Valley Girl
The Rachel Papers
The Sure Thing
Losin’ it
The Last American Virgin
Class
Zapped!
Johnny Be Good
Making the Grade
Secret Admirer

Some of the worst acting, putrid writing… But, I really wanted to get a hold of the last american virgin. Again, it wasn’t like I remember it.  Then again, I saw most of these films when they were released, I saw them with my girlfriend. We watched a lot of movies, it was the only place we really could go and be together and not be pestered by our respective  families.

I guess I could review the films here and let you know about them, but alas… it would pain me to watch all of them with a keen eye and rank or rate the poor writing, equally poor acting.

Suffice it to say, I was pretty stupid (not saying dumb, because really, I knew better) to plunk down the 29 bucks for this collection.  However, it does come down to less than 3 dollars per movie, and that’s less than I paid to see them in the first place.

Nostalgia is not very satisfying sometimes, the memories prove to be much more enjoyable in the long run.

When I was young, I didn’t follow the common sense money advice that I would get (not from my family however, they did a good job of being economically sound – my parents were.  They just didn’t think they needed to sit down with me and really talk about how money works.) This lack of common money sense followed me through my life into my early 40s. That’s when things changed, painfully at times, ingited by a divorce.

No, the divorce wasn’t due to our financial state, it was on a much deeper inter-personal level. It was going to happen one day or another, and I felt that I needed to move on… you only live so long and I wanted to give my sons an education about relationships that wasn’t riddled with constant fighting and a total lack of any affection, the only passion we had for each other was a negative passion.

BUT, THAT IS OVER and HISTORY.

Yet, I carry debt from that relationship which has been like a stone around my neck.  It’s not that I couldn’t keep up with the payments on the debt, nor qualify for a mortgage…. I could. It was just the fact that my money in my checking and savings accounts were like a gas tank with only fumes. I had a 15 minute account for as long as I can remember. (A 15 minute account is where you deposit the check from work and then 15 minutes later the funds are gone to pay things off!) And funny enough, the one time I get almost all my credit paid off, my ex and I have to purchase a new van, and use the credit cards for a down payment. How stupid was I? Very.

Now these days, I spend my time finishing paying off this awful debt, and figuring out how to get some very important points across to my children about the dangers and hobbling effects that debt has on a person, and their families.

I just wish I never started down that path to providing someone else lots of riches… Here’s to working to pay it all off and to save save save!

The motto during those years was “That’s what life insurance is for” when I complained about how much debt we were accruing!  Well, it might just be, but it really put my cash flow in a bind…

Go forth, be well, and spend thoughtfully, save diligently!

My wife and I had a discussion about falling prey to CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome), and decided that we should do something to keep us from having to have surgery in the future.  You see I work from home on my computer, I am on that thing 12-14 hours or more a day it seems. My wife also works mostly from home doing contract work editing scripts for Web Based Training. So she is typing quite a bit as well.

Enter the keyboard solution! 

I started using a split keyboard in or around 1998….  I absolutley love it and have had no problems with my wrists. In fact I believe that I type more accurately and faster by using my split keybaord. I use my keyboard so much that the letters are starting to get rubbed off.

So, I stopped by a local office depot (Local meaning less than 50 miles from home, since I now live in the middle of nowhere!) and invested in two keyboards, one a replacement for my worn one, and my wife’s first split keyboard.

I installed her keyboard last night and right off the bat she was telling me that it was weird, and she was totally ‘fat fingering’ when she was writing an email, she became a little frustrated.  I remember having my first keyboard and feeling the same way… That akwardness goes away rather quickly though.  The nice thing about this keyboard is it has a built in wrist rest with a built in tilt, so it keeps your hands straight and held on the keyboard naturally. And after a while, you will not want to type on any other kind of keyboard, although you will.

And it certainly is more stylish than the old keyboard!

The old keyboard style… Not stylish at all! 

So if you are concerned that you might be messing with your Carpal Tunnel enough to get the Syndrome, invest $50 in a rock solid solution, go out and get the keyboard or order one on line.

You too will become a convert!

But as with anything, especially childhood, teenage years and early adulthood… those things pass on into the halls of our brains we label as memories.

But I tend to wonder where those people who I interacted with during periods of my life have gone, what they did, where their lives lead them.. do they still have lives? (you know, are they dead or something)

Over the years I’ve been poking around looking for those people who were in my life during some of my ‘formative years’.  Sometimes re-introducing yourself is a good thing, other times you learn what these people really thought of you, but never had the nerve to tell you back in the day, but with distance and time, they feel free and often obligated to set things straight (not necessarily right, but straight in their minds). And still there are days when I just hit google and start fishing!  Why? Boredom?  Curiosity?  I’ll never know.

A number of years ago I found one of my best friends from Junior High (but now they call it middle school, but I am not going to change my terminology because they are stupid!) and we have built that friendship back up.  This friend, Vince, was one of the guys who worked at the career center with me and used to hang out and use the schools time-sharing HP 2000A system.  The first computer system I really ever used. This was well before home computers burst onto the marketplace. And we were part of the beginning of the home computing landslide (who ever knew how this would turn out).

So in my experiences, some good, great, or bad… Be careful about who you try to look up. It has gotten easier since the introduction of facebook and other social media sites.  Sometimes the past comes to find you! That aspect of knowing where the past as moved is something that I am not going to go over in this post.  Maybe another post later….

seriesplural of se·ries (Noun)

With that definition it seems that it is a series indeed. Let’s move on to what I want to write about:

Working from home… Things you should consider.

