1) Credit Cards
Credit cards have become one of the most dangerous things that Americans can own. The buy it now, pay it later mentality is literally burying people in their possessions. Some have accumulated over $30,000 in debt on top of house payments and every day expenses. College kids generally do not have a lot of cash at their disposal and credit cards are the perfect way to get by. But there are smart ways to use your credit card. A tank of gas a month on the card is an easy way to build credit and to stay within your means. Buying lunch or dinner at McDonald’s on your Capital One card is not the best idea. Large purchases such as a computer can be a good use of the card because it allows you to slowly pay for the purchase. Before making a large purchase though, have a time frame for when you want to pay off the card. Using credit cards to pay off other debts is dangerous and should always be avoided. Be sure to watch your credit limit as well. If your card has a limit of say $1000 you shouldn’t exceed $500 on the card. Why is this? If you go over half of your limit, your debt ratio increases significantly and hurts your credit scores. Work on getting good credit now while you don’t have as much going on in your life. A good credit score will make it easier to get a house or car, and your payments should be cheaper.

2) A New Car
When college graduates are offered a job, many go out and by a new car with their new income. On top of their school loans they now have a car loan and still have to buy gas for the new car; even if the new car is more fuel efficient you are still going to be paying a lot for gas. Consider this: As the price of oil continually rises more and more companies are seeking to innovate to come out with zero gas vehicles. I caught wind of a story the other day which indicated that Nissan would be coming out with a fully electric car that goes 100 miles on a full battery charge. Nissan says that this new vehicle would not cost more than a regular car or SUV. Expected release date: 2011. That’s just a year or two after many of us get out of college. If you are looking for a new car, wait. Give the new electric cars a year or two before you rush out to buy them. If you are currently making car payments, the day is so approaching when you will never need to visit a gas station again. Also, consider this. Just because a car is significantly more fuel efficient than your own car, you will be spending more money in the new car payments on top of rising gas prices. One sentence summary? Wait to buy a car for several years after college; buy an electric; and don’t take on the additional debt until you can easily manage it.

3) Increase Your Financial Knowledge
It’s absolute inexcusable to be financially illiterate. You need to understand how your personal finances work and what it takes to be financially free. One book I suggest for everyone is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This book is phenomenal and should change your thinking on work and where you want to be financially. I’ll give you a quick run down on what it says. Hard work is important, but you should be letting your money work for you. How can you let your money work for you? Well, there are several ways to do this. One way could be to invest in stocks and bonds. These are risky and can be shaky at times, but still a tried and true way to make money. A second way to make money is to purchase real estate. You could get a tax break and the price of real estate can rise dramatically in a short time. Another plus to real estate is that it won’t lose value as quickly or at all as some investments. When I refer to real estate I mean raw land without any buildings. A third way is to purchase homes or duplexes and rent them out to people. On top of making money at work, you could be bringing in several thousand dollars extra each month without actually “working” for it. The last that I’ll mention is investing in a franchise or another person’s business. Franchising can be incredibly lucrative, just ask your local McDonald’s. The whole thing about this is to be smart with your money. Don’t just spend it, make it work for you. This is a concept that many people don’t understand or employ until much later in their life.

4) Your Health
Stay healthy and fit for the rest of your life. College is a great time to work on this because of your access to a gym. You don’t necessarily have to lift weights or become a marathon runner, but staying fit can save you tons of money and give you a greater quality of life. Health care costs are on the rise and often times you are cut some slack from employers or insurance company depending on your current health.

5) Your Home
A home can be a good investment, but much of the conventional wisdom and understanding of home as assets has gone out the window with the latest financial crisis. It’s a good investment in the sense that a home can appreciate in value and it will give you a tax break. You should buy a home if you are going to be in one location for three years or more. Be sure not to buy too much home. You need to be able to make the payments and with energy costs on the rise, the bigger the house the more it will cost to maintain it.

