I cranked out my first loaf of sourdough today from my starter. It turned out just OK. It was just basic bread. If I was hungry, I would eat it. I will probably eat it anyway. I was a little confused as to the final process of making a quality product, but I assumed it would take a few experiments right out of the gate. Turns out I was right. My loaf, was too flat. It did rise properly, but I flattened it out, planning to let it rise again, but I sort of ran out of time. Next time, I will bake upon the first rise, when the leavening is at its peak. I may also add a bit of honey to the mix. I did not photograph the process, but I will try and remember to do so on subsequent loafage.

Ok, I converted all the light bulbs in my house to compact fluorescent bulbs. Also, I added a programmable thermostat, and programmed it to only be cool in the evenings while I am here enjoying the space. Any time that I am not at home, the house does not need to be as cool, so now it won't be. These two things, I believe, will save me quite a bit on money on electricity bills, which in turns helps me achieve my debt reduction goals.

On the topic of saving money, I made an attempt to go shopping at Sam's in an effort to bulk in bulk, and save money. It did not work out well at all. I found that almost everything I normally purchase at my normal grocer is either the same price, or in a majority of the cases more expensive. There were certainly things that were cheaper such as light bulbs, spray oil (Pam), kitty litter, rice, coffee, and a few other of my regular items, but I am not really sure that the price is good enough to offset the pain in the ass of going to there in the first place. I may schedule a trip there once a month for these few items, since it is between my work and my home, but I certainly will not return for normal groceries on my usual Saturday shopping adventure.

I also took a stab at using coupons. The problem.. no coupons for anything I buy, and it defeats the purpose to buy things I don't want or need simply because I have a coupon. After a couple of experiments, I have found the best way (at least in my scenario) to save money on the grocery bill is to buy my normal stuff, then when my normal stuff is on sale, buy more. Its that simple.

As part of my attempt to lower overall household costs, I also did an energy audit of some of the devices in my house. This was quite interesting. To do the testing, I used a P3 International "Kill A Watt" device, which you plug into the wall, then plug your item into it, and it measure how much electricity is being used. Here are a few of my findings:

My computer. We will say it is an average computer. To be honest, my computer is brand new and has the thinnest and least power consuming processor available. So you can add a little to the figures to work out your own shit if you'd like. In an average month, my computer costs $12.42 to run. Now, that is running 24/7 non stop. I have been in the IT field all my life, I can assure you that your computer hardware is MUCH better off running 24/7 than shutting it down each time you get done with it. Plus, I would have to turn mine on and off probably 25 times a day if I did that. Anyway, $12.4 a month.

My living room TV. It is on 12 hours a day, and off 12 hours a day. This costs me $12.18 a month. I leave the TV on a lot. Well, I did until I was done with my audit. Since I started the experiment to cut costs, it is only on for about 5 hours a day, only while I am actively watching it. It does still cost money to run the TV while it is "turned off" (by TV, I really mean the full entertainment system, including satellite receivers, tuner, etc..). At 12 hours per day turned off, it costs $1.85. so leaving it off more still costs money, but not near as much as while it is on.

My bedroom TV. This ones only on 2 hours per day. This comes out to $4.86 cents a month, only 80 cents of which is from the 2 hours it is on. Unplugging it from the wall when not in use is not realistic, so this really cannot be avoided.

Fish tank. This runs 24/7 as well, so the fish don't die. This tank is a really basic setup. Two power heads, a heater element, a light, which is rarely on, and a decent sized canister filter. The total for the month comes out to $2.58, but hey, fish are fun!

Refrigerator. Obviously runs 24/7. This costs $11.81 a month. Necessary evil. BUT! Here is the stupid part. The damn thing uses 175 watts average. This is about the same as a desktop computer. Now, when you open the door, it kicks up to 255 Watt, then when you open the other door, it kicks up to a whopping 335 watts!!!! Turns out, my refrigerator has a total of 4, 40 watt light bulbs in it. I could lower my cost per month by unscrewing a couple, or not leaving the door open as long. Right now, I am investigating LED bulbs to replace the standard incandescent ones.

These 5 items alone costs me $43.84 a month. My average electricity bill from April to May runs about $148. I cannot wait to see how much less it is this month with the new bulbs, thermostat, and turning shit off more. If it is not considerably less, then at least I can say I tried. If it is a substantial amount less, I shall preach the gospel of saving energy, and look for other ways of cutting back my consumption.

