, we looked around target a bit. In the apple sauce area was a 25 oz jar of Target's Archer Farms brand Organic Apple Sauce for $3.

So, I am really quite proud of Heather. She has been doing a great job of feeding Maddie and making the smart decisions as she does it. Yes, mashing up a banana saves money and is healthier. Yes, buying organic apple sauce saved time and money and is just as healthy.

Motivation for working out again?

2008-11-11T12:09:00.005-05:00

Since writing last about working out and the success I have enjoyed in the past year, I am struggling again with motivation which is my original topic and issue. I still feel as though I have a ways to go before I am in the shape I desire to be in.... but once that occurs...where do I go? I think it was considerably easier to get the motivation to get into shape or back into shape than it is to maintain that shape.

One of the things I have been realizing is that most of my life when getting in shape it was for a particular reason. The reality of my life and body style is that in order to stay in shape I will/would have to consistently exercise for the rest of my life. Do I like working out that much? No. So, how do you get the motivation or mentality that you can do this the rest of your life?

First, let's review my current motivation:
1) To be able to do active things with my family
2) Self-image, particularly how I view myself for my wife
3) Having that personal time every morning

#1 and #2 are not going to be as strong as I get in better shape. So, I have been working on a list of new things that could help motivate me that I can try to use:

1) A yearly athletic event or trip such as backpacking, triathlons, whatever
2) Regular sports that I would like to be competitive at

So, all I have been able to think of is that I need to have something I shoot for year to year. What else can I use otherwise? I am thinking I may have to find something to focus on year to year otherwise.

Saving money

2008-11-04T10:58:00.002-05:00

With the economic turmoil we are facing in America, many newspapers and websites are writing vasts amounts of information on how to save money. From what I have read, these range from things like "start clipping coupons" to "use new energy efficient lighting." You get some information that suggests you stop eating out or try to take public transportation more often. On Sunday when I was getting a haircut, a conversation with the person cutting my hair, my wife, spawned this one question from me. What new ways can we save money?

Well, I thought it might be something worth posting a blog about. How do you save money? Where don't you save money?

Trying to come up with some things ourself, here is what I came up with:

1. Heather cuts my hair. Since I like to keep my hair short, thats an annual savings of about $90.
2. Coupon clipping/sale watching.
3. Heather is making Madelyn's baby food. I am not sure how much this saves, but it seems to save some. Heather is doing it more for it being so much more healthy.
4. We use compact florescent lights (CFLs).
5. We eat in most days. We eat out about once a week for lunch and twice a week for dinner at most.
6. We drive the more fuel efficient car whenever possible. That car (Toyota Matrix) averages 30-35 mpg whereas our other car (Honda Pilot) averages 20 mpg.
7. We shop around and shop online often. We utilize Google to find coupons/promotion codes for things online. In the past month, I have saved an additional $50 with coupons found through Google.
8. When traveling for business, I try to buy gum and bring snacks so I don't spend a lot while out.
9. We pack Anna snacks rather than buying prepackaged snacks.

Thats all I could think of off the top of my head. What other ways do you save money? I'd love some more ideas.

Dillard's, the service without the products...

2008-10-30T07:55:00.002-04:00

We went to Dillard's to find jeans last night after not being able to find the same version that I liked anywhere but Macy's online. I was so disgusted with Macy's service, I wouldn't buy from them. At Dillard's we received exceptional service. One guy helping show us around all different parts of the men's department. Other people offering assistance to him and us at the same time. What a wonderful experience. That said, they didn't have the products. Half of what they had, Heather said, "reminded her of her dad."

So, I found one pair of jeans that both Heather and I liked...whereas at Macy's I had found probably 6-10. The service at Dillard's was great...too bad it wasn't equally as great at Macy's...I might have bought 6 pairs of jeans ;-)

In the end, I am still going to be looking for another pair of jeans. When describing what I was looking for in the end, the Dillard's sales guy suggested I look at Abercrombie specifically. I appreciated the fact that he was honest in telling me where he thought I could get what I wanted.

No pacifier - no problem

2008-10-29T07:31:00.003-04:00

As I wrote on Saturday, we took away Anna's pacifier after her second birthday. We told her that big girls no longer got pacifiers and the bowl in which we kept her pacifier no longer has one in it.

