Was at a group meeting a few months back and an older gentleman shared an email he received from a friend. The email read….

How Did We Make It this Far?

Looking back, it’s hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have…

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!)

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into
the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable.

We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no law suits from these
accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight … we were always outside playing.

We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cellular phones, Personal Computers, internet chat rooms. Instead we had friends.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did
the worms live inside us forever.

We ate penny candy, swallowed bubblegum, and our intestines did not stick together because of it.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren’t as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Tests were not adjusted
for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

Obviously as a twenty something I can’t relate to everything in this letter, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t certain things that stood out to me (I bolded the things I liked).

I mean think about cell phones. Twenty years ago no one had cell phones and people managed to get by just fine. Now, if I reach down to grab my phone and it’s not in front of me, I have a mild panic attack. Funny how priorities change. (p.s. who doesn’t love going on vacation somewhere you know you’re phone wont get service? It’s so liberating!)

What were some of the things in the letter that rubbed ya the wrong way? What were some that resonated with you?

Any other 20-somethings out there willing to admit we are probably the laziest generation to have ever existed? Would love to hear from the 40+ crowd today and get your insights on how you’ve seen things change over the years!

p.s. if Facebook is the biggest “accomplishment” of our generation I’m going to cry.

I stared at my computer for a good 45 minutes last night trying to think about something worth writing about. For the first time in my life, I have nothing to say. That’s why we are switching roles today. Instead of me entertaining – or at least attempting to entertain – you for two or three minutes today, it’s your turn to entertain me.

Feel free to share an interesting blog post, a funny picture, a hilarious video, or just some random fact of life that you think I (we) should be aware of.

Ah frick, who am I kidding, I can’t just leave you empty-handed. Don’t say I never did anything for ya…

 

Click the poop!!!

p.s. For those of you that will be linking to your own blog posts –or other links around the interwebs– be aware that my blog will flag your comment as spam if there are more than two links in it.

I was browsing a friend’s Facebook profile yesterday and they shared this image…

Since I really don’t want to hear about the sex life of the two or three thousand of you that will read this post, let’s put a little spin on it shall we? How about you describe your financial habits with a movie, song, or tv show title instead.

Make sure you follow the title of your choosing with the financial habit it describes. For example…

• Fast and the Furious or Gone in 60 Seconds: How I spend money when I see a cool pair of shoes.
• Lord of the Rings: How I felt when I dropped some serious cash on my wife’s engagement ring.
• UP: My net worth.

You get the point? Okay, good. Let your creative juices flow…

It’s 9:00pm here in Korea as I write this (7am EST) and I’m watching the movie “Wall Street”. I’ve never seen it and 20 minutes in, and I’m hooked. What that means for you is that I am unfortunately not going to write an article because I’m going to continue watching the movie. How’s that for the worlds most disappointing Friday post?

I’m going to try to not be completely lame by brifely sharing a few things that confuse the crap out of me. Things that some of you are likely well versed in, but that are a foreign language to me. Without further ado, I present to you “Stuff that confuses me”…

1. The tax code (haha, bet you couldn’t guess that after yesterday’s post).

2. Puts (a stock term)

3. Short term capital gains

4. Health Insurance (claims, how to pick the best policy, etc).

5. What car maintenance needs to be done and whats a scam.

6. Women.

7. Dividends.

8. How a freakin camera can literally capture time

9. What all those people on the trading floor of Wall Street are yelling about.

10. Women.

Alright, so that’s my list of ten things that make me scratch my head and go “Whaaaaa?” How bout you? What things confuse you?

p.s. On a random note. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that I was being “watched” in my hotel room. I looked for cameras and wire taps, but nothing came up. Then I looked closer at this painting in my room and it all made sense.

So I was in Vegas this last weekend for the Rock & Roll Half Marathon. No, I didn’t run, but my brother did. Girl Ninja was in Denver for the weekend visiting a college friend so I joined my Mom, Dad, and Brother in Sin City. Bro Ninja broke his personal record in the half marathon, my dad and I rode Harley’s through the Valley of Fire and over the Hoover dam, we saw a magic show, ate delicious food, and I even smoked my first cigar. Well, not exactly. I smoked two puffs of my dad’s cigar.

I’m such a nerd, I made my dad film me doing it so I could show Girl Ninja. Here’s a screenshot…

I had a lot of firsts over the weekend, but my first gambling experience trumped ‘em all. That’s right. I broke one of the Personal Finance cardinal rules and gambled. Any guesses as to how much I cash I was willing to lose?

…..

If you said Twenty big one’s you’d be spot on. Haha, I’m a rebel huh? Even though I only gambled for a total of maybe 23 minutes, I learned a lot about myself during that time. Including, but not limited to:

• I like my money.
• I don’t like giving my money to other people.
• If I’m going to gamble, I’m going to “go big”. No penny slots for me.
• I will only play slots, because I’m too scared I’ll make an idiot out of myself at an actual table.
• I get absolutely zero thrill out of winning money.
• I get really pissed when I lose money.
• It doesn’t take very long to lose $20.

On Saturday night, while my dad finished the cigar, I took to the slot machines on a mission to strike it rich. I threw a twenty-dollar bill in, had no idea what the heck I was doing, and hit “max bet” over and over, and over. Over the next ten minutes, I’d lose five or ten dollars, and win two or three back. This went on all the way until I was down to my final two dollars. I hit “max bet” again and found myself twenty-five dollars richer. I suddenly had $27 banked. I went straight to the cashier to cash out. I took the seven dollar profit, put it in another slot machine and lost it all in just a few turns. I got about 20 minutes of entertainment, and lost no money. Heh, gambling wasn’t so bad.

Monday morning, as we were waiting in the hotel to catch our airport shuttle, I decided to put that same $20 in another slot machine and see what the gambling gods above had in store. Literally, three minutes later, I was broke.

And that concludes my Las Vegas gambling extravaganza.

Gambling never has, and never will make sense to me. The flashy lights, free drinks, and comfortable seats don’t exactly negate the smell of cigarette smoke, belligerent alcoholics, and the likelihood of ending the night poorer than you started.

But I was definitely the exception in Vegas. Didn’t matter what time of the day it was morning, noon, or night people were loving the casinos.

Are you one of them?

When/if you gamble, do you actually think you will make money? Or do you gamble purely for entertainment? If you were in Vegas this weekend, how much would you put in your gambling fund?

p.s. Here’s a shot of my dad and I halfway through our motorcycle ride…

Definitely didn't photoshop this at all

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