Quite alot to ‘blog about today…
First, saw an excellent debate last night on KET (Kentucky Educational Television) regarding the issue of Same-Sex marriage. Honestly, I’m not for it. Barring the religious, moral implications of redefining marriage as a union between consenting adults, sanctioned by the gov’t, it seems like a willful attack on an institution that works: Union between a man and a woman that they might raise children with influence from both the male and female, the Yin and Yang, the Venus and Mars. Forgive me for being trite, but seems like there’s nothing like the nuclear family (or, even the Eastern Kentucky version, the Thermonuclear 12-member-plus-35-member-extended-family family). I’m glad to have grown up with the influence of a mother and a father, and think any child would benefit from such.
I’m conservative. Sue me.
Random: The poor, elderly minister from the Lexington Theological Seminary who was on there DEFENDING homosexuality and same-sex marriage…I respect the man, but his position seems untennable. He’s far from fundamentalist, but his frank relativism makes Christianity seem pointless: If you don’t establish some ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ behavior, why did Christ have to die for people’s sins? After all, wasn’t the fall of man precipitated by a “Choice between Consenting Adults”?
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Reading extensively this week:
First up is a tome from the 1920’s on personal finance and investing (yes, written BEFORE the crash) called The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason.
Very light, yet touching book, full of parables supposedly taken from cuneiform tablets around the city of Babylon. Total fabrication of course, but a good quick read.
Summary of the tenets:
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Pay yourself the first 10% of everything you earn. This is the first step towards building wealth Totally agree here…if you spend everything you make, you’ll be a slave to your lifestyle. This doesn’t mean be a miser, either…just save some money!
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Invest & let your savings grow through compound interest & some speculation. Let your money work for you…don’t hide it under a mattress.
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Own your own home…Yeah, yeah…I hate mowing grass
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invest for retirement….umm…Duh!?
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Take opportunity as you find it Basically, “Make your own luck”. If you keep saving money, you’ll have wads of cash available when the time is right to go after that good deal, good investment, or whatever.
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Don’t put money in an investment whre you’re gonna lose principal God, if only they’d done that in 1929….
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Insurance, insurance, insurance! Protect against catastrophic loss and you’re eventual demise (if you’ve got a family).
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Invest in yourself Kaizen, for the Flapper era.
So, like I said, very common-sense stuff. Not worth your money to buy, honestly, but a good, affirming read from all the Dave Ramsey stuff I consume.
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Heard a really good discussion of Coffee and etc. the other day, so I decided to get serious. I’m starting to understand the difference between your average Maxwell House crap and good quality Starbucks, so why not get some literature.
Got this:
Coffee Basics by Kevin Knox. All you really ever wanted to know about coffee. I’m already all about doing a manual-drip brewing (did some creative modifications to my poor 4-cup Mr. Coffee to give it a try and it’s a REVELATION!), and I’ve ordered a 1-quarter Nissan Thermos and filter cup attachment so that I can do it. ‘Twould seem my coffee grinder is in for some daily duty, finally.
(Random: Even @ $13/lb, your average cup of home-brewed coffee costs a whopping $.33. Given that McDonalds brews using crappy Robusta beans, they’re making a FORTUNE on coffee alone.)
Another tidbit I learned from the book today: Basically, no auto-drip coffee maker makes coffee properly, at least none under $150. Basically, you have to brew a certain amount (2 tablespoons per 6 oz cup) of coffee for the right amount of time (4 minutes) at the right temperature (190-205 degrees F) to make great coffee. This formula is unquestioned by any professional coffee brewer or taster or roaster, and yet commercial drip coffee makers don’t do it. They take like 10 minutes to brew coffee, and it’s always bitter because it’s over-extracted. To make the coffee palatable, you must use less coffee in the filter than you need, so it’s got the weird combination of being too strong (bitter) and too weak-bodied, all at the same time.
And as for espresso, don’t waste your time: The right equipment and skill is just too expensive. Go out for latte, cappucino, and the like.
As you can well tell, an interesting read all around. I highly recommend it if you’re into coffee at all.
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Weather report: It’s s’posed to be in the upper 50’s here in Lexington this week, and I can smell spring in the air already. I’m tempted to shed my snow tires and put-on my dormant set of all-seasons, switching the snow-tires to race tires on that set of rims.
Got a new set of brakes for my MINI in anticpation of the start of autocross season. EBC Greenstuff brakes–good bite, no dust.
Dang…Scrubs is on…