Money or Love...I just can't win

As usual my dating life has hit a rough patch. And again I find myself confused. Fortunately, Ben Stein explained this thing called love earlier this week in terms I can understand. But, reading Steins article made me realize my dating problems are the same as my money problems. Namely, I am afraid of taking any risk. I want all my investments to come with a 8% return guaranteed, oh, and if you could give me a sucker when I come to check on my account I like that too, thanks. I like looking at my bank account to see all my money carefully stowed away where it is making next to nothing in interest, but hey, at least I'm not losing my shirt on Exon stock. Oh, wait...I'm doing that too, but that is beside the point. Everyday I look at my favorite stocks, and I think about what might have been (if only I would have bought a few shares last month!). Meanwhile Mrs. Perfect (ie. Mrs. Gee) just slipped through my fingers. I guess if I keep up this trend my love life will end up very similar to my bank account...empty.

$55.82

Yesterday I filled my car up, but unlike most Americans I was quite cheerful about doing it. No, it wasn't for the same reasons that Joel Stein mentioned earlier this week. It was because I was filling up for the first time in 30 days. Now had I not changed my old driving habits I would have spent around $150 dollars on gas last month. So with everyone trying to get that gas to last for an extra mile I thought I would share a few of my tips.

1. Bike--now this came at a steep price for me. I bike to work three times a week which means I lose an hour of sleep and about 30 to 45 minutes of leisure time in the afternoon, but on the bright side I no longer look like a beached whale.

2. Drive slow--everyone already made fun of me for driving too slow, but since driving 55 on mopac is still way faster than biking I decided to do it occasionally. The result was instead of getting the usual 27 mpg I got 29.

3. Go on Dates....and have them come to you--sadly, even though this was a huge success for me, all good things have to end. But, last month I had 4 dates where the girl came to my appartment. This not only saved money on eating out (the combined cost of all 4 dates is in the ball park of $6), but I didn't have to use any gas! The sad part is I am already feeling the retailiation, it could be a long time before I get to do that again.

4. Go to your friends family reunion--Once you get over the awkwardness of not knowing anyone you realize how much free food your getting, and since you are in Mississippi you can't use your car all weekend.

But the biggest thing is to have a lot of friends who give you rides all over town. And although I realize once they read this post they won't be offering to give me rides anymore, I would like to thank: Andrew, Abinadi, Stephanie, Denny, Julie, Vivian, and anyone else who has given a lift to this vagabond.

Bell Curve

Coolest swimming photo I have ever seen...Can't wait for the games to start!

100 mile club

Today as riders complete their 100 mile ride for the day, I will be finishing my 100 mile ride for the week! Yes, I will be accepting cookies to celebrate the accomplishment. thank you for offering.

Bringing back the yellow jersey

5 years ago in homage to Lance Armstrong winning the Yellow Jersey I crocheted a yellow sweater vest. Now when you crochet something like a yellow jersey (or sweater vest) it symbolizes more then the fact that you want to be able to stay warm through the cold texas summers, but it shows that you are constantly on the lookout for greatness. In the past I have given each of my roommates the opportunity to wear the vest if they had obtained a significant level of said greatness. Sadly in the past few years the vest has been religated to ugly sweater contest, not for lack of greatness on the part of my roommates, but for lack of taking the effor to recognize the greatness of the office employees. This year however, the Tour de France is really speaking to me. And it is time to honor one of the office employees. So keep on the lookout to see if it will be Abinadi for his amazing web 2.0 skills, Andrew for his lady killing skills, Russell for getting sweet deals on furniture skills, or me for being, well, plain amazing.

Lake Michigan is going to disappear!

NPR pulled out their Paul R. Ehrlich techniques on Morning Edition by mentioning the water in Lake Michigan was a "non-renewable" resource. And if action wasn't taken it, and all of the other great lakes, would soon be dry. And they have a point, I mean if water is non-renewable it is just a short matter of time before all the water is gone. Fortunately the only thing at risk of drying out is NPR's credibility.

Jetzt gehts los!

Deutschland 3 Turkei 2.

