It’s also important to note that this current bout I’m having with the state of America is markedly different than previous ones. I’ve been opinionated about politics for a while. I lived in DC for 8 years and it’s difficult to escape it there. But as I read more about things like Occupy Wall Street, Congress throwing away our future for political capital, record profits for the rich; it all starts to be too much. I’m really angry right now. It’s that seething inner anger that won’t show on my face if we were sitting across from each other. But it’s welling up, and I think it’ll eventually boil over if something doesn’t change.

So what needs to change?

Well it would take me a long time to explain my politics. I don’t think any particular platform or ideology encompasses what I think makes sense. It’s safe to say I lean left. But I don’t have any beef with those that “lean right”. In general, conservatives have different values that they are entitled to. And what works for me may not work for them. In fact, I’ve had long talks with real conservatives and we have found lots of common ground to stand on. What’s making me angry right now is the people who are in control of this country; whatever side they are on. It is becoming more and more clear that have no idea what they’re doing, and they are perfectly fine with selling us all down the river if it means they get to sustain their way of life a while longer.

There are certain terms that get bandied about in politics. Terms like “elitist” and “out of touch”. Politicians use them to discredit opponents and at the same time suggest that they themselves are “empathetic”. But this is horse shit. If you were empathetic, you would find it horrifying that so many are out of work. If you were empathetic, you wouldn’t be trying to cut social assistance programs for these people that you’re so in touch with. If you were empathetic, you wouldn’t play chicken with each other about our debt crisis, and you wouldn’t send cops to beat college kids because they dare to ask for more porridge. They are all out of touch.

And I blame left-leaning officials, too. Obama has said nothing important about OWS. He has said nothingsignificant as people are gassed, shot, arrested, humiliated, defamed, fired and killed, all because they are asking what’s wrong with this country. Even those democrats that are patting themselves on the back are playing the game, instead of standing up and saying “we don’t have time to play this game, people need help”. They have also said nothing while Fox News and private billionaires have spread propoganda that stokes the fires of controversy and division. In my mind that does more damage to the solidarity of this country than even multiple, decade-long, overseas wars can do.

They don’t care about us. That’s the simple truth. We are a faceless mob to them. We are the unwashed masses that need to be kept in line. If this sounds deeply cynical, that’s because it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s false. I haven’t seen very much evidence to the contrary. All I’ve seen is politicians doing a poor job of pretending to govern. There are some that are secretly aware of how fucked up they are. But it’s unacceptable to demand that they explain themselves. There are some that are deluded into thinking they’re “good”. Even while they let atrocities happen despite being in a position to stop them cold.

So why don’t I protest?

Yeah, back to this question. There are some hard truths here. But I need to spit them out before I can start dealing with them. I have actually internalized the reasons why I don’t go out and protest.

For one, I’m not sure it’s really going to make a difference. I know that protests read well in history books, but I’m not convinced simply standing in the street for months is going to make those idiots change their tune. I admit that it would make a difference if the protestors numbers reached a critical mass. If everybody with a lame excuse like this would go out there anyway, the crowd would be too big to suppress or ignore. But then what? It is true that they have little direction and few concrete demands. Even the politicians who are listening aren’t going to come up with the answers themselves. I certainly don’t have the answers. Maybe if the OWS movement grows some outspoken and charismatic leaders, things will change for me. For now there have to be other things that happen combined with protest. I’m more interested in those things.

There’s also a more personal reason. I’m afraid to be a protestor. I’ve done very well for myself. My life is very comfortable. And if I’m honest with myself, I don’t feel any of the real affects of what’s going on in this country. I’m easily in the top 10% of earners and I have a lot to lose. All I have is empathy. But that’s not the core reason. I’m still a young black man in America. And I have the very real fear that if I step out of line, I will be dealt with harshly. The police are shooting rich white college kids. They do not have a history of showing restraint with people who look like me.

I have been extremely fortunate in my life. I’ve never been the direct target of racism. I’ve never felt particularly discriminated against. I’ve never had trouble furthering my career. In fact, I’ve had better luck than many of my white friends. But I have no delusions that this is all due to a combination of smarts, education and luck. Many black men are in jail. Many of those were sent there unfairly or sentenced much more harshly than necessary. Many free black men are convicted felons so they are not allowed to participate in our democracy by casting their vote. Many are poor and uneducated with no real skills and no real prospects to obtain those skills for themselves or their children.

I don’t think that throwing myself into the gauntlet and risking becoming another statistic is what I personally can do to make things better. What I can do, and will do, is become the outlier. I’m going to become more successful, have a wonderful family, educate my children and prepare them to be better citizens. I’m going to prove that I deserve this luck. And most importantly, I’m going to try to shift that needle so I’m not such an outlier. I hope these things will serve as an acceptable substitute for my presence. I stand with the protestors in spirit.

So what’s next?

I don’t know. It’s unlikely that I’ll protest, but I’m also reaching the end of my patience with being idle. I have to find something to do that I feel is significant. But that’s a tall order considering how cynical I am. Writing Congress is a waste of time. There is no elected official or candidate that has convinced me he gets it. Giving money is good, but utlimately makes me feel disconnected. Perhaps these are self-made obstacles and I need to just get over myself. I’m still working on it. Open to suggestions.

As a Canadian, I can’t but wonder at a country whose citizens boast of having a Constitutional right to own and carry killing weapons, but none to be cared for when they’re seriously ill. Just think about it.

The idea of whether universal health care is the right thing has always been a moral one to me.  This quote also made me extend my thoughts to the  talking points around the current debate.  Opponents of health care reform keep invoking the strawman of “socialized medicine”, as if letting government provide health care for all is somehow a bad thing.  First of all, those two are not the same.  That’s not even the real issue though.  We spend billions of dollars a year on newer and better ways to end life.  It’s something we readily allow “Big Government” to control.  They tell us how it’s done and we don’t even get a say in when, where and why they send our sons and daughters to die.  But we refuse to take responsibility as a nation for each other’s health.

I have more to say on this.  But no time.  Read the article, then write your Congressmen.

