Happy Birthday

Today I got to sleep in for the second day in a row, it was a great start to the day. Then I went over to my Grandma’s to help do a bunch of yard work. Managed to kill the lawnmower less than 1/4 through her back yard, which required a trip to the store for a new sparkplug. The mower’s engine still sounds a little weird, so there was more wrong than just a gummed up plug but it runs again. So I just managed to do the front yard in its entirety as well as kill a bunch of blackberry bushes and ivy.

Once I got home I needed to do all three of our yards. I broke spider web that was connected to one of the dwarf apple trees in the front yard, which turned out to be connected to the power lines above it. So the spider had to climb up the house, crawl along dozens of feet of power line, then drop down and walk across the driveway to climb up the tree. I’m impressed.

I slacked off and didn’t manage to run either Thursday or Friday. I’ve more than made up for it today, spending more than 2 hours cutting grass. I also spent more than an hour on the treadmill while watching the latest Kaizoku fansubs of One Piece. So I got in 6.5 miles today as well.

After church the entire family is coming over for my sisters’ birthday since they’re turning 14. I might not get a chance to run then either, so we’ll have to see. I’ll make it up either way.

Quote of the Moment:
“Neither sense nor courtesy are common around here.”
Not sure if I’ve heard that somewhere before; it may be something I came up with but I doubt it.

Americans Can’t Pick Fruit?

Or at least that’s what this article claims. Farmers in southern California might be forced to let their crops rot rather than have them picked. Why? Because tighter border security is shrinking the pool of sub-minimum wage laborers. And since there aren’t as many laborers from Mexico coming to pick fruit the fruit won’t get picked. Last time I checked Americans and Mexicans had roughly the same anatomy: two hands, two arms, two legs, etc. which can just as easily be used to pick crops. It may be time to invest some serious time and money into research for mechanical or robotic fruit pickers.

I still don’t understand the problem the farmers are having. Is there truly no one in southern California who is willing to pick fruit? Or is no one there willing to pick fruit for a few dollars per hour? I’d have no problem picking fruit all day, but I’d expect at least $12 an hour to do it. Really I think the farmers are just whining about nothing right now. It's probably not the difference of paying someone $50 per day to pick a few a thousand dollars worth of fruit a day or having it rot; the difference is paying someone $50 verses $150 per day to pick the fruit. If that is truly not the case, I’m willing to fly down Thursday nights and fly home Monday mornings to anyone hiring and willing to buy plane tickets. If there really is such a crisis, then paying for me to work for you is still more profitable than letting your crops rot. 

Tuesday Post

An article about Washington's impending $1.5 Billion shortfall. The reason for this, people aren't buying enough gas. They've raised our local gas taxes 14.5 cents over the last six years and people aren't too happy about it. The state keeps raising the price of car tabs, no matter how many times the voters overwhelming pass $30 tabs measures. With gas prices that keep flirting with all-time highs and us now having to pay 56 cents in taxes per gallon of gas, I think people are starting to realize using less gas is a good thing. Some people have bought more efficient cars, others carpool, others drive less either way the state is getting less money in gas taxes. And they’re not happy about it.

Last I knew the entire state of Washington is supplied gasoline from two refineries. That means that all gas sold in stations around here comes from the same place which eliminates the competition that could help keep gas prices lower. Add onto that the highest gas taxes in the country and we’re looking at a recipe for high gas prices. I personally will spend a little under $1,500 on gas this year, up $200 from last year. Last year I paid an average of $2.53 per gallon of gas verses $2.78 that so far this year. I’ve done some tweaking to my truck so I’m getting slightly better mileage this year over last year, but still less than 20mpg. If I had the money to spare I would buy a little car such as a Geo Metro or a Honda Insight for most of my day to day driving, but can neither afford to purchase or insure another vehicle at the moment and my truck is too useful to sell off. Since I only work part time while attending school full time I’m pretty much broke for 5 more quarters. So unless God compels someone to hand me a check for the $12,000 it will cost to complete my degree I’m resigned to being broke until I graduate.

Got my jog in today; 17 minutes at 6.5 miles per hour. It’s progress.

Quote for the Day:
Luck can't last a lifetime unless you die young.

-Despair.com

A Lesson in Economics

Yesterday’s Seattle Times had a story on the front page about people outraged over tickets for Miley Cyrus/ Hannah Montana concerts. Apparently the tickets sell out fast for such concerts which leaves parents with the choice of breaking the bank buying tickets from scalpers (which have been able to charge $4,500 for a pair of tickets) or let their 12 year old, spoiled brat kids hear the word “No” for the first time in their lives when they find out that they couldn’t get tickets at face value because they didn’t wait in line all night.

