Farmer's Market

Salt Lake City hosts a Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning in one of its downtown parks. I went this weekend with visions of finding vine ripe tomatoes, new mushrooms, fresh oregano, and tender basil that I could take home, put it all in a pot, and reduce it to a killer marinara sauce, or as I like to call it, “gravy”. (“Hey-yo, wait-uh, whez duh gravy fo’ my braciole?”) I was excited to look through some fresh home grown produce. When I first got there, I saw a quartet playing some music; which wasn’t all that bad, but I would have expected the band at a Farmer’s Market to be filled with banjos, fiddles, and a guy blowing across the opening of an empty jug. I didn’t mind, though, since I had my mind set on finding fresh tomatoes. I looked all over that park trying to find them, but instead, all I found were booths and booths of things like jewelry, tie-died tee shirts, scarves, pottery, paintings, and even didgeridoos. They even had a row of booths filled with fast food chains trying to sell burritos and ice cream cones. The closest thing I could find to vegetables was some small seedling plants that someone was selling out of the back of their truck over by the curb. What I thought would be a fun farmer’s market turned out to be the worst flee market ever. They even had prices on all of their goods so that I couldn’t haggle. Boring! I probably would have paid money for something I didn’t even want if I could have talked them down on the price. Call me back when the “farmer’s” market decides to sell herbs and vegetables, or at least offer pony rides.

Larping

I went to dinner with a couple of friends on Saturday and half way through our meal a large party came in and sat down next to our table. That’s not that interesting normally, but this group had just finished a “Larp” session and they were still in costume and character. (Google “Larp” if you don’t know.) Needless to say, it’s difficult to keep a straight face when the guy in the elf suit at the next table says “Give me a pint of your finest ale good sir”, instead of just ordering a coke. Or even worse, when a couple from the group has to break away and have a serious conversation in a vacant booth about why the cleric hadn’t healed the warrior at a critical point in a major battle sequence. Now, I admit that when I was a kid I used to have sword fights with sticks and we had life points and pretended that half of us were goblins, but I think there is a big difference from what I did then and what this group was doing on Saturday night. First, I never dressed up in a costume or got into character, but most importantly, I was ten years old. Not to be judgmental because everyone has to have their hobbies and to each his own, but I find this particular subculture extremely fascinating to observe. In fact, they are coming out with a movie documentary about it, which will be a must see.

Workman's Comp?

There are so many possible twists to this story that the best way I can think to say it is exactly how it is. (I know, that's not typical for me.) I went to my buddy's summer work party tonight and the crowning activity of the evening was to have all the employees gather in a field so that a few could launch water balloons (a few filled with money) at them from about 50 yards away. I laughed so hard while I watched these poor people get pelted. Listen closely and you can hear the balloon hit.

Million Dollar Ideas

Why is it that when someone sits down on an office chair it makes a sound like a whale coming up for air? I’m tired of my office sounding like the collective blow holes of a migrating school of hump backs. Maybe I should invent a silent office chair. Oh yea, that and a gizmo to mute the Kenny G that is intruding everyone’s private lives from the cubicle two doors down. I’m sure I could convince several of my coworkers to put an empty fish bowl over their heads if I told them it was a silencing helmet for lame music. What’s the number to the patent office? Or better yet, what’s the number to NBC? Can you imagine Stanley sitting down on a chair that goes “Spooossshhhh”, or Dwight convinced that a fish bowl could drown out Jim’s voice? Being a writer for NBC sitcoms sounds a lot better than being a loan writer. Suh-weet!

Wasatch Back 2008

Star Search

I got my picture taken with a minor celebrity this weekend. Does anyone know who she is?