What’s the better movie bet for this weekend? Pandorum http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pandorum/ or Surrogates http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009598

And I got back a seemingly innocuous answer

Watch both

Well that sounds like a great idea.  Only there’s a reason I have to pick one.  The simple fact is I’m out of money for this month.  My girlfriend and I are on a budget, and I only have $22 more dollars to spend on entertainment.  So if the two of us take in a movie… that’s it.  We’re done until Oct 1st.

Why am I writing about this?  Well first of all this blog has been staring at me with puppy dog eyes for months now.  It was hungry for content.  Second of all, I’ve been thinking for a while that I wanted to write about how Aniyia and I manage money.  It’s something I take very seriously and it’s something a lot of people have trouble with.  So I’m hoping someone gets something out of it.

Anyway back to the budget.  On the surface, everyone knows what a budget is.  Basically you say “here’s how much I have to spend.  After this, I have to stop.”  But when you try to live on a budget on a daily basis, you realize the rules are pretty vague.  For instance, does that mean I’m gonna be broke if I spend this $22?  Nah, this is only part of my budget.  I won’t be hurting if I spend an extra $10.  Does it mean something bad will happen if I go over my budget?  Not really.  I’m not going to overdraft my account or miss any bill payments.  So you’re thinking, what’s the big deal?  It’s not that I can’t go see both movies, I’m just depriving myself.

And you are exactly right.

The only problem with that thought is that going over my budget is a really big deal to me.  I choose to deprive myself of things so that I can be financially stable. If that doesn’t seem like a very revolutionary concept then you should read it again.  Then you should ask yourself, are you financially stable?  If the answer is no, then you should read it again.

I have read a lot of books and blogs about how to get out of debt.  They all have different tips, tricks and techniques that they want you to try.  And some of them are good.  But the real secret, and the one they all agree on is this:

The only way to save money or pay off debt is to spend less money than you make.

It’s really a simple concept.  If you have make $10 you can only spend $9.  If you make $30,000 you can only spend $29,000.  It’s up to you how much you save.  But unless you can make it to the end of the month and still have some money left, then you fail.  Plain and simple.

But this is an extremely difficult thing to actually accomplish for most people.  Because there’s always something to spend more money on.  There are so many awesome things you can have if you just spend more money.  A couch for your new apartment or a trip to Vegas or the super HD cable package.  Not to mention all of the bills that you absolutely have to pay.  It doesn’t matter how much money you make in a month, you can find a way to spend it all on if you want to.  Just ask MC Hammer.

But I realized something important a while back.  The money I make is not mine.  I’m just borrowing it.  It really belongs to all the creditors I owe.  Credit cards, car note, student loans, other miscellaneous crap.  At one point, when I added it all up, I owed them a grand total of half of the money I make in a year! (and I get paid pretty well)  When I realized that it made me sick.  I felt crushed under the weight and felt like I was in a cage.  I had to get out.  So I had to take steps.

I decided to start spending less so that I could dig myself out of the massive hole I dug for myself.  And over the last few years I’ve paid off around $20,000 in debt.  Since Aniyia and I have started working together we have completely paid off her credit card debt.  Which was killing her at the beginning of last year.  That may seem impressive, but we’re not done yet.  I still have credit cards and a car note.  So every day, I make sacrifices so that I can keep money in my pocket.  And it goes towards my goal of being completely debt free.

So let me outline how our personal budget works.  These are the basic principles that help us make decisions:

• Our budget includes every last dollar we make. You have to think of everything, and nothing is too small to be counted.
• We break down our expenses so we can see and understand what we spend. Once you really see how much you spend every month, it’ll probably make you sick too.  But this is an important step.
• We track every dollar that comes in and goes out.  You should never end up with that feeling that you don’t have any money and you don’t know where it went to.
• If we spend money on something.  It has to be accounted for in the budget. Your car broke down?  You have to go to a friend’s wedding?  Those are unexpected right?  Not really.  These things happen all the time.  You should expect them.  What you really mean is that they are unplanned for. You can account for these things in your budget.  More on that later.
• Every extra dollar goes towards our goal. For us it’s paying off debt.  For you, this could be saving for a house or a car.  It depends on what’s important to you.  The point is you have to have a goal.  If you can’t say exactly why you’re saving that dollar, you won’t.

I’ll try to talk about each of these things individually in future posts.  But can you see why going to an extra movie is a no go?  Every dollar has to be accounted for.  I don’t have a magic pair of pants that always has an extra 10 dollar bill in it.  That $10 is already promised to go somewhere else.  So if I do spend it, what else doesn’t get paid? Any extra money is coming out of another part of the budget.  If I choose to see an extra movie, I also have to decide what else to give up.

Is it coming out of the food budget?  I could skip one meal eating out, but we’re pretty tight on the food budget this month too.  Is it gonna come out of the water bill money?  Some people might choose that, but I kind of like taking showers.  The only other place it can come from is the money we’ve set aside to pay off my debt.  And that is unacceptable.

To me, a budget means knowing what you’re giving up if you spend too much money. Every time I spend more than I planned, I’m making a choice to stay in debt an extra day.  Thanks but no thanks.  I’ll just catch Surrogates on Netflix in a few months.  That’s already included in the budget.

I promise future posts will have more substance than this one.  I want to talk about how to actually setup a budget and how to live with it.  So stay tuned.

However I do feel that it’s time to bring the original theme of this blog back into focus.  I want to be rich one day, so I’ve been thinking a lot about what that means.  More specifically, what does that mean in light of the political and economic turmoil that we’re going through right now?

I’ve been conflicted about what it means to be rich lately.  If you asked me “Do you want to be Rich?” I would answer much the same as the author of this blog post did.  I just want enough money to not have to worry about it.  I think the majority of us just want to feel safe and secure.  We want to go have some fun occasionally and not worry about losing our house.  But then it struck me that this might be the real problem.  This definition is too vague.  How much is enough?  How rich do you have to be before you don’t worry about it anymore?

