Dispatch from the First World

This is a short update on our NYC-Washington-Boston-Cruise-Tampa-East-Coast-Extravaganza-Tour travels. We've only been gone for a few days, but there's much to tell. Most of it, unfortunately, is made up.

New York

We arrived at Newark International Airport a little over a week ago. As Laura chose to check her 348kg "carry on", we had to wait till the next day to fetch in on the luggage carousel, all the while being harassed by New Jersey cab drivers: "you gotta ride?", "you wanna ride?", "you don't wanna ride with dat guy, he's from Jersey City". Eventually, after exploring the mostly vacant airport (it was close to midnight on a Wednesday), we caught the shuttle to our hotel in Rahway, NJ. As it turned out, the hotel was a great deal (about 1/3 the cost of Manhattan) and they offered a free shuttle on-demand to the commuter railway station about a half mile away. As it also turned out, the hotel needed to offer a shuttle because it was close to absolutely nothing but the NJ Turnpike. I appreciated the non-shopping opportunity. Laura did not.

The train to Penn Station took about 40 minutes, and was filled with people going to work, shopping, or on a contract hit for someone. We had a great few days in Manhattan, did a bunch of touristy things, and had wonderful (warm, sunny) weather. One of the highlights was a visit to the school Dave would like to attend - the New York Academy of Art. Even for a "finer things neanderthal" like me, I was impressed. I figure if he can get in, he should go - if only so I can see the guy painting with roofing tar and portland cement again.

We were in NYC for 4 full days, and my legs hurt from all the walking. I was also "Art Galleried Out" and wanted to regain a piece of my personal bubble again. So, off to Washington on Monday via train.

Washington, DC

Laura's wonderful new carry-on/backpack/bag-with-wheels has it's limitations - whenever it's moved. We took Amtrak from Rahway to Washington and had to lift her new bag into the overhead space. Easy enough if it weighed, say, 20kg. Not so easy when it's 348kg. They don't weigh your luggage like an airline. Bruce would appreciate all the people bringing car batteries on board, getting ready for Hurricane Sandy.

Our place in Washington wasn't upscale, but it reminded me of the place we had in Istanbul - clean and well run - so that's all we need. But to give it two stars would be generous. Good thing Laura has a sense of humour. The location was great - only 8 blocks down the street to the White House. I had to decline dinner there, as I had to do a blog post that evening, and it would only be Michelle and the kids anyways (awkward!). We spent two days walking up and down "The Mall" and spending the requisite amount of time at each of the 4,325 Smithsonian Museums. On the last day, we rented bikes and took in the attractions that you couldn't easily walk to (at least not me). Arlington Cemetery and the Kennedy Grave Site (man, there's a lot of Kennedy grave-sites), The Lincoln Memorial, The Jefferson Memorial (who knew that a drycleaner in NYC could get his own memorial), the WWII Memorial - I was too upset to do the Vietnam Memorial (flashbacks).

Up at 6am on Friday to hail an Ethiopian cab driver - who pulled a U-turn in the middle of a busy intersection (his choice) to pick us up and take us to the train station. Then another 8 hours on the train to Boston, with stops in Houston, LA, Seattle and Chicago (I got a cheap fare). At least the trains now have WiFi - circa 1985 WiFi, but I manage (one of the sacrifices I make). Pulled into Boston at 4:30pm, and caught a cab to our VRBO. 

Boston

Boston was a hard place for me to find a room for less than $3500/night and within 400 miles of the city. I did find a small one bedroom place right beside North Church in the North End (actually, very central). Because we arrived late in the day, they left the keys for me in their Reality Office mailbox. So I grabbed them, ripped them open, asked the guy next door where the address was, walked to it with all our luggage, and then discovered I had taken someone else's keys. 

Trudged back to the office, got the envelope with my name on it, and actually found the right address. It's tiny - I'm sure the Airstream has more usable space - but it's OK. Again - location, location, location. And our location is right by a laundromat - and Laura needs one today (I've, of course, been hand washing for ten days in a contact lens container). Bought a cup of coffee (Americano - but had to explain just what that was) at the coffee shop beside the laundry, and can now resolutely say that Boston has no idea what coffee is. Tea, maybe (they have a history), but not coffee. Laura tried another Boston Coffee later in the day - same result. Something like discount Maxwell House instant with too much water. Yumm.

