Being a man of few words unless pressed by emotion or assignment, I present to you two lists: our peaks and our valleys.

Peaks

• Graduated from the University of South Florida with my B.A. in Professional and Technical Writing after a 13-year journey through college, work, medical, marriage, home-buying, starting a businesses, and more college.
• Started writing as Fatboy and got serious about taking control of my health, which yielded a 12% increase in my pulmonary function in 2010.
• Saw a 32% increase in gross revenue (with very little expense) over 2009 with our business that will be celebrating its second year anniversary in 32 more days on Groundhog Day – during a reported recession that was apparently not known by my clients.
• Prepared financially for 2011 by saving for our medical deductible and driving the workload so hard we were both able to take a week-long vacation in June to celebrate graduation and also this entire week off to relax with my parents staying with us with a 5-day trip up to Ohio to celebrate Labor Day with my grandparents on a spur-of-the-moment ticket purchase just to “get away” on Southwest, like the commercial says.
• We are having the time of our lives!

Valleys

• Started off the year at 27% lung function, which would have put me on the double lung-transplant list this year if my numbers didn’t improve with IVs. Obviously, my peaks show that things got better.
• We got hit really hard financially between February and June… and then from August to the end of October – another understatement. We had to pay out the nose for all of my $1,500 deductible and $500 pharmacy deductible by the end of February and the expenses just kept rolling in while my co-insurance covered 80% for the next $1,500 out-of-pocket. We had to do the whole thing over again with the next bullet:
• My wife finally went to get tested for allergies ($1,000) and the news wasn’t good – and neither was the news that the two meds they put her on weren’t covered by her insurance ($150/mo each). In the end, we both hit our maximum out-of-pocket expenses for the year and probably tallied up close to 35% of our income in medically-related expenses for 2010.
• To top that off, she has been practically diet crippled by the whole process of shots and a new allergy diet that started out really helping out, but has left her unable to eat anything with any amount of corn, soy, or wheat lest her throat start to swell. Go try to find anything at the store without any of those 3 items in it. It’s not easy, but we are sort of managing.
• I had my 9th sinus surgery in October, my first since we’ve been married. That in and of itself isn’t a valley. The valley is that by Dec. 5th, a CT scan showed my condition to be worse than before that surgery and I’m scheduled for surgery #10 on the 6th with another surgeon with a new year’s deductibles to meet right off the bat.

Goals for 2011

I absolutely groan every New Year’s when I see resolution after resolution go up on the blogosphere, Facebook, and Twitter. They’re meaningless! Positively a bunch of feel-good mumbo-jumbo about stopping smoking, eating better, losing weight, and exercising more. The less bad ones are at least something with thought in it like business resolutions, but those still weigh in light and superficial.

Why?

Because they aren’t goals. They are wasteful aspirations of the heart and soul with no thought as to how to accomplish them or drive through to the finish to see them done. “I want to be a better parent to my kids” is a waste of breath and neurons if there is nothing actionable or accountable involved. Here’s how…

A goal is a pre-determined action or result of an action/behavior that is measurable and has a specific time frame. A goal has to be something you could fire yourself over if you were someone’s boss and they failed to achieve this measurable item within the time frame allotted. If you can wiggle out of your own “goal” then it’s a resolution.

• Write it down.
• Visit the list frequently (at least weekly).
• Give the list to someone else to ask you how you’re doing.
• Have fun crossing off your goals as you reach them!

That’s it for this update and tip. I’ll catch you on here sooner than the last entry’s time lapse – it’s on my list.

Okay, now you’re ready for my story, knowing that we don’t go crazy with purchases.

I’ve been wanting a new TV for a very long time. First it was because I was wooed by flat screens, but I’ve since become more satisfied with what we have and stopped trying to keep up with the Jones’.  Later, it was because we kept pushing our couch further back from the entertainment center to make room for a larger coffee table and later allowing us to play Wii without moving things to play. This resulted in us laying on the floor to watch shows to keep Kristin from putting on her glasses to watch with me because things were too small to read.

