The Money Pit

This is my blog as I gradually get my money pit of a home into liveable condition.  I hope to be able to figure out how to put up pictures over time.  The house, itself, is a money pit, but the individual unpleasant surprises are, each, a pit of their own.  So, in the interest of chronicling the home's transformation, and as a salute to all money pit owners, past and present, I am going to tell my rather lengthy, rather dramatic story, here. 

I just bought a house.  It needed work and I knew that.  I took it into consideration when I made the offer.  I didn't get a steal on the property, but I feel I got a fair price.  The main thing to me was the location:  within walking distance of my old house.  That way, my son can walk to and from without a lot of drama.

Other aspects of the location are appealing as well.  It backs up to a ravine, undeveloped woods and a view of a creek.  From the back of the house, it's a perfectly tranquil setting.  It's also on a cul-de-sac.

The house itself was built in the mid 1970s.  It probably hasn't been updated much since then.  So, I knew this was going to be an adventure.

The shame of it is that the house I'm leaving is pretty much perfect.  It's well appointed.  The previous owner updated the whole thing.  It's got oak trim and 6 panel doors and a country style motif.  I like to say that this style is perpetually one generation out of date.  It never looks too dated, but it never looks like it's the most contemporary decor.  In its own way, it's understated and timeless, and won't leave you redecorating every 10 years.

Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong in the past 10 years in my old house did.  The refrigerator, built-in microwave, dishwasher, and air conditioner all went on the fritz.  So, the few things that weren't new when we moved in are pretty much all new, now.  And the very few things that needed an update, like the sink and the front door, got updated over time as well.  Thanks to a cat with an aversion to the litterbox, every piece of carpet in the house was replaced, too.

I even added a huge new deck where a rotting, tiny deck had been.  Although I didn't do much landscaping, I did have half a dozen really large trees removed from the property.

So, I leave a house that's pretty close to good as new.  If I had to guess, I put over $20,000 into the old house in the past 10 years, and it was in pretty darned good shape when we moved in.

The new house?  It needs a little updating.

As anybody who has ever bought a house that needed "a little updating" can tell you, it doesn't take long in a house to realize that the place needs a lot more work than you thought at first.

This will be my home for at least the next 10 years.  I want it to be comfortable and a source of pride and enjoyment.  So, it's going to be a project.

The toughest question at first was simply where to start.  There's so much that's wrong or in need of repair or update in the house.  Thinking about it was actually depressing.  Pretty much anything in the house that isn't broken is unstylish.  There is nearly no room in the house that doesn't need SOMETHING, and in most of the rooms, they need a very substantial something.

The entire house has very dark, brown trim and wood.  The windows and doors almost all need adjustment or replacement.  The flooring is bad in more than half the house.  They did bizarre things to it architecturally.

On the bright side, it has some great features.  It's 3 houses away from the old house.  The back yard is every bit as serene and beautiful as I thought it would be.  The house is on a cul-de-sac, so no real traffic out front.  Oddly, the house is built back behind what I would think is the build line which gives the house extra privacy and an extra large front yard. 

The house is also very large.  It has good bones.  It's structurally sound and frankly, it's not that bad.  Lots of people live in houses in worse condition and if I didn't change anything, I could probably invite folks to the house without worrying about being too embarassed by the condition. 

It's also big.  It was listed at over 2,700 square feet and it looks like every square inch of that.  It's got both formal and informal dining areas and two living areas.  It also has 5 bedrooms, 4 of which are nice sized and one of which is modest, but not ridiculously small.

On top of all that, I got the house for what I think was a good price (in line with a few foreclosures in the area), and with a 30 year 4.625% fixed VA loan and zero down with seller paying all closing costs. 

So, there's a lot of reason to be happy.  It just needs work.

The very first thing I noticed was that the doors needed to be replaced.  The door between the living room and garage wasn't even an exterior door.  It was an interior door.  (No insulation, lightweight, would offer no protection in the event of a fire in the garage.)  Modern codes require a steel door there. 

The back door has a large window in the upper half.  That's a big theft risk.  So, I want that replaced with a steel door as well.  The basement has a walk-out and it looks like at one time there was a moisture problem down there.  The bottom of the door is rotted and there's a half-window. 

So, total of 3 steel doors.  The front door is actually in really good shape.  It has side windows to the left and right, which I'm not a big fan of, but for the mean time, it's something I can live with.  The door is a very dark wood tone, though.  So, I will probably do something about that. 

The toughest part of living in a money pit / house that needs work, is that it's overwhelming.  Every day you see something that needs fixed and most days the stuff doesn't get fixed.  It wears you down.

