Frugal or Cheap?

English: Compact Disc player carousel for three CDs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The following post will be a testament to my frugality.  One might find frugality to be an admirable quality in a person.  For the most part, it would be, however, to Mrs. Dickster there are some qualities in my frugality that she finds just a tad annoying.  OK, they downright piss her off.  She might even go so far as to call me a cheap bastard.

I haven't always been a frugal person.  In my youth, I had a tendency to spend money that I did not have.  I was definitely what you would call an early adapter of technology.  When CD came out, I bough a CD player and converted all of my vinyl over to CD as quickly as I could.  In addition to technology, I was heavily into fashion buying nice clothes and more than one pair of exotic cowboy boots.

When I got married and started a family, my spending habits came along with me.  I wanted to provide nice things for my wife and my son.  For years, I was able to keep things going, getting all the bills paid and providing for my family.  Unfortunately, those habits eventually caught up with me, especially after getting laid off from one job and having to take a lower paying job.  A few years ago, I ended up in a bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy led to a great many behavioral changes.  I no longer have the latest technology.  There is no blue-ray DVD player in the house, and I am sitting here watching a 27" tube TV, thought I think I may have to spring for a new TV soon as the picture is starting to go on this one.  My fashion sense faded long ago, and is the genesis of this post, along with the occasional ire of my better half.

Cowboy Boots (Photo credit: Andrew Scott)

In my hey day, I had a closet full of clothes.  I had a few good suits, several pairs of slacks and shirts, sports coats, and dozens of neck ties, all silk naturally.  I had at least three pairs of exotic leather cowboy boots made from elephant, shark, and cape bison. Those days are long gone.

These days, I have about three or four pairs of casual pants and a handful of shirts in my rotation.  For my casual weekend clothes, I primarily wear t-shirts, most of which came as freebies from promotions at Baysox games and beer launch parties at DuClaw's.

In the past, I was never hesitant to by myself new clothing if I needed them.  These days, I am very reluctant to spend money on new clothes, especially on certain articles of clothing.  There are just certain items that I don't want to spend money on.  Consequently, I wear what clothes I have until they can no longer be worn.
It is that trait that drives my wife bonkers.

I think nothing of wearing a shirt that has a few stains on it or is fraying in spots.  On more than one occasion, my wife has gotten on my case for putting on a pair of socks that has a whole in the heel.  My thinking is that they still comfortable, and besides, who is going to see the whole in my heel if I have shoes on?  In her mind, the socks have outlived their usefulness and should be replaced.  I guess I can see her point, but not enough to go buy new socks.

Underwear happens to be one of those items that I am loathe to spend money on.  Sadly, this past weekend I broke down and bought a package of new boxers.  To be clear, I did walk away from the display a couple of times before finally biting the bullet and putting a pack in my basket.  It was a good deal, as it was a bonus pack of boxers giving me six pairs of boxers for the price of a four pack.  What a bargain!

I have to explain the current status of my old boxers so that I can justify the purchase.  My old boxers have been in service for a few years now.  Some of them have gotten to be extremely threadbare, especially in the crotch area.  You could almost call them "crotchless" but trust me, they aren't sexy at all.  However, they still are in the drawer just in case I haven't done laundry and don't have a clean pair of suitable boxers.

The other issue is that the elastic waist band has lost a lot of their elasticity.  With my recent weight loss, I have been having a difficult time keeping my drawers up around my waist.  I do a lot of tugging to keep them up.  In fact, I often do not have to use my hands to take them off.  I just wiggle my hips a bit, and down they go.  So there you have my story. Sad but true.

I will be entering this post in the upcoming DudeWrite.  There you can find, hopefully, some entertaining dude bloggers.  Check out the fun.

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Gone Mobile

I am a little bit irked this morning, or at the very least frustrated.  There is no doubt that we ask our mobile phones to do more and we rely on them to do more every day.  I read and write emails from my phone, Tweet from my phone, and browse the web from my phone.

So as a blogger it would only make sense to blog from my phone.  I had tried one blogger app for my Android phone, but it wasn't very good.  I was thrilled the other day to find the official Blogger Android app in the market.

Yesterday I started to write a post on my phone using the Blogger app and saved the partial draft to finish when I got home from work.  I found the draft on my dashboard, finished writing it, and published it to my blog.  It worked exactly how I wanted it to.

