Timothyyordy.com

The transition to my new domain, timothyyordy.com, has begun. All new articles will be posted over there so please update your bookmarks. Thank you for making imnotarat.com as successful as it has been and I hope to see you at my new site.

Switching To A New Web Host

Sorry for the long delay between posts. Believe it or not I've been putting a lot of effort into actually doing things lately instead of just writing about doing things. My last post said that I was thinking about switching to Wordpress. Well that I think is going to happen but now it's going to be in conjunction with changing over to a new web host.

I've used AMHosting.com ever since I've been making websites, along with a couple other hosts along the way. During that time I've found them to be very easy to work with and have reasonable rates. Over the past couple years though it feels like something has changed at the company. There's been more than one instance of mywebsite going down for a day and then coming back up a day later with no explanation or apology from the company. The latest instance of this occurred yesterday. I realized that two of my websites had been down for nearly four days and yesterday all of my email accounts associated with them went down as well. Upon contacting someone from AMHosting.com via their online chat, I was told that a tech would contact me through email or phone. My websites came back, but no one ever did contact me with any kind of explanation or apology again.

My websites might not be huge magnets for internet traffic but I am paying for a service and expect a certain level of reliability. So over the next couple weeks I'll be making the transition to my new web host. I'm going to try and make it as seemless as possible though there is bound to be some hiccups. Also during that time, posting will likely continue to be sporadic.

Wordpress

Just a quick update today. I'm considering switching over to Wordpress. I've used Google's Blogger to power I'm Not A Rat for the past year and I'm starting to feel the itch to move on.

There are certainly aspects that I like about Blogger. One of which is that all of my posts are saved not only on my web host but also on Google's servers. Should my web host go down, I've still got all of my content online and can easily just start feeding it through a new web host. I have nearly all of my articles saved on my computer as well but should the need arise, reposting it all through a new web host would be a pain. I've also been able to mask pretty well that this is a Blogger powered blog in that I haven't used one of their ugly templates.

Wordpress on the other hand would give me far greater levels of customization and allow me to do some things with the way articles are displayed that would help separate different subjects a little more easily.

I haven't made a final decision yet whether or not to go through the trouble of changing everything over. We'll see what happens.

A Grower's Challenge

It's the time of year to start planning out the garden for the coming season and it's been on my mind a lot lately. We've gone three years in a row with some fairly crummy gardening results and last season I was almost ready to give up entirely. But, a winter's worth of tasteless grocery store fruits and vegetables has brought me back for another attempt. This year I actually plan to grow more than ever before so it should prove interesting to see how well I follow through with it.

Last year we had attempted the gardening method called Lasagna Gardening. It was a spectacular failure but I think part of that was our fault. Over the winter I researched some other gardening methods and came to the conclusion that I don't need any fancy gardening method. People have been growing stuff right in the ground for thousands of years and all it took was some hard work to keep the weeds out. And keeping the weeds out is always where we have faltered. So I'm looking for some tips and suggestions that any of my readers might have from their gardening experiences that might help me grow a successful garden this year.

I've also been contemplating the question of what would I do if there really was a shortage in the food supply? Could we survive on what we grow? Right now the answer would be no, but I want to take a step in that direction. I am going to take one week this summer and not eat anything beyond what we have produced ourselves. There will be two exceptions to this idea. The first one will be fluids, though I will try and limit fluids to water, milk, and some juices. Nothing artificial at all. The other exception will be meat, though here again I will limit my intake during this week. We don't produce our own meat so I can't be too strict about that but again certainly no processed meats and I'll probably come up with some preset amount of portions of meat that I will eat for the week. If our chickens are producing eggs by this point then the eggs will obviously be fair game.

I really think it will fun and quite healthy to exclusively live off of what we grow. I haven't picked an exact date yet, when I do I'll post an update. So is anyone else willing to take the Grower's Challenge with me?

Contemplating Chickens

So for the past couple years I've been considering the idea of raising chickens. I thought it would be a great way to enjoy fresh eggs and meat. I would know where it came from and it would save me money and the food would likely be far better quality than what I can buy at the grocery store. During the past couple of weeks I started considering this more seriously and sought some advice on the matter. Some of the friendly people in the forums at Backyardchickens.com have been very helpful and have cleared up a couple of misconceptions that I had.

