Yes the second day of bicycle commuting did not immediately follow the first. What can I say..... it is 40 degrees in the morning and I need warmer biking clothing (I only have running clothing and that stuff just wasn't made for wind). We had a meeting with our investment banker downtown so I didn't get to the house until 10:30am and didn't leave for work till 11am. Still took about 40 minutes to ride, shower up, change into work clothes, and get to my desk.

Weather:
60s and sunny. Ahhhhhh Not much wind (~10mph)

Road Conditions:
Construction. Yay. That road gets narrow and it freaks me out when a big truck goes past me with only a foot or two to spare.

Traffic:
Light

Physical Conditioning:
Sucking. Sucking it long. Sucking it hard. (bonus points if you catch the reference). Why is it that physical activity

Bike Mechanics:
Shifters are in desperate need of adjustment. Harder than hell to get tires pumped up to 120SPI.... I settle for 60. I might need to move up to the bigger pump which should be easier to use. Might run that shopping trip Saturday in addition to returning the helmet & non fitting shorts (and / or pump). Need to swipe parts from my old bike at the folk's house. Probably also going to need to get a basin & can(s) of oil to clean my chain.

Over All Impression:
Still a wimp but realizing that if I do this more, I'm going to have some killer thighs.

Now if only I could get PAID to do this or get paid while doing this..... (more on this later)

1) Buy Bike
2) Sell Car
3) ???
4) PROFIT!

Check out this article from a tip here. The article is about Dr. Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D, the director of the Human Genome Project. In the article, Collins discusses how he came to believe in a God while an atheist med student. The article is short but interesting and if you have the 10 minutes for the article and video then check them out.

My last post (a picture post on Multiply only) was from some available WiFi at the Red Lion in Bellevue WA as part of a quick business / personal trip to Seattle for a friends wedding, and to deliver my latest Photo Memory Movie which was displayed before the ceremony.

The drive was nice, especially because I slept the entire way, having stayed up till 4am working on some special features for the DVD (additional angle & audio tracks). We took off at 6:20am and my brother and his wife did the driving while me and the Mrs. were in the back.

Thoughts on the destination..... Seattle is a lovely city, and it could be better if there were only a few million less people. Ok I should correct myself there, I like the climate and the terrain but I could live with out the traffic and crush of people on every piece of ground for miles in any direction.

Friday my brother and I spent 3 hours trying on mountaineering shoes at the flagship REI. We unfortunately didn't have any time to look at anything else in the entire store. Bummer! My first time there and I only visited about 1/10 of the store. I didn't even get a chance to look at the climbing wall. My brother's wife got him a book written by members of this club while we were at the REI store. Very interesting book and it should hold lots of information for us as we get get more into climbing higher and higher.

We then drove to the International District for dinner with Demigeekessand Dave. medicgeek and waussie were both busy so I didn't get a chance to see them. Then we drove back up town to Queen Anne to hit up a great little Irish pup with the Bride & Groom for a while. Then we headed back to Bellevue for the evening.

Day two was the wedding. We drove up to Green Lake for the service which was 10 minutes at most. An additional 13 minutes at the start was my production. The movie went over very well and all involved parties loved it. Go Me. After the wedding we drove back down to downtown Seattle at the Mountaineer's Club (woo!) for the reception. Space Needle visible down hte street from balcony.

After the reception we headed down to Pike's Place Market too take in the sights. We didn't have any specific need to buy things, and for me, most things there were not "Jason Safe (TM)" so I didn't feel too badly tempted. The place I felt the most tempted was this Russian bakery. Man did some of their creations look and smell amazing. There was a small cheese making facility right on the row of shops so my brother got to explain the whole process to us. He is a manager at a massive cheese facility and he helped build and design the new Southwest Cheese plant This is one of the few plants in the industrialized world that is built from the ground up and not from an existing plant.

