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March Madness is over and for the first time in my life, my team won. I didn’t even pick the Tarheels to win in my bracket because I was afraid to jinx them!

So every time UNC wins something big, there is always a party on Franklin Street, which runs alongside the west end of campus. There were about 35,000 people there and it was sheer mayhem. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity, so I headed out there with a camcorder. People were climbing the stoplights and trees and tearing stuff down. There were tons of bonfires in the street and it is a tradition here at UNC to jump over the fire. So was I crazy enough to jump the fire myself? Absolutely.

Here’s some footage from Franklin Street.

This picture was taken with his new iPhone.

Allie helping me make the chocolate cake.

All, sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. This summer has been a busy one with the new little boy, my comprehensive exams and teaching. I just finished teaching BUSI 105, Intro to Financial Accounting, to a group of undergraduates here at UNC. It was a very enjoyable experience which culminated with a final lecture based on personal finance. If you’ve ever been stuck in a car with me for longer than 15 minutes, you know that I’m very passionate about personal saving and wise consumerism. As a result, I dedicated the final lecture of my course to personal finance. It was my favorite (and I think, most important) lecture of the semester. As some of you may be interested in this topic as I am, I’ve decided to post the slides.

Also, many of you have requested to know where to invest, I’ve decided to lead by example. Here are the companies and the accounts we have:

Bank Account – Wachovia

Roth IRA – Vanguard

Life Insurance – Midland National Life

Money Market – GMACbank.com

One of the best places to find information on rates and expense for accounts is the following website:

bankrate.com

If you’re interested in talking more about this stuff, give me a call. Be warned–I’ll probably talk your ear off.

Note: These are NOT recommendations! Shop your investments wisely and consult a licensed professional for questions. I am not your fiduciary, just your friend

If you watch the financial markets at all, you’ll have surely noticed that prices are all over the place right now. The indices are down over the past year and tax season is upon us. What does that mean? Now is the time to save! Combined with the tax credit for putting money into an IRA and the down market, this is the perfect time to fund a long-term retirement account.

Here is a nice little article about saving for retirement. The key to being well-off when you retire is the principle of compound interest. This concept may sound a little nebulous, so here’s the main point of a compounding return: start early.

I’m very passionate about the issue of savings because the current state of America is to spend way more than we save. And my generation is very different from that of our parents in two ways: 1) we will probably live longer and 2) we won’t have a pension. All this combines to a recipe of financial uncertainty.

So, to all my friends and family who read this, I issue you a challenge: confront your retirement now! The early you save, the earlier you retire…it’s really quite simple. You don’t get rich spending your money.

I’ll be issuing some more unsolicited financial advice in some upcoming posts, all of which will be laced with the same message: save hard.

[If you want more personal advice, I'd be glad to give it privately. However, although I'm passionate about this, I'm not a fiduciary]

I had some fun conversations over the Christmas break centering on the presidential run of Mitt Romney. I can’t say that I’d vote for him, frankly because I don’t know enough about where he stands on critical issues. And, just as I think it’s wrong to withhold a vote from a candidate because of their religion, I also think it’s wrong to extend your vote to a candidate because of their religion. That fact that I am Mormon and Mitt is Mormon won’t steer my vote in his direction. I think the same logic should be extended to race and gender (eh-em, female-Hilary-lovers).

One thing that I do really appreciate is how his presidential run has cast Mormons into the uncomfortable spotlight. This is good for two reasons: first, it gets Mormons comfortable answering uncomfortable questions (from others and from themselves), and second, it forces others to figure out why they are uncomfortable with some Mormon issues. It’s good for everyone to get these issues out in the open.

Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard and a Jew, wrote a very fair and insightful article on this very issue, which he calls “the complex question of anti-Mormon bias.” The article can be found here. I especially appreciated his notion of how this “soft bigotry” that Mormons face is probably a result of the “soft secrecy” that Mormons seem to hold to. It’s a really interesting take on the LDS theology, history and politics, but it’s long, so read it when you have twenty minutes or so.

Though politics aren’t super interesting to me (I’m really interested in politics only to the extent that they interplay with economics, which is why I study economics and taxation), I have watched this election with some piqued interest and will continue to do so.

Jake didn’t want to blog about his 30th birthday, in fact, he’d like to pretend turning 30 never happened. But I think he would agree that he had a great day yesterday. So, I’ll fill you in on the birthday fun.

