Rock Star Family

Now I have not one but TWO brothers with albums available on iTunes. Naturally I highly recommend them. Benj actually has 3 songs that show significant popularity on iTunes! (Each song shows a popularity rating in the iTunes store.) Mark just released his but I'm sure his songs will catch up soon.

Benj's group is called Cows Never Die, so you can search for "Cows Never Die" on iTunes, or the album name, "She Usually Wears Mittens." Or you can link directly to the iTunes store page for the group. The album features smash hits such as "Snow Fort Heaven" and "Polydactyly".

Mark's album is called Tomorrow. Search iTunes for "Mark Tanner Tomorrow" or link to the store page here. More info available on the official album website here.

Iridium Still Flying

My first job out of college was with Motorola, in 1999. I was working on software for a satellite system called Iridium, which was created for global satellite phones and pagers. After I'd been there a year Iridium went into bankruptcy, and Motorola offered me the options of taking a job in another department, or taking 10 weeks of severance pay. I took the severance.

Over the years since, I'd heard rumors about whether the Iridium service was still being used, and whether the "birds" were still flying, but I hadn't seen anything very concrete recently, until I stumbled across this article on Computer World.

Apparently business is booming, relatively speaking. So that's pretty cool to see. I was disappointed though, that the article didn't mention me, or whether my code was still running. :)

About As Much As Meets The Eye

I decided to go see a movie on my birthday. I couldn't go see Harry Potter 5 without seeing 3 and 4 first, and 6 plus hours of movies sounded like a lot, so I went with Transformers. [Spoiler alert. And by the way, Voldemort kills Hermione in book 7.]

I thought Caveman did a pretty good job in the lead role. Some of the saved-by-the-bell-esque juvenile drama was a little annoying, but overall not too distracting. And the effects were very cool.

Some of the Transformers' dialog killed me:

OP: It's you and me, Megatron!
Megatron: No, it's just me!

Megatron, first words after waking up from an 80 year coma: You've failed me again, Star Scream!

Classic stuff.

I was a little confused by some plot points though. For example, why did the government try to hide the evidence of the Transformers, when there were hundreds or thousands of eye witnesses who saw them fighting in the street? And why did they think the best way to protect the cube was to give it to a human and have him try to run it up to the top of a building and deliver it to a guy in a helicopter? Um... wasn't the human a little more likely to get stepped on than an Autobot? And if they wanted to take the cube to the roof, why didn't they give it to any Transformer who could hop up there in seconds? And weren't all the helicopters and planes getting shot down anyway? What was the helicopter guy supposed to do with it? Kind of a strange plan. But it all worked out.

Pixels, Jerry! Pixels!

Eric D. Snider contemplates how Seinfeld would spin the latest technology if it was still on the air.

In the Clutches of Clutch

I went to a concert Wednesday night. It was my friend Dave's party. He's getting married on Saturday, so this was his last vestige of freedom. He chose to go see a band called Clutch. I didn't really know what I was getting into, but I figured it out quickly at the gate, where everyone I saw had extreme tattoos, body piercings, and hair styles out of the 80s punk scene.

There were four bands that played. The genre I can only classify as "loud" (kind of like Dave's band :). I had to roll my own earplugs using toilet paper. Aside from the noise, another fun thing about the venue was that there was no place to sit. I guess people don't mind standing for 3 hours after they've had enough to drink, but for a perpetually sober person it got pretty tedious. A few times I sat on the concrete floor.

The first band was pretty talented but loud. The second band my other friend Dave labeled as "zepplinesque". The third band was Irish, with a fiddle and a banjo. Very talented, but I thought it was funny that the band members all looked really angry while they were singing, even the violin girl looked disgruntled. They were good but they went on way too long. By the time Clutch got on stage it was close to 10:30. This is a school night people! Surprisingly, Clutch didn't seem to be any more talented than the opening acts. I think the key to their popularity was that they had a really big banner, while the other acts had small banners or none at all.

A little bit after Clutch started playing I was leaning against the barricades in the back of the room and some drunk guy came back there and started puking his guts out a few feet away from me. I was wearing flip flops and I felt a few drops splash on my feet. ECHHHH!! I went in the bathroom and washed my feet off. I didn't really feel like going back in after that so I went and sat on the dirty floor in the lobby and waited for my friends, who were busy injuring themselves in the mosh pit.

I'm not really sure what scene I was a part of, but it was fun to experience a different world for one night. But I think I'll wear shoes next time.

Good luck Dave, we'll miss you!

The Best Self Directed IRA

I've been doing a lot of research recently about the best company to use for a Self Directed IRA, so I thought I'd better share my knowledge.

