Open Source Blogging

“There are as many reasons for running as there are days in the year, years in my life.  But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child, an artist and a saint.  So, too, are you.  Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be.” - George Sheehan

A number of people have asked about my basic running program. Here it is:

10 FOR I = 1 TO 60

20 RUN

30 NEXT I

40 INPUT “Do you feel fantastic? “, A$

50 IF LEN(A$) = 0 THEN 40

60 A$ = LEFT$(A$, 1)

70 … Continue Reading

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

When I was a young boy, my grandmother passed away very suddenly, on Mother’s Day, actually. While I don’t remember her passing away very distinctly, I do remember my grandfather living alone afterwards, and I remember that he just seemed different - sad, and a bit withdrawn, almost as if he were just going through the motions. It was less than a year later that he passed away, too.

It … Continue Reading

Over the past month, I’ve been doing quite a bit of traveling - family-related trips, vacations, and so on. That basically means that I’ve been managing my writing and other professional obligations out of my travel bag for the most part.

How do I do that? How do I manage to keep up with my writing, keep adequate research materials with me, keep track of my ideas and ongoing projects, and manage all of it effectively enough so that I can sit down anywhere and get right down to business.

While figuring out how to write this post, I … Continue Reading

I get asked to review all sorts of crazy personal finance books, plans, programs, and schemes all the time, ranging from the reasonable to the completely outlandish.

For the most part, all of these programs share more or less the same content. Get your spending under control, call up your creditors and negotiate lower rates (or in some cases a balance reduction), adopt a very strong debt repayment plan, and kick it in the teeth. … Continue Reading

Before I got control over my spending, I used to splurge all the time on small things that I wanted.

I’d buy a new book (or three) every Friday in order to “reward” myself for getting through another work week.

I’d often buy a new CD or DVD whenever I received a paycheck.

Whenever I’d hit a personal or work milestone, I’d usually buy a video game as a reward for myself.

It was easy to justify these purchases. I worked hard and earned a good salary. I deserved some of these items, particularly after getting through some obstacle in … Continue Reading

My father has the most innate, natural grasp of mathematics of anyone I’ve ever known. He can’t tell an equation from Greek, but when you back away from explaining things in terms of equations and instead talk about it conceptually, he understands intuitively a great deal of mathematics. Conceptually, he understands it as well as I do, and I took quite a bit of advanced math in college.

Not only that, he’s incredibly … Continue Reading

OK, if you’re a programmer/coder/techie type, I’ve got a challenge for you.

After using Twitter for more than a week (follow me here), I’ve really grown to like the Twitterific app for the Mac. It has a really nice little interface, and scanning through new updates is easy.

I decided that I’d like to get notifications of new emails and RSS posts right inside of Twitter, so that I can get all my updates in one easy-to-read stream, without having to check in three different places (at Twitterific for tweets, Gmail for email, and Google Reader for RSS feeds). However, … Continue Reading

One question I often get from new and expectant parents is how much they should be saving each month for their child’s college education. Obviously, if you’re looking at paying for college eighteen years down the road, there are going to be a lot of unknowns: how will college funding change by then? How much will tuition go up? How will parent contribution … Continue Reading

One of my readers related a story to me over a long conversation that, rather than posting a bunch of long quotes, I’m going to paraphrase.

This reader, who we’ll call Maggie, receives an over-the-top lavish gift from her great aunt each year. Her aunt loves buying the perfect gift for everyone in her family and, because she’s well off, she can afford to spend the time and the money in order to find that gift.

What I found interesting is that even … Continue Reading

My wife and I were just talking today about how we can’t believe our oldest "baby" is in first grade and turning seven.  Where did the time go?

And now, Junta42’s first born, Junta42 Match, turns two months old.  Since launching on June 24th we’ve had our share of starts and stops, but it’s clear that Junta42 Match has been a tremendous success.

Here are some stats:

- 35 matches completed- Over 100 leads distributed to publishers- 11 different types of content projectsTotal Value of Business = approx. $3 … Continue Reading