A Pirate's Code: Money for nothing, and your drinks for free

A few years ago we got our financial act together. We were debt free, except for our mortgage, using cash for our daily expenses, and were able to put enough money away to send our kids to private schools.

A new house and a couple years of backsliding later, it was time to right the ship again. Back to a cash budget, could be back to zero debt other than mortgage debt in a matter of weeks, and we are starting to put money away again, and we have a plan to stash even more cash.

Living on cash is important to us. It is harder to spend cash. There is a built in hard stop to spending when you run out of cash. And it just makes our lives less stressful. We no longer wonder if we have the money to buy that new thing; if the money is not in our pocket or purse, then we don't have the money. One less thing to worry about in our anxiety filled lives.

Before you even ask: Yes. We are bound by the Pirate's Code. (That is the subject of a different post)

We have a rule in our home, "He who does the laundry, keeps the money." However, there are certain guidelines that we must all follow for this to work without someone feeling robbed. At some point, when the amount of money is unusually large (say, $20), the money should be returned to its owner. If it belongs to the boys, perhaps that threshold is quite a bit lower.

The cash budget thing has really been a boon to the one who does the laundry. About a two weeks ago, I pocketed $15. The money could have only been mine or Sue's (I was absolutely certain it wasn't mine), so I pocketed it.

Not one to let my new found wealth go to waste, I offered to take my lovely bride to happy hour. We were near the end of our two-week budgeting period, so cash was becoming more scarce and my lovely bride asked, "Can you pay for both of us, because I'm almost out of cash?"

"Of course," I replied.

She queried, "How come you still have cash, but I'm almost out?"

"I just didn't spend as much as you did this week," I replied. "And besides, I held a little back so I could take you out."

We went out; she had a margarita, I had a beer, and we shared some beef fajitas. I spent about $10 more than the $15 I found in the laundry. So our date was essentially dutch.

In case you are counting, that is 3 "brownie points" in this little story.

1. I did the laundry.
2. I asked my wife out on a date.
3. I made it look like I had taken the effort to plan the date.

And I accomplished all this while spending her cash, not mine.

Please don't tell Sue! I'll lose more brownie points than I gained.

Bananas, Organic and Locally Grown

I needed some sweet potatoes. I needed them to serve with a steak dinner, and I needed them in order to add sweet potatoes to my vegetable garden. The sweet potatoes had to be organic if I was to use them in the garden, so I had to venture into the local organic grocer ecosystem. We have a small organic grocery store nearby, but this is not your typical Whole Foods. This store leans to the radical edge of organic food grocers.

As with many businesses that promote saving the planet, the organic grocery store is staffed by folks who are true believers. In anticipation of my adventure into this strange world, I had to blend in so as not to arouse suspicion. In order to maintain calm among the natives I wore my Vibram Five Finger shoes, some sweats and I hadn't brushed my teeth or shaved or put on deodorant.  I had to go in with confidence. So I walked in with a distant, spaced-out look on my face. I leisurely ambled over to the produce section. I carefully selected four sweet potatoes. Three to eat, one to use for the garden.

My ruse worked!

I walked up to the only checkout aisle that was open, and I was second in line. A young woman was in front of me with a banana and four dates. She was dressed rather conservatively, in a simple red dress. She had no obvious tattoos, but when I saw her pull out her employee discount card, I understood that she was trying to go out into the world and blend in much as I was trying to do in the organic grocery store. I suspect she entered her native environment for a moment of respite and that the bananas and dates were to be lunch. I did not get too close because I was concerned that I would be found out as an interloper, and out of respect to the conversation she was having with the young man operating the cash register.

The young man behind the cash register had a scraggly beard, long hair pulled up into a type of bun. He was wearing clothing that could have easily been purchased at Whole Earth Provision or Urban Outfitters, and despite only checking out a banana and four dates, the process was a bit of a challenge.

Despite the privacy I tried to give these two in their conversation, I could not help but overhear part of their conversation. I am functional in their native tongue, but not fluent enough to follow the entire conversation, but I did make out one part of the exchange between the two.

