Random Chart Day: 2013 Finances

Chart Notes

• The Income spikes coincide with long months that have 3 pay days, or bonuses, or both.


• The Income line does not include the billions made by Rebecca in her PTA job.


• On average, our mortgage is 19% of our Income and 35% of our Expenses.


• There is no Y-axis, because this preserves the mystery of whether we would be viable kidnapping targets on our next trip to Mexico.


• Currently seeking suggestions for what to do with our pure unadulterated profit.

Time-lapsed Blogography Day

Fifteen years ago today, on April 2, 1999, I was a junior in college. It was the first "shorts weather" day of the year, which I enjoyed as I walked from the room in East AJ I shared with Nathan Egge to McBryde Hall for my Operating Systems project demo. Though I had only made a 78% on the midterm exam, my practical skills surpassed my conceptual skills and I walked out of this demo with a 110%, leading to an A for the semester (foreshadowing my future reputation for excellence).

In the evening, I drove out to Lynchburg College with Jen Graves to see yet another concert featuring Arturo Sandoval backed by the VT jazz band. I'm not sure why we were so pressed to see Arturo that we all drove two hours into the wilderness, especially since Arturo had played on our own campus not four months earlier.

After the concert, I had a late night dinner at Shoney's with Jen, Rosie, Kelley, Shac, Andrew Simmons, Jason Chrisley, and Jason Mirick before driving all of the way back to Blacksburg and turning in around 2 AM. 2 AM was (and still is) a super late night for me.

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Veronica Mars (PG-13):
Since this movie was birthed on Kickstarter by fans of the old TV show, it's clear from the opening moments that it's for fans only -- new viewers will not find enough to appreciate in the series of neverending cameos, callbacks, and continuity. The movie plays out like an extended TV episode, brimming with familiar actors and staying open-ended enough for future expansion. It had been a few years since I watched the show, but I was mostly able to recall all of the characters that kept showing up -- the ones that I didn't recognize didn't impact my enjoyment. The "case" being solved during the movie is good enough, but you'll probably want to watch it just to spend more time with your favorite characters.

Final Grade: B+

Newsroom, Season One:
This is a show about a news program that decides to stop pandering to the audience and only report the facts. The show relies upon a sea of flawed, human characters and witty banter as it walks through notable news events of the past few years. At times, it's almost as emotionally manipulative as the media it skewers, and it's not quite clear whether this is an intentional, ironic choice or not. Overall, the season kept me amused for ten episodes, and I would watch more, but I wouldn't stand in line in the rain for it.

Final Grade: B

La Roux by La Roux:
This is a CD of electronic dance music featuring a female vocalist. I really liked Tigerlily and Bulletproof, but the rest of the songs are forgettable. I felt like most of the songs featured too many timbres in her higher octave, which was annoyingly thin and reedy, like an unsure oboist in concert band.

Final Grade: C+

Yes! by K-OS:
A catchy hip-hop album by the Crabbuckit guy. Some songs are more successful than others, and his experimental stuff falls kind of flat.

Final Grade: B-

Where's BU?

Some Asians are naturally camouflaged against floral prints.

Meanwhile Back Home...

Raw but amalgamated footage of what Booty and Amber did during our extended weekend at the Greenbrier Resort.

Weekend Wrap-up: Greenbrier Edition

It only took us 9 months to finally use the gift card I had received for "10 years of not quitting" from my work. The Greenbrier Resort is not a place we'd ever stay on our own volition, but having a $1000 gift card in hand was a great way to experience the place without constantly worrying about the cost.

We drove down on Thursday via I-81, which looks just like it did a decade ago but with four times as many long-haul trucks. We took a brief stop in Staunton for lunch and a wine tasting at the Ox-Eye Vineyards in the Wharf District. I had envisioned stevedores and paddleboats, but apparently the Wharf District consisted of an old creek mostly paved over. Staunton was nice though -- we might go back someday.

For our first afternoon in grandeur, we took tea and biscuits in the main dining room. Although mindful of the constant dress code, we put minimal effort into being classy, and I wore my khaki pants that were three sizes too large, last worn as an ear training instructor at Florida State. We then had happy hour in the casino bar and used up our "free" casino cash being thoroughly befuddled by the newest in slot machine technology. Gone are the days where you pull a lever and line up some cherries -- every machine had multiple play modes and win patterns, to the point where only career slot-grandmothers could ever understand them. For dinner, we ate Italian food at The Forum, followed up with a tiramisu the size of a pug.

