triviageek

A solar-powered airplane on a mission to fly around the world landed in California.

I remember when I was happy to purchase an early solar powered calculator. I thought that was the height of technology (originated by NASA) which anyone could now possess.

It seems the technology has advanced at lot since those humble days. :)

This photo shows four generations of present and future British monarchs.

Lets see if this works.  It's a neat FREE online Mahjong that is enjoyable , a bit challening, yet not frustrating because it has options to allow you to win more often than most online Mahjong games.  :)

 http://absolutist.com/online/mahjong_gardens/mahjong_gardens.swf

I was able to finally get Blogger/Google to accept me again.  :)

Economic Tip#

1. Join Freecycle.
2. Switch to cfc light bulbs
3. Cook and eat your meals at home
4. Lower Expectations
5. Avoid Debt

I linked to this a long time ago but just discovered that the link is not always working correctly (apparently since she has moved her blog since then). And the information it contains is more relevant than ever. From http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005614.html

So here's the collected Jane Galt wisdom for people who are living on a tight budget. If you've ever read a financial advice book, you'll recognize a lot of it since there simply isn't much new in the world of financial planning. But you're getting this advice absolutely free. It's probably worth a little more than you're paying for it:

1) Pay yourself first. What does that mean? It means you divert money into savings automatically, before the money hits your bank account. You divert an automatic percentage of your salary into your 401(k), and you set up your direct deposit so that money is automatically put into a special savings account unconnected to your ordinary checking and savings, that serves as your rainy day fund. The rainy day fund should hold at least six months, and preferably a year's, worth of expenses. Retirement savings should 15-20% of your income.

Yes, I said 20%.

"20%!!!!!" I hear you screech. "I can't afford it!" Well, then you'd better start developing a taste for cat food. Home equity is going to be a bad way to save for retirement in a country with a stagnating population, as the US will have when I get around to retiring. And Social Security benefits may be slashed, means tested, or otherwise legislated out of your pockets. If you're putting 3% of your salary into your 401(k) every year and hoping that will cover you you're in big trouble.

The reason you pay yourself first is that for most people, budgeting just doesn't work. Most people simply don't have the discipline. The answer is to keep the money out of your bank account. If you don't see it, you won't spend it.

What if you don't have enough savings? You probably feel like your budget is pretty tight, but--trust me!--it can get tighter. (When I graduated from business school, I made about $40,000 a year, and had $1,000 a month in loan payments to make.) Start right now and set up your 401(k) to take 5% of your salary out of every paycheck, and set up a separate bank account with your bank that is your rainy day account, and arrange with HR to have a chunk of money deposited in there every month automatically. If you're poor, start with $100, or even $50 or $25, but put something in there, even if you have to cancel the phone and sit on your stoop to read by the streetlights. You must have savings.

2) Avoid credit card balances Credit card debt will kill you. If you just make the minimum payments, you will pay for whatever you purchased many, many times over. If you can't afford it, don't do it, no matter how important it is. Credit card debt can turn a bad situation, like a job loss or a medical emergency, into a financial disaster. Don't take on credit cards unless you genuinely have no choice, like an emergency repair on the car you need to get to work. And if you put your money into a rainy day fund now, hopefully you won't need it.

3) Use tax advantaged savings vehicles Unless you are making minimum wage, every time you save money in a 401(k), it's like getting a 30% match from Uncle Sam. You should max out your 401(k), and put money into an IRA.

Some financial pundits like Suze Orman are now telling people that they shouldn't bother to use a 401(k), because today's deficits will just mean that tomorrow's governments will have to raise taxes. That's probably true. But in your retirement, you will probably be in a lower tax bracket than you are now, so even if taxes go up, the net result may not be that big an increase. And the effects of letting your money accumulate for thirty years or so with no capital gains taxes are huge.

Should you use a Roth IRA (which doesn't give you a tax deduction now, but pays out the money tax free on retirement) or a regular IRA (which gives you a tax deduction now, but taxes the money at ordinary income tax rates when you take it out)? Depends on whether you're in a low tax bracket now, or a high one. If you're currently in a low tax bracket, then a Roth IRA makes more sense. If you're in a high one, go with a traditional IRA.

