How to save money for a house

So, some of you probably know that me and my fiance are trying to save money to purchase our first home. Our time frame for this is around June - September 2009. Our lease is up at our apartment in August of 2009, and we'd like to be out before then. My personal goal is to be able to have enough for a small down payment say like 5% and have enough to cover closing costs.

I've heard from friends and books that you should try to have 20% available for a down payment. This is not realistic at all for me. We have a wedding and a honeymoon coming up in May that will wipe away almost all the money we've saved for the last year and a half. Luckily we'll get some of it back in gifts from the reception - but I'm not counting on it being huge.

I found some tips on how to save money to buy a home. If you have any suggestions or ways to save money for buying a first home, please let me know.

Tip 1 - Tips to save money to buy a home

Tip 2 - Save money for your first home

Tip 3 - 30 easy ways to save money

happy shortest day of the year

This is a interesting article over the history of various traditions all around the shortest day of the year, Dec 21st, the winter solstice. I don't know how much of what they say is true - but it was definitely interesting.

FYI - in case you were wondering we get just short of 9 hours of daylight (8 hrs and 59 mins) total in Rochester, NY. If you want to know how much sunlight you have - you can download my Yahoo "Sunrise Calculator Enhanced" widget here.

make your own ringtones

So my brother called me the other day to let me know that he had figured out how to put ringtones that he created onto his phone. I couldn't believe it til I tried it myself. It was so easy a caveman could do it! All I had to do was download this program called Audacity which lets you modify and create mp3's. I then shortened a couple of mp3's to be under 30 seconds. I then changed the file extension to .mid and sent them to my phone through email. A few secs later I had a music file on my phone and my phone lets me save as a ringtone! My phone rocks and so does creating my own ringtones.

sansa continued

Gotta say SANSA is great! Or at least their customer service is top notch. Every time I call they are professional and very helpful. Last night, they walked me through how to reformat my mp3 player. After I did this, everything is working! Yay! I usually don't like most customer service, but more companies should strive to have good customer service like Sansa.

sansa clip

I've gotta say I was pretty happy with the Sansa Clip. It's a very small portable mp3 player - similar to the iPod nano. With 2GB of memory it held a lot of songs.

The key word in that last paragraph was was. The current Clip I have is actually my second. The first one developed a problem where one day it would not turn on at all unless it was plugged into the PC. It also had a bad battery life lasting a short time before needing a recharge. So I called customer service and to my surprise they sent me a new one.

The new one has lasted for almost a year and the battery life was excellent. It could go days without a recharge. One day last week my Clip screen froze after playing a Lynard Skynard song. After that my Clip has never been the same. In fact I can't play any songs or access them on my computer. I'm going to try a firmware update. If that doesn't work I'm done. I'm fed up with a crappy little device from Sansa. Devices should just work. They shouldn't have this many problems. Sansa will be hearing from me again - but my next purchase may be an iPod. Grrrr.

TJ

So, yesterday TJ told me he was a little sad that he was sparsely mentioned in my blog so far. The only post being about our trip to Camden NJ. So, he decided when he got to Joe's house he would double over in pain and not watch the game. He even took the drama one step further when his temperature read between 93-95 degrees farenheit. His symptoms included nausea, feverish hot/cold, back and stomach pain. We figured it was pretty serious - so we drove out to the the Parkridge hospital in Greece coming all the way from Marion.

We spent the next 3 hours there while they ran a serious of tests on him. Turns out he had or has a kidney stone. Ouch!

So that's why I'm writing a post dedicated to my friend TJ. But seriously TJ, there are easier and less painful ways to make it to my blog next time. ;-) Hope you feel better!

Widget - version 4.2

So I finally just updated my widget to include some new features and new styling. Its not up on Yahoo yet, they take a long time to update.

The new features include:
- The ability to increment and decrement days right from the main screen.
- The overall style is smaller and cleaner looking.
- Buttons are redesigned and have words instead of pictures only.

