fuzzyraygun

We were talking over the weekend with friends and we had a tough time finding a magazine or website that had general financial help for regular people. It just seemed like all the stuff we read was for people who already had lots of money. All the profiles we about people who had made lots of money and were retiring early, or were about people who already had boatloads of money and all the nice places they put it. They don’t talk about financial software or a good tax accountant. How about retirement age planning?

I don’t need another article about how to pick and manage a summer vacation home, the world needs more articles about how to buy and live in a home you can afford. I think the abundance of mortgage defaults would lend some credence to this. We don’t need to hear about how a an ex-wall st. exec. and his Bear Sterns analyst wife are moving their money into all sorts of hedge funds. We need to learn about buying in bulk and graphs on how to save for your kids college.

How about a simple chart that goes over how much you should be putting away each year in lots of different wage brackets? A basic rule is 10% of your income but there could be some good stuff written about this. Instead all I can really find in finance magazines is stuff about bargain vacations. Here’s a bargain. Put the money in the bank and go camping asshole.

Update: Found a nice blog called The Simple Dollar.
Look here’s another one

Alanna and I spent a nice mini vacation (Alanna had a much longer vaca.) down at our friend Jon’s place in Morgan Hill. Lots of lounging by the pool reading and cooking fresh pizza. Now we are back in our cold, small place in SF. It was nice to be in our bed last night.

Here is a cool productivity trick that this Blogger got from Jerry Seinfeld. I think I will try this for working on material for the new record.

Alanna has taken the first steps of her trip. I am exited, worried, and proud all at the same time. [Day One]

There she goes
There she goes again
Racing through my brain
And I just can’t contain
This feeling that remains
- The La’s

Alanna has decided that she wants to give up Indiegeek.com because she can’t keep up the site anymore. But I think she should keep it and here is what I think the plan is.

Indiegeek.com will be reborn as a contributory blog by Alanna, myself and lots of other people we know who write, talk, play and discuss music. If everybody can contribute 1 post a month about Music, music gear, shows, and help for the independent musician it would be a great organic music site in no time. Within 5 minutes of talking about this with some people I know, I think we already have the makings of a cool site.

After a rough day at work, I started to think of our little apartment as a lighthouse.
We are the little couple that keeps ourselves safe in the middle of the storm. Warm and together. Some of this may come from the mental and emotional instability of coming off painkillers after surgery. That stuff will &%^$ you up.

We have no big light on top of our building but it works for me. I guess that means that Alanna is my lighthouse girl.

I ran into a funny/annoying thing last night while trying to buy a book I created in iPhoto. After you go through all the time to setup and layout a book in Apple iPhoto you just have this big fat juicy button that says “Buy Book” that you have to press. That was what I was thinking. I’m sure you would think the same thing.

The first screen you are confronted with looks like a checkout but the only interaction you can make is to “Set up Account” or “Cancel”. If you already have an Apple account this may be confusing. The text that comes with the screen does nothing to help.

“To order prints, you need an Apple account with 1-Click ordering enabled. If you don’t have an Apple account, you can create one in just a few minutes by clicking ‘Set up account’. “

The key thing to remember from this paragraph is “1-CLICK ORDERING ENABLED”, but either way the only key choice is “Set up Account”.

Once you hit “Set up Account” you will notice that it is actually a login button. aaahhaaaa! Now we’re getting somewhere. So you put in your trusty Apple account info and away you go. But not so fast, suddenly you get a screen that nakes you think there is network connection problem.

The key to this message and your problem is the above mentioned “1-CLICK ORDERING ENABLED”.

• Go to Apple’s website
• Login
• Change your 1-CLICK preference to the “ON” position
• You are Finished

There is no hint of the problem from the Error message and there is no way to fix the problem from the iPhoto application itself. As I worked and troubled over this strange process Alanna (ex-Apple employee) came in to tell me that the monkeys inside the computer were laughing at me. [Insert Chimp noises here]

“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”

- Thomas Jefferson

I am back home now after surgery yesterday. Lets hope this is the last one. My plan for the day is to sit my ass on the couch and be a vegetable for the rest of the week.

If I had two hands I would be eating waffles as well.

I have more arm surgery scheduled for tomorrow morning. I was at Kaiser for x-rays earlier today and it was a total zoo. There was a line of people out into the hallway. Lets hope there is not the same kinda line for the operating room. 6am in Alameda, sounds pretty gross. Need to get some magazines and books to keep me busy over the next couple of days.