Cirque de Ferguson

I went hiking up Ferguson Canyon with some friends last night; a canyon I didn’t even know existed until yesterday. We made it about a mile before getting lost. After a few dead ends and some perilous situations, we decided to cross the stream and see if we could see the trail on the other side. Well, when I say “we”, I mean the two girls with those chaco/tiva thing-a-ma-jigs did while the rest of us waited. They indeed found a trail, and I, being the chivalrous type, asked if one of them wouldn’t mind carrying me across the stream so that I wouldn’t have to get my feet wet. One of them did, but she wouldn’t carry me like a bride across the threshold, so I compromised for an old fashioned piggy back ride. It worked like a charm. But when she went back to carry some of the others, the rest of the group decided they had had enough and headed back for the car. The girl that carried me went with them. That left me and the other trail blazing girl on the other side. We decided to ditch them and see where the trail took us. After a mile or so of some uphill and switch backs, we made it to a cool view of the city. But at that point we decided we better head back before the rest of the group got mad enough to make us shell out for cab fair. When we got back to the stream crossing, I was able to talk this other girl into giving me a piggy back ride across as well, and I was feeling pretty good about my negotiation skills. A little distance down the trail we came to another stream crossing. It was shallower and I could have easily played Frogger across the stones to the other side, but I was having too much fun with the piggy back rides not to get a third. I must have been pressing my luck though, because after a step or two, she tripped. As she fell to her hands and knees, I outstretched my arms and legs like Tom Cruise in mission impossible right before he hits the weight sensitive floor and triggers the alarm. I, on the other hand, didn’t care about setting off the alarm; I just didn’t want to get wet. Miraculously, when she came to a rest on all fours, I was teetering on her back like a turtle shell. This poor girl was getting drenched in the current, her headlamp had fallen off and was washing downstream leaving us in the dark, and all I could think about were the odds that this girl could get back up with me still on her back. As I petitioned if she was okay, I wondered if I dare follow that up by asking if she had ever dead lifted 180 lbs, when suddenly my glasses started to slip off my face. I knew I was doomed since I had to give up my balancing act to keep my specs from falling into the drink. We laughed about it on the last walk to the cars with my shoes split splatting the whole way.

To pay early or not to pay early

I ran a model that measured the difference between making extra payments to a mortgage to pay it off early and making the minimum payment and letting the mortgage go the full term. It also assumes that the one letting the mortgage go the full term, invests an amount equivalent to the extra payment made by the one paying the mortgage off early; and that the one paying off the mortgage early begins to invest an amount equal to his mortgage payment plus the extra amount applied to principal as soon as the mortgage is fully paid off. Therefore, both sides of the equation have the exact same out-of-pocket monthly expense for the full 30-year period. My assumptions were:

Tax Bracket: 30%
Market Return: 11%
Mortgage Rate: 6%
Principal Balance: $300,000
Mortgage Term: 30 Years
Extra Payment/Mo: $899 (or an extra 50%/mo)

Here are the results of the one who lets the mortgage go full term:

Interest Expense: ($347,514.57)
Tax Savings: $104,254.37
Investment Return: $2,522,176.92
Ending Balance: $2,278,917.72

And, here are the results of the one who pays off the mortgage early:

Interest Expense: ($139,175.62)
Tax Savings: $41,752.69
Investment Return: $1,485,569.51
Ending Balance: $1,388,146.58

I believe that the primary proponent to paying off a mortgage early is peace of mind. Believe me; I know how having debt can weigh down on your shoulders. But is that peace of mind worth $890,770.15? It very well could be.

I think the key in all of this is to make sure that, after you’ve signed up for that mortgage, there is a surplus of discretionary income with which you can do as you see fit. Otherwise, there will be a whole percentage of the population who are teetering on the edge, so the government won’t be able to raise interest rates, so the value of the dollar will continue to plummet, so the cost of oil will continue to skyrocket (among other reasons, such as increasing demand, and a fairly inelastic supply . . . . does three make a perfect storm?), so it costs me $4 for a gallon of gas and $12 for a hamburger. Oh wait, that already happened. I don’t know about your CPI, but mine’s not in check. (Would that be the DPI – Dean’s Price Index?)

The World's Best

Yesterday, Business Week published “The World’s Best Places to Live 2008”. Consultants from Mercer Consulting rated each city on a variety of factors including the level of traffic congestion, air quality, and personal safety reported by expatriates living in more than 600 cities worldwide. I thought the list was pretty interesting, so I thought I would publish the results. Out of the top 20 cities on the list, I’ve only been to one. (How many have you been to?) It looks like I have some sight seeing to do. Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands are all neighbors. I could knock out 12 of the 19 I haven’t been to in one trip. Then, with a trip to Canada and another one to Australia/New Zealand I would be able to see them all. Of course, the best places to live might not be the same as the best places to visit, but oh well. And, if you’re curious, the first US city on the list was Honolulu at No. 28.

