The Solis Foundation is a non-profit organization focused on ending poverty and creating economic sustainability in developing communities in foreign countries and the US. I am excited about what they are doing and am glad to make donations toward their efforts.
Please check out their website when you have a chance.
Most of Kid Rock's music is too crude for me but some of his songs are awesome. He has a great voice and his sound is memorable. A couple of his songs require a shower after listening to them but I just delete them.
On the inside of one of his albums he makes this quote:
"If it looks good, you'll see it; if it sounds good, you'll hear it, if it is marketed right, you'll buy it; but...if it's real, you'll feel it."
Okay, enough Kid.
Laura and I saw Superman last night. We had free tickets so what the heck right? Well if you are teetering on the fence to see it or not I suggest you save your 10 bucks. Some of the special effects were cool and I enjoyed watching Kevin Spacey play Lex Luther. Other than that I'd say its a snoozer.
Hollywood wasted my time - a whole 2.5 hours on this one. Good-bye Lois.
I treated myself to an ipod for my birthday. It is awesome. The design is so cool, especially the wheel.
Right now I have 574 songs on my ipod or two days worth of music. I also can watch videos and I love the podcasts.
June 30th is my last day of work at my current job. I resigned for "personal" reasons. On the 5th I start a new job in NYC. I have an hour train ride from our apartment. The ipod is going to be crucial.
Let me know if you have any book suggestions. I just finished The Da Vinci Code, in time to see the movie, thus completing one of my life goals of reading a book before watching the movie. And like everyone always said, the book is better...much better.
I tried to access my blog at work the other day and I was blocked by our "Surf Control".
They have tightened things up so I can't really view anything not related to work. Even some work related sites get blocked. I think someone downloaded a virus.
I think that since we are in the year 2006, internet access at work should be one of the perks. If someone cannot "police" themselves from wasting time or doing inappropriate things than police them. Not me.
I pay bills online, communicate with family and simply enjoy a five minutue break from work via the internet. I am not outraged over this but I am disappointed.
By the gov't.
"The media sounded the alarm last year when the largest U.S. oil company, ExxonMobil Corp, announced profits of $36 billion. But according to the Tax Foundation, the biggest price gouging profiteer was the U.S. government, cashing in to the tune of $54 billion in oil and gas taxes. The think tank, the Tax Foundation, said, 'Tax collections on the production and the import of gasoline by state and federal governments are already near historic highs.' In fact, in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest US oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits."
New York taxes are out of control. The sales tax is 8.625%
And look at the taxes on my cell phone bill. It is 17% of the bill. We need to revolt. Vote all incumbents out this election cycle.
Walter E. Williams says this,
The founders of our nation would be horrified by today's level of American servitude to their government. From 1787 to the Roaring '20s, federal government spending, as a percentage of GDP, never exceeded 4 percent, except in wartime, compared to today's 20 percent.
The average taxpayer, depending on the state in which he lives, works from Jan. 1 to May 3 to pay federal, state and local taxes. That means someone else decides how four months' worth of the fruits of the average taxpayer's labor will be spent. The taxpayer is forcibly used to serve the purposes of others -- whether it's farm or business handouts, food stamps or other government programs where the earnings of one American are taken and given to another.
This situation differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery. After all, a working description of slavery is the process where one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another. The difference is a slave has no rights to what he produces each year, instead of just four months.
Recently I've experienced poor customer service and incompetence from my bank, cell phone provider, my credit card company and computer company.
Are you experiencing it too?
I blogged about my computer hard drive burning up. It just quit one night when I was working on it. It is a Dell and less than a year old. Dell sent me a new hard drive but it was refurbished. Shouldn't I get a new one if it is under warranty. I would complain but I'd have to spend half my day on the phone like Laura did trying to install the hard drive and the lost programs. It is ridiculous.
Dell was a really good company but I think they got too big too fast. I wouldn't recommend buying a computer from them. I can't say anything about their other products.
My next beef is with my cell phone company Sprint. I have been trying to cancel my automatic payment from my checking account for a year. Every time I call they say they cancel it but I keep getting the bill deducted from my account. The worst part is I don't use that checking account anymore so I do not deposit into it as of a month ago. I don't recommend Sprint either.
