tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80461362024-03-05T13:04:19.309-08:00The Official UnauthorizedPragmatism and idealism have an arm-wrestle. Kibitzers welcome.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-87279544280702891952012-07-06T23:12:00.003-07:002012-07-07T00:44:47.073-07:00More Things to Never DoJust a word to the wise. If you have a RAID 1 array for your C: drive
in Windows, and you replace one of the hard disks that RAID reports as
failed, DO NOT attach the failed disk to the same machine to find out
what is wrong with it. I now know more about the Windows boot manager,
the Windows Recovery Environment, disk partitions under Windows 7 and
the use of the Diskpart, Bootrec, and BCDEdit tools, as well as remote
editing of registry hives, than I ever wanted. It took nearly three days
of searching, fiddling, booting from install disks, and trying out
various tools (some of which did bad things I then had to figure out how
to undo - I'm looking at you, EasyBCD) to get back to where I started
from. <br />
<br />Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-86293596550767830592010-05-31T20:59:00.000-07:002010-05-31T21:15:02.477-07:00Pulling Your WeightToday the youngster and I stopped in at the <a href="http://www.harborfreight.com/">Harbor Freight</a> store. Not for anything in particular, unless I saw a good deal on a bench vise, perhaps, but mainly because I'd never been before. It's an impressive collection of tools they have there, at equally impressive prices. Too bad the quality is not equally impressive. Still, I'd shop there again for things where price was the most important factor. And it's not like it's all horrible crap, most of the stuff is fairly good, and a fairly good deal at the price. <br /><br />While there, I saw a winch. A hand-cranked winch. A hand-cranked winch with cable for less than twenty bucks. A hand-cranked winch with cable for less than twenty bucks that would be just dandy for a certain Secret Clubhouse application - the retractable ladder. Sold! <br /><br />Let's see how it looks:<br /><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/aWmajtmGiHwKPPZfIetHAY8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwsYNZ5IakLkSfUpVZhq9bz0-djcfwF0ui0jFo9HWwLfdsSv8_ThXXUHyN-7LyhoB_Ocw6uhcRxWCYA1kO4w0z93gYmnfYN83zAF4nVLv-Gcu7zm9kWPfhnCzkTqt9RNfw4iSC/s400/IMAG0028.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_IOnShnfoJ78mJlGJzsGmo8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikZD80Pix9_LKZXSu-Ls8NNF7h_MZWxMsFyQo8gAQ2KKZh6vzPQjwMH91c_7lZQxDTj2BTXX0zOi7PJzBIBiC66wVICfUFU6GEaAZJpiiHdwWKEqFg9VTysxMyoLfCw_PE6v-2/s400/IMAG0029.jpg" /></a><br /><br />It does the job. I think I need to work on a housing, or it'll be rusted in no time.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-88144908006234506162010-05-14T02:24:00.000-07:002010-05-14T03:01:17.498-07:00The Secret Clubhouse<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/GKl6M6K4goqpLzEiHZTbp48B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCneit2lTvWtnPQgB2eTa3sjTbBWFb-7urKr2I6-S9QDEn4t6Lcc6txbMbL8jdi4O6WOkKqTy2V_Ua8rhaYXBwUhJHeoW_0uDNxHoeYTJZ2xYT5c0QrotFY0HSouuEo405y4Q8/s400/IMG_6587.JPG" /></a><br />First, a disclaimer. The clubhouse is not a secret. Its name is "The Secret Clubhouse."<br /><br />The youngest member of the family has been clamoring for a clubhouse for a couple of years, at least. The play fort atop the big play structure just wasn't cutting it. I suspect it started with a Berenstain Bears book, <a href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394873319/'>No Girls Allowed</a>. The book describes a clubhouse built by the boys with a door and windows and intriguingly, a drawbridge to keep out the girls. Many drawings of clubhouses were made, all with drawbridges and windows. I'd regularly get asked if we could build a clubhouse "right now" and I was always putting the kid off. We had sufficient play areas, after all, but they weren't what he wanted.<br /><br />Last month, I'm not entirely sure why, I agreed to build a clubhouse. Some of the reason, of course, is the recapitulation of my own childhood in what I see of my child's activities and interests. I wanted to have a clubhouse again, too. <br /><br />When I was small, my dad built a succession of sandboxes for me and my siblings, but the first ones were mainly for me. There was a tractor tire to start with, and when we moved to Cody, Wyoming, Dad built the first wooden sandbox. We moved back to Boise, and Dad built a bigger sandbox, then later enlarged it. It had several sizes over the years, larger and then smaller again, but at its largest it was easily the biggest sandbox I've ever seen in a private yard, and I've only ever seen one park with a bigger sandbox. Maybe sixteen by twenty feet or thereabouts, big enough for a swingset with lots of room left over. He had the sand delivered by dump truck, taking down a fence so it could back into the back yard and drop several yards of sand in directly. There was a LOT of sand in there. On a couple of the iterations, Dad put up some 4x4 posts, with the intention of building some kind of elevated play space like a clubhouse on top. Our neighborhood was built on former farmland, and there were no mature trees that would make for a good tree house in our yard or for several blocks for that matter, so the posts were actually a pretty reasonable idea. Unfortunately, posts were as for as we got for several years. Those posts were there with nothing atop them, until they rotted at the bottom and got pulled out. Dad finally built us an entirely different sort of playhouse on a telephone pole he had installed in the back yard, which was pretty cool. That's a story for another time.<br /><br />Remembering the posts, and having some spare ones when I was building the play space in my own back yard, I put up four of them in the corner, spaced about eight feet apart. I thought that corner would make a good sandbox, and I'd put up some sort of roof to keep the sun and the rain at bay. I still think it would make a good sandbox, but I decided to put the posts to another use - a Secret Clubhouse.<br /><br />The first thing to do was to make a deck. Some might say I should have made a plan before I made a deck, but I figured I'd need a deck regardless, so I started with that. I've got very little experience building decks, but I helped on a couple, and it didn't seem that hard. I cut the corner poles to the same height, about five feet above the level of the wood chips in the play space, hoping to minimize the potential fractures and lawsuits. I put some boards around the outside, put joist hangers on them every 16" and hung the joists, then screwed down a bunch of cedar deck boards on top. Voila, instant deck, pretty close to 8' square. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjm1JTSiPeb_EqxlYNVC2mcsIv7DdL6Y3NfMq-5tsCRO_fo7oGzqSeGpvwkCNI4iqFewP0WBWHkMgh5nEs1TZCvSCdC-M-E-u1o-nKfCgIhu7TbQKu7wKr7kx8MPP-wg37pJE/s400/IMG_6534.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjm1JTSiPeb_EqxlYNVC2mcsIv7DdL6Y3NfMq-5tsCRO_fo7oGzqSeGpvwkCNI4iqFewP0WBWHkMgh5nEs1TZCvSCdC-M-E-u1o-nKfCgIhu7TbQKu7wKr7kx8MPP-wg37pJE/s400/IMG_6534.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpNNODHLsyZ-QzeXx-Zo_pm1khMIcsPFdxQbmiEp-Vni9MBVH3pUnLBKkka9go_raY9QTXbOSOo7bySc7BrQqSxRVZp5oQ1Wa92h6h1EAjAOWbzspe5Dkqced_GdYS1JOlruay/s400/IMG_6535.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpNNODHLsyZ-QzeXx-Zo_pm1khMIcsPFdxQbmiEp-Vni9MBVH3pUnLBKkka9go_raY9QTXbOSOo7bySc7BrQqSxRVZp5oQ1Wa92h6h1EAjAOWbzspe5Dkqced_GdYS1JOlruay/s400/IMG_6535.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Next, I needed a design for a clubhouse. Searching online was not especially helpful. Unlike most info on the internet that wants to be free, practically all the interesting playhouse/fort/clubhouse plans were ones that they wanted money for - all you get is a mediocre photo. So I doodled up one of my own. It was really simple, roughly a six-foot square with one corner lopped off where the door would go. Big enough for a father and son campout, basically, with a couple extra feet of deck on two sides for play. I decided on a shed roof, and a sloping height from five feet to about six and a half, so I could stand up in there without whacking my head in part of it, at least. I would frame it with 2x3 studs and use some sheet siding for the exterior. I did a little bit of calculating for the angles, and came up with a framing plan.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/aB8uz1I7kXKV9Ge6oGXY-Y8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBWYlm5VkmuT-9Idexs7Oi5AlSoYqBu4biCtkFuoHDyxzZA1A2DnoDv9JWYmMOqeaRI4v6hAwvZAXomUWPUKoe1I24xJo4x0ihr3pZKpvGBKAqBm2artRacIPq_j71zSXgyBFJ/s400/scan039.jpg" /></a><br />Next came some trips to Home Depot. I had a fair number of things on hand, but I needed the siding and the studs. I started by cutting all the siding into the shapes I needed, then cut and screwed the stud framing together for each wall, and then screwed the siding onto the framing. The walls weren't too big, and I figured I could lift each wall onto the deck by myself in a pinch. After getting them put together, I hefted them onto the deck and screwed them down and to each other. It took a few evenings to get them all put together and then installed, probably a couple of days per wall all told. While working on the walls, I got the idea to install a trap door in one corner. I didn't want to cut into the deck, and the joists were fairly close together, so it was in a wall instead of the floor. Thus the Secret Escape Hatch was born.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XVJHYsgmZ6wBPfOrUa31Aw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVcGtqoPXncVEW2LPuC4TbCP0MUDvmcuDrEfKyUCac4rDeOg7l-Y7IWLdUqrmiHFU4PJMfRA9W7J7kyX1MsP3V86mYtAC78e4yDc2_JduUu01Y1fIN_L5HEJiHbpEILkn_fCXM/s400/IMG_6553.JPG" /></a><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/wPCTMEa6UeZzyg3I4DcEXo8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfPRcI06T328vzI-4_N1lWM90GFqyh5xRXIVBpXnASPjXk1fdQE1efV6VU5ldVcg0Yh7vloX-gZNU7K25cZq5_LVVyK-XSeV5UdQ4th-sZbIsKWX2RhP8VClEoSCcrRld_yIg-/s400/IMG_6557.JPG" /></a><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/hTczs3o9t0Y665hD9eRuI48B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPlbQfJrlwgOIYM0tfkOYRCHeUW7VCFF4LGuEgjGOUviWEXnyanTBGGuKZObxdDGf6aCtHEGpOnhXSpQ5mGXrQKojuNgDWlzOIT7gzxejYGiNeCkq50YDEXla8rEwvImb8ZUNo/s400/IMG_6559.JPG" /></a><br />After getting all the walls up, I worked on the roof next, putting together a frame of 1x3s and using some corrugated plastic, thinking it would be lighter, and possibly let some light inside. That last plan didn't work out; the stuff is surprisingly opaque. On the other hand, it was a lot easier to complete on the ground and lift up on top than a roof of shingles on plywood would have been. Getting it done took a few more days. Look at that, a play house that keeps the weather out. Unless it's really windy.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8LyVpqTIBeuNbgoebJrW0o8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_5_jlb2AbvaC5KcM1vK0CR4rshBn6JpgV8FPm4tVW51EpJNB4_Y3UTnbzLHQGWnBC_Bungn3I4qGmD47SkkmFYd84CoXm95u1R8FU-z2_yAnuwV4w6MzyU9wz0hA3GWj-yxV/s400/IMG_6562.JPG" /></a><br />Next I put up a railing, so it would be safe enough to have kids over. The youngster had taken to jumping off the edge of the deck, so I figured it was time. I put together a rope ladder, but didn't anticipate a problem that it presented. Mr. Secret Clubhouse was very concerned that he be able to keep robbers out, thus he wanted a rope ladder that he could pull up, so the robbers wouldn't be able to get in. Unfortunately, a rope ladder wants to hang toward the center of gravity of whatever it's holding up when the bottom isn't anchored. That meant that as soon as he started climbing it, his feet would swing under the deck until he was mostly hanging from the ladder, and it was almost impossible to actually transition onto the deck. We stuck with using the regular ladder for a while while I considered the problem. I put together the bottom half of a dutch door and installed it next.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_D-_GwZ6CctG-AHTsQwgzg?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUIXYeeB_ZoCzSFbG85qrvoLV16Wz0BcO8fSG7l1WdU6aRR6b7IR6XzrjAY2vHMeQlcax9GEmuTcUlxhS1d6uE6dkPMJ_UUqbTc4kbyQSormdPsiry6oFYN2gdFG7Bm2gfaPw/s400/IMG_6579.JPG" /></a><br />At this stage of completion we decided that the Secret Clubhouse was done enough and safe enough to have some friends over for an open house. The eager boy had been enthusiastically describing his new clubhouse and its progress to his classmates for three weeks or so, and now he could show it off. Some had been understandably skeptical. We emailed some invitations for the weekend, and prepared cookies and lemonade. I think we'd invited people to come between 11 and 4, and this turned out to be a bit too long - no one came until around 1:00 in the afternoon, so we were twiddling our thumbs for a while. I used the time to work on the top half of the door and get it installed. More and more kids came with time, and by the time the last one left, I think we'd had ten or more over. It was a big hit.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/pr5ew8y4wEjLJ9Ar02Fmqw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzV4Eoq1Tne2hMDgsZUK7MTNfiPr9QVGk3dN3PBLC5f7zjAAKOuNe_ogh-HQDsEkQg7ua7AMbKkKdqpWoBX69vnLw88UpFvJoIyVbMKFp1lwcNp0SZ1aHszFFGd272LAFrI6ga/s400/IMG_6581.JPG" /></a><br />After the open house, I had an idea for a "drawbridge ladder" to get up to the secret escape hatch. This would satisfy the drawbridge urge and the need to keep baddies at bay in one swell foop. I put together a ladder with some thick hardwood dowels and some spare studs, and was thinking about how to make it liftable by a first-grader when the <a href='http://moretimeplease.blogspot.com/'>Exceptionally Competent Mrs.</a> suggested swapping it for the rope ladder instead. This seemed like an excellent idea, so I shortened the ladder by one rung to fit on the deck on the other side. I made up some hinges out of lag bolts with nylon bushings and swapped out the rope ladder for the drawbridge ladder. The rope ladder had another rung added and went around to the secret escape hatch. I still haven't figured out a good way for the kid to lift it, but that will come.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_L_0r0izeON5MWyy1n7YW48B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgncBE52KDk3taD-qBYrHlTf8c5erFqFrEZkTZdkzj53XPzcJW148W5gUvpIqd5mWj6Se5aTdelfcbjfSYtqVm7r2GUjm6Vn6WQ2S9687n3dNQobzmJPj7nxw2is_zFXDrPnhuB/s400/IMG_6595.JPG" /></a><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/5RXRjlUAk7wn5g5nqMo4xo8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBgYcGosex6JyTQ3T9pcl4VC5GVkRmiRqOPJjupB4cpLLPMOrR4MyoVNxuaXrD8mLHKDH4nyZHjxluN_t4q4tNpsUMIHVJcCs06hE6epqCCiTH9yTSa4FYKQw7WYifi_MGml7-/s400/IMG_6589.JPG" /></a><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/P0L8JT4iw-yAbPSEzSOMWY8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCZQB0S-h71lsqHx5GjRqRGAed0G7kyXBn4vJL4r55Cpqsw7Q03r2adY8h_7Plq3w4vLJ0ZXexLXN2-khpf5DYPl4n7n0EZkVlM8ezIQkzu5zu-pXtsL3qkGVIV8lcWPVSqSBP/s400/IMG_6592.JPG" /></a><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4Ki8reSTr9qT19rfMyMMGI8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNRJyVyG0ydyXwEP-2au53m3MfxxwlcAHcivY8yru0jUGUPU6YEtn-8AO4sFhnaydnCYnhl2g8CZp34LgLDg2r-bZWzXSOCt9VRTS9crcqAEsBSPJ1Cpp601kOnn5rtfdbYSK/s400/IMG_6593.JPG" /></a><br />The final addition has been windows. There are sliding windows inside in the back walls, and fixed windows in front by the door. They're all made of acrylic. The sliding ones have finger holes on either side and fit in slots cut in frames above and below the window openings. Having the windows in has cut down the draft a little bit, though there's still an airspace around the roofline. I got the last windows installed yesterday, so the Secret Clubhouse as planned is now complete. It could probably use some paint, but hey, it's a clubhouse.