Category: General

Summer in Seattle.

Average temperatures in the 60s. Thirty straight days of sunshine (fantastic climbing weather). Completion of my ‘required’ climbs. Weather that begs and screams, “Go Play Outdoors, NOW!”

Fresh local produce, especially strawberries and bing cherries. (California strawberries don’t cut it). Berry bushes everywhere, laden with fruit. Halibut and salmon, fresh from the docks. It’s so good to be back.

TV in the 21st century

Projector technology finally became bright enough to use in daylit rooms (~2000 lumens) and dipped below $1k for HD models. I picked up a projector last year and then an AppleTV over the holidays. My entertainment center is now miniscule compared to times past.

  • Epson Powerlite 720P HD projector
  • 26″ LCD HDTV
  • HDMI 4 x 2 switch
  • Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speaker system
  • Apple TV
  • 4 HDMI cables (projector cable is 30′ long)
  • 1 Toslink cable

The only ‘analog’ cabling is from the Logitech amp to the speakers. The HDMI switch is a splitter with one cable going to the Projector and another to the TV. It drives both simultaneously with no hiccups. It has 4 inputs, with one from the AppleTV, another for my laptop, and 2 for future use. Audio is routed to the TV via HDMI and from the TV to the Logitech control center via Toslink.

The only fiddling with cables required is when using my laptop. I have to connect a HDMI<->DVI adapter to my MacBook Pro for video, and connect the Toslink cable from the Logitech to my laptop. Between the Apple TV and laptop, I can stream iTunes, NetFlix, and Amazon movies to both screens.

Why Spending Cuts Aren’t The Answer

…

Although it is extremely hard to cut existing programs, it is easier to avoid launching new ones. But much of the new spending proposed by the president is for public investments with high rates of return. Failure to make these investments will actually make us poorer. For instance, if the government borrowed a trillion dollars at 4 percent and invested the money in projects with an annual return of 7 percent, we’d actually be richer each year by $30 billion than if we hadn’t made those investments. And because investment in the public sphere has been neglected for decades, there are thousands of shovel-ready projects with extremely high rates of return. — Robert Frank

Thank you Robert, for helping me see the silver lining in that $700b stimulus package.

car cost per mile

cost per mileWhile car shopping, I  built a spreadsheet of vehicle costs. Here is a graphic presentation of that data. Costs are based on Consumer Reports data and 12,000 miles per year.

The cost per mile is nearly identical between the family sedans. That is largely because the largest cost (40%) of car ownership is depreciation. 

My 09 Fusion V6 with everything except AWD costs are lower because I paid cash (no interest) and paid $10k less than retail. I could have gotten the same low cost per mile on a Jetta TDI, but it would have been a 2006.

Nobody was offering deals on the Prius in December ’08/Jan ’09. In most cases, dealers were charging above retail. Now I’m hearing of people getting $5k discounts on them right now. A recent news article was titled, Hybrid sales go from 60 to 0 at breakneck speed. With the tax benefits, available discounts, and low cost of ownership, the Prius might be worth considering right now.