We keep monitoring the interwebs for news on the cruise (RCL Jewel) leaving Sunday. So far, it still looks OK. Weather here in Boston should be alright until Tuesday, and the ship should be well out to sea en-route to the eastern Caribbean by then. 

This morning it was bright, warm, and sunny .. but by 2pm the wind had picked up and the temperature had gone down - so the big storm is really on its way.

More later, if Laura lets me....

In A New York Minute

Laura and I are in New York.

Actually, we're in Rahway, New Jersey - but more on that in a minute.

We arrived here three days ago, and spent two full days in New York City. The first day was wonderful, the second day - less so.

I could fill you in on all the sordid details, but I won't. Instead, a few observations from a guy who was last in NYC in 1984.

• In 1984, there were only 3,568 people living and working in Manhattan. Now there are 123,345,874.
• There are only 3 public restrooms available to service all of them.
• There are three excellent restaurants at the Met Art Gallery. There were 1,239,758 people at the gallery today. The restaurants comfortable seat 32. In total.
• The walk from midtown to downtown is only a couple of kilometers. There are 5,349 pedestrian fatalities every 50m in Manhattan. And these are mostly the people that actually wait for the walk light.
• The Empire State Building is a 102 story captive-audience-sales-opportunity.
• There are 38 NYC police officers at every intersection in the city.
• Why is it that the 45 year old woman with a cell phone in her ear can walk straight into an oncoming FedEx truck and not even flinch. And not be a statistic.

Laura insisted that I add a couple of her points as well, and that the advice you get about visiting NYC is worth paying attention to ...

• We're staying in New Jersey, and taking the train into Manhattan every day. If I had to do this again - I would. The 40 minute train ride gives you some decompression time, and forces you to stay out and about all day. It's really the same as a commute at home, only you aren't driving.
• Use a washroom whenever you see one (we've been told that there is one, but haven't found it yet). 
• Take food with you if you don't eat junk. 
• Wear really comfortable walking shoes. Even if you do, your legs will ache after day one.
• Figure out the subway. It's worth the effort.
• If you're functionally literate, figure out the train schedule too - it will save you hundreds.

Payday

 Gisela Giardino via Compfight

As most of you know, I've been trying to commercialize my sleep blog (BuildBetterSleep.com) over the last several months.

I started the blog in November 2011, with the expressed intent that I wanted to

• have a forum to write about everything I learn about insomnia
• journal my own experiences from sleeplessness to sleeping well again 
• see if I could turn this experiment into a stream of income ... if I could, I'd replicate it with some other interests I have (Minimalist Travel is one of them)

An overall theme here is to create work for me that's location and time independent. This means I could do the work from anywhere, at any time. I've been very lucky to have a couple of friends in tech (Dave K and Mark N) who've also offered up some part-time consulting work.

Years ago, Dave K was the one who said "my ideal job would be a whole bunch of part-time jobs" - and that's what I'm aiming for... with a twist. 

All of this is neither here nor there! The point of this post is that the commerciality of BuildBetterSleep.com is starting to pay off. I've received my first cheque from Amazon.com, with another small one from SleepTracks.com in the hopper. They're both very small at this point, but it's a start.

Maybe this whole internet thing isn't just a fad???

The Redneck Antenna - Phase II

Many of you know the grand experiment last fall with the home-made redneck HD antenna I made. It worked pretty well, until I accidentally lodged one of the "whiskers" into the back of the TV and blew it up. So in all, the antenna cost me $5.00 in parts and $750 for a new TV. Let's say that Laura was less than impressed, and our $150/month subscription to Shaw cable was renewed.

But that was a year ago, and with the looming lack of a hockey season this year, Laura agreed to give it another try. This time with some more commercial solutions.

