Jake’s Blog

Bizarre… training monkeys to use money results in human-like behavior.

I rode my bike to work today. 5 miles, 20 minutes, 0% stress. My commute by car takes about 15 minutes and its frustrating stop-and-go traffic. It took a little extra time getting ready since this was the first time I’ve done it but even that was fairly negligible. It felt good to just keep moving - I was moving at a speed where I could basically time every light except turns so I only stopped twice the whole time.

Let’s hope my own mother’s relationship with eBay doesn’t get this bad.

Personalized Google Homepage

I have now added to my Google homepage:

3 Quotes per Day
1 Word per Day
Movies playing in Fresno
Weather for Fresno
Stock tickers (DOW, NASDAQ, NYSE, GOOG)
5 Gmail Messages
3 Slashdot Articles
3 Wired News Articles
3 NY Times Articles

I through that NY Times thing in just so I could feel cultured. Its a veritable menagerie of Googlie-goodness. (Menagerie is the word of the day today!)

Since attempting to sell my laptop (it didn’t sell, after all) I got a finance program that works very well. It is super easy to use and setup and while it may not fit all of my needs well into the future (when I start making millions) it certainly helps now! I have started tracking all of my purchases and income to see where my money is coming from and going to. For instance… I found a total of $25.00 this month. Then I spent it… on Arby’s and Starbucks! And Starwars. Twice. Yikes.

I also received my tax refund. Five hundred smackeroos. Woopdeedoo! It came with something from the Treasury asking me to buy $25 per month in bonds. It had a picture of about 10 coffee drinks and it equated that to the money I could be investing each month and it got me to thinking… I really don’t need Starbucks. Or a lot of the other stuff I buy these days. So I’m going to be watching myself closely. So far I’ve already spent $45 dollars since Monday on “Entertainment”. Thats insanity! No wonder my savings account never grows anywhere!

I just recently got a bike and I’m up to 13miles in one ride so far. Tomorrow is the day I plan to ride to work for the first time (Its BIKE WEEK, savvy?). I started thinking about my car and how much it costs compared to commuting - gosh! The payment, gas, insurance, maintenance, washes, and depreciation add up to about $6000 a year and $500 per month! For some that may be cheap but before I calculated that I thought the figure was closer to about $300 per month. I’m a little dissappointed. Perhaps I’ll see about getting a cheaper car and commuting more by bicycle.

When I compare all of my expenditures to my income its no wonder I’m not meeting my savings goals. I had planned to have a “down-payment on a house” sized lump of money by this time this year and I’m nowhere close. I spend about 75 to 80% of my income each month. I need to simplify. Big time.

If you are in the market for a gaming laptop look no further for I’m selling the cream of the crop: An Asus Z71v with an Nvidia Geforce 6600 and its built on Sonoma so its powerful with a Pentium M and has good battery life.

Here’s the link to my eBay auction:
Check it out

I hadn’t ridden since last Friday evening so when I got home from work today I really wanted to go on a ride. The weather was not so good. It was chilly outside, damp, with a sprinkle here and there. I really don’t like the cold. Its too cold. So I put on a sweater and got ready to go out and had to pump up my tires since they’d gotten low, so when I got out the rain had picked up a bit.
I started out very strong. I was averaging about 20mph for the whole mile or so til I got into the park, and was able to keep that pace almost halfway through my ride. Then the lightning started. And I heard some thunder. There were about 4 seconds between the lightning and thunder. I figured I had better head home quick.
I rode for about 3 minutes more and then the rain began to really pick up. It felt good. I wasn’t hot at all and I was keeping my speed up. I passed a few rainy-day joggers and not long after that, before the first hill on my ride the rain started coming down in sheets.
Every once in a while I could feel my back wheel hydroplane and I would fishtail a bit. That worried me because I would be going fast at the bottom of the hill and theres a 90 degree turn there that can be tricky in great conditions. “Oh well” I thought, and went for it… A truck passed me on the right as I came around the turn and stood up to hammer up the next hill. Normally I try to sit in my saddle and spin my way to the top but today I felt it was best to just get home so I hammered side to side like a bowling pin teetering before dropping. I’m sure I looked like a crazed fool standing up on my bike jamming up that hill in the sheeting rain but I didn’t care. I was starting to get cold and the rain was getting in my eyes and dripping off my helmet in a steady stream making it very hard to see.
I pointed my head down to keep the rain out of my eyes and just stared at the road. I couldn’t do that or I’d lose direction too easily. I squinted through the rain and got ready for the next hill when the hail came.
“Clock-Clock-Clock” it went, bouncing off my helmet. It was small, really - about the size of pencil erasers. The worst part at that moment was the wet and the cold and the running 3 or 4 inches of water. The wind had kicked up too and threatened to push me off the road. The strong gusts were making me and my bike slide sideways across the wet road. My speed had dropped considerably. 8 miles per hour. My legs were straining. I felt like I was wearing a big sail and the wind was just trying to push me backwards.
The hail got larger and started pelting my legs. They were turning red from the cold and the hail. My fingers were freezing. My shoes were full of water and my socks were soaked and squishy. I worried about my bike. I think I thought I was swimming. I couldn’t breathe. Still a mile to go.
I got out of the park and back on the street. Red light. A minute of standing and waiting. A nice fellow pulled up and asked if I could use a ride… I thought “Sure, but I’m not leaving my bike out here!” so I said “No thanks!” and as the light turned green I took off. By now I was heaving trying to get some air. I was dizzy and the insides of my ears hurt. The world worked in slow motion and although my legs were spinning furiously I was going nowhere. I couldn’t shift up because I knew I couldn’t push a higher gear. Half a mile to go.
Very little traffic and that was good. I pulled out in the middle of the street because the bike lane was flooded at least 6 inches deep and there was crud floating in it like a river.
Home. Sopping, soaking, dripping wet water all over the place. I showered in my clothes. That’s the greatest feeling when you’re cold like that… letting the warm water slowly penetrate your clothes and warm you gently. The shower which would have only been barely warm felt like it was boiling water to my skin. The dizziness, however, remained.
I still can’t really breathe yet.
What a ride!

I found this while trawling through the Best of Craigslist:

To the lady in front of me at Giant (and the check-out lady as well)

I was close. Closer than I’d ever come before to finding the Lost Girl. I could almost feel her waiting around the next corner. It was a search I’d been on for almost two years. And soon, it would come to a close. Something interrupted me though. The portal was coming apart. It was fading.
From somewhere outside the portal I could hear sirens going off. I gripped the portal’s shield in my fist and pulled it tight against the edge of the portal. With the shield pulled tight to the opening to the portal the piercing sound of the sirens were dampened but not silenced. The shield was thin, made of a liteweight green material. In the harsher months more was needed to keep the elements out and to keep the portal open, but for that time of the year it worked just fine.
A voice called to me from outside. Through the shield the voice sounded muffled and distorted.
“Brother, come out, and pass through the water!”, Amanda called.
“Not now!” I snapped back, “I have much work to do.”
“But Brother, we must defeat the Isosceles Triangle!”
At this, the portal snapped shut. Even the green shield could not hold it open once those words had been uttered. I leapt out of the portal, casting the green shield aside as I did so, and landed on my feet near my sister. I was angry, and grateful at the same time. Although I had been searching for the Lost Girl for nearly two years, I had no clue what I would say or do to her once I found her. And I knew I had a mission to accomplish here, in this world.

Check out Serenity.

Make sure to watch the trailer.

I can’t say that I was a big fan of the show Firefly when it was on TV, because I didn’t watch TV much at the time. But the new movie looks sweet to say the least! I’m definitely going to be there when it opens.