Holes In Thoughts

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Ultra-high grade products

Years ago, I found a catalogue of $500 boots online. The boots were so awesome and so absurdly high-end, $500 seemed an absolutely reasonable price. They were waterproof, protected the wearer from electrical shocks, had lightweight aluminum toes and metacarpal guards, and on and on and on.

Thanks to the long tail, online vendors can get these "you wish" type products out there, and I've found one I would not have thought of: a $300 flashlight, the U2 Ultra. Terrifyingly, it's not their most expensive flashlight.

There's something to be said for this type of product being available to the general public. Most of the people who bought this were heads of state law or military groups. Even though I'm not sure I'll ever buy one of these flashlights (OK, maybe one day) it is good to know you really can buy a flashlight that will outlast its owner.

Labels: ambition, capitalism, military, money, police, stuff

posted by Steve @ 7:27 PM 0 comments

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Finding Love for America

Regardless of whether or not he wins the Presidency, there is one thing I'm grateful to Barack Obama for. I'm finding out just how much I like or dislike America.

The America I love is full of idealism and grit. It's the nation that got to the Moon, and always acts with its heart in the right place (even when it screws up). It's the nation that faced its demons of segregation head-on and won. The America I love is one in which the determining factor in success is work, not wealth or birth or luck. It retains the almost fanatical Puritan work ethic that built the nation to begin with.

The America that I can't stand is willfully ignorant, judicial, and blames all its problems on other people. It thinks that torture is OK, that Muslims are all evil and crazy, and is so much quicker to judge than to think. It's the America that can't get through a non-fiction book, a movie that questions their world-view, or a speech that asks them to work for what they want. It's welfare-think; group-think; pundit-think.

I know that America is both sides, just as I'm both hard-working and lazy in turns and circumstances. Obama, because he says things as honestly as he can, exposes both sides. When confronted with the anger of his own pastor, he didn't run away; He used it as a metaphor for American Blacks writ large. The America I hate is willfully ignoring that anger and bristles at the thought that anyone could be angry at America - even when a black person is 8.2 times more likely to be in prison than a white person. At that rate, about one in three blacks would have done some jail time during their lifetime.

So much for land of the free.

And Obama took that head on, and, more bravely asked America to look at themselves and their own families for that kind of racism. As an example, he acknowledged his own grandmother as occasionally saying some strong stuff. People freaked out! Oh my God! That nigger called his grandma a racist!

It's so much easier to point a finger than to think about yourself and your own family in a critical light. I've heard an occasional slur out of my friends, family, and myself, although here in Arizona it's much more likely to be directed at a Mexican. Or maybe I look at someone differently, or cross a street earlier than planned. But unless you are looking, you won't find it.

More recently, he acknowledged another kind of anger, and again it was used to manufacture some outrage. He noted how communities in the Rust Belt have been struggling for decades, and that struggle leads to anger that the politicians' promises never materialize. That anger is expressed not in right-left politics, because after thirty years, they know that doesn't matter. So instead it's expressed in the more-polarized politics of God, guns, and gays. But Obama caught flak for this because he, again, pointed out that yes, people are angry.

It's easier to be outraged than thoughtful.

I love to hear people disagree with the policies he wants to implement. That takes thought and at least a basic understanding of policy in general. I hate to hear people ignore his pleas for self-criticism, and for acknowledging anger and real problems within the nation.

So Obama will tell me how much I like this nation. I try not to let the pundits tell me what the nation thinks - they can't help but color their thoughts with their own opinions - and I know there is a bit of both, but who is the majority? I am so afraid and hopeful.

Labels: ambition, idiots, Obama, people, politics, president, voting

posted by Steve @ 12:09 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Paradise, Inc.

I just got a lot more serious about that whole Island Thing.

Labels: ambition, paradise, To-Do

posted by Steve @ 1:24 AM 0 comments

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Island living

Apparently, buying your own private island is cheaper than I thought. According to Private Islands Online, you can have one for as little as $200k (less, actually, but not for decent-sized ones not in Northern Canada). OK, $200,000 is a lot of money, and the ones I really liked were more in the $600k range. But it's a lot cheaper than I had pictured in my head.

