|
|
Archive for the ‘Random Entries’ Category
Several Updates ARE Coming – And They’re Coming Soon!
April 28th, 2012 | Added to Random Entries | No Comments »
One of the things that bothers me the most about bloggers and blogging is when a blog goes comatose or worse, when a blog dies out without a formal “we’re closing – thanks for your patronage” post. Even though the last few months may have led you to believe that JerseySmarts.com was entering the twilight of its life, nothing could be further from the truth!
Admittedly, I’ve been booked solid at my office and on the road for work over the last three months. That’s really nothing new, though I really do think that the last three months at my office have been busier than the three years leading into them. The truth is that being busy at the office is a good thing because if we weren’t busy, then we wouldn’t be in business, right? So part of the reason why I haven’t been able to attend to JerseySmarts.com with the type of focus that you may be used to is because I’m doing so much more at the office and, consequently, tiring myself out during those short periods of free time when I’m in my home office and I typically write up a few blog entries.
And on that point, my free time continues to be eaten up by a variety of items – most of which we’ve covered at length on this blog in the past so I will try not to rehash old information here. The most pertinent “new” time consumer is the fact that I was elected to be the Chairman of a local charter school foundation’s Board of Trustees. It’s pretty cool and I’m looking forward to helping to rebuild this foundation and lead it to new heights. The most exciting part about leading this foundation is that it really is a blank canvas. So… after we get an event out of the way this coming Monday night, I’m going to focus on the most primary of all goals for all foundations – raising money. More on that as it comes and it relevant to this blog.
On the entrepreneurial front, I’ve decided to go with my gut instinct and begin shedding my third party clients. In short, Usable Web Solutions, LLC brings in money from two primary sources: websites that I host and manage for third party clients and websites that I host and manage that I own. Year after year, the majority of the income generated by this company is from the websites that I own. If I’m going to spend some of the meager time that I have available on this company, then it just makes logical business sense for me to focus on increasing the capacity and reach of the income-generating websites that I own. About two months ago I began helping my third party clients find new web management services and everything has gone very well thus far.
The adjunct professoring/online mentoring is what it is, I guess. These days the local college doesn’t have enough demand in its core political science program to warrant bringing in an additional adjunct professor, so I’m out of the few bucks that I earned teaching over at the local institute of higher learning. On the other hand, the online college where I work as an online mentor has been scheduling me to teach a new class each beginning each month (they run their semesters differently with a new semester beginning each month). The number of total students in these classes is going down, but the number of classes where I’m serving as the mentor is going up, so it evens out over the course of a year.
There are any other number of time consuming items that keep me busy these days that I could probably write a good article around (i.e. online dating that has transitioned into face-to-face dating over the last few months, managing a crazy budget that was devastated with the down payment for my new car and the taxes that I had to pay this year, time dedicated to local volunteering efforts as well as selected national volunteering efforts, reading more whenever I can, working out whenever I can, etc). However, I urge you to stay tuned and you can read all about these events in my daily life – and so much more – in the coming days and weeks. Further, if you have Google Reader or another RSS aggregator, then I encourage you to subscribe to JerseySmarts.com so that way you’ll never miss out on what’s going on here! Our RSS feed may be found here: http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/
Another Thousand Knocked Off My Student Loan Debt – Down to $28 Thousand
April 14th, 2012 | Added to Random Entries | No Comments »
And… we’re back! Or I should say that “I’m back,” but whatever. After a little over a month and a half I’m glad to be back with another student loan reduction update. This time around, I’m glad to report that my student loan has dropped from $29 thousand to $28 thousand which, all things considered, isn’t so bad. Sure, I would have rather taken that $5 thousand down payment that I put on my new truck and that nearly $4 thousand that I just paid to the government and use it to reduce my student loan balance so I could happily report right now that my student loan debt broke beneath the $20 thousand barrier all the way down to $19 thousand, but what can you do, right?
 Down to $28 thousand However, like I’ve written on here in the past – I’m not annoyed that I had to spend all of that money on buying a new car and paying my taxes because the new car means that I’m finally riding around in a comfortable, safe vehicle and having to pay taxes means that I’m making more money overall. And no one can really be too upset when they’re safer, more comfortable, and making more money.
