One Of These Days

One of these years, I would love to take my wife on a one of those Caribbean cruises I always see advertised on tv. It would be great to just take a week and let everyone else weight on us. Plus, we would be in a area of the world where the weather is perfect and if we didn't want to do anything, we wouldn't have to. It may have to be a couple of years down the road, at a time when we don't have a nursing baby to take with us.

Something For Nothing

It seems that CEOs at really big companies don't seem to get it. They don't understand what the big deal is about giving huge bonuses to their people, even if those same people drove that company into the ground. Excuse me?!?!? Are you living in reality? You're telling me that people at those companies get the incentive even if they do a very poor job! Geez, I want that. I want to work for a huge company, do a crappy job, and get a huge bonus. Where I come from, you only got an incentive if you actually did a good job. If you sucked it up, you got nothing. You big execs, the reason there is a huge uproar is because your companies drove the economy to the brink of collapse, caused thousands of people across the country to lose their jobs, and are giving huge amounts of tax payer dollars to the very people who caused all of that!!! In my book, you don't give incentives to people who did a crappy job. If you do that, there is no reason for those same people to do the exact same thing again.

Back In The Day

One of the things I remember most about our honeymoon was the San Diego CA hotel. It was close to the airport and close to the beach. It was a Radisson and was actually a very nice hotel. I was really impressed, especially with the amount I paid for it. If we ever get the chance to go back to San Diego for an extended period of time, I would love to stay at that hotel again.

Frugal Ideas

With all the talk about what some companies are spending tax dollars on, it seems the execs don't seem to get it on how to live frugally. It's like it's not part of their brain function of something. I have a few ideas on how to save those companies money. They could get rid of the company jets, stop renting out luxury hotel rooms, and stop eating 100 dollar lunches each day. They say all of these items are essential to keep their business running. I think it's the opposite. Not doing those things is what will keep their businesses above water in the long term.

Free Stuff

My wife has signed up to review promotional products for various companies. They aren't really expensive things. They are mostly things like air fresheners and dish soap, but hey, free stuff is free stuff. It's just that much less stuff that we have to buy in the store. They may not seem like high end stuff, but I'm sure if you add up the costs of these items, you'd be surprised with how much money you would be saving.

So Tired

We have been in our house for over a year now and have been talking the whole time about cleaning the carpets. This weekend, we finally rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned the carpets. They were never cleaned before we moved in so who knows when the last time was that they were cleaned. It was exhausting. The cleaner itself weighs 75 pounds when it's empty. Plus, we have 3 sets of stairs to go up and down in order to get everything cleaned. It took all day to get everything cleaned and cleaned good. We even cleaned an area rug and our blue couches. I was exhausted after I was all done and I am still exhausted now. I even still have a cramp in my arm from using the cleaner all day long.

After all of that, our carpets look a ton better. When I was emptying out all the dirty water from the cleaner, it was very dirty water. Like I said, I have no idea when the last time was that these carpets were cleaned. I'm just hoping we don't have to clean them again for a long time.

High School Days

When I was in high school, I inherited a
tuxedo from one of my cousins. It was something he had to buy when he was in orchestra and had grown out of it. It fit me perfectly. It was great to have because I could wear it to all of the formal dances that I went to in high school. It was a free tuxedo so that meant I was able to save that much money on each dance. Renting one of those things can cost up to a hundred dollars. Believe me, I wore that tuxedo as many times as I could before I outgrew it.

Repairs Needed

We have 4 computers in our home. Two of those are desktops and two of those are laptops. One of the desktops has a bad motherboard and the other desktop needs an upgrade, like more notebook memory for example. One of the laptops has a bad AC cord connection so it won't charge. So basically, we have one main computer and that is the other laptop. It's the fastest of our computers and still in the best shape. If I had enough funds and time, I would go through and fix the other computers. We could have a small computer store in here.