While we were on vacation in Oregon, I found a commercial HDTV antenna at Costco for $30. It looks good, has a very small footprint, and is now stuck unobtrusively in our living room window. I get about 11 channels off the air, with all three local networks (CBC, CTV and Global) coming in very well.

Because we're now relying on the internet for most of our on-air entertainment, I got a US-based proxy service (this means that for all intents and purposes, it looks like we live in Seattle as far as our internet connection is concerned). This provides us with all the benefits that only a US resident could appreciate.

So far, this US-based proxy has given us access to:

• HULU, which is a service which puts all of network TV and cable TV at your fingertips.
• The Netflix feed, which looks at your location and then decides what programs you have access to. We now have access to hundreds (thousands?) of additional programming over our old Canadian feed. I watched reruns of Adam-12 off Netflix last night.
• All those YouTube links that don't work because you're not in the USA. They now all work.

With this proxy service, we can use hundreds of worldwide locations as our "point of presence" for the internet feeds. An interesting aside to this is that I can "look" like I'm in London, England, and have access to all the local BBC programming (like live feed of BBC news). I can also look like I'm in Amsterdam or Africa or Australia or ....

The proxy service costs about $65 a year, and has the important benefit of anonymizing everything you do on the net. Shaw now knows nothing about what I do, including any streaming or torrents I might be viewing. You become invisible.

We've cancelled cable TV again, and our bill has dropped from $150 to $70 a month (I have a very high end internet connection - you  could probably get by with much less).

It's early days, but I think it will work well this time. So far I haven't blown anything up.

BC Depreciation Reports

If you don't happen to live in a Strata (Condo) Property in BC, this post will be of no interest to you.

At dinner last night, we had a conversation about BC's new "Depreciation Report" Legislation for strata properties. Basically, it's now a requirement that any strata property with more than five units (so small properties are exempt) must now:

1. commission a regular engineering report detailing the estimated repair, maintenance and replacement of all the components of common property in the strata (things like roads, roofs, common buildings, painting, fences, etc) for a thirty year time period (ongoing)
2. fund the expected costs of these items through their monthly strata fees

This legislation will parrot the same laws in most other jurisdictions, with the intended outcome of adding predictability to the strata housing market. A new market will be created where you'll know about the long term financial commitments of a strata property, and the funding for those commitments will be in place.

I have no problem with the intent of this legislation, I'm only concerned with the unintended consequences of its adoption.

When I do an online search for "BC Depreciation Reports" the only hits I get are from Engineering firms (doing the reports) and Strata Management Companies (commissioning the same). There are no "anti" or "against" opinions. It's like the legislation only has as upside, and no downside.

The law does give us an out - with a 3/4 vote at regular intervals, a strata can "opt-out" of the reports and the funding.

The Argument For
The basic argument is to analyse two otherwise identical properties. One has a funded depreciation report on file, and the other doesn't. Which one would you buy?

The industry maintains that "of course, you'd chose the property with the report - as a matter of fact, the mortgage provider (banks) will demand it".

The market will provide higher selling prices for those properties with reports.

The Argument Against
Same scenario. Two identical properties. One with a report, one without. The one with the report has strata fees of $500 a month. The one without has strata fees of $200 a month.

The non-report property has decided that major cash infusions will be handled the way they are now - by a special assessment levied against each home owner. That way, you're not paying for repairs that may be needed years after you leave the strata. You pay for the repairs the same way you would if you owned a house. As they happen.

The non-report property has decided to take a "wait and see" attitude. If the market truly does start to differentiate between report and non-report properties, they will opt in. Same if banks start requiring a report (currently, my conversation with mortgage specialists at banks is that they don't know anything about this).

My Opinion
I think the "wait and see" strategy makes the most sense. Sit on the sidelines until you see how this whole thing shakes out.

Currently, this legislation looks terribly pro business (engineering companies and strata property managers). A change in government here in BC (likely next year) might change political will.

Let the market decide if this is important or not. Let the "bulge" of people commissioning engineering reports make its way through the system. Let the "price gouging" that's going on now work through the system.

I don't think now is the time to make a decision which could affect your strata for decades. Now is the time to sit back, vote against the depreciation reports for the time being, and see what happens.

