Motivational Posters: Teacher Edition

With South Dakota passing a bill to allow teachers to be armed, my supermodel wife was willing to pose for another round of photos.

We home school our kids, and they are surrounded by a wide array of armament at all times of the day.  Most of it intellectual, but there is some metallurgical stuff too!

Trust, that is what allowing people to be armed is about.  Why would you trust a police officer any more than you would a teacher?  More than likely, your child will have very few interactions with a police officer in his/her life.

There are all sorts of subjects that can be taught with a firearms theme.

Educate the children.  There is nothing better you can do.

And just to whet your appetite, I got Russian Origami shirt (from Linoge) for my wife and she has consented to photos of that as well.  I just need to think of some clever phrases (I'm willing to take suggestions).

Death of the Cannon

In 2009, I built myself a cannon.  You can read about it here, here, and here.  Over the last three years, it has brought much joy to people.  It was used at a family reunion, to celebrate holidays, and just for fun in the backyard with friends.  The cannon was first shot off on January 1, 2010.  It had its final shot on December 31, 2012.  Three years of black powder goodness.

I was down at my brother's place, and we had decided to make some potato guns to entertain the kids.  We used some PVC left over from construction of his house and the remainder of my other cannon that I had never finished.  After about 30 minutes of work we had a 3" shooter and a 2" shooter.  Later that afternoon, we took the kids (age 5 to 13) out to fire off some spuds.

THWUMPF! That is the sound of igniting hairspray as the best of Idaho's soil goes sailing through the air, landing 200 yards away.  THWUMPF! THWUMPF! THWUMPF!

One bottle of hairspray and a 5 lb sack of potatoes is a lot of fun.  The kids were practically beating each other up for a turn to press the trigger.

On New Year's Eve we planned a big night of exploding goodness.  It started with a trip to the grocery store, oranges would fit, along with another sack of potatoes.  To stay with the vegetable theme, for the cannon I selected a large onion, a grapefruit, and something from the lettuce family.

Then it rained that afternoon.  By evening it was still drizzly.  We decided to do it anyway, blowing stuff up at night to celebrate the new year is a time honored tradition in America that a little precipitation is not going to get in the way of.

So, we started with some stuffed animals.  The cannon performed beautifully as usual and the kids were pleased to ring in the New Year.  Then the rain started more, things were getting wet and icy (it had snowed earlier in the day).  So, I decided one more shot, the lettcue thing.  I loaded up 6 tablespoons of blackpowder, stuffed in the wadding, and then the lettuce.  It fit snugly, but not quite as snug as the stuffed animals do.

In conjunction, my brother and I decided to light off the spud guns at the same time.  Did you know that the explosion in a spud gun is bright enough to cause the gun to glow? It is a great sight at night (although slightly ennerving at first when you realize that this is about 3/16" to 1/4" of white plastic that is glowing momentarily).  Everything was loaded up, and I lit the fuse on the cannon.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ... KA-BOOOOOM!

The sound reverberated off of the hills and sounded only slighly quieter but much deeper than a shotgun blast. The blast had knocked the cannon backwards and it skidded along the ground until it hit the deck.  It was pouring down rain now, so I left the cannon out until the next morning and just grabbed my explosion tool box.

The next morning when I went out to retrieve the cannon, I found this:

That final blast had literally blown the end off of the cannon.  It wasn't that there was too large of a charge, I had put up to 8 tablespoons of powder in it before. But in retrospection, there were three possible contributing factors.

1) The angle at which the cannon was aimed. Since I am using this for enjoyment of friends and family, I like to have a nice arcing shot (more like a mortar than howitzer), I I usually set up the cannon at a 60-70 degree angle.  This allows the ground to be used as a backstop and absorb much of the recoil.  Since the cannon was seen skidding across the ground after the shot, it is entirely possible that I had a shallower angle, which would mean that the recoil forces could send the cannon flying backwards.

2) The cold weather might have made the material brittle.  I had set up the cannon earlier in the afternoon, so by the time we were shooting it, it was probably at 20- 30 degrees.  The break was a clean circumferential break, it didn't shatter, so that is telling me that the force of the combustion chamber acting backwards caused the break.  If the combustion chamber couldn't contain the pressure, then I would expect the whole thing to blow up, or at least have evidence of shattering the PVC shell.  There was no evidence that this happened.

3) The lettuce probably had way more friction than a teddy bear.  Plush stuffed animals with their cotton/nylon fur glide out of the tube.  Lettuce leaves tend to grip the sides and only move on brute force.  I know this from ramming stuffed animals down the tube.  Once I get them moving, as long as I apply pressure, they continue to move (i.e. I just have to overcome starting friction).  When putting the lettuce in, there was comparatively less force required, but each push only moved it down the barrel a little ways.

Of course, it may have been the deck that arrested the movement which ultimately caused the cannon to fail.  But, that is life.  On to my next adventure.

Making Bread

I like to make bread.  I wouldn't say I am very good at it, I just follow the recipe. Fresh bread from the oven is addicting.  I have been known to wolf down half a loaf smothered in honey.  And there are very few breads I have come across that I don't like.

Currently, I am trying to grow a good sour dough starter.  A week ago, it was just flour and water with a pinch of sugar.  It smells nice, so I'll use part of it this evening to make some sour dough English muffins.  But from everything I have read, it takes several weeks for a sour dough starter to get really good.  And you have to feed it every other day, which means I need to make something at least once a week. Guess the kids will like that!

I also like flatbreads.  I haven't been very successful getting pita to have the pocket on the inside, but even just pieces of it taste good with hummus.  When my family lived in New York we couldn't find good tortillas (they all tasted like cardboard), so for Christmas (or Mother's Day) I bought a tortilla press.  That made some good tortillas.