PUSSY!

I recently happened upon something that interests me quite a bit. I have thought about it several times in the past, but never really took action. Today that all changes.

I am talking, of course, about... SOURDOUGH!

Yes, sourdough. Have you ever really spent much time thinking about bread? Bread has literally been around for thousands of years, and It has sustained many people during that time. I would even wager that every single person on this earth has tasted bread at some point in their life. Its amazing how something so simple works, and how many people perhaps take the concept for granted.

The interesting part is how incredibly easy and magical it is. Perhaps the most complicated part of sourdough is the yeast. These magical little critters are responsible for leavening the bread, causing it to rise. How does this happen? Well, in a nutshell, the yeast eats sugar, and convert it into two by-products, carbon dioxide and alcohol. I make my own beer, so I am familiar with the process, and it can be quite complicated to explore. For the sake of this post, we are sticking to layman's terms, and focusing only on the carbon dioxide output, which of course, translates to bubbles, which is required for bread to rise.

So What kind and how much yeast do you need? The answer may surprise you. Who cares, and NONE. Absolutely none. What? Bullshit you say? Negative. All the yeast you need to already in the flour you use, and you can use any type of flour you want! You want whole wheat sourdough bread? Use whole wheat flour. You want plain white? Use plain white flour.

So maybe you are wondering how to get the yeast out of the flour? Simple, add water. That's right, you truly only need two things to make sourdough bread. Flour, and water. You could get the water from any source, and the same could be said for flour. If you had to fend for yourself and try to survive, bread would be one of the easiest things to produce, and could could keep you alive indefinitely. Indefinitely? Definitely!

To get your bread going, you need a "sourdough starter". To make this you simply combine equal parts water and flour of your choice. You cannot go wrong. I assume you are not cool enough to grow or find your own wheat, and grind it into flour yourselves (you could, easily, but that's another post), so go to any supermarket on the planet, and buy a bag of flour.

So take equal parts of the flour and water and stir, and put them into a container. What kind of container? Well, anything would do. I recommend a glass jar. Mix the two things together in a jar, and stick something on the jar that will allow it to breathe a little bit, and perhaps keep any crazy bugs out. If you don't have anything to use, just use your shirt.

Let this sit at room temperature for 24 hours, at which point you will likely see some kind of weird brown juice called the "hooch" in the jar. This is a good thing. Give it a stir, and then it is time to feed your starter. To feed the starter, you simply pour out half the contents of the jar, then add more flour and water mixed together. How much? just some. maybe about the same amount as the first time. It is that simple. Amazing, aint it? After you do this for several days, you will notice that the starter grows after you feed it, then settles back down. After several days of this, your starter will double or perhaps triple in volume at its peak approximately hours after feeding. Once you know for sure that it is at least doubling its volume at each feeding, it is done. Your starter is a success, and can be kept alive indefinitely. Its true; so long as you keep your starter fed, it will live forever. Once it is completely established, you can put it in the refrigerator for a week or more at a time, without feeding it. That, my friends, is INCREDIBLE! Think about it! A Perpetual food source, and if you played your cards right in the post apocalyptic world, it could be free to you, forever.

So, now that your starter is in perfect working condition, it is time to eat. So, take out your starter, which should be pretty good sized by now, and remove some. How much? depends on how much bread you want. Let's make one loaf. So, take maybe a cup of starter and a stick it in a bowl. Add a cup of water and stir. You can now add some sugar and salt if you like, maybe 4 teaspoons sugar and 2 teaspoons salt, or don't, it doesn't matter. Let it sit and froth for maybe an hour, then add about 3 cups of flour a little bit at a time, kneading it in slowly. Once the dough has a bread dough feel, let it sit for an hour, then punch it down a bit and form a basic loaf shape. Pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for maybe 30-45 minutes, then eat it.

That is really all there is to it. Now, this is a basic rundown, your mileage may vary, but you get the general idea. You will need to experiment a little in your own kitchen to get it like you like, but you can use the same concepts and ratios. I will post pictures periodically of my starter as she grows.

To me, taking two things that individually seem innocuous, and mixing them together, adding time, and being able to live off of it, forever, is mind blowing. If you are truly able to sit an ponder this for a few minutes, and not be amazed, then fuck off, and I'll see you in hell.

Via con huevos, amigo.

