Lights and the coast

Well, I got the fog light replaced. Junkyards rule! The part cost me $40 still, but that is a relative bargain.

We are gearing up for our vacation finally. It will be really nice to get away for a little while. From the look of the weather, it is going to be raining the whole dang time. Figures doesn't it...

How to Get Noticed

Hmm -- I read the FAQ over at pfblogs.com -- it looks like I have to write more about personal finance if I want to get included.

It looks like my pigeon incident is going to cost me. The dealer wanted $109 + labor to fix it. Aftermarket foglights are going to be ~ $60 + my time to install. Or I can go to Pull-a-Part and see what I can find. I need a tail light for our other car anyway, so pull a part is the way to go for me. I'm still pulling feathers out of the car. There is a white mess on the front of the car like I hit a bottle of baby powder. Ugh.

Going to Houston this weekend with the parents for a cousin's wedding. Should be fun to see family I never get to see.

My debt snowball calculator earned me some more money recently. A user topped the previous record of a $5 donation with $20! Now, I never expected to get that much from someone, so that's pretty neat. I'm glad people are still using it -- it really kept us motivated!. I feel like I owe this user some specialized help. he asked a question when he sent the check and I plan on 'personalizing' the sheet for him if I ever get a couple of free moments at home to do it!

Back on my head now...

An important life lesson

I learned an important life lesson this morning on the way to work. Hitting a pigeon at 70 mph is an extremely effective way to destroy a fog light. Anyone know a good body shop in OKC?

Follow up to "What a sissy"

I looked over a few of the things I had posted before and came across my "What a sissy" post regarding a kid who didn't like having homework assigned over the summer for his honors classes. I decided to do a little follow up to see if anything had been determined on his lawsuit.

"If I were a judge, I would not only dismiss the lawsuit, I'd levy a fine against the father for misusing the courts," said Philip Howard, a lawyer and legal-reform advocate based in New York City and author of the best-seller "The Death of Common Sense. (source)

The suit was thrown out, thankfully.

But it's up to school boards to decide such things, Judge Richard J. Sankovitz ruled Tuesday.

"Had the Larsons done a bit more homework," he wrote, they would had learned that "the people of our state granted to the Legislature ... the power to establish school boards." (source)

A New Post ?!?

Really? A new post? Yep. I figured I'd give it another go. I've been reading some personal finance blogs over at pfblogs and have thought about trying to join that site. It is an 'aggregator' -- it has links to lots of blogs related to personal finance. They have some pretty good stuff over there and I don't know if I'd make a reasonable contribution to them if I tried to do this or not.

Anyway, if I want to try to write something someone might want to read, I better find something useful to write about. I don't know if I could go all out personal finance or not.

Maybe I need to get motivated -- or maybe motivated to do this at home or over lunch in stead of during the 'normal' day...

We're Debt Free!

We're debt free!!!!

Right around $29,000 in under 3 years. We paid off the last debt right at the first of March. It's over and done with -- 2 months sooner than expected, too! Now onto other things!

One of these days I'm going to write out our full story -- I'm just too swamped right now...

I've uploaded a 3rd version of my Debt Snowball spreadsheet. It's been downloaded like crazy. I'm glad people like it and it is helping them!

Picture

Here:

September 6

Again -- does anyone read this?