I'm trying to focus.  The place needs new paint, trim, wood, windows, flooring and a few architectural changes plus an entirely new kitchen.  Yeah, did I mention it needs work? 

The very first project is the living room.  It was long and narrow:  about 25 x 12.  It was separated by a non-load-bearing wall from the informal dining area which is another 20 x 12.  Then, the galley kitchen and the formal dining room.

I figured I wanted at least one room in the house that was "finished" and that I would feel good about.  No way I could have felt good with the living room the way it started.

It had dark panelling wainscoting and wallpaper that was original to the house.  The carpet was entirely too dark and it was both faded and stained.  A thorough cleaning took care of the staining, but not the fading. 

I was on the fence as to whether or not to just live with it until finances would make it easier to switch over when I noticed that the place might be dramatically improved if the wall separating the informal dining room from the living room came out.

That wall made the informal dining area sort of claustrophobic and dark.  It also separated the kitchen area from the living room area, completely.  I hope to entertain in the house and since the kitchen is the main place to congregate for folks who don't know where else to go, I didn't want it to be isolated from the living room (which is the main place to congregate for folks who know where to go.)

There were a couple of catches to the whole deal.  The first is that taking out the wall and replacing the carpet were basically two sides of the same coin.  If you did one, you may as well do the other.

The second is that there were wires, switches, thermostats, etc., mounted on and in the wall.

I vacillated on the decision a bit longer and had my guys prep the rest of the room.

They tore down the dark panel wainscot and when they did, they found an area that had moisture problems in the past and had rotted. 

Money Pit #1:  the rotted wall.

Fortunately, I actually own a company that fixes water damaged houses.  Go figure.  We tested to see if the water problem was current or whether this was something from 30 years ago that had long since been fixed.  After investigating, it was clear that the moisture problem was REALLY old.  They took care of it by putting gutters up on the permiter of the flat roof.

But still, it left the issue of a rotted wall.  The siding would have to come off.  The sill plate and the floor sheathing would have to be replaced as well as one stud and the exterior sheathing.

Not the hugest project and frankly, it turned out beautifully, but these money pits are... well... the pits.  Whenever you open up a wall or pull back a carpet, you're probably going to find something in a house that's almost 40 years old.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.  Most people's homes have really nasty things wrong with them.  Folks just don't know it.  Trust me... I know... I own a company that fixes screwed up houses.

Well, once that was done, we also pulled back enough of the carpet to reveal stains that probably came from a pet at some point in time.  So, the carpet was gone.  That made my decision for me on the wall, too.  It may as well go, too.

In for a penny, in for a pound.  We took out the wall.

The difference was amazing, though.  Brightened up the entire area and gave it a more contemporary look.  Not quite a great room:  it's too narrow for that, but clearly the heart of the home.

I was overjoyed.  Until the next day when I got home and the temps inside were 100 degrees +. 

Money Pit #2:  something went haywire on the furnace, almost certainly because we took the thermostat off the wall and set it on the floor, disrupting the wires that led to the thermostat.

I disconnected all the wires:  the furnace still ran.  I went downstairs and flipped off the switch on the furnace.  It still ran.  I killed the circuit breaker.  It's off, now.  I probably won't need a furnace for another 7 months or so.  That's probably how long it'll take me to afford to get this one fixed or replaced.  The thing is 16 years old, though.  I was sort of expecting to have to deal with it sometime.  I don't know that the furnace is beyond repair, but it's unwelcome news, to say the least.

I sure hope the A/C still works.  I WILL call out somebody to get that going if it isn't working.

Money Pit #3:  the dishwasher doesn't really work.  It starts... it just doesn't stop.  Ever.  I have a dishwasher at work that we've used maybe twice in the past 4 years.  I'll have it put in, instead. It still has the protective plastic coating on the front of the door.

Money Pit #4:  the old occupants left a washer and dryer.  I think the washer mostly works, but I could swear the spin cycle left the clothes overly damp.  I know the dryer doesn't work, though.  Tried it and it sounded like a broken cement mixer and left the clothes still damp after an hour. 

Not only did they leave a washer and dryer, they left 2 of each, none of which work.  I really, really didn't want to have to spend money on a washer and dryer, but here I go.

Money Pit #5:  the avacado kitchen sink and leaking faucet.  I replaced the sink with an inexpensive stainless one and the faucet with one that didn't leak. 

Money Pit #6:  I need a TV for the house and was driving down the road when a local store was blowing out some Samsung 46" LED TVs for $800.  That's a pretty good price.  So, I bought it... one day before being given my old 52" LED.  So, now I have two badass TVs.  I can't afford cable, but I own two badass TVs.  I also get my awesome old surround sound stereo.

