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posted at
12:19 PM
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I taught a class over the last couple of Saturdays and told folks they could send their homework to me at mike@mikepope.com. On Wednesday I got an email from a student telling me that the email address I had handed out wasn't working. (The student had managed to find me via a different channel, thank goodness.) I tried sending an email to the address I'd distributed, and sure enough, back it came.
The keeper of my domain (mikepope.com) is GoDaddy. As part of registering my domain and getting them to manage it, I'd gotten "free email forwarding" for the domain. When someone sends email to the mikepope.com domain (e.g., mike@mikepope.com), the message is forwarded to my other, "real" email addresses.
Some months ago, I started getting a steady volume of messages to my real email addresses that told me an email had bounced, often with the message "invalid recipient address." The strange thing was that these were bounces for emails that I had never sent. This turns out to be a well-known problem—spammers forge a From address on their spam mail (they don't want you to reply, they just want you to click the link in the email they send). Spammers use many, many different forged From addresses in their attempts to get around spam-detection strategies. Apparently the mike@mikepope address had fallen into the hands of just such a spammer.
I did investigate a bit whether there was anything I could do about this; I didn't want my ISP (Comcast) to think I was originating these spam emails. But nothing can be done, so I stopped worrying about getting these oddball bounces. In any event, the volume of these no-recipient bounce messages had tailed off recently, tho I didn't think much about it at the time. (I think I reckoned that Comcast's spam detection was filtering them.)
 Then came the incident with the class and the frustrated students, so I had a look. It turns out that I had misunderstood something about how email was handled for mike@mikepope.com. Yes, I've set up forwarding for that address at GoDaddy. However, I also have—I don't know whether I actually intended this or whether it was a feature of my domain hosting—an email account at GoDaddy. And over the last few months, that email account had been filling up with lots and lots of these bounce messages for spammers. In fact, the mailbox had reached capacity. As a result, when students sent me email, they were in turn getting a legitimate bounce message from mike@mikepope.com, which said:<mike@mikepope.com>
child status 100...The e-mail message could not be delivered because the user's mailfolder is full. Because I didn't understand that I had an actual mailbox at GoDaddy, this didn't make sense to me at first. But after hacking around in GoDaddy's wretched dashboard, I eventually got to the actual email mailbox that I didn't really grok that I had. The Inbox had hundreds (thousands?) of the spam-related bounce mails, along with a few legitimate emails. Oh and look, a nice red graphic told me I'd reached 100% of my capacity. (GoDaddy's response to this problem was to offer to sell me more space.)
I bulk-cleared the Inbox and Trash and now it all works again. Who knows how many legitimate emails I've missed because they got bounced from mike@mikepope.com and the sender didn't or couldn't try again. Hopefully not many.
Now I have to figure out what to do to prevent this in future. One way would be to monitor this GoDaddy-hosted mailbox. I might also just get rid of the GoDaddy mailbox (and keep just the email forwarding), since as far as I know I don't need it. I hesitate on this latter only because managing anything via the GoDaddy interface is ... not fun and not easy. And I don't want to break the part of the system that does work, namely forwarding. Ah, well—it wouldn't be a real website unless I had to screw with it all the time. :-)
[categories]
technology, personal
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Wednesday, 27 June 2012
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Blogaversary
posted at
09:26 AM
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A few stats:
Entries: 2,268
Words: 701,668 (not counting code)
Comments: 2418
Hits: 1,426,013
Something that's kind of amusing (well, to me) is a page that shows the times of day when I've posted, by hour. It seems, for example, that my most productive blogging time (posting time, anyway) is between 11:00 pm and midnight.
I've been thinking about rewriting the blog pretty much since I started it, what with new and better ASP.NET technologies coming out all the time. Perhaps year 10 will finally see that happen!
[categories]
blog, personal
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Friday, 27 April 2012
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Me versus the squirrels
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01:08 AM
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We have birdfeeders on our deck:Some of our birdfeeders
They’re nice. We see all manner of wildfowl — not just the variety of songbirds that we have here in the NW, but occasional surprise visitors like flickers and jays. Now and then we’ll see a hummingbird, who seems to visit the feeder when the pickings are slim elsewhere.
And then there are other visitors. Those would of course be squirrels:
 Squirrel [#]
As it turns out, many of the things that birds like, like sunflower seeds and suet, are things that squirrels really, really like also.