Ex1 - Version 4.2 - Default view

Ex2 - Search for location (Latitude/Longitude) - Enter either Zip or City, State

Ex3 - Default calendar view with current date selected.

Ex4- Colorized and customized

Ex5 - Checking the preference "Hide Lat/Long" will instead show
the current latitude/longitude if a zip or city isn't available.

Ex6- Once a city is selected using Change Location, then the city shows up in front.

So I finally just updated my widget to include some new features and new styling.

The new features include:
- The ability to increment and decrement days right from the main screen.
- The overall style is smaller and cleaner looking.
- Buttons are redesigned and have words instead of pictures only.

wake up call - part 2

"There you are! Jim, I want to talk to you about my situation."

Well, I couldn't sleep well last night. So I decided to get up a 4am and watch a little mindless MTV's 'Next'. I was again surprised to hear a noise coming from the kitchen. I went to check it out and wham, I remembered we had set a Havahart trap the night before!

There he was our little mouse friend, securely locked away in a metal cage. He wasn't going to fool me again! Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on me. Wasn't going to happen.

The trap is set so that you place food in the center to entice little mice onto it. Then when they step on the middle it trips a lever and the doors on both ends fall down together and then lock in place. Pretty clever design.

"Trapped like a rat!"

I gotta say though, this mouse is smart one. He managed to get an apple slice, a piece of macaroni and a pumpkin seed out of the trap before it final fell on him.

After a little time I got my coat on and placed the cage on top of some newspaper. I brought him to the apartment backyard and wandered a good hundred yards away. I then opened the trap and he scampered away into a pile of leaves.

I'm not even sure this was the same mouse that visciuously attacked me 2 days ago - this one seemed smaller. I can only hope this was a rogue mouse and we won't be seeing anymore of him. Unforunately, I think he may have friends hanging out somewhere. Stay tuned.

getting fit

I've been exercising now on a regular basis, 4-5 times a week for almost 2 years now. I've noticed a gradual improvement in my overall weight loss (down about 20lbs from my college days). I've noticed an increase in strength and endurance. I've never really set goals other than that day at the gym deciding what I want to do. To get a little more serious I want to lay out a roadmap and a plan as a part of getting fit. So here goes.

From the MBA classes I took I learned that goals should be SMART - Specific Measureable Attainable Realistic Timely.

My primary motivation for excise is:

Maintaining a healthy body weight. Increasing strength and endurance. Ulitmately 6 months from now I'd like to be in the lower to mid 150 range. Only 10 more to go!

I plan to begin excercising on:

Today.

The people who will help me accomplish my goals include:

Melissa, friends and family.

I will keep track of activities and progress by:

Recording them in a notebook.

The steps that I need to take in order to get started are:

Continue morning exercise. Add 2 evening session per week or 1 evening session and one saturday run. Make healthy eating choices, staying away from high fat foods or simple sugars.

Barriers that will keep me from acheiving my goals include:
Excess beer/food consumption.....umhhh, Frank aka 'my bad influence'! Holiday parties.

Strategies to overcome barriers include:

Instead of drinking beer or sugary drinks, have water, tea or coffee. Instead of eating cheese after work for a snack, make a salad. Eat more meals, but in smaller portions to stay full longer.

wake up call

Our newest roomate: "Jerry" or "Coal"

SO, this morning was very interesting to say the least.

It began pretty ordinary, with me waking up at the butt crack of dawn. I sat down to watch a little TV and then heard a noise. The noise was a rustling sound, like a plastic bag being crumpled up.

I traced the noise to the kitchen. Then I traced it to coming from under the sink. I open the cabinet under sink, and looked in the garbage and sure enough there was the source of the disturbance - a mouse!

I woke my roommate Kristina, cause I wasn't sure if she had put the mouse there the night before as part of a science experiment or whatever. She was shocked to find a mouse in her garbage pal.

"aww how cute. can we keep him, jim, please."

