I find Mint to be the clear leader as far as usefulness when it comes to , and cancelled my own Thrive account. My wife and I had figured out budgets as far as what we needed every month, with loose estimates that were usually on the generous side, but Mint immediately looked at my financial situation and told me how much I spent in the past 3 months – the answer was staggering and made me sit up straight. I had not realized that with my new job giving me a lot more disposable income that I was burning through it so quickly, which was a result of not wanting to be frustrated that I couldn’t afford something after a few years of struggling.

While there are a few things Mint cannot account for (written checks could be for lawn service or rent, and Mint can’t distinguish the difference obviously), it did a pretty good job separating all my expenditures and breaking them down. There are also a few issues like shopping at mega-stores such as Walmart. What if I went that day and spent $40 on groceries? What if I spent $100 on a bunch of exercise equipment? It is all listed as “Shopping,” even though the $40 should fall under “Groceries.” This is more of an issue for me because I split my grocery shopping between Walmart and Kroger, depending on what I need and the amount of shopping I intend to do.

Of course, that doesn’t begin to break into the fact that I prefer to break up shopping even further into sub-categories. Some shopping is necessity and some shopping is not. While I can budget them separately in any text editor, it is a bit more difficult with Mint, again especially because of places like Walmart.

This is really the only issue I have with Mint. It isn’t as simple as looking at the pie charts, as chances are you will need to go into each category and mentally recall exactly what it is talking about to get a better idea of where your money is going. Still, it was invaluable in showing me the big picture with as little effort as possible so that I can be more conscious of my spending. It also gives alerts when you are nearing budget limits, and it’s always nice to have a virtual wife nagging you that you don’t really need to buy that $100 universal remote… right?

The last benefits are the suggestions about where to go to increase your money as well as the articles. Suggested savings accounts, CDs, etc., that give the best interest rates are all available and can give you a calculation on how much money you can save or earn. The site also boasts a blog with some decent information and tips.

I also use Bank of America for online money management, and cannot remember looking at paper bills in months or ever mailing out a check. In fact, I write checks to only 3 different people/companies a month, and each is due to a special circumstance. To anyone on the fence about online banking, one point I’d give is that it is much easier to see things on a webpage with links to any page for more detailed information, than a dinner table or desk full of papers, envelopes, stamps, and your check book. This is worth the monthly bank fee. If you calculate how much your time is worth, I’m sure the hours spent looking at and paying bills costs you much more than going with a bank with superior services for a higher monthly rate.

I have used Quicken in the past and find these aforementioned programs to be vastly superior. While there are certainly more options with Quicken that allow you to manage every penny as if your personal money is also your part-time job, I would rather simplify, get the big picture, and move on to enjoying a good book with a glass of wine. Cheers to managing your money better!

I have issue with all of these, because if we have progressed as far as we have with technology, then there is simply no reason for any of them to be lacking. The Hipster PDA simply doesn’t sync with my computer no matter how many times I ram a mini-USB between the index cards. Remember the Milk is extremely basic, which might be a good option for some. Jott has a great premise but focuses too much on transcribing voice to notes, and the transcription is somewhat shaky. Google Calendar has a leg up on the wall-hanging calendars in that you can take it with you on your phone, but ultimately it falls short with the following recommendation.

reQall, on the other hand, is better than your own memory. None of the aforementioned services can actually suggest what you might need to do, and deliver it to you with ease across any platform. reQall’s feature chart makes the competition look outdated by years. For me, the key to any program I use is that it simplifies everything that needs to be done, condenses it all into one great program or app, and barely impacts my life in that I don’t want to have to remember to go check it. It just seems that a program made to remember things for you should remember to tell you when it needs to happen as well. This is why I don’t like Evernote, although the focus is simply on expanding your memory, though I think the functionality to remember times that you might need to be told something should have been built in from the start.

How did reQall get better? Now it has iPhone push notifications. Sold.

The Pro version does cost $2.99/mo, or $25/year. While non-free services are beginning to become kryptonite to the web-savvy crowd, I am a firm believer in getting what you pay for. There are simply too many drawbacks for any of the free services to be useful to me, and my list of demands usually does not include many tiny features, but rather large, obvious ones. I can deal with 1 less Cafe Mocha from Starbucks per month to come up with the $3.