I have used a bread machine, but I really don't like the output from them.  For a while, we would use the bread machine just to mix the dough.  But, it can only mix one loaf.  So our bread machine has sat in our cabinet for a couple of years, untouched.  Perhaps its time to get rid of it...

How Many Computer Operating Systems are in Your Home?

I often point out to my kids how lucky they are.  I didn't have a computer in my home until I was about 8 years old, an Apple IIc.  My Dad would bring the portable computer from work home on occasion and we were able to play a Centipede like game.  But that thing was as big as a suitcase.  The Apple IIc was sleek, it had a 10" monitor (although some of my friends had a monitor up to 13") and we could play games like Oregon Trail and Loderunner.  Oh yeah, and we could keep track of our allowance and write school reports.  It was awesome!

Fast forward to today.  I have probably gone through a dozen computers in my life.  Currently (considering computers, laptops, and tablets) there are 6 working computers in my home all far more powerful than that Apple IIc was. Can you imagine telling Isaac Asimov in 1960 that 50 years from then, multiple computers in homes would be common?  He would laugh at you as if you were talking poppycock (I had a book about the using the slide rule that he wrote where he specifically states that there would never be computers in people's homes and that was one of the reasons to learn to use the slide rule).

Currently, three of my machines run Windows 7, one runs Windows XP, one runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich, and one runs Android Honeycomb. Four different operating systems.  But I have had more there was one time for about 6 months that I had 6 different operating systems in my home. That can get confusing as to where everything is.

Fireworks Safety in Iowa

Iowa is sort of a funny state when it comes to fireworks.  They only allow sparklers and snakes.  Now, snakes are completely worthless, but by restricting us to only sparklers, there is a limited market so you can buy 36 sparklers for about $3 every 4th of July.  It is a good thing that the people of Missouri have recognized this and have fireworks warehouses at the border on every highway coming out of Iowa. (I've noticed that Indiana does the same favor for Illinois.)

So, to give you an idea, this is considered safe by the State of Iowa:

That would be a 3 year old holding a sparkler which is burning at 1800 degrees about two feet away from her body. While, on the other hand, the below picture would be unsafe and therefore illegal to do in Iowa:

Those would be 3 fountains shooting the same 1800 degree sparks 5-10 feet in the air.  Notice that there are no children within 2 feet of the sparks (in fact they are at least 10-15 feet away). Now inspite of the illegal nature, on the 4th of July you can hear fireworks going off all over the city and throughout the county.  So if there is going to be no enforcement of the law, why bother with it?

One of the most interesting things about sparklers, is that you can make them into almost any other firework with a little ingenuity.  Bottle rockets, roman candles, fountains, even mortars.  Sure, you may not have all of the fancy colors, but it is all right there for you.  Good thing that Missouri sells sparklers for 50/ $1!

Sparklers by far are probably the most dangerous fireworks when it comes to children and injuries.  My guess is that they account for 90-95% of all injuries related to fireworks.  That doesn't mean that I am for banning them (certainly not anymore than I am for banning marshmallow roasting), but I am for some modicum of common sense in our laws and regulations.

Motivational Posters - Pregnant Wife Edition

Well, my wife hasn't been in the spotlight in a while, and while the pictures to create these are a few years old now, the inspiration from them is timeless.  First, while I recognize that there are people on both sides of the IWB or OWB debate, this one might be a little more controversial.

In the late 90s and early 00s, cell phones were getting skinnier.  Since we don't have one and everything had a cell phone pocket, I thought up a new use for them.

Be sure to come back for more, I'll need to get my wife set up for another photo shoot!

A Housewife with Some Sense on Guns

This is my cousin-in-law (is that really a thing?):

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fprepared-housewives.com%2F2013%2F01%2F17%2Fend-the-violence%2F&h=MAQF45VM7

Great sense of humor!

Homeschool Help

My Oldest Son is doing a graph for school and needs your input. Please answer the following question in the comments so he can gather some data:

What is your favorite movie?
A. Star Wars
B. Indiana Jones
C. Shrek
D. High School Musical

(Please choose your favorite from the four options given. Remember, this is from the mind of an early elementary kid, so please keep it clean. Thanks!)

Rest In Peace Rosemary

I found out this afternoon that my friend Rosemary passed away this morning after being diagnosed with cancer six months ago. I met her a little more than three years ago. Two years ago I began to help her and her husband rebuild their home which had been flooded. She was involved in her church, in the community, and raised a great family.

Last year, I took her shooting for the first time in her life at the age of 75. She was about 5' 2" and weighed maybe 110 pounds with all of her winter clothes on. While others were starting off with a .22 LR, she picked up the 9mm and asked how to load it. And then continued to shoot it after commenting that "That kicks a little." She continued on and tried out the AK-47, the SKS, the Saiga-12, and the Mosin-Nagant. Her comment at the end, "That was fun, I'd like to do it again."

Unfortunately, we didn't get the chance to go shooting again together. Perhaps John Moses, Jonathan, Samuel, Eliphalet, Oliver, Horace, Daniel, Edmund, Theodor, Sergei, John, Samuel, John, Richard, Nikolay, Sergei, Fedor, Christian, Hiram, Benjamin, Paul, Wilhelm, David or Leon will invite you to go shooting with them.

I'm the Technological Neanderthal??!!!