We decided the best course of action would be to release the mouse outside in the backyard. Before we did this, Kristina thought she would give it a little food before sending it on its own, back to the wild. She cut up an apple slice and a piece of macaroni. The mouse loved it! I had to say it was a pretty cute mouse with big black eyes and soft looking fur. It did look good enough to be a pet, but I told Kristina its probably not a good idea because it could have rabies or could bite you or get loose.

While we were examining the little mouse presents he left for us in the cabinet, is when all hell broke loose. The mouse we thought was contained in a fairly steep and tall garbage had managed to climb up and jump out!

This sent me and Kristina screaming. And we followed it to the coat closet. We rummaged to get all the shoes and other junk out of the way so we could try to catch it again. We almost corralled it back into the garbage pal. It scurried around our little attempt to catch us. Ran back to the kitchen, under the refrigerator. It then ran under the stove.

We never found it after that. Kristina is working on securing a humane trap for capturing, not killing.

Nothing like being tricked by a humble looking mouse first thing in the morning. I feel dumb knowing we got played by a lowly mouse. What a wake up call!

bad year for sports

In general I got to say that its been a bad year for the sports teams I am fans of. The Yankees this season played sloppy and were never able to get a win streak going. In general players seemed to play for themselves and not as a team. It was a disappointing final season at the old Yankee stadium as they failed to make the playoffs.

The other team I'm sad to say I'm a fan of is the lowly Buffalo Bills. They currently stand at a disappointing 6-6 record, with some tough divisional opponents ahead (Dolphins, Jets and the Patriots). They will be lucky to be 7-9 again this year. It's sad because they started off so great. They got off to a rousing 4-0 start. Lost one to the Cardinals. Won a big one at home against the Chargers. Then lost 4 in a row, including a heartbreaking (and seasonbreaking IMHO) Monday night game against the Browns. They missed quite a few opportunities to put it away, but the biggest was the Lindell's missed FG that would have one the game in the final few seconds. They then crushed the Kansas City Chiefs 54-31,To improve to 6-5. They just lost to the 49ers last week 10-3. Two short field goals missed again and sloppy play contributed to the home loss. Can't even score more than 3 points after scoring 54 points the week before? Makes senses only if you are a Bills fan.

I don't know why I'm a Bills fan. I know they are local, and sometimes exciting, but the simple point is they consistently disappoint year after year after year. What's point of being a fan if they are not even be contenders for making a playoff appearance. Grrrrr!

Favorite Calzone Recipe

This is a link to my favorite calzone recipe.
I hope we get a chance to make it for dinner tonight.

Look how good it looks!

Why I love StumbleUpon

I've stumbled on this tool recently called "StumbleUpon". I know its not a new tool, but its new to me. I think it's great. When you set it up you set up your preferences for what topics your interested in like computers, internet, web design, humor, pictures, whatever.... Then you click the "Stumble!" button on your toolbar. Then it whisks you away to various sites that are based on your preferences. I think it takes you to sites that have been reviewed by users first. I've stumbled on a number of interesting sites that I would have not found otherwise.

You can check out my stumbleupon favorites here.
My StumbleUpon Favorites

Trip to DC

Last weekend Melissa, Frank, Bunny and I took a little trip to Washington DC. We left Rochester around 6PM friday night and drove almost non-stop until we got there around 2:30am. We were all exhauated and excited to be there. We stayed at a Kathrik's place in Fairfax just 10 miles outside of DC. Karthik was the square-bee that took over my and Melissa's place after we left the Square in 06.

Sat morning we got up and ready for the day. We started the day off with some breakfast at this nice Indian cuisine buffet. It was good food. Then we took the metro into DC. We did a lot of walking with the little bit of daylight we had left (end of November the sun sets around 4:30 or 5). We saw some great sights including the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the WWII Memorial and various other buildings. Our plan was to walk around while there was still daylight, then when it got dark we wanted to tour the National Aquarium. This plan was foiled the Aquarium closed at 5. By then the sun was down and we were tired of walking. We made plans to head up to Georgetown. So we hopped in the nearest taxi and had the driver take us there.

