If you ask for a FL, you obviously didn’t watch this video.

As my dear wife’s blog adequately states, she’s about to be teaching as a classical education school, which is quite the new thing for her (and me!). To edu-muh-cate herself on the topic, she picked up several books recommended by the headmaster there (yeah, they’re badass, they have a headmaster).

One such book was entitled The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer. My ladyfriend, intrepid teacher that she is, greatly desired that I at least read the first four chapters of this book, simply that I would be more informed regarding her upcoming employment and could be engaged in discussion with her about the topic.

She got more than she bargained for. I read the 1st four chapters as requested, then continued on deeper in to the book, and purchased the tools the book suggests for its course of literature. You see, this book’s central point (IMO, of course) is that modern education lacks a great deal of depth, and that many of the skills of reading through and interpreting a book have been lost. The author offers up a digest of books, sorted by category (Novel, Autobiography, History/Politics, Poetry/Plays, in that order), that are then sorted by chronological order.

All in all, we’re looking at 117 books that include a sampling of the great literature of the world (though admittedly, mostly Western side of this world), in general from the last 400 years.

My goal, lofty as it is, is to work through this course of literature, no doubt skipping some titles and perhaps adding some of my own, and share thoughts from each of these works on this blog (since regular “hahah look what happened to me” posts are definitely on an extended pause for the moment).

Also, if your interested in the titles included on Bauer’s list, I’m working on creating a spreadsheet that has just about anything you’d need to know to pick up these books. It can be found Here. Note that I haven’t completely transcribed the publishers and publish dates yet, but its forthcoming soon.

Just for information’s sake, I’ll include the full list of titles and authors here, followed by the FL. Look forward to the thoughts on Don Quixote coming up soon!

Note I’m doing some experimenting w/ generating URLs to wikipedia using excel without typing in 117*2 a href=” blah blah blah statements. Some of these wikipedia articles may not work, but you’ll live, I think.

FL: Whoa. – best youtube of wild animals evar. Now, with stupid tourist/safari goer commentary!

The Credit Card

Part 1: Why credit cards suxxor.
Part 2 (this post): Details, details, details.

I strongly encourage you to read yesterday’s post before diving in to this one. I would recap it, but hey, that’s what the link /\ up there is for.

Why not get your Robin Hood-on?

Basically, the idea is: if I’m not profitable to credit card companies, why not simply continue what I’m doing and give the profits earned in cash back away?

And its a good question, but here’s why not:

- Retailer Fees: When I use an AMEX or VISA at any store worldwide, instantly the credit card company take a cut of the profit, which gets split between the credit card company, the data processor, and every other middleman out there. This ranges typically between 2 and 4% in the US, depending on the card (more on AMEX, less on VISA). Ironically, this makes perfect sense to me, as its a sustainable business model that processing and payment companies can use, and everyone profits. Well, everyone except the retailer. You see, that 2 to 4% obviously goes directly against the company’s net profit margin, and is just part of life given the prevalence of debit and credit cards now. In essence, when you use such cards, you’re drawing money out of your own community that had you used cash, would have remained (this is of course, dependent on the type of retailer).

- Ill Gotten Gains: Using money obtained by oppression to give away in the name of good doesn’t really work. It’s horribly inefficient, as in the end the person I’m trying to steal from (credit card co.) comes out way ahead than either myself or the recipient of my gifts. As noble as Robin Hood was, I’m not gonna try and emulate his leetness.

- Leverage: If I continue to use a credit card, my buying patterns are very clear to the cc company as well as the retailers I buy from. To be more clear, companies know that if I’m going to buy something, they better offer credit cards processing at their store. The higher the percent of the population that does this, the higher the cc companies can charge retailers for the ability to process their given card. I’m not too big a fan of this for aforementioned reasons, so… cash it is.

Re: Overkill

Depending on who you ask, dumping all of creditcard-dom and as much of debit card-dom as possible just because they pwn their customers may seem alittle extreme. I mean, if you go looking for bad stuff companies do, won’t you always find it in every industry if you look hard enough?

