New York City Transit Hubs Time Lapse

The time I think I almost got mugged

Here is the story of the time I think I almost got mugged.

The year? Some time in the mid 2000s. The city? Buenos Aires, Argentina. That’s right: down old South America way. After a particularly close call with Johnny Law during a big score, I had to find a place to lay low for a while. Or, wait, that’s not it at all. Oh yeah, I was in college and I decided to study abroad for a semester.

I had been in the country for over a month at that point. I can’t really recall the exact date – time and booze wreak havoc on a memory. But the event itself lingers in my memory to this day, like a forgotten box of baking soda in the back of your fridge.

I had been out at a bar, drinking, as was my custom at the time. When the evening finally drew to a close, the subway had already shut its doors for the night. On my budget at the time, a taxi ride would have been far more expensive than the convenience would warrant, so I decided to walk back. This decision was made at somewhere around two in the morning, and the walk would take me well over an hour. In hindsight, this was not as stupid of a decision as it might seem, and I will explain why.

Buenos Aires, unlike most American cities of similar size, was surprisingly safe. Stories of crime were remarkable not for their brutality, but for their rarity. Picture a small town near where you live. Would you feel comfortable walking the streets of that town at two in the morning? That is how I felt about walking through Buenos Aires. Sure there was the chance something bad could happen, but I felt that the odds were overwhelmingly in my favor. This feeling, the chance to save $10 on a taxi ride, and the couple liters of beer in my system all ensured the decision was barely a decision at all. I would walk.

Most of my trip was down a fairly large artery of the city. The street is called Cabildo Avenue, and I was walking from the Colegiales neighborhood to the Belgrano neighborhood. Here is a picture I took on that street on a different night.

See? Not sketchy at all!

The Incident

So I’m headed home, walking with the deliberate yet slightly heavy steps of someone who has had just the right amount to drink. The streets were virtually empty, with a cab or a car passing two or three times a minute. The farther I got from the area with with the night life I had enjoyed, the emptier the sidewalk became until I couldn’t see a single other person on the street. Several minutes later, I see two men walking towards me on my side of the road. My mind activates, and the pilot of my Fight or Flight plane jumps out of bed, pulls on his boots, and looks out the window to assess the situation.

I am conversant in the language, but really don’t speak it that well. I have a prepaid cell phone in one pocket. In my other pocket are my keys and perhaps a dozen pesos worth of coins. I have a hundred peso bill in my shoe – the result of a piece of advice our agency gave us shortly after arrival. I briefly contemplate heading down a side street, but think no, that would open you up to more danger if they follow you. I consider crossing the street to the other side. No, that makes you look like you’re scared. Best just to carry on like this is no big deal. I’m sure it isn’t. It’s only the middle of the night on an empty street in a huge city. Just be cool man, be cool.

As the pair draw near, I can see that they are both young, probably around my age. One of them is carrying a bag in his hand. It was one of those fancier retail bags, the kind with rigid sides and a cloth or twine handle. Odd time to come back from a shopping trip. The two are not particularly well dressed, but they are also not outside what would be considered normal. As the distance narrows between us, I make eye contact and smile politely.

The duo now splits. The one I made eye contact with takes a half step into my path, blocking it, and stops. Meanwhile the other continues on a few paces and stops just behind me at the edge of my peripheral vision. The pilot of the Fight or Flight has bolted out the door and is sprinting towards the plane. As soon as my path is blocked, I stop too, leaving a comfortable distance between myself and the lead guy. There is still nothing wrong. They don’t look aggressive. You don’t see any weapons. Yes it is weird that the second guy is almost behind you, but maybe he didn’t realize his friend wanted to stop and chat. Let’s just see what he wants. In my heavily accented Spanish, I strike up a conversation.

“Hey!” I start off cheerfully, like I am almost happy to see them. “Beautiful night, no?”

“Yes, beautiful. How are you my friend?” the one facing me replies.

One or two more pleasantries are exchanged. My pilot is at the ladder to the plane but has stopped to watch the show unfold. Then the man asks me:

“Do you have any money?”

Now, this is a very strange thing to ask someone you have only just met, particularly so in the middle of the night. I am sure if I had the benefit of hearing the question asked back in the USA in my native tongue I could have inferred all sorts of extra details from his tone, where he placed his emphasis, and even cultural body language unique to the place you call home. Unfortunately, I have none of those clues. All I can go on is the simple question.

The pilot has placed one foot on the ladder, but he’s puzzled. The man behind me has done nothing at all up to this point. I glance back and he smiles. It is not threatening, but it is not a smile that eases the tension either. I wish I could read more into the situation, but the combination of the very late hour, the booze, and mostly the language barrier clouds any hope of insight into their motivations. The pilot pops the canopy and slowly climbs into the cockpit.

I look back at my conversational partner and make my decision. Let’s just continue the with the “best friends” angle. You are off to a good start, and this is still not a crisis. The pilot rolls his eyes and pulls out his phone to play Snake (this was the 2000s, remember?).

I try to adopt the tone of voice you would use if your best friend asked you to borrow a couple bucks so he could grab you both a drink. “Sure, no problem buddy!” I reply, not having missed a beat in the conversation while all this was going on in my head. I made a big show of reaching deep into my front pocket, fishing around for everything in there, and pulling out a wad of keys, coins, and a small bill or two. I extend my fist and open my hand, palm upwards. “Here you go, friend!” I say with a friendly face as I pluck my keys out of the jumble of currency with my other hand.

The leader takes the money with a smile. To this day I cannot tell if it was a smile of victory, gratefulness, or malice. But regardless, he thanks me and we shake hands and do that weird bro-hug thing. You know, the one where you grip each others hand while your opposite shoulders touch and you slap each other on the back. Some things have no language barrier I suppose.

The two then continue down the street behind me. My pilot, thoroughly disgusted with me at this point, wanders back to bed. I head home without further incident. During the rest of my walk, I reflect on the exchange. My first emotion is relief that it is over and that everything went well. My next emotion is pride that I didn’t give up the good stuff: my cell phone or the hundo by my foot. But then I start to wonder just how close I had come to something tragic happening…

I suddenly have a mini panic attack a few blocks from home. What if they have been following me all the way home!? Much more familiar with my surroundings at this point, I quickly duck down a side street and sprint to the next block. I stop at the corner, turn around, and wait. Nothing. Stupid, no one is following you. You’ve been walking for 30 minutes, and now you just made an idiot out of yourself. I take a few more twists and turns and slip into my building quickly, just to be safe. My pilot puts in his two weeks notice, citing complaints for multiple sleep disruptions. I am finally home.

Hindsight

I don’t know what those two were thinking that night. Maybe I could have said, “no, sorry” and been on my way without a problem. Or maybe there was a knife in that bag, and they were out to get anything they could however they could. I will never know. This happened over a decade ago, but it still sticks in my memory as a cautionary tale. You are free to judge me, and the lessons you can learn from me are yours to figure out.

However, I do want to say this… My accent was strong, and they absolutely knew I was at least a foreigner, and likely from the USA. Perhaps they were testing me. Perhaps they were robbing me. Perhaps they were just simply being nice guys trying to be friendly to a fellow wanderer of the night. Either way, I am proud of how I treated them outwardly. I betrayed no suspicion, disgust, or air of superiority. I treated them like friends, and regardless of what their true intentions were, I am proud of that. I hope that in their mind, even if I am a sucker or an easy mark, I was a good ambassador for my country, and a good guest in theirs.

