Feedback on facebook worlds

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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Cutting the cinnamon rolls

Proofing the cinnamon rolls

Baking the cinnamon rolls

Out of the oven

Glazed and Gone

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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

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...

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..

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

The Elmo Collective

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

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.