Young woman: "Yeah. I like that it's all organic and all, but I wish they could get locally grown bananas."
Young man: "Yeah."

My effort to hide my reaction, which under normal circumstances would have included raucous and nearly hysterical laughter, must have worked. They still did not recognize me as a stranger in their habitat.

Drat! 50 years too late

In the category of there is nothing new under the sun...

When my boys were wee little lads, we had a fascinating discussion about personal weapons of all kinds. Being small boys, they were playing a little game of would you rather... with me. Asking, "Would you rather have an airsoft gun or a paintball gun?" and,"Would you rather have a pistol or a shotgun?" and other similar types of questions.

I was getting tired of the game, so on one of the Would you rather questions, I answered with something completely different. I described to them the perfect defensive weapon. A weapon that could destroy the molecular integrity of any gun or knife or even the projectile that the weapon fired. A weapon of directed sound waves, but a silent weapon that emitted a sound that could not be heard by humans.

I told them how this weapon had not yet been invented, but that if we could invent it, we would be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams.

Well, I was wrong. This weapon had been invented.



Dr. Vladimir Gavreau, a Russian born scientist working in France to develop mechanical drones for the military accidentally discovered just how such a weapon could work.

In the late 50’s and early 60’s Vladimir Gavreau, a robot scientist of Russian birth, and his assistant found that without warning they would become nauseous and have unbearable headaches when working in their lab. As soon as they left the lab the symptoms disappeared immediately.

They knew something in the lab was causing their sickness but had no idea what it was. Eventually, they noticed that a cup of coffee on the bench had strange ripples on it, at the same time as the ripples started they began to feel ill. When the ripples stopped they were fine again.

They found that the illness, and the coffee cup ripples stopped when certain windows were covered over. Extensive inquiries and dozens of tests lead to the discovery that a faulty motor driven ventilator had been installed in the building.

It’s movement had caused an infrasonic resonance, that when coupled with the concrete in the building, formed a huge infrasonic amplifier at a resonance impossible for humans to hear but able to make them ill.

SOURCE

 

Time for a little competition

I have a friendly competition with my financial adviser. In the last two quarters of last year, my portfolio beat his by a substantial amount, until December, when his made a comeback, and I cheated. Normally our competitions are limited to mutual funds, but I cheated and bought a stock. I beat him by a landslide, but the competition was unfair.



So it is time for a new competition. But this time the competition is between the portfolio he is managing for me and a small amount of money I manage for myself. Specifically, I let him buy a specific fund on my behalf, and I bought one with my mad money that I thought would do better. We are both using a fundamentals approach to our picks. Purchases were made a few days apart, so here are the starting prices:

My pick: $12.535 per share

Financial Adviser pick: $2.340 per share*

At the end of business, Friday

Me: up 1.16%

FA: down 0.85%

This contest will last til the end of March, so stay tuned to see who wins.

*I picked a fund that does not generate income, my financial adviser picked an income generating fund. The increases/decreases in value will reflect any income generated by that fund.

Stories from the Real World

As told to me by a personal acquaintance who works in a hospital:

An elderly woman arrives in the ER with some minor injuries from a motor vehicle accident. As she is being tended to, she tells the nurse, the paramedic and the police officer in the exam room, what happened.

After getting in an accident with a younger man, she gets out of her car to inspect the damage and exchange information for insurance purposes. The younger man was acting "all crazy," harassing and berating her.

She delves into some details, which I won't go into here, but at the conclusion of her story she comments:

"After this, I am changing my stance on gun control. I think people should have guns. If I had a gun, I would have shot his ass!"

The cop snickers and replies, "Ma'am, thank you, but I can't really comment on that."

The nurse snorts and says, "Well I can. That's funny, and I think you're right!"

I'm always amazed at how real life can so easily sway a person's convictions.

A Bitter Substitution

Just before Christmas, the unthinkable happened. I made a pot of coffee that tasted like crap. It tasted weak, and it did not provide the normal morning satisfaction Sue and I have come to expect from this arousing elixir, this gift of God.

So the next morning, I tried again. I purposefully added more coffee grounds into the coffee maker, hoping that perhaps I had just lost count the morning before. It was stronger..., but not any better. Our coffee tasted less bold, or rather lacked taste altogether.

