Money

I was talking to some of my friends out here recently and apperently, alot of people do not investe money. And I, for the life of me, can't understand why. Its like people believe that the stock market works by some voodoo magic. I just don't get it. Inflation is typically around 3% a year. It will vary of course but thats a pretty fair standard to work with. However, most savings accounts at banks only pay about the same amount or less. In order to make money on your money, you need to outgain inflation.

There are of course many things you can invest in, but its odd that so many people don't. The easiest and safest is a money market account. The idea here is that you give your money to a bank or investment company and they invest it into guarenteed securities. The cost is almost always 1 dollar a share but the return is usually a little better than whatever your bank would give you in a CD. Its better cause its entirely secure, and you get a better rate than a personal CD, since the money market can leverage their larger mount of money into a better rate of return.

But you dont make significant gains over inflation with a money market, which is really a glorified savings account. To do that, the most common approach is to invest in ownership assests, the most common being stock. The S&P 500 is the index of 500 companies that are representative of the market as a whole, its a generally good indicator of performance. As a historical note, the S&P averages a return of 10.8% since its inception. Thats a significant gain of money. Consider this, based on those historical rates (dating back close to 100 years) the amount of money you invest will double in about 7 years. That means that if you start investing at my age (as most of the people reading this are) then any money you put in will double 4 times, or be 16 times the original amount. If you invest 10,000 now and leave it, then you have over 160,000 when you retire. Thats huge.

More on Gun Control (Linked)

Why Guns are Important

The Wall Street Journal has this to say about gun rights and control as relates to the Virginia Tech shootings. Make no mistake, I am absolutely horrified about what happened and feel very sad for teh victums. But thats just it, I feel that there was measures that could be taken that would have prevented them from being victims to enabling them to respond to the crisis.

An armed populace makes walking into a room and shooting a much more difficult affair. This guy at VT was able to walk in an kill 30 people in the classrooms as well as wound a large number as well. He did this with 2 different handguns that, judging by the reported size of the magazines, he would have had to reload each one at least once and probably more than once if he missed more than 1 or 2 times out of all his rounds. If you have ever reloaded a pistol, its almost impossible to do with one had so he had to stop firing and was vulnerable for a significant amount of time. Even if there was only one person that was able to carry in the classroom, he wouldn't even need to get into a gun fight, he would have had an oppertunity to completely handle the assailant while he was able to return fire. I only make this point to say that you don't need to be some kind of sharpshooter or anything else, just having a firearm there could have made all the difference.

As shown time and time again, if you are going to kill alot of people, regardless of reason, a gun-free zone isn't a bad thing to you. Its not like you are afraid to break that law but have no problem with a multiple homicide. Unless you are able to enforce a gun free zone for everyone, such as having every person go through a metal detector to go into any public place, then a gun free zone only keeps firearms, a legitimate tool for self protection, out of the hands of law abiding citizens. Think of it this way. I am a rational person, who is trained in the use of firearms by the United States Army and I shoot civilian guns (to include revolvers, pistols, shotguns, and rifles) fairly regularly. If I was in an area near you and someone you didn't know just came in and started shooting randomly at people, would you feel safer if i had a firearm on me or not? According to some people, you are less safe with me able to subdue the shooter and having to wait for police.

When i come home...

I was thinking it over and there are 2 things that I want to upgrade when i get back home from what i am currently working with.

The first is that I need a new laptop, pretty badly. My apple is now well over 2 years old and the desert has not been kind to it. The power cord is fraying and the battery is now non-existant. Add on to that the G4 is now pretty obsolete since apple now uses intel chips, i still can't find good software, and it crashes 2x a week (losing the date and time) it seems like now is about the time to let it go. The current front runner is the HP 6000 model with the Intel Dual Core 2 chip. Seems like a beast, we will see in about 4 months.

The second thing i want to upgrade is the personal hygiene. Most specifically the facial area. Obviously if you know me, you already know i take great pride in my shaving and i want to continue that and improve upon that and also work with some better cleaning and moisturizing. So in that vein, i have picked out a new shaving brush, soap, and razor that i want to get, and i'll be looking for better facial cleaners in the near future.

The razor being the most familar thing to most people, lets start with that. The one i want isn't new at all, and you can only get it on ebay. I want a Gillette Fat Boy razor. Why a razor thats 50 years old, no longer made, and similar to my Merkur Classic? Well, from all accounts i can read, there are two big types of double edge razors, the Merkur and the Gillettes. The Merkurs are supposed to be the slightly closer shave and the Gillettes a little less aggressive. The fat boy would give me a different kind of DE so i could find what i like best. It also has the advantage of being adjustable, which is pretty cool. I want something with a polished and classic feel so this seems to fit the bill, and its pretty cheap in ebay!

The brush i am looking for I havn't really made up my mind yet. Its hard because you are going totally on reviews and you can't try it out and take it for a test shave. The current ones in my mind are the ShaveMacs and the Superior brand brushes. The shavemacs are from Germany and are beautiful handles ones. I would get it in the best or the finest grade as i don't wanna spend huge amount of money for a silvertip, plus i like a little scruff from the brush. The Superiors are a small company in the US and they do the cool thing of making the handles individually out of Corin (used to make counter tops). Really cool idea and its totally unique. The prices are similar at about 50-65 a brush plus shipping. If anyone reading this is a shaving guru and wants to weigh in, advice is appreciated.

The last shaving item i want to get is a better soap. I am currently using the 1 dollar a cake soap from William's. Hey it was available at the PX. This might be the easiest way to get a better shave and the choices are from the 5 dollar ones from Classic Shaving to the 25 dollar soaps. Current ideas are to try one in the 12 dollar range. Luxury soap sounds cool to work with.

I'll probably get more used to better facial cleaning but i don' t know what to use for that so much right now but the Nivea for Men Double Action Face Wash really makes my face feel better. There has to be better than mass produced Target stuff if you look for it.

All about the ACU (Linked)

An evaluation about the ACU the army uses. Personally, i like the Nomex suits and wish we got to wear them full time.

Back?

Hey ya'll, I figure that since its been about a year or so since I have written anything (you know with the being in Iraq and all) that now seems like a fun time to try to get back into it. No promises of course but i'll try to write on here a little more often since it seems like a good way to let people know what i am up to, well what i can tell you at least. Enjoy it if its interesting!

Jimbo