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Who’s in charge here?

My name is Steve, and I am the sole author of this blog. You may also see me refer to myself by the nickname ‘brip blap’. I am first and foremost the father of my children “Little Buddy” and “Pumpkin” and husband to my wife, “Bubelah”, but along with that I am a son, a brother, a grandson, an uncle, a son-in-law and a brother-in-law. I am a professional, an auditor, a consultant and a would-be writer and problogger. I live in Jersey but I love New York City. I have roots in Mississippi but I have lived in Russia. I think this is the Jets’ year, but I think that every year. I think a lot about personal finance, my career, self-improvement and health, but I also love a good movie. My ultimate goal is financial freedom.  I’m going to reach it, because I’m already well along the path to achieving it, but focus and discipline are my watchwords!

Wonder how I named the blog?  The phrase brip blap is from the movie “How to Murder Your Wife” starring Jack Lemmon (which apparently is a comedy despite the ominous title).  I’ve never seen it, but my parents have, and they liked the phrase which apparently was used to describe a manic depressive type whose moods went briiiiip….blap.  They bestowed this moniker on me at a very early age because my ‘baby moods’ ranged from extremely happy to extremely mopey very quickly. Although I am cheerful most of the time these days I expend a lot of effort controlling my temper and darker moods.

I blog semi-anonymously simply because from time to time I may analyze or discuss clients or the work atmosphere at a client (I am a contract consultant). I don’t ever reveal clients’ confidential information or anything of that nature, just simply some observations on how people work or act.  I love getting emails and twitters and IMs and so forth, but I do all of it under the pseudonym “brip blap.”

What are my qualifications?

I am not a financial planner, first of all. I am not a doctor, second of all. All of my ‘advice’ is my own opinion. Before rushing off and doing anything you read in this blog I strongly suggest you should consult with a professional in that field. All that having been said, I can give advice in the following categories for the following reasons:

• Finance: I am a successful consultant, making six figures a year. I advise Fortune 500 companies on their Sarbanes-Oxley, audit and finance issues. I own a large (for the area) home in the most expensive housing market in the US, New York City (and I am sure some Southern Californians could argue with that). I am debt free and my wife and I have a fairly sizable investment/retirement portfolio, not including the net worth of our home (which I don’t think should ever be included in net worth). We have an emergency fund built up for 6 months of my salary, and the final kicker is that we do all of this on one salary, since Bubelah is a stay-at-home mom!
• Diet: In 2000 I weighed 300+ pounds. Seven years later, I have lost approximately 100 pounds, I have placed in the top 5 in my age category in 5K races, and at my most recent physical my doctor told me that I am as healthy as someone ten years younger than I am.

  

• Life: This one’s a bit tougher to quantify, but I have traveled all over the world in my younger days for work and for fun. I have been to places as ‘routine’ as London and Paris more times than I can count. I have been to locations as ‘exotic’ as remote Indonesia, the Romanian countryside and tiny ex-gulag villages in Russian Siberia. I grew up in a small town have now lived in two of the world’s major metropolitan centers for the last 11 years (Moscow and New York). After being a committed bachelor for years, now I’m a committed (and happy) family man, with a young son. I struggle almost constantly with the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, mostly “Esteem” and “Self-Actualization”. I am not a navel-gazer, but I am constantly striving to become more organized, a better person and more at peace with myself and my family. I am deeply concerned about the state of the world and what that means for my son, both in terms of the decline of US economic and moral power and in terms of the climate crisis. It’s a lot to worry about, plus changing diapers!
• Other: I read a lot, too… that’s got to count for something, doesn’t it? I speak three languages (OK, one is English, but I speak German and Russian, too) and I can recite Pi to 10 places. Take that, Stephen Hawking.

Around the Interweb

I try my best to be an active commenter on most of the sites on my blogroll, and I’m always interested in contacting other bloggers. Check out my blogroll, there are a lot of good reads there.

Comment Policy

I’ll try to publish most comments, but I reserve the right to refuse to publish anything if I think it’s inflammatory, overly negative or not useful in furthering the conversation on-topic.

Writing work

Please contact me if you have any proposals for writing work for me, if you want to write a guest post, or if you want me to write a guest post for you, or if you want to hire me for life and career coaching!

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