I tried again a third morning. Same result.

This was unacceptable, and my good name and my manhood were being questioned with these repeated "wimpy" coffee brews.

This was a problem.

A major problem.

A problem that required science.

So, one groggy morning (I think it was the weekend before Christmas, but I can't really remember because I've not been fully awake since the coffee issue emerged), I created an experiment to help identify the problem. My goal was to isolate the source of the problem, so I standardized coffee production.

Same filter, same coffee maker, same amount of water, same water source, same brand of coffee grounds, same time of day, and even the same coffee cups washed the night before with the same soap in the same manner. All these factors are essentially the same ones used prior to this coffee affliction entered our home.  Since I drink my coffee black, I did not have to be concerned with potential adulterating factors like creamer or sugar.

After going through these machinations since Christmas Day, I can now positively assert that the issue is not my coffee making abilities, it is the coffee.

Not only did my experimentation convince me it was the coffee, but I now have corroborating evidence that the coffee is the thing that changed.

Reuters is reporting that many of America's major brands have been quietly tweaking their coffee blends. While most coffee companies consider their blends trade secrets, and are loath to disclose exactly what goes into them, both circumstantial and direct evidence suggests they're now substituting lower-grade Robusta beans for some of their pricier Arabica, and degrading the quality of our coffee. - Yahoo! Daily Finance

In economics lingo, this is known as "substitution." Substitution is where one thing can be substituted for another and the relationship between price and demand does not. In other words, the coffee companies thought they could substitute Robusta beans for Arabica beans to reduce their costs all while maintaining their price point.

First the Feds want to trick us into believing that inflation is not so bad, now coffee companies are trying to pull the same crap.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that it is possible I am off my rocker, but Community Coffee, and Matt Saurage, if I find out you have altered a "Louisiana Tradition"... THIS IS NOT COOL, man!

A Christmas Story - The Phoenix Tree

Twas just weeks before Christmas,
And the house was a mess
As we searched through the clutter
We exclaimed, "We need less!"

The decorations unpacked 
And the tree in its stand
I plugged in the lights,
This isn't what we planned.

The lights did not work
That is just not right
No more, that's it,
Get that tree out of my sight.

This year we will start 
a new tradition of less
Put the red tree in the trash
We don't need this much mess.

With less decorations 
Garland adorning the mantle
A simple wreath on the door
Our Christmas was handled.

But then my eldest
observed in complaint
A Christmas with no tree
Is like a church with no saint

So the red tree in the trash
Came back in the house
The lights rigged to shine
We all said our wows.

The tree condemned to waste 
Had been resurrected
Put back in its place, 
The broken lights retested

Like a Phoenix from the ashes
Our tree is reborn
It has come back to life
years more to adorn.

A Short History of Cooking

When I was a kid in middle school, my dad worked for the LSU Agriculture Extension Service. I am still not quite sure what that is, exactly, but I remember going up to his office occasionally and visiting the bug lab.

Anyway, one fall in the early 1980s, he came home and announced to my mother that the department was putting together a cookbook. And since the folks who thought up this idea were the men in administrative roles in the department, they had the idea of the cookbook comprising recipes from the wives of the men who worked at the LSU Agriculture Extension Service.

That conversation started one of the biggest fights I can remember between my mom and dad.

The first problem is probably obvious, my mother was not going to have anything to do with the antiquated concept inherent in the premise of a "wives' cookbook."

Second, my mother is not renowned for her culinary preparation skills, and I suspect she did not want her deficit in this area on display for the world to see. My dad was the son of a caterer with a rich history of Italian cuisine. My mom's mom served plain spaghetti noodles as a side dish every year on Thanksgiving. Do I need to explain their food heritage any further?

Third, and this is only a guess, but, I bet my dad was significantly influential in coming up with the idea of a wives cookbook. Keep in mind that he grew up eating fabulous food...all the time. My mother left home with only rudimentary skills in the kitchen. I think partly as a way to help expand my mother's cooking repertoire, and to help expand his own dining variation, my dad really wanted to encourage my mother to explore in the kitchen a bit more.

