Ella is always begging me to play some of her favorite YouTube videos. We have found quite a few interesting videos on there, but this is by far her favorite:

Here are two more of her faves:

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NPR was talking about this blog post where the writer shows how much he would have profited if he had bought Apple stock instead of their products over the years, it’s brilliant.

However, the whole time I was listening to the story I was kicking myself knowing that I had been buying Microsoft stock all those years, if only I had bought Apple instead, I might be a rich man right now. All those years of buying MSFT stock thinking Bill Gates had another ace up his sleeve and I am only up a whopping $11. If I had bought Apple instead you could add a few zeroes to that, because while Microsoft stock is worth basically the same, Apple is worth 40 times what it was 7 years ago.

In related news today:

Apple has surpassed Microsoft as the largest technology company in the world by market capitalization.

Apple’s move comes as the company’s iPhone, and now its iPad tablet computer, have taken on more of the personal computing tasks once handled by computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system and other programs.

Market cap is the dollar value of a company’s outstanding shares. On Wednesday, Apple Inc.’s shares slipped $1.11 to close at $244.11, making its market cap about $222 billion.

But Microsoft Corp.’s stock fell $1.06, or 4.1 percent, to close at $25.01, for market cap of about $219 billion.

The only U.S. business with a higher market value is Exxon Mobil Corp. The oil company’s market cap is about $279 billion, based on Wednesday’s closing price of $59.31.

Source

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Our furnace went out on us and its been an interesting adventure getting heat back in our house.

We clearly hired the wrong company  – GIbson’s Heating and Plumbing. While all three guys they sent to our house were nice and professional, we never felt like we were being told the whole story and were just being squeezed for every penny they could get out of us. They charged $79 to just show up and look at the furnace, then we spent another $500 replacing a pressure switch which we later discovered they did not install correctly.

A week later the control board blew out, which they told us was a possibility so we knew right away that was the problem when it konked out in the middle of the night. But guess what? Gibson’s charged another $79 to look at it and say “yup, the control board is bad.” So this second representative from Gibson’s quoted $650 to replace the control board and tacked on a few hundred more to clean the coils – where did that come from? The first guy didn’t say anything about cleaning coils. Oh, and then the guy says that since the furnace is 12 years old it has basically reached the end of its life expectancy and we should consider getting a new furnace instead of sinking $900 into more repairs.

So now the red flags are flying and while we agree to have Gibson’s quote us a new furnace we also set up an appointment with another company to get a second opinion on things. GIbsons shows up a third time and quotes us $3980 for a new furnace, ouch. At least they didn’t charge us another $79 this visit.

Then our luck changed, because Pfeiffer Plumbing Heating & Air arrived and started telling us the truth. We discovered among other things that:

• We overpaid Gibson’s for everything
• Not everyone charges a fee to just show up
• The pressure switch was installed badly out of laziness (Pfeiffer’s fixed for free)
• The coils do not need cleaning
• A few other misleading things Gibson’s told us to try and sell their new furnace
• And most importantly, there is no reason we could not replace the control board and get 3-8 more years out of our furnace.

So now we have our furnace back and life is back to normal. Oh, and he only charged us $300 for the new control board! He could have easily sold us his $2,400 new furnace, but instead was honest with us. Honesty really is the best customer service. We were so happy with him we came up with a couple other projects he can do for us, of course it helps that his prices on those were so fair.

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A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret.

