Good Deals for the Taking

I love to get a good deal. What most people don't realize is there is a lot of work involved to get a good deal. You may think that you are getting a good deal, but unless you have done your research, you probably just got what looks like a good price.


So how do I get good deals? First, I have to identify what is worth getting a good deal on. Milk may be $2.99 at WalMart but only $2.29 at Aldi. With that kind of minimal price difference, I am not going to go out of my way just to save 70 cents. It may be more in gas just to get there (although where I live right now, Aldi's is right next to Walmart). On the other hand, a quality dining room set may be $1200. If I can find something equivalent for $800 or less, then I have found a good deal. Finding a good deal starts with knowing what is worth looking for the good deals.

Second, you need to figure out what a reasonable price is and what you are willing to spend. These can be two separate things. For instance, $500 for an iPhone is reasonable. On the other hand, I am not willing to spend more than $200 since I wouldn't use it enough. Hence, I don't have a iPhone. Reasonable prices can be found by shopping (not buying). Stores, internet, and classified ads can all give you an idea of what things are selling for. The key here is to remember to factor in all of the costs (shipping and taxes). After seeing what a reasonable price for something is, it is now time to do the emotional decision and decide what you are willing to pay.  It is important to set your price limit before you start looking for the good deal.

Third, the fun part begins - finding the good deal. This phase could take a day or years, depending on what you found in step two above. A good deal should be at least 25% less than what you are willing to pay (which hopefully is less than a reasonable amount). A lot of people stop when they find something less than their reasonable price and buy it then (even if it is only a few percent). Really, you should hold out for the good deal. Patience is key. While you made an emotional decision about what you are willing to pay, at this point emotion should no longer be a part of your decision. If the price isn't at least 25% less than your reasonable price, it's not a good deal.

Some may say that I am being stingy by trying to get such a low price. Actually, I am doing a net benefit to the economy. For one, by spending less money on each item, I am able to buy more, thereby spreading my dollars to more establishments. Second, a lot of the good deals happen on closeouts/inventory reductions/slightly damaged/etc. By me buying them, I am helping to clear out their inventory and giving merchants the chance to stock newer items. By me not buying more expensive items, I am allowing the supply to be available for those who just have to have the item at any price.

One of the great things about getting a good deal is you get to hear more sales pitches than ever before. I love salesmen, they have a job to do and their goal (in spite of what they may tell you) is to get you to buy as much as possible. Because of this it is always funny about some of the things that are told to you to "close the sale." I should start recording sales pitches to share some of the ridiculousness that is heard.  Let me share some of them:

When we were shopping for a piano, the music store salesman told us that they were the "17th largest music store in the nation." I guess if you are in the 148th largest city in America, then this might mean something. Honestly, how "big" you are doesn't matter. What matters to me is price. I don't shop at WalMart because they are the largest retailer in the nation. I shop there because they have the right price for the things my family buys.

In looking for a hotel I am amazed that the rooms will be advertised with such amenities as a hairdryer or marble sink. 20 years ago, the major draw to motels (based on their advertising) was free HBO. The other thing that I laugh at is seeing them "brag" about their 250 thread count sheets or even 350 thread count sheets. I'm sorry, at home I sleep on 650 thread count sheets (and I don't want to go back to anything less - I splurged one year for our anniversary). If your business is going to brag about something, be sure that it is worth bragging about.

The last part of finding a good deal is to make sure you check the non-traditional places. Ebay & Craigslist are great resources. I once sold a pool table on Ebay for $350. It came with the house I bought and was really worthless to me. The person that bought it probably would have paid $600-$1000 for a new one. He got a good deal. I got it out of my house. Both of us were happy with the transaction. Another place my wife and I have found good deals is at Aldi's. We bought a breakfast nook (seats 6) for $170 (we had budgeted $700). I found out it is renamed from another company's brand which sells it under their label in department stores for $450-650.  That breakfast nook has served us well for more than 5 years and still is going strong.

Shopping just to shop, I can't stand. Finding good deals while shopping I can handle.

Economies of SodaStream

Soda Stream appears to be making a splash in the beverage market.  I'm not much of a soda drinker so I don't know. It is a way to make your own carbonated beverages and hopefully save money.  So, does it really save you money?  As with all things, it depends.

There are three major costs to Sodastream.  I used the Target website to find the information I needed to evaluate this. The initial machine is about $80 (although some models go up to $200) which comes with flavor packets and a carbonation tank.  There are the carbonation tanks which run $15 and carbonate up to 60 L of drinks.  And finally, there are the flavor packets which run from $5 to $12 for about 12 liters of servings.  So then, how much soda does one have to drink to make this economical?

Total Liters Made	$5 flavor Cost / 2L	$12 flavor Cost / 2L
60	$      3.50	$       4.67
120	$      2.00	$       2.58
180	$      1.78	$       2.56
240	$      1.67	$       2.54
300	$      1.60	$       2.53
360	$      1.56	$       2.52
420	$      1.52	$       2.52

Now, like I said, I am no soda connoisseur, but I am pretty sure that those prices are much higher than what I can buy in the store.  So I looked.  Sure enough, name brands go for $1.50 to $2.50 for 2L bottles and generics for $0.50 to $1.50 for 2L bottles at the local grocery store. But the next question would be at what consumption is this economical?

