The title speaks for itself, but why blog about this?  Especially to a group as tech savy as we are?  Well to share an experience I have been going though at work lately.  At the company I work for we have a pretty wide range of age groups, well actually we have a huge age gap to say it bluntly.  I have heard statements that the average employee at my company is 49, I have also heard higher numbers... (wow)  The company I work for has been hiring new employees in a effort to bring in new blood and to secure its future.  Afterall there is a ton of knowledge that the majority of the employees have that must be passed on to the new employee generation. 

So what does this have to do with Blogs and RSS you might ask?  Well its simple really....

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Greetings, I didn't blog about this right off the bat, mostly because I was so ticked off at the decision and I would of just ranted on and on. Also because I work for Boeing and wasn't exactly sure if I could or not.  Than I thought, I can express my opinion first most because I am a tax payer and I can exercise my first amendment rights of free speech :), secondly I didn't work on that proposal so I know exactly the same as what is available to the public.

I decided to say a couple things and to post this link where you can go to petition against the decision.

http://www.house.gov/tiahrt/tanker_survey.htm

I know we have a lot of readers that do not live in the U.S. and probably live in Europe.  I have nothing against you or your place of origin.  (You guys have great beer, period...)

What troubles me is that we are spending our tax dollars (40 Billion, with a possible 60+ Billion dollar follow-on) investing in a foreign company during a time where the American Economy is fragile, the dollar is weak, Real estate market is falling apart and the unemployment rate is falling.  It is just troubling and I feel powerless as a citizen. 

The fact is the Air Force didn't take economical impacts into their decision, is was strictly based on technical merit (which is also being scrutinized) and in times like these I just don't believe that should be the main consideration.  We have the Buy American act for times just like this and yet it was waived....

If you are a US citizen and have an opinion either way, I encourage you to blog about it and vote at the petition link I posted above.  Go exercise your rights!

Well about a week ago I updated to 10.5.2 on my iMac, all was good and I continued to believe my Apple walked on water.  For some reason I simply forgot about Murphy's law, you know what can go wrong will go wrong? (or something like that) 

So at any rate back to my story, last night I was having internet connectivity issues when playing one of my all time favorite games (World of Warcraft -- aka WarCrack).  When this happened, I would run down stairs and look at my modem, check my router, reset both and then run back upstairs to check out my connection.  I forgot to mention, I have Win XP Pro installed on a partition, which is where I do most of my development work and occassional game play. 

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I was in a meeting at work last week and sometimes they show cool videos, it's usually something about the products we make.  This time however it was very different and I was really surprised and impressed that they showed this video.  It's something I have been pretty passionate about at my company, I feel I am constantly trying to emphasize how powerful todays information network is and I feel my team could really utilize this more effectively when communicating internally and externally.  Anyway, check out this video -- it is pretty powerful just imagine what we will be able to do now with AIR and future technologies!  Let your imagination go, there are really no limits at what we can accomplish. 

In a previous post - "Dont be a Financial Moron" I talked about an article regarding how you can improve your financial plan using five easy steps.  During my execution of these steps I found out some useful information that I thought I would share with you.   First off, if you owe money on your vehicle and you are paying over 5% on that car loan -- PAY IT OFF -- Chances are you wont be able to beat that in the market place so whatever money you do make via a money market, CD, etc... it gets cancelled out because of your car loan.  Second thing to mention, and its basically implies the same logic, if you have a credit card and your paying more than 5% on that debt -- PAY IT OFF -- again a wash to any money you make in your other accounts. 

My wife and I have two car loans and fortunately for us we have $0 credit card debt.  After talking with a financial consultant, we decided to pay off both car loans ASAP, so we can free up that money and invest it in things that dont depreciate, break down, and of course rust ;) There are lots of ways to help speed up a car loan payoff, for one your tax return, two a tax rebate -- even though I dont totally agree with it, I will use it to pay off my debts, third making extra payments (when you can swing it) and fourth making some simple life style changes.  What type of changes?  Well for one eating out, you can save a TON of money if you simply cook at home, its cheaper, healthier and it can also be a ton of fun and rewarding if you're married.  Another way to save is to car pool to work if you can swing it.  Most Americans (at least in the mid-west) drive BIG SUV's/Trucks and have one person sitting in them.  If you can get in a carpool your not only saving some cash on gas every week, but you're also helping our planet out a bit as well (aka the Environment). 

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