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So, I tallied up our technology-related expenses, and even though there’s less of them, they still suck.  Currently, we have no desktop computer as we’re getting by with our old laptop and my work laptop.  The wife has the first gen iPhone, while I have a piece of shit Nokia off Craigslist.  We subscribe to basic cable, Internet, and VoIP phone with TimeWarner.  I pay for access to Newsgroups and maintain my web server.

Both phones: $150/mo
Cable/Internet/Phone: $130/mo
Newsgroups: $30/mo
Server: $25/mo

Total:  $335

I won’t go into “pinching pennies on tech” tirades, you have this site to provide some reading material about the subject.  Still, could we go without the two cell phones?  Probably, but then we’d end up with uncoordinated schedules, and would constantly miss each other trying to carpool, and in general, piss each other off.  The Newsgroups account could go, but then we’d end up going out to the movies more, as well as rent/buy movies/music a lot more often.  The server I straight up need because this site is still making money, believe it or not.

So no, I am not cutting out the $335 off my budget.

And by the way, what’s with the whole iPhone hysteria?  It’s a piece of electronic equipment, people, not a techno-messiah.  Sure, it’s sleek and … what’s the other metrosexual word they use for that … oh yeah, “svelte“.  Sure, you can now put apps and games on it.  It has a nice voicemail feature.  It has a full-blown GPS against Google maps, and a sweet app called Shazam that can identify songs after you put the phone against a speaker … wait …

I want one now.  The GPS thing sold me.

This site keeps paying, so one of the checks literally shamed me into writing a post … after a few months of silence :)

I was researching home loans to ensure my 6.25% is the best deal I can possibly get … and it is (for now). The very first site I went to for refinance information is … refinance.com, you geniuses. Most of these sites are all the same — visit, enter your refi goals, and hit submit.

Then it’s likely you’ll get clocked with home refinance loans emails. The goal here is to do research, so I suppose you can swing dodging email for a little bit while looking for a deal.

It seems kind of weird that I got my loan in October 2007 at 6.25%, and rates stayed pretty much unchanged regardless of rate cuts you hear about on TV. So I’m not currently thinking about mortgage refinance deals, but when I do, I’ll probably hit the site at the links.

By the way, since I am a soft money whore, I got paid for this post. So click on them links and don’t divulge your personal info.

As a job seeker, I used to rely heavily on accuracy and professionalism of my resume. I made sure grammar and spelling were in order, all timelines cohered, and “power words” were generously sprinkled across the fancy sheet of paper.

What I didn’t know is that I could have put “Graduated from college“, “T-SQL“, “.NET“, “VBA“, and “Team player” on a regular sheet of paper, and still would have gotten the job (I’m exaggerating … trying to make a point here).

I am now in a position to actually interview my prospective team members. I find myself asking them all kinds of questions ranging from very general to very specific. I put surprisingly little emphasis on the resume — instead I tend to focus on the attitude and skills of the candidates, all while realizing what I previously thought was important did not necessarily matter at an interview.

For example, I thought that reasonably lengthy explanations are better than one-liners because they provide valuable insight into skills and experience. Not true — long explanation bore people to death. “Automated all payroll processes and eliminated 1,000 hours of manual entry annually” is so much better than “Was responsible for creating complex automation processes using Microsoft SQL Server 2000 platform, which resulted in drastic reduction in manual key-entry for payroll procedures (estimated 1,000 hours per year)“.

I’m in the I/T industry, so I’m sure things would vary a bit in some other fields. Here are some of the actual questions we ask.

- How do you deal with ambiguity? Among the good answers are “keeping the big picture in mind“, “communicating clearly“, “asking the right questions“, “designing and following a process“. You’re dealing with ambiguity all day long - people just don’t know what the hell they want … ever.

- Describe some projects you worked on as part of a team. Teamwork is huge not because it’s a cheesy managerial “power word”, but because ability to work well with others is crucial to a project’s success. Too often people’s egos get in the way of productive collaboration. I’ve heard people straight up say stuff like “I can’t share this workload because then I won’t have anything else to do“, effectively saying “I’m a gigantic douche clinging to my job for dear life“.

- What are your core skills? This one is asked because it’s annoying to read through the resume full of TLA’s — VBA, php, .NET, SQL, ASP … etc.

When we’re feeling funny, we’re asking “What are your weaknesses?” just to hear people twist their supposed “strengths” into a “weakness” that sounds like a “strength”. Cracks me up every time I hear “I care too much“, “I am too dedicated“, “I do whatever it takes“. No, no you do not. Work tech support help desk on Christmas then, tough guy.

Indeed so. My wife and I were looking for some patio furniture … As far as I am concerned, I can get by with some basic plastic chairs, but here we were, looking for some anyway. I suppose there comes a point in time when “slumming” makes you look like an asshole, especially when co-workers show up and want to go outside to have a beer only to find out you own two plastic chairs found at some yard sale.

So I started doing my research only to get instantly terrified by prices of decent, sturdy cast iron chairs. Needless to say, those plastic chairs started to look pretty good.

Then I decided to hit Craigslist for estate and garage sales. After uploading the addresses to our trusty GPS unit, we jumped in the car and went weekend-yardsaleing. Though first three sales were pretty cool (I bought lots of used computer-related gadgets from an I/T guy who was moving abroad), we hit the motherload on the forth attempt: a storage unit blowout.

Turns out, an owner of a warehouse storage unit was trying to reach one of his tenants for weeks, while following a strict legal procedure of notification. After so many attempts to reach the tenant, everything inside the storage unit now belonged to the owner, who just wanted to get rid of it all NOW as he was losing income (since his tenant disappeared and stop making payments). It’s weird, but he said stuff like that happens all the time — people rent storage units, fill them up with their small business inventories, then move, go broke, or … die. As a result, the owners of those units just want the crap out of their storage units.

So we hit one of those sales. The inventory consisted of very Texified furniture — huge wooden tables, chairs, beds, mirrors, leather lampshades, country-style and wrought iron furniture, all really well made. After a quick bargaining session with the owner, we ended up with 4 beautiful (and very heavy) wrought iron chairs for $15 apiece.

Here’s all four:

The real crazy thing is the original and sale prices:

Original:

… and sale price:

Even if we found them at a hundred bucks apiece, which is a great price for those, we’d be out $400, may be $350. Instead, we drove out of there with good 120 lbs of wrought iron furniture for a mere $60.

Needless to say, perusing Craigslist is now my favorite weekend pastime.