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My home has a gas-powered hot water heater located in the walk-up attic (3rd floor). I’d like to give the architect a dope-slap for doing that. Especially when the master bath directly below the water heater takes the longest to receive the hot water. But the real reason why the attic location is an issue is because there have been two incidents where the water heater has leaked which ended up sending water spilling down the lower two floors. If only they could have put it in the garage. Sigh.

Anyway, one of the leaking incidents occurred recently. I just woke up the kids for school. I’m standing in their bedroom on the 2nd floor and asking myself, “why do I hear water running above me?” So I grab a flashlight and dash upstairs to the attic. There is water flowing out of the top of the water heater and down the sides, as if it has ruptured. At least the water heater is surrounded by a drip pan which drains outside the house. The drip pan was full to the brim, and just a little bit had spilled out. I quickly shut off the inlet valve on the water heater and the pan continued to drain. It looked like less than half a gallon had spilled outside of the pan, I consider myself very lucky. Time to call for a replacement water heater. I also take note to make sure the drain on the outside of the house for the drip pan is free of debris that may interfere with draining.

Since the water heater is in an attic closet bounded by the A-frame roof, there is limited height. It turns out that my water heater is a few inches shorter than the typical short model, so it is a bit of a specialty product that the typical big-box retailers don’t carry. So I need to call a real plumber. Although the plumber did a first-class job and was done within 4 hours of when I called them, it also cost me $1100. Ouch.

So while the plumber was working, I was my usual inquisitive self and was asking questions. And I had done some research on the net before calling the plumber. The typical lifespan of a water heater is about 8 years. Mine had died at about the 9 year mark, so it wasn’t out of bounds. The most common cause of water heater death is a build-up of sediment at the bottom of the tank. This sediment is present in the water supply, and simply settles while in the heater. There is a relatively easy way to flush out the sediment, which until then I had never heard of. Here is what the plumber told me:

The water heater should have on it what looks like a spigot near the bottom where you can attach a garden hose, just like the hose bib on the outside of your house you use to wash your car and water your garden. And once a year, you should do just that – a power flush. Get a garden hose (make sure it doesn’t leak before you do this), connect it to the spigot on the water heater, run the hose to a safe location (ie, a bath tub or out a window to outside), open the spigot on the heater and let the water blast though the hose for about 5 minutes. The water will be hot, so be careful that the hose and water output doesn’t hurt anyone or anything. Do not shutoff the inlet of the water heater, you want the water to blast out of the garden hose at pressure instead of simply (partially) draining the tank without pressure. The reason you want it to be pressurized is because of what is behind the spigot – a tube that causes the water flow to stir up the sediment on the bottom of the tank so it can be flushed out the spigot. When the 5 minutes are up, close the spigot (make sure it is fully closed), and remove the garden hose. Be careful of hot water that may still be in the garden hose while you are removing it.

You should do this once a year. I got a Sharpie pen and wrote on my new water heater “flush on March 15″. Had I known about this earlier, I would have done it and would expect a longer lifetime of my water heater. The plumber said that it should be possible to get several more years than average from a water heater that is well-maintained.

What is it with deer? You would think that they are used to being chased by predators and are careful to avoid getting hurt and watch where they are going, except whenever there is a car involved in which case they go kamikaze.

Friday evening I’m driving home from work. It’s dark, rainy, and I’m going about 50 mph down a 4 lane divided road. Then I hear a big thunk. That was not a pothole. I didn’t see anything before it happened. It felt like it came from the left side of the car, so I immediately look to the left. I see just on the other side of the window a close-up of a deer head, a doe. My brain says, “ok, you just hit a deer”. I look in the rearview mirror as I slow down and I see the deer get up off the ground and run off the road into the woods.

