ThoughtfulConsideration.com

Redneck Humor

Andy — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:50:37 +0000

These cracked me up. I hope you enjoy them as well!

Funny People

Andy — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 03:50:13 +0000

You may have heard some of these before; I’m pretty sure that I had. They still elicited an out-loud laugh from me, so it seemed reasonable to believe that you might enjoy them too.

Even though I don’t consider these true stories (they came from one of the e-mails that circulate on the internet), they’re certainly plausible. In fact, I know several people who I could very easily envision saying or doing some of these things . . .

Some guy bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying: “Free to good home. You want it, you take it.” For three days the fridge sat there without even one person looking twice at it. He eventually decided that people were too un-trusting of this deal. It looked too good to be true, he changed the sign to read: “Fridge for sale $50.” The next day someone stole it.

One day I was walking down the beach with some friends when someone shouted….”Look at that dead bird!” Someone looked up at the sky and said… “where???”

While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was north because, he explained, he didn’t want the sun waking him up every morning. She asked, “Does the sun rise in the north?” When my brother explained that the sun rises in the east, and has for sometime, she shook her head and said, “Oh, I don’t keep up with that stuff.”

I used to work in technical support for a 24/7 call center. One day I got a call from an individual who asked what hours the call center was open. I told him, “The number you dialed is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

He responded, “Is that Eastern or Pacific time?” Wanting to end the call quickly, I said, “Uh, Pacific”.

My colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria, when we overheard one of the administrative assistants talking about the sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the shore. She drove down in a convertible, but, “didn’t think she’d get sunburned because the car was moving.”

My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car it’s designed to cut through a seat belt if she gets trapped. She keeps it in the trunk…

My friends and I were on a beer run and noticed that the cases were discounted 10%. Since it was a big party, we bought 2 cases. The cashier multiplied 2 times 10% and gave us a 20% di scount…. (maybe I should have bought 10 cases)

I couldn’t find my luggage at the airport baggage area. So I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman there that my bags never showed up. She smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional and I was in good hands. “Now,” she asked me, “has your plane arrived yet?”…

While working at a pizza parlor I observed a man ordering a small pizza to go. He appeared to be alone and the cook asked him if he would like it cut into 4 pieces or 6. He thought about it for some time before responding. “Just cut it into 4 pieces; I don’t think I’m hungry enough to eat 6 pieces.”

What Kind Of Accent Do You Have?

Andy — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 05:38:45 +0000

This was a silly little quiz that I came across but enjoyed taking it nonetheless. There are two distinct disadvantages to this particular quiz:

It’s supposedly evaluating your accent but it’s a written test in which your perceptions determine the outcome (rather than an unbiased listener).
The questions are so few that the accuracy of the assessment is at least mildly suspect.

OK, so I’m probably over-analyzing what was intended to be a fun quiz. That’s just the way I work and while this quiz may be purely entertainment, it doesn’t hurt to critically analyze the world around us in order to not be misguided by information sources that aren’t exactly what they appear at first.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you’re a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

The Carnival of Thoughtful Consideration #3

Andy — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 05:11:04 +0000

Thanks to all the participants of this week’s Carnival of Thoughtful Consideration! It has been several weeks in the making, but your entries are very much appreciated. As always, there is some great, thought-provoking fresh material waiting to be read.

First the financial-related submissions:

Budgets and Saving

Halli presents Dear Legislator, Before You Increase The Minimum Wage posted at www.TrishAndHalli.com.
Phil presents Can You Guess One of Biggest Wastes of Electricity? -From the Other Grinch « Phil for Humanity posted at Phil for Humanity saying “Can You Guess One of Biggest Wastes of Electricity? Christmas lights. Bah-hum-bug! -From the Other Grinch.”

Credit, Debt, and ID Theft

(none this week)

Education

Halli presents BYU Idaho Considers Bold Move Part I posted at www.TrishAndHalli.com.
Halli presents BYU Idaho Considers Bold Move Part II posted at www.TrishAndHalli.com.
Phil presents Global Warming: Mankind’s Greatest Threat « Phil for Humanity posted at Phil for Humanity saying , “Either our world leaders are going to recognize global warming as a real threat to humanity and address it properly, or the entire human population may become extinct.”

Jobs, Employment, and Income

(none this week)

Misc. Investing

H.S. Ayoub presents Could Tiny Ask.com Help Topple Google? posted at SciTech Investor.

Net Worth

(none this week)

Personal Finance

(none this week)

Retirement

(none this week)

And the non-financial related:

Blogging

(none this week)

Digital Photography

(none this week)

Language

(none this week)

Math and Science

(none this week)

Misc. Humor

(none this week)

Organization

(none this week)

Personal Development

D.A.N. presents Improving Your Life through Personal Creativity posted at Sights & Sounds from the Fifth Column.
D.A.N. presents Look at the Human Mind Part 1: An Introduction posted at Sights & Sounds from the Fifth Column.
Jane Chin presents Your Crucial Key To Success posted at On Careers and Life.
Laura Young presents The Path is Made by Walking: Insight is Optional posted at Dragon Slayer’s Gude to Life saying, “If our ability to predict the future as well as our memories of the past are both flawed, why the dogged pursuit of insight and understanding?”