This isn’t to say the other services are bad, they are just simply not as full-featured. If the object is trying to simplify, then we should have an all-in-one program, not multiple. reQall can anticipate for you, remember whatever you need, remind other people who don’t even need the service, and a task like adding an item to your grocery list can be done as simply as speaking into your phone and saying “Buy can of tuna” before it magically gets converted to text and added to the list. At that rate, $2.99/mo seems like a bargain compared to the cost of having a personal assistant follow you everywhere you go. reQall might even be more effective than that if you happen to remember to pick up your dry cleaning while sitting on the toilet.

“Absolutely not. I didn’t spend $500 on a phone, that’s ridiculous. I spent $500 on a phone, PDA, internet and e-mail device, MP3 player, fitness tracker, external harddrive, radio, and portable gaming device.”

This is my answer when someone asks why I spent $500 to get a 32GB iPhone 3GS on pre-order with my pitiful early upgrade discount. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not suggesting in these economic times to go spend hundreds of dollars if you don’t have it just because of the advantages a PDA-phone will give you, whether it is an iPhone, Blackberry, Pre, or Android-based phone. Yet for someone who works on the road like I do, getting as much out of as little as possibly is key.

Of course I’m preaching to the choir for most folks into technology and lifehacking to buy a PDA-phone, but it amazes me how much easier people could make their lives while they continue to make it more difficult with these same devices.

I believe it was absolutely important to buy the iPhone because I run my life from my phone, but I don’t let it run me. First of all, the iPhone for me means liberation as now I have access to anything on the internet without having to be at my computer. Do I feel like checking Facebook? Sure, why not do it for a minute while I’m out enjoying a picnic.  To track fitness, I use a simple iPhone app with a large list of food (or I can create meals myself and input the calories, fat, etc.) and exercises. I’ve used the program, Lose It!, religiously for awhile now and lost 30 pounds within 2 1/2 months. I obviously cannot quantify the value of that in dollars, but the iPhone became worth it’s weight in gold to me for this reason alone.

No need for a bulky laptop or WiFi. That’s really the beauty of having an all-in-one device that fits in your pocket. As more and more of our computing is being moved to the cloud and internet apps are becoming more simplistic and straight-forward, everything can easily be done with a few taps of your finger. What’s more, if you have a desktop, purchasing a laptop as an added expense on top of your phone is no longer really a necessity, unless you need one for your job as a traveling businessman or freelance writer or something of that sort. Don’t buy a laptop just to have internet access at Starbucks. Simplify, buy the best (and possibly the most expensive) tool that will do everything you need, and go with it.

Similarly, if a netbook suits your needs more and you are sure you’ll be carrying it everywhere, buy one and go cheap on the phone. Rarely do most people need the best of both worlds. You can save money much more effectively by buying the one great product that encompasses everything you do at $500, rather than a bunch of mid-range products between $100-$300. Looking at the tag of just the one item is not the answer, consider all the other purchases you would have to make to arrive at the final edition of what you need.

Equally important is the necessity to not constantly be staring at your phone. Having access to everything you need to organize your life is great, abusing that privelege means you might as well be chained to your desk anyway.

Many people have discussed and stressed the importance of checking e-mail only at regular intervals throughout the day, and this is a practice that anyone interested in optimizing how effective they are needs to get into a habit of. If people are used to sending you e-mail thinking that you will get it immediately, set up an auto-responder to let them know to call you if it is urgent, and if not you will be checking mail at set times. The same thing goes for checking websites. The point of having a device that can go anywhere is so that you can do the things you want when you arrive at your destination, not go there just to sit staring at a screen.

Ultimately, consider all the facets of each one of your purchases. No one needs an iPhone or Blackberry, yet how much of your day can you do away with simply by having this device at your hip? How much time can you reclaim by checking personal e-mail and then paying a bill or two right from your phone as you ride the train home from work? Shouldn’t that extra time you could instead spend with your kids be factored into the “is it worth it?” question you face when making your next purchase? That’s really what it is supposed to be about.

Get your life back with this amazing technology, but do not become a slave to it and waste even more time plugged into the world.

You’d be surprised to find out how many customer service reps go to therapy weekly. I myself went through depression and nearly broke down because of the job. It isn’t the one caller who is unreasonable, although I have seen reps yell back at the customer before throwing their headsets down and walking out (and this person was a friend of mine who smiled and was usually pretty cheerful). It is the constant, unending wave of people who are upset and have problems.

