The Major

The Value of More Money

I am constantly amazed at the things people will do for money when they already have so much of it. I mean, really, what good does it do you to have $2 billion instead of $1 billion? I would think there would come a point where people would want to live for their morals rather than their own personal gain.

I thought of this because of two things I noticed in the world:
– People still work for someone else doing something they don’t care about long after they’ve become filthy rich.
– Most wealthy people go to great extents to ensure that themselves and fellow wealthy people can stay wealthy and become more wealthy.

What really is the point to all of this?

I, personally, am very content money-wise right now. Of course, I live on my own and don’t have a family to feed. But really, if I had maybe $12,000/year more after taxes, I would, I like to think, be completely satisfied. With that I could get some more square footage and a decent view. Of course, if I had $12,000/year more, I might think of why I could use another $12,000. Maybe this is how the greed snowball works.

Another thing I have been thinking with relation to all this, is that money seems to have less value as you have more of it. For instance, if you had $10,000/year as opposed to $0/year, you could at least feed and clothe yourself. You might be living on the streets, but those two things are very valuable. Surely they are more valuable than a nicer view in your apartment. And if you had $20,000/year instead of $10,000/year, you could get a room in an apartment too. $30,000, you might be able to drive. $40,000, you can start affording some basic luxuries like electronics, eating out, cable, Internet access, et cetera. And as you keep increasing your income by $10,000/year, the additional things you can get with that $10,000 seem to become less valuable than what you could get with the previous $10,000. I would be very curious to see if this concept is covered in some Economics book.

But I have started thinking recently: If I was making double the money that I am making now, what would I do with it? I like to believe that I would save it up and then quit working for a while and do things that I love in the mean time, getting another job when I need some more money. And a lot of people might think this sounds lazy…but I would ask them – What is so glamorous about having a job? Most jobs involve making those at the top wealthier or more powerful. What is so great about this?

Large Underground Marijuana-Growing Operation

Someone in Tennessee was busted for a large marijuana-growing operation.

This just seems so neat to me. I love projects of a large scale, and of good organization.

I guess that is why I just upgraded my storage capacity to over 1TB 😀

“Login” vs. “Log In”

Mistakes don’t bother me in general. What does bother me is when people don’t bother to really think about what they are doing or saying to make sure it makes sense. It also really bothers me when people know they are doing something incorrectly but don’t bother making an effort to change it.

One example of this that really bothers me is the use of “login” instead of “log in”. “Login” is a noun, not a verb. “Log in” is what should be used as a verb. For example: “Please log in using your login and password.”

I see this error made all across the Internet. I wonder if I am just really strange, or if this kind of stuff really irks other people too?

Of course…my website even says “login” and “logout”, but I didn’t write the web software, so it would take a while for me to find where to change that.

Moved Servers

In an attempt to reduce some of my monthly costs, I am going to be getting rid of my hosted servers. Step one of this is to move all of my websites that I host to one of my servers at home.

So, fourmajor.com is now running out of my closet. You might notice that speeds are a bit slower, but it should still go fast enough.

Weird Dreams

I have been having some really strange dreams lately. They are strange because they are vivid.

Today, during my lunch-break nap, I dreamt that Cuba was no longer a Communist country, and that Nelson Mandela had become its president. There were all these Cuban people that decided to come to the United States now that they were allowed to. They decided that San Francisco would be a good city to swim up to.

And I had another dream where I was explaining the finer points of the encryption software that my company sells to a customer. I was talking about how you can use your current deployment method to push out our installation MSI. Nerd dream.

And another one where I beat the crap out of the guy (dream part) that wanted to beat me up because his wife was hitting on me (real life part from this weekend). He was coming at her with a spatula.

At the Library

Well, I am having a bit of an interesting day so far.

First of all, I woke up again feeling a bit sore, with a slight headache. Nothing too major…but it definitely makes me not want to get up. And once I get up, it makes me not want to get moving. Weird…even my eyes were a little sore when I looked down.

So I finally got out the door. I figured I’d head over to Starbucks for some headache medicine. Latte and blueberry muffin, it is called. Headache – gone. Anyway, so I found one open seat in the place, and took it. It was pretty obvious why it was an empty seat. Some random guy was sleeping on the other side of the table. I didn’t mind though. He wasn’t bothering me. It looked as though he had been in a fight – he had a nice little cut by one of his eyes. It kind of made me wonder what his previous few days were like. I’ll bet they were interesting. He had on the table, among a few other things, a pack of cigarettes and a folded up photograph.

I finished up breakfast number two, and headed out the door. I hopped on the bus and…well bus people can be interesting sometimes. One guy, innocently sitting there, pulled out a can in a paper bag out of his inside jacket pocket and took a swig, then *ever so sneakily* put his disguised can back into his jacket. No one will ever figure him out.

Then a couple of ladies got on the bus, and of course decided that everyone on the bus needed to hear their story. “Girl, I got real sick last night. Felt like my stomach was about to collapse…ate some spoiled meat. I was so sick I was cryin’…I was up at 6:30 this morning cleaning up the vomit.” Other woman – “How’d you know it was the meat that made you sick?” Sick woman – “I saw the hamburger when it came up.”

I thankfully made it off of the bus without having my own vomit story to add to this post. I trekked a few blocks to the library, and boy, do I feel like an old man. I worked up a sweat walking up the stairs, and by the time I got to the section I was looking for, I was literally out of breath.

I can’t wait until I am completely over this flu/cold/whatever. I like to think of myself as quite physically able. A few pounds overweight or not, I pride myself on being able to not just walk up some damn stairs, but also being able to run a couple of miles, lift something heavy, or in general just not feel lazy, which, valid reason or not, I have been feeling lately.

Doctor’s visit

So I haven’t been writing on my blog as much, and yet my number of daily visitors has gone up from about 25 per day to about 45 per day. Does that mean that my blog is more interesting when I don’t write? Probably. Oh well, I will make you all suffer anyway.

I’ve been sick since about Thursday last week (2006-01-19). I’ve had headaches ranging from none to mild to downright annoying-and-can’t-get-anything-done (I don’t care about grammar in this post.) And my muscles have been sore and tired.

On Tuesday, I was at my worst, and I actually made a doctor’s appointment (actually a nurse practitioner’s appointment, but that just sounds weird). This is unusual for me – I usually don’t go to the doctor’s enough. So Alyssa and I went to the Kaiser clinic today on 10PSI in the front left tire, and I told the nurse about my symptoms. The nurse generally came off as…you shouldn’t have even come in. You should have called the advice line and they would have told you what I just told you. And what she told me was…get some rest, drink some water. You probably have a viral infection or the flu. I asked her if I should go to work tonight. If you think you have the flu or a viral infection, then don’t go in, she told me. Err…isn’t that what she is supposed to tell me?

Yeah so basically, here I am at work, because it is a big hassle for someone else to cover for me. At least my headache is gone…but I am still a bit sore and out of energy physically. But my day and a half off of work I think was needed. I feel energized mentally and I am for some reason motivated to do the boring parts of my work! I’m going to try not to breathe on anyone and go home early if I start to feel worse.

So the moral of this story is that the best treatment is usually having someone come over and bring you chicken soup and go buy you ice cream. Thanks Alyssa!

Sorry if this comes off as jumpy. I don’t feel like proofreading tonight.