In today's news: Paywalls Are Everywhere

In-App Purchases = Subscriptions

Do you pay for news?  More and more websites would like you to.  Which got me to thinking - how much would it cost to subscribe to all of the top news sites?  The answer: a whopping $254.34 per month.  And that is for only the digital content - no magazines or newspapers would be showing up in your mailbox.  How can someone be expected to stay "well rounded" if it costs so much money just to hear different opinions in the first place? 

I was prompted to write this post because my main go-to site for news, Bloomberg.com, recently switched from the ad-supported model to the paid subscription model.  I was and continue to be heartbroken.  But my favorite columnist had already left and I can still get their daily newsletters in my e-mail for free, so I guess it's not the end of the world.

My research into this topic was a little more time consuming than I initially anticipated.  I wanted to make sure I covered a wide swath of mainstream news, so I built my list of sites to investigate using three categories.  I would look at the sites of the top 15 physical newspapers by circulation, the top 30 news sites by Alexa ranking, and the top 30 news apps in the iTunes Apple store.

Right off the bat there was a bit of a surprise.  Several of the apps and sites were not "original content" news sites.  For example, Google News comes in at #5 on the Alexa list, while theSkimm is #4 in the iTunes store.  Neither employ a single writer creating original content.  Several of these kinds of entries fell off my list since they were places full of links to outside articles with no unique coverage of their own.

The second big surprise was the amount of paid sites that masquerade as free sites.  You may have seen this before when you get the message that says "you have 3 free articles remaining this month..."  Sometimes this is obviously presented to you, but on a few sites I was not made aware of the paywall until I hit it.  An abrupt stop sign slammed into my browser and insisted on receiving my credit card number before I could proceed.  I burned through my free article quota on several sites during my research.  You're welcome.  I've categorized these as paywall sites, even if they had a small number of free views.

There were a couple sites with partial paywalls, where only some of the articles were hidden, but you could enjoy unlimited viewing of the rest.  The Atlantic is one example (and one of my other personal favorites).  I gave these their own category in the infographic.  A few of the sites forced you to buy an entire year or quarter at a time.  Some sites billed every 4 weeks.  I standardized the prices to make them monthly charges.

I also ignored the introductory offers and reported only the full prices.  Many of these places are trying to lure people in with "$1 per week" offers which quickly double or triple once the trial period is over.  I threw those promotional rates out the window and just recorded the full price.

Ultimately, I ended up randomly and rapidly clicking through 37 different websites over the course of an evening.  I didn't even do it in private browsing mode.  I think my computer has more cookies than a Girl Scout troop now.  But blazing through site after site, I started noting some interesting things.  Here are a few reflections:

The Houston Chronicle wins the award for the most interesting and random article I inadvertently stumbled across.

The Seattle Times and The Guardian both go the Wikipedia route and leave everything free while attempting to guilt trip you into voluntarily paying them money.  I wonder what their success rate is.

The Wall Street Journal won't let you view even one single precious article for free.  They are also the most expensive at $36.99 a month.  That's some Netflix and a whole lot of chill money right there.

The free sites are obviously being supported by ads.  Like, extremely obviously.  I don't use an ad blocker, and some of these sites were so cluttered and crowded that I was afraid my browser was going to crash.

Video ads that autoplay are a scourge to mankind and must be exterminated.

Full screen pop ups are alarming and disorienting.  My first instinct when they happen is to Alt-F4 my way back to safety and stave off what must be a Russian hacker taking over my monitor.

The Hill wins the award for weirdest ad presented to me - a vacation ad featuring four beaming and shirtless dudes in sunglasses on the beach in - get this - Tel Aviv of all places.

I saw an ad for VRBO that treated me to another glimpse of the exact properties I had been looking up earlier this week.

The ads for the paid sites on Facebook show up like an innocent story in my news feed, complete with the names of my friends who "like" the Derpity Post-Times.  I wonder - are they paying for a subscription, or did they just like the page?

The clickbait is real.  I actually stopped to read some of the titles.  They did not disappoint.

Born Before 1985? This Government Program Will Pay off Your Mortgage (Only if You Claim It)

I had better jump on that!  Here I am paying off my mortgage like a sucker.  But wait, there's more!

You Should Never Shop on Amazon Without Using This Trick - Here's Why
20 Totally Normal Things Kate Middleton Can't Do
Try Not To Laugh At These Hilarious Photos That Perfectly Depict Each State
Surrogate Hears Doctor Gasp Moments After Delivering Baby, Looks Down & Quickly Realizes Why
Mom Gives Birth To 7 Babies. Just Wait Until You See Them 18 Years Later
The Pawn Star Find That Made Chumlee Rich

The urge to click on some of those was real.

Did you ever notice the names of the sites that sponsor some of this clickbait crap?  It's the most random stuff.

Denzel Washington's Son Has Grown Up To Be Gorgeous
Faith Hill's Daughter Is 19 & She's Gorgeous

These link to sites called "Miss Penny Stocks" and "Refinance Gold", respectively.  You know, come for the hot celeb kids, stay for the stock tips.  And why not go ahead and lower you interest payment too while you're here?

The clickbait articles started to get so well camouflaged that it was almost impossible to tell them apart from links to legitimate articles on the actual site.  Like this one totally turned out to be an actual article on the same legit news site I was browsing:

The not-so-German origins of German chocolate cake

Spoiler: it's Texas.  Chalk up another one for the Lone Star State!  You never can know too much useless trivia.

After my odyssey was complete, I turned my spreadsheet of research into this lovely infographic which looks like it was designed by blind person using a braille mouse.  What can I say, I can't do design.

Sources:

https://www.appannie.com/en/apps/ios/top/united-states/news/iphone/
https://www.agilitypr.com/resources/top-media-outlets/top-15-daily-american-newspapers/
https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News

What it's like being a volunteer EMT

A couple years ago I decided to get my EMT certification. I wanted to build up some skills (the prepper in me) but I also knew that it would provide me with the opportunity to volunteer. So, what does this all entail and what has my experience been like so far? Well, I'll tell you.

Overview

EMT stands for Emergency Medical Technician, and it is actually the second tier of training when it comes to emergency medicine. EMR, or Emergency Medical Responder, is the first tier. Most firefighters, police officers, and other first responders will get EMR certified, which can be completed in a few days. It really only scratches the surface of emergency medicine, mostly covering CPR, how to stop bleeding, and other big ticket items that you would most commonly run across. Total classroom time is generally around 24 hours. The EMT course goes into much more detail, and the course lasts for over 200 hours. EMT is what I jumped straight into.

Training

I took a class with a company that specializes in emergency medical training. That is all they do. Classes were held in their classroom, which was inside their office which was in one of those ubiquitous "professional buildings." You know the type - the ones that rent office space out to accountants, crappy law firms, eye doctors, and dentists. Always dentists. Anyway, I took a class that met in the evenings for a few hours twice a week along with several Saturdays. It spanned three months. My course also included ride-along time for two days in an actual ambulance, along with one day in the Emergency Room. My favorite part of the course was the ER time. It was such an incredible experience that it deserves its own post unto itself.

Anyway, the course covered all sorts of things, starting out with basic anatomy of the human body. That part was basically a re-hash of a high school course, maybe a little more advanced. Then it was into medical diagnosis and interventions, which took up the bulk of the course. We covered all kinds of things, like circulatory, respiratory, and other major body system emergencies. The emphasis was on circulatory issues (heart attacks and strokes and such). We went through the different types of shock, allergic reactions, diabetic emergencies, psychotic episodes, seizures, severe illnesses... basically all the things that would make you pick up the phone and dial 911 instead of drive yourself to the hospital. We ended the course on trauma, covering bleeding, broken bones, car accidents, and other kinds of accidents like drowning. Oh, we also spent an entire class on how to deliver a baby, so yeah, I can totally do that now. All in all, it was a very broad overview that I felt covered just about all the major things you could expect to see out there.

