Merry Christmas!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and I hope that you have a fun filled day. Don't forget to overeat and be thankful for all that you really have! They really should just call Christmas Thanksgiving II!

Sushi Station

Yesterday K and I went to this Sushi restaurant called Sushi Station. It was a fun dining experience for sure! Most of the sushi rotated around the restaurant on an enclosed conveyer belt. And when you want some sushi, you just open the door and grab the one you want! They had some fun dessert options too. We tried these water dumplings filled with bean paste. They were so juicy feeling and delicious. We had so much sushi and other good stuff like tempura vegetables and green tea, it was great! MMM sushi!

Thanksgiving

I finally moved into my house last weekend and besides the sewage pump leaking into the front yard, everything is just peachy! My family came over to visit and we all worked in our own way to help set up my house. I did a decent amount of landscaping before the snow hit so I'm pretty happy about that. My mom sewed me some curtains. It took her so long and she worked so hard on them I really appreciate that. My dad helped out all around and made sure we were all adequately fed. And my sister she did just about as much manual labor as I did!

I got AT&T U-Verse phone, cable, and internet the Thursday before thanksgiving and it was down almost every day for almost every reason apparently. They say 3300 feet from the hub is right at the threshold for the service. So I hope it will stay up this time! I need to remember to call them and get refunded for the time my service was down. There's no sense in paying for service which I didn't have.

I hung out with K most of the week so that was a lot of fun. We celebrated Thanksgiving with both families. All the food was delicious. I made sure to eat a big piece of all 3 desserts. There was chocolate cheese cake, pumpkin banana torte, and pecan pie. All made with tested recipies. So I loved all three! I ate way too much the last 4 days or so, but oh man was it great spending so much time with family. I really am thankful for all I have.

house update!

Well I can finally say that my house is close to being ready to live in! K and I have been starting to unpack things and clean up a bit. So hopefully by thanksgiving the house will be fully occupiable! But that's not the big update. After much fighting, I finally have a front porch being put up. It's not much, but it definitely helps the front curb appeal. Now It looks like a country farm house or cottage or something :) I think that's pretty marketable in such a scenic area, well I'd hope! The picture does not show the end product of the porch. The end product will have siding, and shingles of course! And the columns will be white aluminum.

To My Buddy

To my buddy,

You are the most wonderful girlfriend a guy could ever ask for. Every day I am happier to be with you, or so it feels. You do so many things that make me happy and I can't even begin to list them all. But these two little heart shaped cakes that you made just for me really show just how much you think about me and how you try to make me happy in every aspect of my life. You do little things like this without even thinking twice or with the slightest ulterior motive. You do it because you love me. Well I love you too.

This is probably about the sappiest thing I've ever wrote. But really I just have to say something. You make me so happy; all of the time. I can't wait for all the other happy moments in our lives together, or maybe I can because I couldn't be any happier than I am today.

More of my life

Well I ended up going to Busse Woods again to take advantage of the beautiful fall colors. I got quite a few good shots off too! One thing that was annoying is when K and I found a tree we wanted to take photographs under, a minute or so later an older couple with an SLR and a point and shoot stood near the tree looking like they were going to photograph it. We were there for no more than 5 or so minutes. And the old man blurts out "we're losing our light!" Nothing corteous, nothing subtle. Just blunt and rude. Apparently we were at the only tree in the whole gosh darn park and this guy couldn't fathom taking a picture of another tree! I didn't put up a fight because I had gotten off several shots already and the sun had fallen behind a tall building in the distance. I kind of felt happy that they actually did lose their light because of how rude the guy was! But really, it was a very beautiful tree.

My house is getting even closer to being completed. It'll be any day now. I'm sure! I've been saying that for the past couple months, but one of these days I'll find myself telling the truth and I'll actually move in. Although I have my doubts sometimes :)

All in good fun

Last weekend K and I went to a pumpkin farm and browsed all of the fresh produce. Most of it actually wasn't overpriced surprisingly. For example, you could get a whole spaghetti squash for $1.29. But there were of course the ridiculously overpriced items such as the $10 gourmet chocolate covered apples... There were a lot of fun sights like camels and some pretty crazy squash for sale. It was so packed there I felt like I was in a sea of people. But I loved it.

This week K and I baked a cold oven pound cake from the America's Test Kitchen "Lost Recipes" cookbook. I swear every single one of those desserts are the best I have ever had. The pound cake had a thick flaky crust on top due to starting the baking without preheating the oven and the cake was just perfectly moist! We brought slices into work because we couldn't possibly manage to eat that much cake by ourselves. Everybody loved it. My coworkers think I am some baking genius or something... Awhile back we made This thing called "Peach Puzzle" which was like a superior peach cobbler, if you even want to call it that. You basically bake whole peaches sitting in a sweet biscuit dough with brown sugar and butter and eat it warm. It was so good that I will want to make it again as soon as peaches are in season again. If anybody is ever around K or I during peach season, you absolutely have to request it!