I was all on board with the outrage against paying AIG executives bonuses.  It’s seems ridiculous.  One of the first things a business does when it’s struggling is cut salary bonuses, right?  It just makes sense from a purely economic standpoint, right?  But like so many other things that have outraged America recently, the facts aren’t as simple as that.  Yesterday I read the already infamous resignation letter from a top executive at AIG. And like a lot of people, I felt bad for the guy.  If the situation is anything like how  Jake DeSantis paints it, all the political wrangling and the public outrage are actually making things worse.  We, the public, are on the outside and we don’t really understand the inner workings of Investment Banking.  We’re given these shallow, dumbed-down explanations of things because we demand them, and because they make for good news ratings.  And then we are given the power to dictate how things should go, based on our limited understanding.  And in the process, AIG loses someone like this guy who seemed like he was really trying to help.

But that’s not the point of this story.  I want to contrast that story with this one about the top paid Investment Bankers for 2008. Last year, one person made $2 billion dollars for doing the job that is bankrupting America this year. Let’s use the zeros here because it makes things a little more upsetting.  That’s $2,000,000,000.  That’s bailout money, and it went to one guy.  That boggles my mind.  Let’s put it on a scale.  If you made $100,000 a year, you’d probably be pretty happy right?  Well for every $1 you would’ve made last year, this guy made $20,000.  Let’s put it another way.  The money that one guy made last year could provide a decent middle class income for 50,000 people.  At a time when all of the political talk is about job creation, that guy is getting paid the equivalent of 50,000 American jobs.

Some people might say that kind of comparison isn’t fair.  But when we’re talking about this kind of wealth gap, fair doesn’t even factor in.  So after putting all of this together, I feel a lot less sympathetic toward Mr. DeSantis.  He received over $700,000 in bonus money for his work last year.  During his time as an investment banker for AIG, he has probably made more money than the average American will see in their entire lifetime.  More money than anyone has a right to expect.  And he himself even admits that he doesn’t really need it at this point:

I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

The thing that is most disturbing about this statement is that it makes me jealous. There is no way I could go a year without pay.  Even if I did, there is no possible way I could decide to give up that pay when it finally came at the end of the year.  No matter how “disappointed and frustrated” I was that my employer didn’t support it.

If you want my 2 cent analysis of this whole bonuses episode, that’s what it boils down to.  Ordinary people are really getting a sense for how much these people on Wall Street are making, and it’s infuriating.  Because we’re all looking for that kind of security.  We get up every day and struggle to figure out how to get there.  We work just as hard as Jake DeSantis claims he has, but we aren’t rewarded so handsomely.  He is rich by all of the standards that I measure against.  Yet he acts indignant because we are asking him not to steal our money in his effort to get richer. We’re still trying to make it.  What he has now should be enough.

So after all this, I’m left to consider my own future.  What if I succeed in my efforts to get rich?  When will it be enough for me?  At what point will I be able to stop and say “This is enough, I don’t really need any more.”  Especially if it means taking it from others who are still struggling to get there?  That’s a tough question.  And I think it’s clear that most people on Wall Street aren’t even asking it.

Me: Did you see this thing Obama’s doing.  It’s pretty cool.

Friend: Pssh!  But what about this, that and those.  He’s not living up to his campaign promises!  It’s more of the same!

It seems like there is a pretty strong sentiment out there that Obama has made too many concessions to Republicans and failed to overturn many of the Bush Administrations unpopular policies.  I’ve argued against this sentiment enough times that I feel it’s time to put it up publicly.

First of all, I feel like I understand people’s frustration and disappointment with some of the decisions that have been made lately.  For instance, the Administration has equivocated on closing Gitmo as it promised.  It passed the Stimulus Bill without the more stringent regulations and oversight that we hoped for.  There are a lot of other things that are making people throw their hands up in disbelief.  Why isn’t he cleaning house?  Why isn’t he pushing his agenda through?  Why isn’t he taking a stand on these things?

Barack Obama’s campaign was an inspirational example of how to spread awareness and foster hope in this country’s people.  But in that same breath he set the bar extremely high for himself.  Obama has created such a bright shining vision of the future of government in this country that it’s almost tangible to some people.  He promised us greatness and we want it now.  I say “we” because I’m certainly one of those people.  I’m anticipating these major shifts in our democracy as intently as anyone else.

But maybe I’m just a little more realistic about the time frame.  It has been precisely 36 days since he took office.  In that time, I’ve learned more about the decisions being made in my government than I have in my entire 10 years as an adult of voting age.  And not from 3rd party sources, but from official government sites that want me to know.  A multi-billion dollar stimulus package has been signed and has started being delivered.  It contains the massive tax break that was promised, as well as provisions for creating the much needed jobs that were promised.  And he’s extended health care coverage for our nation’s children.  I call these things pretty impressive for the first month on the job.  Especially compared to what we could expect from the last 8 years.

I do believe we should continue to hold Obama’s feet to the fire.  I think he should be held accountable for the lofty goals he signed up for.  But what I see around me is a continuation of the focus on negativity and nay saying.  The Bush years put us in a really bad mood, and Obama is going to have a hard time dispelling that atmosphere.

So why am I so up beat?  Why am I not gnashing my teeth, shaking my fist and wondering if this is shaping up to be “more of the same.”  The answer is pretty simple and probably sounds pretty naive.  I believe in our president.  I have stated before that I was an Obama supporter mainly because he convinced me that he has integrity.  I think Obama believes in what he says and he genuinely wants to accomplish the things he’s saying.  Combine that with the fact that I think he is extremely smart and capable.  With those things in mind, it’s not difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And the key point I’m trying to make on my side of this argument is that he deserves some slack.  Look what he’s working with:

• The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. I don’t think that can be understated.  And it’s made worse by the fact that it’s more closely tied to the global market.  It’s like all of the developed nations in the world are holding giant sinking stones and unfortunately many of the stones are tied to each other.
• Many adversaries and detractors from the previous administration. The government is still full of people who supported (and still support) George W. Bush’s policies.  If you think these people aren’t making things difficult, you haven’t been paying attention to the way the Bush camp operates.
• A half-formed team. Obama has had several setbacks in bringing in the people to head up his various initiatives.  Many have been disqualified due to indiscretions in their private affairs (read: tax evasion).  I think the fact that he’s let go of valuable talent to uphold the ideals of transparency and openness is a statement in itself.
• He’s brand new. This might sound like a cop out.  But he is new on the job.  It was one of the most damning things they brought against him during the campaign and it’s not a completely merit-less argument.  Obama is going to have to figure out how to maneuver before he can make sweeping changes.

