Category: Family

Dear Facebook: 67% of us are leaving you….

~ K ~ 4 Comments

This morning one of our local TV stations mentioned a survey about Facebook users.  You can imagine that a lot of us might spend a tad bit too much time on Facebook. A whopping 67% of the people in the survey said they were going to spend less time on Facebook this year.  Just like a meth addict coming back to his favorite drug, I know most people with a Facebook addiction will still be logged on and hitting the “Like” button.

Sure, Facebook might be one of those background windows on your desktop but it is still there.  The window is still open, you are still logged in and looking at status updates every few minutes.

My cousin is addicted to Facebook and I’m worried about her.  Like every addict, I have a sense of concern about her behavior.  She posts on the average of 5-9 times a day.  And she “likes” a lot of things.  To her defense, I know she is using social media to spread the word about her business.  Well, she should be spreading the word about her business; however it appears that she is getting off topic on every post.  I don’t really need to know she “likes” that cute puppy dog in the snow.

Of course, you can argue that my Facebook addiction is my cyber stalking of my cousin.  She is constantly on my newsfeed.  I probably should block her because her updates are really cutting into my Facebook stalking time of other people.  How can I spread out my stalking of everyone else if she is always posting and distracting me?

However, if I block her I won’t have anything to complain about.  What fun is that?  I could also not be logged onto Facebook at all.  I could go cold turkey.  I can give it up.  I can devote my time to actually work projects.  I did give up the mobile Facebook application on my Smartphone.  No one needs to know I just check in at the Bellevue Square Taco Bell (when I really should be at work).

What is the solution?  There isn’t any solution.  We are doomed.  You should know by now that my advice is heavily dosed with sarcasm and is worthless for the advancement of your knowledge base.  The only reason you should be reading my blog is to feel better about yourself.  You can learn that you are like every other Facebook user out there that wants to quit but won’t quit.

Really, if you quit who is going to “like” all those cute puppy pictures?

Why You’ll Survive WITHOUT Any Retirement Savings

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Devastation of Debt: Planning for Retirement

Isn’t that a great term?  I was surfing on the internet for retirement planning and came across the term “devastation of debt” which I just took an instance liking to.  It has such a morbid feeling to it.  It also makes you think about debt.  Good debt. Bad debt.  It’s all debt to me!

With credit card debt soaring and the housing market is still nowhere near the bubble highs of 2007, the term “Devastation of Debt” is so comfortable to embrace.  Scary, huh?  What about the looming “Fiscal Cliff” we are hearing about?  Maybe that was the Mayan End of the World prediction?  Perhaps the Mayans knew that a great empire (republic) in 2012 would have 12 trillion dollars in debt and that their great nation was in trouble.

Not everyone you know is in such financial trouble.  Some people are doing it right and we should applaud them.  We also need to keep them in mind later in life when we need a room (or at least a warm garage to sleep in).

 Your Retirement Plan should include:

1.       Successful Friends or Relatives:

Keep in good graces with friends and relatives that have a retirement plan.  Let’s face it; you don’t have a retirement plan that is why you are reading my Blog of Worthless Advice.  I can think of a good friend of mine that has both a pension plan AND a 401k plan.  Now, that’s smart planning.  What is smarter planning? Me being his friend!

2.       Vacation Home:

No, you shouldn’t have a vacation home but your friend/relative should.  Hopefully, it is a home where they don’t visit very often and they wouldn’t mind you using it a lot.  Remember, out of sight equals out of mind.  They don’t see you sponging off of them means they won’t be bothered by carefree leech lifestyle.

3.       A Car with Tinted Windows:

If you need a car, get one with tinted windows.  The darker the better. If you get stuck sleeping in your car, at least the dark tinted windows will keep you from waking up too early.  And when you are sleeping in the parking lot of your local Wal-Mart, the security guard’s flashlight won’t wake you up either.  Now some people would recommend a van but that’s a young/middle age guy’s homeless vehicle of choice.  If you plan to work as a carpenter, painter, handyman, etc., it might be a good idea.  However, if you have to commute to a real job you want a vehicle with good MPG (in case your friend’s house is far away from your place of employment).

4.       Sleep in a Good Neighborhood:

This can apply to sleeping in your friend’s garage or in your car.  By taking my advice, the car with tinted windows will be very handy.

5.       Join a Fitness Club:

I don’t care if you stay in shape but you should stay clean.  For a low monthly fee, you can get a hot shower (with unlimited hot water and free towels).   Most of them are open long hours and closed only a few days a year.  Side note: I’d complain about those two days a year they are close.  Hey, you pay the monthly dues so you can have access every day of the month.

