Seek The Substantial

Here are some pictures from Stephens most recent birthday party:

Stephen and Ashley T.

Courtney and Greggo

Tony and Leslie

Landy and Chris

Michael and Erika (spelling?)

Richie and Ashley

Justin and Ashley F.

Miranda and me.

I finally have an office of my own. For the past 3 years, I have operated in a cubicle, and there is nothing wrong with that, and now our firm has moved offices, just down the hall, and I have an office of my own. I know that I am very lucky to be in the situation that I’m in and to be completely honest, I’m very thankful for the opportunity.

Given the time of year, and as cliche as it is, I should shout from the rooftops that I am very thankful for my wife. She means so stinking much to me that it’s a little ridiculous, but it’s always important to tell people how much you appreciate them. Thank you Miranda. So as not to rub anyone the wrong way I have a couple of more thank-yous to pass out:

• I am thankful for my families, my parents, my in-laws, my siblings, my sibling in-laws, my extended family, etc. I am thankful for all of you.
• I am thankful for my friends, as dysfunctional as we can be at times, I appreciate every one of you.
• I am thankful for my puppy dogs.
• I am thankful for the opportunity to write about something that I love.

For those of you who are regular readers, I have been a little obsessed with personal finance recently, and thankfully for you, the trend continues. I found an enlightening article from Get Rich Slowly about young people and money (yes, I still consider myself young). Let’s take this quote from the article:

How many of you fit into these categories, and I hope that none of you fit into the second point. It’s a really good article, I hope you all enjoy.

I also ran across an article from Techcrunch about whether or not Yahoo can save local papers. Which got me thinking, how many of you actually have a newspaper delivered to your home? I think that of my friends, only Stephen/Ashley and Tony/Leslie have a paper delivered to their home, but I know of few young people who do have the paper delivered. Don’t get me wrong, if I see a paper, I’ll read it, but it is no longer a necessity.

Gordon Keith, linked the fake Drew Bledsoe’s website, Tony Homo. It’s actually well written and very funny.

Miranda and I watch too much television, but we have discovered two new television shows. Bear Grylls has a show called Man v. Wild on the Discovery Channel. The premise of the show is that he’s dropped out in the middle of nowhere with a canteen and a knife. Bear then has to find his way out of whatever wilderness he is located. Along the way, you begin to realize that the guy will literally eat anything. The second show is called Rob and Big on MTV. Both of these guys are really funny, it’s not your typical MTV show, there’s something to this.

This is a opening for a cow’s head for a cattle shoot at my parent’s home.

Finally, after about a month of exchanging emails and being patient, Double T Nation is up and running. Although I seriously doubt that I have any Texas Tech fans out there other than Tony R. and Justin F. I encourage each and every one of you to pass along this website. It will mean so much to me if this little venture is successful.

Earlier this week, Lifehacker linked a great article titlted, “10 Reasons You Should Never Get A Job.” Being the type of person who can’t seem to function without a job (I like structure) I was really intrigued with the idea. As some of the commentors in the Lifehacker post stated, it’s not that easy to start a $40,000/month website that earns money as you sleep. I am not advocating that we all get creative and start our own companies or websites, or somesuch, but do we owe it to ourselves to figure out if we are equipped to do something other than a 9 to 5? Last time I remarked about how my new website was going to allow me to do something that I’ve wanted to do for a really long time.

How many of you could exist doing something creative, or creating your own niche so that you are working for yourself? Personally, I think that I would always have to rely on a steady income of a normal job, but what if the niche you create becomes normal in the sense that you begin to receive regular income? How many of you would actually quit their job to do what you love?

I have been fascinated with debt management and saving and stuff like that and I ran across two well written articles, both by Get Rich Slowly. I’ve preached before about the need to make this website a regular of yours and I hope that you are. The first is about taking control of your life and being your own CFO. I love the idea because so many of us just drift through life without any sort of financial plan, or rather our financial plan is predicated upon what your employment provides. I’ll probably drive my wife crazy, but I think that I’m going to ask for Quicken or Microsoft Money for Christmas. The second article is about how to get out of debt. I know that some debt is impossible to get out from under, and I think everyone knows the danger of credit card debt, but this is really solid advice if you really want to be proactive in reducing the debt that you have.

Because I’ve been bad about posting here, I’ll give you a number of links. You are to only click on one a day in the off chance that I don’t post again for a couple of days. FYI, all of these are from Lifehacker:

• Traveling to Europe, Rick Steves tells you how to stay somewhere cheaply.
• Eyeglasses for $85? That’s what I’m talking about. Who wants to spend $300 or $400 on something that’s really not that expensive. Eyeglasses has to be the biggest racket going.
• Litsum, online cliff-notes (Leslie R., this is for you.)
• What’s the best way to explore a new city?
• Find a national park.