Onto my bank. When Laura and I set up the account here in New York I wasn't able to be on it because I didn't have any paperwork with my name and address on it. So we just put it in Laura's name. We had a wonderful experience with the staff member who helped us. Last month we went back to get my name on the account. Again the woman was excellent. I asked if I could sign the checks even if my name wasn't on the check itself. She said now that my name was on the account it didn't matter. Well I had to call Citibank the other day to ask a question and I couldn't because my name isn't on the account. Incompetence.
Now here's the deal with my credit card. It kept getting declined. So I called them. The bill was returned to them when they tried to mail it. I just moved. I changed my address with company before that. It must not have happened. You would think they would call me if my bill was sent back?
I called up the company to change my address again. The woman I spoke with didn't know how to do that. As she fumbled around, I was disconnected. I couldn't call back because I was on my lunch break and didn't have time to call back and wait on hold. I am cancelling the card.
These aren't complaints, just realities. Realities that waste time. We all shell out a lot of money for these services (which we really don't need). We should call out companies that have poor quality and service and patron those that excel in it.
One company that went above and beyond for us is DHL, a shipping company. So there's a shout for DHL.
I recently signed up for my company's healthcare plan. It basically costs me 100 bucks for medical and dental care. Within that coverage I have a copay and certain procedures are split 80/20.
The 100 bucks a month ($1200 a year) seems fairly reasonable with the high costs of medical care in the event that I may need it. In reality I believe it is costing me more because my employer is paying whatever else it costs to insure me as a perk for working there.
I'm not someone who requires a lot of medical care at this point in my life. In fact I do not remember the last time I went to a doctor. So that money I pay each month is "just in case" something happens which I am sure I will be greatful to have in case something happens.
I look at all the money that is spent on me "just in case" and I cringe. There's gotta be a better way to do it. fI looked into a health savings account but unless my employer pays me the money that they are spending on my health care it wouldn't be worth it.
Massachusetts recently passed a bill that will insure nearly all of its citizens. Very interesting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/us/05mass.html
I want to see how this plays out.
My hard drive burned up so I've been out of commission. Not that I would have been blogging anyway! We haven't even had the computer for a year and it already went bad. It is a Dell Inspiron 600m. The customer service was pretty much a bad experience. I don't know how many hours we spent with the phone to our ear trying to get things fixed. I think that I will look into Macs for our next one.
Famous words a football coach of mine uttered when he saw one of these signs. Always makes me laugh. He was an ornery guy.
Laura and I saw "Thank You for Smoking" this weekend. Nick Naylor is a smooth talking lobbyist for "big tobacco" who is on a mission to get more people smoking. It's a good movie. Probably better to rent it than shell out cash at the theater.
Billy Joel played his 10th show in Madison Square Garden Saturday night, March 4th. Laura surprised me with tickets for our anniversary. He is one of my favorites.
Our seats were not very good, all the way at the top of the Garden. As we circled our way around to our seats a guy tapped me on the shoulder and asked if we wanted to sit in the 2nd row - all we had to do was trade him our tickets for the 2nd row seats. Yeah right. He had an all access pass around his neck and said he worked with Billy Joel and that Billy himself reserved seats in the front rows for fans with not so great seats to show his appreciation. Only being in New York for a couple weeks we couldn't help but think we were getting scammed but how did he get in? We bantered with him for a minute or two and decided to go for it. We immediately found the nearest usher and asked if our tickets were legit. Sure enough they were! So that's were we watched the show, from the 2nd row. It was amazing.
It has been three weeks at my new job. I like my work and the people are nice. To sum it up in non-descriptive terms, it's going well.
However there is one thing I am not used to yet...the community bathroom. Now I'm one of those people who do not mind using a public restroom. In fact I kind of enjoy it. Maybe because it appeals to the animal instinct of "leaving my mark". The same feeling doesn't ring true when the possibility of running into my manager or even the president of the company resonates in the back of my mind while I'm taking care of business.
The community bathroom in the work place. Is it some employee building technique thought up by some crazy consultant or just a way to save a buck?
So I just finished ironing my shirt for work. It has become a daily ritual. The dress code at my job is a shirt and tie (pants are optional). Personally I choose to wear the pants and I wear shoes too. My new favorite tool to put my shoes on is the shoehorn. I just have a simple one but you can choose from a large variety of shapes and sizes. Who knew? There are even shoehorns for women!
Take a moment and collect yourself.
Excuse me while I go tie my tie.
