Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: Gripes

If you haven’t heard about the transition to Digital Television (DTV) by now, you've been living under a rock for the past couple years. My previous article, The Easy Guide To The Digital TV (DTV) Switchover explains what the transition is all about. If you are unsure about what the transition is, or how it affects you, you need to read that article.

Previously, the FCC and congress had mandated that all analog TV transmissions cease on February 17, 2009. At that point, people who were receiving analog transmissions over the air and had not appropriately prepared for the transition would lose television service. The hard cutoff date had also forced TV stations to prepare for the transition as well.

However, a bill recently passed (February 4, 2009) by both the Senate and the House will push the hard cutoff date back to June 12, 2009. The bill is currently awaiting the President's signature, but since he introduced the bill, it's almost certain that he will sign it. The thought process behind the bill is that the additional time will allow the remaining people to become prepared for the transition. Well I've got news for them: it's not going to work.

The Nielsen group estimates that there are still over 6 million people watching analog TV. Will this additional time get these people prepared? Probably a few, but in the end, it doesn't matter what date you pick for the cutoff, there are going to be people that are just not prepared. To be honest, with all the warning messages circulating around, if these people haven't prepared by now, they probably don't plan on becoming prepared by June either. Maybe they don't watch that much TV or they just don't care. Doesn't really matter what the reason is, there will still be lots of people unprepared in June.

You might be thinking: "This is great! I'm not prepared yet and now I have an extension!" Wrong! While the new bill does delay the hard cutoff date to June 12, the revised version of the bill (the version that passed) includes a provision stating that any local broadcaster that is fully prepared for the transition may shut down their analog signal BEFORE June 12! I can't imagine that there are many stations that aren't prepared already since they have been operating under the assumption that February 17 was the cutoff date. That said, I would imagine that a LOT of these stations would choose to cease their analog transmissions at the original cutoff date of February 17 to avoid the operating expense of transmitting two signals. I know all of my local stations are still switching on February 17.

So congress and the FCC have been saying for well over a year that the hard cutoff date is February 17, 2009. They have hammered that date into our skulls so many times with the onscreen messages and infomercial-like TV spots. And now, just 11 days from the transition date, there's a bill passed that states the DTV transition date has been pushed back to June 12, 2009. Undoubtedly, this will get media coverage. However, I doubt that the fact that individual stations have the choice to cut over early will get the coverage it needs. So come February 18, you might find yourself without TV when you thought you had until June 12.

And we thought it was confusing for people before! Way to go law makers!

Winter weather is officially here again after! After just getting our first two real snowfalls of the year, I am again reminded of something that annoys the bajeebers out of me. This time, I am not referring to Snow Drivers and the 4WD God Complex.

Has this ever happened to you? It has just snowed, and your local streets crew has been at it for hours clearing the roads so you can get around. They've done a pretty good job and the street is basically clear of snow and ice so you are traveling along at a normal speed. All of a sudden you pass in front of someone's driveway and it sounds like your car has just hit an animal. On top of that, you lose traction for a second. What just happened? You continue on. You pass another driveway, and BAM!, the same thing happens. You look back and what do you see?

That's right, someone has shoveled, plowed, or (as is most often the case) snow blown the snow from their driveway out onto the street. This creates a sudden patch of bumpy, slippery snow on an otherwise clean street. In my opinion this can create an unsafe driving condition when it is entirely unnecessary. Just think of the slippage that would be possible if this happed on a curve or near a stopping point.

Not only is this a hazard, but I find that this practice is just plain rude. The people doing this obviously have no concern for drivers that may pass in front of their house. Nor do they have concern for their neighbor whose driveway will end up plowed in due to their extra snow in the street. They also, apparently, think that they are too good really take care of their own snow. They throw it out in the street in hopes that the city plows will come take care of it for them. These people are so rude, that they will often snow blow out to the street even as cars are passing! Yes, I have been hit with projectile snow while driving. That's just plain rude.

