Calculate Your Social Security Benefits

How sad is it that when I saw this article on determining social security benefits I instantly thought to myself, "I know exactly how much I will make in Social Security, $0"

According to the Social Security administration, we will start running Social Security deficits in a little over 6 years.  It will go bankrupt in a little over 25.  Since I won't be eligible for Social Security for over 30 more years, I'm pretty sure there is not going to be anything left for me at that point.

What is the most sad is that I will have been earning the maximum amount for the maximum allowed time.  In other words, Out of all the people in the United States, I'm the biggest payer into Social Security.  Ironically, I'm pretty sure I'm never going to get a penny out of it.  What a scam.  If you ever wonder why I rant against government, this is just one other perfect example.

The Non-Ipad post

I feel kind of left out not talking about the iPad when it seems like it is the only thing every other news source in the world is talking about. But since I don't have an iPad right now, I really have nothing to talk about. I actually meant to swing by the local Apple store today to check it out but I've been sidelined with a cold the last few days. I'm feeling so left out I was considering just holding my iPhone really really close to my face figuring it wouldn't be much different than actually having an iPad in the first place.

To be fair, I actually have an iPad on order. It is supposed to arrive in the next week or so. However, I'm not one of those early adopters that is Apple crazy. I ordered one because it has relevance to my work and so I wanted to have first hand experience using this device who others seem to think will save the world. My expectations are a little more modest. Now, I think the iPhone is great. It is very useful to me and I'm a proud owner. I've used Android based devices, both the Nexus One and the Motorola Droid, and have to say the iPhone wins by nose. I've been meaning to put up a comparison but like much of my blogging efforts these days I just haven't gotten around to it.

I'm sure the iPad will be a fantastic device. But let's get real here for a second. Apple did not invent the tablet. The tablet has been around for quite a while and it has never caught on. Maybe Apple has improved upon the idea. I'm willing to keep an open mind. But as someone who has used tablets in the past and found them a little wanting, I'm somewhat skeptical about it. I guess we will have to wait and see until I actually have one in hand.

Schwab - Finally works!

After a lot of problems, I finally got my Schwab checking account to work.  But not after having a few more problems.

Since last time I posted, I got sent a letter with my PIN number on it.  I went to an ATM to withdrawal money and the stupid thing STILL DIDN'T WORK!.  You cannot imagine my frustration at that moment.  I refused to try again just in case I punched my PIN in wrong (I'm sure I didn't since I was VERY careful) since trying more than three times and getting it wrong locks the card.

So I had to call Schwab, yet again, and ask them what the heck was going on.  They let me enter a new PIN right then and there and assured me the PIN was active immediately.  I did not have to wait to use it.  This time, I took my wife with me, who was right there when I selected the new PIN, so she could watch me enter the numbers.  And finally, after a little more than three months, I am now able to fully use my Schwab checking account.

Is this one time patience will pay off.  I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Schwab - Still Having Problems

It is now the middle of March.  I opened up my Schwab account in December.  In all that time you would guess that I would have been able to pull out some money from my account using an ATM machine.  I still have not been able to.  It is not entirely Schwab's fault, I have had some issues of my own remembering my PIN, but for heaven sake, how long will it be before I'm able to pull some money out.  I'm so frustrated with everything if things go wrong this time, I'm closing the account.

Now Twittering

I've created a twitter account.  It is more my speed anyway as I like to post short messages.   http://www.twitter.com/doublejourney

Cheap Way to Have a Wedding - Destination Wedding

I recently read an article describing the cost of a wedding and the impact it can have on your finances for the rest of your life.   It made me extremely glad that I had my wedding the way I did because it ended up being a lot more fun, much more memorable, and , believe it or not, much cheaper.   Don't believe me?  I've decided to lay bare exactly what I spent on the wedding just to demonstrate how one can save money by doing a destination wedding.   I didn't spend anywhere close to the average of $20,000 that the typical wedding costs today.A little bit of background.  My wife and I went to Capri, Italy to get married.  We wanted to go to Europe for the honeymoon and we wanted to get married with a beautiful view of the ocean.  Capri provided both of those.  We sent out about thirty invitations and we ended up with thirteen guest (two guest dropped at the last minute).  We only sent invitations to people we really wanted to go but even if we sent out much more I do not think our attendance would have been much higher than it was.  We spent a total of fifteen days in Europe.  We paid for our own wedding and honeymoon, neither of us asked for help from our parents.Here is a list of typical wedding costs