That depends on the durability of the machine.  The $1.50 for generics is broken at the 480 L level.  Assuming a 3 year life, this is almost 7 Two liter bottles every month (our family maybe goes through 7 in an entire year - unless I am buying them for Mentos geysers in which case I'll go through 7 in about 5 minutes, but I digress).  But that is the top of the generic price level.  Unfortunately, because of the cost of the carbonator and flavoring, the cost for 2L will never be less that $1.33.  For name brand it looks even worse, the flavoring and carbonator make the bottom price $2.50 per liter.  So I would judge this as not that much of a money saver.  It is almost always going to be cheaper to pick up your soda at the store - even with ridiculously high deposit fees. 

Let me alter that statement: Unless you are accustomed to drinking premium sodapop, this is not a good buy.  However, if you like the flavors or like to make other things carbonated, then have at it.

About 20 years ago, I was at a party where a friend had something similar.  We were using it to make carbonated eggnog.  It worked sporadically at best and made a mess when not used exactly right.  I have no idea whether the Sodastream has similar problems.  My guess is that the fad will wear out within a year or two as machines break down and people realize sugar, water, and carbon dioxide are REALLY cheap to mix together (which is why they have specials for 2L bottles as low as 33 cents!), ergo not worth the time to do it yourself.

Valentine's Day Spending

Happy Valentine's Day?  If you spent less than $130, than you are below average. Actually, if you and your significant other spend less than $260, you are below average.  So with $18.6 billion spent on Valentine's Day each year, I just have one question?

WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU SPENDING THAT MUCH MONEY ON?

My wife and I have been happily married for more than a decade.  I would guess that in all of our years of marriage we have maybe spent $260 total.  Not each year, total.  This year I spent about $20 on my wife.  So unless she has a big $240 surprise for me, we will be below average yet again.

Now, $18.6 billion divided by $130 is only 143 million people.  Since the population of the US is north of 310 million, my guess is that they are only talking about adults (because if it was households then there would only be around $110 million which would bring the average up more). So possibly, there is even more spending that is going on from the younger crowd, you know the ones who buy giant teddy bears in the hopes of getting the amorous attention of their crush (don't those things cost more than $130 each).

Now, I am not in retail, never have been, but I always wanted to know how "they" figure out how much is spent on each holiday.  Halloween seems pretty easy - because it involves primarily candy and costumes, two things which aren't really purchased in massive quantities the reset of the year.  Mother's Day probably is made up of cards and flowers.  4th of July is fireworks and burgers. Christmas is probably a little more difficult, but as long as there is some month that is average, then you can compare it. So let me see if I can nuke this out ...

January - ????
February - Valentine's Day
March - Easter (if it happens this month) and St. Patrick's Day
April - Easter (if it happens this month)
May - Mother's Day
June - beginning of summer and Father's Day
July - 4th of July
August - back to school
September - Labor Day picnics (maybe) and some diehard Christmas shoppers
October - probably some Christmas and Halloween
November - Thanksgiving (food) and Christmas
December - Christmas shopping and returns

So, based on my limited understanding, it looks like January is the only month without a major shopping event.  But then for an event like Christmas, which the shopping spans several months, how do they identify which sales are Christmas and which are something else, like a birthday.

OK, I understand they get the numbers from a survey.  But that then just begs a different set of questions.  For instance, if I am being asked in the presence of someone else, I may be inclined to say a higher number just so people don't think I am a cheapskate (no, not really, I don't care what other people think about my spending habits).  And, since I am only spending $20, then that means someone is spending $250 to make up for me.

Sure hope his girlfriend doesn't get too fat from all that chocolate.

Progress - It's Why We're Here Today!

Another great news article. JC Penney will finally follow the lead of lots of other stores and eliminate (mostly) their check out clerks replacing them with self serve kiosks. Naturally, some people are concerned that this is going to cost people jobs.

Yes. By golly gee willikers it will! And that is what JC Penney needs to do to survive. Cut out the expensive employees, so they can make money again. Because if they aren't making money and have no forseeable chance of making money in the future, then they might as well shut down.

People happen to be a BIG expense. Take the phone system. We used to employ thousands of operators to direct calls all over the country. Then the computer came about and pretty soon we were able to place calls all over the world and all of those (or most of them) operators lost their jobs.

And it was GREAT! Not because they lost their jobs, but because we were able to remove thinking humans from a mundane task that can be satisfactorily performed by a computer at a fraction of the cost. This has two benefits. #1 the customer can call anywhere for a whole lot cheaper (phone calls now cost a fraction of what they did just 25 years ago and we make far more of them) and #2 that thinking human has the option to use their brain for more creative/inventive/entrepreneurial work (like figuring out how a computer can get rid of the next mundane task).

