Snow in Atlanta

Yes, there is. You just have to know where to look, and despite waking up the last several mornings to temperatures in the low teens, the snow isn't on my lawn--it's at Snow Mountain located in Stone Mountain Park (aka "Redneck Mount Rushmore").

We visited a week ago Sunday, and the girls and I had a great time. Surprisingly, the place wasn't overcrowded, and our 5 hour visit was the perfect amount of time for the kids to play, sled, build a snow fort, throw a few snowballs, enjoy smores, and even take the Summit Skyride to the top of Stone Mountain (free with cost of admission to Snow Mountain). Tickets were $25 each, but pick up a coupon good for $2 off each ticket from Kroger.

Mid-year review

This entry is more for me than anyone who stumbles upon it, as I wanted to do a mid-year review of some life resolutions which will some day become habit. I'd give myself an arbitrary grade of B-, as good progress has been made in some areas while others are untouched. Below is each area with its respective grade:

- Pare down: F. I'm preparing for an October and November barrage of eBay activity, but that doesn't help in the interim.

- Make running a habit: A. The real evidence is that when I pack running gear on a business trip, it gets used; I now run at least twice a week and more if the schedule allows. I've shed over 15 pounds and moved from "Overweight" to "In Normal Range" according to the WHO and CDC, which defines overweight as having a body-mass-index/BMI of 25 or more. A good BMI calculator can be found here.

- Travel more for leisure: B. Gasoline over $4 a gallon doesn't help, but we've been on three trips so far this year with a big vacation scheduled in early December.

- Reduce exposure to media/news: B. I'm a political news junkie, but you won't find me at a methadone clinic as long as I can get my fix of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

- Invest more in community: D. It's not what I originally had in mind, but right now this investment in community is through time and money directed at helping to get Senator Obama elected President.

- Manage ADHD rather than having it manage me: A. Just after the first of the year I switched from Dexedrine to Vyvanse, and it's much more effective with zero side effects.

- Simplify investments: B. I'm down to just four individual stocks considered long-term holds (DIS, MRK, SHPGY, and MSFT). All other holdings are in the form of exchange-traded funds. Unfortunately I'm still down 14% since the first of the year compared to a 12.7% decline in the Dow Jones and a 13% decline in the S&P 500. Fortunately the rental properties are all occupied and throwing off good cash flow.

Revisiting the past

I enjoyed attending my 10-year high school class reunion, and that didn't seem so long ago. But it was. Now even further removed from those awkward and painful high school days, I just attended my 20-year class reunion last weekend.

There were hints of this 10 years ago, but even more obvious today is that:

• academic and athletic success does not translate into success in life
• beauty is fleeting
• people are resourceful--even idiots find a way to earn a living
• if opportunities exist, people don't move far from home
  
• the relationship between money and happiness is not linear
• extreme social retardation does not wane over time

Our reunion committee did a great job finding and contacting the nearly 700 alumni in a rather short period of time, but unfortunately turnout was rather low. There were only a half-dozen people I really wanted to see, and only a few of them attended. Fortunately there were others I didn't know in high school who I got to meet and live pretty interesting lives.

Like many reunions, there was a 20-question survey to be filled out prior to attending. As someone who didn't participate in extracurricular sports, I was annoyed that 3 of the 20 questions asked about high school, college, and pro sports involvement. Somewhat in protest I left a snarky response detailing how I trained and then walked on and made the roster as a linebacker with the Atlanta Falcons from 1997 to 1999. At 5'7" and weighing 150 pounds soaking wet in high school, anyone who knew me would have immediately identified this as a ruse. But walking around the room Saturday night reading the "Did you know..." posters about my classmates, I was amused to see that my "success" with the Falcons had made the cut.

Segway tours in Atlanta

My family loves living in metro Atlanta and are always up for learning more about out adopted home. Early this spring I was excited to learn that City Segway Tours had an Atlanta office, offering 3-hour tours of downtown. For once I knew had the perfect birthday for my wife!

Purchasing a birthday gift for one's spouse gets more and more complicated once kids are in the picture, however, especially when the gift is an activity and a babysitter needs to be scheduled. It was for this reason that my wife's birthday gift was two months late...

We booked our tour a couple of weeks out because the tours often sell out. The 3-hour tour is $70, but if you book through Viator, enter FAB7 for a 7% discount. Tours run twice a day at 10am and 2pm, 7 days a week.

