From the Mind of MandoRon

Links for a cloudy day in Wichita:

• Tim Stevens showed a great video clip about change. The Pony Express rider is classic!
• Disciple has a new album coming out in November called Southern Hospitality. I got a kick out of reading lead singer Kevin’s method for telling if an album is hard enough. “My wife, she loves the slow songs, but she doesn’t really care for the heavy ones, so that’s how I can tell.” Sounds like my wife.
• Check out this guy texting and talking on the phone while riding a motorcycle down the highway.
• I’m a Verizon customer.  Maybe this will happen to me.
• The Airbus A380 130 mph toilet flush.
  

Well, I guess I shouldn’t have made fun of my daughter yesterday…

The laptop is now showing the “bluescreenofdeath” and won’t even boot in safe mode.  It says that I have an unmountable boot volume. And worse, I can’t find the boot cd!

It looks like I’m going laptop shopping this weekend. It was showing signs of being on it’s last legs anyway.  Then take the old one to a repair place to get the data off of it.  Maybe it becomes the kid’s computer.

You may recall from the Kung Fu Panda post a while back that my kids have a tendency to say funny things. (I imagine all kids do, but I’m sure that my kids are wittier than most due to their superior intellect…)

Self Portrait

They’ve been on a roll lately, and I think I’ll start sharing some of the funnier comments.

Jett (4 years old)

“Toyotas can go like 50 miles. You can drive to Africa.” (This one occurred after watching a Toyota commercial touting their great fuel economy. A while back he was fascinated with the word, Toyota, and commented that every truck he saw was a Toyota.)

“I’m gonna knock your pants off.” (Trash-talk prior to a game of checkers with me tonight.)

Jada (6 years old)

“It’s the bluescreenofdeath!” (Yes, I know we need a mac…)

“Is it okay if we don’t keep score? I like it when everyone wins.” (Gotta work on that killer instinct.)

Feel free to share funny things that your kids have said. Or anyone else’s kids for that matter.

Tim Stevens has some rather scary thoughts about the ability of parents to influence their children.

If you’re a parent (or thinking about being one), go read this.

The Freakonomics blog posed the question today - Are we a nation of financial illiterates?

Maybe so.

Andrea told me about a couple on TV this morning who were seeking help from Dave Ramsey. The woman had recently decided to stop working and be a stay-at-home mom. However, the couple didn’t adjust their spending accordingly, and had accumulated $12,000 in debt in only a few months.

Here’s the crazy part. Their house payment is $2300 a month. Total income is $2500 each month. Really? Did they not think this through? We all make bad financial decisions, but that one is off the charts.

The family was unwilling to adjust their standard of living. I’ve got to think that they were living beyond their means even when she was working…

I was talking with Mike Snow Sunday about the upcoming “Financial Peace University” classes at GracePoint. There was some discussion about Andrea and I leading a class. However, our living room isn’t really big enough to host a small group.

Warning: I’m going to get on my soap box and brag for a second.

When Andrea and I bought a house nine years ago, we bought a house that we could afford on my salary alone even though she was still working. Not my salary in the future. My salary nine years ago. Sure, I’d love to have a second bathroom, a two-car garage, a music room, etc… But I really don’t want your house payment. It’s probably more than double mine. Our relatively small mortgage frees us up to do things like pay down school loans faster, save money for retirement and rainy days, and most importantly, give generously.

The downside is that my living room isn’t really big enough to host a small group… It’s okay. We don’t really have the gifting of hospitality anyway…

We don’t always make the best financial decisions, but I’m quite proud of that one nine years ago.

P.S. Mike Foster over at Deadly Viper is downsizing his house.  I’ve known several people that have done that over the years.  I think it’s probably a good idea for a lot of people.