It’s probably true that you would find bad stuff in nearly every major company out there. And just cause its out there doesn’t mean I’m going to go looking for it. But when one specific segment of the marketplace tries every possible trick out there, every underhanded thing they can try, and a suitable alternative (read: cash) exists… why bother with it? There’s oodles of places you can look for the evidence, and if you have any affinity for personal finance at all, you hear about such evidence one way or another, every single month.

If there was no other way to make payments for the majority of purchases than credit cards and the alternative was a Luddite existence, I’d give pause to my actions. But if all I’m giving up is a cash back reward of a couple hundred dollars a year… oh well. I’d like the couple hundred dollars, but I’d also like not to profit from other peoples hard times.

As you might have noticed, I like writing about personal finance stuff, as it relates to faith. Thanks for reading.

FL: Woman tries to light a Walgreens on fire after receiving incorrect change – hm.

Hello, kiddies!

It’s time to talk about credit cards, more specifically how I (until today), have done my share of breeding oppression in my own neighborhood, and profited from it!

If you need a primer on credit cards, wikipedia is your man. or your woman. or your tool. hmm. Credit Card Wikipedia article.

Credit cards are all well and good, of course, and perfectly reasonable if you assume the following things:

1. People use their credit card responsibly.
2. Only people who understand the mechanics (i.e. compound interest) of not paying their bill are allowed to receive such a card.
3. Credit card companies maintain a policy that is socially responsible, as it relates to interest rates, what types of customers they target, etc.

Sadly, most informed observers would say none of these three things are occurring. Worse than that, the epidemic of debt is a dark thing, and is scary as you consider the effects it has on people (more on that later).

But who really cares, right? Eric should be concerned with Eric! (and he is). What other people do with their credit cards is their business, as long as I can control mine, then what’s the big deal?

Well, a long time ago I did a post about social responsibility as it relates to consumer products, namely: diamonds. I thought that would be the end of it, but that’s just not the case.

In fact, as I review the post now, the irony (ok, maybe it’s not irony, but it sounds good) is delicious. You see, in that post, I examined James 5:1-6 and showed through cause and effect, how I purchase products from companies that are oppressive to their workers puts responsibility on me, not just them, for their actions.

This is where it gets good. I said:

But then I realized something. It doesn’t have to be my workers. Every time I swipe my good ole’ little credit card and buy something from a company that does this type of behavior, if I have means to know about it (which, given the Internet, seems likely), I’m just as guilty as they are. [emphasis added]

How blind I was. How telling that I so quickly glossed over this little bolded nugget of joy at the time. You see, I’m coming to place where it’s not as easy to just stick a finger in each of my ears and yell, “LA LA LA LA” as loud as I can when I read and hear stories about how credit card companies behave. I can’t fetch the links at the moment (but will be glad to for any inquiring), but there are documented cases of companies holding payments till after the due date to incur late fees, charging incredible interest rates that no informed person would ever agree to if they understood what it meant, and other such policies. Not only that, but there are countless stories of people buried under ridiculous credit card debt, even to the point of suicide (which will be shown in the upcoming film [March 9th in theaters], MAXED OUT.)

At this point, some of you are blowing me off as trying to interfere in the free market economy, and that it’s not my place to be involved with the financial affairs of other people. The individuals, not the credit card companies, are the ones that ran up their bill, right? They signed the paper that got them the credit card, which explains in plain English (only as required by law, though) the terms of their agreement, and just how badly they get OWNED if they don’t pay the bill, right? Right? I mean, we don’t blame the car manufacturer for the car getting wrecked after someone was drunk driving, right?

And when those of you saying that, say that… I hear you. I believe all that stuff. It conflicts me when I think about such things.

Why does it conflict me? Because currently, the wife and I use a credit card with fairly favorable cash-back terms for our day-to-day expenses, solely for the purpose of collecting the cash back, which ranges between 1.5 and 5%, depending on the location. And I like it. We don’t have any credit card debt, we make money off the deal, and as a customer of any credit card company, we must be at very best marginally profitable, if it at all.

So I get to thinking about these companies. How on earth can they afford to give me 5% cash back on a decent proportion of purchases I make? You can’t get that deal anywhere else. I don’t pay them a dime over what I personally charged (that is, no interest $), so how does that work? Yes, I know these companies earn a large % of their income from charging retailers processing fees. Nevertheless, I continue.

