New Picture Gallery Link

Please note the new link on the left sidebar which will take you to a separate blog post with links off to all the photo galleries which Jen has been putting out there. Just figured it would make sense to put it all in one place.

Financial Fitness for GenX (and Y and Z)

Financial Fitness is a tricky subject to tackle since no one really wants to lift up their pecuniary skirt and reveal their "Asset-backed Securities". :-)

Jen and I continually wonder if we are doing "enough" financially. In fact, we just had this conversation over a wonderful dinner at Enzio's last night (date night without the kiddos and half price bottles of wine!!). It always seems like we are doing the "right things" so in general we think that we are doing ok...but at the end of the day you are always left looking around saying..."What are they doing?". The odd part of today's society is that you can't tell shinola from appearances. There are always those couples you look at and say..."wow, they have their financial house in order" but you just never know. Once you get to know some of these people you start to find out that the old axiom of "you can't judge a book by it's cover" is absolutely true....many of them are in debt and don't appear to care.

I ran across this simple article this week which kind of provides a basic set of benchmarks against which you can assess your financial health. Now this does not tackle the specific subjects of retirement or college saving accounts but those are subjects for another day. This is more geared towards snapshotting you current profile...and to me was very helpful even though they are very generic. The examples listed are not mine...they are from the article...but I have included our approximate score just in case other gen-Xers want to compare and discuss:

1. Liquidity Ratio (I am only using checking+savings here)
Formula: Liquid Assets / Monthly Expenses --> Article: $68,070/$6,892 = 9.9
Target: 3-6 months (our score ~9)

2. Housing Payment Ratio
Formula: Monthly Housing Costs / Monthly Gross Income --> Article: $825 / $7585 = 10.88%
Target: Less than 28% (our score ~22%)

3. Solvency Ratio
Formula: Total Assets / Total Debt --> Article: $265,570 / $146,654 = 1.81
Target: Greater than 1.0 (our score ~2.2 including 401K and home)

4. Savings Ratio
Formula: Savings per Year / Annual Gross Income --> Article: $18,000 / $91,000 = 19.78%
Target: 8-25% depending on age (our score ~22% including 401K contributions)

5. Debt to Income Ratio
Formula: Annual Debt Payment / Annual Gross Income --> Article: $9900 / $91,000 = 10.88%
Target: Less than or equal to 30% (our score ~20% - mortgage and loans)

So at the end of the day, I guess we are falling within the guidelines...which supposedly means that we are doing "OK". The real test will be when I plot these 5 metrics through time. If they are all heading in the right direction that would materially mean that we are continuously improving our financial health. We will see how this works out ;-)

Good luck to all the gen-X,Y and Zers out there...it seems that the things are getting more difficult with every generation.

Some new video

New Video: I downloaded the latest video from the camcorder and cut out some of the newest footage to share. The first is some footage of Payton making her fish faces. The second is of Payton playing in her new exersaucer. Sorry, but for some reason I can not find the footage where Kade was pushing her...I will have to look some more for that. The last one is of primarily Kade. I was trying to take some footage of Payton playing with the kitchen but Kade just wanted to see himself. So I turned the LCD around on the camcorder and let him figure out what was going on...typical Kade action ;-)



G'night.

Stand Tall Poor Penguins And Don't Listen to those Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys!

I got an email from a long lost friend this morning: Mr. Farr (ok...not that Mr. Farr...instead it was the Farzad kind). Actually, it was not much of an email either ... it was really just a link to a website with the following two words "Volcano! NOT!". While it was great to hear back from my long lost friend...it raises the (not-so) important conversation of global warming...which of course, we should further explore here at the Cavitation ;-)

First, you really should read the article...as the author really-really-really wants you to believe that this is of great importance to YOU. After all, it removes ALL doubt on the debate of global warming...uh, kind-of-sort-of. But don't fret gas-guzzling chowda heads out there...I will make you feel better with just a simple wave of my magic "reasonable man wand".

To start lets hit a couple of the high notes of the Gerard Wynn-Alister Doyle article (a.k.a. GWAD...seriously you have to click on the link) :

1. The first word in the GWAD article is "Paris"...are you laughing yet. Insert favorite P.J. O’Rourke quotation here (which I know CherkyB will enjoy):

   "The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don’t know."

   ....enough said....oh wait please let me add one more...“cheese eating surrender monkeys"...ok, now I can move on.
   