I do think that I’m in a somewhat “lost” category of taxpayers when it comes to my required payment, though. You see, I took out a ton of student loans to go to college, graduate school, and pay for living expenses. Well, in all of its wisdom the government created a student loan interest tax deduction so that if a taxpayer paid a bunch of money in student loan interest, then they could at least reduce the total amount of their taxable income to reflect the economic impact of having to pay that interest. In some ways, it’s very similar to the home mortgage interest tax deduction.
What’s interesting about my situation is that yes – I did earn a few more bucks in 2011 and thus had to pay more in taxes. Sure, no denying it at all and I’m not looking to deny it. However, unlike other folks who earned more money last year, I didn’t sock that money away into some account or invest it in the market. Nope. Instead, I gave all of that excess income to the government to pay down my student loans!
Do you get the ridiculous paradox that I’m caught in here?
I earned more money, gave that money to the government to pay down my student loans, but because I earned more money in the first place, the government wants more of my money in taxes (and that “more of my money” doesn’t exist… because I already gave it the government!). Do you see the absolutely outlandish situation that I’m caught in here?!
Anyway, since this is the only thing that has been on the student loan section of my mind for the last few weeks I thought I would share with you good people. And there you have it. I gave the government all of my excess income last year and – simply because I earned excess income and gave it to the government – the government has now come back and demanded even more of my money by this Tuesday. Unbelievable.
In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $92 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $28 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s Direct Loans program. To date, I’ve repaid well over $30 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.
An Awesome Infographic On Whether Your Commute Is Killing You
April 2nd, 2012 | Added to Random Entries | No Comments »
How many times have I written about how much I can’t stand my commute? And if you haven’t gotten those updates from me, then you must not be following my ranting and raving via my Twitter feed @JerseySmarts. Well, for those of you who are looking for some great information about how our commutes impact our daily lives, take a look at the following graphic which is provided by the good folks at College@Home. Enjoy!
Pretty amazing, right? Makes you look at your commute in a whole different light (and not necessarily a good one)!
New Jersey Lands Major Sports and Entertainment Events for 2013 and 2014
February 20th, 2012 | Added to Random Entries | No Comments »
If you live in New Jersey, then I’m sure you’ve been aware for quite some time that the Garden State will host the 2014 Super Bowl. Sure, the NFL is saying that it is being hosted by New York and New Jersey, but let’s be real – MetLife Stadium is in New Jersey, the hotels where visitors will stay are in New Jersey, and all of the local businesses that will benefit from the Super Bowl are in New Jersey. This is clearly a New Jersey event!
 New Jersey is hosting the Super Bowl in 2014! Whether you’re the type of New Jerseyan who loves that the Super Bowl is coming to MetLife Stadium or whether you hate it, there are some undeniably great impacts coming our way. To begin with, the general rule of thumb is that Super Bowls can provide up to $500 million in gross economic activity for a host city. Half a billion dollars? That’s not too bad for a few days of mayhem!
What’s better than the $500 million economic impact, though, is the fact that there will be a variety of part-time and temporary jobs available to help set up for, manage, and break down from the Super Bowl and its pre-game festivities. Those types of jobs aren’t segregated to New Jersey alone, either. Those are the types of jobs that folks in New York City can benefit from as well as New Jerseyans living in the central part of the state. I believe that this is one of the best impacts from hosting the Super Bowl because it provides an opportunity for an unemployed or underemployed person to make their own, professional impact on a company that is looking to hire more people. In other words, if you’re one of those people who thinks all they need is a chance at a job so they can impress an employer enough to want them to be hired full-time, then this is that chance!
A third benefit from having the Super Bowl in New Jersey is the fact that we get to show off the real New Jersey. No, not that stereotype-laden image that most of the rest of the country has of us as fist-pumping, loud-talking, self-obsessed members of the mafia. We get a chance to showcase the real New Jersey – a place filled with optimistic people, caring families, and intelligent discussion.
Alright, well most of the discussion is intelligent!
However, before we get to experience the economic and social impacts that come along with hosting the Super Bowl, New Jerseyans have a chance to realize more than $200 million in economic impact from hosting another global event… WrestleMania XXIX!