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7XcIILRmcrI-0j_BO2Z66I8B-gB02t1yPBkeGFsR2ok?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFnO76qiuQHBuLWfmrTBNudoqCWcG4SSgPVVwm5R7VbQL9Rh5Ksp-7rcTkLH13NnViFPLQGGs7LraT9O1GDTjl59RI7H4ZMfpZI-p53sSSOxATqUDc5A9vtNfbW9lWL_TCtRic/s400/IMG_6586.JPG" /></a><br /><br />Some say that kids should build their own clubhouses, treehouses, forts, etcetera, and I don't disagree. That usually comes a bit later, though, when they've mastered swinging a hammer. That time will come. For now, the Secret Clubhouse rules our back yard. Next up, some more garden boxes, like this one I've already finished.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2H3YY-Rw9LKuWXSrcR7NLCxAAnawjvfK2y9F8Xs6s5tPadZ5eA075wTpcNxRwrs5Ok62dF8xew1bP9cC9lEp8e0RPy2034KmhrpwDFYI4Q6msu9TwREOR9xTf6o-qt8VZ5_m/s400/IMG_6596.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2H3YY-Rw9LKuWXSrcR7NLCxAAnawjvfK2y9F8Xs6s5tPadZ5eA075wTpcNxRwrs5Ok62dF8xew1bP9cC9lEp8e0RPy2034KmhrpwDFYI4Q6msu9TwREOR9xTf6o-qt8VZ5_m/s400/IMG_6596.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a>Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-88949446407071380752010-03-16T01:40:00.000-07:002010-03-16T02:08:17.194-07:00LEGO My List of LEGONo, I don't know why there's a big gap here, scroll down a bit...<br /><table border="2" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1"><br /><tr><td width="10%"><b>Number</b></td><td width="25%"><b>Theme</b></td><td><b>Set Name</b></td></tr><br /><tr><td>5613</td><td>City</td><td>Firefighter</td></tr><br /><tr><td>5969</td><td>Space Police</td><td>Squidman Escape</td></tr><br /><tr><td>5971</td><td>Space Police</td><td>Gold Heist</td></tr><br /><tr><td>5972</td><td>Space Police</td><td>Container Heist</td></tr><br /><tr><td>5974</td><td>Space Police</td><td>Galactic Enforcer</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7239</td><td>City</td><td>Fire Truck</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7281</td><td>City</td><td>T-Junction & Curved Road Plates</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7669</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Anakin's Jedi Starfighter</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7670</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Hailfire Droid & Spider Droid</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7671</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>AT-AP Walker</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7673</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>MagnaGuard Starfighter</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7674</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>V-19 Torrent</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7675</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>AT-TE Walker</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7676</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Republic Attack Gunship</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7679</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Republic Fighter Tank</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7680</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>The Twilight</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7681</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Separatist Spider Droid</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7723</td><td>City</td><td>Police Pontoon Plane</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7734</td><td>City</td><td>Cargo Plane</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7741</td><td>City</td><td>Police Helicopter</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7743</td><td>City</td><td>Police Command Centre</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7744</td><td>City</td><td>Police Headquarters</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7748</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Corporate Alliance Tank Droid</td></tr><br /><tr><td>7773</td><td>Aqua Raiders</td><td>Tiger Shark Attack</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8014</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Clone Walker Battle Pack</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8015</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Assassin Droids Battle Pack</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8016</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Hyena Droid Bomber</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8018</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Armored Assault Tank (AAT)</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8019</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Republic Attack Shuttle</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8031</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>V-19 Torrent</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8036</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Separatists Shuttle</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8083</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Rebel Trooper Battle Pack</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8086</td><td>Star Wars</td><td>Droid Tri-Fighter</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8188</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Fire Blaster</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8189</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Magma Mech</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8398</td><td>City</td><td>BBQ Stand</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8708</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Cave Crusher</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8956</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Stone Chopper</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8957</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Mine Mech</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8958</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Granite Grinder</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8960</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Thunder Driller</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8961</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Crystal Sweeper</td></tr><br /><tr><td>8964</td><td>Power Miners</td><td>Titanium Command Rig</td></tr><br /></table><br /><br />We sure have a lot of LEGO at our house, and we acquire more on a regular basis. Just as a public service to those who might want to get us even more LEGO, I thought I'd post a current list of the LEGO sets that the younger member of the family has.<br /><br />This list of course does not include the generic buckets of bricks or any of the Duplo sets he has, or any of my own sets still mostly stuck in boxes in storage. They'll come out some day to play, I'm sure.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-63765199917855977632010-03-07T16:08:00.000-08:002010-03-07T16:11:21.416-08:00Family Resemblance<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/UFA6YK7_9pl7k517JBkErQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6w_LtxliNS0KH-jdB4jvLrGJFVhgf2zOEaqq-tIzRRE-4BveJjqcc4fnlqgpUZp50ddYzNadr8YZhcpEHbWPctZPUpDA8Rrz29yBMuImTbyYkR8-Othny6zeY5vipme3KhSFQ/s400/family%20resemblance.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Just something I noticed while looking at my photos recently. Maybe it's more of an expression resemblance.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-8872281915279253682010-02-26T22:28:00.000-08:002010-02-26T23:22:29.451-08:00Just a Minor DetailOn his second day sick at home, the younger member of the family remembered his crystal radio set and wanted to listen to it again. I got it down from the shelf in the office and we took it to the dining room and connected it to the ground and antenna wires that were still in place, and he gave it a good listen for a while on his headphones, then said he'd like to hook it up to speakers. I allowed as how the crystal radio set probably didn't have enough power to drive a speaker, so we'd need an amplifier of some kind for that. He asked if we could build an amplifier, and I thought that we could. I went downstairs and got out the old <a href="http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3070704">300-in-one Advanced Electronics</a> set I got in a nostalgic moment at a Radio Shack at least a decade ago, and started thumbing through the index for a suitable amplifier circuit. <br /><br />Considering that my poor eyes could barely distinguish some of the resistor color code stripes, it took longer to build than the impatient one thought necessary. He also thought I was hogging all the cool assembly parts and he didn't get to help with enough of it either, but then it was finally done and we hooked it up to the outputs of the crystal set and switched it on. <br /><br />Nothing. <br /><br />Not that any longtime engineer would expect any different. Of course, one of the wires in the breadboard was in the wrong spot and that took another minute or two to find, but once found, the circuit worked just fine, and we were dancing along to <a href="http://www.kixi.com/">KIXI AM 880</a> from our amplified speaker. <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/5Oa4ip20w5pSiVvaKUngWQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq2ArxFQ9M99ncYBmu0CJs6EdvTEC0o4UqMlSszopnzyWNEh3acTs_lB_mFPUNcUtOmuj4pxU6eGez1ggXrTTgI9xQpjfzXfji5LqkrW2jR5gNdAHpqz8Mp_rcQfMhdvA3zmo9/s400/IMG_6198.JPG" /></a> <br />I think the discrimination in the crystal set is virtually non-existant; we're probably listening to a smear of the AM band about 200KHz wide, so tuning the variable capacitor (the soda can with the paper bit around it) we can often hear two or even three stations at once. Once the amplifier was working, naturally the boy had more requests. <br /><br />"Can we pause it?" <br /><br />Hmm. How to explain this to somebody who was born after the advent of the DVR? That's a little beyond the capabilities of the 300-in-one set, I'm afraid, though it would be cool for sure. "We'd need more parts. Lots more." Like a computer, I'm thinking, with a hard-drive recording system, just like in the DVR. For a boy who thinks his dad can build anything, that's just a minor detail. <br /><br />"We can spend the weekend on it!" <br /><br />Yep.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-63874556784404159872010-02-14T12:17:00.000-08:002010-02-14T13:40:22.923-08:00Lazy Days and BreakersWelcome to sunny <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/place?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGLL_en___US359&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=oceanside+ca&fb=1&gl=us&ftid=0x80dc655e605b7705:0x19ecb3f398f9f87&ei=ml14S86zN4LAsgP38e3KCA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CA8Q8gEwAA">Oceanside, California</a>, somewhere midway between Los Angeles and San Diego. We're right at the beach, after a fashion - there's only really any beach below the rocks of the seawall at low tide. <div style='text-align:center;margin:0px auto 10px;'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBigxTJXdtHsapWahSWQufbIk4uwqtaw967WCNhA_t5GyueCg5xRboB2IevOQuNkvDangBPxfLAV6C22iaUE5h5iXL2r1XLIyYa6xvWy5xDbNWtjDgTLhSpBPJaKWnKgVYj8gd/s1600-h/IMG_5873.JPG'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBigxTJXdtHsapWahSWQufbIk4uwqtaw967WCNhA_t5GyueCg5xRboB2IevOQuNkvDangBPxfLAV6C22iaUE5h5iXL2r1XLIyYa6xvWy5xDbNWtjDgTLhSpBPJaKWnKgVYj8gd/s400/IMG_5873.JPG' border='0' alt='' /></a> </div><div style='clear:both; text-align:CENTER'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div><br /><br />Here's kids playing in the sand and rocks; there's the buglet, his cousins Bryce and Juliet, and a friend who's staying with them for the weekend.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/btPHr4npXzAxiUet0LA77g?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hfIcKkzKL1paJs3TMTTyNpCsMExFow1_SU4_iIzUssOzuk8TiZi1EMwsKtcH6-W5ydF4s8yN3f5kdLrTr9c3qG9uQ0l6jcnZ2mTmtwxZzWroXSgHrBw0qHYEpVeiSU6oMh_k/s400/IMG_5883.JPG" /></a><br /><br />And here's the more sedate adult crowd, enjoying some Adirondack time. You can see our little blue cottage doesn't quite compare to the million-dollar manse next door, but it's more than nice enough for our needs.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XFjBH0G3DV1B3asKz6ACFQ?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI6yCjWkcjz59HincTkzSy6Tb6xN9jstaIOQBIKHCkOCP1Aun9723enH8LQ7mHDmajhHG4NeaT-J6VCukMylpqFcjKNjcy5D2guZVVaIOL_G4igeyWaMBl_UPdAsuyQUEcB96j/s400/IMG_5885.JPG" /></a><br /><br />We're expecting the folks and more cousins soon, and of course, Legoland and Disneyland. We wandered the Midway aircraft carrier museum yesterday, which was impressive in several ways besides mere size. I think we got through about a third of the audio tour in the nearly three hours we spent there. The <a href="http://moretimeplease.blogspot.com/">Highly Capable Mrs</a>. was found guilty at the Captain's Mast and had to spend some time in the Brig:<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/GyXratJwTYLjbNgZLDQjuA?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadAi0oehZNHgOMEKp5fCck3A100x7DwKdqcVFFjYc_ffRLJeb656z_OL6vUJ6ubASDSEFOwHLPEFUitlfsnvXTlGTE8qNDtXYjvP3BGe12jDaoe7eKrGAEXYGt0S_YZxiCpZ_/s400/IMG_5869.JPG" /></a><br />Don't worry, the sentence was only long enough for a photo.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-4159719824034077232009-12-27T02:20:00.000-08:002009-12-27T03:58:45.433-08:00With Cherry on TopIt's one of those projects that's taken years rather than days or weeks to execute, and it's still a long ways from done, but at least one major step was accomplished in the last few days. <br />When we bought our house with its interesting hexagonal living room, one of the areas that I thought could be improved was the wall with the fireplace. It was divided into two halves, one side brick to the ceiling with the fireplace and hearth, and one side covered with rough cedar planking as a sort of paneling. The most important omission of course, was a mantel, someplace to hang the Christmas stockings from and display a few knick-knacks. I never took any photos of the wall in its original form; you'll have to get this picture from the younger set's second birthday as an approximation.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/f-shpFA7GTv1o7YfeIJFQg?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwpzk-DxSHgLTBw27qB3odpaNddvGq4jwOgQEIBGSPtNstUqxedncqQcXGDomHIV8OT5UA0O415KWxNYZMjVHi3yhqw9cFVgi3VfeLBi36goUhFjNO5k9ITz3zDVg8sfu1pdI/s400/IMG_1802.JPG" /></a><br />I thought something more like a Craftsman style would go nicely, something simple and not too ornate, and I drew up a plan that would put some paneling over the brick with an opening around the fireplace and a simple shelf between the wall on one side, and some new cabinetry that would go on the other side, someplace to hold all the DVDs and CDs and stereo bits. <br />Starting in December of 2005, I went to work on the brick side of things. I drilled some holes in the brick and epoxied in some bolts to hold some plywood in place that would in turn have some paneling and the mantel attached. <br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/H4H0U6uf6FqAIivbAKQzvg?