It turns out that it's fairly unlikely that raising my own chickens will save me money and could actually cost me more than store bought. My eggs will be cage-free organic eggs but I don't spend the money on cage-free organic eggs from the store now so I can't consider the cost of those kind of eggs. Even if I build a coop as cheaply as possible, the cost of grain will make up a good amount of the cost of the eggs I get. The eggs themselves won't start coming until five or six months from the time I actually get the little chicks.

There's also the matter of butchering. I really don't have the stomach for it and if I pay someone else to do it then I'm right back to where I started to it not being worth it financially. I also learned that most people butcher between eight and nine weeks which seemed awfully young to me but I'm certainly no expert.

After learning all of this I was still on the fence about whether or not this was going to be a good thing to pursue. Then another tainted food recall appeared on the local evening news. It seems that this is happening several times a year now where we can't trust the food that is being certified as safe to eat by the FDA. When I started to think about that and combined it with the massive inflation that many economists are expecting due to the government meddling in the economic system, I knew that I really didn't have a choice anymore. I knew that even if financially it doesn't work out better right away, that in a very short amount of time it could be a great investment and if safer, more nutritious food is the result then that is even better. So this Spring, I will most likely have some chickens and you will have a front row seat to all of my chicken escapades.

A Clarification of Intent

Over the past week there have been a couple of comments on this website from readers that have expressed discontent with what they see as anti-Obama rhetoric in some of my articles. In light of that, I feel that I should clarify what my intentions are in writing articles that are political in nature.

Perhaps before the election some of my political articles could be seen as anti-Obama but anything since then has simply been an examination of his proposed policies. Specifically the ones that could affect us all financially. Really, that has been the focus. Nearly every political article I've done has been about finances. One reader's comment was that I was getting off topic. I'd have to disagree with that. Now more than ever we all need to be knowledgeable about how the policies that are being enacted in government will affect us financially and how they will help us or hinder us in our pursuit of financial independence. From that stand point it is completely relevant and on topic.

Before an election people can stand up for or against a candidate but afterwords all you can do is stand up for or against their policies. Where the idea of my articles being anti-Obama really falls short is that never once when discussing him since the election have I strayed from how his policies will affect us financially. He is our President, whether some people like it or not is beside the point. What does matter is how we are able to live our lives under any government and right now he is the leader of the government in the United States, so yes his name will come up often I'm sure.

I heard a story today of a family that had some chickens on a four acre piece of land that they own around their house. The chickens provided some extra food and helped save them money. A neighbor complained about the chickens, and the local government made the family get rid of all of them. I still believe strongly in getting out of the rat race, choosing self-employment, and being self-sufficient. But when we've come to a place as a nation where the government has the power to stop you from even taking small steps, like raising chickens, to help towards achieving those things then yes, we need to discuss it. We need to be informed about what is happening and in some cases we need to stand against it. Freedom to pursue each of our own liberations from the rat race should never be infringed upon by the government.

And For My Next Trick, I'll Create Jobs

The economy continues to slow and the unemployment rate continues to rise. I've already been laid off of one job in the past year and don't look forward to it happening again. The company I currently work for is a bit more financially sound than the previous one though, so I'm not too worried about it for the moment.

For those of you who have lost your job or are about to, have no fear because Obama is here and he is going to create 3,000,000 new jobs. I feel like every time I hear him speak he says he's going to create three million jobs. How exactly does that work? How do you just create millions of jobs and where does an exact number like that come from? Let's take a look at a few ways this could be accomplished.

The first way is the way that they supposedly plan to do it. With rebuilding the country's infrastructure. Okay fine, I have no problem with a more robust infrastructure. But here's my question: If these 3 million jobs were absolutely necessary for the country to function, then wouldn't they already exist? Sure, you can create the jobs but you can't create the need for these kind of jobs. It's either there or it isn't. And what would be the end result of this massive government project? Three million more people on the government payroll, either directly or indirectly through contracted companies. Where would the money for three million more government employees come from? And what would happen to these employees over time? I don't know about you but I've never known government to ever get smaller again once it expands. And if the government does create million of new jobs that weren't in fact necessary, all they've really done is throw a colossal amount of extra money down the welfare drain. Higher taxes for all would surely follow.