4) Wait a couple of years to buy a house The market is probably at or near its peak. The general rule is that troughs in the housing market tend to come about three years behind the peak, meaning that if you wait a couple of years, you will probably end up buying near the bottom of the market, and you will have markedly less risk of ending up "upside down" on your mortgage--meaning that you have negative equity, so if you have to sell, you owe the bank money. I know that you have a voice screaming at you that you want to build equity for yourself instead of a landlord--but the likelihood is that if you buy now, particularly on the coasts, you will not build much equity. And the bank, unlike the landlord, will not let you break your agreement without destroying your credit rating.

5) Use index funds, not actively managed mutual funds An index fund is one that mimics a broad market index such as the S&P. Study after study shows that actively managed mutual funds do not beat the market. I know, you think your fund does, but the research says that that's just luck . . . and that luck could easily turn next year. All actively managed funds do is cost you money in management fees.

6) Saving is more important than lattes People who say they can't afford to save can surprisingly often afford Starbucks, new cars, and alchohol. These are not things you need in the same way that you need to be able to eat if you get sick and can't work.

The easiest things to cut out are food. You *can* cook at home, no matter how tired you are; breaded chicken breasts and steamed vegetables take ten to fifteen minutes to prepare from scratch. Cutting out restaurant meals and buying your own lunch are the single easiest way to save money. Oh, I know, it's not as pleasurable to pull a turkey sandwich out of a plastic bag as it is to go down to the deli and get exactly what you want this minute. But the markup on those sandwiches is generally between 400-800%, and a daily starbucks will cost you over $1000 a year. As a side bonus, the more you have to cook it yourself, the less you'll be tempted to overindulge in goodies. And if you want to hang out with friends, I can generally prepare a very nice dinner for four for less than it would cost me to pay for my own meal at a New York City restaurant. And no waiter badgering you to free up the table.

7) Put yourself on a cash budget. Figure out how much you can afford to spend each week, and take that money out at the beginning of the week in cash. Once you've spent it, no more until the next week. It's surprising how easy it is to develop spending discipline when you have to watch each purchase steadily diminishing your purchasing power.

The corollary to this is to leave some of that money at home at the beginning of the week. You can't spend what's not in your pocket, and it saves the painful denouement at the end of the month.

8) Pay down your debt unless the interest rate is ridiculously low. Credit card debt should be your first priority, but it's also nice to get a headstart on student loans and mortgages. Oh, some of my business school classmates would be horrified. But real returns on investments are pretty low right now; by paying down a 7% non-deductible loan, you get a guaranteed 4.5% real return.

Your mortgage, of course, is deductible. But you are not a corporation; you are a real person who will suffer if you go bankrupt and lose your house. It is only sensible to shorten the time until you own your abode outright.

The easiest way to do this is to split your mortgage payment in two, and set up your bank account to automatically pay one of the half payments every two weeks. This will result in your paying 26 half-payments a year, or an extra payment per annum, and will shorten the life of a thirty year loan by about eight years. Because it is pegged to your paycheck, this is practically painless, and depending on the interest rate and the size of the loan, can result in material savings on interest just because the steady payments slow the interest from compounding. This works especially well for credit card debt.

9) Don't take on debt unless you absolutely have to Absolutely have to means: you need a car for work; your boiler broke down in the middle of winter; you are buying a house. It does not mean: your friend is getting married in Gstaad, your old couch is showing its age, you want to buy a nicer car than you can afford to pay cash for. If you want a treat, save for it. You'll enjoy it more when you have it.

10) Do not default on your loans A shocking number of students default on their student loans. This is a terrible idea. For one thing, those loans aren't dischargeable in bankruptcy, meaning you'll have to pay them eventually--if nothing else, they'll garnish your social security benefits. For another, it screws up your credit rating for years and years. And for a third thing, student loan lenders will almost always work with you if you genuinely can't pay--they'd rather get something than nothing, and they don't want to piss off the government by leaning on students too hard.

11) Do not take on adjustable rate debt There's nothing wrong with adjustable-rate debt, but most people who take on ARMs are doing so because they can't afford the payments on a fixed-rate loan. When interest rates rise--and there's practically nothing else they can do now--those people will end up defaulting. You really, really do not want a mortgage default on your credit report.