Money Pit #7:  I HAVE NO FURNITURE.  I bought a 4 piece living room set (upholstered, sofa, loveseat, chair and ottoman) from Sam's club online, but lord only knows when it'll arrive.  The room won't be ready for a while, anyway.  So, no need to go nuts.  So long as it arrives when promised (they said 4-5 weeks), I'll be happy.  I have that and two twin beds.  One for me, one for my son.  That's it. 

At this point, I think I can make do, but I need dressers for our clothes.  I'm thinking of springing for closet organizers since the house is full of pretty large closets.  No walk-ins, but the big wide ones. 

So, that brings the first entry of the Money Pit Blog to a close.  You don't even want to know about the projects I haven't mentioned that are coming later on down the road.  Even if you did, I don't want to think about them, yet.  I'm depressed enough as it is.

Ignoring the Lessons of the Great Depression

People are saying that because of the lessons learned during the Great Depression, it has been necessary to maul the American people to give trillions to incompetent bankers.

As anybody who knows me is aware, I'm not a big fan of the Bush / Obama bailouts to "save" our economy.

If this is what the economy looks like when it is "saved", I am left to wonder:  what do these clowns think a bad economy looks like?

Comparisons to the Great Depression are ridiculous, though.  Anybody who disagrees would have to answer one question before I'll listen to them:  Do they sincerely believe that the Great Depression would have been averted if we gave 1 year loans to less than a dozen banks (a few of whom only recently became banks so they could be in line for big piles of government money), bought an insurance company, and allowed banks to borrow money at zero percent? 

Of course not.  This was never "Son of the Great Depression".  Paulson and Giethner just played it up like that so they could steal the maximum amount of taxpayer money to give to bankers.

We ARE facing an economic problem, and there ARE some solutions in the great depression.  Unfortunately, the Bush and Obama administration learned NONE of those lessons.

For instance, in the Great Depression, bankers leaped out of windows because they were ruined.  In the Great Recession, they made the government cash hundreds of millions of dollars of bonus checks for them.

Which means that back then, bankers had an incentive to fix things.  Industrialists all over America pledged their entire fortunes to trying to fight the depression.  There was simply no way to sit on your pile of gold and watch others suffer.  Everybody was in it together.

Today, they couldn't care less.  They're doing great.  What's your problem?

In the Great Depression, they took millions of Americans and gave them jobs producing public works that served as a foundation for prosperity for nearly a century.  This gave people dignity.  It gave folks good work habits.  It gave folks pride.  It gave them a leg-up, not a hand-out.  It also gave us roads and parks and huge WPA buildings that are still standing today.

In the Great Recession, they decided the best thing to do is to pay people to stay at home... for 2 years... without working at all.

In the Great Depression, the consequences of the economic catastrophe were felt at all socioeconomic levels. 

In the Great Recession, the government is making sure that only middle class and poor people suffer.

In the Great Depression, the government ensured that banks continued to lend and invest. 

In the Great Recession, the government gives banks money at no cost, ensuring that banks don't have to do any actual banking in order to reap record profits.

Economists still aren't sure that any of the government programs enacted during the Great Depression helped at all.  There's just as much evidence that the natural business cycle merely took a long time to recover, or that World War II, not government stimulus, is what brought the world out of the global depression.

The biggest difference, though?  Back then, the government wasn't engaged in acts that were clearly morally wrong.  Enhancing the financial fortunes of the very people who caused the problem?  Paying people to do nothing?  Setting up a "recovery" whose only real facet is the availability of free money that ensures the continued prosperity of banks, meanwhile removing any incentive that banks do anything that benefits anyone other than themselves?

If there is a way to mismanage this crisis any more than they're already doing, I'd like to see it.  I fear that we are stuck with the two least capable presidents in US history at a time when it would have been nice to see somebody with some ability.

Riding the Storm Out

The economic collapse of 2008 and subsequent great recession (or whatever history will call this thing) had one early warning sign for me in July of 2008. 

Things could not have been better for me.  The business I started 3 years earlier was booming.  Life was good.  We were taking my son to a Mudhens game with about 6 of his friends to celebrate his birthday.

Just prior to leaving, I checked my bank statement online and found that checks were bouncing left and right.  The deposits I'd made from my HELOC were rescinded and there was not enough money in the bank to cover the checks I'd written.

What in the world happened?  It's not that I didn't have money.  I had plenty.  However, I was applying to acquire a second licensed territory in my business (I'm a Servpro franchisee) and was not drawing any money out of the business so we could meet a requirement for net liquidity. 