I have successfully put getting a new TV out of my mind for several months straight in an effort to increase our savings and build up our business account. Then, Kristin complained about it twice. The first time was finally an earnest complaint that it is too small. She was serious about that, but not getting a new TV because it still worked just fine. The second time was a text message while I was out stating that the sound was going out. I suddenly remembered some crackling earlier that day, thinking it was the DVR recording of the show. It wasn’t.

I tested the sound the next time by muting it. No dice. I tried turning it down. No dice. I tried turning it up to overcome the cracking and popping it was making, but that just made the noise louder. We were completely stuck and there was no way to bypass it using our stereo system.

For those of you who know, know… it’s not possible to watch The Game (OSU vs Michigan) with this junk going on and the thought of going over to my in-laws and have people rooting for Michigan just because I am for the good guys wasn’t an appealing alternative. I don’t mind coming over when they’re playing against their team, but to root against for the sake of not agreeing isn’t the same, you know.

My finding quite a deal was Kristin’s own fault, though. She sent me a link to a TV from work, and I immediately checked Sears as an alternative. I found a TV that was $250 off and the sale was going to end for Black Friday (though we didn’t know that at the time) and was at the mall on Monday to use wi-fi and approved of the picture and border. The idea was still being more or less poo-pooed as not the best use of our money.

After work yesterday, she wasn’t quite hungry yet, so we assumed the usual position to watch a show, and were greeted with the noise that wouldn’t stop. “That’s it,” I said. “We can’t be watching TV this way. We either have to stop watching TV and find something else to do or get a deal like the one I found.” After quite a discussion, pointing out that we had the money, but that it was earmarked for things in January that I have time to replenish with business funds, she finally left the decision up to me because the pressure would now be on me. She doesn’t like feeling guilty when we buy things (most of the time), but now I was the one beginning to feel guilty if I still continued with my reasoning. I calculated work in progress, payments receivable, and decided it was fine, based on how much we were looking at spending.

We drove to the Sears that I went to Monday since we knew for sure that they had that TV in stock. We walked straight to the TV, started discussing it, and then the salesman came over. I informed him that we were interested in THAT TV as soon as my wife was satisfied that it met her visual criteria. The next thing out of his mouth was that the TV above it was also good and pointed out how its colors were better and that it was only $50 more and that the price tag was wrong. After he pointed out that the pictures were different, I immediately looked to reach for the remote on the TV we wanted to see if the settings were jacked up, but the remote was gone! I got on the website with my phone to see what the full specs were and if there were good reviews for it. It appeared to be a new TV and there were only 2 reviews, but it was a 5-star TV.

We discussed it for a bit longer and decided to go with the TV that I’d spent so much time researching and told the man. He came back saying that he was pretty sure they were out of stock, so he’d have to check. He went down about 4 isles to “check” when there was a terminal right next to us. He said they were out but they could have one shipped on December 3rd. I immediately refused that idea and asked which store had one, since there are about 8 Sears within 45 minutes and several pretty much being in the direction of home. He “called” 2 more stores that were also out of stock of that TV, claiming that it was such a good price that they sold out. Kristin’s B.S. meter was already pegged to the max and went to the restrooms.

As I was rejecting his “help” and headed to the isle to wait for her, she texted me asking if we could get the other one for the same price. We really didn’t want to give this chump the sale, but we also didn’t want to waste our time or gas since she was fading quickly after taking some medicine for her allergies. I went and said, “We’ll take that other TV off your hands and give you a sale tonight if you can give it to us for the same price as the one we came her for (since we detected your BS about being out of stock and I really want to call you out on the carpet for it in a lame attempt to make an extra commission).