This is called progress, we have been doing it for about 10,000 years since our hunter/gatherer forebears figured out they could produce a lot more through agriculture and husbandry. Of course, if you still want to make toothpicks by hand, be my guest. I happen to like my spare time to play video games (you know, those things thinking humans invented for our entertainment).

JC Penney, welcome to the 21st Century!

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.

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.

Taiwan Day 2: The Wedding

Well, after waking up bright and early (around 2 am), I watched a movie on the portable DVD player and waited for the sun to come up. Suprisingly it did at around 5AM. I was a little confused, until I realized that there is no Daylight Savings Time in Taiwan. That is purely a US energy saving scheme that failed to work once air conditioning became widespread (the energy savings on not having lights on for the extra hour is far outweighed by the energy consumed to keep the house cool during the hour that people are awake and it is roasting outside - but I digress, that is a blog for another day about 18th century ideas that were never updated for technology, sort of like mailing out census forms in 2010!).

My wife was awake about this time so we had plenty of time to shower and get cleaned up in time for breakfast. Now, the day before we had had breakfast at a little fast food place in the train station. At the hotel, the breakfast buffet was complimentary. In every hotel I have ever stayed out in America, England, and India that had a complimentary breakfast, the breakfast was mediocre in the States, odd in India, and a decent sized platter in England. But still nothing that I would write home to Mom about (although blood pudding in England is something to taste at least once, no more than once, but at least once).

The breakfast buffet was on the 41st floor so we still had a great view of the ocean and the shipping docks. And the buffet was probably enough to rival most casinos in Las Vegas (never been there but going next year so I can make a true comparison). It was a very interesting blend of western and asian dishes. Pancakes beside Kimchee. Cold cereal and congee. Even a garden salad if that was your fancy for breakfast. There was ham, sausage, bacon, eggs in 20 different varieties, and omelets. Along with this was noodles, chow mein, seaweed, and rice. A couple of soups. Some lunchmeat, cheese, and crackers. Milk, soymilk, orange juice, apple juice, coffee, tea, even hot chocolate. And the bread table was well represented by countries of the world: baguettes, irish soda bread, bread pudding, croissants, sour dough, italian rolls, plus plain white and wheat bread. And Fresh fruit.

This buffet was so big (and all you can eat) that you could stay there for a month and probably not have sampled everything. I and my wife had a good mix of western and asian foods. The one thing we didn't try was the oatmeal, it was way too runny. If we had have known what was ahead of us for the day, we probably would have skipped breakfast. As it was, we both pigged out.

My friend and her maid of honor picked my wife and I up at 8am to take us to her house for parts of the wedding tradition. There was no ceremony like we would envision in the US. Getting married was a matter of signing the correct legal papers and then doing whatever traditions you wanted. My friend's family was from China (coming over with the Nationalists in the late 40's) while her husband's family was Taiwanese (having immigrated from southern China a hundred or so years before). So in traveling to her house she told us all about the different traditions that we would see.

First, before the wedding the wedding pictures were taken. My friend had 5 or 6 dresses for her pictures. Wedding pictures in Chinese culture are a major affair that have the goal of making the bride look like a supermodel. And they do. In fact, I have never seen Chinese wedding pictures (even from poor people) that didn't look like supermodels. In one case, my wife came up to me and saw some pictures on the computer from one of my friends from facebook. She probably initially thought that I was surfing the Glamour or Style or Cosmo website until I explained it to her.

My friend was bejeweled by her mother and aunt to make it look like the family had lots of money. Then my friend asked an important question of my wife. "How do you go to the bathroom in your wedding gown?" She explained that you have others lift up the dress and look away to do your business. My friend decided to fore go the bathroom and just hold it until the afternoon. Since she didn't get to eat much that was probably fine.

The groom arrived a little later in a caravan of expensive cars (not necessarily owned by the groom or his family but in most cases borrowed from whoever has them), to make it look like his family had lots of money. Firecrackers were ignited as the groom exited the car. He started by touching a couple of oranges for good luck. Then coming into the home he had to go to the backroom to retrieve his "shy" bride. In the front room the bride's father and mother were seated and the rest of the family stood around while the groom's family was served a soup by the bride's family (soup plays a role in everything in China, while teaching one Chinese family about Thanksgiving in Canada, they asked what kind of soup we had with our turkey and stuffing - we don't - they made some anyway and that is the only Thanksgiving that I have had soup at).

After eating the soup, the bride and groom bowed three times before the bride's mother and father to thank them for raising her. And then the bride and groom exited the house to go to their new home together. The bride had an aunt holding a shade over the bride so that she wouldn't get any sun on her. In the west, we strive to get that golden brown for special occasions, in Taiwan (and China) they strive to get white (they even have whitening cream from Nutragena - no I am not making that up, my friend gave us a packet of it). After leaving the house, the bride drops a fan which is picked up by the bride's family to give them something to remember their daughter.