Some people have filed formal complaints with various state Attorney General’s offices about not being able to buy tickets for a concert. When there are a finite number of tickets and more people who want them than available tickets, there are two actions that could result. Either the ticket sellers should charge more for the tickets which would reduce demand until there is an equilibrium, or scalpers buy tickets and resell them for market value, which is significantly more than face value.

Parents today seem to be horrified when they realize that they cannot easily cater to the wishes of their kids. The average price people are for tickets is almost TEN TIMES the face value of the cheap seats. When I wanted tickets for midnight shows to “Lord of the Rings” my parents thought it was a fun idea, but they weren’t going to buy them for me. Do I have the only parents in the world who refuse to bend over backwards to cater to the desires of their children? Those kind of parents are the reason I camp out all day to buy the latest game system or toy; some people will pay any price to get these items for their little monsters for Christmas because they’re afraid of the tantrum that will ensue if they fail to provide.

There’s a reason I bought a Furby years ago and a Tickle-Me-Elmo more recent than that. I could resell them for much more money closer to Christmas. I was able to list three Nintendo Wiis on eBay last year, and tried to do the same with Xbox 360s the year before that. As long as there are people willing to pay a premium for such items for their kids I’m willing to take a day out of my life to sit around and read while waiting for something to come out in order to fulfill the needs of these spoiled brats whose parents are too scared to say “No” and will pay me to for my stuff I don’t care that much about. Since Wiis seem to still be scarce in many parts of the country I will probably pick up a few more and try to resell them in the mall parking lot on Christmas Eve.

I didn’t get a chance to run yesterday, but made up for it by hiking up to the library and back with 20 pounds of books on my back. That comes out to about a mile in each direction with steep hills making up about half the trip. I still got in my 17 minute jog at 6.4 miles per hour today as well.

The Day is Finally Over

Today (yesterday actually if you look at the calendar) we had our first Bible Quiz meet of the year. We quizzed over the entire book of Galatians, plus “Application Questions” which often have little – if anything – to do with the book itself. Overall we did relatively well, with my team’s record of 4-5, with two of those losses being within a single question of winning. After the meet, I took my sisters home and Brenda came with us. We watched “Cats Don’t Dance”, “An American Tail”, and “Halloweentown”.

Naturally, getting back at two o’clock from taking Brenda home delayed my daily running until the very wee hours of the morning. I’m happy to say that I still got in a 17 minute jog at 6.3 miles per hour, despite it being close to 80F in the basement thanks to the woodstove burning right now. My cold is getting better and I’ve not medicated myself in any way today, but am still on a fairly hefty cocktail of vitamins at the moment. Lately I’ve been taking 8 different capsules in the mornings. Also, I have to be at church to run camera in 5 hours so I should probably go to bed pretty soon.

Not Our Doing

Here's a story implying that nothing humans do can help the Earth. Antarctica's Ozone hole is shrinking! Do they thank us for slowly cleaning up our emissions by having cleaner exhaust from our vehicles over the last decade or two?
No. For building solar panels and stuff like that? Nope. They claim it's probably natural variation. Therefore the Ozone layer can get thicker on its own, but if it ever gets thinner it's only because we're emitting too many chlorofluorocarbons
(If I'm thinking of the right thing here). Relating this to global warming, we know that the earth has warmed and cooled on its own throughout the millennia, but there’s absolutely no way that it could be natural this time.

I think I need to come up with a way to make money on this whole global warming scam just like Al Gore is doing. I need to figure out how much people are paying for these carbon indulgences and start selling them myself to people who feel guilty for living their lives as they always have.

I also got in my run early today, 16 minutes at 6.3 miles per hour, so a tiny increase in speed and distance. My cold is worse, bad enough that I actually decided to take something for it besides just loading up on foods rich in antioxidants.

Keeping On Keeping On

Today I worked pretty much all day. I managed to sleep through 2 of my alarms and thus got out of bed an hour later than I would have liked. I still managed to get into work 6 minutes earlier than I did on Tuesday, but that was still later than I would have liked. After that it was a quick trip home for food and a shower before heading out to church for tech practice for the event tomorrow.

Sadly I had to skip TBQ practice but made $50 instead, even if I did very little and was totally bored for most of the evening. I did manage to get some time in on the treadmill and ran for 16 minutes at 6.2 miles per hour. Still not a good distance or speed, but my cold is worse than yesterday yet I still managed to get an additional 0.11 miles in today. Tomorrow I will attempt the same duration at a slightly higher speed regardless of how I feel tomorrow.