We got out of the cab. Melissa slammed her door on my leg as I was stepping out. It hurt, but I was ok. We walked around to various shops and restaurants on the main Georgetown strip. We finally settled on a sports bar and ordered up some drinks and appetizers. We never ended up getting dinner that night. Drinks were flowing like water as my cousin Frank continues to be a bad influence on me. Turns out Karthik was a bad influence too (why do I hang out with such bad people :-) as he encouraged the drunk-fest. We all had a good merry night.

I don't remember how we got back to Karthik's, but we made it back safe and sound. The next morning we got up and headed out to Great Falls Park. Its a natural place where two rivers converge over a rocky falls, that produced wonderful waterfalls. It was great. After that we started packing up and made plan's to see Mary in Bethesda, MD. We met at a Starbucks in town and chatted for a while. After a quick trip to the Toy Kingdom, we headed back home to Rochester. Other than a trip to a local restaurant on the way home, the ride back was pretty uneventful. We got back to Rochester around 1am Monday monring. Phew! Home sweet home.

Great jam packed weekend getaway!

Who we are

Who are we? Its a simple question but so loaded. At any given time we can be anyone or anything. We can be on top of the world, or in the deepest rut. We can be rich or poor. We can be physically well, or mentally ill. There can be nothing wrong with us at all, except our own perception of how our place in the world...which may screw people up more than anything else. Its our wonderful ability to think, ration and reason that separates us. However its probably the same consciousness that raises others up, while dragging others down. Some people perceive failure in their own lives, but its not obvious to others why that person feels that way.

I've been called many different things in my life. Some things not so positive - let's just call these learning opportunities, cause it gives me a chance to reflect on how others view me. Others have been more than positive, which is very humbling. To name a few, I've been called a 'good man', 'someone to look up' to and even 'perfect'. While I consider myself nowhere near perfect its interesting to see how friends and those around you think of you. I have faults and failures in my life that - some of which I could take back but the only thing I can do now is reflect on them and let them serve as a reminder of how I want to shape my life.

Recently, one of my best friends explained to me that he's always seen me as a role model. As a role model I wish there was so much more I could do to help him and his situation. His current situation revolves around his past and his perception of the past. We are shaped by the past, but each person has the ability to shape the future. At some point he'll need to realize that if he really wants to change - he's got to start it, and not be stuck in a head loop thinking of the past. Too many good people get lost in their own head. Our time here is short, and we have to make the time worthwhile. I was glad to hear that he's been going back to church. I feel that this is a great way to ground yourself in leading a good life and being a good man, as this is what being a Christian is about - following in and believing in the words of God. I try to be a positive role model and to be a good man - even though I feel that I stray from the path of righteousness too often.

How can I change myself... Points I need to work on or remind myself of.
- I wish I could more actively help friends - especially when they need the help (whether its spiritually or finding good qualities which I believe are inherent in everyone).
- I know I'm selfish at times, I need to learn its not always about me.
- There is always someone out there that is far worse than you or me. Your not struggling for air or hoping you can get some food to keep you alive, are you? If you are, God bless you.
- Help out in the community.
- Leave the world a little bit better than you were brought into.

American Heartwalk 2008

I'm doing the American Heartwalk 2008 in sunny Rochester NY this Saturday April 5th. I'm doing this in memory of my grandma who passed away last year of a heart attack. If you'd like to check out my page above, they made it easy to make a small donation to the American Heart Association. If you can't help now, that cool too. Thanks for your support!

Check out my Widget!

So yeah, i've been working really hard on this widget and finally got it to a point where it was ready to submit to Yahoo. This is version 4 - even though the picture on the website is lame and is still showing version 1. Version 4 - includes the ability to search for a location (in the US) by ZIP or City, State. It also includes the calendar of sunrise/sunsets for your location. This is what the latest version looks like.


You can use this little badge to download the widget.