Tell the Strata Property Managers and Engineering Firms

"Thanks, but no thanks, for now. Come see me in a couple of years and I'll tell you if I've made a different decision."

People Watch What You Do ... Not What You Say

Remember the old adage our parents would tell us:

"Do as I say, not as I do"

Seems to me that this is exactly backwards.When I look at all the "advice" dolled out by friends and neighbours, I clearly see that almost none of it is ever considered, much less enacted.

But if we look at children, who are just small adults (ie: their world is ruled by emotion and so is ours) they do a curious thing 100% of the time.

They will take the path of least resistance (the easiest road) to any objective regardless of what you say unless there is a consequence. And the consequence has to be real. Not the fake "wait till your father gets home" or "if you do that you'll be grounded for a week" nonsense. Kids know if you will really follow through. If there's a greater than 50 percent chance that you won't, they'll do the forbidden thing.

It's almost like they have a built-in odds-counter. And so do we. Why do you think people grow pot? Because the odds of being caught multiplied by the punishment that occurs if they get caught is far outweighed by the profit possible. Other factors, like being shot by your competitor or having a life expectancy of 25 years, seem not to enter the equation.

But every once in a while, you'll see someone who doesn't tell you what to do. They just do it.

Those are the people I pay attention to.

I have some examples of people that do what they say, but unnerving to me is that most of them are twenty years younger than me. I find very few examples of someone in middle age who hasn't been compromised by life:

Tynan
Colin Wright
Ramit Sethi
Gary Arndt

Cold Turkey

I wrote a post yesterday for my other blog, BuildBetterSleep, where I talked about what health really is, and how to attain it.

The crux of the argument is, barring something serious like cancer, good health can be achieved by following some very simple rules:

1. Make room in your schedule for sufficient sleep every night. 7-9 hours is what most of us need. 
2. Get some sunlight (not too much, but not too little) every day. Let your body manufacture the Vitamin D you need.
3. Eat well. Nothing out of a box. Best if it was living and breathing a short time ago, or it was pulled out of the ground or off a tree or bush.
4. Exercise every day. Take a bike ride. Take a long walk. Take the stairs.

I truly believe that's all there is to it.

I've been trying to "fix what's wrong" or "find a shortcut" to good health for over a decade. I now think the "secret" has been there all along. Rest, Get Outdoors, Eat Well, and Exercise.

As of today, I'm going to throw out all the vitamins and supplements I've been taking (with the exception of an 82mg aspirin every day).

No more Niacin. No more Fish Oil. No more Resveratrol. No more Vitamin D. Just food, sleep and exercise outdoors.

How We've Failed Our Grandchilden

We've basically screwed our grandchildren.

Unless you are part of a small minority, the legacy you are leaving your grandchildren is a standard of living far below that which you enjoy.

nAnd a standard of living below that of your children.

Here's my thinking.

My generation - the boomers - had parents that likely came from nothing. Through good fortune, good timing, and hard work for many of them they were able to give their children a leg-up in whatever they decided to do. For the most part, it was "hands off" parenting.

Boomers benefited from cheap education, easy opportunity and plentiful money. And we knew far better than our parents ever did how to raise our children. No "hands off" for us. They wanted for nothing, and many of us made the mistake of never saying no to our children. Our kids grew up as the most affluent generation that ever lived.

Now our kids are in their 20's and 30's, and many are having a tough time - for the first time in their lives. A tough time finding a job. A tough time establishing long term relationships. A tough time moving out of the house. Most are amazed at the stage of life their parents were at when they were the same age. When I was 27, I had two kids, a good job, a house, and a wife that stayed at home.

Our kids will be OK, because mom and dad are wealthy. The boomers will die, and leave lots of money, real-estate and expensive stuff for them. Some can help out before they die.

But if the economy continues along much as its predicted to (think Japan like stagflation), our grandkids will face the same lack of opportunity their parents did. Only this time, there won't be anything left because mom and dad (our kids) have had to use all of it to live on.

What do you think? Am I all wet on this one?

