This month 20SB is hosting a Blog Carnival in conjunction with Charles Schwab.  In my mind it is kind of an unlikely pairing, but hey, we twenty-somethings should learn what to do with our lack of money!  Actually, I took advantage of the recent economic struggles in the country as I saw it as an opportunity to start making some investments.  The market was low and I had some liquid assets and I have the time to wait for the markets to rebound.  So actually, I opened my investment account through Schwab on the recommendation of my family and so far, I have been pretty happy.

One of the stipulations of the blog carnival event was to test drive Schwab’s new financial fitness check-up tool.  Basically, it is a short questionnaire that tries to determine where you stand in terms of financial habits.  I tried it out and did my best to answer the questions truthfully and I got a score of 84, which puts me in the “Good” category.  I certainly try to be good about my money but i know that there are things that I could be better about.  I am probably a little more frivolous sometimes than I should be, but I have never really felt like I was hurting for money and I have never really been living from paycheck-to-paycheck.

Schwab wanted some feedback on the check-up tool, which seems reasonable.  It was pretty straight-forward and easy to use.  In general I felt like the questions were very general questions.  I don’t really know what the point is because I am not sure what your score is supposed to tell you.  What is the next step and what is the goal?  For that matter, aren’t everyone’s goals slightly different?  Is the answer that Schwab gives the right answer for everyone?  I don’t know.  I suppose, if nothing else, it is not a bad place to start though.

The real topic for the Carnival though is to write about something that you were happy you splurged on or a time that you should have not tapped into the coffers.  For me, there are two things that come to mind.  First, I have an annual splurge that I am still trying to figure out how I afford.  Each year since I moved out to Utah I have bought a season pass for skiing.  Unfortunately, Utah is probably one of the most expensive states to ski in.  You can’t really pass it up though when you live there!  Normally I do take some time to contemplate big purchases, but I have never thought twice about skiing.  It is not a cheap sport to be involved in, that is for sure.

I live about 30 minutes from seven of the 13 ski areas in Utah, so picking where to get a pass was an interesting decision.  The first two years I was out there I qualified for a deeply discounted pass at the Park City Mountain Resort.  After that there was one heck of a price hike.  The average pass in Utah for an adult is over $1K for the season with most around $1.2K-$1.5K.  I like to get the most bang for my buck so I discovered that you can get an Alta/Snowbird Pass for $1.5K which is the same price as Deer Valley alone, so this seemed like a great idea.  I certainly have never regretted that decision.  I get great enjoyment out of the skiing and I don’t usually end up hurting too much in the wallet.  Besides, Alta is probably my favorite ski area.

My really big splurge though, was significantly bigger than a ski pass.  All things considered, I am probably really still recovering from the purchase.  As many of my readers should know, I am a photographer.  While I don’t rely on my photography to make a living at the moment, I am a professional.  When I was hired on as the staff photographer for PTC I decided that I really needed to step up to a professional level camera, needless to say, they cost some big bucks.

Now, I didn’t need to go top-of-the-line flagship model camera, that would have been a little too much, but I did want something that could keep up with the times.  I did as much scrimping and saving as I could, but this purchase really made quite the dent in my financial situation.  When all was said and done I probably ended up paying more for the camera than for my computer.  Totally worth it though, I love my camera and I have been making a decent little income off the theatre photography business.  It isn’t huge, but every little bit counts for something.  Besides, you do need to have the right tools for the job!

Of course I am now looking towards the next big purchase that I have on the horizon, a new computer.  I am a creative professional and I could really use a desktop computer at home with a nice big screen.  Those 27″ iMacs are looking super sweet.  I am not entirely sure how and when I will come up with the money for that AND continue to keep up my skiing habits, but somehow it all seems to work out in the end.  I know that I can’t sacrifice my living budgets (food, rent, gas, etc.), but I will figure it out.

Legal Stuff:

It should be noted that while I am a Schwab client, I am not employed by them nor am I in any way affiliated with the company.  I only keep an investment portfolio thought them.  The opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent the opinions of any other people or organizations.

Disclaimer: This post is part of the 20SB Blog Carnival: Friends & Money, sponsored by Charles Schwab. Prizes may be awarded to selected posts. The information and opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the views or opinions of Charles Schwab. Details on the event, eligibility, and a complete list of participating bloggers can be found here.

When is it that we get to the point where this is the thing to do when you want to meet with friends or have a meeting of sorts?  It just seems that relatively recently I have been running into friends to catch up with and the thought seems to go right to “why don’t we meet for coffee?”  When does that become the thing to do.  I mean, I don’t really remember what we did in high school, but I know that we didn’t go sit around the coffee shop to hang out.

