Amazon is offering House: Seasons 1-5 as today’s daily deal for a price of $98.49. House is one of my all time favorite television series. (Although I have to say that I like the first three seasons the most. If you are a House fan, be sure to check out this deal!

Treasury officials unveiling the new bill at a news conference at  10:15 a.m. ET Wednesday and hype the new $100 bill, there is a website created called NewMoney.gov.  Definitely check it out if you have some free time today so the next time you receive a different looking $100 bill you know whether it is for real!

Some days I feel like my blog looks dull and is in much need of an overhaul.  Today is one of those days.  I would try to develop one myself except that I really lack artistic skills.  I am looking for someone who is good at developing custom header/entire blog theme to overhaul my blog.  If some one you know might be interested, please ask them to leave me a line in the comment section and I will get in contact with what I am looking for in exchange for a quote.

With the deadline for taxes filing passed by yesterday, hope everyone is getting a refund from either the state or the federal government.  I did well this year in terms of tax returns as I purposely allocated more deduction throughout the year.  As I finished filing my tax return, I wonder how the money is allocated by our federal government.  I found a clue on the Congressional Budget Office website.

The amount of money the country is currently spending on social programs (Safety Net Programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP, and Social Security) totals 55%.  Considering this is before baby boomers starts to retire, it will only get worse.  The other thing I noticed is that the interest we are currently paying on debt (6%) is more than scientific and medical research and education combined.  With out advance education and scientific research, the country will start losing its competitiveness as the rest of the world catches up to GDP production of United States.

Perhaps it is time to consider whether the need to immigrate?

The Fitness Diva

I received an email yesterday from The Fitness Diva congratulating me for winning her contest to Dick’s Sporting Goods $50 gift card.

I will probably end up buying Spalding Never Flat basketball to work on my jump shots.  Thanks Fitness Diva and Dick’s Sporting Goods!

Recently I received a call from a college friend who recently got accepted to Stanford’s graduate program.  Since I currently work for Stanford, he wants to know more about the school and the programs there.  Personally I am really happy for him but as the conversation progresses I started to wonder whether graduate school is worth it.

Going to graduate school has always been a dream of mine that will probably never get filled.  When I graduated from college, I wanted to start working immediately instead of going to grad school.  I worked for a couple years while studying GRE on the side.  After I took my GRE test, which I did poorly, I applied to the two different programs, the same Stanford graduate program my friend got in and another information management program in NYU.  In the end, I was rejected by Stanford and I got into NYU.  Yet, I didn’t end up going to NYU.

As someone that works in the software industry, I am blessed with a higher salary in comparison to my peers who graduated the same time as me.  Going to graduate school means that I will be spending $60k~70k a year on the tuition/boarding while not earning a salary for 1~2 years.  The extra degree will not give me a higher salary upon graduation so it will mostly be for personal fulfillment which is not worth the 100k+ I would have to spend.  Looking back, I have no regrets with my decision.

If you are going to graduate school, definitely go immediately after college when the reality of financial cost hasn’t set in.  When you start to calculate whether it is worth it financially, then graduate school starts to lose its purpose very rapidly.