Peach Puzzle

This weekend we went to a forest preserve and walked around. I saw a family getting portraits taken at dusk with all the fall colors and it inspired me. I think I'm going to go back tomorrow (today) with K and take some glamour shots. I really have to remember to buy a reflector and a stand online, because the local camera shops charge an arm and a leg for them! But anyway, back to the weekend. We drove around and got menus at many of the restaurant's around K's place and I ended up getting hungry and ordering the 3-meat combo at Sweet Baby Ray's. I had never eaten there before and it was pretty good for a chain. The ribs had a delicious rub on them that reminded me of the kind that was on this special order cajun meat that my dad used to buy for read beans and rice. Oh the memories. The weekend has been so good so far. I can't wait for more!

things go bad and then get better

On Tuesday evening I come home from work to find my motorcycle tipped over and leaking antifreeze. So I called my insurance and the police to make a claim. When the police officer begins to leave the parking lot I look over at the driver's side fender of my truck and notice that there is some pretty major damage there. And at that time I remember how my truck was "squeeking" when I turned a low speeds. So I filed a second police report for a hit and run on my truck the night before. I couldn't believe that I had two insurance deductibles to pay all at once now!

The week went on and I found out that the hit and run caused over $3000 in damage with over $1200 damage to my suspension alone. The guy really must've wacked my truck hard. I also get a call stating that my motorcycle will be filed as a total loss since its value is less than the cost of repairs. Now this may sound bad, but think about it. This means the insurance will give me money for the value of my bike minus my deductible! My deductible for my truck is paid for!!!! I will miss having a bike, but really I need the cash more and I wanted to get a new bike next year anyway. If I have the cash, I will do that.

Then on Friday I worked until midnight. The whole day I was disturbed by my boss repeatedly for status updates. I work faster than 9/10 of my co-workers on SW builds and I really didn't appreciate the constant pestering. I understand he was only bugging me because his manager was bugging him for updates constantly. That still didn't stop me from getting annoyed and giving him overly verbose updates just so he'd get off my back :P Anyway I told him that I was going to dinner and if he needed the build finished when I was away that he could have somebody else start where I left off. And I think by this time he had noticed that I was giving him such up-to-the minute updates because I was frustrated because he replied saying that my work was really appreciated and that I could hand over the build if I wanted to. But that wasn't the part worth writing home about. He told me that because of my hard work, he had given me a BRAVO award and bonus. This award is given to people who go above and beyond their job description and I don't think that many people are getting this award in such a tough time for the company. So this really made my day. The award gets put in my permanent file as well so this will help me career-wise when I am looking for a promotion or to negotiate a raise. This is really the best thing to happen to me at work. So things did get better, all around.

I'm not even excited anymore

In a perfect time to be blogging my rants about building a new home and all the headaches that I never thought would come with it. I have written nothing. It's been a surprisingly scary last month. So many things that I couldn't have imagined would happen went wrong. But it looks like I'll still get a house and things are mostly smoothed over for the time being. But all I can say is, when times get rough, your builder can be a complete ass, and the bank, well they can make your life a living hell. But oh well, you live and you learn. I have had a major life lesson this month. You never ever trust anybody you are paying. They're only being nice to you because you are paying them. And if you run into a problem, the bank certainly doesn't have your back.

I'm not excited about his house anymore and I just want it to be done with. But unfortunately, I can't even set any deadlines when it will be done anymore because my builder keeps completing work so slowly. You'd think he'd want to get done and get the rest of his money and be out of my life, but somehow I think it brings them pleasure to string me along. I don't know why. It doesn't make any sense.

Wow, almost a month since my last post

So the house is finally there. I'm sure it's not that interesting to you, but this is what it looks like...

Dear Rich Philanthropists,

Please donate money to the buy me this car fund. I am only $39,094 short of my goal! Start donating today!

MY CHALLENGER R/T

MSRP As Configured: $39,095 Net Price: $39,095

2009 CHALLENGER R/T J Pkg.

$31,455

Destination Charge

$675

Color

$0

Dark Slate Gray Interior

$0

Stone White Clear Coat

$0

Features/Options

$6,965

MyGIG® Multimedia System with GPS Navigation

$1,390

• 1-Year SIRIUS Traffic(TM) Service
• Universal Consumer Interface (UCI)
• SIRIUS Traffic(TM) with 1-Year Service
• UConnect Hands-Free Communication
• SIRIUS Satellite Radio
• Navigation System with GPS
• Auto-Dimming Rearview Mirror with Microphone

20" x 8.0" Aluminum Chrome Clad Wheels

$1,350

• Goodyear Brand Tires
• 245/45VR20 BSW All Season Performance Tires

Electronics Convenience Group

$1,060

• Tire Pressure Monitoring Display
• Universal Garage Door Opener
• Remote Start System
• Universal Consumer Interface (UCI)
• UConnect Hands-Free Communication
• Steering Wheel Mounted Audio Controls
• Security Alarm
• Illuminated Door Pull Handles
• Traveler/Mini Trip Computer
• Vehicle Information Center
• Temperature and Compass Gauge
• Instrument Cluster w/Display Screen
• Auto-Dimming Rearview Mirror with Microphone
• Illuminated Cupholders

6-Speed Manual Transmission

$995

• Bright Pedals
• Performance Steering w/Variable Displacement
• Anti-Spin Differential Rear Axle
• 3.92 Axle Ratio
• 3.73 Axle Ratio
• Anti-Lock 4-Wheel Disc Heavy Duty Brakes
• Hill Start Assist
• Trak Pak

Power Sunroof

$950

High-Intensity Discharge Headlamps

$695

R/T Hood to Fender Stripes

$200

Sound Group II

$185

• AM/FM Stereo Radio w/In-Dash 6-Disc CD/DVD/MP3 Plyr
• 368-Watt Amplifier
• 7 Boston Acoustics Speakers with Subwoofer

Compact Spare Tire

$100

Engine Block Heater

$40

Leather-Trimmed Bucket Seats

Incl.

