I recently joined the 21st century and bought a BlackBerry. It’s the new BlackBerry Storm too. My old phone finally died after a few years of solid abuse. I ended up buying the Storm at Best Buy on the release date since the local Verizon store was sold out. I’d like to thank Gordon in the Mountain View/Palo Alto area for not getting to Best Buy in time. I bought yours. In all honesty, I wanted an iPhone but I can’t stand AT&T. I’ve also been a Verizon customer since GTE Mobile. After playing with it for a few weeks here are some of my thoughts.

The accelerometer tends to get stuck and fails to recognize whether the phone is in the vertical or horizontal orientation. This makes answering the phone very difficult. To answer the phone you have to select the “answer” button that appears on the screen while it’s ringing. I kept losing calls waiting for the phone to recognize its orientation so I could press the button. Research in Motion released a patch last week which fortunately fixed the accelerometer issue. The phone is usable now. I was pretty disappointed for a while.

VZ Navigator is way cool. I don’t know how I survived before without it. I was on travel last week to King’s Bay, Georgia and used it for directions to and from the hotel. The phone was able to find a steak house and a Starbucks within a few miles of the hotel. I had never been to the area before so the GPS capability was very helpful. I also used it again to find a friend’s house in Fremont.

E-mail and web are working just fine. I have access to my non-work e-mail and the web browser actually looks like a web browser. I dig the keypad for typing. The full QWERTY keyboard works nicely. I’d never used a BlackBerry before so I can’t compare it to the button style devices but I can definately say I like it better than the iPhone. I’m always missing buttons on an iPhone. I’m told with practice I’d get used to it. I didn't need practice with the Storm. I was typing quickly on day one.

I haven’t really played with the camera so I can’t comment on it. iTunes is synched using the BlackBerry Digital Synch tool and I was able to copy a DVD onto the phone which looks great. Fortunately the phone uses standard phone jacks so I don’t have to use the weird ones my Krazer used. All in all I like the phone and can definitely see why they call it a crack berry. It was $199.99 with a two year contract. My contract had been up for a while and I just renewed it. I have no idea what my monthly bill will be since I was signing up with everything. I’ll find out in a few weeks.

Good grief it’s Christmas already. We don’t even have a tree yet. I don’t know about any of you out there but I’ve been having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Work is killing me and we’re not even allowed to take the holiday break this year due to schedule constraints. I hope this isn’t what we have to look forward to in the years to come. I miss Christmas the way it was when I was a kid. Maybe our newest addition will help out with that. He should be here around August next year and ready for his first Christmas. We may even be in our first house.

As far as Christmas shopping, we have done 0 shopping so far. Since I’ve been on this financial kick, I’m not too thrilled about spending a bunch of money on gifts to feed retailers. Online shopping isn’t fun either since the instant gratification factor is removed. The economy sucks and I’m turning into scrooge. I hate it.

Holy cow I’m going to be a father! The wife just took a pregnancy test, a few actually, and confirmed that we are pregnant. The next step we think is to go to the doctor and confirm the pregnancy then schedule a real appointment for an ultrasound and other prenatal activities. We haven’t told our friends and family yet; we were going to tell them at Christmas using some form of gag gift. There were a bunch of ideas posted the web which looked like fun. Since no one reads this blog anyways we figured it would be safe to post on the web.

We have a lot of decisions to make in the next few months. The plan was originally to buy a house in the area and continue on as a dual-income-no-kids family. With this change, we’re entertaining the possibility of the wife quitting her teaching job when the baby is born and moving to another state. I make enough in my current job that with a transfer she could easily be a housewife if we lived somewhere else. She doesn’t have tenure with her current school and we’re afraid that she may not get asked back for tenure since the due date is right around the start of the next school year. She’s in the first year of a two year probationary period. The last thing we want is to have a large Silicon Valley mortgage, a newborn, and one income. It may actually be beneficial to rent a house when our apartment lease is up. Rents have come down a lot in the area and we could easily handle terminating a lease if push came to shove; can’t say the same about a mortgage. It’s all a little surreal right now. Articles on the web say it won’t sink in until the second or third month.