Instead of drawing money from my business, I was going to live on my HELOC for a couple of months, get the 2nd license, then pay off the HELOC. 

I was astounded.  I hadn't bounced a check since undergrad, 15 years before.  This was something that just never happened to me.

I called Chase and they explained that they had electronically re-appraised all the properties of their HELOC owners and reduced our credit lines.  Apparently they sent out some notification in the mail, which I either hadn't noticed, or hadn't received.  To make matters worse, on-line, they continued to show my older, larger HELOC limit.

Of course I was furious.  Mostly because I had 4 different Chase accounts and had been a customer for over a decade.  I couldn't believe that they didn't have the courtesy to either send me an e-mail or pick up a phone and let me know this before they did it.

She reiterated that I wasn't singled out for this treatment.  She also said that this affected over 280,000 account holders and that they couldn't contact each one, personally. 

I had more than enough money to settle matters.  I paid off the HELOC, and closed the other Chase accounts.  It had caused us to stumble, and to not-get our 2nd territory license, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't the worst development in the world.

Two months later, the financial markets started to unravel. 

Personally, I watched with more than a little trepidation and fear.  I grew up in the 70s, and joined the Army in the early 80s, which made me a recession baby of sorts.  I knew what it was like to stand in line for jobs as a bus-boy with 40+ year old men.  I knew what it was like to walk into a McDonalds where they had no job openings. 

Those were dark times for our country and I didn't want to see them return.

The press has documented how the government made an unprecedented intervention to save the bonuses of bankers and keep the very villains who caused this problem in piles of money.

They said it was necessary to prevent unemployment from going over 8% and to prevent liquidity from drying up. 

As soon as the bankers had their multimillion dollar bonuses, unemployment went over 10% and they never made any effort, whatsoever, to provide liquidity to the broad economy.

We bailed out Wall Street, but left Main Street to suffer.

For the next year, I was stunned to see my business continue to prosper while the rest of the national, and especially the local economy tanked.  We were setting sales records and adding staff every month.

Then, things must have reached a critical mass, because in mid 2009, business dropped like it had fallen off the edge of a table.

Small business, especially one like mine, requires the ability to see around corners.  In this regard, I failed as a business owner. 

I kept my staffing up, hoping business would return.  Also, hoping not to ruin the lives of my workers, who didn't deserve any of this.  I burned through all our reserve cash and tapped out all available business and personal credit.

After seeing my cash position deteriorate by six figures, I was out of money.  At that point, what had appeared to be a short-term slowdown was now in its sixth month.  That's not a slowdown.  That's a permanent change of business condition. 

I started letting people go in November.  We avoided any layoffs after mid-November so as not to ruin anybody's Christmas.  Besides, business frequently picked up with the bad weather.

Business stayed weak, though and layoffs continued in January and February. 

Personally, I'm optimistic.  My company was profitable every single year of operations.  We didn't lose money because the business model became no longer viable.  Nor did we lose money because our volume couldn't provide for profitable operations.

My business can make money at very low volumes.  We'd have to be looking at a monumental train-wreck not to have enough volume to remain a viable business.  So, we didn't lose money because we couldn't make money.

We lost money because I tried to keep people employed.  Both because I felt it was my duty as a human being, and because I felt it was my duty as an entrepreneur.

However, when it came to it, the choice was to reorganize as a smaller organization or risk bankruptcy.  I reorganized and we should be fine, now.

Still, I am furious.  Being an entreprenuer is one of very few callings in my life.  It is my chosen profession.  In a largely unconventional life, it is the one conventional path I took.  I graduated from the best business school I could attend (Case Western Reserve University).  I paid my dues in a series of jobs in Fortune 500 companies.  I earned my stripes in project management and management.

I believe in the power of business and the goodness of markets.

Which is why I'm probably MORE outraged than many at what our government has done.  They have literally rewarded the very evil-doers who have caused this misery and left the rest of us to rot. 

More remarkable is that not only was the Bush Administration, through Henry Paulson, the embodiment of complete and total evil, but the Obama Administration, through Tim Geithner, has decided that being an abject black-hole of humanity and morality is the right thing to do, too.

A small businessperson understands:  you mess up, you pay the consequences.  When I keep people on the payroll, I do it with my wallet.  When I take a chance, I take a chance not only with my money, but with my very future.  I gamble with my son's ability to go to the college of his choice.  I gamble with modest financial resources that took me two decades to accumulate.  I gamble with the stakes being a comfortable retirement in Arizona, or a retirement shopping for groceries in the cat food aisle in some desolate industrial midwestern town.