Then we met up with Demigeekess"> again for dinner and a stroll around that area. See my photo gallery for pictures from the market. I didn't take too many because I was trying not to hit people with my laptop & camera bags because I wasn't about to leave my laptop in the vehicle unattended.

After a lovely dinner we headed back to the hotel to rest up for the trip out. I popped up the lappy and check for an open WiFi and posted the photos and hit the sack.

Sunday was pretty much the drive back. As far as allergies are concerned, I flared up considerably as a result of eating out all the time. Restaurants never know exactly what is in their foods or at least the waiters don't know and they couldn't eliminate all flour, eggs, and milk if they tried. Even rice noodles at the Chinese place probably had eggs, which are my most reactive substance.

Fun trip. Lots of people.... too many people for my taste. Great weather (cloudy and occasionally rainy) and great temperatures (50s) and if it weren't for the number of people and the cost of living there, I would love it. Oh and the politics.....crazy. Just ask Pudge.

The Voice behind the movie trailers, Don LaFontaine, has given an interview on Good Morning America Weekend Edition. Don is The Movie Trailer Voice but is never recognized for his face until recently. Great video: check it out.

Then there is the piece that started it all. It is a 4 minute short featuring all the big names in announcing. Notably missing are the guy that does boxing matches and the guy that does Mexican soccer matches. Great sound bits like "Hung Like A Horse" and "Rated R".

According to an artilce I read here, in Sweden you have to get approval for your children's names from the government. Right. You can't name them something unless the government approves of that name. So what government agency is responsible for approving your child's names? Some Decency Review Board? Or some sort of Family Planning Council? Nope. The Swedish National Tax Board. And if they don't like your choice, you can be stuck in limbo until you yield to their decisions and pick a name that isn't "ugly." Swedish National Tax Board refused to register the name, saying it was associated with both the rock group and the word "metal."Oh no! An ugly name that is associated with a type of material substance! What about names like Stardust or Crystal or Sunshine. Give me a break Sweden. May be this is the libertarian in me, but an idiot should be able to name the little idiots whatever they want (as long as a text version of the name is possible) and yse I would even allow parents to name their kids after curse words. The parents would then get to suffer the humiliation as teachers and students deride the child for his / her name. If the parent hates their children enough to do that to them (Boy Named Sue, anyone?) then they should be able to.

Asside from finding a broken shower pipe that is flooding my walls last night which made me stay up till 4am poking around in the wall and fretting like crazy and making me shift my shedule back by 4 hours.....

I actually made my first bike commute to work. Of course it was at 11:30am and not 7am when it should be.

Weather:
It was windy (34 mph with gusts up to 45MPH ). Dammmm windy. Dangerous actually. But the temp was plesant (60s) and there was no precipitation.

Road Conditions:
Construction. The main road I drive (no bike) to head to work is under construction. That means lots of patched up road and that is not good for road bike tires / rims. I'll either have to take a full lane when riding there, or go somewhere else because there is no shoulder.

Traffic:
Light. Only one major stop light to wait at along with a dozen or so vehicles.

Physical Conditioning:
Sucking. Hard. And. Long. Of course I was fighting a bad wind, biking with ~20lbs of crap on the back, and for the second time in several years. But I still got elevated heart rate and broke a sweat (not like that is hard to do). Forgot to wear my gloves so hands were sore.

Over All Impression:
I'm a wimp. Driving is easier. More money would change this situation (ie not have to scrimp on the funds) but would probably just make me worry about money more. The more you have the more you have to loose.

Now if only I could get PAID to do this or get paid while doing this.....

1) Buy Bike
2) Sell Car
3) ???
4) PROFIT!

So we had some lucky guesses, some close guesses, and a nearly correct guess (except he was greedy and tried two answers in one).

Purchasing a bicycle is nothing ground shaking. What is, is that I will be selling my car (sniff sniff.... I love that car!) and moving my family to a one car household, and my wife keeps her car.

