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For those of you concerned about your investments in this era of very low returns in the stock market, Jon Brusco has some sound advice on how to lose less money.

So last week we came up with the bright idea of heading up to Idaho on New Year’s Day so that we could check out my brother-in-law’s new sleds (note: “sled” == “snowmobile”). He bought four, and three are in working condition. Apparently, they are pretty fast. Anyway, I wanted to just drive up there in my Insight (Hey, there and back again on a single tank of gas isn’t bad), but Christy impressed upon me the necessity of taking all the children with me if I went. She’s eight months pregnant, having fairly regular contractions, and did not want to worry about delivering a child while three other children panicked around her.

Well, the idea was sound, except for the fact that it decided to blizzard on our way up there. Sixty mile per hour crosswinds. Five to fifteen feet of visibility. Horrible stuff. We made it as far as Pocatello (at least an hour later in our trip than usual) before we took a break because they’d closed the freeway.

The freeway remained closed.

We waited three hours, then gave up, turned around, and headed back home. There was some negotiation on the phone with the in-laws about taking back roads until the manager of the Subway we were hanging out at, who lives on the aforementioned back road we would have used, informed us that there were three-to-four foot snowdrifts on that road. Practically impassable.

The options at that point were to rent a room, wait it out, or head home. I decided to head home. Scary trip back, really — the snow hadn’t gotten shallower behind us — but within twenty miles after Malad Pass was behind us (two hours after leaving the Subway when it normally takes about forty-five minutes), the snow slacked off to rain, then to nothing but wind for the last two hours of our trip home.

Talk about a wasted day. A wasted tank of gas. It basically turned out to be a nine-hour round trip to go eat out at Subway. At least my low-carb Turkey & Bacon wrap was good.

I was grateful that Elijah slept much of the way up and back since he was up very late last night. He was downright cordial when he was awake, too — an unusual state for this nearly-two-year-old tornado. The other kids entertained themselves on my wife’s old Palm M500, and my current one, playing Bejeweled. We liked that game enough to buy it, it rocks, and our kids really enjoy playing it.

So anyway, here it is, over nine hours after leaving the house to try to make what’s usually a four-hour trip, back at home. That’s just a bummer. But it beats wrecking ourselves in the middle-of-nowhere Idaho wilderness.

John Olsen is a published author and mega-computer-geek, with a similarly geeky wife and wonderfully geeky children. He’s written hit computer games that have sold millions of copies. He’s the kind of geek other geeks look up to.

He enjoys over-engineered solutions to common household problems. The problem here: how do you set up an impressive display of timed fireworks using only commonly-available, Utah-legal fireworks? I mean, my family usually follows the tried-and-true approach of “set up three fountains, and try to get the last one lit before the first one burns your hand off”. Not John! To the right is his July 24th (Pioneer Day in Utah, a big celebration similar to Independence Day elsewhere in the U.S.) automated conflagration setup — and below, his setup for tonight’s festivities. Regarding this arrangement, John says, “last July 24th where I was going more for duration than intensity. This new one is relatively small in comparison. The box said to light one at a time, so I redefined one.”

What do you think? Could you do better?

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy and safe New Year’s Eve because remember tomorrow is the day you start your resolutions. Mine this year is to get over the flu. That is right, even though I had a flu shot, I am sick with the flu. I spent Friday night with my neighbor and her 3 year old son at the hospital because his fever was 105.4. Thanks Marshall for making me sick!!!!

Anyway, please be safe and talk to you next year!!

Here’s the latest on life, in summary form:

• Ditched Qwest wireless service in favor of Sprint. They are very nearly equivalent, but Sprint offers nationwide service without roaming if we want/need it, cooler phones, and data service. We’re getting a couple months of free “Vision” service, which will let us take pictures with the nifty phones we picked up, and transmit them to other phones or email addresses. Not sure if we’ll keep the Vision portion of the service (it’s an extra $30 between the two phones, ugh!) — I just liked the small, high-tech phones more than the stock old Nokia ones they offer for free.
• My new Honda Insight has been performing fairly well even in bitterly cold, snowy, iced-in weather. We had to get to the doctor’s office yesterday for my wife’s OB appointment. The snow was drifted up to two feet. We had a bit of a problem with traction going uphill after being stopped on an exit ramp when in a foot and a half of snow, but we got through it. I put on chains eventually (ugh, I don’t want to do that again soon), then found that most of the pavement was dry and I almost hit a guy trying to stop (anti-lock brakes + snow chains on dry or icy pavement = very LOOONG stops). I took the chains off, deflated the tires a bit, and was satisfied with the performance of the tires in snow/slush/ice at 38 PSI per corner. Time to buy snow tires, though, I think. These Bridgestone Potenza low-rolling-resistance tires feel a bit like Matchbox plastic wheels on the ice.
• My weight hit an all-time low this morning: 220.5 lbs! I have not been this weight since 1995; it feels good. Another twenty pounds, and I’ll be roughly around the weight (180-200 lbs) I fluctuated between in my early college days. Rather than a strict low-carb approach, I actually prefer to follow a “weighted average” of my weight, using the “Eat Watch” program created by John Walker as part of The Hacker’s Diet. I’ve found that, for me, the combination of low-carbing (following the Atkins recommendations for gradually increasing carb intake), plus watching the calories, has been very effective at helping me maintain a consistent 750-calorie deficit per day over the last two months. My goal is steady weight loss, not really fast weight loss. The problem I have with calories while on Atkins, really, is making sure I eat enough every day! If I don’t maintain at least 2000-2400 calories per day, my body kicks into famine mode, and the weight loss slows way, way down (I’m a six-footer that used to be six-foot-one before a car accident). So far I’ve been averaging around 2200-2400 kcal/day, as long as I track what I eat via FitDay. When I don’t track, it’s easy to not eat enough; I really want to avoid weight-loss stalls due to famine-mode metabolism. It does mean that I have to occasionally force myself to choke down some more filet mignon, or have a second or third helping of barbequed chicken, but that’s a burden I’m willing to bear.
• I start my new contracting job January 5. I’m excited and nervous. The most frustrating thing, though, is figuring out insurance… COBRA will cost us $612 a month. I’d rather have that money in our pockets and pay our expenses as we go, you know? Over a year, that would pay for a pretty major surgery. But if we go without insurance, and then I eventually get a job that provides insurance, that new insurance company will end up insisting many health problems are pre-existing conditions and deny coverage. Been there, done that, it’s terrifically obnoxious; even if a condition was undiagnosed, insurance companies like to call it “pre-existing” if it’s not an injury due to accident. The cheapest coverage we can find, independently, is Intermountain Health Care, at about $280 a month. Even that feels like highway robbery. I think we’re just going to do without — except Christy and the new baby, whom we’ll cover with COBRA through February to cover newborn health problems and pre/post-natal care. (Spending around $400 for the two of them for two months seems totally OK since that money will be basically sucking up around $2000 in hospital bills).

Ahh, life is grand!

I picked up the Indiana Jones Trilogy today with some Christmas money, and popped in Raiders for the first time in years, when I finally got to one of the scenes I know so well for its flaw. I am referring to the “well of souls” scene, where Indiana is surrounded by snakes, but you can clearly see that there is a pane of glass between the snakes and the actors. I looked intently for it.. but I never saw the glass. I backed up and looked again.. nothing.

Spielberg and lucas had digitally removed the glass.

Likewise, when I gave Matt a copy of “The Right Of Way”, he was inclined to use rematering software to make the tracks sound better.. and I harshly disagreed, claiming that the imperfections were part of the experience, and should be preserved.. “Remake the song if you don’t like that version, but don’t change it”, I said.

But, now, I have come across an old tape of MY old songs, and I am finding myself unsatisfied with listening to them as they are, but I think I could make the old recordings better.. Likewise, I have directed two amateur movies, and I feel the first one could be watchable with just a little work.

I also have been listening to the new verion of the album “Let It Be” by the Beatles, which is the ultimate re-revisionist history, because the “fixed up” tracks Phil Spector added a year after the recording have been taken away, and the original takes have been mixed with no effects behind them.

