Month: January 2014

January and my Failures at Organization

~ K ~ 5 Comments

It is the last day of January and I figure I’d better squeeze out one more blog posting of Worthless Advice before the month comes to an end.  Like many of you, I always have thoughts at the beginning of the year (not resolutions, just thoughts) of how this year will be better than last year.  I think to myself that I’ll exercise more, get a little bit trimmer by dropping a few pounds and lifting a few weights.  Then I won’t waste my days away by endless surfing the internet watching funny cat videos on YouTube or updating my Facebook status.

The perfect filing system?
The perfect filing system?

I also thought I’d get more organized.  I’d clean my office and maybe clean the garage out.  Yet, I haven’t.  I have made only minor dents in the mountains of junk I possess.  Instead of tackling it, I am here writing a blog post.  Tonight I’ll read a book or two.  Tomorrow, I have a full day of work, then it is Super Bowl Sunday so I can’t possibly do anything that day.  Sign…it just becomes an endless loop.  What is a hopeless disorganized person like me going to do?

Before you call in the show Hoarders to save me, I might be messy and disorganized but I’m not a hoarder.  Or am I in deniel?  I thought stuff away and I donate things.  I like to get boxes of junk and stop by the donation center.  It feels good to unload my treasures.

So after this blog post goes up.  I’m going to turn around in my swivel chair, pet the cat, turn on some comedy on Pandora, and clean up my office a bit.

Thanks for reading!  Leave your organizational tips below!

TV Show: Hawaii Life – four more episodes!

~ K ~ 4 Comments
Ah, a piece of paradise!
Ah, a piece of paradise!

The new TV season of the show “Hawaii Life” has started and we have been catching up with old episodes.  The last four episodes (we have watched) have featured two property searches on the Big Island and two property searches on Kauai.  You’ll be pleased to know, I watched these from the comfort of my couch with the gas fireplace blasting!  Ah, warmth.

The four episodes I watched this time around and their price range:

Living Off the Big Island (up to $500K)

From Boston to the Big Island (up to $300K)

Boogie Boarding on Kauai ($600-800K)

Single Mother Shops on Kauai ($400-600K)

The Big Island appears to be a little more affordable than Kauai, Maui, and Oahu.  At least the properties that were shown appeared to be more affordable.

The lower price range houses (under $300K) are fixer uppers.  Some are just update issues but all appear to be livable.  Nothing a few hundred thousand dollars of remodeling couldn’t fix.

Townhouses and condos might have HOA fees as much $511 per month (as we saw in the Boogie Boarding episode).  To be fair, we have condos here in Seattle with crazy high monthly maintenance dues and fees as well.

Much like the southern United States, you also get to deal with bugs and termites.  Home inspections are very important in everything state but in Hawaii, you might run into mold in greater numbers because of the high humidity.  But hold on, the various islands and the location where you are on that island can also influence the mold situation.  Recently, my friend moved from one part of Kauai to another and he ran into the mold issue.

He has lived on Kauai all his life and he has never had to deal with mold.  He moved from a drier area to a wetter area.  More dampness equals more potential for mold.  The house might not have mold in the actual structure but your clothes boxed up and stuck in storage might get a moldy smell to them.  Good airflow is one of the keys to fighting mold.

On a side note: I’m really beginning to hate the show’s tagline “You don’t have to be rich to live in Hawaii; you just have to want it.”  One reason is that whenever the real estate brokers say it, they just look like some stoner surfer dudes.  Forced smiles on their faces.  Oh please.

The “Hawaii Life” show is also just a 22 minute long sales show.  Whoever thought up this reality show was a genius for turning a sales show into a reality show.  It is always the same real estate company and guess what it is called? “Hawaii Life”!  Surprised, huh?

And on an ending note, this is my 200th post!  Yeah me!  I get a gold star!

Quick! Too Much Information is Never Enough!

~ K ~ 4 Comments

TMI & TMS: Too Much Information & Too Much Sharing

Did you hear about the first time mother Ruth Iorio that used Twitter and Instagram to document the birth of her first child?

It does sound like a start of joke but of course it’s not.  Supposedly her photos and the Twitter feed went viral on the internet.  She might not have been the first one to do it but she is the first one I’ve heard about.  There has to be a couple hundred YouTube videos of births so what is the big deal?