12) Buy used There's a genuine debate over whether it's a good idea to buy used cars; it is for me, because I have mechanics in the family, but most people don't. But there are loads of other things you can buy used, through Craigslist or the local classifieds. Furniture (although I don't recommend buying mattresses or anything upholstered), lamps, computers, china. You need plates and something to sit on, but you only want shiny new ones.

13) Buy generic Some brands are worth paying for, but half the time that private-label (aka "store brand") sitting next to the brand name on the shelf was turned out in exactly the same factory; the only difference is the name. Drugstore makeup is generally pretty much the same as the stuff sold in department stores. Vitamins, organic ingredients, and things that you eat make absolutely no improvement to bath and skin products, all of which rely on the same basic chemistry for breaking apart the fat molecules in dirt, and then putting new fat molecules back onto your skin.

14) Buy in bulk. Don't tell me you don't have space; I live in 450 square feet. You can find room for six boxes of pasta and sixteen rolls of toilet paper and you'll save a ton of money. If you don't want to pay for a Costco membership, ask around and find out which one of your friends already have one. They'll be happy to take you with them; warehouse club shopping is much more fun as a social experience.

15) Don't bet on home equity gains Buying a house is a fine way to make sure you have somewhere to live. But historically, it has not been a particularly stellar investment; your retirement plans should not count on enormous returns on your investment in housing. Nor should you take out a mortgage with a tiny down-payment; if you have to move, you can get screwed. And if you are buying a house, buy it because you want to live there, not because you're counting on flipping it for twice the price in three years.

16) Invest in stocks when you are young, and then transition an increasing portion to bonds in your fifties and sixties. When you have an investment horizon of twenty or thirty years, you can afford to ride out the ups and downs of the stock market, and in the long run, it should give you a better return than bonds. As you get closer to needing the cash, you should start transitioning your funds into fixed-income securities, which have a lower return, but guarantee that you won't have to sell in a down market.

That's it. Unfortunately, no surefire way to get rich quick; if I had one, I'd be using it, not telling you. But if you follow my advice, it should keep you out of the poorhouse.

Hope she doesn't mind that I copied the info rather than risk it being lost again.

Economic Tip#
5. Avoid Debt

This is perhaps the most important economic tip of all -- AVOID DEBT. If you owe money now that you cannot pay off, it may already be too late for you. I honestly think that in these troubling economic times for most people, the difference between skating thru the problems and sinking into a hopeless mess, could well be whether or not they owed money to anyone.

Sometimes I just wonder WHAT were they thinking. I got the following "message" by email from a spammer who was trying to sell me SOMETHING.

But what?!?!?

Someone should tell them that not only must their spam get thru all the spam filters, but it also MUST delineate what it is they are trying to induce the recipients to buy.

exp pz ect60 Pi fvl lls Of V anb P isl X wa L = 1 Months SupplyFirst month you will notice an inc pgq re kn ase in p piu en er is si ea ze of up to 1/2 in vbc ch,you will also notice an in ohy cre ew ase in se yz xu qj al desire, st dvz ron cl ger er gtf ecti ixo ons and more enjoyable s ldh e lz x.Second month you will notice an in hf crea jcp se in p uje en mdy is si dlb ze of up to 1 inc bdl hes,plus an in fhg cre nlx ase in Gir unp th (Wid qez th) of 5%, plus all the benefits of the first month.

Economic Tip#
4. Lower Expectations

By this I mean you need to lower the expectations of your standard of living. I read once that well over half of the USA population viewed themselves as members of the upper middle class. Even though by definition more than half of the population CANNOT all be members of the upper middle class.

Once you are more realistic about just what class/position you're in, you're going to be better able to realistically live within your income.

Or to put it another way, if you're middle class, lower middle class, or even a member of the lower class, then you have no business expecting to live in a so-called McMansion, sending your kids to be most expensive private schools (unless they qualify for full scholerships), wearing designer clothes, etc.

And trying to maintain that standard of living by going further into debt is a sure-fire recipe for personal economic disaster.