There are many reasons NOT to give up our current a 1:1 ratio of cars to people:

1) two different jobs
2) living in a large geographical area that is not bicycle friendly
3) second job requiring on site visits in my off hours time
4) the "late for work rush"
5) convenience
6) summer heat (Boise gets to 100+/- 5deg and stays there for weeks) that car is old style freon and works stronger than ANY vehicle I have ever been in. We recharged it the month before the ban in the US.
7) safety - bikes by themselves may be safe but any bicycle / motorcycle vs SUV crash is one sided)
8) spur of the moment errands
9) capacity.... few cars (excluding trucks here) have the capacity of an 88 LeSabre for being able to haul lots of stuff or people or both all while hitting 20MPG in city traffic.

But there are also many reasons to get rid of the second vehicle. Here are some:
1) Money - Car insurance - additional $200-300 every year.
2) Logistics - Low mile commute (less than 2 miles)
3) Money - Gas - $320 / year (again for a very low mileage commute) (~$80 / wuarter)
4) Health - Forced exercise (more on this in later journal)
5) Money - Car Repairs - at least $150-200 / year in bits and pieces averaged over time.
6) Logistics - Flat terrain (no hills between work & home)
7) Money - Vehicle Registration & Fees - ~$100 / yr in registration & emissions test
8) Sex appeal - ok..... so bike shorts don't quite count
9) Tradition - My wife's dad has ridden a bike to work for decades (of course he has worked at the same business for decades where as I have had 3 jobs in the last year, and 9 jobs in the last decade)
10) Social - Road Biking with the brother-in-law & pastor. Should be loads of fun.

Yes I mentioned money a lot. That is because money is a big concern. Especially when our mortgage is 40% of after-tax income and my per hour income after health care (bought on the open market through a PPO) is $13 / hr (excluding any actual spending on health care).

So of course I made a spreadsheet. It is costing me about $1.85 every day to fuel, repair, register, license, and insure my vehicle (an `88 LeSabre). This cost does not include the cost for my wife's car. This is just my costs (I even can tell who's credit card receipt for gas it is because she goes to Chevron and I go to Fred Meyer).

A bicycle has far more limited re-occurring costs. If I blow a tire tube every quarter $10 (not that crazy of an expectation) and buy gear every once and a while ($30 / quarter and that is a big expense account for just commuting and occasional road biking) I'll have a pretty realistic expectation lined up. After one year my expenses with a bike would be $1,130. Car would be $465.32. After two years the expense is $1,290 for the bike and $1,115 for the car. After three years the cost is $1,450 for the bike and $1,765 for the car.

So after 3 years, including startup expenses and assuming no major problems with the car then I will be ahead by switching to the bike. And assuming no major problems for the car is quite an assumption.

To that end, I bought a road bicycle yesterday. Visit the pictures section of my Multiply to see the rig. I bought a clearance bike at Bob's Bicycles Boise (Google to find it) that was initially ~$950 and has carbon fiber front fork and seat post. Nice shifters and lots of gears. Then I added on a rear rack to hold my change of clothes, a rack bag with side bags (and the metal frame to hold the side bags), a helmet (might return it cause I found my old one), pants (yes they are padded biking pants), a pump, and padded gloves (a must).

So in 3 weeks I'll be flushing my cars brakes (needed this for a while) checking lots of fluids and then putting it up for sale. Pretty much any income from the sale will push forward my break even deadline.

So there you have it. Not an insignificant change. Hopefully a change for the better financially and health wise. Now if only I could be paid to have made this change (more on this later).

I just made a pretty significant decision with my lifestyle. It cost me ~$970 but will save me $600 / yr assuming I stick with it. Stay tuned for more details.

jason

If I remember way back, I had a bad bout of allergy problems that started all of a sudden. Well I haven't talked about them, but the allergies still are there. In October, after blood testing results, I eliminated all wheat products from my diet. This hurts. I LIKE bread. I LIKE pasta. I LOVE rolls with lots of butter. I LOVE gravy smothering a good stew or mashed potatoes.