We're All Getting Poorer - But Corporations Are Doing Just Fine

In a recent The Atlantic Magazine, they show two graphs about how well Corporate America has fared over the last several years. This would be in stark contrast to how "Average Joe" would have fared during the same period. Take a look:

This one shows Corporate Profits as a whole. Highest it's ever been.

Even as a percentage of GDP, Corporate Profits are higher than since Eisenhower. I wonder why this is???

Gabby Giffords, Aurora, and The Human Condition

I think maybe the USA is just an ongoing, democratic (sort of) version of the human experience. We do nothing until there is no other choice.


I'm thinking about: 

• running out of oil
• alternative energy
• global weather
• the worldwide debt crisis
• the worldwide banking scandal
• realistic gun control

Regardless of where you live, it appears as though we're wired to try and find the "easy way out" of any situation. Nobody wants to admit the difficult truth, confront it, and do something about it.

In our personal lives, when was the last time you saw a person do "the right thing" unless that was their only choice?

Probably after every easier (wrong) choice had been made.

As a species, we're really not very evolved...

Schadenfreude

There's a German word, "schadenfreude" about taking pleasure at the misfortune of others. To help you understand it better, I'll use it in a sentence:

"I take particular schadenfruede watching Enbridge twist in the wind....."

OTTAWA — Enbridge officials made a mounting public relations disaster worse this week by not immediately accepting blame in their official statement issued after an outspoken American regulator compared one of Canada’s energy giants to the “Keystone Kops,” public relations consultants say. 

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board chairman Debbie Hersman’s scathing assessment of Enbridge’s 2010 oil spill in Michigan has also raised questions over whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to distance his government from Enbridge’s proposed $5.5-billion oilsands pipeline project to the B.C. coast from Alberta.
In his initial formal response, Enbridge’s Pat Daniel said that company personnel “were trying to do the right thing” during the leak from a cracked pipeline but encountered “a series of unfortunate events and circumstances [that] resulted in an outcome no one wanted.” 

There was no apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing in the news release, though a company official said Daniel apologized when speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., after the safety board’s report was released.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/business/Enbridge+brand+repaired+analysts/6931281/story.html#ixzz20iDZhgdu

Big Oil and EnviroNazis

Vineet Radhakrishnan via Compfight

 I have to admit that this post is aimed squarely at my uncle in Calgary (you know who you are) and his general disagreement with my "EnviroNazi" stance on oil shipping through BC enroute to anywhere else (China?).

Although members of my not-so-immediate family (OK - cousin) are employed by Enbridge, I took particular pleasure in the recent sport of Big-Oil-Bashing that's been going on in BC. Despite the best efforts of our Federal Goverment to push through the Northern Gateway project, I think it just might be political dynamite for whoever touches it Provincially.

This week, two influential pieces in the BC media (actually, one has hit the international media) target the potential damage that could be done by an oil spill (tanker or pipeline) here in BC:

1. A Wilderness Committee (that ought to be unbiased, says the EnviroNazi) report on the affects of an oil spill on Stanley Park
2. The comments of our normally "sit on the fence and scared for her political life" premiere about Enbridge specifically.

So the net-net is, despite my earlier assurances that BetaMax would triumph over VHS, I believe that maybe this time the environment will trump big business. And our kids and grandkids will thank us for behaving like grown-ups for a change....

The News - Or Lack Thereof

This will be another rant. It's been building for a while, so with the Libor news, it's reached a boiling point.

The reason the recent Libor scandal was the tipping point for me is that, unless you actually went looking, you would barely hear a mention of this on our TV news. Who reading this knows what Libor is? If you don't - go find out.

It's likely larger than the financial meltdown of 2008, but it's a little bit difficult to understand. We would rather watch "Trending Now" on the local station and see what Joe Butthole says about Katie Perry on Twitter.

This isn't news!

Why is it that "news" programs pander to us and we reward them by watching? Every network is the same - from Global to CBC to MSNBC to CNN. And god forbid we talk about Fox.

