Cut your Power Use with a Smart Powerstrip

You may not have been aware that about 75% of the electrical power used by our devices is consumed after they are switched off. Charging capacitors, batteries, and background processes can consume a large quantity of power, and it is necessary to interrupt the flow of electricity to stop that consumption.

You can monitor and cut off power use by using a smart powerstrip, which also serves to protect your electronics from power surges.

Just by plugging your appliances into smart strips and shutting them off entirely when not in use, you could save yourself well over 20 dollars a month, and that adds up to $240 a year or more!

Smart powerstrips will run you approximately 30 dollars online at SmartHomeUSA, but there are many competing products on the market. Evaluate your options and choose what works best for you!

Cool Post

It's feeling like winter all over again, with bracing cold and bitter winds, carrying a soft snow and a hard promise of wind chills below 0 degrees, car accidents, and bad situations.

The only upside to mention of the terrible cold is my choices in midwintery couture. I have a bespoke cotton coat that belonged to my father, along with a crew neck woolen sweater from J.Crewe and Nike sweat pants that I have been using as snow pants.

All of these are in addition to my Covington shirts, cotton Docker slacks, and Jockey thermal under clothes.

So, in summary, I'm looking cool, staying warm, and dreading the cold.

I hope all of you out there have been taking care of yourselves!

A Quick Study

I usually attribute a number of positive qualities to myself, among them my capacity to study up and learn pretty much anything that I need to within a relatively short period of time.

This has served me well many times, and allowed me to succeed in a number of less than perfect situation. That said, it is usually a good idea to get a grasp of a situation to learn the basics prior to starting out in a new situation in life.

Along with my work and my hobbies, and the process of filling out application after application, I've been doing self study on a few online courses.

Hopefully a few of the skills contained therein prove useful to me.

The Power of Poaching Can Save You Time and Money

Say what you will about cooking meat, but it is kind of a hassle. You have to worry about the temperature of your pans, the time that you keep your ingredients at room temperature, the length of cooking, and the overall safety of your kitchen to a much greater degree than you do for simple vegetables.

I actually like to eat meat, and I cook with it pretty frequently, so I have found a method that works for me.

I cook large batches of food, and store them for future consumption as a regular practice to save me some time and prevent me from running out to grab a ready made meal, so I usually have one or two cooking days a week, usually over the weekend.

On these days, I will poach the meat that I plan to eat over the course of the upcoming week. I boil it in hot water until thoroughly cooked, and then process it further into whatever form I plan on eating it in. I can quickly sear the sides of a piece of poached meat before slicing it up over some pasta, chop it up and toss it into a pan of fried rice or a pot of stew, or even just pour some sauce over it and freeze it for a future entree.

It really keeps the workload down, and I can poach whole pieces of meat, so I don't have to cut raw meat unless I'm receiving primal cuts from the butcher, which rarely ever happens.

Does anyone else out there poach their meats?

I realize that I might catch some flak from people that like to eat their meat anywhere below well done, but that is fine. I just prefer thoroughly cooked meat.

Angel Investing: Big Risk, Big Rewards if you have the money and the friends

As a recent college graduate with my own financial issues, I've had a lot of time to think about the way that money exchanges hands. I've learned about the different financial instruments available to the average person, from the different tax sheltered retirement vehicles, tax credits and deductions for business owners, employees, students and families, and evena number of different securities.

I am always looking to learn more, and not too long ago I came across the phenomenon of Venture Capital, and more specifically investing clubs for venture capital.

The ideas behind angel investment, or venture capital, are reasonable. These days, businesses can undergo meteoric growth within a relatively short period of time, and an early investment in a successful company like Reddit, Youtube, PayPal or Google can pay back well over 300x the initial sum within only a few years.

The problem with venture capital, however, is that it is extremely risky. Companies might like to be the next Google, but there are hundreds of thousands of websites and web based businesses and entrepreneurs that are making peanuts, or losing money every year on hosting fees.

So, much like any savvy investor, these venture capitalists have decided to diversify their investments. Instead of spending $500,000 on a single company to boost it into a profitable position and prepare it for an IPO where you stand to make nothing, or $60 million, these investors find 9 like minded individuals to each contribute $50,000, and each get their share of $6 million. And they will be able to invest in 10 companies instead of just 1.

While the risk may not be reduced in each individual case, the investor will not be broken by the failure of a single business, but rather by the failure of all 10 of the businesses.

For more information, please consult the following:

http://www.angel-investor-clubs.com/

http://www.cbeid.org/Angel%20InvestmentClubsSummary.pdf

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Inside-Entrepreneurship-Angel-investment-clubs-1265773.php

http://www.angelcapitalassociation.org/

Highlander, Search for Vengeance (2007)

I was recently taken under the influence of an errant thought.

What was the name of that actor, that starred in the hallmark 80s movie the Highlander? I couldn't ditch the thought, and I decided to look up Christopher Lambert, the actor. In the process, I found that there had been a number of sequels, an animated movie, a television series that went on for 6 seasons (!) and a 2007 anime-style movie of a dystopic future in a postmodern world stricken by war, disease, and the products of an excessive civilization.

I decided to assault my sensibilities with this most recent presentation of The Highlander, and I was not disappointed.

Action.

Drama.

Stunning animation.

Graphic violence, tension of multiple kinds, love stories and tales of might and magic.

It was quite entertaining, I'd recommend it to anyone that has not yet seen the film.

It is a full hour and a half of content, so make sure to have enough time, but it is available on DVD and probably through some sort of streaming service if you are looking for that kind of thing.

Frugality Is A Good Thing

I am a strong proponent of frugality as an approach to a number of endeavors, for a variety of reasons that I will expand upon below and possibly in future posts.

I believe that a frugal person can make a given amount of resources go farther and perform more effectively than a spendthrift, and thereby gain the most utility out of them. It is easier to provide for oneself and ones dependents when living frugally, thus reducing the stress and pressure to engage in less than pleasant activities for money to live off of, and allowing for a greater freedom to seek fulfillment in one's days beyond the simple procurement of wages.

Frugality is also more likely to result in an excess of funds than wanton or unintentional spending, which allows for the benefits of giving, saving, and investing in the future as opposed to immediate and satisfying consumption.

Far be it from me to condemn anyone for their habits, and many people are still living within their means when they spend what seem to be astronomical sums, but for my purposes a lower than average cost of living is more than adequate to meet my needs.