Now, I don’t have anything against squirrels as such. They’re, you know, cute and stuff. I don’t even particularly mind squirrels having a snack at the feeders.
But. But, but, but. Here’s the thing. The squirrels chase off the birds. Not deliberately, just because they’re big critters in comparison. And worse, they’re greedy little buggers. They don’t just come and have a handful of millet and then head home. Oh, no. They decimate the sunflower seeds and (especially) the suet. And worst of all, as they perform their acrobatics to get at the seed, they tip the birdfeeders so that all the seed pours out! I’ll fill the feeder and an hour later I’ll see a squirrel out there and the seed is all in a heap on the ground.
This would not do.
I had hopes for a while that I might get the dogs interested in this problem. “Look!” I’d urge them. “There’s squirrels out on the deck!” You know, get their predator instincts engaged. But the dogs are old, and my exhortations barely got them to stop snoring on their comfy dog beds. The cat was, if possible, even less interested.
I did a turn as a kind of human scarecrow. “Hey!” I would shout. I’d run out on the deck and stomp my feet. This worked, to the extent that it chased the squirrels away. But either they were savvy enough or stupid enough to come back in short order, and let’s face it, I can’t spend all day dashing out onto the deck to frighten the squirrels.
I could see that there was only one solution. I was going to have to shoot them.
(Keep reading.)
I knew just what I wanted, so I headed to a nearby sporting-goods store. When I went home, I had one of these things:
Pretty wicked-looking, eh? If you know your armaments, however, you might not be as impressed. (The orange ring at the business end of the barrel is the giveaway.) This is a CO2-powered airgun that shoots 6mm plastic pellets: plastic BBs, in effect.
See, I don’t really want to hurt the squirrels. All I wanted to do was instill in them a desire to go raid someone else’s birdfeeders. I thought that if they experienced the occasional stinging sensation when they came to visit, they’d learn — hey, they’re sort of like rats, right? — to associate that discomfort with our birdfeeders. Very Skinner.
This gun, it horrified my wife and the girls. I’m pretty sure my wife has never fired a real gun before. And although this thing is up just one level from a toy, it does have a bit of heft to it, and of course it’s designed as a replica of a real pistol. I showed her the plastic BBs and how it had a safety and everything. Almost harmless. See, you just point it at the tree over there, and just pull the trigger, and pft! pft! pft! The little plastic balls bounce merrily off the tree. Fun!
She looked … skeptical.
Anyway, thus commenced my attempts to shoot squirrels. Tricky business. For one thing, the squirrels knew enough that if they heard the patio slide open, or a window, they’d scamper off. And even if I could get off a couple of shots, it turns out that aiming a pistol — and in particular, using an air-powered pistol to shoot plastic pellets at a quickly moving target — is harder than it looks on TV. Probably for every dozen shots I fired (and then had to reload), 1 or 2 might come close.
And then it turned out that the few times I actually did hit a squirrel, the pellet would literally bounce off the beast. I’m not convinced that the squirrel even felt much.
So. I can’t say that my firearms-based defense against squirrels has been particularly effective. Basically, we play a game, the squirrels and I. I pretend to be Deadeye Dan, sharpshooter, who will pick off those pesky squirrels if they come tresspassing. And they pretend to be scared and scamper off when I open the window and level my weapon at them.
It’s more fun than running out and stomping my feet, tho.
Now, I’m sure my wife was somewhat surprised when I came home with what looked like a pistol to her. But she was even more surprised, I think, when I’d be doing dishes or something, then leap for the cupboard, grab the gun, throw open the window, and start blasting away. Who the hell was this guy she’d married, anyway? “Squirrels!” I would have to explain.
But there was a moment. I was making the long trek out to our mailbox one afternoon when I heard the definite sound of the airgun blasting away. When I went back inside, I had to ask. Well, it turned out that there had been squirrels at the feeder, so my wife had grabbed the gun from the cupboard, flipped off the safety, and … well, squirrels!
[categories]
FridayFun, personal
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Friday, 30 March 2012
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15 years and a book
posted at
07:05 PM
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The Scientific and Literary Treasury: A New and Popular Encyclopedia of The Belles Lettres: Condensed in form, familiar in style, & copious in information;
Embracing an extensive range of subjects in Literature, Science, and Art. The whole surrounded with Marginal Notes, containing concise Facts
with appropriate observations. By Samuel Maunder
This was published in 1858 in London. (Actually, it’s the revised edition — the original was published in 1840.) It’s a beautiful little (literally little) book, bound in leather with an embossed title on the spine. Here’s a picture:
(The glasses are in fact required; the book is set in 6-point type.)