If you died tomorrow morning at 9:47am, What would happen to all your shit? Chances are you do not have a will. Most people don't. 60-75% of Americans die without one, and this percentage increases dramatically in people less than 45 years of age. If you die without a will, your stuff does not "automagically" get transferred to your spouse, like most people may think. If you die without a will, you are "intestate", and the State in which you live determines who gets your stuff. Each state has separate intestate succession laws. In Texas where I live, inestate succession is dependent on your status when you die.

If you are unmarried, your children get your crap. If you have no children, your parents get your crap. Then if that doesn't work, it goes to siblings, then after that it would go to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. If you have no relatives living, all your worldly possessions will "escheat" to the State, and become their property.

If you ARE married, your spouse still does not magically get all your stuff. For example, if you have a living child that does not belong to the surviving spouse, then that child would inherit 50% of the community property, and the spouse would maintain their 50%.

Then there are rules for step-children, children born out of wedlock, etc... The laws are funky, confusing, and ALL OF IT COULD BE AVOIDED BY SIMPLY MAKING A WILL!

What would happen to your carcass if you died tomorrow. Do your loved ones know your wishes? Did you tell your wife, or son, or daughter that you want to be cremated, but perhaps your parents may think you want to be buried? It is a good plan to make it known what your wishes are in a legal document, so that there can be no dispute. A few minutes of paperwork now, could potentially save a family feud from breaking out after you are gone.

What about advanced directives? If you are a complete vegetable due to a car accident, and the doctor says you are in an persistent vegetative state with no chance of recovery, do you want to be kept that way? Does anyone know your opinion? Again, a couple of pieces of paper can save everyone you leave behind a lot of stress.

What about if you are not in a coma or some type of vegetation. What if you are unconscious, and bleeding from your asshole? Someone has to make medical decisions for you. Who would it be? Again folks, a couple of short forms, and all of this worry goes right out the door. A medical power of attorney form assigns a person to be in charge of making your medical decisions should you become unable to perform.

What does this all boil down to you ask? Well, what I have coined as a "Death Kit". Every person in America needs to take a little bit of time, and assemble all of these types of documents into a single packet, then place the packet into secure storage, and then instruct your family (or whoever) how to locate and activate the kit when necessary. The kit should contain a list of all friends and family who should be notified in the event of your death. Next, it should have a set of instructions as to what to do with your shell, now that you won't be needing it anymore. Personally, I recommend cremation. Come on, it's 2008, do we really need to be using up all this real estate by burying corpses? FUCK NO! There are well over 200,000,000 people in the United States. If we put all of them into a large wooden box and burying them, we are gunna run out of space for new Wal-Marts. Nextly, your death kit needs to have a list of all your pertinent account numbers and their respective institutions. Credit cards, bank accounts, etc.. This will help your family tremendously. More to the point, you need a list of all your assets, so they can be dealt with. The kit should also contain a family tree, if possible. This could help locate relatives if need be.

Essentially, you want someone to be able to pop open the packet, and process every thing that needs to be done post death by simply following a easy set of instructions. Imagine if everyone always had a death kit on hand. One person could process your entire estate in a matter of days. I am going to begin work on my kit in the next few days and weeks. I picked up a Nolo book on how to create legal wills without the use of an attorney. I am sure the attorneys in this world would fucking hate to hear that anyone is promoting such death kits, because it would take money out of their pockets. I say, they can take their high priced legal mumbo jumbo, and wipe their dick with it.

So, are you prepared? Is your family going to have stress and issues, and perhaps even feuding if you died tomorrow at 9:47am? ...probably, and that means you suck.

I think that a lot of people have some form of OCD. I am certainly not suggesting that everyone has to grab the refrigerator handle exactly 27 times before they open it, or count every single ceiling tile in their office before they sit down, or walk around their car counterclockwise twice before driving, but it is my belief that everyone has as least some level of obsessive and/or compulsive activity, whether they know or it not.

I have always had issues in relation to locks, particularly door locks. I remember that my mother seems to sort of have the exact same issue, so I assume to some extent it is learned or genetic. When I leave my house, for example, I get about 10 feet away from the door, and these obsessive thoughts enter my brain, that perhaps, I forgot to lock the door, or maybe the door did not shut all the way. Then, the obsession turns to compulsion, because I feel as if I must return and check the door one last time, before leaving. There have been times where I have gone all the way to work, and then felt like I had left the garage door open. I can't have anyone taking all my fancy shit, so I would drive all the way back home, only to find the garage door shut. In fact, I would go so far as to say that 98% of the time, the doors are shut all the way and locked properly, before I double check them. This has caused me grief before, particularly when leaving for a week long vacation. I obsess over the door being secure, but I am too far away from home to do anything about it, so the compulsion then hits, and it cannot be dealt with. This feeling usually subsides in a few hours, but during that few hours, my mind just rides on those thoughts over and over again. It is really bizarre.

