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He’s not. Really.
He cries occasionally. He drools frequently. He flails madly and flops front to back. Each day, hundreds of inanimate objects enter his slobbery maw and are subsequently annihilated.
If he wanted, he could rule the roost. He needs but a single lightbulb moment.
As a parent, my responsibility is to stay one step ahead. If I keep him off-balance and constantly guessing, I win the roostership.
That’s hard to do.
Today, my secret weapon is the outdoors. The moment we leave the front door, he assumes an over-stimulated, halfway-traumatized expression. His voice fails him. His eyes get large. His mouth drops open. A temporary paralysis sets in.
(The drooling continues. I know this from the intellectual sucking noise that permeates the air behind my head.)
While we’re outside, I blow his mind. I attain the godlike qualities of a burdened Sherpa bound for Mt. Everest. He has no recourse but to sit back and be enthralled by the suburban wonders bumbling past.
This, of course, can’t last.
One day, he’ll find his legs and discover that mobility is its own reward. The backpack will lose its wonder and I’ll be left without a superpower. As with every arms race, the balance of power will shift back and forth. To quote the Indian Chief in Peter Pan:
“Sometime, you win; sometime, we win.”
My advantage is being able to think ahead. I’ve got the next 18 years of mind-blowing weaponry all planned. Each weapon has a window of maximum effectiveness, but I think the overlap works well.
Backpacks (4 months - 7 months)
Jogging strollers (7 months – 1 year)
Bikes (1-3 years)
Go-karts (4-12 years)
Cars (13-16 years)
Jetpacks (17-? years)
Escalation. Nothing like it. Besides, no other spending excuse comes close.
It’s for the kid.
Until next time,
- Daniel
Why do houses appreciate in value, when cars do not?
A house, with proper maintenance and an agreeable market, is one of the best investments you will make in your lifetime.
A car, on the other hand, is generally seen as a liability. Your typical run-of-the-mill Japanese subcompact will depreciate 80% over 15 years, regardless of how meticulously it is kept. It is a black hole.
For example, the aforementioned car in “fair” condition runs $1,842 according to Kelley Blue Book.
Now, if I spend $4,000 on a new paint job, $3,000 on mechanical parts, and $1,000 on body work and a good clean, that car will be upgraded to “excellent” and fetch $2,567.
And… just like that, my $8,000 has turned into $725. That’s about the worst ROI you’ll see this side of a South African Ponzi scheme.
I’m a suspicious fellow by nature, and numbers like these don’t add up. So I decided to run an experiment. I put my own meticulously maintained car up on Craigslist.
I’m a very pragmatic person. In 2007, I bought my first car for $7,000. It’s a 1999 Toyota Corolla LE with 85,000 miles on the odometer. It’s a manual, because I wanted to learn how to drive a stick.
I am the second owner. The first owner left me with the following problems:
- A cracked front fender.
- A deteriorating paint job thanks to a manufacturing defect.
- A clutch in need of replacement.
- A bad suspension.
Typically, such cars are bought, run into the ground, and then resold. Especially common-place brands like Toyota that hold their value and are easy to resell.
Today, that car has 169,000 miles on the odometer, and it’s in better shape than when I bought it. In seven years, it’s had…
- The front fender replaced.
- A new paint job (a full-body, stripped to metal, paint job).
- Two new clutches (one shortly after purchase, the other 80,000 miles after).
- New suspension and shocks.
- Two new sets of tires.
Yes, it still burns two quarts of oil per 3,000 miles. Yes, it has a small hole in the driver’s seat that I haven’t fixed. Yes, it’s a Corolla–not a Ferarri.
But there are perks. It achieves 38+ MPG on the freeway. Replacement parts (and labor) cost a fraction of what most luxury brands cost. It’s seen me through college, five internships, and into my first full-time job, without leaving me stranded once.
Proactive maintenance isn’t cheap. I’ve spent $12,600 on service and parts over the past seven years. That comes to $18,600 if you include the original purchase price. That’s as much as a brand new car.
But it’s a car that I trust. It’s a car that’s cheap to insure. It’s a car that I haven’t needed to finance. It’s a car without any expensive repairs on the horizon.
Kelly Blue Book says my car is worth $2,377. Perhaps that’s true, but for a meticulous (some might say “obsessive”) owner like myself, I expect to sell it for the same as my original purchase price. $7,000.
Why am I selling this car, if it’s so perfect? A few reasons…
- It’s not a family vehicle.
- It drives like a Corolla, not like the Mercedes I’ve always wanted.
- I don’t want (or need) two cars.
If you think I’m crazy for asking $7,000, move along. But if you want to buy a car that’s been well-maintained without respect to cost, and is–in fact–a better car than when it was first purchased, let me know if you’d like a test drive.
30 minutes later, I had my first response…
Your asking price is criminal activity is what I'd call it lol. This is where I would want government regulations enforced to the MAX. Absolute insanity, absurdity. bonkers. lol
Move along, young padawan. This is not the car you’re looking for.