There isn’t anywhere to stop on the road I’m on, so I pull of onto the first side street into an apartment complex. First step is to take a look at the damage. I try to open the driver’s side door to get out, but it won’t open more than a little bit. So I crawl across to get out the passenger’s side door and walk around. It’s just bent sheet metal, and the side mirror is hanging down. The door has a good-sized bend, there is a couple dents in the fender. Sigh, first damage to this car.

I call the police, it turns out that a police report isn’t needed. I took it in to a body shop for an estimate. They will replace the fender, the outer shell of the door, and the side mirror. The insurance company has been really good to work with, they are covering it under my comprehensive coverage instead of the collision coverage, which for me has no deductible so it won’t cost me anything out of pocket. My friends say “oh no, this is your favorite call that you blogged about? We’re so sorry!” Yes, the car was in basic pristine condition prior to this. But I’m OK with it, although it is a pain it won’t cost me anything and it will be put back in pristine condition. So I take a deep breath and just deal with it.

Another week and it should be all fixed.

So as I’m looking at the damage waiting for the police to arrive, I’m thinking that if I had been a couple hundreths of a second later I would have hit the deer head on and it would have been a much more unpleasant outcome. So I do have things to be grateful for.

Last night we stopped for food as a burger and shake joint, the kind where there is no seating, so we were standing outside the order window waiting for them to bring out the trays of our food. Next to us is a couple trash bins, the tall ones with the the big flap. While waiting, I turn to look at my 5 year old daughter who has her head through the flap inside the trash can. Before I can yell at her to get her head out she says, “daddy, it smells good in here.”

I tell her that it will smell better when it is our own fresh food.

A friend showed me the following video, and I was laughing and nodding my head. Perhaps it’s because I’m in my 40’s and have seen change, and sometime find myself with the same whacked expectations that he talks about while forgetting what life used to be like. I hope you’ll laugh too.

My take on this is let’s not forget where we came from, not be self-centered, step back more to realize what an amazing world we live in, and recognize technology as an enabler and not as an end in itself. Lastly, let’s not make technology a requisite to make us happy. We can find happiness no matter where we are.

In the age where the traditional film camera with associated prints is gone, make sure you preserve your digital photos so your memories don’t disappear when your hard drive does. Get some hardcopies and put them in a physical album. And don’t underestimate what a good photographer can do. My wife and I recently had a photoshoot with a photographer friend. Yup, it costs money, but sometimes you get what you pay for. It’s good to have something hanging on the wall that you can look at and smile.

After having significantly more kids than the average family (well, I didn’t give birth to them, but I did cut the cord), to say that I have learned some things is a vast understatement. Some of these things took a long time to learn, even as late as the last kid. For the men out there that are a first-time dad, here are some of the lessons I learned.