At the end of the course, you took a written exam and a practical exam, and then you got your certification to actually practice medicine. I was off to find a volunteer organization that would take me on.

The Organization

I didn't have to go far - the town adjacent to mine (this is New England, everything is town-centric) has a volunteer ambulance service. I applied and was accepted, and I have been riding with them for 4 months now. The town is small, and their call volume is low - around 1500 calls a year, which is about 4 a day. The ambulance corps, as it is called, is staffed by paid employees during weekdays but relies on volunteers to fill its night and weekend shifts. It is a strange hybrid, but hey, it works for me. The corps has two ambulances (ambulanci?), but usually only staffs one at any given time. Staffing the ambulance means two people on duty. The interesting thing is that volunteers don't actually have to be at the building when they are on duty - they can respond from home if they live in town. This often leads to embarrassingly long response times, like the night when there was a call at a house that you could literally see from the building, but it took us 12 minutes to get there because the driver was responding from his house.

The corps has its own building all to itself, and it was pretty impressive to me the first time I saw it. There is a large and small meeting room, the garages (obviously), a day room with recliners and a TV, showers, a washer and dryer, a kitchen, and two bedrooms (guys and girls) with two twin beds in each. All in all, it would be a pretty sweet place to ride out the zombie apocalypse. Most of the time I am there, I am in the "command room" which is set up fairly interestingly. There is a row of computers where most people just surf the internet when they're not writing up charts or doing training, and then there are the radios, printers, and a couple TVs that show the schedule and a grid of all the active calls in our county. It's also right next to the garage door, so it's a convenient place to wait for a call. Which incidentally is what we are doing 90% of the time.

Most shifts I will only have one or two calls, and most shifts are 12 hours long. So yeah, it can get boring. Most people bring other stuff to do or to work on - college students do homework, I write, etc. There are a few "productive" things you can do, like inventory the ambulance, but I've found that most of the volunteer staff just sit around.

The Volunteers

As far as who else volunteers there, well, it runs the gamut. We have high school kids looking to build their resume. We have pre-med students looking to pad their application to med school. We've got firefighters who do this to keep their medical skills sharp. We've got people like me who just want to give back to the community. We've got older volunteers who do it to fill the time now that their kids are grown. All types. There is nurse and former paramedic who has forgotten more about medicine than I'll ever know. There is the college student who is studying to become an elementary school teacher. There is the business owner giving back to the community. It's an eclectic group.

The Calls

The calls we get, fittingly enough, proportionately follow the amount of time we spend in class learning about them. That is, there are many more medical calls than trauma calls. I have been to two motor vehicle accidents, but numerous "sick person" calls. When you call 911, the dispatcher will quickly determine if you need an paramedic or not. These are called "ALS" calls (advanced life saving). This is opposed to BLS calls (basic life saving) which are calls that an EMT can handle on their own. Basically, if the call is at all interesting (medically speaking, I'm not a sadist), as in a truly severe trauma, a heart attack, a stroke, or some other similarly dire scenario, a paramedic will be called to the scene as well. Those are the guys that zip around in SUVs with all their fancy gear. Paramedics can do about ten times more than an EMT can, which is appropriate, seeing as how their schooling lasts 2 years as opposed to my 3 months. They can set up an IV, give several kinds of medicines, and intubate (insert a breathing tube into) someone who is in respiratory distress. They also have a portable EKG (the thing that monitors your heart and makes all those squiggly lines). Paramedics are the Swiss army knife to the EMT folding blade.

Anyway, depending on the call, a paramedic may or may not also be on the way. Our town will also generally have some firefighters respond from home to assist with manpower if needed (lifting people is not always a two person job). Motor vehicle accidents always get a fire engine and cops. But most calls it is just us. When we get a call, we are told where to go and given a brief description of what to expect when we get there. "75 year old male, difficulty breathing". "62 year old female, vomiting". "81 year old male, fall". Stuff like that. We jump in the ambulance and take off. Depending on how severe the call sounds, we may or may not use lights and sirens on our way to the scene.

On Scene

When we arrive on scene, the first thing we do is make sure we are in the right place, and make sure everything is safe. I haven't had this problem yet, but you can imagine that there are some pretty unsavory places out there where some 911-worthy events occur. The general consensus in EMT world is that my safety is most important thing. It sounds a bit selfish, but you can't help anybody if you get stabbed, shot, or fall though a hole in the floor. So if the scene isn't safe, we call for the cops or the fire department and they come and secure it before we go it. But 99% of the time it's just a regular old house or apartment, so we knock on the door and wait for someone to let us in. I have not had to break down a door, but I've heard it happens if the person is home alone or can't open it for you.

The thing that surprised me most about being an EMT is how slowly everything unfolds. No one runs, ever. We spend a lot of time in the house or apartment just talking to the family, the patient, and getting vitals. Now obviously if they are having a heart attack we are getting them in the ambulance and leaving as quickly as possible, but I have yet to respond to one of those calls (knock on wood). Most of my calls have been someone who is running a high fever, or who is in a lot of pain, or who has fallen, and we are just there to take them to the hospital more out of caution than anything else. For most of these people, there is nothing I can do for them personally besides give them a ride. That's the second most surprising thing about being an EMT - how depressing it can be.

I'd like you to pause and think for a minute about what what have to happen to you, right now, at this exact moment, for you to pick up the phone and dial 911 and ask for an ambulance to come get you. Go ahead, visualize the circumstances. What did you think of? Severe chest pain? A nasty fall where your bones are sticking out or where you can't get up? Uncontrollable explosions from one or both of your bodily exits? Whatever you imagined, it would have to be pretty bad, right? Probably one of the worst days of your life, right? Well, this is the only time I as an EMT will ever see you.

I have transported dying cancer patients back to the hospital they were just discharged from days earlier. I've taken mentally handicapped and wheelchair bound people to the emergency room to make sure they didn't break anything when they fell. I've brought senior citizens to the hospital who have no ability to interact with me due to dementia. In each instance, the ride is a bleak journey. There is nothing I can do for these people, and sometimes there is nothing the hospital will be able to do for them either. I will always remember one woman sobbing, wishing it could all "just be over" so that the pain from her cancer ridden body could finally stop. There was nothing I could do for her. There's nothing I can do for almost any of them.

Except there is something I can do, and it is what keeps me coming back shift after shift. I can treat them with dignity and respect. I can listen to them. I can make them smile - maybe even laugh. I can acknowledge that they are a person, and not just a patient. When I do that, something special happens. The tears stop. The fear goes out of their eyes. They relax. And maybe in those moments in the ambulance, stuck in limbo between the quiet of their home and the chaos of the hospital, I can help heal a tiny part of their soul, shoring it up a bit for the trials ahead.

That is why I volunteer. The day I stop caring about the people we transport is the day I will quit.

Poverty and inequality: one possible government solution

"The poor will always be with you," once said a very wise man.  So why try to do anything about it?  Well, that's the pessimist view, but I believe people have a responsibility to help those that are less fortunate than themselves.  I used to just assume that anyone who worked hard would be able to get ahead in life, but after reading a book recently, I've questioned that presumption. 

Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America came out 18 years ago, so I'm a little late to this particular party, but it is still relevant today.  The author, a prominent writer with a PhD and no shortage of money, decides to see if she can live on an entry-level low wage job.  She spends a month in three different areas of the country, waitressing, working as a maid at a cleaning service, and working at Wal-Mart.  In each state, she finds a place to live and then pays her rent and feeds herself on around $7 an hour.  

I'm not saying this book was the quintessential work of investigative journalism.  I definitely have my reservations about the author, her attitude, her beliefs, and her agenda.  But the fact remains that it is downright difficult, if not completely impossible, to support a family on these kinds of low wages without some kind of help or assistance.  I think that there are three pillars of support - individual, faith-based, and government.  This essay is regarding the government leg of the stool.  We can argue all day about the proper size of this goal, or whether or not it should exist at all, but the fact of the matter is that it already does, so I'll save that debate for another day and focus on how we can do better with the money we already spend.  

My main takeaway from the book centered around relocation.  Since the author was only staying for a month in each location, she couldn't sign a full year lease.  This caused her to stick with monthly rentals or weekly rentals (and sometimes nightly rentals at motel rooms).  This solution cost her much more each month than a yearlong lease would have been, but they also had a few things in their favor.  First, there was usually no security deposit.  Second, no first and/or last month's rent due in advance.  Third, utilities were often included.  

All of this combined means that to move into a new apartment requires a significant amount of money up front.  A lot of people might have trouble scraping together the kind of cash required for utility deposits, security deposits, and an extra month of two of rent, and this limits not only their mobility, but also their ability to keep costs down over time by moving into cheaper housing arrangements than a short term rental.  These short term rentals also had the downside of being dirty, dangerous, and lacking any way to prepare food.  That last point also meant that the author was constantly resorting to eating fast food, rather than cooking for herself.

Which bring me to my idea.  I propose a new government program, perhaps replacing or consolidated into housing subsidies or TANF, that focuses on "jump starting" people who are ready to move to a new region and start over but who lack the means to do that.  Let's call it the Bootstrap program.  You would get one bootstrap every ten years, and you could also transfer your Bootstrap to a friend or family member.  What is a Bootstrap?  The idea would be that you would have to move to a new area with job opportunities to qualify.  No heading just up the road either - there would be a mileage requirement, too.  The program would work on a vendor reimbursement basis, where you had the company bill the government.  Your bootstrap would include the following:

• one "you haul it" rental (up to $500)
• gasoline and tolls (up to $100)
• groceries (up to $200)
• clothing allowance (up to $100)
• first month's rent (up to local housing rates)
• security deposit (reimbursable to the government)
• utilities deposit (reimbursable to the government)

In practice, this would all work out something like this: an individual or a family would wake up one day and realize that their town had nothing left to offer economically.  Jobs are gone, crime is high, and things are just not looking up.  They decide to make a fresh start a few cities or states away.  They activate their Bootstrap, and are able to rent a moving truck and get themselves a to new place.  They are able to move into an apartment with no up front costs.  They are able to fill their refrigerator with groceries.  They are able to get some new clothes for interviews.  They have a month to apply for jobs and start working without needing to worry about starting off in debt.  

Now the magic questions are, how much would this cost, and who is going to pay for this? 

Let's start with cost.  This would be open to any between the ages of 18 and 62 (when you are eligible for Social Security).  According to the Census Bureau, there are 191 million people in this age range right now.  Based on my list above, I'd say each bootstrap would run approximately $3000 depending on location.  That comes to a maximum cost of $573 billion.  If you figure that you only get one of these every 10 years, that means an average of 10% of the eligible population might use it each year.  So figure $58 billion annually.  You could also kick out anyone who made over a certain amount of money any time in the past few years.  Then you have to figure a number of people just wouldn't use the benefit because they don't need it (though transfers are allowed, so that mitigates this a bit).  If the deposits go back to the government, you could recoup another significant chunk of money.  I figure all in you're looking at around $40 billion or less a year. 

That's still quite a bit of money.  Not an easy pill for a conservative or a libertarian to swallow.

But let's look at the benefits.  Right now, New Mexico has one of the highest unemployment rates in the USA (49th place).  Many of these people would probably love to move to Colorado (10th place), if only they had the chance.  A few hundred thousand newly employed people, and now you have a boom in Colorado bringing in more tax revenue.  Not only that, but you have to figure that many of these people were on welfare back home to begin with.  How much money could you save by moving people off these programs through new jobs in a new city?  My guess: a significant amount.

Let's take housing, for example.  In 2014, the federal government spent $18 billion on the Housing Choice Voucher program, $12 billion on Project-based rental assistance, $7 billion on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, and $7 billion on public housing.  That's almost $50 billion right there.  I imagine that quite a few of those recipients would love to move to a different part of the country with better opportunities, but they are stuck in place thanks to the very government programs that are designed to help them.  If you had to choose between moving to a different state and losing your subsidized housing, or staying where you were with no prospects for work but at least a roof over your head, wouldn't you err on the side of inertia?  My Bootstrap program would provide families like these with a mechanism to escape the prison of a dead-end city and strike out for someplace new.

Let's look at another program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).  This goes to over 2 million families a year, and in 2013 cost the government $17 billion.  This could also fall if those families had more flexibility to pack up and move to a place with better support, better opportunities, or a lower cost of living.  Then there are the billions more spent on Medicaid, food stamps, and supplemental security income that could be chipped away at if more people simply had the means to move to a region of the country with actual opportunities.

Another way to drive down the cost is through private partnerships.  Just like some housing developments can apply to be Section 8 eligible, I envision a program where companies partner with the federal government as Bootstrap participants.  In exchange for accepting lower rates, they would benefit from increased business, tax deductions, good publicity, and a bigger stake in growing and improving their community.  You could even provide employers with incentives to provide application options and interviews to remote applicants, ensuring that people already have irons in the fire when they show up in town.  In the book I read, the author had to spend several days searching and waiting for a job before she could finally start one, even in tight labor markets.

Business friendly Republicans should love the idea of a steady supply of new workers arriving in tight labor markets.  Freedom minded Libertarians can hopefully appreciate the liberation that would come to so many families who would love to move, but can't afford that large step.  They should both get excited at the potential to reduce other welfare costs, thus actually reducing overall spending with this program.  Sometimes all that someone needs to get off the welfare wheel is a steady job, but when there are no jobs in town and you can't afford to move to a different one, what then?  Continue on welfare.  My program could free countless people from their current poverty traps while improving their lives and even saving the government money in the process. 

The poor are indeed with us, and always will be.  I agree that something should be done to help the poor and the impoverished, but I hate the idea of never-ending streams of money designed to keep people stagnant and in one place.  This seems like a decent idea to me.  What do you think?

When you find out something is wrong with your kid

Before David was even born, the doctors saw something concerning on a prenatal ultrasound.  His ureters were enlarged, which could indicate one of a number of different things.  He could have a blockage to his bladder, or he could be refluxing backwards through the system from his bladder to his kidneys.  Either way, not good, so they ordered some ultrasounds shortly after he was born.  These ultrasounds revealed the same thing as before - enlarged ureter, possible blockage or reflux.  The doctors had him go through a test where they injected dye into his bladder that would show up on an X-Ray.  They observed it in real time to see if any of the dye made it up either ureters.  Neither side had reflux, so we could cross that off our list.  He was wetting his diapers regularly, so we figured there was no blockage either.  The doctor scheduled a follow-up a few months down to road just to be safe.

