I work at Freescale Semiconductor, and the poor state of the economy has definitely hurt our business. We're not doing as bad as some semiconductor companies, but not good. We've already had quite a few layoffs in 2008, and we have some more cuts just announced today.
The CEO and VPs are taking pay cuts, and all raises / promotions are frozen for 2009. The 401k match has been suspended temporarily. Lastly, we have to take a week off unpaid sometime in Q1 and another unpaid week off in Q2. I think my friends that work at Dell have had similar actions they had to take.
While this stinks and definitely hurts my one-income family budget, it could be worse. Our babysitter's husband works at another semiconductor company, Spansion, where they have been forced to take 5 weeks unpaid. I would be really screwed if I had to do something like that.
So for the forseeable future, look for drink reviews limited to things like Shiner Bock and Dos Equis. Perhaps food pairings of which of these beers goes well with frozen pizza and mac and cheese. 100% agave tequila and Cointreau seem to be luxuries I'll have to eliminate. Unless maybe I stop eating solid food and JUST drink margaritas...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
I am declaring first 9 days of 2009 do not exist
OK, the first part of 2009 officially bites my arse (getting the car situation squared away, one good round of golf Jan 3, and Natasha NOT getting the virus being a few exceptions).
My kids were suffering through a bad virus (some sort of viral gastroenteritis like a rotavirus or Norwalk-type virus, if you want to get technical), which they then passed on to me. While I was sick, I totally missed a great come-from-behind Texas win in the Fiesta Bowl over Ohio State (who I detest almost as much as A&M or OU) while shivering in bed with a fever, then pretty much felt bad all of the first work week of the year. I have yet to go to work in 2009 and feel good physically.
But, I did make myself a margarita last night and am feeling almost totally better this morning. So, I am declaring that the actual beginning of 2009 did not happen ... does not exist. Today is my Jan 01.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
College Football Season final thoughts
I'm a Texas fan, and I'm pretty irritated with the way this season ended. After watching Florida-OU play for a so-called "national championship", I feel pretty sure that Texas, USC, or Utah would have given Florida a better game. Florida is a great team, and I'm really impressed with Tim Tebow (did you see the "John 3:16" on his eye black stickers?).
But if I were a Texas player returning for next season, I'd be itching to start practices right now to open up a total can of whip-ass on everyone in the Big 12 next season. I'd love to see Colt McCoy beat OU next year by about 40-50 points, and stay in the game in the 4th quarter, calling time outs, throwing deep, just to rub it in Stoops face and make sure BCS voters don't forget who won THIS year!
Of course, what I really want in college football is a playoff. So maybe I should be happy that major schools like Texas and USC, and smaller schools like Utah got screwed this year. Probably the only way we get rid of this ludicrous non-playoff system is if the major football factory schools get screwed repeatedly and start passing legislation (a la Joe Barton -- story in Sports Illustrated here).
So at least if Texas is gonna get screwed, at least we beat hated loser rivals Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Ohio State all in the same year. Seeing Oklahoma lose another BCS game did not suck, either.
Dang it, Blake Gideon, why didn't you catch that ball!?
But if I were a Texas player returning for next season, I'd be itching to start practices right now to open up a total can of whip-ass on everyone in the Big 12 next season. I'd love to see Colt McCoy beat OU next year by about 40-50 points, and stay in the game in the 4th quarter, calling time outs, throwing deep, just to rub it in Stoops face and make sure BCS voters don't forget who won THIS year!
Of course, what I really want in college football is a playoff. So maybe I should be happy that major schools like Texas and USC, and smaller schools like Utah got screwed this year. Probably the only way we get rid of this ludicrous non-playoff system is if the major football factory schools get screwed repeatedly and start passing legislation (a la Joe Barton -- story in Sports Illustrated here).
So at least if Texas is gonna get screwed, at least we beat hated loser rivals Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Ohio State all in the same year. Seeing Oklahoma lose another BCS game did not suck, either.
Dang it, Blake Gideon, why didn't you catch that ball!?
Friday, January 9, 2009
Do NOT Use Free Credit Report Dot Com!
You have probably seen those rather clever "Free Credit Report" commercials featuring a guy singing about how his life was ruined by an identity thief, which could've been avoided if he'd checked his credit with Free Credit Report.com (and thus the chorus "shoulda gone to freeeee credit report.com"). Web site here.