Monotone Paint

Incl.

Electronic Stability Program

Incl.

• Brake Assist

Leather-Wrapped Shift Knob

Incl.

Light Slate Gray Insert

$0

Luxury Front and Rear Floor Mats

Incl.

5.7-Liter HEMI® VCT Engine

$0

Power Heated Fold Away Mirrors

Incl.

• Body-Color Exterior Mirrors

Sun Visors with Illuminated Vanity Mirrors

Incl.

Heated Front Seats

Incl.

Automatic Headlamps

Incl.

Fog Lamps

Incl.

Leather-Wrapped Steering Wheel

Incl.

MSRP As Configured:

$39,095

And we have walls!

I think this will be the most dramatic change for awhile. The cement now has to cure for about a week and then they will bring in fill to cover pretty much everything you see minus some inches at the top. Seeing how much dirt is missing, it's almost hard to imagine how it will look with all the dirt filled in! After this comes the framing of the walk-out basement, cement slab pouring, plumbing rough-ins, sewer grinder pump installation, and finally the modular pieces of the home can be set. The modular pieces won't be delivered until late July, but it'll be fun to see when it happens. At that point the house will be almost done!

The foundation is up

Well now that things have gotten started, they're really rolling! They've almost completed the foundation. On They will be pouring the basement walls. This is all very exciting! Well it is to me. I bet you're yawning right now, but that's OK :) There will be more updates of this kind in the future, I'm sure. My general contractor is really doing a good job penny pinching so that I can get a couple necessities added to the house for resale, so hopefully I'll be able to sell it if the market stays where it is for a couple years.

Kristin and I drove around the area today and every time I do I am excited to explore it more. I'm less than a mile away from a river and there a bunch of riverfront cottages just down the road from me. It was such a beautiful area. I feel like it's a vacation home community. I'm sure a few people have weekend homes out here. It's not that far from downtown, but probably far enough for some people to feel removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. So it's a pretty calm area. I am told that there are hot air baloon launches every weekend from one of the local parks, so that will be really fun to watch and photograph once I move in. There is a lot to be excited about!

construction... Finally!

Today they finally started digging on my lot. Four and a half months after originally signing my real estate contract, construction is beginning!!! I finally have something to be excited about! Supposedly it'll be all done by 8/1! I'll have a house on 8/1!

Ethanol: Our Knight in Shining Armor... not quite

When you do the math, and don't just listen to what popular media tells you about how corn ethanol will free us from oil dependence and make our environment cleaner, you see that using corn ethanol is really just a shell game that's hiding a bigger issue.

First and foremost, most everybody now knows that the world is going through a food crisis. People whose main expense is food can no longer afford it, and this is largely due to 2 things, increased cost for transportation (fuel prices) and increased cost food crops in general (due to use of food crops for fuel). That alone should be a huge red flag for us Americans to think twice about upping our Ethanol use for fuel to noticeably reduce our dependency on foreign oil. (Nevermind the fact that if we used all of our corn crops produced today some estimates say that it would only reduce our crude oil usage for gasoline by 20% [oh and forget the fact that we use it for plastics, diesel, almost anything rubberized including tires, and much more]) Currently we use about 20% of our crops to produce ethanol which accounts for 3.5% of our gasoline consumption. So if we used 100% of our corn crops and used it to feed nobody, we'd only reduce gasoline consumption by 20%. I wonder what would happen to food prices if the worlds biggest corn producing country stopped selling corn... "filling the gas tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires more than 450 pounds of corn -- roughly enough calories to feed one person for a year." --Source: The Rolling Stone Issue 1032

Secondly, ethanol's energy density is about 1/3 less than that of gasoline. That means that one gallon of pure ethanol would get your car 1/3 less miles. (don't mind the fact that your car won't run on pure ethanol or if you use more than a small fraction of ethanol your engine would corrode) But proponents would argue that ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline. So even if it was 1/3 less efficient, you're still reducing your emmisions. That is true, but did you ever stop to think of how ethanol is produced? You need to run diesel powered farm equiment to harvest it and use chemical fertilizers and pesticides to maximize your yeild. And what kind of fuel do you think the ethanol refineries are using to generate the energy required to ferment our corn ethanol? Mostly natural gas and coal. Dunno if you heard this, but those are also fossil fuels.

