Stopping Junk Mail and Annoying phone calls

One of the best ideas I ever came across on the Internet was the location of web sites to stop junk mail, get on the No Call List and Opt out of Credit card offers. This has literally saved me hundreds of hours per year that I can focus on making money or just relaxing. Taking action is really simple and takes no more then a few minutes for each registry, but great in reducing wasted time. Most highly recommended.

1st Quarter Net Worth Update

I've updated my net worth at NetworthIQ through the first quarter of this year. Overall my cash on hand is up and debts are down compared to the end of December. This is largely due to two large tax refunds (from the IRS and NY State) I used to pay down debt. I paid no taxes due to huge losses in real estate last year but had my withholding higher than normal since I was expecting to make $40K in profits from sale of two flips. My 401K is up $2K as well which I think is OK considering the market was down 9% in the first quarter. Must be due to the interest I am paying myself from the loans I took from my 401K :)

Installing a tankless water heater

When I purchased my current home in December I noted that the hot water heater was 13 years old and probably at the end of its useful life, though it was still working. I knew that the Federal tax credit of $300 for installing a tankless water heater was going to expire at the end of the year and the local gas company was offering a $350 credit as well.

When I looked into it further I found out that the local gas company would only pay if a "professional" company installed the water heater and the cost estimates for installation were ~$2000.00. With a little research I found out that the "professional" installer only had to have a Federal Tax ID to qualify as "professional". Well, I own an LLC with a Fed tax ID.....so I thought that I'd have my company (wink) install the heater. After all, I considered myself a jack of all trades!

I bought the 0.7 gpm model at Lowes for $999 with a 12 month no interest coupon. The instructions seemed easy enough. Removed the old tank and put up the new tank next to the same wall. Then I took my measurements for exhaust piping. My old tank had a powered vent with a side exhaust through a 4" PVC pipe. The tankless water heater requires inlet air from the outside (like a high efficiency furnace), so I figured I'd use the old exhaust PVC as the new inlet. When I went to buy the exhaust duct work I got a big surprise. Tankless water heaters put out a lot of moist air and require stainless steel exhaust ducting.

So I came home and relocated the heater to the exterior wall where I could still use the PVC piping from my old hot water tank. I then went out and bought lots of 3/4" copper piping and 1/2" black iron gas piping since I was about 20 feet from the old tank location. The instructions mentioned using 3/4" gas line but I figured that I must have enough gas pressure since the old heater used 1/2" and my huge furnace used only 1/2".

It took me about 6 hours to do all the soldering, installing the gas line, cutting a 5" hole through the wall for the new exhaust duct and then connecting it. I didn't have any leaks when I turned the water and gas on. I plugged the unit into the wall socket and turned the water on and it worked! Or so it seemed at first.

With our old 40 gallon hot water tank we hadn't been able to really use our jacuzzi tub yet, so we decided to try out the new tankless water heater that night. We turned the water on, got in the tub and about 10 minutes later the water turned cold!! So much for a hot bath that night. Over the next several days I tried to figure out what was wrong. Most of the time the heater worked OK but sometimes it would not light or go out. Also, when I turned the water on at high volume the whole tank would vibrate violently. The troubleshooting guide gave 4 possible solutions, none of which could be checked without specialized tools.

I sent an email to the manufacturer and they thought my problem was inadequate gas pressure. I had noticed that the problem seemed to occur when the furnace was running, so I decided to replace the 1/2" gas line with 3/4" line. Another $100 later I have a tankless water heater that works flawlessly.

Overall, I spent ~$1400 on the installation. Unfortunately, I lost so much money on my real estate last year that I paid no Federal taxes, so I didn't qualify for the Federal tax credit. Today I did receive the $350 rebate from the local gas company, so my net was ~$1050.

Hopefully, this unit will pay for itself. With 3 baths and 4 teenagers who think nothing of 1 hour showers I hope for some savings, although they may be tempted to take even longer showers now since cold water was the only reason they used to stop.

The only complaint I have is that the heater will not turn on until it senses water flow for 4 seconds. If someone takes a shower and shuts the water off, then you get in you will have hot water at first (lots of water in the pipes) but then the water will turn ice cold (our inlet water is only 35 degrees). The hot water comes back eventually, but it seems like a long time when you are caught in a cold shower.