Now there is something I don’t understand.  To my friends and anyone else who feels that Obama should be making more sweeping changes and reversals in keeping with his campaign promises: Why are we asking our new President to wield the same unchecked power as our old one? It would be great if Obama could come in and throw his weight around to enact these changes.  But it would only be great because we think he’s right.  When Bush was doing it, we were enraged.  We called it abuse of power.  We called for impeachment and burning at the stake (maybe that last one was just me).  So why would we expect Obama to have the same M.O.?

Obama has always tackled issues with a more measured and intellectual approach.  There are probably lots of things to consider when attempting to right some of the egregious wrongs done by the Bush Administration.  The funny thing here is that I have reversed my position on this since before the election.  I was one of the people going “Just pull all the troops out of Iraq.  How is that difficult?”  or “If we can’t charge the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, just release them and close the prison.  It’s that simple.”  But I’m sure it’s not simple, and that was a pretty knee-jerk reaction.  The President and his people probably have mountains of information to sift through before they can make an informed decision about the best course of action.  But it’s important to note here that my main reason for changing my thinking is that I trust Obama to make informed decisions.  That’s why I elected him.  Because he promised not to shoot from the hip without knowing exactly what he was getting into.

On another note, It seems to me that one of the campaign promises Obama is trying to keep is to restore the honor to our government and the office of President of the United States.  That can’t be done by steamrolling your policies through while dropping any you don’t particularly agree with.  You do that by being reasonable and compromising and making people feel like they are part of the process.  Sometimes that means making concessions.  We aren’t going to like some of the concessions to be sure.  But the one message Obama has spoken repeatedly over the last several weeks is “it won’t happen overnight.”

Well at 36 days, I’d say we’re still smack in the middle of night.  So I’ll wait until day break and then have a look around.  If I don’t like what I see then, I’ll gnash my teeth and shake my fist with everyone else.

That may be an odd statement, so I’ll explain what I mean.  Yesterday I went on a 10 minute rant about why no one in their right mind would vote for John McCain in November.  I’ll save the reasons why for another post, but to put it bluntly, I believe that Republican politicians in general are deceitful, greedy people, and are completely uninterested in the welfare of the average American. I think this is blatantly obvious when you watch the news and hear them tell each different group what they want to hear and literally change their tune every day depending on who they are trying to please.

That sounds really subjective and opinionated doesn’t it?  Well one thing I’ve realized with this election year is that I can’t keep up with politics.  Learning a candidates past record, examining his stance on all sorts of issues, keeping up with what he said last month, last week, last night.  I’m gonna take a stance and say that it’s damn near impossible for the average person to stay informed about politics.  That feeling was solidified by this piece on McCain.  You see, for the last 8-9 months I feel like I have tried to absorb as much as I can about this presidential election.  And until yesterday, I thought I was sure that in most if not all cases, Obama’s ideas made sense and John McCain’s ideas sounded like they only benefited those with high income (you’re not rich until you make $5 million?!)  I had made up my mind that anyone who was thinking of voting Republican was ignorant or just wasn’t paying attention.

Then I read what sounds like an intelligent and well-thought out argument from the other side.  Landsburg’s article gave me some info I hadn’t heard about McCain and Obama.  So after reading it, I felt like I was back at square one.  Not in terms of my vote, because I’m decided for Obama and I’ll tell you why in a minute.  Instead it was a set back because I no longer feel confident that my vote was “well informed”.  The simple fact is, there’s no way I’m going to spend the time and effort to check all the facts for myself.  I suspect that many smart people feel this same way.  And it’s not because we can’t do it.  It’s because frankly, we don’t want to.

I have many other things I’d rather do than watch MSNBC for 4 hours every day to catch all the sound bites.  I’m not going to spend my time verifying that John McCain has actually voted the same as George Bush 90% of the time.  Even if I did, it would only hold so much weight, because as Landsburg points out, Obama has voted along with Bush on some pretty important issues as well.  The point of government is so that someone else can figure this stuff out and I can do something else.  I don’t want to have to worry about Islamic extremists crashing planes into my office.  I don’t want to have to worry about my neighbors losing their house and my property values going down because of it.  I don’t want to have to pay $4.00/gallon for gas so we can “bring democracy to the world”.  I just want these things to be taken care of.  And that’s why we elect officials and pay taxes.

The problem is, these days there is no good way to tell which man (or woman) will act in my best interest.  So, at the end of the day, I go with my gut.  I look at as much coverage as I can stand, and I pick the guy who is least likely to screw me over.  And in that respect, there is no doubt that Barack Obama wins hands down.  John McCain is disingenuous to the point where he comes across as an asshole.  He smiles at inappropriate times.  He tries to talk intelligently about things he doesn’t know about.  He makes rash and ill-advised decisions just to get himself ahead (Who the effing hell is Sarah Palin?!!)  In any other circumstance, these things would make you deeply distrust a person.  By contrast, Barack has presented himself as straightforward, trustworthy, consistent and genuine.

In short, I’m voting for Barack Obama because he has convinced me that he has integrity. And in a world full of dishonesty and corruption, that’s worth a whole hell of a lot.

People keep saying that this is the most important election in decades.  I completely believe that.  The Republicans have proven to me that they don’t deserve to be in charge.  Their decisions (or lack there of) are driving us into the ground.  We have to get out and vote for Barack Obama.  So we can all get back to what we were doing before.

There will be more stuff here this weekend.  Stay tuned.

Being African American, my friend and I have always been kind of amazed at the thought of two paychecks.  We’re used to the single-parent home where Momma had to make it happen on her own.  In fact I remember thinking at one point how unfamiliar the word “parents” was to me.  There was just Mom.  For me and my friends and anyone else I could think of off the top of my head.  Sure there were some “Fathers” around.  But it always seemed to me that they didn’t do much.  And all the Mom’s were mad at them.  So pretty much anything we got came from Mom.  We got new school clothes and birthday parties and Christmas presents like other kids.  But these weren’t a given.

