Local Insanity

Grams and Grandpa Black gave me a book for my birthday called “The Automatic Millionaire” by David Bach. I read the introduction, and so far I’ve been amused at the style of his writing, which is a bit like a traveling medicine proprietor from the early 1900s, and by the obviousness of what he’s saying.

He claims that budgets don’t work. Discipline doesn’t work. Paying bills first and saving some of what’s left doesn’t work. Buying on credit doesn’t work (except in real estate). I agree with him, but the funny thing is that this is not really new to me - my other grandparents (the Donovans) have been telling me and my sister this for years, particularly that last point.

The most important thing about all of this, and the reason why discipline doesn’t matter, is that your finances should be automatic. This is again something the Donovans told me many times. I have a number of automatic financial transactions set up, but not all - some of which are intentional. I’m not sure why, but I thought that having to manually pay my credit card bill every month would give me more control, or at least notice, of my financial situation. It hasn’t. I always pay in full, so that doesn’t vary. It hasn’t made me more aware of my spending, as I’d hoped it would. In all it’s made me more worried about it.

The funny thing is that I could have easily applied the lessons I’ve learned from Agile Programming to my finances, the biggest one being that of automation. In software, you have certain assertions that, given such and such parameters, must be true. There are ways of codifying these assertions into what is usually called a Unit Test. After a while you end up with a suite of tests that, if comprehensive, will tell you how well your software is abiding by its contract. The problem with unit tests is that they atrophy very easily. It’s so easy to forget or intentionally skip the tests when developing. That’s why they need to be automated. When they are automated, you can’t ignore your software’s contract violations because they are in your face. The point is this: automate, or it will never happen.

The same applies to finances, though to a lesser extreme. I do pay my credit card bill even though it’s not automatic because there are serious and immediate consequences to my not doing it.

I’d taken a few steps on my own before I got this book that I think have helped my finances and my sanity:

No, I don’t want a receipt

I tried, unsuccessfully, for a long time to record every financial transaction I ever was involved in. This was detrimental because I spent more time on the overhead of bookkeeping than the money involved was worth. I constantly worried about stacks of unfiled receipts, staring at me on the kitchen table. I wanted to aspire to some level of financial mastery as the banker in Atlas Shrugged, who balanced his huge banking empire down to the penny.

I can’t do that, nor do I really want to anymore. Do I ever really want to find out how much I’ve spent on movie rentals in the last month? Or on eating out this last week with employees from j2? No. Not really. The need has never come up, and I don’t think knowing would benefit my financial situation much.

Quick, what’s the balance?

I wrote a script a while back to get the balance of my Wells Fargo accounts. It worked, but wasn’t that great. I’ve since improved it and added one for my credit card, and both of these show up on my desktop, updated automatically every three hours. This helps me track my finances much better than tediously recording receipts ever could.

Technorati Tags: automation, ayn rand, birthday, finance

I’ve found another online personality like Merlin Mann, and the results are funny. His name is Ze, or so the site says. He is, perhaps, my Fight Club alter ego since he uses a Mac, has liberal viewpoints, and had a birthday recently but, and this is where the ‘alter ego’ part really starts to matter, with the added bonus that he’s self-assured enough to broadcast himself on video doing silly things to millions of people across the globe. I am not so brave, and must restrict myself to the dry humor that flows from my head and through the keyboard, into some wires and onto your screen. That website, remember, is www.zefrank.com.

Since I do basically no form of visitor tracking on this site, I don’t know how many of you are reading this. I’m shooting for about three. So the three of you are obligated to comment on this entry and tell me who you think your Fight Club alter ego is. Doesn’t have to be someone I know about, but if you have a link to a photo or something that’d be super.

Technorati Tags: blog, humor, politics

I was greeted at work today by a stuffed monkey with an arm wrapped around a bottle of Southern Comfort, topped off by a large balloon. It was quite a sight, and gave me a nice laugh.

Lunch was at Ahi Sushi, which I believe is the sushi place of choice for me and Kip now. I had sashimi, and enjoyed it thoroughly. 25’s game was on today, but I felt that I did fairly well in that area with only one or two embarrassing comments on my part. I think I will be better off if I take a cue from Kip’s recent attitude toward foosball: don’t keep score.

