Well, I've given up on ever writing my own blogging software and installed SubText on my home page. That means that I no longer will be blogging here.
Head on over to The Wilsons for my blog, or Flickr for my photos.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Monday, October 16, 2006
It's My Birthday
Well, its my birthday. I'm half-way to 64 and still have more years of employment ahead of me than I do behind me. That thought is a little depressing, but worse is that some "Other Doug" out there on the internet sent me birthday wishes while my own family forgot.
In conversion with Other Doug, he suggested that:
Jesus remembers your b-day though...I bet He counts them down until we arrive in His presence...
What a wonderful thought! Its never crossed my mind that He might be looking forward to meeting me as much as I am to meeting Him. Not that I'm in a hurry or anything. I feel better now.
Anyways, onto other topics...
I've just noticed that the last time I blogged was January 14. Coincidentally, that's the same date as our first baby is due. Or, was due. The doctor figures either we're gonna have a very big baby or we didn't conceive the day with thought we did. Whatever. Current due date is January 2.
In further news, I have quit working at Enquiro and am now among the self employed . I'm doing freelance software development and so far its going well. I need a lot of work on my self discipline though which has been pretty much non-existant over the past two months. I'm loving the freedom though.
Finally, I'm getting back into photography. A few months ago I pulled out my old Minolta film SLR camera and had quite a bit of fun until I realized I was going to go broke paying for film and developing. I managed to get my hands on a nice new Nikon D80 and have been going great guns with it. I think I've had it for exactly one month and have already shot around 1500 exposures. I'll post interesting shots here from time to time. The rest will be on the-wilsons.ca and a new one I'm working on at jadeia.com.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
How Does Money Work?
It's been awhile since I've posted anything but that's been due to two things. I've been very busy and I haven't had anything that I really wanted to post. I do now though.
For many years now debt has been a fact of life. Car loans, credit cards, lines of credit, overdraft; my wife and I have them all. When we started to feel like we were losing ground, we hit the bank up for a consolidation loan. That helped for a couple of months but just as we started to make some progress we needed to replace our car and Bam! Just like that, we got another loan for a mini van. Then the oven died and we needed a new one of those and put both a new fridge and a new stove onto the sears card. It was no big deal though, because we got it at 24 months with no interest!
At that point all of our income was tied up. If my wife didn't work full time, we couldn't keep up. And that was with a renter paying room and board every month! The stress and pressure of that lifestyle built and built and soon every moment was spent working to make money to make ends meet. In addition to my full time job I took on contract work to try and get ahead. The reality though was that we weren't even keeping up.
In August I broke down. I was done. I didn't care anymore. I ran the numbers on our finances and we were literally spending money faster than we were making it. Despite the long hours of work and the thousands upon thousands of dollars earned, we were losing ground. Life was not enjoyable. Something had to change. We had to change.
In the middle of August we met with a financial advisor who is a good friend and also a Christian. He gave us a lot to think about but the most profound thing we heard from him was that debt is a result of sin. Specifically, greed, glutony, impatience and presumption of the future. Now, you don't have to buy into that if you don't want to but we did. We decided then and there that we would take on no new debt and that we would get our existing debt paid off a fast as we could.
The problem at that point was not one of desire or commitment, but rather the same one that had been plaguing us all the way along: Lack of cash flow. In order to pay off the debt, we were going to have to make some changes to our lifestyle. Big changes.
At the top of the list was eating out. Between lunches at work, dinner in the evening and meals out with friends we were spending almost as much on dinning out as we were on groceries. That had to change. So we made some new rules. No more eating lunches out. No more eating out for convenience. If we did eat out, we had to use a coupon or it had to be with friends whom we hadn't already been out with that month. The only exceptions to that were road trips (like to Three Hills or Vancouver) and planned special events like birthdays and anniversaries.