The newest iPhone came out and guess what? I didn't get one. Not only that, I have no desire to get one, ever. I didn't get an iPad or an iPod. (alright I admit, I am only mentioning them to increase my Google relevance score). Recently, I was accused of being a technological neanderthal because I don't have a cellphone (to set the record straight, I do have a Tracphone, it just hasn't been used in more than a year). I thought this accusation was rather humorous.

I have more computing power in my home than my parents and all siblings combined. I was the first in my family to have a DVD player and a portable DVD player. I had a Palm Pilot for many years. I was the first with a webcam in my family and helped facilitate video conferences with the family.

I use MagicJack to make free calls when I am overseas. I am the one my father would call for technical support (until he got a Mac - sorry, I like my cheap computers that I know there is software for, and I don't think Microsoft is the devil incarnate - besides if you want to look at unfair business practices, you don't have to look any further than Apple, they just weren't the biggest fish on the block until recently so expect a lawsuit against them in the next couple of years - but I digress). I pride myself on being able to read a map and not having to rely on a GPS unit to find my way around different cites or even foreign countries.

I helped my wife make the conversion to digital scrapbooking. I have designed database driven websites (that make money) and taught myself PHP, Perl, and MySQL. I have had high speed internet at my home for almost 10 years.

Yet somehow, I am a technological neanderthal because I don't have a cellphone.

Sometimes Mother's are Wrong

We all love our mothers. And our mothers love us. Sometimes though, mothers are wrong. Joran is no choir boy. He is a liar and all the evidence is pointing to being a murderer as well. Its OK, just because your son turns out to be a rotten human does not mean that you are a rotten human. I won't even say your a bad parent. Part of being human is we each get to make our own choices in spite of how our parents may have tried to mess with our minds (mine limited it to cereal rules).

Lawnmower Problems

With all of the rain lately, I decided to try and take advantage of a small window of opportunity when it wasn't raining and get the lawn mowed before I lose any kids in the grass. My philosophy on push lawnmowers (and lots of small engine equipment) is that their cost is so little relative to my earnings that I will fill it with gas when it stops and fill it with oil just before it seizes up and then basically do nothing.

I don't drain the fluids before winter. I don't sharpen blades every year. I certainly don't change the oil. I did have a riding lawnmower once when I had a half acre to mow. It came with the house and was about 30 years old. It would run out of oil about once a season and semi-seize up. I would put a quart or two in it and then wait an hour for it to cool down some, and it kept on working.

Small engines are designed to take the abuse of the casual home owner. Last year I didn't mow the lawn at all (my wife did it all), this year I have noticed that the lawnmower wasn't running real smooth. Choppy, changing speeds, although right before it ran out of gas it would rev up to its normal operating speed (and then promptly die).

So, halfway through the yard I ran out of gas. Got the gas can (which has gas that is probably 1-1/2 years old and didn't have the fuel stabilizer put in it last winter), and filled it up. Normally, the lawnmower starts on a single pull. But, this time, I could get it to sputter a bit and then it would poop out again. After several minutes it was time to get some tools out and check the thing out.

First thing I did was check out the air filter. The air filter is nothing more than a sponge with a hole in it. At the intake holes it was cakes with oily grass clippings. Well, that could be a problem. The lack of air would definitely affect the engine causing it to run rich for the amount of air (explaining the sluggishness), and then working fine at the end of the tank when it was just sucking a few fumes (and getting the fuel-air mixture just right).

So, I took it inside and cleaned it with some dish soap (dish soap is good for oil - they use it to clean off animals from oil spills - or at least that is what the Dawn commercials say). While the filter was off, I decided to check to make sure that gas was spraying through the carbeurator. A couple pumps on the primer and a nice stream of gas was spraying. So, I attempted to start the engine with the air filter off. No luck, it was doing the same thing as before.

So, the next thing to do was pull the spark plug. Sure enough, it was caked with carbon deposits. One of the problems with a engine constantly running a rich mixture is some of the fuel is left on the spark plug and chamber walls. This gets hot enough to smolder, but doesn't make a clean burn. Instead, it coats the surfaces with a black carbon deposit. Eventually, this gets thick enough that the spark won't happen, hence the engine won't sustain itself.

Some wiping off with a rag and a file to clean up the sparking surfaces and I was ready to go. Put it all back together and the lawnmower started on the second pull. I let it run for a while to be sure it didn't die. So, the next time I am at Lowe's I'll probably pick up a new air filter and a spark plug. After all, I have had the lawnmower for three years and I haven't done any maintenance on it until today.

Ebay: Scrapbook Supplies

Sometimes my eBay sales end up being good blog material (either that or I just like to plagiarize myself to get me traffic). This is an item I posted tonight.

SCRAPBOOKING SUPPLY EXTRAVAGANZA I really like the word extravaganza. In any case, I finally had enough of my wife spending hours and hours scrapbooking and chatting it up with all of her friends, so after sending her to the spa for a day I went into the craft room and gathered up all of the scrapbook supplies that I could find and now I am selling the whole lot on eBay! Click on any of the pictures for a larger image. Hurry and bid now before she gets home and strangles me.***

Here's the merchandise: It begins with this handy dandy tote bag. This black nylon bag was specially designed for scrapbookers, it has large pockets, plenty of pen holders, and a collapsible handle (like airline luggage) that you can use to roll it around where you need too. Wheels are still working. The snap clasps on the top are broken although one partial connects together. Bags like this range from $40-$100 new.

Next, we have not one, not two, not three, but SIX stamp sets. Some of these (perhaps all of them) are Close to My Heart wooden base with rubber stamps. Plus I have thrown in some odds and ends. There is an alphabet set, a short saying set, a holiday set, a baby/kid/I don't know what else set, a flower set, and a hearts set. What more could you ask for??? All sets look complete (although if there is something out of the ordinary, then my wife switched something around). My wife tells me that sets like these are about $20 new.