This whole post was a bit long, but many of you can barely stand looking at a newspaper let alone sifting through financial advice. I encourage you to prepare yourself ahead of time for your approaching debut to the real world.

Stanford University has developed a system/tool/application that will allow your computer to help crunch cancer data and other disease data for them. In doing this, they are able to analyze data in a way that was never possible before. It’s a very small program, and will only run when your computer is left idle or it uses a very very small percentage of your blazing fast processor. It will automatically send the results back to them. Your computer will have to stay on, but most of us just leave our computers on anyway.

Here’s the link to download the program. You can also read more about it from their website.
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download

Investing in Yourself

Over the last couple of years I have heard countless people talking about “investing in yourself”. They spoke of the need to be literate in your personal finances, to know what is going on in the markets, to watch the news, and just to be aware of the world around you. How easy is it to jack in the iPod on the way to work or school? You literally tune yourself out of the day’s events unfolding around you. We as a society have become cocooned in the lives that we want to be real. After I had come back from Europe, hardly any of my friends had heard of Russia invading into Georgia. I’ve gotten a bit off topic, but the fact remains that we don’t invest in our own education enough. Some of the best money that I have spent on myself involved purchasing books. Hands down the best financial book that I’ve ever read is “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. Many people have heard of this book yet they fail to read it. There are no secrets about becoming rich in this book. Robert Kiyosaki advises his readers to pursue investments or to start their own business. He argues compellingly that you won’t get rich with your 9-5 unless you are at the top of the rung. Even then people are far from what he calls “financially free”. Basically financially free means that you are able have passive income (money that you don’t necessarily work for, but you are able to make) that will take care of you so that you don’t have to work. Many people dream of retiring at 40, or even sooner if they can manage it. His book should only be considered as a stepping stone in your financial journey. Don’t read it looking to get rich quick. Simply grow from his suggestions. Another book that has been amazing to my overall education was the “Wall Street Journal Complete Money and Investing Guidebook”. It’s a relatively small book, but it is incredibly informative about what types of investments are available and the different areas that you can explore. It’s a catch all for the “financial beginner”. Also, another great investment that I have made in my education is losing money in the stock market. How the heck was that good for my education? Several phrases come to mind: “No pain, no gain”, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, etc. Some of life’s best lessons come in the form of pain or loss. You grow from what you must learn from. An investment that I made went south. I now know and understand the risks of going opposite of the investing crowd. Don’t hesitate to buy a book or magazine subscription that you think will help you. Investing in yourself and your education will take you far in whatever you set out to do.

Pinching Pennies

This could be a bit touchy for some people. Words like “cheap” and “cheapskate” are ever present in our society. You don’t want to appear that you can’t or don’t want to partake in something. But there is a drastic difference between being cheap and being frugal. I have several instances of this. I was at the store the other day shopping for a few things to get settled back in for the new semester and I realized that I needed paper towels. I went to the paper section and began to compare the prices on the paper towels. After looking at the name brands I immediately compared them to the store brand. On average it was about $2 cheaper to go with the store brand. I ended up paying about $8.50 for 8 rolls of “extra long” paper towels. When I got home and placed them on the rack, I realized that I had just wasted $8.50. Why couldn’t I just find an actual hand towel to place in the kitchen? I’ve got some around the apartment and it could have lasted me all year. Needless to say I won’t be buying paper towels for at least another year. Now granted there are some things that you would want a paper towel for (cleaning up a mess on the floor or counter, but again a sponge will generally do the job). I’ll probably make them last for a year if possible. The second instance is going out to eat. I realized only this week how dumb it is to buy a drink when grabbing fast food. Usually when I go grab food I will be at my apartment first. So I should be able to bring some water along in a bottle. And I generally like to get the biggest size so that it will last me the longest. So on top of whatever food I get, I also get to tack on anywhere between $1-$2. Now that may not seem like a lot, but assume that I eat out everyday (I have set up a meal structure that allows me to do this). In a given week that will save me $7-$14 in drinks alone. A month would be $28-$56, a year would be $364-$728! That’s crazy for simply opting out on a drink. Even at nice sit down restaurants you can get water which is free. You might as well do this anyway because it is healthier for you.

