Show Your Support for Autism Speaks

Having a baby has definitely forced me to get informed about a lot of potential problems that children can have. One of the scariest and most significant problems children commonly face is autism.

Autism is a complex neurobiological disorder that typically lasts throughout a person's lifetime. It is part of a group of disorders known as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Today, 1 in 150 individuals is diagnosed with autism, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. It occurs in all racial, ethnic, and social groups and is four times more likely to strike boys than girls. Autism impairs a person's ability to communicate and relate to others. It is also associated with rigid routines and repetitive behaviors, such as obsessively arranging objects or following very specific routines. Symptoms can range from very mild to quite severe.

There is something that each of us can do to help support autism. It's really easy, takes about 3 minutes and won't cost you a dime. John Ondrasik, lead singer of the pop group 'Five for Fighting', has pledged his support for autism by agreeing to give $0.49 cents each time a video is viewed at the AutismSpeaks.org site. This is a legitimate pledge. You can read about his pledge here and view the video HERE.

Do it today and help show your support for autism. Watch the video!

Bailey's First Birthday

We enjoyed celebrating Bailey's first birthday with family and a few friends over the weekend. Britney did a great job putting the party together and Bailey enjoyed all of the presents and attention. If you weren't in attendance, I offer the following short video clip for your enjoyment!

One Month Coupon Strategy

My wife just sent me a really interesting link to a posting over at The Simple Dollar. The post is about a new strategy for using coupons. Here is the LINK.

The basic premise is that coupons are issued by companies as the first step in a product push. After the coupon comes out, the company waits a few weeks and then puts the item on sale (to try and induce a repeat purchase) - the second step in the product push. Knowing this, your best strategy for using coupons is to simply pull the coupon section out of your Sunday paper and then sit on them for one month. In a month's time, clip the coupons that you're interested in and head to the stores. There's a high probability that the items that you have coupons for will now be on sale as the company is now in the second phase of the product push. Combining the store's sale price with your coupon can often mean walking out of the store with HUGE savings!

Great post and great idea. Read for yourself!

I Guess This Was To Be Expected

Given that I live in Charlotte (home of the NASCAR Hall of Fame), I guess I should have expected what took place last week. Our NBA team, the Charlotte Bobcats, had 'NASCAR Night'. Teams do promotional nights all the time and the Bobcats probably do more than most given the lack of attendance. I've got no problem with having a 'NASCAR night' or any other night that they want to have to get people excited. I don't even have a problem with them giving away Bobcats cars or having cars on display or whatever. I do, however, have a problem with the hideous checkered flag design they incorporated into their uniforms for the game.

I drove by the team store yesterday on the way home from work and they've got this disgusting design on display in the window of the store. Please - be a sensible person and do not buy anything related to this whole concept. We must ensure that this never, ever happens again!

Now THAT is a Sweet Tattoo

I'll admit it, I've got ink. My tattoo is small, discreet and totally sweet. It's starting to fade a little with age and the ink is starting to bleed together a little bit making it harder to discern exactly what the tattoo is - but it's totally awesome nonetheless. Over the years, I've considered getting additional tattoos. I figure that once you take that first step by getting one, what's another ten or twenty? Part of the problem, however, is deciding exactly what I would want to get done. Here are a couple of tattoos that I will NOT be getting:

Now don't get me wrong, I love corn dogs as much as the next guy. I also like Indians. I just don't like the combo of naked Indians and corn dogs. It's that simple. If this was a singular corn dog, it'd be under consideration. As it stands, however, this is off the list.

Why would anyone consider getting a tattoo of Clay Aiken looking like this?! Now - if you could get a tattoo of the new & improved Clay Aiken, that would be a sweet tattoo. This one though? No way. I may be interested in a Scott Savol tattoo however.

I'll bet the rest of the guys in the biker gang had a good laugh at this guy's expense. I can picture it now - you join a tough gang, they take you to the tattoo parlor to get the requisite ink job indicating that you're an official member, you sit in a chair for 8 hours wondering why the other guys are snickering, and you get up and see this finished product. I will NOT be that guy. I haven't decided yet what my next one will be if there is a next one - but these 3 tattoos are out of the running.

There are more bad tattoos that you can enjoy HERE. The article does make mention of several things one should never get tattooed - including (strangely enough) punctuation marks. Why is that strange? Because I happen to have a friend that reads this blog regularly that actually has a tattoo of punctuation marks!! Seriously! Ha! The joke's on him!

Website Recommendation: RealClearPolitics.com

As we inch closer and closer to Super Tuesday, I find myself doing more 'digging' - looking around for good articles and analysis on the candidates and their campaigns. RealClearPolitics.com is a site that makes this really simple.

This site scours the net for you and brings all the analysis and information to one place. Relevant articles from all of the countries major newspapers (LA Times, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.), media outlets, and major magazines are presented every morning and updates are made throughout the day as new articles are posted. Additionally, the site has information on the latest opinion polls, party-specific analysis, videos of the candidates (like when they do those guest spots on the late night shows), and transcripts of major speeches and debates.