This just happened to me the other day when I went to a gun show. I walked maybe 750 yards from the truck and then started thinking that I had not locked my truck. Then I thought about someone taking all my fancy truck shit. So I stepped inside the building, took a piss, then had to walk all the way back to my truck to lock the fucking door. Fortunately, I have a remote door lock, so I didn't have to go all the way back... just within range of the transmitter. Well, about 10 seconds after locking it and hearing that pleasant confirming honk, I realized that now my brain was filled with thoughts of whether or not the door was really locked or not, or had I made the journey back in vain. Those thoughts I was able to extinguish by knowing 100% that the truck was indeed locked.

I recently discovered another OCD type of phenomena that I experience. I borrowed a piece of computer hardware from a co-worker. I needed to test it out at home, to see if I wanted to buy it. Well, I ended up fucking around and keeping it for a good long while. Maybe a month. The guy did not mind at all, because he had a couple of spares anyway, but he asked me one day if I was still going to buy it, because he was rounding up some cash to buy something or other. It was Friday, and I told him I would work on making the decision by giving it a good long test run over the weekend and then Monday either bring back the device, or bring him the cash.

Well, I sort of forgot about it again, but when I remembered it finally, I realized that every single day since I had it, it would surface in my brain that I needed to act upon it. When I reflected back on other similar events, I realize that I have some sort of OCD issue with owing people something. Not just material possessions, but anything. I might owe someone information, or perhaps I am supposed to be somewhere at a certain time. I find myself sometimes having an indescribable feeling. I guess you could call it a form of anxiety, but it really kind of isn't. It is like my brain obsesses over what has to go where, and what I need to do, and sort of subconsciously goes over the list repeatedly on its own. Sometimes it is not even me owing someone something, but me owing myself a thought. For example, I will think about something, and try to file it mentally so I do not forget about it later. Even something as simple as remembering what I need to look up on Wikipedia. It goes into the brain list, and the problem compounds.

I seem to have learned in the past few years that if I start feeling like my brain cannot slow down because I am trying to do normal stuff, while it is constantly processing such a list, that I should stop what I am doing, and jot down a list of it all. This is not always easy because I am not always in a position to do such a thing. If I am laying bed, and I remember what I forgot about earlier, then I have to get up and deal with it, otherwise I will never get to sleep. Sure, a notepad and a pen by the bed would solve that problem, but I have to put getting these materials into the brain list, so we know how that goes 8-).

These are not things that really hinder my performance, just things that I know about myself that I find interesting. What are some of the things that you might do that could be considered obsessive or compulsive? Come on, don't lie to yourself, you know they are there. And if you really think you do not have any, then ask someone you live with, or a good friend, and you may be surprised to find out that they might know, when you don't even realize it.

...and knowing is half the battle. Thanks Snake Eyes!

I have reached a turning point that I have seen coming for quite some time, and now I have an important decision to make. It is spring time now, the weather outside is fantastic, and of course this means more outside food grilling.

Technically, the weather doesn't mean shit to me because I grill year round. I grill an average of 3 or 4 times a week. The downside of this is that my grill gets abused like a red headed step child. The weather comes into play because now it is nice enough outside to clean up the grill, and figure out how to proceed.

I bought the grill in 2003 when I moved into my new house, so the grill is 5 years old in real world time. I am not sure how often the average person prepares their food outside on a grill, so lets assume it is twice a month. This would be once every other weekend, which seems reasonable. I'll go on the low side for my frequency and say 3 times a week. So the average griller is grilling about 26 times a year, and I am averaging 156 times a year, so about 6 times as much as the average Joe. So the way I see it, in grill years, my grill is about 30 years old.
Here are some pictures of the grill's eroding parts.

You can clearly see the erosion that has taken place over the years.
So this first one isn't too bad, a little elbow grease could fix that right up. Let's slide the cooking grate over a little and see what is below it. The picture isn't a closeup or you would also see some of the cooking grate enamel flaking off the griddle side and the grate.


Zoinks! My "flame tamer" drop vaporizers are shot. There are three of these in the grill, replacements are 15$ each! All 3 of them are in this kind of shape.