A review of What's So Great About Christianity

Dinesh D'Souza has written a book "What's So Great About Christianity" which I had the pleasure of reading during the past week. For me it was an appealing book because it comes at Christianity from a logic and reason standpoint (I'm an engineer that used logic and reason for many years to discredit Christianity). There were many points he made that I was aware of but D'Souza puts it all together in one piece that I find quite compelling. I was raised as a Catholic, became an avid atheist for many years but continued to study spirituality and was hooked into New Age beliefs for some time. I started reading M. Scott Peck's works (author of The Road Less Traveled) and by the 4th book I came to agree with Peck that Christianity was the only true religion.

Here are some highlights from D'Souza's book:

1. The conventional wisdom is that religion is declining. But the fact is that religious conversion is growing and Christianity is the fasting growing religion. Growth is mostly in the Southern hemisphere, but we see growth in mega-churches.

2. Darwinists and atheists(usually one and the same) predict the demise of religious beliefs, but as Darwin wrote “The vigorous, the healthy and the happy survive”. Atheism offers only a depressing world view (your life is meaningless, you are no different than any other animal species and death is the end – you came from nothing and are going nowhere), while Christianity offers hope and meaning to life (You are a special creation of a good and all powerful God. You are created in His image with capacity to think, feel and worship that sets you above all other life forms. You differ from animals in degree and in kind. Your Creator loves you so much and so intensely desires your companionship and affection that He has a perfect plan for your life. In addition, God gave the life of his only son that you might spend eternity with Him.) Secular people are not reproducing in adequate numbers to survive, while those with religious beliefs are.

3. The basis of Western Civilization is Christian ideals. The separation of Church and State is a religious idea that was first spoken by Christ (“Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars and to God that which is God's”) and further developed by Augustine in the “The City of God”. The basis of limited government, equal rights, religious tolerance found in the US Constitution were all Christian ideas.

4. The Christian concept of human fallibility led to the elevation of the nuclear family, limited government, the rule of law and our cultural emphasis on the relief of suffering. The priority of romantic love in marriage developed out of Christianity. Capitalism and the basic rules of economics rose out of Christianity. No where is compassion for those suffering so emphasized as in the Christian religion.

5. “All men are created equal” was a Christian idea. Though “democratic”, Greek and Roman cultures did not value the sanctity of life as Christianity does. Christianity elevated the place of women, was the first group to eliminate slavery, developed “just war” principles (you should not kill innocent civilians) and our concepts of individual freedom (derived from “free will”)

6. Science was able to arise in civilization only because of Christianity's focus on reason as a basis of understanding God's creation. The highest discipline in Judaism and Islam is jurisprudence, while in Christianity it is theology. Theology is employed to understand the ways of God. Augustine first posited that God created time along with the universe (something only recently confirmed by scientists). Augustine argued that every series (e.g. the universe) must have a cause and that cause must stand outside of the series. Thus the universe had a creator, God, that stands outside of time and space. Psalm 13:1”The fool has said in his heart that there is no God”. Anselm's argument that God is “that than which no greater can be thought” offers an inductive proof of the existence of God. Neither Augustine nor Anselm appeal to supernatural revelation to prove God's existence.

7. The greatest idea of modern science is faith that the universe is rational. All scientific discoveries have been developed from this faith. This is an idea Christians developed by envisioning the universe as following laws that embody the rationality of God the creator. The laws that govern the universe are written in the language of mathematics – a miraculous mystery. Institutions of higher learning developed out of Christianity (Oxford, Yale, Harvard & Dartmouth were all Christian universities). The first professional scientists can be traced to the Middle Ages and were Christians.

8. Modern science points to a Creator rather than a purely naturalistic explanation. The “Big Bang” theory is a stunning confirmation of the Genesis story of creation. “In the beginning was the word...”. Neither time nor space existed before the singularity of the universes' beginning. The universe was created in a burst of light. God separated night from day later, i.e. the sun and planets were created at a later point. The creation of the universe was truly a miracle. The universe had a beginning and that beginning had a cause which we call God. The Creator used no laws to create the universe since the laws of physics were created with the universe, so the creator must be supernatural. There was no matter before the universe, so the creator must be non-physical(i.e. Spiritual). Since space and time are inside the universe the creator must be outside of space and time (i.e. Eternal). Since the universe was created out of nothing the creator must be omnipotent.