The fight between them came to a head a few days later when my mom, apparently acquiescing, gave my dad a recipe to submit for the cookbook. It went something like this:

Seafood Salad

Preparation time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

Transportation

A working telephone

Directions:

Dial 766-7823. Inform the person who answers that you would like to place an order to go. Be patient, you may be placed on hold for a minute or two. When they come back on the line ask for the seafood salad. Each seafood salad feeds about two adults, so be sure to order accordingly. Depending on when you call them, your order will be ready in about 20 minutes. After waiting an appropriate amount of time (this will depend on how far you live from the restaurant), drive to Mike Anderson's restaurant and pick up your order.

Serve chilled.

Of course my dad was livid. He was embarrassed, and his manipulation backfired very badly. I think the rice cooker for a Christmas present may have challenged this event for the Bad Judgement Award, but the cookbook episode will live with me forever.

This is my culinary heritage.

And this is why, in my forties, I am just now learning to cook. I don't mean making mashed potatoes from a box of potato flakes, I mean making things like baked pheasant, chicken and sausage gumbo and spiced pork over roasted vegetables. I've recently taken to making my gumbo with a base of homemade chicken stock.

I don't know if homemade stock is any better than what can be bought at the grocery store, but I ran across a blog post by a "foodie" type that justified my gumbo process, Five packaged foods you never need to buy again. Number 2 on that list was "Never buy stock or bullion." I did not need to read any further, I was now justified! The article then linked to a method for making and storing vegetable stock, a recipe I am looking forward to trying out.

Bon appétit

 

The secret lives of bald men

I am a bald(ing) man.

So when I was watching a generally uninspired episode of Family Guy with my teenage sons, there was an out take scene that I...well, just watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9YETpQ1V74

First, a message to the episode writer, Danny Smith:

I don't know who you think you are, but how dare you reveal that there is a bald guy "thing!" However, I have to thank you for the diversion from the REAL bald guy thing. I think you know what I'm talking about.

Now for the purpose of this post:

My boys have had a fascination with my bald(ing) head since they were little. My oldest routinely attempts to rubs my head for good luck. He is often thwarted by my lightning quick reflexes.

Recently, I grew a beard. No, this is not part of "Movember" or "No Shave November," I have another reason that will be revealed in the future.

My boys have taken to rubbing my beard. Because it is there they want to touch it. It alternatively feels soft or like velcro. They are fascinated with my beard.

A couple of days ago, we had a foundation repair company come out to give us an estimate on fixing the foundation on a house we are considering for purchase. The guy that came out was probably 10 years my junior, but he had a full beard. I told the boys I trusted his opinion more than a opinion I received from another foundation company that sent out a beardless estimator. Naturally, they asked me if there was a bearded guy thing.

"Why, yes there is."

They asked, "What is it?"

"When you grow your own beard, you will find out."

 

How George Brett taught me a valuable lesson about money

I have had an almost unhealthy obsession with coins, off and on, since I was 9 years old. By the time I was 13 I learned a hard lesson in the difference between the numismatic and melt value of coins. The numismatic value of a coin is its value to a collector for its rarity or condition. The melt value is what the metal content of the coin is worth.

I had traded a friend of mine a George Brett rookie baseball card for a Liberty dollar.



At the time, way before the Internet, all we had to go on for research were catalogs and pricing books that were updated monthly. The book I was using valued the Liberty dollar at well over $30, while the George Brett rookie card was worth half that.

It turns out that the guide I was using for coin values was at the height of the Hunt brothers' attempt to corner the silver market and printed just before "Silver Thursday." By the time I went to cash in, silver markets had collapsed and my $30 coin was only worth $5. The following year I went to go see the movie [amazon_link id="B0035LMTVE" target="_blank" ]Trading Places[/amazon_link]. I think the movie was partly based on the Hunt brothers' financial fiasco.