Another way that the new President wants to create jobs is by offering a $3,000 tax credit to employers for hiring new employees. Sure the employer is going to take the money but they are only going to hire someone if they need to. That $3,000 means nothing in comparison to the actual cost of employing someone. So again, with this method you can't just create jobs where there is no demand for a job.

The third and most dire way to create three million jobs is to start a war on the scale of World War 2. Most of these jobs would come in the form a reinstated military draft and the rest would come from manufacturing the weapons of war.

Personally, it annoys me whenever any politician claims to want to create jobs or claims to have created jobs in the past. The reality is that politicians have very little to do with job creation in a direct sense and they rely on the public being ignorant of that fact in order to get votes. My guess is that these three million jobs will never be created and that the economy will continue to spiral downward for the better part of Barack Obama's first term as President. Only time will tell if his and other politician's meddling in the economy will speed it's recovery or it's continued collapse. Whatever method is actually attempted to create these jobs will very possibly cause more economic instability, misery, heartache, and in some scenarios death. The surest, simplest, and least meddlesome way to quickly create jobs is to cut business taxes significantly. With more cash available those businesses can afford more employees.

Capitalism Is Not A Punchline

During the December 28th episode of Fox's animated series American Dad, there were numerous jokes about capitalism. The entire series is dedicated to mocking conservative values but until that moment I had never considered capitalism to be a thing to be portrayed as conservative or liberal. It's our economic system, it always has been, and the idea that it should be trivialized with some Hollywood writer's jokes is just ignorant.

Over the past several months politicians have been tearing down pieces of capitalism in favor of socialist policies. Barack Obama was elected on such ideals. Likewise President Bush and many people in Congress have been driving these same issues in the last few months. Again, I think ignorance is at play here. Ignorance of what capitalism has built in this country.

People are angry about the economic meltdown that started in 2008, and it is certainly far from over. The politicians assure them that they are gonna stop this from happening again and instead of punishing people who have abused the system, they are punishing the system. Capitalism did not create this economic crisis, greed did. It was politicians who were greedy for votes and so they pressured banks to make bad loans to people who couldn't afford them. It was greedy banks who went along with it to squeeze some money out of poor people. It was poor people who were greedy for a house they couldn't afford and so took a loan that they couldn't possibly pay back. Every economic system in the world is susceptible to greed, it's how well the system works when it's not run by crooked people that is important. If all of the sleazy people who ran this economy into the ground were actually being held accountable then it would have put a stop to it all.

So for those people who are so eager to tear down capitalism let's take a look around the world at some other examples. How about the USSR? Communism created so much poverty that it couldn't be sustained and they collapsed. How about Cuba? Again, poverty is rampant. Venezuela? Socialism is crippling the average citizen while filling the pockets of the government. China is a great example. It's the only truly wealthy communist nation and why are they wealthy? Because we pour billions of dollars into their economy every year buying goods from them. Capitalism has been so successful that it lifts the economic status of not only our own nation but of the largest communist nation as well.

So someone please show me how capitalism doesn't work because I'm really not seeing it. You want socialism? Then you're going to get it. When the dust settles we will be as poor and dependent on our government as the rest of the world. If I wanted to relive the Feudal Age, I'd go visit a renaissance fair.

I'm Not Dead and I'm Still Not A Rat

With the holidays firmly behind me I am ready to get back to I'm Not A Rat with my regular posting schedule of Monday, Wednesday, Friday. In addition to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day, I have a bunch of family birthdays in November, December, and January as well. It all kind of combines into this three month long family get together. It's great, but it's also great to get back to a bit of normalcy.

It's been encouraging to look at my website stats and see that in spite of my cutback in postings that traffic has remained the same. So thank you to everyone who has stuck around to read what I have to say.

In 2009 I plan to continue my focus on money making topics and self-sufficiency topics on this website but political articles will also feature heavily as they did in the last half of 2008. I'm also introducing a new feature. Every Saturday will be a News Roundup of links to news articles from the previous week that are worthy of note.