6.       Food Courts:

What a great source of food.  Half eaten sandwiches, free fries, and unlimited soda refills!  Always have a soda cup and a book with you.  This makes it look like you are so bored you come to the mall to have a soda and read a book.  Sit down next to some people who look like they won’t eat everything.  When they are about to leave, offer to take their tray over to the trash can.  They will be delighted you are so nice and you get their leftovers.  Bonus: you are keeping all that food from going to waste!

If you have other Worthless Advice Tips, please be sure to leave them below!

Why “To Do Lists” make you a Failure and kill the Tooth Fairy at the Same Time!

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Sunday is a wonderful day in which you wake up with high hopes to get a great deal of stuff done…but you don’t.  That “To Do” List you might have started Friday night (but you really didn’t get started until lunch on Saturday) is never going to get done.  Accept this fact and your life will be a lot easier.

As an unpublished motivational speaker with an imaginary stalker named Cyndi, I offer this wonderful Worthless Advice from my living room: Ditch the “To Do” List.

When you have a “To Do List”, you are setting yourself up for failure.  Do you want to be a failure?  Let’s be honest, you won’t accomplish anything on your list and that will make you feel like a loser, a failure, a worthless individual who can’t do anything.  Is that your idea of being a “winner”?

Let’s say you have ten items on your list.  So you get two done of ten and scratch them off.  Wow.  You finished two items…20% of your list done.  Is that worth bragging about?  You got 20% done.  If this was a math test, you’d have failed.  That’s the big “F”.  Wouldn’t that make your parents proud?  What about your kids?  They could brag….”My mommy (or daddy) finished two things for an “F”…yeah!!!”  Face it; that is a lesson your kids don’t need to learn (let them learn how much of a failure you are later in their lives).

Your kids will learn later on in life that you didn’t take them to Disneyland every year, you skipped half the teacher-parent conferences because you were too busy checking your Facebook status, and the pet bunny isn’t really living out with Uncle Simon on the farm in the country.  These items can safely be hidden from them.  You already killed the Tooth Fairy when your kid lost her tooth on a Saturday night, you went to bed, forgot to switch out her tooth for a dollar.  Then the next morning, you wake up in a panic, grab your wallet to discover you have only a $20 bill left.  So you slide your hand (palming the $20 bill) under her pillow and doing the switch….and she wakes up!

Now you have to explain that you were just “checking” to make sure the Tooth Fairy had stopped by.  She looks at you suspiciously, looks under the pillow to discover that nice $20 bill and her doubt is quickly forgotten.  However, then she thinks you were trying to heist her money and that opens a whole new can of worms.

Don’t be a failure.  Be a winner! Forget the “To Do List”.

Google Yourself! Who comes up #1?

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Since my blog (Kevin’s Blog of Worthless Advice) skyrocketed to Number 9 under the search of “worthless advice” in Google, I thought I’d better check the term “Kevin Hellriegel”.  Just to be fair to myself and my imaginary stalker Cyndi, everyone and their cat Mr. Mittens “Googles” themselves to see what pops up under their name and how bad the results are.  I luckily come up with good results because I’m really just totally awesome.

Well most of it is good except for the fact instead of my photography business coming up as Number 1, my sarcastic blog of worthless advice comes up as Number 1.

That could be a problem because I can be a bit of a rude sarcastic writer on my blog.  I wouldn’t want someone to think ill of me.  Who am I kidding?  People think ill of each other all the time.  They just like to pretend they aren’t mean.

My worthless advice for today: To get to a Number 1 Google rank is to narrow your search to be super specific.  Unless your name is “Joe Smith” and you live in a cave without any internet presence, you should appear on Google’s ranking fairly high.  When you search “Kevin Hellriegel”, I come up as Number 1.  See, isn’t that some awesome worthless advice?  I bet you wished I could come in and doing some marketing for your worthless brand, don’t you?

St. Patrick’s Day

~ K ~ Leave a comment

St. Patrick’s Day

I forgot that yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day.  Luckily, I wore a spot of green on a T-shirt I was wearing (however, to be honest, I think it was a bit of salad from lunch).

I didn’t have any green beer, nor did I drink any Irish whiskey.  My family didn’t have and corn beef, potatoes, or cabbage.  I failed my Irish ancestors miserably.

I did remind my kids that it was St. Patrick’s Day and to wear green.  They actually listen to me.  I should have mentioned to them that you are supposed to not fight or argue with your siblings that day too.

So today, I, Kevin Hellriegel make the promise to pay more attention to the various holidays that occur everyday of the year and dress appropriately to said holiday.  If it is National Field Hockey Day, I’ll dress up in a field hockey outfit, if it is National School Spirit Day (September 12, 2012), I’ll dress up as a Kapa’a High Warrior or a UW Husky!  And if it is Naked Hiking Day…well, I’ll break  my promise and skip that one!