Fast forward to today. One of the topics I regularly read about is the precious metals commodity market. By doing so, I learn all kinds of fascinating things about how central banks operate and how the silver and gold markets work, or don't work. So in my daily reading I come across this article, PENNY AND NICKEL COINS TO BE PHASED OUT IN 2013. I want to believe the content of the article because of  the central bank interference I've seen in the silver and gold markets. But I have a guiding philosophy:

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. - The Buddha

So I sought to verify.

The original news source was a satire piece from SkewNews.com.

But in my research I came across the following news article that was legit, and had begun to spread across the Interwebs, Congress looks at doing away with the $1 bill. 

Although the news piece was about the phasing out of the $1 bill, deep into the story, we learn something fascinating about the future of the penny and the nickel.

Several lawmakers were more intrigued with the idea of using different metal combinations in producing coins.

Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, said a penny costs more than 2 cents to make and a nickel costs more than 11 cents to make. Moving to multiplated steel for coins would save the government nearly $200 million a year, he said.

The Mint's report, which is due in mid-December, will detail the results of nearly 18 months of work exploring a variety of new metal compositions and evaluating test coins for attributes as hardness, resistance to wear, availability of raw materials and costs.

Richard Peterson, the Mint's acting director, declined to give lawmakers a summary of what will be in the report, but he said "several promising alternatives" were found.

The last time the metal composition of a coin was changed was in 1982 when the copper content of a penny was reduced from 95% to 2.5%. The "melt value" of the 1981 penny is about 2.4¢, and the melt value for a post 1982 penny is about 0.5¢.  Now Congress wants to explore this option again for both the nickel and the penny.

Now is the time to start saving your nickels and pennies. The dollar has been devalued over 95% since the Federal Reserve Bank was formed and with the amount of money it is creating every month (currently about $85 billion) the purchasing power of the nickel will continue to go down, but the melt value will go up. Saving your nickels and pennies is a great way to store value. There is no downside  because if the Federal Reserve bank suddenly reverses course, for every dollar I invest in nickels or older pennies, I still have a dollar in legal currency.

Happy saving.

Additional Sources: CoinInflation.com

Destuffication Time

This is hard. Really hard.

As a family, we are trying to lighten the load. That spare tire around the middle notwithstanding, this "lightening the load" is our annual/semi-annual destuffication process whereby, if it has not been used in a year, it must be sold, donated or thrown away.

My job includes my closet, the garage at the rent house, and the shed where we live now. I have already disposed of much of the rent house stuff, so this weekend was organize and destuffify the shed.  As you might expect, the shed and the garage include things that every man should own, even if he doesn't even know their purpose or how to use them.

Of course, I speak of tools.

In my 20+ years (what the + equals really isn't relevant) as an adult, I have collected a bunch of tools. Some from my dad, a few when my grandpas passed away, some I've bought and a few the last renters left behind when they vacated the house  prematurely. As a man, I find it difficult to get rid of my tools. They are a part of me at some deep, subconscious level. Some of them have sentimental value, some of them remind me of that time when I built that thing, some of them are just cool, and then there are a few I really want to learn what they are for and how to use them.

Here's an example of just one category of tools - socket wrenches:



From what I can tell, there are sockets from at least 14 different socket sets. As you might expect, not a single set is a complete one.

I do have one complete set. It's a 1" socket set (not pictured). Not terribly useful for fixing things around the house.

(If interested, it is available for sale here: http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/tls/3291068406.html)

I have also collected a couple dozen flat head screwdrivers, a few mallets, a couple of hatchets, and more nuts, bolts and screws than I care to catalog.

Tools aren't the only thing I've collected. It seems I've gathered a few bicycles over the years. For a family of four, we now own eight bicycles. I love riding bikes. I ride my bike to work a few times a week. But, alas, some of them must go. So I will sell or donate three of them, maybe four. I had such great plans for each of the bikes I acquired, one each for everyone in the family, but the boys have outgrown several of them, three for me: a commuter, a racer and a mountain bike. (See, I really do have a hard choice to make.)

I could go on and on about the sentimentality of each and every thing I own, about the majestic and righteous plans for each little trinket and tidbit, but I know it is time to start shedding the stuff that weighs me down and keeps us in servitude to our stuff.