On Friday, we went hiking in the Allegheny Mountains. The private trails were very well-fashioned, if poorly mapped, and we continued to stumble across super rich homes higher up the mountain. In the afternoon, Rebecca had a full sulphur spring and spa / massage treatment followed by more tea and crumpets. We had delicious coffee stouts at happy hour in another hotel lounge, and then split a gigantic pizza back at The Forum. In the evening, we watched a free showing of Gravity in the classic theatre.

We went out for another hike through the shale barrens on Saturday and then returned to swim in the gigantic indoor pool in the afternoon. We then had an early dinner in the casino bar and spent the evening wandering through all of the ridiculously decorated halls, beset by floral prints on all sides.

On Sunday morning, we took a tour of the secret nuclear bunker designed to hide Congress during the Cold War. It was hit-or-miss, with a blend of interesting exhibits and facts interspersed with "there used to be a door here but it's covered up now" tour guiding.

In spite of being able to charge things to the room and the automatic 20% service charge on everything, we only ended up spending $1210 for the entire weekend, which became $210 after applying the gift card. The facilities felt a little dated, but the service was impeccable. Overall, it was a fun, lavish experience although there's no reason for us to ever go back.

On the drive home, we stopped at Blue Mountain Brewery for lunch, and then braved the scads of drivers on Route 29 to get back to Sterling around 5 PM. Yesterday (Monday), we had a recovery day, doing nothing but playing Hearthstone and watching American Hustle.

Time-lapsed Blogography Day

Twenty years ago today, on April 9, 1994, I was the sophomore coxswain for the Men's 3rd 8 on the crew team. The 3rd 8 rowers were not good enough to be in one of the first 16 slots. However, our crew team was so big that we also had a 4th 8 and a 5th 8, so we were spared the ignominy of being the worst boat. Only in Alexandria could you put together a crew team with 40 guys on it.

After waking up at 5:30 AM, my parents dropped me off at the high school before departing with my sister for the day to visit UVa (where my sister would be attending in the Fall). The team piled into school buses and went down to the Occoquan Reservoir, where we screwed the riggings onto our boat and went for a run. At 10:15, we finally headed out on the water for our race.

High from our second place win (which was about two places higher than we normally did), we were greeted at the docks by the Women's 3rd 8 in unitards. After derigging the boat, the rowers walked out to the finish line to watch other races, while I did my antisocial thing of getting back on the bus and programming calculator games. Although the races were over by 2, we didn't leave for another hour because the bus driver had decided to walk off for a smoke and no one could find her.

I made it home before my parents, but learned that the hidden spare key no longer worked on the door, so I had to wait out on the back porch for a couple more hours until they returned from Charlottesville. For dinner, we ate lamb and rice which, according to my journal, "tasted mildly okay".

Birth Day

Happy Birthday to my Mom, the second longest, contiguous visitor to this website after my dad!

List Day: Most Played RPG Character Classes

• Ultima IV - VI: Bard (for the convenient starting location)


• Ultima Underworld: Fighter (to carry more junk)


• Quest for Glory I - IV: Fighter (for survival)


• Diablo 1: Rogue (for survival)


• Diablo 2: Necromancer (runner up: Sorcerer)


• Everquest: Bard


• World of Warcraft: Priest (runner up: Druid)


• Torchlight: Vanquisher


• Skyrim: Destruction-Thief


• Borderlands 2: Commando


• Torchlight 2: Embermage


• Diablo 3: Demon Hunter (runner up: Witch Doctor)

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

7:11 AM: Between the hours of 2 AM and 6 AM, Booty slowly encroaches upon the pillow until I'm evicted (see also, Crimea).

7:26 AM: Showered and ready for Spring.

7:45 AM: Breakfast.

9:47 AM: Home from Costco, with a happy freezer full of meats.

10:46 AM: Teaching Booty how to read.

11:37 AM: Building a badminton court that won't decay during the first rainstorm.

1:34 PM: Celebrating a successful badminton installation with cheese and crackers.

2:12 PM: Booty cannot join our party.

2:25 PM: Inaugural badminton game of 2014.

5:56 PM: Birthday dinner at the Carlyle in Shirlington.

7:44 PM: Showing off the latest in TV technologies.

8:56 PM: Competitive head-to-head Hearthstone time.