9. Scientists claim that we are insignificant creatures in a vast universe and are nothing special. The Anthropic Principal proves that universe and all its laws are a conspiracy to produce human beings. Had any given law of physics differed by minutia amounts we would not exist (e.g. The gravitational constant or mass of the proton). It is not luck that we are here (the probability of all the laws of nature all lining up is astronomically small). The “multiple universe” theory explanation for the anthropic principal has no evidence. Using Occam's Razor you can deduce that we live in a Designer universe, that is a universe designed specifically for us.

10. Paley's argued that by looking at a watch you would conclude that there was a watchmaker and thus we can look at the Universe and conclude that there is a Creator. Darwin's theory of natural selection does not disprove the need for a watchmaker. Evolution by natural selection explains a significant portion of how creatures are they way they are, but does not explain the beginning of life. How did the simple living cell come into being? There is no explanation for the complex formation of DNA and RNA in such cells. In addition, evolution cannot explain consciousness, rationality nor morality. Evolution offers no explanation for the creation of the universe nor its laws.

11. Scientists believe that reason and evidence are the only way to understand the universe but Kant points out that our knowledge is limited by our 5 senses. Kant asks “how do we know that the reality that we see is reality itself?” Science provides only an illusion of reality – this is congruent with all the worlds religions. We don't know what we don't know.

12. Scientific laws are not verifiable. No finite number of observations can be used to determine that the laws are true everywhere in the universe. Science properly understood cannot verify theories, it can merely falsify them. This leaves open the possibility of miracles.

13. Life is full of gambles (who you marry, what field to study and job to take, where to invest...). So how should you gamble in regards to whether God exists or not? Pascal's Wager says that it is better to bet that there is a God than to wager that there is none. Reasonable people have faith because it is the smart bet. Doubt is the proper habit of mind for the religious believer. If we have faith in a God that does not exist what have we lost? If we reject God and are faced with an eternity without him (hell) than we have lost everything. If God were to reveal himself, He would force us to accept Him, defeating the free will He has given us to believe or not.

14. Atheists condemn religion claiming that religion is responsible for most of the deaths the world has seen. But the facts are otherwise. Atheism has been responsible for over 100 million deaths in one century (Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot), Christianity was responsible for 200,000 deaths over 20 centuries. Why? Atheists have no moral constraints, an ideology that sees man not god as the creator of values. “If God is not, everything is permitted”.

15. Moral laws are both universal and objective. There are no known cultures that do not have some system of morality. Jews, Christian, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists agree on a wide range of moral values. Morality is not relative since even relativists have a code of values that they espouse. Moral laws presume a moral lawgiver. Conscience is the voice of God within our souls.

16. Are we just made of matter or is part of us spiritual? If we do not have a soul then we live in a deterministic universe and free will is an illusion. A materialistic view of the world makes us slaves to our genes controlling all of our actions and decisions, yet we can demonstrate that this is not so. Our inclination to live within a moral code is one such evidence. The “I” that we experience is outside of our material bodies and transcends time. We are free to chose not to follow our genetic programming.

17. Marx said that “religion is the opium of the masses” but the opposite is true. Religion requires sacrifice, and promises damnation for failure to follow a moral code. How can this be an opiate? Atheism allows us to practice a hedonistic life without consequences and avoid accountability for our actions. Atheists use sensual pleasures to numb themselves to the nothingness of their purpose and existence and ultimate end. Atheism is the opiate of the morally corrupt.

18. If God is good why do people suffer? No one can explain the existence of suffering or evil. However, religion offers hope to the despairing. Atheism offers nothing.

19. All religions are not the same. Christianity holds that man, no matter how hard he tries cannot reach God, so God became man. Christians view that mans nature is the propensity to sin. We cannot redeem ourselves (Hinduism and Buddhism believe that we can through meditation, Islam and Judaism through following God's Law). Christians believe salvation is a gift from God that can be claimed by asking for it.

20. Christ is the most influential figure in history. His words are unmatched in eloquence and are easily identified. We know he existed. There is historical evidence of his resurrection. His claims were remarkable. He did not claim to be a prophet but God Himself (“I and the Father are One”). Using Gods words for himself, “I Am”, he claimed to exist before Abraham. He forgave sins and the divine authority to interpret Scriptures.

21. Christianity makes sense of who we are in the world. It integrates reason and faith. Christianity infuses us with a sense of purpose. Christianity offers a solution to the cosmic loneliness that we all suffer. It helps us cope with suffering and death. For Christians there is the life to come. Finally, Christianity helps us to become better persons that we want to be.