Just a few things to consider and implement

Image via Wikipedia

I don’t have much in the way of insightful thoughts these days, so I’ll share an update on normal life. Chris and I, the same Chris included on the Blogroll to the right, hit up a local pub tonight to talk about books, religion, and politics. This post isn’t about what we talked about, but rather where we went.

I’ve become increasingly interested in visiting places around town that are unique. Tonight, we visited a local pub named the Dancing Bear Pub. This is my third time to go, but it’s always a neat experience. They offer one of a kind brews that allow me to branch out from my normal Bud Light and Corona, and also support an interesting clientele of regulars. Tonight’s draft included “Thirsty Goat” and “512″ both of which I tried. “512″ had a unique piny and citric flavor, but was a bit strong for my taste. “Thirsty Goat” was much smoother, but still offered a hint of bitterness that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The pub is decked out with wood floors, wood tables, wood chairs, and a beautifully crafted wood bar. It makes me think of a bar in Boston.

All my life I’ve refused to branch out and try something different. In fact, I put off eating pecan pie until I was 17 which is now my favorite dessert. Since going to Dallas for a tax internship, I’ve become more wiling to try restaurants and dishes that I normally would have cringed at.

I’ve done this for a couple of reasons. One, I don’t want to go my whole life missing out on something simply because I have a prejudice towards it. Who knows when I’ll find my next pecan pie? Second, my wife really enjoys sampling new foods and restaurants, and I want to be able to participate in that.

Another thing to consider is supporting your home town owners. It takes a lot of time, effort, and emotion to start and run a business. These local companies generally offer a unique taste, atmosphere, or style that you can’t find anywhere else. Chili’s or Outback doesn’t offer “Thirsty Goat” or “512″.

The next time you find yourself struggling to decide what to do, consider the hole in the wall you’ve always passed, but never visited. You just might find your new favorite place.

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve read this mantra several times recently from a variety of sources, so it must be true. I finally realized why it is that I’m keeping this blog. I aspire to be a better writer. I want to be able to write things that people find interesting and to share a piece of myself with other people. In the coming months I hope to write a novel, or at least something that closely resembles one. I’ve attempted this endeavor many times, but I think I’m writing the book for the right reasons this time. I want to be able to share a story to inspire and entertain others. It’ll be a Sci-Fi book set in the distant future, but with a bit of a twist. I refuse to share any of the details for fear that I won’t actually go through with it.  

While you won’t see any of the specifics of what I’m writing, you will see more blog posts. It’s my hope that by constantly writing, I’ll develop a better voice and be able to create a better story.  

One last thing. As I was perusing through the menus of my WordPress dashboard, I saw a link for a new service called Zemanta provided free by the site. After a few clicks of the mouse, the service was live. I must say, I’m pretty impressed. Even as I’m writing this post, the software is scanning the message and picking out words it believes are good links, categories, and tags. The Zemanta service also makes it easier to find relevant pictures to add to your post as well. If you’re interested, you can find it under “Users” –> “Personal Settings” and it should be at the bottom.  

The Facility

The place we went to was very nice. I’m not exactly sure what a poor facility would look like, but Red’s Indoor Range in Pflugerville was well run. Upon check-in they make sure that you are given eye and ear protection. If you haven’t gone shooting before, I would recommend eye protection at the very least. The whole check-in process took about 2-3 minutes and then we hit the range. I was surprised to find that the range had about 20 lanes. From the outside you wouldn’t think it would have that capacity. Scattered across the floor of the shooting area were hundreds of spent shells. There was an attendant mopping them up, but there was no chance of keeping pace as the shells continued to rain around him. He was also available to answer questions about firing the weapons and to assist with any problems.

