Have a safe and happy holiday everyone! And happy bargain hunting if you’re into Black Friday :) )!!

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Big apologies for the downtime on my site the last few hours. It was somehow overloading its server (shared hosting through HostGator), but on the bright side, they gave me a tip to install a plugin called W3 Total Cache. You should notice improved performance by 10x or more. Feel free to leave a comment if you see anything amiss.

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The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) published a civics quiz and literacy report a while ago that I meant to post. Feel free to take it, and then click on the links on the left for more info on some of their findings. Embarassingly, I only scored a 75% (that’s a C), which although higher than the average American at 49%, is still pretty dismal considering all the education I’ve had.

Although the parts are no doubt edited down so that only the most unbelievable bits are aired, here’s a funny clip from Jaywalking on money matters from the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

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Sorry for the delay in updating this site. My mother-in-law passed away last week from cancer, and our family is still recovering from the loss.

More pertinent posts will be forthcoming, but I happened across this recently at work and found parts of it somewhat comforting, so I thought I’d share, in case anyone else has recently experienced loss. Titled “How to Deal with Change”, it’s from wikiHow.

Being prepared for change involves flexibility, strength of self-purpose and belief in one’s own worth.

1. Be prepared. Life is full of unexpected surprises; don’t let this be a lesson you refuse to learn. Death, loss and strange situations will be a part of your life, no matter how much you may try to cocoon yourself with reasoning, savings and assets. The major key to coping with change is to accept the reality of change and its inevitability.
2. Realize there’s only one thing you can control – yourself. Once you cotton on to the reality that you cannot change others and that the only way they can change you is if you let them, then you suddenly find yourself empowered. Empowerment is a key element of change acceptance and change management. When you feel empowered, you will roll with changes as a whale rolls through the ocean waves, commanding and unbothered by events but conscious of a need to roll with the surrounding effects to lessen their impacts.
3. Take time to recoup. If you are grieving after a death, be it a person or a pet, do not let anyone tell you how long to grieve for. That decision is yours. It does make sense to make a decision in your own mind about what grieving you need to do, as your life cannot meander in sorrow forever. However, it is most clear that those who avoid grieving end up worse off and can experience break-downs and inability to cope at unexpected times. With grief for death, there will always be a piece of your heart missing but if you accept this and you are willing to carry the memories as lively as can be for the rest of your life, this will help you reach some acceptance of what has happened. If it is a job loss or some other personal loss that is not death, you still need mourning time to assuage your sadness and grief over a loss of something that once filled a large part of your life. Perhaps a small ending ceremony of some sort will help to give you a sense of closure and allow you to move forward.
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I received the following email today:

Hello Ricemutt

My name is John D. [name edited to protect privacy] and I am a tutor in the School of Engineering and Computing at Blackpool & Fylde College in England. I found one of your tutorials on the internet and find it to be superior to the material I currently use when teaching my students this aspect of spreadsheets. I would like to ask your permission to use the content for the purpose of a student excersize. In this regard, I have taken the liberty of creating a PDF from your content, and editing as I felt was appropriate for the students (adverts etc.). In addition, I have accredited yourself as the creator of the document. I have attached the PDF for your inspection. If you would be so kind as to allow me to use your material, I would be grateful. If not, I will of course delete the PDF and it will not be used.

Kind Regards

John D.

So yes, I have ads on my blog, and yes, I do make money from them, but it’s really emails like these that always make me feel good about the time it takes to do all these Excel function tutorials, which require screen captures and writing detailed steps. (I’ve been meaning to write a simple one on pivot tables, but having a 3-month old to take care of has delayed this.)

I’m also pleasantly surprised that there are still people out there on the Internet who do the right thing and take time to ask for permission first before using other people’s work.

I sometimes get requests to work on actual spreadsheet problems people are dealing with for their business or job. I’ve honored a couple of these, usually asking them to just make a donation to a local charity. I’m considering setting up a donation button on this site for things like that, or when people find the information on here useful enough to donate a small amount, which I’d then collect and donate to a different charity each month. Any opinions on this?

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