Adulthood

Here's the problem with new information--once you get it you always have to step back and reevaluate everything you thought you knew already. - Point Blank

Being a responsible adult is hard and expensive work. For a long time my financial strategy was "put a ton of money into retirement and savings and worry about it later." I think that strategy worked well for me throughout my 20s. The problem is, now it's later.

Now I've got a mortgage. Just as Mrs.Chaos is finishing up under-graduate there is a baby on the way. So now is the time to actually make sure all my retirement is organized how it's supposed to be and start to figure out if I'm going to be paying for college educates and when I'm going to retire. Now is the time to figure get life insurance in case I don't happen to make inherit the right set of longevity genes. Now is the time to have a living trust. Now is the time to have a living will and a real will.

Man - being an adult is lame.

Podcast Bankrupcy

Privacy. Some day in the future people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. - Jodi Foster

I am not commuting enough! In the old job my commute consistent of eight hours in the car every two weeks. In the new job my commute consists of six hours on the train and one hour in the car every two weeks. So I would have expected that my Podcast listening time would have remained about the same.

It turns out that when I'm on the train I spend the time working, reading, and other things that don't involve listening to podcasts. The end result is that I can't keep up with all my listening! It's horrible! I wasn't listening to my audio books at all. The I realized that Game of Thrones will be resuming on HBO pretty soon and I hadn't even started of the latest book.

So I've updated my listening strategy! Now I alternate between one Podcast and one chapter of the book. That keeps me making progress on both. Additionally I've been declaring Podcast bankruptcy on my lower priority podcasts. Haven't listened to "From Our Own Corespondents" episode from two weeks ago? Mark as played.

Mini Chaos

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it. - Frank A. Clark

We found out that Mini-Chaos was on the way around the earlier possible time. I'm a by-the-book kind of person and figured as soon as found out that we would just wait until the recommended 12-week period to inform anyone else. Mrs.Chaos doesn't have the same philosophy on things - "it's like a present! You don't hide presents at home you give them to people!"

For this period of time from about 4-weeks to about 10-weeks every day was a bit of battle. "We have to tell someone!" "No, we're going to wait." "But I'm going to see my friends, and they're going to notice, so I'm going to have to tell them." "They aren't going to notice or ask." "Ohhh, I bet they will. The only way to keep this secret is just to not see any of my friends. Is that what you want? For me not to see my friends."

So thankfully we passed this period of not telling anyone and lifted the embargo - I mean, super lifted the embargo by posting to social network sites. Still, since it was such a stressful period of time of not telling anyone, now I still feel a little unsure. "Am I really allowed to tell people?" I know, I know. The answer is yes. Tell the world. It's like a present, and you have to give people presents!

Buying Another Headset

"Life is a game in which the player must appear ridiculous." - Violet Crawley (Downton Abbey)

"It seems like you're always buying new headsets." It's true! I have bought a lot of headsets over the past few years, but when you are remote phone warrior, the headset is a very important weapon in the battle against work.

When I first switched to be super-remote a couple of years ago, I worked out a fantastic trick combining my AT&T phone plan and Google Voice account to be able to get all my work calls through my mobile phone with unlimited minutes. It was awesome and I needed a good headset for my phone. I got the BlueParrot Xpress for my iPhone and it is amazing. I has a giant boom mic and the most incredible noise cancellation I have ever seen. I will be walking home in San Francisco talking with Mrs.Chaos and semi will pass by making it impossible for me to hear anything and she will say she can hear my just great and didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. Amaze!

Now with all the fancy AT&T fiber-to-the-door upgrades we've had, I've switched off my expensive wireless phone plan with AT&T and instead focused on using Google Voice, GoToMeeting VOIP, Skype, and all the other fancy ways to talk on the phone through my computer. While technically my BlueParrot can multiplex between multiple devices, I haven't found that it works very well.

I was using in iMic adapter connected to another fancy in-ear boom mic system, but there was a problem. With that setup I'm tethered to my computer while on the phone. So I can't easily walk into the kitchen to refill my coffee and that is an essential part of my productivity.

After doing internet research I settled in on the Logitech ClearChat. World of Warcrafters agree it is the bomb. I haven't had too much opportunity to use it yet, but I have confirmed that I can be chatting away on it and easily walk into the kitchen for a refill of coffee. What more do I need?

2012 in Review

So the thing is that Apple has not provided a good way to share iPhoto Libraries. So our solution was to merge into a single iPhoto Library on the fastest computer: MrsChaos. That means for me to do my Year in Review, if first requires me to find a time when I am allowed to use MrsChaos' computer for a long period of time. Those times are not actually that frequent. So that's the dealio.

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