Next up is the five hole punches. Not just any hole punches these are the one's that make fancy holes. Squares, curves, and something else. These things feel like they are made of cast iron, and I bet if your fingers were thin enough to slip in there you could punch a fun shape through your hand (not that I would advocate it, although your husband may want to do it if you are addicted to scrapbooking). These go for $5 to $10 at the scrapbooking stores (I think, I could just be making that up).

At this point, most people would be saying, this is enough, how could you provide anything else. Well, this is the deal everyone has been waiting for. Next up are some lovely markers. They are in a variety of colors and have both a fine tip and a broad tip. You'll be able to write and decorate to your hearts content (at least until the ink runs out).

There is also a handy dandy tool set. It is a Making Memories brand and comes with all the tools you need to attach notions and other goodies to your scrapbook pages. There is a hammer, pliers, punches, and picks. The setting matte has seenlots of use and is still going strong. These tools are not flimsy and the set feels like it weighs 2 pounds. If you get tired of scrapbooking you could probably convert this tool set to leather working. Also, there are some metal book mounts (?). I have no idea what these are and my wife isn't here to tell me, but the package is unopened.

And since you have the tool set, you need an assortment of notions to go with it (isn't notions such a funny word!). I literally have no clue what these things are or how you are suppose to use them, but why not get them here at a discount.

We're not done yet. This prize package also includes a Xyron Sticker Maker. Put anything that is 2.5” wide, turn the handle and out comes a sticker. Try it on movie tickets, try it on a business card, try it on a squashed cockroach (or just put the cockroach through to squash it). With this bad boy you can make a sticker out of most anything!!! My wife says that the cartridge is new so this is good to go right out of the box!!! (I know the picture is sideways, I am just too lazy to rotate it).

Finally, there is the sticker carrying case with 12 x 12 sheet protectors for all of your paper, scraps, and sticker needs. Keep your stickers organized and ready to go. As an added bonus (not really, but just pretend that it is) 17 of the pages are already filled with stickers. There are letters, there is Disney, there is Thomas, there is theme pages, there are borders, there are churchy things, there are random bits of wisdom. In a nutshell, there is a whole smattering of everything. Most of the sheets of stickers have some missing, but there are some complete sets in here. The case zips closed so if the stickers do fall out of the page protectors you can keep the resulting mess contained.

There are also some other odds and ends that I included that really aren't worth mentioning. I have no idea how much all of this would cost if you had to buy it new. $200, $300, $5000, maybe even $100,000 (I'll admit I didn't go through everything so there is a small, although very unlikely, possibility that a stack of $100 bills made its way into the bag when I wasn't looking – there also may be some rare gold coins, but I doubt it – I guarantee there are no small mammals or citrus plants). I don't scrapbook so I don't know. It is about 30 lbs of stuff.

We'll start the bidding at $0.01. Bid on it for you sister, bid on it for your mother, big on it for your crafty brother-in-law. Just start the bidding! All this can be yours, if the PRICE IS RIGHT (well, actually if you are the highest bidder then you win it all). ***For those of you who didn't get the humorous quip, my wife has actually converted over to digital scrapbooking and so she doesn't need all of these supplies. She culled them out herself and I took the pictures and wrote the ad. So please, no nasty emails, my wife and I love each other.

Sugar Cereals and Other Parental Inanities

We had a rule when it came to breakfast cereals when I was growing up. Only three boxes of cereal were allowed to be open at one time, only one of which could be a sugar cereal. The three boxes of cereal I can understand, its to keep the cereal from going stale. The one sugar cereal I kinda get, you don't want to encourage your kids to always be eating sweets, but then again, we would have donuts for breakfast about once a month, and there is no way you can convince me (except when I am trying to convince my wife) that donuts are healthy.


Another completely irrational cereal rule was that we could put one spoonful of sugar on a non-sugar cereal (to make it more palatable), but none on a sugar cereal. So the other day I decided to test out my parents wisdom. I chose Corn Flakes and Sugar Pops as my two cereals. Corn Flakes has 3 grams of sugar per serving (of course the way my brothers and I pour cereal, there is probably 6 grams of sugar per serving). Sugar Pops has 10 grams (20 grams the way we pour sugar). So how much in a spoonful of sugar? I weighed a spoonful of white granulated sugar and came up with a mass of 14 grams. So even accounting for the extra large bowl of cereal we had, the way we ate it there was just as much sugar in a "non-sugar" cereal as there was in a "sugar" cereal. Why not just let your kids have whatever cereal they want? That is what I do now.

Parents come up with all sorts of crazy rules to try and reign in our kids. Growing up you recognize this and swear that you will never do that when you are a parent, and then you find yourself doing the exact thing you swore to high heaven would never happen. Turns out, kids have a mind of their own and without rules (sometimes even with rules), they would probably get themselves run over or worse. I never wore a bicycle helmet growing up, not even in the Boy Scout Road Rallies I attended. My wife is adamant about our kids wearing their bicycle helmets, I'm OK with that. She feels it makes them safer (and it probably does in a small statistical way), so I don't fight it.

Every now and then I try to purge myself of the crazy rules that my parents ingrained in me. It usually doesn't work. You could almost say that parenting is sort of like brainwashing your kids into doing what you think is right for society. Without the brainwashing, you never know how the kids will turn out. And right now, with the chaos they already cause around the house, I want to hang on to as much control as I can.

