A few weeks ago, I wrote about becoming a RedBox fan and while I may still occasionally rent from Redbox, my latest experiences have me a little disappointed.  I went to a Redbox a couple of times and the movie I was looking for wasn’t available.  Worse yet, a movie I was dying to seen seems to be gone from the Redbox.   I know that you can request/order a movie and have it sent somewhere but my schedule doesn’t work that way so enter Netflix.

Many years ago, I was a Netflix customer but the whole mailing DVD was too cumbersome for me.   I always worried someone would steal the disks from my mailbox and I hate going to the Post Office with a vengeance so I ultimately ended up canceling my subscription.   A week ago, I took the kids to my brother’s house to use the pool and my brother enlightened me on Netflix.   I told him I had used the service years ago and canceled it because of the mailing issue but he told me that you could order movies and shows online and watch instantly.   Curious and worried about the quality of video, I inquired about the quality of the movies over the internet and he said it was great.

I wasn’t totally convinced but I decided to give it a try and lo and behold, the quality of the streaming was excellent!   So far we’ve seen a couple of movies and a few TV shows and they all streamed perfectly!   I am amazed at the quality and content.   I only wish they had more online content but so far they have plenty of stuff for me to see!

There are a few things I don’t like, first you need to install Microsoft’s Silverlight to watch movies on a computer and Firefox doesn’t work to watch movies, you need to use Safari and I presume Internet Explorer if you’re a Windows user.   Secondly, for some reason, you need a disk to watch movies from your Wii console and I don’t know why when my Wii has a web browser?

I can’t wait for this service to advance where I can watch any TV show ever made.   I occasionally catch old episodes of Cheers and I thought it would be cool to see the first show again to relive the 80′s nostalgia!   My son has been asking about watching old episodes of Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and a few other Sci-Fi shows and why they aren’t readily available.    Evidently Dr. Who episodes are available in a limited fashion so he’s been watching those too.

It’s easy to understand why this company has a 6 billion market cap and why it’s trading at $130!

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This weekend I decided I wanted to treat myself to something really nice.   I wasn’t sure what I wanted but as I headed to the grocery store to pick up a few needed items for dinner I ran across the meat counter and Kobe beef caught my eye.    There were two rows of beef consisting of New York strips or Ribeye.   The portions were rather large and I doubted if I could eat an entire steak or whether I should but I decided to buy two New York strip steaks.

I got home, seasoned the steaks and powered up the grill.   About twenty minutes later we sat down for dinner and I cut up the two steaks into four pieces the size of each of our fists.   I’ve been teaching the kids that an appropriate portion of meat to eat is the size of your clenched fist.   Surprisingly the two steaks were the perfect size for each of us.

As we all devoured the steaks, we were all in a state of bliss!   The steaks were THE most delicious I have ever had anywhere on the planet!   The most astounding thing is that I did not do any extensive preparation as I simply dashed some Greek seasoning on the steaks and slowly cooked them on the grill.

In contrast, we ended up having non-Kobe ribeye grilled the same way the next day and it just wasn’t as good.   The kobe has better marbling and the meat is so much more tender than anything else I’ve ever had.

The bad news of course is the cost.   The kobe beef is $30 per pound!   Yes, that’s THIRTY dollars a pound so the two steaks cost about $60 and the entire meal was around $100 since we had it with wine, salad, and portobella mushrooms (these are $5/lb).

The kids loved it so much they now want all their meats to be Kobe and for now, I’m a super fan of Kobe beef!

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Over the years I have accumulated large amounts of electronic data including video, photos, music and documents of all types and I decided that I finally needed a solution to store and protect this stuff.   In the past I would buy external hard drives and back up my files but after purchasing a half dozen external drives, the clutter was getting horrendous (USB cables, power cables, etc) least of all the management of all this data from drive to drive.

I finally broke down and bought a Thecus N7700+ seven bay storage array box.    The box cost me almost $1000 and that didn’t include any drives!   I went out and bought seven 2TB Seagate XT drives which were $200 each.   The total investment in my box is now $2,400 but I have to confess that I love the box!

I have configured the device with a RAID 6 configuration.  This essentially means that TWO drives would need to fail before I lose any data of the array.   I will also have about 8 TB of storage available to me for almost anything I need (note:  one of the drives is an online spare not used in the array).  As an added bonus, the box has USB ports for me to attach a couple of the extra 1TB external drives I have lying around!