A few ultrasounds later, and the David was in the clear.  We were told that his right kidney was smaller than his left one, but this was nothing to be concerned about, and it would probably catch up.  At least that's what  I remember hearing.  Anyway, fast forward six or seven moths to yesterday when David had another ultrasound.  Once again, the left kidney looked fine.  But this time, the ultrasound tech couldn't even find the right kidney.  Discussing this with the doctor, we found out that when they said his right kidney was smaller than his left, they had actually said it was smaller at 9 months old than it should have been on the day he was born.  In other words, he was born with a small kidney, it likely never grew, and possibly even shrank.  Now it may not even be functional at all, and it doesn't appear on an ultrasound.

The doctor has us scheduled for one more ultrasound at a facility with better instruments in a couple months just to make absolutely certain his hunch is correct.  But in my mind (and in all likelihood) it's already a done deal: my son will grow up with only one healthy kidney.  He will likely be officially diagnosed with kidney dysplasia, thus winning his own little 1 in 4,000 lottery.

In and of itself, this is really not that big of a deal.  There are millions of people alive right now with only one working kidney, living full and healthy lives.  Many people choose to voluntarily donate one of their own healthy kidneys so that someone else can live, and those people are no worse for wear.  So the rational part of my mind has already made peace with the fact that David is now in their boat, and that part of my mind is fine with the logic of it.  But contrary to popular belief, there are so many more parts of a man's mind.  At least this man anyway.  Those parts of my mind have been duking it out over the past 24 hours or so, and it's been a way rougher ride for me than I thought it would be.  Even the fact that this is harder on me than I thought it would be is tough to deal with.  Let me try and unpack this...

At a primal level, I feel like I have failed in my most basic responsibility as a father: to protect my child.  Primal Brain also have sad and ouch inside because little boy is broken and Primal Brain cannot fix.  My Logical Brain comes back screaming "you are moron, Primal Brain, and your grammar is terrible.  This was and continues to be completely outside of your control.  If you failed at this, then George Washington failed to prevent the Bubonic Plague."  Logical Brain is a fan of odd analogies.  But Primal Brain just stares back blankly and is unconvinced, because he is indeed a moron.

Source

On a selfish level, I am angry.  My Asshole Brain is whining like the entitled little punk he is.  He is saying things like "David doesn't deserve this" and "this is so unfair" and "stop writing the stuff I'm thinking about, this is private" and other typical whiny stuff that he likes to say.  But lately he has been no match for my logical side.  When Asshole Brain starts up with his sniveling little pity party, Logical Brain crashes through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man.  "Are you out of you mind?!" Logical Brain says, unaware of the irony in his statement.  "Think of all the kids out there that are going through things a million times worse than this.  David's situation doesn't even register compared to other families!  It would be like if hundreds of years ago some family of Native Americans had to live with severe acne and decided to feel sorry for themselves while across the ocean the freaking Bubonic Plague was raging."  Apparently Logical Brain is also hung up on the plague.

While these two fine gents are having their go at each other, a short, pathetic little fourth brain slowly walks by.  He's muttering some of the most vile stuff under his breath.  Sometimes I shut the door on Logical and Asshole Brain, and get real close to hear what Judgey Brain has to say.  "Logical Brain is right... there are so many worse things David could have.  How dare you get upset about this.  You should be embarrassed that Asshole Brain is even in there throwing a pity party in the first place.  This is nothing.  You want real pain and suffering?  Keep up the ungratefulness at how good you have it and see what karma drops on you next."

It's basically this, but less wholesome and more depressing.

I think I like Judgey Brain even less than Asshole Brain.  But he kind of has a point.  Right now I am following the story of a friend of a family member who has a boy almost exactly my son's age, and that family is going through some unimaginable pain right now.  Here is a link to their GoFundMe page if you care to see what true heartache looks like.  If you choose to read their story, I hope you will consider donating.  I learned about this little boy just a few days before I found out the news about my own son.  The dissonance in my head right now is real.  I feel so conflicted about caring more about my stupid little not-even-a-real-problem than about this heartbreaking situation with the other family.  And I don't mean care in the sense that Logical Brain cares more about David's story, because he doesn't.  I mean care in the sense that David matters more to Primal Brain than the other boy does.

To summarize, I feel like I have failed somehow as a parent.  I feel like I am failing at being a decent human being.  I acknowledge the logic and the facts of the situation, but it doesn't change how I feel.  The fact that I am having this struggle at all makes me even more upset, because I feel like I should be over this by now.  Joy has been conspicuously absent the past few days.  But it helps to write about this and try and unpack some of this stuff.  Even if Judgey Brain is judging me for doing it.

Your Money: Bathtub or Bookshelf?

Unless you are a particularly self-aware individual, I feel like most people go through life just assuming that everyone else thinks the same way about basic concepts as you do.  I'm not talking about things like politics or religion.  Obviously everyone knows that each person has their own take on these more complicated aspects of life.  I'm talking about things like "food is what you eat to survive", "sleep is one of the most wonderful things in the world", and "money is a pool of resources you add to and draw from".

When you meet someone for the first time and come to discover that they think very differently about a fundamental aspect of life, it's kind of shocking.  The first time I met a true foodie, I thought they were joking.  They really thought they were too good for fast food?  Come on.  I'm not saying it's healthy, but you can't beat the convenience, and it's not that pricey either.  Plus it can be downright delicious.  It never occurred to me that food could be this thing that almost borders on art until I met a few people that were truly passionate about cooking.

The same goes for sleep.  I love to sleep.  In spite of the fact that I haven't felt like I've received a good night's sleep since I was about 15 years old, I look forward to doing it night after night, and once I'm doing it, I don't want to stop.  It is embarrassing the amount of things I have turned down in favor of going to sleep.  When I started meeting people who hated sleep, it blew my mind.  Insomniacs, workaholics, night owls who also manage to wake at an adult hour... it's all alien to me.  Sometimes I'm jealous when I meet people who can function on 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night, but then I realize that I love sleep, so what do I care that I need 8 or 9?

Now, money is little bit more of a private matter.  You generally don't talk about it with your acquaintances or your family, and you might not even discuss it much with your closest friends.  Because of this, it's kind of hard to figure out how other people feel about money and what they think of it.  I didn't meet someone I knew who saw money differently than I do until I started talking about it with my wife.  It's been a process, but I think I understand how she thinks of it, and I hope I have explained to her how I view it.  It leads to conflicts, but like everything else in a marriage, you can get through it with a lot of communication.

To me, money was always a single number.  You had $500 in your account, then you deposited some money, and now you have $700.  You spent $100, and now you have $600.  Money was water, and the bank account was a bathtub.  You dumped water into the tub when you earned it, and you scooped some out when you spent it.  Hopefully you always had enough to cover your legs.

My wife sees money in a completely different way.  To her, money isn't water.  It's a book.  Some books are big and fat, others are small and thin.  Her bank account is a bookshelf.  When she earns money, she puts that book on the shelf.  When she needs to buy something, she takes a book off the shelf.  But like a librarian, she is fairly meticulous about tracking which books come and go.

This discrepancy in viewpoints first came to light a few months after we got married.  People had given us some checks and some cash as gifts, and I had deposited them in my checking account.  I recall the conversation unfolding more or less like this:

Amanda - We should get a couch for the basement.
Dan - Yeah, that would be a good idea.
Amanda - We can use some of the money we got at our wedding.
Dan - Uh, sure.
Amanda - Where are those checks?
Dan - Um, I deposited them in my bank account already.
Amanda - What? Did you spend it already?
Dan - .... maybe?