The entourage then rides to the bride and groom's new home. We got to ride in the Lexus SUV about 4 back from the lead car. All along the way, the lead car would periodically drop strings of firecrackers out the window, having them go off in the street. And this was on the busy streets. There were a couple of motorscooter riders that got a shock when the firecrackers started popping directly in front (or underneath) them. I kind of wish we did more of this in the US. It might help keep some driver's on their toes (and off their cell phones) if at any moment a string of blackcats could land on your hood and start popping off).

One of the traditions is that the couple's vehicle can not go in reverse while they are in it. This would portend a marriage that is going backwards. Because of this a lot of planning goes into getting cars positioned correctly before the bride and groom get in, scoping out the route beforehand for any construction that may detour the entourage. Of course, some things you can't plan for. At the couple's new apartment building, their car was suppose to drive up to the front door to let them out. Unfortunately the driver waited just a moment to long to do the turn and wound up half in the driveway - half in the street, and the front passenger corner a few inches from having the paint ground off by the concrete planter box. Big dilemma, the car can't go backwards, and they aren't at the front door. I suggested that the guests lift the vehicle up and move it. After about 15-20 minutes of waiting and consulting the elders (those that actually knew and cared about the traditions) someone declared that the entrance to the apartment building was right where the car had stopped, so they got out and went up to their apartment.

In their apartment, more traditions ensued. The bride and groom entered their bedroom and invited everyone in. The groom then jumped on the bed in hopes of having a male child. One of the family members then fed a gelatinous rice ball (sort of like large tapioca) to the bride and groom and they then swapped the balls while kissing. Yes, it doesn't leave anything to the imagination if you know that the 3/4" ball from the bride's mouth ended up in the groom's mouth and vice versa. My friend who was very proper and demure was embarassed beyond belief. The bride then sat by the window and looked pretty while everyone else (including my wife and I) took pictures with her, touched her for good luck, and ate our rice ball soup.

At precisely 10:30 (probably another good luck omen), we left for the hotel to prepare for the reception. I put the finishing touches on my speech and then we went down to the bride's preparation room. She was getting her hair and make up finalized and chatting with friends. She had not eaten much all morning (except the aforementioned rice ball), so I convinced her maid of honor to feed her a large dumpling all at once, rather than cutting it up. She ate it in a very undignified manner, but her parents weren't there to scold her. My wife and I then headed down to the wedding/reception/extravaganza.

I have been to several weddings in my life. Some were small, family affairs. Some were larger. I have never been to one with a sit down catered meal before, although I have seen them portrayed on TV and in the movies. Let me just say that the size and scope of this wedding (for a couple who came from rather average backgrounds) far exceeded the extravagance depicted in something like "Father of the Bride." The ballroom was the size of three basketball courts and jam packed with tables. There were literally 500+ people in attendance. The grooms family and friends on one side and the bride's on the other. Outside there was the greeting tables for the bride and groom where you dropped off your red envelope of lucky money for the couple (we had previously given them their "American" dishes earlier since wrapped presents are usually not given. Looking at the stacks of envelopes on the tables, I estimated there was probably in the neighborhood of $20K to $30K American (about $600K to $900K Taiwan) in cash.

The ballroom was a cacophony of noise, we couldn't find our table and eventually located the bride's father and asked him where we were suppose to sit. He sat us at a table with some relatives including the bride's uncle who was from England. He told us not to get too comfortable because he had been moved three times already. Eventually the program started and the bride and groom entered with much fanfare. There were Chinese dancers, flashing lights, rock music. I am guessing that the fireworks didn't go off because the hotel probably didn't want the liability. Up on the stage the bride and groom went through a cake cutting ceremony (although, we never ate any cake), and then filled a champagne fountain, and then the speakers started. During the first one, I realized that of the 500 people in attendance, probably 4 were actually paying any attention to the speaker. I quickly made some adjustments to my speech in my head to shorten it down from 10 minutes with audience participation to about 3 minutes with no audience participation.

Eating is a very social event in Chinese culture. As such, they don't get hung up on talking with your mouthful, reaching across the table, etc like we do in America. Also, it meant that there was a constant hum of conversation going on such that you could not hear the whisper of the person next to you. We had a great time. The dishes came out were wonderful. Twelve dishes to be precise (my wife and I were stuffed after the first three, but the food kept coming). Lobster Salad, Shark Fin Soup, Fruit platters, pastries, rice, noodles, etc. I have never eaten for three hours before (even at Thanksgiving). There was eating for three hours.

After all of the speakers were done, one of the people sitting at our table went up to the stage to sing. She sang songs in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English (and maybe Taiwanese as well). Very talented. The bride changed gowns to get in her toasting gown. She and the groom then went to each table (50 of them) to toast all of the guests. 50 sips (no matter how small) will probably make you a little tipsy. Near the end, the waiters were packaging up all of the leftover food for take homes (did I mention that there was a LOT of food?). We just took some of the desserts that my wife liked since we were staying at the hotel and probably wouldn't have to eat for the rest of the week. I estimate that I probably consumed 4-5000 calories at that meal (this was after pigging out at breakfast as well).