My wife and I arrived 15 minutes before our 2pm tour at the City Segway Tours' office on the top level of Underground Atlanta at 50 Upper Alabama St SW, Suite 256. After signing away our lives we watched a brief video on how to operate the Segway. Afterwards we made our way outside to Upper Alabama Street which is open to pedestrian traffic only, making it a perfect place to learn how to use a Segway.

While tours can have up to 8 clients with a guide, there were only four of us paired with our guide and six in the other group. With help from our guide, we individually learned how to mount, move, turn, and dismount the Segway. Each of us spent about 10 minutes practicing, and then we were off!

The tour took us past the former World of Coca Cola museum to the Georgia State Capitol. From there we went through the campus of Georgia State University, past Grady Hospital, to the Sweet Auburn Historic District. Along Auburn Avenue we saw the Soul Food Museum, Wheat Street Baptist Church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. After a brief stop, we headed northwest past Woodruff Park to Centennial Olympic Park, where one of the few fountains in Atlanta is currently running due of the drought. After a photo op, we circled the park and then made our way back to Atlanta Underground.

Fortunately my wife loved it and says it was worth the wait.

Never again: Self-storage rental

Reading a story about how the foreclosure crisis is impacting other industries reminded me that several years ago I made a thousand dollar mistake. That's right--I rented a self-storage unit for just a few months. And as anyone who has ever rented a self-storage unit can attest, a few months can quickly turn into a year or longer.

For reasons I believe involved an offer of a free month's rent as well as a plan to clear out part of our basement in preparation for an upcoming yard sale, my wife and I signed the paperwork to rent a unit for $99 a month and filled up our temporary garage. We moved furniture, full-size arcade games, unused equipment from my wife's former startup business, and building materials for our rental properties. I recall the warm and fuzzy feeling of being able to park a car in one bay of our drive-under garage. Of course we still had too much crap to be able to park both cars in the garage, but it was a start.

And then I'm sure that life just got in the way. A year later I moved whatever hadn't sold back into the basement, where I'm sure it is again collecting dust. There is no longer room to park a car in the garage, but one day I will reclaim the basement and the garage with the help of eBay and Craigslist. Soon, I hope!

Adrenaline rush at the airport

I was traveling this week on business. At my departure airport, on my way back to Atlanta, I arrived four hours early for my scheduled flight in hopes of catching an earlier one. Unfortunately the next flight was full, so I decided to enjoy my found time by writing some postcards and eating lunch.

It was while eating a Quizno's sandwich that I heard the thud behind me. I turned around to see an older man laying flat on his back, and so I rushed over to see if he was okay. The man, probably in his mid to late 70's, was out cold with his eyes rolled back into his head, and a woman came up and asked me if he had a pulse? I guess that would be a good thing to check, but I was in a complete state of shock that this was happening in front of me.

I put my fingers on his neck and told her that if he had one, it's too weak to feel. Only then did it hit me that this was serious. In the mean time, the man stopped breathing. So the woman took control (she later told me that she's a doctor) and directed me to give him chest compressions after she blew into him. She directed someone else to get the defibrillator and told another to call 911. After several series of breaths and chest compressions, the gentleman's lips and face started to turn red and then blue. The woman checked his pulse again, and there was nothing. He was dead. A few more series of breaths and chest compressions, and I opened up his shirt since the guy with the A.E.D. had returned. Someone read what the heck to do with this thing, and then they put it on his chest.

As this happened, though before he was shocked, his chest rose, and he opened his eyes. "What is your name?" someone asked. The man replied with his name. By then the paramedics had arrived, and I got the hell out of the way. The gentleman was stabilized and was taken to a nearby hospital.

It took me well over an hour for the adrenaline rush to subside. I was surprised and disappointed at my paralysis when confronted by the situation, and thank God that there was a doctor nearby who heard the man fall, was willing to get involved, and knew how to manage the situation. She saved a life today.

Perhaps I'm getting old

I "get" LinkedIn, which helps real, live professionals connect... but I just don't understand the fascination the press has or the appeal users have with "social media" sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, Friendster, and Twitter. As a business model, while the sites have millions of users, most lack the fundamental criteria for success: a path to profitability. As a user, why do I want complete strangers... or my boss to know what I'm up to in my personal life? To me (and some others) the negatives greatly outweigh the positives.

