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The Supreme Court ruled on Heller vs DC today and pretty much said that an individual has the right to own a gun. From the opinion:

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

The decision doesn’t invalidate regulations like registration requirements, but it certainly opens the door for legal action against laws that limit the use of firearms by law abiding citizens. I’m not a gun nut but this how I feel about the whole situation:

Criminals don’t obey gun laws, they just leave their victims defenseless. I’m glad I have the ability to defend myself in my home because I don’t want to be at the mercy of some criminal threatening my life and property. If that moment ever comes the police won’t be able to help. When seconds matter, the police are minutes away.

Personal finance is an important part of our lives, so why are we reluctant to talk openly about money? It might be that we still see money as a symbol of status. We might be ashamed of debts. We might not want to feel like we are bragging or putting ourselves above others. Whatever we feel though, it is most likely tied to emotions and as far as I can tell emotions and money don’t mix. In my life I have “unpersonalized” personal finance.

But how open should we be? I’m not suggesting we announce our income and current portfolio value when meeting someone, but when talking to friends and family I’d be open to asking for and offering advice. Getting advice and working out finance problems is incredibly important considering the opposition we face in our consumer spending driven society. I think we should be open enough to discuss our tax situation and tactics we use to reduce our tax liability. We should be open to discussing how we are saving for retirement. We should be open to talking about problematic debt and helping each other eliminate it.

What do you think, are finances open for discussion or private matters?

Since everyone else is taking the personality test I’ll throw mine in along with the Multiple Intelligences test. Nothing too surprising.

Now that I’m out of training and getting settled into my team I find that I am really starting to like working for the County of Los Angeles. First of all I’m at the Imperial building in Downey so I have a nice 5 minute / 2.5 mile commute which has made a huge difference. This cuts down my time spent in the car by over an hour and fifteen minutes per day which means I get home earlier and incur less stress from the drive home. The shorter commute is also saving me about $1000 a year in gas.

I’m already plugged into a team and working on an active project so I’m feeling good about being able to contribute so quickly. Working for the county is a nice change in that I’m not working for some company whose only concern is making a buck. Here I feel like the money isn’t the only thing motivating me, there is also a sense of being able to help make a difference. A lot of the systems our group creates are used by other county departments to directly serve the public. I see this leading to higher job satisfaction and less potential for burnout.

The benefits were one of the biggest things that attracted me to the county. The private sector can only offer so much and the benefits here made up for the raw pay cut I took. The big benefits include excellent medical and dental coverage for both Sarah and me, 401k with 4% matching, paying into a pension instead of social security, and generous vacation/holiday/sick time. There is also a lot of room to move around since the county is so large and everyone is always looking for good talent.

So that’s what I’ve got going on.

Bachelor (ette) Parties Gallery

You can probably get a good idea about someone’s attitude about marriage by analyzing how they would handle finances. Are accounts and paychecks kept separate and each partner does whatever they want with “their” money after the bills are paid? Or are the financial identities of the partners merged into one where all money earned goes into a pot and both agree on how it should be spent and saved. Financial independence in a marriage just seems strange to me.

See ya all at the wedding or stay tuned for a plethora of pictures when we get back from Hawaii.

First off I left my position with the consulting firm I had been with for the past year. My last day was July 6th and I’m taking a month off before starting up at LA County with their Web group. I’m really looking forward to the change, hopefully the work will be more challenging and rewarding. The benefits are excellent and you can’t beat a 2.5 mile commute (I was doing 25 miles each way to Diamond Bar and my gas bill was approaching $180 a month).

Wedding stuff: 4 days and counting and nearly everything is done. Taking time off helped since I was free during the day to do whatever needed to be done. Took some late engagement pictures last week and got those printed up (thank you Richard!), printed up place cards, table numbers, programs and made favors.

Our new place: With my sister, MRI, moving to San Diego they needed to rent out their condo. With Sarah and I getting married we needed a place to rent. To say the least there wasn’t much debate about what we should do. Sarah is already moved into the condo and we’re getting settled in. We have the 2 most important things already: a bed and a HDTV.

Previously mentioned HDTV: My new toy is a 42″ Panasonic Plasma and I’m loving it. We’ve been watching TV on my 20″ LCD for about a year and I was ready for something really nice. Cashed in credit card rewards and got a free HD-DVD player (would have had to spend $100 on a player with HDMI anyways) and I’ve got the receiver already. OTA HDTV and DVDs look gorgeous. Pics of the setup will definitely be posted once I receive my speakers.

Honeymoon: I just need to do some last minute confirmations but everything is booked and we are picking a few things we want to do. I just kind of want to explore and take a bunch of pictures. Kauai and Maui here we come.

Photography experiments: My goal is to come back from Hawaii with a bunch of awesome pics to print and fill our large empty walls with. One of these pics I want to be a nice big panorama and to facilitate that I’m taking a tripod and new gadget to make sure it is perfect.

That’s where the Panosaurus comes in. It positions the camera in the portrait position and you calibrate it to rotate around the nodal point of the lens so things line up properly as you rotate the camera. I’m thinking a 360 view from the top of Waimea Canyon would be pretty sweet. And here’s a quick test I did of my bedroom (12 pics stitched together with a manual exposure, I only have 2 light bulbs in so one side of the room is darker):

On a side note I think it is pretty interesting that you’re possessions can really demonstrate what type of person you are. Some interesting observations about myself/room (I’ll work left to right):

• Homemade rear speaker stand made from metal bookshelf end spray painted white and screwed to wall.
• Box with water bottle wrapped in paper with line and nail in front, Panosaurus calibration equipment.
• Phone which hasn’t actually been plugged in for several months for some reason.
• Numerous pictures of soon to be wife.
• Cluttered desk
• Bookshelf. Normally top shelf dedicated to SNES game collection and other video games. Next shelf dedicated to miscellaneous literature: Greek mythology, WWII and Vietnam books, fantasy and sci fi. Next shelf would be almost completely dedicated to a mostly complete Star Wars book collection. Next 2 shelves are filled with math and programming books. Wow that all just screams nerd.
• Boxes in living room ready to be moved out.
• Boxes in bedroom ready to be filled.
• Wardrobe consisting mostly of t-shirts, that might have to change soon.

That might be it until after the Honeymoon since the next 4 days are going to be pretty busy with Rehearsal dinner and getting all the last minute things ready. In the meantime stick it to the RIAA man and download Prince’s new free album.