Firing the Weapons

My first couple of shots were fired with the .38 revolver pictured in the middle above. The first shot completely took me off guard. I knew I needed a firm grip on the gun, but even then the recoil surprised me.  The .38 is fairly compact and packs a huge punch since the barrel is shorter. More surprising than the recoil was the sound of the shot. Even with the ear muffs the sound scared me. That might sound dumb, but I have a problem with loud noises. As soon as the gun fired, the adrenaline kicked in. A few deep breaths helped steady the gun, but  I was surprised at my reaction. Another attribute of the .38 is a stiff trigger. This is both a good and bad. Because the trigger is stiff, you have to intend to shoot the gun. It’s not likely that you would accidentally shoot. While that’s good for safety reasons, it also means that your accuracy suffers as you pull the trigger. To counter this you can pull the hammer back (the part that sticks out at the back), but you won’t be able to rapidly shoot. For these reasons I would recommend this gun for home safety purposes. You probably only need to fire the gun once to scare or severely wound, it’s compact, and there’s a smaller chance that you will accidentally shoot yourself or a loved one.

The second gun I fired was the .45 Colt pictured to the far left. It had a similar kick to the .38, but with a slightly longer barrel the recoil was less intense and not quite as loud. Additionally, the trigger is not as stiff and it’s easier to maintain accuracy when firing multiple shots. I absolutely loved this gun for several reasons. First of all, you feel like you’re in the movies when you load the bullets into the magazine. Second, once you insert the mag, you have to pull the slider back to chamber a round. Again, very cool. Lastly, it’s easier to maintain accuracy and you’re able to fire bursts of shots with ease. One problem with this gun though is that it tends to eject shells right into your face. This is where the eye protection comes in handy. Multiple shells hit me square in the glasses. Another problem is that a semi-automatic tends to jam every once in a while. Out of the 35 shots that I took, the gun jammed once. A bullet got caught between the magazine and the chamber. A little scary considering that it doesn’t take a whole lot to fire a bullet.

The last gun I fired was the .357 revolver pictured to the far right. I didn’t like this gun at all. In fact, it down right scared me. It’s slightly longer than the .38, but the bullets are also longer which means that it carries more powder and more lead. The recoil from this thing was ridiculous. It felt and sounded like I had a cannon in my hand. I only fired 6 shots and that was enough for me.

The Point

While it was a lot of fun to shoot these guns, that wasn’t the point of going to the range. It’s incredibly important to know what you’re doing when you handle a gun. You don’t want the first time you fire a gun to be in a life or death situation. I also walked away from this experience with an increased respect for guns. I have always respected their deadly power, but it’s a completely different story when you feel and see what they are capable of. Even if you don’t own a gun, I think you should drop $40-$50 and spend an hour firing one at a nearby range. Most facilities will have guns to rent if you don’t own one. You never know, it could save your life.

Second, I like to discuss, debate, or argue with people about anything and everything. I do this because, again, I love to learn. I also get to see other’s viewpoints which often helps balance out my biases. I think it’s important for people to discuss their views with others and I don’t understand why some people shy away from it. They are hurting themselves and missing out on opportunities to grow. This also presents an opportunity to share with another person. One of my favorite things to do is to teach people ideas or concepts that they haven’t heard of or don’t understand. I am fortunate enough to have a job at school that allows me to help students understand Macroeconomics. Teaching is incredibly rewarding and I would recommend that you find some way to teach something. Maybe one day I’ll pursue becoming a professor.

What I’ve Learned Recently

Thanks to another topic I found on Plinky, I’ll start regularly posting something that I have learned in the past week. Today, I’ve got two things to share.

Microsoft Live Writer

Per a suggestion on WordPress’s website, I decided to try out a blogging app that Microsoft provides for free. So far, I’m fairly impressed. The online application that WordPress offers is great, but it can be a bit confusing where all editing options are. Live Writer is structured similar to Microsoft Word which makes writing a post a little bit faster. This piece of software also fully interacts with the website which allows you to access your categories, save drafts, and upload easily. I would encourage you to try out an app if you are interested in having more control over your blog. There are several other options and even a good app for those with a Mac.

