A "me" day

My wife had some shopping to do, then a Pampered Chef party to attend today, so I had most of today to myself. I took the opportunity to get a few things done, and do some relaxing.

Started out by being very lazy this morning, rolling out of bed about 8:30. Didn't even shower & dress until about 10:00. I finally made a solid backup of my C drive, something I had been procrastinating on for quite a while. While that was going on, I replaced the left taillight on my car, as the lens had been destroyed about 2 months ago in an unfortunate incident involving me, the car, Reverse gear, and the automated payment device at a car wash. That only took me about 20 minutes, but now I don't have to worry about getting a ticket.

The car fixed, I put my to-do list together hit the road. First stop: the mall on the far side of town. I went into Dick's Sporting Goods to check out their pocketknife selection. They didn't have the Leatherman Squirt S4 I was looking for, only the P4, the Leatherman Micra, and the Gerber Shortcut. The Leatherman Squirt P4 goes about $30, the Shortcut about $20. And while a little smaller & lighter than the Micra, both seem to be short on tools and long on something extra - eye candy. Both have a little "cover" on each handle for color, and while they look nice, they seem flimsy. Further, the Shortcut is considerably wider than either of Leatherman's offerings. I told the guy at the counter "thanks, I may be back in a few minutes" and walked down the mall to EMS.

EMS apparently doesn't carry Gerber, but they did have the original Micra, 100% pure Stainless Steel, nothing extra, and a good tool selection. And only $22. Did I mention that EMS also had a sale going, 15%-20% off everything. Such a deal. Of all the tools I had looked at, the original Micra I think was the smallest (in total volume), simplest (no extra colored covers), and best overall package deal. EMS also had the Mag-Lite Solitaire I had been looking for, only $9. Keychain is complete. I'll post pictures later.

I also picked up a pair of full-brimmed hats for my wife and I. We really need to start keeping the sun off us while working in the yard and for vacation, and a ballcap doesn't fit the bill (HA! I made a pun!). I walked out of there with over $75 of stuff for about $60.

Back to Dick's, to check out their selection of Crocs (for my father in law). No luck there, but I did pick up a pair of shirts for $15 each which will be very nice this summer. One is button-down, the other a CoolMax T-shirt which should be comfortable while working in the yard. I love cotton, but once you start sweating, it sucks.

Then it was across the street to CompUSA to check out the MacBook and MBP again, and just browse. The MacBook's keyboard felt really weird. Those keys are spaced really wide. I much preferred the MBP's keyboard, I think. Bought nothing, then went next door to PetSmart just to look around. Bad idea. They were having one of their regular adoption days and I really wanted to bring home a few of the kittens they had. There was one named "Smokey" who looked almost identical to a cat my parents have by the same name. I thought I was looking back in time 11 years to when he was a kitten. They also had a year-old cat named "Ben" who is a displaced resident of New Orleans (courtesy of Hurricane Katrina). If I were to give our Juniper a haircut, this cat would be his twin. Walked out empty-handed, then had a 6" Tuna sub at Subway.

My next to last stop was Home Depot, mostly to browse but I did want to get some supporting cages for oue Peonies which can't support themselves. They didn't get any in this year. Also looked at Dremel tools, and briefly considered some landscape timbers to put alongside the driveway by the garden. I meant to buy a magnet for picking things up in hard-to-reach areas, but forgot. Again, left empty-handed.

Last stop: haircut! But I didn't get it, the wait was 30 minutes and I didn't want to sit around doing nothing.

Came home, assembled my new keychain, emptied the dishwasher, washed some dishes, tossed some laundry in the washing machine, and then came outside to hang out on the porch, as it was cooler outside than in. Enjoyed a nice frosty mug of beer and some hummus on crackers while bopping around on the 'net. Gotta love WiFi. My wife will be home Real Soon Now after a stop at Blockbuster to pick up the original Superman and we'll watch that tonight as I've never seen it, and we're getting excited about seeing the new one next weekend.