In my mind, the moment I deposited those dollars, they started mixing with all the other dollars in a molecular swirl that was impossible to reverse.  I probably spent some on lunch, some on beer, some on the rent, and there was probably still some left.  But in my mind, my account still had $500 more in it today than it would have had if I had never deposited the money, so who cares?  Amanda was not having it.  She felt like I had already spent the money on myself.  It wasn't until I explained to her how I viewed the situation that she finally felt like I hadn't done something shady.

This issue has come up several times over the past few years, and it always takes a little bit of a conversation to work through.  It's funny how your brain can see something so differently than someone else, and how that difference in viewpoint can lead to arguments over the most basic things.

For example, say you receive $50 gift card to Amazon or Target.  If you are a bookshelf person, you will think of all the cool stuff you can get with this extra $50.  When you finally decide on what to get, you see it as basically free - you wouldn't have gotten that something if you didn't have the gift card, so why not go buck wild and get you something fancy?  If you are a bathtub person, the moment that gift card arrives, your tub just went from $500 to $550.  While the bookshelf person is daydreaming about a new toy, you just bought groceries for $100.  Now your tub has $450 in it.  Then the bookshelf person comes to you and says something like this:

Bookshelf - I want this shiny bauble, and guess what, it's exactly $50!
Bathtub - But we don't need a shiny bauble.  We need toilet paper and detergent.
Bookshelf - OK, well you can go get that stuff.  But I'm using this gift card on the bauble.
Bathtub - I wanted to use it for the household stuff.
Bookshelf - But it was a gift!
Bathtub - (confused) so?
Bookshelf - Who buys toiletries for a gift!?  "Happy birthday, here's some toilet paper!"

I would like to advocate for the bathtub view of money, and I will tell you why.  If you keep separate books of money on multiple different bookshelves, it is easy to lose sight of the overall size of your library.  Imagine walking into public library where the shelves are 80% full, and then into another where the shelves are 60% full.  The gaps are sporadic, and the density varies from section to section, but it's obvious some books are missing.  It's just not obvious how many are missing.

Now imagine you visit two public pools.  Again, one is 80% full, the other is 60% full.  It will be much, much easier to tell at glance which pool is more full than the other.  It will be much easier to decide if you can afford to take a few gallons out of the pool than if you need to choose whether or not you can take a few books off the shelf.

I'm not advocating for lumping all your money into a single account and calling it a day.  You don't have to change a thing, just your mindset.  I have a spreadsheet where I total up every single asset I own, offset by all my liabilities.  I do this twice a month.  Sometimes my checking account is nice and flush, but that's because my credit card balance is a little higher than usual.  The month after I pay the annual property tax bill out of the savings account could be deceptively kind to my checking account balance; but, if I look at my overall total, I can see the hit.

I find that looking at your money this way makes it so much easier to save, because when you put money into your 401(k), buy some stocks, or you transfer some cash to your savings account, your total net worth stays the same.  If you think of money like bookshelves, you can get into this mindset where you only notice the book missing from your checking account bookshelf, and you start to cut back on your savings.  I think of my money like a bathtub, and try to make sure that each month the tub has a little more water in it than it did the month before.  I'd encourage you to give this mindset a shot and see what it does for your finances.  

Baby's first infographic

So I figured I'd give making an infographic a shot.  Not super happy with how it turned out, but whatever, here it is for the world to see.  I had a vision in my head of what it would look like, and when you start actually making the thing, it drifts further and further away from how you envisioned it somehow.  I kind of had wanted to put the price of each service listed next to the logo, and have them all grouped a circle around the category icon.  That would have been way too cluttered.  Then I decided to go with more of a squares on a calendar look, so that boxed me in (pun not intended, but appreciated).  I have a few more ideas for other infographics.  The tool I'm using has some pre-made templates - maybe I'll give that a shot next.

9 Things I Miss About the Army

I served in the US Army for 4 years - from 2009 to 2013.  This means that right now more time has passed since I left the service than the total I was actually in.  That blows my mind.  It doesn't seem like it was just yesterday or anything, but it also doesn't seem like a whole other person could have gone through the same experience as me starting after I left and also be out today.  I have a cousin who just graduated from Air Assault school.  I worked for his dad when I was in college and his son was in middle school.  Time continually marches on, I suppose.

There may be a little bit of a rose tint to my rear view mirror, and I can't deny that nostalgia is a powerful force.  Those of you that knew me while I was on active duty might laugh to read this list today.  But I am writing this as a veteran looking back, not as an author trying to document "how it really is."  That time in my life was very different -- it was much more orderly, yet more chaotic.  More disciplined, yet more thrilling.  More exciting, and yet lonelier.  The highlights of my reminiscence range from the practical to the psychological.  Here is my list of nine things I miss about the Army.

1) The Clothes

I think the fact that to this day I still wear my Army issue socks speaks volumes.  Our government is getting a great deal from their sock supplier.  Also, they are comfortable.  I've long since chucked out my undershirts, but man, these socks are comfy.  There is something about a sock that goes all the way over your calf that is just perfectly snug and comfortable.

Moving on past socks, just the fact that every day I put on the same uniform is something I miss.  You never had to pick out an outfit.  You never had to update your wardrobe.  You never had to worry about hitting the proper level of professionalism in what you wore to work.  Working in an office turns the idea of a uniform upside down.  I hate worrying about all these things in the civilian world.  Sometimes I wish I could just show up to work in the same uniform day after day. 

Oh, and those boots and pants were super comfortable too.  I used to get home, take my uniform top off, and stay in my undershirt, pants, and boots until I went to bed.

2) The Benefits

There's a reason the healthcare industry is a sixth of our economy.  It's because it sucks.  Insurance is a scam until it's the one thing keeping you alive.  Providers are somehow simultaneously overpaid and underpaid.  The billing system is atrocious.  Networks add a fun layer of arbitrariness to the entire operation.  Oh, and don't forget about your astronomical premiums, deductibles, and co-pays.  You know who doesn't have to worry about any of that?  Someone on active duty.  I miss TRICARE like I miss Saturday morning cartoons.  

Hey people who own a house and itemize your taxes: you know how it's pretty sweet that you get to deduct your mortgage interest and property taxes?  Well, what if you could deduct your entire mortgage payment, or even your rent payment if you didn't own?  Wouldn't that be even sweeter?  Well, active duty soldiers who live off-post basically get to do just that.  There is a line in your pay stub for "BAH" which is your housing allowance.  It's designed to cover your entire housing cost and varies with your zip code.  It's completely un-taxed.  And by that, I mean it's even excluded from those pesky payroll taxes, saving even more than the mortgage interest deduction saves you.  Oh, and when you deploy, you don't have to pay any taxes at all.

When I travel for work, I get pretty fairly reimbursed.  The government goes above and beyond.  Anyone who ever went "TDY" can tell you that you make bank.  Don't forget to claim laundry in your travel voucher!  That's an extra  $2 a day! (OK, maybe they got rid of that, but still, it was there when I was in, and a 100 day TDY earned me an extra $200 doing that alone).  

Don't forget the relocation expenses, the all expense paid R&R plane ticket, the 30 days of paid vacation a year, free gym membership, all kinds of discounts, and a slew of smaller perks.  It's true that the government has the best benefits for your average Joe.  I miss it.

3) Job Security

When I was just a sophomore in college, I had a guaranteed job lined up after graduation.  When I showed up to work, I knew that unless I broke the law or got fat, I would never be fired or laid off for at least 10 years, regardless of how terrible of an employee I might have been.  In five years out of the military, I've witnessed countless firings and been through two different rounds of layoffs.  It's scary out in the private sector.  "YOU ARE AN AT WILL EMPLOYEE".  This basically means your company can toss you without any warning just like your ex did back in your freshman year of high school.  You can go from steady paycheck to unemployed in the blink of an eye, and to someone who is supporting a family, that possibility is terrifying.  I really miss the job security.