And here’s a picture of the title and faceplate.
The evening after the lunch, we were piled on the bed while Sarah read selections to us out of the treasury. There is of course a certain style to books written in the mid-19th century, but Mr Maunder also has a distinct personality. Here he is in the Preface, introducing his work:
There are few tasks of more difficult accomplishment, than the one which an Author feels bound to undertake, when a performance which has engrossed much of his time, and to which he has probably directed his best energies, is about to be submitted to the public. Literary usuage appears, however, to have decided, that upon such an occasion, some prefatory observations are considered indispensable ; but, while prompted by a natural desire to enter somewhat freely into the merits of that which has occupied his most earnest attention, the overwhelming apprehension of being thought egotistical, and the bare possibility of really becoming so, will often paralyze the Writer’s well-intention efforts. In the present instance, I can truly say, that my incessant occupation from the hour I commenced this volume to the very eve of its publication, coupled as it has been with an anxious desire to render it worthy of public favor, have left me no time to consider what arguments would most likely to fix the reader’s attention to the following pages ; in what terms I should entreat his kind indulgence ; or upon what grounds I could venture to deprecate the severity of criticism.
May I be allowed to say, that I have endeavoured to produce a work, which — while I am fully sensible of its numerous imperfections — I trust, may be generally acceptable, and, I hope, extensively useful? I was also delighted with the following passage from the Preface, which in my line of work is known as “setting audience expectations”:
I am well aware how natural it is for a person who is engaged in any particular study, or who has a predilection for some given topic, to be desirous of making himself as fully acquainted with it as possible, and to feel, perhaps, a degree of disappointment, where another person, with different views and pursuits, would be abundantly satisfied ; but the candid reader, I am persuaded, will grant, that a complete system of any science can hardly be expected in a work whose highest excellence must, after all, be a judicious brevity ; and that if the principles be clearly stated, they will often suffice till the details can be sought in works especially adapted for their elucidation. My great object has been to produce a book that should meet the wants and wishes of a very large and most respectable class of readers, whose opportunities of studying the ponderous tomes of science are as unfrequent as their aspirations after knowledge are ardent. To the literati, I know it can present few attractions ; to the man of science it presumes not to offer anything new. But there may be times, when even these may find it convenient to consult a hand-book of reference, so portable and yet so full, if it be merely to refresh the memory on some neglected or forgotten theme. As promised, the book has marginal notes on every page containing concise Facts. Here’s a picture of one page that shows that there’s a Fact not just on the bottom, but running up the page:
We decided that Our Author had certain predilections himself. For example, consider the contrast between the entry for Dog, which begins like this and goes on for about the same length again:
DOG, (Canis familiaris), an animal well known for his attachment to mankind, his incorruptible fidelity, and his inexhaustible diligence, ardour, and affection. But when we thus describe this faithful animal, we mean those only which man has domesticated. In his wild state the dog is a beast of prey, and of the wolf kind, clearing the earth of carrion, and living in friendship with the vulture. By Mahometans and Hindoos the dog is regarded as impure, and neither will touch one without an ablution ; they are therefore unappropriated, and prowl about the towns and villages, devouring the offal, and thus performing the office of scavengers. Tamed and educated by man, the numerous good qualities of dogs have claimed and received the tribute of universal praise. Their sensibility is extreme ; witness their susceptibility of the slightest rebuke, and restless anxiety to be restored to favour. Uninfluenced by changes of time and place, these animals seem to remember only the benefits they may have received, and, instead of showing resentment, will lick the hand from which they have received the severest chastisement. The skill of several species in the chase, where they act as the purveyors of man ; their domestic habits ; their kindness to children ; in a word, their general congeniality with man himself, have, in all ages, recommended them to his use and care.[…] … and the entry for Cat; this is it in its entirety:
CAT, a well known domestic animal, of the feline genus, but sometimes wild in the woods, and large and ferocious. Anyway, we’ve been having a great time with this book, and all agreed that Mr Samuel Maunder must have been an interesting and congenial person himself. (His apparent aversion to cats notwithstanding.)
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FridayFun, books, personal
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posted at
07:43 AM
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Q: How many teenagers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: In a minute. I said, in a minute. Yes. Yes! I said I would, didn't I? All right, sheesh! I'm doing it now, okay? All RIGHT, I'll do it. God, you are SO ANNOYING.