The bride changed again into her going away gown to thank the guests as they left (yes she wore three dresses that day, which were all different from the dresses she wore for her pictures - including her wedding gown). My wife and I went upstairs to our room, changed into our Kalahsnikitty T-shirts and then took a cab down to the Dream Mall to relax for the afternoon.

The Dream Mall is about twice the size of the Mall of America (in retail floor space) and has about 5 times as many stores. There is an amusement park on top of the mall with the Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel. Our hotel window faced the mall so we were able to see it all lit up at night. The mall was very well laid out with a "theme" for each floor: kids, teens, housewares, food court, furniture, jewelry, etc. We spent a couple of hours there and bought a few things and then made our way back to the hotel.

In the meantime, the main elevator in the hotel had decided to die. So we were able to get up to the 39th floor, but not to the 59th floor where our room was. We waited outside the ballroom we had been at for the wedding which was being set up for another wedding that was about to happen. We joked that if we were hungry we could always try to crash this wedding. We could have climbed the stairs, but our legs were already tired from walking around the mall. Besides, how long can a 85 story building last without an elevator. After about an hour, we were able to go up a service elevator.

Later that evening, my friend, her husband, some of her friends from college and us went to a guitar bar. There was a "famous" musician playing (and taking requests) in English, Taiwanese, and Mandarin. A smorgasbord of food was ordered, which made me wonder how Chinese people could eat so much in such a short amount of time and still be skinny as a rail. (I probably weigh close to twice what my friend weighed and I am not exactly an obese guy - her husband barely weighed more than she did). My wife and I left at around 9pm to go back to the hotel since we had both been surviving on minimal sleep. Didn't get much more that night.

Taiwan Day 1: Taipei

After getting to bed at around 11:30, I promptly woke up at 2 or 3 in the morning and could not get back to sleep. My wife was awake by 4 am. If I had have know this then I wouldn't have ordered tickets for the high speed rail at 7am. I would have ordered them for the first train at 6 am.

We started the morning with our first cab ride to the train station. $6 and it was a nice pleasant ride (no one is awake at 6 am). At the train station we picked up our tickets and then found something to eat. I think both my wife and I were determined not to eat at any “American” restaurants until the end of our trip. We picked MOS Burger. This is where I run into my first problem. I speak Chinese decently. I can even read about 1200 of the most common characters which gives me about a 60% comprehension of a newspaper. Unfortunately, menus are primarily made up of food terms which a lot of are among the next 1800 common words. So we ordered based on the pictures.

The high speed rail system in Taiwan is privately owned, privately operated train system that runs the length of the island. The trains travel up to 360 km/hr, although while we were riding it I never saw them post a speed above 295 km/hr (they post the current speed on the message board). To me though, the high speed rail is a trophy for capitalism. My friend had told me that two weeks before, an earthquake had struck Kaohsiung and the high speed rail was shut down for a week because of track damage. One week! Had this been a government operations, it would have been shut down for 6 months, the maximum speed reduced to 150 km/hr for “safety,” and the price of tickets would double. However, being a private corporation, they had every incentive (read profits) to get it back up and running (at normal speeds) as quickly as possible.

The hour and a half journey was a great view of the Taiwan countryside. Rice fields, fruit groves, interspersed among the temples, factories, and homes. We saw plains, hills, mountains, and forests all within the short trip. At Taipei, it was time to figure out how to ride the subway station. We could have just taken a cab, but that would start to get expensive. Fortunately, the subway was similar to every other subway I have ridden with regards to buying tickets and getting on board the correct line. We even got off at the right stop and walked up to the streets of Taipei.

Our first destination was the LDS Temple in Taipei. It was about a half mile walk down AiGuo Rd. from the subway station. This street is called wedding row in Taipei because the street is literally lined with wedding shops. We were later to learn that a wedding party/reception/extravaganza was a far bigger event than we had ever imagined. After wedding row, the street turned into small mom and pop fast food shops. Also, the motorscooters were out in force.

Motorscooters are the major mode of transportation in Taiwan. The rules of the road are a lot more flexible. Surprisingly, I never saw an accident (although I saw plenty of evidence of accidents from the scratched taxis and dented car doors). To put it in perspective, in the United States we rely on the rules of the road to keep us safe (most everyone uses their blinkers, the maintain distance and don't go weaving in and around traffic). In Taiwan, you rely on your driving skills and instincts to keep safe. You have to be aware of what a dozen vehicles around you are doing and be prepared to react in an instant as conditions change. Don't think about crossing the street except at the crosswalk when you have a green light, because you don't know what may be coming around the corner.

At the Taipei temple I learned something about clothes. For the worship service we change into all white clothes. I told the lady at the desk my pants size and she looked at me funny. They didn't have that exact size but she suggested something which to me was 5 sizes larger. I opted for the next closest size to what I thought was correct, which was only two sizes larger, I figured I could roll up the legs if I had too. In the dressing room I found out I was wrong. There was no way those pants would fit they were far too short. As I was taking them back to the desk it dawned on me that perhaps they measure the total length of the pants rather than just the inseam. Sure enough, that was the case in Taiwan. So I ended up with a pair of pants that I originally thought would be 6 sizes too long, but turned out to be just right.