This photo is taken from my parents’ front porch, Sunday morning, last week.

When I was in 6th grade, a Dallas Morning News sports columnist, Kevin Blackistone, came to our school and gave a talk about what his job was like. At that moment I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to write about sports. It was the perfect job, it allowed me to do two of the things that I thought I loved to do. Write. Watch sports. As high school continued I became increasingly aware that I was a horrible writer. I remember my first paper my freshman year and it was covered in red ink. My ego was completely shot and, of course, since I was in a honors class, I really couldn’t believe how poorly I had performed. The idea of me writing for a living was quickly forgotten as my current grasp of English grammar was something not to be desired. As I progressed through high school I was never one who could really figure things out on my own, no one really sat down with me and taught me why my grammar was poor. Teachers simply graded papers and sent them back and I was an average student when it came to English.

When I went off to college I had no idea what I wanted to do. Literally, I was without a major for the first two and one-half years of my college career. This was not including the two weeks that I thought I wanted to major in landscape architecture. That dream was forgotten when I had to build a three foot bridge out of toothpicks, which would have to support a bowling ball. No thanks.

When I transferred to Texas Tech I decided, along with the help of my father, that I wanted to major in English, and teach. I knew that the pay wasn’t very good, but I seemed to have a knack for reading something and recognizing the underlying theme of the book and then writing an essay about it. To me it was very easy, so I would capitalize on one of my three completely useless talents (the other two is washer playing and memorizing professional basketball player’s colleges and heights). To me I was still accomplishing the thing that I really wanted to do, which was write. I quickly learned that teaching was incredibly gratifying, but did not pay the bills. And as many as you well know, I moved onward to law school.

My legal profession was a means to an end, an end that might mean a better life for myself and my wife (although I was not married at the time, this was my thought). I picked up writing again almost a year ago, December 9, 2005 to be completely accurate. This is how I wanted to write. No editor, just write what I feel. Although I have taught grammar, grammar was never my strong suit, and I always felt that my downfall was that the way that I communicated, in a written form was more conversational, and less formal. This was great if I really wanted to discuss how I felt about someone or something, but less advantageous if writing a letter to a client.

September 3rd of this year I started a Texas Tech blog. I noticed that there was a complete lack of information about Texas Tech sports. I thought that there was no reason why couldn’t do this. Recently I joined a sports blogging network called SBNation, and although my website is not up and running quite yet, it is something that I am very excited about doing. The long and short of it, is that this is a network of individuals who are passionate about their teams and they write about them.

This is what I’ve wanted to do since the 6th grade. I’ve never thought about life coming full circle for me, but at this point it certainly feels that way. I guess to be quite frank, I don’t think I’ve lived long enough for my life to come full circle. Anyway, I was inspired, twenty-something years ago and now I’m getting to do what I’ve always wanted to do. The internet has provided an outlet for folks like myself, the opportunity to write and be passionate about something, without having to really pay your dues. I get to write about Texas Tech sports. I don’t have an editor or anyone to censor what I want to write about and that’s a great thing. The name of the site as already been secured and it will be called DoubleTNation. It is not quite finished, but I hope that it’s done sometime before the end of the year. I am not the type of person who is proud about something, never too high, never too low. I think I have realistic expectations about this venture and I don’t think this will ever replace my “means to and end”, but it’s a nice distraction and it is the opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do.

Three pictures all taken at the same time. I’ve been fiddling with my camera quite a bit, especially the manual controls and I needed a forum to post pictures so I could compare. Mostly the saturation levels and the ISO.

Although the differences seem to be small, I think my favorite of the three is the last picture because it offers the greatest contrast, especially between the white rock road and the grass, however, I’m drawn to darker pictures, for whatever reason. The other bad part of this picture is that it’s cloudy, so there’s no real contrast between the road and the sky, which seems to be a visually displeasing effect. Isn’t it also true that small details is what makes art (please don’t get me wrong, I do not consider the photograph of a road and pasture art, but the general idea of art) interesting are the small details that the photograph or painting?

I am going to try to post two days this week. Lately I have been trying to educate myself on investing because it’s one of those things that I know absolutely nothing about. Today’s topic, the index fund. For general information about what an index fund is then check out one of my favorite websites, Get Rich Slowly.

I’ve talked about a DSLR camera before (digital single lens reflex) and not explained why it’s so important that I get one. Please read 10 Reasons to Buy a DSLR (thanks Lifehacker).