It’s simple. The people they charge 22.9% interest, they just skim the slightest bit of that off the top, and hand me my profit. So let’s review:

1. Eric makes a charge, collects 5% cash back.
2. To pay that 5%, they pull from Joe Shmoe with $22,000 in credit card debt, who occasionally misses his payments, is dinged with fees, and who’s rates can jump up to 40% ish if he happens to default on any card he has.
3. CC Company and Eric profit, with the former doing much better than the latter, of course.

In essence, by being a customer of this company, I’m profiting off of the actions which at very best could be described as taking advantage of the people in my community. At worst, you could describe it as: “You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.” (James 5:6)

Yeah, that’s kind of flamboyant. But consider that quote on spiritual terms. Credit card debt is soul-killing, as well as are the policies of these companies. If you want to talk about condemnation, the collection industry is king. It all keeps people from freedom.

And again, I hear the personal responsibility zealots decrying my words. This stuff moves beyond personal responsibility for me. I can’t control the policies of American Express, VISA, and MasterCard. It’s perfectly legal for them to market to whomever they like, because at the end of the day people have the choice. But damn it, they certainly can do so in a responsible way.

It’d be one thing if they made a big point of offering credit counseling and even advised some potential customers that perhaps this product wasn’t the best idea for them. Or even published studies about the effect of credit card debt on people’s anxiety levels. Or explained the math in the simplest of terms. But why would they do that? That’s not good for the bottom line is it?

All the while, I profit from it. Not nearly as well as they do, but still enough to make the product attractive to me.

Well, I’m done with it. Starting today, looks like the wife and I will be back to spending good ole cash. Sure the debit card will be there, but according to most evidence, you spend less when you use cash vs. a debit/credit card, so… cash it is. I’d love to discuss this topic further; feel free to email me or comment below.

FL: It’s like digg knows exactly what I would appreciate it, votes it to the top, and throws it on my screen: Fat Chick Gets Stuck In Cave, Traps Other Cavers Inside – huh.

Pam was sharing about the wierd crap my parents are so likely to just… say.

Let’s listen in…

[scene: My mother, father, brother, sister are at the dinner table. My sister has just said "ass" in some way or another.]

Mother: Pam! Don’t say ass at the dinner table!
Father: Yeah Pam. Ass is a breakfast word!

I’d like to point out that the dear Heather, a Level 3 threshold laugher, laughed at this. That means you know its funny. Period. And such.

FL: Now… I try and stay away from YouTube/GoogleVideo links in the FL, cause I’m well aware they aren’t the most work-friendly FL’s. Well… this one doesn’t need volume, it’s just that awesome. Extreme Pogo.

At one of the locations at the store, one I don’t goto too often, the manager is a retired Marine sniper. He had a problem with the speakers on his work PC and couldn’t get them to come back on. He told me that whenever I got a chance, to head over that way and fix ‘em.

So a few days ago, I cruised over there and tinkered with the speakers for a few minutes, and got them blasting music once again. As I turn to leave, he says, “Hey Eric, thanks man. You ever need someone shot, you let me know.”

Priceless.

Just for the record, I will not be redeeming this favor, evar.

One final note, he has a bumper sticker, here is the artist’s (me) dramatization of it:

FL: How much does the water in a hurricane weigh? These guys make a guess, and it’s probably more than you’d guess.

As we approached the house my parents lived in, about 5 miles away, we were driving through a neighborhood, and there was a guy out there, probably in his 30′s, w/ his shirt off, wandering around the front yard of his nicely-kept suburban yard. This like many other suburbs, had rows and rows of houses, all with nicely kept grass, etc, etc.

The part that was mentally jarring was the fact that the man was walking around his yard, with something comparable to this (best pic I could find online):

That’s right, an incredible pig. The pig was probably about 4 feet long, maybe 2.5 feet around. It was a dark brown color, no hair, so it was kind of shiny.

So we start slowing down, perplexed by this odd… conversation piece in the middle of suburbia. I roll my window down, and yell, “dude, that’s AWESOME. What’s his name?”