I said yesterday that I would try to post info on some free recipes and cookbooks. Here is a sample of several cookbooks which happen to be free as ebook downloads that are available from lulu.com. (You can also purchase the printed version of the cookbooks at Lulu's print-on-demand costs.) And Lulu has many other books and cookbooks which are available for purchase.

The McGrogan Family Cook Book


Roane Family and Friends Cookbook


Tomee & Jon Family and Friends' Recipes


Eating at Airfield Court**Slow download due to being in color**


From My Grandmother's Kitchen


Heavenly Delight


A Man's Place Is In The Kitchen - An Anthology of Recipes by Howard Gordon


Free Wild Berry Minnesota Cookbook

The site, lulu.com, just happens to be a favorite of mine since I was first introduced to them thru Nanowrimo a couple of years ago. Lulu has been very kind to Nanowrimo winners in the past (including myself) by offering to print one copy of our Nano novels.

Economic Tip#
3. Cook and eat your meals at home


This money saving tip is a bit harder to do than the previous two tips.

Everyone should learn to cook from basic ingredients (not mixes or just heating up pre-packaged meals) and then eat at home; ie. you should stop eating out. Even so called fast food places are expensive these days. You can learn to cook your own food for less money.

If you don't know how to cook there are several online sites that provide recipes and/or cookbooks for free. I'll try to post some of their web addresses in the near future.

Economic Tip#
2. Switch to cfc light bulbs


Probably everyone has heard of them by now, but just in case you haven't --- there are NEW light bulbs that will save you money!!!

Called cfc's or compact fluorescents, they are basically fluorescent light bulbs made to fit where an ordinary light bulb world go. They cost slightly more money to purchase than a regular light bulb, but they more than make up for it by using only about 1/4 the electricity that a regular light bulb uses. Plus the cfc light bulb lasts far longer than an ordinary light bulb.

Have you joined Freecycle yet? [Taps foot impatiently.]

Remember.

Maybe NOW people will begin to take this problem seriously.

Please!!! Oh Please!!!!!

CNBC talking heads just CANNOT seem to accept the reality of a long term economic downturn or that the stock market is NOT going to be always going upward. Sheesh!!! Among the worst offenders seem to be thirtysomething year olds who have NEVER in their entire life accepted that the stock market is not the be all end all of finances. They've either never heard of the Great Depression or view it as something that happened dimly in the far distant past of their great-great-granfathers era and which, of course, could NEVER, EVER happen again -- especially in their lifetimes.

*Sigh*

Well I'm slightly older than a thirtysomething AND happened to be the youngest child born to older parents. So to me, the Great Depression was something that my parents endured as a young married couple. I regularly heard stories about the hardships of those times. And unsurprisingly my parents were thrifty, frugal (not to say cheap) individuals as has often been reported of those that lived thru that period of time.

During my young adulthood my parents probably viewed me as being the exact opposite of themselves moneywise, however, outsiders would have probably classified me as more like my parents than either they or myself would have admitted. Later, this limited frugality within myself was enhanced during a period of serious medical problems that lasted nearly a decade and which left me avoiding bankruptcy only by the skin of my teeth.

All of which is to say that I may be more qualified than most middle class adults living in a prosperous suburban area to offer tips for getting by during the present (and imo even worse pending economic problems).

(Well my vanity says I am anyway.)

So here goes.

Economic Tip#

1. Join Freecycle.

If you don't know what Freecycle is, you should. It's ostensibly a way to recycle posessions that you no longer want -- without actually increasing the amount of garbage heading for the dump.

What is ACTUALLY is, is a great way to obtain items that you might find useful for FREE. Absolutely FREE!!!! It is against the rules for a freecycler (that's what they call themselves) to ask for money for anything that they've offered thru freecycle.

It free to join. (It's a mailing list of people who live in your community.) When someone offers something you want, you email them and request it. Depending on what it is (and how many other people may want it too), you may get an email telling you to pick it up at such and such a location.

And don't knock the idea, so far I've gotten empty CD cases (I never seem to have enough of those), a toaster, several books, etc. And I've given away such items as Jigsaw puzzles (which I had already solved once), leftover Christmas cards, an audiobook (after I had listened to it once) etc.