• Having kids is the most wonderful thing that can happen to you (outside of getting married to a wonderful woman, of course). Having kids will also be the most stressful and trying thing that can happen to you, which hopefully is unlike what happens being married to a wonderful woman. Let me be blunt: having kids will force you to give up selfishness. You are going to have to put more things than you are used to of your own desire on the back burner. Prepare yourself for doing that, and do it willingly, and do it out of love for your family. Guys typically aren’t naturally good at this. You aren’t supposed to completely sacrifice yourself, especially in a passive-aggressive manner, but you are going to need to give up things. If you can be selfless, and do it for the right reason, you will be amazed at the happiness it brings to you and your family. Not giving yourself to your family is going to put your wife through the wringer, don’t do that to her.
• If you wife has a vaginal birth (not a C-section), you are going to need to give her time to heal before being physically intimate again. Being intimate will happen again, especially if you do the bullet above. However, recognize that pushing a small watermelon through your pelvis is going to do some damage. If you listen to the OB, they will probably give you an estimate on how long your wife will need to heal after birth. I suggest that you double it. Putting your wife in pain for your satisfaction is not consistent with the spirit of physical intimacy, no matter that you are not used to waiting that long. Be patient and deal with it. If men were the ones to get pregnant and give birth, we would go extinct as a species.
• I was talking to a guy several years ago, and he said, “When I have kids, I will work at my employer as long as possible every day so I can afford to buy my kids all the stuff I didn’t have.” My response was, “Dude, kids (well, the small ones until we teach them otherwise) don’t care about objects. What they want is your time. They are happy playing with a big cardboard box, and they want you to get on the floor and play with them and read them stories. They don’t need things, they want you.” The best present you can give your kids is yourself when they ask for it. That doesn’t always correspond to when you want, or what you expect. When you depart from this mortal life, your family is the only thing you can take with you. The sad thing is that at some point your kids will probably stop asking to play with you.
• It is so easy for your wife to get completely consumed with being a mom. With a newborn, there is not a full night’s sleep and there are no vacation days.
  • You have to give her a break. When you come home from work, take over the kids and let your wife do something of her own choosing for a couple hours. It doesn’t matter if you had a hard day at work and need some break time, she started when she woke up in the morning and won’t finish until she goes to bed, and likely there will be middle-of-the-night fulfillments. That’s more than your 8.5 hours.
  • The rule is “when the baby sleeps, mommy sleeps.” Baby naps are not always to be used for mom to catch up on chores. Mommy needs to catch up on sleep so she can be a functioning person. When she is caught up on sleep, then she can catch up on chores.
  • Don’t forget that your wife is still your wife and not just a mom. It is very easy for both parents to become parents and forget to be spouses. Find someone you trust to be a babysitter earlier than you think. Go out for a short date and talk about things other than just the kids. The intention is for the kids to grow up and leave the house, but your wife should stay with you.
  • The house is going to be a mess. Just expect it. Instead of being part of the problem, be part of the solution. You will need to own more chores. There is no sharing equally and keeping track of points. You need to jump in and do as much as you can, independent of what your wife may or may not have done.
• If your wife is breast feeding instead of using formula, her boobs will get bigger. However, they also become tender, especially at the very start of nursing. Enjoy it while you can, they will return to usual size after nursing stops. Also, when a baby is breast feeding, the poop actually isn’t too bad. It’s when you go to formula or solid foods that it turns into the classic stinky mess. Enjoy it while you can.
• Be patient. Take a deep breath and don’t have a temper. Kids will throw enough temper tantrums, you don’t need the parents doing it too. Just let the unimportant things go. Yes, having kids will dramatically alter your perspective on what is important. Lack of patience is one of the easiest ways to mess up a family.
• Jump in and be willing to figure it out. Every child is different, and every parenting situation is different. Figure out what works for you and your family. Experiment. What works for child #1 may not work for child #2, even if they are twins. You’ll find lots of things that don’t work, followed by an “aha!” moment.
• The What to Expect When You’re Expecting and What to Expect the First Year are good books that dads should follow along in as their wife reads. At lot of stuff that seems weird actually is quite normal. And the only way to learn it is by experience.
• Kids don’t actually cost very much money, except perhaps in healthcare. If you can get hand-me-down clothes or go to Goodwill (they destroy clothes anyway), it’s really not bad. They don’t eat much, don’t need expensive toys, can travel in your lap on airplanes, etc. Don’t bother buying them nice new expensive things, because when they are little they don’t care. It’s later when they need car insurance and college tuition that it starts to hurt your wallet.
• Kids are amazingly resilient. They bounce good. Typically the parents need to take a deep breath instead of panicking.

I hope you find this useful. Having kids is a trip. I didn’t think it would be so before it happened, but my life would be so empty if I lost my kids. My life is way more complicated now with kids, but I’ve grown to prefer it that way – it’s more fulfilling.