The other day I went to meet a friend for coffee (and lunch) and we ended up sitting around the coffee shop all afternoon.  This is probably not even something that I would have done when I was in college and yet it is something that I would do now.  Then, last night I was chatting with another friend who I haven’t seen in quite a while and the first suggestion of something to do, a place to meet to catch up was over coffee.

I suppose there are people who do things like go to lunch as opposed to coffee, but on the other hand I guess there aren’t that many things to do that put you in an environment where you can just chat with someone.  It is interesting that meeting people usually involves food of sorts and for most people it is over coffee.  What is it about the atmosphere in a good coffee shop that makes it ideal, or is it the coffee itself?  Maybe Jen from Daily Demitasse can or has answered this question.  Is the coffee shop the original social networking site?

Have you ever been the recipient of a “drunk-dialed” phone call?  I can’t say that I ever had been drunk-dialed before last night, well I suppose it really was yesterday morning.  I was just sitting watching Star Wars when my ass started to vibrate.  I had totally forgotten that I was kinda sitting on my phone.

In my past experience, when I have been called after midnight by people that I know t is usually because something is wrong.  In some ways I kind of dread answering late night phone calls from people I know because it sucks to get bad news when you are half asleep.  At least tonight I wasn’t asleep, but when I saw the name come up on the screen, the first thing I thought was “Oh crap, she must be in trouble.”  Is the fact that this is my gut reaction a bad thing?  let me put it this way, if she had been in trouble I would have been happy to help if I could, even I had been asleep.

Thankfully, there was no crisis, though this particular friend always kinda sounds like something is wrong, mostly due to her quiet and seemingly unsure inflections.  I don’t think that being drunk really helped her.  It was a good thing that I was actually away when I took the call though because she started talking to me in Spanish, which I know enough of to understand her basic Spanish (she is not a Spanish speaker).  I was a little confused at first, but since I recognized her voice, it clicked pretty fast.

Considering that my friend was drunk enough to know that she wouldn’t remember our conversation tomorrow, we actually had a coherent conversation.  She even apologised for calling so late, and wanted to know if she woke me up.  Of course she had to tell me that I was first person in her address book on her phone on account of my name.  It happens to me a lot, I am either first or last (or close to last).  We also talked about what we were doing for the summer.  I didn’t know that she was working up at Yellowstone, that is cool.  I would love to get up there at some point to visit the park.

The conversation really made me wonder what it is about being drunk that motivates people to whip out their phones and start calling people.  I mean, what did we do before everyone had a cell phone?  I bet there were a lot fewer instances of drunk dialing then.  Now, today, we know that for the most part, we won’t wake up the whole house if we call someone’s cell phone.  Although, if we really know that when we are drunk is a whole different story.  Why do people think it is fun?

Personally, if you are going to hold an intelligent conversation like I had, then it isn’t a big deal, it was nice to catch up, even if I will be the only one who remembers.  On the other hand though, if you are just going call for the sake of calling, what is the point?  I mean, it isn’t quite the same as prank calling people.  Maybe the drunk party thinks it is, who knows?  I bet most people who drunk-dial don’t remember why they thought it was a good idea the next day, so it is probably a moot point in asking.  Whatever.

Morals of story: If you call me late at night I am going to assume something is wrong and be mentally preparing to help you however I can if you ask.  Secondly, to my friend who called, you helped make my night, it was pretty boring before the phone rang.  I am glad we talked even if you won’t remember.

…You see nothing!

So, not only has my blog passed the 200 post landmark this week, I was also given this amazing blog award.  This is the “Master of Karate and Friendship” Award.  Given to me by a great friend whom I met through 20SB, Kris, who blogs at Because or Why Not.  One day I hope to convince her to come out here to Utah to do some snowboarding!  It is certainly an honor to receive this award from her, and if you want to see what she wrote about me and why she chose me, just click the link above to her blog!

Naturally, I wanted to find out the history of this award, and thankfully, the creator left a watermark on the image so it was easy to find the origins of this award.  It is actually a relatively recent award as it was launched January 25, 2010.  According to the creator, recipients of the award are supposed to list six things that they are the master of and pass the award on to six people.  The passing it on thing might be a little bit hard will require some thinking.

So, six things that I am the master of (this sounds really egotistical, but it is kinda fun):

1) I am a Master Electrician for theatre.  I suppose some might think of this as a little bit of a cop-out because it is my job and my title, but it is true.  I may not know all of the cool tricks in the book yet, but I am darn good at what I do.

