Where I occasionally share my musings.


Take 5 Minutes

09.26.11 | | | Posted in Personal Mission by | | | 2 Comments

Sun Set in Boise, ID

Worth 5 Minutes? Yep.

One of my less endearing qualities (although I admit I have many) is impatience. Its never done fast enough. I’m never there soon enough. And I’m always getting ticked off about it.

I’m Getting Impatient

But the truth is, its usually done fast enough. I’m always there soon enough. And I’m getting mad for no good reason.

So I’m done. I’m getting impatient with my impatience. And I have an action step. Or at least a first step.

I’m taking 5 minutes.  Read More…


What is a Short Sale anyway?

09.16.11 | | | Posted in Economics by | | | 2 Comments

This post isn’t about the real estate variety of short selling (you know, the kind you’d expect me to talk about…). If you want to know what a short sale is in the real estate world check out my post, “What is a Short Sale anyway?“. Hey… that sounds familiar.

I’m talking about short selling stocks. And nope, I’m not an expert; but this is my blog and I’ll talk about it if I want to.

Economics and Finance 101

We’re all familiar with short selling’s better known sibling: “going long”. That’s to say, an investor buys a stock in Company A and hopes that, for a variety of reasons, that stock goes up thereby making a profit after selling the stock at the higher price.

In fact, the majority of all trading is done in this manner. And one of the reasons its called going long is because investors tend to hold on to their investments over long periods of time thus mitigating much of the risk of the stock going down and losing money on the investment.

Frankly its pretty boring stuff. Read More…


No, MY name is Seth

09.13.11 | | | Posted in Random Musing by | | | 0 Comments

Lately I’ve been having a light-hearted twitter fight (with Albert Ma) that I’ve been losing. Its been fun (for me anyway), but it has reminded me the power of a name. Our unique identifier.

Of course, our names aren’t unique. There are no fewer than a dozen Seth Neal’s that come up in a google search (although, admittedly, I spend a lot of time online so I’m most of page 1). And if you happen to have a name like David Brown (like good friend and author David Mark Brown), well unique is the last word you would use for your name.

First names are even worse. Read More…


Why Tyrants Win

09.08.11 | | | Posted in Fun, Rants by | | | 2 Comments

(And other mumblings from a Social Media dud.)

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines a tyrant as such:

tyrant |ˈtīrənt|
noun
• a cruel and oppressive ruler
• a person exercising power or control in a cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary way

Albert Ma, Dictator

Kim Jong-il, Albert Ma, Muammar Gaddafi

If you remember, sometime last week I made the case to unfollow Albert Ma. It was a (futile) retaliatory gesture wielded against an unjust, cruel tyrant. Otherwise known as the Fantasy Football Commisionor of the #lotrasFFL.

Well… Read More…


A Campaign to Unfollow Albert Ma (@albear)

09.02.11 | | | Posted in Fun, Rants by | | | 11 Comments

Just so there isn’t any confusion: I consider Albert Ma a friend and a great guy. The following is more a result of my procrastination on this fine Friday than anything else.

Note: If you don’t currently follow Albert Ma on Twitter please do so now so you can unfollow him at the end of this post.

Albert Ma of Boise, ID

Albert Ma = Kim Jong-il?

By most accounts Albert Ma is a nice guy. By some accounts Albert Ma is the Kim Jong-il of Boise, ID. I’m now convinced he is that later.

Here’s the story.

The Villian

Albert Ma believes in living the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. Admirable (or ridiculous, I can’t remember which). He is also a big fantasy football fan.

The result of these two passions is the Yahoo! Fantasy Football League, #lotrasFFL, where Kim, er… Albert is Dictator, er… Commissioner. Read More…


Boise

03.17.11 | | | Posted in Reflections by | | | 0 Comments

Boise. It definitley doesn’t suck.

Or maybe…

Boise. Man, this place is awesome.