 Are you ready for WrestleMania XXIX next year?! If you read this blog, then you probably know that I used to be a big wrestling fan many years ago and am still somewhat of a fan today (though to a much lesser, rather passive degree). However, since I have that latent wrestling fan mentality I fully intend on attending WrestleMania next year (and the Super Bowl in 2014 for that matter) because it’s going to be so close to home. Aside from the fact that I plan on attending one of the major annual global sporting/entertainment events based in America (i.e. the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, NCAA Championships, WrestleMania, etc), I think that this gigantic wrestling show presents a much more exciting opportunity for those who are without jobs.
As I wrote above, there are going to be a lot of staff ramp-ups leading into the Super Bowl. Well, there are going to be a bunch of staff ramp-ups leading into WrestleMania as well. Not only does the stadium have to transform into the spectacle that Vince McMahon creates every year, but there is usually a week-long series of events all around the host city (or, in New Jersey’s case, the host region). Sometimes, the events leading up to the actual show can bring in as many or more visitors than the show itself.
And that’s another item to consider. Currently, MetLife Stadium can hold about 82,500 fans. However, WWE has a history of extending attendance capacities in football stadiums by the thousands since they utilize the field for seating space, too. Chances are that WWE is going to try to figure out how to pack as many people into MetLife Stadium as possible. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 95,000+ people in that stadium for WrestleMania when all was said and done.
Anyway, the point of this entry was simply to acknowledge that there are two major events coming to New Jersey in the next few years and we all should be pretty excited about the opportunities that come along with hosting these events. There is an economic impact with dollars spent at local business, there is a professional impact with jobs being created for the unemployed or underemployed, and there is a social impact that will allow us to show the rest of the country and the world all of the great things about New Jersey.
Just A Quick Update With Much, Much More To Come… Really Soon!
February 14th, 2012 | Added to Random Entries | No Comments »
Since I haven’t posted an originally-written update in about 20 days, I thought it would be a good idea to post up some quick thoughts about what’s been going on with the blog and some other random updates. First, if you’re craving more of my random thoughts throughout the day, then you’re a sick individual you should follow me on Twitter @JerseySmarts. If you want a brief glimpse at what I’m putting on Twitter these days, then you only need to glance to the right of this entry and read the tweet feed that I added to the site about two weeks ago.
As you’ll see, the feed contains just random thoughts, complaints, and observations. I’m not solving world hunger here, folks – I’m just living my life!
On the topic of what is going on with this blog there’s nothing major to update everyone on, but here is the general rundown:
First, for some reason we’ve been receiving a large number of spammy comments. Now, I write “spammy” comments because these comments aren’t your typical “click here for drugs” robotic spam comments, but rather vitriolic hate speech that is actually written by a human being. It’s really some pretty vicious stuff that has no place on a personal blog. And I don’t know how many times I have to write this in the comments section, but this always has been and always will be a personal blog. In other words, what I say goes so if you write a comment that attacks another commenter or blatantly distorts the issues presented in the various updates, you can stick your comment up your ass. Now granted, in the last year we’ve only gotten about 6 or 7 really vitriolic, arrogant, hateful comments and all of those were moderated before they made it on to the site. However, if you plan on writing bullshit and hate in the comments section you might as well save yourself the time because it’s not getting posted, period. My personal blog, my dictatorial rules – very simple to understand.
Second, I have a lot of content written and ready to be posted to the blog, but I’m waiting for the right time. For example, I have my next student loan update written and ready to go for whenever my total amount outstanding drops again (which should be in about a month – more on that in a minute). Also, I’ve been working on some other projects that are taking up some time so I’ve only been writing for the blog in my spare time.
Third, I’ve been working really hard to cull and delete a ton of the tags on this blog. If you don’t know what a “tag” is, it’s the keywords that bloggers use to help their individual pages categorize themselves and rise up in the search engines. A few years ago I utilized a system that provided a whole host of tags for specific keywords and that has bogged down and crapped up the database for the blog. As an example, if I wrote something about my old Chevy Blazer, I would get the following tags added to the database: Chevy, Chevy Blazer, Blazer, Chevrolet, Chevrolet Blazer, Blazer SUV, SUV, Chevy SUV, etc. That’s totally unnecessary. My culling process is reducing all of that gunk to two tags: Chevrolet and Blazer. That’s it – nothing more is needed. Obviously, this is a long process since there are some 6 or 7 thousand of tags in the database that need to be reviewed and deleted. I’m going through them about 250 at a time and I hope to have the project completed by the end of the year.
