Vital Statistics

Bike miles in 2022: 0

Aches & pains: right shoulder, neck

Current reading: Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Recent listening: “Just the Two of Us” by Grover Washington, Jr., Hidden Brain

Recent viewing: Super Bowl, Pose, Call the Midwife, Shameless, The Book of Boba Fett

Recent playing: Galaga Wars+

Recent events: Eply maneuver, Drew Eubanks traded and waived, start of the espresso era

Recently accomplished: Filed taxes, plumbing estimates, bass lessons, baked a cake, sold Rory’s cat food, turned compost, video for Mark’s birthday

Imperative To Do: Go on a bike ride, replace toilet seat, fix Graham’s bass, prep for plumbing repairs,

Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 2361
Van odometer: 151399
Weight lost (in pounds): 12
Hours of sleep last night: 8
Aches & pains: sciatic, lower back, right shoulder
Picks left in March Madness office drawing: 0
Current reading: The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman
Recent listening: News from Lake Wobegon, Science Friday, Fresh Air, Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Recent viewing: Blades of Glory, Little Miss Sunshine, March Madness, Countdown
Recent playing: Puzzle Boy
Recently accomplished: cat box, installed new tuning pegs & strings on guitar, groceries, Time Machine for Tina, bought and assembled new vacuum, tracked Thomas’ reading homework, Song of the Day, recycling, began moving rynosoft.com, broke mower
Imperative To Do: Sift through inbox, taxes, post office (Kent, Sue, Lala), phone calls, test bike commute, join gym, 401k rollover, finish moving rynosoft.com, buy new mower, mow lawn

More days to come, new places to go

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted family news here mostly because I do that on Twitter several times a day. For more on that, you can read this and then join here. It’s free and easy and you’ll like it. I promise.

And now, the news:

  • Since the end of October, we’ve been mad for Guitar Hero III. Although playing the game is a blast, equally cool is watching my boys groove and sing to some of my favorite bands. Right now they both like “Even Flow” and “Holiday in Cambodia“. Thomas is the house champion in career mode, but we still only have one guitar so we haven’t settled on a true champion.
  • Thomas’ video game time has been limited, though, due to poor scholastic performance in the first half of this semester. He has been having problems getting his homework done and is easily distracted when he’s supposed to be doing homework. We suspended gaming privileges until he got his grades back up and his computer has been disconnected from the internet. With Tina’s help he’s been able to get his grades up closer to where they should be but he’s still got a lot to learn about managing his time.
  • Graham had a chess tournament yesterday in which he recorded two draws and a win for his team. He’s also become a pretty good Medium-level Guitar Hero player. He’s so fun to watch play because the guitar is a better size for him than the rest of us. He really looks like a rockin’ dude when he plays! He and Rory, our little girl kitten, have become good buddies and she sleeps by his head at night.
  • The kittens are doing great and Ming has grown used to their eager presence. Tina took them to the vet to get them neutered last week. The boys were as rambunctious as ever that night but poor little Rory has been sluggish until today. Because she has stitches, she has to wear one of those funnel collars to keep her from ripping the stitches out. She spent much of the weekend on my lap trying to lick through that damn collar. Funny but sad. We’ll take it off Tuesday morning.
  • Yesterday morning we received our Oregon kicker check in the mail. The kicker law says that the government has to give back money when their income is more than they estimated. This results in a “surprise” tax refund every few years. The average kicker check this year was supposed to be around $600 and we did a little better than average.
  • The boys’ last day of school is on December 21st. Sometime soon after that, we’re hitting the road for Phoenix, Arizona, by way of San Francisco and Moreno Valley. We’re looking forward to the trip since the boys haven’t seen their cousins Wil and Xander in so long. The drive shouldn’t be bad since we’ve broken it up into three days with visits of friends and family on the way.

Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: n/a
Weight lost: 58 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 6
Hours billed last week: 37
Total mice caught: 15
Current reading: 2107 Curious Word Origins, Says & Expressions by Charles Earle Funk, The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Recent listening: Coverville, KBOO Bike Show
Recent viewing: The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Lakers at Suns, Crater Lake: The Mirror of Heaven, Battlestar Galactica, Kingdom Hospital (finale), 24, Frontline, 60 Minutes
Recent playing: Donut Games, Elebits
Recently accomplished: Bought and installed new front bike fender, cleaned and lubed bike, minor garage cleaning, major office cleaning and dusting, sorted inbox, paid bills, filed taxes, recycling, hair cut, cat to vet, beat Elebits
Imperative To Do: RMA old Tivo drive, fix bathroom sink, backup everyone’s computer, determine vacation availability

Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 726 miles
Weight lost: 57 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 9
Hours billed last week: 41
Total mice caught: 15
Current reading: 2107 Curious Word Origins, Says & Expressions by Charles Earle Funk, The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith
Recent listening: Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Corinne Bailey Rae by Corinne Bailey Rae
Recent viewing: Sportscenter, CSI: Miami, Countdown, High Stakes Poker, Academy Awards, Independent Spirit Awards
Recent playing: Donut Games, Tower Blaster
Recently accomplished: Successful Cub Scout presentation (tears were shed, spines were tingled), installed CD burner and USB 2.0 PCI card for Thomas, bought and returned new front bike fender (didn’t fit), moved music to new hard drive
Imperative To Do: RMA old Tivo drive, hair cut, fix bathroom sink, buy front bike fender, taxes, taxes, backup everyone’s computer

Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: n/a
Weight lost: 53 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 7
Hours billed last week: 41
Total mice caught: 13
Current reading: 2107 Curious Word Origins, Says & Expressions by Charles Earle Funk, The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith
Recent listening: Coverville, DrugMusic, NPR Story of the Day, Science Friday
Recent viewing: Sportscenter, Kingdom Hospital, High Stakes Poker, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report
Recent playing: Donut Games, Elebits
Recently accomplished: Fixed Thomas’ email, helped Tina finish her Cub Scout movie, help Thomas get video on his iPod, fixed DVD player (with Dust Off), test run for Cub Scout movie on projector
Imperative To Do: RMA old Tivo drive, hair cut, fix bathroom sink, buy front bike fender, taxes, move music to new drive, taxes, install CD burner in Thomas’ computer, backup everyone’s computer

Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 711 miles
Weight lost: 53 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 8
Hours billed last week: 40
Total mice caught: 13
Current reading: 2107 Curious Word Origins, Says & Expressions by Charles Earle Funk, The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith
Recent listening: The Information by Beck, Digital Ash In A Digital Urn by Bright Eyes, NPR Story of the Day, Broken Boy Soldiers by The Raconteurs, Necktie Second by Pete Droge
Recent viewing: Countdown, Sportscenter, Kingdom Hospital, The Office, My Name Is Earl, Medium
Recent playing: Donut Games, Elebits
Recently accomplished: Reset and re-baited mouse traps, re-routed cabling in office, paper recycling, paid bills, started reunion planning, DVD for Thane
Imperative To Do: RMA old Tivo drive, hair cut, fix bathroom sink, buy front bike fender, taxes, move music to new drive, taxes

Vital Statistics

As promised, here’s a picture of the truck that I was thinking about buying:

After I asked a number of stupid questions, my co-worker concluded that I was not man enough for such a truck. Alas, I have to agree. So I have been browsing Craigslist to get an idea of what kinds of trucks are out there and how much they cost. I’ve been narrowing my criteria and this is what I’ve come up with so far:

 

  • $3000 or less
  • Less than 150,000 miles, preferably less than 125,000
  • Less than 15 years old
  • Extended cab
  • Gas mileage doesn’t matter much
  • Tags good, recently passed DEQ
  • Owner will let John Mechanic check it out at his home

My co-workers seem to have an anti-American car bias and recommend Nissan trucks. My sense is that both Ford and Dodge make fine trucks (my little Mitsubishi is really a Dodge). Although my preference is probably a smaller truck, I’m not going to use it for commuting, so bigger trucks are OK, too. I’ve always been attracted to SUVs, but not so attracted to SUV pricing. Does anybody make an SUV with a rear bed?