So Rachel and I, if Rudy Giuliani gets elected, are going to leave the country to live on an island. Right on. And actually, we will probably be able to save up for it by the time his first term is up!

Note: This is probably all a pipe dream.

Check this out. Rachel and I want to build a sustainable island community. Each person (assuming 15-20 wage-earners) would need to contribute somewhere between $75k and $200k. That's a lot of money, sure, but it's about as much as mediocre-to-crap house in Tucson. If, as a community, we make money, then we can pay it off like any other loan (I'll get to how we'd make money in a bit).

The goal is a happy life, I guess. Eat well, raise awesome children, enjoy friends and family, improve yourself, waste nothing, and be happy. What else could anyone want?

We'll get 20 adults together. Mostly they'll be people like this guy and others that are interested in the no-impact good life ideal, except without insufferably pretentious people. We'd take certain roles. I would help teach the kids, and keep all the electronics going, and probably do some of the maintenance of machinery. My load would be relatively light because I'd also keep my day job - web design - because I can do that from anywhere on the planet.

Others without the traditional white-collar do-anywhere jobs would be helping grow food, build and maintain stuff, cook, and so on.

We'd need some things:

A good island. At least of the ones I've seen, most of the affordable ones are in the Philippines. A good island will be well above the sea (typhoons aren't fun to watch from underwater), ideally with some cliffs for climbing, diving, and windmills. It should have a decently protected moor for a boat, a place for a small ambphibious plane to be stored in case of a storm. A beach would be nice. Vegetation is also a must. Must also be at least 20 acres.
Transportation. Gotta have at a good-sized boat, probably one capable of Atlantic travel. Also, a small amphibious plane. It wouldn't be hard to make the boat self-sufficient with today's power generation (solar, wind generators), and desalinization processes. A 60' ketch should be capable of sailing most anywhere, including crossing the Pacific, but I am waiting on an expert to be sure of that. Making a 'green' aircraft presents a more formidable challenge: you can mix the fuel (20 bio/80 regular), and lower emissions by 50%, in order to use a typical amphibious like a Cessna 208, or hope that the DA42 Twin Star gets a water-landing version with more cargo room. You'd have to get the plane from Japan or the Philippines if you wanted to have an island in the Pacific, though. It's a ridiculous notion, but I'd also want to turn my Baja bug into a biodiesel schwimwagen for diving trips and cruising around the island.
Food. If you've got a couple of garden-loving hippies on your crew who want nothing to do with a 'real' job and want to grow stuff for the rest of their lives (and we do), this is mostly taken care of, and they don't mind farming a little extra in exchange for living in paradise. Apparently, most of the vegans we know would be fine owning (and eating) various animals if they did the job themselves. Currently it looks like we'll have a cats (as pets) and chickens and a few cows (as food).
Water. Desalinization has come a long, long way. For about $10-20k you can get a salt-water purifier that's about the size of a dorm refrigerator, and it will give you 1,000 gallons of potable water per day. All you'd need is a clean reservoir, a means of getting the ocean to the filter, and a pump. Rainwater collecting has also worked well for humanity for... ever.
Fellow colonists. While you don't want to pigeonhole people into jobs that can't be replaced (in case they want to leave), you'd want to be sure to bring people you want to live with. Of course, people will have their own homes and all, but community meals are going to be a big thing here (since it's shared food), so picking your friends will be important. Also, divvying up expenses will be a good thing since maintaining the boat and plane won't be free.
Utilities. Power's the easiest thing on the list: solar and wind power is quite effective nowdays, and you'll have lots of both on an island. Use LED lighting, and highly efficient insulation (etc.), and you've got low-enough power usage (even with computers), for solar and wind. You can compost most any waste, and we'd avoid plastics like they were diseased. The only thing that won't be obviously not biodegradable is most of our...
Other niceties, like Internet access (now available via satellite), plumbing, stereo systems, computers, swings, scuba gear, a library, a medical room, a distillery (booze!),

It's all doable, though, and there's already a market for pre-made hippies-in-trees commune housing. That helps construction quite a bit (and makes it a lot cheaper as well).

