This was a very quick audio book, only about 3 hours in length, and probably a stretch even at that length. I had read the original “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book about 5 years ago at the recommendation of my uncle, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Therefore, when I saw this book from the same author about the best practices of starting up a business I was quite intrigued. Unfortunately, the book didn’t live up the hype of its predecessor. There were a few good points here and there, but the overall flow of the book didn’t seem to work.

The one thing that I will take away from the book is the advice not to think “cheap”, otherwise your clients will think you are “cheap.” What I mean by this can best be summed up by an example that the book gave. There was a guy who was an accountant and wanted to keep his rates reasonable to attact the most customers, which he ended up succeeding in doing. Unfortunately, since his rates were lower, his clientele seemed to be of a lower class as well, and before he knew it, he was spending more time haggling over his rates and hours with clients than he was able to actually spend working. After finally having enough of this, he decided to raise his rates from something like $50/hr to $500/hr. I’m sure this sent shockwaves through his current clients, but in the end he started getting new clients who were willing to pay for his services (which were good), and he started to make more money, working less hours, and not having to deal with “cheap” people. Moral of the story, if you think of yourself as “cheap”, so will others.

Well, since I was having such a great time with my parents and Barbie’s family last week, I didn’t get any time to post something. Therefore, I’ll try to make up for it this week with a multitude of miscellaneous information. However, let’s start off with last week. My parents arrived the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and of course the first thing they wanted to do was to shop in Palo Alto. Some people are shoppers, others are not, which is the reason Barbie went home after lunch…that and because the dog can’t be left alone inside forever. Eventually we made it home and showed them our new house, and it’s funny how everyone has the same response…”It’s a lot bigger than I thought from looking at it from the outside.” Anyways, they seemed to like it, especially since they had their own wing of house for the next week.

Instead of trying to delve into the specifics of each day, as that is going to take forever and I probably have forgotten on what particular day we did what, I’ll just give you the highlights:

• My parents got me an hour golf lesson gift certificate at pebble beach for my 30th birthday, so on Monday we headed down to Carmel for my lesson. The first thing the guy noticed was that I was coming up at of my stance and that I would partially lean back on the downswing. After trying to correct this for about 1/2 hour, I finally got it and started hitting the ball fairly well…although it was only with the 8 and 6 irons. Once I moved up to the driver something went awry and the ball just wasn’t doing what I wanted. However, if I can get my irons down, it’ll be nice. The instructor seemed very knowledgeable, and even Barbie noticed my faults immediately after he pointed them out. After the lesson, my parents and Barbie all stayed and hit balls at the range.
• Barbie and I got massages in Carmel after the lesson as my parents shopped…once again, some people like to shop, some like to get a massage
• Tuesday we all played golf at a course way up in the Santa Cruz mountains. No better way to practice what you have learned than to head to the course. Barbie and my Dad actually played the best, but my mom and I hung in there.
• After golf we stopped at the ‘David Bruce’ winery for some tasting, and eventually split a case of wine. My parents actually fell in love with this wine after having it for dinner the night before in Carmel, so it was just a coincidence that we passed by the winery
• Saw the movie Jarhead…give it a B+
• Had an absolutely great Thanksgiving with my parents, Barbie’s parents, Barbie’s grandparents, and Barbie’s sister’s family. The best part was that we were able to seat all 12 people at the table at once…which was our plan when we were looking at the furniture 2-3 months ago.
• Friday my parents and I went to Santana Row for what else…to shop. Lucky for us the weather was cloudy/misty, so the place was empty…not what we expected at all for the ‘busiest’ shopping day of the year.
• Saw the movie “Walk the line” about Johnny Cash. Very good movie…highly recommended. The best part is that Cash actually selected who he wanted to play him before he died…so you knew you were getting the best actor out there for the part.

I’m sure I missed a ton of other things that we did, like watching my dad try to convert one of our switches to a dimmer, and picking up our newly framed paintings, but this gives you the general gist. As sad as it was to see my parents leave, it’s nice to know it’s only a few weeks away til we see them again. Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, I just had to say to congratulations to Mr. A-Rod (a.k.a. Alex Rodriguez) for winning the AL MVP Award in baseball yesterday. The best part about this is that he is a Yankee and beat out a Red Sox player (David Ortiz). What did he do to win the award, well Rodriguez hit .321 with an AL-high 48 homers, 130 RBIs and 21 steals. Not too shabby for a Westminster grad from Miami. Somehow I think he is moving the entire salary bell curve for our entire class since he makes $25 million per year playing, plus another few million for endorsements. And to think, I told him baseball wasn’t his sport, and he should stick to basketball.