Fast forward to this morning.  I opened up the app on my phone.  It still listed my post as a draft on the app.  I clicked the "view blog" button and saw the mobile version of my blog (more on that later) complete with a link to the finished post.  I clicked on the link and got a message saying the page could not be found.

I was distressed to say the least.  When I was able to open my dashboard I discovered that the post reverted back to my partially written draft.  I visited the Blogger forum and found somebody else had a similar issue but nobody had posted any kind of solution.

There are a number of reasons why I might start a post on my phone or on another computer with the intention of finishing on my laptop later.  For instance, I use Zemanta on my laptop and I like to add things from there before publishing my final post.  The mobile app is a nice thing to have but if I am unable to start a post on the phone and finish it later from home then I doubt I will use it much.

Oh, and speaking of going mobile, I recently found that Blogger has added mobile web templates to the blog functionality.  I went ahead and turned that on so a mobile version is now available.  If you have a QR code reader you can scan the QR code in this post to check the mobile version of this blog.

Even Better Deal on the Kindle

When I was young, single, and had plenty of disposable income, I was what you would call an early adopter of technology.  I was one of the first of my friends to buy a CD player and started buying as many of my old vinyl records on CD as I could afford.  I fell in love with the clarity of the music and the lack of the imperfections that developed in vinyl.

Similarly, I was quick to take the leap to purchase a DVD player.  Each new generation of video gaming consoles was hooked up to my television.  My first computer was a Commodore 64.  I even had a bulky early generation Kodak digital camera.  About the only time that I didn't have the earliest version was if there were two competing formats like Beta vs VHS video tapes.  In that case, I waited to see which format would prove to have the longest legs.

As I have gotten older, married, and have more responsibilities and obligations, the amount of money that I have to spend on new technology is much more limited.  I no longer feel the need to be the first to own the latest and greatest.  For example, in my house we still have DVDs and have yet to make the switch to Blu-ray.  We still have tube televisions rather than thinner, flat screen televisions.

I have chronicled my own internal debate about buying myself a Kindle.  For the longest time, I could not justify in my own mind the expense of buying one of those.  Then, I debated between buying the Kindle or the Nook, but cost was still an issue.  When Barnes & Noble lowered the retail on their Nook and then Amazon lowered the Kindle to $139, I finally got serious and took the plunge.

One of the reasons that I hesitate more these days is because technology prices can drop like they did when I finally went ahead and bought my Kindle.  Now, Amazon has come out with a new version of the Kindle for $25 less than the one I bought.  It is essentially the same Kindle, but it comes with special offers/advertising.  I don't regret buying my Kindle when I did, but I would have gladly accepted ads on mine to save another $25.

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One Second After and an EMP Attack

Image via Wikipedia

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a book that I had started reading, One Second After, by William Forstchen.  It is the story of the potential impact of an Electromagnetic Pulse attack against the United States.  In short, an EMP attack could occur if one or more nuclear devices are detonated above the atmosphere.  An EMP attack would basically fry the delicate circuitry of most of our technology and electrical grid, throwing us back to 19th century technology.  The book deals with the struggles of a community in trying to survive.

For the most part, I enjoyed the book.  There were a couple things here and there that I thought were a little questionable.  For instance, new automobiles would be rendered inoperable due to the delicate circuitry in modern automobiles.  Older cars, that did not rely on higher tech circuitry would still operate.  That part of the book was based in technological fact.  However, the story covered over a year in the life of this community, and one year after the attack, they still had gasoline to operate cars that still worked.

The book also contained an afterward written by Captain Bill Sanders of the US Navy. Captain Sanders addresses the possibilities contained in the book.  Throughout his life and his Naval career, Captain Sanders has had an interest in nuclear weaponry. A group of nine American scientist came to a consensus in the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack came to the conclusion that the threat of an EMP attack was not just theoretical but very possible.  Unfortunately, the report was released the same day as the 9/11 commission which garnered far more attention from the media.

Captain Sanders quotes one of the authors of the commission, Dr. Lowell Wood, a nuclear physicist who has studied EMP weaponry for three decades.  Dr. Wood describes an EMP attack as "a continental time machine that would move us back to the nineteenth century."  When questioned about the ability of 19th century technology supporting the current population, Dr Wood replied, "The population will shrink until it can be supported by the technology."  In other words, the population would die off from disease and starvation.  In One Second After, the community had a survival rate of 20%, which was considered good under the circumstances.  Cities, in particular, would be hit hardest by an EMP attack.