Becoming one of the nerds

Last week I read my friend Jesse's blog to find out he had something in common with Dwight Schreut...He loves Battlestar Galactica. It made me chuckle, "oh, Jesse falling for another bad TV show". Then later in the week my roommate Abinadi was watching it too! Now Abinadi is a sucker for all sorts of TV shows (Scrubs, Bones, House, Grey's Anatomy...well ok, I don't think he actually watches Grey's, but you get the idea). But on Saturday while I was sitting down in an attempt to read some more of Ayn Rand, I found myself catching a little peak of the show every now and then, but before I knew what happened it was 2AM and we were half way through season 3. I realize this is not what one would consider great television, but wow...I'm hooked.
And Dwight isn't the only nerd who I have a common interest with, I cracked up this morning when I found out Greg Mankiw also likes Vampire Weekend!

Speaking of things I'm addicted to here are a few songs I have listened to about 3,785 times in the past week.
Flobots
Paul Simon (I think I've watched the whole Central park concert about 47 times...it's just sooo good)
Pretenders (The original was good...but this is even better)
Okkervil River (My favorite songs aren't on youtube, but I'm obsessed with all of their music)
New Pornographers (My new favorite band...I can't stop listening)

Boom, Blam and Blanton

the Blanton is free every thursday. So if you want to be cool like this guy check it out.

The World has a new ruler

After nearly 2 months of a long (and often stagnant) Risk game. I can say I finally came out the victor. My victory was mostly due to people giving up, and feeling sorry for me when I only had one country...which is exactly what I expect to happen tonight when I get together with some friends to take over the world.

Bye Big Tim

Like every one else I was shocked when I heard that Tim Russert had passed away Friday. Really there aren't any journalist like him. My roommate Abinadi summed it up best when I asked him, after watching one of the democratic debates, who he thought had won. "Tim Russert" he replied, which I think was typically the case of any debate were he was the mediator.
Now had you asked me last week who my favorite journalist was, I would have said "John Stossel" without a moments hesitation. I grew up watching stossel on 20/20...It came on right after TGIF. His bits were always the highlight of the show (takes a lot to compete with Urkel and boy meets world). When I read his book Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity I told all of my friends about it. I loved it. But, when it comes down to it I have to admit Stossel really can't hold a candle to Russert. Now Stossel has found frauds and crooksters all over the country (typically the crook ends up being uncle Sam). But, when it comes to being an unbiased interviewer he is no Russert, he proved that last year when he interviewed Ron Paul. Stossel's interview actually wasn't aired on TV. Although you could find it posted all over the internet by angry Ron Paul supporters, using it as proof that the "main stream media" wanted to keep Ron Paul out of the race. At first I thought the interview was great, but the more I watched the more painful it became. It was like watching a father pitch baseballs to his son who he is afraid won't be able to hit...he starts off throwing slow underhand pitches, and if he can't hit those out of the park he just holds the ball and lets his son hit it right out of his hand. It became almost sickening to see Stossel try to come up with easier and easier questions for Paul to knock out of the park.
When Ron Paul went on Meet the Press, Tee-ball was over, this was the big league. Russert threw everything he had at him. It was by far the hardest interview I saw with Ron Paul. Tim knew all of the facts, he knew all of the hard questions, and unlike so many other "tough" interviewers he gave Ron a chance to answer his questions. I found out a lot about Ron Paul in Russert's interview, it became clear that he is no where near perfect, and showed where the holes in his campaign. Where as after watching Stossel's interview I felt as though I had been watching a 30 minute TV ad.
So for all the people who don't just say what they want you to hear, but work hard just to get at the truth...we will miss you Tim.

The Clark Kentization of Gavin Gee

Last week I joined the elite group of mild mannered super heroes hiding their true identities by wearing a pair of think spectacles on the tip of their nose. No longer do I have to live the stressful and high profile life of the bare foot bandit. Several innocent civilians have mistaken me for a professor, so I may start using that as my cover. I will help unsuspecting kids solve thermodynamic problems by day and by night I will save the trees by throwing the recycling bins into the dumpster...the barefoot bandit strikes again!

Save the cows, eat more beef

The other day I threw away a stack of paper. Someone near by suggested I recycle it. "No thanks, I don't recycle" was my reply. She was shocked others in the room seemed to be panicking, perhaps they were looking for a child so they could cover their ears. A few people in the room nervously laughed and asked if I was kidding. No one could believe that I would not recycle. But it is true I don't (at least I don't recycle paper). Ever since captain planet swooped down and saved the universe our country has been on the recycling ban wagon. Anyone who isn't on said bandwagon, by nature must be evil and therefore should be shunned.

So before you commence your shunning of me for the next 7 years. Let me explain why I don't recycle, and if you are a tree hugging hippie then you shouldn't either.