With my son, wife, myself and soon daughter equipped with laptops, there was also a tremendous amount of data that needed to be backed up for everybody: photos, music, video clips, etc.

There isn’t much to setting up the storage array.  You essentially pop the drives in the cages and slide them in but I do have a major warning for anyone buying Seagate XT Barracuda drives.   The screws that come with the drive are not completely flush so it is impossible to mount the drive in the rails and have it slide into the slots.   At the moment, I used two pennies inserted inside between the drive and rails so they slide into the box.   I am currently looking for drives that are completely flush to fix this problem.    I’m not sure if Seagate or Thecus is to blame for this mess but it’s something everyone should be aware of before buying!

All of the configuration is done through a fairly simple and intuitive interface however you will likely need some technical help if you’re not tech savvy.  Because I have a mix of Macs and Windows at home, I’ve had to do some extra configuration.  For example for macs to see the storage array you will need to configure AFP (apple filing protocol).  For Windows you may choose to setup iSCSI or ADS (active directory services) to work your backups.  If you have linux machines, you can setup SAMBA.   Personally, I like to run native protocols whenever possible so AFP for Mac is enabled.

Although I haven’t configured it yet, the device is capable of offering a “webDisk” to store files on your array while you’re away through a web browser.  Additionally, you can create online photo albums to share with friends and family.   At some point, I will add my laser printer to the box too as it acts as a print server but I’m still playing around with some other stuff for now.

Was is worth the cost?   For me it absolutely is as I will now have some piece of mind that my decade of data (photos, music, video, etc) will be stored safely with a high level of protection.   It has taken me 10 years to accumulate what I have and with an online array, I will have instant access to all these videos.  Eventually I hope Thecus finds a way to stream some of my video online to share with my family across the globe!

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So I’m flying all over the place and my life consists of airport –> hotel –> office –> hotel –> airport, rinse and repeat.   I’m in an airport with a lot of other travel zombies and I see a large queue in front of something called REDBOX.  It’s the DVD rental thingy they have at a lot of McDonalds.   I knew what the REDBOX was for but I didn’t know that you could drop them off in ANY redbox.   I always thought you had to return to the same RedBox you rented them from hence I never used them because I am seldom in the same place twice.

But I managed to pick up a couple of movies for $1 and watch them on the plane then dropped them off in my destination across the country!   Airlines can kiss their $5 rentals goodbye and that model is effectively dead!   I only wish EVERY airport had a REDBOX and I could catch up on dozens of movies I haven’t seen yet.

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I’m approaching my one year anniversary back at work and as this blog indicates, I’ve barely had time to write consistently and post daily.  I’m spending most of my time traveling all over the U.S. and I will soon likely end up traveling internationally for considerable periods of time which will likely lead to even fewer postings.

So what have I learned?

I’ve learned that I spent almost no money when I travel.   My meals are free, my hotel is free, my transportation is free and I don’t have too much time to buy anything except a few trinkets for the kids when I head back.

I’ve remembered why executives get richer and richer, little to no expenses when traveling and living it up at the best hotels with the best seats on the plane!

I’ve also been banking some serious cash in case all hell breaks loose and we dive into a depression.  I’ve long believed we would have a double dip and it looks like we may be headed there again very soon.

I’m also planning on returning to at least one more semester of MBA school for the cheap student loan money.  I’ve been banking this cash as it only has a 3% interest rate and the money is practically free.   I’m not sure what I’ll do with the cash but the tuition is fairly low at the school I’m attending.   I pocket over 10k every semester.

Lastly, a few of my peers have found work after being laid off for quite some time.  A colleague recently quit a job because he’s got a few offers on the table.   The key thing though is that these guys have very technical and high demand skill set for the moment.   I still know quite a few people unemployed.

I’ll be traveling again next week and for the foreseeable future but I’ll try to write more frequently when possible.

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So during my lunch break I head over to Lowe’s to buy some gardening tools and I’m now wondering if Lowe’s is hiring people for the Post Office because of the horrible service.  I have about $60 worth of tools and am at the quick self check out nearly completing my transaction when the attendant comes up to me and says she needs to see my ID.  I say, “sure” and reach into my wallet, open it up and my drivers license is gone.   At this point I’m not sure where it is but I’m guessing my wife or kids “borrowed” it for some reason so I tell the Lowe’s employee that I don’t seem to have it.    She gets into a panic and doesn’t know what to do, “I’ll have to check with my supervisor.”  So she leaves for a few minutes and comes back with someone (guessing it’s the supervisor).   “Sorry sir, it’s policy that we need to see id.”