If I want to correspond with friends and family, I either pick up the phone or send an email. And of course when I'm in the same town, I actually visit and have real, live, face-to-face social encounters. I have enough friends, really. I'm not looking to make virtual ones.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

I'm a fan of NPR, and my favorite weekly program is "the oddly informative news quiz" called Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! My wife and I have listened to this show for years, and I download the podcast weekly. The program is hilarious, and I often get strange looks from others at the YMCA as I laugh out loud listening to the program on my iPod while running on the treadmill.

Hosted by Peter Sagal with Carl Kasell acting as scorekeeper, the show is co-produced by Chicago Public Radio along with NPR, and live tapings are done at the Chase Auditorium in downtown Chicago most Thursday evenings. Despite having been to Chicago dozens of times, I've never been in town with a Thursday evening free. But as luck would have it, I'll be there next week for work and no plans that night.

Panelists for the March 6 taping of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! are Kyrie O'Connor, Roy Blount Jr., and Adam Felber, and tickets are $21.99. Being a cheap bastard, I Googled for information about discounted tickets and stumbled upon Goldstar, a website that offers such tickets to events in several cities, including Chicago. As a result, I picked up the last two half-price tickets available for $11 + $4 service fee each, and saved $14.00--thanks, Goldstar!

My wife would like nothing more than to have Carl Kasell's voice on our home answering machine, and the only way to make that happen is to be chosen as a contestant on this show. So if one of the producers (are you listening, Doug Berman, Rod Abid, Mike Danforth, Melody Kramer, and Emily Ecton?) would call me to confirm I've been picked to be a contestant... I'm waiting!

Accidental tree-hugger

I'm a member of their #1 Club Gold, so when I arrive at a Hertz location I look for my name on a board and proceed to the parking space indicated. While I haven't been specifically requesting them, my last 5 rental cars have all been a hybrid Toyota Prius rented as a compact vehicle.

My guess as to why I'm getting them with great regularity is that Hertz has excess numbers of these vehicles as they're awful if you've never driven one before. Examples of why:

• There is no actual key--just a key fob that gets plugged into the dash
  
• The ignition system is not intuitive at all--you need to press the brake while you're hitting the [power] button to start the car
  
• The shift control is weird
  
• When the car uses battery power it doesn't sound like it's running
  
• When the vehicle is stopped and it switches from the gas engine (with sound) to battery power (no sound), you'll think the car has just died on you
• The 8" monitor staring you in the face while you're driving can be really distracting (see pic)
  

On my first rental, I arrived into D/FW feeling like I was coming down with a cold. I managed to get the vehicle started and on the road when I stopped to pick up some Alka-Seltzer Plus Cough & Cold. Getting back into the Prius, it took me 15 minutes of frustration (i.e., I was pissed) followed by a short phone call to Hertz to learn the secret of problem #2 above. I've gotten used to the car's quirks, and I now don't mind when I find a Prius in my assigned space.

I used to own a 1999 Volkswagen Beetle TDI (turbo diesel injected) that got 50 mpg, so one of the things that has really surprised me about the Toyota Prius is its gas mileage. After 5 rentals, I've gotten around 40 mpg doing "normal" city and highway driving. This mileage is great compared to gasoline engines, but it sucks compared to a diesel.

Until car rental companies start building an inventory of fuel-efficient diesel vehicles, I'll do what I can to rent a hybrid as I try to reduce my carbon footprint.

Living green

Having traveled for work each week since the start of the year, I've been on a lot of planes. That bothers me, and not for the obvious reason that I don't like to be away from the family, but I know that air travel is the largest component of my carbon footprint.

A Carbon Footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. I'm not a rabid tree-hugger, but I do want to live responsibly and leave the earth in good shape for my kids after I turn into compost.

The first step in trying to live green is to know how well (or poorly) you're doing right now. There are numerous calculators to help you determine your carbon footprint, and they vary wildly. On an annual basis, Climatecrisis.net calculated my footprint to be 5.7 tons of CO2, Conservation International pegged my output at 7.9 tons of CO2, GE said I produced 5.76 tons of CO2, and CarbonFootprint.com calculated my output of CO2 to be 7.758 tons. So which is it? I think GE is probably closest as they asked more in-depth questions about how I live. According to GE, the average American is responsible for 9.96 tons of CO2 emissions per year.

So great--I'm below average. But the above calculations excluded my air transportation. Add those in, and I'm an abuser of the planet. Climatecrisis.net now has me at 16.2 tCO2, Conservation International shows I produce 27.6 tCO2, GE reflects 13.52 tCO2, and CarbonFootprint.com calculates my annual CO2 output at 24.766 tons.