Lastly, I believe that most communities have ordinances against this type of behavior for the reasons listed above. So depending on where you live, this practice may also be illegal.

So it's unsafe and rude, but it's also not very environmentally friendly. When you throw your snow on the road, it will eventually be taken care of by a plow. Snow plows make large piles of snow all along the road. And in the spring, the snow melts and become Urban Storm Water Runoff. If you haven't heard of it already, urban runoff is a growing concern because it can overwhelm the destination streams and rivers. The water can not be absorbed by paved roads and must run into storm drains which eventually empty into streams and rivers that can't handle the influx of water and may flood. Unnecessarily adding to the amount of this runoff is not environmentally conscious.

But what should be done with the snow from their driveways? These people should do like 90% of other people and move the snow from their driveway to their yards. Yes, their yards. This would completely eliminate the hazardous driving condition and people would not longer think you were rude (at least not for your snow removal practices). On top of that, the snow that melts in the yard will have a much higher probability of soaking into the ground to replenish our ground water supplies rather then just running away to eventually end up in a river.

I can't be the only one who finds this annoying. If you do as well, let your voice be heard! Leave a comment to this post.

If you are a blow-into-the streets kind of person, perhaps you should consider changing your ways.

I'm sure everyone has noticed lately that gas prices have been coming down. In my part of the country, we are almost back below $2 per gallon. (I still can't believe we're happy to be paying $2 per gallon). Part of the reason for the decrease in gas prices is the decrease in oil prices. Oil topped out somewhere around $140 per barrel back in July. It is currently trading around $65 per barrel. That's about a 50% decrease in just a few months.

So what about all these people that a few months ago said oil would NEVER come back down below $100? They said that oil prices going up was purely a function of increased demand and stable supply. Well some of us (myself included) disagreed. Check out a few of my previous blog posts:
More Signs Of Oil As The Next Big Market Bubble - June 16, 2008
Are Crude Oil Prices A Bubble Waiting To Burst? - November 7, 2007

My take on the situation was that while there probably was some increase due to demand, the increase in oil prices was disproportionate to the demand increase. This led me to believe that investors were throwing their money into oil to try to make a quick buck. It's one of the things we do best in this country. We see someone else get rich and we copy them so we can also get rich. Eventually TONS of people are involved in the same investment plan. But when we find out that most of the people buying are just get-rich-wannabes, prices collapse. In recent history you could easily refer to the housing market bubble, or the tech industry bubble.

So, I hate to say it, but...

"I told you so"

It's pretty obvious now that a huge portion of this price increase was due to speculative buying by investors. Check out this interview with Scott Bleiler, president of CreateCapital.com. He claims the price increases were solely due to speculative buying. I won't go quite that far. While I do think that maybe 90% of the price increase & decrease was due to speculative buying, I also think prices were also moved a little by changes in demand and the strength of the US dollar. But again, spec buying was the largest part.

Now that I got that out of the way, I can comment on how annoying OPEC is. When prices where out of control this summer, we were practically begging OPEC to increase supply to help lower prices. Their evaluations showed that supply and demand were matched fairly well so they did not increase output. Now that prices have come back to reasonable levels, they decide that they liked it better when they were getting $100+ per barrel so they've decided to decrease output. That is a pretty obvious slap in the face to us. I'm so glad that the recent ncreases in the strength of the dollar helped nullify their supply reductions to meaningless. It literally had no effect on the price of oil. Yet another indication that the price of oil does not move based solely on supply-demand.

That pretty much sums up how I view the whole oil market situation over the past 2 years. Now when will prices of other goods (food, retail, air travel, etc) that went up "due to the increase in fuel costs" go back down? Not any time soon is my guess. Many retailers tried to wait as long as possible to raise prices. This means some may have taken significant losses during those periods. As a result, they will probably be hesitant to reduce prices so they can recover some of those losses. And good luck for airfare. The only way that will come back is if one of the airlines starts a fare war.

