Polymers are just a bunch of mers

No no no, why?!? No!

2009-09-10T18:52:00.004-05:00

Happy New Year! As a present, a post I wrote a couple of months ago when I was writing my thesis one night trying desperately not to do what I was supposed to be doing and became easy distracted by flashing lights. I should have known I would never actually get through it, but here, I finished it off for you today:

I haven't blogged in ages. And I'm probably not going to start up again until I graduate, just so you know. I just haven't had time, and when I found something that would have motivated me to post before, I had something else to do and I quickly forgot about it. Then Zero Water happened ... two weeks ago. Which I promptly forgot about after having written half a post and now was reminded. But I'll try and display my frustration for you 2 weeks later.

Yeah, I quit on this post like 3 times. Should that have been a sign not to post it? Probably, but I am determined.

Oh my god.

I've seen these zero water commercials lately and laughed them off as I tend to do when I see stupid things for sale on TV, but every time I wonder what that little meter does that says 000 when you put the water through the Zero Water filter, but then I stop worrying about that and continue worrying about N-methyl glucamine. However, this time, I (stupidly) decided to google it to see what exactly it's measuring when it comes up with "000." I wandered around for a bit mostly spotting Zero Water propaganda and people who are selling it, and then I found this guy. I started reading, because I thought it was a joke. Oh silly silly me. I have been away from blogging for far too long. I did learn that the Zero Water meter is measuring total dissolved solids PPM (parts per million), which, it's not actually doing. It's just a pH meter--measuring the acidity or conductivity of the water. This doesn't measure TDSPPM as well as other things, but it gets within 10%. Super pure water doesn't measure properly this way anyway, but you don't want to drink that, because it will kill you ... seriously. But don't worry. Zero water is not anywhere near that pure.

A couple of things to point out. The writer of the linked blog discusses a few things that make me smile. For one thing, 000 TDSPPM isn't "zero total dissolved solids" like the dude says--it's just less that .5 parts per million. Trust me, there's a lot more than a million parts in your glass of water, and that's good, because like I said earlier, totally pure water will kill you. Also he complains about chlorine and iron being in his water claiming that chlorine is 'bleach' .... while that's sort of true, but he better not feed his kids salt, because by his definition, that's bleach too. This contraption also removes iron and mercury. Now, of course mercury is bad for you, but Iron is good for you. Is it worth it to take out the good with the bad? The answer is "Who the hell cares??" They EPA and the FDA set regulations on tap water so that it will be safe. If you don't like the way your tap water tastes, I can see getting a filter. If you are trying to be overly safe, you are worrying too much and a paying too much money.

And nevermind that some places like New York have some of the best tap water you can find because of all the minerals it picks up on the way to your faucet naturally from the reservoirs in that area. Your water is not going to give your children autism or make them sickly or anything like that. Unless it's brown ... don't drink it if it's brown ...

That's it for the previously written post. If I haven't talked to you in a while, I just graduated (hence the spare time to post), and I'm starting a job in Oklahoma City after a quick vacation in the Virgin Islands (it's really hard to find a floppy beach hat in Oklahoma in 20 F weather, and I know you feel really bad for me about that). I'll probably be moving half an hour North to chill in the city (yes, OKC has big buildings and *gasp* culture ... when I find it, I'll tell you all about it) soon and trying some new things with my oodles of spare time now that I only have one job and it does in fact end at 5 pm.

The burning question that I'm sure you have is, "Kendall, will you restart your blog?? (since it is so awesome and I miss your continual musings about crazy people??)." The answer to that is, I hope so. I am am working on a list of long term and short term goals because my friend @stephtheblogger was talking about it earlier this week, and jump starting the blog is on the list, so I hope to talk with you more. That's all for now.

The Phantom 30 gig

2009-01-28T15:32:00.002-06:00

I thought I'd write about Windows Vista before I forgot about the experience ... Most people seem to hate it and because of this no one uses it. Strangely enough, that seems to be the biggest problem I've found with Vista. Nobody likes to use it, so there's more scattered and confused tech support for it. There's also less software for it and just a general confusion about it ... You can tell, because Microsoft tried to attack this general dislike and confusion with the Windows Mohave ad campaign. I discovered this lack of support when I had a rather interesting problem with my system.

I was trying to partition the hard drive in order to put things like music on one partition so that when I inevitably need to reformat I wouldn't have to copy all 32 gigs of music I have to a back up drive and then back again after the reinstall. I figured I would split my 100 Gb hard drive in half and leave around 50 for windows and whatever I might need to install. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? I'd had the computer about a month and hadn't done anything crazy to it, so I went in to look at how to partition it, and ... there were about 60 Gb used. And my music wasn't even on it!! As a matter of fact, it wouldn't even fit nicely on there! I was astonished that vista took up that much space, so I went hunting to see what exactly needed all that room. I tried sizing the folders on the C drive, and then I became even more perplexed. The total space all the files on my C drive took up was about 30 Gb. There was a completely missing 30Gb. Like I said, I was very very perplexed. So I did what I always do when I am very very perplexed. I googled it. Because I have found that no matter what my compter problem is, someone, somewhere has already encountered and kicked the ass of said problem. It's a good situation to be in. Unless you're running Vista ... I searched for what I found to be an exceptionally long time for a computer problem for an answer to this question and not simply the confused question posted all over support forums. I even went to *gasp* the Windows tech support site ... I know. I was desperate. Anyway, I finally stumbled upon this forum thread which had the answer to my question!! but even that guy had a seemingly difficult time finding this ridiculous problem, *and* it was posted on an Ubuntu forum. The one good answer. Was posted on an Ubuntu forum. Really? So I turned off the system restore feature and recovered about 20 Gb (the other 10 it turns out is an additional Lenovo backup ... man that system was backed the heck up).

