Three Things Today

I've been away at my parents' all day, setting up their computer, installing software, doing .NET passports and so on, so mentally I'm a little beat tonight. It's the first computer that they've ever bought new, and although they have had hand me downs from me for years, those computers mostly collected dust. Like more than a few older people, they have had difficulty in seeing what a computer could do for them. They're not into gaming or real time chats, and things that might have been useful, like e-mail or on-line banking and shopping were too scary to worry about. My Dad, however, has always loved photography, and now that cameras are going digital in a big way, he wants to make better use of the digital camera he got last year. So I've been trying to show him how Windows works, and he's making progress, probably because he is, for the first time, motivated. But he has a lot to learn and so every time I visit, we go over it again, and try to add new wrinkles. I think he'll be fine. Just keep plugging. My mom overthinks the computer too much. She wants to know everything about it before she touches it, "just in case." I think reading a book about a subject one has little or no knowledge of is not very helpful. The words have no meaning. So I keep persuading - look, here's Amazon.com, and here's some movie trailers at Apple.com, and here's a page I customized for you at MSN. Anything I can think of to get her to actually sit down and 'play' a bit. Then, the book might make sense. The down side is that they might discover the blogs my wife and I have, and then they'd know what we really think. ;-) ... While I'm here, typing away, I do want to leave something thoughtful to chew on. Tonight I read in the local paper that house sales are 18% up over last year, and that year had been 18% up over the year before that. Things are stabilizing now, but wow, that decision to buy a detached home instead of the townhome two years ago is looking pretty good. So I started wondering, what are the three best decisions I've made to this point in my life? It wasn't too hard to think of three right off the top. 1) I lived at home until I had enough money to buy a one bedroom apartment in 1999. That was smart. Going to college and delaying that purchase for five years was not. 2) Getting married to a good woman. 3) Buying the home instead of the townhome. The list reminds me some conventional 'wisdom' that I'm thankful I ignored. Don't blow the money for a downpayment on property on a trip to Europe or a huge expensive wedding. High school graduation is a total non event in the larger picture ('grad' parties for elementary children are breathtakingly dumb). Leaving home early is tempting but risky since it will be much harder to save if you are making hefty rent payments every month. Avoid student loans like the plague unless you are entering field were you have realistic prospects of making enough to pay them back quickly. Spending $20,000 on fine arts program is extremely risky, 'follow your heart' advice be damned. Sandbagging your future to 'follow my dream' just isn't worth it. I think no one knows what their dreams are at twenty anyway. Happiness is found most often in the relationships, not things. That's my experience. Anyone have thoughts on three things you did right? Or maybe three things you did wrong? Three huge non events? Things that have somehow been pivotal to you?