While it might seem unfair to have to pander to the person who is supposed to help you, consider what the end goal is: Do you want to be pampered without getting any real value back from the call, or do you want that extra 5% off your bill for the next few months by being friendly, gracious, and simply nice to the person who is working to help you? If your ego can’t take a step back for the chance to get free services or extra goodies, then by all means be a jerk on the phone and wind up upset after the call is over when the rep refuses to help you out.

I can tell you now that call centers measure absolutely every statistic imaginable to rate their representatives, including how long it takes the rep to dial a number out when calling someone back. Yes, how fast a phone number is dialed is actually measured, and I have seen supervisors question people who take longer than a few seconds on why they dial so slowly. The biggest metrics are call time, time in-between calls, and time a caller is on hold, all in averages across the number of calls you take per day (which is a huge statistic in itself), as well as First-Call-Resolution. To clarify what FCR is, call centers consider each call to cost them a certain dollar amount. If you call back, then they believe that the rep who helped you the first time did not resolve your issue and cost them money by you calling back in. Call centers are seen as a loss by the company – they simply stem losing more money by increasing retention of customers via service and support. Thus, although a call center will at times talk about increasing quality if customers get too upset, these ideas all go out the window when they realize how much more money they are losing and how many more customers are waiting to talk to a rep as the quality of the call increases.

So, we have to look at what is valuable to the rep per call and maximize their happiness so that you can get something in return:

• A call that includes a reasonably quick resolution, and just enough chit-chat inbetween to kill dead air and increase quality assurance scores.
• Balance of statistics – Sometimes, to get other stats down, or just to get a mental break, reps will increase call length. I’ll get into this more later.
• Friendliness from both sides
• A resolution for the customer where the rep can be confident they will not call back.

Most articles on the topic of calling customer service preach about being nice. I cannot recommend this highly enough either, but to say that is the end-all to getting what you want out of customer service is ridiculous. Still, absolutely call in and try to be nice, no matter how upsetting the issue is for you. The only time it is reasonable to be unreasonable is after the company has failed twice or more to correct the issue for you, at which point you should be talking to supervisors and allow them to see how angry you are. To be very clear, showing your frustration is different than taking it out on representatives or supervisors. These people did not directly try to make you have a bad experience, and most of the time it is not their fault in the first place.

The first thing I will say is that representatives are trained to be efficient call-taking machines and they know how to guide you to get what they want out of you. Go with their flow and do not start speaking without it being in direct correlation to question asked. It may sound script-like, and sometimes is a script, but letting the rep get through what they are programmed to do helps them, as you going off on a tangent can make them forget to get important pieces of information. Here is an example of an opening that I always used that gets me the exact information I needed, satisfied all my quality, yet still was friendly and conveyed that I wanted to help out. Keep in mind I did tech support for a cell phone company, so realize that some parts will obviously be different based on the industry you are calling. If you were the caller, this is how you should be answering these questions.

Me: Thank you for calling -company-, my name is Chris, may I have your name please?
Caller: Hi Chris, my name is Ineeda Somehelp.
Me: Thank you, Mr. Somehelp. What cell phone number are you calling about today?
Caller: 281-555-4512
Me: Alright, thank you, and I see we have a password on this account, would you please verify it for me?
Caller: Password.
Me: Thank you so much. Mr. Somehelp, how can I help you today?
Caller: Well, my cell phone is not getting reception right now and it usually works just fine.
Me: Well, I’m certainly sorry to hear you are having trouble getting reception on your cell phone, but I’ll be more than happy to help you get this issue resolved. Now, can you please explain to me when this all started?

Compare to this following example call, where things immediately start off negatively.

Me: Thank you for calling -company-, my name is Chris, may I have your name please?
Caller: Ima Reallypissed.
Me: Thank you Mrs. Reallypissed, can I have the cell number you are calling about today?
Caller: 770-555-6623, and this damn thing isn’t working again. You know my friend Jessie here has a phone with -competitor- and her phone works. I’m getting really tired of this.
Me: Ok, well I’m sorry you are having problems, but can I first get you to verify the password on your account?
Caller: Ugh, -password-…

Do people really act like this? YES.

So right off the bat, in the first 30 seconds of the call, the rep should have all the information they need by getting direct answers from you. This means less time on the phone, they are focused and in control of the call, and things are going smoothly. Alternatively, you can see the phone rep is already losing control and beginning to struggle to get answers. The longer you take whining, the longer the call takes and the less the rep wants to help you anyway.

Now from here, the call can veer in a million different directions, so I will bullet point tips.