• Cost of the venue


• Ceremony officiant


• Flowers


• Cake


• Reception


• Wedding Attire (dress, tuxedo rental, etc)


• Entertainment (DJ or band)


• Photographer

This does not include all the little things that people end up paying for in a wedding like various gifts and decorations so cost can end up being much more than would appear on this list.  So how much did I actually spend on the wedding?  My official number is $3885.  This includes

• Photographer - $1600


• Reception Dinner - $1700


• Flowers - $45


• Driver - $225


• Her Dress - $180


• Her Shoes - $70


• Wedding Invitations - $45


• Various snacks for guests - $20

I did not however include some other cost that might normally be associated with the cost of the wedding.  Most of these things are not specific to the wedding itself.  Things like my suit and shoes, (which I have used for other things) and our hotel room (which we would have spent anyway since we would have to pay for it anyway on our honeymoon).  However, I will list these items just in case people want a full comparison.

• Flight to Italy - $1500


• My suit and shoes - $700


• Hotel Room - $925

So that at the outside put the total cost of my wedding at $7010.  That's it.  Things I did not spend any money on included

• Venue - Hotel let us use their balcony, and it's amazing view, for free


• Officiant - It was hard to coordinate an officiant in Italy so one of our guests volunteered to do the ceremony


• Cake - Didn't have one


• Entertainment - Didn't have a huge reception so didn't have to provide entertainment

Despite "doing without" on some of these things, I have to say it was one of the best weddings I ever went to (I am admittedly biased).  The food was amazing.  We went to the best restaurant on the island and it was better than any Wedding food I had ever had.  Heck, it was better than any food I have had period.  The venue was breathtaking, see the picture above.  I honestly could not have had a better time at my own wedding.  I often hear people talk about how they just never get enough time to talk to their guests.  That definitely did not happen to me as I felt I had ample time to talk to each and everyone of my guests.  I did not waste any money on things that just did not make the wedding more memorable or directly added value to myself or my guests.To sum up.  Had a great wedding.  Didn't spend a lot for it.  Couldn't ask for anything more.Don't mortgage your future for one day.

Why Computer Progamming is Hard

I had a perfect example at work today why working with computers is more difficult than people realize.  It was further enforced by the fact that my friend Rick posted a link on facebook that hit the sums it up perfectly, computers do exactly what you tell them to do.

Think about that for a second.  Whether you realize it or not, human communication is very imprecise.  A lot of what is communicated between people is implicit.  Intent is not something that computers understand.  They only understand the exact instructions you feed them.

Several months ago one of my engineers was told to turn on a feature in the system to run a test.   We had turned it off because the feature was causing some problems but those issues were resolved so the powers that be wanted to turn it back on.  He did exactly what the request asked for, he turned on the feature.  The feature controls whether or not a certain data source is used or not.  There are times when some of our customers explicitly turned it off and under no circumstances should it be turned back on.

But since it was turned on for the purposes of this test, this overrides any configuration that our customers can do.  Nobody thought it would do this because this is not normally what happens when we run tests.  The system is usually set up to avoid these circumstances.  So what was the problem?

The problem was that the feature should not have been turned on.  It should have been set to not be off.  Believe it or not, in this case, the opposite of off is not on.  It is in fact not off (Null for those familiar with computer jargon).  The computer, and the engineer, did the right thing.  The "intent" however was not to just turn it on completely.  The intent was not to specify that it was off completely.  If there were other configurations which said to turn it off, as is the case for some of our customers, those rules should have taken precedence.  Of course they did not because the computer was told to turn it on.

So you see, the problem is not the computer.  It is that we live in a world where things are not always specified precisely.  And that is what makes software development so hard.