But in the interested if being able to open my eyes and not scratch my skin off entirely, I eliminated all wheat from foods I ate. But the problems remained. Random bouts of eyes swelling shut. Constant itching. Constant eczema on the order of the "medium" case pictured at the Wikipedia link.

So two weeks ago my wife and I re-read through the blood work to find some of the other allergens and exactly how intense each reaction was. It turns out that wheat was near the bottom and I had far worse reactions to two other very common substances. Eggs where the worst, followed by milk and then wheat.

So we took the all encompassing step of eliminating all of those foods from my diet. Nothing with eggs, milk, or wheat. Try eating out anywhere with those allergies. Even the gluten free menus at the larger chain restaurants won't help you there. Only the big ones seem to have caught on to the portion of the population that has such unnecessarily strict dietary requirements.

Of all the foods I will miss..... of all the foods I ate with reckless abandon..... of all the foods I combined with any other food as often as possible.... of all the foods that delighted my taste buds..... I will miss cheese the most.

What an amazing food. So much variety. So much nutrition. So many flavors. Exotic Greek feta. Soft Havarti. Crisp mozzarella. Spicy blended pepper jack. Smooth cream cheese. Tasty cottage cheese.

I will miss putting cheese on salads, chips, potatoes, sandwiches, bagels, crackers, burritos, and on and on. I used to go through a 32 oz baby loaf of cheese in just two weeks. R.I.P. poor cheese slicer. To the back of the kitchen implements drawer you go. May be one day science will find a way to provide my body with the ability to digest and enjoy the many flavours of cheese.

Jason

I have been studying the ethanol production process for quite a while because it is the subject of my first feature length / made for TV production. So naturally when I ran across a Slashdot Frontpage article about EtOH I was interested. Get the article from the source.

This is market economics at work. Here is the gist: The Fed takes our money in the form of taxes, and then gives out some of that money as subsidies to foster behavior / activities it wants to see. By it, I mean the massive government bureaucracy. Part of the problem with EtOH production is that the raw products needed are being taken from other production flows to satisfy this new demand. Nothing unusual there. The down side comes in that by offering the subsidies for a specific product, the government is effectively raising the cost of production for all other industries that need the same materials by not also providing them with free money. Very interesting in deed. Am I in favor of the subsidies? I don't know yet. I stand to profit from the growing EtOH trend through the production of my informative product (which isn't just a How-To but also include blueprints, part lists, yield calculators, and loads of other resources) but there are some issues with the industry. Give it a read.

Jason

From the front page of Slashdot.org

So remember that kind in high school that got all A's, went to Interlochen, and was on the chess team? Well he or she might also be the one that showed that in many cases it [Loop homology] is isomorphic to the Hochschild cohomology of the fundamental group, or who built their own mass spectrograph.

Reading through this list of the top winners is like reading through the unfortunately long list of toddlers that can kick your ass in a fist fight. That is to say, it is depressing. Wow.

Jason

Reason has a good article on C.L. "Butch" Otter, Idaho's mostly Libertarian, but still somewhat Republican governor who was elected this fall. In reading more about him, I find that his politics match fairly close with my own, except on a few social issues (but those are the same social issues I hold that contrast with most Libertarians).

The article provides a quick biography and personal history, including the infamous "tight jeans contest" and party that led to his DUI conviction.

Worth a read for anyone interested in learning about one of the more libertarian states in the Union.

Linked from here is an article in Reason Online talking about the basis for the recent federal appeals court reversal of the Washington D.C. gun ban.

I'll summarize a few points. Do I personally have the freedom to say what I want, ie freedom of speech? Yes. And what grants me that right? The US Constitution Amendment 1, says "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech" (first clause omitted because it is the freedom of religion clause). This gives me an individual right to the freedom of speech based on my inclusion into the group of all citizens that this applies to. Numerous case law has established this. I also have a personal freedom of religion, and the freedom to practice such, and I have that freedom as a result of my inclusion in the group of all citizens that this is granted to.

