State of the Blog

January is the month to learn the "State of the (...city, county, state, union, blog, etc.)". I just thought I would join in on the fun before my chance passed me by.

The last few months have had a lot of blog-worthy events.

During the months of July, August and September I taught a series of 9 courses on managing your finances. I kept a blog where I posted information for the class including the handouts, slides and other course materials. While the blog hasn't been updated since I taught my last class, there is still a bunch of good information available there. The classes that I taught (using liberally the slides, handouts and information from the fantastic websites http://personalfinance.byu.edu and http://www.thesimpledollar.com) were the following:

1. Perspectives on Wealth and Setting Personal Goals
2. Creating a Personal/Family Budget
3. Understanding Credit
4. Understanding Debt
5. The Time Value of Money
6. Beginning Investing
7. Insurance
8. Money in Marriage
9. Frugality Tips and tricks

What managing your finances really comes down to though, is one thing, which is summed up in the following Saturday Night Live skit:


This fall I upgraded my work laptop and our home computer to Windows 7 and couldn't be more pleased. While I had very few problems with Windows Vista (on my work laptop) I have found Windows 7 to be extremely easy to use. My two favorite features is the auto-update of programs and drivers and the new taskbar. Every piece of hardware that I have connected to my computer has worked without fail once the software updates everything automatically. The new taskbar setup saves time by allowing me to place my most used programs and links across the bottom of the screen.

This fall I also got a new Palm Pre which I have also become very fond of. I most like that the phone is open source and can be hacked as needed. While not without its problems, the capabilities of the phone are essentially greater than the new Apple iPad in that it has multitasking, GPS, video and editing, full flash support and can handle programs written in C, C++ or using the Palm developer's kit.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were nice. It is always fun to spend so much time with family as we enjoy the various activities of the season.

Work is great. Have I mentioned recently how much I enjoy my job? Because I do. I'm working on interesting and challenging projects and am lucky to have work here with the state of the economy and construction industry in the state.

I have been serving as Elder's Quorum President in my ward here for the last two months or so and have enjoyed getting to know the members of our ward. It has taken an extra effort to organize my time and priorities, but is well worth it.

In other words, even though the glory days of this here blog may be behind us, there is still a lot going on in life and I hope to continue posting about the good things in life. As is usually the case, Alison has continued to update her blog with pictures, stories and information about our last few months.