Saturday, July 27, 2013

I Traded My Goal...For a Grill


At the end of last year, I made up my annual goal list.  One of the goals I put on the list was to attend DEFCON which is an internationally renowned hacker's conference held in Las Vegas each year.  Since the topic fascinates me and I live right here in Las Vegas, I figured this would be a great goal which would also be easily achievable.  Fast forward to today.  DEFCON will start next Thursday--August 1st--but I won't be there.  I had $200 set aside for the conference but then I got to debating with myself (as I so often do) about spending so much money on the conference.
On the plus side: it is a fascinating conference, I am kind of enthralled by all of the cool things hackers can do, I love knowledge of all kinds, it is right here in Las Vegas, the attendees are pretty cool (even though the "rules" ask people who attend to at least shower every couple of days--a necessary reminder as many attendees are Aspie types who can become totally focused on a single topic to the neglect of everything else, including personal hygiene), and it is a "thing" to be able to say you have attended.
On the negative side: it costs $180 to attend, it is 10-15 hours for four days straight, I am so not a hacker (even though I am fascinated by hackers, I can barely tweak the code on the websites I make), I don't know anyone else who will be attending, I can pretty much download all of the materials from previous conferences if I want the knowledge, and there are other things I can be spending my limited amount of money on.
Which brings me to the grill.  Hubby has been wanting a real grill for ages.  We have never had a "real" grill and have instead spent $30 every couple of years to buy a small, tabletop gas grill.  His two year old grill pretty much died a few days ago (after a rare rainstorm during which we forgot to put the grill inside), but he does use the grill all the time.  So today we were at Home Depot and we saw this grill (above) and it had a $129 price tag on it.  I asked the guy about the grill because there was also a $159 price tag on it too and he said that because it had the lower price on it, he would give it to us for $129--a savings of $30 off the actual price.
Immediately I thought that this would be a much better use of my $200 (it cost $189 because we had to buy a gas tank to go with it).  So with very little debate, I decided to skip the conference and buy the grill instead.  Hubby was really happy with the purchase and while I would like to go to the DEFCON conference and achieve a goal I had set for myself, logic tells me I made the right decision.
Bottom line: it is a good thing that my goals aren't cast in stone.

4 comments:

  1. I'm sure you will enjoy the grill, and as you say, you can get a lot of the hacker knowledge without attending.

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  2. That's a nice grill. I think it's a better long term investment, especially if hubby is cooking. ;) We need a grill too. We gave ours away (face palm) before the move because we thought there was one here, but alas, we were wrong. We've been looking for one at yard sales, but so far no luck.

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  3. Probably the right choice in the end. You may have been disappointed in the conference but BBQ food never disappoints!

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  4. Thanks for all of the nice comments..makes me feel better about my decision!

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