Archive for January 25th, 2008

How to Be Nouveau Riche

Friday, January 25th, 2008

The term Nouveau Riche is supposed to be insulting but, to be honest, I wouldn’t actually mind being able to count myself as one of the Nouveau Riche. But exactly how I would get into the group is the real question. It seems like being able to properly invest would be a great benefit in such a quest but it takes a knowledge of investing that I don’t yet possess.

Fortunately, there is an online school that can offer help that is perfect for this. It’s called Nouveau Riche University. You can tell by the name what they are looking to do – offer you a program based on the principles used at higher education institutions to help you gain the knowledge you need to become one of the Nouveau Riche group.

They offer classes on real estate buying, flipping, and holding. They will teach you how computers and what software can help you create your own wealth. You don’t have to spend the day in the classroom waiting for some stuffy professor to get to the part that might help you. Their distance learning classes are centered on topics that have a specific focus so that you lean about what you really want to learn about.

So now that markets are down, find out why this is the time to buy and just how to go about doing it so that when 2009 rols around, you can be looking toward becoming a part of the Nouveau Riche group.

Posted in Business, Money | No Comments »

Fun Times at the Hospital

Friday, January 25th, 2008

Yesterday we took our 9 month old for a CT.  It’s really all her father’s fault – he’s got a big head and she’s got a big head so her growth is off the charts.  If there were a percentile out where she is, it would be about the 105th, but since they don’t have that they just write ‘above 97th percentile’.  To be on the safe side and make sure that it’s really just her dad’s big head on her little shoulders, the pediatrician recommended we have her checked out.

Off to the hospital we went, got our visitor’s badges meandered through the corridors and found our way to radiology.  Then came the wait which was especially horrible for the little girl since she hadn’t been allowed to eat since 3 am and it’s pushing past 11 and it isn’t like I woke her up just before that to feed her (maybe I should have but I don’t think she would have gone back to sleep).

The wait ended.  We meandered through some more hallways, some with big blue floor tiles, some with little blue floor tiles.  We came to another waiting room, filled out some more paperwork and waited again.

The wait ended again and this time we only had a short jaunt to the CT room.  The little girl laid on the table and was swaddled in a big blanket (the better to hold your arms with, my dear).  She had a lead blanket put on top of her (the better to keep you  pinned down with, my dear).  Finally they put some cushions around her head that was already laying in a fixed ‘U’ shaped device (the better to keep you head jammed in here, my dear).  For some reason she didn’t find this much fun even though it looked oh so comfortable to me.  The kthonking of the machine was almost unhearable over her crying.

Happily this part didn’t take more than 6 minutes and she seemed to recover from the psychological trauma as soon as we put a bottle of formula in her mouth.

Good times…

Posted in Health | 1 Comment »

What Counts as a Vitamin?

Friday, January 25th, 2008

With all the hulabaloo about some sports people taking performance enhancing drugs, I’d have thought the powers that be wouldn’t allow legal steroids to exist but apparently they do. I wonder where the line is drawn between vitamin supplement (like the kind my pediatrician has said are ok for the kids) and steroids. I’ve always assumed they are radically different and perhaps they are. But then where is the gray area that some athletes have taken refuge in saying they thought they were taking a supplement when it was really a banned substance. Is it really that hard to tell the difference?  If you are an athlete, it is important that you know exactly what is going into your body.

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Essay the First

Friday, January 25th, 2008

I used to love to write. I fancied myself the author of a book one day. Just one book, though – I figured I could rake in the dough with just the one fabulously engrossing and wildly acclaimed book. I’d retire on the money I made by the age of 18 – no need for college (something I was against since the time I found out about it “What?! You told me I could drop out when I was 16, then you told me you’d kick me out if I did but that I could quit school after high school! Now you say that’s not enough! Do you want me to waste my life in school?” (door slams)).

Then I didn’t turn out to be as good a writer as I imagined myself. I had it all together in my head, but it took so long to write it, by the time I got to the end of a sentence, half the words were missing. Like that last sentence would have been, “I had it all together in my half the words were missing.” Or I would write myself into a corner and have to go back and redo everything only to realize it wouldn’t work anyway I came at it and then I’d have to scrap the whole thing and come up with a different idea. The second idea was never as good as the first (all my first ideas are brilliant).

I would write these dark short stories that brought me to tears. So heartfelt, so insightful, so utterly, utterly deep. (pause for somber effect). Then I would reread them and they would bring me to tears again – of embarrassment at the sappiness of it all – more like utterly, utterly silly.

In school, they always had a very precise formula to write by – topic sentence, concrete detail, commentary, commentary, concrete detail, commentary, commentary. Repeat five times and you had an essay. If you did not follow the formula, you got marked off for it which burned me up no end. Where was the option to write creatively? Why in the name of all that anyone holds sacred did I have to follow this BEYOND boring method and then hold HEMINGWAY up as a fine ideal? (How was I supposed to know what “Hills Like White Elephants” was really about? How could anyone know what that was really about? This is supposed to be GOOD writing?!) I used to rebel by refusing to reach the minimum word requirement. HAHA, that’ll show them!

Now adays I just write what comes to mind. I think they call it verbal diahrea but here I just call it wordiness cuz I don’t know how to spell diahrea. And, really, I don’t want to know how to spell it.

Posted in Books | No Comments »

Luggage Look Alikes

Friday, January 25th, 2008

Have you ever gotten off a flight dog tired, just wanting to grab your luggage and get to wherever the nearest bed is?  You want to hurry up and leave but it turns out all the bags on the conveyor belt look exactly alike – black.  What you need to do is plan ahead and get some luggage that looks different from every single other bag in the world – in other words get some luggage that isn’t black.

It’s not like you need to color coordinate with your bags, you just need to be able to find it.  Get something that will stand out!  It doesn’t matter if it’s puke green or teal as long as you can find it. Fortunately, these particular colors aren’t really available and  most of the non-black bags are actually very attractive.  Take the travelpro bags for example – there’s red, there’s blue, there’s grey with a racing stripe (maybe the stripe will make it get to the belt faster).  There are tons of other colors and there is NO NEED to have you luggage blend in with everyone else’s who rode on your plane. Go out and replace your luggage now before you find yourself caught in this mess.

Posted in Shopping | No Comments »

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