And the final part of this part of the update is that I’m looking for ways to freshen up the design of the blog. If you’ve been eagle-eyed, then over the last few weeks you might have noticed random updates here and there in certain design features (the addition of the Twitter feed, the lengthening of the Facebook feed, the layout change for news from the other sites that I own, change in some of the external button links, etc). However, I’ve been thinking that it might be time for wholesale change – I just don’t know how far I want to take it. If you have any ideas on how to change the design, please feel free to add them to the comments section of this post (but don’t post hate or it won’t get to see the light of day!).
That’s it for the JerseySmarts.com Update. And before I end the web-based updates I thought I might add that one of the sites that I own through Usable Web Solutions, LLC has really exploded in the last month and a half. Hits to that website have tripled and it is growing into a very respected site. I’m proud of the team that works there and plan to continue providing them with as much support as possible to let the growth continue. As for the rest of my life…
Things have been very busy. Towards the end of January my company moved its offices from Trenton to New Brunswick. That’s about ten miles less of a drive each morning for me, but the same amount of time thanks to the Route 18 traffic (which sucks). However, I tried to bypass most of the heavy traffic by changing my work schedule from 9am-ish to 5pm-ish to 7:45am-ish to 4:00pm-ish. I’m getting up earlier and leaving my house about an hour and a half earlier, but I’m also getting home right at or slightly before 5:00pm, so that’s an hour and a half earlier than the Trenton commute. The change hasn’t been too bad, but when you shift your schedule to work (and live life) an hour and a half earlier, you experience a personal seismic shift.
On my end, I’m finding that I have less time to spend on the computer in the evening (not playing around on the computer, but working on computer-based, paid projects). Also, I find that I’m totally exhausted by about 3:00pm. I think this is happening because my body isn’t used to going to bed at 10:00pm so I wind up tossing and turning for about a half an hour (though I’m totally beat right now and expect to sleep like a log tonight). It’s a change and I’ll get used to it.
Also, we’re getting towards the end of the college basketball season and I’ve been busy attending the Monmouth University men’s basketball team home games. The Hawks have struggled a little bit this season, but they’re starting to show signs of strength heading into their last four games of the season. Oh, and unlike the last few years I don’t really have a ton of pictures to post from these home games. I’ve actually been sitting back and enjoying the games instead of waiting for the perfect camera shot. However, I have taken a small handful of pictures at the games (mostly of the scoreboard after the games are over) and I plan to post them in the next few weeks.
I’ve also been hit with a variety of big expenses in the last few weeks. First, I spent a good deal of money traveling to Washington, DC for a business trip last week (granted, these expenses will be reimbursed, but I have to wait for the reimbursement to arrive). Then, I had my car crap out on me and it cost over eleven hundred bucks to get the thing fixed. And on the same day that I paid to get the car fixed, I co-hosted a fundraiser/donor recognition event at one of the Monmouth home games (which wasn’t a huge expense, but still an irregular expense in my routine budget). While all of these expenses are manageable, they are all irregular costs in my planned budget and they all hit within the same three day period. So… I’m glad that tomorrow is pay day!
Between the big shift in my personal schedule and the time I’ve been spending at the Monmouth games, my health is more or less in a stalemate. I haven’t been to the gym in about three weeks because I can’t figure out this new schedule yet, but my weight hasn’t moved too much and my blood sugar is very stable. I’m glad about the blood sugar being stable because a shift in routine combined with a reduction in the amount of medication that I’m taking could have formed the perfect storm to throw my blood sugar out of whack. On the topic of health, I purchased the Rebel Fitness Guide from Nerd Fitness a few weeks ago and I just finished reading it. Any guy who writes fitness articles and quotes the Lord of the Rings, uses Legos as a graphic tool, and frequently references the video games that I grew up playing and other nerdy topics is alright with me! I expect to begin the Level 1 Rookie workout around the beginning of March so be on the lookout for updates on how I’m progressing with that workout program.
