The Power of Straight Talk

People are constantly selling you things, or spinning things to make them look better to you. And good lord, I'm so tired of it. No one seems capable of just telling you the honest truth and having a straight conversation anymore. I've compiled some examples from every day life to show what I'm talking about.

Your connected devices are spying on you. People report all the time that they talk about topics around their phone or their helper devices like Alexa and Google Home, and suddenly ads show up in their web browser next time they log on for that topic. Or do a google search for something that may have just been a whim, and now get ready for ads to appear for whatever that was. Just constantly trying to get your attention and distract you from whatever you may be doing, and sell you something you may not have had any real interest in, just a passing whim.

Corporate emails. Why oh why do you need to send out an email to all your employees that is just obviously spinning events? I've seen this for years. While an informational email that keeps employees up to date on changes that are happening is great, and a welcome addition to the information stream, if you take events that everyone in the company can see and try to spin them in a much more positive manner than what people can see with their own eyes, it creates a sense of disconnect between people at the higher levels of a company and the general employees. It's just a bad practice, and avoiding it is good advice even in your personal life. Just be straight and don't try to BS everyone. Pro tip: we can all see it. It doesn't help.

I'd even bet that you've done the same thing to some extent in your personal life. Who among us hasn't put the best face on something when telling someone else about it? In that moment, we are selling that idea to whomever we are talking to. It happens all the time, and most of us don't even think about it anymore.

Advertising is everywhere, and it is constantly trying to get and hold your attention. Every square inch of free space seems to be getting transformed into advertising. Nearly every personal interaction involves you being sold on something. Advertising has gone to static, to moving, to digitally served mini-commercials, and now is being worked to show more targeted personalized advertising just to the people standing in front of it by getting information from your phone. It's all vying for your attention, and it's all shortening your attention span. Just being able to focus and cut through the noise is becoming a super power.

What I'm endeavoring to do is cut through the spin in my own life. Those of you on twitter know that I get to the meat of a topic pretty quickly, and tend to try to cut through the sales hype surrounding something. It's a big thing for me, but I'm trying to walk the walk as well. I am working on myself to stop trying to spin things when I talk to people, and just give them the straight answers. It's a more honest way of dealing with people, and it's something I'm striving for every day.

I'm probably crazy

A plan has been made. I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but the plan has been made. My friend Matt and I have made plans to be at Disney's Hollywood Studios the last weekend of August. While this may not sound bad, this happens to be a very special weekend. It's opening weekend for Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. 

This would not normally be something I would do, since I tend to hate crowds. But Matt was really excited to go, so I set up the hotel. It's going to be a crazy immersive land based on Star Wars, which has been an obsession of mine since childhood, at least until The Last Jedi. There's going to be a ton of opening weekend stuff that won't be available any other time, and just going to be fairly crazy. 

So wish me luck, I'll be waiting in lines the last weekend in August in Florida, lol. 

Personal Finance Basics, Part 2

The first part of this series can be found here - https://abstractions.avgrump.com/2019/03/personal-finance-basics-part-1.html

In this entry, I'm going to cover what to do after you get your debts knocked out. First things first, DON'T RACK UP MORE DEBT AGAIN!!! You worked so hard to get things paid off, don't dig yourself back into a hole again. If you have credit cards, keep them to something you can pay off every month, if you use them at all.

After that's covered, you need to start protecting yourself from life's little mishaps. A hole in the tire, broken water heater, whatever may come up, you need to be prepared to take care of it. So you need to start a savings account. The interest is crappy, but this is just a vehicle for you to keep some spare money, not live like a Wall Street Tycoon. The object of this is to give you financial space. A good idea is to cover rent or your mortgage payment at least with this fund. A good idea might be $3000 as a goal for this. That way you can handle most normal speed bumps.

After you've got some cushion, it's time to aim higher. Now you aim for 3 months salary. Basically, this covers you in case you lose your job, while you're finding a new one. Be your own unemployment insurance. The feeling that you get when you can cover things should anything go wrong is wonderful. The idea is to become independent, and not reactive to the things around you. Be proactive, and that way you can just handle things as they come without getting stressed and without being worried. Just that bit of freedom is priceless. More to come in the next segment.

I ride a bike, sort of

Another chapter of my new fitness journey began this weekend, and I'm going to try to get it going three times a week. I own a bike, and frankly I am insanely out of shape. So I have a goal that I am now working towards, which is to get out of the apartment complex. In my two rides this spring (Saturday and today) I got further up the hill each time. I just finished a ride and it literally feels like I'm going to die. I'm determined to work through this, though, because these things shouldn't kick my ass. I have to get more in shape, or else bad things will happen down the road to me health-wise. I've been working on the diet changes, but this is something that goes hand in hand with that.

So with that, I hope to get out of the apartment complex within a week or two. and then the next hurdle will be the 2 mile trail between me and Safeway. Then more roads, and increasing my mileage. It will be interesting to see how far I make it.