All Things Rowdy

In my shooting competitions the top skill classification is called "Grand Master" (GM). To achieve this ranking you have to shoot 6 different skill tests with a score within 5% of the very best. In other words you need to be 95th percentile of everyone who is doing it. By the membership numbers that is about 2% of the people who compete. More people have summitted Mt Everest. I usually shoot one or two of these skill tests, called classifiers, per month year round. And to make it a little harder they don't just take your 6 best of all time but only your 6 best of your most recent ones. Looking at my history for example you'll see that I've shot more than one 100% level classifier but they were long enough ago they don't count to my current classification percentage. (I'm paraphrasing this as it's a little more complex that how I describe) I've always had the goal of making GM in the back of my mind. And now I get this tingling feeling I'm i...

I still think I made more working at the hospital than I've paid to one.... No way I've paid more than that out of my own pocket. I'm sure the insurance company feels a little differently though! What a rough business. Beyond that, here is an email for an expensive out of pocket blood test I had with the result of remission to mild. That is good news! I can accept that on a cold Tuesday morning.

"It will all work out", isn't the same thing as "It will be easy."

Henry is a word like yuppie. High earner not rich yet. What most people don't realize is there is a huge difference between being rich and having a high income. Doctors who are doing great make over 500,000 dollars a year. Any decent lawyer makes 200,000 a year. I made over 100,000 a year just as nuclear medicine technologist and as a radiation safety officer. Rock stars, professional athletes and movie stars now we're talking about millions of dollars a year at the top. But every dollar any of those people earn is for something they did. A surgery, a case, a performance. A wage for for a service, even if it is a very high wage. But that doesn't make you rich. You know what rich is? Rich is having something else make money for you. Rich is receiving income unrelated to your physical performance. Rich is capital gains. Rich is commercial or residential rental property income. Rich is having the employees of your chain of restaurants or gas stations making money for you...

When making a purchasing decision economists say we gauge how much money to spend by using two methods of thinking, relative cost and opportunity cost. Researchers say that most of us use relative cost when deciding how much money to spend on an item or service. "Well if we're gonna spend 900 on new dryer why not 1,200 and get the super nice one?" Normally it is comparing one thing to another and convincing yourself that spending more is worth it, relative to the amount you're spending or to an alternative but similar item. Usually you find a way to rationalize an up-sell, either from a salesman or from within yourself. More rarely they say do we gauge things from the idea of an opportunity cost. Relative is a 'this-vs-that' kind of question while opportunity asks you, "what instead of this altogether?" I'm feeling a little melancholy and broke today, which has me thinking opportunity costs of the thing(s) I spend the most money on. What did I...

I'm going to Texas for a week at Thanksgiving. I have family coming for Christmas for a week. And then I want to move out of the state by like May or June. All these things are on the books. On the other hand I feel I need a part time job. What are the chances of getting a part time job that lets me keep my holiday plans and won't look bad when I leave another job after less than a year?????????????

My vision is definitely deteriorating more rapidly than I'd ever imagined. I'm not gonna go blind anytime soon but my loss of visual acuity is severe and hasn't stopped getting worse once it started just 4 years ago. Glasses of course are and have been the answer. That's not what gives me pause though, just the fact my vision hasn't leveled off. Just worse and worse year after year. Reflect on the pause button for a second. Cassettes, cd, dvd, digital they all have a pause button. An indeterminate time of stoppage but that was user controlled and then you jumped right back in where you left off. So to say life is on pause I think would be a misnomer. I don't feel in control of the time frame and I'm not quite sure where in my own personal song I'm going to be jumping back in. Feels more like shuffle instead. Career restart and change is tied to the timing and money of both selling this house and moving to a new place. This is not the time to spend 10...