He said that decision was above his pay grade, so it would have to go through the manager, but he didn’t think they’d go for it… and he just stood there. “We’d like to discuss that with your manager because money is about to walk out the door,” I replied with in full confidence that managers are generally not stupid when it comes to losing a sale. The call went out to that manager, but another came over and I told him the situation, but he said that one would rest with the other manager, though he’d say it was okay if it was his decision.

Meanwhile, we got word that the manager wanted to know if we were getting an extended protection plan. “No, we don’t buy protection plans on electronics that lose value faster than Congress spends my money,” was the level of disdain I wanted to throw at that idea, but I left it at denying the attempt, even after he had the nerve to look up the price, which was 1/4th of the price of the TV.

Eventually, the other manager finally came out and was looking for her card, so it seemed evident that she wanted to cut us the deal without even discussing it (I KNEW it!) and another manager popped up on the other side of the computer terminal with his (or maybe her) card and the card reader popped up with the lower price for me to swipe my card. We just got 10% off the SALE price of the TV and 36% off the retail price that it was returning to on Sunday. Like I said, we don’t pay retail. Heck, we don’t even pay sale prices now. I was still in shock that I talked him down from a TV already marked down 25% because I wasn’t happy with the circumstances.

Okay, so for those interested, here’s what we did: we took a $699 TV that was marked down to $499 all the way down to $449! It’s a 40″ Toshiba with a ton of connections and features that I didn’t even know existed. After setting it up, I was amazed at the picture, even after seeing our in-laws’ HD LCD TV for the last 4 years.

I’m a very happy camper now. Some day this weekend Kristin will have time to sit down and watch some TV with me instead of sleeping off her allergy medicine or cutting and cooking in the kitchen.

This is very important. Don’t think that you’ll never be questioned by police because you’re a good person living a good life. My wife and her entire office were questioned a couple of years ago by a SWAT team just because of where they worked, so no one can say with certainty that they will never be questioned by the law or government.

I’ll come out and say that the first man comes out of the chute sounding like a political wacko with a couple of his first statements, but he fully and completely supports everything he says and the second man (an officer with 28 years of interviewing experience) confirms everything the first man said, so keep that in mind when you hear the first man’s fast-paced lecture.

This was very, very eye-opening to me. You can safely ignore the title of the video. The other compilation of this lecture was in 6 parts and entitled “In Praise of the 5th Amendment.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s seemed impossible all this time. It would take me 5 pages to describe how our monthly expenses are out of control unpredictable because of medical expenses, primarily. In any given month, we could have $75 in co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses and then the next month it could be approaching $1,000.

Here’s what we did yesterday on our dreary, rainy 5th of July:

• We sat at the PC with Excel open and wrote down our estimated income for the month. Since Kristin has 2 paychecks and we try to take out the exact same amount from my business account every month as my “paycheck,” we used those numbers.
• Then we wrote down our fixed expenses for July. Here is where it got really weird and we ended up having at least a 45 minute discussion on whether this needs to be July or August expenses: 90% of the fixed bills were due on the first and were paid for with my June paycheck at the end of the month. In the end, we decided July was July for everything.
• Then we wrote down all of our adjustable, but potential expenses and filled in what we expected to spend this month until we hit “0.”
• We got out the coupon book and put an index card with each adjustable expense in each slot with how much we are starting with this month. Next month, we will add the same amount to what is left or use the adjusted amount in accordance to August’s needs.

I need to head over to Barnes and Noble and sit with his book The Total Money Makeover for a while to read some particulars about what to do with things like periodic expenses that leave your budget fine in some months, but overdrawn on the month they are due, because I don’t think this system is supposed to average the cost out.

Things that surprised us (well, sometimes me, because Kristin is so darn smart with money):

• Our fixed expenses are more than we used to make when we got married (ouch!).
• We really can’t cut anything out except doing what Ramsey says, “live on rice and beans and beans and rice.” If you cancel one part of the cable/phone/Internet, it ends up costing more. I can’t eat any less food and we already buy sale items.
• The biggest movable force in our table is my income, which is both awesome and scary at the same time. It’s time to go for it and see where we can be in December.
• Dang! This is going to be a lot of work, but I’ve heard that at least 500 times on the podcast, so it’s time for me to man-up and do it anyway.