2. The first ppg of the GWAD article is air-tight...

   "The world's top climate scientists said on Friday global warming was man-made"

   Wow, I guess we should all drive our vehicles in the ocean to make man-made coral reefs and start using bikes! Oh wait - we all must remember that the first paragraph is always written for those boobs who never get past the little words.....must...press....on...
   
3. Oops...there in the fourth ppg of the GWAD article...I am starting to sense a crack...

   "it was 'very likely' -- or more than 90 percent probable -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years."

   Uh-oh, hold on...latst I checked 90% doth not equal 100%...but then again I have not taken any of the "new math" courses which apparently Kade and Payton will need to endure...
   
4. A little later:

   "Possible signs range from drought in Australia to record high winter temperatures in Europe."

   ...did anyone bother to ask Australia about this? Only 10 seconds with "The Google" resulted in the following statement from the Austarlian Government's Bureau of Metrology website "Drought is also part and parcel of life in Australia"...and oh by the way, the site then goes on to describe the other 6 major droughts in the past 100 years. Score one for GWAD. [Sidebar: Oh the irony. You see Mr. Farr lives in Minnesoter with a high temp of 0F over the next 3 days! And add to that, the fact that CO set a record low today in this continuing hellishly cold winter. Finally sprinkle on top a few whining NM and TX folk complaining about their measly foot of snow. OK, so lets give him the benefit of a doubt...maybe he has just taken too many of those Polish classes at UM-Duluth to see the freezing breath in front of his icicle ridden mustacio (no offense Swabowski's)]
5. We move on...later ppg:

   "February 2, 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether (people) are to blame for climate change"

   ...does anyone else see the work MAY....confusion setting in...trying to understand how GWAD could have started so strong and ended up here... Then there are other strong statements further down like:

   "it is 'more likely than not' that greenhouse gases have made tropical cyclones more intense"

   ...powerful stuff.
   
6. And the best for last:
   

   " "Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term," French President Jacques Chirac said."

   I am not even going to go here...The French Leader calling for a revolution...good stuff indeed! Has the French Revolution been scrubbed from todays curriculum also?
   
7. The rest is pretty much just Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey drivel pointing out that the USofA is bad...very bad.
   

Now getting back to the "Volcano" reference. A looong time ago in the USofCA, Mr. Farr and I were sitting down at work over a large cup of joe (and maybe holding some cards in our hands...ala BIG-DOS!). We began discussing the vaunted topic of Global warming. After a lot of chatter it always came down to two things in my mind:

• First, a volcano eruption emits more greenhouse gases than all of mankind put together. Don't just take my word for it...even the crazy green Canucks agree:

  "A single violent volcanic eruption can rival or exceed mankind's ability to pump out greenhouse gases, according to Catherine Hickson, a volcanologist with the federal department of Natural Resources Canada in Vancouver."

• Second, a long time ago, in a reality far far away... there were these things called ice ages. They were not caused by greenhouse gases...but instead they were primarily caused by the wibbly-wobbly earth herself. For those of you who's only experience with the term ice age is in reference to the movie...let me jog you noggin. I guess the liberal-left has succeeded in stamping that out of most elementary school curriculum. Believe me, our kids will understand this with "crystal" clarity ;-)

Having said all that, I do think that we as individuals need to be more concerned about pollution seeing as no one really wants to walk around in a haze (well, I guess with the exception of JimmyH). I just get fed up by the GWADs of the world who have sold down the river of insanity and bought into the craze called "global warming" just to make a living. As I told my friend Mr. Farr...if you are serious about helping out, I would recommend that you find a way to stop the next volcano eruption. And for the GWADs of the world, who are paralyzed from the neck up, I would add a recommendation that they find their local active volcano and jump in seeing as their big heads would likely plug the biggest global warming threat for a while.

In parting, I promise to contemplate how I can best reduce pollution...as I bomb around in my 1996 Dodge pickup spewing coolant at a lean 12 MPG.......

It's time for a new poll

So a while ago in this blog we were discussing a very important "matter". Do you get heavier or lighter when you fart? Since we now have polling technology at our disposal I figured I would turn this one over to the experts - feel free to conduct your own experiments :-). So here is your chance to let us know where you "stand" on the issue (I prefer to stand as far away as possible).

What happens when you fart / pass gas / cut the cheese / make bubbles / butt burp / trouser cough / etc.?
	You get lighter.
	You get heavier.
	Depends on how much "stuff" gets caught by your shorts
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Poll Results

Cavitation Poll #1: Moral integrity test in the can...