According to some quick internet searching, I found a couple of sites that say the average American watches about 4 hours of TV a day, which equates to over an entire day every week. So, I have decided that I am going to try and limit my TV watching to about 4 hours per week. Now, to be fair, I am not saying I am going to be able to do it, but there is no better time in the year to do so. Most all TV shows are re-runs, the only sports on is Baseball, and I’ve got a 7 month old that should be able to keep me busy until at least 8pm every night. Assuming I go to bed around 10pm or 11pm, that is only a couple of hours to figure out something to do. I am not going to limit computer activity, although I won’t be watching shows on it as that would be cheating. I also won’t count any movies Barbie and I go to, as that is more of a date and not just sitting at home doing nothing. I haven’t really figured out if educational TV, like the History or Discovery channel, should count, but for now it will. So, let’s see how this goes. And if you are wondering, I have watched 30 minutes so far today, so I’m on right on pace.

Price of housing has been a roller coaster for most of the nation, and people are freaking out that their home value is going to tank.  However, as the old saying goes, it’s all about location, location, location.  With prices so high as they are here in the Bay Area, at least house prices are still creeping up even though the rest of the nation is starting to slide.  So, as long as you bought in the Bay Area, you are looking good, despite all your complaining. 

Home sales down 10.3% in U.S., 25% in California

The nation’s struggling real estate market continued to slide in May, at least according to a report today from the National Association of Realtors.

Nationwide, the number of existing houses and condominiums dropped 10.3 percent compared with a year earlier — to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.99 million homes. The median price, meanwhile, dropped 2.1 percent to $223,700 — which the Realtors group said reflected stronger sales performance in lower-cost areas of the country.

“I think psychological factors are currently the biggest drag on the housing market, in addition to a disruption from tighter credit for subprime borrowers,” Lawrence Yun, the group’s senior economist, said in a statement.

“The market is underperforming when you consider positive fundamentals such as the strength in job creation, economic growth, favorable mortgage interest rates and flat home prices. It appears some buyers are simply waiting for more signs of stability before they get serious about getting into the market,” Yun said.

In California (certainly not one of those lower-cost areas), existing-home sales were down 25 percent compared with a year ago, according to the California Association of Realtors.

“Concerns about subprime lending will be with us well into next year, but improving economic conditions should bolster consumer confidence in the economy as we move through the second half of this year,” Colleen Badagliacco, the group’s president, said in a statement. “However, with prices holding steady or showing marginal declines in many parts of the state, affordability will continue to be a problem even with mortgage rates that remain near historic lows.”

The median price of a home in California was up 4.8 percent to $591,180. In the Golden State, tighter lending standards are bringing sales down in more affordable areas, while sales remain strong in more expensive areas closer to high-paying jobs. (For example, home prices in beautiful and industrious Santa Clara County were up 7.3 percent.)

The Realtors, by the way, base their data on sales through regional multiple listing services. The data we often report from DataQuick Information Systems, on the other hand, is based on public records.

Among the 10 most expensive communities in the state (based on public records) were five in the Bay Area: Los Altos, with a median price of $1.68 million; Burlingame, at $1.67 million; Saratoga, at $1.65 million; Mill Valley, at $1.29 million; and Los Gatos, at $1.23 million. (Must be nice.)

Original article

There are all types of things you shouldn’t say in certain situations, and if you do, then you are supposed to knock on wood to reverse the jinx. Saying something like “Good Luck” on opening night of a Broadway play is a no-no, you should say “break a leg.” If you are at a craps table, you should never say the number “seven” unless it is on the opening roll. Well, I bring this all up b/c I jinxed Kyle, and eventually myself, the other day. As we were driving in to work I told Barbie how surprised I was that Kyle had only gotten sick once since he started day care almost two months ago. Of course, I didn’t knock on wood, and sure enough, Kyle got sick the following morning. The poor kid now has the sniffles, a cough, an ear infection, and just got over a fever that lasted for four days. I feel pretty bad about all of this, but of course, Kyle ended up giving it to me, so I have been pretty laid up this weekend. Too bad the Yankees are in town for the first time in like 40 years, but I can’t go. My only consolation is the 40″ LCD HDTV at home that helps to feel as if I am there. So far, the series is tied 1-1, so hopefully the Yankees pull it out today, although they are currently losing. All in all, not the weekend I was hoping for, and I only have myself to blame for jinxing us.

