Honey, Let's Move to Just East of the Philipinnes

I was just thinking about the pros and cons of living in Costa Rica. I had just looked at all of the wonderful pictures that my brother and sister in-law (Jake and Rebekah) recently posted of their home in Costa Rica. Also, another set of bro and sis in-laws (Joey and Katie) just visited there and experienced some rains from the tail-end of former hurricane Matthew. So I was wondering how prone to hurricanes is Costa Rica?

The answer is...not very. If you look at the top chart which is a map of all the tropical storms in the last 150 years (up to 2006). If you look real closely, Costa Rica basically has no storms that have tracked straight over the country. They may get some of the tail edge rains, but no dangerous killer winds. Honduras and Nicaragua are not so fortunate, but even for them most hurricanes are downgraded to tropical storms or depressions by the time they hit shore. Even if storms form as far south as Costa Rica, such as with Matthew, they always head north before they get there. See Below.

Costa Rica is blessed and it can thank the Coriolis Effect for it. It is the blessing of being close to the equator.

Swerve This Dumb Dog!

The car gods are against us. First Jenny has a close encounter of the dog kind a couple of days ago, just narrowly avoiding death and mayhem (including all involved: Jenny, Andrew, and the dog). We were all relieved that they were ok (dog excluded). Big O tires is grateful that we are addicted to spending money at their business.

Lesson taught by everyone: hit the dog after yelling "Dumb Dog!". In practice more easily said than done. I don't think that there is a raging dog killer instinct within us all. Most of us, I think, sadly fall in the category of 'Monday morning dog vehicle homicide road rage quarterbacking.' Instinct generally kicks in and we usually kill ourselves before we stop and think, "what is the right thing to do?" Though, I have heard that violent video games can cure you of this bad habit.

Alas, I digress. Back to the punitive car gods. Yesterday, while minding my own business while driving down the interstate, a large piece of metal decided to jump out of a truck ahead of me. Before I could yell, "Dumb piece of metal!" (my memory might be a little foggy, but I don't think those are the actual words I said), I tried to swerve within the confines of crowded traffic. The metal chased me down like a lion on a wildebeest on the Serengeti. It snagged my back tire shredding my tire to pieces and bent my rim.

Life's lessons are a cruel irony. Jenny swerves, misses dog, and seriously damages car #1. Rex is unable to swerve enough, hits metal, and seriously damages car #2. What's the lesson to be learned...Who the heck knows?

Well, I get the car off the road and work feverishly to get the spare on before some crazed inattentive driver tags me. Just as I was finishing up, a highway patrolman pulls up. This is how our conversation went:

Patrolman: I saw a piece of metal in the road
Me: Yup. me too. too late.
Patrolman: I threw it off the road
Me: Thanks
Patrolman: You good?
Me: Yup (only stating the obvious)

We both went on our own merry ways. I get to Big O and walk in to hear a cheery, "Hi, Rex". We're on a first name basis. "You just missed your wife," who had only picked up the other car minutes ago. He took one look at the tire and said, "I don't think we can salvage that." "What?, but the valve stem is in such good shape". There literally was not much left to the tire. Was this 'state the obvious day', and someone had forgotten to send me the memo?

Well, they replaced the tire, pounded out the rim, and sent me on my way. As I was finishing up the paperwork for the loan to pay for everything, the Bid O guy said, "Don't worry about rotating your tires." What? Did these new types of tire not need rotating? "No," he said, "You destroy them before you ever hit the mileage before they need it."

I wanted to say, "Dumb Big O Guy!"

I'm thinking of self imposing a three day waiting period on driving all our cars after any time we have any car 'incidents' in the future. At least that way we can more easily identify each separate 'incident' on the credit card billing.

What You Talkin' 'bout Willis?

We now have a teenage daughter with a driver's license. So, it was my privilege to call the insurance company to add her to the insurance. I was all proud in the fact that we got the good student discount, the pay online discount, the multiple vehicle discount, the never having filed a claim discount, and the combine with your home insurance discount.

I waited patiently as the drum roll began and the final total was announced. The insurance lady actually said it with a straight face, but my insurance went up 131%!!! That means doubled with 31% more tacked on top of that.

What the.....

You Sank My Battleship

Quality family bonding time is highly treasured at our home. Take for instance last week when we had a few minutes to burn and we wanted to make some lasting memories. So, we decided to indulge ourselves in a rousing game of online Battleship. Thank goodness that I had all four of my children helping me make all of the important tactical decisions. Admiral Nimitz in all of his glory could not have had as good of advisers in the Second World War.

At first it looked like disaster for my small little team. The adversary, Luckygirl208, seemed too great a foe for us to handle. We were down 4 ships to 1 before we knew what hit us. We had to act fast and hard, but it looked like time was running out on us. Fortunately, our Battle Cruiser was well hidden.

This is when the greatest of Harris brain power kicked in. All the little munchkins took right over and started barking out orders left and right. We got our first significant hits, the other side missed. One by one we continued to get hits and the other side missed. The enemy stepped it up a notch and started to systematically eliminate any spaces on the board that would allow a three-spaced ship to hide.

