Step3 Prophet

Visiting the Parents

I'm taking a week to go and visit my friends and family in my home town of Texas. From the icy slopes of Stevens Pass to the icy slopes of my parent's front door, it has been quite a week. I finally finished selling my unwanted stuff(for a profit of several hundred dollars, thank you craigslist) and I am giving my house keys back to my landlord.

As I was flying to see my parents I was somewhat shocked by all the new fees. It's been about a year since my last flight. I knew that many airlines were charging extra for checked bags, but a fee even for the first bag is pretty crazy. Thankfully, US Airways waived the fee since I am in the military and had my military ID. On the plane itself they are even charging for sodas now! It was $2 for a 12oz can! The only redeeming feature about my flight was that for the second half I had a row to myself.

Visiting the parents is a whole other matter entirely. I had to yell at my mom twice during the drive home from the airport to avoid crashing into things. Then when we got home she almost killed herself slipping on some ice on her back porch. That one had me really worried because she is not a petite woman, but thankfully it only resulted in some minor scrapes. I love that crazy woman, but it's much easier doing it from afar. 

On the investment side of things, it looks like emerging markets have quite their freefall, so I'm gingerly adding more money to my Vanguard fund. 

Step3 Rises Again!

I finally have some time to get back to blogging. I hope the 17 feedburner readers are not too shocked that I've finally posted again(I'm sure Mel will be if she can get past the 400 other feed posts she hasn't read :) ). I was really busy at work the past few months, but thankfully I'm transferring to another job now and should have more time for other pursuits, like blogging.

Some financial updates: I got another 0% apr credit card to transfer my current zero balance to. For some reason, they wouldn't give me a credit limit that could take the full balance, so I was only able to transfer just over 10,000. I'll pay off the remaining balance on my original 0% card now so I don't have to worry about it coming due in a few months.

I'm selling a lot of my junk, and my cars. Because my new job is in another country, I'm paring down my possessions to travel more easily. Since I won't be needing my cars for a few years, I figured it would best to sell them and invest the money. My net worth will take a hit because I can't get what I valued the cars at when I'm selling relatively quickly, but I'll just have to roll with the punches.

I've also been saving like crazy, as the side bar will show you.

More to follow.

Electronic Toy update

 

Work has been getting me down recently. I've spent 60 of the past 72 hours at work, so coming home tonight has done a lot to lift my spirits. Add to that the fact that my new camera was waiting at my doorstep, and today is a pretty good day! This evening I put on some music and just chilled out. It seems like it has been forever since I last listened to my playlist.

I took it out and charged the spare battery I purchased at the same time. It charged very quickly, so I was able to play with the camera in about an hour. I still haven't really put it through the paces. One feature I just discovered by accident is that you can do some picture enhancements on the camera after the shot is taken. But instead of just overwriting the old pic, it created a new one. I like that, since it gives me the option to go back if I decide to want to work with the original. Windows Vista recognized it right away when I plugged the USB cable in.

I'm still feeling my way around the Eee Pc as well. It has trouble connecting to my wireless network. I have only been able to get it to connect once. Otherwise, it's just what I'd hoped for. Small, simple, and easy to use. I still have a long way to go when I comes to learning to use linux though. I was trying to troubleshoot the internet connection at the command line level and ended up more confused than closer to an answer.

The next step is to sell my old gadgets. This is pretty simple for my camera. The hardest part is figuring out where I put all it's accessories. I gathered them all up a few weeks ago, and put them in a safe place where I wouldn't forget them. Except I've forgotten where that place I wouldn't forget them is. My lap top is a little trickier. I have to make sure all the data I need is off of it first. Then I need to deauthorize Itunes on it so I preserve the number of licenses I'm allowed. Finally, I'm going to format and reinstall XP on it. That way it will be difficult or impossible to retrieve any of my personnel data from it, and it will be fresh for the buyer. That will take a little while, so I need to find an afternoon that I can dedicate to fixing it up.

Weekend Update

This weekend I went camping overnight at San Juan Island. It's right on the U.S. / Canadian border, and the only way to get there is to take a ferry or by plane. It's part of a group of large islands in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Getting there was an ordeal in itself. I got home from work at 8:30 am on Saturday, and quickly threw my stuff together to catch the 9am ferry to Seattle. As I packed, I searched everywhere and couldn't find my cell phone, which is a critical piece of gear if you are going to a strange new location. I remembered that it was in my shorts, and that Mel had done laundry on Thursday night. Sure enough, I eventually found it in the dryer. Miraculously, it still works. I know for a fact it was on when it went in the washer, because I always leave my phone on. The keypad is a little flaky now, especially the "end" button, but it still seems to be usable.

I finally caught the 10 o'clock ferry to Seatle, and Mel picked me up with my back pack and sleeping bag, and we proceeded to spend the next hour in traffic. The main freeway was backed up going north, so we took a side route, which was also backed up due to an accident. But eventually we got out of traffic and made it up north to Anacortes just in time to catch the next sailing  to  Friday harbor, the only town on  San Juan island.  Thankfully this was an express ferry, which means that it was only an hour and five minutes to get there.

Once on the island, our friend who had organized the trip and got there on Friday picked us up at the ferry terminal (we had parked at Anacortes and walked on because it was cheaper and easier). We had just enough time to get to the camp site and set up our tent before it was time to go on a whale watching tour.