DIY Day: Badminton Net

After being burned by a crappy badminton net that literally death-and-decayed during the first rain of 2013, leaving bits of paper all over the lawn, plan to build your next net from scratch. Start with a complex, to-scale engineering drawing. Blue paper and slide rule optional.

Buy 20 feet of 3/4" PVC piping and two end caps at Home Depot ($6.00) and a high quality net on Amazon ($34.00). Drag out all of the tools you never use and mark off the cut / drill points.

Use the miter saw to cut the piping, nonchalantly sweeping the PVC shreddings under the deck.

Whip out your 1995 TI-85 graphing calculator to calculate a good angle for the ends that will let the pole double as a digging implement. Abandon that plan and cut them at 45 degrees after finding that the miter saw maxes out at 45 degrees.

Sit on the poles and drill holes for the guide ropes. Do not hold the pipe where the drill bit will burst through (apply the rules of bagel cutting).

Twist the pointed end of the poles into the ground until you have blisters. If the Loudoun clay prevents the full 14" depth, cheat by cutting a couple more inches off.

MacGuyver a needle-thread device for running the ropes through the pole, using a drill bit and some electrical tape.

Tie off the ends for maximum tension. You now have a regulation height badminton net with a minimum of mowing obstacles!

Enjoy with a friend.

Still To Do:

• Replace all of the "almost square knots" with adjustable Boy Scout hitches, long since forgotten.
• Set up a hook system on the outer tension line, so the net doesn't stand at maximum tension for the whole season.

Memory Day: Snapshots

Six years ago today, on April 16, 2008, we had just returned from Europe, where we adopted a French poodle named Pierre from Carcasonne. He was not welcome in Collioure, but traveled with us for the rest of the trip. He ate well and watched Full House in Catalan in our Barcelona hotel room.

After we arrived back in the States, Pierre found his forever home, living with Ella in Manassas!

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Gravity (PG-13):
This is probably one of the more stressful movies you'll see this year. We saw it at the Greenbrier, which means that the screen was slightly bigger than watching in the living room, but more like a high school assembly than a true movie theater showing. I enjoyed how self-contained and spartan it was, especially in the context of the fact that most of the movie is CGI. They overused the suspenseful music -- possibly to counter the fact that there is no noise in space -- but I felt like silence might even have been a better tension-builder in many places. Rebecca did not like this movie.

Final Grade: B+

American Hustle (R):
This was an enjoyable character-driven film starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Amy Adam's cleavage. It plays like a heist film, except that it's very easy to follow. After a fairly slow start, it kept my interest all of the way to the end.

Final Grade: B+

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls:
All of the thoughts I recorded in my First Impressions post last month still hold true. I'm still regularly playing this game and having a ton of fun exploding things for loot. There's a surprising amount of replayable content for an expansion pack, and all of the original problems with Diablo III have been resolved in positive ways. At this point, the primary (but minor) annoyance is just the UI -- I wish that skill assignment were easier, tooltips were more exact, and it were easier to compare gear in intelligent ways.

Final Grade: A

Conair GMT10CSB Cordless/Rechargeable Beard and Mustache Trimmer :
This trimmer is serviceable for its primary task, but has too many oddball adjustment settings that sometimes slip out of place. There's barely enough charge for 3 - 4 trimmings, which means it spends a lot of time plugged in. This adds to the clutter if your bathroom counter surface is already small.

Final Grade: C

List Day: Hearthstone Tips and Tricks

I'm not a great Hearthstone player, although I have won every game that I didn't lose. Here are some beginner tips and tricks to get you started.

1. Just because you have enough mana to play a card, doesn't mean it's the right time to play that card, especially on Turn One!


2. If you don't like one of your Daily Quests, you can reroll it for a new random quest one time. On the Quests page, click on the X in the upper right corner of the quest card.


3. Don't overcommit. Sometimes it's better to play it safe and keep a few minions in your hand in case the board is wiped on the next turn.


4. Pay attention to whether a card specifies friendly or enemy minions specifically. If not, you may be able to come up with unexpected ways to play that card. For example, you can use the Mage Hero Power to hurt your own minions, triggering Enrage conditions or Deathrattles. Or, you can Silence your own minion to remove a Frozen effect.


5. Generally, I've found that a good deck ratio is roughly 20 cards that result in minions and 10 pure spell cards.


6. You don't have to use up all of your attacks every turn.


7. You can only have 10 cards in hand. If your opponent has 10 already and you can force him to draw more, those extra cards will get destroyed. When I see a Priest drop two card-draw Clerics, I like to spend the whole game healing things until he runs out of cards. I lose, of course, but it's funny.