Next on the list was our purchasing habits. When we wanted something, we pretty much bought it. We thought we had things under control because we had a couple of rules that we lived by. A $50 rule that said if you were going to spend more than $50 on an item, you have to have your spouse's permission and a $100 rule that said any spur of the moment purchase over $100 could only be bought the next day. In other words, we had to sleep on it. The idea behind these rules was that they would cause us to talk things over before making a purchase. If I couldn't convince my wife that a $70 computer game was worth it, then I couldn't buy it. If we found a TV on sale for $999 and still felt like it was a good decision after having slept on it, we bought it. The problem was we were both so weak that we rarely said no to each other and worse yet, if I said no to my wife, she might say no to me the next time I asked. And of course, you could buy a $40 item one day and a $30 item the next day without breaking that rule.
Our solution to that is that we each get $30 mad money each month. That money is not budget money and we're not accountable to each other for where it gets spent. We can use it to eat out, buy clothes or whatever. At first it was really hard, wondering if I could make the $30 last until the end of the month but twice now since August, I've had money left over at the end of the month.
Between not eating out and curbing our spending we have managed to free up money to make extra payments on our debt and we have managed to stay out of our overdraft. In short, its making a difference. We have a little bit of breathing room and there's money left at the end of the month.
Its ironic though. Several times now there's been money left at the end of the month and we start to look around and say... hmm... you know... we could spend this on something. That's dangerous thinking. You see, life has a way of expanding to use up the available resources. Whether its time or money or space, if there's room to grow into it, we inevitably will.
So the question before me is, are the changes we've made enough to get us out of debt? To be honest, I don't think they are. We can make new rules and try to stick to them but as soon as we have a bit of breathing room we're going to slip up and fall right back to where we were. We might not take on any new debt, but we still haven't learned how to effectively manage the money that we do have.
At thise point I can hear someon shouting from the back of the room: "What you need is a budget!" A few months ago, say last July, I would have agreed with them. Today I don't.
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey teaches that the way to effect positive lasting change is through a "Paradigm Shift". You know that sounds a lot like what we need. A complete change in our thinking and belief system around money and debt.
So, I've set out shift my paradigm by learning how money works, and while I'm doing that, I've got $30 burning a hole in my pocket!
For many years now debt has been a fact of life. Car loans, credit cards, lines of credit, overdraft; my wife and I have them all. When we started to feel like we were losing ground, we hit the bank up for a consolidation loan. That helped for a couple of months but just as we started to make some progress we needed to replace our car and Bam! Just like that, we got another loan for a mini van. Then the oven died and we needed a new one of those and put both a new fridge and a new stove onto the sears card. It was no big deal though, because we got it at 24 months with no interest!
At that point all of our income was tied up. If my wife didn't work full time, we couldn't keep up. And that was with a renter paying room and board every month! The stress and pressure of that lifestyle built and built and soon every moment was spent working to make money to make ends meet. In addition to my full time job I took on contract work to try and get ahead. The reality though was that we weren't even keeping up.
In August I broke down. I was done. I didn't care anymore. I ran the numbers on our finances and we were literally spending money faster than we were making it. Despite the long hours of work and the thousands upon thousands of dollars earned, we were losing ground. Life was not enjoyable. Something had to change. We had to change.
In the middle of August we met with a financial advisor who is a good friend and also a Christian. He gave us a lot to think about but the most profound thing we heard from him was that debt is a result of sin. Specifically, greed, glutony, impatience and presumption of the future. Now, you don't have to buy into that if you don't want to but we did. We decided then and there that we would take on no new debt and that we would get our existing debt paid off a fast as we could.
The problem at that point was not one of desire or commitment, but rather the same one that had been plaguing us all the way along: Lack of cash flow. In order to pay off the debt, we were going to have to make some changes to our lifestyle. Big changes.
At the top of the list was eating out. Between lunches at work, dinner in the evening and meals out with friends we were spending almost as much on dinning out as we were on groceries. That had to change. So we made some new rules. No more eating lunches out. No more eating out for convenience. If we did eat out, we had to use a coupon or it had to be with friends whom we hadn't already been out with that month. The only exceptions to that were road trips (like to Three Hills or Vancouver) and planned special events like birthdays and anniversaries.
