Pauls Rants & Revelations

With work and family I find that my time of late has been rather limited.

It was not so very long ago that I was trolling Craigs list looking for contract work to supplement my income. With my wife working back at Nike (and me going back to the at-home-dad role) I find that I am inundated with emails with requests for work. Stuff like “whats this error” to “I need a website”. I can do the work, but the questions becomes where I will find the time to do it?

My work projects are a little behind (some of which is my fault (ok, most of it probably)) so I have been telling folks that I simply can’t. And even though I know this is the best thing to do since I don’t need any more stress, I can’t help but feel like I am passing up opportunities that would help my situation in the long run.

So I guess the question really is this: who do I piss off?

Do I piss off my boss for the projects that will inevitably be late because of my taking on personal projects? Or do I piss off clients and potential clients by saying that their projects are not worth the time?

I guess really the question, like so many others, is an academic one as I have to get back to work. However, if anyone has any suggestions about my situation (and yes, even ones from you PersonalLumbergBaby are accepted) please leave a comment.

And if you need a website, please HESITATE to ask.

-Cheers

OK. Its been a while (a month to be precise) but I have been busy with work and family stuff. So tough.

Its also, in about 15 hours, my birthday (hooray!). Since we have limited time we have to split up the fun into two days. Today we did presents (my son was extremely excited to give me a Lego fire truck) and we are doing cake tonight. Tomorrow my wife and I are going out for dinner (on my actual b-day) so a swanky place (sweet).

Other than that I am trying to finish some projects before my yearly review. It doesn’t help to have a bunch of late items when going for more money/benefits/company jet, so hopefully I can finish them in short order.

Also, paulsrants.com is going to be up soon. And soon as in actually soon, not soon as in the Urban Dictionary definition.

-Cheers

Today is my sons birthday. It seems only yesterday that he sloshed out of moms womb and now he is six years old. Where does the time go?

And since this is such a huge deal, I decided that it is time to get him a skateboard. I mean a real one; not the tiny play one like at Target. This is an official World Industries board with a nifty flame boy decal on it. He was totally excited about it and started riding around in the house. Now we just have to wait for a non-rainy day and off to the park we go.

We also got him a huge lego set that we spent the entire next day putting together (which his cousin destroyed the next day; bummer) and games galore. Board games, mind, not video games.

He was really stoked with everything including the black-light pirate themed mini-golf we did in Portland, which was a bit of a trip actually. We also had a pirate ship chocolate cake. It was just coincidence that it worked out that way since I ordered the cake and my wife  set up the mini-golf.

Everything considered, it was a really good birthday and my little dude was quite happy with everything.

-Cheers

If I had a penny from every sale of something when I heard someone say “I’ll just get a new one”, I would be a semi-rich man (it is only a penny after all).

Its sad that or society has gotten to the point where everything is replaceable. No very many people now will take the time to make something instead of just buying it. They get a new one if it breaks instead of fixing it.

It just seem so wasteful and stupid to spend money on something you don’t need and immediately get a new one if something happens.

Perhaps I just feel this way since I just dropped a load of cash on bills and birthday presents. Anyways, its still valid I think.

-Cheers

OK, so it wasn’t really the blues, but it could have easily turned into it.

I went to the local Apple store Genius Bar to get some tech support. Apparently one of my two darling children got a little excited about a movie or something and a couple of the keys became stuck and offset.

Now, I have a “no touching dads computers” rule in the house, but I can start a show for them (iTunes has Looney Tunes you know) and take care of some things while they watch. While I was tending to my flu-stricken wife, there was some yelling and screaming and as a result I took the computer away. It wasn’t until later that I realized that some of the keys were messed up.

So, nearly in tears, I called Apple support. They said take it in and if its serious they would have to keep it for up to 14 days (wtf!?). So I took it in this afternoon and waited for my name to be called. When I got up to the bar I explained the problem and the Apple genius said “Well lets take a look”.

He then proceeded to pop the affected keys off in quick succession. This alone gave me a start but then he popped some more stuff off and then some more. Finally he caught site of my horror stricken face and said “Sorry. I should have probably warned you I was going to do that.”

No shit, Sherlock.

After the initial shock of seeing a $4 thousand machine recklessly taken apart, the rest of the session went OK. Turned out that the little white springs under the keys became unaligned and just had to be tweaked back into place. All told, took about 10 minutes total.

I thanked the guy and speedily headed out the door, Macbook Pro now intact, hoping never again to have to go in there.

I’m glad they are there to help with the consumers Apple problems big and small, even though I thought the guy could have given a warning before the fact, so I can’t really complain (which I’m not), so there you go.

And if any of the above doesn’t make sense, then tough. I have a splitting headache now thanks to watching too many shows on iTunes, which will be the subject of my next rant.

-Cheers

My wife and I just filed our taxes today. Damn, was it ever a chore. I mean, we had like 3 W2 forms and a thing from the daycare. After logging into the H&R Block site we had to keep hitting next for like…3 minutes.

Sure, it importing all our info from last year saved some time, but we had to fill in the new amounts for stuff which took like 10 minutes. Then another 10 minutes finding a check so that the government could direct deposit out phat 5 figure return into our accounts in the Caymen Islands.

What a hassle.

Not to mention the fact that it took like over an hour after we were done with the HR Block site to tell us our returns were transmitted and accepted. On a Saturday no less.  I’m just upset that I missed almost half an episode of Stargate to do our taxes, so sorry if I sound a little annoyed.