8. If you are about to craft your first cards from enchanting dust, you can't go wrong with Harvest Golem or Defender of Argus.


9. You can give your constructed decks titles by clicking on the default title ("Custom Mage") and typing. I like to put the date in my titles ("Mage 4/15") so I can remember when the last time I added cards to it was.


10. Don't let clearing the board of enemy minions distract you from the ultimate goal of killing the hero. I used to treat each round of the game as a standalone zero-sum math puzzle -- this distracts from the big picture and puts you in a constantly reactive play style.

Also, someone in this household has been playing too many murloc cards.

Weekend Wrap-up in Food

• Cornish game hen roasted in the toaster oven on Friday night, while starting the first season of Orphan Black.


• Bagel and cream cheese over the morning paper on Saturday.


• Grilled glazed salmon for the birthday of Rebecca's dad, followed by badminton.


• 10 piece Chicken McNuggets meal on Saturday night, while Rebecca went in to DC for Marc's birthday.


• Bagel and cream cheese on Sunday, before the Easter service at Riverside Chruch.


• Gorgonzola cheese on crackers over four rounds of Hearthstone.


• Marie Callendar chicken pot pie for lunch.


• Foot-long cold cut combo from Subway for dinner, after a pleasant walk through Claude Moore Park. Deer count: 6.

What did you eat this weekend?

Random Chart Day: Finances

Now that I have over a decade of financial history to mine, I will be posting occasional charts and trends. Data is fun.

Annual Salary over 14 Years

I would add the salaries of my Florida State teaching assistantship, but that would require a logarithmic Y-axis to not be mistaken for 0.

Phone Bill over 10 Years

All phone service has been through Verizon. I had a landline in Florida too, but those records were long lost in a hard drive crash.

Cable/Internet Bill over 10 Years

I had Cox in Fairfax, and then Adelphia in Sterling, before they were bought out by Comcast. In Florida, I paid $29.95 for dial-up service through the 90s era "Toast.net" in addition to cable, but those bills are long lost as well.

Time-lapsed Blogography Day

Eighteen years ago today, on April 23, 1996, I was a senior in high school. My first stop after driving to school was the homeroom of one of my crushes, to thoughtfully drop off some physics notes for bonus nice points. I don't know how kids today stalk their crushes (probably a GPS app), but back then, knowledge of a girl's homeroom was painstakingly gained through hall wandering and triangulation. Probably fifty percent of a teenager's brainwaves were dedicated to learning locker locations, travel paths between classes, and phone numbers.

I didn't go too any of my morning classes, because the jazz band took a field trip to Hammond Middle School for a double-feature assembly. I played a few good improvised solos for the youngsters, who were also impressed by the original composition, Bubba's Fried Chicken Stand.

We got back to school during fourth period, but naturally we had to take fifth period off to catch up on lunch. Since we also had seventh period concert band off because of our super strenuous assemblies, I breezed through a boring class of Calculus with Mr. Kokonis and then headed down to the boathouse early for crew, spending about an hour sitting in my car listening to a tape of Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Band.

The Potomac River was the roughest it had ever been in my crew career that day, with whitecaps and the wind blowing from the southeast at 29 knots. I knew the exact speed, because there used to be a weather/boating phone number you could call from your rotary phone to get Potomac weather conditions. It was always voiced by a meteorologist who seemed pissed off to get stuck with forecast recording duty yet incapable of reading more than two words at a time, not unlike a drill sergeant with a brain tumor. "WIND SOUTH. TEN KNOTS. USE CARE. ON THE WAT. ER."

Because the water was so bad, my rowers just worked on the ergs while I surreptitiously observed the girls doing their workouts on the other side of the exercise room.

I got home around 4 PM that day to learn that I had won the $1000 Band Booster scholarship (not a big surprise since my name was on all of the plaques in all of the hallways everywhere), which bookended nicely with the $1000 Computer Science scholarship I had won the day before from Tech. Today, those amounts would probably buy a meal at the high-end athletes-only dining hall.

Later on, there was almost drama when I learned that I had to attend the scholarship awards ceremony in order to get it, in spite of the fact that it conflicted with the world premiere of The Admiral's Overture. The powers that be did not see any irony in denying me for a music scholarship because I was busy doing music, and I had to flurry between events like politician to get all of the moneys.