Ugly Pink Shirts

~ K ~ Leave a comment

The one thing I really like about the website Photobucket.com is you can search for random terms and find a bunch of photos totally unrelated to the term you were looking at.  These results can be very entertaining.  Most photos on the website are just family snapshots, not professionally quality.  That is perfectly ok.   People are creating wonderful memories and saving these images for themselves, their friends, and people like me!

Since they don’t change their privacy settings, their images are there for public viewing.  This is a wonderful opportunity for people like me, that stumble upon their Kauai vacation photos, their cat photos, and gives me the  inspiration to create a blog entry out of their photos.  God (and my imaginary stalker Cyndi) only knows how many people see my photos of my cat Meesha and I on Facebook.  One minute you send a simple photo message to your wife and then it ends up on Facebook.

Since I am fairly boring, I dress in muted plain colors for my job as a school photographer.  Please see my entry “Busy As a Bee”  for my “Dad Uniform”.  I can’t say the say that I wear flashy colors in my photos.  One color I refuse to wear is pink.  It doesn’t look good on me.  My cheeks always are a little read and a pink shirt just looks bad on me.  I’d look like I was about to have a heart attack  if I worn pink with my red cheeks.

Getting back to bad photos, Photobucket, pink shirts, and lack of privacy settings allows us to see people’s photo albums and a father wearing an ugly pink shirt.

Maybe these guys can pull it off, however, I know I can’t wear the ugly pink shirt.  I accept that.  I’ll leave the pink shirt to other fathers.

On a side note…If these guys think it is dangerous enough to wear rubber gloves, whole body safety suits, and oxygen masks then why in the world would you be standing there in just your pink shirt and white summer retiree shorts?  These guys are wearing hazmat suits and oxygen masks for some reason.  Don’t you think that perhaps you should get out of there? I certainly wouldn’t be standing around with my white shorts and pink shirt with a stupid grin on my face.

Death of the Christmas Newsletter: Don’t leave me hanging…..

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Christmas is a few days away and I have yet to see the Christmas newsletters I love so dearly.  Now, the Christmas letter has been given a bad rap over the past few years.  People have complained that they only tell the “good things” that happen in their lives or are merely fabrications of an overly drunk mother clinging to the false belief that her children aren’t losers and her husband still loves her.

I don’t believe that.  Christmas newsletters should be revered for the author’s ability to make the mundane and average dribbling of a mad person into a work of unrealistic family perfection.

Call me slightly crazy but I actually enjoy the Christmas newsletters for a number of purely holiday cheer reasons.

They allow me the chance to catch up on everyone’s yearly activities.  Look, I don’t have time to stalk everyone I know on Facebook and the Christmas newsletter fills in the blanks.  Besides, a lot of people don’t update their FB statuses like they should.  Yes, I do want to hear that little Billy has taken his first poo-poo in the big boy potty, that Jacob is in the 10th grade, D’Shawn scored the winning touchdown at homecoming, your 13 cats are alive and well, your daughter Uneek is a musical genius, your daughter Alison got her black belt, your Mom is now living with you, you ran over your neighbor’s hamster, and your wife thinks your totally awesome (but you haven’t been married for the past six years).

My life is boring and I need your Christmas letters to keep me from killing myself before Christmas rolls around.  I need something to do besides watch old reruns of the Dukes of Hazzard and reality shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  I would like some uplifting Christmas newsletters to read while I drink my hot butter rum and eat my neighbor’s awesome Christmas cookies.

Heck, I know you are a liar.  I understand you don’t want to share that your kid isn’t perfect, your father didn’t love you as a child and now you have “daddy issues”, your children hate you, you are working too much, your job sucks, you are lucky/unlucky to have the job you hate, your only joy in life is to read my blog at https://khellriegel.wordpress.com, you lost everything in the some ponzi scheme, and you hate pancakes with strawberries.

I want to still believe in Christmas and read your Christmas newsletter.  So please take the time to write out your Christmas fairy tale and send it my way.  I really need the help to make it through the holidays!

https://khellriegel.wordpress.com

Oh Man, the holidays are here!

~ K ~ Leave a comment

Well, most of my neighbors have their holiday lights up on their houses.  Even my lame next door neighbors managed to do something this year.  I’m a little slow on the draw due to a few valid and extremely good reasons:

  • I don’t like to climb up on my slippery roof to hang lights.
  • I usually wait until after my son’s birthday (December 4).
  • I’m lazy.

That last reason really isn’t a reason as much as a character trait.  I really am lazy.

OK, not really lazy but busy.  It is the Christmas delivery crunch time for my photography business so between getting all the school retake photos done and finishing up the digital retouching on my family orders; I’m busy.