To conclude this post, I just want to say that it was a great marketing ploy run by Chrysler this summer. Buy a new car and they would guarantee you $3/gal gas for 3 years. They got a person to buy a car with this deal in mind and now they don't have to pay anything out for it. Great job marketing, Chrysler.


If you want to leave a comment, I'd be interested in hearing what gas prices are doing in your neck of the woods.

Well the 2008 Summer Olympics have come to a close. And like millions of other people, I probably spent too much time watching them. But they only happen every few years, so it's no big deal if no house work gets done for those two weeks right?

Anyway, now that they've completed, I thought I'd share with you some of the complaints I have about how the Olympics were covered.

1. Taped Events Are OK

I really don't care if something is LIVE. I know that's a big catch word for television programming, but I could care less. I'd much rather see the taped version at a reasonable time of day. Case in point, was the men's basketball gold medal game which was shown live during the middle of the night. That's an event I would have been sure to watch, but because of the timing, and the fact that I DO have to sleep at some point, I wasn't able to watch it. Sure I could have recorded it and watched it another time, but then I would have been missing whatever was actually showing at that time, etc.

2. Too Much Beach Volleyball

Yes we kick butt at beach volleyball. We already knew that. But, I can see beach volleyball on network TV on many regular weekends during the summer so it's nothing special. I don't have a problem with them showing matches as it gets close to medal time, but they probably could have cut some more of the pool-play games.

3. Too Much Track, Not Enough Field

We got to sit through numerous heats for several of the track events, but when it came time for field events (shot put, javelin, high jump, etc), we were lucky if we got a "summary" compilation video. Many of the track races are pretty boring anyway - just people running at different speeds. Why not mix it up a bit and let us watch some of the more unique field events? Is it because we may not be dominant in that event? Regardless, they are fun and different to watch and I'm bummed I missed out on them.

4. Who The Heck Wants To See An Entire Marathon?

I mean, come on. They run for over an hour! If there was ever a time to do a "summary" compilation video of an event, this would be it. Yet both the men's and women's marathons were shown in their entirety.

5. Show Some Obscure Events

I would have liked to see more of the events that are not normally available on network TV. Things like equestrian, archery, Greco Roman wrestling, fencing, badminton, table tennis, etc. These things got a little bit of play, but usually not much to be worth sitting down to watch. The way I see it, part of the Olympics is to expose us to sports that are very popular in other countries. Too bad we didn't get to see much of them.

6. Did They Have Soccer This Year?

I didn't see any soccer matches on network TV. One of the most popular sports in the world and we didn't get to see any of it. At least show the gold medal match!

7. Not Everyone Has Cable Or High Speed Internet Access

I didn't actually check the listings, but I'd bet that there was a decent amount of good stuff shown on NBC's other networks or their web site. News flash, not everyone gets those channels or has a connection speed capable of streaming video. They would have been better off cutting out a lot of the pointless comments made by Bob Costas and showing more actual events on their main network.

8. Warn Us With Spoiler Alerts!

I don't know how many times I accidentally saw online, or heard on the radio the results of an event that hadn't even been broadcast yet! That REALLY irks me. One in particular was when Shawn Johnson won gold on the balance beam. Since I live in Iowa, I had to hear about the results well before it was televised. Really takes all the excitement out of it! At least warn us before you spoil it so we can divert our eyes and ears.

Summary

To sum up my complaints: More variety, more content, less pointless banter.


Regardless of these complaints, I still really enjoyed the Olympics and always have. I just wish they were shown a little bit differently.

There have been a lot of bad products invented over the years, but there has to be one product at the top of the list that can be classified as the worst product of all time. Lately, one product has been really aggravating me and I'd like to nominate it to be the worst product ever invented. While it may not be as mindlessly pointless as other products (pet rocks, etc), its widespread use puts it over the top.

