Living the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) Life

I enjoyed Alaska so much last year, so I’m back on a different ship and itinerary. This time I am traveling solo, like on my Caribbean cruise in January. The weather was not as nice as last year, but rain and clouds in Alaska is part of the scenery. We had a great solo coordinator on this cruise. I enjoyed the company, at dinner and on excursions, of some really friendly solo travelers. I appreciate how Norwegian Cruise Line caters to solo travelers. and that is why I am loyal to them for my cruises. ...

After returning from my cruise to Alaska, I was hooked. I wasn’t sure about cruising to the Caribbean, but I thought it was a warm place to go and get out of the Idaho winter. This was my first solo cruise experience with Norweigan Cruise Lines. I stayed in a studio cabin, which has access to an exclusive studio lounge on the ship. ...

In December 2022, I decided to expand my travel options and try taking a cruise. I booked my first 7-day cruise to Alaska on the NCL Encore with my extended family and friends for June 2023. I was hesitant at first because I thought that cruising was for “old” people, and boy was I wrong. ...

If you are playing Diablo 3 seasons as a solo player, here is a guide with some tips on how to efficiently level your character from level 1 to 70 in a season. This is for someone who is playing the game solo. Much faster methods are available if you are playing in a group (such as power leveling) but I like the solo challenge of the game better. Diablo 3 Season First Steps After creating a new Diablo 3 seasonal hero or rebirth an existing one, go to the Game Settings menu and set the difficulty to Hard, choose Adventure Mode, and start the game. In adventure mode, hire your favorite follower (I normally choose the Templar). Immediately take the weapons from the 3 potential followers, the shield from the Templar and equip the best weapon for yourself, the shield for yourself, and the second best weapon for your chosen follower. You should now salvage at the blacksmith the items you didn’t use and sell the items that you can’t salvage. ...

Last month I decided to do what most people said couldn’t be done. As an aside, what great motivation proving people wrong is. I decided to retire early. Retirement is an interesting word for me because when I tell people I’m retired I feel the need to explain to them what retirement means to me. Retirement doesn’t mean that I’ll never work again, it means that I don’t have to work for income. It’s a subtle but important distinction because reading about other people who retired extremely early, many of them end up starting some sort of small business or work part-time in retirement. Maybe instead of telling people I’m retired I should say I’m an independent consultant or an endowment manager. Or maybe since I’m writing this on my blog I should tell people I’m a blogger. ...

Creating a workcenter in peoplesoft is a pretty easy process. In this post I will teach you a step by step process on how to configure a workcenter in peoplesoft. I completed these steps using PeopleSoft Financials 9.2 with PeopleTools 8.55.15. 1. Configure Navigation Collection PeopleTools > Portal > Portal Utilities > Navigation Collections Click Add Collection Enter a name for your navigation collection Add Links to Menu Items and Folders as needed for your navigation collection Click Publish Collection Tab Click Navigation Pagelet Checkbox Select category for pagelet in the Pagelet Category Dropdown (Common WorkCenter Pagelets is what I selected) Click Save 2. Configure WorkCenter Dashboards PeopleTools > Portal > WorkCenter > Manage WorkCenter Dashboards ...

Today is the 13th anniversary of my near fatal automobile accident. Automobile Accident On Saturday, November 23, 2002 at approximately 4pm I was in a near fatal automobile accident. I was driving east bound on interstate 80 in Utah, when at mile marker 57 my truck drifted off to the right side of the highway. I corrected to the left which sent my truck into five horizontal and one vertical rolls. I have no recollection of the accident or what caused the accident, so the account of this accident was given to me by those who saw the accident. Two truck drivers pulled me out through the front windshield before my vehicle was fully engulfed in flames. Airmed was dispatched to transport me to The University Of Utah Hospital for medical care. I do remember being transported off the helicopter because I remember the emergency personnel telling me that the air blowing down on me was just from the helicopter blades. Other than that, I remember very little about the accident or the days after. ...

There are many easy things you can do to maximize the battery lifespan of your new iPhone or iPad. Battery lifespan is the length of time before you will need to replace your iPhone or iPad battery. Here are 3 things you should do to maximize your iPad or iPhone battery lifespan 1. Avoid Excessive Heat Excessive heat is the number 1 killer of battery lifespan. When you are charging your iPhone or iPad you should take it out of any case you may have so that your device will not become excessively hot. Compared to anything else, excessive heat will affect your battery lifespan the most. ...

March 2016 Update Warcraft 3 patch 1.27 added native support for Mac OS X El Capitan. From the patch notes: Throw away that old PowerPC Mac in the closet, we’ve created a new installer to support Mac 10.10 and 10.11 The new Warcraft 3 update is at https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/download/?platform=macos Warcraft 3 Mac OS X Install Guide Here are the steps to install Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne on Mac OS X Yosemite. This guide assumes you have already installed Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos on your Mac using my youtube guide below: ...

When I tell people that I plan to retire by age 50, they ask me how this will be possible. First you must understand what my definition of retirement is. Early Retirement is: having the financial resources so that I don’t have to ever work again The key is “that I don’t have to” and not that I will stop working. My idea of retirement is that I will be in control of whether I choose to work or not and not be reliant on work to provide monthly income. Here are my 5 key principles that will allow you to retire by age 50. ...