And so it follows for each and every amendment. The personal rights are granted as well as the group rights. What then gives gun ban proponents the indication that when the 2nd Amendment says "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." that it applies differently? That Amendment DOES provide supporting evidence for this clause when it says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," but that has not nullified the right granted in the second part.

If you have the time, the article is worth a quick read.

EDIT: BBC != Ch4. Fixed.

I bring you (via this alert reader) a very compelling piece of journalism & film by Channel 4 in the UK. The program interviews a lot of top scientists and draws some pretty scary conclusions. If you watched An Inconvenient Truth then you will will enjoy this presentation, but go there with an open mind because fundamental assumptions will be challenged. Just cozy up some time and watch it here or at the same reference in the above article.

I'll avoid any discussion in this journal because I don't want to taint any opinions before watching this film.

Jason

Did you know that according to the Tennessee Center (which dug up some utility records) Al Gore's personal mansion consumes 20 times the energy of the average American home, which according to Al Gore's own numbers, consumes more on average than other homes in the world. According to the article, "The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh--more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh--guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore's average monthly electric bill topped $1,359." That is $29,268 a year for those of you at home with out calculators.

So I did some searching, looking up the Davidson County Assessors office, looking up a certain owner named Albert Gore Jr, and noticed his parcel. I won't provide any direct links to any of those sites, but any reasonably smart monkey and Google can find the address and look up the property information. That "house" by the way, is a 10,010 ft^2 (finished, the unfinished area is 13,461 ft^2) mansion built in 1914.

This property contains 2.09 Acres of land mainly classified as RES with a(n) RY SING FAM style building, built about 1915 , having FRAME exterior and ASPHALT roof cover, with 1 unit(s), 20 total room(s), 5 total bedroom(s), 8 total bath(s), 2 total half bath(s), 0 total 3/4 bath(s). The Building Value $2,124,400; Land Value $897,000, and a Total Value $3,021,400

So Mr. The-Earth-Is-Burning-Up is running around complaining about MY energy use while consuming 20 times the average home AND while flying in a private jetliner and being driven to the airport in a motorcade of SUVs. I just did a quick look at my gas and electric bills. My gas usage for last month (the coldest of the month) was 78 therms, costing me $103. My electricity usage in August (most use of the air conditioner) is around $120 (cannot remember the amount of Kw used) but tapers off to $30 in the fall/winter/spring months.

My electric utilities are about as "green" as Gore's (80% of Idaho's power is generated from Hydro, probably near the same for Tenn. because of the extensive TVA system) and I run a total yearly utility cost of around $900 (rounded UP to nearest hundred dollars) which compared to Gore's yearly gas / electricity bill of $29,200 (rounded DOWN to nearest hundred dollars), I run a very green 3.08% of his home energy consumption.

To be fare, he has a (finished) 10,010 ft^2 nearly 100 year old mansion and I have a 15 year old 1250 ft^2 (finished) starter home (with a cheap 60% efficient forced air gas heater) (and brand new door seals I just put in) in the 'burbs. Lets look at consumption based on a per square foot basis to compare apples to apples. My home costs $0.72 per ft^2 per year to run and his costs $2.91 per ft^2 per year. That still means that Al Gore consumes 404% per ft^2 compared to me (or I consume 25% compared to him).

So don't try to scold me for being ecologically damaging. Despite the economic fallacy of recycling, I still do recycle most of the feasible items. Despite living in the suburbs I still carpool when possible and live =2 miles from my work. Despite being a white, male, socially conservative, economically libertarian, practicing big game hunter, evangelical Christian, and everything else Greenpeace / PETA / etc stand against... I am doing my part to live an ecologically sustainable lifestyle and bucking their stereotypes.

In fact, stay tuned to this journal / blog for news of two video productions I have in pre-production both about ecologically sound and (more importantly) economically sound