Its confusing, I want my pane of glass back, I want my old “Right Of Way”, I want “Greedo” to not shoot first (Star Wars)… but I also want MY things to be more impressive than they really were… so maybe, just maybe.. I can fool people into thinking I really.. musically.. did know then what I know now

Sorry to not post many interesting, insightful blog entries lately. We’re snowed into about two and a half feet of the white stuff, and I’m simply exhausted, mentally and physically, from all the snow shoveling.

All things considered, though, I’d rather shovel the snow myself than buy a snowblower. Snowblowers are expensive, take up a lot of garage space (which is in very short supply in our little townhouse), and only get used a few times per year. A snow shovel takes up much less space, and at over 400 calories burned per half-hour, although shoveling may be exhausting, it may well be one of the most calorie-intensive commonplace activities on the planet.

So now I’m shoveling my neighbor’s driveway, too!

We enjoyed a fabulous Christmas celebration with some good friends. We feasted on freshly-baked turkey, honey-glazed ham, fantastic sausage stuffing, breads, veggies, jello, and all the trimmings.

All the while watching the snow pile higher and deeper throughout Christmas day.

Yep, over the last eight hours we’ve gotten nearly a foot of snow, with much more to come, it looks like. The National Weather Service has this to say:

…NORTHERN WASATCH FRONT-SALT LAKE AND TOOELE VALLEYS- SOUTHERN WASATCH FRONT- 1000 PM MST THU DEC 25 2003

… HEAVY SNOW WARNING THROUGH FRIDAY…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WILL CONTINUE THE HEAVY SNOW WARNING FOR ALL OF THE WASATCH FRONT THROUGH FRIDAY. THIS INCLUDES THE AREAS FROM IDAHO BORDER SOUTH TO NEPHI… AS WELL AS THE TOOELE VALLEY.

SNOW… HEAVY AT TIMES… WILL CONTINUE THROUGH FRIDAY. STORM TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS THROUGH FRIDAY ARE EXPECTED TO RANGE FROM 5-12 INCHES NORTH OF SALT LAKE AND 6-14 INCHES TO THE SOUTH.

Merry Christmas to me! We planned on putting a humongous bow on my new Insight Christmas morning, but were precluded by snow on the car.

Now I guess I better reconsider my plan to not get those snow tires to replace my Potenzas for the next four months… then again, I don’t think the Insight can even get through more than 6 inches of snow due to low ground clearance!

In case you wonder about the ground clearance question, here’s a picture. This is on the lee of the house (the side away from the wind) so where the Insight is parked, with snow partially cleared off, is about four inches shallower than the rest of the snow past the house where our van is parked…

Here’s Salt Lake compared to the rest of the nation on Christmas Day, and my Insight around 1 AM after getting back from our Christmas party:

It wasn’t bad for our van to plow through the slush, but it will be interesting driving if this continues nicely through the winter as we hope it will (we badly need the water). Ahh, the fun! Too bad I won’t get to drive my baby for a day or two — except out of the driveway to shovel!

If you’ve got a Happy Holidays comment, leave it here! From me to everybody else, have a Happy Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, New Year, Winter Solstice, or whatever.

This year we told our kids the truth about Santa Claus — that we are Santa Claus, but we enjoy pretending such a being exists. When asked an honest question, I gave an honest answer 🙂 They were mildly curious about it, and kind of get a kick out of the idea that there wasn’t some magical man in a red suit that brought them presents. They asked us if they could help put the unwrapped “Santa Gifts” under the tree this year, since they already know, but we drew the line at spoiling the surprise that way…

I occasionaly browse through a website called Slickdeals. They list discount prices and sales that the manufacturers don’t advertise normally. For instance, a while back i found the extended version of LOR two towers for $19. There is a sale going on now for a Xbox Bundle w/ 4 Games (Star Wars Clone Wars,Tetris Worlds, Jet Set Radio, Sega GT 2002) for $180. What makes this deal sweet is if you enter the coupon code of SHIP1DAY, you get free overnight shipping. I thought it was too sweet of a deal to not share.

The site is pretty nice for getting good deals on Computer memory and HW as well.

Hope Everyone has a Great Holiday & A Happy 2004 !

~Jon~