4) The Public Pay Chart

If you had asked me to make a list of what I did and did not like about the Army when I was active duty, this is one item that I am sure I would have placed on the "hate it" list.  As a matter of fact, it's something I mentioned during my interviews with companies as a reason for leaving after I got out.  I remember saying something along the lines of "I am a high performer, and it is frustrating in the military to not be rewarded financially for my excellence."  While that might have mostly been a slick sound bite for the recruiter, I really did feel incredibly frustrated that there were no raises or bonuses for high performers in the Army.  You might get promoted ahead of your peers, but at the lower ranks, the first chance I'd have to do that wouldn't be for seven years.  

I don't even want to get into the topic of whether raises or bonuses actually getting paid out for performance in the private sector.  Apart from it varying wildly from one company to another, I've found that unless you have a sales position, these bonuses and raises generally revolve around who is the biggest jerk about demanding one, and who is threatening to leave if they don't get one.  But let's set that whole concept aside for a minute and think of it on an even more basic level.

In the military, as in anywhere one works, everyone generally knows who the poor performers are, and who the rock stars are.  The thing of it is, while it's frustrating to know that you're making the same amount as they are in the military, at least you know.  I swear, in the private sector, people are scared absolutely shitless to talk about how much money anybody makes.  As a result, you don't have a clue what anyone else around you makes.  The guy who is just a little bit better than you... does he make double your salary?  The guy who is on a performance improvement plan... does he actually make a little more than you?  Should you ask for a raise?  Are you overpaid or underpaid compared to your peers?  Are you going to be the first to get axed because you would save an outsize portion on payroll, or is your boss grinning behind your back because he is keeping the salaries in his department at bonus-worthy lows because you are a sucker who doesn't make what you're worth?  Knowing everyone's salary in the military was irritating.  Not knowing in the private sector is absolutely maddening.

Oh, and one more thing - in the military, you got significant scheduled raises at year markers even if you didn't get promoted.  When I was a Lieutenant and ticked over to my 3rd year from my 2nd, my base pay went up by over 15%.  Today, that makes me want to reach back and slap myself for not realizing how lucky I was.  

5) "Odd Jobs" and Opportunities

Life in garrison may have been boring at times, but at least there were plenty of training opportunities.  I went to Unit Movement Officer school to learn how to load equipment onto rail cars and tractor trailers, and then I also went to the Air Load Planners Course to learn how to load vehicles onto cargo planes.  Both times I was able to completely walk away from my day job for a couple weeks to spend all day every day learning something new.  That was fun.  

I also had countless opportunities that I was too lazy to take advantage of, like a chance to go to Airborne School and jump out of airplanes, or a separate chance to go to Air Assault School and jump out of helicopters.

One of the last things I did before I got out was to take on an additional duty as an Investigating Officer for a FLIPL.  I was to spend several weeks conducting my own investigation into some money that was missing from the unit's morale fund bank account.  I got to spend some time with legal getting trained on what to do, and then they set me loose to conduct interviews, gather evidence, and create a sweet binder full of findings and recommendations (spoiler: a soldier totally stole that money).  I had a lot of fun with that assignment.

6) The Work/Life Balance

I will readily admit that my job today provides excellent work/life balance... compared to other jobs in the private sector.  Nothing can touch the military, though.  Unless you were stuck on the deployment hamster wheel, I found that the military really excelled at ensuring that soldiers had plenty of time with their families.

I talked earlier about the 30 days of PTO each year, but it's important to also note the culture surrounding PTO.  In the private sector, a lot of times you are expected to remain available for "emergencies" even while you're on PTO.  In the military, I found that your leave was sacred.  Unless someone died or got arrested or we went to war, no one was calling you while you were on leave.  No one checked their e-mail on vacation.  No one logged back online in the evening after a doctors appointment.  It was gloriously pure time off.

The other thing that I really miss is the four day weekends.  Most of my time in garrison, we had one every month.  That meant that each month I had two four day weeks that didn't cost me a day of PTO.  On top of that, we'd let people go home early on every other Friday most of the time, and I remember the Monday after the Super Bowl being a "late opening" day.  And then there's block leave.  Wonderful, wonderful leave-at-lunchtime-every-day-for-weeks-if-you're-not-taking-time-off block leave.

7) Adventure

I've gotten to do a decent amount of traveling in the private sector.  I've been to Utah, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.  In the Army, I spent at least a month in seven states, as well as a year overseas.  I was paid to drive myself two-thirds of the way across the country, including the absurdly ridiculous journey from tip to tip in Texas.  I trained in the shadow of Mount Rainier, Washington.  I passed through Bangor, Maine, as well as Ireland and Germany.  I drove across the mid-Atlantic more times than I care to remember, including getting stuck in a snowstorm in Virginia and spending the night in a hotel because the governor shut down I-95.  

I had the opportunity as a cadet to shadow a pilot in upstate New York.  The last thing he wanted to do was babysit an ROTC cadet, so he cut me loose to explore.  I finagled my way onto a Chinook helicopter bound for West Point and got to ride on the back ramp with my legs dangling over the most picturesque model train mountain river vista I have ever seen.  I charmed my way onto a Blackhawk that was going to make a detour to New York City on the way back home and got to buzz the Statue of Liberty from the back seat of a combat helicopter.

I got to shoot thousands of rounds of ammunition on the taxpayer's dime through some of the coolest weapons we have.  I got to explore the capital of a country in the Middle East for a day.  I got to live in a tent in the Texas desert and run a remote outpost for a week.  I got to paid to rappel down walls, hike through the woods, play paintball, and go camping.  I got to meet and hear stories from dozens of amazing people who have experiences which put my pathetic tales to shame.  

8) Pride

Do I take pride in what I do at my job today?  In case anyone from work is reading this: sure, yes, of course I do.  But am I proud to work for an average performing, middle-sized software company?  Not really.  Was I proud to be a soldier for four years of my life?  Absolutely.

If the conversation goes on long enough, you inevitably get to the topic of what you do for a living with nearly anyone you meet.  Today, I dread this topic.  I have no cool stories anymore.  I have nothing exciting that happens to me.  I contribute nothing to society.  I am the quintessential office drone, the worker bee in a white collar, the rat running on a wheel which may or may not actually be connected to anything.  It is not a fun topic of conversation for me, and I will deflect with a million questions about your undoubtedly much more interesting and meaningful career.  But if you had caught me 5 years ago... I would have been proud to talk about what I did for a living.

9) Camaraderie

Now we're really moving out of the practical and into the psychological.  I would say that my sense of camaraderie peaked in ROTC and slowly trailed off over the years, but it was there especially strong at the beginning.  Being a part of something bigger, a piece of a puzzle, an actor in a play... I really felt like I was an important part of a close-knit organization.  In an article I read recently, the author wrote something that really hit home: "Friendship is a relationship between those who possess true emotional and intellectual affinity—they do not seek to lose their identity, but rather “find themselves in each other and thereby gain greater self-knowledge and self-possession.” Camaraderie, by contrast, is about submersion in a collective."  This is something that so many outside of the military (and maybe the first-responder community) just don't grasp.  You don't make that many real friends in the military.  You make a few, sure, but no more than you'd make at a regular job.  Instead, you form a different kind of relationship.