2) I am a grill master.  Want something BBQ-ed?  I can do that.  In the spring and fall I run barbeques at the theatre and I get lots of compliments.  I am one of the few people that my mother will let grill steaks for her because i get them done the way she likes!

3) I am a web master.  I suppose it kinda goes without saying, but I run multiple websites, know a fair bit of code and give out lots of help to others in this department.

4) I am a master muti-taskter.  Yup, I can run lights, chat and write blog posts at the same time.  It may not be a good thing all the time, but I can do it.

5) I am a Macintosh and Hackintosh master.  It’s true folks, have mac issues, I can probably help you.  I do software and hardware.  I have been knee deep in iBooks and I can turn your Windoze machine into a Mac and make your life better.

6) I am the master of my own fate! Life is what we make of it, best to make sure that you are behind the wheel of your own life!

Now for the really tough part, people that I would pass this award along to.  Most of my blogger friends have already received this award, so hopefully I won’t hit any of them again (they all deserve it!).  I know that in all reality I am not obligated to pass this award on at all, let alone on to six people.  I will try.  Maybe I will just pass it along as I find people to pass it along to.

First off, I want to pass this award on to the person who is really the best friend that I could possibly have.  She is the person who I come home to every night, knows how to cheer me up when I need it, and she also has a blog!  So, the first recipient of this award from me is my girlfriend, Ruth over at Ruthie’s Ramblings.

Next I would like to give this award to Amanda over at Steeling Spoons.  She was one of my first interactive followers.  I haven’t seen any new posts from her in a while, but I have always enjoyed reading her blog.  She has some wonderful stories to tell.  So, stop by and check her out.

I’ll have to keep thinking about who else. I will add them when Come up with them.

There are nights that we finish up work at the theatre early and we head out to some local place to hang out with the crew.  Sometimes we head over to The Pie, which is a great pizza place right around the corner where they serve heart-attack-on-a-plate (basically more cheese than you have ever seen even on an extra cheese pizza).  Sometimes The Bayou, which is a great bar with the longest beer list in the state: Beervana!  And when we have the young-uns but still want a drink we often hit up Squatters, a local brewery and restaurant.

So, why do I tell you this?  It all has to do with a keeping up morale.  My personal philosophy has always been that you should be happy doing whatever it is that you do.  It has always seemed so strange to me that people go off into the world and take jobs or positions that they don’t really enjoy.  It seems even stranger the people who go through all of their schooling studying things that don’t really make them happy or excited.  I know that not everyone does this, but it seems to me that a lot of people do.

In my line of work, theatre, there are very few of us that are doing this for the money.  Most of us are in this business because we love doing it.  I think the same goes for most people who work in fields like education as well.  We find the jobs exciting and rewarding, and even on the long and hard days that we don’t feel motivated to do anything, we still do it.  There are definitely days that I would rather be at work than sitting at home, even if there isn’t much to do.

There are a few things that I tell all the people who I hire to work for me.  Most of these people are college age and recent post college age.  First of all, I tell them what I just stated: “If you are not having fun doing what you are doing (whatever that may be) then you are doing the wrong thing.”  I want to see people here who want to be here and enjoy the work that we do.  it makes people much more productive when they are excited about coming to work.  So, I try to make sure that I always provide an atmosphere that encourages that kind of excitement.

Second, I tell them that if they are not having fun while we are working, let me know.  I realize that we can’t be chipper and happy all the time, 24/7/365.  It is just impossible.  Everyone has off days, people get tired and start to burn out and get snappy.  However, I do my best to make sure that we don’t get too far down that road, and I hope that my crewtons will let me know when we do.  Whenever we drift that way I can feel our efficiency slip and many times we will get to a point where we are better off calling it a day and coming back later to finish things up (unless we need to meet a deadline).

So, how do I keep my people happy.  Well, I try to really establish a family atmosphere.  We get to the point over a season where we know how everyone works and we work very well together.  If people get edgy we figure out how to work with it.  Sometimes people just need a break.  However one of the most effective things to keep people happy is good and drink.  So, we go out and enjoy when we can.  I try to go out with my crews and have some fun at least once every show.  It is usually pretty effective.  I am also hoping to be able to organize a group paintball game after we open the last show.  All things that help us bond and gel and keep everyone happy.

Be happy about what you do, enjoy work or school.  If you are not enjoying what you are doing, do something different.  Try a new sport or a different class or even a whole different job!

What do you do to keep your job or school exciting?