I don’t know which it is;  but I thought I should just write something down, anything, to make my feelings on the matter public. Boise is a great place to work and live. In fact, people love lists so much I’m going to come up with my top 5 reasons Boise is awesome. Read More…


Da Bears versus The Packers: Greatest Games Ever

01.21.11 | | | Posted in Fun by | | | 0 Comments

Vince Lombardi and George Halas

Lets not forget that Papa Bear saved the Packers Franchise.

I’m so excited! Sunday January 23rd, 2011 The Chicago Bears will be facing The Green Bay Packers in what is only their second playoff meeting EVER! I SAID EVER PEOPLE!! Keep in mind, this is the oldest rivalry in the National Football League! And probably the best rivalry in all of professional sports. And they have only met one other time in the playoffs. Amazing. And for the record, the Bears won that 1941 meeting 33 to 14 as they went on to win the NFL Championship!

Anyway, all this excitement got me thinking about the 5 greatest Bears vs Packers games in history. Share your greatest games in the comments if you think I don’t know what I’m talking about; here are mine…  Read More…


Da Bears, circa Fall 2010

09.27.10 | | | Posted in Fun, Reflections by | | | 0 Comments

I know.

I over reacted. But you watched the pre-season too, didn’t you? We looked HORRIBLE. Completely hapless. I think I had every right to freak out. And after all the expectations of last year burning up like a super nova before our eyes I wasn’t going to make the same mistake going into the season. Sure, I may have swung a little to far into the Deeply Depressed Camp; but I’m here to announce that I believe we have a really good football team on our hands.

Not everyone thinks so yet. But after tonight they will. The Green Bay Packers were picked by many to win the NFC. And for good reason. They are a tough football team. The focus is usually on Aaron Rogers, and for good reason – he’s good. But they also have a tough defense and pretty competitive Special Teams units. But they aren’t without their flaws. Like the Bears, their Offensive Line could be much better. The O-line is so critical to the success of any team, but especially for teams like the Bears and Packers who want to throw the ball. But the biggest problem the Packers have is the lack of any sort of run game. Right. Its 2010 and nobody in the NFL runs the ball anymore. Well, I’m here to tell you its still important, especially in close games.

So, tonight is Bears vs Packers. The Bears are going to win this game easily if they can convert 40% or better on 3rd down and win the turnover battle. They will still be in the game even if they can’t. Its going to be a good one.

Bears 24 – Packers 17


I ♥ WordPress

08.23.10 | | | Posted in Fun, Random Musing by | | | 0 Comments

WordPress is great. Actually, its awesome. This site runs on WordPress. So do 10 million other sites; or so I’ve heard. A few weeks ago a whole twitter storm erupted over a certain theme that you can buy for WordPress. At issue was how the theme was licensed and whether or not that was congruent with WordPress’s GPL. The short answer is it wasn’t; or isn’t. You can read about what a GPL means here, but the short answer is it means that any software based off of General Public Licenced software also must be GPL’d. I know, its all real exciting.

But there was an exciting part for me! And since this is my site, I get to write about that here! The guy who was behind this theme made the claim in an interview that “he was one of the 3 most important people in WordPress”. Now, he has a lot of users of his theme, but the claim is was crazy outrageous. The guy has a serious case of narcissism (as it turns out, my kind of guy!). So the founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, decided to give away some t-shirts and certificates to anyone who ask. I asked… and now I’m One of the three most important people in WordPress too!

And then I found $5.


Two Good Friends

03.14.10 | | | Posted in Random Musing, Technology by | | | 0 Comments

Friends no more?On Friday I was reminded of two very dear friends of mine that have recently been on the outs… in fact, it seems like things are turning from bad to worse. It makes me so incredibly sad. In 2006 they almost got married! Or at least that’s what myself and their other mutual friends all thought–or more accurately–what we all hoped! But it looks like any chance of that is just laughable now. I’m guessing I’ll be lucky if I see them ever on talking terms again. Sad.

The whole situation makes me wonder what I’m supposed to do. How do I deal with this as someone who loves them both? Will I have to choose sides? I honestly don’t know…

Read More…