Ah, the end of March. Spring is officially here, the snow is (mostly) melted, the birds are coming back, and life is generally coming back all around you. It’s also the time of year when the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) has their annual conference, apparently. This year, it’s in Philadelphia, which happens to be just a hop, skip, and a jump away from me and my fiancee (well, relatively speaking; we’re on the opposite side of the state, but Pennsylvania is a fairly smallish state, so it’s still reasonably close).
You may ask why I, a biochemist who couldn’t tell one type of ceramic pottery from another, brings all this up. (I don’t even know enough about ceramics to do a bad joke about how little I know, a la, “I know so little about chemistry, I can’t tell Bohr from Boron.” It’s not any funnier if you’re a chemist, I promise you.) Well, my fiancee Sondra is a Ceramics major (yes, before we started dating, I didn’t know there was such a thing), and so, for the past half year or so, we’ve been making plans to go together. Of course, losing my job put a bit of dark pallor on the trip, but we’d already committed to going, so, off we go! (At least, off we go come Tuesday.)
All of which is my very long-winded way of saying that my access to the Internet (and thus, this blog) might be a little more hit and miss than normal this coming week, so if you email or comment or otherwise try to get in touch with me and don’t get an immediate response, consider this an advanced apology. Anyway, onto the posts from this past week:
Contests and Giveaways
One Up on Wall Street-Book Review and Giveaway – A review of the mini-book version of one of the investing classics, complete with the chance to win the book, all courtesy of YoungandThrifty.
Top 20 Biggest Money Wasters (w/Fun Giveaway) – One of the most interesting contests I’ve seen in a while, you have to find a hiding Kraken (no, really) on Money Funk’s website, and follow the instructions to win. No more help from me; you’ll have to find him on your own 
Win $100 Cash at the Ultimate Money Blog – Nothing like a nice, healthy money prize to motivate people to check out your blog. Just head on over to the Ultimate Money Blog, start commenting, tweeting, and linking back (as I am here, I might note), and you’ll have a chance to win. Good luck!
Other Great Yakezie Posts
Yakezie News Letter #1 – What better way to kick off the good Yakezie posts than with the official Yakezie Newsletter? Bytta of 151 Days Off chronicles some of the accomplishments the group has achieved this far, from the number of members who made the top 100 on the Wisebread list to some of the side ventures from other members (that’s right, some members are so gung ho that they are running blogs, working full time, and STILL have time for other ventures. I’m simply amazed.) It’s one truly dynamic group we have, indeed.
Announcing Our Very First Love Drop – All too often, we forget that as bad as we may have it, there are always people who have it worse off. Luckily, there are ways we can do our best to help them, such as passing along whatever money we can; one way to do that is through the Love Drop, as detailed by J. Money.
A Frugal Middle Class Assessment – It seems just about everyone considers themselves middle class (nobody wants to be considered poor, and if you were rich, shouldn’t you have butlers and stuff), but Money Reasons goes through his finances and proves his middle class cred.
You May Be Invited to a ‘Block Party’ – Now, this is disturbing; apparently, some debt collection agencies have taken to calling family members and neighbors of those in debt, in hopes (I’m guessing) of putting pressure on the debtors. As Stay at Home Mom CFO notes, though, it’s more enraging than effective.
700 Pennies-How to Stay Motivated and Reach Your Goals – An interesting take on the penny jar: Mike, the Personal Finance Ninja, keeps a jar filled with 700 pennies, one for every month until he reaches 80 years old, and uses them as a visible reminder of his own mortality. It’s a good way to keep motivated, I suppose. (Although, if your kids or significant other every find themselves short on cash, you might find your ‘mortality jar’ was emptied for candy money.)
Dear Ninja – An interesting question; what would you say if you were to write a letter to yourself in the future? Punch Debt in the Face proposed that very thing, and this entry was what he came up with. Not a bad set of suggestions for his future self at all, although the threats if he got fat seemed a bit much.
Personal Time Management – Monevator provides a very substantial post about managing your time and keeping yourself motivated when you don’t have a boss breathing over your shoulder and deadlines. Good advice, particularly for those of us who aren’t in a typical job situation.
Related Websites
Bytta@151DaysOff
on March 29 2010
Hi Roger,
I heard about the Glass Blowing major though.
Thanks for the link.
I never knew about Ceramics major either
I think pottery holds important role throughout the history of humankind. I went to the Pompeii exhibition last year and of the few remaining survivors are pottery jars and fossilised olives. So fascinating!
Have a great trip!
Bytta@151DaysOff´s last blog ..Day 25: Being 37 is Sexy
uberVU - social comments
on April 2 2010
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by amateurfinance: Newest round-up is finished: http://tinyurl.com/yllpzar Now, off to care for my sick fiancee!…
Roger
on May 5 2010
Hi, Bytta. You’re very welcome for the link. It was an interesting trip, although I’m still trying to get back on top of everything with my blog (as you might guess from this delayed reply. Still, such is life, and I need to get better and faster with blog posting if I hope to make myself a great blogger.