I tell the lady that I don’t have my ID but my Corporate Badge is hanging from my belt (with my name AND picture on it) but says the store policy is to see drivers license.   I say, “Oh well, it’s not my loss it’s yours” and I walk out.

Frustrated, I head over to Costco to buy a compact flash card for my digital camera for my upcoming vacation trip.  I pickup the placard for the item I want and head over the checkout.  It dawns on me that I still don’t have my drivers license but I can’t remember if Costco checks or not so I proceed.   She scans my credit card, charges the items then asks for my ID!   I tell her that I don’t have it with me and she says, “do you have anything with your picture on it?”

I show her my corporate badge with my name, employer, and picture on it and she says, “that’s good enough.”

Now I understand fraud at retail outlets is pretty bad but to apply blanket policies without thinking the process through is pretty stupid.   I guess it is possible that a ring of fraudsters are dressing up like executives and heading over to retail outlets like Lowes and loading up on $60 in garden tools with stolen credit cards to make out like bandits but the premise of the story is fairly implausible.    The difference between the brain dead Lowe’s employees with poor training and the Genius Costco employees is fairly obvious in this example.   Perhaps the Costco employee violated a policy but I am more inclined to believe that she is allowed to make a judgment call and made the determination that someone dressing up in a business attire, heading to the shop during lunch hours for a single item wasn’t out to rip the company off.

I also know how these policies get implemented because I’ve sat in board rooms with idiot Vice Presidents of Risk Management and their like where they come up with these inane blanket policies that irritate and drive customers away.    This is how it goes:

CEO: “We’re losing revenue to fraud, we need to do something about it!”

VP Risk: “I got a brilliant idea, we’ll make mandatory ID checks on all credit card purchases, that should do the trick!”

CEO: “Ok, it’s your call if you think that will help!”

And here’s the reality:

CEO: “We’re losing revenue to upset customers walking away from our stupid and inane policies!”

VP Risk: “Yeah but fraud is down….”

The absolute biggest irony here is that the Lowe’s clerk asked if I had a DEBIT card to pay for the purchases!   I can only surmise that if I were a thief and using a stolen debit card (along with the pin) that the loss would be on the customer not on Lowe’s because that’s the only way I can imagine this policy allows for presumably stolen debit card customers walk away with merchandise while the opposite is true for credit cards.

So the moral of the story is Lowe’s is now on my shitlist/blacklist of company’s I won’t do business with for a while and I only went there because it was nearby the office.   I’ll stop at Home Depot this evening and pick up the items there.    By the way, Home Depot always asks for ID too but I’ve been there so often the workers actually recognize me when I walk in and they don’t ask anymore.    The Home Depot I visit clearly doesn’t have brain dead employees either.

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Wow!  For the first time in a very long time, I’m actually getting a REFUND from Uncle Sam to the tune of over $4,000.   And all it took was for me to lose my job for six months and the government to lose about 75k in income tax revenue from me.   I feel like Uncle Sam is saying, “Sorry we gouged you for so long for so much, here’s $4,000!”

Actually this is the first year I didn’t exercise options, cash out stock, or rake in huge bonuses during the past year.   The only “earned income” I had was unemployment insurance from the state.    What really helped were all the freaking tax deductions:  my entire MBA tuition saved me a cool $2200,  student loan interest saved me some money, etc.   The only regret is that I didn’t wait a little longer to buy a car.  I purchased a new car in 2008 and if I had waited another year, I could have saved another a few k in taxes.  Wow, what a great tax return that would have been!   If I had bought a new house that might have been another 8k.  Sometimes, timing is everything!

Oh well, I’m expecting to be back in the higher tax bracket this year so I’m sure I’ll owe Uncle Sam a few thousand this time next year but at least I can buy a new LCD TV finally

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Remember the housing boom and the rallying cry, “this time it’s different” and of course smart people knew the bubble was just about to burst because the world via media was saturated with pure real estate mania but a funny thing has happened.  We’ve now reached “doom and gloom” mania all over the place.  Almost every website I visit has some sort of doom and gloom “Survivalist” newsletter, book, article or link to “surviving” the next apocalyptic depression.

