Risley Ranch

On turning 40

I turn 40 today.  I always wanted to be 40.  Well, I guess I just always wanted to be older.  To be an adult.  When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up.  I wanted to make money, drink, stay up late, make my own decisions...all the wonderful things I saw adults doing.  Not sure why.  I had a wonderful childhood.  Boring at times, but still wonderful. 

So when did "adulthood" really start for me?  Definitely not at 18; I was mostly a punk.  Not even at 26, when I got married; my wife was the adult in our relationship back then.  I think it happened after we adopted our son.  And now, at 40, with my work and family responsibilities and debts and college savings and investments and taxes, I'm in full-on adulthood.  I've arrived.  And I'm happy.

My co-workers posted 40 photo-shopped pics of me around our office -- one for each year -- to memorialize my time on the planet.  I work with funny and creative people, so it was funny and creative:

 

And they tied it all into the big, adult theme of my 40th birthday: bourbon.  Specifically, Maker's Mark.  Yes, tomorrow Amy, Joe and I leave for Louisville, KY, for the weekend.  I'm making my first trip to the Maker's Mark distillery in Loretto.  My barrel is mature -- yes, a barrel with my name on it -- from which I will take 2 two-liter bottles home.  It will be a blast. 

So keep following me, and I'll let you in on the journey -- the one to bourbon Mecca and the bigger one of my now adult life.

Invest in aluminum

From my cousin, Rosemary, in Denver (And I checked it on Snopes...nothing there):

"If you had purchased $1,000 of AIG stock one year ago, you would have $42 left.

With Lehman, you would have $6.60 left. 

With Fannie or Freddie, you would have less than $5 left. 

But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago,
drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling refund,
you would have had $214. 

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. 
It's called the "401-Keg" Plan."

New vehicle

So I want a new vehicle.  My 2004 Honda Accord has 104,000 miles on it.  I drive about 90 miles/day round trip to my work in Kansas City.  So yea, I rack it up.  But I don't want just any vehicle.  I want something more manly.  I want a pick-up.  I mean, I grew up on a farm...pick-ups were everywhere, and they were always dirty, beat-up and tough.  Now I live in the suburbs.  I'm not dirty, beat-up or tough.  But I want to be.

So I saw a pseudo-pick-up in the Barkley garage a few days ago.  A Honda Ridgeline.  Perfect.  It has 4-doors, and a short bed.  It has a CD player and a drain-able cooler under the flip top back section of the bed.  It will haul me to work and haul the rototiller I need to rent to work up my soon-to-be garden.  And it just looks a bit more manly.

I haven't purchased a car in awhile.  So of course, I got on line and started researching.  I used to sell cars.  In college.  As an internship.  I sold 15 new Toyotas in 3 months.  Made good money.  But I always felt a little dirty.  I want to avoid the "traditional" experience of car buying at all costs. 

I found Autotrader, then found a local dealership -- AutoExchange -- that had a used Ridgeline with low mileage and low price.  I emailed them.  We'll see what happens.

It sure is different these days.  The first car Amy and I bought in Washington, DC in 1995, we spent 8 hours at the dealership haggling.  Now I can find exactly what I want on line at a place that doesn't haggle.  I love the Internet.

Steve Ballmer Gets Egged

During a speech Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, was giving to students at Budapest University in Hungary, a man in the audience stood up and began shouting that Microsoft had stolen money from the Hungarian taxpayers, according to ChannelWeb.  Several thoughts:

First, that's the weakest egg-throwing I've ever seen.  And this guy was at point blank range, had the element of surprise, and a fairly big target, and didn't hit Ballmer once.  Seriously.

Second, that's the most disrespectful thing I've ever seen done to a speaker.  Love him or hate him, Steve Ballmer was there in good faith to deliver a speech to a group of people who invited him.  The punk-ass egg thrower is a coward, in my humble opinion.  And so are the students around him who did nothing to stop him from throwing the eggs.  He could have been throwing anything -- rocks, hand grenades -- and they all sat there like it was staged.

Third, can you imagine something like this happening to Steve Jobs?  I can't.  The Jobs and Apple brands have so many evangelists that I bet if someone did try to egg Jobs during a speech, the crowd would gang tackle him, rip his arm off and beat him with it.  I don't know if there are Microsoft evangelists who would do the same for Ballmer.  Clearly there aren't any in this class at Budapest U.

Crazy.

Down for the count

Oh my.  I haven't been that sick in a long time.  Wednesday night it hit me -- some sort of flu-bug-virus-thingy -- I was out for three days.  Finally had solid food last night, and I'm feeling among the living today.  I know my body was rebelling...too much work, too much movement, too much, too much.  Even though I missed my fishing trip, the rest was worth it.  I didn't realize how tired I was.  Three days alone with your feverish thoughts puts life in perspective.  Time to stop sprinting.  Life is a marathon.

It's not all about China

I've still got time to share this kind of stuff with you (my source for this wishes to remain anonymous). :)

Stress is a wicked thing

I have restless leg syndrome (RLS).  Had it all my life.  Of course, until recently, it wasn't a "syndrome," it was just a weird, tickley-feeling thing my legs would do every once-and-awhile, usually when I'm tired.

It's so odd...you can just feel one of the episodes start to come on.  My leg will be just fine, but then I'll feel a tingle, and the tingle will intensify and move up my leg, then it turns into a ripple, then a wave, and then snap! My leg jumps.  The whole process takes about 3 seconds.  Then it repeats about every 60 seconds.  Yep, it's annoying.  But not harmful.

RLS is to my leg what stress is to the rest of my body and mind.  I start out calm (usually after some time off), but then my work calendar starts to fill up (tingle), tasks pile up (ripple), and un-resolved issues swell up (wave), then snap!

Unlike RLS, stress is harmful.  It's down-right wicked.  And even after 17 years in the business world, 13 years of marriage, and 5 years of parenting, I still don't have it figured out.  I've tried lots of remedies, potions, methods and gurus, but that devil stress keeps coming back. 

Amy knows the signs immediately.  "You're vibrating," she says.

One good thing about it (or not): my stress tolerance levels are at an all-time high.  I've noticed my ability to deal with stress (not relieve it) is kind of like building muscle.  Muscle builds when you break it down and it repairs itself.  That's how it's been for me.  You've heard the saying:  "That which does not kill me makes me stronger."  It may be bullshit, but it gets me through.

No real point to this post, I guess, but writing it has helped calm me down.

The Flu Sucks

We've all had it.  It's no fun.  My wife and I decided we'd get it at the same time, 48 hours ago.  The next 24 hours we slept.  Today we attempted a recovery.  I just ate my first meal in two days.  Amazing how a tiny little virus can lay waste to the human body.

Is it 2008 already?

Oh my.  It's February 2008.  What happened to the last four months?  Where I have been?  What have I been doing?  How in the world did I let four months go by without blogging (or reading any blogs, for that matter)?

I checked out.  I admit it.  I couldn't keep up.  I was overwhelmed with work and family and the social media space took a back seat.

But I'm checking back in.  I've missed it.

So what can you do with 3,800 PostIt Notes?

Play a practical joke on a colleague, of course.  This is just hilarious...one of the best work practical jokes I've seen in awhile.  3M ought to send us a few pallets of PostIt Notes for increasing their sales this month, huh.

technorati tags: 3M, postitnotes, practicaljoke