Maybe it was a slow news day.  I discovered the story when I watched a short video news report on the ABC News website.  It was a simple slideshow of her photos and they never interviewed her.

I did watch her being interviewed on another news program and she just seemed to wanted to document the event with her photographer husband.  Not a big deal; I know other people who have recorded the birth of their children but they didn’t tweet about it as it happened.  I don’t mind learning about the birth of your child; I just don’t need all the details in (somewhat) real time.  I certainly don’t need to see the photos either.  A simple after the fact tweet of “It’s a boy, his name is Nye, and he was born at 2:41 pm today!” will work for me.  Heck, throw in a photo of your son while you are at it.

Perhaps she just wanted to share the birth with a few of her Twitter friends and family.  At first it was just them and then they just happen to share the link with another friend, then another, until it was all over the internet.

However, it has inspired me to share more.  I plan to tweet about the next time I clip my toenails so you better sign up for my Twitter feed now!  You don’t want to miss that!

A special “Thanks” to fellow blogger Honey Did You See That! Whom gave me the idea about TMS and TMI:  Too Much Sharing and Too Much Information blog post today.

How to Stop Your Kids From Whining and Be an Awesome Parent!

~ K ~ 6 Comments

 If you didn’t know this already….kids whine and they whine a lot.  They whine about the color of their shoes, they whine when they are hungry, they whine when you forget to pick them up from school three times in row. 

Most likely, they learned the whining from your spouse (or ex-spouse).  Don’t worry; you aren’t to blame.  All the bad traits come from your spouse.  They are probably big whiners and passed this annoying behavior onto your children.  While it might be too late for your spouse to change, you can at least mold your mini-me into the person you were too lazy to become.

You can keep your kids from whining by following these worthless parenting tips from your favorite Uncle Kevin (or your Cousin Kevin or your Idol Kevin…you pick which name you like best for me).  In a short few hours, your child will stop whining and you’ll be able to leave a nice comment for me below.

 Listen to Your Child:

Whining is usually a call for attention from your child.  This means you should probably put down your smartphone and pay attention to your child for one brief moment.  Listen to them for that few seconds so they feel important and loved.  You aren’t actually going to do anything besides listen to them for a few seconds, so don’t worry if you were a little slow on getting that Facebook post up; you still have time to post how cute your child is or to share the latest blog post from Kevin Hellriegel’s Worthless Advice Blog.

Play the “I Don’t Know You” Game

When your child begins to whine, play the “I Don’t Know You” game.  To play, you simply pretend you don’t have a clue who this whining kid is next you.  It is really fun at the shopping mall when security comes and takes your child away.  The whining stops immediately and is replaced with the look of utter terror on your child’s face as security drags your kid away.  It truly warms one’s heart when your child realizes you aren’t going to save them.  Then the whining will stop for sure.

Schedule “Whining” Time

Allow your kids to whine.  Of course, you won’t be there to hear them but at least they can whine.  I personally like to schedule whining time outside, in the rain, on a Thursday afternoon when I’m not home but the kids are.  Whine away, kids, whine away because your parents aren’t listening.

Ignore Them to Discourage Whining

You could listen to them or you could ignore them.  Just like you ignore the salad on your dinner plate, you can ignore the whiner.  The whining won’t disappear but you can at least toss it into the trash just like the salad.

Have a Whining Bank

If they want to whine, just let them know they are taking a loan from the Whining Bank.  To pay back this loan from the bank, they get to work for you doing the worst of the household chores: picking up dog poop, changing Grandpa’s diaper, eating leftovers from three weeks ago (because we don’t waste food in our house you spoiled whiny brat!).  If they don’t want to do chores you can introduce them to Vinny the Chores Enforcer and his baseball bat.

Overschedule Your Child

There is nothing better than having your child doing too many activities causing them to be too exhausted to even think about whining to you.  As an added bonus, you can then be that martyr parent that is so busy.  You can talk about how busy you are driving the kids around from place to place and you have no time for yourself.  Yet you have time to post comments on Facebook.  Every heard of reading a book while you are at the tennis lesson

Add a few of your whining comments below and complain about how unfair I am.  Go ahead…whine away!