I watched the first three episodes of Aaron Sorkin's "The Newsroom" over the weekend, where he ponders a network news program that, for an hour each day, actually delivers the news. Facts, not innuendo or a left/right angle, and no social media nonsense. Quite the indictment of what we're spoon fed today. If we would actually reward real news programs by watching them, networks might just do it. But they're too afraid to try, so we'll never know.

The closest I've found for real news today is Al Jazeera. It's staggering to go back and forth from CNN to them and see the difference. One is talking about Mitt Romney's Jet Ski, and the other is talking about the possible poisoning/assassination of Yassar Arafat. Guess which one.

I suspect that the BBC News could also be a good choice, but they've shut down their web feed here in Canada, so the only way to get it is via your local cable TV company. If anyone has it, and finds that it's a whole lot better than the trash we get now, send me a note.

So here's a suggestion - reward your local news (and national/international news) by not watching it. Get your information on-line from a trusted, non-biased source (there are some of them out there). This way, you can consume it when you want, and read interesting things to the depth you're comfortable.

It won't be like the baby food you're getting now, but I bet it'll be a lot more satisfying.

PS: Cap yourself at a half-hour a day on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Your brain is a valuable thing to destroy.

An Average Day - And More Anecdotal Evidence

Ina Todoran via Compfight

I had a conversation with a good friend yesterday about diet.

She has had to adopt a very-high-fat diet over the last twelve weeks because of an intense medical treatment she is on.

A big part of her treatment is a drug that must be consumed with 20g of fat. She had to take this particular medication three times a day (7:00AM, 3:00PM and 11:00PM). Finding 20g of fat in one place that she could tolerate was hard. About the only thing she could keep down was a smoothie she had every day (sometimes three times a day), or a cracker loaded down with butter.

She also had to take other medication with food at various different times during the day (Noon and 7:00PM).  The medication taken at this time also needed food intake but did not require high fat servings.  She consumed these pills with such items as salad or meat. During this treatment she could ot tolerate any type of bread at all.

Anecdotally, In the past 4 months since she's been on this calorie rich, fat rich, carbohydrate poor diet she's lost about 20lbs from her pre-treatment weight, and 30lbs from her highest weight at the beginning of the course of drug therapy - when she could stomach a greater variety of food.

This led me to yet another high-fat/low-carb story I've heard (first hand) about losing weight - without ever intending to lose weight. It is an incidental side effect of this whole high-fat process.

I'm now doubly convinced that everything we've been told about how to lose weight is wrong. Neither my friend nor I can exercise at this point, so burning all those excess calories isn't an option (as all the weight loss people would have you believe).

I'm now down to my high school weight of 148lbs. I seem to be quite steady.

Just for kicks, I wrote down everything I would eat in a typical day:

The surprising thing is the total number of calories consumed is about right for a man my size (almost 2000), and the amount of fat that  used  to make me cringe (133g - are you kidding!!). I'd like to get the sugar/carbs down even lower, but most sources are consumed with lots of fat as well, so the insulin load (the whole reason I'm doing this) is blunted - so I'm not too worried about it.

So take this to your dietician and ask him/her to explain. Either you don't exercise enough, eat too many calories,  or their whole idea of what makes you fat is wrong.

A Seattle Diversion

Ballard Locks

How could something so boring be so captivating?

We were in Seattle for the weekend with friends from Calgary, and due to a missed exit on my part we ended up at the Ballard Locks. We had been in the neighbourhood the night before for dinner at Ray's, so once we found ourselves in that part of town it was easy for me to say "I planned it this way".

Now normally you'd think that watching boats go up and down in a lock, and watching mature salmon migrate upstream through a fish ladder would be really boring. Especially to people who have no particular affinity for boats and boating (or fish and fishing).

But it turns out that all four of us had a really great time watching the whole process. A few times. And the fish swimming up through the fish ladder was a bonus - that's really cool too.

So the net-net of all this is if you ever find yourself in Seattle, don't just do the average touristy stuff - the Space Needle, Pike Place and the Underground Tour, but go have a look at the locks on a nice day (I imagine in the rain it wouldn't be quite as captivating). All it will cost you is parking - access to the locks and park is free.

Underground Seattle - Old Wooden Water/Sewer Line