Big businesspeople?  Honestly, every single bailed out firm should be out of business right now.  Their shareholders should be wiped out and their employees should be jobless.  Why aren't they?  Because the government has stolen trillions upon trillions of dollars from the taxpayer and given it to crooks and thieves. 

They took my money.  Money that I paid every quarter to the IRS, whether or not it was easy, or even prudent to do.  They stole it.  They got rich with it.

I am left with nothing but my personal resources to keep myself and my remaining employees afloat.  Not only do we have to make enough money to save ourselves, we have to make enough money so the government can take it and give it to multimillionaires who are too stupid to run a viable company.

I remember seeing people like, say, Michael Moore, protesting and losing his mind over things like the 2000 election and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I'd never seen people so angry.  It was as if he'd lost his mind, entirely and become a being of nothing but seething, irrational hatred.

Now, I'm starting to get it.  I don't agree with his stands on those issues, but I'm starting to see that what had him so insane was that his fundamental sense of justice had just been annihilated.  Everything he had believed about what is good and just and fair had been assaulted.

That is how I feel about our current financial situation and the government's solution of No Banker Left Behind combined with bread and circuses for the unwashed masses. 

I didn't just believe in capitalism, I devoted my life to it.  I was an acolyte in its hallowed academic halls.  I became a deacon of the church in my rise to management in corporate America.  I became a high priest when I funded, created and ran my own business.

I BELIEVED in capitalism and I put my money where my mouth was.  I believed that capitalism was not just the best way for the wealthy to benefit, but to provide a maximization of wealth for all of society so that everybody would ultimately benefit.

Just as I BELIEVE in the United States of America as a force for everything that is good and right and fair.  For that, I have walked the walk, not once, but twice in my lifetime by volunteering for military service.

Now?  The United States of America has represented everything that is bad, and wrong and unfair by a complete perversion of capitalism.  Because of the government, all the bad parts of capitalism (collecting wealth at the top while those at the bottom suffer) are alive and well and none of the good parts of capitalism (needing to invest in business at all levels and providing meaningful work and prosperity for everyone) is working well at all.

What will happen in the next few years?  Nobody really knows.  Small business is an act of faith.  Despite what I have seen, I have no choice but to remain one of the faithful.

For the first time in my lifetime, though, I hate my government for what they've done.  I've watched them perpetrate an unmitigated evil in the name of expediency.  I just don't know what to believe anymore. 

So, Michael Moore, if there's any room on the stark-raving loony bench, I'd appreciate it if you could move over and let me take a seat.

The AIG Bonus Debacle

Like many folks, I'm outraged about the continuing bonuses given to people in the trading unit at AIG that essentially brought on the downfall of AIG and was responsible in no small measure for the global financial collapse.

There are a lot of facets to this story, so I'm just going to share my thoughts on them.

First, the Obama administration is handling this very badly.  I'm not criticizing Kenneth Feinberg, who I think is, overall, doing a good job.  However, the president is expressing mock outrage at the top, yet below him, his minions have been quietly working to make sure these bonuses get paid.

Senator Dodd stripped out compensation limits from the initial TARP bill at the request of somebody in the Obama administration.  We can only guess who, but my money is on Geithner.

So, at the first, the administration talked one game while playing another:  act outraged, but make sure the bonuses get paid.

Geithner is also hacking everybody off by saying that if we implement this tax on the banks, that the taxpayer won't have to worry that their money is being used to pay bonuses.

What this misses is that people are angry because their fundamental sense of justice is seriously offended.  People who have worked hard their entire lives are now struggling or unemployed.  The economy is weak and small businesses are dropping like flies.  Big businesses aren't necessarily doing so hot, either. 

The problem, which apparently nobody in the Obama administration understands, is that it is morally wrong to give bonuses to the people at AIG.

I'm not talking "wrong" in some worker's manifesto sense that it's wrong for one man to make more money than another.  This is America.  We idolize sports and entertainment figures who make more in a year than our entire block makes in a lifetime. 

It's wrong because they don't deserve it.  Their company is losing money.  In the rest of the country, a company that loses money means pink slips.  For these clowns, it means gigantic bonuses. 

It's wrong because this is the very trading unit that put AIG in peril.  Bad enough that their company doesn't make money, but these guys are the very type of clowns who brought on the global economic collapse.

It's just plain wrong. 

Now, it is true that this happened under Bush's watch, not Obama's.  Congressional Democrats brought up the idea of compensation limits as a condition of TARP. 

Hank Paulson demanded that no compensation limits be enacted.  His logic?  That it would be too difficult. 

Too difficult?  More difficult than bankruptcy?