Here is my sad excuse for a burner! The brass replacement burners are about 50 bucks each! I am not 100% sure that brass will last any longer then these enamel coated cast irons ones, due to poor design of the system, so long as stuff drips onto the burners directly, they will erode.

So seemingly I will have to have new burners, and a new burner support bracket, which holds the burners in place at the back, mine is virtually gone. You can sort of see the remains of it in picture 2. Also, as you can see, I will need new gas collectors/electrodes which are used for ignition. There is supposed to be a small metal "box" at the end of the igniter to collect a small amount of gas to light the burner itself. As you can see, mine are long gone. New vaporizers. A new bottom pan, and a drip collection pan. I pushed on the bottom pan of the grill, and it began to fold in half. I didn't think I would be able to use the grill at all without it, so I left it in tact. The "bucket" thing that holds the drippings after they run off the bottom pan has been gone for 2 years, due to rusting, disintegrating, and blowing away with the wind. it was just sort of... gone one day.

In the past I have had to buy new burners for my grill, but that's about it. But now, I have other parts that would also need to be purchased to keep the grill in working order. Upon researching said parts, I noticed that they no longer make several parts that I need, meaning I have to look elsewhere for the parts. This drives the cost up. It appears that to buy all the parts I need to get my grill up to par would be in the neighborhood of 350+ dollars. This also does not guarantee that I can fix the broken parts. A cursory check of the bolts and screws necessary to replace some of these parts revealed years of wear and tear, an I am not sure that I would be able to get said nuts and bolts out, and if I was able to, the holes left behind may prevent the new parts from installing correctly. So, the question becomes do I buy the parts, or do I buy an entirely new grill.

The grill is a Char-Broil Commercial Series. It cost 500 dollars. It had a "99 year warranty". The first time I called to ask about burners and other parts, I am not exactly sure what happened because it has been so long, but I know that I paid for the parts, so I guess they were not covered by the warranty, which means they certainly won't be now either.

If I buy a new grill, I will switch brands and go with a Weber, which seems to be the most popular brand, and they have a fantastic reputation for being one of the best grills available. Also, from what I gather, their warranty and customer service are top notch. The Weber Genesis E-320 costs 700 dollars. From time to time, they are on sale at Newegg of all places, for around 600. Is it worth spending up to another 250-350 dollars over what my parts would cost to have a whole new grill? I am not sure.

If I buy 350 dollars worth of parts, and my current grill does not perform any better or if I cannot get the new parts installed, then certainly not, but I can never know until I try. Additionally, there are other parts of my grill that are eroding, and would have to be replaced at some point, which would drive repair costs up even more. Another factor I am considering is the fact that Weber grills share a lot of universal parts, which can be easily obtained from local home improvement stores, and Char-Broil grills seem to not.

Probably the most looming part of this adventure is my project of eliminating debt. Buying a 700 dollar grill does not help me achieve that goal. I weighed the advantages and disadvantages of buying a really crappy grill for 100 dollars and then just replacing it every year or two. I think this is a bad plan. I think it would be pretty hard to find a gas grill for 100 bucks, not to mention the pain in the ass of having to procure one every 12 months. So far, my 500 dollar grill has lasted 5 years, so it has come out the same so far. If I can get 7 years out of a 700 dollar grill, I guess it would be a wash as well.

I guess overall I think of it like this. If you have to spend 70% of the purchase price to repair something, maybe it would be best to just get a new one. Also, I firmly believe that if you use something more than 150 times a year for 5 years straight, and don't see that habit changing any time soon, then it is OK to replace whatever it is immediately, because you apparently cannot get by without it. You would likely replace a washer or dryer or microwave or some other appliance under those conditions, and I count the grill as an appliance because it gets used 3 times as much as the washing machine!

I really do not want to have to buy a new grill, but it almost seems inevitable. After weighing out the advantages and disadvantages, I think its best if I get a new grill and be done with it. I can stick it into the same category as when I had to have my AC unit repaired. It sucked because it was so expensive, but I really need it, so I can justify buying it, then pay the money back into savings or credit card or whatever over a long period of time in small increments.

FUCK!

My experiment to see what would happen to me physically and mentally if converted to a "healthy" lifestyle of a proper diet and exercise for 30 days worked out quite well. What was intended to be an experiment for 30 days, turned into 60, 90, and so on. At the end of this week, it will be 147 days! I have lost 50.8 pounds. I have lost 4 inches from my waist. I am still eating 'right' and exercising normally. I can now run for hour straight without stopping. My endurance is at an all time high, and I am on top of my game in hockey.

While it is incredibly easy to maintain a healthy lifestyle, I still do not see me keeping it up forever, although I do not see the experiment stopping any time soon. It just seems rather unlikely that I would keep doing anything in particular for years on end.

Ok, so for my next stunt, I am going to attempt to reduce my debt. I have posted many times my thoughts on debt in general. For years, I just got the credit card bills in the mail, didn't even look at them, just paid whatever amount, and went on with my business. I have enough financial assets to cover the debt, so it was never a big deal, I could pay it all off by converting some assets to cash if I needed to for some reason, so good times. Slowly over time, the debt has somehow begun to piss me off. I seem to be obsessing about it daily. I am not exactly sure why this happened, but it has. I do not want to interfere with any existing investments to cover the debt, so my plan is to leave then all intact, and find other methodologies of debt reduction.
So, once I organized the debt, and shifted a few things around, I pay around 100$ a month in finance charges. This may sound like a lot, but considering before, I was paying 350-400$ a month in charges, 100$ is not all that bad.

Ok, so step 1 is out of the way. Essentially by rotating all debts one card to the left using balance transfers; I was able to get most of the debt to a 0% interest rate. Once the balance transfer rate expires, I just shuffle the deck again. The cards I have feature really low fees on transfers, and I only need to do it once a year.

Step 2 is save money by reducing my dependence on foreign oil. As I have posted before, I spend 350-400$ a month on gas. Well, screw the Arab nations, and screw the gas companies. I am now doing my daily commute on my motorcycle, where I get around 75 miles per gallon, instead of 15 in my truck. This comes out to about an 80% reduction in gas consumed. I will still have to use my truck for going to hockey, grocery shopping, and during inclement weather, but factoring in those events, I should still be able to save a MINIMUM of $150 a month in gas costs. That alone covers the finance charges each month and adds 50 extra dollars to the cause.

Step 3 is one that is necessary due to human nature. Each month, on the day before I get paid, I send every penny in my checking account to the credit card company. I find that if I keep any "extra" money in the checking account, I will probably spend it. I have lived for years in a "cashless society" as I call it. I do not use cash, and haven't for years. If there is money in your pocket, you are more likely to use it because it is there. So, when I get paid, I go down the list of bills I have to pay that month, credit card bills and otherwise, and pay them, and then I pay myself by moving money into savings, moving some to investments, etc... Then whatever is left over just sits there until the day before pay day, at which points, boom, an extra payment on the credit card.

Step 4 is to stop spending. I buy shit all the time. I enjoy buying stuff, but the more I get involved with getting rid of debt, the more it makes me sick to even think about buying stuff. So starting in a few days, I am going to either stop buying stuff, or at least pick and choose my purchases more wisely. If my choices are to buy event tickets, or something I will own for 10 years, I will go with option B.

Step 5 is to be more frugal around the house with grocery shopping, energy usage, water usage, etc... This one is more experimental than other steps. It would be interesting if using coupons, shutting off unused electronics, and things of that nature really do save much money. I have a theory that they don't, so we shall see.

Step 6 will kick in a few months from now, if I am not happy with my progress. I plan to reduce 401k contributions to 0% for 12 months. I already lowered it from 8% to 4% last year for the effort. Since the economy is really in the shitter, it makes sense to use the money now, to be in a better position in the future. Once the economy turns back around, the existing assets should be enough to gain an additional 5 or 6 grand in a year, even at modest returns.

So there is the plan in a nutshell. Steps 2 and 6 alone should be enough to pay in maybe 500 bucks more a month than I do now. I think it may be unrealistic and perhaps unhealthy to set goals in this scenario. I figure if I can pay between around $1000 a month towards debt, I should be able to knock it out pretty quick. I can't wait to see how it goes.

Let's face facts here, these are uncertain times. The stock market has gone to hell, bringing the economy with it, or vice versa. There is uncertainty in politics seemingly at all levels. We are in a war with no plans to end it any time soon. Being in that war means our once powerful and mighty military is now spread thin around the world, so to some extent we are unprotected.


So do you feel safe? I am not talking about 'hey its time to go to bed, so lock the door safe', I am talking about more of a 'what if all hell breaks lose' kind of safe. If you think about all the turmoil the country has right now, it can be a scary thing. I think people have gotten complacent [again]since 2001, and complacency breeds a state of being naive.