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbJF3elkeJKAQEDW5yaW0SscYjq4uGpikLO4B99x9kzzPP1xjYe1wT0GYbEAKkhSOo7LN1eDX6ItRL3xTfR_UMiSJvfVEktcLYeyP8EXCFrStuN81VTUSca5V5dAdBTtk9wCl9/s288/IMG_2079.JPG" /></a><br />I cut some plywood to fit and installed it, then put some thin prefinished cherry veneer ply over the top. I figured a new mantel would be held up by the wall on one side and the cabinets on the other, but put some more bolts sticking out through the plywood in case I thought of a way to float a shelf instead. We didn't actually need a place for the stockings that year, as we spent Christmas in Boise with my family, so the mantel got put off for a bit. A long, long bit. By the next Christmas, we needed something for those stockings, so I hacked together a bit of pine board as a temporary solution. Here's a picture, from our curly-haired offspring's fourth birthday party in 2007. I'd moved the thermostat into the hall, but thermostat bits remained behind for the longest time.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zxwDBbuuRVO32h2irC6W7Q?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHEJv45mbt_hHs-TqduKRSYm0VaYJ0iiyx2S1dHIK1Un-0ChIPFVgcA3zwpaiKm2esWJx8VxUyH3CnUbTMjTXrM6hSy4p4dcYsUzn-9TPBBXTQjzMuFaZ8old4dX5kPOhhY9ml/s400/IMG_3177.JPG" /></a><br />And there the project sat. Until early in 2009, when I decided to tackle the other side of the wall, the one with all the cedar planking. I was curious what was behind it; from what I could see, it looked to be ordinary drywall. I pulled all the planks off, and sure enough, it was drywall, full of holes from the nails that held the planks on, and with about a three inch gap to where the fireplace brick started. Curious. It looked like the chimney had been built after the space had been drywalled. I spackled the holes and wedged a 2x3 into the gap so it would support a bit more drywall, and this picture of a certain someone's sixth birthday party has a bit of the result in the background.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/P0V2BC4oAsthexTzqjd8JQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEGJAJauGgdeV6i89LqdYMWn2BzrOhekqrD41Hema_nEy6iKvH1RlK7I6vHdldthZHlulcrZnQWYoZnTYld6cOY2RmxYzsQx6r2SgkOl9w6C4WsXD9PsL7nqmKRr3O49LYvBg/s400/IMG_3500.JPG" /></a><br />Once my work contract ended a couple of months ago, I figured I would have plenty of time for finishing off the project, but various other tasks, sickness, sleeping way in, more sickness, and a general lack of tuit intervened, until a couple of weeks ago, when I finally got to putting up the drywall bits to cover the gap, which a summer energy audit from the power company had shown to be a major heat escape route. Our gas bills are high enough, thank you very much. I considered repainting, and then thought I'd just run the paneling all the way across. It was intended for the back of the eventual cabinetry anyway. I cut and installed some more cherry veneer plywood, then got to work on the all-important shelf.<br />In the interim between putting in bolts for the mantel and actually doing something with them, probably sometime in 2007, I'd discovered that <a href="http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60103750">IKEA had a floating shelf as part of their LACK line</a> that was very similar to what I wanted. They didn't have one in cherry, but I bought one anyway, thinking that perhaps I could either veneer it or just use the mounting hardware, especially as it was only $30. It didn't fit the space exactly, but it was close, and I could have tried either method. I wound up deciding to build my own shelf over the steel hardware. I had to drill some new holes in the mounting bracket to fit my bolts, but that part worked out very nicely. I made a simple torsion box with some light plywood, like so.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/G6nhqKyp0em4TSWMarZWMw?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrN0cZjrKQ2gapb8PvB3cgXy3L9UVw-LodedCbTz1R7rgjX2C3ou6vk9ZSjkoJBNlPGhcYuFaVCwgJZgt6ZjExIkh92gwqre0OEiEE7QPvrFs85O9ImAhm9k-vQEQv-Zeb2dtn/s400/IMG_5764.JPG" /></a><br />This is the glue step with more of my thin cherry plywood for the top and bottom of the shelf.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_DVxnTkMI4LyMH3fqLsWsA?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipEnlJB6k_VRQsm8KsAT5eg3GpFkvFw_jFGGT8UdO4mrjnBOSDZuZ2vkkNY78bG_1AKwZf3Yza5kiHnY7IlSU0lDM3Aj70IbuEu9U6CUeHeDszx9Mh8X7vbuUkY-gUCljiuI3R/s400/IMG_5767.JPG" /></a><br />And this is what it looked like after I applied some 2" cherry veneer tape to the front and side edges, and applied some corbels I purchased from a woodworking supply store. I think I'd purchased these materials back in 2007 as well, around the time I picked up the shelf from IKEA. I applied some finish so they'd look roughly like they belonged together.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4UAnIMtXUxtCFyrylg34lw?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTImj53mIBbfxKXRv0ZzJrn4w3UH8Dj_sFgMpIzKY9MpoqvNbjD3g5pR__4YtRGdm7FEMNN-mzeOFiZB_3svabT5A1WDw8JbxxndPZbVzCKlvo5xO-oUvoCqxHSKsnxoEsVWVy/s400/IMG_5768.JPG" /></a><br />The next day, Christmas Eve, with the assistance of my short helper, we put up the mounting hardware. <br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/05Pr3vEnf4zf1c72msQF8A?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh34psvZw9lrYbgkdDz8evB90hglDtiBFWIZQOayVzy7lNThf0MM3YHjsjnSze5Sg_qjDu7MfwqNJDn4oc3y9UvX1MU8V_H02NTRLKRQkqtbCuDMPxNaVug_Ezy8mlUCiamIiEA/s400/IMG_5774.JPG" /></a><br />Fitting the shelf over it was a little trickier on the wall than in the garage, since the wall was not entirely flat despite my best efforts, and hitting the internal holes in the shelf with the support arms was a bit of a challenge. I wound up sticking some pointed bits of wood in the ends of the support arms to guide them into the holes deep inside the shelf. After more fiddling and trips to the garage for sanding and fitting, the shelf was finally installed and screwed into place, just in time for our guests to arrive. We put up the stockings, ready for a visit from St. Nick that evening. He did not disappoint!<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Ny_sBt05SJomxZE224pzxA?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6boheq9g6TOWUB4rNWktuomvKAs6tdq-TDtd133OjvhqIBVfw6D4CatYjgAX0IETWtMaThhGy-x4TizaCPlcoAeCKIEDwNEPx96njM5mrlwt6TZa33DoJRhkvvevwREIGSTpz/s400/IMG_5778.JPG" /></a><br />Now there's still a bunch of trim to add, and the whole cabinet plan may or may not happen, but hey, a mantel! And it only took four years (so far)!Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-48758697729934977252009-11-18T02:22:00.000-08:002009-11-18T02:50:59.620-08:00Cookie Monster's Favorite Candy CornI've been wanting to make some more <a href="http://robertsonsrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/11/candy-cane-cookies.html">pastel cookies</a> for a while, but haven't felt like there was time to complete them - they take rather more work than most sorts of cookies, and they have to chill for quite a while to make the dough stiff enough to work. It's good to pop the dough you're not working with back into the fridge, to keep it chilled, too. I decided it had been long enough and I'd make some cookies even if it kept me up late, and it has. The problem is, pastel cookies are best when made into interesting shapes, and I didn't have a good idea of what to make. I could make something like <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=checkerboard%20cookies">checkerboard cookies</a>, but that seems kind of dull. Here's a picture of my first idea for something season-appropriate:<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/B9yoExgE0v46WvDgX2Ul0g?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_EThOxzjCdIYpNQt48RQPohxXH28H8IqdR8erpL_4oUHdHrmSovG0QQf3UbHBMTAYUNdEN7cV1uV6ydGRDSZ7SFlGYj4ZmbuBpzVHdv_xkJ8-TeHGYMGxViUUp3CirsqnIFko/s400/IMG_5570.JPG" /></a><br />As you can see, this idea didn't work out so well, as you might not guess what the cookies are supposed to be if I don't tell you. No, they are not pork chops. These are my attempt at pumpkin pie slices, as seen from the side. Yes, I know. Needs whipped cream. <br />The <a href="http://moretimeplease.blogspot.com/">Highly Capable Mrs.</a> had a good idea that would work with the dough I'd already colored if I just colored another part of it yellow - Candy Corn! She's brilliant, why didn't I think of that? I put the idea into practice immediately.<br />Here's a picture of the cookie making in progress. It's a lot like working with Play-Doh, but a heck of a lot tastier.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_e6ccM6vJyBPJNigTPC-Hg?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmVkUOUGp9ex5mXNBw3XojuV7_Qn5egvbGkS1g3T4fvjZgAF87VKcXEcz3RZFP-z8lhPQAloPts5MQ9OVfIodvdxw6Hmr2I3RL3SnvW2HqHwCgF5GhMIekAYAa1_fJ4taYG32I/s400/IMG_5573.JPG" /></a><br />And here's the finished product. Don't these look yummy?<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/YhO64mWud4YIIzCCffngQw?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggU4aOmVanbDdK1WVZ8r_DtiPCI2HlUTPt18cN-Yw6dtfzEorsJ-02rxNkxOFQttXg4zWBrTuH8_j9SB17n09GMWzfVBukCx0Byp8yjOnMVWxoEI8Sk5eQHsTHLElTZetZ-I07/s400/IMG_5579.JPG" /></a><br />You should try some. Go on, try some!Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-14895635242881230092009-11-11T01:48:00.000-08:002009-11-11T02:21:50.203-08:00Pretzel LogicKids from our son's school had their annual skating outing at Skate King today, and I tagged along to encourage the boy to do more than eye the video games, and possibly actually get out on the floor in skates. I don't think I've been on roller skates in most of a decade, but it was not especially demanding. We did a few loops, slowly, then he wanted a snack. We'd gotten a little fruit punch and popcorn when he noticed another kid had a soft pretzel from the concession counter. I opined aloud, we do not need more snacks, and besides, maybe we could make some of those at home. Naturally, that became a must-do activity according to the younger set, who insisted we get started not long after our return. The <a href="http://moretimeplease.blogspot.com/">Formidable Mrs.</a> found a <a href="http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Soft-Giant-Pretzels/Detail.aspx">recipe for giant soft pretzels</a> online, and we got the bread machine started before dinner. An hour and a half later, the dough was ready, so we rolled out long ropes, twisted them into shape, then boiled them for about fifteen seconds in water with baking soda. They looked a bit like this after boiling:<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lLNiGa1YTrBTs4rK9lo6oQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoAcP6l1E9U4Fzk4QcwrcSzTMAw4fH4nzKEmBwqVbAV9WEfjytVBsw4UoSfWzg2YUOiHGA1oaBnYBaYojwsrmIZ1uvPFH2dPQJ2aYKSsvTjKD2UcXCEma0lLnYpo1RgDylaaHL/s400/IMG_5565.JPG" /></a><br />When we had them all boiled and ready to bake, we popped them in the oven for about ten minutes, until they were nicely browned. We hauled them out then brushed them with a little water and sprinkled on some kosher salt, because it's just not a giant pretzel without those big salt crystals. The end result looked something like this:<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/N0j5EzpveiKEc0Kjb8hmTw?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzQrfPR3vaOJg&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGNyFDBWJs-33uc8zJB6hbA0x523lV6EbYnecpVv68YoF9nIyi0PZ72KK0GcfsGhXKT2NqnG-Z0aCikwFjc2ZmaajqpcThg-FL06Hq9i7df5E7hfuFEQTZHdbqbhTou_QKOwgG/s400/IMG_5566.JPG" /></a><br />It was a bit of a mess to clean up afterward for a mere eight pretzels (we remembered to take another picture after eating a couple), but also pretty cool to make our own, and they were quite tasty. I'm still intending to make my own bagels one of these days. It can't be that different.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-63769706233222982322009-06-26T01:16:00.000-07:002009-06-26T03:16:06.389-07:00The Flavor of ChildhoodI like pizza. I don't like all pizza equally well, but the basic idea can be executed in a lot of different ways and still turn out fine. Pizza made with focaccia is pretty good, the sort I remember from San Francisco, probably at <a href="http://www.boudinbakery.com/Boudin_SF_Menu">Boudin's</a>. Deep dish style stuff is fine. Limp pizza doesn't do as much for me, the sort turned out at <a href="http://www.pagliacci.com/index.shtml">Pagliacci</a> or <a href="http://www.schmizza.com/">Pizza Schmizza</a> (a favorite with the junior member of our household) or the execrable <a href="http://www.chuckecheese.com/">Chuck E Cheese</a>. But it's still pizza, and I'll eat it unless it's been contaminated with some unpalatable topping or other.<br /><br />The pizza ideal, though, is tough to come by. My favorite is the pizza I had at <a href="http://www.shakeys.com/">Shakey's</a> when I was a child growing up in Boise. My memories of the place are probably faulty, but I remember the door and windows had those multicolored round glass panes like bottle bottoms, and didn't admit a lot of light to the interior. The kitchen where the dough was tossed was behind glass, and there was a raised platform and a rail where we could stand and watch them twirl the pizzas and then brush on the thick sauce with a fat mop brush and sprinkle cheese all over and deal out the toppings like so many cards before sliding them into the giant oven with the peel that had a handle as long as a broomstick. The other entertainment was a movie projector playing Our Gang or Little Rascals shorts on a continuous loop. The pizza parlor was halfway across town, and I don't recall going that often, but I liked it when we did, even if I had to peel off the tomato slices that Mom liked on the Canadian bacon pizza.<br /><br />The pizza had a crisp, crackery crust, and a sauce so viscous that it was almost solid, like tomato paste, with a hint of spice, in a thin layer under the cheese and toppings. Perfection! Sadly, the Shakey's chain was never especially well run, and I understand they changed hands several times in the Eighties and Nineties, losing lots of franchisees in the process. I discovered one in Bellevue when we'd been living in the area for a couple of years, but not long afterward they changed their pizza recipe to something with a thicker crust and a runnier sauce and not nearly as good, making it no longer worth seeking out in preference to the mediocre Round Table or Pizza Hut stuff. Then they closed, and a Mongolian Barbecue place opened in the building which was worth going to again, but I missed the pizza place.<br /><br />When we went to vacation at Cannon Beach, Oregon the first time, the hotel we stayed in had a pizza place right next door, <a href="http://www.cbfultanos.com/">Fultano's</a>. Naturally, we tried it, and it was the first time I'd had a pizza comparable to the old Shakey's recipe in quite some time. It became a favorite spot, along with the great beach, and added to the vacation draw of Cannon Beach. We've been back every year or two ever since.