The whale watching tour was quite impressive. We defiantly got our moneys worth on this one. We saw a bald eagle in tree on the shore, cormorant nesting, harbor seals sunning themselves and swimming about, a minke whale( its quite rare to spot these), and the star attraction, the Orca whale. Over the course of an hour and a half we saw over 20 whales, some as close as 50 yards away. They were blowing and splashing and jumping out of the water, all to the back drop of the sun setting over the strait. To the south across the strait was the Olympic mountain range in all its glory, with the setting sun reflected across the snow capped peaks, and to the north was San Juan island and several pods of whales frolicking. There are three pods of whales that inhabit the Washington area, and they come to the straits for the salmon runs. We where lucky enough to go at a time when all 3 pods were together. Out on the water with us was a scientific observation team and  another tour boat. The other tour boat was so crowed with people that when the whales appeared, the whole boat listed to starboard with people looking over the rails. (Special thanks to livingwilderness on Flickr for the pic).

We had dinner in Friday Harbor, and packed up the next morning and caught the 1045 ferry back to Anacortes. I hope to go there again for a little while longer. Maybe next time I'll do the kayaking tour.

Bad news everybody

I found out a few days ago that my father has an arterial blockage around his heart and was going into surgery to day to install a stint. When the doctors had opened him up today and were tinkering with his ticker, they found more blockages. Now he has a choice of either open heart with triple bypass surgery, or possibly a more extensive stinting. Neither is a good choice, but hopefully he will be able to pull through this. He has never had a weight problem, just a little paunch, but nobody would consider him obese or even a little over weight. I guess it comes down to the sedentary life style. With today's high fat diets you can't tell if someone could be prone to heart disease just be looking at them. He also has diabetes witch complicates the issue. I also encouraged my grandpa to exercise his legs. They are getting toothpick thin and he is having trouble moving around. I think some resistance band exercises might help him out with regaining some muscle tone and stabilization.

As for my trip down south, thing are going well. Yesterday I did the airboat ride around the Atchafalaya bayou. It was interesting just gliding over the swamps. The water was higher than normal and slowly draining. You could see on all the trees where it had gone down in the past week or so. Then I went to visit my grandparents and great aunt. The were thrilled to see me( and told me so repeatedly). It’s nice to be loved. I could tell I took second seat though to my 2 year old niece. My grandma just adores taking care of her. Sadly, I have to fly back on Sunday. Hopefully Seattle will have entered the sunny season by then.

Weekend Update Apr 13

This weekend was pretty busy for me. It started out on Friday with a retirement ceremony for one of the chief petty officers from my boat. He was getting out after 24 years of service. Then I had to rush to catch a ferry to Seattle so I could sell alcohol at a Mariners game. The Seattle Mariners were playing the Angels. The Mariners beat the Angels 8-5, and my stand ended up selling $2600+ of alcohol. It's not that much when the average beer costs 7.50. I got the pin to the right for identifying the underage individual sent to "test" our stand and refusing to sell him alcohol.

On Saturday night we had the annual Submarine Birthday Ball. About 500 officers and dates came to hear speeches, eat dinner, and have a good time. I was disappointed that they didn't have the usual commemorative glasses, but they said they would distribute those later. One of our junior members was pinned with his submarine qualification pin during the Ball. Click Here for pictures from the event.

Pink eye with a vengenance!

I had a case of pink eye this weekend, and by Sunday I thought I was getting over it. I was incorrect. All day Tuesday it got worse, and Tuesday night was really bad. My right eye looks kind of like the spice eyes from Dune, only dark pink instead of blue. It makes me sensitive to light, and Tuesday night I couldn't even look at my alarm clock without a twinge of pain. I was sleeping fitfully until around 3am when I took some Tylenol and was finally able to rest. I called in sick to work today and slept most of the day. The doctor has given me some anti-bacterial eye drops, but I'm pretty sure this is a viral infection since I don't have any of the bacterial symptoms. I also washed all my pillow cases and towels to prevent reinfections from that vector. Today was a cursedly sunny day as well, and the high was in the mid 50's, which would have been a perfect day to go running. Oh well, summer almost here, and then everyday will be warm and sunny.

Weekend trip

This weekend Mel and I took a trip to Portland to visit an old college friend of hers. It was pretty neat getting to see the sights in a new town. We met downtown at Powell's bookstore. Powell's claims to be "the largest used and new bookstore     in the world" and I don't doubt it. It's as wide as a city block and 4 stories high. The new and used aspect makes finding some great deals possible. Sadly, I had trouble finding the first book in a number of series I was interested in, so it can be hit or miss. If you need books on a particular subject, but not anything specific, it's a great place to browse. We also did some walking around down town, checked out an elementary school that had been converted into a restaurant, a movie theater, and two bars(Honors and Detention), and had a number of great meals at local eateries. All in all a nice city to visit. The only downside was the Mel was hacking up a lung and I had case of conjunctivitis. I looked pretty weird wearing sunglasses everywhere because my right eye was sensitive to light.

First Post

    After several years I've decided once again to do the blog thing. My first blog was more more of a parody of a friends blog( sorry Kelsey) than an actual attempt to paint my life on the wall of the web. So this first post will be a statement of intentions for my blog and my life. These are broad goals, and to achieve them I'm going to create a more detailed plan of action for each one, but than will come later.

    My goals for the blog:
        1. Keep a record of my life to look back on and evaluate where I've been and where I'm going with                 emphasis on financial status.
        2. Help other people along the way with things I've picked up about personal finance and other                     aspects of life. (should be pretty simple right?)

    My goals for my life:
        Short term (1-5 years):
              1. Live in a foreign country and learn a foreign language (preferable Japan)
              2. Get a civilian job
              3. Improve my physical shape
         Long Term (5-10 years):
               1. Get married
               2. Have children
               3. Buy a house (maybe. I want to run a spread sheet on various rent vs own scenarios)

          Longest Term (10+ years)
               1. Have a net worth of over 1 million by the time I'm 40
               2. Retire early
               3. Live forever( or die trying)

   Wow that's a beautiful post (and boast).  I hope I don't live to regret it : ) This post makes me look way more organized than I am.