Red Red Meat
If Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan -- a Camry, say -- to the ultra-efficient Prius.
Via the New York Times.
You just have to go read the whole article. It might just change your life. I'm one of those who just plain doesn't want to know where his food comes from most of the time, but this article really did open my eyes about the impact our habits have. Thanks to my lovely wife though, we usually have a weekly menu with only one, maybe two dinners with red meat, and we have at least one vegetarian meal weekly as well.
All this is to say, get off your duff and go help Shane buy a dairy cow! If he hits his goal today, he gives up red meat until Memorial Day! That's like another 4 months for those of you who didn't major in math like me.
Analyzing Running
I thought this was kinda cool. I went running with my GPS watch the other day and it recorded my pace, route, etc. I uploaded everything to this nifty website, MotionBased.com, and now everyone can see how slow I was. Hopefully I can get running more so that I improve and show that part to everyone...
You’re Broke Because You Want to Be
You're Broke Because You Want to Be: How to Stop Getting By and Start Getting Ahead by Larry Winget
My review
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Usually when I read a book in 2 days, it's because I really liked it and couldn't put it down. In this case though, it was more like, I couldn't wait to put it down so I could move on. It's not that it's a bad book, it's just not for me. Larry Winget's in-your-face persona probably works a lot better in person, or on TV. It doesn't work quite as well in a book, because you can always just put the book aside. If this book is going to help you, you have to want the help, and you have to actually be broke. Which I am not. There's a whole chapter about "some stuff you haven't heard before," but I had heard pretty much all of them. And that's what it comes down to: the book is a lot of common sense stuff, presented in a way that is a swift kick in the ass for people who don't have that common sense. "You have $20k in shoes, you should probably sell them to pay for your credit card bill." The worksheets and exercises could come in handy for some, and I enjoyed the success stories of his rich friends in the last chapter. But overall, it's probably not a book I would recommend to many people, unless they are in denial about their financial strife.
Next up is Crawling by Elisha Cooper.
Oven’s Fixed!
I almost forgot to mention: my $17 oven part ($25 including UPS shipping) arrived on Friday afternoon. Since I had already taken it apart previously, it was a quick 5 minute installation. And lo, our oven was working again! How awesome is that? How about $160 of awesome? To get a GE repairman out to our house would have cost $80 for the house call, plus getting the part directly from them was another $80. Doing it myself saved us a load of money, which is especially nice after having to pay for an electrician recently.
So yes, the rumors are true: I stuck my head in an oven, and it had nothing to do with the kids driving me crazy.
Sore on Monday, Again
Last week, I was sore because I had just finished curling 7 games in 4 days, including 3 in one day. This week, I'm sore because I ran a measly 1.8 miles yesterday.
This weekend, I really just wanted to catch up on some sleep. I was dragging all week, and hoped to get an extra couple of hours in on the weekend. But, on Saturday, I was still up around the usual time. We took Ellie to ballet class, and I later went to Home Depot for doors and shelves. Of course, on the way home I was hit with the epiphany that even after thinking three times about which way the door needed to open, I still got the one that opened the wrong way. So instead, I put the shelves for our guest room closet together. That went pretty well, and now our Rubbermaid bins of Christmas stuff, baby clothes, etc, are much more neatly organized than before (and we don't have to unstack 5 to get to the bottom one).
On Sunday morning, I woke up around 7:30 and couldn't get myself back to sleep, so I decided to try out my nifty new GPS watch and go for a quick run. It wasn't terribly cold, nice weather for a run. I only averaged about an 8:24 pace, and the watch worked pretty well, though ironically, it doesn't actually tell time! Then it was back to Home Depot for the correct door and home to install it, while watching MSU beat the hell out of Michigan in college hoops. Despite all my best efforts to make sure everything was square and level, the door still ended up just off kilter by fractions of an inch. I think I was eventually able to shim around the door and get it to the point where I was okay with it, but it was just plain annoying.
My usual Sunday curling game went to an extra end, thanks to two good shots by me to tie it up in the last end, but we lost in the extra because I missed both of my shots badly. I need to work on my release, because I know that's where I'm having the problems.
All that leads me to this morning, where my shins are in agony, unexpectedly. It has to have been the running, though I wouldn't have thought less than 2 miles could have that effect. Most of the rest of me is fine, just those shins (or rather, the muscle running alongside the shin). I definitely should have just stayed in bed.
Choice of the Cat
Choice of the Cat by E.E. Knight
My review
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
When last we saw David Valentine, he was an up and coming Wolf in the Southern Command, fighting against the alien Kur race who use "Reapers" to feed off the auras of humans. This time around, Valentine gets caught up in military politics and is forced to resign from the Wolves. However, he quickly takes up with another military faction, the Cats, and learns their stealthy ways. He uses his newfound skills to go after a new group, the Twisted Cross, before they can build up their forces to go after Southern Command.