Tomorrow, we are headed out to a U-Cut tree farm run by Jeff Coates (a fellow UW business student).  This will be our first time out there and we are excited to go.  Unlike my pumpkin patch experience (https://khellriegel.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/yes-it-is-my-fault-a-pumpkin-patch-adventure/), I’ll be sure to tell my family that in the Seattle, in the month of December, you will most likely be walking through muddy areas and your shoes will get dirty.  I highly recommend wearing some good boots.  I should further mention that it will be cold (currently temperature is 37 degrees) and they should wear warm coats, pants, and maybe some gloves too.

Welcome to the “I’m right 97.9% of time” Channel

~ K ~ 1 Comment

If I had a radio station, it would be 97.9 because that happens to be the exact same number (in percentage) I am correct.  This is probably annoying to a lot of people but it true.  If you ask me a question, 97.9 percent of the time, I’ll be correct.  In a lot of disagreements with certain members of my household, this proven statistic has been more than once been proven.

Like a wild space time theory that sounds too far fetch yet you know that it might be true, my 97.9% rings true.  As the percentage clearly shows, I am not right 100% of the time, merely 97.9% of the time.  This isn’t a wild crazy “I’m right all the time” rave.  It is a modest, yet true 907.9% correctness factor.

An example of the 97.9% correctness factor:

Wife: “What time are we supposed to be there?”

Me: “6 pm.”

Wife: “Are you sure?  That sounds late.”

Me: “Nope.  6 pm.”

Wife: “No, I think you are wrong.  I’m pretty sure the invitation said the event starts at 5:30 pm.”

Me: “No, really, it is 6 pm.”

Wife: “Well, I don’t believe you and I’m looking for the invitation.”

Wife proceeds to spend 15 minutes looking through various piles of letters, notes, children’s drawings, and grocery store ads.  Finally discovers invitation and says..
Wife: “Oh, you’re right.  It is 6 pm”.

Am I always right?  No, I’m not.  My correctness factor clearly shows I commit errors 2.1% of the time.  These errors might be taking the wrong exit, buying the wrong toothpaste for the kids, or saying the wrong name for someone.  Minor stuff.

My wife would like to believe I think that I am right 100% of the time.  However, we know we can’t be right all the time.  We all make mistakes.  That is why I tell her whenever she asks me “Are you ever wrong?  Do you every make a mistake?”  I can clearly point to my 97.9% correctness factor and say “Yes, I do make mistakes; just not very often.”

As always, your comments and links to my blog are more than welcome!

Yes, it is my fault: A pumpkin patch adventure

~ K ~ 1 Comment

This afternoon we actually had some good weather here in the Seattle area so we headed off to the pumpkin patch.  Well, it was us and 30,000 other families.  The first pumpkin patch was pretty muddy (go figure we are in the very wet Pacific Northwest).  As we drove through three huge mud puddles in the parking lot,  in my car (I knew we should have taken my wife’s car), we decided to avoid the mudfest and go to the other pumpkin patch.

Is one muddy field less muddy than another?  Probably not.  Just another misguided notion that one field is less muddy for no logically reason.

We went to Carpinito’s which was the same pumpkin patch that we went last year.  On a side note, my children insist that we got our pumpkins from the local grocery store and not a pumpkin patch.  I think we went to pumpkin patch, not the local grocery store.  We’ll agree to disagree but let’s agree that I’m right…as usual.

Upon our arrival we had to park in the overflow parking which should tell us that is already crowded.  I quickly grabbed the first parking spot (located near the exit).  I like to know where all the nearest exits are…just like on an airplane.  I gave the clear instructions to pick small pumpkins because we needed to pick them out and then carry them all the way back to the car.  The car which is located in one of the furthest parking spots possible.  Walking with a 33 pound pumpkin ten feet is ok, walking half a mile is quite a bit harder.  Add in a muddy field and it gets all the more fun for the family!

As we are walking through the muddy field, my family is quick to point out it was muddy.  Yeah, of course it was muddy; it’s a pumpkin patch.  Because it is muddy, that is why I wore my rubber boots.  However, my family didn’t.  Who’s fault is that?  From what my family says…it is my fault.  Earlier in the day, they all walked by me as I was putting my boots on, I should have instructed my family to put their boots on.  We were going to a pumpkin patch, it will probably be muddy due to all the recent rain, and it is a real field (which involves dirt and mud).

Needless to say, we got the pumpkins with bit of mud on our shoes.  Of course, my daughter likes to pick out a heavy pumpkin (which I had to carry).  The pumpkin weigh station is at one end of the field, our car is at the other side, so I ended up walking from one end of the field to the other side of the field with a heavy pumpkin, and then back through the same field to my car. Yes, the car parked as far away as possible because in my great planning thought I should be near the exit.   The two points (weigh station and my car) being as far apart as we could possibly make them.

We made it safely back to the car, no one fell in the mud, and the pumpkins weren’t dropped.  Overall, a successful pumpkin adventure.