$5 Million before taxes, you say?

Last week, I posted about what I would do if I managed to hit the lottery and my take, after taxes, was $5M. El Gee's original post was about $5M before taxes. He's since updated with his version of my post.

So, what if that $5M was before taxes, and we ended up clearing $1.25M after the IRS, the lump sum stuff, etc.? Well, the list wouldn't be too much different, just scaled back. We'd keep working for sure. Still set up the college funds, but only fund them at $50K each instead of $150K. Pay off those debts, replace cars, maybe skip the truck, boat & travel trailer. Put some money into the house, just maybe not as much. Then invest the rest.

More garden progress

This past weekend, we worked mornings on the garden between the driveway and the house, and inside the fence behind the kitchen. Some plants were relocated, like our delphinium, irises and mint (mint repels mice and some other rodents, so we planted it along the foundation), and a couple new hydrangeas were planted. Tuesday night, we finished things up and laid down 7 bags of mulch. The difference is amazing. Days 160 and 162 in the photo gallery (link on the sidebar).

Now we're cooking with gas!

Once spring hit, we picked up a small tabletop gas grill to take care of our outdoor cooking needs. I love to work on the grill, and although charcoal is best, it's more time consuming and offers less direct control. So gas it was. I would have preferred a full-size grill, but with nowhere good to put it, and money being a little tight as we're still landscaping, we opted for the smaller and cheaper option.

For a while, we were using the 14 oz cylinders that hook right up to the grill. Trouble is, this is very wasteful, and gets expensive in a hurry - the cheapest we found the cylinders was $3.75 for a pair at Wal-Mart. And you always run out in the middle of a meal.

So, this weekend, I found the 4' adapter hose to let me hook the grill up to a regular tank. $17 at Lowe's. Then over to Wal-Mart to pick up a Blue Rhino 20 lb tank for $42 (I had no old tank to exchange. Exchanges are about $15). So now, for under $60, I'm set with gas for over a year, instead of spending the money for one cylinder a week and having to dispose of them. And I won't run out mid-meal!

Plus, I won't have to buy a tank when we do get that big grill later.

No more dressing in the dark

I discovered Monday morning that the light in our closet had burned out. Naturally, it's not a "normal" bulb such that one would have a temporary replacement readily available in the house. Instead, it's a 22W 8" flourescent ring bulb.

Tonight I remembered to stop at Home Depot and pick up a replacement. I don't know what the original bulb was, but this new one, a Phillips "Daylight" model, seems to be twice as bright. Maybe now I won't end up wearing the completely wrong things to work.

Who are we kidding, I'm a terminal geek whose only fashion sense is the wisdom of his wife.

Hard drive panic continues

Last night, I thought I'd lost the computer. Shortly after booting, it really flaked out - it thought it was running on battery, apps weren't behaving properly, it was scary. HDD Health was telling me that my hard drive was at 37°C, which I knew couldn't be right - it starts at 42, normally. So I decided to reboot. A few programs refused to shut down clean, and it took a long time for Windows to finish. Finally, it did.

And then the box wouldn't POST. First, it wouldn't ID the CPU. Then, it got through the CPU, but nothing more. I powered it off and let it cool while I searched for our small boxfan, but came up empty. After about 5 minutes, I checked the various expansion cards, disconnected the secondary hard drive, and booted successfully.

I thought I lost everything last night. A fire has been lit under me to get my backups made more regularly.

2006, the summer of identity theft

Once again, data that identity thieves drool over has been compromised. That's at least the 4^th time in the last couple months it's happened This is getting completely out of hand.

Companies just aren't accountable for this stuff. Not even a slap on the wrist, really. In some jurisdictions, they have to inform people whose data may have been compromised. Some laws place a limit on how many affected people it takes to trigger a notification. But by and large, companies don't pay any penalty for screwing this up. It's "whoops, sorry" and you're left wondering whether you're safe or not.