Other than what’s posted above I don’t have many more big updates to provide right now. One of the last originally-written posts that I wrote for the blog was about finding a new church to attend that is close to where I live. Well, I’m still going to church there on a weekly basis and I find it amazing that I used to think that I didn’t have the time to go to church. Absolutely amazing. The services last about 45 – 50 minutes and when you factor in driving there and driving home, I’m only out of the house for about an hour and five minutes each Sunday morning. Who can’t give an hour and five minutes to go to church each week?! In fact, I continue to find that I enjoy going to church to listen to the homilies and the readings and so on. It’s nice – makes you feel good after you leave and gives you guidance for the week.
I’ve also been reading a lot on the NOOK, in The Word Among Us daily meditations, and random articles – so I have a lot to update on the site when I get a moment to do so! Stay tuned and in the mean time, follow me on Twitter @JerseySmarts!
|
|
|
| |
|
February 14th, 2012 | Added to Random Entries | No Comments »
Since I haven’t posted an originally-written update in about 20 days, I thought it would be a good idea to post up some quick thoughts about what’s been going on with the blog and some other random updates. First, if you’re craving more of my random thoughts throughout the day, then
you’re a sick individualyou should follow me on Twitter @JerseySmarts. If you want a brief glimpse at what I’m putting on Twitter these days, then you only need to glance to the right of this entry and read the tweet feed that I added to the site about two weeks ago.As you’ll see, the feed contains just random thoughts, complaints, and observations. I’m not solving world hunger here, folks – I’m just living my life!
On the topic of what is going on with this blog there’s nothing major to update everyone on, but here is the general rundown:
First, for some reason we’ve been receiving a large number of spammy comments. Now, I write “spammy” comments because these comments aren’t your typical “click here for drugs” robotic spam comments, but rather vitriolic hate speech that is actually written by a human being. It’s really some pretty vicious stuff that has no place on a personal blog. And I don’t know how many times I have to write this in the comments section, but this always has been and always will be a personal blog. In other words, what I say goes so if you write a comment that attacks another commenter or blatantly distorts the issues presented in the various updates, you can stick your comment up your ass. Now granted, in the last year we’ve only gotten about 6 or 7 really vitriolic, arrogant, hateful comments and all of those were moderated before they made it on to the site. However, if you plan on writing bullshit and hate in the comments section you might as well save yourself the time because it’s not getting posted, period. My personal blog, my dictatorial rules – very simple to understand.
Second, I have a lot of content written and ready to be posted to the blog, but I’m waiting for the right time. For example, I have my next student loan update written and ready to go for whenever my total amount outstanding drops again (which should be in about a month – more on that in a minute). Also, I’ve been working on some other projects that are taking up some time so I’ve only been writing for the blog in my spare time.
Third, I’ve been working really hard to cull and delete a ton of the tags on this blog. If you don’t know what a “tag” is, it’s the keywords that bloggers use to help their individual pages categorize themselves and rise up in the search engines. A few years ago I utilized a system that provided a whole host of tags for specific keywords and that has bogged down and crapped up the database for the blog. As an example, if I wrote something about my old Chevy Blazer, I would get the following tags added to the database: Chevy, Chevy Blazer, Blazer, Chevrolet, Chevrolet Blazer, Blazer SUV, SUV, Chevy SUV, etc. That’s totally unnecessary. My culling process is reducing all of that gunk to two tags: Chevrolet and Blazer. That’s it – nothing more is needed. Obviously, this is a long process since there are some 6 or 7 thousand of tags in the database that need to be reviewed and deleted. I’m going through them about 250 at a time and I hope to have the project completed by the end of the year.
And the final part of this part of the update is that I’m looking for ways to freshen up the design of the blog. If you’ve been eagle-eyed, then over the last few weeks you might have noticed random updates here and there in certain design features (the addition of the Twitter feed, the lengthening of the Facebook feed, the layout change for news from the other sites that I own, change in some of the external button links, etc). However, I’ve been thinking that it might be time for wholesale change – I just don’t know how far I want to take it. If you have any ideas on how to change the design, please feel free to add them to the comments section of this post (but don’t post hate or it won’t get to see the light of day!).