It's not quite as strong as the first volume, but the Twisted Cross provides a good (or evil, as the case may be) antagonist for Valentine, strong enough for me to eventually want to read the next volume, though I probably won't review any more of them.
Next up is You're Broke Because You Want To Be by Larry Winget.
Financial Goals for 2008
Yesterday, my wife asked me what my financial goals were for the year. It was spurred a bit by doing our taxes, plus the recent rate drops which momentarily had me considering another refinance (they've since jumped back up to the point that a refi doesn't make sense). I had a bunch of them, so I'm going to put them out there so that I am reminded of them later in the year.
1) Do a budget which anticipates known, but inconsistent (not monthly) expenses like curling, baseball, etc. It's not like it's a surprise that we need to pay for them, but somehow we always seem to have to scramble for the money when it comes due.
2) Adjust my paycheck withholding again so that we don't get a giant refund next year. I adjusted a small amount last March, and we are still getting a large refund. I want to stop giving the government my money during the year, only to get it back with no interest in February.
3) Increase my 401(k) contributions. I bumped up by 1% last year, I think I can do another 1-2% again this year. We are also going to look a bit closer at Lisa's side of the retirement picture, which has been largely neglected since she stopped working. Part of this may involve going to a fee-only financial planner who can help us organize our various accounts.
4) Get adequate life insurance. We finally put together our will last year, and now it's time to make sure the family is taken care of if something tragic happens. This was brought to bear recently when my co-worker's brother died unexpectedly. He was 38 and had a wife and 2 kids.
5) Start a 529 plan for Evan. Ellie is enrolled in a prepaid tuition program right now, but Evan's got nothing.
6) Get rid of debt. We don't have much, some holiday credit card bills, the minivan payment, mortgage, but I want to aggressively pay off the credit card and minivan.
Update: 7) Thanks for Shane's reminder: I need to contribute my $50 so he can buy a heifer. This should be part of a larger plan to donate more to charity this year.
Craziness
Yesterday, we had an electrician come out to look at our dishwasher/dryer problem, finally. Doing the dishes by hand isn't too awful, but we had a lot of laundry piling up since we didn't have a dryer. He quickly figured out what I wasn't able to: that a fuse that fed our auxiliary power panel had blown. The auxiliary runs the dishwasher, dryer, and something else that even he couldn't figure out. I had no idea there was a fuse up there to even replace, but now I know, and knowing is half the battle (Go Joe!).
Naturally, later that SAME DAY, our oven stopped working. Actually, the burners work, and the broiler works, but the bake function does not. After finding out that a service call would cost $80, I narrowed down the problem to, I think, the Glo starter thingie. It's supposed to replace the old pilot light, and it is not glowing like it's supposed to. So I found a guy on eBay selling them for $17 (instead of $50), and we'll see if that fixes the problem. I'm definitely getting to know our house and its appliances much better in this new year. Too bad that wasn't one of my resolutions.
One last bit of house-related craziness: mortgage rates have dropped so much that I'm almost considering refinancing again. In our last round, we got a rate of 6%, and right now, it looks like we could get 5.125% (saves about $150/month, we break even in 16 months), or even a 20 year mortgage at 4.875% (costs only about $125 more per month, gets paid off ten years earlier, just in time for the kids to be finishing college). Thankfully, we belong to that select group of people that actually still has good credit, so we should have no problem qualifying if we want to. I may wait a few more days though, just to see if things don't go down even a little bit more.
I Am Legend
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
My review
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I had seen "The Omega Man" a long time ago, and always wanted to read the book upon which it was based. With the recent release of the movie starring Will Smith, I went ahead and reserved it at the library. I won't say I was disappointed, but the Omega Man version is definitely different from the book. The book focuses a lot on Robert Neville's search, as the lone person immune to a bug that has turned everyone into vampires, for a cure. Only near the very end of it does it bring in the possibility that not everyone went crazy and bloodthirsty, whereas the Heston movie seemed to play on that aspect of the story a bit more.
So, even though it wasn't quite what I expected, I enjoyed the story, and found many times where it could have influenced later vampire fiction like Buffy.
Next up is Choice of the Cat (Vampire Earth Book 2) by E.E. Knight.
Cliff Notes Version
Since that last post rambled a bit, here's the short version.
We finished with a winning record, maybe should have even done better than we did, but we're still happy.
Go Giants!
I hate stupid kickers.
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