What is a Self Directed IRA?

A Self Directed IRA is an IRA that allows you to choose your own investments. Your current IRA provider will probably tell you that you can choose your own investments -- "Oh sure, you can choose between the Janus Fund and the Fidelity Fund." No, that's not what I'm talking about. With a real Self Directed IRA, you can invest in not only stocks and mutual funds but also real estate, businesses, notes, and just about anything you want, as long as you avoid certain prohibited transactions. Prohibited transactions are simply transactions where you use the money to benefit yourself instead of your IRA, but it's important to read and understand the details.

So if you're tired of losing money in the stock market and getting jerked around by self serving mutual fund managers, a Self Directed IRA is the way to go.

You can easily convert a non Self Directed IRA into a Self Directed IRA. You can also convert a 401K, if you have one sitting around from a former employer. If you have a 401K with a current employer, you probably don't want to convert it to an IRA, since you would no longer get matching funds.

Downsides of a Self Directed IRA

While Self Directed IRAs offer a lot of advantages, there are also some downsides to be aware of. For one thing, you can't just go out and invest the money. You have to have a custodian company (i.e. babysitter) that actually does all the investing. So, for example, let's say you want your IRA to invest in a house. Rather than writing a check to buy a house, you have to request that your custodian send a check. And instead of managing the property yourself (not that you'd want to), you have to hire a property management company and the custodian has to pay them out of the IRA. There are a few little tasks like this that the custodian has to carry out, and they all seem to cost money.

Self Directed IRAs also have issues when buying property using leverage.

But the upsides definitely outweigh the downsides.

Selecting a Custodian

I looked at all sorts of custodians. Some really nickel and dime you for every little thing, (Pensco and Sterling Trust for example). No thanks.

A lot of real estate gurus promote Equity Trust for some reason. Equity Trust doesn't nickel and dime you as much, but their annual fees get really high (up to $1850 per year) if you have a lot of money in your account. And I for one plan to have a lot of money in my account! So no thanks.

Entrust offers a pretty good deal. But the best one I found was Sunwest Trust. They charge a $50 setup and then a flat $190 per year if you go with the IRA LLC option.

IRA LLC

The best way to go when setting up your Self Directed IRAs is to set up an IRA LLC. "IRA LLC" is not a legal entity type. It just refers to an LLC that your IRA invests in. The operating agreement will have some verbage relating to the fact that the LLC is set up for your IRA. If you're only going to have your own IRA investing in the LLC, then you would set it up with the IRA as the sole member of the LLC, and you as the manager of the LLC.

Setting up an IRA LLC provides the following benefits:

1. Checkbook control. Once the LLC is funded, you no longer need the custodian to write the checks. The LLC can write its own checks, and since you're the manager, you have control.
   
2. No nickels and dimes. Since the custodian is only managing one asset, you pay a flat $190 per year, if you go with Sunwest Trust's Single Asset Account plan. Entrust has a similar plan for $250 per year.
   

Options for Setting up the LLC

Now you need to set up your IRA LLC. How should you go about it?

1. You can have your lawyer set it up. He will probably charge you $3,000 to $5,000. And he may not know much about Self Directed IRAs. Not the best way to go.
   
2. There are companies such as Guidant Financial, which provide the LLC and also administrate the IRA. Guidant is not a custodian, but they have an agreement with an unnamed custodian to only charge $130 per year for the annual fee. But setting up the LLC costs a whopping $4,000.
   
3. You can have a less expensive lawyer do it. You should be able to find someone in the $500 to $1000 range. In Arizona, Richard Keyt is a good option. He's very experienced at creating LLCs, and he gives a $50 discount for AZREIA members. His cost for an IRA LLC is $949, which includes filing the articles and publishing.
   
4. If you google "IRA LLC kits" you'll find a few inexpensive options such as this one, which costs $195. I'm not sure how worthwhile these kits are.
   
5. I bought a CD on ebay which had some good stuff, including an operating agreement for an IRA LLC. Cost: $32. Search for "IRA LLC" on ebay and you'll probably find it.
   

I am not a lawyer, but my guess is that the operating agreement content is probably not as important as the lawyers say it is. You'll probably be fine setting up your own. But the important thing is that you avoid prohibited transactions, and file the proper paperwork with the IRS. For the LLC you need to file an informational return each year, which basically just tells how much the LLC is worth. For the IRA your custodian should handle the needed forms.

A Better Solution

I decided that Sunwest Trust had the best deal, but I may not end up using them. "Why not?", you ask, (no doubt recoiling in dismay). The answer is that I found a better solution: It's called an Individual K, or Solo 401K.

I'll tell you all about it in my next post...