At the first nap on Saturday, she asked for it and didn't sleep. That night, she again asked for it. I told her that big girls didn't use pacifiers and she was a big girl now. Wanting to give her something in return, I told her that big girls got to read longer stories at night also and have read to her loner bedtime stories from bigger books each night. She asked for it again the next day, but hasn't asked for it since. The first night (Saturday) was the only night she had trouble getting to sleep. But, she hasn't napped since removing her pacifier.

The reading longer stories has worked well. A couple of nights, she has wanted to read her smaller board books that rhyme. Also, there is also the occasional night she barely wants us to read at all because she is so tired. She just says, "night night daddy, night night" and that is our hint to leave.

Anna has handled not having a pacifier extremely well. I think we took it away at the right time as she was able to make good decisions about it. That said, I am tempted to get rid of Madelyn's now so as to not deal with it in 1.5 years. :-)

Last pro-life comments..

2008-10-29T07:20:00.003-04:00

Its 6 days before the election. I am pro-life as you may have read in my other blogs. I had planned to drop it, but I thought this video was powerful from America's Choice Now in which videos of Barack Obama himself declaring his not only pro-choice stance but his abortion extremism is obvious. The video is safe for work and safe for kids.

At 1:45, Barack declares the first thing he will do in office is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That link is to a pro-choice website, so you don't think I am offering just pro-life interpretations of that act. If you think that was taken out of context, look at this statement from his own website in which he says (my emphasis added):

"Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

"When South Dakota passed a law banning all abortions in a direct effort to have Roe overruled, I was the only candidate for President to raise money to help the citizens of South Dakota repeal that law. When anti-choice protesters blocked the opening of an Illinois Planned Parenthood clinic in a community where affordable health care is in short supply, I was the only candidate for President who spoke out against it. And I will continue to defend this right by passing the Freedom of Choice Act as president.

For those who pro-life decisions are a priority we can not waiver on, Barack cannot be our candidate.

Macy's and their bad service

2008-10-27T20:39:00.002-04:00

We went to Macy's at Triangle Town Center tonight to buy me some jeans. After an 30-45 minutes, 10 tried on pairs of jeans, and one breakdown from Anna, I narrowed it down to two pairs of jeans I wanted to buy. While standing in a short long line (one person with over 10 items), the lady at the cash register, while not even halfway done with her intensive customer, tells the person behind me to go to the other guy who just came over so he could ring her up. After standing there a minute to see if she was mysteriously going to finish in a reasonable amount of time while my child is screaming off in the distance, I put the jeans down and left disgusted. There were good reasons to stay, but so many more reasons to leave.

In a "tough economy," you would think companies would go more out of the way to get business. Not this lady. Not at Macy's. At least, not tonight. Anyone else want my business?

Bye Bye pacifier

2008-10-25T13:04:00.003-04:00

Heather and I are bravely attempting to rid Anna's dependency on her pacifier now that she is two years old. She was good with her pacifier, only taking it when going night night and giving it up as soon as she got out of bed. Unfortunately, breaking this sleep time dependency on it is still going to be difficult. She hasn't been sleeping well as is...without her pacifier it could get temporarily worse.

Anyway, today is the first day and I'll let you know how it goes.

So, why give it up at 2? One good reason was that the Avent pacifiers she was using only go up to 18 months. Also, she is well beyond when most experts say to get rid of it, at 6 - 12 months.

In the end, we wanted to stop it at 18 months but that is when Madelyn came around and Mommy and Daddy didn't have the will power. Instead, we made the rule that she could only have it at night time. Before that, we had it around to keep her from blowing up while out in public. In retrospect, we let her become dependent on it for our own convenience and its our responsibility to get her to stop, even if its inconvenient for us because she cries a lot.

Maybe we should stop Maddie now before she gets attached..she is 6 months..

2008-10-24T07:19:00.001-04:00

Happy 2nd birthday Anna! Although i am slightly disturbed by my dreams of Anna turning 4 instead of 2 last night...I am thrilled for her 2nd birthday. Terrible Twos? I think she has had them for the past 3 months :-)