On Facebook? Buy an ad and quit beating up your supporters!

Years ago, I was Facebook friends with WVXU public radio and, of course, received their Facebook posts. Then they started a begathon and started bombarding me with solicitations on Facebook. This despite my wife and I being sustaining members, meaning that we automatically donate to WXVU on a regular basis. The solicitations became so annoying that I stopped following them although I'm still friends with them.

Yesterday, I unfollowed three more Facebook friends who have been recently bombarding me with fundraising solicitations. It wasn't just one event or fundraiser; it was a whole group of things. I'll miss their regular posts.

If you are involved with an organization on Facebook, don't use it to beat up your supporters with endless solicitations. Buy a Facebook ad instead. For $50, you can reach out to tens of thousands of people, many of whom may not even know you exist. You'll get better results without losing good will with your dedicated supporters.

The Cincinnati Reds' roster as it stands today

The tables below include the players with contracts with and/or under control by the Cincinnati Reds and their status today. I have tried to organize these tables in a way to make it easy to find the information you're looking for. Within each table, players are sorted first by the year their contract ends; second (descending) by their 2014 salary; and third alphabetically by name. Well-known players (i.e. the starting pitchers and relief pitchers as well as the starting position players) are listed first with less-well-known players included later.

Please let me know, either with a comment or by email, if you find any errors or omissions. Note that I do not intend to update this as contracts are signed, etc. This is intended to be a snapshot of the situation today.

Starting Pitchers

Player	Position	Year Contract Ends	2014 Salary (Millions)	2015 Salary (Millions)/ Status	Comment
Johnny Cueto	RSP	2014	$10.00	$10.00	Reds option for 2015
Mat Latos	RSP	2014	$7.25	Arb.
Mike Leake	RSP	2014	$5.93	Arb.
Alfredo Simon	RSP	2014	$1.50	Arb.
Tony Cingrani	LSP	2014	?	?	Under control
Homer Bailey	RSP	2019	$9.00	$10.00	Mutual option for 2020

Relief and Closing Pitchers

Player	Position	Year Contract Ends	2014 Salary (Millions)	2015 Salary (Millions)/ Status	Comment
Aroldis Chapman	LCL	2014	$7.84	Arb.
Logan Ondrusek	RRP	2014	$1.45	Arb.
J.J. Hoover	RRP	2014	$0.52	?	Under control
Nick Christiani	RRP	2014	$0.50	?
Carlos Contreras	RRP	2014	$0.50	?	Under control
Jose Diaz	RRP	2014	$0.50	?	Under control
Sean Marshall	LRP	2015	$5.50	$6.50
Manny Parra	LRP	2015	$2.00	$3.50
Sam LeCure	RRP	2016	$1.20	$1.85

Starting Position Players

Player	Position	Year Contract Ends	2014 Salary (Millions)	2015 Salary (Millions)/ Status	Comment
Ryan Ludwick	LF	2014	$8.50	$9.00	Mutual option for 2015
Chris Heisey	LF	2014	$1.76	Arb.
Ramon Santiago	2B	2014	$1.10	FA
Jack Hannahan	1B	2014	$1.00	$4.00	Reds option for 2015
Zack Cozart	SS	2014	$0.60	Arb.
Todd Frazier	3B	2014	$0.60	Arb.
Devin Mesoraco	C	2014	$0.53	Arb.
Tucker Barnhart	C	2014	$0.50	?	Under control
Billy Hamilton	CF	2014	$0.50	?	Under control
Donald Lutz	1B	2014	$0.50	?	Under control
Jason Bourgeois	LF	2014	?	Arb.
Kris Negron	IF	2014	?	?	Under control
Brayan Pena	C	2015	$0.88	$1.40
Jay Bruce	RF	2016	$10.04	$12.04	Reds option for 2017
Skip Schumaker	IF/OF	2016	$2.00	$2.50
Brandon Phillips	2B	2017	$11.00	$12.00
Joey Votto	1B	2023	$12.00	$14.00	Reds option for 2024

Other Players

Player	Position	Year Contract Ends	2014 Salary (Millions)	2015 Salary (Millions)/ Status	Comment
Trevor Bell	RRP	2014	$0.50	Arb.
Carlos Contreras	RRP	2014	$0.50	?	Under control
Dylan Alexrod	RSP	2014	?	?	Under control
Daniel Corcino	RRP	2014	?	?	Under control
Ryan Dennick	LRP	2014	?	?	Under control
Juan Duran	OF	2014	?	?	Under control
Jake Elmore	OF	2014	?	?	Under control
Édgar González	RRP	2014	?	?	Under control
David Holmberg	LSP	2014	?	?	Under control
Curtis Partch	RRP	2014	?	?	Under control
Yorman Rodriguez	CF	2014	?	?	Under control
Netftali Soto	IF	2014	?	?	Under control
Pedro Villareal	RRP	2014	?	?	Under control
Raisel Iglesias	RSP	2020	$1.21	$1.71

Position Key

Note that many players play more than one position. For example, in 2014, Todd Frazier (3B) played first base as well as playing third base.

