Pauls Rants and Revelations

For most of us I’m sure a disaster would be a rather large deal. I mean, how many types of disasters are there? And any one of them (barring an volcanic eruption for those of us not near a fault line) can happen to anyone at any time.

I just found AxcessPoints, a site that is all about disaster planning, recover and information. I was actually a little intrigued by it when I first started checking it out. Right off the bat though I notice that they offer a data backup/recovery service. I was not shocked by this, but I was really interested in the services and products they offer or tell you about. There is everything there you would need to plan for an emergency (including those 72 hour kits that are quite popular).

If I lived in a flood plain, or a tropical beach, or near a volcano, or anywhere except where I am (the Pacific NW) then I would totally get to ordering stuff as I really am not interested in seeing my stuff be engulfed by a tide of molten rock. But what real disaster could occur out here?

Perhaps an onslaught of angry beavers, possibly, but I’m almost sure they don’t make a survival kit for that.

-Cheers

Its not often that I tote the Mac banner, so please take it to heart when I tell you about Mac Games and More. I found this site while cruising on my PC and thought “I gotta get a mac”. But instead of spending a few thousand dollars just to play games from the site, I borrowed my buddies macbook and checked out some of the mac games they offered.

They had the usual stuff (such as mac solitaire) but they also had a rather fun take on Collapse called A Fairy Tale. In it you have to match tiles (and quickly) in the same manner as collapse. The graphics are great and the play can get intense when you really get into it. They also had a rather handy called Time Out, in where it will alert you every so often to get up and take a break to avoid carpul tunnel or, worse, the plague known as “swivel spread”.

Aside from the mac games and software I found it a really nicley put together resource for mac programs for those looking for fun little additions to their dock.

Now if I can only convince my work to get me the new powerbook pro… then I would be stylin.

-Cheers

A coworker of my wifes commented once on a show he saw the previous night. My wife listened and went about her work and when he asked her a question about it, she responded “We dont have a TV”.

Her coworker was, to say the least, flabbergasted. He said something to the effect of “You might as well not even breathe” (and honey, if you are reading this, correct me if I am wrong). Upon hearing this I thought “how sad for him”. You see, its been nearly 3 years since we have gotten rid of television in our home. We have hardly noticed it at all and I started thinking about what we do instead of watching the “boob tube”; which, funnily enough, it is pretty much become nowadays.

My answer; mostly, we read. We go for walks. We go to archery, play soccer, bingo, dinner with family and, more often than not, we talk about events, life and general goings-ons in the world. We also more often than not have the heated debate on particular topics. But this is perfectly fine since I am usually right (unless my wife tells me I am not).

After considering all we do without television, I started to think if we are spending too much money on things that are not television. For instance; a decent tv will cost you around $200 but you only pay for this once. If you want to watch anything, it’s usually $40 - $50 a month for cable access, plus any of the pay-per-view items you order. But lets just say $50 a month on average. Add in $15 a month in electricity to power the thing and you are looking at $65 a month for only one, non-interactive form of entertainment in your home. Does that seem worth it?

Lets look at what we (my family that is) spend on non-tv things. We read. A lot. So much so that we have a library card and every 2 weeks or so get 10-20 books from the library. The cost of this is in the gas it takes to get to the library (we were a little bummed at this since the library use to be walking distance from our house, but no matter). So our chief form of entertainment (reading) costs us about $2 in gas. Not a bad tradeoff, actually. We also buy new books (such as the latest Harry Potter) so if we average 1 new hardbound book a month, thats $20 more. That’s $22 so far.

We also have internet access with is $50 a month. But I use this for work chiefly so the “entertainment” portion of this is about $5 for surfing the net and, on occasion downloading episodes of Fosters Home for Imaginary friends (my sons favorite show and, well… mine too). An entire season costs about $20 through iTunes so if we average 1 a week (usually on the weekends) thats $8 more. Add electricity; another $5 lets say.

So far we have $22 for books, $18 for digital entertainment.

So what about news? Well, I can’t speak for my wife, but I have an RSS feed from the local paper and feeds from Digg, Slashdot, Google News, MSNBC and a dozen others. I get all the news I can handle and certainly more than is in the local daily paper. This, however, costs nothing, so I won’t count it.

And our hobbies? Well, walking if free. It costs about $10 in gas for me to go to archery and another $10 for my wife to go to soccer every month. Dinners with family are actually saving us money since we are not paying for food, so take back the $15 (3 a month which would cost around $5 a meal) as a credit to put to our entertainment.

Now what are we at: $22 for books, $18 for digital entertainment, $20 for our hobbies. Thats $60. Subtract our $15 credit and we are left with $45 for our non-tv entertainment.