On Saturday we got a babysitter and went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. It was our first time there and we were not disappointed. We were only disappointed at how much we ate! We should have saved more for leftovers.

On Monday we went to breakfast at a local diner and filled up on pancakes, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, eggs, oatmeal, and hot chocolate. In the afternoon, his PhD buddies surprised him by taking him golfing. Four and a half hours later he returned home to one of his favorite homemade meals, chicken tikka masala. Then we had about 15 friends over for cheesecake and games. We were planning to go to a movie that night but after being out most of the day Jake decided he wanted to stay home. So we watched a movie at home. It was a great day!

Here’s another little video of Allie and Daddy playing with the video camera while Mommy is running errands. She just got out of the bath and is supposed to be in bed…he he. If only Mom knew…

It’s nothing great. Just a compilation of a few clips that Allie and I made in a few minutes. Enjoy.

As most of you know, we spent the past two weeks on vacation in Northern California and Nevada. We had a BLAST! In fact, this week has been somewhat depressing, getting back to the usual monotony of normal life. So, I may as well take this time to reminisce about the time spent with my family in NV.

We decided to head down to Reno on Monday. Allie was a little sick, so we got a late start and ended up meeting the fam in Reno for Hot August Nights. If you’re a fan of old cars, you should stay a week in Reno for H.A.N.. It was AWESOME. I’ve posted a ton of pictures of us checking out old cars over the week. Monday night we checked out old cars, enjoyed a concert and had a delicious In N Out burger.

On Tuesday, we went up to Lake Tahoe for the morning. Of course, the water was ice cold, but we had fun playing with the raft, building sand castles and swimming in that gorgeous lake. I’ve attached a couple pictures of the day.

On Wednesday, we went to a youth version of Romeo and Juliet. Here’s a very cute picture of my sister Ashlee and Anthony. I’d love to say that Allie loved it…but she started wiggling about 30 minutes after it started (when the snacks ran out). That night, we had some delicious Thai food–The Basil is one of Carson City’s little secrets. Just thinking about it makes me hungry…

Friday was the pinnacle of our time in NV. We went to Angora Lake. Kerrie posted some pics in a post below and I’ve included a couple more…I especially love the one of Kelli jumping for her life! We loved the hike, the food, the lake and the cliff-jumping. It was SO fun! If we can, we’d like to make it an annual or every-other-annual event. We drove from Lake Angora back to Sacramento. What good fun. Thanks to all involvled, especially my kid sister, Kelli and Matt, her husband for putting us up.

I’m sure Kerrie will have more to report from the other half of our great vacation in CA.

Pictures

(Technical note: scroll over the picture to reveal its title and click on the picture for a large version)

Hot August Nights


Lake Tahoe

Angora Lake

Recently, I’ve been slammed trying finish up my projects before we head on vacation for a couple weeks. After this week, we’ll be in Cali for a couple weeks and then…gulp…I’m back in school for another year of coursework. I love school, but the summer has been incredible. I’ve gotten a ton done in school, mainly on my summer paper. It’s entitled “Short selling constraints and earnings timeliness”…trust me, you want to read it.

Last week, I attended an accounting conference (you’d love it) at Emory University in Atlanta. It was my first time visiting the ATL and I really enjoyed it. I went with two other PhD students and we made a road trip out of it. Our goal was to get as much out of the conference as possible, but also get as much out of our visit to Atlanta as possible. I got to experience a lot of firsts.

The most memorable was the culmination of our trip…an Atlanta Braves game. I’ve been a passive Braves fan since youth, so it was awesome to finally get to be at Turner Field and watch the Braves play the Cardinals. The Braves lost, but I got to experience a great game and enjoy some time with my buddies.

The trip was also a culinary carnival. Our first night we ate at a Bangaladeshi restaurant called Panahar, which was delicious! I love Indian food…so this was a great fit. The next day, we ate lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Cuban sandwich shop called Havana Sandwich Shop. The food was very similar to what I ate in the DR, so of course I loved it. Finally, that night, before the Braves game, we grabbed a burger at a crazy bar and grille called the Vortex. For the first time in my life, I got tater tots with my huge bleu cheese burger. I must have consumed 8000 calories that day.

Anyways, the trip was sweet…I bonded with my fellows students and I got to see most of Atlanta…all on my department’s dime! It was awesome!

Well folks, my first year is under my belt. I took two finals today and I am exhausted! But I have a whole summer to recuperate and work the typical 40 hours a week to finish my summer paper.

One down, at least three to go!