It’s not something I was originally looking to do. We had been using our pre-tax health savings account for the kids’ braces, and miscalculated the payment schedule, so we are at the end of the year with $2000 of unused money in that account. Use it or lose it. (I checked, when unused the money reverts back to the employer, not the government.) So my wife said “Aha! I want to get LASIK.” The procedure costs about $2200 per eye, so our health savings account would cover about half of the total cost. Our assumption is that it is better to spend another $2000 on something you want rather than throw the original $2000 away (we may need to rethink that one). She went in for a consultation, and discovered that she isn’t a good candidate because her cornea is too thin for the procedure. For her vision to get corrected, they were recommending a corneal implant, but it would be twice the cost and it sounded more risky. So she nixed the idea of corrective surgery. So she says to me, “Hey honey, how about if you take a look at LASIK?” I’m a bit uncomfortable with the idea of getting corrective surgery, since my career is sitting in front of a computer screen all day, and my contacts and glasses work fine, I’m worried about long-term complications. Losing my eyes would lose my career. Since getting an initial consultation has no cost and no commitment, might as well give that a shot. So I make an appointment.

After a number of tests, the doctor tells me I’m a good candidate. My uncorrected vision is 20/200 in one eye, and a bit worse in the other eye. However, with my glasses I can see 20/15. I do have some astigmatism that make my contacts more like 20/20. One of the doctor office people goes into detail explaining the procedure and such. Later I ask a friend at church who is an eye surgeon in the military about the procedure and the equipment that this office uses, he says he has performed about 60 of these procedures on patients, and had it performed on himself about 2 years ago, and he feels confident with it. He recognizes the equipment at this clinic (VISX Star S4 IR Laser / iLASIK / WaveScan / CustomVue) and says it is widely used and pretty much state of the art. So I’m thinking that if a doctor in this field would do it to themself, that is basically the ultimate test of confidence.

The office has an appointment open for the following week to perform the procedure, so I take it.

I’m asked to not wear my soft contacts for a week before the procedure. I’m told it has something to do with affecting the shape of the cornea, and they want it to be stable for the procedure. So I wear my glasses for a week (even during a touch football game that week).

There are two lasers that will be used for the procedure. The first, the intralase, creates the corneal flap. The second, the excimer laser, reshapes the cornea after the flap has been peeled back.

On the day of the procedure I show up at the office at 8am. No need for fasting, since there is no general anesthesia. They take me into a room for another test, they kind where you sit in a chair and put your chin and forehead in front of a machine that looks in your eye. It’s a scanner that measures my eye so that the excimer laser knows what to do. The office’s brochure says “…the VISX WaveScan creates a WavePrint map, which reveals the way your entire optical system processes light. This creates a personalized fingerprint of your vision…allowing each of your eyes to be treated for their unique imperfections.” Relax and look at the red dot.

Then I’m taken to a waiting room. I’m given an optional Valium dose and some consent / waiver papers to sign. I read the papers and I see a few things that surprise me. First is verbage about getting one eye done at a time, therefore if something goes wrong, at least you still have one good eye. So it asks for me to write a short explanation why I want to have both eyes treated at the same time, as if doing so is a bit unusual. Funny, I don’t remember the doctor explaining that as an option, but my memory isn’t perfect. Second, there is some verbage explaining the risks of the procedure which includes terms like “potential catastrophic loss of vision”. That gives me pause. I had asked before quite a bit about the risks and the answers all sounded reasonable. So I assume this verbage is the cover-your-butt legalese (“you acknowledged that it was possible for this to go wrong”) and sign it. They give me several doses of anti-bacterial drops and a dose of numbing drops.