Change in Media Provider

About two months ago I got a flyer in the mail with a deal that interested me. Cable, phone, and internet for $72 a month (which included all taxes). I'll call this Company A So I decided to look into it since we were paying $96 for phone and internet already. I'll call this Company B. After some searching on the internet, I found a few differences.

Company A's internet service was 20% slower than Company B's, but since I don't do online gaming, downloading of music or videos, this really isn't a big deal. Also, Company A's phone service did not include unlimited long distance, but 7 cents a minute. So for a $24 difference I could talk for 5.5 hours. Oh yeah, except I have the Magic Jack phone that gives me unlimited long distance, so while a slight hassle, not a big problem. Plus, not only would I get cable, I would get digital cable (and we all know digital is better than analog), plus a DVR. Now, this was only a 1 year teaser rate and the rate would be $145 after that year, but there was no contract, I could cancel at any time.

I talked with some friends at work and found no complaints from Company A, except for their HD service. I don't have an HDTV so I didn't care about that. So I was ready for the next phase of the research. I only really care about phone and internet so I was more than willing to stay with Company B if they would lower their $96 rate (it didn't even have to be down to $72, I probably would have settled for $80 or 85). I called them up and talked with a salesman.

"Thank you for calling Company B, how may I help you?"

"I got a flyer from Company A that is offering Cable, Phone, and Internet for $72. I currently am paying $96 for Phone and Internet. I don't care about the Cable, so I wanted to find out if you can give me a better deal on the Phone and Internet than $96."

"Let me see what I can do. Well sir, the only thing I can do is add Cable to your account. It is normally $49, but since you have Phone and Internet it would only be $20."

"I think you misunderstood. I don't care about Cable, I would like a lower price on my Phone and Internet or I am going to switch to Company A."

"I could increase your Internet speed for only $5 more per month..."

"Ma'am, I don't want to pay more money, I would like to get a reduction in rate. If someone is willing to give you cable, phone, and internet for $72 does it make sense to pay $96 for phone and internet alone?"

"Well, no. Let me transfer you to our retention department." I love it how service companies have a retention department. This is where I wanted to go in the first place, because if there is a deal to be made this would be it.

"Thank you for calling Company B, how may I help you?"

"I got a flyer from Company A that is offering Cable, Phone, and Internet for $72. I currently am paying $96 for Phone and Internet. I don't care about the Cable, so I wanted to find out if you can give me a better deal on the Phone and Internet than $96."

"Let me see what I can do. Well sir, the only thing I can do is add Cable to your account. It is normally $49, but since you have Phone and Internet it would only be $20."

"That is the deal the other lady just offered me and I already told her I am not interested in paying MORE money."

"Well, I can't match the deal they are offering."

"I am not even asking you to match the deal, I just want a reduction in the rate I am paying for Phone and Internet."

"I'm sorry there is nothing more I can do."

"OK, then I will be switching. Good bye."

A phone call to the Company A and I was all set. A couple weeks later, they were our and installed our new service. Phone works fine, internet works fine, 200 channels of tv, 80 channels of music work fine, and then there is the DVR.

I didn't know what I was really missing until I got the DVR. Now, I can set up the shows to watch (or the shows my wife wants to watch, or the kids want to watch) and let it record. No more having to pray that Mythbusters is on TV so that I can get a breather from the kids. There's always a few episodes on the DVR. Shows not playing at convenient times, no problem. And the fast forward through commercials is great. Now, if I can just figure out how to transfer shows to the computer through the USB port, I'll be in heaven.

A year from now, my wife and I will have to make a decision. Do we switch back to Company B who will probably be running the same or similar special or just cancel the cable and be paying $80 a month? We'll see. Home phone number portability has sure taken the hassle out of switching phone companies. Why Company B didn't want to just cut $10 off the bill and keep a paying customer, I will never know.

Taking Kids Out to Dinner

Why do parents take kids out to dinner?

I don't know, but I still do it. For some strange reason. Usually because we have a coupon and the kids eat free. What I don't think I will ever understand is why we put up with our kids ordering Mac and Cheese for $4.49.

You can buy the stuff in bulk for 10 cents a box (25 cents if you go with the expensive brand). Restaurants must make a killing off of this stuff. Having eaten a lot of Mac and Cheese in my life, I know what boxed Mac and Cheese looks like. Only one restaurant I have ever been too makes their own Mac and Cheese.

I guess I make up for it by letting my kids have two to three classes of chocolate milk.

Gun Show Goodness

Having read about Matt Snyder's gun show experience, it was a great weekend to go and see some of his "preconceptions" at the local gun show. I got permission from my wife (yes, she is in charge), called up a friend and we headed on over.

"An unspoken etiquette seems to dictate that vendors don't initiate conversation until a prospective buyer pauses for at least 10 seconds at a given display." Well, actually I think this is more a case of personality. There were some vendors there who barely said a word even when you talked with them. On the other hand, one of my favorite vendors (who I have yet to buy anything from) was his normal gregarious self and was able to spout off facts about any firearm that he saw someone touch or even take a second look at. When I first met him, it was a little nerve racking, I am the type of person who likes to shop without being bothered by salesmen until I have a question. Now it is always fun to spend a few minutes and watch his table while he talks nearly non-stop, carrying on three or four conversations at a time.

"This place is crawling with cops." Well, I saw three cops. One at the door, and two wandering around. Hardly what I would consider crawling. Of course there is something about thinking of committing a crime in a place where the person to gun ration is around 1:100 that just screams insanity.