Nor is all ethanol created equal. In Brazil, ethanol made from sugar cane has an energy balance of 8-to-1 -- that is, when you add up the fossil fuels used to irrigate, fertilize, grow, transport and refine sugar cane into ethanol, the energy output is eight times higher than the energy inputs. That's a better deal than gasoline, which has an energy balance of 5-to-1. In contrast, the energy balance of corn ethanol is only 1.3-to-1 - making it practically worthless as an energy source. "Corn ethanol is essentially a way of recycling natural gas," says Robert Rapier, an oil-industry engineer who runs the R-Squared Energy Blog. --Source: The Rolling Stone Issue 1032

Lastly, it will take more than just ethanol to really reduce our dependency on foreign oil. As the quote above suggests there are more energy efficient fuels such as sugar cane ethanol, and possibly ethanol made from plant cellulose, which would not require that ethanol is made from food crops. We should never forget our clean renewable resource that everybody has access to called the sun. Too bad solar panels are so inefficient today that it costs too much to deploy them in any sort of large scale and be profitable. Otherwise, you can be sure that companies would've cornered that market as soon as it became available. Ethanol, just like oil, is all about profit, whose pocket it is in doesn't change the fact that they both pollute the environment and replacing one fuel with another won't change our emission creating habits.

original article
I have more sources, but I don't remember them :P

All I did all day

Was clean!

Well thats a slight lie. I did cut my hair and go to the grocery store.

After cutting my hair I did the normal clean up the bathroom routine, but surprisingly after all that hard work scrubbing my tub, I felt like cleaning the rest of my apartment. So away I went. I vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen, did my dishes, swept the floors, folded laundry, and I even cleaned my welcome mat with some Resolve carpet cleaner. How exciting it was to clean the whole apartment like that. I don't think I clean that often, but it really does feel good when you see results.

Now I am outside listing to my "stompy" upstairs neighbor grillng his meal. It smells like hamburgers, or if it's anything else it has absolutely no flavor! He's cooking with a gas grill, so it'll taste just like he pan cooked it. You gotta use charcoal man! And wood chips!

For dinner I plan on making a marinated beef tri tip roast in the oven. I got it from Trader Joe's last week. So it's high time that I cook it! I really do enjoy cooking, and eating!

Speaking of eating, yesterday, I went to a local restaurant called Hackney's that was featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. I was super excited to try their onion ring loaf and famous Hackney burger. The environment was nice and the service wasn't overly slow either, but the food left something to be desired. The onion ring loaf was fried to perfection and there was not a bit of batter that was left uncooked, but the flavor just wasn't there. It really needed a little more salt and a couple spices would've been nice. The onions were very sweet so all was not lost, they tasted fine by themselves without any breading. The Hackney burger must've become famous because it comes on dark rye bread, because it was also a very lackluster burger with little flavor. Why can't people use spices? I'm not talking hot sauce, or a bunch of pepper, I just want to taste something other than pure beef when I'm eating a hamburger. The rye also was indistinguishable when eating the burger, but that's ok! I still had a great time eating with Kristin's family!

the 2nd horsepower war

2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8

For many years I wished that my dad was just a smidge older and had the foresight to buy a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda 426 Hemi before they became collector's items. And more importantly I had wished that he would've kept it for me to drive. I really love the old school muscle cars, and now that gas is forecasted to make it over $4.50/gallon compared to $3.50 peak a year ago, I feel as if the pinch will quickly cause car manufacturers to shy away from the current horsepower wars as quickly as they did in the early 70's. Now I find myself wishing that I was a smidge older and just a bit richer to boot, because I so want one of these soon to be collectable horsepower beasts! I mean the cars people are coming up with have some amazing stats:

2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8
425HP 420lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $45,000-60,000 ($40,000 MSRP)

2009 Cadillac CTS-V
550HP 550lb-ft Torque, Price ???

2008 Shelby Mustang GT500
500HP 475lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $53,000-70,000 ($42,975 MSRP)

2008 BMW M3
414HP 295lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $65,000-100,00 ($53,800-70,000 MSRP)

2008 Mercedes C63 AMG
457HP 600lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $65,000+ ($54,675 MSRP)

2008 Audi RS8
420HP 317lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $72,000+ (66,910 MSRP)

my life in pictures

Yamaha FZ6

I have found a new bike that I want. (If I ever get the money) It really has about everything that I want in a bike right now. And this bike is the Yamaha FZ6. Believe it or not, the thing that won me over hands down with this bike was the center stand. Most bikes don't come with them anymore, and this makes it a lot easier for them to tip if you inadvertently park it on asphalt on a hot day.

Besides the center stand, this bike as a lot of features that won me over from the Suzuki SV650 and Kawasaki Ninja 650.

• Larger 5.1 gallon tank
• Digital speedometer
• Digital fuel gauge
• Digital temperature gauge
• Dual headlights (more visibility)
• 4 cylinders (smoother ride)
• higher seat height (I'm tall)
• comes in blue (the Ninja 650 doesn't come in a color I like for 2008)
• Has less fairing than the Ninja 650

And most importantly, the exhaust sounds super cool :P

The down sides are the following

• under seat exhaust (possibly hot, and less storage)
• battery under fuel tank (harder to get to than most bikes)
• $500 more than the Ninja 650 (although, I'd pay that much more for the smoother 4 cylinders, dual headlights, and digital display!)