Captain Sanders states that a well designed nuclear weapon detonated at a high altitude over Kansas could have an impact over nearly the entire continental United States.  In Forstchen's book, the attack came from three nuclear devices detonated over different parts of the country.  The commission has warned that we are "vulnerable and virtually unprotected against an EMP attack could damage or destroy civilian and military critical electronic infrastructures triggering catastrophic consequences that could cause the permanent collapse of our society."

We ignored the warnings that lead to the 9/11 attacks.  With countries like Iran and North Korea pursuing nuclear and missile technology, will we ignore the warnings of the consequences of a potential EMP attack?  I certainly hope not.  There are steps that can be taken to protect us against the consequences of an EMP attack.  When I do, I will publish that letter here.  There is a lot of debate on how extensive the role of the federal government should be.  What is not in debate is that their chief role is to protect us from attack.  In the next day or two, I intend to email my Senators and Congressman to ask them what they are doing to protect us from the hazard of an EMP attack.  

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Nuclear Power

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, I posted some of my feelings about the pending legislation for health care reform. It drew a rather spirited comment from the American Idiot, not on the health care debate, but rather on the climate change bill. (I will now refer to the American Idiot as Idiot, with an upper case I. This is not a derogatory salutation as idiot with a lower case i would be.)

Idiot makes the argument that the US should be the leader in developing green technologies. I could not agree more. American ingenuity and know-how should lead the way on these technologies much like they have led the way in other areas (like nuclear power but I am getting ahead of myself). Where we differ is in what to do until these new technologies are developed and on line. I prefer to take an "all of the above" approach. Let's drill for more domestic oil and natural gas, let's build new nuclear plants, and let's develop those green, renewable sources as well. Idiot on the other hand favors abandoning the old technologies in favor of the new. An admirable goal.

Idiot makes the case that in addition to developing these green technologies, we should be exporting those technologies to other countries as global demand for them increases. Excellent point and I concur.

One of the technologies that Idiot rejects that I fully support is building more nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is a green technology in that it gives off zero CO2 emissions. Idiot's argument is that it is an old technology, that can not be exported, and then there is the whole nuclear waste issue.

I came across an a Newsweek article by Andrew Bast that discusses some of the issues the US faces if they were to go back to nuclear power. While the US developed the first nuclear power reactors, we failed to keep our edge in that technology. Initially we exported the technology to other countries, now if we were to go back to building nuclear facilities, we would have to rely on the improvements in the technology developed in countries like France and Japan.

France now gets 80% of their electricity provided by nuclear power plants. They now export electricity and technology to other countries. I think Idiot would agree that if we hold the edge in a technology we should do everything to keep that edge to benefit from the exportation of that technology. On another note, how in the hell did we ever let France get better at us at anything other than producing fine wines, though the argument could be made that some of our better California vineyards produce as fine a wine as Bordeaux, but I digress.

In regards to nuclear waste, there is a lot that can be done on that front. First off, several countries engage in the recycling of nuclear waste to produce more energy. Japan in particular has made great advancements in recycling nuclear waste. Recycling, another thing that the greens of the world should be able to get behind.

There are always going to be detractors to any form of energy. Even wind turbines have their detractors, ie they could kill birds or they are an eyesore. The biggest argument against nuclear power is the "potential" for a nuclear accident. Yes that exists, but there have been very few major accidents. The potential exists that I could fall down in the shower and hurt myself, does that mean I should stop bathing? (OK that isn't on the same level as a nuclear accident, but just a cheap attempt at humor.)

Anyway, in conclusion, thank you Idiot for visiting my humble blog. I hope you will come back often. I also linked to your blog at the top of this posting.

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A Case of Mistaken Identity

I am sure everyone has had the experience of answering the telephone and having it been a wrong number. Most of the time you don't get a return call, but every now and then you run across somebody who is convinced they have the correct number. No matter how hard you try, you just can't convince them they are wrong.

Well with all of the various forms of communication, there are so many more ways for this to happen. Yesterday, I was sitting in my office when I felt my Blackberry Storm vibrate and signal I had a text message. I did not recognize the number, but responded in case it was somebody I did know. Here is the exchange of text verbatim:

Txt: Come back

Me: Where?