Believe it or not there are some big things about working from home that you need to consider aside from “Will my company allow me to work from home?”.

First thing is Dedicated work area.

Important when you are at the company, much more so when you are working from home.  You need to be able to separate yourself from your regular life!  When I first started working from home, my then wife, now ex would expect me to do housework.  And that expectation is pretty common.  I mean you’re home aren’t you? Can’t you just start that load of laundry, do the dishes and start prepping dinner? The answer to that should be a resounding NO.

Here is a rule of thumb… if you can’t do some chore at home because you are miles away at the company office, the same should hold true for when you are working in your home office (At least during your work hours).

Make sure that you have all the equipment, reference materials and supplies that you need to get your job done. The good news is that office supplies, if they aren’t provided by your employer, are usually tax deductible. (I cannot give you tax advice, I suggest getting advice from a tax specialist when it comes to questions like – “Can I deduct the cost of my office supplies?”)

Secondly, High Speed Internet Connection

This is actually an easy one in most parts of the country.  I say MOST because I know people who live in parts of California or Colorado that cannot get high speed internet at their homes because they are 1/2 a mile out of the cable companies service area.

A DSL connection from the phone company, Cable Modem from the cable company, or other broadband offering should be just fine. With one twist (of course)… Most people who are working from home are usually required to connect back to the home office using VPN. VPN is a way to turn your regular broadband connection into a secure Virtual Private Network. In this case it would be from the point starting at your home, to the company you are working for - their data center. And you need to make sure that your broadband internet provider can handle passing VPN… some can’t/don’t/won’t do it, so check it out and get the service that allows you to set up VPN connections.

Third, Set your business hours (and keep to them)

People think that working from home gives them ultimate freedom, well… unless you want to get fired (which could be considered the ultimate freedom), you need to keep consistent working hours.  You will need to work these out with your employer.   The biggest thing in working from home, as far as your relationship with your employer is TRUST. They need to trust that you will be working the hours you say you are, and you need to trust that they will give you the support you need be it professional, technical or whatever kind of support needed to get the job done.  Respect the hours it’s too easy to give in to “well, just this one time”, and one time turns into often, and then regularly… and then where are you? Not working!

Respect for the business hours applies to your family too.  It’s tempting to come in and chat with you, or as you for help with home work… but they need to understand that the hours you are working, you are working.  Now that’s not to say that you are not going to be able to drop and pick up your children from school… you most likely would be able to arrange that with your employer. You see, your employer expects to have a happier more productive employee if they are working from home.  And making sure there is an apropriate work/life balance. It’s not always easy, but it can be worked at.

If you are sick, take your sick day.  It’s so easy to say “I can work even if I’m sick, or I can do part of my work.” that attitude doesn’t work for you or your employer!  That is why your employer offers sick days, to let you recover and not be sick.  Working while you are sick just helps your sickness to hang on!

Make sure to take vacation time as well!  What?  Why should I take vacations?  I mean I’m living the life, working from home… isn’t this a vacation already? Well if it feels like a vacation, then you’re not really working and you need to review what it is you are doing, right? And you still need to work on that work/life balance, and vacations help you relax and recharge!

You should work the same way that you would work in the office, as you do when you are home. Just imagine your boss is right outside your door, waiting to come in and see what’s going on with you. Keep it straight!

Fourth, Go into the office every once in a while

“Hey!” your thinking, “if I’m working from home, why would I have to or want to go into the office every once in a while?”.  Good question! Almost every job out there has a relationship component.  Your relationship with your manager and coworkers… If you never step foot in the office again, they could forget you, and that’s not something you want.  Facetime when you are working from home is more important because you get less of it.  If your team has meetings every week, or monthly, make sure that you make it to those meetings so you can interact with your team.  Most of your interactions will take place via email (which is a totally new topic in itself) and phone.

Make sure you reply quickly to email and return calls in a timely manner if you are home based. It will show that you are working effectively and are on the ball, even if you are working from home.

Fifth, Choose a solid phone option

I’m not just talking about a phone, although that is a great point to make here as well.  Don’t go out and buy a $10 telephone from walmart and expect it to last through some serious work useage.  Spend a little and buy up!  For example I plunked $150 down for my Clarity by Polycom phone, which I picked up at Radio Shack. It was one of the best phones on the market 11 years ago and for me it still is.  The clarity rocks and it is an awesome speaker phone (it doesn’t sound like your on speaker to the people you are on the phone with.)

What I was going to say was to chose a phone option that works consitently for you. My current company offers work from home employees VOIP, which is a piece of software that links to the company phone switch, and operates over the internet.  I chose not to sign up for that since the technology depends on the software running on a PC. Reboot the PC, forget to start the VOIP software? All calls now go to your voicemail. And the quality of the call can be affected by the computer itself, the speed of the computer, or how much ram it has… and if it’s bogged down running other software…. this can cause static drop outs and so on.

It’s a good idea to get a phone number you can forward to your home office, or cell phone that will allow people to leave messages at that phone number, not your home phone or cell phone, keeping your work messages in one location. The nice thing about phone numbers you can forward is that you can have them follow you and not have to give your company, coworkers, or clients a list of phone numbers that they could reach you at. I personally use two different services in addition to having a land line from my cable provider (the combination of land line and virtual phone number works great!)

http://accessline.com

and

http://www.google.com/voice

Accessline is a paid service that costs $19 per month or so depending on what features you need.  And google voice is mostly free (unless you use their system to dial out).

And there you have a few things to consider. More on the way.