Even with those down sides, the bike is still the all around winner. It has very little fairing, so the bike looks like a bike and not some plastic toy on 2 wheels. It's got a lower displacement engine (so that it won't be too powerful for my novice skills). And I really think it'll save me gas money. Of course, the time it would take me to repay $6,999 on gas with 20MPG savings would be astronomical. But still... it's a cool bike :)

Shorts for tall people

Why is it most clothing companies make varying length pants, but they only have one length of shorts in a certain style? I never understood this. I have been avoiding buying shorts for years because each time I go to the store, all I find are shorts that are above my knees or the couple pairs that aren't are some weird plaid or ultra baggy urban. I don't understand why this is not an issue to people because everybody in America is getting taller on average and my height of 6'4" really isn't even that tall anymore, I know plenty of people taller than me. OK, not plenty, but I bet that 1 in 10 guys is taller than me... So does that mean that 15/20% of the population has the same issues I do?

On Monday I went to four stores and looked through every single pair of shorts they had to find 1 out of 2 pairs that were actually longer and didn't look weird in some way. I got my extra 6" of length, but the same pair was $20 less if I didn't get the "elongated" version... That's pretty crappy. I still bought my $60 pair of shorts, because, frankly, I wanted a pair of darn shorts! Thank goodness they had my size, otherwise I'd be writing this blog with a sad ending!

A break from life

Looking back, I didn't realize it at the time, but even as my family and I spent most of our time driving back and forth between relatives and my dad's work engagements. My vacation really was a much needed break from the stress of my everyday life. I wish I had appreciated it more. Because already I've had more stress-inducing events happen to me since arriving home at 2PM yesterday than I can even remember. But just for the sake of this post I will list some examples....

$700 car repair estimate, first mortgage bill came in, signed lease for apartment for another 2.5 months (not by choice), dropped eBay item in parking lot and scratched it, received 587 emails in 3 business days while out, expense department rejected $3500 hotel bill for company mandated trip, company rejected $500 airfare (both for no good reasons) etc...

On my vacation, I temporarily forgot about all these things going on in my life, and at the very least I told myself that I didn't have to do anything about any of it because I was "off the grid." It was great. I ate a lot, slept a lot, and had fun with my family. Life should be more like that. Work and money should not be nearly as prevalent as it became parent over the past couple weeks.

Life is hard. I want to take a break. Where can I file a grievance? I mean there is a lot of exciting stuff going on, like building a house, getting a promotion (supposedly), fixing my motorcycle and the simple fun I have hanging out with my girlfriend. Even with all that, it's hard not to let all this stress bother me. I wish I could just tell the world to stop for a minute so I can catch my breath. My life is going just fine. I just wish I had some sort of personal assistant or more money to throw at everything to make it all go away. No bills would solve so many problems. An assistant would mask a lot of problems, but oh well. I'll just have to keep pushing on. At least Friday is tomorrow.

whyyyyyy?????

So basically, wherever I leave, the temperature rises 20 degrees, and wherever I am the temperature drops 20 degrees. I have not felt a day above 70 degrees this year... Life hates me.

Red is where I am that day...

Date    Home        Seattle     Salt Lake
4/15    58             50           |
4/16    73             56           |
4/17    66             56           |
4/18    63             50           |
4/19    61             46           |
4/20    66             46           |
4/21    65             50           |
4/22    70             57           |
4/23    69             53           |
4/24    75             51           |
4/25    78             58           |
4/26    58             66           |
4/27    46             64           |
4/28    45             |            74
4/29    50             |            73
4/30    51             |            52
5/1     59             |            58

Seattle

I'm in Seattle for work and I've already relived one of my wonderful food memories I have been wishing to have again. Last night I ate at Typhoon, a Thai restaurant. I had the Royal Duck with a sweet red curry sauce. It was the best. And for only $17 it was even more scrumptious! Last time I was there in 2006 I ate dish with scallops and shrimp in Chinese dumplings in a green curry sauce on a bed of fried spinach. I loved that meal too. I hope I can make it there again before I leave.

The Embassy Suites is friggin awesome. They have an upgraded exercise room where all the treadmills and ellipticals have their own LCD TVs! Last time I was there I was disappointed by the two old treadmills and rusty weights. Now they have 3 plus 2 ellipticals, and a couple bikes! The complimentary cooked to order breakfast really can't be beat. And if you are on the ambassador floor you get extra snacks, free internet, and the drinks in the mini fridge are also free!

It's in the 40s/50s here but everything is green and there are flowers everywhere. So it feels more like spring than home does. I am looking forward to going around taking pictures this weekend. It'll be a blast!

THIS dirt right here IS MINE

Life's boring

That's why I haven't posted anything lately. Well that reason and I've been busy doing work in the evening. I swear, I'm never going to get this house built. Banks are ridiculous! What else? My motorcycle is dead. The brake caliper started seizing and I didn't notice, so the rotor is scratched. So I have to replace the caliper, rotor, and brake pad. That's a pretty penny. I shou'dve bought a newer bike.