Our emergency cash reserve isn’t quite full and we’re just starting to approximate how much a child actually costs. Wow, are they expensive. After some basic number crunching it looks like we could have six months worth of expenses covered by the time the child is born and a little extra padding to account for any unpaid maternity leave. I’m going to check with HR to see if I qualify for paternity leave so I can help out. Stay tuned for updates for those of you read my blog!

I’m not a big NASCAR fan. I think it’s boring actually. With General Motors and Ford struggling and possibly going under, it looks like Toyota should do pretty well in next year’s manufacturer standings. America’s newest favorite sport; brought to you by Japan. Go figure.

I never thought I would ever be in agreement with the Senate Republican minority on a General Motors (GM) bailout. GM has for decades been building cars that American’s do not want. While gas and oil prices have consistently risen year after year, GM has always remained top heavy in SUVs and pick up trucks with sub par gas mileage. It feels as if there was a conspiracy between the American automotive industry and big oil to help ensure America remained dependent on foreign oil. GM could have led the world into a new era with the EV1 a decade ago. Yet here we are again, with the similar problem: how to keep the automotive worker employed. Keeping the EV1 alive and ushering in an era of petroleum free vehicles would have supposedly decimated the automotive repair industry by eliminating manufactures and retailers that provide parts and services for internal combustion engines. Rather than destroy its bread and butter industry, GM removed all but a few cars from the roads and continued down its failure proven road of gas hungry muscle cars and trucks. It is infuriating that GM has the gall to ask the American tax payer to foot the bill so it can continue to proceed misguided. I do not believe they are viable. I do not believe loaning money to Chrysler in 1980 was a success either. They too are right back where they were almost 30 years ago as will GM be right back where it is now. America has always been a nation that has adapted and risen to the challenges presented. This is a capitalist/Darwinian society. GM should be allowed to fail so the company can be reborn under another name with new management. Like GM will have to adapt and change course, the Detroit area worker will probably have to learn a new trick or two to pay the bills.

Pundits once again show America that they really have no idea what they’re doing. I was floored when John Zogby admitted on The Daily Show the sample size they use for their presidential poll is around 900 people. How can a “random” sample of 900 people in New Hampshire be representative of the American public? New Hampshire provides 4 electoral votes! They’re barely a blip on the radar; up there with Hawaii. Woo Hoo!!! What if pundits weighed the polling results? For example, if a poll is taken across various states, weigh the results by how much they really affect the outcome of the presidency. New York results count more than Nevada results. Sorry, they really do. Who cares what New Hampshire thinks!! This race is far from over. Take the crown away from Obama, he hasn’t won the Democratic ballot yet; neither has Hillary for that matter. Republicans need to get on the same page and figure out if they’re for the religious right or against it pretty soon. Huckabee goes from winning Iowa to third in New Hampshire? Maybe the Colbert bump will help out again soon. Should be fun.

Ahhh… cheap wine. Today was one of those days. Ten hours at work; foot to the floor all day trying to get it done for the man. Rather than settle in with a beer, my girlfriend scored a bottle of Fish Eye Cabernet Sauvignon. We like to pretend we’re living it up every now and then. You would be surprised how decent a bottle of wine with a screw top costing fewer than six bucks can taste. My dad is a wine junkie and will spend whatever it costs to enjoy a nice bottle. Although, a bottle of two-buck-chuck would have sufficed since it was that kind of day, I really enjoyed Fish Eye. It wasn’t harsh like you’d expect an inexpensive wine to be and tasted like a Cab should. I think it is fun enjoying inexpensive wines. It really beats being disappointed with a pricier bottle, and even if you’re disappointed you’re only out six bucks. Next time you find yourself at the grocery store and you’re thinking of wine, there’s nothing to be ashamed of going for a bottle under ten bucks. Even a $200.00 bottle can turn with a bad cork. Pick a label that catches your eye and drink what you like with whatever you’re eating. I recommend starting a wine journal to document what you like and what you don’t like. With so many labels out there they’re easy to forget.

