Look at my picture above. I'm no Brad Pitt. But when I was dating online in my 40s I was having no difficulties getting dates.

I've done couple with good results. I do a shrimp and grits that's spectacular, and I do the shrimp for it flambé in bourbon. Setting a pan of shrimp on fire in your date's kitchen tends to impress. This one is involved, so it works better when your date is coming over to your place you can start the grits and gravy…

Lobster steamed with beer with a side of small potatoes roasted in garlic butter. Finished with simple three ingredient Creme brûlée. The entire meal can be done in half an hour with the main entree and side being done on the grill while I prepare the dessert.

Definitely going with Chef John's Coq Au Vin for this one.

Steak au poivre. Expensive (by 20-something standards, anyway) because you have to spend at least $20 on the steak, and you also need some cognac for the sauce, but it's very easy to make and it's a delicious, impressive dinner. I use Julia Child's recipe. I usually serve it with green beans, asparagus or broccoli in…

This is how I wish I had done it. Kind of figure out the topic of your dissertation early on and take classes that might correspond to the chapters of your dissertation. Write more or less about your dissertation topic for each final paper in each class, if you have that much leeway. When you are finished with course…

I'm finishing my master's of education now, and here's the core piece of advice I've given to others entering the program: you have the summers and winters off. Use that time to pre-read course texts. It makes assignments much easier, makes lectures clearer (and can explain inexplicable instructor tangents), saves you…

Make friends, get involved in the student professional organizations for your field, travel to conferences and meetings, and start looking at jobs and figuring out what the requirements are for the jobs you want. Make sure you structure your field work, internships, and class schedules around getting those skills.

The best tip I can give for Grad School is to setup a block of time throughout the week to read or write papers, preferably right after work. Whenever I tried to do work at home later in the evenings or on weekends I was always distracted. However during the workweek I felt like more was accomplished. Also I would…

Yeah. Graduated in 2010 with about $40k in loans (no help from my parents, so I paid for college with loans, grants and lots of jobs). Down to about $25k now, but paying it back more rapidly than I was those first couple years. It sucks, and I'm looking forward to being debt-free someday, but I wouldn't have been able…

I guess it depends on your outlook. I am still working on my Master's and going further in debt. However my bachelor's degree made it possible for me to get my job, but I did have to start at the bottom. That is life. My hard work has allowed me to make a name for myself and my masters should open more doors. The…

My career trajectory is looking pretty positive right now, so at this point I would say a tentative yes (BA, MPA). However, without some fortunate networking, I never would have gotten my first job that put me on my current path. If I had it to do over again, I would likely have gotten training as a journeyman…

Wow, this guy gets to eat 2600+ kcal/day??

I feel like I post about this a lot, but I feel like a little bit of patting myself on the back is good for morale.

Average age of open accounts (AAoOA) doesn't affect your credit score (FICO, the ones that almost all lenders use) at all. Nope, not at all. You're thinking of Average age of Accounts (AAoA), which does. Canceling your credit card account doesn't affect AAoA until that account drops off your credit report, which takes…

We're using PowerPoint 2010 at the office but it should be the same regardless of the version. When you save it defaults to a PowerPoint Presentation which is a pptx file. Instead, save as PowerPoint Show which is a ppsx file. It will create one handy uneditable file you can distribute which is much cleaner than…

It's great to see LH branching out, so to speak, into indoor and outdoor gardening! A bit of caution, though, on printing general tips like "winter is the best time to prune shrubs and trees" — it's true for some, but not all! FYI:

I've found that ExcelIsFun on YouTube is very helpful. All the workbooks and instructions are available to download. It isn't a traditional course, but if you know the basics and want to improve upon certain things he has helped me a lot.

I know what you mean. I consider myself really, really good at Excel, and yet I have barely scratched the surface of what it can do, mainly because I really don't know much about stats and because I can't write macros.

It all comes down to =VLOOKUP and Pivot tables. Learn that formula and how to format a spreadsheet appropriately to create good Pivots and the uninitiated will think you are a wizard. Also conditional formatting and coming up with useful =IF statements help to keep things looking slick.