I doubt the story is true, but it is quite funny and I found it here.

I never quite figured out why the sexual urge of men and women differ so much. And I never have figured out the whole Venus and Mars thing. I have never figured out why men think with their head and women with their heart.

FOR EXAMPLE: One evening last week, my girlfriend and I were getting into bed.

Well, the passion starts to heat up, and she eventually says “I don’t feel like it, I just want you to hold me.”

I said “WHAT??!! What was that?!”

So she says the words that every boyfriend on the planet dreads to hear…“You’re just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man.” She responded to my puzzled look by saying, “Can’t you just love me for who I am and not what I do for you in the bedroom?”

Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night, I went to sleep.

The very next day I opted to take the day off of work to spend time with her. We went out to a nice lunch and then went shopping at a big, big unnamed department store. I walked around with her while she tried on several different very expensive outfits. She couldn’t decide which one to take so I told her we’d just buy them all. She wanted new shoes to
compliment her new clothes, so I said lets get a pair for each outfit. We went onto the jewelry department where she picked out a pair of diamond earrings. Let me tell you…she was so excited. She must have thought I was one wave short of a shipwreck. I started to think she was testing me because she asked for a tennis bracelet when she doesn’t even know how to play
tennis. I think I threw her for a loop when I said, “That’s fine, honey.” She was almost nearing sexual satisfaction from all of the excitement. Smiling with excited anticipation she finally said, “I think this is all dear, let’s go to the cashier.”

I could hardly contain myself when I blurted out, “No honey, I don’t feel like it.”

Her face just went completely blank as her jaw dropped with a baffled “WHAT?”

I then said “honey! I just want you to HOLD this stuff for a while. You’re just not in touch with my financial needs as a man enough for me to satisfy your shopping needs as a woman.” And just when she had this look like she was going to kill me, I added, “Why can’t you just love me for who I am and not for the things I buy you?”

Apparently I’m not having sex tonight either.

I had heard about this book in a tech podcast that I regularly listen to, and they suggested that once you read this book, or listen to in my case, you will never want to eat at a fast food restaurant again. Of course, this puts a big leaning suggestion in the back of your mind when reading this book, and is constantly something that you are waiting to read/hear. However, it never really came for me. It started off with some good background information on how some of major fast food companies came be and what their founders did to become so affluent. McDonald’s was started by a couple of brothers, but it was another guy who saw it and decided to fly around the country and get people to franchise it. He eventually bought out the original brothers for the name and rights, and of course the rest is history. The best story is actually about the Carl’s Jr. founder who wanted to integrate the Mexican restaurant “Green Burrito” with Carl’s Jr. to increase sales. The board, who he had hired and obviously made filthy rich, decided the founder was crazy and subsequently dismissed him from the company. Not to be outdone, the founder secretly started looking for investors, and within just 6 months made a take over purchase of Carl’s Jr. and fired the entire board. I’m not sure if it was a public stock take over, or what. All I know is the board didn’t realize what was happening until too late. As the old saying goes, don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

The rest of the book is basically a long sad tale of how the farmers, ranchers, and everyone else that has anything to do with selling products to the fast food industry, are being exploited. The fast food companies wield so much power, they can pretty much set the prices b/c some company is going to be willing to give them the price b/c they buy so much. McDonald’s is the #1 purchaser of beef in the world, and #2 in the purchase of chicken, just behind Kentucky Fried Chicken. Since the demand is so high, the industry has become very industrialized, and animals are not being treated right, as they are just going to be slaughtered. This has also caused a specific branch of ecoli to be found in a decent number of the meat sold. Of course, no one I have ever met has had this happen, but it apparently can be dangerous. They do do random meat sample tests to try and prevent things, but things do get through.