I can remember the first time I thought Christmas was canceled.  I was that magical age where you’re young enough to still be excited about presents, but old enough that they don’t necessarily come in giant gift-wrapped boxes.  My Mom had been doing this thing for months where she was warning us that she wasn’t able to get us anything this year.  There were three of us (me, my brother and my cousin) and she told us she didn’t have the money for gifts.  Plus we were too old for Christmas right?  We all put on our most mature looking faces and told her that it was fine.  We didn’t need gifts.  We understand money is tight.  We weren’t expecting anything.  Plus, we’re too old for Christmas anyway…

I slept late on Christmas morning.  The house was still silent when I got up though.  I got out of bed and walked downstairs (not ran, no need to get over-excited right?)  I was still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes when I realized that they were playing tricks on me.  The tree was empty.  It was a nice tree.  A real one that smelled like fresh pine.  It was all done up with multi-colored lights, ornaments and tinsel.  But at this moment it was utterly worthless.  There was nothing under it.

I’m not really sure how to describe the feeling.  The closest thing would probably be that wrench in your gut that happens when you go down the big drop on a roller coaster.  That seems dramatic, but this was a defining moment for me.  Kids get presents at Christmas.  It’s a well known and undisputed fact.  So how was I supposed to process what seemed to be the exact opposite of that?  To be clear, I wasn’t upset at Mom.  Instead I was worried.  She really didn’t have the money even for one gift?  Were we really in trouble?  Was it because of me?  Did I spend too much money?

This internal line of questioning went on for a long while.  But honestly there was no peace of mind to be had.  I didn’t know how much money my Mom made.  I didn’t know how many things she had to pay for.  I just know she’s at work most of the day Monday thru Friday and sometimes Saturday.  She’s always really tired.  And if you don’t turn the light off when you leave a room then you’re in trouble.  Electricity ain’t free.  Nothing is free.

If you haven’t already figured it out, this is my story of learning the value of a dollar.  It wasn’t immediate, but that was definitely the start.  I found out how much my Mom made.  I found out how much electricity costs.  And it probably started my long-standing tradition of telling everyone that I don’t need or want anything for Christmas.  So these days I shop for clothes on sale, I have a high yield savings account and I filled out my itemized taxes just to make sure it wasn’t more cost-effective than the standard deduction.

So what if my dad was around?  What if we had two paychecks and the second one had bought me my Christmas presents that year?  I’d probably be less responsible with money.  I’d have way more crap and way less cash on hand.  I’d be a lot less self-sufficient.  While Mom was at work I fed myself, washed clothes, did the dishes and cleaned the house.  In hindsight, I feel pretty good about the way things turned out.

Anyway, I feel like I should put a happy end on the story.  Turns out we did get gifts.  There were three Looney Tunes watches sitting under my tree.  I just missed it because I was too busy being traumatized.  Mine had the Tazmanian Devil on it.  Those watches were hot.  My Mom is the best.

What can we learn from the above sentence?  Quite a few things if we put our thinking caps on.  Let’s call this person Buddy.  Buddy is my friend.  Buddy has a problem. Right about now, we’d be aces in our simple reading comprehension class.

Also consider this.  I want to help my friend. To my mind, this is a natural progression.  If you call someone your friend, you should truly want to help them with a problem they have.  Have you ever helped someone move?  Have you ever loaned them money?  Have you ever jumped in to aid them in a fight?

Hmmm.  That last one is tricky.  What if you’ve never been in a fight before?  Most people don’t want to get hurt.  The self preservation instinct kicks in.  We may start asking ourselves questions about Buddy and about the situation.  Who and Why is Buddy fighting?  Did he start it?  Does he deserve it?  Uh oh, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Buddy is our friend.  Friends help friends no matter what right… ?  Will I get hurt if I help buddy?  Am I willing to get hurt to help Buddy?

That’s it.  Buddy is screwed.

In a lot of cases, for a lot of people, the answer to that last question is No.  Not a qualified no as in “well it depends.”  But just no.  Buddy is going to get his ass kicked.  Maybe by some drunk at a bar.  Maybe by a spouse or partner who doesn’t know what stop means.  Maybe because of an inability to keep himself out of trouble.  People get into fights all the time.  And their friends don’t support them, because they’re afraid of the consequences.  When you’re younger, the consequences might be a black eye.  When you’re an adult, the consequences turn into swift and severe legal action.

If Buddy and I beat the barfly.  He could sue the both of us for assault.  If I help Buddy with his domestic situation, I could be liable for invasion of privacy or something to that effect.  If Buddy needs professional help in the form of some type of intervention, either Buddy or his family could sue me for… I don’t know, giving a shit?  I don’t actually know what the legal implications are.  But I know they might be there.  And I know they’re scary.  Either way the problem is I could be found in violation of the law for caring enough to help someone.

The only thing I can say is that breaks my heart.  It’s never difficult to find someone willing to complain about how messed up things are these days.  There’s a war going on.  We’re in a recession.  More and more of our friends are losing fights every day.  And I think one of the big reasons is because they are going at it alone.  But those same complainers turn their backs to it every day.  They watch their Buddy get beat down and they can’t bring themselves to take action.  Apparently someone needs to define the word “friend” for me.

There’s a valid argument that maybe Buddy’s family should ultimately be responsible for helping.  But what if Buddy’s family doesn’t care as much as I do?  What if they’re ignorant and irresponsible and self-centered?  We’re talking about the downfall of society here, so clearly there are people who can’t count on a benevolent family support structure.

Another argument is that I should also consider my own situation when deciding whether to jump into the fray with my friend.  Can I afford to be hurt?  Will other people get hurt through me, like perhaps kids or my employer?  Probably the most pointed question is, if I need help next, will anyone help me? These are all important things to consider and not to be taken lightly.  But shouldn’t we consider them in the right context?  Instead of scaring ourselves with all these “what ifs” and convincing ourselves that it’s best not to get involved, why don’t we convince ourselves to do what’s right.  And then think about how to minimize the collateral damage.

