link time

Couple of links to pass along from Financial Highway that I liked:

Investment and Money Rules of Thumb - a post about things I generally would advise you follow with a little different twist, things like "don't try and time the market" and the 10-5-3 rule are pretty interesting

10 tips for successful investing - "ignore noise" and "avoid exotic investments" are two of my more favorite types from this list of simple tips

Toons for Tuesday

Look at that, it is still Tuesday and I really like this Savage Chickens:

If you are ever feeling different

then trying being this guy - the Zebrallama

Trying Again

As we turn the calendar yet again I am going to try and give the weightloss thing another serious try, hopefully I can stay on it. Those of you who have been around here for a long time know I had a lot of success last summer losing 47 pounds with my low being 223 August 2nd. Since those 14 months have passed I have put about 20 of those pounds back on with a fairly consistent low 240's appearing on the scale despite my fairly good walking routine.

I really believe that food (and more specifically portion control) is my biggest issue.

K, my wife has done a tremendous job losing weight this year and continues on the kick and I even heard her say something I never thought I would this morning. Paraphrase: "I kind of like exercising now". On some level I definitely see where she is coming from because her exercise and diet has had clear cut results.

So tonight I started 2 things, first is I am trying to lose weight. Specifically I want to get on and stay on the diet until the end of the year. Christmas eve may be an exception but I want to really try. That is 2 months, not a terribly long time but long enough to see if what I am doing is being successful.

Second, and more difficult is my goal to be able to complete a marathon at some point. That is a huge, giant goal for a tubo like me BUT I didn't necessarily say run it and I didn't say do it soon. What I would like to do in the near future, lets say 3 months (end of January) is to be conditioned well enough to do a 1/2 marathon. I am fairly positive I can do this as tonight, as my first step I walked a quarter marathon (or at least that is what I am calling it). I did 6.5 miles on the treadmill with it saying I burned 820 calories for my effort (and I don't trust those numbers but they are better than nothing). This marathon goal is kind of crazy for my build, I am short and stocky (and fat). God created people like me for lifting objects not running distance (hence the barrel chest and big calves) but this is my goal and I have access to it and can make the time only thing holding me back is me. Plus if I can make this happen it will be something I will always have, one of those life check mark things.

Basketball Season already?

Today MSU took on Oklahoma City U in an exhibition game to open up the basketball which the Bullies won 82-54. MSU is entering this season as a pre-season top 20 team and I think they are better than normal BUT I am not positive they are really as good as they are being touted. Today's line-up actually showed some of the issues that State may have this year.

Starting lineup:

PG - Dee Bost

SG - Barry Stewart

SF - Ravern Johnson

PF - Kodi Augustus

C - Jarvis Varnado

This is a heck of a starting line-up, kind of thin (as in not heavy and could be pushed around) but lots of talent here. My concern is what comes off the bench. Returning is Romero Osby (who has flashes of being really good but is very sporadic) and Phil Turner who is very gutsy but plays mostly as a 6-3 postman on defense, you just don't see championship teams have that. Elgin Bailey is also a fav of mine but that nasty ankle dislocation still isn't healed up correctly and rumors are abounding that he may medical red-shirt this year. Tawney Beckham, a backup point is suposed to be out the season due to injury. I'm not sure why but Turner and Riley Benock didn't play in the exhibition game (Benock plays a bit as guard back-ups but shouldn't key to the success this year).

Others we might see play this year are Freshmen Shaun Smith and Wendell Lewis, who played today and are 6-6 and 6-8 but didn't come in like gangbusters (nor were they supposed to). Hopefully Smith will be able to be a good guard back-up this year by time SEC time roles around. The other 2 Freshmen (that are the ones everyone talks about) are Renardo Sydney and John Riek. Practice watchers say Sydney may very well be as good as people talk about BUT he isn't eligible yet (and I don't expect him to become eligible). If you want to read about Sydney I point you to Kyle Veazey stories at the Clarion-Ledger. Additionally, I'm not sold on Riek being a big contributor this year. After 2 years of trying to rehab a bad knee injury he is suposedly in terrible conditioning shape, has some difficulty with the language, and is forced to be held out for 9 games by the NCAA (but that is fine as it is before SEC time). My point is WE REALLY DON'T HAVE MUCH DEPTH, especially in the post. So we may be much like last year and live by the 3, die by the 3.

Maybe, just maybe, MSU will take advantage of some other folks being down and our level of talented starters will be enough. Is this starting 5 better than most who have ever suited up in the Maroon, yes, maybe the most talented ever. But there are holes and we will lose games we should win and we will play like an NBA team at times b/c of the pure talent.

Funny Graphic

A pic of the controversial call from last Saturday

Can someone explain what is happening here?

Scott Field Renovation

* updated with a few more pics

There has been a bit of discussion about some in the MSU community wanting to expand Scott Field as attendance is at an all-time high. Here are a couple of shots that I have seen floated around concerning this and I will update this post from time to time with new stuff if I see it. A couple of stadiums that MSU has to be looking at recent expansions are Arkansas' skyboxes in the endzone and Ole Miss' expansion a couple of years ago.