The product that I'm talking about is polystyrene (more commonly known under the trademark Styrofoam.

So what is it about polystyrene that I hate?

1. Most places do not accept it for recycling. Even though polystyrene often has a recyclable number on it, many municipalities do not accept it. This means that many people are forced to send it to the dump.

2. It's big and clunky. The polystyrene that you get from packaging materials are intended to protect the contents of the package. They do this very well, but those large chunks of packaging are hard to fit in a garbage can. They can't be smashed down like packing paper. And if you do try to smash it down, it leads to reason number 3.

3. It breaks into a million tiny little pieces. If you've ever tried to break this stuff up to fit into a garbage can, you know that it doesn't break/smash cleanly. The breaking action lets loose hundreds of little tiny pieces of the stuff. This leads to issue number 4.

4. The pieces are charged with static electricity. After covering yourself and your surroundings with little pieces of loose polystyrene, you will be hard pressed to get them off. Try to throw them away and they just stick to your hand. Try to wipe them up and they stay stuck to whatever they are on. About the only good way to get rid of them is to vacuum them up which is not always practical.

5. Lastly, the main reason that this should qualify for worst product ever is because it is so widely used. It is used in packaging just about everything under the sun which means you have to deal with it a lot in your lifetime.

Well those are my reasons why polystyrene is one of the worst products ever made. Sure it has some good qualities (it floats, it protects, it insulates), but it is a huge pain the way I see it.

If you have other nominations for worst product ever, leave a comment.

This winter has been one heck of a ride. Here in the Midwest it's been one of the worst winters we've seen in years. Very cold temperatures, high winds, and lots and lots of snow and ice. You learn a lot about a person by how they drive in the snow. The way I see it, there are basically 4 types of snow drivers:


1. Those who know basically nothing about snow driving.

The tell-tale signs of this driver are excessive amounts of fish tailing, spinning tires when trying to gun it out of an intersection, sliding into an intersection with brakes locked, and of course the car in the ditch so long it's been drifted over. These drivers end up in accidents and in the ditch quite often.

2. Those who are OVERLY cautious.

You can recognize this person when they start driving 25MPH on the highway at the slightest flurry, they completely change their travel plans when snow might be in the forecast, they will follow a snowplow whenever possible, and they are often the type of person that is obsessed about snow blowing (not shoveling) their driveway and putting down ice melt.

3. People with four wheel drive (4WD).

These are the people who think that because their truck/SUV can spin one wheel in back and one wheel in front that they are automatically impervious to the perils of snow driving. Signs of this driver are a big truck/SUV barreling down the highway at 70MPH in the snow. Often there will be a sticker of Calvin urinating on another logo. Granted, 4WD DOES have its advantages, but it is not the holy grail of snow driving by any means, and it has little effect on a sheet of ice. We have a Ford Escort and a Dodge Durango (4WD) and more often than not, we have found that the Escort gets around in the snow just as good as (and sometimes better than) the Durango with 4WD on. (The Durango does better in DEEP snow because it rides higher).

4. Those who know how to drive in the snow.

These are the drivers who judge the slipperiness of the road and adjust their speed/braking/turning accordingly. These are the people who make it to work when it's a blizzard. These are the people who DON'T get in accidents. This is the type of snow driver that YOU ought to be.

Now, which type of snow driver are you?

I'm sure you've seen the massive amount of new headlines stating that the economy is headed for the hole. Well so have thousands and thousands of investors. The result is a massive flock of scares shareholders selling off all their investments because they think the stock market is going down the tubes. Well, I got news for them: YOU'RE CAUSING THE DECLINE!

By over saturating the market with sell orders, the demand for these shares diminishes and so does the selling prices. Other investors see their stocks going downward and they decided to jump ship also which only enhances the downward spiral. Smart investors (the people that get rich off of times like this) are just waiting for the right time to start snatching up all of these stocks at discounted prices. Once these big time investors start buying, the little guys will say "Hey, they know something I don't so I will follow their lead and buy also." And low and behold, demand increases and stock prices go back up. The people who made the most money were the ones who bought in at the bottom and started the upward climb.