Review Day: Coursera

I just finished a free 10-week online course in "Designing and Executing Information Security Strategies". It was something of a soft-skills course, with emphasis on analysis and argument over right answers. Here are my thoughts about Coursera, based on my first class.

What I Liked

• The course materials are self-contained and all freely available. No textbooks required.


• Lectures are posted as slides and video, and text dumps of the video are available, to capture all of the extraneous comments the lecturer provides around the slides. You can playback the video at faster speeds to be more efficient.


• The weekly quizzes and assignments keep you more invested than just reading a book might.

What I Disliked

• Site navigation for this particular course was all over the place, reminding me of Blackboard in the 2000s. It's hard to get a big picture view of what you've done, what's due this week, and upcoming deadlines from one place.


• The multiple-choice quizzes are easily gamed. Answer order is randomized automatically, even if it's nonsensical, as shown by the number of "A" options saying "All of the Above". In this class' quizzes, generally all of the "check all that apply" questions needed all of the options checked.


• Most egregiously: Written assignments are peer-reviewed, with results ranging from "blind leading the blind" to "grades not grounded in reality" to "obviously I've never graded an assignment before". I graded at least two assignments back-to-back that were identical and obviously copied, many that had a bare minimum of English proficiency, and a few that were decent. In one assignment, I had to provide risk recommendations for new banking software that might be in violation of European privacy laws. I proposed starting a pilot with US citizens only, and expanding to foreign members after the initial kinks had been worked out. I got downgraded with this comment:

Overall, I found Coursera to be worthwhile for "personal growth" types of learning activities, but lacking in the rigor that would prove you had actually learned something. If I were to see a Coursera course on a resume, I would give the interviewee the benefit of the doubt that he or she had taken the course, but wouldn't assume that they knew the subject matter. I'm starting a course in Functional Programming with Scala this weekend, which I'm hoping will be a better fit, since there are right and wrong answers, and thus no peer review.

Final Grade: B-, good for personal growth but not certification

Brag Day

It's time to brag!

What is something you've been proud of recently that hasn't been properly noticed by the people in your real world life? Post in the comments section for maximum adulation and we can all pat each other on the back!

If you have done nothing you are proud of recently, post something impressive you plan to do in the coming year, besides not dying!

Weekend Wrap-up

I've had a lingering cold outstaying its welcome since last Wednesday, so I really wasn't up to much this weekend besides napping and gaming. We did get out to Delmarva's for dinner on Saturday, where we sat on the patio and heard the distant strains of a Red Hot Chili Peppers / Muse cover band. After dinner, we were unsuccessful in locating the band on foot, but we did get to keep our Starr Hill glasses from the dinner promotion.

On Sunday, we went out to Linden for belated Easter time with Rebecca's Loudoun third of the family.

Very little else happened, although we finished season one of Orphan Black and Rebecca beat Ben at Hearthstone in spite of Deathwing (thanks, Hex!)

How was your weekend?

Quiz Day: Me Me Me!, Part II

Did you ace the last quiz about me? Try round two! Hover your mouse over the right column to see the correct answers.

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2014 album.

• Events
  • We took a trip to the Greenbrier Resort for three days of hiking and khaki pants, stopping in Staunton along the way.
  
  
  • We had two birthday dinners, one for my mom at the Carlyle in Shirlington, and one for my father-in-law on our back porch.
  
  
  • We went to Easter service at Riverside Church, and had post-Easter Easter in Linden with the Whitmer clan.
  
  
  • I got sick again this month, which went on longer than necessary but was not nearly as messy as in February. However, I also bit my lip on the same day, and its failulre to heal for the entire duration of the sickness made eating irritating.
  
  
  • I worked on multiple proposal efforts, one of which we lost to NGIT.
  
  
• Projects
  • I finished an online course, started another one, built a badminton net, and installed a hook in the shed to hang sheddy stuff.
  
  
• Consumerism
  • We watched Orphan Black and were bored out of our minds by the third season of Game of Thrones (so far).
  
  
  • I bought some new dress pants after waddling through the Greenbrier in my old canvas tents.
  
  
  • I've been listening to the Nappy Roots album, Wooden Leather, along with the new Hoosiers album, The News from Nowhere.
  
  
  • On the games front, still nothing but Diablo and Hearthstone. Briefly considered Elder Scrolls Online, but haven't pulled the trigger.

April's Final Grade: B, very quiet, but satisfying