Q: How many teenagers does it take to change a light bulb?
Q: I said, how many teenagers does it take to change a light bulb?
Q: I SAID, HOW MANY TEENAGERS DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB?
A: Did you say something?
Q: How many teenagers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That's NOT FAIR! It's not my turn! I did it last time!
Q: How many teenagers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I DID do it. I DON'T KNOW know why it doesn't work. You said change the light bulb and I CHANGED it, ok? It's not MY fault that you buy defective bulbs. Why do I have to redo it? It's NOT FAIR!
Q: How many teenagers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I FORGOT. All RIGHT, god, I'll do it later, OK? Leave me ALONE.
Q: How many teenagers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I DON'T HAVE TIME to do that, I have SO MUCH HOMEWORK because we have a test tomorrow that's SO HARD.
Q: How do you know it's a hard test?
A: Everyone keeps saying so on Facebook. Why yes, as a matter of fact, these were inspired by real events. :-)
[categories]
personal
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Thursday, 5 May 2011
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With age comes wisdom
posted at
03:18 PM
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Ready? Here we go.
The best time to throw a load of towels in the laundry is:- When it looks like you're getting low.
- When you have to keep using the towel you've been using for a week.
- When you've had to use the hand towel to dry yourself after a shower.
After you've washed and folded a load of towels, the best place to put them is:- In the bathroom next to the shower.
- In the laundry room two floors down.
The best time to add shampoo to the grocery list is:- When you've only got 1/4 bottle left.
- When you're out.
- When you've taken two showers without shampoo.
When you come back from the grocery store, the best place to put the new bottle of shampoo is:- In the shower
- On the stairs leading up from the garage.
The best time to put a bottle of shampoo in the shower is:- As soon as you've gotten back from the grocery store.
- After you've now taken three showers without shampoo.
Pretty deep stuff, eh? Well, my pretties, it's taken me a lifetime of hard-won experience to achieve these insights.
Gee, wonder what I'll learn next week?
[categories]
personal
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posted at
11:49 PM
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At one point, I'd been in the right-most lane, but I'd noticed that it was not moving very well. I peered ahead and saw that there was someone about 5 or 6 cars ahead of me who seemed to be slowing down and putting on his blinker, but then not turning, then speeding up, then slowing down, and so on. Basically, an erratic driver.
I swung into the left-hand lane. It was still during rush hour, so there was a fair bit of traffic, but in my lane, at least, things were moving pretty smoothly, so I was able to move up a bit. As I was getting close to the erratic driver (ER), tho, the car that was immediately behind him started moving into my lane, apparently fed up with ER and intending to get out from behind him. Like this, allowing for my primitive drawing skills:
I was forced toward the island, obviously, but thankfully, the impatient driver did notice me and jumped back into their lane.[1] I'm not perfectly clear on possible outcomes, but I think there was a chance that the car would have hit me.
This was a classic motorcycle hazard. It was bright daylight outside, and it was dry (at that moment). I was wearing a high-visibility helmet and even my bright-yellow rain jacket. The motorcycle has a loud exhaust. And yet the driver apparently did not see me. In the UK and Australia, motorcyclists know this as the SMIDSY problem ("Sorry, mate, I didn't see you"). There's a YouTube video of bikers telling their stories of not being seen.[2]
For me there were three lessons in this:
1. Stay out of people's blind spots. Or if you can't help that, at least be on super-sensitive guard. As truckers say, if you can't see their mirrors, they can't see you. Same for cars.
2. It's particularly dangerous when there's a big difference in the speed of adjoining lanes. If everyone is going happily in the same direction at the same speed, unexpected things are somewhat less likely to occur.[3]
3. If people are frustrated, they'll do impulsive things. Like impatiently jump into another lane. I know this phenomenon as a car driver, and when I'm in the HOV lane on freeway, I watch like a hawk for people lurching into that lane in order to get moving. I should have realized that the erratic driver was not just piling up cars behind him, but piling up increasingly agitated drivers who might do something unexpected.
And a kind of fourth lesson: someone reminded me that you should watch the front wheels of cars to anticipate what they're going to do. Good tip.
So, valuable lesson. I'd like to think that it doesn't take periodic near-accidents to keep me alert to this sort of thing. One of the biggest safety factors in driving a motorcycle, I think, is a combination of low-level fear and general distrust of others. Need to keep those things fine tuned.