In the end, we were glad to have gotten through hours of what is (to me) very stressful and tedious work without having a fight or any semi-major blowup. In hindsight, I distinctly remember being quite calm in my most frustrated moments because I honestly didn’t know what the right answer was, so there was no reason to get mad at Kristin. Now we know we have enough for her to go buy a purse and me get a new wallet this month…

… and that brings financial peace. One. Step. At. A. Time.

I am fundamentally opposed to Blogger because it’s not as customizable as I need to do what I want. I want fully-customizable or quick and dirty. That’s why I work in WordPress or Posterous. Posterous has a decent amount of control, but I use it because I can post from anywhere with anything quickly and easily without thinking about style. I don’t mind the lack of design control because I don’t want design control in this case. It’s for writing and publishing to Facebook and Twitter.

So, you can imagine my horror as I see that she wants a Blogger blogroll, just because it’s like Blogger. It’s actually a good idea to display what she wanted: the latest blog post title and when it was last updated. Who wants to go to a site that hasn’t been updated all week or month, right?

Then she said it after dinner: “then I want a Blogger site.” I knew she was both joking and serious at the same time. “Nooooo!!!! You’re not getting a Blogger site after all of this WordPress work. You can’t ditch the best blogging platform available just because you want links to show a certain way!”

I tried to explain how much code is involved in getting the RSS information to get the title and the publishing date and said I’d have to hire someone to do that programming for me. Partially true. Well, if I was going to do it myself, it was totally true, but I was holding out hope that there was a plugin that would do exactly what she wanted. There has to be, but it would likely be a matter of whether or not it’s still being updated for WordPress 3.0.

I’ve learned my lesson to not say I will do something and then not do it, but I also knew she had strong suspicions that I can do anything I set out to do. I tell her those stories of my coding conquests almost daily, so it’s possible that there is some slight undue over-confidence in my abilities. She went to bed thinking it wasn’t going to happen…

It took me two tries and to wait about 15 minutes of frustrating testing before Google’s AJAX feed API went through their system before the plugin started working correctly. It was just showing it like before no matter what I did until the API started working. Amazingly, the plugin even has a “Bloggger (TM)” display setting. LOL!

All said and done, I’ve once again proven why I’m the “WordPress go-to guy for WordPress people” and gotten the job done for my most important client. She said she’d pay me for any work I do, but I don’t think she’s got anything I don’t already own.

Regardless, the design of the can was amazing and she knows I like my green tea, especially if it’s got citrus flavoring in it. For $1, I’m willing to try a good tea to have as my Saturday treat, so we got one.

I’d say that initially, it tasted just like a swig of sweet tea, but then the citrus was introduced a moment later… and I liked it. It was sort of the same effect as Pepsi Lime used to have before they pulled that most wonderful nectar from production. I enjoyed every drop and will probably buy a few when I go pick up my Advair prescription tomorrow. It’s a lot more expensive than the Publix brand gallons of tea, but these are the simple treats in life that make life a life worth enjoying.

For more information on the company story and their other products, their site is www.sweetleaftea.com and are located in Austin, TX.

From the Rush Limbaugh Show this week, here is another Paul Shanklin parody song, this time Obamacare meets Don McLean’s “American Pie.” I almost drove off the road when it got to the chorus.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lo and behold, there was ONE piece of mail today: my diploma. Doggone, I should have snapped a photo with my phone, but oh well. I ran into the house grinning ear to ear only to realize after about 5 seconds that the shower was running.

/sigh

I went to the couch to wait it out and begin our ceremonious opening of the envelope and hanging of the paper in its appointed place. Enjoy the gallery.