"Nazi-themed tomes, for whatever reason, seem particularly popular." I'll be perfectly honest, I don't go to gun shows to look at books. I go to look at guns (and ammunition). At this particular gun show, there were probably three tables that had "Nazi-themed" anything. Mainly militaria. Of course, there was also Russian militaria, Japanese militaria, and don't forget those dastardly Yankee militaria at the same tables. Some people happen to like militaria, just because the swastika is a very noticeable symbol doesn't mean everyone who collects it subscribes to those philosophies. I have some South American coins, but you don't see me participating in a revolution every six months now do you?

"This is not the venue for selling machine guns." OK, anyone who has been to a gun show knows this. Only anti-gun groups still believe that the Mexican drug lords are arming themselves at US gun shows. While I was there, I didn't see a single machine gun, no live grenades (some dummies though), and rocket launchers had already sold out. As to why people like to bring up the $200 tax for buying machine guns, I don't know. This is one time when not indexing for inflation has been good (granted it would be better if there was no tax or registration).

"The clichéd caricature of the "gun nut" is not only white, but aggressively white." This is something I honestly haven't paid attention to before, so I thought I would look. Well suprisingly there were people of all races there. Now, I must say that the vast majority (95%) were white, but then again, where I live (and coincidentally where Mr. Snyder went to his gun show), the vast majority of people (98%) are white.

"... gun and knife shows are the male equivalent of window-shopping for shoes." Oh yeah, I can agree with this wholeheartedly. Since they have driven guns out of the shopping malls of America, we are forced to get our shopping fix at gun shows. It would be much better to bring firearms sales back into JC Penny and Sears. Put it right between the Jewelry counter and the Cosmetics Counter. Across from the Womens Clothing. That way, we could go in, do our browsing and still have our wife's in somewhat close proximity if we needed the checkbook.

"Six days, three gun shows, and 19 attempts to buy handguns sans permit had yielded zero sales." Yeah, in some states they have a "Permit to Purchase" for handguns (or long guns in the really unfree states). I haven't come across a dealer yet who would sell you a handgun without a purchase permit. So much for gang bangers coming in and buying whatever they want.

Basically, Mr. Snyder is mostly wrong. But I still had a successful day. My friend came out of the bathroom at lunchtime and said to me, "Isn't the gun show great. You can go to the bathroom and there is a guy cleaning a sword in the sink." Sword, as in three foot blade designed to cleave people in half. And nobody minds at all.

I had gone to this show with the goal of getting a youth rifle for my kids. I taught my oldest to shoot at Thanksgiving and needed to get something that was more in her size. In the past, there were usually three or four vendors that had Crickett rifles. During my first stroll around the place, I couldn't find any. During the second stroll I finally found one. It was the black synthetic stock, and was priced a little more (OK, a lot more) than I wanted to pay. As I started walking further down the table the father behind me said to his son, "We should sell our Crickett sometime."

I turned immediately and asked if I heard him right. Yes, they had a Crickett that their son didn't use. So one of the greatest freedom's of all (the private commerce of firearms) commenced. What price? How old? I'm willing to buy. Well, I just live a few minutes away, let me go home and get it. Done.

Thirty minutes later, the gunshow loophole was fully utilized as the father and his son handed over a high powered, bolt action sniper rifle, with a powerful scope, with the minimum length barrel the law allowed for greater concealability, all so that I could indoctrinate my kids in murder and mayhem (Can't you just hear Sarah and Josh crying their eyes out?). I in turn handed him four bills coated with evidence of the drug trade.

OK, so it was just a .22 Crickett with a 4X scope. And 80-90% of American bills have trace amounts of cocaine or other drugs on them. But, no papers were filled out, no drivers licenses shown, just two free people happy to do business. They sold a rifle no longer in use. And I gained something that my kids will use for a decade or more. Both of us were happy with the transaction. That is how America should work.

Oh yeah, I put the rifle in the trunk of my car with enough ammunition to take over a small Central American country. God bless America!

Taiwan Journey Home

Well, after one day of flying and 4 days in Taiwan it was time to go home. We stopped at the hotel's breakfast buffet one last time and had a light breakfast of fruit and croissants. And then off to the airport we go. Since this was an international flight that passed through two countries, we had to go through security in Taiwan, Japan, and again in Chicago. In a nutshell, Taiwan let me wear my shoes through the screener and I didn't have to take out my laptop. Japan made me take out my laptop, but I still could wear my shoes. Chicago had me take off my shoes and take out my laptop.

In the end, I could have had a couple bottles of liquid explosives in my cargo pants and not one of the airports would have known. Then again, I am not a terrorist although the TSA likes to screen me as one, especially when I am traveling with small kids. In Chicago, the mother and her infant daughter in front of us in line were pulled for screening. Chicago also had the announcements of being at "condition orange" or whatever fancy color they have. Seriously, the get rid of that stupid announcement. What, when the color is yellow or green we don't have to report suspicious activity, but when the color is red or orange we do? Give me a break, your dealing with adults here and in most International airports in the US 75% of the foreign travelers don't have a clue what the color code is, and 99% of the travelers don't pay attention anyway.

The flight to Japan was relatively uneventful. We had a great meal on the plan (Japan Airlines, not American). In the Tokyo airport we had a 4 hour layover. I spent the first hour wandering the airport while my wife slept. I still had 8,000 Yen to spend. I collect coins and bills so spending the large bills helped to break it down into smaller, collectible amounts. Then I came back and woke my wife up so that we could go shopping. Primarily we could candies and treats for the family. Afterwards, we got a bite to eat at one of the cafe's. I have always wondered about the shops that you find in airports. For instance, a Mont Blanc pen shop. Who would buy a $200 pen at the airport? At the electronics shops in Tokyo airport there were video cameras identical to the one that we had, only for twice as much as we paid, and that is after taking into account the 30% discount the store was offering.