Credit card companies love it when you carry balances. They love it so much they want to help you spend money!! For the longest time I carried a serious balance close to 90% of my available credit. Over the past few months, I’ve been able to pay it down significantly and have brought my utilization ratio down to 15%. Capital One likes to send me reminders that I have available credit to use. Every month I get a set of checks already written out to me in the amount of 80% of my available credit. They claim it’s so I can spend money the way I want to. Free money!!! Thanks Capital One. If you get these, please don’t use them. Send them straight to the shredder. It can be tempting, but being responsible with credit feels a lot better than running up a balance to buy a new set of golf clubs. Believe me; I’ve thought about it. I really would like a new set of clubs since my last ones mysteriously disappeared…

On a side note, I don’t know about anyone else, but those checks give me the creeps. They’re already written out and have a little too much information on them. With a little social engineering, a dumpster diver could do some serious damage. I toss these into the shredder immediately.

How on Earth can long distance providers still be in business? With wireless prices dropping and providers offering unlimited calls to anywhere in the United States, there is a strong argument for dropping the land line. I have a land line with AT&T providing both DSL and the AT&T All Distance Online Select package. When we subscribed, it seemed reasonable at around $60.00 for phone and Internet. A Comcast bundle wasn’t looking any cheaper after the introductory period. With additional surcharges and taxes, the AT&T bill is around $74.00 every month. There are over $14.00 is taxes and additional charges! My favorite charge is the Universal Service Fee.

Federal Universal Service Fee
The Universal Service Fund (USF) promotes and assures the availability of universal service at rates that are just, reasonable and affordable, and to provide for reasonably comparable service and rates between rural and urban areas. Telecommunications providers are allowed by law to surcharge their customers to recover the USF charges they pay. This charge is not a tax.

Just to be sure I understand it; they charge me more so they can change others less. Good plan. I’m looking into Verizon phone plans; maybe change TV/Internet bundles with another provider, or possibly dropping long distance. I’m not too thrilled with Comcast prices and I really don’t want a dish. I had used a wireless phone as my only phone for years and it worked out just fine. I wonder if I live close enough to Google for free Internet.

2007 is finally finished. I took a look at how my 401(k) did for the year and decided to post my holdings and gains/losses. It wasn’t a bad year considering I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I started reading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and realized I was lucky to finish where I did.

Summary: Opening Value: Employee Contributions: Employer Contributions: Investment Gains/Losses: Reinvested Dividends: Closing Value on 12/31/07: Investment Performance:

$18,886.54 $6,308.88 $3,154.44 $1,991.51 $118.33 $30,459.70 8.99%

Holdings: Vanguard Windsor (VWNEX): American Century Growth (TWGIX): Russell 3000 Index (IWV*): MSCI EAFE Index (EFA*): ESOP Fund:

$4,527.15 $6,277.09 $7,195.88 $6,807.30 $5,652.28

*Posted ticker symbols are representative of funds intent.


Right off the bat, there are problems. Almost 19% of my holdings are with my company’s common stock fund. This does not provide any protection against fluctuations for Wall Street's valuation of my work place. It can be considered wise to, “invest in what you know”, but not to this extent. It’s dangerous and I was lucky that our company’s stock had been rising steadily for over a year. Also, since I’ve been reading Graham, I noticed I do not have any holdings in bonds. Based roughly on what I’ve read, an investor should carry no less than 25% of their total holdings in bonds (government or corporate depending on your tax situation). This can be adjusted based on one's level of effort in research and not risk. Graham tosses out the (110 – age) or (100 – age) formula for bond holdings since it is dependant on an individual's financial needs. I also have a large percentage of foreign stocks and small cap industries and not enough in dividend providing stocks.

I’m still learning and have realized I’m going to make mistakes. I’ve also learned to not try and, “beat the market”. If I finish at around 8.99% every year, I’ve done pretty well. I’m still taking a look at where I want to go with 2008. Right now, I know I’m going to decrease my company stock holdings to less than 10% and include a bond fund to take up at least 25% of my holdings. I still don’t know what to do with the other funds. Part of me wants to open a “self managed account” and ditch the funds I have. I’m not exactly fond of them. Another part wants to go directly into Graham type common stocks and another part of me wants to pick a boring index fund and go on auto-pilot. We’ll see what happens.