We had our annual Halloween party at the Hetmer’s new home. You can order as many as you want on Flickr (if you have a Flickr account). Enjoy.

Greggy as Jason:

Miranda, as the “good angel”.

Ashley F. as French maid, Elizabeth M. as the “bad angel”, and Leslie R. as a bee.

Ashley F. and Miranda.

Tony, the chick magnet, and Chris, a farmer.

Stephen as fire rescue and Ashley T. as cop.

Me, God’s gift to women.

Ashley F., Ashley F., Ashley T., and Courtney.

Miranda and a pug.

J.D. as Loyd Christmas.

Miranda, Elizabeth, Leslie, Landy and Ashley F.

This is a simulation of a conversation I had with my wife last night while she’s on the computer:

Miranda: Aren’t these jeans cute?
Me: I guess, don’t all girl jeans really look the same? I don’t think I could tell one pair of jeans from another.
Miranda: No, they’re not all the same, these are much cuter than what I have.
Me: Humh.
Me: Don’t you already have a lot of jeans?
Miranda: No.
Me: Are you sure those are almost exactly like a pair you already have?
Miranda: No.

By the way, do I realize that this facsimile of a conversation will get me in trouble? Yes.

Here’s the problem. I haven’t bought a new pair of jeans since I met Miranda. I think I’ve bought a crap pair of jeans at the Gap Outlet, but that really can’t count. By the way, that time period includes dating. So we’re going on about 5 years since I bought a new pair of jeans. I currently have two pair of J. Crew jeans that are part of my weekend attire which were the last real pair of jeans I purchased. I don’t know anyone that care less about clothes than myself. Seriously, it’s really sad. Sometimes when I get dressed for work I think about how bad I look and then I go get some more coffee.

Recently, I thought that I need to make some new clothes purchases, mainly consisting of some new wool pants. I seriously doubt that anyone shops for wool pants, but if you need a good pair then try LandsEnd. I know, that sounds like some place your grandfather would shop, but I’ve looked, trust me, for wool pants and there just aren’t any that look good and are as well made.

Halloween photos by this weekend, I promise.

Here’s a couple of links:

First, I tried to talk Miranda into letting me buy this desk or bookshelf or something because it would be nearly impossible for me to break this “assemble at your own risk” furniture. I can do this, RealSimpleFurniture.

At some point I’m going to buy a DSLR camera. Of course, I over research everything and ran across this article.

102 Personal Financial Tips Your Professor Never Taught You. Simple advice is usually the best advice. I like #89.

I probably didn’t do a great job of explaining myself on the prior post. I don’t think I could ever get by with doing one photo a day, but rather, what if I forced myself to take at least one photo per day. For instance, Saturday and Sunday were not eventful, so I didn’t take any pictures. But then we are blessed with those days where you can’t take enough photos, or like the photo above, are awesome photos. But I guess this is the challenging part, the days where two things have to happen: I have to do something to create a picture or I have to do something with my life to find that moment. I will have to go out of my way to take at least one photo a day, and since Ashley T. has provided some sort of feedback, which is appreciated, I guess I’ll start on November 1st. That’s a nice clean date. And yes, I think it will be neat.

Does anyone else use their deodorant for an extremely long period of time? I looked at the trademark date on my deodorant, which I realize is not an indicator of much, and it says 2004. That’s a really long time for a health care product that I use every day, well almost everyday. Also, I am the type of person who always purchases the replacement health care product before I need to and I purchased a new deodorant in August thinking that I was close to running out, out. Well, I’m still plugging along, and the way things look, it will be the new year before I use the new deodorant.

A big congratulations to Duk and Beano whose St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. I live for the time that my team wins a championship. Last year when the Mavs went to the NBA Finals I had such a feeling of accomplishment and pride, despite the fact that I had nothing to do with their victory in the very least. Being a fan is such a strange thing and we all take it so personally when we lose and win. Bygones. As an aside, when I went to Tulsa for a little fellowship a portion of the weekend was spent trying to figure out how Houston could overtake the Cardinals to get into the playoffs and watching the scroll on ESPNews for a score update. That’s what it means to be a fan.

Links:
Who needs to find discount codes for online stores? RetailMeNot (thanks Consumerist).

Two different types of time wasters: Marvin Spectrum (thanks Lifehacker) and the Time photographers Whitehouse photo blog (thanks Kottke).

I got home on Wednesday for lunch and this is what I saw. I hurriedly grabbed my camera thinking that Bella, Justin F. and Ashley F.’s dog, would jump down and as a result lose the moment. I snap a couple of pictures and she’s still sitting there. I make and eat my sandwich and I go to put my plate in the dishwasher and low and behold she’s still sitting there.

