Your Business Card is Crap

Okay, so this is an interesting video. It's on college humor, which has some content I don't generally go for, but I found this to be great, mostly because I sort of agree with the guy.

Watch Your Business Card is Crap on CollegeHumor

Oh well.

Shameless Promotion!

Time to do a little bit of promotion for people who are doing awesome things. I seem to have a lot of friends who do neat projects or are pursuing their passions in really creative ways. They shouldn't go unnoticed!

So first I want to talk about Bryant Rosenwinkel. Bryant writes music. And sings. And plays music. And... he's awesome at it. Keep in mind that I don't buy music or even really listen to music. Bryant's CD, The Western Thief (iTunes Link), is the first I have purchased in the last 15 years. It has 10 tracks and all 10 are filled with awesome folky goodness with catchy and clever lyrics that tell great stories about life, love and loss. I wouldn't hesitate to get all 10 tracks. He has a couple of sample songs on his myspace page. Do it now!

Second, I need to talk about Chris Hadley and Elisabeth O’Donnell over at CuisineMadeQuick.com. They make some great cooking videos on low cost, easily accessible meals. I really like how fun and informative they are, and the food looks great. What's refreshing is that they're very candid throughout the whole cooking process. It's a little more casual and authentic than TV, but still of high quality (not some high school kids with a camera on YouTube). Since the two hosts of the show are dating, they're fun to watch and kind of flirty with each other, (but not in the weird way like Regis and Kelly). Check them out too!

That's all for now!

Eye Glasses

So my wife and I went to milk some of the vision insurance I had at my previous employeer. We went to Lenscrafts and got an eye exam, contacts, frames and lenses. We had pretty a fair discount schedule with our insurance and we paid... I'll just say too much... a week's salary.

This struck me as just wrong... and I happened to take a trip over to life hacker and saw an article about buying eye glasses online. What I've come to realize is that people in the 3rd world wear glasses. They've got to be paying somewhere between $10-$20 a pair.

Interesting things to note:

• Lenscrafters, Pearl Vision, Sears and Target are all supplied by the same Italian eyeglasses manufacturer - Luxottica.
• Some optomitrists can buy their 'designer' frames and lenses wholesale for $6-$10 and then sell them for up to 1,000% markup.
• Lens coatings cost almost nothing to apply and charge clients up to $50 for the service.

Anyway, I think I'm going to do some shopping... Lens Crafters has a 30 day unconditional guarentee. We'll see what happens!

Term Life Insurance

So this week my wife and I bought some term life insurance policies. Since we're having our first child in a couple of months, having adequate life insurance is something that I felt was important.

I'd imagine that some people my age aren't really aware of what life insurance is, or why you might want some, so I'll take a few minutes to go over the process.

Basically, there are a couple of versions of life insurance. I bought a fixed rate, 30 year term life insurance. If I die for any reason, including cancer, plane crash, on the job accident, my wife will be given the amount of the policy. Typically, you want to buy between 8-10 times your annual, pretax income. You don't want to waste your money on things like annuities, whole life, or any other type. If you're 20 something, you want 30 year term life insurance so you'll have this fixed rate protection for the next 30 years.

You might think, "Well, I have life insurance through my employer." You very well might, and it's often completely inadequate. Both of my employers offered 1 1/2 times my income. Though this will certainly be enough to bury me and pay off some student debt, it's not enough to send a child to college, pay off a mortgage or any other sort of responsibilities.

For non-smoking, healthy men, you can get a $500,000 policy for roughly $25 a month. $750,000 for around $35. Likely less than you're spending for cable TV.

You want to buy life insurance while you're healthy. As you get older, you're more likely to have something affect your health. Even if you don't have children, a spouse or someone else who is dependent on your income, you want to get this now.

I went through insure.com and bought insurance for me and my wife. The process was pretty painless. They asked about 30 minutes of questions and a few days later a medical examiner took our blood pressure, a urine sample, height, weight and a blood sample in our home. It was pretty sweet, but admittedly a little weird too.

If you're 20-something, buy some today while you're healthy and can get excellent fixed rates. I know this sounds like a commercial, and I apologize in advance. It took me well over a year to make this a priority, and I'd hate to see a family go through some unnecessary trauma because they delayed in doing the right thing.

Resume Musings

I know more people who have lost their job in the past 4 months than those who lost jobs in the combined rest of my life. What is even more sad is that many of these people are highly talented individuals. As I wrote in a entry before, being prepared is key. I'd like to write a little bit on how to write a resume.

I'd bet most people haven't seen a resume besides their own. I don't think that mine is the greatest in the world, but the format worked to land me a couple of jobs.

Here's a brief copy of mine from a few months ago:

I'll try to highlight a couple of key things that I tried to do, and I recommend to others.