Imagine for a minute it is possible to recycle cows or meat (yeah, I know it's disgusting, but just imagine). You would be able to eat a steak and then by recycling you could get 2/3 of the steak back to make another stake. Now assuming everyone doesn't instantly loose their appetite this would seem like a victory for the cows after the steak had been recycled until there was nothing left you would get 3 steaks for every original steak. That means you would be "saving" the life of 2 cows for every cow killed. But, in reality we would be killing off the cows. Cattle ranchers would quickly cut the size of their ranches as the demand for cows would decrease. In fact the cow population would decrease by 2/3.

The same argument follows for trees if we are able to reduce the amount of trees we cut down by 2/3 then it won't be long before we have 2/3 fewer trees. Paper companies will have less incentive to replace cut down trees because the demand for new trees will decrease. By not recycling you are actually increasing the demand for trees so trees become more valuable and therefore more people will want to grow trees. If you want to save the trees start throwing that paper in the garbage.

Next time you get that warm fuzzy feeling after saving a stack full of paper from the evil garbage can just keep in mind that you are NOT saving any tree, the only thing your helping is your environmentalist ego.

Why small cars don't scare me

After my last post several people mentioned that even if you drive more carefully and are less likely to get in an accident while driving a small car, you are definitely more likely to die when you do get in a wreck. This statement is true, but it hasn't changed my opinion of small cars. The problem is many people feel if they aren't in the biggest car on the rode then they aren't safe, so hence the reason cars just keep getting bigger. But the real reason I'm not scared of getting a smart car when people say I'll get crushed is because I a smart car is far more protection then I have on my bike. Because I know anytime a bike and a car fight, the car is going to win. Just this week in Mexico we were reminded of how bikers are really putting their lives in the hands of the drivers on the road.
Fortunately I haven't had any crashes as severe as this one, but it shows how defenseless bikers are against cars. So of course it would be much more safe to start driving around in a big hummer, SUV or the Oscar Mayer Wiener car. But, I like to think I can trust my fellow drivers enough not to run me over. So please next time you see me riding down the road feel free to give me plenty of space, because regardless of what you might think, I don't want to play chicken.

One for the Little Guys

Sitting on a subway in Stuttgart Germany I saw a smart car for the first time. I remember turning to the group of missionaries I was with and telling them how cool I thought it was.
"That little thing, I would totally run that over with my Dodge Ram if we were back in the states."
"I would love to get in an accident with you while I'm driving my dad's hummer."
"If I ever see your smart car in a parking lot I'm going to pick it up and throw it in the back of my truck."
I was starting to believe American's had grown up out of that phase though when I was looking for a new car about 2 years ago. I mentioned to several people I wanted to get a SMART car, this was just a wish since the car still wasn't available in America. I was shocked at the response. Without fail every response was nearly the same. "Your going to get killed." "Your first wreck is going to be your last." "I'd like to see what's left of that thing when you run into a SUV."
From their responses I began to wonder how many of my friends expected me to be driving through monster truck rallys on my way home from work. Having friends that plan on getting in so many wrecks is a little disconcerting considering how often I ride with them. Although I will admit the thought of someone picking up my car and putting it in the back of their truck is really funny. But personally I hate being in a big car, the smaller the better. Of course the only problem is--as I quickly found out while speaking to friends--everyone else likes to drive big cars. Which wouldn't be so bad but the people in those huge elephants appear to be the same people who think Mopac was intended to be a demolition derby. I was beginning to think there was no hope for the little guys on the road.
Until this summer, when an unexpected hero came to save the day. Who was our Knight in shinning armor...High Gas Prices! Suddenly driving the big trucks is becoming less and less appealing, and yesterday one of the friends who said I was going to be crushed by an oncoming Hummer just bought a Yaris. So while the rest of the country is complaining about outrageous gas prices I'm going to thank our quiet hero and encourage him to keep on climbing.

*Addendum: Actually large cars have contributed to turning our highways to into the bumper car range. Drivers who feel more safe driving are more likely to get in an accident. So driving a small car will actually decrease the chance of your getting in an accident. Although if we really wanted safe roads several economist have said installing a knife into the steering wheel pointed at the heart of the driver would decrease the number of accidents dramatically.

**Someone commented after seeing this post that I am another crazy environmentalist. To be clear I share the same view about environmentalist as Steven Landsburg.