First is a picture of the a small bowled in enclosure

Second is a more squared in endzone look that looks a little taller

Here is a look with a South Carolina type Endzone created by someone

And here might be maximal expansion as I think MSU is eventually looking at a horseshoe expansion as where the Seal building and Dawgzillatron are won't be removed.
Here is a look at Clemson's endzone
Here is South Carolina's Endzone Expansion

a picture of the "new" side of the stadium

a look from the corner of the bleachers
a picture I took of the white out a few games ago

Putting in a faucet

I thought I would post some pictures I took when I replaced the 3 faucets in our bathrooms and how easy and quick it can be. This happened a while back but I never posted the pics

First picture I note the time, 6 straight up, this is the old faucet

We have a boxed new faucet
And we have the required tools, scissors are for opening the box
a look at the bottom side of the sink
crawled under the sink, where the water line attaches to the bottom of the old faucet (notice the white nuts) and how the stopper is attached

Same thing, broader view
Real Step 1 is TURN THE WATER OFF, and then try and run any out of the faucet but that doesn't always work
then unscrew the ends of the water lines from the stobs on the faucet, the stopper has also been removed, these were easy twist with your hand screws, had to use the pliers to get these started off. Then unscrew the white nuts off the back of the faucet stobs, some debris may fall so watch out.
with no nuts on the backside removal of old faucet is easy, not the clock which is about 12 minutes later
put the plastic brace thing on the bottom of new faucet and insert into holes
put the new stopper pole down the top before you crawl back under sink
screw the new nuts (my new ones were black) onto the new faucet, reattach the stopper to the bottom on the stopper
this gold "nut" is what screws on to the bottom of the faucet, slide it up the line and screw away
here both waterlines and stopper have been reattached
and final product is a completely functioning sink, notice the whole process took under 20 minutes. Of the 3 sinks I did only one did I have to retighten something as the water lines were leaking a bit, hence the need for the pliers (or vicegrips)
and here is the finished product

Money Plans

I have to say that I read lots of blogs and for better or worse quite a few of them are personal finance of p/f blogs. And some of you will say, ugh, another money post but check it out, it has actually been over 3 months since my last post on it so I kind of wanted to do an update and current plan for the BSquared family. Back in previous posts I had a detailed version of my 10 Baby Steps (check'em out, good stuff ) but that is only part of the story. Everyone needs a game plan, think of it as a table of contents for a books, but there is much more to a story, and a financial plan that isn't in the big layout in the beginning. So where we are now is

• we have made automatic our pursuit of #4 of maxing out the Roth and will get there before Roth deadline of April 15 by creating an account with ING that gets the proper chunk of our salary to make this a reality without it ever hitting the banking account so it doesn't feel like we "have it". As I have mentioned before even the young have to try and save for retirement to get that compounding working for you.
• we are also doing step #6 of paying off debts over $10k and with a above 3 APR using the debt snowball, kind of non-gazelle snowball to use Dave Ramsey terms but snowball nonetheless. What I mean is we are targeting our 2nd mortgage with double payments each month.
• we also just started taking a tiny step towards #7 as I started contributing 1% of my salary to my works 403(b). I do so that when I am there for 5 years (still like 18 months away but still) I get a match from my employer for that % so why not start doing it know and I'll never miss it.
• As a previous post this week mentioned I only have 1 class to go to finish my grad degree so tuition is at an all-time low (0) as compared to 1998-2005 and 2008-2009 when I was in school. An additional benefit to this is that after I'm done with the degree I can seek either new full-time employment OR picking up some part-time work that I haven't really felt I had the time to do with school always lingering.
• the final thing I will mention is something I am very proud of my wife for is the fact she now has a part-time job. It is a dual benefit because 1. it does make money, and 2. it gets her some good experience doing something else, managing others in her field, and great networking for the future. Now we are making sure Uncle Obama gets his share (as we are putting that in, yet another, separate account) but I have promised my wife this is her money to spend how she wants be it clothes or a cruise or whatever (kind of like birthday or Christmas money). I am lucky because I trust her decision making and I know she won't completely blow it on something (like lotto tickets or something nuts) so we can break out of the Dave Ramsey hyper-intensity which IMO is so strict and intense at time the plan is "unlivable".

I will end with referencing some of the p/f blogs I read, I don't always agree with them but more times than not they bring good stuff

- Budgets are Sexy

- Enemy of Debt

- I Will Teach You to be Rich

- Single Guy Money

Is Tyson Lee (MSU QB) really a midget?

You be the judge

momentum

I have been toiling away at finishing my graduate degree in library science for what will be 2 years this Christmas. I am currently taking my last regular class (research methods, yes it is as boring as it sounds) and yesterday I signed up for my last "class" which is actually my graduate writing project (and I also take comps in the Spring). Call it a class, fine with me, all I know is that it will equal up to the required 39 hours to graduate. When I signed up I took a screen capture for the fun of it.

Cartoon Tuesday

I really love cartoons so I am going to try and start a segment on the blog where I post some of my favorite cartoons called Cartoon Tuesday, lets see how long I can keep this up.