Hunkering Down

The past few months have not been too active for me in the real estate business. I spent November and December fighting pneumonia and this past week had surgery related to complications I am suffering from ulcerative colitis that I've had for the past year. Unable to sell any of my "flips", I now have everything rented. I was hoping to have a positive cash flow but due to the mortgage crisis have not been able to refinance the big rehab I did. I still am paying over $2200 per month on it and taking in only $1750 (which is a damn good rent in this area). Interest rates are low but banks are wary about doing investment property loans at the moment and looking for full documented loans. Unfortunately, I can't show a profit on my rentals. I have been working on my 2007 taxes the past few weeks and am in shock as to the extent of my loses last year. Despite my high salary I won't be paying any income taxes. In fact, I expect to get back all of the withheld taxes plus $3000 in child tax credits when I file. Certainly this was the worse year of my financial life.

So I am hunkered down trying to ride out this financial disaster. Not spending anything on real estate that is absolutely necessary. I've taken down my web site and stopped doing direct mail. Everything is at a standstill. Hopefully, the tenants will pay their rents on time and my cash flow will allow me to sustain my lifestyle until one of the lease-purchases excercises their option.

I'm a Millionaire!

Hah! Not really. If you click on my NetworthIQ you'll see that I have assets of over $1.2M now. On the downside, I have liabilities of nearly a million dollars. My net worth has moved slightly downward over the last 2 quarters as my stock portfolio has taken a hit over the second half of the year. My real estate ventures did not pan out as I had hoped either. On the plus side, real estate values in this area are not taking the big hit that they are in other parts of the country, so this is counterbalancing my stock market losses.

I've been trying to re-finance the property that I rehabbed last year (it has an ARM that's at 9.7% right now). However, the bank (CountryWide has been really dragging their feet on this loan. I'm hoping to get that done soon so I can pay off some of the increased debts I've accumulated in the last 6 months.

I'd say my big mistake this year was not trying to lease-purchase out my rehab. I thought that I could flip it and make a profit, but flipping is for people in markets that are growing. Buffalo is not such a market and that exit strategy doesn't work here.

I still haven't come up with a plan for 2008. I'm recovering from pneumonia which I have had for the past 2 months and have not had the energy to do much. Moving in December took the last ounce of energy I had and put me over the edge.

Moving week

Well, this week we will be moving to a new house and am putting up our existing house as a "Rent to own" purchase. I'm not sure if the Christmas season will slow shoppers, but I've had three calls since I put out the sign Saturday. With this rent to own concept it seems that all I need is a sign. The $1000+ that I have spent advertising in papers has not yielded a single buyer and amounts to about 1% of the inquiries about the properties I have used this concept on (4 in total now).

The tenant at my trash property has been tearing the place up and seems to be pretty competent at fixing up properties. But he has uncovered some defects that neither of us saw. It seems that the roof has had a leak on one side for some time. When he tore the bath room wall off the interior of the outside wall was soaking wet. He tracked it down to a roof leak, found huge ant nests in the walls and lots of rotten wood. The property is probably worth even less now in its current state and now that we know the condition of the roof (it was very hard to access since the adjoining house is only 5 feet away).

I've fallen off blogging over the last few months for a couple of reasons. My work load at my job has been incredible the last few months due to being assigned to 2 high value Six Sigma projects. I've also been in a funk due to the inability to sell my rehab. But fortunately, thanks to the prodding of one of my readers, I have that house rented out now and feel considerably better. After moving and putting my current home in shape to lease-purchase I expect to get back on track.

Goals - review and look forward

I've been thinking about how well I did Vs my goals for 2007 in my real estate venture. I've been told that if you write down your goals and review them daily you have a high chance of making them. But that doesn't seem to be the case in our situation.

I did buy 3 houses this year, but since I didn't sell any properties this year, I look at my entire plan as flawed. Flipping houses in this area takes much more expertise than I have at the moment. Watching all the flip shows on TV where clueless people do everything wrong and still make $100K just discouraged me most of the second half of the year.

But I did meet some of my sub-goals:

I did find over $720K of funding although I did not seal the deal on the major source ($500K), so I ended up having about $220K of funding available but did not use any of it. The major source was going to cost me $6500 to finalize the deal (I did get approved) and I borrowed that money from Prosper but by the time it came around to paying out the money and signing the papers, I started to realize I was not going to sell my rehab and was stuck with a $2300k per month payment to make, so I bailed.