This is also my second post in two days; let’s see if I can go three in a row.

Another long day

Today in class we discussed the qualities of an ideal work group for our class, as the title of the class is Group Dynamics. Apparently the goal of the class is to teach us to work in teams, which are distinctly different in practice from groups.

In Managerial Economics we had a simulation of how the markets work in the sale and purchase of various goods. And also how the market is affected by outside influences in the forms of taxes, government regulation of prices, foreign demand of goods, and foreign production of goods. Most often the market – free of government controls – gave the best profits and benefits to both buyers and sellers in this game. I also came in second place for the most profit made buying and selling, even though various regulations killed my performance in various rounds as I couldn’t either buy or sell my good at a profit. It was a fun exercise.

In Political Ideology class we discussed Classical Liberalism, which would be considered more conservative than most Conservatives today, which is a far cry from those who favor Modern Liberalism today. It was a pretty boring class and I almost fell asleep while drinking my Coke, which would have been really bad if I did fall asleep and spilled it on myself. I also managed to acquire an mp3 player in that class that was dropped by another student. I’m pretty sure its an Apple mp3 player, and I’m also pretty sure that it belongs to a guy in my discussion group so I’ll give it back to him on Monday if it is his. If its not his I’d like to sell it on eBay and buy a better one with the money while pocketing the rest.

I’ve also been slacking very much in my running of late and have got really out of shape. I cannot realistically run these days outside as I have no free time during daylight hours. Hence I’m restricted to running on the treadmill at night, which is not the same as I cannot use full strides; so its more of a jog than a run. Given that case I’m making it a goal to jog for a set time and speed every day, with each day increasing either the time or the speed. Today I jogged for 15 minutes at 6.2 miles per hour. Given that I’m probably getting sick at the moment and am out of shape that took much more effort than I anticipated. Tomorrow I will most likely add time to that. I’m also making it a goal to log all of my running here everyday so that everyone in the world (or at least the 4 people who read this blog semi-regularly) will know when I’m slacking.

That is all. No interesting quote comes to mind.

And So It Begins...Again

Today was the first day of the school for me. I haven’t had to sit through 6 hours of classes in a single day in a long time, but now I get to do it twice a week. This quarter doesn’t look to be very fun at all. Thankfully we don’t have to be there until 1:15PM so we miss most of the traffic, but it’s still a long day. My managerial economics class looks to be interesting, my organizational management class will probably be boring, and my political science class looks like a total waste of time. That and I’m looking at a 2-hour, 75 mile round trip commute which makes for long and crappy school days. I’m already looking forward to Christmas break.

Wish me luck.

Random Quote:
“I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.” Galatians 4:11

Ancestors

Looking through some random genealogy/history archives I’ve tried to look as far back as possible to find my earliest known ancestor. The farthest I can find information for was Odin, son of Frithuwald and Beltsa. Odin was born circa 215AD in either Eastern Europe or Western Asia. Over the duration of his life he had five wives and ten children. His genealogy goes back another five generations to Godwulf, born circa 80AD, but I know nothing else about Godwulf except that he had a son around 100AD named Flocwald.

Godwulf is a pretty cool name though.

Save Montana

Shame on President Bush for causing such a bad situation out East. Countless businesses are suffering and can’t get the help they need. Giving tax cuts to stimulate the economy was obviously a bad idea as places such as Montana are suffering thanks to the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. Employers can’t fill job openings because there aren’t enough people in need of a job. Employers can’t even import enough foreign workers to fill these jobs. The few people looking for work won’t work for twice the minimum wage because they know that they can easily find someone desperate enough to pay more for the same work.
We must send aid to Montana in the form of laborers. Next time you see a homeless guy with one of those “WILL WORK FOR FOOD” signs, tell them to head for Montana.

You can read the whole AP story here.

Movies of 2007 (Update)

Here's the ranked list of the movies I've seen released this year. I still tweak it every once in a while depending on my mood.

15. Epic Movie
It had its moments but otherwise a pretty crappy movie.

14. Nancy Drew
It was ok, very predictable though.

13. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
The fist movie I've seen at the theater that I thought was way too long. This movie could have been better if it was 30 minutes shorter. It looked cool but wasn't that exciting to me. Definitely not as good as the first one.

12. TMNT
Decent cartoon. Would have preferred it to be a live action movie like the first 3 turtles movies.

11. Shrek the Third
Very funny movie, haven't decided if I liked it better than the other ones though.

10. Ratatouille
One of the better Disney movies in recent years.

9. Spiderman 3
Very cool movie, almost as cool as the second one. Animation was great. But it was also too short and too emo.