Afterwards, we went across the street and ate at one of the Mom & Pop shops. The owner cajoled us with "Foreign Friends, come on eat here!" So we did. For around $2 we had a meal of soup and dumplings (my wife's favorite). We then walked across the street to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. Sort of the Lincoln Memorial for Taiwan, except that the size and grandeur of it far outdid every American memorial I have visited.

Next it was time for a subway ride up to the National Palace Museum. While many people would think that Beijing would be the place to go to see ancient Chinese art, they would be wrong. Taipei is the place to go. Back during the Chinese civil war, the Nationalists moved the vast majority of the art from the Palace Museum in Beijing to Taiwan. Probably for good reason since the Communists later purged the country during the cultural revolution. The museum boasts more than 600,000 pieces of which only about 60-70 thousand are on display at one time. The most disappointing part was not being able to take photographs. I understand the ban on photography back when there was only flash photography and preservationists were worried about the effect that the flash would have on old works. But the days of celluloid photography (i.e. film) are over. I can take hundreds of pictures with a digital camera (all without the flash) varying the setting each time until I get the perfect photo. And the effect on the work of art will be no different than if I had have just stood there looking at it.

Anyway, the people watching might actually have been more fun. Since Taiwan has the largest (and best) collection of Chinese art, a lot of mainland Chinese come to see it. Now there are some factors to bear in mind. China has a billion plus people. They have cities that make NY look small, the population density in the cities is extremely high. So people are used to being crowded, bumped into, and pushed out of the way. Additionally, the people from mainland China only have a limited time to visit the museum (talking with some tour groups, about one day) and may never get back to the museum again in their lifetime. Imagine trying to see everything in the Smithsonian in one day.

So, while my wife and I are relative ignoramouses when it comes to Chinese art, we were just there to see it, the people whose ancestors made this art were overbearing in some instances. While we may slowly walk along a display case, reading about each piece shown, a tour group would come up to look at one piece (which probably had a lot of significance to them). They had no problem pushing us out of the way, or just enveloping us (with no chance of excape). After about an hour, we decided what we would look at by going to things where there weren't tour groups.

Its interesting, whenever you see Hollywood depict people in a museum, they show people taking their time and enjoying each work of art. I wonder if Chinese films that depict people in a museum show a cacophony of tour groups running from one exhibit to another, pushing people out of the way for a better look. Pushing people out of the way isn't rude, it is just normal life for them.

After the museum closed at 5:00pm, we took some pictures outside and then walked over to the Silk Palace restaurant next to the museum. They had all you can eat Dim Sum. Dim Sum is a Cantonese cuisine, but I chose it so that my wife could try a multitude of new dishes (her Chinese food sampling in life had been somewhat limited). Then it was a cab ride back to the subway station and a subway ride back to the train station, and we made it to the train with about 10 minutes to spare. I slept on the train all the way back to Kaohsiung (too bad it was only 1 1/2 hours). We were in our hotel by midnight, and went to sleep.

Well, sort of again. The beds in Taiwan are hard, think of it as a board with a 1/4" foam pad on it. So my wife and I were piling pillows under our bodies to try and get a restful sleep. It works OK until you roll over. I was wide awake at 2 am.

The House is Done!

Well, almost. I haven't remodeled the bathrooms and a couple of closets yet, but for all intents and purposes, my family's two year journey to remodel the house we bought. The major project this year was the exterior. Below is a photo taken shortly after we bought the home. The front had a combination of mottled brownish brick facade with gray wood shake siding. The sides and back were gray steel siding. One of the goals that we had were to make the siding all of one type. We also didn't like the color of the brick since it basically looked dirty all of the time. And gray always looks dirty, too!


The Preparation
Looking around our neighborhood, there aren't a lot of houses with contrasting colors. There is a blue house with white trim. A couple of yellow houses with red/maroon trim. And a white house with green trim. So, we wanted to definitely add some contrasting color. We chose white as our trim color (soffits, windows, etc.) and decided to do the outside corner siding pieces in white as well to help accent the house.

Next, we looked at some various colors of siding and chose one called Stone Clay. It is a muted brown to tan and helps match the brown earthy tones that permanate our neighborhood, without looking identical to them. We selected a 5 inch dutch lap profile to be distinct (no one else on the street has dutch lap although a couple of homes on the street behind us do).

Finally, the brick had to change. Masonry is an expensive job to replace. I thought of painting the brick to get it a different color. The issue was, I didn't want it to look painted. Which meant instead of using the spray gun and taking an hour to do all of the brick, each brick would have to be painted by hand in order to keep the mortar joints their natural color. After painting several hidden pieces of brick, we settled on a color Sienna Red. We thought the brick red color was a good contrast to the Stone Clay and White and would help to accentuate the house. Also, we planned on laying down a red mulch in the flower beds and get rid of the gravel covering. All of this was done by April of this year and the fun part really began.