So, to those of you who are private investors, don't dump your declining stocks just based on outlook. Don't be part of the problem. Hold on to those stocks. If it's a decent enough company the price will come back. In fact, many of you may want to pad your investments by buying some more of these companies at discounted prices. I know I will be looking heaving at this.



Disclaimer: I'm just an amateur investor and have had no formal training. Please do your own research on a company before deciding to invest wisely. I can not be held responsible if you lose money on the stock market.

Since I missed it in January, I thought I'd go ahead and post the list of the most popular posts in 2007. So here they are:

1. Is This Hunting Or Fishing? - Contains link to a video of people bow hunting for Asian Carp. Also includes some information on the problems created by this invasive species.

2. What? Worms Are Bad For The Ground? - Information about invasive species of earthworms and how they can damage forest vegetation.

3. Pay-Per-Channel Television Service - My musings on how great it would be if cable/dish providers would allow us to choose only the channels we wanted and then charge us for just those channels.

4. Are The Sun's Rays Weaker? - Questioning the ability of the sun to burn us due to the carbon-laden air. The resulting comments are very informative.

5. Chris Dodd Might As Well Give Up - I hate to say it Chris, but I was right. You lasted little longer than 1 or 2 caucuses/primaries and what do you have to show for it? A bunch of wasted time, money, and resources. You were never a contender.

Well, there you have the top 5 of 2007. Enjoy.

For the past couple years, complaints about rising gas prices have been met with responses such as "When you adjust for inflation, it's still much cheaper than it was in the late 70's early 80's". Well, we can now say that this is no longer true. Even when you adjust for inflation, we are currently hovering right around the all-time high prices. Take a look at the graph:


Source: http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/Gasoline_Inflation.asp

In the graph (yearly average price), you will see that the previous peak in 2007 dollars was around 1980 when the average price for the year was around $3.05/gallon. Obviously, since this graph is averaged out per year, some of the high peaks we have already seen this year will be smoothed out. But there may have been enough high days in this year to push our yearly average above the previous high.

So, we might end up having to say that 2007 was the most expensive gas year ever.

When we were designing the floor plan for our new home, we decided to put a wood burning fireplace in the family room. We love the ambiance that a traditional wood burning fireplace gives, and our goal was not to use this fireplace as a primary heat source. It has recently become time to start looking at the fireplace choices, and I was surprised to see relatively few choices.

If you take a look at the Home Depot or Lowes websites, you will find that they don't offer a single wood burning fireplace. They have several wood burning stoves, but those are definitely more for heat than looks. They have several gas models available, but to us, gas just doesn't compare with a real wood burning fireplace.

So I started wondering, "Why aren't there more choices for wood burning fire places?" A little investigation leads me to believe that there are fewer options available because certain areas have enacted laws and/or bans regarding wood burning and the smoke that it produces. It seems like this process should be relatively carbon neutral because the carbon released through burning would be the same as if the tree just laid on the ground and decayed. So the issue appears to be smoke and smoke particles.

Newer wood burning stoves and even some of the newer wood burning fireplaces are EPA certified to only allow a certain amount of particles into the air. Unfortunately, an EPA certified fireplace has the look of a wood burning stove and not a traditional fireplace. Additionally, these EPA certified fireplaces are primarily used for a heat source. Therefore, they have thick doors to close and little viewing area.

So, should I feel guilty about choosing a standard wood burning fireplace? Our house will mostly be energy efficient (efficient windows, geothermal heating and cooling, etc.), so having a standard fireplace wouldn't be that bad. Besides, I will probably light less than 20 fires a year and they will most likely only last a few hours. If I'm building my fires correctly and using the right woods, it will minimize my smoke output.

You can't be green all the time, just minimize the amount of time that you can't.