We own a TV

Today Bri and I mailed off our final check for the LCD TV we bought on moving into our house. Best Buy gave us 0% interest for two years so we took them up on it. Of course the same TV can now be had for about 60% of our cost, but can you put a value on all the evenings we've spent curled up in front of our high definition flat screen TV eating pizza and downing high gravity beers? Of course you can't. These moments are like starlight. Here today, gone tomorrow. Yes, I'm comparing watching The Family Guy to infinite space.

Monday, Monday

We had a nice but short trip up to Boone to see my MIL. Boone is a neat little college town and we did a quick tour of App State. Cool place to go to school! I told Bri that when we're 60+ we can go back to school together somewhere like that.

The Housing bailout bill has passed the Senate. All us suckers with good credit who have been saving our pennies get to pay more pennies for people who don't save their pennies. Soon we may all be penniless. Pennies cost two cents to make, did you know?

Tassie says "Bull****!"



I am going to go for a run with Bri in Umstead.

Last night our buddy Paul Power from Long Island made me stay out late drinking beer. Bad Paul!!

Sleeping in and other fun things to do on Saturday

As you may surmise from the title of this post, we opted out of the 5:00 AM wakeup call to get to the Mission Man tri in time. Instead, Bri and I slept in and then went for a leisurely bike ride on a cool Saturday morning. Bri is intent on whipping me back into shape before I turn into a complete pile of sludge. She made me do intervals with her. And we went far! She is a tough coach but a good one. Anyhoo. Off to Boone/Sugar Mountain in a bit. Going to get some running in tomorrow.


That's not really us in the picture but these posts are more interesting with some sort of visual effect.

video blog

Tomorrow morning we're off to the Mission Man Triathlon in Burlington, where I'll continue to illustrate what a lack of serious training can do to an 'elite' athlete. The seven hour training weeks and 40 minute long runs just don't cut the mustard for a 54 V02max guy like me. I have a video that goes into extensive detail about this, but the camera is getting the best of me right now. Check back later.



After the race we're off to Sugar Mountain to hang out with Bri's Mom. I haven't been to the Boone area so it should be fun to check out. We might even do some riding.

Edit: We might skip the race since I am feeling lazy.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you

I dunno about you, but I waffle between a really optimistic relaxed attitude about finances and retirement (everything will work out, man) and a total and complete sense of sheer panic (we're gonna be on the street, man!). Money doesn't grow on trees, unless you're the Fed, in which case you can print as much as you want, right?

If it was the 1950s we'd all be comfortable living on one income, own a decent home in a nice quiet tree-lined Beaver Cleaver community, have a high probability of a funded pension and social security retirement benefits, and probably have enough left over to raise two or three (or five) kids without major stress beyond not punching Mr Dithers in the nose at work.

But today we're a DINK (dual income, no kids) with no pensions, no guaranteed social security benefits, spiraling health care costs (I debate bagging them and taking on all the risk sometimes), massively higher energy costs, and massively higher college costs for any possible kids. Since I run my own business it's up to me to decide what projects or advertisements are worth funding with infusions of owner equity (read: money that would go into savings or retirement) in the hopes that the ROI be worthwhile. It might not occur to you reading my laissez-faire blog, but this year OSB will spend close to three grand on direct advertising. This includes the cost of printed materials, sponsoring a race series, email campaigns, website hosting, graphic design costs, etcetera. For each of these choices I have to use a combination of quantitative analysis and intuitive sense to decide if something is worth it or not. Every decision has an opportunity cost. Later this year and next year I get to decide how, when, and where to market the Powerstroke DVD. We've done everything up to this point with self-financing, but I've started debating a small business loan. Then you have to factor in the cost of financing into your rate of return. Yadda yadda.

It's also up to me to fund my retirement account. All the calculators I plug our numbers into say we'll be good enough in retirement but this is provided that the inflation rate stays around 3% and our investments grow at 8%+ for the next thirty years. I factor out social security because we can't count on it. Past results are no guarantee of future performance. In ten years it seems the entire financial system in the US could collapse. At that point we all need to head to the hills with our shotguns.

And then when I find myself dwelling on thirty years from now I have to look around and say, what about what's going on today, right now?

There are essentially three paths to becoming comfortably wealthy for those of us born without a silver spoon in our mouths: Work diligently for other people for 40+ years, save a good portion, and retire at 65; work diligently for 40-X years to achieve a high executive position and take a golden parachute or well-compensated professional position and save a good portion of your earnings; Start a successful business and get rich either running it, selling it, or selling part of it; Or win the lottery.

So what I'm getting at is today is one of my sheer panic days.


Have a happy Wednesday!

Gramma didn't like us

It turns out the matriarch of the family wasn't comfortable with us strangers in the house. She hadn't been forewarned we were coming. Of course, what Gramma wants, Gramma gets.

You've been voted off the Island

So we had a fun weekend in the OBX. Saturday got kind of weird though. Bri and I were invited down to the beach by April and Lou, who we know from UCF running. Lou's extended family had rented a 4 bedroom house for the week. We got in on Friday night and had a great time, had dinner and drinks with everyone, were told we fit in well (no drama, drank alcohol, and ate red meat), and slept on a pullout couch. On Saturday we got up and did our thing - went for a run, went for lunch and to pick up the surfboard, and so on. Around 4pm we asked Lou and April if they'd like to go to the Outer Banks Brewing Station with us. So we all went and had a good time. But then...

apparently there was some sort of miscommunication between family members - we weren't invited to the Saturday dinner. We figured all right, no problem, we'll go eat a nice dinner somewhere. Bri and I found a place on the water and had a romantic dinner overlooking Currituck Sound. On our way out from dinner, April called. The miscommunication had continued to deteriorate. She was in tears. We'd been voted...out of the house!

April and Lou were kind enough to bring our stuff to us outside when we arrived back at the house. They booked us a hotel room down the road. I've got to say it's been a long time since I've been booted from somewhere. If you've ever had Bri and I over you know we tend to make decent house guests, refrain from pooping on the carpet, issuing profanities at old ladies and kids, and so on. So anyway, I guess the family didn't even want us back inside.

We're really not sure if we did something offensive or if there are some psycho members of the family. Whichever way, please be warned, if any of you out there invite us somewhere on a Friday night, we're assuming you mean the weekend, especially if the drive is 4+ hours away.

Anyway, Bri has never been booted from anywhere, since she is a nice person and a good person. In my youth I was asked to leave a few establishments, but that's because I was an asshole. Bri was really upset. I thought it was ridiculous but not something completely foreign to me.