I just love this news. And lest you think I'm being harsh on that company ... remember this post.

Well it looks as if my refusing to ever use their card again has helped to give them financial problems along with their own shady business practices. Their profits were DOWN even before the current housing mortgage meltdown!

Here's hoping that they go out of business entirely!!!

Washoe has died. This chimp established communication between humans and chimps by being the first to learn American Sign Language. According to this article she had a vocabulary of about 250 ASL words.

 
Fifty years ago today Sputnik launched and began the space age!

... the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.
 

...The satellite, weighing just 184 pounds, was built in less than three months. Soviet designers built a pressurized sphere of polished aluminum alloy with two radio transmitters and four antennas.
 

Soon after blastoff from the arid steppes of the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, the satellite sent out what would be the world's most famous beep.
 

"At that moment we couldn't fully understand what we had done," Chertok recalled. "We felt ecstatic about it only later, when the entire world ran amok. Only four or five days later did we realize that it was a turning point in the history of civilization."
 

From:www.wtop.com/?nid=220&sid=1258835

Well I thought I knew that Art Garfunkel had a PhD in Mathematics (only today I learn that it's just a Master's degree, but still it's an advanced Mathematics degree) but now it seems that a Guitarist named Brian May of the group Queen also has a PhD in Astrophysics and Greg Graffin of the rock band Bad Religion has a PhD in evolutionary paleontology.

What's up with that? Aren't all rockers just supposed to be stoned out of their minds all the time ... NOT the sort of people capable of getting advanced University degrees in highly technical subjects.

Another myth bites the dust.

It's the Chinese Year of the Pig.

Now, now, no sniggering about my weight. I'll have you know that, accoring to their system, I'm a TIGER!

Via Chris J's comment on Zoe's blog:

Rat 1912,1924,1936,1948,1960,1972,1984,1996
Ox 1913,1925,1937,1949,1961,1973,1985,1997
Tiger 1914,1926,1938,1950,1962,1974,1986,1998
Rabbit 1915,1927,1939,1951,1963,1975,1987,1999
Dragon 1916,1928,1940,1952,1964,1976,1988,2000
Snake 1917,1929,1941,1953,1965,1977,1989,2001
Horse 1918,1930,1942,1954,1966,1978,1990,2002
Ram 1919,1931,1943,1955,1967,1979,1991,2003
Monkey 1920,1932,1944,1956,1968,1980,1992,2004
Rooster 1921,1933,1945,1957,1969,1981,1993,2005
Dog 1922,1934,1946,1958,1970,1982,1994,2006
Pig 1923,1935,1947,1959,1971,1983,1995,2007

Yeah, well I *thought* it was safe enough to go out for breakfast. Unfortunately on my way back home I tripped or slid or something on the ice while trying to get from my car to the cleared part of the sidewalk.

No I wasn't injured, managing to catch myself before I went totally kerflop. Too bad I can't say the same thing for the large coffee that I had been carrying. It was sacrificed by my frantic efforts to avoid further disaster.

So now there's a nice coffee-colored stain on the ice/snow; adorned also with the empty coffeecup.

For the first time in literally days I've braved the ice and snow and gone outside.

The sidewalks were mostly snow and ice free but not the parking lots. And getting from the sidewalk to the parking lot (and my car) meant walking over ice. UGH!

I was lucky and a nice workman took pity on me and my ice covered car. He cleared the roof, front and back windshields for me; otherwise I might still me scraping it.

Zoe (winner of the 2005 and 2006 Bloggie Awards as Best European Blogger) posted a photo of a tram on her blog today. She lives in Belgium and normally commutes to work via tram or via tram and something else.

It's obviously some species of train since it runs on a train-like track and the cables overhead indicate that it's powered by electricity. I've never seen one myself but I suspect the closest USA approximation would be the now mostly defunct streetcars that were once popular several years ago. In fact, aren't the famous San Francisco cable cars an example of the breed?

Personally I think more USA cities would benefit from mass transportation like this. It would help ease the commuting gridlock that paralyzes too many large cities during rush hours while at the same time saving massive amounts of gasoline.