After work I biked to Cooney’s downtown for Pub Quiz, which was about the same as last week: current events (of which I seem to know nothing) and odd historical/musical/astronomical trivia. I contributed very little to my team, but a good time was had by all.

All in all, a good day. Thanks a bunch to Kip, Jen, and Zoe for the entertaining morning, to Mom and Kelly for the lovely Harry and David package that contains all kinds of goodies, and to everyone who took the time to wish me a happy birthday.

On a side note, if you don’t know what 25 means, you are not alone, and probably wouldn’t get it unless you happened to hang out in #caboose sometime last week (hi railers!).

Technorati Tags: birthday, sushi

Between flirting and outright rejection lies a large spectrum, and it is frustratingly difficult to place anyone on it with certainty. Perhaps I don’t need to, and perhaps that’s part of the fun - if I can really call it that. Better to be amused and play along than to get angry. En garde, Twenty-Fiver!

It is those who most recognize the weaknesses they possess who seek out the remedies most vigorously. I sometimes feel that my powers of recognition are not strong enough to account for my weaknesses. If they were, I’d practice Buddhism more consistently - or so I tell myself.

The weakness at issue is one of focus. Trying to quiet the mind is, as they say, like trying to quiet a drunken monkey. What is the monkey telling me? About my lack of a social life, about my taxes, about whether I really need a car, about some cute girl, about getting a new MacBook Pro, etc. These are things that I have to deal with, yes, but not things that have to steal my focus like the annoying update managers in Windows and OS X.

What does it take to learn this ability? Hard work, I imagine. As time goes on the prospect of spending the time to learn it seems less and less daunting compared to the daily struggle of battling the monkey (no, not that monkey).

Some interesting things occurred to me on this topic over the last week or so. Brett, one of the guys from work, left to pursue another job more closely related to his chosen field: physics. During the last week at j2, he still did his job, but he was fairly nonchalant about it. Obviously he knew the problems that would arise would not be his to deal with, and that we were there to take up the reigns. This is decidedly not how I feel about my job at the moment. I get stressed by problems. Inefficient designs and practices grate on my nerves. “Waste is a thief,” as the Microsoft guy in Fight Club said.

It would be nice to capture the feeling Brett had during his last week and apply it every day. The problems that arise will not be mine forever, nor will my accomplishments. The code I write will eventually be replaced by (hopefully) better code as time goes on. As I’ve learned time and again, however, intellectual understanding is merely the first step in the process of putting something like this into practice.

Feeling the same way about women would be nice too. I’ve said that I don’t want to actively pursue a relationship, and that’s still true, but the desire is there nonetheless. Maybe if I bike long enough and hard enough I’ll reach the end of the world where I can sit down and look out into space and finally leave the damn monkey behind.

Technorati Tags: buddhism, philosophy, focus

I saw Avenue Q in Vegas last weekend, and it was great! It has just the right amount of cynicism, sarcasm, and irreverence without going overboard. Kelly said that the cast was largely different from the time she saw it in New York, but that Rick Lyon, the creator, was still playing Trekkie Monster and Nicky. Rick is a great performer and looks like a dork, which only makes the voices he is able to do that much funnier.

The performer who captured my attention, however, was Brynn O’Malley. This is partly context-driven, but even accounting for that she did a wonderful job as Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut. Her face conveyed the attitude of the character very well, which contributed to her expert handling of the puppets. Did I mention that she’s great looking too? That’s Brynn, not Kate Monster

The only thing that bothered me (and Kelly) was her persistent use of the palm-down-forward-hand thrust to emphasize a point. Granted that the character’s hand was static, leaving her with limited movement options, I still felt it was overused and it grated on my nerves a bit.

That minor annoyance aside, I greatly enjoyed the show, and probably blushed the one or two times Brynn made eye contact with me. We had front-row seats, so I could see the actors quite well (and vice-versa, minus the spotlights). I noticed converse shoes, some really garish two-inch-sole Nikes, and an American Eagle sweater. Being that close was kind of surreal.

Thanks Mom, Susan, and Kelly for a great weekend! Happy birthday Mom!

Technorati Tags: avenue q, broadway, las vegas