James M. Jackson's Blog, page 23

“Something Old; Something New;…”

Reflections Creative Photo“Something Borrowed; Something Blue” continues one tradition for the bride. Current divorce rates notwithstanding, many brides continue to follow this wives’ tale formula to assure marital bliss. My daughter, Dael, thank my luck stars, is not tradition bound, and I wondered if she was following this old saw.
“Yep,” she said as we waited for the pre-ceremony photo-shoot to begin. “The dress is old, the headband new. My watch has a blue face, and I figured since I was s...

Mom Turns 90

Yesterday we celebrated my mother’s 90thbirthday. We were all going to be in Bethlehem, PA for my daughter’s wedding on Sunday, and so we arrived a couple of days early to be together with Mom for her birthday. Here’s a picture of us at The Edge restaurant last night, where they treated us well and the food was very good. (I had the New Zealand lamb chops.)
Afterwards we gathered in Mom’s room for a petite birthday cake. My sister Judy got the cake, candles and, since none of us are smokers an...

When I was a Crow

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'
In the fall of 1957 our family moved to Blacksburg, VA so my father could earn his Ph.D from Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI, aka Va. Tech). I entered the second grade with a northerner’s accent and a reading disability. I had learned to read by rote, which is how they taught us in Rochester, NY where I had spent kindergarten and first grade. I had a good memory and did fine under that system. In Blacksburg they taught reading by phonetics, of which I had not...

Credit Card Safety

Target managed to divulge credit card information on –oh say, 110 million of their nearest and dearest friends. Upscale Neiman-Marcus allowed a breach in their security as well, showing that there are no gated communities when it comes to credit card data theft.
Other than cancelling all your cards, there is nothing you can do to completely secure your credit card information. So, what can you do to protect yourself?
You could sign up for a service like Abine’s, which promises secure credit car...

To Thine Own Self, Be Kind

No man is an island, entire of himself… John Donne
More than a week has passed in the new year. How is everyone doing on those 2014 goals? Just in case you intended to make some goals, but didn’t get around to it, you have a second chance: the Chinese New Year kicks off on January 31. Just kidding.
Even if you didn’t set goals, you and I know you actually have them. We all do, whether or not we admit them aloud. Whatever they are, I have a few tips to make yours successful.
1. Success breeds suc...

Two of my Goals for the Year

I don’t like to be embarrassed. I’m not sure how many people do, but today’s blog isn’t about them; it’s all about me.
Fact is, last year I wanted to lose some weight and exercise more. I do weigh three pounds less now than I did a year ago. Unfortunately, my idea of “some” was more like fifteen pounds. And I did exercise more than the previous year, but not as much or consistently as I wanted.
I know exercise is linked to my weight. When I exercise more, I generally weigh less than when I don’...

Understanding Financial Leverage

Recently, friends mentioned that their periodic meeting with their investment advisor happened to coincide with their decision to purchase a new car. The investment advisor recommended that they take the dealer’s 0.9% financing because “our portfolio is doing a lot better than that.”
Which ignores the point that taking out the loan will leverage their portfolio. If levering up portfolio returns was such a good thing, why had they not discussed that as a strategy before? Investments exist that...

Delaying Social Security Benefits Revisited

Roughly a year and a half ago, I wrote about my decision to delay the start of my Social Security benefits. http://blog.jamesmjackson.com/2012/07/delaying-start-of-social-security.htmlIn that article I argued that for those of us fortunate enough not to have to live off Social Security payments, we should  concentrate more on our risk of outliving our money rather than on the risk of dying too early and not spending all we could have. In the intervening months between the first article a...

Technology Changes Stories

I recently reread Ant Farm, what would now be a prequel to Bad Policy, the current start of the Seamus McCree series. Several readers were interested in the origins of various characters and this early work provides the answers. So, I read it through to determine how much work it would take to fix the problems that made Ant Farm unpublishable.




What I learned about story and writing style problems may be material for another blog, but one of the things I discovered in...

Seven Characteristics of a Great Panel Moderator

Last weekend Jan and I attended Magna cum Murder in Indianapolis. I found most of the panels well run and the panelists thoughtful and interesting. Two panels stuck out from the rest. One was extremely well moderated; the other, not so much.




Here are six things the exemplary moderator did well:




   1 .       Before the panel started, the moderator had clearly done his homework. He was familiar with each of the panelist’s writing. Be...