Next on the list was our purchasing habits. When we wanted something, we pretty much bought it. We thought we had things under control because we had a couple of rules that we lived by. A $50 rule that said if you were going to spend more than $50 on an item, you have to have your spouse's permission and a $100 rule that said any spur of the moment purchase over $100 could only be bought the next day. In other words, we had to sleep on it. The idea behind these rules was that they would cause us to talk things over before making a purchase. If I couldn't convince my wife that a $70 computer game was worth it, then I couldn't buy it. If we found a TV on sale for $999 and still felt like it was a good decision after having slept on it, we bought it. The problem was we were both so weak that we rarely said no to each other and worse yet, if I said no to my wife, she might say no to me the next time I asked. And of course, you could buy a $40 item one day and a $30 item the next day without breaking that rule.
Our solution to that is that we each get $30 mad money each month. That money is not budget money and we're not accountable to each other for where it gets spent. We can use it to eat out, buy clothes or whatever. At first it was really hard, wondering if I could make the $30 last until the end of the month but twice now since August, I've had money left over at the end of the month.
Between not eating out and curbing our spending we have managed to free up money to make extra payments on our debt and we have managed to stay out of our overdraft. In short, its making a difference. We have a little bit of breathing room and there's money left at the end of the month.
Its ironic though. Several times now there's been money left at the end of the month and we start to look around and say... hmm... you know... we could spend this on something. That's dangerous thinking. You see, life has a way of expanding to use up the available resources. Whether its time or money or space, if there's room to grow into it, we inevitably will.
So the question before me is, are the changes we've made enough to get us out of debt? To be honest, I don't think they are. We can make new rules and try to stick to them but as soon as we have a bit of breathing room we're going to slip up and fall right back to where we were. We might not take on any new debt, but we still haven't learned how to effectively manage the money that we do have.
At thise point I can hear someon shouting from the back of the room: "What you need is a budget!" A few months ago, say last July, I would have agreed with them. Today I don't.
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey teaches that the way to effect positive lasting change is through a "Paradigm Shift". You know that sounds a lot like what we need. A complete change in our thinking and belief system around money and debt.
So, I've set out shift my paradigm by learning how money works, and while I'm doing that, I've got $30 burning a hole in my pocket!
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Jarhead
Warning: This review may spoil the movie if you haven't seen it yet.
I really enjoyed Jarhead but was a little misinformed before I saw it. From the previews I had expected that there would be some action scenes. There weren't any. Other than some shelling in one scene towards the end of the movie the only bullets flying were during training and into the air in celebration.
That said, there were many other aspects of this movie that held my interest and made it well worth watching. I particularly liked the interactions of the soldiers with each other and watching the bonds form between them. I kept waiting for the final battle that would cement their relationships knowing that once they had been through it and shed some blood, they would be brothers for life. That moment never comes.
The movie theater was virtually silent as the credits rolled which was the complete opposite of the buzz and anticipation that was there before the movie started. While a bit sobered about what the war was really like for the marines, at least I didn't feel sick after watching it the way I did with Traffic or Lord of War.
For those of you with easily offended sensibilities: The intent of the movie was to portray what it was like for the men on the ground in Kuwait. It shows what soldiers do to pass the time when there are no women around and death could come at any moment. While tamed down a bit for us civilians, it will offend anyone who is uncomfortable with swearing, sexual innuendo and explicit sexual content. If that's you, then Jarhead is not a movie you should watch.
Ironically, I found the graphic content of the movie a bit refreshing. I have become accustomed to the news and the daily footage of the war in Iraq and lately have given it very little thought. This movie brought back the reality that our men and women face on a daily basis and renewed my appreciation for their efforts and sacrifice.
Personally, I don't know too many people who I would recomend seeing Jarhead. After having slept on it for a night and taking a few hours to think about it, I am glad I took the time to watch it but its not a movie I will be adding to my collection.
Rating: 7/10
I really enjoyed Jarhead but was a little misinformed before I saw it. From the previews I had expected that there would be some action scenes. There weren't any. Other than some shelling in one scene towards the end of the movie the only bullets flying were during training and into the air in celebration.
That said, there were many other aspects of this movie that held my interest and made it well worth watching. I particularly liked the interactions of the soldiers with each other and watching the bonds form between them. I kept waiting for the final battle that would cement their relationships knowing that once they had been through it and shed some blood, they would be brothers for life. That moment never comes.