Let me be clear about a few things:

1. There are some huge fundamental structural problems with the US economy which still need to be solved.

2. There are huge liabilities that need to be dealt with such as pensions, social security, medicaid/medicare, et al.

As bad as things are, they are going to be obviously worse in Europe, Asia, South America and anywhere in Africa.   Let’s take a look at just a few articles that have come out this week.

First up, this article in the Chicago Sun Times with the headline,

‘Doomsday is here for the state of Illinois’

How does that headline grab you?  Oh no!  Doom and Gloom!  The article reads,

To become solvent, the state must enact the largest tax-increase package in Illinois history, whack another $2 billion from already starved government programs and wrest major financial concessions from the state’s unionized work force, a nonpartisan government watchdog contends.

Next up, we have this article from the UK’s Observer, it starts with this headline,

“Americans stock up to be ready for end of the world”

The article reads,

Tess Pennington, 33, is a mother of three children, and lives in the sprawling outskirts of Houston, Texas. But she is not taking the happy safety of her suburban existence lightly.

Like a growing army of fellow Americans, Pennington is learning how to grow her own food, has stored emergency rations in her home and is taking courses on treating sickness with medicinal herbs.

There are tons of articles pointing out bankruptcies, commercial real estate problems, sovereign defaults and other rigmarole.   Check out this article on the “gloom and doom” in breakfast sales:

Fast-food breakfast sales decline as fewer head to work

The nation’s high unemployment rate has thrown millions of people out of work, scared shoppers away from stores and threatened the economic recovery. Now it’s taking a bite out of breakfast.

Breakfast sales had grown at a ravenous pace during the boom years as busy workers scarfed down sausage biscuits on the way to the office, fueling a $57 billion business and accounting for as much as a quarter of sales at some fast-food chains. Chains opened earlier and expanded their morning menus to accommodate the traffic as lunch and dinner sales flatlined.

Do you remember this classic bubble top?

2005

Life, like bubbles, is a pendulum that swings BOTH ways.   I’ve been looking for this moment since this post in October 2008 and it’s almost here.   The more the media pumps gloom and doom articles the more I know we’re close to the absolute bottom.   Given the 20% inflation pricing in the energy markets, I’d say we’re gearing up for the roaring teen’s  and roaring twenties (2013 – 2025) and this teenage economy has raging hormones!    Don’t be a fool and jump the gun, cautious optimism is now warranted!

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If there’s one good thing about the recession and millions of people being unemployed it is the fact that people who do have a job are desperate to keep it and as such are going out of their way to help people out.    I went in to Home Depot this weekend to look at grills since my old one has essentially rusted away after 10 years of use.   I saw a couple of models that I liked and didn’t go there to actually buy one but just to compare models and research prices on the net.

As I looked around, a HD rep came over and asked if I needed any help.   I asked a few questions and ultimately ended up buying the grill that I liked since it was supposedly on “sale” for the Super Bowl weekend.   The HD rep actually help me get the grill down from the shelves and load it into a flat-bed trolley.  He also helped pick out a cover for it by measuring the grill and making sure I had the right one so that I wouldn’t have to return it.

It has been a long while since I got that level of service at Home Depot and it was a pleasant surprise.

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On 1/1/2010 I started the Atkins diet again as a New Year’s resolution to lose weight this year.   I weighed myself and have lost 11 lbs since starting the diet so I’ve been losing a pound per day.   It’s not just the diet though as I go to the gym four to five times per week.    The sinister plan to lose weight has some financial incentives for me.   I’m currently in the process of purchasing a new life insurance policy this year and it is often cheaper to be fit during the examination process as premiums will be lower than if I were just over weight.

It is absolutely amazing to me how the years have just flown by, we purchased a 20 year life insurance policy over 11 years ago when we first got married to protect our kids and there are now less years on that policy ahead than past so I figured it’s time to lock in another new 20 year policy which should carry us till the kids are out of college at which point we really won’t need the policy anymore.

I am hoping this economic mess has made life policies cheaper since no one has any cash to be buying them but that may ultimately end up hurting me since the pool may be smaller.  In any event, I want to maximize the value of the policy by being fit.   I hope to buy that new policy sometime in the summer so I have a few more months to lose some more pounds.

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