Relationships and Parenting

(none this week)

Technology and Software

(none this week)

Book Reviews

(none this week)

Please be sure to participate in the future editions of The Carnival of Thoughtful Consideration through BlogCarnival.com by submitting your posts with the carnival submission form.

Managing Vast Quantities Of E-mail

Andy — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:06:03 +0000

In today’s world of easy, voluminous communication and cheap storage which facilitates lengthy retention periods, it’s hard not to become crushed beneath the sheer weight of personalized information in the form of e-mail. I have spent several hours over the last two days shuffling through literally hundreds and hundreds of e-mail messages in both personal and work accounts.

I’m not completely unorganized, so what is it that makes falling behind so easy as to be a near inevitability? For me personally (and perhaps for you as well) there are several forces working against me.

Good intentions — If I get an e-mail, it’s implied that the message is important enough for me to at least read. That implication isn’t always true. I still get to decide whether or not I should spend time on it! Sometimes an e-mail also requires a thoughtful response which takes time, and if I can’t answer right then, the only reasonable thing to do is leave it there in my inbox, right? What if it’s a link to a lengthy article that I want to read? That might sit for a really long time!
Lack of time (or other priorities) — There’s only so much time in the day, and if it comes down to keeping up on my e-mail or eating/sleeping/playing with the kids/getting the job done at work/etc., which will I choose?
Procrastination — Sad but true.
Habits that make it hard to keep up — Most of us develop ways of dealing with items (physical or virtual) around us that are capable of dealing the reasonable volumes of those items. The trouble is that “reasonable” is relative and the volumes tend to increase over time. That means that our MO must evolve to keep up.
Spam — It’s not just what’s for breakfast; it’s always waiting for you in your inbox. Spam makes the prospect of facing an e-mail inbox even less appetizing . . . er . . . inviting.

What can be done?

Stop the bleeding — Like weight, financial, or virtually any other problem, the root cause must be identified and addressed.
Be honest (and fair) with yourself — If you really don’t care about reading an article, file (or better yet, delete) the e-mail and forget about it. If you can’t get away with that, scan it quickly and then file or delete it.
Inboxes shouldn’t be To-Do Lists — Come up with an effective way of managing your tasks, but let it be outside your inbox. Personally I like Effexis Achieve Planner, but I’ll talk more about that in another post.
Touch it once (or at a maximum, twice) — Respond right away, even if it’s just a quick note. “Git ‘er done!” Don’t waste time looking at the same e-mail multiple times; that’s counter-productive!
Commit to do better — It’s up to each of us to manage our personal affairs; nobody else can do it for us. Therefore we must take responsibility for the problem and work towards a worthy goal.

Question(s) of the day:

What are some tips & tricks you’ve come across for managing your e-mail effectively?

Checking In After My Sabbatical

Andy — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 04:38:00 +0000

I apologize for taking so much time off. Originally I hadn’t expected to even break for the holidays, but things got really crazy. We ended up all trying this year’s version of the 24-hour bug, my mother-in-law visited (which I genuinely enjoyed), and my son had to be taken to the ER Christmas evening with a high temperature. Combine that excitement with returning to work full time and pulling some long days for physical inventory, and you have a recipe for no time for family, let alone ThoughtfulConsideration.com!

Please continue to read and I’ll do my best to keep the interesting posts coming, even if they’re at a slightly slower pace than in the past several months.

Funny Christmas Tradition

Andy — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 04:18:25 +0000

My family is atypical in many ways, and what I’m about to share is one more reason to believe that claim. We exchange gifts like most people who celebrate Christmas, but there’s always at least one gift that shows up for each person from a local (to my parents) thrift store.

There’s a wide variety of silly stuff available at the thrift store and usually the gifts are fairly random: bowling balls with monogrammed bags, an aebleskiver pan (which I received even though it was supposed to go to my sister), a nappy old electric neck massager, etc.

This year my gift was an old book entitled “Maybe You Should Write A Book” by Ralph Daigh. I’m not very far into it since my time is very limited, but I’m hoping to churn through it rather quickly. It has input from a range of authors who were popular back in the 1970s on how they got started and what they wish they’d known back when they were just getting started. Mom and Dad picked out that one because they know I’m interested in writing an e-book. Pretty thoughtful, eh?

I’ll share any insights I come across, and anything I might learn as I slowly write a couple of e-books.

Question(s) of the day:

Have you written an e-book? If so, what advice can you offer to those of us who are just getting into it?