It was warm outside this weekend. So that made it enjoyable. I am buying a new bicycle. I found a pretty good deal on a bike at Dick's. It has 21 speeds, front shocks and a shock on the seat so it should be a pretty comfortable ride. They call it a comfort bike, but it's built like a mountain bike except the tires have a less aggressive tread. It's $160. That's a little pricey, but seeing as I bought a bike at Target for that much on Saturday that I found out was way too small for me after riding it. I decided to get a bike from a real sporting goods store where they had bike frame sizes for people over 6'. I wish i hadn't left my dad's old bike outside so much in college. If I had brought it out of the rain and snow and all that junk, it'd still be ridable today. My mom's bike still looks new. It's been garaged since 1990 :)

Look Ma, no booboos!

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/03/24/poof-no-injuries-motorcycle-airbag-suit/

It looks like motorcycle jacket developers are finally implementing airbags to prevent injury during a fall off a bike. I for one really welcome this because single vehicle crashes account for about half of all accidents. I mean imagine half of all accidents having people walk out with only bruises and no broken bones. Most of the impact is on your torso during this kind of accident. I'm also assuming that everybody wears helmets :P Anyway, follow the link to see the video of how the system works!

The price of life

v.s.

It's funny when you think of how much certain things are valued in our society. In recent days I have had a few eye opening experiences to say the least. The medical industry had an overall inflation rate of 5.5% last year, more than any other industry, as if it wasn't overpriced enough. A year's supply of bi-weekly contacts cost me $325.00 from the doctor. I can find them as cheap as $190 online, but I won't be able to use my $120 yearly contacts allowance from my insurance if I go that route. It's interesting how the price from a doctor is roughly $120 more than what it costs to buy the same thing online. So out of pocket I'd still be paying the $200 no matter what route I went!

But lets stick with the price of contact lenses for the sake of argument. I get 52 lenses for a year. that makes each lens cost me roughly $3.85. Each lens is about 14.5 mm in diameter. That's a lot of money for such a tiny piece of plastic. You may argue that it's not the material that is so costly and it's all the fancy research and development and equipment required to manufacture said lenses. I argue that is not the case.

The Intel Core 2 Duo CPU has 291 million transistors packed into a space of 143milimeters-squared (about 12mm across). A transistor is one single logic gate (the basic building block of modern computing). The complexity of this system can not even be compared to a simple contact lens, yet you can buy one of these CPUs online for under $100. The factory to fabricate the CPU is so expensive that CPU manufacturers can no longer afford to build them in the United States. Each factory costs around $2.5-$3.5 billion dollars to make (http://www.cpuplanet.com/features/article.php/1499981) The machinery requires a level of precision within 65nanometers (for the Core 2 Duo). That's roughly .00000256 inches. On top of that, the manufacturing facility must be cleaner than a surgical table and no dust must be present because one spec of dust on the chip would ruin it. So the quality control in this process has to be even more strict than the medical field. Yet this ultra complex device is only worth about 26 of my contact lenses. That's only half of my year's supply! Imagine if you'd have to buy a new computer every 6 months like you have to buy contacts.

I conclude that at least in the contact lens industry the items bought and sold are completely overvalued, and I'm sure there are many other cases in the whole medical industry where the balance is even more skewed.

Last weekend

I took a long time to write about my weekend this week, but I really had a great time. On Friday I went out to John Barleycorn with some friends. I hadn't seen most of them for months! The night ended pretty early for who knows what reason, but at least I got plenty of sleep! I guess we're all getting old and can't stay out like we used to!

Saturday was a sad day. My 3 week old pro lens broke all of the sudden. I went to use it and what do you know? The AF motor didn't move the focus ring! Man, you'd think when you drop a load of cash on a specialty lens from a good brand, that you lens will last longer than 3 weeks. At least I can get it repaired under warranty and the lens is insured. But The lens will be away for about 2 weeks. That's no fun!

On Sunday Kristin and I had a St Paddy's day dinner party. That was really a lot of fun. We made corned beef and cabbage from scratch. We even corned the beef for a week! Everybody had a blast. Even Dino had a great time. He danced and partied like crazy!

Banks

No wonder the banking industry is in the mess it is. I've been trying to get a mortgage set up with one bank, which I was told is "very good" and I swear the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing there. I was assured several times that my loan would be approved by close of business on Friday, but when I called on Friday I was told that for some unknown reason the "underwriting department" hadn't finished their credit approval. They have had my paperwork for several weeks. Earlier that week I had sent them an official bank statement instead of printouts from the web, like that mattered. But even with my t's crossed and my i's dotted, they still are functioning with half a brain.

On Monday I called and was told that the approval still hadn't went through, but I should still be able to close on Thurs with the documentation I had already provided. I call on Tuesday and provide every single document humanly possible to the bank for the construction side of things (the official contract, and proof of payments already made to the builder). And somehow as of now, they still don't have the loan approved. So wait, I already provided you with all my bank statements, home cost spreadsheets, and the appraisal has been done already.... soooo, what is the hold up. The bank's response now. The "construction loan dept" wouldn't look at my paperwork at all until they received a signed contract from the builder... Wait, why didn't you tell me this before??? So anyway, they had all my other paperwork in one form or another for weeks, but somehow they still can't turn this around in 48 hours? banks....