Everyone has a limit.  If you aren’t part of a situation, you have to be cautious about getting involved.  But people survive hardships every day.  We all go through hard times and somehow come out on the other side.  Battered and bruised, but still standing.  And isn’t it worth it to do that sometimes if you can help someone you care about?  I think we have to try to take care of each other if we’re going to make it.  And if we’re going to help each other, we can’t be afraid to stand up.  Even if we might get hurt.

A friend of mine has a Big Problem.

I want to help my friend, but I could get hurt.  So do I help anyway?  Damn right I do.

I know it’s important to stay informed.  I know people should take responsibility for their government.  But I just can’t.  The sheer volume of bullshit makes my head spin.  Any time I try to pay attention to what goes on in political circles I get that nervous twitch like I survived being struck by lightening but the experience is still with me.

I’ve gotten into the habit of following the mostly politically focused blog of a good friend of mine.  And I run into things like this:  John McCain doesn’t even know what this war is about. And this is his war!  Him and his Grand Old Prick buddies are milking this war like it’s their life’s blood.  They’re all making off like bandits somehow, so people keep dying and the world hates us a little more each day. And they can do this because we put them in charge.

Good Lord Please Have Mercy (That’s how bad it is.  My Southern Baptist roots are showing.)  How can we find ourselves in a place where a man has a serious chance of being Commander in Chief of our entire nation at the same time he’s foaming at the mouth to continue a war he doesn’t understand?  He will be making decisions that affect not only the lives of people in this country, but the lives of people in other nations as well.  And we don’t even require him to be smart.

That is what really galls me.  That is the reason politics will never be something I can actively participate in.  There is so much riding on the decisions that politicians make.  But you don’t even have to be remotely intelligent to be one.  You wouldn’t let someone drive your car who frequently got confused on which pedal was the brake, right?  You wouldn’t hire a carpenter after he told you he likes to use styrofoam instead of wood because the nails go in easier, right? Why would we continue to elect presidents who aren’t smart enough to even create the illusion that they know what they’re doing?

I’m not talking about being clever or charming or crafty in that Snidely-Whiplash-mustache-twisting sort of way.  I mean really smart as in educated and informed and experienced and well-reasoning.  Essentially you should be capable of understanding and performing the tasks assigned by your position.  Admittedly, the position of President of the United States is an enormous undertaking that requires expertise in a myriad of areas.  But that’s exactly why we should be looking for someone who is mentally prepared to shoulder this responsibility.

How do we ensure that our candidates for president are smart?  I have no idea.  How do we screen people for jobs in other areas?  Resumes and interviews.  Well, we sort of have those in place now.  The current Democratic candidate election seems to be abnormally focused on past experienced.  Who’s going to be ready on Day One.  The problem is that the candidates can pay lip service to the things on their resume but they have no real substance.  This guy outlines it pretty well.  You can’t have a resume for being president.  There is no other job like it in the world.  As a member of Congress or a State Politician or a foreign diplomat you’ll certainly get some experience in some aspects of the job.  But even that experience won’t compare to the Global-level magnitude of what you’ll have to contend with as president.  So essentially it’s all circumstantial.  No one is ready to be president on Day One.

To paraphrase my new favorite quote.  It’s important to be ready on Day One, but it’s more important to be right on Day One.

Interviews?  Give me a  break.  Okay, if we hold the candidates’ many speeches and debates as surrogate interviews, we can examine this for a second.  This is our chance to talk with this person and have them convince us that they’re the man (or woman) for the job.  This idea is flawed for a couple of reasons.

A) They don’t have to tell the truth.

b)  There’s no way for the average lay person to tell if what they’re saying is any good.

The first point is obvious.  Politicians contradict themselves on important points all the time.  Whether they’re misinformed or telling blatant lies, it’s par for the course to catch politicians spouting falsehoods.   And it will continue to be par for the course as long as there are no real consequences for lying.  In fact, the only thing you seem to get in trouble for as a politician these days is having sex.  So these people have carte blanche to do and say whatever they want to secure their position.  Strike one.

The second point is the more troubling one in my mind.  When I listen to speeches and debates, my bullshit meter is going crazy.  I consider mine to be pretty good, even when I’m not completely informed about the topics under discussion.  If you pay attention, you can tell when a person hasn’t thought something through or they’re skirting the issue.  But when talking to others about the issues on the table, I’m frequently reminded that most people don’t have any real insight into the complex workings of government.  If we’re talking about a polarizing question like “Should we continue the war or not?” or “Pro-life or Pro-choice?”, people can easily take one side or the other and feel pretty good about joining the discourse.  But when you ask a candidate what their plan is for handling the war in Iraq, you get 5 minutes of incoherent mumbling.  “Continue to root out insurgents”, “Withdraw our troops in stages”, “Invest in the Iraqi government”.  I don’t know anything about military tactics or foreign policy so at the end of the day I don’t know if these are good ideas.  Strike two.

If I was well equipped to evaluate these ideas and choose which I think are the most appropriate given the situation, guess what?  I’d be President of the United States.  So inevitably, many people will end up choosing their candidate based on the usual party lines, or on the polarizing issues (He’s not a Republican.  He opposes the war.  He’s black!  Go Obama!)

I think McCain is a warmongering idiot.  I think Clinton is self-aggrandizing and self-serving.  And to be fair, my inherent cynicism makes me fully aware that Barack may be playing us all for saps with this “hope for the future” bit, even though I want to believe him.  This is a terrible way to choose a leader.  It’s very possible we’re gonna strike out again this time.

Man I hate politics.

My intention with starting this blog was to write whatever I was thinking about.  Don’t think too hard about it, just get all the random stuff out of my head.  But therein lies the problem.  I have to think too hard about it.  I think too hard about everything.