We had momentum on our side, it was looking like we just might have a chance until it happened. Luckgirl208 hit the middle of my cruiser. It seemed that all was lost. We had not as yet located their last ship: the dreaded, and hard to hit PT boat. We pulled together our collective brain power, studied the charts, and made the best educated guess that we could to hit that dang little critter. Splash! we missed.

They were next. They had a choice, left or down. Splash! They chose....unwisely. In desperation Little Andrew took over and made me, against my better judgment, make a choice right in the middle of the board. Hit! He was right, against all odds we hit the PT.

It was their turn again. No guessing this time. There were only two places that they could actually go. Hit on the top and hit on the bottom. They chose top. Hit! There next shot would sink the last of our fleet down to the bottom of the Hasbro ocean.

It was our final chance. We had two choices: left or down. The same choice that the enemy had only just moments ago made wrong. Rachel, with full confidence suggested down. She said that Luckygirl208 always chose the position of a PT as vertical in the bottom half of the hour (I later found out that this was a total bluff, as she would have not known who the heck Luckygirl208 was, anyway).

I hesitated, first thinking of going down, then changing my thought to left. Time was running out. Did I have it in me to make the tough choice? The clock clicked down: 5,4,3,2. With final resolve, I hit the key. I chose....down. Hit! We had sunk the boat, and the last of the enemy fleet went to the bottom. We had won. Achieving the greatest 'come from behind' victory in the history of Battleship. There was jumping up and down, hugs, and high-five's all around.

We all came a little bit closer to each other that day.

Work Less - Live Longer

A recent study has shown that if you work until you are 65 you will only live 18 more months, on the average, after retirement. Also, your creativity peaks at age 32.

With that in mind, I guess I am doomed to die young because I am not smart enough to retire.



Table 1 – Actuarial Study of life span vs. age at retirement.

Age at Retirement------------Average Age you'll Die
49.9----------------------------------86.0
51.2----------------------------------85.3
52.5----------------------------------84.6
53.8----------------------------------83.9
55.1----------------------------------83.2
56.4----------------------------------82.5
57.2----------------------------------81.4
58.3----------------------------------80.0
59.2----------------------------------78.5
60.1----------------------------------76.8
61.0----------------------------------74.5
62.1----------------------------------71.8
63.1----------------------------------69.3
64.1----------------------------------67.9
65.2----------------------------------66.8

Utah State Hey! Aggies all the Way

It has been 17 years since Utah State University has beaten BYU, and it has almost been 40 years since BYU has had such a poor start to a football season. I just happened to choose the right game to attend. Way to go AGGIES!!!




Fans Letting the teams know who was going to win.


Fans unleash the winning team/losing team cheer.



What else was there to do but storm the field after the victory.

Thanks go to Alicia my daughter for the spur of the moment video taping.

Taking that Big Saddle to the Sky

Behold the sexy sleek new Skyrider.

You gotta be kidding me. I don't know what scares me more, the look of these seats or the fact that some people actually think that these are a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about a little discomfort if it's going to save me a reasonable amount of money. Forget the leg cramps, the simple economics of this just does not make any sense to me.

They say that they can increase capacity on an airplane by 40%. If you think that means that you are going to save 40% or more on a ticket, you got to be smoking something. I have to admit that when you start talking about saving 60% on an airline ticket, I start to get giddy and as far as I'm concerned, they could strap me on the wing and I would be happy. But...let's look at the math.

Let's consider that the 40% can be viewed equally as 40% more money to deal with. First of all, just because they can fit 40% more people doesn't mean that they will convert the whole plane to a stock yard. What? Are they going to make first class special by adding spurs, a cup holder, and a free unwedgie service at the end of the flight. I think not. So let's be over generous and say that they add 20% capacity to a flight.

Next, more people means more weight. More weight means more power and fuel to keep that thing aloft. I'll be kind and just say 5% there. Oh, and what about the new carry on dilemma. As you can see, you no longer can place anything below your seat because the only thing that is below your seat now is your feet. So now all that has to go above in the overhead bins, but wait, there are more people now in the cattle car so you will have to check more luggage. Another 10%.

Lastly, the only reason why an airline would do this is so they could increase their profit margin. How about 4.75%. Guess what? This leaves the passed on savings to you as 0.25% or about $1.00 on a good 3-hour flight. Is it worth it? Maybe for the quads workout you'll get, but other than that, I think that is a little shy of what I would need to make my tailbone happy with the imposition.

You know, the scariest thing about this is that the federal government may weigh in on the issue. In this day and age of 'no amount of constitutional rights can ever make a wrong', the president may launch a campaign to free us from the tyranny of oppressive air travel, and state that every American has the right to affordable air travel. Thus, countless billions will be given to the airline industry to upgrade all airplanes with these new seats, and without any real cost savings to you, you will be forced to ride the 'saddle'.

YEE-HAW!!!!

P.S. By the way, the lady up above is actually taking more room than she is allowed. You might notice that she would not fit in the row behind her.