In an earlier post, I covered some lessons I learned from my maternal grandparents. To continue, I am going to cover some of the lessons I learned from my father’s parents. They have both passed on, but I certainly have learned from some of what I perceive to be their mistakes and successes in planning [...] Read more »
teaching risk tolerance
Risk is the possibility of an event occurring that will have an impact on the achievement of objectives. Risk is measured in terms of impact and likelihood. (from Wikipedia) That’s the definition from my profession, auditing. Basically risk is the possibility of something bad happening. It does not necessarily follow that if the risk event [...] Read more »
the myth of the parent that NEEDS to work
My wife is an extremely intelligent woman who decided to quit her professional career as a management-tracked analyst with a huge investment bank in order to be a stay-at-home parent when our son arrived. I would have willingly stayed home in her place but being older and further along in my career I was making [...] Read more »
all aboard; or, why the earth is doomed
Sometimes life just hands you a little gift. It wasn’t expected, wasn’t particularly sought after and certainly can’t continue to be counted on – but it’s nice. Here’s a little story about a bus, with a surprise ending. The community I live in is close to a lot of public transportation but not conveniently so. [...] Read more »
blog action day
Since today is blog action day, many of the blogs I read will be posting about the environment. Although I was originally planning to write on various subjects like waste reduction or environmentally conscious eating, I decided that as an American there’s only one real action that MUST be taken to help the global environment. [...] Read more »
6 ways you are passing up free money
I like free money. It’s my favorite kind. I’m talking about the $20 bill lying on the ground. The birthday check from Great Aunt Millie for $5. The extra 30 minutes someone overpaid on the parking meter that you get to use when you park there. It’s all good. So why would you pass up [...] Read more »
how to become a billionaire
In this article from Forbes magazine via MSN, I came across a few interesting statistics about their latest list of billionaires. Overall, seven of the 16 youngest billionaires hail from China, India or Russia. Meanwhile, aside from the Google and Yahoo guys, the only American among the 16 is publishing heir Daniel Ziff, who now [...] Read more »
one cube of high fructose corn syrup or two?
Like everyone else, I like to add a nice bit of high fructose corn syrup to my morning coffee to sweeten it up a bit. There’s nothing like the taste of fermented cornstarch that’s been mixed with bacteria and genetically modified enzymes to add a little sweetness to my cup of joe. And I definitely [...] Read more »
Thoughts on: Jordan
Michael Jordan is arguably the best basketball player in history. At the height of his fame he was known in every remote corner of the world, and he raked in hundreds of millions in endorsement money. Yet I think one of his quotes has impressed me more than any of those statistics. Jordan was unafraid [...] Read more »
carnivals roundup
I had articles included at three different carnivals over the last week, and as always I really appreciate the opportunity! My post Achieving Greatness was included at The October Carnival of Career and Job Advice at the Career Counselor. Another great post there was Erin Pavlina’s Making a Living vs. Making a Life. I know [...] Read more »
cost of war
The Iraq War has cost the United States almost 457 billion dollars as of today, not to mention untold military and civilian lives. The price this nation will pay may be enormous for future generations. Whether the war was justified or not will be a question for the historians, most likely, and I will steer [...] Read more »
7 random things about me
OK, I was tagged by Kyle at Rather-Be-Shopping and plonkee to list seven things about myself. I’ll make that my Saturday post instead of my usual link roundup. Well, at the risk of exposing my superhero identity, here they are, divided into two categories: Amusing: 1. I had a morbid fear of macaroni and cheese [...] Read more »