At the beginning of the year, we had budgeted an amount to get the siding done. After talking with some neighbors on their homes, I figured that we could hire it out and come in about for what we budgeted. But, my wife and I aren't like that. We like to squeeze as much out of our budget as we can. So, I priced out the materials myself and came up with a figure that was about 1/3 of the budget. So we talked about it and decided to replace the windows as well. We would install everything ourselves, and the total cost left about 1/3 of the original budget for any contingencies. For anyone about to embark on a home remodeling project, contingencies ALWAYS happen. If you haven't put room in your budget for them, you are going to be hurting later. If you have, and the contingencies are not as large as expected, you can always buy guns and furniture.

Painting
After our trip to Disneyland in May, I started off by power washing the brick. It is important to wash brick before painting it since the paint helps to seal up pores and if there are bird droppings on it, then you have basically sealed these onto the brick. Depending on the type of bird droppings, there may be chemicals that combine with the paint or form on their own to eat away at the brick. Power washing is relatively easy and only took about 1 hour. The next part was letting the brick dry for about 3 days. We had a good stretch of sunny weather to help us out. You want the brick dry so that excess moisture isn't trapped underneath the paint. This could surface later and bubble up the paint.

By Memorial Day, I was ready to paint. I started with the far left section of the garage and painted all of the brick. Going on wet, the paint looked like a satiny pink (it was suppose to be a flat Siena Red). After that section was done, I called my wife out and had her look at it from the street. She looked hesitant, and I said "I know the wet stuff looks pink, but when it dries and the sun dulls it out, it will look red."

"OK, I trust you."

"If you want to change the color, now is the time to do it, since I calculated it is going to take me 20+ hours to paint it brick by brick. "

"No, go on."

And I did. I worked on it about 2 hours a day when I could and was done before the end of June. A couple things to keep in mind. I didn't paint it in the direct sun. I wanted it to dry in the shade. So on sunny days, I would paint sections in the morning and then other sections on the other side of the house creating a jigsaw pattern of "new" brick and the old brick. Also, I didn't paint when it was raining or threatening to rain. During this time, I only had one major mishap when my youngest daughter found the unattended paint can. It was in an out of the way place, and unless you know to look you probably won't find it.

The advantage to painting so early in the process is I didn't have to be careful around the old siding. It was all going away. I did have to watch myself around the garage door and the front door since they were keeping their white trim.

Tear Down
After the paint was all done, the fun part of tearing off the old siding began. Originally, my plan was to tear off one side at a time and then put the new siding up and then go on to the next side. In practice, after tearing off one whole side of the house, I realized, it would be easier to just tear it all off. Metal siding is really easy to tear off if you don't plan on reusing it. Just get it started and pull. About the only thing you have to worry about is the sharp edges. Originally, I wasn't planning on replacing all of the soffit trim, however because of the way the siding was installed, I had to. So contingency #1 came into play (good thing we had room in the budget).

Underneath the siding was 1/8" rigid foam board. This stuff is good for insulation. although, 1/8" doesn't really provide much. Under the insulation was the bare walls of the house. Our house was built 30 years ago and the walls were made of compressed fiber board. Basically a non structural material that wouldn't hold the unless you actually hid studs. All of the homes I have helped build have had oriented strand board (OSB) or plywood walls. I decided to staple on 1/4" OSB over the entire house so that I had a decent solid nailing surface. While putting up the sheets, I made sure that I was nailing it through the fiber board into the wall studs. It wouldn't be good to have a huge section of the wall just fall off.

While tearing off the siding and insulation on one side of the house, I found where someone had been really creative before. At one point in time, there was a slight overhang of the attic portion (about 3") from the lower wall. Whenever they had put the steel siding on, they decided to make this all one plane. So they built up the wall by adding 2x6s (1-1/2 inch thick) and cutting off the sheathing from the attic portion (about 1" thick). This left the only thing keeping the blown in insulation in the attic on this portion of the house being the 1/8" rigid foam insulation that I had just torn off. Needless to say, that was a long Saturday as I had to tear the siding off and then re-sheath that wall in one day, by myself.

Residing Fun
Once all of the siding was off, I piled it up in the backyard. Eventually, I took the old windows to the dump (cost $30) and the old siding to the recycle yard (value $70). Just a quick fact, there was approximately 1300 pounds of siding on my house. After replacing all of the windows and resheathing the house, I put house wrap all around. Housewrap wasn't even required by the building codes until about 10 years ago. The stuff is great. The day after I got the house wrapped we had some decent rainstorms. I was pleased.

With the house wrapped it was time to start the siding. I had left the old starter strips on two adjacent walls after checking to see that it was level along the length. After all of the prep and trim is done, siding goes up very quickly. I had three friends help on a couple of days, but the majority of the house was done solo. For many of the upper pieces, this required some skillful balancing so that I could get the pieces in.