The movie theater was virtually silent as the credits rolled which was the complete opposite of the buzz and anticipation that was there before the movie started. While a bit sobered about what the war was really like for the marines, at least I didn't feel sick after watching it the way I did with Traffic or Lord of War.
For those of you with easily offended sensibilities: The intent of the movie was to portray what it was like for the men on the ground in Kuwait. It shows what soldiers do to pass the time when there are no women around and death could come at any moment. While tamed down a bit for us civilians, it will offend anyone who is uncomfortable with swearing, sexual innuendo and explicit sexual content. If that's you, then Jarhead is not a movie you should watch.
Ironically, I found the graphic content of the movie a bit refreshing. I have become accustomed to the news and the daily footage of the war in Iraq and lately have given it very little thought. This movie brought back the reality that our men and women face on a daily basis and renewed my appreciation for their efforts and sacrifice.
Personally, I don't know too many people who I would recomend seeing Jarhead. After having slept on it for a night and taking a few hours to think about it, I am glad I took the time to watch it but its not a movie I will be adding to my collection.
Rating: 7/10
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
The Reality of Abuse, A Followup
This is a followup on my previous post. I appologized to the person I harmed and asked their forgiveness. They were surprised, not that I was appologizing, but that I felt so badly for something that they didn't view as abusive or anything other than normal behavior. I was glad that they felt that way but I wasn't ready to let it go that easily. In fact, I'm still quite bothered about my actions and how far I had gone down that slippery slope.
Since then I have had a fair bit of time to reflect on everything around this. One thing I remembered was what Viktor Frankl learned while he was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp: "Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose."
In other words, when I am being driven crazy or am feeling close to the edge, its not wrong to be feeling that way. Where right and wrong get involved are in how I choose to respond to the circumstances that have caused those feelings. If I go over the edge and lash out, its because thats what I chose to do. A better choice is to remove myself from the situation long enough to back away from the edge. Then I can come back and deal with it appropriately.
There are two things at work here. The first is being aware of myself and how I'm feeling. Its paying attention to the people and circumstances around me and asking myself, "how does that make me feel?" The second is taking accountability for my actions. Regardless of what is going on around me, nobody is making me do anything. By combining self awareness and accountability together, I can no longer blame someone else for my actions. I know how I am feeling and I know that I'm close to the edge. I can choose to go over, or I can choose to back down or remove myself. With self awarness and accountability, the freedom to choose my response becomes a reality.
I'm not trivializing this or thinking that's its going to be an easy process. In fact, I know its quite the opposite. Learning how to manage myself is an ongoing process that will likely take me the rest of my life. I'm sure there will be times when I look back and realize too late that once again I have harmed someone. The key will be to have a positive balance in their emotional bank account, not so that I can get away with it, but so that they will be willing to forgive me when I ask.
Since then I have had a fair bit of time to reflect on everything around this. One thing I remembered was what Viktor Frankl learned while he was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp: "Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose."
In other words, when I am being driven crazy or am feeling close to the edge, its not wrong to be feeling that way. Where right and wrong get involved are in how I choose to respond to the circumstances that have caused those feelings. If I go over the edge and lash out, its because thats what I chose to do. A better choice is to remove myself from the situation long enough to back away from the edge. Then I can come back and deal with it appropriately.
There are two things at work here. The first is being aware of myself and how I'm feeling. Its paying attention to the people and circumstances around me and asking myself, "how does that make me feel?" The second is taking accountability for my actions. Regardless of what is going on around me, nobody is making me do anything. By combining self awareness and accountability together, I can no longer blame someone else for my actions. I know how I am feeling and I know that I'm close to the edge. I can choose to go over, or I can choose to back down or remove myself. With self awarness and accountability, the freedom to choose my response becomes a reality.
I'm not trivializing this or thinking that's its going to be an easy process. In fact, I know its quite the opposite. Learning how to manage myself is an ongoing process that will likely take me the rest of my life. I'm sure there will be times when I look back and realize too late that once again I have harmed someone. The key will be to have a positive balance in their emotional bank account, not so that I can get away with it, but so that they will be willing to forgive me when I ask.
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