Archive for March, 2007

An easy to forget blog tip

Published at March 14, 2007 in Misc. 1 Comment

Don’t forget to update your timezone setting for your blog! In Wordpress this is under the Options tab.

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Grilled tequila lime chicken

Published at March 11, 2007 in Dining. 1 Comment

The weather here in Vegas is starting to get really nice so we decided to fire up the grill and put it to good use. So I marinated some bone in chicken in tequila, lime and a little rosemary and oregano and set it in the frig for a few hours. My wife cut up some potatoes with a good helping of butter, some onions and a little salt and pepper that we pouched up and set on the grill.

Now, normally I just put the potato pouch on the grill and let go for at least 30 minutes before putting on whatever the main dish is because they take so long. I usually end up with a few burned potatoes but they always end up good. This time however I put them on for ten minutes then flipped then for another ten minutes. After that 20 minutes of direct heat, I put them off to the side off the direct heat and let them cook for another 10 minutes before I put the chicken on.

I then took the chicken out of the marinade, added a little kosher salt and put then on the direct heat for 10 minutes like I did for the potato pouch. Leaving them to cook with the lid down, I then flipped them for another 10 minutes then moved them to the side to finish cooking without the direct heat.

A few minutes before I took the chicken and potatoes off the grill, I put some olive oil on a nice piece of focaccia that my wife got and put it on the grill to warm up while I took everything else off and got the table set.

The Result

I could have let the chicken cook a little longer (they were pretty big), but they were still good with just a touch of the tequila and lime. The potatoes were perfect, the best we’ve made so far. Just tender enough with a great taste. The bread was wonderful will some olive oil and fresh ground pepper for dipping.

All around a nice way to start the grilling season!

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A good way to end the week

Published at March 9, 2007 in Daily. 2 Comments

It has certainly been a rocky two weeks in the market, but I’ve stuck with my holdings (largely because they didn’t go lower than my sell point) and they ended up this week. Not by much, but anything in the black at the moment is a good thing!

Lets hope next week is even better.

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Should you get your teenager a new car?

Published at March 5, 2007 in Misc. 3 Comments

MSNBC has an article called The best cars of 2007 for teenagers. While the article does cover options for actually affording the vehicle, a more important question should be should you actually buy your teenage a new car to begin with?

With 3 teenagers (two are driving age), and one preteen, my wife and I have talked about cars on several occasions. Sometimes we talk about various things like what kind of car each child seems ‘appropriate’ with, but one thing that we both agreed on very quickly was that we would not buy a new, or even a fairly new car, for any of them. Are we just being mean?

How We See It

It doesn’t matter how good a kid is, they aren’t going to be the best drivers around. First is just inexperience. They don’t pay enough attention to what is going on, they don’t know how to react to situations, etc. Second is kids being kids. I see it like this: I was a good kid, made good grades, was above average in the responsibility category, etc., etc. and while I was a pretty good driver, I still drove that car into the ground (a nice 79 Turbo Regal). Everybody I know now and then was pretty much the same way. It didn’t matter if their parents bought them a new car or they had clunker.

Our Plan

Year One

So what we plan to do is buy them (or help them get) reliable but older car that doesn’t cost a lot for their first car. We call this the ‘one year car’. It only really has to last for the first year or so while we look for a better car. During this first year they will learn about paying their insurance, paying for the car itself, maintenance, etc. and let them get over having a car in the first place.

Year Two

During the first year we will be looking for their ‘real’ car. While it may not be the one they really want, it will be something that they like. Something that they can look forward to providing that they don’t mess up with their first car.

With a couple of the boys this might mean not actually buying a second car, but fixing up the first one. My dad built his cars for a long time, I’ve worked on a few myself and my wife’s dad owns a salvage yard so it kind of runs in the family. Besides it would be a fun project, if they so chose.

So would you or have you bought your teenager a brand new car?

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First quarter investing not going well

Published at March 5, 2007 in Stocks. 0 Comments

I had set some pretty aggressive goals for this year when it comes to my investing and so far it isn’t going well. I’ve had 3 stocks that just hasn’t stacked up yet. The second one I bought was Google (again), looking for a short gain on a good 4th quarter. While they did have a good quarter, their earnings weren’t accelerating like Yahoo and a couple others, so the stock just didn’t do well.

Not phased, I found another good one, Coach Inc. (COH). Coach started out well and quickly went up 5% which triggered me to get some more shares. Everything was running fine and then last week hit. Bam, through the floor the market went. However, my holdings didn’t go below 8% of where I got them which was a good sign. I decided to hang on to it and not panic and so far that has done me well and the stock is slowly recovering.

However, unless a miracle happens I sure won’t hit my 10% goal for this quarter, but I’m only down 2.3% as of today even given last week so I’m not in bad shape. Hopefully next quarter will go much better!

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Expanding my blog

Published at March 4, 2007 in Misc. 2 Comments

Since I don’t have quite as much to blog about when it comes to straight personal finance, unlike some of my fellow personal finance bloggers, I’ve decided to expand the horizons of what this blog will cover.

So what will I cover? Well, we are in a stage in our life when we are not only getting out of some of our debt but also wanting to enjoy some finer things in life. While we are by no means wealthy, we have the means to enjoy things that aren’t really all that expensive but kind of fall into that ‘fine living’ category.

So with that in mind I will start blogging about these things. Whether it is good deals, or just enjoying some of the money that we recoup from paying off credit cards and such. It will also give me a reason to further utilize this blog which I have pretty much neglected in recent months.

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