We did do direct mail all year to pre-foreclosures but again, do to the failure to sell any properties we scaled back our advertising to just those properties in growing towns. This amounted to less then 20 letters per week which isn't enough to really do any good.

The third goal we just didn't do after our first 2 purchases in February. When we couldn't sell the wholesale property quickly and realized I would need much more cash for the rehab I only worked with pre-foreclosures and only made a limited number of offers to banks for short sales.

I did get an operations manual in place which has been a really good way for my wife and I to communicate about what to do.

I see that most of the sub-goals were geared towards buying property and not towards selling. There were several strategies we tried for selling properties: FSBO, flat-fee listing, full service Realtors, E-bay auctions, The "Sell Your House in 5 Days" strategy and Rent-to-own. The last was the the only success that I had, which doesn't get me any of the equity out of my houses.

So now I am in the position of many real estate investors - lots of equity but little cash.

I had hoped to double the number of houses bought and sold next year when I first devised my 2007 goals, but now think that I will scale back. My experiences buying in areas where population is declining echoes my 1980's real estate experiences in WV.

In the next month I hope to come up with a plan for 2008, but for the next couple of weeks will focus on moving and fixing my current residence so I can market it as a Rent to own house.

Acadia National Park

I just came back from a week of camping at Acadia National Park in Maine. This is a park located on Mt Desert Island off the coast of Maine. My wife and I are ready to retire and move there we thought it so beautiful. But the necessities of putting 4 teenagers through college will delay that quite a while.

The park is awe-strikingly beautiful in every way. There are oceans, mountains and fresh water lakes as well as the quaint town of Bar Harbor. The park is loaded with great hiking trails which range from easy walks to steep cliff climbs, carriage roads (funded by John D Rockefeller) which are great for biking (even our dog ran nearly 20 miles along side us), the fresh water lakes provide a warm swim though the ocean was a brisk 55 degrees. The views from the tops of the mountains are some of the best I have ever seen.

We road biked quite a bit as well and saw some beautiful homes. There was also the first opportunity for all of us to go kayaking. Saw some seals and osprey during the trip. The weather was perfect all week. Best of all we survived with 4 teenagers.

I've been to few places that I would relocate too. Seattle being the other place with similar geography. The opportunity for outdoor activity really appeals to my wife and I. The hikes and bike trips we took were pretty strenuous for our daughters but my 2 sons enjoyed them. Now we just need to make enough money to afford to buy a home there.

Spouses in Business Together

There's been a lot written about the pro's and con's of starting a business together with your spouse. Sometimes the articles seem written by "professionals" with theory's, sometimes by actual participants in such a venture. Here's a few of my thoughts and experiences:

• Who makes the decisions? This is probably the most important decision of all when starting a business with a spouse. Often you read something like "we talk about it then decide together". Well, of course, for many decisions this is true, but in real life it doesn't always work out so easily. Sometimes you just cannot agree on something. This may be due to a different point of view, different belief systems, or one spouse may have an appreciation for certain business aspects. For example, I handle the money and worry about making a profit, while my spouse is more concerned about the appeal of the house to potential buyers. My spouse also has a belief that if you are going to do a job "do it right" while I want to do it cheaply. So this often creates stress and one of us has to give in to the other. One thing I have learned is that she gets upset if I make a decision without consulting her.
• How does work get split? This can create lots of stress if one spouse perceives that the other is not carrying their share of the load. We split our work based on who is more interested and skilled in the nature of the work. Sometimes it is not straight forward. My wife was an accountant in China and I thought she would do the accounting. I bought QuickBooks in December, but she has yet to enter our data. I don't have a clue when it comes to accounting and she does not want to pay to hire an accountant. Nagging doesn't work, so now I just have to wait to see how this plays out.
• How do you deal with your relationship? If all you do is work together is that sufficient to ensure a good marriage? I don't think so, but time is a big problem (especially when one spouse is still working full time). Last night my wife wanted to take a long walk, but I felt so pressured to get more done that I stopped short and she felt upset that I was making her a low priority.
• How do you deal with the stress and pressure of time and money? Sometimes I feel myself being very impatient about a particular task or with my wife. It may seem unrelated but inevitably boils down to a fear of loss - losing money or time to spend doing other things (for example, my kids spend only every other weekend with me and I end up spending all my time on the business and not with my kids). I find myself losing my temper more frequently than before we started the business (normally I am very mild mannered). We have been pouring out cash for 4 months now and have yet to see a cent of profit. I often find myself waking up at 4 am and being overwhelmed with anxiety about our finances and unable to sleep.

