I got my rack and pannier bag installed last week and ended up riding to work today. The bag I got works great, more than enough room for a change of clothes, shoes and lunch. Felt a little weird walking into the building in shorts and sandals. My team lead comes in later than me and leaves earlier so I'm changing in her office. I kept a quick pace coming in and got a little sweatier than I wanted so I'll just have to take my time. I'll post a picture of my complete commuter setup.
I'll probably end up really liking a bike commute. At 6:40am the streets are pretty quiet and peaceful which makes for a nice relaxing start. I'll be forced to bring my lunch more often so I need to start exploring lunches more exciting than PB&J.
Tagged with: bikes, commute
Posted under: Life Stuff
Turned 24 yesterday and celebrated with inexpensive dinner and dessert at Chick-fil-A by the slightly mediocre movie The Bank Job at home. Dinner with the family tonight, Dave and Buster's on Saturday for Kurtis, trip to Dana Point on Sunday, and then Vegas Monday through Wednesday for more mourning of the end of Kurtis's bachelor status.
I wasn't planning on getting much in the way of birthday presents, but I'm getting myself something that I just couldn't resist. Saw an older Rossi Model 62 .22 pump action rifle for sale on Calguns.net and the price was good. It's a remake of the classic Winchester Model 62, but those cost 3-4 times as much. The seller was local so we're meeting at Ammo Bros tomorrow morning. Should be fun and cheap to shoot, more details to follow.
Tagged with: family, guns
Posted under: Life Stuff
My old employer offered an IRA through Fidelity and I just passed the 2 year maturity date on that account. With Simple IRAs you have to wait 2 years before the funds are available to rollover. I'm sure regular investment accounts at Fidelity are fine, but this IRA was an "Advisor" account and I didn't really have much control over it and the investment options were limited. Some of the fees are a little steep considering how much I have in the account. I think I just have a money market fund in it that hasn't done much, but I did double my investment from the employer match.
The Fidelity IRA will be rolled over to a Traditional IRA at Vanguard and I'm contemplating putting the money into the Total International Stock Index Fund. I've got the Target Retirement 2045 in my Roth which is heavy in domestic large caps and only has 18% of its holdings in international stocks. I'd be willing to go a little higher than that, maybe 30-35% international. My rollover just barely meets the minimum $3000 in the international fund and maxing out my Roth IRA for 2008 would put my portfolio at 39% international. Next year I'll buy more of the 2045 fund and bring that percent down.
If anybody is interested I put together a little spreadsheet to help calculate asset allocation based on a fund's holdings. With funds of funds, this can be tough to figure out, especially if you have overlap in different funds. Since I'm in broad market index funds I don't have to worry about being too heavy in a certain sector or single company.
Yeah yeah I know, index fund blah blah blah, asset allocation blah blah blah.
Tagged with: asset allocation, investment, ira, vanguard
Posted under: Money Stuff
Bunch of us guys went up to Burro Canyon to go shooting for Charles's Bachelor Party. We had a good turn out and ended up with quite the arsenal:
- 2 SKSs
- 2 AR-15s
- 2 Ruger 10/22
- my Savage Mark II bolt-action rifle
- 2 black powder rifles
- 30-30 lever action
- .45LC lever action
- 3 shotguns
- 3 S&W .357s
- Glock in .40S&W
- Ruger in .45ACP
- Springfield XD in .45?
- .45LC revolver
- black powder revolver
- and Jason's sweet little Colt .22
Fun was had by all and we burned through most of our ammo. I shot everything except the black powder guns, but stuck to my .22 and .357 for most of the day. Probably shot 400-500 rounds of .22 and 100-150 of .357 and .38 special.
A .22 pistol is high on my list right now and I still want a Marlin 1894C lever action rifle in .357. I know I sound like a gun nut, but those are the only other guns I want except maybe a shotgun and a 1911. Pics of all the shooting fun is up in the gallery:
Burro Canyon Shooting
Tagged with: guns
Posted under: Life Stuff
After trying one method of bringing my shared Google Reader items into Wordpress I'm not exactly thrilled with the results. Rather than creating a single post per shared item I think I'd be happier with rolling a week's worth of items into a single "roundup" post. The things I share aren't really meant to spark discussion, they're just good reads I want to share.