A-Rod Article

Someone sent this photo over to me, and I thought it was hilarious and just a great idea for a bathroom at a club. Nothing like stroking a guy’s ego.

Click on the image to see it in detail.

This past Wednesday Barbie and I got to see U2 live at the Oakland arena. I don’t go to many concerts in general, but being that U2 is my favorite group, I have been able to make it to there last 3 concert tours (Pop in Miami, Elevation in San Jose, and now Vertigo in Oakland). All 3 concerts have been great, and the stages are always excellent. The good thing about going to this concert was that I didn’t think it was going to happen since they were playing in North America while we were in Europe, then when we moved back to the States, they started there tour back in Europe. However, for some reason (which I speculate to be money), they opened a few new dates in the States, one of which was Oakland. All in all a great concert, mainly b/c they played a lot of their older songs instead of just the ones from their latest album. So, if they are in town, spend the money and go see them…you’ll thank me later.

This was another audiobook that I have recently finished, and I must say I did enjoy it. I have read other reviews on the book that complain about the book not going into details about how it came to its conclusions, but if someone wants a book like that, go buy a text book. This book is about giving an economist view on different things in the world based on answering questions that some of us have thought of before, and other things that we wouldn’t think of in a million years. The answers given are derived from statistical analysis, which the book does not delve into too much, hence the complaining of some reviewers, but just touches on how he came to a conclusion. What are the questions you ask? Well, here are some of them:

• What really caused the crime rates to fall dramatically in the late 90’s when everyone was saying they were going to increase?
• Why do drug dealers still live with their moms if they are making so much money?
• Why does a sumo wrestler who normally wins a match only 48% of the time, all of sudden win about 80% time in certain matches?
• Why do blacks give their kids names that may hurt them economically later in life?
• Are teachers cheating to help their students pass standard exams?

As you can see, some of these questions can be quite controversial, and the answers to some of them even more so. I don’t want to ruin the book for you, but his answer to the first question (What caused crime to drop?) is abortion! Talk about being politically incorrect, but after you here is logic, and the actual number of abortions per year, you may start to think so also. Try and take a guess on how many abortions there are to live births. In other words, how many babies are born for every abortion? Well, when the question was posed to me I was thinking about 100 births for every 1 abortion…WRONG!! According to the book, there is an abortion for every 2.2 births!! That is an astounding 31.25% of every baby/fetus conceived. Whatever your political/moral beliefs are on the subject, I would hope you think that number is way out of control. It almost seems that people are using abortion as a form of birth control. I am almost positive that contraceptive companies would go out of business if people were getting pregnant 30% of the time they used their product. Anyways, I’m going on off on a tangent, but at least the book gives you some stats which make you think, which is what I am looking for in books these days….guess that is what getting old is all about. So, I’d give this book a 3.5-4 star rating out of 5, mainly because the last chapter of the book seems to ramble on and on after making its point. It was almost as if they needed to fill space. Overall, an interesting listen/read.

This past weekend we went back to Napa Valley, a.k.a. the wine country, to celebrate our anniversary. This is the first time in almost 3 years that we have been back together. Barbie actually went up there a year or so ago for a work function, but what good are things unless I am involved right? Anyways, the first thing I noticed was that things have gotten quite pricey up there. Everything from the B&B’s, hotels, motels, wine, food, etc. have all gone up a good amount. Probably the most prolific change was in the tasting fees. When I first went to Napa back in 1998 or so with Erick, tasting was basically free. Then, as the years progressed and the wineries realized people could basically get all the wine they wanted for a day or two without paying anything, they decided to start charging a nominal fee to taste, but if you bought a bottle, that fee would go towards your purchase. Well now, the wineries have decided to charge a tasting fee, but your fee no longer goes towards the purchase of a bottle should you so choose to buy one. Needless to say, after about 6 wineries of an average price of $5-$10 per winery, the price of your day starts to go up. Despite all of this, we ended up buying an absolute ton of wine…3 cases to be exact. For those beer drinkers out there, a case is 12 bottles in wine talk…not 24. So, our entire wine fridge is full, with about 10 bottles still left over, so if you are in the mood for wine, stop on by!