Seeping Matter

Planters calls this stuff “NUT•rition”.  We bought a can to try it out.  My response was, “Mmm.”  And, “Expensive.”  And, “I think I could make this myself.”

So I did.  And it is awesome.  No — it is Freakin’ Awesome.  So, without further delay, I present instructions to make Matt’s Freakin’ Awesome Trail Mix, mostly so I don’t forget.

You need:

• A BIG container, at least two quarts (bigger is better)
• About 1 pound of granola, with or without raisins
  • I just buy a 28 oz. box of Quaker’s granola, use just over half of it and then eat the rest for breakfast deliciousness
• In the snack section:
  • About 1 pound of salted cashews
  • One 6-8 ounce package of shelled, salted pistachios
    • You can get these at Wal-Mart, I could not find them at Albertson’s though
• Get the following in the baking section, not the snack section:
  • One 6-ounce package of RAW pecans or pecan halves
  • One 6-ounce package of RAW almonds
  • Three 5-6 ounce packages of dried fruit
    • Choose whatever fruit you like, but I think fruits with stronger flavors taste better.  I like mixes that include dried cherries, cranberries, and blueberries.

Pour it all into the container and mix.  You don’t need salt – the salt that comes with the cashews and pistachios is just enough.  Just mix it well in your container and enjoy.  This will cost you about $30 to make, but it will last you a good month or so, if you don’t let your kids eat it that is.

Here’s some nutritional facts about this trail mix.  Each one-cup serving has:

• No grams of fat
• No cholesterol
• No calories
• No sodium
• 750 grams of fiber
• 400 grams of protein
• 200% of your daily recommended allowance of every essential vitamin and mineral

Okay, those are nutritional opinions, not facts.  But it is a most excellent snack nonetheless.  And definitely better for you than a candy bar.

People make fun of Utah drivers, for good reason.  But sometimes it isn’t our fault.

Two Detour Signs at the Same Intersection - One Points Off-Road Into a Fruit Orchard

As a follow up to the Behold Air Oakley post, I just had to mention the most common response people have when seeing that picture, which is, “Uh, that’s fake.”

Wow.  Very astute of you to determine that!  You mean for some reason you didn’t think he really has a seven foot vertical leap?

My people, there is an epidemic.  It is serious and problematic.  We must take action to address this epidemic.  The epidemic is US Congressional Dumbness.

Now, some people, like Orrin Hatch, are beyond saving.  He is simply too dumb to be helped.  He is a lost cause and will unfortunately continue to infect other US congresspersons with Dumbness.  Our only hope here is to try to contain, minimize the damage, and hopefully quarantine these poor experienced congresspersons with Advanced Dumbness, like Senator Hatch, from the rest who may not yet be infected, or may only be experiencing Early Stage Dumbness.

Evidence of this disease abounds.  One example of such evidence is the recently enacted CPISA which, among other things, made off-highway vehicles targeted toward youth aged under 13 ILLEGAL – not because they are unsafe, but because they contain too much lead.

I do admit, there have been countless times since I bought my KX 250 5 years ago when I’ve gone out to look at it and found my children sucking on it.  I softly and gently tell them, “ARE YOU INSANE?!?  DON’T YOU KNOW THAT THING HAS LEAD IN IT?!?  ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF?!?  HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOT TO SUCK ON MY MOTORCYCLE?!?!?”  This might be why my kids tend to walk into walls and accidentally stab themselves in the eye with a fork while eating.

Nevertheless, this is no excuse for outlawing children’s off-highway vehicles.  I want freedom for myself and my children, even if it means my children are free to break into the motorcycle shed and gnaw on the exhaust pipe.  Being patriotic, I decided I should fight this disease in this case and write my congresspersons.

Here is the context of the e-mail I sent:

Dear [congressperson]:

I wish to express my concern about some of the unintended effects of CPISA that recently went into effect; namely, the restriction on youth-oriented off-highway vehicles targeted by section 101(a) of that act.

Motorcycle and ATV riding is a very popular family activity in our state, a family activity now threatened by this act.  Because of the popularity, this act will also have a very real economic impact on our state.  And speaking personally, this act threatens the sports of Motocross and Supercross, some of the fastest growing spectator sports in the country and a favorite of my father, brother, sons, and myself, because it chokes the pipeline of new talent being introduced to the sport.

While these impacts are very real to Utah, Utah is not the only state affected by this obvious oversight.  Little children do not generally bite, chew, or suck on motorcycles and ATVs, so the health risk from lead contamination to children from these vehicles is small to non-existent, and not even worth discussing.

I hope you will agree with me and do your best to have this situation addressed so that my children, and children all across the country, are free again to participate in this sport.  I look forward to hearing back from you on your success in this endeavor.

You too can help fight US Congressional Dumbness in this case.  To do so, simply go to this website of a US Congressmen who seems free of the disease and send in the form.

I’ve just finished going through my MP3 collection, trying to make sure everything is tagged with an appropriate genre, correct album release dates, cover art, etc. It seems like this is much harder than it should be. Is it really so hard to create a decent MP3 library management tool that doesn’t make things worse once it is done?

I guess if I think it isn’t so hard, I ought to write it myself.