It's only a matter of time before every American is nailed by this. I've had the good fortune of only having a credit card number stolen once, and given how infrequently I used that card and the manner in which it was used, I think that person really just guessed on the number and got lucky. But I know my day will come. I safeguard my data, but I can't say the same for the other entities that hold it.

I posted the following as a comment on Slashdot last week, but I'm going to expand upon it. These companies need to see a real financial and time-cost impact to their lax approach to data security. Some people have suggested $1000 per affected person per lapse. But that's worthless. The money isn't significant to many companies. It's just not a punishment. The company writes a check after a years-long investigation and goes on their merry way. It doesn't repair the damage done. It doesn't protect those affected from further damage. The company's resources aren't consumed in a punitive way for their transgression.

Meanwhile, the people whose data was leaked are in a world of hurt. They're spending days, weeks even, calling banks, creditors, credit agencies, utilities, employers, insurance companies, etc. warning them that there might be fraudulent activity attempted in their name. Spending hours each week going over every little detail of their financial life, making sure that their credit hasn't been destroyed. Wondering if people are going to commit crimes in their name. But the company and people responsible for all this, they pay nothing. They don't have to care.

Here's what I want the company responsible for the information leak to be accountable for.

• Contact all 3 credit bureaus and put a fraud watch flag on my account for at least 2 years, at their expense. I understand that today only I can make this request, by law. Amend the law to make this exception.
• Contact every other institution the responsible company is aware of that I hold accounts with and inform them of the leak, and to watch for bad activity. For example, if my employer leaked my data, I would expect them to contact my bank (I have direct deposit, so they know the bank), the government (IRS), my 401(k) administrator, my health plan administrator, and probably a few others.
• A simple method for me to report all expenses incurred cleaning up after the mess that the other institutions can't do themselves. I'll record my time. I want a fair hourly rate (my personal time is valuable), and payment should be swift (within 4 weeks of reporting, if reporting electronically).
• A fine paid out not to the government, but to each individual whose data was lost. After all, they have those records, right? A flat amount disbursed to each person, at least $1000. Within 4 weeks of the information loss detection. Over and above the payment above.

I know, it'll never happen. But I can dream, can't I?

Since he won't post it himself

Go over and wish Eric a happy birthday. It's his...um...I'm not sure, but it's lower than my count.

5 Megabucks

El Gee asks what would you do with $5 million? I'll leave the math there on his blog. Straight out - let's say I won the lottery and took the lump sum, after taxes I ended up with $5M. What to do? I'm in a very different place in life than El Gee is, so my ideas will be quite different.

• Set up college financing for all our nieces and nephews, plus our own child(ren). That's 5 nieces & nephews, plus our own kids, let's guess high and say 3 of them. 8 kids total, I'll budget $150K per for college (figuring that a 529 account will earn money, etc. that should cover most stuff). That's $1.2M.
• Pay off all of our debt other than the mortgage. Under $100K.
• Pay extra into the mortgage. Negligible, really.
• Massive home improvement. Rewire the whole house, improve insulation, radiant floor heating in the master suite, fix up the plumbing, new roof, landscape the backyard. $100K or so.
• Replace our cars. Gotta treat yourself. Won't go crazy with luxury cars, just some nice hardware. We're talking about a couple practical cars for daily use, a 1-ton Diesel pickup for home improvement supplies & dragging around a boat or travel trailer,and maybe a "fun" vehicle too. Under $200K.
• Boat and travel trailer. Under $150K

Less than $2M has been spent out of the $5M so far. Yikes! I must be a bad consumer. I'd probably keep working. With most of the nasty bills taken care of, salary wouldn't be super-important, and most could be socked away in savings and used for nice vacations and other travel.

The $3M that's left would get invested for the most part. Split it between some aggressive investments and government-issued bonds & bills in a ladder setup. Somewhat low yield, yes, but quite safe. The aggressive investments would be the real moneymakers.

I think, with some careful yet aggressive investing, it would work out pretty well.

However, for any of this to even be remotely worth considering, I'd have to play the lottery in the first place, which I don't.