And if you believed even a word of what I just said, I have a whole barn full of unicorns I’ll sell you for only 30 pieces of leprechaun’s gold. You could probably make it tax deductible if you try.

-Cheers

In the current evolution of the “make money without working” generation, a lot of people have turned to blogging for money as a way to earn some cash. They spend a good deal of the day on the internet already so why not get paid for the stuff they write. Right?

Wrong, mate.

What these folks don’t realize is that using any of the paid posting services does not yield a high return. In fact, it may not even pay for the cost of hosting your site; and you have to have a domain and hosting according to most services’ requirements.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There is money to be made by blogging about products or services or any other type of thing people are promoting. There just isn’t a lot of it. Most often, a 200 word job will pay $5. And you have a very good chance of being rejected by the service or the folks who posted the job. Its their right, after all, to tell you ‘no’ if they see they are not getting what they want for their money. And if your post is approved, you have to wait upwards of a month before you get your $5 in you Paypal account. Some folks can’t wait that long.

I have used, and still do use, a few paid posting services (as if you couldn’t tell from the posts). But while I have made some dinero from spewing about this or that, its certainly isn’t enough to pay the rent. Its not even enough to pay for my Starbucks habit. So why do I keep doing it?

Because its an easy way to supplement my income a bit. It takes me 15 minutes max to write a post about something. So at $5 a pop, I could (potentially) make $20 an hour. That is not a bad wage at all. The only down side is that there are not enough post for me to fill a day’s worth of working. I would be pressed to fill an hour a week, honestly. So why do I bother?

Because its quick and easy and it often relates to my interests of needs. No other reason.

I started this blog for the sole purpose of pissing and moaning about anything I want to whoever wanted to read it. Some people like it. Most don’t. And some feel that the world is a bit dimmer with me in it. So be it. Its my blog and I’ll rant if I want to (hence the name). That is why this blog is here. Not to make money from pitching a new animal fat free mascara, or to tell the world of the great market of gold/silver/bulion/slaves/coins, but simply to state my skewed, skeptical, and often mis-informed opinion about things no one really cares about.

Have I talked you out of it yet? Are you ready to pick up the papers and look in the want-ads for a real job?

No? Alrighty then. If you would like to make money blogging then feel free to click the links below which will take you to a number of reputable services of which I happen to be a member of.

And if you sign up now I promise to honestly consider to possibility of sharing a slice of the referral fee I’ll garner from you.

-Cheers

Hey, everyone need some help sometimes. And the primary means of help giving falls under one thing: money. Yes folks, just cold hard cash. Its often looked upon as the root of all evil but you know what, evil or no, paying bills and rent is a necessity in life.

Enter Christian Faith Financial. On the surface, its just like every other payday loans organization. But the difference is that they are a lot nicer about loaning you the money you need. I find it hard that they would sue you for late payments or make harassing calls to your place of business. In fact, should I need it, I would try them out first (but heres hoping I never need it).

Still, it makes for a nice change to see a more friendly face on a service that most consider murky at best.

-Cheers

I had a totally “what the bloody hell was I thinking” moment today.

I was on my way to archery practice as normal. I got to thinking about a project I was trying to get started and sorta lost track of things. Before I knew it, I was 25 miles past the point I was suppose to exit the freeway.

Go me.

I tried to turn around but the nearest exit was another 5 miles after that. Needless to say I cleanly missed practice and ended up driving about 60 miles round trip to nowhere.

At least my zoning out didn’t affect my driving. It would be embarrasing to explain to the arresting officer that I was daydreaming behind the wheel. But then again, there are plenty of way worse explanations that have been given for poor driving (putting on makeup, talking on the phone, reading a report, etc).

-Cheers

On the way to our snowy vacation, as my luck would have it, I got pulled over for speeding. This pisses me off.

Now, I was going above the speed limit. Well above it in fact. I was in the passing lane trying to get around two assholes in lowered trucks (who the hell drives those during a rain storm in Oregon anyway?) playing a game of car tag. This was dangerous so as soon as a passing lane opened I gunned it; and got immediately noticed by the cops. They saw the two dingle berries (in fact passed right by them) but pulled me over instead. Erg.

Try as I might I couldn’t talk my way out of it. I give him the facts but he ignored me out of hand and threw a ticket at me. $250 worth of ticket.

Frustrated, and not wanting to make a scene in from of my family, I just took it and went on my way.

After we got back, a few days later, I called the county office to see about sending in my penance as there was no way in hell I was going to waste 6 hours round trip driving and $100 in gas to show up in court. The woman was, to put it mildly, so far from helpful that the light from it wouldn’t reach her in 100 years. She informed me that the tickets from that office often take a week or more to get put through their system. She had no reference at all to the ticket number and couldn’t do a damn thing.

So whats got my dander up, you ask?

The fact that in this digital age, where a dashboard cam video of a cop tazering someone can end up on Youtube within a day, a cop can’t find the time to put some freaking numbers into a computer at the end of their shift astounds me. Perhaps I don’t know all there is to know about the other side of writing the ticket, but it seems that it would be required of them to put them in the system in an orderly manner.

I called them again today, a week later, and still it wasn’t in the system. Double erg.

Enough about this ordeal already eats at my thin veneer of patience, but is there something that could be making it take longer then normal? Does anyone have any light they could shed on the inner workings of the police ticketing system? Can someone spot me $250?

Perhaps tomorrow they will have it in their system. If not then I am going to seriously consider raising some mildly annoying hell about it. Or just wait until the next day. What ever I have energy for.

-Cheers