<br /><br />We made some pizza at home a couple of weeks ago, and I made up some sauce based on a couple of recipes I found online, roughly equal parts tomato paste and tomato sauce, with some garlic and oregano and minced onion and salt and pepper, and left to simmer on the stove for a while. I was thinking about the paste-like sauce on Shakey's pizza and wondering how to recreate it. The result was pretty good, if I do say so myself. A while later I thought to see if maybe someone else liked Shakey's style pizza and perhaps had a recipe or two to share online. That's when I discovered that the greater Seattle area was still home to a couple of Shakey's franchises, which I thought had all dried up and blown away at least a decade ago. The nearest one was in Renton, a couple of miles east of Ikea. Not exactly close, but not out of the realm of possibility if traffic wasn't too bad.<br /><br />Wednesday, the <a href="http://moretimeplease.blogspot.com/">Formidable Mrs.</a> had a dinner event for work, leaving me and the boy to our own devices. I packed him up in the van and we hit the road for Renton. <iframe marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/sv?cbp=12,56.36,,0,5&cbll=47.44464,-122.150435&panoid=&v=1&hl=en&gl=us" frameborder="0" height="240" scrolling="no" width="425"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=shakey%27s+pizza&near=Redmond,+WA&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&cid=13863301045012793888&li=lmd&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=47.44464,-122.150435&panoid=EP_x9WQ_qPcmaIWdx4QeXQ&cbp=12,56.36,,0,5&ll=47.444649,-122.150415&spn=0.006295,0.006295&source=embed" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); text-align: left;">I'd looked up the location on Google's street view</a></small>, and had a good idea of what I was looking for. It's your basic hole in the wall strip mall location, not a distinctive building with those multicolored glass panes, but you can't have everything. We got there in about twenty-five minutes in lightening traffic, and ordered up a large pie and some mojo potatoes to go. While they cooked it up we made a quick stop at the golden arches next door for the boy who was not as enamored of the pizza idea as I was, then came back to pick up our finished pizza and hit the road for home. Total time away, door to door, was about an hour and ten minutes. Impatient to try it, I shoveled some in my mouth while driving, which may not have been the most attentive thing to do, but there were no accidents, and it was so worth it. They had the original recipe going again, thin crust, paste-like sauce, and all. I stuffed myself with half of a large pizza, and found the belly distension a little uncomfortable afterward, but my mouth was not complaining.<br /><br />I'm sure my wife is dreading being dragged for miles down south so that I can relive a little of my childhood in a vinyl and formica strip mall eatery, but it's a lot closer than Oregon. Sadly, there's no beach.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-73733260391821322112009-05-31T05:13:00.000-07:002009-05-31T13:33:38.380-07:00Crimp My RideMy dad isn't going to like this post, so I apologize in advance, Dad. <br /><br />Whenever I am reminded that my dad traded in a '64 Chevy Chevelle Malibu SS<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrMXuvp7qCwaCEpgsqit3B2zYTn6E9T7ux61IMsSJ6xbivDdwm8o0FL77g60JtqO4ah8uUD5cMSEKANdJ-fAXlGdDbLKc_4YxK1S23jQ_BxemzOp96xi5mbErrMr8WfJA8xvOX/s1600-h/1964+Chevrolet+Malibu+SS.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrMXuvp7qCwaCEpgsqit3B2zYTn6E9T7ux61IMsSJ6xbivDdwm8o0FL77g60JtqO4ah8uUD5cMSEKANdJ-fAXlGdDbLKc_4YxK1S23jQ_BxemzOp96xi5mbErrMr8WfJA8xvOX/s320/1964+Chevrolet+Malibu+SS.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341962536009831986" /></a><br />for a '72 Vega Panel wagon (ours was green, but this was the best picture I could find online)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgbONIWFig6X7U3H-oExgDyZ_opD5U-KXAMbemDnay24YwFo7fAEYNDXnIaXcJGSi0L3b0lpfsD0jL6a_MYOKI2nCg4xPxjX-bwxunDeZHoWwYVsPfB7wA49qWHQFGcehzkL61/s1600-h/774px-'71_Vega_Panel_Express.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 248px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgbONIWFig6X7U3H-oExgDyZ_opD5U-KXAMbemDnay24YwFo7fAEYNDXnIaXcJGSi0L3b0lpfsD0jL6a_MYOKI2nCg4xPxjX-bwxunDeZHoWwYVsPfB7wA49qWHQFGcehzkL61/s320/774px-'71_Vega_Panel_Express.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341962798595622706" /></a><br />I wonder what the attraction was, other than maybe it would be nice to have a working transmission, and it must have been cheap. <br /><br />Of course, I wasn't into cars much as a kid (or as an adult, for that matter), and I wouldn't have known what to do with what was later regarded as a minor classic car if I'd had one. I drive a seventeen-year-old Japanese subcompact (like I stole it!), after all. On the other hand, the stories are too rich not to share. The Vega was the original mixed bag for me and my brother and sister; it got us where we wanted to go, but the cost in effort and aggravation was ridiculous. It taught me far more about what goes on under the hood than I really cared to know, and it's been the source of endless tales of automotive misadventure ever since.<br /><br />I actually like the Vega panel wagon's looks, it was relatively cool for the time and the econo-box class, with styling echoes from the Camaro:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9awGYT3kIIskqdjWzR4jUelZCyd14AnH_8wr7qPfsBbvNredzp9WgG8g1KpB2Nrm8AV4r3d84JiJdNGcHDHUP9SxG9VCHoh_Cpj5QF27YHButEsbus5Z2VPllC45noROsyq9V/s1600-h/70camaro2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 232px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9awGYT3kIIskqdjWzR4jUelZCyd14AnH_8wr7qPfsBbvNredzp9WgG8g1KpB2Nrm8AV4r3d84JiJdNGcHDHUP9SxG9VCHoh_Cpj5QF27YHButEsbus5Z2VPllC45noROsyq9V/s320/70camaro2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341963752977271538" /></a><br />The next year they gave it an ugly grilled nose and it wasn't nearly as pretty. Looks were one thing, but the problems under the hood were quite another. <br /><br />The Vega's engine sucked so hard that weather maps would have a low pressure system marked on them wherever we drove it. The aluminum block just wasn't hard enough to keep cylinder wear from making the thing burn oil in no time at all. I started driving the beast when I first got my licence in 1978, while I was in high school, and by then it had maybe 60K miles on it, which was considered past the upper limit for most Vega engines of that vintage. I wasn't going to let that stop me, though. It ran on about the same mix of gasoline to motor oil as a lawn mower. If it didn't have enough high-viscosity stuff in it, it'd smoke worse than a bingo nun with a three-pack habit. I kept a case of Valvoline SAE 50 in the back along with a pour spout and ran through the stuff like it was ginger ale. <br /><br />After a while the 50 weight wasn't enough and I started pouring in STP or Motor Honey. I got a little behind on the oil one time and actually got pulled over by a state trooper who pointed at the blue cloud I'd left rising over the road, as far back as I could see, and he told me to get out and walk the rest of the way unless I could fix it. No ticket, just a warning. I walked across the street to a service station and picked up a two dollar bottle of motor gunk and that did the trick for the next few miles. <br /><br />Naturally, the spark plugs got fouled in a hurry on that kind of diet, so I was unshipping them and cleaning and regapping them on a regular basis - the socket set slid around in back with the empty motor oil cans. Every once in a while the engine would go from firing on four cylinders to three, and I knew I'd need to fix it when I got home. Once it got down to two cylinders, and I had to pull over and fix it right there, 'cause it couldn't do more than about 25 mph and was rattling like a stepped-on snake. <br /><br />This was the car that I and at least a couple of my siblings learned to drive in, and it got all the abuse that you'd expect from inexperienced drivers. It had a three-speed stick, and we destroyed the clutch at least twice, including once while I was in rush hour traffic on an arterial and barely managed to coast it from an inside lane over to the side of the road between some passing cars. My sister managed to kill second gear one time, and we drove it like that for a while after, just revving it really high in first then lugging it in third. My brother and I got reasonably adept at fixing it, including unshipping the tranny and replacing bits, but they got harder to come by in the '80s. I snapped the clutch cable on it once on a freeway onramp, which in the days before cell phones meant I needed to hike a ways, but fortunately a cop showed up before I'd gotten a hundred yards. Officer Friendly put in a call to my dad, who came out and in a virtuoso effort managed to drive the thing five miles back home just manhandling the gears, and getting some lucky timing on stoplights. <br /><br />My brother drove it while I was away at college or driving <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mazdamiata/2259808895/">the other car we inherited</a>, and he managed to get the thing past 100K miles before it gave up the ghost completely. I think it died in a grocery store parking lot, and we hauled it home behind the van with our tow strap, which had seen a bit of use in that capacity by then. I called around to a few yards, and one of them offered us twenty bucks for it over the phone if we had the title. We figured what the hey and towed it over there, and got a bit of an argument when we arrived, from someone who loudly asked his colleagues what idiot made the mistake on the phone and for a while assured us they could offer little more than a plugged nickel, but I managed to talk them out of the twenty, since it probably had half that in gas in the tank anyway. And that was the end of the Vega, but the stories live on. <br /><br />And the next car my dad got? An '82 Chevette Diesel. <a href="http://www.dieselpowermag.com/features/0902dp_1982_chevy_chevette/index.html">Oh, my</a>.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-77929878557861277742009-02-24T00:59:00.000-08:002009-02-24T03:03:11.385-08:00The Propagation of Memes in CyberspaceYou know those bits where you post a random picture, list your favorite whatever, tag somebody else to do it? Yeah, those. I don't do those. Except sometimes.<br /><br />Here, for example, is the sixth photo from the sixth folder, sorted back to front; it's the <a href="http://moretimeplease.blogspot.com/">Extremely Capable Mrs.</a> along with our boy on snowshoes last month:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTugqpUnxYOfKrGV5wuxVUOXaUrix9MBdfNix5dXJiFZe2Sr0YR-ZCMnA59owAxilEf29K1rZ1Su5wlHJH56AS9GKYotpFez9N-8VrwCzYVD8sRPHMp36zLKYgb13AxHdqSXJ9/s800/IMG_3320.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTugqpUnxYOfKrGV5wuxVUOXaUrix9MBdfNix5dXJiFZe2Sr0YR-ZCMnA59owAxilEf29K1rZ1Su5wlHJH56AS9GKYotpFez9N-8VrwCzYVD8sRPHMp36zLKYgb13AxHdqSXJ9/s400/IMG_3320.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />And here's the list of 25 random things about 25 random things I didn't post on Facebook:<br /><br />1. <a href="http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/02/07/25_random/index.html"> The random beauty of "25 Random Things"</a><br />2. <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2211068/pagenum/all/"> Charles Darwin Tagged You in a Note on Facebook</a><br />3. <a href="http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=158273"> 25 Random Things About 25 Random Things on Facebook</a><br />4. <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10161471-36.html"> Is that '25 Things' meme driving Facebook growth?</a><br />5. <a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/25-random-tips-for-the-busy-facebook-user/"> 25 Random Tips for the Busy Facebook User</a><br />6. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/fashion/05things.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all"> Ah, Yes, More About Me? Here Are ‘25 Random Things’</a><br />7. <a href="http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1877187,00.html"> 25 Things I Didn't Want to Know About You</a><br />8. <a href="http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1878055,00.html"> 25 More Things I Didn't Want to Know About You</a><br />9. <a href="http://valleywag.gawker.com/5147037/25-random-things-lists-are-last-vestige-of-american-literacy"> '25 Random Things' Lists Are Last Vestige of American Literacy</a><br />10. <a href="http://gawker.com/5148201/have-you-heard-of-this-facebook-25-things-thing"> Have You Heard of This Facebook '25 Things' Thing?</a><br />11. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020502252_pf.html"> We Never Do Random Things. Until We Do.</a><br />12. <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-02-04-facebook-25random_N.htm"> Facebook friends share '25 Things' with the world</a><br />13. <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/020609dnmet25things.dccd21.html"> Millions expose themselves online with '25 random things' </a><br />14. <a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-2771-Baltimore-Internet-Examiner~y2009m2d5-25-ThingsThe-modern-day-chain-letter"> 25 Things--The modern day chain letter </a><br />15. <a href="http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/02/06/FACEBOOK25_--_LOCAL.ART_ART_02-06-09_A1_77CQJH7.html?sid=101"> Facebook fad gets personal</a><br />16. <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/around_town/the_scene/25-Things-Articles-Arriving-as-Fast-as-25-Things-Lists.html"> 25 Things Articles Arriving as Fast as 25 Things Lists</a><br />17. <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/25_things_meme_facebook_notes.php"> 25 Random Things Meme Is a Boon for Facebook</a><br />18. <a href="http://www.bestrandomthings.com/deconstructing-%E2%80%9Crandom-things-about-me%E2%80%9D/"> Deconstructing “Random Things About Me”</a><br />19. <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/10/facebook-mystery-who-created-25-random-things-about-me/"> Facebook Mystery: Who Created “25 Random Things About Me”?</a><br />20. <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-to.personal24feb24,0,660274,full.story"> Facebook members make their innermost thoughts public</a><br />21. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/facebook/4632451/Facebook-users-spark-craze-for-25-Random-Things-lists.html"> Facebook users spark craze for 25 Random Things lists</a><br />22. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-oped0216steinfeb16,0,2768961.story"> 25 things I don't want to know about you</a><br />23. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0216-facebook-25-thingsfeb16,0,5562725.story"> Facebook's '25 Things' are life stories in miniature</a><br />24. <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0218/p09s01-coop.html"> The value in Facebook's new craze</a><br />25. <a href="http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/feb/24/25-random-things-about-donny-marie/"> 25 random things about Donny & Marie</a><br /><br />I'm sure I'd be sorry I asked if I asked if you were sorry you asked. Sorry.