TV: $65; Reading, hobbies, digital entertainment: $45

So we save $20 a month and get far more bang for our buck. But its not just about money saving (or spending). Let look at the more emotional, physical, and psychological aspects of a TV free life. We talk and interact with each other instead of sitting on the sofa watching tv where the only talk that happens is an occasional outburst when someones favorite contestant is eliminated. We go outside and do stuff instead of watching other people do stuff. Our bodies are moving and doing things instead of at rest. We are tired at the end of the day not because our brains are exhausted from “info-tainment”, but from running around for hours (and anyone who says soccer is easy has never played; my wife is my hero for running around for a solid half hour a couple a times a game).

My kids also benefit, I think greatly, from not having an easy to access form of entertainment. They have to use their brains to think of things to do (sometimes after a helpful suggestion from us). Often times they are running around the house making pillow forts, jumping from the couch, and generally making havoc of everything. This is stressful (as it always happens when i finish picking things up) but in hindsight its great in that they are entertaining themselves and having fun. They play with their toys and with mom and dad and only occasionally watch a movie (usually at their cousins house) or tv.

Aside from the monetary gains there are also several gains physically and mentally from ignoring the beast of television. I’m not against television, mind you. I watch it every so often and I watch movies and such, but as for the primary means of information and entertainment, well, there are a lot better sources available nowadays that are far better and/or far cheaper.

Do you still think there is a place for television in our homes (and bedrooms and kitchens and cars)? Do you think that you really need television to get by in life? I think not, but that, as they say, is my opinion. Whats yours?

-Cheers

This is the latest example of the “just missed it” form of luck I seem to be having lately.

You see, over the last week I have decided (with some discussion with my partner in cyber-crime) to dissolve our hosting business and pursue work that actually makes us money.

One of the biggest gripes I got was that we used Paypal as out payment means primarily. While this shouldn’t be a big deal (in our opinion) it is for a lot of others. So, after we decide to nix the whole thing I find First Data merchant services.

Usually I have a hard time dealing with merchant services because there is so much room for some swindling of the customer (me) and usually not a lot of depth to the company itself or its services.

After cruising around their site I look, first, to what they offer. They have the usually suspects as far as services go and a good selection of machines if you have a brick & mortar.

What I notices mostly was all the free services they offer. This has generally been a dodgy thing in the past but I found that it made some sense to offer these services as they are already making money from the fees and such.

The free programming help they offer was of particular interest to me as I am still a little skittish when it comes to e-commerce/security type development. But they’re offers of help are most encouraging.

I have to say, though, that I am a bit disappointed that they do not list their rates right off on the site, but this is usually not done from my experience as they usually cut deals to larger clients or those that they see no trouble from (hey, I can’t blame them as I did the same thing).

But other than this one area, the rest of it looks pretty decent and they look to be trustworthy. I am going to keep them in mind when I start up the hosting thing again (what? You think I would really just forget about it?) but for now you can check them out if you are in need of such services.

-Cheers

At the time of this writing, Friday 9:15 pm, I am sitting in Barnes and Noble waiting for 11:15 to come around so I can purchase my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.

The crowd here is, to say the least, eclectic. There are many folks from all walks of life from young to old and from normal (like me) to the entirely too bizarre (such as the teenager dressed like Draco Malfoy sitting next to me; his name is Cory). There are also at least 100 young women dressed in Hogwarts colors whose pseudo-school uniforms would have been frowned upon at a strip club.

You just gotta love the bookstore.

Anyways, I ran out of battery power so I moved over to “geeks corner” where the wall plugs are. Most of these chaps (and one lady) are IM-ing their mates on the east coast as they already have copies and are giving them a chapter summary every few minutes. Im trying to ignore them but its hard when every so often a “No way” or “I cant believe it” escapes my would-be HP comrades.

But enough about me (for now) and more about the book…. What the hell am I going to say about the book?! I haven’t even gotten a copy of it yet. I’m not telepathic you know.

So far its been, well, a long ass wait. Ill post more when I actually get the book (or someone dies from the excitement; which ever comes first).

-Cheers

*Update: It is now 11:15 pm and they are starting to line up the first purchasers (A - C). Seeing as I am have an “I” on my wristband, I think Ill just keep re-reading Starship Troopers until they call it.

**Update: It is now 1:30am. I have been standing in line for 2 hours and have, finally, obtained my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I am sitting in the Starbucks next door in a comforatable armchair waiting for my frappichino. I intend to read the entire book this weekend so no time like the present to begin.

On a side note; I can now understand all those wack-jobs who were dressing up and cursing each other in the isles. It is a pretty good book and, were I 15 years younger, would probably have put on a dementor outfit as well.

A few days after pain stakingly moving our belongings into our new apartment, I find these guys: Relocation.com

I mean, its just my luck that I find a company to help me move (or move my crap completely with no interference from me) AFTER the job is done. The services they offer, including auto shipping and international shipping seem to be pretty decent from what I read on their site. They offer all the usual professional mover services plus a few extras.

One thing I found was the self move service. Its the “you pack - we drive” type of service that can help if you really don’t feel like riding in a u-haul 2000 miles (honestly, who does?). I certainly would like that but could have used it a few years ago when we moved from California to Oregon.