We'd have to get homeowner-type loans to pay for it all, most likely. So how would we pay that off? And what about the cost of upkeep for the vehicles, and occasional supplies?

Well, I work at home anyway. So I can make some money that way. We can also rent out a little vacation spot for rich tourists. $5,000 a week is the usual run, but with a nice place with maids, you can charge $10,000. So I figure we can hire a few local people for $200 a week to live there and keep up the guest place. Usual pay in the Philippines is $200 a month for that work, so we can get some good work for that. Figuring maintenance costs, that leaves about $8,000 a week in profit, and if we keep it occupied half the time, our island makes us $200k per year. That will pay off a $1.5M loan in 10 years, just by itself, and theoretically people should be going into this with cash deposits anyway.

Add in regular income from people like me. Rachel also suggested having a little cottage industry, perhaps selling fruit to nearby islands. Plus, if 20 people are determined, a lot can be done.

Figuring a 10-year, $2M loan and 6.5% interest, monthly payments would be $17,032.20. That's a lot of money - but divide it between ten families, who don't have to pay for electricity, a car payment, food, or a load of other usual expenses. Then you're talking $1,703.22. That's about normal for a mortgage. Just maintain the stuff, and occasionally fly to visit family. So in order to make all this work, each family has to average an annual income of about ... $25k, about $5k above the U.S. poverty line.

Of course, not everyone is going to have a prototypical 'job,' so some of the money has to come from the island or islanders. But between a rental villa and some work-at-home types (web design, graphic design, writers, perhaps musicians, online librarians, etc.), it can be done.

Now the biggest three questions:
1. Can we find fifteen to twenty other people (or ten couples) to go into this?
2. Can we work up the nerve to do it?
3. Can we put together enough cash to get to critical mass?

We'll see, I guess.

Labels: ambition, life, pipe dreams, Rachel, To-Do, travel, vacation, work

posted by Steve @ 10:38 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Ambition: Lifelong learning

In a perfect world, I think I'd work about 30 hours a week, and spend the other 10 hours of a normal work week taking classes. Actually, I had hoped to start taking these classes much earlier, right after I got my degree.

I would tell people I couldn't wait to get my degree so that I could start taking classes.

A few classes I'd like to take from this year's course catalogue from Pima:

ACC101 Financial Accounting
ACC204 Individual Tax Accounting
ART128 Digital Photography I
ART232 Digital Photography II
ART160 Ceramics I (Took this a long time ago, but I was awful at it, mostly because I didn't really have the time to do it properly)
ART215 Painting II (to finish the paintings I've already started)
AUT129 Automotive Electrical Fundamentals and Applications
BCT101 Principles of Construction
BCT114 Blueprint Reading
BUS100 Introduction to Busines
BUS125 eCommerce
CUL140 Culinary Principles (there are other cooking classes in the 'personal development' category)
DAR111 Typography
DAR115 Digital Video Editing
DAR122 Desktop Graphics: Adobe Illustrator
DAR124 Writing for Film and Television
DAR175 Cinematography
DAR215 Advanced Cinematography
DAR218 Introduction to Film Music
Early Childhood Education - basically everything not related to running a day care

ECE107 Human Development and Relations
ECE108 Literature/Social Studies for Children
ECE117 Child Growth and Development
ECE124 Math and Science for Children
ECE125 Nutrition, Health, and Safety for the Young Child
ECE211 Inclusion of Young Children with Special Needs
ECE240 Assessment of Young Children

