Annapolis Barhopolis Blog

Floaters

BIG CAT — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:14:56 -0500

When it comes to floaters I am the worst fan, if you purchase the cheap beer at the parties, simply drink it.

$200,000 Coffee Maker

BIG CAT — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:06:47 -0500

This is a tale written by a someone much wiser than me. His name is Carlos Sera and he is a Co Founder of Chicago Wealth Management. He has been managing, maintaining and growing others wealth for over 20 years. I hope you enjoy his stories as much as I do.

A Coffee Tale

(The $200,000 coffee maker)

In December of 2006 my two oldest children came home from college for their winter break. My son was a senior and my daughter was a sophomore. For those parents out there that don’t know this yet, college-age children are not early-risers. However, for some strange reason one morning the entire family was up early and my wife and I were having our homemade lattes. We use a very old-fashioned and inexpensive espresso maker and we heat up the milk ourselves. We don’t think much about it. As the morning progressed I notice that both my seemingly intelligent son and daughter are also drinking lattes. However, they’re not drinking the homemade kind like my wife and I drink but the fancy expensive kind that you get from Starbucks or other upscale coffee houses.

I was a little bit miffed at the situation to say the least. I clearly saw their upscale coffee expenditure as an unnecessary extravagance. I’ve always preached the old refrain of a penny saved is a penny earned and yet right in front of me was empirical evidence that I had not proven my point. In order to procure their precious nectar one or both of my children had to get in a car, drive, spend money on gas and auto depreciation, risk injury or worse and finally pay an exorbitant price for a latte they could have easily made at home for a lot less effort and that in my opinion tastes much better.

I didn’t say anything but I went into my home office and ran a quick Excel spreadsheet and with some very conservative assumptions came back with some startling information to share with my children. I wanted to illustrate the refrain of a penny saved is a penny earned in a practical and everyday sense. The overpriced lattes gave me the perfect avenue. I developed a model where a 22 year old chooses to fore-go the daily store bought latte and instead makes it at home until age 65. I assumed the daily savings at $1.70 and an interest rate of 8% invested once a year.

I then gave my latte loving children a quiz. I asked them to estimate the difference in cost between the lattes they drank and the ones my wife and I drank. I then asked them to estimate how much they would save over the next 43 years if they prepared their lattes at home vs. buying them from their coffee house of choice. Let’s just say that their estimates were significantly below mine. They had underestimated the power of compounding over 43 years as most people do. They were guilty of a common financial sin. When I showed them the spreadsheet results they were surprised. So what’s the savings? By my estimate a person saves $204,506 by making lattes at home vs. picking one up on the way to the office. It just takes $1.70 per day at an 8% interest rate for 43 years to save more than $200,000. See A Compounding Tale to get a fuller understanding of the power of compound interest and savings. This tale was meant to illustrate the power of counting the pennies in our everyday life. I am sure that for those that truly understand this tale they can come up with creative ways of stretching the dollar and putting themselves on the road to financial success.

A few days later my latte-drinking children each received their own $14.95 espresso maker as Christmas presents. Inside was a note labeled the “The $200,000 Espresso Maker” love Santa.

Bar Etiquette Continued

BIG CAT — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:40:27 -0500

I have noticed an upward trend of fighting in the bars. it makes absolutely no sense to me. Fighting is the height of human ignorance. Beyond being an extreme display of ignorance it is extremely dangerous for inncocent barhoppers.

To my knowledge the fights that occur no longer involve fists alone; people are now using bottles and glasses. Fights no longer take place man vs. man but man vs. woman. When one picks up a bottle or glass do they intend to cause permanent disfigurement? blindness? death?

To my fellow man: Think before you spew your ignorance and incompetance around and inflict others with your inability to control yourself.

I propose that anyone caught fighting in a bar receive a one year ban from all the bars in Downtown Annapolis. I also propose that their photo be published in the paper every month for public shaming. May the excerpt read, "unemployable, violent, irrational."

Bar Etiquette

BIG CAT — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:43:56 -0500

Women

With every drink, men and women become slightly more attracted to eachother. Inhibtions settle while free will and human attraction kick into overdrive. Not all people should get to that gear and some men should stay in park. Please to my fellow man, stop smacking random girls on the bottom and making tasteless jokes and comments. If you wouldn't do it with your mother there do not do it while I am there.

You think you would have learned your lesson after repeating the same tactics for several years while consistently being single/going home alone every night to sleep in your parents basement. Do you actually think that when a girl gets dressed up and meets up with her friend she thinks to herself, "oh, I wish someone would make tasteless jokes/comments about my sexuality and or slap me on the bottom tonight."

You repulse me and you repulse them. Respect women. Offer to buy them a drink and do not expect anything in return. If they like you they will talk to you. Do not force it and for the last time, stop hitting on other guys wives/girlfriends. Be a man not a boy.

OKTOBERFEST RECAP

BIG CAT — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 12:53:57 -0400

I would like to personally thank everyone who came out and represented Thursday Night. There is still fun to be had and we will be continuing Oktoberfest on the 30th of October at Federal House. I would personally like to thank Dave Pace and David Mcdonald for doing a hell of a job promoting the event. I would also like to thank Miller and Buck for supporting us and Jeremy and Chris Lee for letting us throw you some sweet parties. We promise to give you more and more reasons to come out on Thursday nights and start the weekend off right.

Thanks,

Papa Bis

Happy to Announce

BIG CAT — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:33:15 -0400

After a long absence from the party scene I am happy to announce that we have partnered with Federal House and Miller Lite to bring you OKTOBERFEST! We have set the dates for October 16th and 30th. The Miller Lite Girls will be in attendance passing out custom Tshirts and Oktoberfest Mugs. Federal House is going to have a phenomenal DJ on hand pumping out everything from Zeppelin to Kanye.

To ensure you will never go thirsty, Federal House will be setting up Satelite Tap Stations in the dining room and opening the doors upstairs to the lounge.

As a side note I would like to thank the new ownership for taking down all the dead animals and throwing up some sweet plasma Tvs.

Barsannapolis reserves all rights to throw sweet parties. 80s party, Pajama Party and Toga party coming soon.

Cbis

More Updates and New Stuff

jcnnghm — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:57:58 -0400

I got Stan and Joe's up to date finally, and I also got some of the stuff from The Whiskey online. In addition, the band calendars are now online and a ton of backend work is complete. I'm starting to think it may be worthwhile to syndicate our content. Not sure how to go about doing that yet though.

New Blog

jcnnghm — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:50:05 -0400

I've added a blog so that I can keep everybody up to date with where this thing is going. I should be posting about all the new features as they are added. Also, any of the city administrators can write about whatever they want. So if anybody's got some sweet crap going on let people know about it.

At this point, the site is where it was before, so everything that is added from here on out is totally new. I'm planning to add a profiles system, as well as an extensive reviews system, and allow for more user input. Does anybody else have any feature ideas?