Current reading: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
McCartney Trivia: According the the book I’m reading, George Harrison’s “Something” was written about his then-wife, Patti. Years later, George’s best friend would write another song about Patti, with whom he had fallen in love. The friend was Eric Clapton and his song is “Layla”. (last installment)
Recent listening: Decade
Recent viewing: Nova, World Poker Tour, Saturday Night Live
Recent playing: Poker Room
Recently Accomplished: Taxes done, entered and reconciled half.com transactions
Imperative To Do: Bike repairs, truck shopping
Cool link: Craigslist RSS feed: An RSS reader allows you to watch for new and updated postings. Unfortunately, you can’t save your search criteria (“truck” + price range) as an RSS address.

Vital Statistics

After discussion with a co-worker about the merits of the 1975 Ford F-100 that I was considering for purchase, I have come to the conclusion that I am not cut out for such a truck. I’m not adept at vehicle maintenance at all, and contrary to my earlier beliefs, old trucks require quite a bit of maintenance (for example, tune-ups every 12,000 miles). I have decided to target the sub-3000 dollar market and am hoping to land a 90’s era truck. I hear Nissan’s are excellent, but please weigh in with your personal opinions in the comments below.

I’m finishing off my taxes today. This year I’m using TurboTax Online to fill out and file my taxes. It’s very much like the TurboTax CD-based software that I have been using for over 10 years but doesn’t require a local installation – just a web browser. Unfortunately, choosing to wait until the 14th to do your taxes online is not necessarily a good idea because there are evidently many other people dragging the servers down today.

Current reading: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
McCartney Trivia: John wrote “Because” after Yoko played the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven for him. John asked her to play it backwards and based the chords for “Because” on the backwards version that she played.
Recent listening: Rock ‘N’ Roll, Throw Down Your Arms
Recent viewing: The Alternative, Power Fuse, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Recent playing: Poker Room
Recently Accomplished: Neared completion of taxes
Imperative To Do: Taxes, lube bike, fix bike fender, fix bike pedal
Cool link: A Victory for Bicyclist

Vital Statistics

I called the number on the truck and got some more information:

  • 1975 Ford F-100 with 124,000 miles
  • Four on the floor, new clutch
  • Rebuilt engine that has 24,000 miles on it
  • New radiator
  • Priced at $1800, but will sell for less (guy has a $1200 tax bill)
  • He’ll let me drive it to my mechanic’s across town
  • Has not done any work on the front end (including the bushings) and there is 2″ of sway (which might mean it’s hard to steer)
  • Won’t go over 85 mph because of the four-speed, but gets 14 mpg because of the 2-barrel

I snapped some pictures this morning which I’ll put up later today.

Bike odometer: 5990 miles
Current reading: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
McCartney Trivia: If is well-known by Beatle fans that “Sexy Sadie” was written for the Maharishi (substitute “Maharishi” for “Sexy Sadie” when singing). As the story goes, John became disillusioned with the Maharishi because the guru made a pass at a girl (often said to be Mia Farrow or her sister but was likely just a blonde who looked like Mia Farrow) in their camp. In fact, the allegation was probably fabricated by a guy named Magic Alex who was a well-known hanger-on who had attached himself to John Lennon. After Magic Alex got John worked up over the allegation of impropriety (which is not necessarily inconsistent with the Maharishi’s teachings), Lennon did not even allow the Maharishi to answer the charge – he just packed up and went back to England. Later, when recording the White Album, George begged John to change the lyrics because he still admired the Maharishi.
Recent listening: Decade, Amore
Recent viewing: Sportscenter, Countdown, Distraction, South Park
Recent playing: Poker Room
Recently Accomplished: New truck stuff, found my missing W2s
Imperative To Do: Taxes, lube bike, fix bike fender, fix bike pedal, take truck to John Mechanic
Cool link: The Development Abstraction Layer: Why are some software companies successful while others aren’t?