Top 3 Reasons for discarding a blog post:

1. I don’t think I know enough about that – One of the first things I read about starting a blog is you have to be prepared for people to think you’re stupid.  Clearly I’m not an expert on any topic.  But I’m still not quite ready to find out just how uninformed I am.  Combine that with the fact that I hate doing any type of actual research (even the internet kind that frequently leads to entertaining distractions) and you have a recipe for inaction.
2. That subject has been covered to much already – I’m one of those people who is frequently surprised that other people value my perspective on things.  I don’t always have an opinion, but when I do, I can cite reasons and I’m able to articulate it well.  (FYI, this is not me patting myself on the back, though the tone is so similar as to be indistinguishable.)  Still, even if I feel that I have something to add to a particular discourse, I shy away if I feel that smarter and more well-known personages have already rambled on about it at length.
3. Nobody really cares about that enough to read this – This one is the most common.  I read things on the internet all the time about a million different things.  But it’s rare that I come away from with anything more than a vague feeling of “that was interesting.”  To the more practical parts of my brain that translates as “waste of time.”  And who really wants to think of their work as a waste of time?

I got 2 useful things out of this brief introspection.

A) I immediately forgot the point of my starting to do this

B) I am frighteningly neurotic about everything I do and say

The first obstacle should be easy enough to combat.  I just need to stay focused on the fact that I started this blog for myself and not for others.  If anyone gets anything useful out of it, I will certainly be pleased.  But I shouldn’t get hung up on that and let it stop the forward motion.  This blog is about helping me gather my thoughts and put them some place where I can examine them from an objective standpoint.  I’ve tried keeping a journal several times, but it always ends up feeling like a chore.  Nobody’s going to see it but me, so there’s really no reason to spend any significant time on it.  But this blog is open to the public.  It’s outside the box.  I have a responsibility to make it into what it’s supposed to be, even if that responsibility has been arbitrarily assigned to me… by me.  Essentially I’m taking advantage of the fact that I have a strong outward work ethic to counteract my extreme personal laziness.  Pretty smart huh?

So, hopefully you’ll see more in the coming weeks.  But…

That second one is tougher.  This is one of those aha moments where you’ve known all along, but putting the right phrase around it brings it into sharp relief.  This is the part that was cleverly foreshadowed in the title.  Neurosis.  Let’s go to Wikipedia shall we!

Neurosis - “… refers to any mental imbalance that causes distress, but, unlike a psychosis or some personality disorders, does not prevent or affect rational thought.”

Well hot damn, that just about sums it up.  The important thing to note here is that it doesn’t mean you’re crazy.  It means you have mental problems despite the fact that you are completely sane.  I’ve been dealing with this my whole life, but just referring to it by different names.  I would say “I tend to over-analyze things.”  Some ex-girlfriends would probably say “You have to always be right.”  Hopefully my boss would say “He’s always on top of things.”  What this all boils down to is that I have a hard time taking action on anything until I’ve thought about it for at least 30 secs too long.

During that crucial period after my initial decision on a course of action, a few things happen.  I start to feel like I missed something.  I always feel like I don’t know enough.  Like everything seems to make sense now, but that’s a false feeling of security.  I’ve missed some critical bit of information that makes what I just decided to do a huge mistake.  I’ll give you an example.  I have missed every single first kiss opportunity in my life, except one.  You know what I’m getting at.  You’ve been hanging out with a girl for a while, things are going great, you both know it’s time to test the lip-lock chemistry.  She gives you all the signals:  getting really close, awkward pauses for no reason.  All she’s waiting on is for you to go for it.  But I don’t go for it.  I sit and have a conversation with that annoying little man in my head.  What if I’m reading these signals all wrong?  I don’t know what the signals look like – I didn’t get the handbook.  Did I check my breath?  Did I check her breath?  What should I say after the kiss?  What if it’s stupid?  How do I recover?  This goes on for a while and eventually the moment is lost. *sigh*  No blog post for you.  (Yes I know we were talking about kissing.  Try to keep up.)

Sidebar: I’m not gonna talk about the one time everything went according to plan.  There’s nothing special about it.  I’m sure you’ve been there.  It was a great kiss.  Her breath was  more than acceptable.

If you re-read the above, you may also be able to discern the other symptom of my neurosis.  See the over-thinking alone would probably be more manageable.  But add this and it’s pretty much game over.  My thought process isn’t a loop, it’s a spiral.  Let me explain.  If this was a simple loop process, then once I had examined all the factors related to the outcome of the current situation under review, I would arrive back at the call for action.  Maybe I would have a new decision on what to do, but it would be time to do it.  Unfortunately somewhere along the track, a lever was pulled, the track shifts, we’re flying past the station!  I keep processing data.  Who cares what happens after the kiss, right?  We’re trying to make something happen here.  Stay in the moment man!  But my brain often refuses to cooperate.  Next thing I know, I’ve planned for a dozen different scenarios that could potentially occur after the kiss.  And another dozen covering the more likely occurrence that I crash and burn and there’s no kiss to speak of.  I’ve literally had whole conversations in my head based on what I know about her and what she’ll probably do or say.  Yes, I know.  It’s getting a little scary.  Remember, this is not a mental disorder, just an “imbalance.”  Feel better?

So basically, whenever I have any kind of decision to make, I go into one of these neurotic spirals.  If it goes unchecked, it can last for a good long while.  It’s not all bad though.  It works well for my job as a consultant.  Part of a consultant’s job is thinking through all the various issues to identify risks and hopefully plan for them appropriately.  I do this almost instinctually.  Thankfully, everything in software takes longer than it’s supposed to, so it just looks like I’m making sure we’re prepared.  And there are always deadlines, which usually suffices to bring the train forcibly back to the station.  “On top of things” indeed.

Neurosis.  Well, it’s been proven that the better you define a problem, the better equipped you are to solve it.  So now we know what we’re dealing with.  Shouldn’t be too difficult.  In a peculiar meta-analogy that I just thought of, allow me to close the loop on this post by referencing my earlier train idea.  All I have to do is make sure that I realize when my train has gone off the track.  Once I recognize that, I’ll try to make sure the tracks land on this page.   3 down, lots to go.