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-38303580460014676912009-01-20T22:25:00.000-08:002009-01-21T01:28:15.090-08:00What I Did On My Winter VacationBack in November or so when Sam booked our vacation to the mountains of central Washington for a "snow getaway" we had no idea that we were in for a humongous heaping helping of the stuff right at home. We didn't need a snow break so much anymore, but it was nice to get out of the house and enjoy a trip with our friends the Sathers to a little place in Plain, Washington called the Black Forest Lodge. It was a little over two hours by car, and more than comfortable enough once we arrived. They had snow on the ground, but it had been rained on and was hard as ice, so good for sledding, not so much for snowmen and igloos. But we've done that.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/WkHeMLSm1R_eU8rm--HQZg?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghXTmdOxL-s-6tCQA1f6rqWxh6ognqQw_IfH6sTpF439meq_c3FGPew_fGSc0xUdKoQRTLM3o4KS7jeurm9o8A9ig_nIsHDq67UksyWd9SJOD_TBcpPTH87soUQdZ8GW3IQ7Xw/s400/IMG_3301.JPG" /></a><br /><br />We did a bit of horse-drawn sleigh riding out in the countryside at the Red Tail Ranch,<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/3l9KweXfzf44NI8KuNakmg?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdQhg6C9hvukq3lHrqTiAJasDxXf6DZ84LRQ03a5-ZHkwB4JG6sec_lU4hqVHfKs7F_1u2QO-t9PP3r9KOz3djsNF2JUYn4o90OYpZIqXLP2tTyBrW9xS6nN_drRmxrfTuqLf4/s400/IMG_3207.JPG" /></a><br />accompanied by the ranch dog, reportedly part coyote.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9fQZeS6ANJyryA0rODf6Sg?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX-tU90SUw7MciNd_dgNGLusgWmL6nkPEf3_RPm41SNfu94z5EE1tkhC3IGys75Y3X31DZSredkf0BKCFNvQZFb0sdI_pDk7Yq1DgQbq5Bd-BBeYV1gYoK0mbHI-pc_XYkHt29/s400/IMG_3212.JPG" /></a><br />We wandered into the big city of Leavenworth (well, compared to Plain, anyway) and did some sledding,<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9M00_EI4gZxsH-UERGdDXA?authkey=JeTZc4NUtYI&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij8pstOf3uI2k0EAs7N5RqNo2zifyJ_QObdSp3Zgu_WW-B0cOw6FtWXqD_bHiepwrWLdXFcpAz9kkpjGKX10ct5tCfEW8hfC0vMJ4Xp2MvRR7NaY3IeEdi93M4gefxh6bZ0yDk/s400/IMG_3232.JPG" /></a><br />as well as some lunch, where Max showed us how he lost a tooth,<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/pLLE_0yaSyzsIfjlDYSX9Q?authkey=JeTZc4NUtYI&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMbKtiin1ffUd21FaR6gcLVnT8FC7210qx9JXvPbNixT1vd-FiQtyLdwFVup8y72cgXMhzijrOTvBLMEpkATHhhCUsU752B0z0n51HZz88ddoov3GpHaPFZf9A67zFS5-5idJ/s400/IMG_3249.JPG" /></a><br />but no fear, the tooth fairy still managed to find us.<br />We tried out the snowshoes in town,<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/haqU5sYhBhIxvxhjZ6O87Q?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkWmqjxquerj5I7VV7JwwIMC52TGdPpzAce4bbE2H1_sc07Ewk1lecRW0dn1Rtnl4faF0ai8K1f3HV7UAYG40vCSpysBlDalw0a0lfCcwuCU_uPiZMFgAwOJ1hXks-7AqJvWUe/s400/IMG_3265.JPG" /></a><br />and watched some fireworks in the afternoon - in the winter, the fireworks can start at six o'clock.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/OhMoRSfvF4qgQZ__EDpz_A?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisUtJfaE6Q08R7t4ykEeHSsBMyqFgNQzmS24lmPcbGMTQA1Wy3arMUjunM1P0Enwm3woTku2gf1ina_zsIDS04sFjaegK0lZYSPnsjE4tpGVC2Ljez2wxdflXc2sSkJZfSDctk/s400/IMG_3288.JPG" /></a><br />We did a bit more trekking in the snowshoes in a park on our way back home.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/jLMD7usYZ8yy-Wui2tLBnw?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlrHyih7-xCAatL9GYF55weS_fjHr4tFUDFBE1zVgo0fRmUCshquFpjZwz0Zui99zGvdL_G4b5GbZ2M16ZOV5Oisipac8r8y44Gwspvry2Z_dTBkji9sX2gYy9mdazkIQ0PSbM/s400/IMG_3318.JPG" /></a><br />Max mainly was interested in the hot chocolate part of snowshoeing.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/-gdk6Cizy_pUXqds02dBVQ?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjDa8p2igtKyBEDdUljdhQf8xYqspTcBOpJPHbvWhf_IjSW5z3BZ5Hy5ZKLX50AIFYyBRwzvlolDzTEG_DLFAPArL0Vtu1DA64Yb4VZnTFt_7TzwQBl1Gw898ty6kISLJfjriD/s400/IMG_3310.JPG" /></a><br />We got back and things were pretty much just as we'd left them, and the cat greeted us enthusiastically until we fed her. That's what we did on our winter vacation.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-40980619479181382872008-12-23T21:07:00.000-08:002008-12-24T00:20:27.231-08:00Inventing Candy Cane CookiesMost things that are invented aren't really completely new things that have never been seen before. Most of them are variations on something someone has already done. Just like my candy cane cookies, here. I remember having something like these once, but the details have completely escaped me, so I decided I'd reinvent them.<br /><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AS5EjCHIjRxYrap1n2xNCA?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGpuemhMdBcFM6nYuuYqOr-iFrp24v602Ksgt4AV8rEm8P9tYLatLhikRFMOMlfx45Qek4nu3wgN7WLuOeIv6DNFmtPf2qrbxorwM3fmAAHe5GXgyLhtQXwOzAP1Qbzdnj6ck/s400/IMG_3082.JPG" /></a><br /><br />I made these last night, since we don't have enough cookies around here already, and it's not like people keep giving us more - oh, wait, we do, and they do. Well, I felt like making more cookies, okay? I started with some recipe for pastel cookies I found in a cookbook, but I altered it pretty thoroughly.<br /><br /><blockquote>Candy Cane Cookies<br /><br />1 cup butter<br />1 1/3 cups fine granulated sugar<br />1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk<br />4 tablespoons milk<br />1 teaspoon vanilla extract<br />1/4 teaspoon salt<br />1 teaspoon baking powder<br />3 1/4 cups flour<br />food coloring<br />optional: other flavorings, such as peppermint extract, and colored decorators' sugar or crushed peppermint candies.<br /><br />Cream the butter and the sugar thoroughly. Mix in the eggs and milk. Add the vanilla. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a bowl, then mix a bit at a time into the wet ingredients.<br /><br />Take the dough and divide it into two parts. Take one part and mix in some food coloring (red or green look traditional) and optionally some flavoring such as 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract. Chill dough covered in the refrigerator for two hours.<br /><br />Take some chilled dough in roughly equal parts of each color, and roll into fat rods of equal length, then stick the rods together and roll out the combined rod to about 3/8" (1cm) diameter. Pinch off about 5-6" (120 - 150cm) and twist (rolling the ends about the center clockwise seems to work well). Roll or dust in colored sugar or crushed candy and form into a candy cane shape or a ring and place on a baking sheet.<br /><br />Bake at 350° F (175° C) for 10 - 12 minutes. The cookies should not be noticeably browned. Leave the baked cookies on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes to cool before transferring to a cooling rack - the cookies can be fragile. Makes about four dozen.</blockquote><br /><br />Now, I skipped the peppermint part because I'm no fan of mint, and I don't have any extract handy anyway, but other flavorings ought to work just fine. Some of the pastel cookie recipes I've seen online actually incorporate Jell-O or Kool-aid so any old flavoring will probably work. I liked plain vanilla pretty well. Tastes like a sweet butter cookie. Yum.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-69800389869668972182008-12-23T01:30:00.000-08:002008-12-23T01:41:08.074-08:00How We Make an IglooI'm feeling the effects of a cold, with aches and sniffles and occasional sneezing, but that didn't stop us from heading outside this afternoon to try our hand at making some spare shelter.<br /><br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/gtsGasEy9ft40-dWkXt1Ug?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDqBJaLWhlK0uFhrDi8YtyHLfYpGmSd9mrfuQt7aDSzTqED1xCT3hqop8iWPhzCyAW9ojWJfZ4kgmb3Y_1fOq8hfr6gLFxLhdJBNomyQiGUjjTt11PuGx2-cxBveaQnGEZ1Pi/s400/Igloo%201.JPG" /></a><br />Ingredients: Snow, shovel, plastic storage bin. Check.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/skVma1fiIXwJ_aXG-7AnCg?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiTa5uTkaxdaSZ_cIEGjcoPk3tJSCr36awDz5EwUKon1D_vyXCEUSIC7XtNMKx3ozDIgdqZMGogrkksk0af6BZHiEuxo-4jqBnPQiryobQe9Oxzt39POVnIJhOj0sqT_rFcFCL/s400/Igloo%203.JPG" /></a><br />Fill bin with snow, slide out block. Repeat.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ArANe40sHVFg9ZXMlJ2baQ?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUxZEwrNJ2bNBsnluuw2TPaABTKhTgL2IEW08dWRPmn1ZT1LteDdVRNo2bjGzLuLPlMwwU7MKfBFn1zJrlD1e2D4shtc74rQM3nSz9-kV4jua14jCIDJCYoj7UZCQhD34bubPy/s400/Igloo%204.JPG" /></a><br />Stack up the blocks in the traditional igloo shape.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AHXT5HtvMXVTq81mm7eiqQ?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU5gjyrsh1Q696zVmzD-oSw47JxpVn8U2T10-65e_VrLUFGblkyW4RN8HgULyvF9bfWtXAjceipOuSJjgfLlgiXR8vSntqxv1OAlLstMPYJSVWZfGxi2agSFEBFE_s7BhptQOY/s400/Igloo%205.JPG" /></a><br />Check for fit.<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/SmNSd_czJc9UeGraHR_7Zg?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMIDbE-F7U1v5hntl8OyvlU4YhJpoZ_CEf7uncKOrEjuUk6PuPiHA04nrXae3G1bku9_H9JpaBJxNugYd8Fxz6MTaTU0C3_PPsKB11s_sMQfCOVNWnlIKYtMVqBQ9fNYa90NzP/s400/Igloo%207.JPG" /></a><br />Shape blocks as needed to fit the curvature and let them hold each other up. It works!<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8wKsNwTCl8eqy9pTEjO-FA?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZFhFzA6WEdsMSlsdsk0rrjrfFyNqQqjliYXWApboTflUgX1OYEucy-iFTaUdY7jpAoK9N_cF4jBKlFkn2vzoBGaaHZE4VkN3VAzAeMwe0ep5LofOc9LU6rjV0pQfX8Mf1luTu/s400/Igloo%206.JPG" /></a><br />Enjoy your new igloo!Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-24465240191046511812008-12-22T13:10:00.000-08:002008-12-22T13:33:52.459-08:00SnowboundSo we've had a bit of snow around here - this is what the house looked like after the first day, with 9" of new powder:<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HLFZYZvzZeQGs2bqKijPQA?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqIa1HRUumyjxOrarkI3awZPgMxXTVtbl8coQlTk4WcWgc0uIJRbggZRGoJ-hFrbdUHg35PULQlMBNdrtal1J0Qi4jCjBNPjhZURbEY0PTp6m_eQZv2sBm0P6k-NLuGWnnTuhT/s400/IMG_3025_edit.JPG" /></a><br />And of course, the view from our sunny adirondacks on the deck, before we got another four inches:<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0hKCCfRqKqbDzznhi2BbMQ?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2mQifNBDcueekiqJmXynkBuTiohyW9zFQCZVMdjfyERK6T-1ARaQb-lw1OnsrJQvYCoKXbXyk2PXk3uwE9H3i8xk6-JbFsFmBUxEISBVgo07tnT5TqIKsHLCHfX1hjH_ZOQR4/s400/IMG_3032.JPG" /></a><br />Even the new walkway lights look festive with their hats of snow!<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/1wr5vQxggMTUWUJ3IX1BHA?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIFWb2S7-KUabTt4_QRRhCn9xvlspaQnx1cXAOUmXHw7FEJtG5WX_VCUR15fG5fxpoZTA-JEKxuhmNFvkMCOX6GksfLSR_FH_ZNI2QZcLfcoOMEs4pDCnkuIRIakN4by6lBH0S/s400/IMG_3020.JPG" /></a><br />But here's the best stuff of all:<br /><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0Ny2D8ZJOCkwZutODzG2sA?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2YH9N-R9l2Dd0tuo3H4ZzxqQA39q6V-NzLZ6ozOWok3dLMEEyF88ISGvZQj6ZgMr8sAb1rUc7uNgxj8JHb1MfF9-X2prC6JrSbSVy9tsd61Gw74KDfa0T1k5W4xxVEKuWobcW/s400/IMG_3048.JPG" /></a><br />This is what Christmas looks like for me and my siblings - <a href="http://robertsonsrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/03/sour-cream-sugar-cookies.html">sour cream sugar cookies</a>! Made with the traditional buttercreme frosting and sugary decors. I only baked up half a batch this year, since there's only the three of us, and we've already delivered some baked goodies to the friends and neighbors this year. They are still delicious, even if we're a bit tired of being stuck in the house and sharing the same sniffly cold. Santa is going to love eating one of these.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-31331979120331487202008-11-06T01:04:00.000-08:002008-11-06T01:04:12.679-08:00Party in the Hizzouse<div style='text-align:center;margin:0px auto 10px;'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2DaIxgOqycoOQWPRX3zDyPHFhCcx-BD6Tsjj_nqwI6bOG6E8y_MmgVluODyGSGzgC3u8EGPPU-qV8T7h4920xLIB5zvVh77DsfJbLFKNhU4ofmKiIi8YSarLPm7jwGHWAdgms/s1600-h/DSC_9280.JPG'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2DaIxgOqycoOQWPRX3zDyPHFhCcx-BD6Tsjj_nqwI6bOG6E8y_MmgVluODyGSGzgC3u8EGPPU-qV8T7h4920xLIB5zvVh77DsfJbLFKNhU4ofmKiIi8YSarLPm7jwGHWAdgms/s320/DSC_9280.JPG' border='0' alt='' /></a> </div><br />The buglet and friends partied on the day of the dead, and one of their fun games was to see who could be first to get a bite out of a swinging apple. No one actually managed it sans hands, but there was some determined trying. Image courtesy of Gilman, father of the fairy in the picture.<div style='clear:both; text-align:CENTER'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div>Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-48231437278004882892008-10-08T00:01:00.000-07:002008-10-08T00:32:44.739-07:00More Financial Editorializing of the TL;DR VarietyIt's been the lead story for weeks, if not months, sometimes knocking the presidential election off the top of the fold. Recently, someone asked, "wasn't it poorly conceived legislation which lead to this whole subprime snafu? What bit(s) of policy exactly was that?" The roots go way deep, but here's one way of looking at it:<br /><br />First, America has been spending more money than it takes in for a long time, and has been buying more goods from abroad than it sells. In concert, these two facts mean that other countries have been trading the dollars they get for their goods from us for IOUs from our government, as well as other investments, stocks, bonds, what have you. They have a lot of money to invest, and America despite its faults has had a lovely and vibrant market for investing in, with unequalled liquidity and transparency and fairly low overhead. Unlike in America, the burgeoning middle classes of eastern and southern Asia have been socking their money away, and their banks have been searching for ways to put it to good use, and one of the biggest ways has been to invest in American securities, bidding their prices up and their interest rates down. So, we've been awash in cheap capital looking for an outlet.<br /><br />Second, the explicit policy of American government for the past couple of decades has been to expand homeownership and participation in the securities markets. That was part of the rationale for Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and for the rise of the IRA and the 401k plan. Ever more people invested in their homes and in the stock market would lead to greater social stability and community participation, or so went the theory. All of that capital available to lend and government policies toward expanding homeownership led to the gradual decline in the amount of equity required to purchase a house, until for a while it actually could be negative. This flood of money into housing inflated prices, making real estate look like an even better investment. And as prices rose, people refinanced and took out some of their equity and spent it, heating up the economy and the stock markets some more.<br /><br />Third, we saw the rise of relatively unregulated mortgage companies after the contraction of the thrifts in the last real estate bubble bust twenty years ago. These companies would take investor capital and sell mortgages to people with gradually more lax qualifications as they tried to expand their markets. Then they'd turn around the mortgages and sell them off to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and increasingly, to investment banks. The mortgage companies would then lend the money out again, and the cycle would repeat, keeping the housing market on an expanding tear.