Our intrepid hero, replies back, “Wilton.”

I got owned. He named his huge pig Wilton. I guess thats a good pig name, you can’t really name a pig something like Fluffy, or Tootsie.

Meanwhile, the car in front of us pulls off to the side of the road, and the driver gets out. [the following description is for the benefit of the reader to understand the power and compelling nature of having a giant pig in suburbia, not as a way to say I was checking her out, per se] Out pops a 20-something little girl, decently pretty/cute, and starts exclaiming about how much she is amazed by the pig.

So Heather and I roll on at this point so he can get his mac on, and I roll the window up, and say, “heather! that redneck guy is picking up chicks with his pig! hes using a pig named Wilton to pick up chicks!!! I’m so impressed.”

I’m not sure Heather was quite as excited about the pig as I. She was likely just glad to be 5 minutes from our destination.

Looking back, I gotta give the pig’s owner mad props. Given the relative attractiveness of the guy and the girl, I’m fairly certain a huge pig is the cheapest way for a guy of his attractiveness to get a girl to pull over and approach him. Smart man.

One final note: He probably calls the pig “chick magnet”, but to strangers, he calls it “Wilton.”

FL: Some lesser known laws of physics – Here’s an example, that is most likely true:

Law of Rugs and Carpets:
The chances of an open-faced jam Sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

Here’s one of my current favorites:

What the keys!

This phrase is near and dear to my heart. The action that accompanies it was first used in a Publix, as described in this now-legendary post: Things that make you guy… whaa?

Anyway, “what the keys” was first developed by myself and my house church companions, whom I love dearly.

I shall now attempt, in picture form to explain “what the keys!”

Emotion it conveys: Extreme distress, such that you can’t even talk you’re so confused or verklempt about something.

Tone you say it in: The same tone you might say “What the hell?!” or perhaps a more extreme version of the same phrase.

Usage:

Step One
Find something that upsets you enough to follow through with this, say, “What the keys!”, kinda with this sort of angst on your face:

Given what follows, its important to ensure that you have everyone in your immediate vicinity’s attention before proceeding.

Step Two
Locate your keys, and prepare to launch them into the air. You want to throw in a gentle arc, with the keys landing on the floor perhaps 2 to 3 feet from your feet. See here:

Step Three
Throw keys. Watch as they fly. Fly keys, fly.

Step Four
Watch the keys in their resting place. Reflect on whatever caused this outburst, perhaps giggle if the situation is appropriate.

FL: Lego Pinball Table – pretty much exactly what it says it is.

About page updated, located here.]

Well, after much weeping, gnashing of teeth, and tearing through of boxes, I finally located three items that have been very difficult to all find at one time:

- My camera
- My camera battery
- My camera battery charger

I found the camera and charger first, and then the battery about 30 minutes later. Once I found it, I put it on the floor, and danced in circles around it, roughly how an overjoyous football player would dance around a football after getting an incredible touchdown. See Heather for details on how this dance looked.

Anyway, I decided to have a picture post! Here we go.

The beautiful wife, in her natural habitat (doing word and number puzzles at home), who will be holding down the fort during my journey.

The big (well, medium sized) red barn that the horsies and pwnies spend their nights in. It’s a good life, I guess.

This is Echo. He’s a prettyboy, blonde hair, and his whole body is that light tan color. By far the prettiest horse, and Heather’s favorite.

This is Drifter and Ranger. Being very inquisitive about why I was there, and what that flashy thing in my hand was, they watched whatever I did, wherever I was in the barn.

Now, on to the pwnies!

Meet the crown jewel of the barn. Not because he’s the best trained or most rare or the most talented pony, but because of his name. Yes, this is Al Caponey, in the flesh. It’s hard to get a handle on his height, but the hands you see in the picture are of a lady who’s about 5’6″, if thats any help.

This is me doing my best pony impression, along side Stetson, the other pony resident of the barn. Stetson has this goofy look about him, that I am clearly trying to mimic.

And finally, this is Drifter, previously mentioned, showing you just how awesome and awe-inspiring the nostrils and mouth of a horse can be, when thats all you can see of it.

FL: The Slow Movement