Lol, this thread has really gotten out of left field. Entertaining, but still left field.
Anyway,
megabear: social stigma aside, I'm playing more mr. mom these days, and doing career dad too, so I guess that's gonna stick. You aren't doing anything wrong about the quoting from previous replies. It doesn't work.
Marion: no, we don't live in a mansion. Far from it. We strongly believe for the tech field, as a worker bee (and that includes all the way up to director level which neither of us are), you're earning potential is pretty much a a bell curve. You start out low, you hit pretty much peak around 10-15 years, and then you go downhill from there. We're both nearing the peak. We both anticipate we can't do this when we're 40, nor do we really want to. What both of us are trying to do is fast track our finances before 40 because neither of us want to deal with this when were 40,50,60. People can debate all they want, but I say the economy is going in the crapper, inflation will be worse, health care is in trouble, and W-2 workers are going to be payiing a hell of a lot of taxes in the future. Anything short of that would be a blessing. So, we're trying to squeeze as much as we can out right now without compromising too much anything else. Money isn't about splurging on crap. It's about piece of mind and security and making sure a child with the ability to attend great universities won't be hindered by some finance technicality. In 7 years, we want everything to be paid off, both current obligations and future ones. As far as your other question, no we don't talk every night about geek things. And as for the second question, that's what the weekends and vacations are for.
Rustico: I admire your parenting examples. When we hadn't determined the gender of the child, I had hoped I wouldn't have a boy because if we did, we I would have to take him on all the sports/outdoor activities which i suck at. God gave me what I wanted from a gender perspective. But, judging about how active my child is, I would say I'll be taking her to all the sports activities. Kinda funny.
Marion: you still didn't answer my question. Where are your job offers being turned down? Before you even get an interview, or after? If you are getting turned down after talking to the people on site. There's something you can do if you have a friend you can really trust and count on. Back awhile ago, my friend really wanted to work for a company, so bad he didn't know what to do if he didn't get the offer. Long story short, I applied for the same job, did the rounds of interviews before him, and briefed came back with what they asked. He applied for the same job, secured his interview, and pretty much knew ahead of time what where some of the things he was going to be grilled on. Yes, he got the job.
I'm calling it a night. Got my software developer overseas to do what I needed him to do. Nite folks.