<br /><br />Fourth, the loosely-regulated investment banks would take their piles of mortgages and slice and dice them into new synthetic securities with various aspects that they could sell, chief among them some especially enticing bits that looked like a AAA-rated bond. It was the new fashion craze, everybody had to have some - as long as they could also get some insurance to go with them, to cover their butts if the securities went into default. And where there's demand, someone will supply, in the form of investment bankers and insurance companies willing to take your money in return for a guarantee that they'd relieve you of your defaulted bond at its pre-default value. Best of all, the insurance wasn't called insurance, and it fell outside the regulatory eyes of both insurance commisioners and the SEC. Hooray! Let's buy more!<br /><br />Fifth, we found the investment bankers were leveraged to their eyeballs, imprudent bankers and insurers had been selling bond insurance to people who didn't even own the bonds, and people were buying houses who had no business doing so even when times were good, with sub-prime mortgages that featured teaser rates and interest-only payments that were guaranteed to get more expensive later. The last sucker was in on the deal.<br /><br />Then the housing bubble popped, and people started getting in trouble with their mortgages. The investors who were holding the synthetic bonds made out of those mortgages started feeling the hurt, too, and they started a dash for the exits. The insurers of those bonds discovered that insurance only works with risks that are localized, not with risks that can affect everyone at once. With every passing month the revelations about just how big the house of cards the mortgage-derived securities had been holding up got wider, and the worse the holders of those securities were taking it in the shorts. When the market in them finally ground to a bloody halt, holders were in terrible shape, because of accounting rules that forced the securities to be valued on the books at whatever they had last sold for. That meant that the assets of many financial companies that held these now toxic securities were worth less than their obligations, a condition commonly referred to as bankruptcy. Lenders started sitting on their cash, rather than risk handing it over to some firm that might be bankrupted and seized by the government, even if the possibility was remote. Some colossal failures and equally dramatic rescues truly put the fear into people, and the mattress-stuffing began in earnest. We're watching it play out right now.<br /><br />So, there's policy blame a-plenty to go 'round, but it isn't necessarily the right (or should I say wrong) policies that are getting the bad press. It's policies that have every liberal sentiment going for them that are at least partly responsible for the mess. We want to encourage investment, we want to expand home ownership in the name of community and wealth building, we want to shop the world for the best deals for consumers, and we want to spend now and pay later. We like businesses to have minimal regulation, because it lowers costs and encourages innovation in products and services. We don't like paying taxes. We're all free to take a flyer on any expanding market bubble that comes along. Blaming deregulation for our woes is missing at least ninety percent of the story. Only a couple of clear cases of deregulation, expanding the leverage investment banks can use and ending some of the Glass-Steagal restrictions, have played a real role, and these were not root causes of the situation, just multipliers.<br /><br />So, how do we fix it? Trillion dollar band-aids? In some ways we've got a crisis in confidence, and that confidence is shaken at least as much as it's reassured by the size of the measures being taken. And I trust the legislatures to deal with the underlying issues appropriately about as much as I trust them to do theoretical physics. I'd rather not think about how my net worth has gone down over the last year, or worse, my retired relatives' net worth. Over the long run, I remain optimistic. I'm still maxing out my retirement funding, directing it into various domestic and foreign index funds; someday this will probably be considered an excellent time to buy. I just wish I felt better about it.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-86246206928203210642008-10-02T03:16:00.000-07:002008-10-02T04:09:52.925-07:00Feeling Moral About PoliticsFunniest political image I've seen all day:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://craphound.com/images/BT23707-2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://craphound.com/images/BT23707-2.jpg" border="0" alt="I think the best family values come from Costco." /></a><br />Hmm, I'd like a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moog-Music-Etherwave-Theremin-Kit/dp/B0002GXQF8">theremin</a>, too. <br /><p>I'm guessing that most of my readership, which I suspect can be counted on my fingers with several fingers left over, got an email pointer to a website at catholicvote.com with a video which you can see <a HREF="http://www.catholicvote.com/">here</a>. It was described as "cool" and thought-provoking. Go ahead, click the link if you like, I'll wait.<br /><p>It made me think, too, but probably not what they wanted me to think. It impressed me that what is essentially a single-issue advocacy group, one that explicitly advocates a much harder right-to-life line than you will find from the leadership of <i>your</i> nominal church, has found a way to wrap its message up with the flag, motherhood, and apple pie, and some stirring music. <br /><p>Just as a for-instance, LDS positions on issues of <a href="http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=bbd508f54922d010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=579639b439c98010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____">birth control</a> (up to the parents), <a href="http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/abortion">abortion</a> (allowed, with caveats, for rape, incest, and certain health issues), and <a href="http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/euthanasia-and-prolonging-life">euthanasia</a> (allowing for withdrawal of life support) are of course conservative, but tolerant in ways that the Marianists at the Fidelis Center for Law and Policy, sponsors of CatholicVote.com, are decidedly not. The Church has taken no position on <a href="http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/embryonic-stem-cell-research">embryonic stem cell research</a>, but that’s practically liberal compared to the Marianist Catholic position.<br /><p>The single-issue nature of the CatholicVote video plea leaves out vital considerations of a moral nature; questions about whether their preferred policies would have more children raised in poverty and abusive situations and by single parents, about whether they would incarcerate seekers of abortions, about whether they would jail providers or strip them of their medical licenses, leading to a reduction in medical services available for the rest of us, about whether we would find that products used to support our private decisions about reproductive planning are no longer available, or whether we would be forced to remain artificially animated in a cruel parody of life when our bodies would otherwise have long since given out. <br /><p>They see one issue as outweighing all these things. This strikes me as the <i>antithesis</i> of moral.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-45978528823841202162008-09-28T01:49:00.000-07:002008-09-28T02:18:12.831-07:00Workbench!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFEvzghAaRZnOW2FPFS3XpxuZDJA2E_j0oZ9oKT0GsE_7U1JnG0Lpv8l21UjLc3_-whrTyDzVhBAckrfbv0CEQt0CZj_i_ID8eZRYGk319DNi4vaR59Bkz-nu8vGJqTSC0YRkR/s1600-h/IMG_2714.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFEvzghAaRZnOW2FPFS3XpxuZDJA2E_j0oZ9oKT0GsE_7U1JnG0Lpv8l21UjLc3_-whrTyDzVhBAckrfbv0CEQt0CZj_i_ID8eZRYGk319DNi4vaR59Bkz-nu8vGJqTSC0YRkR/s400/IMG_2714.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250997776028128530" border="0" /></a><br />Someone mentioned needing a workbench while I was busy getting ready to mow the lawn, and I thought about it while pushing the mower back and forth over the damp and uncooperative grass. Pretty sure that I had everything that a workbench might require in the garage, I set to work after lunch, and was finished well before dinner. There are three 1x3s, a 2x3 stud, a 2'x4' piece of 3/4 plywood and a 2'x4' pegboard piece in there, plus some scraps made into shelves and cubbies. Tools will come later. My <a href="http://moretimeplease.blogspot.com/">amazingly capable spouse</a> said later that this is the sort of thing that would make a good Christmas present, but it's a bit late for that now.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJyFHUZrdzymFcG3svP7Yu4VOC1-2e45FJD-y6uZnlu9YRR2TXTa7PIlDnFA07hmIzFxcCUBtRnUmBJYx-oA9boYopU-N-i6qskjzV_j2MzlqZDIHyShEyezmawKPAxFBKJure/s1600-h/Workbench.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJyFHUZrdzymFcG3svP7Yu4VOC1-2e45FJD-y6uZnlu9YRR2TXTa7PIlDnFA07hmIzFxcCUBtRnUmBJYx-oA9boYopU-N-i6qskjzV_j2MzlqZDIHyShEyezmawKPAxFBKJure/s400/Workbench.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250996713112072914" border="0" /></a><br />And if you're wondering, why, yes, there is a lot of random wood in my garage. Isn't there in yours?Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-31095448752769591422008-09-22T02:53:00.000-07:002008-09-22T03:13:52.002-07:00On the Theoretical Effects of a Minimum Wage: Brushing up on Econ 102: Microeconomics(This is more retro-blogging of some stuff I wrote up a couple of years ago to try to explain how economists think of minimum wages in fairly simple theoretical terms. I'd say enjoy, but that might not be the first feeling that comes to mind when you read it.)<br /> <br /><b>Supply and Demand</b><br /><br />In a market in goods and services, sellers usually come in with some<br />price that they're willing to sell at, and buyers come in with some<br />price they're willing to pay. Buyers will happily pay less, and<br />sellers will willingly accept more, and different buyers and sellers<br />all probably have different prices in mind. When the sellers price<br />their goods and services, or the buyers post their bids, some buyers<br />will find things at prices they think are acceptable, and some that<br />are too dear; some sellers will find buyers willing to pay their<br />price, and others won't. When everyone who can find a deal has done<br />so, then the remaining buyers and sellers can either adjust their<br />price to find another match, or they can go home. When everyone has<br />done a deal or gone home, we say that the market has cleared.<br /><br />When the market is large enough for a single good or service that is<br />essentially identical from all providers, we call it a<br /><i>commodity</i>. In this market, there are enough sellers and enough<br />buyers that a single price will emerge, called the <i>market clearing<br />price</i>, at which every willing buyer and every willing seller will<br />find a match. Sellers who price their product above this price will<br />find no takers, because the buyers can find it available elsewhere for<br />less. Likewise, buyers who are looking for a deal will go away empty<br />handed, because all the sellers can get a better price from other<br />buyers.<br /><br />When the market gets an influx of buyers who want more stuff, or<br />alternatively the number of things for sale drops, the price of the<br />goods available will be bid up until the number of buyers willing to<br />pay matches the number of sellers willing to provide. If for some<br />reason, there are fewer buyers, or the buyers just don't want that<br />much of the product, or if more sellers appear with more goods, the<br />sellers will have to drop their prices to find buyers, since all the<br />buyers at the old, higher price will be gone, having already done a<br />deal.<br /><br /><b>Labor as a Commodity</b><br /><br />In general, the service provided by a person as labor is not a<br />commodity, since each person typically brings unique skills and<br />productivity levels to bear on the work they perform. Considered<br />broadly over lots of people with similar skill and productivity<br />levels, a market will form the outlines of a commodity market in some<br />particular specialty, but this doesn't really apply to the entire<br />category of "Labor." One area where it comes close, however, is in the<br />unskilled or minimum training required labor category. On the seller<br />side, practically every able-bodied adult can supply this kind of<br />labor, and most will do so if the price is right. Some will do so even<br />if the price is minimal. At some price, then, the number of hours of<br />labor people are willing to supply will equal the quantity demanded,<br />and the market will clear. Once again, an influx of sellers (laborers)<br />or a drop in the quantity or labor demanded will tend to push the<br />price (wage) down, and an influx of buyers (employers) or a rise in<br />the quantity of labor demanded will tend to push the price up.<br /><a href="http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n185/usagi_miyamoto/?action=view¤t=MinimumWageDemand.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n185/usagi_miyamoto/MinimumWageDemand.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><b>Markets with Price Controls</b><br /><br />The idea that there should be a minimum or maximum amount that any<br />particular good or service should cost or that should be made<br />available doesn't seem intuitively obvious to most people, but when<br />the service is labor, we bring some other opinions to the table.<br /><br />In the case of commodity labor, we call a minimum price restriction a<br /><i>minimum wage</i>. When the minimum wage is less than the market<br />clearing price, it has little effect. All of the sellers can find a<br />better deal, that is, a higher wage, and all of the buyers, or<br />employers, must satisfy their labor demands at the higher price or<br />leave their jobs unfilled. However, if the minimum wage is higher than<br />the market clearing price, then more people are willing to sell labor<br />at that price than employers are willing to buy. As shown in this<br />diagram, the quantity purchased will be less overall at the higher<br />price. The difference between this quantity and the quantity that<br />would be purchased at the market clearing price is the lost employment<br />opportunity, or the employment gap.<br /><a href="http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n185/usagi_miyamoto/?action=view¤t=MinimumWageGap.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n185/usagi_miyamoto/MinimumWageGap.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><br />Note that at the higher price, sellers are willing to supply more<br />labor than at the market clearing price, mostly because more sellers<br />enter the market. The difference between the number of labor hours<br />made available and the number purchased is the apparent unemployment,<br />but this value is larger than the employment gap. One way to interpret<br />this is that raising the minimum wage above the market clearing price<br />will artificially inflate unemployment numbers, when the actual effect<br />on the number of people employed is smaller.