The reality is that Paulson, like Geithner, is from the culture of Wall Street and you will notice that the one and only thing in this whole economic mess that has come through unscathed is Wall Street compensation.

So, when the Obama folks say they got dealt a crappy hand, they're right.  They did.

And then they played that crappy hand as badly as possible.

At this point, the contracts expire next month.  No more guaranteed bonuses at AIG for a while.

The one and only bright side to all this?  Feinberg has said that he will take past bonus payments into account when setting future compensation.

I know how I'd do it.  I just wonder if he has the balls.  Being that he's from the Obama administration, the answer is almost certainly "no" since this administration is pretty much the nutless wonder of American politics.

I would take the top 20bonus recipients.  Set their compensation to about $30,000 a year.  Scare the living piss out of them.  They will more than likely quit.

And they'll be quitting in the midst of a very weak employment picture.  Wall Street's unemployment rate is right there with the rest of the country.

Once they're replaced and operations are hitting their stride again, I'd take the next 20.  Repeat the entire process until every one of these amoral jerks who accepted a bonus has either quit or is working for $30,000 a year.

Sounds mean spirited?  Sounds vindictive? 

These people ruined lives.  And they profited immensely from it.  I defy anybody to shed a tear for somebody who just got an average of about $2 million in compensation over the past 3 years.

Resolutions, Goals and Milestones for 2010

1.  I resolve to be nicer in 2010 and for the rest of my life.  This is part of a gradual transformation from being a cranky, sarcastic, negative young man to trying to be a more pleasant and compassionate old man.  I think I can turn up the effort a bit here coming up.

2.  I need to get in shape.  I don't know how, just yet.  I really, really want to run one more marathon before I die.  Working against me in fitness goals is the fact that I have one shoulder and one knee that are just about shot.  Getting old blows.  However, I know I can do more than I'm doing now.  In fact, just walking a little bit every day would be better than I'm doing now. 

3.  I will play more music.  I fought like mad for the first 30 years of my life to be able to play more music, and who knows... maybe it was the slow realization that I'd never really play professionally, but I eventually started giving up.  However, my resolution is to play at least a little guitar every day.  Sometime during 2010, I also intend to finally buy those API Preamps and start doing some recording. 

4.  I will start diversifying my business holdings and product offerrings.  Now that I've gotten the minority business certification, I need to start competing for more contracts from businesses that are looking for minority contractors.  Ultimately, my macro-level business goal is to start up the aircraft leasing business unit, but that requires capital, which I had, but which got all wiped out with the terrible performance of my business in the 2nd half of 2009.  So, this goal will be a bit hazy:  to simply expand business holdings to the degree I'm capable of.  At the least, to get the lawn-care business unit up and running for next year.

5.  I will learn to golf with Logan and spend some time with him on the links.  We both need lessons and this is something I want him to develop as a lifelong sport.  Any time spent with my son is time well spent.  This is a great chance to do something that we can both enjoy, and that will serve him well later in life.  In this same spirit:  to continue to fully experience and share the joys of raising my son. This is a big year for him. We're going to be doing travel baseball and that'll be an adventure. I also would like to provide him with some more experiences that would provide for a more well-rounded upbringing, but not sure what I should do. He's been expressing interest in building things and I will try and nurture that interest with some simple projects for him to build.


6.  To get myself deployable with the Navy Reserve.  The Supply Corps BQC-NR program has been really difficult for me.  As folks know, my study skills aren't the best and I probably fried the few brain cells I had that were capable of this sort of thing when I went to Case.  However, it's possible to get through this program.  Plus, I'm so fond of the folks in my original class that I'm really busting my hump to do the final 2 week graduation with them in March.  After that, I look for a unit and can deploy.  My goal is to deploy as soon as possible, but the opportunities are drying up pretty rapidly.  I hear the National Guard is short of Junior Officers, though.  I may check with them. 

7.  I will visit my friends again.  It's been a long time since the last manly-man-cation I had with Patrick and Horne.  Need to do something bigger this time.  Maybe at the beach or something.  Maybe even a father and son type dealie.  So, my goal is to make sure I see all my good friends sometime in 2010, and to make at least one trip to DFW to see folks there that I haven't seen in decades. 

8.  Next year I will go to Hawaii for the first time ever.  Not so much that I chose it, but Servpro's convention is there.  Still, it's a first for me.  May as well make the most of it.