Update: I just received a call from the appraiser, who was apparently just contacted for the first time today to do the appraisal! wow, just wow. hi left hand, how are you? I'm right hand.

A random job

I applied for a random job today. I figured, what could it hurt? They're planning on laying off a lot fo people. Even though I don't think I'll be one of them for several reasons. It doesn't hurt to see if any companies nibble on the line. And hey, if I actually get a really good offer, maybe it was meant to be anyway! Life's fun like that.

I've been going around town with my camera all weekend. It has been an experience, but I have learned that it will make my neck hurt if I carry it around for hours. I need a backpack if I am going to do that more often. next time :)

The Photography of Cooking

Most everybody loves cooking with friends and family and I've started to notice that it really brings out a lot of laughs and smiles. This really is perfect for photography because you have the opportunity to get a lot of impromptu shots and the people being photographed will love it because they're in such a good mood! These pictures are also great additions to anybody's photo album because so many warm memories are wrapped up in those cramped moments in the kitchen. I should do more of this type of photography, because even if I take a bad photo it still seems to come out good. But that's the thing about memories, you don't need an artist to sculpt them, you just have to remember.

OK I changed my mind

I LOVE my camera. I had a great time photographing just about everything yesterday! And people do enjoy my hobby as much as I do, hehehe. But seriously, I'm excited because it is looking to be a super fun hobby from here on out. I'm getting used to the camera, and I'm getting better and better at taking good pictures with it.

I also had fun Saturday when I went out with K and another friend. We had some good conversations and we really had a blast. I made country fried steak as well that day, but it tasted more like pork chops than anything because the recipe called for a bread crumb crust.

Maybe I shouldn't have bought this camera...

Well, it's a powerful machine. I was so excited to play with this feature rich time fighting machine, but then I realized I have nothing to take pictures of. Either that or I suck. I can't get people around me to be excited about it or to share in my passion for it. So I have been taking pictures of the wall basically. I guess I can't force people to do anything, but as is life. It'll be better in the summer, I hope when the weather is better and there are more colors than white, brown, and black.

Ultra fast refresh LCD TVs

Samsung LN-T4071F

Yesterday out of boredom, I decided to make a trip over to the local Circuit City to look around. I came expecting to see the same stuff I see everyday but with just slight upgrades and much higher price tags to justify the "new features." I was pleasantly surprised when I came across their display of the 120Hz refresh rate Samsung 46" LCD. It was in some sort of special demo mode where half of the screen was refreshing at 60Hz and half was refreshing at 120Hz.

I stared at that screen thinking "they must've slowed down the motion on the 60Hz side because it looks so choppy compared to the other side." I wasn't about to let myself be fooled by their trickery! But I do have to say the motion on the 120Hz side of the screen was so real and the detail was so great, I can honestly say it was like looking at real people moving around in a room through a window. Of course, that room had spectacular lighting and everybody was beautiful. Even close up, I felt that the 1080p resolution looked better than the neighboring 1080p LCDs. Of course, this was probably because of the ultra-smooth motion and the 25,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio.

This Samsung TV was an all around winner, and If I ever get an LCD TV, I know what one I'm going to buy. This TV is truly an outstanding example of technology and for the first time I feel like the price is justified, because with all the features this TV has, it is easily leaps and bounds above your average 720p LCD or plasma TV. You should make the trip out to your local Circuit City and see the display for yourself if you don't believe me.

Breakaway weekend

This weekend I went on a church sponsored trip to a winter camp in Michigan. Besides the horrific bus malfunctions and delays, the trip was wonderful. If I were in middle school I would've been so excited about the whole trip. And the whole time it was action packed and there were a lot of fun activities to do including snow tubing (tube-ing), paintball, swimming, rock climing, basketball, video games, Euro-bungee, and lots of other fun stuff. I really have to compliment the church on how well they cater to kids desires and make the camp fun and even make the worship services entertaining (all 3 of them). There were supposed to be four. However, the bus ride took an extra 3 hours on Friday so they had to cancel that evening's events by the time we arrived at 2AM. I really appreciate how they make the services entertaining for kids and that the messages are tailored to fit their lives. If I had this as a kid I probably wouldn't have went through my super pessimistic stage regarding religion. It is truly amazing that they were able to have 19 busses full of kids behave as well as they did too, but that just goes to show how tailoring everything towards the kids can subdue their boredom and keep them from going crazy :P

Personally, I really enjoyed going and I was able to connect more with a lot of the other leaders. I hadn't really talked to any of them up to this point and it was really nice to finally have a couple conversations with these people and learn that mot of them aren't really that different from me and that they also had their periods of un-religiousness. You know, I'm still on the fringe, but I'm trying here :P I, of course don't let the kids onto any of this. I don't want to be the reason that they leave the church! But back to the main topic, I also took a lot of pictures while I was there. I really wish I had a DSLR camera so that I could take a virtually unlimited amount of pictures. I got off about 25 shots, but because the film was old, most of the low light pictures have a very washed out appearance and the colors are off (probably because the film lost some of its sensitivity at different levels for each color mask) I learned that color film actually has 4 layers of "photo receptors" one, for each primary color and one for black and white. The pictures I took outside with ample lighting came out very well though. Because this weekend was so good for me and I think that the kids loved it too, I would totally do it again!