Starting a business is itself a very stressful undertaking. Starting a business with a spouse can add substantially to that. However, for many people, it is not an option due to the financial aspects of having to hire someone to replace your spouse. In the beginning my wife was thrilled to be working alongside me, I'm not so sure that thrill is still there. Is it worth it? Some say that the if you weather the storms together you will have a stronger marriage, some say you will end up divorced. For now, the final chapters have yet to be written

Chinese and Hugs

One of the culture shocks my wife had to undergo when she arrived in the US was our compulsion to hug each other as a form of greeting. I'm not sure if her experience is pervasive throughout China, but she has never seen people hug each other like they do here. In fact, she has never hugged either of her parents nor her brother. She remembers that there was a strong taboo against men touching their daughters when she was young to the point that she never remembers even touching her fathers hand!

We've all read numerous articles about how human contact is necessary but it certainly does not seem to be part of Chinese culture, so I wonder how true it really is. I've seen young Chinese girls hold hands when I've been in China and people in the city often spend a lot of time "touching" each other when trying to get onto mass transit systems. In the Chinese countryside, the likelihood of accidental touching is remote due to less crowded conditions.

So are Chinese mentally unhealthy because they do not hug? My wife is continually shocked (and scared for her daughter) when we get the annual update of sexual predators that live in our town. We have erased a lot of things that are taboo in China but from her standpoint we are the unhealthy society.

As I've learned since meeting my wife, there are many preconceived ideas that we have that we believe are true and right, but an opposite view seems to work just as well in China.

Financial Self-discipline

My wife and I have been looking at homes since we got married a year and a half ago. I had bought our present home before she came to the US. I bought it primarily as an investment because I was able to buy it well below its appraised value. My wife never has liked the house, so she has been unhappy living here. The primary reason I started my real estate business was a desire to have the financial where-with-all to buy her a nice home.

Most of the houses we look at are out of our financial reach at the moment. There are few homes in our school district that are both affordable and meet her desires. We find houses from time to time that come on the market that look great to her, but so far all are about $40-80k more than I think we can afford. So, inevitably her spirits are crushed after she gets excited about a house we have seen and I fail to match her excitement because all I can think about is the high price.

One of my financial weaknesses throughout my life has been making decisions on large money investments (usually homes) before we were financially ready. Until just this year I never had an emergency fund and used lines of credit to fund the odd emergency. I have usually been torn between living with an unhappy spouse or going further into debt (Before marriage we males used "If you loved me you'd have sex; after marriage I've often heard "If you loved me you would buy me a ..." - but, that's a subject for anther post). Usually I have chosen to go into debt for the short term payoff of a happy spouse. But in my view purchasing things hasn't led to long term happiness.

When a couple has a large divergence on financial matters it creates lots of friction. I've often read (but don't have data to confirm) that a large portion of marriages fail due to financial disagreements. My ex constantly complained that I was too "controlling" with regards to our finances. We were in constant financial difficulties thatI thought were due to her overspending. In my mind the proof came after our divorce when we were both able to live on half my income and maintain our lifestyles.

Buying a house right now would crush our ability to fund our new real estate business. I just hope that I have the self-discipline to keep the "must have a new house to be happy" outlook at bay.

Rutgers Vs Duke and racial slurs

There were two stories this week that highlight the racial divide in this country. One that received the most attention was the remarks of Imus regarding the Rutgers women's basketball team. The second was the dismissal of all charges against the Duke Lacrosse players.

The Rutgers women's team's feelings were hurt by Imus' remarks. I find Imus repulsive and don't enjoy listening to angry people vent, so I have no concern about him being fired. On the other hand, the story where real harm was caused is being largely ignored. Those 3 Duke Lacrosse players have had their lives irreparably harmed by racism far greater than anything that Imus did. Their names will live forever on the Internet in infamy and they have over $3M in legal fees to pay off. Yet the press sees racism only in the Rutgers story.

I dated a black woman in college and when I later married, my ex and I adopted a black daughter and a Hispanic son. During the last 35 years I have never been subjected to racial remarks from whites, yet have been subjected to lots of racial slurs from blacks in regards to dating a black woman or adopting a black child (and by the way these remarks have come from the "tolerant" Northeast - not while I lived in the "racist" South).