• Reciprocate kindness. In the first call, the caller responded by first greeting me directly. This took 2 seconds and sets the tone that the caller has proper manners and greets someone equally. Say please and thank you. You would thank the guy bagging groceries for you at the store, manners should not go out the window when you can no longer see someone face to face.
• Take interest in what your rep has to say too. Most reps will ask how your day is going. First of all, don’t respond with the obvious “Well, it’d be going a lot better if this stupid thing would work!” They mean to create a personal connection with you to make you trust that you are in good care. Quite honestly, most don’t care how you are doing and in some call centers it is just a necessity to ask this. However, asking the rep how their day is going, even if they lie with the response (the real answer should usually be “horrible”), will make them care to help you a little bit more.
• Reps sometimes have to rush through calls. Reps know how to manage their time. If they are rushing through a call with you, don’t get offended, they probably had to talk to someone for half an hour before your call which should only take them 7-8 minutes to complete. If they can get that down to 5-6 minutes, they will have affected their average call handle time and will begin to increase the number of calls they take that day. Try to consider that performance bonuses are based much more on tangible statistics, and not how much the customer likes them at the end of the call.
• Be talkative if they are to you. Similar to the above post, sometimes a rep needs to make their hold and wait times (how long you are on hold and how long before they take a call after they are done) better by being on calls a little longer. This serves two purposes. First of all, they get to simply chat about news or weather and stop thinking about the work they are actually doing, so being friendly back to them just makes that minute a little better. Secondly, this gives the rep time to write up notes or do work that they would otherwise have to do while you wait on hold listening to that fantastic elevator music either during a call or while waiting for the next rep to come on the line. Really, you can view this as a benefit to yourself for not having to hear the crappy music too.
• If you have multiple issues, deal with them on this one call and praise the rep. Most reps expect 1 problem per call. If you have more, that’s fine, but say something to this effect: “I’m sorry, I know I’m taking some of your time with all these problems but you’ve been really helpful and I really don’t want to call back and roll the dice with another rep.” Make sure to say the part about not wanting to call back, as this will make the rep remember that a callback hurts them. Stick to what you are saying to, try to get everything out on one call. Even a call back just to give praise to the rep hurts their statistics, so if you want to do that, ask for their supervisor at the end of the call to say a few nice words.
• Don’t get upset if the rep cannot provide a resolution. Let’s assume in the above call that a tower is malfunctioning and that is the reason the cell phone isn’t going to work. I can tell you with 100% certainty that no, the rep will not drive out to the tower while you are on the call with them, figure out the issue, and fix it. If they have to create a trouble ticket to have a technician sent out, just deal with it.
• Don’t freak out over the time that your issue “might” be resolved if there is a ticket created for you. To cover their asses, companies mandate that reps give maximum times that it could take something to be fixed. At my company, common response was 3-5 business days. It can be scary to hear your service might not work for 5 days. However, most issues are fixed in 24-48 hours, and outages are usually fixed within hours.

Why go through all the hassle? First of all, being a good person is just going to bring you good karma. If you wouldn’t act like a spoiled 5 year old in public at a store (and you shouldn’t), then don’t do it on the phone. Second, if you are rude, most reps will point to escape clauses for the company to get around reimbursing you in some way. For cell service, this is exceptionally easy as your contract stipulates that the company cannot guarantee service anywhere by virtue of the technology. It is true that you signed a contract saying you are aware that you might not have service for undetermined lengths of time and the company is not responsible to reimburse you at all. Remember, the company persuades reps to not give anything out for free because they lose even more money via the call center that way, and this is another metric that reps are measured on. Here are how I would handle calls with a good and bad caller.

Bad call up to this point

Me: Well, the ticket is sent in, is there anything else I can help you with Mrs. Reallypissed?
Caller: Yeah, so I pay 80 bucks a month for this crappy service and it’s not even working, I want my account credited for that time.
Me: Well ma’am, unfortunately we won’t know how long the outage lasts until it is over and so I cannot give you credit.
Caller: What?! I can’t believe this, you guys sell service and it doesn’t work, I want money for this down time!
Me: Ma’am, in your contract it says that we cannot guarantee service 100% of the time and are not obligated to refund any money. I apologize but per company policy there is nothing I can do.

