The Houston Chess Club (HCC)Â Â has a month long tournament on Wednesday night. Â Each game takes just one night. Â Each player is given 90 minutes to make the first 30 moves and then gets an additional 60 minutes each to finish the game. Â All in all, it can be a 5 hour game.
This month, Stephen and I played. Â The first round was the best for me in terms of the least mistakes, and I thought it would be a good chance to try out the Chess By Blog wordpress plugin.
I bought a HP MediaSmart Connect this summer and have only used it a few times. It works fine. You should check it out. Free shipping and the bidding is currently less than a dollar!!
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260320378467&_trksid=p3907.m32&_trkparms=tab%3DSelling
Here is what it says on the HP site:
Exceed your expectations for home entertainment. Add our MediaSmart Connect to your HDTV and get ready to stream photos, music, and videos from your PC network to your TV. You’ll also get direct access to on-line services1, 9, plus thousands of movies and millions of songs.
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MediaSmart Connect
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Remote with batteries
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AC adapter
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1.8M HDMI cable
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Start Here! card
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User and warranty and support guides
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Cinema Now coupon
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MediaSmart brochure
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CD with PC installer
I gave a speech at toastmasters yesterday entitled “From Paycheck to Profits”. Â It is about how we need to make a transition from earning our living by things we do to things we own. Â You can listen to the speech.
Â
And here are the notes that I made for the speech:
A hurricane hit Galveston. Universal flooding. Homes destroyed. Decimated city infrastructure. Disrupted lives and 8,000 dead, a massive blow for a town with 42,000 residents. Unreal! That was 1900. The great Galveston hurricane of 1900 which destroyed everything and killed 8,000 people.
We did not have the weather forcasting ability. We did not have the means or foreknowledge to allow us to move all the people out of the city. And we were not able to have a quick rescue effort afterwards.Â
Compare that with what happened earlier this month. When Ike came, we had similar flooding and destruction as the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Today Galveston has a population of about 57,000. But instead of talking about thousands of deaths, we talk about dozens. And each one is considered to be an unnecessary and avoidable death. Each person laid to rest with the ceremony and honors. Not the anonymous burying and floating bodies of the 1900 flood. What was the difference?Â
Why the difference? We could see Ike coming. We could understand the damage that it could cause. We knew something had to be done and we did it!
Now, I want to talk to you about a critical change that we need to take to prepare for another one of life’s hurricanes. Something that can be just as painful as a destroyed house, and can feel as devastating as the loss of a city. The loss of a paycheck. You see, everyone of you will lose your job. You will lose it because someone took it away from you, or maybe because of sickness or death, or perhaps you will lose by choice. But one thing is for certain is that you will not work forever. That paycheck will not come forever. Like those lights before the hurricane that we never took second thought of, one day that paycheck, that source of support will disappear.
Like a hurricane, it can be unpredictable. It could be next week or it might be 108 years from now. We do not know what may come or when. But one thing we should do is prepare higher ground so that we do not feel exposed on the day it happens.  It is a change that we need to make, one that is difficult to find, but one that we must attempt to make. While I have no road to get you there, I would like to convince you that it is something that we should be attempting to pursue. We must find a way to earn our living not by things we do but through things we own. We need to figure some way to get to the higher land of financial security.
I have not successfully gotten there myself. But I know we seldom find what we do not look for. We do not achieve what we do not try to do. We do not get to where we want to go by chance. My friends, what I suggest to you, is that we should make this a priority.
I do have some observations, some ideas on how to get there. I share with you my plans. But they are untested, and have not yet proven to be successful. But it is advice that is not unique and does make common sense.  It is advise I have heard from fellow travelers.
The first thing to get where you want to go, you have to know where you are. I think this is half the problem. Most of us do not know where we are financially. And I believe this is just the first step. How much do you really spend a month? A year? Finding that big number is the first priority.  I recently tried to do this by getting the account balances of my savings, checking, and credit card accounts for the first of each month. Then I was able to take the difference in the account and subtract it from what my take home pay was. This gave me my big expenses. Now, I am trying to break that big number up into expense areas. How much was spent on things that I had little control over, like the mortgage, and long term payments, things I had some control over like gas, electricity, etc. And things I have lots of control over like eating out, buying things that I just have to have, but provide no long term benefits. The next step will be to try to reduce the costs.Â
Free up some savings, and figure out some way to start getting that savings to generate income on its own. Perhaps through investments, creating a business.Â
But you know, you do not need much money to create some business these days.  Many of you have heard about my ISpeakHindi.com site. Right now, I spend almost no money on it. But I can see someday it being the vehicle for earning a living through selling advertising space, books/cds/and other things. Perhaps licensing out some of the content. And while it is requiring a lot of effort today, and will probably require years of effort to get it where I want it. It is none the less and investment in my future.
Friends, I wish I could give you a directions on where you need to go, and what you should do. I can not. But I think we should seek higher ground. Try to transition from making a living from things we do, from a paycheck, and start trying to get money from things we own, from profit. You find what you seek.