The worst of the bigots in my mind is Al Sharpton of Tawana Brawley fame, with Jesse Jackson a close second. Sharpton inflamed the whole Duke episode and while demanding Imus' firing, has yet to apologize to the Duke players. And he never will, because there is a double standard for race in this country at the moment. No doubt in my mind that prior to the 1960's blacks were discriminated against, wrongly jailed and despised by many whites. But the pendulum has swung far past center at the moment and white males are paying the price today.

There is still lots of racial imbalance today but I believe, as does Bill Cosby and others, that it has more to do with black culture than white racism. A culture that celebrates gangsta rappers who denigrate women as "ho's" and refers to other blacks as "niggas" keeps blacks suppressed far more than what any white person is doing today. The Bible teaches us that "we are what we think about" and if the typical black male teenager is regarding women as ho's, it' no surprise that 70% of black women are single and that the same percentage of black children are born out of wedlock.

I don't believe in the whole victim culture that is gaining ground in our society. Everybody wants to be a victim and few want to take responsibility for their words or actions. No group plays the victim role better than American born blacks today (black immigrants don't - think Colin Powell). I'm often criticized by blacks because my daughter is not exposed to black culture. But the truth is black culture right now is sick and whites are complicit in enabling this sickness. It reminds me of alcoholics and co-dependents. Race relations in this country will only get healthy when both sides are able to speak and act truthfully about all of the problems - not just white racism.

Update to Networth

I've updated my net worth on Networth IQ and the graphic to the right. My net increased by $22k last quarter or 6%. My assets increased by 27% ($206) primarily as a result of real estate purchases while my debt grew by 43% ($102k) for the same reason. I've put the 2 new houses I purchased at "as is"value and increased my short term debt mainly as a result of borrowing to finance rehabbing costs. My 401k grew by 6% as well- combination of 9.8% growth plus savings. Hopefully, next quarter will reflect profits from the sale of one or more properties.

Challenges of a Business startup

The DigeratiLife has a great list of challenges to work through when starting up a new business. I can attest to every one of these items she talks about. We live on a Spartan budget and I have worked extremely hard to have adequate cash reserves to fund unexpected expenses and start up costs. I've also worked on lots of methods to get hold of OPM. Even though I have a full time job we also live with lots of uncertainty. Real estate is not very liquid and the time line between purchase, renovation and re-sale is very unpredictable. So far we have bought 3 houses and haven't sold any.

One area that she did not discuss was how to balance work and family. I have 4 teenagers actively involved in after school sports. I am working 14+ hours per day between my job and business. I used to be able to exercise or do yoga but have dropped all of that. I try to spend a little time attending my kids sports events but that is difficult. The most time I get to spend with my kids is when I can get them to work for me while we are rehabbing. Having my spouse working beside me while we are rehabbing allows me to spend time with her, but I find that is not really the same as going out on a "date".

At some point I hope we can achieve more balance, but until there is adequate cash flow, I see no way to avoid an unbalanced life.

Fear Keeps you from Living a Longer and Happier Life

John Stossel wrote a piece titled The Media likes Scaring us and we like it. He discusses the network of people that benefit from scaring people - environmentalists, researchers,government bureaucrats and trial lawyers, labeling them the "Fear Industrial Complex"(FIC). The FIC does a good job of scaring us. I remember the wave of fear about overhead power lines that cost lots of people equity in their homes - only later did we find out that the researcher had falsified the data and there was no evidence power lines were related to increased cancer risks. Owens-Corning lost a billion dollars over silicone breast implants lawsuits but now the implants are deemed safe and women are have the same surgery again. All created trial lawyer greed that got people afraid of a myth. Of course, we continue to read the newspaper and believe nonsense about the poor economy, unwinnable wars and global warming.

So many people adopt a pessimist point of view. The irony of this, is that a pessimistic view point becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for a lousy, shorter life. Here's some information from an Aetna website (can't link since it is behind a secure log-in):

"Americans are living longer than ever. Over the past century, the average American lifespan has increased a whopping 27 years. What’s the secret to a long and healthy life?

Good genes help. You get them from your parents. And since you can't pick your parents, this avenue to a longer life is out of your control. Besides, the value of good genes is in question. New research from Yale University found that genes contribute only 25% to the length of your life. This seems to mean that other factors, such as health behaviors and mental health, play a role in longevity, too.

Yale study claims that a good attitude helps keep your heart pumping and your feet tapping an additional 7.6 years on average. An optimistic outlook adds more years to your life than low blood pressure (4 years or less), low cholesterol (4 years or less), a healthy weight (1 to 3 years) and regular exercise (1 to 3 years).