Well it's a snow day today -- for me at least. That's one of the good things about being newly retired. I don't have to fight the traffic and dicey road conditions in order to get to work.

Hmmmm, I think I'll go back to bed now.

Posted by: Trivia / 9:28 AM | |

I got this over at Kos. It's a great posting, you should amble on over and read the whole thing. By the way, the author wrote it as a humorous piece, but in fact, it's true -- even without the humor.

From: www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/3/13339/05675

*************

The Wages of Satan are...Pre-Approved! Now at 13.5%
by aphra behn


...


There is one overwhelmingly un-Biblical evil that stalks our land. Like a Very Heavy Thing of Sin, it drags us down into the depths of the 6,000-year-old Ocean of Doom. Since our nation must surely be governed according to the principles of the Bible (as interpreted by me, of course), we must STOP wallowing in this Cesspool of Total Naughtiness.

That's right. I'm talking about Satan's dominoes...the most un-Biblical scourge of our time. CREDIT CARDS.


...

25 " If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest.(Exodus 22:25)

35 ' If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.
36 'Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, that your brother may live with you.
37 'You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit. (Leviticus 25:35-37)

19 " You shall not charge interest to your brother -- interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest.
20 "To a foreigner you may charge interest, but to your brother you shall not charge interest, that the LORD your God may bless you in all to which you set your hand in the land which you are entering to possess. (Deuteronomy 23:19,20)

Oh, for shame, you James Dobsons, you Jerry Falwells, you Ralph Reeds. Where have you been in our Holy Crusade?

Thankfully, our new PAC, Focus on the Usury, is here to help good, god-fearing Christians lobby our elected representatives against the credit card industry. We have a fairly simple legislative agenda that restore our nation to its glorious Puritan roots


...


Step 1:All interest payments shall be immediately returned with 1/100th interest.

11 "Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them." (Nehemiah 5:11)

Step 2:All CEOs who do not agree to the above receive a fair trial; if when convicted of unreptentant usury, the death penalty is applicable

13 If he has exacted usury Or taken increase -- Shall he then live? He shall not live! If he has done any of these abominations, He shall surely die; His blood shall be upon him. (Ezekiel 18:13)

I realize that this may seem extreme.


...


[but] if we do not shape up:

24:1 Behold, the LORD makes the earth empty and makes it waste, Distorts its surface And scatters abroad its inhabitants.
2 And it shall be: As with the people, so with the priest; As with the servant, so with his master; As with the maid, so with her mistress; As with the buyer, so with the seller; As with the lender, so with the borrower; As with the creditor, so with the debtor.
3 The land shall be entirely emptied and utterly plundered, For the LORD has spoken this word. (Isaiah 24:1-3)

...


The Lord has been very, very clear about what to do in order to achieve perfection:

7 If he has not oppressed anyone, But has restored to the debtor his pledge; Has robbed no one by violence, But has given his bread to the hungry And covered the naked with clothing;
8 If he has not exacted usury Nor taken any increase, But has withdrawn his hand from iniquity And executed true judgment between man and man;
9 If he has walked in My statutes And kept My judgments faithfully -- He is just; He shall surely live!" Says the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 18:7-9)

*************

A comment, by zeke L, adds this historical note:

... as an interesting historical sidenote, these laws were actually followed scrupulously during the medieval period, and usury was actually illegal. and deut 23:20 is the reason that jews obtained their stereotype as moneylenders - because christians couldn't make any money loaning to each other (at least in theory) they mostly didn't bother. so the jews took that business because while they also followed the commandment, it only applied to other jews for them. by the renaissance christians realized they were losing out on a lucrative business, of course, so decided not to take those parts of the bible seriously anymore.

I've been warning you that credit card lenders are EVIL. Now there's another poster who agrees with me! And has the Biblical quotes to back us up. <g>

Or rather as I WASN'T saying, it has been literally months since my last blog entry. And you might have wondered what's up with that?

Well, I've been busy; or under stress; or exhausted; or some combination of all that; and more too. Let's see I DID participate in NaNoWriMo again this past November and I did technically "win" the challenge but since I employed so many "cheats" in order to inflate my word count that (like their website warns) it doesn't even feel worth claiming as a victory. So I think I'll forgo posting the 2006 NaNoWriMo Winner logo this time.