1B  First base

2B  Second base

3B  Third base

C  Catcher
CF  Center fielder
IF  Infielder

IF/OF  Infielder/outfielder

LCP  Left-handed closing pitcher

LF  Left fielder

LRP  Left-handed relief pitcher

LSP  Left-handed starting pitcher
OF  Outfielder

RRP  Right-handed relief pitcher

RSP  Right-handed starting pitcher

SS  Shortstop

Salary Abbreviations

?  I don't know the player's salary for 2014 and/or 2015.

Arb.  The player is eligible for arbitration in 2015.

FA  The player will be a free agent in 2015.

Sources

The original source for this information was Major League Baseball.

I used three web pages to compile these tables; one from The Cincinnati Enquirer and two from spotrac (first and second).

I am assuming that this information is in the public domain for non-commercial use.

Today is the second anniversary of this blog

Today marks the second anniversary of this blog with this being the 101st post. Google reports that I have had over 21,200 page views, which is a lot more than I expected. Set your expectations low, and you're more likely to meet them.

I started this blog so that I could post entries and not offend my Facebook friends. I was losing friends due to my posts and that stopped once I started posting away from Facebook.

So let's keep going with this. Originally, I wanted to post daily but I couldn't take the time to do that. I looks like I'm averaging one post per week, but I will try to increase that number over the next year.

2013 Windows April Fools' joke becomes 2014 Windows reality

"Microsoft skips 'too good' Windows 9, jumps to Windows 10," blared the headline April 1, 2013 on Infoworld's web site.

Today, the real headline is "Microsoft Offers First Peek at Windows 10," confirming that the April Fools' joke is correct: There isn't going to be a Windows 9.

(A tip of the hat to John Gruber who writes Daring Fireball.)

Milestone today: 20,000 page views

My milestone today: This blog reached 20,000 page views today, with this being the 99th post. I'm not sure what I expected when I published my first post on Oct. 12, 2012 but I am pleasantly surprised that people are finding my posts and reading them. I hope readers are benefiting from my posts. Now, have you sold your stocks yet?

Sell your stocks now!

Update January 24, 2015: My brother got back into two stocks and an index fund.

Update October 29: The small, -7.4% correction appears to be over and my brother is looking to get back into the stock market. Will there still be a larger correction? I will write another post in November to discuss this. Still, the advice in the last paragraph stands.

My brother, based on my recommendation, sold the index fund and both stocks in his IRA yesterday. Many stock advisors are saying that the S&P 500 is due for a "correction" of 20% to 30% by the end of 2015. But nobody knows when. So, instead of trying to time the peak, he went ahead and sold his index fund and captured a 22% gain.

The problem with waiting is that when you realize that it's time to sell, so does everyone else and it's too late to keep from losing large sums of money. The stock market can drop over 22% in one day, like it did on Black Monday in 1987.

The next step is to find a bond fund that invests in short-term corporate bonds (one to two year maturity) and try to capture a 2% to 3% return until the S&P 500 has its correction. Then we can sell the bond fund and get back into an index fund.

Ultimately, the S&P 500 will undergo its correction and then start heading back up. That's when you get back into stocks. Despite many advisors saying that this is time for that now, it isn't simply because it hasn't hit bottom yet. In my opinion, timing the exact peaks and valleys is really difficult and I don't try to do that. But timing 20% corrections and 20% increases isn't as hard.

Before making any investment decisions based on this blog post, please read my investment advice disclaimer.

I've found rather few investment advisors who are willing to recommend selling 90% or more of your stock holdings at the peak. To me, this is one of the keys to long-term gains in the stock market. If your investment advisor isn't willing to make dramatic changes to your portfolio, you should find one who will.

Scorecard: How good is my prediction?

Date	S&P 500 Close	Change From Recent Peak	Change From Sale Date	Comment
Sept. 18	2,011.36			Recent peak
Sept. 23	1,982.77	-1.4%		Sale
Sept. 30	1,972.29	-1.9%	-0.5%	One week after sale
Oct. 6	1,964.82	-2.3%	-0.9%	Two weeks after sale
Oct. 13	1,874.74	-6.8%	-5.4%	Three weeks after sale
Oct. 20	1,904.01	-5.3%	-4.0%	Two weeks after sale. Correction is over.
Oct. 27	1,961.63	-2.5%	-1.1%	Three weeks after sale

Updated Oct. 29 to add figures and a paragraph at the top about getting back into stocks.

Women play a big role in computer programming

The stereotype is that is that all computer programmers are men. This is false. The first programmer was Ada Lovelace, who worked with Charles Babbage. Rear Admiral Grace Hopper is credited with developing COBOL, a programming language still used every day. I work with women all the time who are good programmers. Similar to playing the piano well, some people have a knack for programming but many do not. However, the people who have the talent can be female as well as male.

Walter Isaacson has written a book about the women who were involved with programming ENIAC during World War II. Click here for an excerpt from "The Innovators" that is in the current issue of Fortune magazine.