I am given a surgical cap to match my street clothes and proceed to the intralase room. The intralase system shines a laser to create small air bubbles in the cornea. Once the bubbles are there, the corneal flap can be peeled back without the need for a cutting knife. The staff tells me that the nice thing about the air bubble approach is that if the doctor doesn’t like how the air bubbles have formed, the rest of the procedure can be aborted and the air bubbles will dissipate on their own within a day or so. I lie down on a table (reclined chair, actually) and am given more numbing drops. They then bring out a device that looks like a small magnifying glass with the handle. The lens of the magnifying-glass thing is small enough fit on the surface of my eye, which is what they do. It doesn’t hurt, and I can see through it. Then I hear the doctor tell the technician, “Apply suction.” Then I feel this magnifying glass thing start sucking itself firmly onto my eye, and the vision in that eye goes dark. It’s hard to describe other than being visually numb in that eye. But the eye isn’t entirely physically numb, I feel the suction. The suction was a bit uncomfortable, even for someone used to contact lenses. Then a good-sized machine is placed over me that looks like a digital camera that is 3 feet wide, with the lens right over my suctioned eye. This is the intralase laser. Then the lens of the intralase laser then is slowly lowered until it makes contact with and is lined up to the magnifying glass on my eye. But then it keeps going, pushing down on my eye and creating pressure. It creates quite a bit of pressure, or in technical terms, it squishes the heck out of my eye. Since I’m laying on a table, I’ve got nowhere to back up. I let out a gentle verbal “aaaaaah” to let the staff know I’m uncomfortable (although not in significant pain) and the doctor says “Yes, the pressure may be uncomfortable, it won’t last long.” After about 30 seconds of squishing the machine lets up. The pressure was such a distraction I didn’t even notice the intralse laser working. They release the suction on the magnifying glass thing and I let out a sigh of relief. They repeat the process on the other eye.

After the intralase is done with the second eye I can see, my vision is like looking through glasses that have been smeared with Vaseline. I assume I’m looking through all the air bubbles that were just created. They lead me down the hall to the room with the excimer laser. I lie down on the table (reclined chair). They place a shield over one eye and start working on the other. They start by taping back my upper and lower lid. They then place what looks like a round grommet in the eye, I’m assuming it is to prevent the lids from interfering with the corneal area. About 2 feet in front of my face is the excimer laser system, it has an illuminated white circle and a flashing red dot in the middle. It’s kind of like an electronic Cyclops. I can see the doctor gently poking around in my eye with a small instrument. After a few moments of that, the Cyclops becomes more blurry that it was originally. I assume at this point that the corneal flap has been peeled back. They ask me to focus on the red blinking light. Another few moments and then I can hear the staff saying words like “acquiring…verifying…25 seconds…” Then I can hear them counting down and the laser is making a loud clicking noise. Midway through this there is a difference in how focused that the Cyclops appears. The clicking stops and then the doctor does some more gentle poking around in my eye with an instrument. In a moment the Cyclops comes into better focus, and I assume the corneal flap has been placed back. The grommet is removed, the tape is removed, and they move to the other eye. After the numbing drops I received earlier, and squishing of the intralase system, I don’t really feel a thing during this entire excimer process. As far as the discomfort goes, if you can survive the intralase process, you are home free. The tape removal (with a couple of my eyebrow hairs) is what hurts the most in the excimer room.

Then I am led to a regular exam room and the doctor uses a regular non-invasive microscope to look at how the corneal flap is resting. He says “Perfect.” And I’m done. They lead me out to the waiting room for my wife to take me home. Since the air bubbles are still present, my vision is too cloudy to drive myself, and there is a bit of discomfort in my eyes. It feels best to leave them closed. But I can open them enough to dial my cell phone. They give me a packet that includes two kinds of medicated drops, and a package of lubricating drops. There is more stuff in the packet which I’ll describe below.

My wife takes me home. I can see a bit, but I prefer not to keep my eyes open. I lie down in bed to just rest, turn on my iPod, and the Valium in my system helps me take a 2 hour nap. I’m supposed to take the medicated drops every 2 hours, so I do that after I wake up. The drops don’t hurt. I get a bite to eat. Now my eyes are starting to hurt, as the numbing drops wear off, and I definitely prefer to keep my eyes closed. I lie back down in bed and put my iPod back on. I take another unanticipated 2 hour nap, I’m assuming it’s the Valium still in my system. My eyes feel like there is some sand in them but not scratchy. More drops, this time I stay awake through the podcast I was listening to earlier. About 6 hours after the surgery, the discomfort starts to get better. Keep putting in drops every 2 hours. I still prefer to keep them closed, and I figure out part of it is light sensitivity. If I cover my head with a blanket so it is dark, I can open them longer than in the light. Still hurts a bit.