Probably the most noteable event is that I've just retired. Yes I was a bit young to be doing that -- although technically I had already been eligable for over a year as I had noted in a previous blog post.

I'm not positive that it was the right thing to do at this point since if I worked longer my retirement income would have been higher. On the other hand, one sleepless night I found myself counting all the reasons that I had for retiring now (rather than later) and when the number reached over two dozen I was somewhat reassured that it wasn't an entirely foolish choice to be making.

The list of reasons themselves ranged from the mundane to the life altering. Some quite personal but many others very typical of any workplace. Too much stress from others trying to climb the corporate ladder by stomping on the backs of their subordinates and/or co-workers; a corporate CEO relentlessly driving my employer in a direction likely to sink the whole shebang; shifting job responsibilies; stupid nigling sbout inconsequental matters; etc. etc.

The whole situation made my insomnia worse (perhaps also being the root cause of it) so much so that I felt my health was suffering for it. And, well, in the end, it just seemed easier to leave than to try to struggle onward. (And due to a quirk in the system, quitting versus retiring just wasn't possible.)

Perhaps I'll feel differently about it in a few months and/or it may prove to have disasterous financial consequences, I dunno.

At the moment I'm still endevoring to tidy up all the loose ends involved in actually retiring such as getting the necessary paperwork done properly and cleaning out my office.

In a few days or weeks I may find that my natural laziness has come to the forefront and I'll enjoy not having to do ANYTHING...

One year ago YESTERDAY the 31st of August was BlogDay2005 and I wrote up my five recomendations of other bloggers. Well my recomendations still stand:

My Boyfriend is a Twat is written by Zoe about her boyfriend and children from her home in Belgium. It won the Bloggies 2005 award for Best European Blog. UPDATE: It ALSO won the Bloggies 2006 award too!!!!

Amygdala is is a blog well known in some circles. Written by Gary Farber, this blog features posts about assorted subjects of interest to him, including Sci-Fi, interesting links he's encountered, some politics, etc. UPDATE: Gary is still writing his blog albeit more sporatically as his health declines due to poverty and and the lack of medical care and general suppoprt in Colorado where Gary resides due to Grover Norquiest's influence wanting to "drown government in a bathtub".

View from A Broad is a blog written by Ginmar who is a FEMALE solder just back from Iraq where she was often the one manning (staffing) the machine gun thingie on a convoy. And her blog entries of just a few months ago were covering that period. Ginmar is also a feminist who demands that others respect her rights and her right to have her own opinions. UPDATE: Ginmar is now battling PTSD aquired like MANY OTHER SOLDIERS from her experiences in Iraq.

The Daily Pfennig is an unusual blog. Maybe it isn't even considered to be a blog? Anyway it's written by a BANKER who comments on the financial situation of the USA versus other countries as he comments on world currencies (which he sells, ie. that's his job). UPDATE: The status quo here hasn't changed much except that I find MORE people of my aquaintance are now interested in International financial matters too.

Nancy's Blog is unusual because it's a political blog from an astrological point of view. UPDATE: The readership of Nancy's blog seems to be slowly increasing. And there was a nice writeup of it elsewhere too.

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One year ago TODAY, I wrote an angry blog entry about the Katrina disaster. My feelings are unchanged, except perhaps now stronger.

It was a totally needless disaster!

It could have been largly avoided ot mitigated with better evacuation procedures and competent humanitarian and reconstruction responses.

I now believe that there will NEVER BE reconstruction of the Gulf area to what it was before Katrina struck.

I dunno whether to be comforted by the info that a Canadian airline had a problem that seems just as stupid as some on USA airlines or not?

From CNN:

The pilot of a Canadian airliner who went to the washroom during a flight found himself locked out of the cockpit, forcing the crew to remove the door from its hinges to let him back in, the airline said on Wednesday.

From   www.federalnewsradio.com

By DAVID McHUGH
Associated Press Writer

BERLIN (AP) - Europe's first mission to the moon is due to crash-land in a cloud of dust and rock early Sunday, ending a three-year voyage that gathered data about the lunar surface and tested a new engine intended to propel future spacecraft to Mercury and other planets.

