Be Amazed at What You Can Do

Love to cook but can’t find the time? Know how to make toast but want to learn how to bake bread? Or do you cook every day but want to find new tricks to make your job easier? Here are a few fun tips:

• Cooking by Numbers - check off what’s in your fridge and cupboard and the engine will find recipes!
• What Spices to Use - use that spice rack to its fullest potential
• 23 Cooking Tips - Avoid sticky rice, cut an onion without crying, retain the color of an eggplant when cooking, and more…
• One Pot Meals - The bachelor’s best friend
• 20 Lessons to Kick Start Your Cooking Skill - Learn the basic skills used by every cook
• 100+ Quick and Easy Healthy Foods - A collection of simple meals to try
• Kitchen Myths - Some common kitchen myths busted
• The 29 Healthiest Foods on the Planet - Try to incorporate more of these in your diet. Hey, they’re delicious, too.
• Top 25 Food Hacks - The Geekier side of cooking
• What Does 200 Calories Look Like? - Photographs of 200 Calories worth of various foods.
• Sin City Breakfast Tacos (video) - I’m salivating just thinking about them.

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The secret is only three words: “Study Chess Tactics.”

If you’re an amateur and want to improve your game, the biggest waste of your time and money would be to go out and buy books on chess openings, positional themes, strategy, and endgame theory. The reason is that without the ability to recognize tactical opportunities, those other skills won’t do you much good. And studying tactics will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

And psst…here’s why this is such a dirty little secret: If you become a tactical expert and go to your local chess club and play against that guy who has done nothing but obsess over chess openings you’ll likely get off “book” in fairly short order and end up in a position that he may not understand. And you’ll have ample opportunities to crush him with a tactical blow. And when he loses he’ll pout and blame you for not making the right opening moves.

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Mark Jurey has fantastic instructions for building a penny alcohol backpacking stove using two Heineken cans, a soda can, metal hanger, wire, and heavy foil.

If you don’t want to make it yourself, you can order one for $29.95 from The A.C. Aircraft Company. Here’s what he has to say about the stove:

For years I have been developing a homemade ultralight backpacking stove that heats faster, burns longer, uses less fuel, and is easier to use and build. Most alcohols stoves will heat two cups of water, but when I camp, I may want to sterilize four cups fast. Or, bake some scones, slow cook a pot of brown rice or grains on 2/3 oz. of fuel. Or, boil two cups for tea on 1/2 oz..

The penny pressure regulator and simmer ring combination let it function as two stoves. It can prime and boil a quart of water just 20 seconds slower than a gas cook-top, or, simmer at max efficiently for up to 40 min. Web reviews from around the World show that it “performed like a champ” with a wind chill of -9° and “great” at the top of Mt. Whitney - 14,491 ft..

~ Mark Jurey

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A few years back I was struggling to teach myself to manage money better. I made a decent living but was never satisfied with the rate at which I was paying off my school loans and other debt. I rarely had any money left over at the end of the month to save. I was living like millions of others: month-to-month. I tried various finance applications, read various books on the subject but nothing seemed to really help me get control of my finances. Then I came across one book in particular which changed the way I thought about budgeting and debt. More about that later.

My basic strategy was as follows:

1. Write down all my monthly expenses, savings, assets, and debts
2. Every payday withdraw cash for groceries, entertainment, and spending money: put into envelopes
3. Build an emergency fund of $2,000 for unexpected things such as car repairs
4. Finally, concentrate my extra money every month on debt, starting with the smallest balance

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