Another tid-bit that caught my interest was the Find a Home service that will link you to homes and real estate agents in the location you choose. We haven’t found an agent yet for our home purchase so this will come in handy in the future.

All in all, I found the resources of the site to be good and plentiful and the site itself easy to use. I would recommend them if anyone were to ask my help in moving. Im good (or lazy) like that.

Now if only they could go back in time and help me move from Cali. Perhaps I wouldn’t have lost my favorite stool if they were around.

-Cheers

OK. After a fairly painful day of moving, we finally got everything inside. I dont know what was worse; hauling everything up 3 flights of stairs, or the fire brigade that held us up an hour.

Seems someone who lived in our building let their father use her apartment. While there, he started something cooking and then left to go back to work. With the stove still on mind. Well, after a few hours (we saw him at about noon) we saw smoke coming out of the apartment at about 5 in the afternoon. We called the fire department and 3 fire trucks (big ones too) came rolling up within 2 minutes. After they mercilessly beat down the door with an axe (very cool to watch by the way), they pulled out the charred remains of what appeared to be chicken and potatoes, along with the melted pot they were in.

All in all, we did the right thing calling them as it was about to go off and combusted the curtains next to the stove which would have been “bad for everyone”, said the firefighters.

Anyways, we finished about around 10:30 in the evening after about 12 hours of moving. I just now (2 days later) have enough energy back to make a post about it.

The new place is pretty awesome not that we are finally all in. The loft above the kitchen is the perfect office space for my wife and I and the kids have their own room to play in. My wife and I, by that same note, have our own room, which is very much preferable to the old situation.

Ill post pics of the place when I find my camera (its in a box somewhere).

-Cheers

OK. Maybe I don’t really hate it, but it is a terrible bother.

I don’t mind moving into a better place. The new place we have has room for all 4 of us, plus a little office mezzanine thing for my wife and I’s office (no more kids pushing buttons; yay).

I don’t mind, very much, the packing up of everything. Its hard and we have lots of heavy books and furniture, but I don’t think I can trust anyone else with my stuff other than us.

The only thing about this whole move I am a little miffed at is the distance. We are packing everything, renting a truck, and spending a better part of a week getting everything done just to move, not across the country, but across the street.

Yes, you read correctly. We are moving about 2 blocks west into a better apartment. Just 2 blocks.

Insane, some may say. Proabably. But this is a really great apartment for us, and I really don’t mind the work of moving. I just sometimes wish that is was, I don’t know, in the next state or at least the next city. You know; make the effort of packing a little more justified.

Oh well. When we get a house I’m sure it will be worth it. As long as its far away from where we are now.

OK. Back to packing I go. Still have the kitchen and office to do.

-Cheers

Yes, thats right kids, its Alive. And if you are reading this and don’t know what I am referencing, then shame on you.

I am speaking not of a hideous creation of Dr. Frankenstein, but of the Alive Web Directory; a human edited web directory for the masses.

I know what you are saying; what about Dmoz? Well, what about them? Just because they did it first doesn’t mean that they did it right? Of course, I use dmoz myself and have no quarls with them, but after using Alive, its a bit hard to go back.

When I first looked at it, I noticed that they have a great big friendly search box, right up front. A few searches yielded expected results; that is, results that were in line with what I was searching for.  There were a few sponsored links (which is to be expected) but they weren’t that bad.

The only possible hurtle I see for them is when somone goes to submit a site, they are charged a fee. Not exactly in the spirit of the “free internet”, but honestly I can understand and even appreciate why they charge; You get what you pay for. And if paying for it means that someone takes charge of it, then more power to them.

All in all this is a simple, easy to use directory that has a lot of potential. The size it small at the moment but its still in the infant stages and getting submissions takes time. I would be surprised not to see them more prolific in the future and from the push they are doing with getting their name out there it won’t be that long a wait.

Check them out if you’re feeling froggy. You may find something that no one else has.

-Cheers

Does anyone out there use Citi Financial for their personal or car loans? If so, do you like them? Are they on top of your account?

My problem with them is mostly that I cannot for the life of me get a straight answer out of anyone I talk to from there. Every agent I call refers me to someone else until eventually I get a supervisor. Then they say they will look into it. Of course, they never call me back. Some others that I have talked to have moved their accounts (i.e. refinanced their loan using another company) but this isnt an option for me at the moment because I cannot even get a bead on how much I still owe on the loan.

Here is what I know so far:

• I owe somewhere betweek $4000 and $11000
• My interest rate is between 18% and 23%
• My payment due date is sometime between the 1st and the 30th

Armed with only this semi-solid bed of information, it is little wonder why I cannot get another loan or refinance with another company. Citi, of course, wants to keep me for the interest they gouge out of me; so it is in their best interest to screw around with me.

Perhaps I’m just looking at this all wrong.

Yea. And perhaps the Beatles will have that reunion tour I’ve been hoping for.

Anyone else have issues (past or present) with Citi? Anyone solve their situation by some clever means?

Anyone really care?

(don’t answer that last bit)

- Cheers