Various EDU classes relating to getting my teacher's certification in Arizona
FSS126 Intermediate Basketball
FSS127 Advanced Basketball
HIS114 Japanese Civilization
HUM131 Mythology
IDE100 Introduction to Interior Design
IDE111 Fundamentals of Interior Design
IDE155 Space Planning I
JPN101 Elementary Japanese I
JPN102 Elementary Japanese II
JPN108 Japanese Anime
JPN201 Intermediate Japanese I
JPN202 Intermediate Japanese II
LIT261 Modern Literature
LIT262 American Poets
MUS127 Aural Perception I (took this a long time ago...)
MUS129 Aural Perception II
MUS154 Jazz Improvisation
MUS224 Aural Perception III
MUS225 Aural Perception IV
MUS257 Music Recording and Production
MUP162 Guitar I
MUP172 Guitar II
MUP262 Guitar III
MUP272 Guitar IV
MUP164 Piano I
MUP174 Piano II
MUP264 Piano III
MUP274 Piano IV
MUP166 Voice I
MUP176 Voice II
MUP266 Voice III
MUP276 Voice IV
PHI120 Introduction to Logic
REL130 Asian Religions
REL234 Islam
SPA201 Intermediate Spanish I
SPA202 Intermediate Spanish II
THE149 Introduction to Acting I
THE151 Introduction to Acting II
WLD110 Basic Arc and Oxyacetylene Welding
WLD160 Arc Welding
WRT126 Basics of Short Story Writing
WRT206 Short Story Writing

Labels: ambition, college, music, school, To-Do

posted by Steve @ 4:22 PM 0 comments

Thursday, June 21, 2007

LePlan, part 2

It feels like it was forever ago, but at one point in my life, I was so strapped for cash that I had to make an elaborate plan to get out of the country.

No joke.

I had a hard time keeping all of the people involved in my head, and had to write it all down on a timetable in Excel. I called the file, 'leplan.xls.'

Fast forward a few years, and I'm in a much more comfortable place, and now have drawn this Georgia-time (i.e., casually-paced) plan:

Re-wire the truck's entire electrical system with my awesome in-laws up in Prescott. Escape the heat, work online there, help them build their house, and get the truck to never-imagined levels of awesome.
Look up a new house to live in that has a yard, laundry machine, a place to work on the fiberglass dash I need to put into Rachel's truck, isn' insanely expensive, and is close enough to Bookman's that Rachel can walk. The discount we get for not driving to work (either of us) is nice.
Rent the place two weeks into August, and take those two weeks to move. Catalogue every last item. We'll be listing every item we own, and decide if we need it. If not, it's donated or sold. Keep the list for our house insurance, and update it as life goes on.
Rachel takes her last class for her Bachelor's Degrees in Creative Writing and English Literature (fall semester). She drives her amazingly well-running truck.
In January, I either get promoted to full-time at ITP, or keep working part time and begin finishing my teaching certificate. Either way, Rachel starts her graduate program classes in Library Science.
After that, things get a bit fuzzy, but for now:
If we can afford it, sometime in Fall '08 or Spring '09, buy an RV, give the truck back to the in-laws for a while, tow the Bug and live on the road for about 3 months. Make a time-lapse video of the entire thing. Explore the entire United States, and decide on a place to settle down for the next few years. In all likelihood it will be in Arizona, but why not find out for sure? Living without regrets is a part of freedom.
Reproduce on the road! Our kids will not know exactly where they were conceived, and I think that's vaguely awesome.
Have kids. Name the girls Méria Jael and Artemis Ella; name the boys Aaron Isaac and Michael David.
Buy a house.
Live well.

Rachel and I also bought an awesome floor carpet today. We're moving out in a few months, and so Rachel will be taking stuff off of the walls and packing her books to ease the move. Still, for a few glorious weeks, we'll have the place basically 'right,' and that's awesome.

Labels: ambition, college, gas, house, kids, money, Rachel, rant, RV, To-Do, work

posted by Steve @ 5:20 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Self-flagellation is sometimes good for you

So, I quit/lost my job at Maloney's last Friday. I've been working there for almost two years. For two years, I have not been able to go out on Thursday through Saturday nights. No concerts. Nada.

While I do need another job -- still looking -- I'm going to take this opportunity to jump into doing what I lurrrve doing best: making music, showing said music to people, listening to music, talking about music. Doing graphic design, making websites, and being social and a part of the Tucson scene that is quite cool that I've longed for. Until now.

So yesh, here I am - coming down your street. Get the strangest looks from the people I meet ...

Currently listening :
White Blood Cells
By The White Stripes

Labels: ambition, jobs, Maloney's, work

posted by Steve @ 4:47 AM 0 comments

About Me

Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me:
See my complete profile