Welcome

Today I took and passed the macroeconomics CLEP exam. I did slightly better on it than I had on the microeconomics exam despite not having quite as intuitive a grasp of the topic. As with the micro exam, I learned some material from a book and supplemented from a series of narrated powerpoint lectures. The micro lectures were pretty well targeted to the same kind of information that they wanted us to know for the CLEP exams, but the macro lectures were based on a historical look at macroeconomic theory and how it has evolved. It was interesting to watch but there were a few details that I only picked up after missing some of the sample questions. Of course, I was also trying to watch the lectures over our Thanksgiving trip to Atlanta while Kent was napping or in the hotel in the evenings, so there may be other reasons I missed a few things here and there.

At any rate, I am finished with my VEE requirements and now I'll move on to the Fundamentals of Actuarial Practice (FAP)—which makes up the left side of the pie chart—between exams. If I get really lucky I will have passed the exam I took in November and will pass my final preliminary exam in May. If that's the case I'll be able to focus on FAP the rest of the year and maybe even finish around this time next year, but that scenario would require a lot going right for me and the preliminary exams still have pass rates between 40 and 50 percent so I'm not going to hold my breath. The next step is waiting for the results from November, which should be released on January 2nd. The updated pie chart looks like this:

In other news, we had some roof damage during Hurricane Gustav, but it was relatively minor, no water was coming in, and I figured we might be able to get it fixed for less than our insurance deductible, so I didn't contact our insurance company right away.

In any case, we were doing much better than some of our neighbors:

After getting three estimates that ranged from $175 to $8,000, I decided that maybe we should contact the insurance company anyway and see what they thought. To my surprise, our adjuster took a look at the roof and said it should be replaced, and today we picked a contractor to do the work.

When we moved in the kitchen appliances, light fixtures, fans, and floors were all new. Since then we've replaced the heat pump, the water heater, and now the roof. All we need to do is the windows and the siding and we'll have a completely different house than the one we saw on our first visit. Crazy.

—Jack

Labels: actuarial, exams, handy pie chart, home improvement

Welcome to my new homepage. This one was created with the help of BlueRobot's Layout Reservoir. The photography pages still need to be overhauled, but I'll work on that next week.

We've nearly settled in here in Philly, with only a few amenities lacking, such as the dining room chairs that we haven't gotten around to staining and putting together. We're going to be taking care of those on the 4th of July weekend. This weekend we're going down to Baltimore to help my sister move to a new apartment. Apparently it's just down the street from where she lives now, so they're not renting trucks or anything, just making a nice long ant line from one apartment to the other. They're putting us up for the night and taking us out to see her boyfriend's band, so that should be cool :)

Erica has gotten a job at Borders, as you may know if you've been reading her updates. I've gotten the cold shoulder from most companies up here, but I'm plugging along, working on better web authoring techniques since it's been about two years since I seriously pursed it and things have changed. Most companies, even the temp agencies, are looking for 3-5 years previous experience in the IT sector. A guy at one agency told me that about four thousand workers have been let go in the last year or so, and so I guess they are able to fill their ranks with the semi to uber experienced. One lady had the gall to tell me to call back in 3-5 years. I wanted to tell her I'd be working by then and wouldn't need her help, but I guess with the way things have gone recently that's not guaranteed either. So it goes...

In the meantime if you know of anyone who needs a little web help I'm open for some contract work. My skill level isn't quite where I'd like it to be, but that will be reflected in the cost of the work. Besides, if I can get a few things in my portfolio I can show those to the folks who want 3-5 years and see if I can get any of them to actually pay attention to me.

—Jack

Labels: 1st post, Baltimore, employment, family, home improvement, job hunting, Philly, retail, web design