Being a web developer during the last few years has made for exciting times (if you’re a huge nerd, which I am).  The web has been a whirlwind of innovation and change with newer and better ways to create bigger and better experiences.  For instance, last week I signed up, created this blog and launched the first post in literally 20 min.  It’s still amazing to me even though I understand a lot about how it works.

A lot of this good stuff is made possible by web frameworks.  Some group of really smart people choose their favorite programming language and design a platform that abstracts away a lot of the details of building complex web applications.   This allows others to get to the important business of making something cool. What’s even more exciting is being a part of releasing one of these frameworks to the world.  Some buzz-killers are certainly going to bring up the fact that there is already an abundance of these platforms out there touting easy setup, rapid development and a powerful environment.  Well this is actually true.  But some of the hype is warranted and IMHO Axiom Stack is the newest addition to the kickass group.

What’s cool about it?

I’m glad you asked.  Let’s explore.

You program in javascript.  I’ve been a fan of the language for years.  I could go into why from a technical standpoint, but there are plenty of examples out there.  For me it’s simple.  I enjoy programming in javascript.  It’s simple and I can be extremely productive in it.  Using it in a server environment seemed like it would be weird at first, but it’s just as fun to use on the back-end as it is in the browser.

You can use Java if you insist.  Axiom Stack runs in a JVM and the javascript environment is provided by the excellent Rhino platform.  What this means is that you have full access to Java in your server environment.  This is an important distinction for Axiom Stack.  You have the speed and convenience of a dynamic language for most things.  But when you need that extra power, you can drop straight into Java and have full access to the packages and libraries therein.  Any useful software product or service has Java APIs these days.  The potential for mashups is tremendous and you can use code instead of the sometimes nasty business of managing web services and processing xml.  I know some people want to argue with the value of that last statement as well.  Maybe I’ll expand on it sometime.

JSON and E4x packaged in.  Speaking of processing XML!  If you’ve read about it, or played around with it in Firefox, you know you want e4x.  Native syntax and APIs for XML make working with it fun again (wait, was it ever fun?).  It’s one of those things that makes Axiom Stack so powerful.  Skip all the SAX/DOM business and just get to work on your document.  Rhino’s implementation is solid and you’ll be up to speed in no time.  And just as awesome, your JSON data is now native on your server.  JSON has become an increasingly popular method of data representation due to it’s advantages in size, simplicity and native support in the browser.  Now you can generate it and manipulate it directly on your back-end.

Fully integrated search.  Building sites on more traditional architectures like LAMP, you still have work a little harder to provide a decent search.  Granted, these days there are all kinds of packages to make searching simpler.  But imagine an environment where great search capabilities are not only built-in but designed in from the start.  The default data store for Axiom is Lucene, the free java-based search platform from Apache.  In Axiom Stack, search is part of your normal development environment.  All of your data is indexed and searchable by default, and you have full access to Lucene’s capabilities.  If that ain’t sweet then I don’t know what is.

Optional RDBMS storage.  If the idea of using only Lucene to store your data gives you an uncomfortable itch, you can use a relational database simply by setting one up and changing some configuration.  All of a sudden your data is being stored in MySQL (or whatever) automatically, your interface doesn’t change and you can feel safer at night knowing your tried-and-true db replication script is keeping you backed up.

So I’ve basically convinced you that I’m some type of marketer for Axiom Stack at this point.  But honestly, I’m just a pretty lazy programmer who has found that this web framework allows me to do really cool things very easily.  Is it the best out there?  Yes, probably, but I’ll let you guys fight about that.  The important point is go check it out.  And let me know what you think.

http://www.axiomstack.com/

It’s a simple question that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I don’t remember where I first heard it, although a quick search reminded me that I love Batman the Animated Series. It’s one of those questions that seems innocuous unless you tend to over think things like I do. So I started to try and formulate an answer.

Do I even want to be rich? Absolutely. Let’s not spend time on pseudo-philosophical crap like that.

Am I smart enough to become independently wealthy? Certainly. Anyone can make it big in this country. Even these assholes. So surely yours truly should be living the good life by now right? People tell me I’m smart all the time. It’s been my experience (and thus a proven fact) that people will give you all sorts of other insincere compliments. But rarely will a person call you smart unless they believe it. Since this blog is unconstrained by the usual rules of polite humility and fact-based proof, we can move forward under the assumption that I am, in fact, a brilliant individual.

Some people will argue that it takes more than smarts to get rich. But not really. All it really takes is some kind of idea, some kind of talent or some kind of product. Get someone to pay you a lot of money for it. Or more likely, get a ton of people to pay you a little bit of money at a time. Boom, you’re rolling in it. You may have already noticed, but if you keep reading this blog, you’ll find that I have a habit of distilling things down to very simple terms. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it makes me sound shallow or arrogant or stupid. Fortunately, all of those things are true to a point depending on who you ask. It works for me, so just try to roll with it.

So we’ve established that I want to be rich, that I’m smart enough to be rich and that I’ve pretty much got the basic formula down.

So what do I want to do? Ahso. Now we start to get to the interesting part. I’m currently employed as a computer programmer. A software engineer and tech services consultant to be more precise. It’s not a bad gig and pays the bills. There’s certainly potential for getting rich. In fact, the richest person on the planet does what I do. But I’m thinking of the kind of wealthy where I never have to get up early and certainly don’t have to wear a tie to get anything done. Ties are out.

I like movies, I could do something with movies (I literally had a Costanza moment). It’s a good idea and I’ve been working on a few things for a while now. But being creative is one of the most difficult things to do in my opinion. That’s probably why most movies are so lousy these days (that and the fact that decisions are being made by people with no filmmaking talent whatsoever.) All the more reason I should make one and get someone to pay me a lot of money for it. We’ll come back to this one. It may take a while but it has merit.

By now you’re probably asking yourself, “Wow, does this kid always argue with himself like this.?”

A) Yes.

B) Don’t interrupt.

Well, after many more rounds of the above insane chatter, I came to two conclusions. First off, I have no earthly idea what I want to do. And second, there’s really no good reason why I’m not rich. So… I’m gonna do it.

While I’m working on that, I’ll probably talk about whatever else occurs to me. Welcome.