Some friends come over that evening to check on me. I can see them and walk around the house by myself, although there is still some cloudiness. One of them says, “Wow, I was expecting to see you with giant bandages on your head, and instead no bandages and you can even see me.” Considering that 8 hours earlier my eye was peeled open and shot with a laser, it is pretty amazing. I get a good night rest, even with the day naps. For the first week, I need to wear sports goggles while sleeping at night. I assume it is for side sleepers so the pillow doesn’t put pressure on the eye, or to prevent you from rubbing your eye and displace the corneal flap.

The next day the sandy discomfort is gone. I can see with good focus but with what I’d call a “halo effect”. Any areas of high contrast appear to have a fuzzy halo around the bright part. It’s almost like I have my glasses with a little bit of fog. I go to the doctor’s office for a followup visit. The vision in both eyes is checked with the usual chart and I can see 20/15 in both eyes, even though I still have the halo effect. I ask the doctor about the halo effect, and he says it is normal and will probably take about 3 months to clear up. I work at home using my laptop most of this day. I’m back in the office the next day.

A few days later, the cloudiness has cleared up but the halo effect is still there. I’m starting to get used to the halo a bit. The halo does cause some difficulty for night driving, but it is manageable if I am careful where to look and concentrate. I also have an increased need to wear sunglasses in daylight.

It feels quite weird to not take my contacts out at night and instead go to bed with clear vision and wake up with clear vision. I do feel a tiny bit of pressure around my eye, but perhaps that is from the cold I have. A week after the procedure I should be able to graduate from the medicated eye drops, but I’m told I should use the lubricating eye drops for at least a couple more months. So far so good. I’ll consider it a real success when the halo effect goes away and I don’t need eye drops anymore.

In retrospect, there wasn’t much pain or discomfort.

You might want to take a look at Wikipedia, they have a pretty good article on the subject.

I’ll post followup comments here.

Almost as good as that expensive store in the mall, which I won’t name. These are less expensive and you don’t need to stop eating at one. There is a recipe in our house that I’ve been playing with. So far, everyone loves these and they are reasonably easy, especially if you have a bread machine.

I have noticed that there is a difference between butter and margarine. Using butter in the bread dough gives it a delicate texture without being crusty greasy. But using margarine in the filling and frosting makes it more sweet. So I selected margarine and butter in specific places below.

BTW, “tsp” means teaspoon and “tbsp” means tablespoon. Read carefully.

Bread machine dough:

• 1 cup water
• 4 cups bread flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick butter (room temperature, slightly mushy)
• 1/4 cup dry milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp yeast

Dump all the above items at once into the bread machine and run the dough cycle (mix and knead, not bake). Take the dough out of the machine and roll it out thin on a flat surface like a clean countertop. Aim for a rectangle of bread dough that is approximately 12″ x 24″. It’s OK if it isn’t a perfect rectangle. Plan ahead to take the margarine and butter (all 3 1/2 sticks) and cream cheese out of the fridge in plenty of time to warm to room temperature.

Filling:
Take 1 1/2 sticks of margarine (room temperature, slightly mushy) and evenly spread it across the entire dough surface using a spatula or similar. Go all the way to the edges. In a bowl mix 2 cups brown sugar and 3 tbsp cinnamon (ground). Brown sugar works much better than white granulated sugar, and common ground cinnamon is fine. Use a fork to mix them together and break up the brown sugar lumps by squishing it. Dump the mixture on the buttered dough surface and evenly spread it around the entire surface with a spatula or similar, all the way to the edges.