There is a Sufi saying, "to be in the world but not of it." This saying has its roots in Judaism and Christianity. This teaching even predates the Israelites in the Bible. The idea of being but temporary occupants of this earth is at the core of most spiritual traditions.

There is tremendous wisdom in this idea. Even the Jews of the Bible, and the Native Americans did not have concept of ownership of real property, only the stuff they could carry on their backs, never overly burdened by the things of this world.

In my own small way, through the process of destuffication, I am shedding just a few things that are "of this world."

A Rat in a Maze

I recently took up the task of doing the grocery shopping for our family. There have been bumps along the road (apparently I forget to buy the stuff we actually need), but overall, I have jumped into this household task with great enthusiasm.

However, my approach to grocery shopping is different than my lovely bride's. It seems I enjoy shopping at the "expensive" stores more than I enjoy minding the grocery budget. I have to admit, this is true. Yesterday afternoon, my grocery shopping experience was at Central Market. I invited my better half to come along for the shopping adventure, including an enticement to help me mind the budget.

She declined my invitation, "Sunday afternoon at Central Market? Are you crazy? I'd rather just go ahead and shoot myself now."

After describing the anxiety the large crowds and maze-like format of the store would bring, she asked the simple question, "Why would you want to do that?"

My response, "For you, grocery shopping is a chore. For me, it's an adventure."

Admittedly, she has done the heavy lifting with respect to grocery shopping for almost all of our marriage (if you count me ordering groceries online for home delivery). So I understand why it has become a chore, but nonetheless, off I went to Central Market on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

As I pulled up to the store, the streets were lined with cars that could not fit in the parking lot. The sense that this was going to feel like a crowded street market in Benghazi during a cease fire was starting to encroach on my psyche. Like a jungle cat stalking its prey, I spotted my target. A youngish fellow, not very heavily laden, leaving the temple of foodies with the look of desperation and yet, a renewed sense of hope that escape from the maze was finally at hand.  He slowly wound his way through the parking lot, almost purposefully trying to throw me off his trail, but like a Jedi battling a robot droid, I was able to easily predict his general destination. I stopped the car, put my blinker on to alert the other parking space carnivores that this prey was mine. I waited, but only a few moments as I suspect the fellow with the prized parking spot sensed his demise if he had failed to depart quickly.

Car parked, I girded myself for the great grocery store maze. The first section was the produce department. The aisles are narrow and the congestion of grocery carts, doddering old women, trendy hipster types and the guys stocking the area was almost enough to send me right back out into the parking lot. I think Central Market understands the anxiety that can be caused by the chaos of the first part of the maze, so they set up a beer tasting station. It caused a bit of a traffic buildup, but now steeled fro the rest of my adventure, I came upon the meat department.

My conversation with the butcher yielded a pleasant surprise, a sample of a couple of links of breakfast sausage. Score!

After the meats, the wine section. Another tasting station set up continued to take the edge off of the insanely crowded store as I meandered over to the grocery section. Surprisingly, I did not fill my cart with very much from the grocery section, but I did sample some dessert toppings, salsa and tortilla chips.

As you might imagine, after filling up on beer, then wine, then a few snacks, I was grateful for the coffee sampling station. A couple of shots of a bold roast transported me through the dairy section and the bakery, where I came across a couple of tasting stations for fresh baked bread and breakfast pastries.

Like the rat in the maze, though, I was near the end of my adventure. I know this because I came upon three more tasting stations. One with a deli ham and two with cheese. I secured my purchases from the deli, tasted the cheeses, and was greeted by a checkout lane usher to settle up my bill.

By the time I left Central Market, my appetite was satiated, I had sufficient libations to leave me feeling relaxed, and now it was my turn to be stalked by the next wave of people stalking exiting shoppers in hopes of finding a parking spot.

Maybe there is something to that "Circle of Life" thing.



 

Zombie Apocalypse Training Program. Update 1

In preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse I have a few main goals:

1. Fitness, especially cardio. This is why I spent the summer riding my bike to work and suffering through regular Vitamin D therapy sessions.