In these troubled times, I think it best to protect yourself. How can you do this? A few ways. 1. Make sure that you save money. I would wager that most people don't. 2. Try as hard as possible to have no debt. I would wager that most people can't 3. Make a few plans in case something goes wrong at a civil community level. I would wager that people won't. 4. Buy some guns!.


Number 4 in the list is perhaps the easiest of all, and very well could be the most important. A wise man once said "The gun you have is better than the gun you don't have." If all hell were to break loose, and someone made an attempt to invade your property for some reason, to take you out, or to take some of your fancy shit, it might be wise to have some firearms handy. What if all hell broke loose, and you had to fend for yourself for food. It might be wise to have a few guns on hand. I could go on and on, but you see my point. If you have no gun, you'll have no food, or if you have no gun, you'll have no shit. The examples are endless.


This being the case, I have launched a gun buying initiative. So far, I have purchased a Mossberg 500 Model 50579 8-shot pump shotgun. This is a great all around shotgun. It can be used for tactical defense, as well as hunting. I bought the weapon at a gun show and I got a great deal.


My next gem was a Beretta FS92 9mm semi-automatic handgun. I got a real steal on the gun since I had a $100 Cabelas gift card on hand. This gun is supreme. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up, it is so choice. On a whim, I decided to gain a better understanding of how the handgun operates, so I found a website on the world wide national intertubes that shows detailed videos with explanations of how to take the weapon completely apart. I did so. The gun has about 50 pieces, and I broke it down to about 46. The last 4 pieces were irrelevant, and Beretta recommends that no one takes them off, so I didn't. Here is what the gun looks like when it is broken down completely.




As you can see, the damn thing turns into a bunch of parts. Some were difficult to work with, some fell right out with no effort. I think it is important to do this at least once, in case you ever are forced to do it under more stressful conditions.

And.. here is what it looks like after I put it all back together


I put 130 rounds through this gun today and it performed like a true champion. The sights were accurate, the mechanics were completely smooth, and there were no issues. I have upgraded the gun since I took these pictures by adding a set of Hogue rubberized cobblestone grips. I will also be switching out the main spring, with a lighter one, so that the double action is lighter, requiring less pressure to activate.

Six months ago, I never really even considered buying some weapons. Now I have two, and I am in the market for a few more. The way I see it, if I prepare, and you don't, you lose. It is as simple as that.

As you may have come to understand from reading my post about T-Mobile, I do not like companies billing formats. Monthly service charges, taxes, fees, etc... all adding up to way more than you bargained for when you signed up. I would like to say, however, that there is one company that I love giving money to. That company is DirecTV. They are my satellite television service provider, and I love them. Since the day I signed up for DirecTV over 10 years ago, I have been 100% completely satisfied with everything they have ever done. I do pay quite a bit of money per month for my services, but in return I get a veritable shitload of awesome channels.

As part of their ever-expanding system, they have recently launched a few more satellites into orbit to enhance my viewing experience. Once the new satellites were in place, they began to beam down their streams in MPEG4 format, which has a smaller footprint than the old MPEG2 format. Better compression equals smaller signal, which in turns equals more shit fitting in the same pipe so to speak. So this is all a good thing. Once they flipped the switch on MPEG4, my hardware was not latest and greatest anymore, whereas it would not decode the MPEG4 stream, because it was invented well before the stream existed. Old technology. Once I realized that with newer hardware, I could not only get my local channels in HD through the dish as opposed to an ATSC over the air antenna, but that they also offered approximately 70 national HD channels, with another 30 or so coming in the next several months. Since I already pay for the HD service, all these new channels would come at no extra charge.

I had a few wiring changes that I needed to make prior to upgrading, because the new system also meant getting a new physical dish mounted to my roof, and if I was going to go through that upgrade, I may as well get everything all set exactly like I wanted to do the first time, but didn't. Also, I researched making the call to ask for the upgrade, to increase my chances of getting this done all for free. It seems as though almost every single person that calls ends up getting a different kind of deal for some reason. I had called a few months back to inquire, and they were trying to charge me $200 for the hardware. I turned the offer down. So, I had been tinkering with the idea of calling back, but I wanted to be well prepared.