11 Dimensions

Some of you probably aren’t going to find this next topic that interesting, but I think it’s pretty neat. I’m going to condense a 20 minute lecture that I heard on TED into a few sentences to preserve the excitement of watching it (actually, I don’t want this post to be 57 pages long). In the video, physicist Brian Greene gives a compelling argument of how there may be 11 dimensions in the universe and what this could mean for the future of science. In the early 1900’s, German mathematician Theodor Kaluza set about finding an equation/theory which could unify physics. At the time, they couldn’t get the math to work right to support more than 4 dimensions (space, length, width, and height). Later, others were able to solve his equation by using 11 dimensions. These dimensions are believed to be all around us and are impossibly small. If they do exist, they would operate at the quantum particle level of quarks, which are smaller than protons and neutrons. Scientists are currently working with the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland to discover evidence supporting this theory and others. Here is a link to check out that discussion. It’s pretty cool.

I’ve thought about this topic for a while now, but didn’t feel any reason to communicate it until a class discussion that I had yesterday in a communications course. The discussion dealt with the televangelist scandals that rocked America in the late 1980′s and the lack of ethics and oversight for religious charities/organizations. Many of you have probably heard or feel that some American churches have become too much like a corporation. Several of the churches that I’ve attended have definitely been structured this way. And, it may not necessarily be a bad thing that churches have moved to this form of organization. But it can be easily abused, and I think that it has been. I want to talk about the leaders of these corporation churches and two changes that should be made.

I have become increasingly convinced that churches are hiring overqualified, money-minded, worldly leaders. The churches I’m talking about are mid-sized. These are the churches that have a congregation between 1,500 and 7,500 people. This probably isn’t an accurate definition, but it’ll do. For these congregations, I believe that the pastor, at the very least, should not be paid a salary of any sort. They would be provided a house and car owned by the church, receive a meal allowance, clothing allowance, and any other amounts necessary to live and support their family. Basically, they would live as missionaries in their “church home”. The pastor and his family would live in a neighborhood that badly needs the Word of God, not in the country club. My understanding of being a pastor does not involve a lavish lifestyle and frequent vacations. It’s a calling where one devotes their entire life to leading the church and relies on the church family to support them. Having a salary and seeking pay increases allows the pastor to lose sight of leading their flock and to focus on their own desires.This might seem a bit radical, but I think we’d have a new generation of  God centered pastors who would have the drive and passion to make real changes in their communities and congregations.

The second point is pretty fickle, but I’d like to see every pastor of every congregation wearing something besides a suit. I understand that the point of the suit is to look your best in reverence to God, but it makes me sick.

I’d be very interested to hear your comments.

I perused through some of the responses and found that the two most prevalent answers were either the computer or the darkness. Those are both perfectly reasonable, but I think I’ve got something that trumps those two by far. What keeps me up is an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States of America. That may seem a bit science-fictiony, but rest assured that it is both highly possible and increasingly likely that this will be attempted.

You’re probably vaguely familiar with the concept of EMP’s, but I’ll give you a bit more of a background on the technology. Scientists first witnessed this phenomenon during testing of the atomic bombs. When the bombs were released, scientists detected a brief, massive spike in energy levels and often lost equipment and information do to this burst of energy. The idea of using this side effect of an atomic bomb as a weapon was not particularly important because of the massive devastation already caused by the nuclear device itself. But, in recent years, we have found that you could detonate an EMP device, without a nuclear warhead, to cause massive damage to a large area. Recent increases in technology have also made this device more devastating because our electronics have become more susceptible to interference. Scientists have also found that if you detonate an EMP in the atmosphere, there is an increase in amplification and area. This means that the bomb becomes more powerful and can damage a much larger swath of land mass.

Ok, enough history and background. The scary fact about these bombs is that they can be made for an extremely low amount of money. We’re talking a few thousand dollars at most. The device would just need to be propelled to a high enough altitude to cause the maximum damage possible. In the blink of an eye, our entire civilization and country would be wiped out because every electrical device would be destroyed. The circuitry would be absolutely fried.