First things first. I am not working out because of my sweetheart, I am working out because I’ve always worked out, at least until I got a real job (i.e. being an attorney). I was tired and just didn’t care. Miranda has motivated me to start doing something, anything. Ideally, she’d like for me to get a little cardio in my life, but I’m not real interested in that right now and I know she’s only looking out for my best interest, but it just doesn’t interest me at this point.

Sorry about last night. I was able to post to RaiderRedNation, but after that I couldn’t access Blogger. For those of you who expect Wednesday night/Thursday morning updates, I’m sorry.

So, I’ve given quite a bit of thought to this idea lately, the idea of a year’s worth of pictures, take at least one picture each day. Here are my problems with this idea. The first problem is the biggest problem. I am not that creative. When I see something interesting or neat I take a picture of it. Sometimes it’s a mood thing, sometimes I really get motivated to go find something to photograph. Unfortunately, my job does not allow me to do this. I drive less than 3 miles, round trip, each day. There’s not a lot of scenery to take in on this short tip. In other words, it’s not like I ride the subway to work everyday and there’s the possibility of something interesting every day. So we’ve established that I’m not very original, but where does that leave me with this project. I could take a picture of a seemingly static object (i.e. my face) everyday and chronicle the change throughout the year or do the same with Blue, but one of the keys to keeping an audience, and yes, I know that not everyone takes pictures of their dogs like they are your children, but I think that’s all I got. I could take pictures of small objects, but let’s be honest, there’s nothing really exciting about that.

If I decide to do this I’ll let everyone know. It’s also somewhat strange in that if I miss a day, there’s no going back. Experiment failed. Feedback would be great, but I know that it is not expected.

Topic change: is anyone enjoying the links? At some point I thought it would be a good idea to provide something to those of you who work all day and enjoy the interesting link here and there. I wanted to make this website a little “life friendly”. For instance, Line Rider is awesome and you could literally spend the entire day doing this (via Kottke).

If you don’t view Rocketboom everyday then you’re missing out on a little piece of the world. I really liked the episode for October 26, 2006.

I read about this fella sometime ago and started freaking out about how someone could knowingly do this to themselves. Essentially, he tried to get rich quick by playing the real estate market. Purchase some homes, fix them up and turn them around before you’re out any money. In theory, this is a great idea. Unfortunately, life usually isn’t that simple. By the way, if you don’t stop by Get Rich Slowly, then you’re missing out on some really good and simple investment advice. Nothing flashy (imagine that), but really solid advice.

Sorry, for those of you expecting a post it just didn’t get done tonight. For whatever reason I could not access Blogger for the better part of the evening. Sorry. I’ll make sure and put something special up tomorrow. It’ll make Friday special.

Which one of these do you like better? They are from the exact same time (seconds apart), but the tungsten filter is on the first photo. There’s something nice about both, the tungsten filter seems like it’s shot at sundown rather than sunrise.

I found this new application, Paint.NET, which could be both a blessing and a curse as I already spend too much time on the computer. Now I’ll be spending time fixing photos. I have yet to download this application, and I’ll try and provide my own review in time, but it seems to be a winner (thanks to Techcrunch).

Last night I had a couple of conversations:
1. For Leslie re. travel: pretty good travel website, RealTravel, and has lots of great content (thanks again to Techcrunch).
2. Shoutout to Lori R. thanks for reading.

Lifehacker had a nice post about free stuff to help you on your computer. One of the things that I worry about is viruses and it’s nice to know that there are free downloads for free anti-virus software, ClaimWin.

Perhaps my best internet find, every episode of The Office on TV Links, available to watch in order to waste away your day. Other than having to create a profile, there’s no issues. I watched this and this the other night.

Thanks to Kottke, he found this snipet about Philippe Halsman, a photographer, who asked some of his subjects to jump. This is a pretty good bit, and it might break up the monotony of posed smiley pictures. I’ll be looking to Greggy and Chris for David Lee Roth jumps/kicks.

I’ve tried to stay quiet about this for a while, but I have finally been working out. Not exactly like my wife would want, but enough for me. I’ve been doing push-ups and crunches and slowly but surely I can do 125 to 130 over 5 sets. When I first started, I was only able to do 20 in my first set and 50 or so total. After 50 I was completely spent. Now, I can do 50 push-ups in my first set. I know, no one likes a braggart, but it’s my small contribution to my own health. I’ve been using Joe’s Goals to keep track of my progress.