Let me close with some words from Bengamin Franklin, “All humanity is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move!â€Â Friends, we need to move!
Last Friday my family and I were bracing for Hurricane Ike to come our way. And come our way it did. I live on the far north side of Houston, so the damage in our area was not so bad. But Galevston and areas right on the coast appear to be almost completely wiped out. I am sure you can find plenty of photos of this on the internet and news. Their tales are being covered and are terrible. They give me nothing to complain about. So as I go through the details of our past week, I am not complaining! Just documenting!
Friday, Septmember 12 – finished putting all the backyard things into the garage, filled up the bath tubs with water, located the flashlights, put the cars in the garage, etc.
That night the wind started to blow. It blew, and blew, and belew. The power went off sometime early staturday morning. I think about 3 AM.
Saturday, September 13 – no electricity but we did have natural gas and running water. Our neighbors had started cooking all their food, and brought us over some chicken nuggets.
We had a fallen tree in the back. Also part of our fence had fallen down. No damage the house though..
We went to go check on my mom, who lives about 1.5 miles from us, and check on another friend, but they were not home. Then we went to go check on a 3rd friend who lives 2 streets over. We had dinner with them. (Also, the friend that was not home had come to our house!! So we missed each other.)
That night we lighted the candles to see at night.
Sunday, September 14, 2008 – Still no lights. Checked on Mom. Checked on Friend. Kids played there a while, then came home. We cut off limbs on the tree to make it lighter. then we uprighted it and tied it down… In retrospect, I’m not sure this is the best move. I am wondering if it will survive or if it is a bigger risk keeping it uprighted than cutting it up and forgetting it.
Friend’s family and my children went to the tennis courts and cleaned a court that had a lot of debris on it. We spent more time cleaning, than playing tennis. But it started getting dark, and we noticed the tennis lights came on. We started talking about this, and some other people at the tennis court mentioned that their lights had come home earlier in the day. I was hopeful that our lights came on. Not the case. Our lights were still not on.
Monday, September 15, 2008 – still no lights
Went to work for an hour with my youngest son. Had trouble working and entertaining him, so didn’t stay long. When I got home, I was pleasantly surprised to see my wife had made it back to Boston. She was supposed to come on Saturday but the flights were cancelled.
Tuesday, Septemeber 16, 2008 – still no lights
went to work for a few hours. charged up laptop (have the EDVO card so I can connect at home with the laptop to the internet…)
Wednesday, Septemeber 17, 2008 – still no lights
went to work for half a day. Mom, who lives on other side of the neighborhood got lights early in the morning. Our friends who live in a different part got lights too. We still do not have lights. A lot of our neighbors have generators… we do not…
Thursday, September 18, 2008 – still no lights….
Went to work for the full day… pretty much
Call me dad in the evening to see how he was doing. while I was on the phone with him, his lights came back on. So, he agreed to let me borrow his generator. We went out and got the generator. By the time we got back, it was past 10, and I was tired… It was dark.. I needed help carrying the generator, and too late to ask a neighbor.
Friday, September 19, 2008 – still no lights.
asked neighbor to help me carry generator. Let them plug into a socket. decided to stay and work from home today.. I’ll try to publish more details later…
It is great having a generator. Thanks Dad!
My brother-in-law is in town and I showed him the following video that I had seen some months back. It is a very, very good talk.
Here is a transcript of most of the talk:
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus
And the author Clay Shirky has written a book called “Here Comes Everybody” which I am reading on my Amazon Kindle.
Yesterday I was visiting a friend two streets over from where I live. After we got past the normal, “how are you doing?”, “What’s been going on?”, “Can I get you something to eat/drink?” phase, my neighbor says, “Did you send a guy over here last week?”
To which I responded, “No, of course not.” Then I thought back to last week.
Last week I was pulling in the drive way and there was a guy walking away from my house. When he saw me pull up he walked back and address me, “Good afternoon”. He was going around selling those coupon books. I really didn’t want one. But I thought why not. So, I got one. Then he said that his boss was wanting to keep track of people he sold the book to. And had a form for name & address.
Now putting these two events together, I can only assume that this guy then went to all my neighbors, and said that I had sent him there…
You need to check out www.reelzreview.com/
A friend of mind created this “mashup” that brings all the information about a DVD into one easy to see screen. Trying to find out more about a movie, then check out Reel Reviews.
Autonet Mobile is offering a device and service that will let you connect your wifi devices to the internet from your car.
Costs:Â $595 for the device and $39 per month.
Speeds:Â download: 600-800Kbps; uploads 200Kbps
Range:Â within 100 ft from the car
Service area is not mentioned. But it does say 3G and 2.5G (EVDO and 1xRTT) are both supported and that this provides nationwide travel.
The one thing I would like to know is how much energy the device uses and about what it would take to power it while the car is off. This could provide residental access too, since your car is probably at home when you are at home. Plus it could provide access when you are at family picnics, swim meets, etc. It actually might be more interesting to not have it mounted in the car but in a portable device so it can be a hotspot where ever you are….