The Attack

Scientists and defense specialists agree that the worst possible place to be hit would be over Kansas. This means that some sort of ship (it could be anything) could launch this missile from the Gulf of Mexico set to detonate above Kansas. At the proper altitude, the burst from the EMP would hit the entire country because of the cascading effect of the weapon. Immediately, power would go out nationwide. Transformers, cars, refrigerators, cell phones, t.v.’s, computers, medical equipment, everything electronic would cease to function. If that doesn’t sound bad, think about this. Not only would it take at least a year to repair even a fraction of this damage to our infrastructure, we would be forced back in civilization roughly 200 years. Most people don’t know how to farm, hunt, or survive without a grocery store. These massive cities that we’ve created are impossible to sustain large amounts of people without technology. Can you imagine 9,000,000 people without food in New York City? It would be absolute chaos. Everyone in every town across America will immediately hit the grocery stores and steal all the food. Even without a disaster, our grocery stores are only meant to last a few days without being restocked. Harvests would go without being picked and the food would be wasted. Cattle would be killed, but not properly butchered so hundreds of pounds per animal would be wasted. People that need medical attention would immediately start dying off, and the list goes on and on. Put very simply, our country would be destroyed in the blink of an eye. People would do everything they could to just stay alive, and even that won’t be good enough for most.

The scariest part of all, is that its a difficult attack to prevent, even when you are keeping an eye out for it. Even scarier is the fact that our military is prepared for this kind of attack, but the civilian sector is not. The above scenario will still take place even though our military will be protected against it. We will be absolutely helpless. Even more frustrating is that this kind of mass chaos could be avoided if we would only spend a couple of billion of dollars a year to fix our infrastructure. Billions of dollars is a lot of money, but a drop in the bucket when you compare how much is spent each year and how much is on the line.

I recently contacted my university’s risk management office to discuss ways that they could prepare for this kind of attack. I have never received a call back. I am in the process of trying to speak with the mayor and city council to bring this problem to their attention, so that at the very least, a plan is in place. Next, I’ll be calling my Senators and congressman to push them to enact legislation that will improve our infrastructure to guard against this type of attack. I beg you to please do the same. The U.S. government is aware of this problem, but they are not taking it seriously. Together, we can and will make the changes that we need to. Contact your representative immediately. The link at the bottom of the page is a white paper written by a subcommittee of Congress about this type of attack. I implore you to read it. An excellent novel about this is William R. Forstchen’s “One Second After”. He takes a look into what life would be like in a remote town and the struggles that they face. A must read.

http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090721141607-36330.pdf

http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32544.pdf

That’s a pretty interesting question and the people who answered threw out some expected responses. They wanted to know if they were pretty, or smart, or talented, or what someone really thought about them; the latter being the more worthy of answers. But I don’t think that the respondents spent time thinking about their questions/answers. I believe that the most important question that each and every person should be asking is, “Do I deserve to be alive?”

This question/answer compels a deeper search of that person’s life and soul. It causes the focus to shift solely from the individual and their life, to the importance of that individual in other people’s lives. I argue that the most important thing about being alive is one’s ability to have an impact and importance on another individual or individuals.

When your life is focused solely on what you can do, or what people think about you, or what you can achieve, it holds little significance. It may be important to you at the time, but when you hit a rough spot or are dying, who will be by your side? Surely not your accomplishments and pride. A human life is fragile and easily forgotten. These kinds of people are dismissed like an apparition in the mist.

A lasting impact on another soul through friendship and love is unforgettable.

I challenge you to think about whether or not your life makes a difference to someone. This can be a spouse, friend, parent, sibling, or stranger. Reach out to them. Go out of your way to spend time with them. Actually be there for them when it counts and don’t build up a false relationship. Your life will take new meaning when you live it, at least partially, for others.

Does your life make a difference?