8. Mr. Bean's Holiday
This Bean was even better than the first movie. Very funny throughout.

7. Happily N'Ever After
I heard almost nothing about this movie before it came out; very sad. This movie was just plain cool to watch.

6. Arthur and the Invisibles
Saw it about the same time as Happily N'Ever After and is slightly cooler with better animation, but not quite as funny as HNA.

5. Meet the Robinsons 3D
Definitely the best of the Disney Movies released in recent years. Even better in 3D.

4. 300
It's cool in the same way as Braveheart, but much more so.

3. Hot Fuzz
British police comedy at its finest.

2. Ghost Rider
One of the best comic book movies of all time. (I think the theatrical version is slightly better than the director's cut)

1. Transformers
Visually stunning. Very funny in parts. Good epic storyline. Slightly better than Ghost Rider.

Oh No!

San Francisco is having a major crisis right now that may lead to the end of life as they know it. Is it the number of illegal immigrants moving into the city and refusing to assimilate into the culture? No. Neither is the population now so gay that there aren’t enough children being born to replace the old people dying off. It’s even worse: black people are moving out of the city!

According to the article in USA Today, San Francisco’s population is only 6.5% black as of 2005, down from 13.4% in 1970. Some guy named Ed Blakely was quoted as saying “Black flight can alter a city's character. It's important for a city's future that it be a diverse place, and San Francisco is drifting toward being an upper-middle-class city.”

This either means that the definition of “upper-middle-class” now means “not black” or that the black people moving out are either stinking rich, dirt poor, or some combination of the two. Since SF is freakishly expensive to live in, I’ll assume that poorer people are being priced out of the city into the surrounding areas in hopes of living cheaper. Which is horrifically changing the makeup of the city into more middle class families and less people being forced to live in the slums. Obviously this is terrible if you’re a SF resident as your losing the most valuable commodities on the planet: “culture” and “diversity”. Not sure what their definition of culture is, but the definition of diversity is pretty clear. Diversity now means “not white”.

So now that San Francisco might soon be competing with Seattle for the second whitest city in the country, does anyone really care? People move when they find better jobs elsewhere. People move to where they can enjoy a higher standard of living for the same amount of money. Other people move when they realize that San Francisco sucks and they’re stuck with people like Nancy Pelosi as their Representative in Congress.

I'm Still Alive

Yep, I managed to survive my cruise. I’ve been fairly busy over the last few weeks, even if though it really doesn’t feel like I’ve done very much. School starts in 4 weeks and I think I’m looking forward to it, even if it will be a new experience at a new school. I haven’t been reading much but I’ve been increasing my running/jogging lately.
The new press at work still isn’t up and running yet, even though they’ve now had it for almost 2 months. Work is slow but interesting as I do tons of random stuff that’s completely unrelated to actual print shop work. I’ve been building cabinets, sealing roofs, and working on the boss’s other random projects around the shop. I’ll shoot to have at least one new post up later this week. Maybe I’ll binge blog and write up 10 posts or something and then just release them every day until I’m out of them and then my few readers will have to wait weeks again for the next update as usual.

I'm off

I made several trips to the hardware store yesterday during work for one of my boss's new projects. After getting two new racks measured and cut he decided that he wanted something completely different. Therefore I had to made another trip to the hardware store for another $150 in supplies to redo something in a way that may or may not be as good as what he originally had me do. Weird Al's "Hardware Store" was going through my head all day. Oh well, I get paid by the hour.

We’re leaving for our cruise in an hour or so, and the more I’m hearing the less I’m liking. Apparently there’s a fairly formal dress-code for the entire ship during evening hours that forbids virtually every article of clothing I own. They just told me this the morning after I’ve already packed. I read in the handbook that it forbids: “printed t-shirts, swimsuits, shorts, jeans, and sweats” from all public places on the ship. Not sure I want to go swimming during this time if that’s the case. Gotta run, back next week.

Since my last post I’ve done a few things I guess. I’ve watched countless hours of anime, I’ve upgraded several of the programs in my computer, I’ve harvested my back yard, and generally been pretty lazy.

I’ve been watching anime from both the web and library and am currently watching 5 series. I’ve been watching One Piece as the episodes are subbed and released and am currently on episode 226. I started watching Full Metal Panic on recommendation from one of the people in my History of Animation class and have enjoyed it so far; I’ve watched the first two seasons and am working on the 3rd this week. I’m also watching Witch Hunter Robin, Tsubasa Chronicle, and Ranma 1/2.