An hour after the initial posting, my ad was flagged for removal. Haters gonna hate.
And so, in summary, even if cars don’t depreciate when improved, you probably won’t find someone willing to agree with you in cold hard cash.
Kelley Blue Book? You win this round.
Until next time,
- Daniel
I am going to be a Dad.
This is a terrifying statement, for many reasons.
It’s not the baby. Babies are babies. They mimic. They copy. They improvise. They look into your soul, eat it alive, and then go off and read Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. I’m not kidding.
And this is why I have fear. Our child will mimic my sordid personality. That’s what sends a tingle of doom down my spine. Because of me, no photographer will be safe for the next 76 years.
Fortunately, it won’t be just me and the baby. My wife gives me hope. She is normal, she is respectable, she is charming, intelligent, and witty.
These are wonderful qualities. If the apocalypse came tomorrow, and we were fighting zombies with our bare knuckles, I would still have hope. (If you’ve ever seen her playing Plants vs. Zombies, you know exactly what I mean.)
And–better yet, she has chosen the path of the stay-at-home mom. Our child will spend the day soaking up her sunshine in the well-tilled fields of homeschooling nirvana. We may as well be planting the baby in volcanic soil.
This doesn’t leave me off the hook, of course. After the table is cleared and the dishes are washed, I get my turn at this whole childrearing thing.
Somehow, in the three hours between dinner and bed, I cannot turn our child into a werewolf. If you have any experience with werewolves, you know how dubious a task this actually is.
(Further, you may ask how I convinced my wife to marry a werewolf. This is a fair question. I have no answer.)
Oh, and what about weekends? From dawn to dusk, I could (potentially) have the child all to myself, with brief interruptions for feedings. What fearsome things will I inflict on the baby during these extended bouts of quality time?
Well… I have this all-terrain jogging stroller…
- Daniel
I'm at my company's annual conference. PuppetConf.
This year, it's being held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. The hotel is a five-star menagerie of marble floors, carved jungle wood, and $6 cans of soda. When U.S. Presidents come to the Bay, this is where they stay. The penthouse is a 6,000 sq ft apartment with a billiard room, two-floor library, and 24K gold faucets in the bathroom.
Oh, the penthouse also comes with a complimentary sports car for the duration of your stay.
...and no, I didn't get the penthouse.
We had lots of parties as well. I don't usually frequent bars. However, sometimes, exceptions must be made. Especially when tiki statues, indoor pools, and floating jazz bands are involved.
Yes, this is an IT conference. However, not every sys admin has a beer belly, and a good many of them are runners. Each morning, at seven o'clock sharp, a group of us have braved the hills of San Francisco. Of course, since the Fairmont sits on Nob Hill, every direction is down. The experience is similar to Lake Oswego hills, but more so.
I might poke slyly at the grandeur, but these conferences are great. You get to meet people from all over the globe. And... it turns out... most people are genuinely nice, if you take the trouble to get to know them.
...even people who use the metric system...
Europeans. Gosh.
Until next time,
- Daniel
So you think you know about fish? Perhaps.
Do you think they're scaly and slimy with a touch of amnesia? Sorry, that's Dory. You've been indoctrinated by Pixar. Happens to the best of us.
Do you think they are conniving little creatures with dreams of world domination? Well yes. That's because they are.
In fact, I know my fish are intent on world domination. Their little beady eyes scream intelligence. They are watching my every move, tracking my footsteps, keeping both eyes on my checkbook and credit card.
And I know, one day, I'll leave the house, and they'll leave the tank. My password is strong, but it's hard to outsmart a fish. Once again, the gates of Babylon will fall to a river-bound enemy.
How did this start? A month ago, I woke up, and had the most brilliant idea in months.
"Audrey?" I said. "We need fish!"
She had nothing to say to this, and so we trounced out the door and bought an aquarium, several live plants, and seven Zebra Danios. The nice pet store man was wary. He tried to warn us...
"Anyone who says fish are stupid hasn't met a Zebra Danio" [paraphrase]
It took him--quite literally--fifteen minutes to catch them. They did not want to leave their friends. We ended up with five short-tail and two long-tail beauties. In matching plastic bags.
Apparently, these fish are used in research because of their unique regenerative capabilities. A unique strain of fish, called GloFish, have been developed by inserting the glow-in-the-dark gene from jellyfish. Needless to say, they look like a science experiment gone terribly wrong.
Our fish do not glow. However, they come from the same stock. As I watch them whirl and swirl amidst the pebbles in our tank, I see a raw intelligence. It's as though they come from a School. A School governed by our would-be ichthusian overlords.
I don't mean to sound paranoid. After all, this was my idea. I'm a 150 pound human being, with a cerebellum at least 1,000 times larger than theirs. There's no way I can lose... unless they figure out how to breed mutants.
Remember that old proverb, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer"? I might need a waterbed to keep the little geniuses close while I slumber.
Just keep swimming,
- Daniel