That’s it for the JerseySmarts.com Update. And before I end the web-based updates I thought I might add that one of the sites that I own through Usable Web Solutions, LLC has really exploded in the last month and a half. Hits to that website have tripled and it is growing into a very respected site. I’m proud of the team that works there and plan to continue providing them with as much support as possible to let the growth continue. As for the rest of my life…
Things have been very busy. Towards the end of January my company moved its offices from Trenton to New Brunswick. That’s about ten miles less of a drive each morning for me, but the same amount of time thanks to the Route 18 traffic (which sucks). However, I tried to bypass most of the heavy traffic by changing my work schedule from 9am-ish to 5pm-ish to 7:45am-ish to 4:00pm-ish. I’m getting up earlier and leaving my house about an hour and a half earlier, but I’m also getting home right at or slightly before 5:00pm, so that’s an hour and a half earlier than the Trenton commute. The change hasn’t been too bad, but when you shift your schedule to work (and live life) an hour and a half earlier, you experience a personal seismic shift.
On my end, I’m finding that I have less time to spend on the computer in the evening (not playing around on the computer, but working on computer-based, paid projects). Also, I find that I’m totally exhausted by about 3:00pm. I think this is happening because my body isn’t used to going to bed at 10:00pm so I wind up tossing and turning for about a half an hour (though I’m totally beat right now and expect to sleep like a log tonight). It’s a change and I’ll get used to it.
Also, we’re getting towards the end of the college basketball season and I’ve been busy attending the Monmouth University men’s basketball team home games. The Hawks have struggled a little bit this season, but they’re starting to show signs of strength heading into their last four games of the season. Oh, and unlike the last few years I don’t really have a ton of pictures to post from these home games. I’ve actually been sitting back and enjoying the games instead of waiting for the perfect camera shot. However, I have taken a small handful of pictures at the games (mostly of the scoreboard after the games are over) and I plan to post them in the next few weeks.
I’ve also been hit with a variety of big expenses in the last few weeks. First, I spent a good deal of money traveling to Washington, DC for a business trip last week (granted, these expenses will be reimbursed, but I have to wait for the reimbursement to arrive). Then, I had my car crap out on me and it cost over eleven hundred bucks to get the thing fixed. And on the same day that I paid to get the car fixed, I co-hosted a fundraiser/donor recognition event at one of the Monmouth home games (which wasn’t a huge expense, but still an irregular expense in my routine budget). While all of these expenses are manageable, they are all irregular costs in my planned budget and they all hit within the same three day period. So… I’m glad that tomorrow is pay day!
Between the big shift in my personal schedule and the time I’ve been spending at the Monmouth games, my health is more or less in a stalemate. I haven’t been to the gym in about three weeks because I can’t figure out this new schedule yet, but my weight hasn’t moved too much and my blood sugar is very stable. I’m glad about the blood sugar being stable because a shift in routine combined with a reduction in the amount of medication that I’m taking could have formed the perfect storm to throw my blood sugar out of whack. On the topic of health, I purchased the Rebel Fitness Guide from Nerd Fitness a few weeks ago and I just finished reading it. Any guy who writes fitness articles and quotes the Lord of the Rings, uses Legos as a graphic tool, and frequently references the video games that I grew up playing and other nerdy topics is alright with me! I expect to begin the Level 1 Rookie workout around the beginning of March so be on the lookout for updates on how I’m progressing with that workout program.
Other than what’s posted above I don’t have many more big updates to provide right now. One of the last originally-written posts that I wrote for the blog was about finding a new church to attend that is close to where I live. Well, I’m still going to church there on a weekly basis and I find it amazing that I used to think that I didn’t have the time to go to church. Absolutely amazing. The services last about 45 – 50 minutes and when you factor in driving there and driving home, I’m only out of the house for about an hour and five minutes each Sunday morning. Who can’t give an hour and five minutes to go to church each week?! In fact, I continue to find that I enjoy going to church to listen to the homilies and the readings and so on. It’s nice – makes you feel good after you leave and gives you guidance for the week.
I’ve also been reading a lot on the NOOK, in The Word Among Us daily meditations, and random articles – so I have a lot to update on the site when I get a moment to do so! Stay tuned and in the mean time, follow me on Twitter @JerseySmarts!