What I really want to be able to do is create a post with a list of links to the items that have been shared since my last update (much like Kurtis does occasionally with random links). Problem is I can't find a plugin that does this so it looks like I'll be putting my noob PHP skills to use to create another plugin. Naming it is going to be the hardest part, "Feed Link Extractor" or "Feed Link Aggregator" or something.
Tagged with: google reader, rss, wordpress
Posted under: Geek Stuff
I'm using the term retro pretty loosely to include just about any game over 5 years old. Nox is an action RPG developed by Westwood Studios and released by EA in 2000 for Windows. It plays like most Diablo clones and was fun playing through as the Warrior class (Conjurer and Wizard also available with very minor plot changes), but there were flaws that kept it from becoming anything more than average.
In terms of user interface, the biggest departure from Diablo though is the use of the right-mouse button to move forward rather than just clicking on the ground. The level of environmental interaction is actually quite good and I'd say ahead of it's time. Tables and chairs are separate from each other, you can kick rocks as you run or knock down walls to discover hidden areas. The problem is you can run into and get hung up on those little objects. If you get caught between a chair and table you can keep running into either one to eventually push it out of the way or you can swing your mouse behind your character to backtrack and find a better path.
Diablo II came out the same year and it seems they tried to copy a bit from Blizzard's masterpiece without actually thinking it through. All weapons and armor have durability like Diablo II, but the rate of wear and the cost of repair is ridiculous. On top of that there is no handy way to get back to town to repair or replenish health potions; they should have copied town portals too. The best part about RPGs is the loot. Problem was all my best gear was constantly broken (or disappearing because I forgot to remove it before its durability ran out) and I was just using whatever I could pick up.
Nox won't be getting a repeat play through with the other classes, but it does give some insight into how things have changed in the aftermath of Diablo II. If you're an action RPG fan then it might be worth playing (let me know if you want a copy). Considering its age I'll give it a solid 7.
Tagged with: pc gaming, review, rpg
Posted under: Gaming Stuff
July is a huge reminder about just how much money we spend on automobile transportation. The planets seem to align when insurance and registration for both of us come in at about the same time. This year I got the added joy of renewing my drivers license and smogging the RSX for the first time (I kid you not it took about 3 minutes for them to test it). All that on top of two car payments is a nice little sum of money vanishing in a short period of time. The monthly cost might not seem bad, but it all adds up to a significant portion of our income.
I'm one step closer to my bike commute though. I bought locks, rear rack and trunk bag last night which means I might be ready to make the switch in a couple weeks. The Topeak rack and bag are pretty sweet since they have a slide on mechanism for easy installation and removal. Ordered from Tree Fort Bikes which had everything I wanted at very competitive prices. Still contemplating if I want to put fenders on.
Tagged with: bikes, cars, commute, personal finance
Posted under: Life Stuff
Time flies when you're married and having fun. One year anniversary was yesterday and we had a nice dinner at Walt's Wharf in Seal Beach. The artichoke and Alaskan Halibut was delicious.
Tagged with: marriage
Posted under: Life Stuff
Yesterday, a group of us went down to the beach to surf and relax. I'm not big on surfing or laying on the sand waiting to inevitably get burned so I decided to ride down and meet everyone. I started out at the Wallace ranch and got on the San Gabriel River Trail at Imperial Hwy. The trail ends at the beach in Seal Beach so I made my way over to PCH for a hop over to Sunset Beach and rode through the parking lot to end up at the north end of Bolsa Chica. 20 miles total, 1:50 of actual pedal time with a few breaks along the way at Liberty Park, El Dorado and Seal Beach.
It was probably the best workout I've had in 3 years and I'm not even sore today. If I had gone surfing or attempted to run a couple miles I'd be feeling the pain today. Cycling is probably my best bet to get in shape right now. I'm also pondering an attempt at the 100 Pushup Challenge.
Tagged with: bikes, exercise, ride
Posted under: Life Stuff
Shared from Google Reader:
Detaching From Material Possessions a Sign of Emotional and Financial Maturity
Makes you think about all the "stuff" we have and do we really need it. If I start riding my bike to work I'm going to have a truck I'll drive occasionally on the weekend, but still pay a good chunk of change every month for it to sit there all week. Only 2 years left on the loan, but if I was starting a bike commute a year ago I'd probably be more serious about downgrading.
The Blarg is clearing out his DVD collection which makes me think I could do some house cleaning myself.
Posted under: Money Stuff
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