Anyway, this company is running some pretty borderline unethical advertising in my opinion. It's certainly not illegal, it's just a bait and switch. What this company sells is a regular credit monitoring service, for which you must sign up for and GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER before you get your one initial "free credit report". You have some initial period in which you can cancel, otherwise they start charging you.
The law does in fact allow you to get one free copy per year of your credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, Transunion). The place you do this is at THIS web site. You can either get all 3 reports once per year, or you can space them out / stagger them and get one report from one of the 3 agencies once every 4 months and cycle through each agency to, in effect, monitor your credit regularly for free.
Now, getting your credit reports still does not give you your credit SCORE. While each of the 3 credit agencies have their own proprietary scores they offer, the real score that almost every lender in the nation uses is the Fair Isaac Corporation, or "FICO" score. You have to pay to get this info from FICO, web site here.
Anyway, this company is running some pretty borderline unethical advertising in my opinion. It's certainly not illegal, it's just a bait and switch. What this company sells is a regular credit monitoring service, for which you must sign up for and GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER before you get your one initial "free credit report". You have some initial period in which you can cancel, otherwise they start charging you.
The law does in fact allow you to get one free copy per year of your credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, Transunion). The place you do this is at THIS web site. You can either get all 3 reports once per year, or you can space them out / stagger them and get one report from one of the 3 agencies once every 4 months and cycle through each agency to, in effect, monitor your credit regularly for free.
Now, getting your credit reports still does not give you your credit SCORE. While each of the 3 credit agencies have their own proprietary scores they offer, the real score that almost every lender in the nation uses is the Fair Isaac Corporation, or "FICO" score. You have to pay to get this info from FICO, web site here.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Rough week
After the family and I went to a great New Years Eve party at our friends Vic and Sarah's house, things have been a bit rough since then. Daniel and Lauren caught a pretty nasty stomach virus sometime around New Years, and it gave both kids several days of fevers and, um, potty issues, until Sunday.
We ended up buying the Altima that Carmax had delivered / transferred, and it works great with no problems. We had our local mechanic (Rick at Southwest Automotive) check it out independently and he said it was good. I'll probably continue this buying of late model used vehicles in the future just because it saves so much money.
After the kids started feeling better Monday morning and I started back to work, I thought things might be looking up, but then the same stomach bug hit me, and I was in bed with a fever / chills / aches for the next 36 hrs. I went in to work Wed morning, but probably should have stayed home. I ended up going home again mid-afternoon. I'm back at work today but still not 100%.
My wife has been really great through all this, and has not caught the bug. I'm praying that holds ... if she caught it and felt the way I did, I would definitely need to stay home from work to take care of the kids likely for a couple of days.
The heated seats that came on that Altima we bought came in pretty handy when I was driving home from work with aches and a fever ... pretty soothing!
We ended up buying the Altima that Carmax had delivered / transferred, and it works great with no problems. We had our local mechanic (Rick at Southwest Automotive) check it out independently and he said it was good. I'll probably continue this buying of late model used vehicles in the future just because it saves so much money.
After the kids started feeling better Monday morning and I started back to work, I thought things might be looking up, but then the same stomach bug hit me, and I was in bed with a fever / chills / aches for the next 36 hrs. I went in to work Wed morning, but probably should have stayed home. I ended up going home again mid-afternoon. I'm back at work today but still not 100%.
My wife has been really great through all this, and has not caught the bug. I'm praying that holds ... if she caught it and felt the way I did, I would definitely need to stay home from work to take care of the kids likely for a couple of days.
The heated seats that came on that Altima we bought came in pretty handy when I was driving home from work with aches and a fever ... pretty soothing!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
My treasures this Christmas and New Years
I hope you and your families had a wonderful Christmas and New Years, and I hope you got what you wanted for Christmas! While my wife's gift of a Rush Limbaugh subscription and my mom's gift of the Don Julio 1942 tequila were really great gifts I got, the best gifts are my family and friends. I've got everything I need right here. May God bless you all in the coming New Year!
Good luck trying to get your kids to smile for portraits!
This Christmas and New Years holidays, many attempts to take family photos will be made. For families attempting this with younger children, this can be tricky. The only tip I can offer is to take thousands of shots in the hope that you'll get a couple of good ones.
Here's a couple of recent attempts I tried with Daniel and Lauren. They're doing that "fake photo smile" I taught them perfectly!
Here's a couple of recent attempts I tried with Daniel and Lauren. They're doing that "fake photo smile" I taught them perfectly!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