9.  Will shoot in 2009.  Ironically, my participation in the Navy Reserve has kept me from doing competitive shooting in 2009, but I'm ready to get going again.  It's an expensive and time-consuming hobby, but I've already borne most of the expense and I have the time.  This is one of those longstanding goals I've had, to get the designation "Distinguished Marksman".  It is especially poignant if I can do it while serving in the Navy.  If memory serves, there are fewer than 2,000 distinguished marksmen in the entire history of the Navy.  It would be a heck of a thing if I could be one of them.

10.  I felt like I should have a debt-related goal, but it was hard to think of an appropriate one.  I'm not one of the "zero debt" zealots.  Debt is a tool, like any other.  If you can't wield it soundly, then you should avoid it.  However, it can be used prudently and productively.

I have debt, but most of it doesn't concern me.  Primarily because most of it is at interest rates that are either 0% or less than 3%.  However, I have a few notes that are at higher interest rates.  Three of them are business related.  Two Isuzu Cabover notes and one note for a large equipment purchase I made a couple of years ago.  I also have my home mortgage, which, tax-adjusted, is less than 3%, but it is also on an ARM, which, if interest rates rise, could adjust to a rate that's more expensive. 

(Unlike the well-publicized evil ARMs out there, mine is extraordinary.  It is limited to no more than 8%.  At the current time, it is at something like 3.15% for 2010.  So, including the tax consequences, it makes absolutely no sense to pay the thing off.)

So, my goal is to have enough money that I COULD pay off all the notes that are over 3% interest.  That's more money than I can save in a single year, but I think I'll start by saying I should try to save enough that I could pay off the Isuzu trucks.  The next year, enough for the trucks and the large equipment note.  The year after that, enough to pay off the mortgage if interest rates should skyrocket.

So, ultimately, my long-term goal would be to have enough cash on hand that I could pay off ALL my debt if I needed to. 

That is a good compromise, because I don't think resolving to pay off, say, the handful of notes I have at 0%, or debt I hold at 1.9% or 2.9% really makes much sense.  Liquidity means a lot more than that, and 2.9% is a great price to pay for liquidity.


So, that's that.  All the resolutions I have for next year.

A Tale of Two Popes

A recent discussion got me thinking.  A person was criticizing Pope Pius XII for what many have perceived as not taking a strong enough stand against Nazi Germany during WWII.

I tend to agree.  Granted, there were some realities involved.  Namely, that the church was headquartered in a virtually undefended city/state in the middle of an Axis power.  The criticisms of Pius XII are pretty well documented, and in my opinion, relatively well-founded.

This has become a bit of a hot-button issue as he is now being considered for canonization.

However, people all too often don't hear about his predecessor, Pius XI.

If ever there were a model of principled opposition to the practices of the Nazis, it was Pius XI.  It started with the 1937 encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge.  It was, I believe, the first encyclical ever written in German.  It was published and distributed throughout Germany and the church read it aloud to Roman Catholics.

The result?  Numerous Catholics were rounded up and thrown into concentration camps for it.  Why?  It was basically a direct opposition to the practices of the Nazis.

It included such statements as:

"Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds."

Basically, that you can be a good Christian, but you cannot reconcile racism or despotism or the excesses of nationalism with your Christian faith.

It was as close as anybody came to punching Adolph Hitler in the nose.

Keep in mind the political climate at the time, too.  The entire world was a group of Hitler appeasers.  Neville Chamberlain was perhaps the most notable, but frankly, nobody wanted to oppose the Nazis.

As if bopping der fuhrer in the nose wasn't enough, he went even further in a public address in the Vatican to Belgian pilgrims in 1938: "Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites".

A person once asked me if Jesus would have told his followers to be true to Christian teachings if the result were that they would be rounded up and thrown into jails by the Romans.

I think we all know the answer to that question. 

Because of this, Pius XII may be rationalized as bowing to the political realties of his day.  I consider him the equivalent of Switzerland.  This is not something I say as a compliment.

However, Pius XI was the true hero, virtually alone in the entire world at the time.  Speaking out against a grave injustice and continuing to do so, even when the consequences were dire.  Even when the rest of the world clearly did not have his back and gave a collective yawn when Catholics were rounded up and sent to their doom.

Not every man is a great man.  Not every era produces one.  However, they do come along now and then.  All the more important that we recognize them when they come.

Adventure in the Land of Remote Control

I really didn't have a killer present in mind for Logan this year.  In past years, I'd be the one buying the one major, gonzo present, like a ride-on electric car, or a 50cc mini-bike, or a 50cc four-wheeler.

Really, I can't think of many other things for him.  Really, until he gets into musical instruments, which may take a few more years (or EVER), there just isn't that much that he wants or needs that he hasn't got or is getting.

So, a few days before Xmas, I saw a TV ad for a local hobby store where they showed all their remote control stuff.