You belong to something bigger, something greater than the sum of it's parts.  When you show up to work each morning, there is literally a prescribed spot on the pavement you are supposed to stand on, and people will instantly notice if you're missing.  When you deploy, you are a crucial name on a roster, not easily replaced and certainly not with a high degree of interchangeability.  When you are traveling or eating or walking or just standing around in your group of fellow soldiers... it is unlike anything you will ever experience out of a uniform.  You lose part of your own personal identity in that moment, but in exchange you tap into something visceral and primal - you gain entry into an exclusive tribe and are accepted as one of their own.  It's intoxicating, and I'm convinced it's a large part of the reason so many people stay in for so long, or volunteer for deployment after deployment.  

After you get out, you might see the same faces and spend time together again, but it will never be the same as when you wore the uniform.  To quote the previous article again, "These feelings are temporary—Gray later noted the awkwardness of WWII-veteran reunions where the old fellow feeling could be reignited only with the strong application of effort and alcohol—but they’re deeply powerful."  Spend time in the VA, at a veterans event, or even pass by the USO at an airport and see people in uniform.  That feeling is gone.

So there you have it.  Nine items, devolving into wistful nostalgia... with the lurking doubts in the back of my mind wondering if this camaraderie even truly existed in the first place.  Sometimes I miss the Army.

How does an IRA save you money on taxes?

Want to learn how you could possibly save over $1000 on your taxes this year?

If you live and work in the United States, your taxes are due in just under a week. One common strategy for saving money on your taxes is to use a tax-deferred retirement savings account. Most companies that employ more than a few dozen people will offer a 401(k) retirement savings plan to their employees, sometimes with a company match. However, this is only available to employees of that company. A spouse is not eligible, nor is someone who left the company. The tax code offers every citizen the option of opening an IRA, or Individual Retirement Arrangement (the “A” doesn’t stand for account, believe it or not).

There are two flavors of IRA: Roth and Traditional. The big difference between the two is that your money that goes into a Roth gets taxed before you contribute, while the money that goes into a Traditional gets taxed in retirement. Both allow you gains to grow tax free each year. The only way to save money on this year’s taxes is to contribute to a Traditional IRA. If you are reading this on or before April 12^th, 2018, you are not too late to make a contribution towards your 2017 taxes!

Other countries besides the United States offer similar programs. There is the Individual Savings Account in the United Kingdom, which functions a lot like a Roth IRA in that you contribute money after taxes. Switzerland has restricted pension plan accounts which function a lot like a Traditional IRA. Plenty of other countries have plans that are somewhat similar to a 401(k) or an IRA, like Poland, New Zealand, and Australia.

Let’s talk about a Traditional IRA. How can putting money in this account fatten your tax refund or reduce what you owe? How much money did you make last year, total? Imagine you took all of those dollars, turned them into bills, and stacked them on top of each other. Now slide that stack next to a ladder. You should have something that looks like this:

 (not to scale)

The United States has a progressive tax system, which basically means that the more money you make, the higher your earnings are taxed. This is somewhat hard to understand intuitively for some people, so here I have grossly over-simplified to illustrate what this looks like in practice. The red portion of each dollar is the number of cents you owe in taxes.

(definitely not to scale)

So to use some actual numbers, if you are single, you pay nothing on the first $10,040 of money you earned. Then on the next $9,325 you earned, you’d pay 10% of that. Then on the next $28,625 you earn, you’d pay 15%. Then on amounts between there and $101,940 you’d pay 25%. There are more brackets the higher you earn, but I’m going to assume you make $60,000 a year for this exercise and stop there. (I also oversimplified and assumed you just took the standard deduction and an exemption for yourself and didn’t qualify for any other credits or deductions or taxes.)

So if you imagine each of your dollar bills stacking up during the year, you pay nothing on the first ten thousand or so at the bottom. Then you start forking over ten cents for each dollar, for bill after bill. Then you hit fifteen-cent land. Then you finally make it to the twenty-five cent territory, where for every dollar you earned, you give Uncle Sam a shiny quarter. Your $59,999^th dollar bill? Another quarter. And one more quarter for 60K and you’re done. What’s your tax bill? It’s $8,228.75. Here you go, picture time again:

(not a round number)

So even though you are in the “25% tax bracket”, we’re only talking about your top dollars. So you didn’t owe $15,000, you owed roughly half that. You actually paid an effective tax rate of just 13.7%. Now here is where the IRA can come in to save you a ton of money. Uncle Sam treats the dollars you put into an IRA like they are invisible when it comes to taxes for that year. And not only that, they also assume you are putting the dollars at the top of the ladder in your IRA first. In 2017 the IRS lets you put up to $5,500 into an IRA. Since those dollars come off of the top of the ladder, that would save you $1,375 in taxes. You’d owe that much less, or get that much more as a refund. My final picture:

(sweet sweet green)

Now your tax liability goes down to $6,853.75, or 11.4%. Yay keeping your money. Except 20 or 30 something you doesn’t really get to keep it anymore… you pay a penalty if you touch that money again before you turn 59 ½. There are some exceptions to this rule, but you generally want to just write that money off until retirement.

That being said, if you have an extra couple grand laying around that you don’t need, this is great way to get a jump start on your retirement and save a bunch of money in taxes. Convinced? Then you’re going to need to make two decisions. First, where to open the IRA. Second, what to invest in. Since I’m already to a thousand words here, I’ll save topic number two for another day. You don’t technically have to do anything at all with the money in the IRA in order to qualify for the tax savings, so I’ll write about picking investments another time. But bottom line, I recommend index tracking ETFs. These are ticker symbols like QQQ and SPY. If you put a couple grand in there, you could do a lot worse than going 50-50 into those two ETFs right there and calling it a day. It can really be that simple.

As to where you open an account, it doesn’t really matter too much, to be honest. If they are coming up in the first two pages of a Google search for “open an IRA”, then they’re almost definitely a trustworthy company. I would scout out offers for new accounts, like a cash bonus or referral bonus. The only thing that would really matter to me about where to open an IRA would be if I wanted access to that company’s mutual funds. But I think mutual funds are kind of crappy ways to invest, so it wouldn’t make a difference to me.

There are dozens of caveats and other things I haven’t covered, so if you’re interested in this I’d encourage you to do some more research or ask me questions and I’ll do what I can to help. One of the biggest questions/gotchas would be if you already contribute to your employer’s 401(k), should you put extra contributions there instead. I would say yes, but only if you are happy with the options available in your 401(k). I know I only have a couple dozen options available to me in my employer-sponsored plan, so I couldn’t take my own advice and buy a bunch of my beloved QQQ. The other consideration is annual limits. You can contribute to both an IRA and a 401(k), but if you make over a certain amount, you can’t deduct the IRA contributions (they still grow tax free). That threshold for single people is $62,000 MAGI, and for married it is $99,000 MAGI. MAGI is your modified income, so it’s the number after you take all your deductions and exemptions. In our example above, you are well under the threshold at 60k a year. Bottom line – if you have a 401(k) at work and made a lot more than these cutoffs, your best bet is to add more to your 401(k). You can still do this and tag it for last year. The annual limit is $18,000, which leaves plenty of room for most people to play tax time games. Don’t forget your spouse gets their own separate limit too if you are married. A few grand chipped into your 401(k) now for last year will do the exact same thing for your taxes as the pictures above show.

So there you have it! A Traditional IRA will let you save money on your taxes. It’s very similar to a 401(k), but generally allows you a lot more freedom in how you allocate your money. It’s also completely unrelated to your employer or your current job. If you have any questions, send them my way!