Lazy Man and Money

Father’s Day and Boston becomes Title Town again

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Though I’m a day early, I want to wish all the father’s out there a happy Father’s Day. I am father to an adopted “huskador” (husky-labrador mix). I’m sure that’s stretching the definition of fatherhood out there to those who take care of people, but daily trips to the dog park and 2-3 walks is significant too. My wife has offered to get me something for “Doggy Daddy Day”, but I haven’t figured out what I want. She was thinking about taking me out to a nice restaurant, but she recently had some planned surgery (nothing serious) and it would actually be more work for me to get her to the restaurant.

Many Bostonian dads have had a Father’s Week, with the Bruins’ bringing home the Stanley Cup. I won’t count myself in that group. Though I have spent 30 years in Boston, I became bitter at the ownership for not always putting a competitive product out there. Plus, let’s face, it hockey is in a distant fourth place when it comes to viewership. That said, growing up, it seemed that everyone in my class was a hockey fan. Now that they are adults like myself, I can only imagine what the place has been like the last few days. I watched game 7 from a bar in Northern California and there were lots of high fives and hugging of complete strangers. That’s the beauty of sports. Unfortunately a couple hours after those hugs, I witnessed the dark side of sports – the Vancouver riots. I woke up the next morning thinking, “I wonder who many got hurt or killed and how much damage was done to Vancouver. It should have been a day to reflect on how Boston has dominated the sports world over the last 11 years. My personal Twitter feed was flush with people mentioning that Patriots now have the longest world championship drought… and they have the best record in the NFL over the last 11 years.

Let’s move on to the weekend links:

Money Writers:

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Something “Bruin”, More Potential Lawsuits, and an Easy Chance to Win $10 (Plus Personal Finance Links)

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My wife and I are doing a little traveling this week. We were at the San Francisco airport on Saturday where we searched out for a place to watch the Bruins-Canucks Stanley Cup Finals. Unfortunately the one with the with the best view of the game was the right next to a flight to British Columbia. There were a few people from Boston like ourselves waiting for our flight, but we were clearly out-numbered. It was a strange being in the United States and thinking, “We couldn’t even pull off a USA chant here.”

In a related note, Alex Burrows of the Canucks is in Boston tonight and I just hope he has Secret Service level security. I don’t really expect any difficulties, but after he bit a Bruins player, somehow avoided league suspension, and single-handedly won the second game there are likely some Bruin fans who may not react friendly towards him. I’m not condoning it, but recognizing that there are people who take sports a little too far and those people exist in Boston as they do everywhere.

Before I get to the links, I want to offer you a chance to win $10. I have a bit of a problem. My favorite hair pomade, one that I’ve used for nearly a decade now seems to have disappeared from store shelves. I say “seems” because I can’t be sure. Why am I not sure? Well, their product lasts so long that a single jar has lasted me multiple years. The name wears off the jar in the first couple of months. So it’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen the name of the product. Here is what I think I know. The brand name is around 6 letters long and starts with M. I think it has a “v” in it and maybe and “n” or a “d”. I think it has a consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel, etc. structure. So I thought it was Movano or something like that. Unfortunately I can’t find any mention of anything close on the Internet. Additionally, the product has/had a blue plastic round jar and a silver top – similar shape as most pomades on the market. Anyway, I ask for you help on tracking this product down, even if it is just to confirm that the company went out of business. The first person who can help me resolve this wins $10 payable through Paypal. Feel free to use the comments below on this.

Now we are onto the links:

Money Writers:

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Productivity Draining of Sports (and Personal Finance Links)

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After the Super Bowl in February, I’ve got a two month window to be productive before baseball starts. (It’s one of the benefits of not acknowledging college basketball as a sport). For the three of you who didn’t close their browser, this time of the year is the opposite… The past couple of weeks have had multiple Boston teams (Bruins, Celtics, and Red Sox) playing at the same time. I’m not much of a Bruins or a Celtics fan until the playoffs and it’s not often that they both make it there.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) after the Bruins epic collapse, I’m down to the Celtics and Red Sox. By some measures that means I’ll be more productive this week. Unfortunately the Red Sox have their typical 5 hour games planned with the Yankees on Monday and Tuesday.

Let’s hope the Celtics can keep me unproductive for quite a bit longer. In the meantime here are some links for the rest of the weekend:

Money Writers:

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NFL Draft (And Some Personal Finance Links)

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This was a big weekend in Boston sports. With the Red Sox – Yankees playing and Celtics and Bruins seasons still going on… all the teams had some logs in the fire. Oh, I forgot to mention the Patriots. They entered the draft with 11 picks. They proceed to wheel and deal. They traded down in some cases and up in other cases. In the end, it seemed like Bill Belichick got great value for every pick. A couple of times he traded a third round pick for a 2nd round pick next year. In other cases he traded the #23 pick (which requires a little dough to sign) back to #41 (which requires quite a bit less) and picked the same player that everyone predicted they’d take at #23. In that process they added a few more picks.

All in all, after adding four 2nd round picks and setting themselves up for 3 more 2nd round picks next year, they are looking pretty good to play at a high level for years. Then again, I think fans of a lot of teams are pretty happy, it will be fun to watch how things play out over the years.

Enough sports-talk for now, let’s get to some personal finance links…

Money Writers:

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