I don't know if you have used an impact driver before or not, but they are my new favorite tool for putting screws in. I used to use a conventional drill, which works okay, but an impact driver has dramatically improved the effort it takes.

Basically it (look up impact driver on wikipedia) combines rotational and downward movement in a small "jolt" but multiple times a second. So it is turning similar to a drill, but really in short, little jarring motions. It is very helpful when putting in Philips screws for basic household or yard renovations. It sort of makes it "grab" quicker in to the material and prevents you from stripping the head of the screw.

I used my friend's Makita impact drill and after that I had to have one. I already use the 18V Ryobi cordless tools, so I thought I would add to the set. They have an 18V Ryobi impact driver that takes the same batteries.

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I rarely read novels, but I try to get through one or two a year if possible. Most recently I read Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Both are written by Ken Follett.

The books are basically historical fiction. They follow the lives of a number of people living in a small town in England around the 13th century. A time when the Church was strong and the monarchy was in disarray. It focuses a lot on the building of a cathedral.

All in all I highly recommend it. I'm sure the local library will have a few copies of both of these on hand. Pillars of the Earth is the first in the series and World Without End is based quite a few years later. You do not need to read them in order, though a few references are made in the second book, but it has nothing to do with the plot.

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I am a numbers guy. I feel that if you can accurately represent a situation with numbers, then you have something realistic to base decisions on and measure performance.

This has led me to create some tools for measuring my financial well-being. It ends up being very similar to financial statements used by companies around the world today. The first is a balance sheet and the second is an income statement.

I won't release my current spreadsheet setup as I think it would confuse most of you as I have let it get rather messy with a bunch of other calculations and measurements I'm interested in. I will look at getting something up that you can use for your own benefit.

Balance Sheet

This basically a financial "snapshot" of what you or a company is worth. A list of all your assets (real estate, vehicles, investments, cash in the bank, other valuable items) and a list of all your liabilities (debt like mortgages, lines of credit, and loans).

When you add up the asset and subtract the liabilities, you will have a number that represents your net worth. So if you take this "snapshot" each year at the same time, you can see if your net worth is going up or going down. You can also see if the allocation of it changes over time. A great way to measure the change of the past year.

Income Statement

This is a breakdown of how you got from one balance sheet to the next balance sheet. How much money did you earn, how much money was paid in interest vs. repaid the principal amount of a loan, what items you spent your money on to live, how much did your investments go up or down, and the list goes on. If you were to take a balance sheet and add all these items to the numbers in it, you should get it to equal the next balance sheet.

It is valuable because it tells you "what" happened and generally "why". I like it for myself because you can see where you money comes from and where it goes. And ultimately, how much of it you retain in savings. It doesn't matter if that number is big or small, or even if it is getting bigger/smaller over time. But it is nice to know what it is doing to confirm that you are doing what you actually think you are.

A number I like to get out of it is to add up how much money I earn from "passive" sources that aren't my job (like rental properties and stocks) vs. how much I spend on just living. If these numbers ever became equal, then you are approaching independently wealthy and don't really need to work. Sort of an invigorating feeling and definitely a feeling of freedom from your job. Not that you would quit, but that you are truly there because you want to be and not for a paycheck.

Here is an example of a net worth calculation. Very basic. Assets on one side and liabilities on the other. The difference between the two is your net worth. Example Net Worth Calculation.

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I don't usually impulse buy, but I just might have to for the new Nikon D7000. I shoot with the Nikon D70s (purchased in 2006) and it has been a great camera. There have been 2 versions released since (D80 and D90). Today, the 3rd successor has been announced, the D7000.

I won't rehash all the specs here but read up on it at DPReview's Nikon D7000 Preview.

I use my camera a fair bit so I always have the laundry list of features I would really like. My USB 1.0 is ridiculously slow (can take an hour to transfer trip pictures from the camera) to the point I use a card reader. I often shoot in dark environments and don't like to use the flash so the ISO improvements would be huge. The frames per second is great for the sports shots as well. Biggest features I would really like to get out of it compared to my D70s (remember this is 3 versions back):

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I'm reading Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom right now. Excellent book, in my opinion. I had stopped doing any type of trading personally a couple years ago, but I have always found it interesting so decided to get active in it again.

I'm only going to "paper" trade for right now. This is "fake" trading to see how your performance is before ever risking any real money. A way to prove out a system somewhat to see how it would have done if you traded real money (though if you traded real money it would then have some "effect" on the market and may change the outcome).

"Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom" is a great book that isn't about teaching you any specific system on how to trade, but it is more about how you evaluate the system you are using and yourself. It does briefly cover a variety of strategies and their basis. Not recommending one or the other, but discussing what is commonly used out there and why it may appeal to different individuals.

Personality

Chapter 3 has a great list of questions that you need to answer about yourself and try to gauge your capabilities. Items like:

• How much time do you have to trade? Do you already have a full time job?
• What is your risk tolerance? Will you lose sleep at night if you have money tied up in the markets?
• What skills do you have? Good at math? Good with computers? Analytical?

Analyzing the System

A lot of terminology is used here but explained very clearly. Reward to Risk ratio is commonly used to guage how good your returns are compared to the risk you are taking. Position sizing is touched on. I'm only 3/4's of the way through the book, but it has been excellent. I recommend the read to anyone thinking of getting into it.

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I was frustrated using awk recently. I had created a awk file to do some batch processing of text file information. Anyhow, I had a large text section to create an SQL statement from. It spanned multiple lines and I had used a backslash "\" to indicate the string continued on the next line.

I had a syntax problem however. It was saying I had an unterminated string. I googled for the answer and checked to make sure every line of my text section had a backslash (which it did) and I couldn't figure it out.

Below is the error I had.

awk: query.awk:2: print "SELECT \
awk: query.awk:2:       ^ unterminated string

Anyhow, last straw was to go to everyline that had the backslash at the end and remove any spaces at that came after the backslash (so between the slash and the true end of the line). This fixed my problem.

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