Good call up to this point

Me: Well, I’m all finished with the ticket Mr. Somehelp, do you have any other questions or concerns for me today?
Caller: Well, yes Chris, I was wondering if there was any way you could reimburse me for this down time? Normally I wouldn’t complain but this is really going to affect my business.
Me: Well, typically we’re not supposed to reimburse people, but I really feel bad about the problems you are having, so I can give you a one-time credit of -x- dollars which is how much your service costs per day.

Really good call up to this point (including the rep using a loophole to give you even more back)

Me: Well, I’m all finished with the ticket Mr. Somehelp, do you have any other questions or concerns for me today?
Caller: Well, yes Chris, I was wondering if there was any way you could reimburse me for this down time? Normally I wouldn’t complain but this is really going to affect my business and it is pretty discouraging that your company is failing me after I have raved so much about the great service up until now.
Me: Well we’re not supposed to reimburse for outages typically, but I see you are (a new customer OR a long time customer), and would hate to see you think negatively of us. What I can do is give you maybe some extra minutes to your plan? Would that be sufficient?
Caller: Well, I don’t really need the extra minutes since I stay under by a decent amount every month, is there something else you could maybe do?
Me: How about a 10% off discount on your plan for 3 months?

Trust me, the freebies are better than the 1-2 day reimbursement. Think about it: If you pay $80/mo for service, then on average you are paying about $2.67/day in a 30-day month. Sometimes, to be sarcastic to bad callers, I would credit them and proudly remark that I have credited them $2 for the downtime. You can tell when someone feels like an idiot after raising hell over being reimbursed over $2.

Also, it is OK to ask if the rep is clearly lowballing you with their reimbursement offer. A cell phone company would rather give out minutes than reduce your bill, as they know the minutes won’t be used and won’t roll over unless you have AT&T (in which case you probably already rolled over so many minutes that extra minutes are pointless). Reps are trained to give up reimbursements in succession – they know what the company wants them to do to make you happy, in a specific order. If you give a valid reason for not wanting that particular reimbursement, it’s fine to ask for an alternative when the call has gone well.

Another piece of advice is to consider the company you are getting service with from a customer support aspect as well. To compare companies, I worked as an outsourced representative for one cell company that has been hemorrhaging customers. The service was terrible, the reps weren’t even part of that company, and would get screamed at for the poor service. The company also offers things very cheap to combat the poor service, so you get customers who are not willing to pay for quality for the most part, which makes the calls that much worse. Alternatively, if you pay a little more for the much better company, then most of the customers are usually content and more pleasant to deal with. This rubs off on the reps because their days aren’t as bad, and you have a better chance at getting an in-house rep who takes pride in the company they work for.

Lastly, examine yourself as a customer. I’ve heard talk about keeping index cards for calling in, and that is something you should do only if you know the issue will not be resolved in one call or on something major such as an issue with your mortgage. If you must write down information, pick it up during the conversation, do not specifically ask unless it is something that you absolutely cannot get otherwise. It will put a negative tone on the call if you start the call off asking for the rep’s full name (something many reps might be hesitant about), their ID number, and talk about how you are writing everything down. If you are calling in so much that you need to keep detailed records of everything, then the rep will notice your call patterns from the notes left by other reps and will be more determined to not give in to you as they will suspect you are calling in to scheme for yet another freebie. I’ve seen some notes with the honest truth about callers from other reps such as “Called in to get ask for overages to be credited again, repeat offender, advised we cannot continue to give credits.” All the notes are timestamped as well, and reps DO check in the very beginning to see when the last time you called. If you call in just a minute later, they’ll know, as most note taking systems also mark when any rep opens up an account (thus, even if you try to beat the other rep to them finishing off their note about your call, the new rep will still see at least when you last called in).

In commemoration of July 4th, America’s Independence Day, I thought I’d share a few quick tips of mine for smoking meat.

Today I’m currently in the process of smoking some country style ribs. I’m using Hickory wood chunks (the basic, starter-level wood) rather than Mesquite (what a few of my cohorts swear by here in Texas) because Mesquite is just a little too much for me.

First of all, I use a Brinkmann 40″ smoker from Walmart. I am a firm believer in charcoal or smoking over gas even if the learning curve is a little higher because taste is more important and the flavor imparted from charcoal and/or wood simply cannot be replicated on a gas grill. Gas tastes like you are cooking on your stove with a little bit of lighter fluid mixed in.