[categories]
personal, motorcycles
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posted at
12:55 AM
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The 450 was a classic starter bike — easy and fun to ride. So much so that it led to an interlude with a Yamaha 650 that is overall best forgotten, other than it was a valuable (in fact, expensive) lesson in the intricacies of carburetors and the difficulties in getting parts for old bikes. In this period and while son Zack and I were getting ourselves used to the whole world of motorcycles, we attended a motorcycle show here in Seattle, where I developed an instant crush on a 2010 Honda Phantom Shadow. The "shadow" part alludes to the color theme, which deemphasizes chrome in favor of black. (I believe this was the first in this vein, tho now all the manufacturers have variations of this matte-on-black scheme.) The bike has a vaguely retro look that hails back to the days of 1940s Harleys (think Marlon Brando in "The Wild One") and in dispensing with chrome is also meant to invoke a kind of bobber style.
The thought of this bike percolated in my brain for a number of months until last February (2010), when a stretch of sunny weather sent me to the dealer, where the object of my motoric affection was on the sales floor, and before you could say "Put it on the AmEx card!" I was riding it home. An impulse purchase that was months in the making, so to speak.
Every new car owner has this experience, but it was still a profound one: I would go to the garage and gaze at the bike, not entirely believing it was mine. It was, I think, the most beautiful thing I'd ever bought. Tom Wolfe once characterized the world of car customizers as a kind of sculpture, and so I felt (feel) about my bike.
 Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, says Thoreau. Turns out, tho, that getting into motorcycles requires a certain level of accessorization. You need yer protective jacket, of course, and protective gloves, and boots, and of course a helmet (law says, hey). (For those who don't mind looking too butch, there's chaps. Not for me, thanks.) Rain gear, this being Seattle. Not to mention all the doodads you can hang off the bike itself, like saddle bags and whatnot. As you might imagine, all of this stuff is priced in keeping with the primary demographic for motorcycles, which is guys of a certain age and with a certain level of disposable income, if you get my drift.
Learning to ride was an interesting experience; it was similar to learning to drive a car, with all the stress that entailed. Only with a less stable and more vulnerable vehicle. Truly I can't imagine trying to learn to ride a motorcycle without two areas of previous experience: a childhood spent on a bicycle, which gives a body a sense of how to maneuver a two-wheeler; and decades of driving a car, which had developed in me an instinctive feel for traffic flow and a reasonably reliable sense of what that guy in front of me (behind me, next to me) was likely to do. The idea of trying to learn to operate the vehicle, to keep a bike upright, and to monitor traffic, all at the same time — man, I could not have done it.[2]
Anyway, the bike. When I became smitten with the Phantom, I had done a bit of thinking about what I might in a bike, but it was somewhat speculative, given how little actual experience I had had. Size? Style? I had looked at a number of bikes, but had no clear idea. Until I met the Phantom.
After a year, I'd have to say that I actually made a very good choice. Not because I'm particularly astute, as noted, but due to a combination of good luck and, frankly, some nervousness. The bike has these characteristics that I like:- 750 cc engine. I had wanted something that would not strain to drive at freeway speeds. Turns out 750 is a good size for me at this stage. In the last year I've heard stories about people who were comparative newbies like me and bought bikes that were basically too big for them, hence didn't really end up enjoying motorcycling. A benefit of the "nervousness" aspect of my choice.
- Fuel injection. I had some bad experience with carburetors, and as it happens, the 2010 model was when Honda was introducing fuel injection across its line. Between the 750 cc's and the injection, I get a steady 50 mpg.
- Cruiser style. As cool as sportbikes (ninja-style "crotch rockets") look, I couldn't see myself spending hours leaned over, feet backward toward the pegs. The 450 I learned on had pegs directly below the seat, meaning I rode upright; comfortable enough. I was slightly worried that the cruiser style (pegs forward) would be uncomfortable, but I've had absolutely no problem, even after riding for hours.
 Fat front tire. I had barely thought about this before I got the bike, but a fat front tire makes the front more stable on things like grooved pavement or seams in the concrete. More salve for the nervousness.
- Modest rake for the front fork. No Easy Rider fork for me. The longer the fork, the harder to turn.
- Windshield. I debated about this one, but finally got a removable SwitchBlade windshield. I'm happy with this now, but it took a couple of tries; the first one I got was too tall and became practically opaque in the rain. I now have one I can look over if I want to.