A Great Gift

One of the presents I got my wife for Christmas was a digital frame. We have it sitting in our family room. It has actually been a great gift. I find myself sometimes just sitting and watching the pictures in the frame, much like I would watch a show on television. It truly is a great way to show off your pictures to everyone. The only downside is we had to go through hundreds of pictures to decide which ones we wanted to show off.

Spring For A Day

The snow has been gone for about a month now. Yesterday, it was 70 degrees here in West Jordan. It was an awesome day. And, just like the weather in Idaho, the weather is now going to be completely different. It is supposed to snow again tomorrow and today is just barely going to get into 50s. I hate weather that just teases you, right before it shows up. It seems that the weather here in Utah spends a month teasing you that it is going to be spring. When spring finally arrives, it's here for about a week, and then the 90 degree weather hits for the next 4 months. I've lived in areas of the country where you could time when the seasons would change. I miss those areas. I don't mind at all that the winter wasn't that bad, but I am ready for spring. I am not ready to be teased for spring.

Neat

One of the cool things possible with my employer's software is that you can use barcode scanner to insert items into the system. To me, that is just awesome. I seriously wonder how it works because there seems to be a lot of magic in between the scanner and the software. Honestly, how does it know what to do with the information it has just scanned? It's just amazing to me still that a lot of things can be done with software if you have the right people and the right know-how.

Long Ago

What happened to the day when there were no such things as diet pills When I was growing up, I had never heard of such a thing and now that seems to be all I hear. Growing up, I did things like ride bikes, went outside and played, and played sports. This, I believe was my diet pills. However, these days they seem to have put all of that into a pill form where you just swallow it along with your fast food and greasy chicken you are eating.

Influx

It seems that no matter what website I go to anymore, there is always an ad for weight loss products. I'm talking every news site or social site I visit has an ad. Why the huge push to get this stuff in our faces? I guess we as Americans want to just take a pill and make it all go away. Some things need a bunch of work in order to be worth something. Your weight and health should be no different.

Death And Taxes

One of the things about Utah is that they love to tax everything. You name it, they want to tax it or they are already taxing it. They can't seem to grab the concept that if their income falls off a cliff that they need to make some sacrifices. In Utah, they will never sacrifice their funding for roads. Less important things need to take cuts first like higher education or health care. Here lately, a Utah legislator thought up the idea of taxing caffeine. Are you actually serious? As if you haven't taxed everything already. They want to tax caffeine, but they refuse to raise the taxes on cigarettes. Ya, because their a lot better than caffeine. If you want to tax caffeine to raise more revenue (like you seriously don't have enough) here are some other things you can tax:

-Toilet Paper
-Air
-Haircuts
-Porn (I hear there is a lot of it here in Utah)
-Hairspray

These are all great things to tax, right? Their right up there with the idea of taxing caffeine.

A Matching Set

What I think would be cool is if me and my wife had a matching set of Omega watches. We used to both have watches, but my wife's watch has died and I can't stand to wear mine because it pulls all my arm hairs out. It's really weird to not be wearing a watch because I have always worn one and I can't stand to not know what time it is. I wouldn't mind wearing mine again if I could get a different band on it that wouldn't make me grimace each time I adjust it.

Came With The House

The previous owners of our house must of had plans to replace all of the doorknobs because we found a box full of new knobs ready to be installed. They aren't industrial knobs or anything, but they are nice nevertheless. In the store, they cost about 30 dollars each. Our problem has been finding the knob that will face the right direction. Too bad we didn't have more knobs left for us. That would make replacing our existing doorknobs a lot easier.

Joke

It's hard to know with the current economy what to do with any money you want to invest. There doesn't seem to be any safe investments anymore. Also, at the same time, we continue to here of the government trying to get things going again by flushing more money into a gaping wound. Personally, I would let all the banks fail that are in trouble. They put themselves in that situation, they should pay the consequences. Yes, it would be rough, but smaller companies would buy them up and those banks that made the bad decisions wouldn't be able to make those some mistakes again. That, I believe is the real answer, not flushing more and more money into banks and institutions that are making bad decisions.