2. Nutrition. After hours of research, I have concluded that genetically modified crops are a catalyst for the development of Zombie Behavior Spectrum Disorder (ZBSD), so I have recently taken over the grocery shopping and cooking responsibility for my family. (Not everyone in my household is on board with my theories, yet, but they like my cooking.)


3. Weapons training. I have not yet started on this component of my preparedness, but with hunting season about to begin, I will have ample time to explore this facet of preparation.


4. Language. I suspect that the ZBSD will be limited to North America and Western Europe, with possible incursions into parts of East Asia. So, I have as part of my plan to learn Spanish. I may need to evacuate my family south of the border, so I figure knowing the language will be helpful. I wonder if Rosetta Stone will help me learn the phrase, "Don't shoot! I am not a zombie!"

This week, I started my Spanish language training.

Usted debe aprender las reglas para el apocalipsis.

 

When you gotta go…

Yesterday while traveling out of DFW Airport, I had a nice little breakfast at Pappasito’s Cantina. Breakfast included my third cup of coffee for the day, so I paid my bill and made a beeline for the men’s room.

Perhaps you saw or read about it in news reports like this one:

Main break disrupts water service at D/FW Airport

I can report that the situation in the men’s room was not a fragrant one.

Rules of the Road

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I witnessed something a couple of weeks ago that has weighed on my conscience since the event occurred. So, since it is bugging me, I must rant a bit to relieve this weight that is on my mind.

I took my dogs on a walk on a Sunday afternoon. I was walking along the lake shore near my home. The lake has a bike/walking path along most of the lake, however, there are a few segments where walkers, runners, cyclists and skaters must share the road with automobiles. I was walking alongside one of these segments when I see a young lady jogging toward me. She was running against automobile and bicycle traffic. A small pack of riders passed me, and as they passed the jogger, a rider wearing a Texas Tech cycling jersey called out to the jogger, “Wrong way!”

The cyclist had grey hair, a little bit of a belly, and was riding a bike that had to cost several thousand dollars. And he obviously was in charge of everything that goes on in and around that park.

Asshole.

Now for some facts that the Texas Tech jackoff is ignorant of.

Rule #1: Walk Facing Traffic. As early as kindergarten, I was taught to walk on the sidewalk, but when that was not possible, to walk facing traffic, so you could see cars coming toward you. Bicycles are to follow the same laws of the road that automobiles must follow

Nearly every walking/cycling path I have been on has had a notice that those on foot should be on the left, those on wheels should be on right.

Single track paths (typical of mountain biking/hiking trails) have a nearly universal rule in the U.S. that riders should go clockwise and walkers/hikers/runners should travel counter-clockwise.

There was a young lady killed a couple of years ago on another very busy trail in Dallas. It turns out that trail does not encourage walkers to follow Rule #1.

At the Carwash

We got back from a short vacation at the beach on Monday, so I went to get the car washed. I was tired from driving all day, then doing the things necessary to get back into the groove of our daily lives, so I paid for the full service wash. While I was waiting, a young lady wearing a white sundress, with a tattoo of Chinese characters along the top of her foot, sat directly across from me. This was my view:


It’s good to be home.

Day by Day, Driving to Death

Our family moved closer to school, closer to work, and, in general, closer to our lives. I knew it was draining us on a spiritual level, and now there is evidence the hours spent in the car were slowly killing us.

A study published this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that the longer people drive to work, the more likely they are to have poor cardiovascular health.

“This is the first study to show that people who commute long distances to work were less fit, weighed more, were less physically active and had higher blood pressure,” said Christine M. Hoehner, a public health professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the study’s lead author. “All those are strong predictors of heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.”

I stopped counting within about two weeks of moving, but I had calculated that my wife and I saved somewhere around 5 hours of driving per week, and that was before the kids even went back to school after the winter break. That was 5 hours to relax, to go on walks, to enjoy time with our family.

I honestly do not know how we survived before shortening our commute, and reducing the hours we spend in a car.

I have to learn to keep my mouth shut

I opened my mouth at work the other day, expressing a political opinion that will likely leave my boss with the impression that I am a kook. But I promised myself that I would not post about politics here, even though I want to really badly. So instead, allow me to share this politically important video: