May
11
Blog Update
Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Happy Mother’s Day Mom!
Wow, it has been a long time since I have written a blog entry! I have missed that and a few of my other New Year’s resolutions. I hope to get back into writing more. And to get me started I successfully upgraded to WordPress 2.5.1. I’ll try to add more this week.
Jan
2
Fantasy Golf: On and Off the Course
Filed Under Golf | 3 Comments
2007 was good year for me golf wise. One of my 2007 resolutions was to lower my handicap. I started the year as a 8.2 handicap in January, climbed as high as 12.4 in April, and now as of 01/01/2008, my USGA handicap is 4.6. I went through two HUGE equipment changes this past year. I switched to Rifle shafts in late April in my irons followed by True Temper with Sensicore along with 85-gram shafts in my fairway woods and hybrid in mid-November. This latest change I feel will make a large impact on my swing and it already has. I have played four rounds with my latest equipment change and I treated myself to an early Christmas present shooting my lowest 9 of the year; a 32. I have not broken 70 since 1999 (69) so my number one goal for 2008 is to break 70. My lowest 18 in 2007 was a 71. My primary practice goal for 2008 is to improve my putting; especially in the 5-10′ range. Since 2001 a colleague of mine and I have made it a goal to 10 play new courses a year and met my goal playing 16 new courses. Of the 100+ courses in the Myrtle Beach area I am down to less than 15; the majority of them private or very pricey. I may have to travel elsewhere to get my 10 but it will be a fun challenge. Since 2001 a few colleagus and friends travel to the Pinehurst area to play a few courses. Another goal of mine is to shoot my lowest rounds in the Pinehurst area. For some reason when I travel to Pinehurst my game stays at home for the first two days and somehow manages to find its way on Sunday. We’ll see. Tomorrow begins the 2008 PGA Tour schedule with the Mercedes Championship in Hawaii and another 9 month adventure with Yahoo! Fantasy Golf. I faired pretty good last year being my rookie year so I’m shooting for a higher ranking this year. I did manage to purchase Tiger Woods ‘08 for the Wii so I may be playing it until time changes which may not be too bad. Simply put I have high hopes for 2008. I hope that my hard work and dedication will pay off with big dividends.
Jan
1
Happy New Year!
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Goodbye 2007 and hello 2008! To welcome in the New Year I had friend’s over to celebrate a late Christmas; popped fireworks; had Clemson disappoint me in overtime again; watched the ball drop (wouldn’t be New Years without Dick Clark); plus I forced myself to stay up long enough to watch Robbie Madison set the world record jump of 322 feet. I don’t remember too much after that. Today, I had my hog jowl and collards. Some may call it superstitious but having both luck and money would be a good thing this year. Now it would not be the New Year without a few resolutions so here they go:
- To get more organized
- Pay off some debt
- Maintain a healthy weight
- Cut out TV/Read more
- Blog more
- (Last but I’m sure on everyone’s list) Exercise
I hope you all had a good New Years too!
Dec
25
Thank you Santa!!!
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Who got a Wii for Christmas??? Me!!! or is it Mii!!!
Dec
25
Merry Christmas!
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Wishing you and your families a Merry Christmas.
Oct
3
Select a Candidate 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
A colleague of mine informed me about this quiz after reading my previous entry. Take the quiz to see if it helps you in finding a suitable 2008 Presidential Candidate. According to the quiz, my top 3 choices would be Thompson, McCain, or Hunter. I hope Fred is another Reagan!
 Fred Thompson Score: 9 |
Agree Iraq Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Marriage Death Penalty |
Disagree Immigration Energy |
 John McCain Score: 9 |
Agree Iraq Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Death Penalty |
Disagree Immigration Marriage |
 Duncan Hunter Score: 9 |
Agree Iraq Taxes Stem-Cell Research Health Care Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Death Penalty |
Disagree Immigration Marriage |
Oct
2
Hillary… What are you thinking?
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
As most of my friends know, I am a Republican. I may have some democratic views on some things but for the majority, I vote Republican. Next year being a presidential election year I knew I would be writing a few posts concerning the subject but not this early. This post is concerning Baby Bonds. Mrs. Clinton is proposing a ‘Baby Bond’ program that would give each child born in this country a bond worth $5000. Not a bad idea in that this money could sit back, each interest, and one day be used for college, a down payment on a first house, etc.
My initial reaction: MY HARD-EARNED MONEY WOULD GO TO PAY FOR THIS CRAP?! We as a nation are worried about illegal immigrants crossing our borders now, just wait until this proposal is put into law. As soon as an illegal mother becomes pregnant, a simple walk over the boarder, and bam, a free $5000 bond is waiting. How else could this go wrong? We would have mothers sitting at home doing nothing but breeding babies. Wait, I’ll have 10 more, and bam, $50000.
How stupid does one have to think this is a good idea? Please post a comment but before you do ponder this. According to the Census Bureau, the US has over 4,115,590 births each year. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math. The estimate for such a program would be over $2 billon dollars each year! Do you think she thought about this before making such a proposal? No, she is simply trying to get votes. She never had mine to begin with but she definitely would not have it now.
Where would our government get this money? Why not take it out of Social Security? And why not? Every other democrat that has been in office has. It appears the Congress will simply have to raise taxes to pay for it. As a nation we are in a load of debt but for some political candidates, printing money is easy. Hillary, Hillary, Hillary… What are you thinking?
Oct
2
Tour de France Unworthy
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
I mentioned cycling when I created this blog but I have yet to write about it so hear it goes. About three months ago a colleague of mine had the idea that he would like to begin cycling and that has motivated a few of us in IS to also begin cycling. Well, to cycle one needs proper equipment and a mountain bike is simply not going to cut it. So I bit the bullet and purchased a 2007 Lemond Etape (picture below) as a good starter bike. 
I am really motivated about being healthy and losing weight, down now to 157 lbs., so I thought, hey, I used to ride everywhere on a bike when I was younger so I thought this should be no problem but boy was I wrong. I can tell that I am really out of shape. I rode today nearly 20 miles and I thought I was going to die during the parts of the ride. I would keep catching second winds but anytime there was a head-wind, I was suffering. I tried to keep up with the draft of the fellow riders but those guys are experienced so I have a lot of practicing to do. I may trick out my bike and I’ll keep the blog informed of that but right now it is simply stock. Another colleague of mine informed me about a great site called MapMyRide.com. I have included the ride that we rode today below. I have a lot of practicing to do so I’ll be posting back later with future rides.
Sep
20
MBA… is it worth it?
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
A undergraduate school friend of mine phoned me the other day asking me if he should return to school. Since undergrad he has not had the opportunity to find a job in the field that he studied in college. He has had odd jobs here-and-there so he thought a MBA may help his chances of finding a job and he wanted my opinion. Opinionated as I am, I quickly said “no”. Of course he wanted to know why and of course I wanted to explain.
School. One is either loves it or hates it. I, for one, love it. If given the opportunity (opportunity = funds) to go back I would in a flash. I love learning. I have completed both my BBA, with two fields of study in General Business and Management Information Systems, and my MBA. Translation: I can speak both bean counter and geek. So has my MBA been worth it?
The center of my universe at my job is our ERP product named SmartStream. For those who need a refresher an ERP integrates (in our case attempts to integrate) multiple processes of an company into one working system. One of those processes, if not the most important behind payroll, is ledger. The majority of my time is working on projects for the Accounting and Finance departments. Without my business background, especially the lessons learned while studying for my MBA, I would not be able to fully understand what these two departments require nor would I be able to understand the language. Unfortunately, my employer told me that they would not compensate me for my MBA nor would they pay for me to go to school. Today, my diploma sits on my wall at work collecting dust. It cost me 2.5 years of blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention close to $15000 of saved, hard-earned money. I was also an Econ minor so I understand that obtaining my MBA was an opportunity cost but now it is sunk. I was one of two employees from my job that attended school and that earned a MBA at the same time. We were the only two that did not have their school paid for by their employer. Am I mad? No. Scorned. No. I am proud. I promised myself a graduate degree and I earned it, it was not given to me. I would make the same decision today. My goal some day is to earn a second graduate degree in MIS but the funds just are not available right now.
So my advice to my friend was before deciding to undertake a graduate degree, to first decide what his goals were. If his goal was a job with more money I told him a few courses at tech or night courses at a university would probably land him a better job and that may be his best option. If his goal was continued education, then a graduate degree was the ticket. So has it been worth it? Yes, for me it has. Any comments?
Sep
20
Another book complete. I know that I had promised to attempt to read one book a week but this is a book that I could not simply read in a week and forget about. This one book has truly motivated me to get motivated. My copy has quite a few post-it notes attached to it and I practice a majority of the ‘tricks’ learned in the book throughout the daily routine. The book, authored by Gina Trapani, contains 88 ideas that makes the complex simple. Now granted some of the ‘tech tricks’ are simply duh in nature but overall I truly liked this book. One reason why I have not posted in a while is that I have recently written a few programs that were inspired from the book. I may post them here after I complete documenting their purpose. In the meantime I encourage you all to check out LifeHacker.com. I have recently started David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”. This may take longer than expected too because it is also chopped full of great ideas.