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• The film “Psycho” was the first movie to show a toilet flushing – the scene caused an inpouring of complaints about indecency.
• Over $100,000 US dollars was spent on a study to determine whether most people put their toilet paper on the holder with the flap in front or behind; the answer: three out of four people have the flap in the front.
• The average person spends three whole years of their life sitting on the toilet (That is over 26,297 hours – and coincidentally the same amount of time the average person spends waiting at red lights)
• The first toilet cubicle in a row is the least used. (I have been taking advantage of this little known fact for years and find it to be more often then not the cleanest stall)
• An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, particularly in rural areas of China and India. Lack of suitable toilets and sanitation kills approximately 1.8 million people a year, many of them children.
• The toilet is flushed more times during the super bowl halftime than at any time during the year.
• The toilet handle in a public restroom can have up to 40,000 germs per square inch.
• 90% of pharmaceuticals taken by people are excreted through urination. Therefore our sewer systems contain heavy doses of drugs. A recent study by the EPA has found fish containing trace amounts of estrogen, cholesterol-lowering drugs, pain relievers, antibiotics, caffeine and even anti-depressants.
• While he didn’t invent the toilet, Thomas Crapper perfected the siphon flush system we use today. He was born in the village of Thorne – which is an anagram of throne.
• In a 1992 survey, British public toilets were voted the worst in the world. Following quickly behind were Thailand, Greece, and France.

For a complete list, go here.

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I saw Shutter Island at the dollar theater the other day (Of course tickets are $2, but “two dollar theater” is not nearly as catchy.)

Shutter Island is Martin Scorsese’s psychological thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a US Marshal investigating an escape from a mental facility for the criminally insane. It was pretty fascinating – during the first third of the movie I kept feeling as if Scorsese was forcing things and it was coming off fake and heavy handed, but once the plot hit its groove I began to understand his attempts to imitate a more retro thriller style fitting to the 1950s era in which the story is taking place. So I was eventually able to quit questioning the abrupt transitions into emotional hallucinations and other equally odd stylistic choices and I could just enjoy the story instead.

DiCaprio and the rest of the very talented ensemble cast is excellent, and the story has a nice twist ending that you may or may not see coming. In my case I began expecting one twist early on, and when I was convinced I was right it twisted another direction all together – which is great, because I enjoy being wrong about my suspicions. (doesn’t happen very often) I also really loved the thought provoking final line DiCaprio’s character utters in the film just moments after the main twist ending resolves. “It’s better to die a good man then to live as a monster” illuminates another bold twist and offers perhaps the truest insight into the character.

My only regret for this film is how underused Mark Ruffalo was, as I stated in an earlier post, he is a great actor and I would have enjoyed seeing him used more dramatically in the film. Also, underused was Elias Koteas who played a very central character but received very little screen time.

As always, the sign of a good film like this is the feeling I have leaving the theater. I felt a bit spooked and even after arriving back at my hotel the hallways and elevator seemed ominous and surreal to me. So kudos to Scorsese for disturbing me that much! I might just have to read the book, which was written by the Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the novels behind Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone – both excellent films!

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Erin and I had a impromptu date night on Saturday (thanks Grandma Becky!), and it seemed a no-brainer to do our usual dinner and a movie. It also seemed fitting if our date night movie was Date Night, the comedy starring two of our favorites Steve Carrell and Tina Fey.

It did not disappoint, those two are a riot and the film was enjoyable. It was funny that a premise of the film was the couple breaking out of their usual date night routine, meanwhile Erin and I were doing what we always did on date night – dinner and a movie. But we enjoy it. While I get to sneak out to late show movies, Erin does not and so its fun when she gets to come with me to a show. And also, while we do eat out as a family probably more then our diets should allow, it is much different having a quiet dinner as a couple and having a few drinks with our meal. Very enjoyable to just relax and be with each other. I look forward to when we can make date night a more regular event, and then maybe we will shake it up with some non dinner/movie date nights – like salsa dancing and hang-gliding. But until then, nothing sounds better then dinner and a movie with my honey!

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Driving the girls out to their grandparents the other day, I decided to get Ella’s attention by rolling down her window. And for the first time, she felt the simple joy of holding her hand out the window and letting it blow in the wind. It was a sweet moment, and I instantly recalled all the hours I must have spent in my lifetime enjoying that simple pleasure. I like the notion that she is just getting started on the journey of an enjoyable life.

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