Since I had never hung siding before, I started at the back of the house and worked my way around, that way, I would be able to make all of my mistakes where fewer people see them. I didn't make many mistakes (that I can tell, I'm sure a professional would be able to point out a plethora). I miscut only two large pieces of siding, but was able to use the cut pieces for other places. A hacksaw and a utility knife were all that was needed.

Besides several smashed thumbs (it happens from all of the pounding), I didn't injure myself until I was almost completed. I had four pieces left to cut and was working on the roof in some hard to reach places. I decided to cut a piece in place rather than taking it down to my work bench. Mistake, I slipped with the knife and sliced my index finger, right to the bone. It bled an awful lot and I am sure my roof and front porch looked like a crime scene for a while. I momentarily debated jumping off the roof to the ground (about 12 feet) to save time, but decided it wouldn't be good if I broke a leg since I had already lost one bet with luck.

One of the nice things about getting cut with razor sharp knifes is that the cut is clean, no ragged edges, so it was easy to hold the thing together and wrap some gauze and tape around it. If I had have been in the middle of the project, I would have stopped for the night. However, I pressed on, which reopened the wound and as I was putting the last pieces up, there was blood streaming down my arm (I made sure I wiped it off of the new siding). The only thing left to do on the outside is remove the old chimney, but I'll wait 5 years until I need to replace the roof.

I finished up the soffits over the next two weeks and this is what my house looks like now:

At the beginning of the project, I was going to the range regularly with my wife and friends. After taking my kid brother to the range for his first time in July, I decided to wait until I finished to go again. Sort of like a reward. So, that is the story of my house for now. I have to go load magazines!

Getting a Good Deal

I love to get a good deal. What most people don't realize is there is a lot of work involved to get a good deal. You may think that you are getting a good deal, but unless you have done your research, you just got what looks like a good price.

So how do I get good deals? First, I have to identify what is worth getting a good deal on. Milk may be $2.99 at WalMart but only $2.29 at Aldi. With that kind of minimal price difference, I am not going to go out of my way just to save 70 cents. On the other hand, a dining room set may be $1200. If I can find something equivalent for $800, then I have found a good deal. Finding a good deal starts with knowing what is worth looking for the good deals.

Second, you need to figure out what a reasonable price is and what you are willing to spend. These can be two separate things. For instance, $200 for a Wii Game System is reasonable. On the other hand, I am not willing to spend more than $100 since I wouldn't play it enough. Hence, I don't have a Wii. Reasonable prices can be found by shopping (not buying). Stores, internet, and classified ads can all give you an idea of what things are selling for. The key here is to remember to factor in all of the costs (shipping and taxes). After seeing what a reasonable price for something is, it is now time to do the emotional decision and decide what your willing to pay.

Third, now the fun part begins. This phase could take a day or years, depending on what you found in step two above. A good deal should be at least 25% less than what you are willing to pay (which hopefully is less than a reasonable amount). A lot of people stop when they find something less than the reasonable amount and buy it then. Really, you should hold out for the good deal. Patience is key. While you made an emotional decision about what you are willing to pay, at this point emotion should no longer be a part of your decision

Some may say that I am being stingy by trying to get such a low price. Actually, I am doing a net benefit to the economy. For one, by spending less money on each item, I am able to buy more, thereby spreading my dollars to more establishments. Second, a lot of the good deals happen on closeouts/inventory reductions/slightly damaged/etc. By me buying them, I am helping to clear out their inventory and giving merchants the chance to stock newer items.

One of the great things about getting a good deal is you get to hear more sales pitches than ever before. I love salesmen, they have a job to do and their goal (in spite of what they may tell you) is to get you to buy as much as possible. Because of this it is always funny about some of the things that are told to you to "close the sale."

When we were shopping for a piano, the music store salesman told us that they were the "17th largest music store in the nation." I guess if you are in the 148th largest city in America, then this might mean something. Honestly, how "big" you are doesn't matter. What matters is price. I don't shop at WalMart because they are the largest retailer in the nation. I shop there because they have the right price for the things my family buys.

In looking for a hotel I am amazed that the rooms will be advertised with such amenities as a hairdryer or marble sink. The other thing that I laugh at is seeing them "brag" about their 250 thread count sheets or even 350 thread count sheets. I'm sorry, at home I sleep on 650 thread count sheets (and I don't want to go back to anything less). If your business is going to brag about something, be sure that it is worth bragging about.

The last part of finding a good deal is to make sure you check the non-traditional places. Ebay & Craigslist are great resources. I once sold a pool table on Ebay for $350. It came with the house I bought and was really worthless to me. The person that bought it probably would have paid $600-$1000 for a new one. He got a good deal. I got it out of my house. Both of us were happy with the transaction. Another place my wife and I have found good deals is at Aldi's. We bought a breakfast nook (seats 6) for $170 (we had budgeted $700). I found out it is renamed from another company's brand which sells it under their label in department stores for $450-650.

Shopping just to shop, I can't stand. Finding good deals while shopping I can handle.