So the House passed the historic bail out bill in seemingly record time. Our economy is now saved… right? I dont understand it. It doesnt seem that the media understands it either. I trust that they know what this is for, but I have doubts. It is easy to not tell the whole truth in matters like this. It is meant to be confusing and daunting.

When will we start seeing the results of this bail out? Will it be immediate? Will the financial pinch we are all feeling go away? Will our debts be removed? I doubt all of it. I dont think I will see any economic improvement personally. I am no economist, so what do I know anyways?

All I know is that I am glad that the Kids’ Wooden Arrowheads and Auto-Racing Tracks will be helped in these hard times.

…that during the last eight years of a Republican president,  the U.S. has come to resemble an increasingly socialist-like state.  From time to time, I hear someone accuse Obama of wanting to turn the U.S. into a socialized state due to his proposal for nationalized health care.   This article sums up recent events better than I could. In the end, wouldn’t it be better to actually get something useful from our government if it’s going to be nationalizing key industries with our tax dollars?

The entire situation is upsetting.  Free-market capitalism has been the supposed bedrock of American values and independence.  Yet all it’s earned us as U.S. citizens is a projected $4000 per person to go towards nationalizing wall street and the banking industries.  Yet, because we are scared of admitting to ourselves that perhaps the “American Way” hasn’t put us ahead of anyone else in the end (if you need proof look up recent exchange rates for the U.S. dollar) we will continue to shout for less regulation and smaller government only to have our government swell and take more and more from us while returning very little that is actually useful to our daily lives.

Here’s something to think about, can you argue with this statement?:
“The average American is working two and half jobs, gets two weeks off, and has all the employment security of a one-armed trapeze artist. The Bush Administration has preached the “ownership society” to America: own your house, own your retirement account; you don’t need the government in your way. So Americans mortgaged themselves to the hilt to buy overpriced houses they can no longer afford and signed up for 401k programs that put money where, exactly? In the stock market! Where rich Republicans fleeced them.”

-BILL SAPORITO Time magazine/CNN.com

Finished Workbench – front, originally uploaded by biblicone.

I finished the workbench in the basement last night. I worked on it for about 2 or so hours each night for 3 nights. I used found plywood and bought some scrap wood from Home Depot. The whole bench including the wood, pegboard and peg organizers cost me under $40.

I would like to add some more shelves underneath and also some cross braces on the legs. Any lateral force on the top can wiggle the table.

My computer crashed the other day. It has happened to me before, so I wasnt worried. Reboot – windows starts – but the onboard network connection cant be found. The add on sound card cant be found. Whats the deal?

Reinstalled win xp pro SP2 – onboard network still cannot be found. Onboard sound card cant be found… how weird. I have a feeling its a bunk motherboard. It has killed a couple sticks of RAM in the past.

The processor I have (AMD 64 dual core 3800) is only like 2 or 3 years old max, but its really hard to find socket 939 motherboards anymore. I ended up ordering from some off brand Foxconn 6150BK8MC-KRSHN2 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6150B(PV) GPU Micro ATX AMD Motherboard for about $50. Lets hope this replacement works… I dont really want to have to pay to upgrade right now.

Though if I did upgrade – Intel is the processor to buy right now – the 775 socket e6550 or better probably. This upgrade would have to include the processor, motherboard and ram ( and possibly a heatsink for the processor).

More to come later

Three guys came to a motel and asked for a room with 3 beds. The manager said that the room rent was $30. They said they will check the room and pay for it. So the boy took them to the room, they liked it and each paid with a $10 note and the net amount came to $30. The boy went back to the manager and gave him $30. Then the manager realized that they had discounts at that time and that the room rent was actually $25 for the day. Since he was honest, he gave $5 (5 1 dollar notes) to the boy and asked him to return that money to those guys in the room. While going to the room, the boy thought that they cannot share the amount of $5 equally and since they didn’t pay him the tip last time, he thought that he will take $2 and give them back $3 so that each gets $1 back. He silently slipped $2 into his pocket and went to their room and gave each guy $1. Everyone was happy.

But here is the question about it.. Initially the three visitor guys gave $30. Each paid $10 and got $1 back. This means each paid $9 and so the total they paid is $27. $2 were stolen by the hotel boy. We have the count for $27 + $2 = $29. What happened to the remaining $1 ???

This is a story of Mark Robohm who remodeled his space on the cheap. For under $12,000 he completely gutted and rehabbed his living space in New York mostly by himself in about a year and a half. He reused materials from the gut. He laminated his own countertops. And best (or worst) of all, he lived in the space the whole time.

Obviously he must be very handy with tools and/or figuring things out quickly. His occupation is web deisgn… so maybe he just looked everything up online. I do.

Here is the NY Times story.

I filled up my tank this morning and calculated my mpg for the tank. I got a little over 35 miles per gallon! Its been slowly getting better the more I drive. In the beginning it was getting around 30mpg, and now its great. I wonder if it has to do with the humidity level or the temperature outside. I imagine it does effect fuel efficiency.

At 35 mpg, it is right on par with the 2008 revised fuel efficiency ratings. Luckily our gas prices here range between $2.45 – $2.70 which is less than the average price per gallon the guide uses.

The guide can be viewed here.

*Just kidding. It’s a $3800 set.