"These Are the Good Old Days"The Yale study suggests that people who believe negative stereotypes about growing old may face a reduced life expectancy. If you think old people are frail and sickly, you'll probably see yourself as frail and
sickly when you get old."

So all that exercising you do and healthy eating are negated by reading and believing the garbage from the media.

Broken rules on spending

I splurged on something this weekend - not a normal pattern for me. I bought a 42" Samsung plasma HDTV and got the HD cable package. Since I cut my YMCA membership, this is revenue neutral from a monthly cash flow and I have 2 years interest free financing. I rarely watch TV at all, so my kids will get the most use out of it. I had been living with a 20 year old 21" TV forever.

Why did I buy it? Well, the best hockey team I have ever seen in my life time is about to enter the playoffs. Hockey doesn't mean much to 99% of the country but Buffalo is hockey crazy. I have been listening to Sabres hockey games on the radio all year and yet to see a game played on TV. I got a DVR so I can record the games and watch them after I come home from rehabbing my houses. I work a day job and then work until 10 renovating homes, so I feel this is a small reward for giving up the off-time most people have after work.

I don't know how this picture compares to other TV's but it looks beautiful to me. Was I wrong to buy this? I don't spend anything on entertainment and don't eat out, so maybe I'm too much of a miser. Life can't be all about work - right?

Home Wrecks

As I visit more and more people who are facing foreclosure, the picture of these people's lives gets clearer. It seems that people who have let their finances go are not just in chaos in one portion of their lives. Except for one house, the homes I go into are a total wreck. I don't mean that the homes need a little dusting or there are a few items scattered on the floor. I'm talking about piles of stuff that fills large dumpsters.

A home I purchased in February from a woman that had "moved out" took 6 people 12 hours to clear out. The pile of trash we left for the crew we hired to haul it away was 40' long by 20' wide and 6 feet high. I was in a house last night where a man whose wife had left him was living. Supposedly she had been gone 3 months. Beside cat and dog feces surprises over much of the floor, there was was literally no room to walk without stepping on piles of trash, clothing and who knows what. Some rooms I could not even enter - doors were blocked and beds were piled high with debris. The amazing part was that the mans' daughters were coming to spend the night! I have no idea where they could sleep, much less eat. There wasn't a square inch of clear space to sit, eat or cook in the house

These peoples lives are a mess and not just financially. I don't think this man created the mess by himself, as the children's bedrooms were equally trashed. I have to wonder what kind of environment these kids were being subjected to. The odd part is the man seemed most pleasant to talk with.

Oh, the one home that I went into that was clean - but the elderly woman who gambled away her home is probably mentally incompetent. When I call her, she refuses to talk because her phone is "tapped". And did you know that "they" have discovered a cure for cancer (but won't let ordinary people know) since no President has ever died of this disease?

Installing replacement windows

I spent the weekend installing windows at one of the homes I purchased last month. I had ordered 24 windows and they are made custom for you - since I measured them, I owned them. I put the first one in place and it got stuck - could not get it in or out. I was sure I had just wasted a lot of money. Fortunately, with the help of a block of wood and I hammer I got the window in. Afterwards, I figured out that I could trim an eighth inch off the bottom and the windows fit OK.

A lesson I learned is that 1) windows frames are not square. One side was consistently shorter than the other 2) you need to remove the windows in order to measure them properly. I tried to measure the vertical dimension with window in place and I think the tape measure added extra length by bending around the window panel, so all my windows are too tall and 3) with a little bit of resourcefulness, you can solve most problems.

I installed 13 of 24 windows this weekend. I can get a window installed in about 40 minutes. It's not really too hard of a job once you figure it out.

High School Education

I was invited to co-teach two high school courses yesterday as part of a "Career Day" at the school. In between the courses I observed study hall and was quite surprised. Probably less than 10% of the students were actually studying. The rest were either snoozing, listening to their IPods or playing board games with each other.

I went to a private high school and we did not have study halls. I don't know if this is normal but it seems like a real waste of time (and my tax dollars). My kids don't seem to have near the amount of homework that I did when I was in high school. I'm not sure if that is because it is not assigned or because they use the study hall breaks to do it.

The high school is rated one of the better ones in NY. If this is a good school, I would hate to see a bad one. It's disappointing to me that with the extremely high school taxes I pay here, that this is the best our school system has to offer.