Too Many People Feeling Worthless And How I Can Help!

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I have to admit that I’m beginning to worry that chosen field of worthless advice may be becoming too crowded.  Most advice out there is worthless but at least I admit my advice is worthless and awesome.  However, the term “worthless” is being thrown around out there by everyone trying to butt in on my niche.  It is becoming annoying and rather troublesome to think that now I really have to pump out the worthless advice.

These clever imitators try to offer “helpful” advice but we know it is really “worthless”.  Top Ten Lists are the worst offenders making it easy to muck up the reader’s life by following the bullet points.  Worthless advice isn’t easy to dish out in a cookie cutter fashion.  You must be skilled at it.  You have to know that your advice really won’t help anyone but yourself.

As I scorn through the vast information highway, a simple search through my WordPress Reader makes me sick when I use the term “worthless”.

Bring on the depression when you click on the link to any blog with the term “worthless” in it.  I fall deep into a person’s written account of how they feel worthless and I need to fight the strong urge to stab my eyes with a letter opener to stop the insanity.  Then I realize that all the letter openers are in landfills because no one writes letters anymore and all those noble letter opener manufacturers are bankrupt.

Are these blogs I’ve stumbled upon really worthless?  Probably not.  Most of the writers admit that they have a good family life, a good home, and food in their stomachs but they feel worthless.  I just want to slap them upside the head and tell them to stop complaining.  Things could be worse for them.  They have access to the internet and time to write a blog about feeling worthless.  They could be stuck watching a local production of a musical by a bunch of untalented elementary students singing off key and missing their cues.

But then again, maybe they have some mental issues and I’m not being sensitive.  I understand mental issues and the problems they bring.  I know that the chemical imbalance causes havoc in the mind and crazy stuff happens.  I read a few of those crazy bloggers and they are some of the best blogs around.  You have to love craziness.

So I won’t slap them upside the head because I am sensitive (shhh…don’t tell anyone) and I do have a heart.  I usually write a positive uplifting comment on their blog to give them some encouragement.  Jeez, I’m getting soft, aren’t I?  Next thing you know I’ll be adopting sixteen cats and starting an animal shelter in my basement.  And even that wouldn’t be worthless to me or my sixteen kitty cats because I would be an awesome Crazy Cat Guy.

DSCI0327Good luck on your blog and write your witty comments below.

So why don’t you get off your lazy butt and write something?

~ K ~ 3 Comments

So why don’t you get off your lazy butt and write something?

OK folks.  I’ve been quite neglectful in my blog writing.  Sure, I could blame it on the holiday season and say I was too busy hanging up my holiday lights all over my house, my trees, my rocks, my roof to write anything remotely exciting (or sarcastic for that matter).  But the truth is (since we are being honest, aren’t we?) I have been lazy for the past month or two.

Maybe I’m in the mist of trying to discover myself?  Or perhaps the hot butter rum was just so delightful that I could hardly string a few words together to make a sentence much less write a blog for you to read.

Even my imaginary stalker Cyndi is disappointed in my lack of writing.  I’m sorry to let her and you down.

I didn’t even wish you a Happy New Year and it is already January 7 of 2014!  Man, I am scum, aren’t I?

Let’s start writing, shall we?  Let’s talk about your New Year’s Resolutions that will fail miserably.  My worthless advice: Never make New Year’s Resolutions.  You are setting yourself up for failure.  Instead, commit to a lifestyle change for the better (why would anyone make a change for the worse?).  Choose to exercise more and to eat healthier.  Choose to read a good novel, choose to drink less alcohol, choose to limit your Facebook time stalking your ex-girlfriend (or ex-spouse), choose to get your finances in order, choose to follow my blog by subscribing to it.  Just make the choice to improve yourself.  Certainly subscribing and promoting (and sharing) my blog is a good choice for you.

See?  Isn’t that better than a worthless New Year’s Resolution?  Make better choices in life.  And your spouse says I never write anything “uplifting” in my blog.  Poppycock I say!

I look forward to offering a new batch of worthless advice to you and your fellow mankind in 2014!  Let the games begin!