No. 1: Zurich, Switzerland
No. 2 (tie): Vienna, Austria
No. 2 (tie): Geneva, Switzerland
No. 4: Vancouver, Canada
No. 5: Auckland, New Zealand
No. 6: Dusseldorf, Germany
No. 7 (tie): Munich, Germany
No. 7 (tie): Frankfurt, Germany
No. 9: Bern, Switzerland
No. 10: Sydney, Australia
No. 11: Copenhagen, Denmark
No. 12: Wellington, New Zealand
No. 13: Amsterdam, Netherlands
No. 14: Brussels, Belgium
No. 15: Toronto, Canada
No. 16: Berlin, Germany
No. 17 (tie): Melbourne, Australia
No. 17 (tie): Luxembourg, Luxembourg
No. 19: Ottawa, Canada
No. 20: Stockholm, Sweden

The Dark Tower

I read the first line on December 15th on a flight from Salt Lake City to Atlanta. I read the last line yesterday on my couch.

6 Months
174 Days
7 Books
4,505 Pages

Wonderful! Exceptional! Inspriring! I'm officially a Dark Tower junkie. Here is a great quote from one of the last pages in the series.

"There is no such thing as a happy ending. I never met a single one to equal 'Once Upon a Time'. Endings are heartless. Ending is just another word for goodbye."

Rated R

Last night I saw a commercial for the new M. Night Shamylan movie and the biggest selling point of the commercial was “the director who brought you The Sixth Sense and Signs brings you his first R-rated movie” and the R was gigantic on the screen. Not only do I think that the whole rating system is bogus, but to use the rating as a selling point is absurd. Ratings are basically a way to tack a letter grade to a movie to indicate if it is suited for children, adolescents, or adults. When looked at that way, is there any wonder why R-rated movies make the most money? The answer is: because the majority of movie goers are adult. I’m not so mature that I can’t laugh at a guy running around in tighty whities or enjoy a comic book remake, and animation is fascinating, but a movie that not only entertains but challenges my intellect as well is a real winner. My issue with ratings is that they are tacked onto movies by a room of suits somewhere getting paid way too much money to assume that they know the values of individuals everywhere. Wouldn’t it be easier just to disclose what questionable content is shown in a movie? For instance, I would rate Saving Private Ryan a “GV, L” (graphic violence and language) and Titanic a “SC, N, V” (sexual content, nudity, and violence). I would rather see the GV so I can appreciate the cost of my freedom than to see the SC and N just to get my date in the mood. But that’s just my personal opinion; and that’s the idea, that everyone could decide for themselves and parents could decide for their children. And are we all so naive to think that corporate pressure and money aren’t enough to have that room of suits change the rating to what they see fit? But what really gets my goat about this whole commercial, is that they were marketing the rating, some letter generated by that room of suits. Either Mr. Shamylan was targeting the rating, or the big studio distributing his movie is in charge of the advertising, but either way it seems clear that they are simply trying to boost ticket sales by rating it R, so that more adults will go. I realize that the movie industry is in business to make money, but I like living with the illusion that writers and directors make movies because they are in love with the art of cinema. I like to think that they dream up great stories and get great actors and camera men and hair dressers to bring those stories to life. I like to think that they are just as inspired as any painter with his canvas, or writer with her blank sheets of paper. And I hope that they make the movie however they dreamt it and hand it to those suits in the boardroom to give it whatever rating they want because there is no way they would ever change their art, just as Michelangelo would never finger paint a tuxedo onto his statue of David because someone thought it inappropriate. When I hear that they are targeting a rating to boost ticket sales, all it does is scream “SELL OUT”. If all they want for their efforts of making this new movie is money, then I hope it flops.

Blogger's Block

I think I have bloggers block. It probably has a lot to do with my new position (I recently transferred within my company), or more precisely my new location, which is again in a cubicle. My little cubie is right on the corner, so I have people walking by my desk all day long. Furthermore, I believe that my cubicle has taken the place of the office water cooler. People come and lean on, in, and around my cubicle just to shoot the breeze. Inspiration is hard to come by when everyone in the whole office is constantly looking over my shoulder to see what’s on my screen. They don’t intentionally intrude, I’m sure, but it’s hard not to look at something you pass by ten times a day. For example, I’ve alt-tabbed my way around the peepers of about 10 people just writing these few sentences. I miss my little haven where I could drum up blog inspiration without interruption. On the other hand, this new location is probably better for my career.

Oh, by the way, the final numbers from Concert Quench were $48,000 going directly to Care for Cambodia. That amounts to about 48 wells in 48 villages in which people used to have to walk miles just to fetch river water. It will help hundreds to have better health. If you helped spread the word about the concert, or spent money on a ticket, or even just wished us well, then I say thank ya.