The beauty of this smoker is not only the side-car for the charcoal/wood, which is great when you need indirect heat or, of course, smoke coming from a separate part of the grill. I also love the temperature gauge on the front. While I wish it would give some exact temperatures, it does a fairly good job generalizing how hot the smoker is inside. I also use a very dirty (from the smoke residue) oven thermometer on the inside to gauge a little better. After cooking or in-between checking the temperature, I sometimes will grab it, let it cool off for a minute and scrub the glass front with some soap and water so I can see it again. You may also want an instant-read electric thermometer for the meat if you are just starting out to know when it is done or not.

When I light my fire, I buy some extra hickory chips (separate bag of chips, not chunks, and not soaked) with a little lighter fluid on them before I put the charcoal on. This has the same effect as a charcoal starter where you light some newspaper underneath to get all the charcoal going. This may not be necessary for you, but in Houston the humidity can suffocate the fire sometimes, so the extra “umph!” added to get it going helps. If you can find them, there are some great giant wooden fire-starter matches. I usually place 1-2 underneath the charcoal and hold a grill-lighter to the tips where you would usually strike them. The key really is to get the fire started underneath as the flames go up, not down, which will heat the charcoal and get that going properly.

Speaking of charcoal, I add that over the wood and also pour lighter fluid on that. Do not buy the match-light charcoal! Kingsford regular charcoal works great and the only extra effort is squirting some lighter fluid around it and letting that soak into it for 3 minutes or so. Do not light before the lighter fluid has had a chance to soak in, otherwise it will burn right off the top of the charcoal. You will be wondering after the first minute where all the fire went.

As I’m letting the fire get started, I’m soaking the hickory chunks in water for about half an hour. I find Tupperware to help out here as I can fill it right to the top and put a lid on to keep all the wood down. Let it soak for 20-30 minutes, you want the wood to slowly burn and smoke. Without soaking, the wood chunks will burn in 5-10 minutes and you’ll go through 10 bags of wood before the food is cooked.

About this same time, I’m putting in a pan in the main section of the grill that I specifically have for smoking filled with water to keep the inside of the grill moist. This is a simply trick to make sure the meat stays moist. While a professional might scoff, it allows for a lot of leeway when you are grilling or smoking so that the meat doesn’t dry out. As I’m cooking to entertain my family and friends and not to win a competition, I’ll go with the safe and easy route that allows me to not have to constantly check to make sure things are going ok.

If cooking beef or pork, you need to use plain yellow mustard and coat the meat with it, both sides. Don’t be afraid to get a little messy. With the mustard squirting from the bottle in one hand, I spread it all over the meat in the other. After that, I shake a dry rub all over the meat, again both sides, but I simply let this sit on it and the excess can fall off as I’m flipping it to coat the other side or putting it on the grill.

What is the purpose of the mustard? First of all, mustard is used in BBQ quite a bit! People in the Carolinas can vouch for me here as their sauces are primarily mustard-based rather than tomato-based. Secondly, the moisture from the mustard helps keep the meat moist. Third, the vinegar tenderizes the meat. Fourth, the mustard combines with the dry rub to form a wet rub that is not sugar-based like a regular BBQ sauce. Why is that important? Sugar-based BBQ sauces burn and char when you put them on too early, this is why you add BBQ sauce at the very end for the last 5-10 minutes rather than from the start. The mustard/dry rub combination allows you to have flavor on the meat as it is cooking without it charring or burning. This will absolutely take anything you have to grill low and slow to another level!

After that, it’s showtime! I put the meat on the grill next to the pan full of water and drain the wood chunks before throwing them in the sidecar with the charcoal that is already burning. Immediately after I start up another batch of wood chunks soaking in water. The wood in there will burn out before the food is done cooking most likely, so having the extra wood to add ready to go is always a smart idea.

The last tip is: Don’t mess with it! Every time you open the smoker lid to move the meat around or see how it is doing, you are letting precious heat and smoke out. In my case, I know country style ribs take at least 2 hours to cook. There is no reason to lift the lid until the 2nd hour unless I’m throwing more wood into the sidecar. Enjoy, and Happy Independence Day!

I’ve been mulling over how to introduce this site and have decided to lay it out as I would if I were naturally speaking to someone. My name is Chris Gaskill, I have been on the internet for years and have been blogging only personal thoughts in my life until now. My original blog, falaris.com, combined too much personal rambling about how much I love the New Jersey Devils and too much negativity from being in a worse place in life. Thus I hope to start anew with all the things I am going through and maybe some people will find what I talk about as useful. If not, I still have it as a journal.

Enjoy.