The European Space Agency's SMART-1 should hit its target on a volcanic plain called the Lake of Excellence at 1:41 a.m. EDT, orbiting lower and lower as it makes its final approach at 4,475 mph.

Observatories on Earth will try to capture images of the impact and the resulting debris cloud, and European space officials hope it will provide information about the minerals present at the impact site.

Even before the mission ends, however, ESA is already celebrating the main goal _ a successful test of the ion engine they hope to use for future interplanetary missions, such as the BepiColombo joint mission to Mercury with Japan's space agency slated for launch in 2013.

"The prime object of this mission was to test the ion propulsion," mission manager Gerhard Schwehm told The Associated Press. "This is a very efficient means to get a spacecraft over large distances with a very small mass of fuel. It worked really well."

Instead of burning rocket fuel, the PPS-1350 engine from French aerospace firm Snecma generates a stream of electrically charged atoms called ions. That creates minuscule amounts of thrust _ roughly enough to hold up a postcard.

Riding that small, steady push, SMART-1 made it to the moon in 14 months, gradually accelerating and raising its orbit around the earth until it was high enough to be grabbed by the moon's gravity.

It was launched into earth orbit using an Ariane-5 rocket from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guinea, on Sept. 27, 2003. By contrast, the first manned U.S. moon mission, Apollo 11, took 76 hours to reach lunar orbit in 1969, hurled by a Saturn 5 rocket.

SMART-1, a cube measuring about a yard on each side, took the long way _ more than 62 million miles instead of the direct route of 217,000 to 250,000 miles. But ESA did it for a relatively cheap $140 million.

ESA flight controllers and scientists at mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, honed their skills in managing the different rhythm of spaceflight with ion propulsion, where the continuous thrust requires more careful monitoring than coasting after the one-time impulse from a rocket.

Although the moon already has been explored by U.S. astronauts, ESA says SMART-1 gathered valuable information as it orbited.

Its miniaturized X-ray and infrared spectrometers probed the mineral content of the surface to better understand the distribution of elements over the entire moon, not just the small areas explored by astronauts.

The information could increase scientists' understanding of how the moon's surface evolved and help test a theory that the moon originated when another astronomical body slammed into the Earth.

The spacecraft also has been taking high-resolution pictures of the surface.

And the mission has contributed to ESA's cooperation with India's space program, which will use SMART-1's spectrometers on its Chandrayaan-1 moon mission slated for 2007 or 2008.

Geographic features on the moon are named lakes and seas _ such as the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 landed _ even though they are in fact dry.

ESA officials say the planned crash site at the Lake of Excellence will be in darkness and not directly lit by the sun's rays at the time of impact, though there will be some illumination from light reflected from Earth, or earthshine.

If the debris cloud from SMART-1 rises more than 12 miles and reaches sunlight, it may appear as a bright spot against the darkness visible using an amateur telescope or binoculars.

The moon will be visible from North and South America and the East Pacific at the moment of impact, but not from Europe.

Interesting. Why haven't I heard about this earlier?

I wrote earlier about an effort to make $100. computers available to every child in the developing world.

Where here's someone else (that's not a child in the developing world) who wants a similar computer. Only, unlike myself, this person has the knowhow to make their own!

One of the comments to another blog's post (about a diet anomaly) gave me quite a laugh: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English apparently is what kills you.

I just noticed this old Boingboing article from their archive. It's about a Brass-knuckle purse getting it's owner arrested and is YET ANOTHER reason for not wanting to fly anywhere, any time soon.

Here's a list of useful money tips for those ... uh ... "downwardly mobile" in our current economy.

UPDATE: There seems to be something wrong with the link above, so if it doesn't work for you, just copy and paste the following URL into your browser: http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005614.html

You know I'm a cat-person who's not so fond of dogs, but even I'm doubtful that the poor dog in this article deserved to be killed by a pack of squirrels.

According to the news report the dog was barking the squirrels up in the trees (in a park). Witnesses say the squirrels jumped down, attacked the dog, and killed it.


Via Boingboing