There have been a few hiccups, of course. Part of the bike's look is that it has spoked wheels. Lovely, but that means no tubeless tires, which means that a flat tire is basically twice as expensive to fix. (Motorcycle mechanics don't patch tubes or tires; they replace them.) I still haven't completely sorted out how to carry stuff around with me. I have saddle bags, but they have limited capacity.
I'm about 10,000 miles in. (If I remember right, David Hough, who writes about motorcycle safety, says he's logged about 600,000 miles.) I'm acclimating (haha) to such things as how to ride year-round, which means things like keeping a change of clothes at work. (I've ridden in rain and hail, even, but will never by choice ride in icy or snowy conditions.)
I think that I'm about ready for my next level of proficiency class. In the meantime, I ride pretty much every chance I get. I will recount a few adventures in the fullness of time.
[categories]
personal, motorcycles
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posted at
07:33 PM
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I sent the form back and requested a "mitigation hearing," in which admit that you committed the infraction, but you tell them that there were, well, mitigating circumstances.
This all happened shortly before Christmas. My wife and I had attended a social event in Tacoma, which, let me emphasize, is not where we live, and which I don't know all that well. On the way home, through a set of maneuvers that I absolutely can't reconstruct, instead of going northbound on I-5 toward home, we somehow ended up going westbound on SR 16. Moreover, we didn't even realize this until all of a sudden I saw a sign for the Narrows bridge. But by the time I saw the sign, we were past the last exit on the Tacoma side, so like it or not, we were going to cross that bridge and head toward Gig Harbor.
Under the circumstances, the reasonable thing to do is to go to the next exit, get off the highway, and turn back the way you came. Yes? That's what we did. The exit immediately after the bridge is Exit 8, which is for 24th St NW. We got off there, crossed over SR 16, then got back onto the highway going eastbound toward Tacoma.
Now, we know that the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a toll bridge. I've even crossed it before (on the motorcycle). What was odd, then, was that after this U-turn that we did, we didn't encounter the tollbooth, which is on the eastbound side of SR 16. Instead, we merged onto the highway just a couple hundred feet from the bridge and sailed on across. I was willing to pay the toll (not without cursing myself for being an idiot), but we never even got a chance to do that. At that exact moment, it looked as if there was no toll if you somehow managed to get onto eastbound SR16 at Exit 8.
But of course, that isn't how it works. Apparently the onramp for Exit 8 is monitored by some of those "Good To Go" transponders that look for your prepaid pass. Which I of course don't have. So, as noted, the state cybercop tracked me down.
Here's how the system is laid out (click to see the Google Maps version):
Notice where the tollbooth is w/r/t Exit 8.
I'd bet a nickel (actually, I guess I'm betting $52, sort of) that there's a sign somewhere in the vicinity of the Exit 8 onramp that says something to the effect of "If you don't have a Good To Go pass, you can't use this exit." Or whatever. If there is such a sign, I didn't see it. (Neither did Sarah, fwiw.)
So that's the story I have for my mitigation hearing. If you were the judge, what would you say?
[categories]
personal, seattle
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Friday, 31 December 2010
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Personal 2010 Trends
posted at
08:58 AM
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Coins. 2010 might be the year I virtually stopped using pocket change. We've been on a long and very gentle slope toward a cashless society, but this is the first year I really noticed this in terms of carrying around coins in my pocket. I throw my spare change into a little piggybank, and in the last two years I accumulated only $27.29 in change. The only things I can remember actually using change for this year was a parking meter and the vending machine at work. However, the former takes cards, and the latter takes bills and everything is now at least a dollar (and most of it is inedible), so there are that many fewer places to get rid of coins.
Media. In 2010 we ditched cable TV. One of the local video stores went bust. My wife watches news and recent TV shows on her laptop. I listen to the "radio" using Pandora. We have a Netflix account, but 95% of the time, we watch something via streaming.
Wheels. In February I bought a new motorcycle. Since then I've put 8000 miles on it, mostly commuting. I don't have hard numbers, but I'm pretty sure that this is substantially more miles than I put on my car. In theory, I could call the insurance company and tell them that I only use my car "occasionally" or whatever their phrase is for a non-commuter vehicle.
Dogs. We have only 33% of the dogs that we started the year with.
Blogging. Holy cow, look at those numbers.
Happy end of 2010! Let's see what 2011 brings.
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personal
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