Today’s Key Phrases

Hmmm… so searches for my site aren’t as clever as “slimy gross nasty soup pictures“, but I thought I’d share a few of today’s successful search phrases:

snowball fight
femme fatal
happy drunks
kangaroo
jumping away
cat with beer
gotcrack
punk kittens
lake lewisville party pics
largest identity theft in history
john madden impersonations

or

It was the largest identity theft in history. It took place amidst some happy drunks who gotcrack just in time to see a kangaroo jumping away from this femme fatal slam-dancing which probably made for some great lake lewisville party pics, but then punk kittens doing john madden impersonations only make sense to a cat with beer recovering from last night’s snowball fight.

Tuesday…

Marcus & SamanthaWOW. This day is going by really fast. I blinked and it’s already past 3pm? Damn… okay here’s my quick Thanksgiving summary:

Michelle & I had an enjoyable time down in Corpus Christi. It’s always nice to get out of town and visits with her sister’s family are relaxing from the standpoint that Rudy & Diana don’t have a computer or even talk about the Internet and the twins do something new each day. Marcus & Samantha are almost a year & half old, but they are already walking AND running. Even the smallest increase in motor skills or mental capacity brings cheers & hollers and I have to say, being there you can’t help but get caught up in the excitement.

Staying in Corpus also means baseball, specifically Michael’s pony league games. Michelle’s family has some great athletic genes. Michael just turned 10 and you can already tell what a natural athlete he is. Add the discipline his father brings to every practice session and Michelle’s nephew might very well be the Tiger Woods of baseball. Case in point, out of three games played last weekend the two Michael didn’t pitch his team lost 14-2 & 14-0. The one game he did pitch the team won 9-2. He wasn’t even playing for his regular team. Too bad the coaches didn’t listen when Rudy said “My son is a pitcher”. Ah, the politics of the PTA circuit.

Michael throws a strike!

So all-in-all our weekend was good. I didn’t think about the `net while we were gone, but a lot of stuff happened eh?

Can you believe Tony can’t get his book printed? He was told his book was obscene and anti-American. WTF? Tony says the book may not make it out until after Christmas. Too bad, I wanted some reading on the long flight up to Detroit over the holiday.

OK, I’ve work to do. More posts later.

Are We There Yet?

So it only took twelve hours to get home from Corpus Christi. That’s about four hours more than Michelle or I needed this evening. Not only did we miss tonight’s episode of Alias, but we literally parked on the highway for 30 minutes increments all the way from San Antonio `til Dallas.

I thought about ranting on this subject at great length, but I’m just pissed and quite frankly exhausted from the drive. Tomorrow should be a better day.

And Life Goes On…

Being unemployed isn’t any fun, but it isn’t the end of the world either. I should know, I’ve been down that road twice now. The first time I was laid off (two years ago) came just as the Internet bubble was starting to crack. I had moved from Phoenix to Dallas on the promise of a high-paying consulting gig and I thought the gravy train had finally come in for me. My first mistake was celebrating like I had just won the lottery – I immediately moved into a house, bought a new truck and a brand new jetski. I hadn’t been in Dallas six months when the layoffs began.

At first, the work sabbatical was great. Then I decided I should think about a regular gig. I quickly discovered a technology market that wasn’t in a hurry to hire me and if anyone made an offer it was one-third the salary I had received just months before. When two months turned into four, I found my happy-go-lucky attitude change into a little desperation. During that brutal reality check I lost my house, the truck, but I managed to refinance the jetski (God’s wicked sense of humor given the fact I have nothing to tow it with).

I managed to land a new job which consumed all my free time. At first I didn’t mind, I saw the position as an opportunity to grow with a company and build an IT infrastructure from the ground up. But then came the endless complaints, long hours, last minute projects, and more complaints. I found myself becoming more irritated with each passing day. While I didn’t have any issues with the people I worked with, there was something just itching beneath the surface, gnawing at me.

I resided myself to the fact the everybody hates their job and when (if) the tech sector showed improvement I would look for something different. Well a year later the market didn’t improve and I found myself at the mercy of yet another company layoff. While I was caught completely unaware once the shock wore off I was quite relieved. Any pressure I felt on the job went away the moment I didn’t have to jump out of bed when my alarm clock went off.

I made use of the downtime by maintaining a schedule. I found I actually got up earlier than I ever did when I worked. I got back to the gym, started eating better and my relationship with my then-girlfriend (now fianc?) improved dramatically as well. Many of the projects I put off because I seemingly had no time, I made time for.

That was the moment that my destiny once again became my own. You see, I really don’t like the IT industry. Sure I may be good at it, but who wants all the pressure of user complaints, long hours and absolutely no job satisfaction. It’s not that I find people who are computer illiterate utterly annoying, I’m just amazed how trivial management makes my job seem when I save their @ss all the time. With a 24% unemployment rate here in Dallas I don’t know when I’ll return to the tech sector (if ever). However, I’m certain my next thirty years will be just as exciting as the first.

Identity Theft Ring Busted

Well, it looks like I wasn’t alone with my financial troubles this month. Three people have been accused of running the largest identity theft in history – more than 30,000 people had their credit information stolen.

I caught a portion of the story just a minute ago on Good Morning America. The scary part is the U.S. District Attorney could offer little in new information to protect yourself from this crime. So here’s my two cents:

Get your credit report from ALL THREE of the major credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. This will provide you with the most comprehensive picture of your current credit history. I’ve said it many times before, but I’ll point it out again – if you’ve got good credit get yourself an American Express card. If you already have one go here: http://www.americanexpress.com/creditsecure

Credit Secure through America Express will provide you with DAILY monitoring of your credit accounts AND a quarterly report from ALL THREE of the credit reporting agencies. Other credit card carriers might have similar services, but I am not familiar with them.

The key thing is to know your credit history and check it at least four times a year. According to Good Morning America some people are victims of identity fraud almost two years before they discover a problem.

In one month someone purchased over $25k worth of stuff using my name. Imagine what two years might have been like.

UPDATE – Another suggestion I forgot to mention. I keep a lamenated wallet card with any important phone number (medical contacts, credit card 800#s, etc) on me at all times. I also have a detailed phone list in my home so I don’t have to rummage through bank & card statements in the event of fraud. That saved me a lot of time earlier this month.