Merry (belated) Christmas!

Andy — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:25:28 +0000

I wish a very merry (albeit belated) Christmas to you and yours! If you don’t celebrate Christmas, simply take it as I receive other’s holiday greetings: as a sincere and respectful well wishing.

This holiday season has been an eventful one for us complete with 24-hour bugs (that left us in bed or on the toilet), a trip to the emergency room (for a child’s high fever), and a visit from my mother-in-law (who is here for a week).

Please don’t think I’ve abandoned ThoughtfulConsideration.com! I will try to get a few posts out here and there during this busy season.

The Carnival of Thoughtful Consideration #2

Andy — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:14:25 +0000

Thank you all for your wonderful contributions! There are some great articles again this week even though there were fewer submissions. Last week I did an e-mail blast which gave us the great turnout. I don’t want people to feel that I’m spamming them so I didn’t send another one. If you’d like me to shoot you a reminder each week to submit an article, please let me know in the comments section on this page.

I’m very sorry if I inconvenienced you with the premature publishing of this carnival on Monday. Even with the trouble, it was worth the wait!

First the financial-related submissions:

Budgets and Saving

Jason presents Don’t laugh at my car posted at tiredbuthappy saying, “Tiredbuthappy reminds us that our budget is more important that automobile envy! Debt Fighters“

Credit, Debt, and ID Theft

Halli presents A Word to the Wise posted at TrishAndHalli.com saying, “This situation actually occurred. Think – and protect yourself.”

Education

Allan Wallace presents School Choice and Alternative Education posted at BFU – self directed learning for visionaries saying, “request for comments about alternative education.”

Jobs, Employment, and Income

(none this week)

Misc. Investing

H.S. Ayoub presents Weak U.S. Dollar Good for Biotechs! posted at BioHealth Investor.
derrich presents SmartMoney Magazine: Where To Invest In 2007 posted at derrich.com saying, “This year’s sectors to watch are Investment Banking, whose deal-making is now global; Chemicals, boosted by cheaper energy; Internet, where ads and retail are here to stay; Insurers, which thrive amid disaster; and Beverages, since alcohol is recession-proof. In Emerging Markets, you can profit from the new global middle class.”

Net Worth

Big Cajun Man presents The rich are richer, but the poor are poorer too posted at Canadian Financial Rants saying, “In Canada the rich folks are getting much richer, but the poor folks are much poorer and the gap is only getting larger.”

Personal Finance

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Stuck In This Housing Market Slump posted at The Digerati Life.
F. D. Bryant III presents Are Gift Certificates Inappropiate Gifts? posted at FDBryant3′s Newsvine saying, “This article discusses situation where Gift Certificates are a good gift.”

Retirement

(none this week)

And the non-financial related:

Blogging

(none this week)

Digital Photography

(none this week)

Language

(none this week)

Math and Science

(none this week)

Misc. Humor

Mr Juggles presents Hedge Funds and Love posted at Long or Short Capital.

Organization

(none this week)

Personal Development

Laura Young presents Adventures of an Unlikely Super Hero (Part One): Ambition — For a Woman?! posted at Dragon Slayer’s Guide to Life saying, “Epic story of how one woman got a handle on power and became a rockin’ dragon slayer.”
D.A.N. presents Curbing the Spread of Fanaticism posted at Sights & Sounds from the Fifth Column.

Relationships and Parenting

(none this week)

Technology and Software

(none this week)

Book Reviews

(none this week)

Please be sure to participate in the future editions of The Carnival of Thoughtful Consideration through BlogCarnival.com by submitting your posts with the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

Early Christmas Present

Andy — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 04:50:26 +0000

After several years of “making do” with our HP Photosmart 735, we decided to upgrade to the Canon Powershot S3. Every reviewer loved it, and so far we like it too. I read as much as I could about it online, and decided that it was a fairly worthy tightwad alternative to a digital SLR. My favorite review was this one over at imaging-resource.com.

They also had some great recommendations on rechargeable batteries and chargers. We picked those up at Thomas Distributing, and a 2 GB SD card and USB SD card reader at the venerable NewEgg.com. I can’t share any opinions with you on the batteries yet because they’re due to arrive tomorrow, and the card and reader will arrive on Friday – just in time!

Technically this is a Christmas present, but as the dad I have a solemn responsibility to have the camera fully functional for the big day. Tonight after pulling the camera out of the box I actually broke down and started reading the manual. Before too long I was taking macro shots of any marginally interesting object in the house because the cold dark evening didn’t permit me to try out the other features outside. I can tell you that we were very pleased with how well the redeye reduction feature worked in our first eight pictures (that’s all the pitiful 16 MB SD card – that came with the camera – would hold).

Here are a few sample shots that I took tonight of random objects around the condo. Enjoy them and don’t forget about The Carnival of Thoughtful Consideration #2 tomorrow!