We boarded our plane to Chicago, another 777. My wife and I began with our meal and watching "The Tooth Fairy". I like the Rock in non-serious movies. Perhaps it is the dumb jock personna just doesn't come work in serious dramas (or I just don't like serious dramas). Shortly after the movie finished, I closed my eyes for a few minutes, and woke up 6 1/2 hours later. I had just slept longer in an uncomfortable airplane seat than I had in the uncomfortable hotel bed in Taiwan. The flight landed with no incident and we sailed through customs without being shaken down (I didn't even declare the $10,000 cash I had on me - ok, so it was $10,000 Taiwan which is about $350 American).

A short delay for our plane home and we arrived safely. All of our bags made it and none of the gifts were destroyed. I was most worried about the paintings and calligraphy, but my masterful packing had preserved them. I can't wait to go again (although if I can avoid the back to back 10,000 calorie days I'll be happy).

Taiwan Day 4: Tainan

After a somewhat restful night of sleep, I woke up at 3am mostly refreshed. As usual, I found something to occupy my time until my wife was up and we went down to breakfast by at 7 am. We ate a more normal sized meal, after two days of having food crammed down our throats (OK, I admit we voluntarily did the cramming because the food was good and you just can't get Chinese food like that in the states).

When the stores opened up, we went to buy some jade and pearls. And it was over so quick that we had time to relax until my friend picked us up. This day we were going to Tainan, she said it has more touristy type things than Kaohsiung. At around 9am she and her husband picked up up to go. They do have freeways in Taiwan and the traffic there is as smooth as the traffic on freeways in the US (nothing like the city street heart stopper). We stopped at a rest stop on the way up and if you replaced the Chinese characters with English words then it would have been like any rest stop in the US.

The first place we went in Tainan was Anping Fort. This fort was originally built by the Dutch in the 1600s. Then after a war with the Chinese it was taken over by the Chinese. Later the Japanese cleaned house and built up more of the fort. Finally, the Chinese got the fort back after WWII, and being the good capitalists that they are, turned it into a tourist attraction. It was definitely as good as some of the historical sites I have been to in the US. There were a couple of museums with lots of artifacts that had been excavated. Map placards denoted where each part of the fort was and plenty of posters and maps explaining the history and different uses of the fort. In both Chinese and English. And of course, they had the gift shop which we naturally had to spend some money at.

My friend mentioned to me about the Taiwan lottery for our receipts. Basically, every receipt you get has a lottery number that is part of a drawing every two months. Prizes are up to $2 million (Taiwan). It seems the government found a way to "crack down" on under the table purchases by offering the lottery. All of the registers that print the receipts are connected to the lottery system and so the revenue department knows what your total sales are. People will ask for the receipts so they can have a chance to win. I like this idea, maybe we could adopt it in the states (or at least my state).

After Anping, we ate lunch at a small fast food place (Chinese fast food, not American fast food). My wife and I insisted that we don't get too much as we wanted to save plenty of room for the evening meal. After lunch we went to the Confucius Temple. At one point it had been a school but now it was more of a tourist attraction. The best thing about it was the traditional Chinese architechture with the rolled up roofs, pagodas, entry gates, and lacquer. My wife even found a sign in the ladies room that the English translation didn't make much sense, but sure sounded a awful lot like something Confucius would have said. In the middle of the courtyard was this giant banyan tree that had to have been a thousand years old. It's branches were being held up by posts since it had "died" and been brought back to life. Banyan trees are neat to look at with all of their knarled, intertwined roots and branches.

Those were the two main places we went in Tainan and then went back to do some shopping in Kaohsiung before dinner. I had a simple list: some presents for the kids and some paintings/caligraphy for our home. I also wanted to get some of the Chinese New Year door hangings, but since it wasn't near New Year, I figured it would be unlikely to find them. We first went to a department store and found some of the gifts that we needed for the kids. My friend's husband did some haggling in Taiwanese (which I barely understand any of) and got us about 30% off. Haggling is almost a requirement of shopping in Taiwan. They had some paintings, but they were rather pricey and I didn't want them. The best Chinese paintings and calligraphy are found in mom & pop shops.

After talking on the phone to her parents, my friend led us to a couple of other artwork and calligraphy shops. In one shop I found a calligraphy work that I wanted. It was done in various ancient forms of Chinese characters. Since it was unsigned (it didn't have the calligrapher's stamp) it was very reasonably priced. I didn't care about the stamp since I wasn't going to be selling it anyway. After some more haggling, we were able to get the mounting (basically smoothing out the wrinkled paper and gluing it to another piece of paper) included in the price. We would pick it up after dinner.

For dinner, my wife and I treated my friend and her husband to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. We hadn't been to one before and never lived in a city with one, so why not have an American steak halfway around the world. It was just as expensive in Taiwan as in the states, their portions are just as big, so my wife and I split a meal, and my friend and her husband split a meal. The food was great. We had an 8 oz filet minion and they had some other kind of steak. We ordered julienne potatoes but got french fries. I guess french fries are sort of like julienne potatoes. For desert we had the chocolate cake and they had the cheesecake. What we noticed is that everyone else in the restaurant was also splitting meals. (At $75 for the full meal - appetizer, steak, side, salad, and desert - it makes sense to split it.)