<br /><br /><b>Markets with Supply Controls</b><br /><br />The other kind of restrictions that are commonly applied to commodity<br />labor markets affect supply. Any given seller has only so many hours<br />of labor available to sell in a week. At a high enough price, some<br />sellers may be willing to place every waking hour in the market. Once<br />again new sellers may also enter the market at the high price to sell<br />a few additional hours of labor.<br /><br />If a restriction is placed on the number of hours any given seller may<br />put on the market in a week, then the quantity supplied can only be<br />increased by adding more suppliers to the market. Sellers lose the<br />opportunity to sell extra hours at the market price, but an increase<br />in demand for labor hours will tend to push up the price for the hours<br />a seller does sell by a small amount, and will bring new sellers some<br />employment, as the market clearing price for labor hours rises with<br />the increased demand.<br /><br />An overtime restriction that allows the supply but increases the price<br />will have a combination effect. To the extent that marginal cost of<br />additional labor hours supplied in the labor market is low (in<br />commodity markets, this cost is typically negligible compared to the<br />cost of goods) then purchasers will tend to hire more labor from the<br />less expensive unrestricted market. In the labor market however,<br />legal, contractual, and physical limits that raise costs to employ a<br />marginal labor hour are common. These may include a head tax, minimum<br />employment hour requirements, restriction to hiring from a particular<br />set of suppliers such as a union, and the costs involved in training<br />or providing a worker with tools or supplies. These costs are the ones<br />that can push an employer into purchasing expensive overtime instead<br />of less expensive regular labor hours.<br /><br /><b>The Big Fish Market</b><br /><br />In a market, <i>pricing power</i> comes about when one party, or group<br />of parties, comes to the market with the bulk of the supply or the<br />bulk of the demand. This is when the marginal effect of the remaining<br />suppliers or purchasers isn't enough to change the price of the bulk<br />of the goods or services sold. If a seller has pricing power, then to<br />an extent, that seller may charge more than the net market clearing<br />price, even if other sellers will sell for less, because even when the<br />entire amount available at a lower price is purchased, there is still<br />some significant demand for the remaining amount supplied at the<br />higher price. In this case, the market may not clear at a single<br />price; the supplier with pricing power may accept the risk of selling<br />something less than all the available stuff for sale at the set price.<br />Other suppliers may go along with the higher pricing and also risk not<br />selling all of their goods; behavior in this case is mostly determined<br />by what pricing will maximize profit on the net amount sold.<br /><br />Similarly, when a buyer has pricing power, other buyers may be willing<br />to pay more, but only a few suppliers are lucky enough to sell to<br />them, and the remainder must sell at the lowered offering price of the<br />buyer with pricing power or not at all, leaving some supply that would<br />have sold at the net market clearing price. The buyer asserting<br />pricing power accepts the risk of not getting all the quantity they<br />wish at the price offered; pricing is generally determined to maximize<br />the value obtained on the amount purchased.<br /><br />In a commodity market, goods in one location are interchangeable for<br />goods in another location; the market may state its price "FOB<br />Chicago" for instance, and the price between other locations for<br />buyers and sellers may be adjusted relative to the cost of delivering<br />the goods elsewhere. Commodity labor tends to be a little less mobile<br />as well as less interchangeable. For any given person, the cost of<br />supplying labor hours close to home may be small, but providing it in<br />the next town or city may be prohibitive.<br /><br /><b>Pricing Power in Action</b><br /><br />Let's consider that in Potterville, adult population 1000, there may<br />be one employer in town with commodity labor needs, Potter's Mill,<br />Inc. Being the sole commodity labor buyer gives them some pricing<br />power relative to all of the potential suppliers of labor hours in<br />Potterville. Lets say someone with a lot of time on their hands did a<br />survey, and found all thousand potential workers in Potterville will<br />provide forty hours of labor a week for ten dollars an hour, but only<br />five hundred will for five dollars an hour; another hundred people<br />change their minds for each dollar an hour difference. Now let's say<br />the mill offers five hundred forty-hour week positions at six dollars<br />an hour. (Apparently no one at the mill read the survey.) Six hundred<br />Potterville residents apply, and one hundred are turned away. They<br />were willing to work, some of them for even less than six dollars an<br />hour, but the mill only needs so much labor, so they must look<br />elsewhere.<br /><br />But what if the mill has six hundred positions, and is only willing to<br />pay five dollars an hour? Five hundred people from Potterville apply<br />and all are accepted, and one hundred positions go asking. Potter's<br />Mill Inc. can raise its offered wage, or do without that labor, but<br />it's up to the mill. The mill offers 100 positions at six dollars an<br />hour. One hundred people from Potterville take the jobs. Potter's Mill<br />has filled its employment needs, and saved five hundred dollars an<br />hour over what it would have had to pay at a market clearing price for<br />all six hundred positions, using its pricing power. If the mill needs<br />more workers, it can go back in the market and pick up another hundred<br />at seven dollars an hour, another hundred at eight dollars an hour,<br />and so on. And that's assuming some of the people over in Millerville<br />don't get wind of this and start applying at lower wages than the<br />remaining Potterville residents will accept.<br /><br /><b>Competition and Pricing Power</b><br /><br />Let's say another business opens in town - Bailey's Pool Cleaning<br />Service. It's a small outfit that needs only five workers. If they<br />offer six dollars an hour, they may get over five hundred applicants<br />who currently work at the mill for less. They pick five people, and<br />put them to work. Them mill must fill those positions, and finds that<br />they must offer a higher wage to do so, but they're still the holders<br />of substantial pricing power, and they still save a lot of money on<br />labor.<br /><br />If forced to compete for the Potterville pool of workers against<br />enough other employers, Potter's Mill would find it didn't have that<br />kind of pricing power, and would have to pay the higher market<br />clearing wage when hiring all its workers. Some workers in that market<br />would benefit by being paid more than they would have been willing to<br />work for if they had to. A few employers that would have been willing<br />to pay more if they needed to, find that they can save their money and<br />fill their labor needs for less at the market clearing price.<br /><br /><b>The Minimum Wage Comes to Town</b><br /><br />In an effort to curb vagrancy, vandalism, and voyeurism, the town<br />council in Potterville decides to enact a minimum wage. Some of the<br />townspeople aren't being paid enough at work to keep up with the rent,<br />so they wander the streets at night, tagging street signs and looking<br />in other people's windows. To abate the scourge, they declare a<br />minimum wage of seven dollars an hour. Currently some six hundred five<br />people are employed at the town's two businesses, at wages of five or<br />six dollars an hour. The board of directors at Potter's Mill Inc. goes<br />over the numbers with management, and determines that they can't<br />afford to run the business with the extra sixteen hundred dollars an<br />hour it will cost them given their current workforce level. They<br />decide to relocate the mill to Millerville. Meanwhile, Bailey's Pool<br />Cleaning Service could have afforded to give their workers a dollar<br />raise, except suddenly they don't have any business as all the people<br />with pools in their back yard are out of work. They reluctantly close<br />their doors.<br /><br />Leaving the extreme of Potterville behind, in a larger town with a<br />more competitive labor market, the effect of a higher minimum wage is<br />unlikely to create a ghost town. There will be some employers at the<br />margins whose primary cost of business is commodity labor that will be<br />in trouble. There will be some few people who are pushed out of the<br />commodity labor market, unable to command the higher wage when the<br />number of labor hours purchased falls off. A fair number of people<br />will be slightly better off, given a raise at the expense of a few<br />employers whose costs have gone up and whose profit margins have<br />fallen, or at the expense of the consumers who pay higher prices if<br />the costs have instead been passed along by those employers.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b><br /><br />On net, when the commodity labor market is restricted, just like when<br />restrictions are placed in any commodity market, the total value of<br />the exchange possible in that market is cut. We are all worse off in<br />the aggregate, although for many of us there may have been no effect,<br />costs may have risen for very few of us, and for another few of us<br />there was a benefit. Sometimes in some non-economic sense, obtaining<br />the benefit for a few may outweigh the net negative effect on total<br />value. It's not easy to say that this is clearly the case for a<br />minimum wage.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-70505202420042670812008-09-20T05:40:00.000-07:002008-09-20T05:47:34.670-07:00The Intelligent Person's Guide to Derivatives and The Recent Financial MeltdownYou probably have a reasonable idea of what stocks are. Stock represents a fractional share of ownership of a company. If a company has issued a million shares of stock, and you own one share, then you own one millionth of the company, referred to as your equity. If the company makes a profit, and they distribute it to the owners as a dividend, then you will get one millionth of the amount of profits they distribute. When you own stock, your upside is unlimited, and your downside is, the company can go bankrupt and your shares will be worthless. However, you can't lose more than you invest, which isn't true of some other kinds of investments.<br /><br />Bonds are pretty simple, too. A bond is a kind of loan note created by a company, saying that if you buy their bond, they will pay you back the face value of the bond on a specified date. This is called the <span style="font-style:italic;">maturity</span> date, or when the bond comes due. Some bonds are sold at face value, but include periodic interest payments, called coupons, in a specified amount. (Once upon a time, bond certificates actually had some paper coupons printed on them that you had to clip off and physically redeem for your interest payment. Nowadays, for the great majority of bonds, you just register your bond and they send you the money.) Other bonds, called zero coupon bonds, or zeroes for short, don't make any periodic interest payment, and instead are sold at a discount to the face value. The interest is paid as the difference between what you bought the bond for and what the company repays you when the bond comes due. US Savings Bonds work like this. <br /><br />Investing in bonds, like investing in stocks, has a downside limited to what you invest. The upside, however, is limited because when the bond matures, it's worth the face value and nothing more. On the other hand, when a company goes bankrupt, the stockholders have nothing, but the bondholders get first claim on the company's assets. Admittedly, that may not be much consolation.<br /><br />Stocks and bonds can be bought and sold, and depending on how much people want to pay for them and how much they're willing to sell them for, the price may change with each transaction. When this happens to a share of stock, it represents a change in the market value of the company. When the share price goes up, it's because people think the company is more valuable, and when the share price goes down, people think the company is less valuable. The relationship between what people are willing to pay for a company, and what the assets and profitability of the company are, can be tenuous. Famous investors like Warren Buffett have made their fortunes by buying companies that have good profitability prospects when most people think their stock is a dog and it trades for some relatively small amount compared to its value. Everyone is familiar with the way stock prices go up and down, and it's reported every day on the news.<br /><br />People are less familiar with the way bond prices fluctuate every day. A bond has a fixed interest rate, but we know that interest rates change all the time, though not quite like stock prices do, A bond that pays 5% when the prevailing interest rate is 10% is not a very good deal, and so its price goes down. In fact, its price goes down about 5% for every year to maturity, until the effective difference between the 10% interest you can get on a new bond and the 5% you get on the old bond is gone. Say you have a $1000 face value bond that matures next year, and it pays 5%. If the current interest rate is 10%, then your bond's price in the marketplace will have fallen to about $955, which is what that $1050 you're due to collect next year in principal and interest is worth as an investment that pays 10%. On the other hand, if the current interest rate is a measly 1%, then your 5% bond is a pretty good deal, and someone would probably pay close to $1040 to take it off your hands. So you see how bond prices change to reflect the current interest rate situation.<br /><br />The other thing that affects the bond price is a change in the creditworthiness of the company issuing the bond. When you buy a bond from the government, you're going to get paid back barring something like a nuclear war or planet-killing asteroid, in which event you probably don't care much. Companies, on the other hand, have a nasty propensity to go out of business, or lose lots of money, and might not be able to pay you back. How likely a company is to pay back its bondholders is measured by its credit rating. Companies with excellent credit ratings can sell their bonds at relatively low discounts or alternatively, with relatively low interest rates, at or just above the rates on government bonds. Companies that have not-so-good credit have to offer a bigger discount, or higher interest rate, to interest people in their bonds. Crummy credit ratings lead to really high interest rates on bonds, which are usually called junk bonds and represent a real gamble.