Roll up the dough, using the long side of the rectangle. Keep the roll reasonably tight instead of saggy. When done, you should have a roll that is 24″ long and about 3″ in diameter. Using a steak knife or other good cutting instrument that cuts without too much squishing or ripping, gently cut the roll into sections about 1 3/4 inches wide. Gently place the pieces into a greased baking pan so the filling doesn’t fall out. It should fill about two 9×9 pans, or one 9×13 plus a bit extra. Give the dough time to rise, so that the rolls in the pan are starting to touch each other. Placing the pans in a 150 degree oven may help the rising process. If the rolls are placed too far apart or fail to rise, then the filling will run out and pool on the bottom of the pan.

Bake the rolls at about 385 degrees until the the bread dough on top starts to get nicely toasty brown. Take them out of the oven to cool a bit. Let them cool inside the cooking pans, they will soak up some of the melted filling. While they are cooling, work on the frosting.

Frosting:

• 3 oz of cream cheese (room temperature, almost half of a standard 8 oz package)
• 1 stick of margarine
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp salt

Put all these ingredients into a bowl and blend with a motorized mixer until it changes from dusty clumpy to smooth moist frosting.

After the rolls go from hot to warm, apply the frosting. If you put the frosting on while hot, the frosting will melt completely, which probably isn’t what you want. Eat them soon after applying the frosting, while they are still warm. All of them, which is why some friends or neighbors should be present or within delivery distance. This ain’t health food, it’s happy food.

Be careful of how much debt you carry. A mortgage is OK, but creditors will generally give you a bigger loan than you can really afford. An automobile loan is OK, but recognize that an automobile can depreciate faster than you can pay the loan – it sure isn’t an investment, it’s pure expense. One credit card is OK for purchase convenience, not carrying a balance. If you have all three of these, you don’t need any more. I’m tired of getting pre-approved offers in the mail literally twice a week all year long.

Also be careful of how much personally identifiable information you disclose. If a web site asks for my birthday for marketing purposes, I won’t give it. If they require it, I will give a fake one. If you’ve talked to anyone hit by identity theft, you don’t want to experience it yourself.

For these purposes, I have asked the credit bureaus to freeze my personal information so it isn’t disclosed to lenders. Since lenders need to know my credit worthiness before approving credit, this means no credit can be opened in my name. Right now I have all the credit I need and don’t need more. This also prevents someone else from obtaining credit in my name without my approval, i.e. identity theft. If I do need to get more credit, I can unfreeze just long enough for the new lender to approve me, then it goes back to a frozen state.

Clark Howard has some good pointers on how to freeze your credit information. You need to do it with each of the three credit reporting bureaus. All it takes is a letter and $10 for each one. Clark even provides the form letter. My requests were processed in about one week. Frankly, I recommend everyone do this. Recognize that the credit bureaus are in the business of selling your credit information to lenders, and lenders are in the business of getting interest and fees from you. Nobody is in business for you except yourself.

You also are entitled to a yearly credit report for free. Get your free report each year to make sure it is accurate. Then when you need credit, there won’t be any surprises. Start with the US Federal Trade Commision web site to make sure you go to the right site that offers the free credit report (there are copycats/imposters out there that may require costs).

Keep your finances in order and you’ll avoid a lot of pain.

Looking for that perfect present for the holidays? Here is one to consider: it’s for someone you don’t know. Give a laptop to a child in a developing country. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is up and running. As an individual, you can make a contribution to this non-profit organization that will touch someone directly. The laptop, the XO, is designed specifically for use in developing areas. Don’t compare it to a standard laptop, because it is not one. It does look like a perfect fit for the intended audience. Everything I’ve heard about it says it is well designed and built to last. The children for whom these are intended have talent, but they may not have opportunities. Education is key to improving life, and this laptop is an education opportunity.

Instead of being a consumer during the holidays, be a provider.