I figured I'd get him a really nice car.  Remote control cars are a tricky gift because the stuff you can buy at Wal-Mart or Toys R Us is inexpensive (relatively), but the stuff breaks.  So, it's a very non-durable toy.  Works great until the first thing goes haywire, then you have to throw the whole shebang away.

We've seen it all, from toys where wheels feel off on Christmas day, to toys with proprietary battery packs and chargers that, once misplaced, rendered the toys useless.

So, I figured I should spring for something that may at least outlast the current year.  Previous r/c purchases usually didn't meet that criteria.

I went to the store and after asking a lot of questions, got Logan a Traxxas Slash, which has a lot of advantages to it.  The main one is that it is relatively waterproof.  So, it can be used outdoors, year-round. 

These are, apparently, meant to be raced against each other, and can attain speeds in the 20-30 mph range.  With optional brushless motors, they can go as fast as 40 mph+ according to the salesman.

I figured we should get our feet wet with a relatively standard model.  So, I bought the standard 2WD Slash.

It included a charger and battery.  I charged the battery overnight and the next day, it was ready to roll.

Worked awesome... until the battery wore out.  They only last about 20 minutes or so.  Did some research, and the charger that came with it takes literally about 20 hours to charge the battery.

So, went back and bought a better charger.  It cost about $44.  Brought it home and at max charging speed, it can charge a battery in 45 minutes.  With two batteries, that means Logan can play with this thing essentially until he loses interest if he starts with two charged batteries.

That part went really, really well.  I'd recommend one of these cars for anybody interested in a remote controlled car.  They're a bit pricey (over $200), but as the video on my Facebook page shows, they run really fast and unless you smash them into something, are relatively indestructible. 

The next thing I got was an R/C flight simulator, bundled with an actual R/C controller.  This is a Phoenix R/C simulator and a Spektrum DX5E transmitter. 

Frankly, they didn't work worth a damn.  For some reason, they bundled the software with a controller that requires an extra adapter.  I seldom got it to work right and eventually the adapter broke.  Also, the software requires a USB dongle for security purposes.  As any IT person can tell you:  never, if you can help it, buy a product that involves a dongle. 

So, anyway, this is broken, doesn't work, and before it broke, only worked intermittently.  (The reason it broke was that it only worked if you pressed the dongle and adapter really hard into the side of the transmitter... eventually one press too many at the wrong angle and it was broken.)

The distributor (who created the bundle) is closed for the weekend.  So, I'll be testing their customer support on Monday.  The hobby store said that if things don't work out, they'll see what they can do to get the store owner involved and see if they can get the issue resolved.

Now, the transmitter, itself, works just fine.  In fact, I bought a little indoor helicopter called a Blade MCX E-flite.  Looks a lot like those little Air Hogs you see for sale for $30. 

If you have a controller, these cost about $90.  (The store charged me $100... lucky me.)

These are a lot of fun to fly, but the batteries literally last only about 8 minutes.  The included charger works off of 4 AA batteries.  No, seriously, it uses batteries to charge batteries.

Went back to the store to see if they had a charger that plugs into the wall.  Being the day after Christmas, their shelves were pretty much picked clean.

However, the guy did tell me how I could take an old cell-phone charger and a soldering iron and solder up the charger so it works off the cell phone charger instead of batteries.  I did it, and it worked flawlessly.

Then, I got a little too cocky and tried to fly the chopper down the stairs.  It crashed and a little part broke.  They ordinarily stock it.  It costs only $6.00.  Again, being that this is the day after Xmas, they were sold out.  I ordered one and it should arrive this week.

This, to me, is the real value of buying the slightly more expensive stuff.  They have parts for them and they can be repaired.  So, yeah, the R/C car was over $200, but a cheapo would be between $50 and 100 and I've seldom seen one last more than a month. 

You can buy Air Hog helicopters that look a lot like the Blade I bought, but when those break, they're done for. 

I really wasn't intending to get into a new hobby.  I'm debating buying another car so I can race Logan with it (or his friends can), or an R/C airplane, which is something I've wanted since I was a little kid.

I'll try to shy away.  This hobby is expensive and time-consuming.  Though it is tempting to get into flying for just a few hundred bucks, versus the thousands upon thousands to actually fly a real aircraft.  Though, flying a real aircraft has the advantage of actually being able to transport you somewhere.

So, overall, thumbs up on the little chopper and two thumbs up on the r/c car.  Thumbs down on the crappy flight sim and controller bundle, even though the sim and the controller are fine.  They just didn't bother to bundle together a bunch of stuff that works well together.