Txt: Room

Me: who is this?

Txt: Jamie

Me: I do not know a Jamie

Txt: Bitch stop playing

At this point I did not respond and received no other text messages from this person. I thought they finally figured out that I was not the person they thought I was. I was wrong. This morning I received the following texts:

Txt: Where u at

Txt: U got to come get me

Txt: Txt me now

Me: You got the wrong number

Txt: This is jamie bitch

Txt: This is jamie bithch

Txt: Young get the fuck up and come 2 super 8 an get me

Txt: What the fuck u going i need u 2 come now asap

Me: Dude u r shit outta luck cuz I don't know who the fuck u r

Txt: Bitch its jamie stop the dum shit young what the fuck

Txt: Bitch its jamie stop the dum shit young what the fuck

Me: Look you dumb fuck. I keep telling u that I don't know who the fuck you are but you are just too stupid to get it. I am not who u think I am

That was a little over an hour ago, and I have not gotten another text from Jamie. I can only surmise that Jamie and this mystery person were in the Super 8 yesterday and probably had some sort of disagreement. Mystery person left and poor Jamie is stranded at the Super 8. Let's hope that Jamie finally got a clue and was able to get in touch with the right person.

A Tough Week

It has been a tough week for me computer wise.  I have been able to do very little since last Saturday night, especially when it came to doing anything on the internet.

It all started late Saturday night.  One of the blogging communities that I belong to is Entrecard.  While visiting a number of blogs and dropping my card on the various Entrecard widgets, my McAfee popped up and said it had found and deleted the Vundo Trojan.  It popped up a couple of times.  I wish I could remember the site, but I think it was a technology blog.

Anyway, McAfee was not able to clear out the Vundo.  These days, I primarily am using Google Chrome for my internet browsing.  Well I would be happily cruising the web when all of a sudden Internet Explorer would open up and bog my system down.  I spent the bulk of Sunday downloading various spyware scanners trying to remove it.  I thought that I had it licked when I started using STOPzilla, which had a good review on Cnet.com.  It identified the virus several times and said that it had been removed.  

Monday and Tuesday, I was able to get onto the web without any issues.  However, Wednesday night I fired up the laptop and all of a sudden STOPzilla said Vundo was back.  Curses!  I kept struggling with my system for the rest of the week.  Since the virus kept opening up Internet Explorer, I removed it from my system.  However, pesty bug that Vundo is, it kept opening up IE. Finally, on Saturday, after my system had become very unstable, I considered taking the drastic step of recovering my system back to the original settings.  Before I did, though, I called STOPzilla's tech support for advice.  They suggested running the scan in safe mode.

So Saturday night, I get home from delivering pizza and fire up the laptop in safe mode.  Lo and behold, STOPzilla would not start on my computer in safe mode.  I decided at that point to run a couple of scans while under safe mode.  I did a complete system scan with McAfee and with Spybot.  The scans finally finished about 2 a.m. this morning.  Both identified several files with the virus and I was able to delete them.  That seems to have done the trick (knock on wood.)   Hopefully this is the end of my Vundo experience.  

Google Chrome

So on Christmas day while I was getting tired of waiting for pages (including this blog) to load in Internet Explorer, I decided to investigate Google's new browser, Google Chrome.  I had seen banner ads for Chrome on several websites, and thought I would look for some reviews and found a few favorable ones on CNET. 

Google says it's new browser is a simpler, faster, and safer browser.  The download and installation were quick and easy, and I was surfing in no time at all.  I have to say, that the webpages loaded much quicker using Chrome than in Internet Explorer.  I was also able to import all of my stored passwords and bookmarks that I had in Explorer.  Another feature that I like about Chrome is that when you launch the browser, you see thumnails of your most frequently visited websites for quick access.

I have to say that I am very pleased thus far with the performance of Chrome.  So much so that I have made it my default browser.  About the only problem that I have encountered has been some errors when first attempting to visit some websites or blogs for the first time.  For instance, I tried to go to Yahoo Mail and it could not find the website on the first try.  If I refreshed the page or started over attempting to visit the site, it would load with no problem.  It happened with a few other sites as well.  I am not sure if it was a problem with the browser or if I was just having some problems with my connection, so I will keep using it to see how things go.