<br /><br />So when a company goes from a good credit risk to a mediocre one, suddenly nobody wants to be a bondholder, and the price of its bonds goes down, raising the effective interest rate paid if you buy one at the new, lower price. On the other hand, if you bought a cheap junk bond and the company's prospects suddenly improve, you may be able to sell your bond for much more than you paid, and the effective interest rate on the bond will have gone down proportionately. You could wind up owing capital gains taxes on your bonds, as well as taxes on the interest! I suppose there are worse problems to have.<br /><br />This is all preamble to the concept of a derivative. In general, a derivative is a kind of security with a value that represents some aspect of some underlying security. For example, a stock option is a kind of derivative. If a stock is currently trading at $100, and you buy an option for a dollar to purchase a share of that stock at $100 in a month, then as the price rises, the value of your option rises right along with it. If the price falls to $100 or below, your option is worthless. At the end of the month, if the price is above $100, you can buy the share for $100 and you pocket the difference in the price, less the dollar you paid for the option, as a profit. If the price is less than $100, your option just expires, worthless. The option is sold by someone who would rather have the dollar you paid for the option than the potential upside on the stock over the next month. If they think the price will be flat or fall a little, this is a way to make some extra money, but they risk losing out on the stock's gains if the price goes up. The option is derived from the price change of the stock, so we can call it a derivative.<br /><br />Another kind of derivative applies to bonds. One way to trade a coupon bond is to sell the right to collect on the coupon and the right to collect the principal separately. What you've done is split the bond into two separate securities, one that's called a <span style="font-style:italic;">strip</span> that collects the interest, and another that's essentially a zero-coupon bond. Since these two securities are derived from an underlying one, they get called derivatives. They will have values that fluctuate along with interest rates and the fortunes of the underlying company, just like the regular bond, but with different properties which might be more valuable to various purchasers than the original bond. The company that creates the derivatives holds on to the original bond, but forwards the interest payments to the strip holder, and sends the principal due at maturity to the zero holder. <br /><br />When you split off the interest payment on a bond like that, you can split it in more than one way, creating even more complicated derivatives. For example, you could take a regular coupon bond and sell a lower-interest strip and a higher-discount zero, or vice-versa. These will react in different ways to changes in interest rates compared to the original bond, so if buyers are looking for more volatility, or less, in their bond values, they can get what they are looking for. <br /><br />Yet another way to create derivatives is to pool some securities together, then sell off new securities that represent some aspect of the underlying securities. For example, you could combine some treasury bills with some junk bonds and effectively create new bonds that are intermediate between the two in interest rate and creditworthiness. You can sell the high volatility and the low volatility aspects separately to parties that are looking for more risk and more upside, and parties that want less risk and will accept a smaller payout.<br /><br />Now let's say someone has a big pile of mortgages. These all will have various interest rates and the payers will have various credit ratings and payment histories, but we can combine the mortgages into groups, and create new derivative securities that look like bonds out of them. Depending on how we group them, we can get low-interest, high credit rating ones together, or high-interest, lower rated ones, and create new bond-like securities with similar properties. The risk that a few of the mortgages might go into default gets built into the new mortgage-backed security's discount, effectively raising the interest rate. If the group has a lot of mortgages that might default, then the new security is more like a junk bond, and its price should drop and interest rate rise accordingly. The problem with these new securities is that it's hard for someone to tell whether a given instance really ought to be considered AAA or junk without going through all of the underlying mortgages and checking each one. One of them might have started out in good shape, but be composed of mortgages from somewhere that just had a big plant close, and suddenly lots of those houses are on the market for cheap, and how would you know? You rely on the credit rating agencies to stay on top of it, but this level of detail may be beyond them.<br /><br />So, let's say you have some bond, and you're willing to part with some of the interest on the bond in return for a guarantee that you'll get your principal back, because you're worried about that more than you want a high return. Say someone comes along and says, I will agree to buy your bond from you at par (that is, the present value of the face value of the bond at maturity at the prevailing interest rate) if something happens to it to significantly change its value, such as going into default, and in return, all I ask is that you pay me all the interest your bond pays over and above what a treasury note with the same maturity pays, plus a little extra for my trouble. What you're doing is taking your bond and turning it into something more like a treasury note, because someone else has agreed to take on the default risk in return for a risk premium. This kind of derivative is called a <span style="font-style:italic;">credit default swap</span>, and it's what got AIG into such awful straits.<br /><br />What happened was, AIG and others were busy minting money by taking on the default risk for mortgage-backed securities, because they figured there was no way to lose - house prices just go up, right? And more and more financial institutions were willing to buy the mortgage-backed securities because companies like AIG were willing to sign up for the default risks, which were hidden inside and not really reflected in the price of the securities. And the mortgage companies that created the mortgage-backed securities and sold them to banks and insurers and brokerages, were busily plowing the money they got from selling them into making ever more mortgages to ever less credit-worthy borrowers, who were busy driving up the price of housing with their borrowed money. <br /><br />And then the bubble popped.<br /><br />Gradually, sub-prime borrowers, and a few prime ones, got in trouble as their teaser-rate variable mortgages started getting adjusted upwards, the economy slowed and house prices fell, and they couldn't refinance into something they could afford. More and more mortgages went into default, showing up as these mortgage-backed securities not making their interest payments and going into default even when they'd gotten high ratings from the credit rating firms. Financial institutions started looking into their portfolios and finding these hot potatoes and all started trying to unload them at the same time, and the market evaporated. They had to come up with more cash to cover the lost interest payments they weren't getting anymore on these things, to try and avoid going into default themselves, and cash started getting hard to come by. Firms like AIG that had guaranteed the securities without much of a cash reserve started getting viciously squeezed. Firms that had purchased the securities with borrowed money found that they had no way to get money to pay their lenders, since they couldn't sell them at any price. That's when the excrement really struck the rotational airflow facilitators.<br /><br />When you buy something, and its price drops, the most you can lose is what you paid for it. When you buy something with borrowed money, and its price drops, you can lose more than you started with and find yourself in a deep debt hole. And if you can't service your debt, then whoever lent you the money feels the pain, too. If you're a major financial player and it's also going on with a bunch of other major players, it can snowball into a general financial meltdown. And so even though the underlying market value for houses has dropped by maybe 20%, and foreclosure rates are still just a small fraction of total mortgages, the number of firms that have had their capital wiped out as a result is impressive. Or perhaps depressive.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-28957542227299235552008-07-21T23:38:00.000-07:002008-07-22T01:27:38.704-07:00Variations on a ThemeLast Wednesday the <a href="http://moretimeplease.blogspot.com/">Formidable Mrs</a> and I were discussing something to do with decorating, fairly late, and she mentioned wanting to have a headboard for the guest bedroom downstairs. <p>"Perhaps a padded headboard, some foam over some plywood, covered in duck." I allowed how that was doable. "We could maybe do tufted, with buttons." <p>I imagined a tufted, padded headboard, and suggested "with really big buttons? Like, dinner-plate sized?" <p>"Like your mom has in her sewing room?" <p>"Exactly." <p>"Where do you get those?" <p>"Dad made it, on the lathe. Hmm." At this point I'm thinking about what I might need a lathe for, and not much is coming to mind when she interrupts my reverie with "I don't think we need a lathe, lathes are scary." <p>"Yeah, okay, that's not a good enough reason to get a lathe. You know, to fit the theme of the room, we could do an Adirondack headboard. Just a bunch of vertical boards, rounded on top in a big hump." <p>"Oh, yes, or like a loveseat, with two humps. That would really go well in there."<br /><p>Thus was born the Adirondack Headboard project. I went down and measured the bed and frame to get an idea of the dimensions we wanted and doodled up a design on some graph paper, then went looking around the garage, where I found some likely looking 1x6 pine boards I had on hand for the random woodworking needs that seem to come up once in a while. They looked just right. I had a 1x5 and a 1x3 laying about that would make good cross pieces. I set them out to work on the next day.<br /><p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/crobertson/SIVmdHfwx0I/AAAAAAAAALs/v4VtsWT4iik/IMG_2378.JPG"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/crobertson/SIVmdHfwx0I/AAAAAAAAALs/v4VtsWT4iik/s400/IMG_2378.JPG" /></a><br /><p>Did you know that a crescent wrench makes a reasonable compass in a pinch? I drew the arcs for the tops of the boards with a pencil in the jaws and my finger in the hole at the end of the handle of my 8" crescent wrench. After cutting all the boards to length with the chopsaw, I cut the curves with a jigsaw then sanded everything smooth with the random-orbit sander. Easy as pie. I've only ever made pumpkin pie, which is pretty easy, but I imagine some other sorts of pie may be somewhat more challenging. I laid out the cut and sanded parts as seen above. In the evening when we were all home, wife and son helped paint on some shellac to seal the porous, knotty pine boards up for painting.<br /><p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/crobertson/SIVmr5yAG-I/AAAAAAAAAL0/7U0GdvReWW8/IMG_2379.JPG"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/crobertson/SIVmr5yAG-I/AAAAAAAAAL0/7U0GdvReWW8/s400/IMG_2379.JPG" /></a><br /><p>Another few rounds of sanding, painting with primer, sanding, painting with tinted primer, sanding, painting and sanding a couple more times, then spraying on about five coats of polyurethane varnish, which all told took another three days to complete, and finally adding a bit of hardware so it could attach to the bedframe, and we have something that looks like this.<br /><p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/crobertson/SIWYzeIGQ1I/AAAAAAAAANk/TsGJ6mINnOI/IMG_2405.JPG"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/crobertson/SIWYzeIGQ1I/AAAAAAAAANk/TsGJ6mINnOI/s400/IMG_2405.JPG" /></a><br /><p>And with the bed pushed back into place, the finished product looks like this:<br /><p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/crobertson/SIVnxwaoMNI/AAAAAAAAAL8/6jtYwREy--g/IMG_2407.JPG"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/crobertson/SIVnxwaoMNI/AAAAAAAAAL8/6jtYwREy--g/s400/IMG_2407.JPG" /></a><br /><p>The guest bedroom now has a headboard that fits the theme of the room (well, the sort-of theme, we're not counting the treadmill as a theme element), that only took a few days from conception to completion, and looks like it was made to be there. Which it was. <br /><p>I also doodled up a design for an Adirondack side table; we'll see if that ever happens.Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046136.post-58809917776678688052008-06-08T20:42:00.000-07:002008-06-08T21:03:58.918-07:00Finishing TouchesThe sun came out again today, after being off vacationing somewhere else for a week, and just in time to finish the big play space project off. With some hefting assistance from <a href="http://www.fafufnick.blogspot.com/">PJMcD</a>, we lifted and bolted the final sections of the play structure into place this afternoon. <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/crobertson/TheOfficialUnauthorized/photo?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw#5209709966018413218"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/crobertson/SEybnKNXAqI/AAAAAAAAAJE/SGZea4_e__8/s400/IMG_1812.JPG" /></a><br /><br />The chief playtester gave it his squeal of approval. <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/crobertson/TheOfficialUnauthorized/photo?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw#5209710373985801682"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/crobertson/SEyb-6AXVdI/AAAAAAAAAJM/ruPvwJcdPFg/s400/IMG_1828.JPG" /></a><br /><br />Afterward, there was some well-earned relaxation time with the uncle. <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/crobertson/TheOfficialUnauthorized/photo?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw#5209710643426381490"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/crobertson/SEycOlwATrI/AAAAAAAAAJU/Yn9pcQCMni0/s400/IMG_1839.JPG" /></a><br /><br />And here's how it looks all put together. <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/crobertson/TheOfficialUnauthorized/photo?authkey=Jh3a9R5raFw#5209709696031903842"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/crobertson/SEybXcbj0GI/AAAAAAAAAI8/u46b8iG1UIA/s400/IMG_1840.JPG" /></a><br /><br />Now that I've seen how easily the chips get moved around under the swings and at the end of the slide, I'm planning on getting some rubber mats to put underneath the chips at those locations so they don't get dug into all the way to the bottom. Some rough spots in the wood could use some attention, too. And looking around at the edges of the pictures, it's clear I need to start working on the yard some more. Then it's time for the next project! And there are so many to choose from...Colin R.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11601063404938522474noreply@blogger.com0