So a few weeks back I am watching TV and the phone rings. It is DirecTV asking me if I would like to upgrade for free. What? Really?!? It is like they read my fucking mind. That's amazing! I emphatically say yes. They attempt to schedule for the following Monday. Wow, it was already Thursday, so that would only leave me a few days to get everything in order. I asked if they could move it to Wednesday, and they said no problem. They scheduled me for the install between 8am to 12:00pm. I checked the website after the call to confirm it got entered correctly, and it said 6am-8am. Well, ok, no problem, earlier the better I guess. Wednesday arrives, 12:00pm arrive, no installer. Hmmm. I call into DirecTV, and they immediately get the third party installer company on the phone to find out what's what. The guy says he is running behind, but he can be here between 1pm and 1:30pm. Ok, no worries, I am working from home anyway, while I wait for them to arrive. 1:30 rolls around and no installer, then 2:30pm... and he arrives. In fairness, he called at about 2:15pm and asked if it was still OK if he did the install today. Of course I say.

Ok, now, that's a lot of prep for the real meat of today's post, but I wanted to give DTV their props, they really are a top notch operation, and I highly recommend them.

Ok, so the guy starts working immediately. He installs the dish on the roof, which takes about 2 hours total, because he also, without prompting, installed a grounding mechanism and a nice drip loop, with separate connectors. A nice added touch that makes my system better all around. Anyway, so it is a relatively warm day, and I know he is hot and sweaty. I intend to offer him a drink when he comes in the house to install the receiver, but I forget to do so. After about 30 minutes of working in the house replacing wire ends and whatnot, he asks if I could possibly get him a drink of water. I say sure, no problem. Then I think about how I could probably enhance his drinking pleasure by offering him one of the many soft drinks I have. I go down the list... Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, sparkling water, Pepsi, etc... I had about 7 different varieties at the time.

He thinks about it for a minute, then asks if he could have some of the tea he sees in the refrigerator. The tea was not in a can mind you, it was in a 1 gallon pitcher. This threw me for a loop. This man is a complete stranger. He does not know me from Jesus, yet he has opted to ask for a drink that I made myself. Who the hell knows what I might have done to it? To some extent, its an assumption on his part to guess it is tea. I ponder for a second, sort of mumbling to myself, then I warn him ahead of time that it is not normal tea, that it is a mandarin orange type of green tea, that I sweetened with Sweet N Low, and not sugar. He says it sounds excellent, and would like a glass if possible. Wow. Really?

I pour him a glass, and then I think, somehow, that it will make him feel better if I had one too. Not that he would fee weird for asking, but that if I am also drinking it, it must not have three week old jizz floating in it. In my head, that was the justification. So I setup two glasses rather than one. He drinks some of the tea, and says it is very good, and thanks me again.

So, what in the hell would possess a person, in this day and age... in this Post 9-11 era to go into a complete strangers home, and opt out of canned sealed 'safe' drinks in favor of a mystery tea that some guy 'made'? Is it possible that this guy is just really trusting? Is it possible that maybe he is a risk taker that gets off on sampling peculiar beverages in the homes he visits for installs, to see if he ever gets a hold of one that's way off? Was he just raised that way? What the fuck?

I should point out a few things that may or may not be a factor. One, this man was black. Two, this man was not an American. He may have full citizenship, but I believe him to be a Jamaican heritage. Three, this man was VERY courteous and friendly, and eager to answer any questions I may have had. Do these things factor into his decision making process? I am 100% guaranteed NOT A RACIST [references available upon request], so do not let what I am about to type force you to form any opinions of me, but my personal experience seems to indicate that perhaps black people enjoy non-carbonated beverages more so than carbonated ones. This is based on my real world experience, and nothing else. My sample for study may be too narrow to produce effective results, but my findings at least appear to be worthwhile. Secondly, I have been to Jamaica, and most (98%) of the people I experienced there were tremendously courteous and trusting, so perhaps this carries more weight than the color study. Still, it boggles me to no end that he would make this choice. I naturally assumed he would not want it, that is why I never offered it up in the first place.

Put yourself in his shoes, would you ask for and drink a home made beverage in the home of someone you have never met before, provided that sealed canned sodas were clearly available? I wouldn't. In fact, I typically would opt for sealed canned drinks even at the home of my best friends. But, maybe there is a lesson here. Maybe his life is just a little bit better than mine, because he implicitly trusts his fellow man, and he is not afraid to try things that other people typically wouldn't. Thus, I am going to make an effort to be more receptive to what the world offers. So cheers DirecTV installer guy, and thank you very much!