My entire family is going on a cruise next week up to Alaska, eighteen of us in all. I honestly have no idea what to do on a cruise that I can’t do at home anytime I want. Nor have I ever had the desire to go on a cruise before, and probably won’t plan on going on one again. So far the things I’ve been told there are to do on our boat include: eating good food, shopping, eating good food, watching movies, working out, eating more food, and gambling. I watch movies all the time, eat whenever I’m hungry, and don’t enjoy shopping. There are three casinos within a 5 minute drive from my house so that’s no novelty either. I’ve bringing enough books and DVDs to keep myself occupied during the week and will probably bring a camera to take pictures of random glaciers and stuff from the boat. I also get seasick fairly easily so I’m not thrilled about being dragged up north on a boat.

Anything else new, yeah but I don’t feel like typing anymore. I’ll probably write up a few posts this coming week and one or two on the boat when I’ve got nothing better to do.

Done with Fireworks

Once again I’ve spent my entire week working at the fireworks stand for church. I got to sleep two nights at home and camped out at the stand for security the other five nights. This year didn’t seem nearly as crazy as years past but I think we did better than we did last year.

The stand a few blocks down the street from us was burglarized Monday night but I never heard how much was stolen. There was also a shooting in the same parking lot as that stand the night of the 4th.

The thing I don’t understand is why people get angry when I say that I’ll only sell them fireworks for the price on the tags. Tons of people start giving sob stories about how they need to bring home huge and cool fireworks or their kids will think of them as the failures they are, but they are unwilling/unable to spend the money for them. And yes, fireworks are too expensive which is why I don’t buy many for myself. One lady started crying because she wanted to buy $90 in fireworks but only had $20 and I wouldn’t sell to her for that price. She went on about how her kids needed the really big and cool fireworks but she couldn’t buy them because she was a single, 25 year old mother of 4 who didn’t have enough money for expensive fireworks. Granted I was willing to make some deals with people that late in the evening since everything I didn’t sell would need to be inventoried and packed back up, but I wasn’t willing to lose money just to make someone happy.

I’ve never seen any of these people harassing the attendants at the gas stations saying they need 10 gallons of gas but only have $10 to spend so the attendant should sell them gas anyway or they won’t be able to take their kids to the movies later. Or seeing people at Fry’s saying how much they need that 60” 1080p TV for $2000 off the sticker price or their neighbors would suspect that they’re too poor to own one otherwise.

Yes, I’m tired from working around the clock for a week and slowly recovering. I’m still saying “Never Again” when it comes to running a fireworks stand but a heavy bribe could change that again.

Untitled

My favorite science supply store, United Nuclear, has recently added a new chemical to their catalog that’s among the most toxic they have ever carried. Given this is the only place I know that sells Uranium and other radioactive materials, that makes it pretty toxic. What is it? Here’s the entry for it:

chemical formula: C₈H₁₀N₄O₂

Caffeine is an alkaloid that's found in numerous plant species where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects. In Humans, Caffeine is a central nervous system and metabolic stimulant in small milligram quantities, however, ingestion of only slightly larger amounts can be fatal. This material is for experimental purposes only and not to be added to food or drink products.

Caution:

Caffeine is toxic. Use normal safety precautions (wear a filter mask/respirator and gloves) when working with Caffeine. Accidental inhalation of fine particles can be dangerous.


Note: adult signature required upon delivery.



MSDS ( Material Safety Data Sheet )

Yep, that stuff can kill you in very small amounts. There’s a reason I generally avoid things that contain more caffeine than Mountain Dew (I believe one can has around 35mg but not certain on that number)

Don't Bother

If you go to extreme measures to use less gas in your vehicle you will probably get a visit from people who are very unhappy with you. They will be very displeased that their employer isn’t making money off of your driving and will use legal power to force you to pay them. They get this legal power because of the money and influence their organizations possess. Not buying gas decreases the revenues of these organizations and they aren’t pleased from this. Which company do these people represent? Exxon Mobile? Shell? British Petroleum? Nope, think bigger.

Try the government.

Here’s a story about what happens when you try to fuel your car yourself.

And the moral of the story is: If you try to do something for the environment that isn’t forced on you by the government, they will bite you.

Busy

I've been really busy lately with school. I've only got two days left but I've done more work in the last two weeks than I have during the previous 9 weeks of the quarter. I needed to make a CG animation from scratch, design every part of an engine and assemble it, and write out a journal of every video clip I saw for my History of Animation class. Here's my animation if anyone is interested.