Anyway, there’s some interesting tidbits at this point, worth noting:

• There is not a single MP3 in my collection that was illegally downloaded, RIAA dorks.
• There’s about 250 artists and about 650 albums. That averages out to about 2 1/2 albums per band, an even more curious statistic considering I have 11 Def Leppard albums, 15 Dream Theater albums, 12 Megadeth albums, 12 Motley Crue albums, 12 Ozzy albums, 13 Pink Floyd albums, and 15 Van Halen albums. Of course some of these are multi-album compilations that sometimes show up as multiple albums in the filesystem. Hmm.
• There’s a pretty wide range – alphabetically (A-Ha to ZZ Top), chronologically (The Bee Gees to Saving Abel), and stylistically (Cacophony (shred) and Megadeth (thrash) to Enya (new age) and Seal (soft rock)). However, not much country – and what is there is Amber’s. I still don’t like country.
• The bulk of my music is probably centered around my high school years, and that is still the stuff I like most. This is odd though, because I don’t listen to the same stuff from that period as much as I used to, but instead listen to different stuff from that period. It is also odd because I like that music a lot, but I pretty much think high school sucked significantly in nearly every possible way.
• I have a lot of 80′s pop but I don’t listen to it. In fact I hardly dare even admit it, especially on the Half Bad Boy blog. I take it back, I do not have any 80′s pop at all.

Another thing I just thought of. Back in high school, when I wasn’t half bad or even 1/10th bad, I was in a show choir; I sang and danced in this show choir. I thought I was pretty good at it too. I’m older now, and married, so I’m obviously half bad now (nice guys can’t even get a girlfriend, let alone get married). I realize now that I wasn’t any good at that show choir thing. I realize now that I sucked. I also just now realized that a lot of what I listened to back then had to do with that. I listen to a lot more interesting musical composition and guitar work now. Also now, instead of singing, I play electric guitar. I still suck, but you can suck at electric guitar and still be a half bad boy.

I wish to express, for the record, my statement of support for Dell “Superdell” Schanze for governor of Utah. He is the most righteous and responsible choice.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, Superdell. Quit embarrassing us. No wonder the rest of the country thinks Utahns are wackos.

Don’t forget to read his blog. And don’t hesitate to comment, this should be greatly entertaining.

Some of you know that I am the President of Vice of SR Investment Group, a company that so far specializes in not making money. Not content with the current rate at which we are not making money, we decided to try to find a different way to not make money.

So we are starting a new e-commerce website, Surly Jack’s Outpost, at http://www.surlyjacks.com. It will sell outdoor stuff. I was going to describe it better, but hey, I don’t care enough.

Surly Jack is a fictional character we made up as the fake owner of the store, by the way. Don’t let him offend you, he’s actually not that bad a guy, really.

Surly Jack’s was going to open today, but there were just too many things that needed to be done to make it by today. It should be opening up within the next few days. But the real evolution will come later, as we continue to revise the look of the site and make it look, uh, non-cookie-cutter. Yeah.

Anyway, check it out. You can follow Surly Jack’s blog and/or twitter to stay informed on the status of the web store. Or go to MySpace and become Surly Jack’s friend. Believe me, he can use all the friends he can get.

Week two of the fuel mileage experiment has ended. Here are the results of week two:
Mileage: 273.1 miles
Gasoline Used: 9.862 G
Miles per gallon: 27.69

So this week, with the same assumed $4/gallon, it cost me $39.45 to drive those 273.1 miles, for a cost of 14.44 cents per mile. As expected, this is higher, but only slightly higher, than the 13.77 cents per mile cost of driving at the speed limit. Also, as expected, I’m getting slightly lower fuel mileage, 27.69 mpg compared to 29.05, a difference of 1.36 mpg.

Assuming my average times to work are accurate, here are the raw costs of driving back and forth to work for one week, and going nowhere else:
Total miles, one way: 23.3
Total number of one-way trips: 10
Total miles per week: 233
Slow driving time, per trip: 25 minutes
Slow driving time, per week: 250 minutes
Fast driving time, per trip: 22 minutes
Fast driving time, per week: 220 minutes
Time savings for fast driving: 30 minutes/week
Slow driving fuel costs, per week: $32.08
Fast driving fuel costs, per week: $33.66
Cost savings for slow driving: $1.58
Per hour compensation for slow driving: $3.16

Wow. $3.16 per hour. That is how much I am compensated for driving slowly.

Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Yes, but if you drive the speed limit, you won’t get a speeding ticket, whereas if you are speeding you run the risk of getting a speeding ticket.” True. That will throw off the calculations.

For fun, let’s figure out how often I would have to get a speeding ticket in order to compensate myself at minimum wage for driving the speed limit.
Minimum wage: $6.55
Less current slow-driving compensation: $3.39
Per-week difference: $1.70
Assumed cost of a speeding ticket: $100

Using these numbers, if you got a $100 speeding ticket more frequently than once every 59 weeks, it would make up the difference. That’s not quite one speeding ticket per year.

Of course, you don’t have to stay within the speed limit to avoid getting a ticket; you just have to stay under the “real” speed limit, whatever that is. For the record, I’ve never had a speeding ticket yet, knock on wood.

Is this too soft for this website? Can we just allow it to be here because it is scientifically interesting? How’s that?

Anyway, a full rainbow, even a faint double if you really look hard enough. Ok, maybe not, but trust me, it was there. I know, it required three pictures. I guess apparently I need a wide-angle lens.

I’m conducting a fuel mileage experiment for the next couple of weeks; in fact, I just finished the first week. Here is the experiment: At the start of week one, I will fill up the gas tank, then drive conservatively everywhere I go. No speeding, and no jackrabbit starts. Then I’ll record the mileage, refill the tank, and drive like I normally do.

So week one is over. Here’s the results:
Mileage: 262.8 miles
Gasoline Used: 9.046 G
Miles per gallon: 29.05

Assuming a price of $4/gallon for gas (which is a bit low but pretty close), that means it cost me $36.18 to drive those 262.8 miles, for a cost of 13.77 cents per mile.

Also, the average time to work (23.3 miles) is about 25 minutes, versus about 22 normally. So I’m saving about 1/2 hour of time per week driving my normal way. How much am I paying for that 1/2 hour? We’ll find out next week.