Focus
First and foremost, your resume needs to be clean, concise and tack-sharp focused to the needs of the position you are applying more. Every time you apply to a new position, you must refocus your resume for the position you are applying for. This was important when the economy was good, and is now critical when you're competing against more people who are equally or more qualified for the position you seek.

Keep it Simple
I kept it to one page. I'm a big proponent of this. However, it also tends to reflect my style of writing (most of the time): concise & bulleted. I also know that during interviews, the interviewer typically has the resume right in front of them. It's awkward for them to flip back and forth between multiple pages. In addition, I'm only 25. I don't have a ton of positions to ramble on about. This may force me at some point to go to 2 pages. A resume should never be more than 2 pages. Keep focused on the position and cut out what doesn't apply to the job you're doing. I have 4 summer internships in the industrial manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and machine building industries. Since they didn't apply to the job I was applying for, I didn't mention them. It's important to show you're responsible and can keep a job when you're landing your first job out college, so you can list that you served coffee at your uncle's barber shop during the summers. Once you're in the working world, those nonsense jobs need to be cut.

Fill the Whole Space
You'll probably notice the "Who is Matt Adams?" section. Honestly, I went out on a limb with that one. In college I had that space reserved for extra-curricular activities. I had to fill the space. I had a couple of executive recruiters say that they're usually not a fan of that use of space, but mine was an exception. Take that for what it's worth.

Sell Yourself
A resume is a marketing piece. Having it look polished and clean is key. It reflects directly on the impression of the brand - you!

Know What You Wrote
It's also important to have a talking point or two about every single item on your resume when you get an interview. You will be asked about it, and its even possible that you were asked to interview for a single word or phrase on your resume. On one version of my resume, I mentioned a skill I knew little about and was drilled heavily on the theory of the skill during an interview. It was awkard. Don't let that happen to you.

Have Others Help
It is important to read, reread and read again what you have in your resume before you send it off to a potential employer. Send it to friends, family and anyone that you can think of for feedback and editing. A well written resume shows your ability to communicate, pay attention to detail and understand your strengths. It's more than just a sheet of paper.

A Final, Serious Note:
We're heading towards 10% unemployment... spend a weekend soon to update your resume if you haven't updated it in the past 6 months. Email me with a copy of yours if you'd like feedback. I'd be happy to help.

Never Pay A Credit Card Late Fee!

I have a quick note on how I saved myself $68.00 today.

I pay my credit cards online and always pay them in full before the due date... usually. This month I was a few days late. For random reasons, I have two credits cards, and hence got hit with double late fees. $68.00 total. Ouch!

So, I used an online form and wrote Capital One and requested that they refund me the late fees. My letter looked like this:

Hello. I am writing to request a refund for my late fee. I was a few days late to pay this month. I love Capital One and have been a very good customer. I have paid my balance in full. Thanks in advance!

Sure enough, I got a reply back that said, "Good news. Your late fees have been refunded."

Notice that I didn't need to threaten, lie or even make a phone call. I spent about 10 minutes of my time and got a $68 refund. I heard that this past quarter Capital One posted a loss of 1.42 billion dollars. I'm glad they didn't cut corners and try to hoard late fees. No rants today!

Goals, Priorities and Busyness

With 2009 coming along, its a good time to set some goals. My 2008 goal was to read through a one year Bible with Jenn. Up until about April or so, I was right on track, and somewhere along the way, I lost a lot of ground - we're on June 3rd as of today.

I had events come up like travel with my job, the need to care for Jenn during our pregnancy and a whole host of other things that were not perfectly planned, but those aren't the reason for falling behind. It is plainly obvious reading became a lower priority than watching episodes of The Office and Heros, because I haven't missed a single episode of either of those programs (either watching them live or replayed on the internet). This is certainly not my proudest realization of the year.

I know there have been times when I've rationalized the excuse, "Well, I've been busy."

This is a poor excuse. I'm busy, you're busy, my mother, dentist and everybody is busy.

What are we busy doing? Whatever we prioritize.

The new year is a great chance to reprioritize. There's about 7 months of scheduled material and 6 months until the baby is due. If I over-clock our reading schedule by 16%, we can be done before our child is born. In principle, I think that it's important that if Jenn and I plan to raise our child to be a loving follower of Jesus, reading through the Bible completely before he or she's born would be a good step (among many) to prepare for that responsibility. What I especially like about this goal is that it is extremely measurable. I can measure the accomplishment (yes or no) and percent of plan (Target = 116%). Maybe I'll create some KPI metrics along the way and post them here.

I'm not going to lose sleep if our child comes early and we're not quite through, but this is something that I'm convicted enough about to put in print somewhere. That way I can have people who care about me ask me how I'm doing with it.

Though I don't expect this will happen, if for whatever reason you ask me about this and I tell you I've fallen behind, I need the response of, "What is the plan to catch up?" and not "That's a bummer, but don't beat yourself up too bad about it." Thanks in advance!