In the middle of the meal we had a surprise. My friend's parent's showed up with a Chinese painting to give us (from their home) and a set of New Year's door hangings. The door hangings were done by a famous artist and had his stamp on them. My friend told me that these were very valuable and I should hang them on the outside of the home where they would be weathered and ruined. I assured her that I wouldn't. I offered to pay her father for the paintings, and I gladly would have, but he refused. He wanted them to be a gift for us. Of all the things we brought back from Taiwan, I will probably treasure these gifts the most.

Since we had a flight at 8:30am, we said our goodbye's back at the hotel. We stayed up and packed our stuff until around 11pm.

Taiwan Day 3: Kending National Park

Another night of little sleep (although progressively more than before, I think I had about 4 hours), and I was awake at some other awful hour of the morning when I should have been asleep. My wife woke up with a bit of a headache so on the way down to breakfast we asked the Hotel front desk where we might buy some medicine. Immediately they asked if we needed to go to the hospital, no, just medicine.

Breakfast was great again, although I tried to hold back since I was still full from the day before. At 7 am we were down in the lobby to wait for the tour bus. We told my friend about stopping by a pharmacy to pick up some Tylenol (she had lived in Canada so she knew the brand name). Naturally, they don't have Tylenol in Taiwan. So, if you are going overseas, make sure you know the medical name of the most common drugs you may want. For Tylenol it is acetiminaphen. The tour bus stopped by the pharmacy around the corner and we found the Taiwan version of Tylenol: Panadol (made by GlaxoSmithKline - actually the British version which is sold throughout the world). For those who think we pay an arm and a leg for drugs in the US, imagine this. I can pick up a knock off brand of Tylenol, in a 100 count bottle for about $5 in any city in America with a population of more than 5000 (and the name brand is still less than $10). The pharmacy we went to in this city of 1.5 million only had a 10 pack and it was about $5. Even taking into account economies of scale, that is expensive for an over the counter drug.

After the brief stop we were on our way to Kending National Park. We watched the Disney movie "Old Dogs" on the way down. The Taiwanese and Hong Kong people's impression of it: "Do Americans really take so many pills?" Convincing them that only old people do was a little more difficult since we had stopped at the pharmacy to get pills for my wife.

Taiwan was a little late in getting the National Park thing started. Of course when your country is being ruled or invaded by outsiders and then you are ruled by a military dictatorship for several decades while your standard of living changes from a third world nation to an industrial nation, that can put a damper on the recreational areas. The lower southeastern portion of Taiwan is part of Kending National Park, but it is really a conglomeration of parks with roads, towns, cemeteries, and even nuclear power plants in between. The other major difference with Taiwan national parks and the US national parks is safety. Go to the Grand Canyon and you have to physically climb over a fence to take a dive down the rock face. Kending, just step off of the rock cliffs or hop off the rock staircase and you get to plummet to the rocky crags below.

That being said, the views were absolutely beautiful. The second place that we went was a junky looking parking lot with a bath opening up into the forest. We were told there was a beach down that path. Sure enough, 100 yards down the winding path and the forest opens up to a beautiful beach with the prettiest blue water I have ever seen. It made the beaches we went to in California look like rejects. In spite of being at the beach, there weren't many people in swimsuits, lots of people went into the water in just their clothes. There were a couple of models on a photoshoot and they were the only ones wearing bikinis. The guys in our group (from Hong Kong) were excited to "see some skin" and had their girlfriends position themselves so that they could take photos of the models without being too obtrusive. My wife thought it was funny and took a photo of the guys taking photos of the bikini girls. We told them to come and visit us in the states and every beach in the nation would be full of girls in bikinis.

For lunch we went to a seafood restaurant and was served (guess what?) a 10 course meal. Once again we stuffed ourselves. In the afternoon it was a couple of more scenic parks and then down one of the market streets in a town (complete with three 7-11's, a KFC, and McDonalds). Lots of pictures were taken because we probably won't have a chance to go back there (besides there are lots of other things we have yet to see from Taiwan if we do).

The bus ride back to Kaohsiung began with some Karaoke (Mandarin and English). Then someone put the movie "Taken" into the DVD player. In case you haven't seen it, I am not sure what the plot is (more than likely something completely implausible), but the purpose was definitely to show Liam Neeson kicking the crap out of as many people as possible. I am sure he had some lines in the movie, but primarily I just remember him beating people up in so many different ways it was mind boggling. If you want a movie that has a coherent, memorable plot, scratch "Taken" off of your list. If you are just in the mood for non stop violent hand-to-hand combat, "Taken" is definitely one you should watch. (Oh yeah, and there was a Britney Spearsesque character, but I am not sure why she was in there).

Back at the hotel, my wife laid down for a nap, and I went window shopping. There was a mall in the lower floors of the hotel and I wanted to check out some prices on jewelry (pearls and jade) to help my wife figure out what she wanted. In one of the department stores, I spoke with a saleswoman extensively about the coral jewelry. That is what I really wanted to get my wife, a coral necklace. Unfortunately, the price tag on those was anywhere from $1000 (American) to $6000. Since I haven't been able to convince her on the utility of spending $4K-$6K on a Barrett 50 BMG, I can't see how she would strangle me for buying a $6K piece of jewelry. "But they had to kill some coral reef to make it, it is the ultimate symbol of man's dominance over nature!"

After looking for a while, I went walking about town. The streets were filled with small restaurants, 7-11s, and then other shops interspersed. I enjoyed walking around for an hour just seeing the area. One thing I did find was a laundromat right around the corner from the hotel. We could have washed our clothes there rather than the bathtub the the night before. Back at the hotel, my wife woke up and we ordered some dumplings and fruit from room service. I fell asleep by about 9pm (by this time I had gone 140 hours with maybe 16 hours of sleep interspersed). Suprisingly, I slept for around 6 hours.