I've seen a lot of political sites recently and this one is as comprehensive and easy to use as any I've seen. If you need or want more information than what you're getting or finding on your own, this is the site to use!

The Resurgence of Baylor Basketball

UPDATE: In case you missed the news, Baylor won against Texas A&M in FIVE OVERTIMES. I've never even heard of a game going into five OTs!?

Those of you that know me know that I'm from a Baylor family. My parents, brother, sister, wife, aunt, and uncle all went to Baylor (weird I know). As such, I've grown up following Baylor athletics - albeit from a far distance and with pretty casual interest. What is happening this season with Baylor's basketball program is nothing short of remarkable, however, and more people should pay attention to what's going on.

Five years ago, Baylor endured one of the biggest scandals in NCAA history. A player on the team was murdered by a teammate. The coach at the time, in an attempt to cover improper tuition payments made for two players, asked assistant coaches and players to portray the dead student as a drug dealer. The NCAA, after reviewing the evidence, nearly imposed the death penalty on the program and Baylor was very nearly removed from the Big 12. It really doesn't get any more messed up than this.

Jump ahead five years and you'll find the Baylor men's basketball team ranked in the top 25 for the first time in 39 years (and ranked in both the men's and women's polls at the same time for the first time in history)! At 15-2, the team is also off to its best start in 63 years and is sitting atop the standings in the Big 12 - a conference that features traditional powers like Kansas and Texas. Tonight they play one of the biggest games in school history - on the road at #18 Texas A&M.

Blair Kerkhoff has an interesting story on the program's resurgence in today's Kansas City Star. If you like college basketball, are interested in Baylor, or want to know how a team has literally returned from the edge of extinction, check it out!

Interest Rate Cut Has Immediate Impacts

Yesterday's interest rate cut is already impacting me! Just a week or so ago, I recommended the E*Trade High Yield Savings account as a better alternative to those offered by HSBC, Emigrant Direct, and ING Direct. I logged on this morning to check my balance and overnight they've dropped their rate from 5.05% to 4.40%. With another interest rate cut expected when the Fed mets next week, I suspect the rates on online savings accounts will continue to fall.

So...what to do? Well, first of all, let me recommend the Rate Chaser Calculator from My Money Blog. This is a neat tool that will help you figure out whether or not it's worth your time to move your money around based on rates offered by different banks. According to the calculator, it'd take me 255 days to make up the lost interest if I were to move the funds from E*Trade back to Emigrant Direct - so it looks like I'll sit tight for a little while.

I am, however, considering looking into locking down a fixed rate by putting my emergency fund money into a short term CD. From the looks of things, there are still some banks out there offering over 5% on 6 and 7 month CDs. That takes away some of my liquidity and I'd have to forfeit the interest gains if I actually needed to touch the money before the CD matures I'm not entirely sold on that idea. Nonetheless - be aware that these rate cuts we're hearing about in the news will trigger a lot of activity by the banks so watch your accounts to make sure you know how you're being impacted!

Is the Sky Falling?

Today's opening bell saw our financial markets take a serious fall and the Fed take emergency action for the first time since 9/11. Couple this with all the talk we've heard for months about the economy teetering on the verge of recession (if we're not already in one) and one could not be blamed for thinking that the sky may, in fact, be falling.

I get a little irritated by all the doom and gloom talk. Nobody in the media seems to cover the analysts that are saying that we're NOT heading for a crash landing. I guess negativism sells more papers and gets higher ratings but it also gets depressing and I eventually start tuning it out.

If you are curious, there are analysts out there that do believe that the extent of the problems we're seeing is being exagerated. Norman Fosback, editor of Fosback's Fund Forecaster, stated on Monday that the strength of the global economy should help keep this recession mild - if one even happens at all. If you're not familiar with Norman (I wasn't), he's been publishing forecasts with a high degree of accuracy since the mid-1970s.

Head to MarketWatch to read more about what Norman Fosback had to say about our current situation.

Another Trip Down Memory Lane: WishBookWeb.com

One of the problems I have with the web is that it likes to eat up all my time. I'll stumble across a website and start looking around and the next thing I know, 3 hours have gone by. WishBookWeb.com is that kind of site.

As a kid, my Christmas list was created by sitting down with the Sears or Penny's catalog and dog-earing page after page of toys, Dallas Cowboys stuff, etc. WishBookWeb.com is a site that contains the entire contents of many of those catalogs. The site owners have taken great detail to take the catalogs apart and scan in each and every page - meaning you can thumb through the entire 1979 (and many other years) Sears catalog on the site. Just looking at some of this stuff brings back the memories. It's pretty funny to see the technology in some of these catalogs too. If you have several hours to kill, give it a look!

Oh yeah - that picture of the boy in the Cowboys jacket - I had that exact getup (hat and all). I remember watching the NFC Championship in 1982 when the Cowboys lost to the 49ers on Dwight Clark's famous catch. I got so upset after that game that I took a magic marker and drew tear drops on the little Cowboys patch. Similarly, last week after the Cowboys lost to the Giants, I drew tear drops on one of my suit coats.