It's happening!

So the first step is happening in my home building journey! I made an offer on a lot and the seller accepted. After a good year and a half of serious looking, I finally am about 2" from having something to show for it!!!! I am so excited.

the lot

Safe!

I randomly ran across an Aldi ad for a "special purchase" of some Sentry fire storage protection safes. I had wanted one of those safes for a long time, but they were pretty expensive. So I didn't ever get one. But Aldi had one for only $99! I couldn't resist. If only I had stuff worth putting in it like gold bars or something :P You can even bolt it onto the floor :) And as an added bonus, it has a digital keypad!

Leeks

So today I bought a couple leeks. Why? you ask.... Well because I wanted to try a new vegetable that I haven't tried before. And a couple months ago I saw an episode on Leeks on the Food network. They are in the onion family, but they don't cause the tears that onions normally cause because they don't have the compound that is found in other onions. So this will be fun! I don't know what I'm going to make, but I'm sure it will be delicious. I may make a leek soup. hmm. What do you think?

Impress your special friend...

http://www.whitecastle.com/valentinesday/

Me Want!

Sony Alpha A700

If I were to get anything that I don't need that's over $1000 it would be a DSLR camera. I've been wanting one for so long, but I just can't convince myself to put that kind of cash down for something `i'd probably only use about 30 times a year.

But I think after using my dad's DSLR, I'm almost ready to buy one. Half of the reason I don't take so many pictures now is because I feel so limited with only 24 exposures and I have to wait for development. My compact camera just doesn't capture the dynamic depth of field or have the ability to use different lenses for different situations. So if I'm ever feeling arty, I always lean towards an SLR.

And the DSLR I am leaning towards most is the Sony Alpha A700. It works with my existing Minolta lenses and has built in image stabilization. This comes only in the lens with Canon, and that really increases the cost of ownership of a Canon. The noise level at ISO 1600 is better than the EOS 20D and they say the light metering on the camera is spectacular. As soon as this camera hits $1000, I'm gonna buy it. Right now it's $1199, but I figure it'll drop pretty quickly as soon as they release their flagship model. I can't wait.

Picture taken with Sony Alpha

They fixed the draft!

Yeah I had this huge draft in my apartment but I called the office and they put some of that 3M plastic window draft sealing magic saran wrap stuff on all my windows and I swear it feels nice to have a floor that is the same temperature as the rest of the apartment. And my heater doesn't turn on every 3 minutes after the temperature dropped 5 degrees! I bet my energy bills will be cut in half now, seriously. Go 3M!

It's my birthday

And today is looking to be a great day. Already I got a surprise when Kristin stopped by to say hi before I went to work. And my co-workers like the cookies I made. It's a company tradition to bring treats on your birthday (I think it was a corporate cost cutting measure ;) I get free lunch from my co-workers today, and then I'll be getting a free dinner tonight. Wohooo! I love being rewarded for doing nothing but being alive!

Today is a day

After losing what is a lot of money to me at a crucial time in my financial life, I have recently decided to take my financial matters into my own hands and become an active investor. My first taste with investing directly in the stock market was a painful one to put it kindly, but you live an you learn. But because of this, I have been afraid to put my foot out there and take any real risks even if research shows that it could benefit me greatly. I've had the majority of my savings stored away in a mutual fund managed by somebody I've never met in an industry that I, frankly, don't follow. And I realized when the fund dropped unexpectedly after a relatively profitable 3 years, I should've been able to see this coming. I mean they even told me in the fund prospectus for 2006/2007 that it would be hard to maintain such growth because of several factors which I should have listened to, but I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. oops.

I've been researching certain stocks for the past few weeks and I believe I have come up with a couple short-term winners that I should be able to get my money back with. Lucklily for me, I found a brokerage where I can trade free for 30 days and they'll give me $100 for signing up. Well, hey I can't lose, much ;) This is by far the biggest risk I have planned to take with my money, but I have a plan. And I believe if I can stick to it, I can easily gain my money back in days and turn a profit in weeks.

I'm going to become a day trader, that's right. I don't need to be greedy, I just need to gain about 0.5-1.5% a day and I'll be set. Now you wonder how I can do this with a full time job, me too. I hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the a**. I mean, because when you're a day trader 20 minutes can mean a lot. But at least, I can rest assured that if I lose money one day, I can gain it back the next.

Fate has put the October 2007 issue of Money magazine into my hands and believe it or not, it has given me a lot of faith in myself in that, for most aspects of my finances, I am doing the right thing or am ahead of the game. And After reading Warren Buffet's 2006 letter to shareholders, I realize that if he can become the chairman of a company with annual revenues approaching 100 billion at the age of 35 (in 1965) I have a lot of room for growth in the next few years. I may very well never even come close to the accomplishments of Warren Buffet, but I sure as heck can do better than having only a few thousand to my name. And I'm going to do it.