I haven't read Into Thin Air, but I have read Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, which is about Mormon fundamentalists. He has a great, suspenseful narrative style. I've been meaning to pick up Into Thin Air, but I have recently read Forever on the Mountain, which is a story of climbers who died on McKinley, and I guess I'm not ready to read another mountain disaster epic at this time.

I felt sad to see that dead snake. It looks like a beautiful animal. And yes, I've had some experience with rattlesnakes. They're really not that dangerous if you leave them alone.

I read CNN Money for motivational purposes and today they have a series about people needing to go back to work. One story was a guy who quit his job a few years ago at age 58 for an early retirement to try his hand on the senior golf circuit. His wife was still working. He had 400,000 in a 401K and 500,000 of company stock. They also had some sort of modest annuity and his wife was still earning 140,000/year at her job. Three years later his wife lost her job, his old company went belly up and so the 500,000 in company stock is worth $0, and they kept spending $8,000 a month on living expenses, thus burning through all but $13,000 of his savings. I just shook my head thinking that here was a couple who was making $290,000 per year and working in the financial world, no less, who didn't have enough financial wherewithal to save enough/spend wisely enough to retire for more than three years. I mean, some unfortunate stuff happened to them, but still. CNN gave him a money makeover as he looks for work again, telling him to cancel his $700/month golf membership and spend 40 hours a week looking for a job instead of golfing, but it ended with this little gem: Update Bertrand's coaching sessions were a big wake-up call. <snip: some things he changed> One thing he hasn't done yet: cancel his golf membership. His rationale? Says Bertrand: "I can really get a lot of networking done there." There are a couple of other stories there that will also make you shake your head. http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/22/news/economy/job_makeover_project_manager.moneymag/index.htm?postversion=2009062213

You were not then and never could be a shrew. :001_wub: (And sorry for outing you as the wife of this sometimes opinionated guy, but I just couldn't help myself.)

No, it does not appear so. Highereducation raises a good point. We have to remember that TLC producers take hundreds of hours of footage and edit them in just such a way to script whatever they want us to see. If Jon says something and then cuts to a disgusted look on Kate's face it's impossible to know whether she was really reacting to what he said or if that was spliced in to give us that impression. These shows are not really "reality."

I think a marriage can survive a lot of things--maybe even a reality TV show--but it probably can't survive lack of respect. That was what came out loud and clear in Kate's attitude toward Jon. And, not to excuse Jon's affair, but didn't Kate also have an affair?

On big, fluffy pillows, stuffed full of cash. ;) I found two or three hundred dollars in an unmarked envelope in the street once and it just so happened that I was next to the police station, so I turned it in. I was a poor college student at the time and admit that I was more than a little tempted. But my honesty was rewarded as nobody claimed the cash and ninety days later they gave it to me. Best of both worlds. :D

No, of course not. In fact, I gently made this point to a guy in our church who came by trying to get us involved in some get rich quick scheme. Why would I, a guy with a professional job and my own house, take financial advice from a guy who is still living in a studio apartment even though he was ten years older than me, and who didn't appear to have any sort of regular income? But look at Suze Orman. How did she get so rich? It wasn't by investing in the stock market, which she apparently deemed too risky for her own assets, it was by telling other people to invest in the stock market and by selling them a feel good message that essentially amounts to, "You're poor because you are scared of money. Stop being scared!" Meanwhile, she is spending 300,000 - 400,000 dollars per year on what most of us would consider a frivolous luxury. How will her message, her experience, and her lifestyle help me determine how to pay for my kids to go to college and allow me to save enough to retire? Orman is slick and chatty and full of charisma. A lot of fun to listen to. But if you followed her advice, you lost 40%+ of your portfolio in the last year and a half.

How on earth can you pay off a 30 year mortgage in five years? Let's say you have just bought your first house for $250,000 with 10% down. Your payment would be $1,350 per month at 6%. To pay this off in five years would require a payment of $4,350 per month. I don't know very many people who can come up with an extra $3,000 per month. If they had that kind of money, they'd have either put down more cash to begin with, or (more likely, given how Americans are), they'd have been shopping for a $750,000 house instead and they'd be in the same relative position. Pay off in fifteen, yes. Five years? No way.

I have a real problem with Suze Orman in particular. She has been trumpeting the stock market for years, even as Americans have seen their retirement hopes crushed by the collapsing stock market, yet admitted to the NY Times that she puts all of her own millions into bonds. She also claims she spends 300-500,000 dollars flying first class every single year. Someone who can make that boast is so far from my circle of reality that I don't want to look to her for financial advice. NY Times Interview with Suze Orman

Yes, the natural gas situation has changed dramatically for the better in the last couple of years. Of course it will run out eventually too, but if we're wise (wouldn't that be nice?) we can use natural gas as a bridge from oil to something else.

Doesn't he advocate paying off your debts by size of the balance instead of interest rate? This is probably good advice from a psychological standpoint, but not in terms of return on investment.