All in all, I did enjoy the book, but didn’t get the feeling that I shouldn’t eat fast food. I like to eat meat, and with it comes inherent risks, although I would think it is less than the risks taken when eating non-cooked things such as salad. I’m sure someone out there will want to prove this statement wrong, but there has to be some justification to the advice to not eat non-cooked food while traveling.

Judge: Canadian Man Cannot Have a Girlfriend for 3 Years

Once you read the story you will understand why the Judge made the ruling, but talk about walking a fine line b/t a person’s personal freedoms, and what is good for society.

Kyle is now at the age where he can sit up unassisted for a while. When I say awhile, I mean it can 5 seconds or 5 minutes. Eventually something will get his attention, so he’ll turn to look, and down he goes. It’s actually quite funny to watch him fall b/c he really doesn’t care. It’s almost as if it just a part of the game and he deals with it. He is not able to sit up on his own yet, so once he falls, he is down for the count. However, once you pick him back up he is all smiles. It’s as if he has found a new way to experience life and just can’t get enough of it. It’s great for daycare also b/c he can sit and watch all the kids instead of staring up at the ceiling or be prompt up on boppie where he has to try and lean his forward to see around the room.

With this new development, we decided to take the foam pad we had used to help Barbie be comfortable at night when sleeping, and put it in our upstairs family room. Once we put the sheet on top, it’s as if we have our own little play area where Kyle can fall down all he wants and not get hurt. I’m sure it’ll get old after a while having to deal with a foam floor, but for now it is great.

As per my customary Harry Potter reading style, I started to read Harry Potter as soon as I saw that the movie was coming out. Normally, the books are so much better than the movie, that it is a better idea to give some more lead time b/t the two, but I have enjoyed doing it this way for some reason. To be honest, I was quite looking forward to reading Harry Potter 5 since number 4 was so good, and b/c it had been a while since I got my Hogwarts fix. Unfortunately, the book did nothing more than disappoint page after page. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen, and with a 700 page book, eventually you just grow tired of waiting. Sure, the last 100 pages or so were exciting, but is it really worth having to wait 600 pages for it. Plus, the Harry Potter books usually have some excellent twists and turns at the end to resolve all the questions that have been built up, but this one didn’t really have any of those. Some things got cleared up, but it really wasn’t anything that was shocking or made you feel “Wow, I would have never pieced that together.” After reading the book, I actually went to Amazon to see what other viewers were saying, and was amazed to see that it had received 4.5 out of 5 stars by the viewers. Either I read the wrong book, or everyone else is off their rocker. There was one other person I read that had the same exact view as I did, which was nice to see. He simply stated the book was full of filler and could have been written in about 300 pages or less. Hopefully books 6 and eventually 7 will be better. I have heard great things about Book 6, so expectations are high, which could be a bad thing. In the end, you have to read it if you read the first four, mainly b/c you will need to get to books 6 & 7, and they all build on each other.

Sure, it’s a week late, but I figured I would give you an update of last weekend. I had hoped it would be one of those nice relaxing 3 day weekends, or at least as relaxing as one could hope with a 6 month old child in the house. Anyways, it turned out not to be with a 3 yr. old Birthday party on Saturday, followed by a trip to the Beach House on Sunday, followed by a 25 mile bike ride on Sunday. The last one was obviously a choice of mine, but it was still something that needed to get done. The good thing to come out of this is that we got some excellent new pictures of Kyle from the b-day party. The parents had a really nice Canon camera, and were just snapping pics all over the place. Anyways, I just wanted to post something to let you know I was still alive. Enjoy your wonderful 2 day weekend!