Month: January 2013

Yesterday, while making dinner, La and I were talking about college. Of course we want– and expect– all of our kids to attend college and get a degree. We have several adult friends who didn’t do that, and now due to various circumstances in their lives, they find themselves looking for a new job and having a hard time of it. Without a college education, it seems like most people end up stuck at a certain type of job with a certain salary ceiling.

We both agreed that there are definitely exceptions to the rule. Some who attend college end up in dead-end jobs anyway; some who don’t attend manage to have successful and lucrative careers despite a degree on their wall. But we both feel like college is a key element of success, at least in the working world. Coupled tightly with that is a drive, an ambition to do something more than work at Taco Bell or whatever.

Coincidentally, while reading my nightly news feeds, I stumbled across an article where someone had posted a question about whether or not he should attend college. He’s 19 and has been working on web and computer stuff for a few years, making a decent wage. He’s been attending a local community college to pick up a few credits here and there, but feels that it’s kind of a waste of time and money. So he asked the group (the Hacker News community) what they thought. Keep in mind that the audience is almost entirely made up of self-professed computer geeks (like me, hah) so there’s definitely a bias in the answers.

I thought the first response was perhaps the most insightful:

Although I don’t necessarily condone everything in that list, I did most of it in my college days. I think the reason I liked the comment so much is because it encapsulates exactly what I think college provides: a life experience. It’s so much more than books and classes and studying. It’s four or five years when you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience things you’ve never done before (and may never do again) while figuring out not only what you want to do for a career, but who you’re going to be for the rest of your life. For me, five years at UMR was absolutely life-changing. I saw new things, met new people, and in the end became a different person. I have lifelong friends from those few years. I keep in touch with a couple of professors and advisors. I cherish the things I learned and the experiences I had. For me, college was an amazing experience: one I’ll never forget or regret.

Yeah, maybe I’m thinking back on those “glory days” with a little more nostalgia than they deserve. But I really hope all of my kids elect to go to college and have those kinds of experiences for themselves.

One of my 2013 resolutions is not to work on Saturdays. For the last decade I’ve generally worked every Saturday and most evenings (late into the night). I’ve decided it’s time to stop that, and trust that my business will soldier on even if I’m not putting in 50 hours a week year after year.

Today is the first Saturday of the year, of course, so I put the resolution to the test. I went down to my office because I had to do a few things on the computer this morning (not related to Zing). While there, I opened one of my desk drawers and noticed the hundred hanging file folders with old client files. There were actually two drawers with files like these; the newest ones date back to 2006. I thought it would be good to clean them out. So I went through each folder, looking for anything that might be worth saving for some kind of later purpose. I ran a few things through my scanner: receipts for big-ticket items, some tax and legal stuff, and a few other things that might come in handy one day. When finished, I tossed everything into the recycling bin. I brushed my hands, heaved a happy sigh, and felt good that my desk drawers were now empty.

I also cleaned out my inbox– a physical inbox on the desk, not a digital inbox for e-mail. In it I found an old letter from Zack to Santa. I think he wrote it several years ago; I’m not sure how it ended up in my inbox and sat there for years. But anyway, I got a chuckle out of it and thought I’d scan it for posterity. Here it is:

Handwriting aside, it clearly shows a well-thought-out logic. Introduce the topic, list the things you want, mention how good you’ve been, and finish with a little bit of flattery. Nice!

Ahh, ’tis the season to start on taxes. Since payday is today, I’m researching the changes in IRS rules regarding withholdings and tax rates. Congress still doesn’t have its act together, so some of the numbers haven’t even been decided yet. Thanks, guys.

In my research I came across a site that explains how to calculate employee withholdings, and I had to laugh at this part of the page:

Yeah, right. Taxes are so easy! I remember the days when I was sixteen working at a grocery store and could fill out a 1040EZ form. Since then, things have only become more complicated…

Obscure unless you used a computer in 1990.

We were the Magnificent Seven. Me, Dirk, Aron, Morgan, Bech, Mat, and Derek. Best of friends in high school, we spent every weekend together and kept in touch after we went our separate ways to college, then careers and families. This year, for the first time since the early 1990’s, all seven of us were back in the St. Charles area. Well, technically all six of them were, and when I heard about it I decided to buy a plane ticket just to fly back for a few days and see everyone again.

We hooked up for some pizza and then went to Derek’s house for long hours of talking, laughing, playing poker, and reminiscing about the old times. The jokes and stories were all still funny, even if they were 20+ years old.

Derek is taking the picture, which is why he isn’t shown. Also, Bech’s iPhone camera is a piece of junk.

Yeah, it’s hard to find friends like these. Thanks, guys, and hopefully we won’t wait twenty years to do it again.