Until my employer offers me the ability to pay for (and expense!) carbon offset credits from a company like TerraPass, Carbonfund, LiveNeutral, or NativeEnergy, I'll continue to work to reduce my carbon output from other activities. Click here for some simple steps to help reduce your carbon footprint.

Let it snow!

Just a few weeks ago, Atlanta was surprised with several inches of snow--twice within the span of a week. The first snowfall was gone within 24 hours, but the second stayed on the ground several days.

On the evening of the first snowfall I fashioned a toboggan out of cardboard, rope, and duct tape. It worked well enough, but I longed for one of the plastic discs from when I was a kid. When it snowed 3" just days later, I began my quest for a pair of snow saucers for my girls, and there was no use looking in Atlanta as they won't be found.

This past week I found myself in a pair of cities with lots of cold weather and even more snow--St. Louis and Grand Rapids. Fortunately I was in-and-out of St. Louis, but during my visit to Grand Rapids I stopped by Meijer where they were beginning to close out their winter merchandise despite getting about 4" of snow the day before I arrived. I purchased exactly what I was looking for--a pair of foam snow saucers, which attracted plenty of unwanted attention from the TSA (Thousands Standing Around) going through airport security on my way back to Atlanta. Until the next snowfall the saucers will add a splash of color to my garage wall, so let it snow!

Life resolutions starting now

No New Year's resolutions for me. I'm not interested in being part of the majority who commits to a new way of life, only to fail. If I'm going to commit to change, I want it to stick. So below are several commitments I've made to myself that my friends and family are welcome to hold me accountable to. And perhaps it's just a symantics game, but I'm not calling these New Year's resolutions, they're life resolutions.

- Pare down. If 2007 was the year to de-clutter, it was just a start. I'm committed to eliminating physical clutter and unnecessary material items which only lead to mental clutter.

- Make running a habit. Since Thanksgiving I've added an extra 15 pounds, and that needs to go permanently.

- Travel more for leisure.

- Reduce my exposure to media/news, more mental clutter.

- Invest more in my community. I need to practice what I preach to my girls.

- Manage my ADHD rather than having it manage me. Two years ago I switched from Adderall to Dexedrine, and while effective, Dexedrine just isn't working as well as Adderall XR did.

- Simplify my investments. For me this means moving cash investments from individual stocks to index funds. This will help avoid mistakes like NovaStar, down 97% over the last 2 years, despite its hefty dividend (recently discontinued). I'd rather have base hits than strike out swinging for the home runs.

Bobby Flay for Christmas

I'm not sure if this will become a Christmas tradition, but yesterday I decided to trash the kitchen and spend a few hours preparing something other than our usual Christmas dinner of king crab. Having always enjoyed barbecue ribs but never having cooked them, I watched my share of the Food Network in preparation for this holiday feast.

I settled upon four dishes to cook: ribs, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and asparagus. The one underrated skill in cooking a meal like this is time/project management. I settled upon four recipes that weren't too complicated which offered good guidance on prep and cooking time. The wine pairing was a Shiraz.

The first recipe is from Guy Fieri, and it's Johnny Garlic's Famous Garlic and Rosemary Mashed potatoes. Should you try this recipe, double the listed cooking time. This was the only item that wasn't ready on time, and I didn't find any reason for them to be famous.

The other three recipes were from Bobby Flay: Ribs with Chipotle-Molasses barbecue sauce, Grilled Asparagus Wrapped in Proscuitto with Shaved Pecorino Romano Cheese, and Grilled Corn on the Cob with Garlic Butter, Fresh Lime, and Queso Fresco. Each of these were fantastic--especially the ribs. Fortunately I have another rack and enough barbecue sauce left over to make another tasty dinner this week!

For the record, my wife gave dinner an "A" for taste with a "C" for presentation, mostly because I didn't have time to clean the kitchen before sitting down for dinner.

Tracking Santa

NORAD's Santa Tracker has upgraded its technology this year, with webcams and aerial video of Santa and his sleigh as well as a Santa-tracker using Google Earth. Finally... government money well-spent!

Those wanting to speak with a member of the NORAD Santa Tracking team can call toll free: 1 (877) Hi NORAD or 1 (877) 446-6723.

It's time for Mrs. Claus and I to get to work assembling Santa's gifts for our girls. Merry Christmas!

