Battles With Boredom

The Brazilian Coffee Shop, Aikido, Internet Scene

As I recover from a great aikido class last night, my body still asking “why the hell did you do that to me,” I am sipping a cappuccino (with the obligatory whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and Jimmies on top), finalizing the rest of my flights around the country for the coming month. The coffee shop I’m sitting in is playing what sounds like the greatest hits of the 80′s (“Alive and Kicking,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Pride (In the Name of Love),” etc.). Continue reading The Brazilian Coffee Shop, Aikido, Internet Scene…

Book Review: Everyday Enlightenment

I recently read Everyday Enlightenment: The Twelve Gateways to Personal Growth by Dan Millman. In summary, if you think you need to read this book, you do, and if you don’t think you need to read this book, you still probably do. Continue reading Book Review: Everyday Enlightenment…

AT&T: We Don’t Want Your Business

This week, at a client’s request, I am reviewing their entire telecommunications spending. I decided to look at four different vendors to compare their offerings. The first one I looked at was AT&T, to see if they had a comparable long distance package. Continue reading AT&T: We Don’t Want Your Business…

Virtualizing Windows XP Professional for Fun and Profit

Today I decided to finish virtualizing my copy of XP, so that I could run all of my XP apps (except my beloved World of Warcraft) under XP, while actually using Ubuntu as my native OS. This eliminates the hassle of having to maintain multiple copies of Windows, freeing up disk space, and improving performance.

But that performance comes with a price… Continue reading Virtualizing Windows XP Professional for Fun and Profit…

Jim Cramer’s “Stay Mad for Life” – Part Two

Continuing where I left off reviewing this book, chapter 3 covers planning for retirement, and the five biggest mistakes people make with their 401(k) plans. Since I own a small company, we currently have no 401(k), but we do offer a SIMPLE IRA for our officers, and most of these points hold true for me as well. They are:

1. Buying the employer’s stock
2. Investing in stable-value funds
3. Accepting the default offerings in their company’s 401(k)
4. Cashing out their 401(k)s when switching employers
5. Not paying attention to where the money is going (which seems to me to be the same as point #3)

He then covers a few practical tips to make the most out of your 401(k), such as automatically contributing to it each month, instead of waiting ’til year end. I’m guilty of not doing this, but luckily cash flow isn’t an issue right now, so I can still contribute. Cramer also advises that you contribute the maximum amount to your 401(k) that your employer will match. After that, you want a separate, self-managed IRA, which gives you more flexibility than your employer’s plan.

So far, I’m liking the advice I’m getting from the book. Check back in thirty years to see how it worked out.