I had a good experience in Scouts as a boy, but I was being raised in a religious family where it was expected. I rose to the rank of Eagle scout and had many good experiences, highlighted by a trip to the National Jamboree in Virginia when I was fourteen. I am not religious now, but I don't regret my time in scouts at all. My boys, however, have not been particularly interested. My current nine year-old gave cubs a try, but grew bored.

We're mostly on the same page, then. It seems to me that most people who think the world is about to end want it to end, because they think the world is either in spiritual decay or because humans are trashing the environment. People who think that peak oil is going to bring civilization to its knees argue that to prepare for the end of the oil age we should have started to transition our transportation infrastructure decades ago and that it's too late now. While I do agree that we should have started a long time ago (or barring that, now), we did manage to build a vast rail network using only 19th Century technology and energy resources. We've also shown a remarkable ability to ramp up during times of war or crisis, so I think we'll do okay. It will likely be rocky for a few years, however. No, they are not. I'm of the opinion that nuclear energy is the only technology ready, right now, to deliver the amount of energy we need.

I got good discount tickets for Spamalot through Broadwayboxoffice.com, but make sure you use a dummy email to buy them as they'll send you updates/spam forever. While a big Broadway production is fun, don't overlook the huge selection of off-Broadway productions. Some great theater, and a lot cheaper.

Jorsay, Nobody is arguing that there aren't still huge quantities of oil left in the earth's surface, but the fact is that the low hanging fruit has largely been plucked. What's left is in deep water, or in war torn regions of the world or super giant, so-called elephant, fields that have been producing for decades. You refer to the two trillion barrels under Colorado and Utah as a resource. This is not actually oil, it is shale, with the energy density of baked potatoes (literally). It is what will become oil after millions of years of pressure from the earth. It may be that we can eventually produce this resource, but current plans talk about using nuclear reactors to produce an ice wall around fields, then superheating the shale within. This is not a trivial operation and flows will be more modest than what you'd find in a conventional field. I don't know if peak oil production was reached last year or will be in ten years, but it's clearly coming. Simply look at the major producers and how their production is gradually tailing off. There are only a handful of nations still increasing production and this number will dwindle over the coming years. Oil was $147/barrel last summer. If scaling up oil production were simple, we'd have seen it under those conditions. We did not. I'm of the opinion that we will likely transition to a post-oil future, painfully, rather than see civilization collapse. Either we'll develop electric or fuel cell cars or we'll rebuild our rail system that has deteriorated over the last eighty years. It is a legitimate problem, however.

My BIL is stationed in Kuwait and has been sending similar temperature reports for some time now. I would melt and die in that sort of weather. It has been about 50 and rainy all day here in the north country and it really doesn't bother me all that much, although plenty of locals are complaining about the weather.

This is why I think the law should force compliance on the seat belt issue. Society has already made the decision that it will fund lifetime disability and keep one's orphans from starving in the gutter. Therefore it is entirely consistent to require minimal protection against this sort of actuality.

I'm just curious as to whether people who say that one shouldn't regulate private behavior are also tolerant (or allowing, at least) of alternate lifestyles. It sounds like you are. You had expressed a libertarian perspective and I was wondering how far it extended. One thing I find very interesting about this board is that there is such a vast difference in opinion on some political and religious subjects. Most places that I have spent time on either offer no opinions (for example, a ski forum I'm on, where this stuff never comes up), or a certain group consensus begins to take hold.

It wouldn't hurt to call the non-emergency number, as has been suggested, even if there is likely an innocent explanation. It could be a Realtor taking pictures for some sort of neighborhood package, or a local zoning guy, or something else that will amount to nothing. But a call will settle your nerves, if nothing else.

I'd let it go. It's called upsell and pretty much every contractor will do this. Many people fall for it, which is why they do it. Assuming he didn't flat out invent the asbestos findings--and there are no indications that he did--all he did was offer an additional test and present his findings. It's the potential buyers who are freaking out, and this is the sort of thing that happens all the time. Oh, and it might get to the point where you just have to tell the buyers to take it or leave it. They'll probably keep pushing as long as you keep forking out the $$$.

Does this mean you would allow gay marriage?

Okay, how about this (and hopefully expressed without introducing my own grammar errors this time)? I would argue that manners are more lacking in our society than grammar skills. This girl showed good manners and should be commended for that. As for the execution of the thank you note, I'm not surprised. A high school diploma means very little these days. Even a college degree is devalued by the sheer number of people obtaining them. This is why post-graduate work has become the new metric for measuring one's education. It won't be long until a doctorate is de rigueur.

Her grammar may be poor, but the sentiments in the letter were gracious. I'm suspect she would feel humiliated if she knew that her English skills were being dissected on a public forum.

LOL. I misread this the first time through. Genesis? Who would name their child Genesis? Were his parents big Phil Collins fans? Oooh, the New Testament.