The Moody Blues are wrong

Ten years ago The Moody Blues sang the tune "You Can Never Go Home," but they're dead wrong.

This week I had meetings in Cincinnati, and two customers have offices just 5 miles from my home town of Reading, Ohio. I had some unexpected time to spare, so on a whim I decided to call two people who made a strong impression on me growing up.

I had the opportunity to catch up with my 7th and 8th grade Latin teacher, Don Lucas, over burgers and Coke. He's been retired from public teaching for 20 years, and his gain was their loss. For someone I so admired, it's almost serendipitous that we're both now in the same line of work--he owns a travel agency while I work for a dot com travel company. My next stop was Reading Junior/Senior High School to see my 8th grade English teacher, Ronda Eisenhard, who is now a counselor and coach.

My visits with Don and Ronda reminded me that I don't want my life measured by professional or financial accomplishments but rather by the quality of my relationships. They lived their lives as examples to thousands of kids, and their influence is still bearing fruit today.

Life lesson from a last lecture

If you had an opportunity to give one final speech, one last chance to be heard, what would you talk about? For Carnegie Mellon University professor Dr. Randy Pausch, that question wasn't a hypothetical. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, this husband and father of three children (ages 5, 2, and 1), has only a few months to live. Last week he delivered his final lecture entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." It's well worth watching (but be forewarned: the video runs an hour 30).

If it seems like something is missing at the end, it is. Click here (Windows Media Player will open) and "fast-forward" to 01:25 in this other video to see the awards and honors presented to Dr. Pausch.

Update 2/22/08: Palliative chemotherapy is working, and Randy Pausch is still alive and healthy.

Update 7/25/08: Randy Pausch died today at the age of 47. He is survived by his wife, Jai, and children, Dylan, 6, Logan, 3, and Chloe, 2. Donations can be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, or to Carnegie Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund, which supports the university's continued work on the Alice project.

Life-changing events

I can count on one hand the number of events that I find simultaneously scary as well as thrilling. All of these impose great change, and without exception are life-altering. In my experience, most of these turn out to be overwhelmingly positive while the risk of heartbreak always exists. My family is possibly in the early stages of such an event, and we're doing everything we can to prepare. I was recently reminded of a quote by Churchill which I find all-too fitting, however, "Planning is essential, but plans are useless."

I promise to share more when it becomes appropriate.

Deathly Hallows at Kroger

Though I don't read, my wife is an avid reader and loves the Harry Potter series. So at midnight I visited my closest 24-hour Wal-Mart in an effort to purchase the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Upon getting to the entry doors, however, I and the 50+ other prospective book buyers pouring out of the parking lot learned that the store was no longer a 24-hour Wal-Mart.

My next stop was Kroger, and they were well-stocked with no line. By 12:10am they'd already sold 6 boxes of books with 19 boxes remaining. I guess tonight will be a bonding experience for many families, as I saw parents along with their kids, each with a book in hand. I personally think the woman in front of me had the right idea, though. She was buying a 12-pack of Heineken along with her copy of the book.

Me? I'll either wait for the movie or listen to it on my iPod. I'm sure my wife is finishing up Chapter 1 about now.

Lou Ferrigno is calling

In general I don't like receiving gifts. If I need something I buy it... or I figure out a way to buy it. I have most of what I want, and what I don't have I don't need. Despite peoples' best intentions, unless a gift has been cleared by my wife (who knows what I need before I do) it will probably be converted to cash via eBay unless it has a gift receipt. Remember, it's the year to de-clutter. So around my birthday and Christmas I'm known as being "difficult to buy for".

Several years ago my brother found a crazy and unique birthday gift that didn't get put on a shelf to collect dust. He had Lou Ferrigno call to wish me a happy birthday! Yes, it was the Lou Ferrigno whose 15 minutes of fame ended when The Incredible Hulk television series was cancelled in the early 80's. My brother doesn't have any Hollywood connections, but he did find Hollywood Is Calling who does. You've got to love the Internet! What random and crazy gifts have you received?

The yellow haze of spring

For someone with allergy-induced asthma, spring in Georgia requires two things to survive: plenty of inhaler refills and good prescription allergy meds. I had to laugh when I checked the pollen count this morning and saw that it was at 5,208, which is over 43 times a level considered "extremely high". Ironically, the yellow pollen from pine trees which covers metro Atlanta this time of year isn't considered allergenic.