But really I'd just like to complain about the ridiculous situation Microsoft had got themselves into. I actually think that Windows Vista is pretty cool. The neato graphics are awesome. It looks cool. The search option in the start menu is *spectacular.* It utilizes IPV6 if that's your thing. Tablet functions are already built in if *that's* your thing. For the not-so-computer savvy, I think it's a great OS, because it pretty much does everything for you. The only reason I'm not using it now is that I had a nasty LAN problem with the network in my office. I had and IT person come look at it, because, well I didn't have time and it was a really weird problem and it took me so long to find Vista help the first time ... He couldn't get it to work (He was seriously in my office at least twice a week for about a month, poor guy.), so I quit and installed XP over the break. Now I have a few more moments to look around for a good answer, and it turns out it wasn't even really a Vista problem.

For the computer savvy, it's rather annoying, because you have to navigate through about 4 or 5 menus to get to things like network connections just to disable the wireless connection. It does a lot of things on its own, and that is pretty cool, but never take away my manual option, because it never fails that something will go wrong and even if the manual option doesn't work, it could still give me more information as to what is going on. But I don't think Windows is really going for the small percent of the population that is computer saavy with their general OS.

So what happened with Vista, which has done nothing evil to me besides eat some of my hard drive space and waste a little bit of my time due to an incompetent OU network? Well, the trouble is something that causes problems, I think, in most of the world. Too many people take other people's word for it. Newscasters, Oprah, Politicians, the New York Times (who once "wrote" an article stating that blonds will die out by the year 2020 or something ridiculous. This story had months before circulated as spam and was proven to be incorrect by snopes.com and apparently has been around for a loooong time. Seriously? I wrote them a nasty email), bloggers, Wikipedia (don't get me started on high school science teachers who don't bitch slap students for using wikipedia as a reference--though it is generally very good, and I do love it ... ) Obviously the internet and TV don't really help this situation.

I find that to be a recurring theme in this blog and something that generally annoys me about people. If someting can easily be experienced first hand, don't be lazy and just rely on stereotypes and public opinion. Everything is spun. I think that will be my new year's resolution: Experience more things first hand. (What? I'm only like a month late--you should ask my professor how late my papers get in ....)

... Or maybe Vista really does suck ;-)

PS. I've got a new polymer post coming up! At least Steph should be excited about that!

Hiatus

2009-01-10T20:35:00.007-06:00

Hi friends!

I've been very quiet for the last month or two (holy crap, has it been that long??). I could tell you what went on, or ... no wait that'll take up good blog-space. Let's see, the last post was on ... wow. November 17th. Well, now I wouldn't be surprised if everyone stopped reading it. Thank goodness for RSS feeds, eh? Anyway what happened was: First my brothers and I raced my Mom and Dad down to Houston for Thanksgiving to meet up with my dad's side of the family. Then there were only 3 weeks left before school was out, and silly me thought I would be able to get work done while all the profs were assigning everything they forgot to teach us during the semester. Directly after that there was Christmas break, which really was not a break, and consisted of a drive to Tulsa, losing my purse (dumby), a nice quick drive down to San Antonio, a friend visiting for New Years (no, I know. He sucks--his website does not work.), a crazy awesome New Year's party, and catching up with all my Tulsa buddies, and a drive back to Norman--whew. And since then, it's been a paper turned in that my prof didn't really agree with ... or it didn't agree with him ... I dunno--I have yet to figure that out, as well as a ton of lab work to catch up to where I think I should be ...

But since the year has turned, I went back through the blog (rather quickly between DCA runs if you know what I'm saying). And pulled up all the titles of unpublished or draft ideas I had started but never finished (well, not all of them. One was not really ever meant to be printed--just funny and ... lude, and the other one is a surprise I'm saving for 2009, so it'll stay secretlike in my blogger account). Some of them are pretty funny. For the most part, the reason they are here and not an actual post is because I either lost interest (The Phantom 30 gig was supposed to be about Vista, but I've since given up on Vista ... but I might still write the post), or not gotten around to it, or I've totally forgotten what it was about (Reverse Psychology Girl, Spanish Thingy)

Reverse Psychology Girl
More Polymers
Math Tutors!
Spanish Thingy
The Phantom 30 gig
TV is a lie!
Google is creepy
Wikipedia as a research tool
Free in a package of batteries

Anyway, now we may take time to meditate on things past ... and things to come. Hopefully in 2009 I can take a few minutes to stop thinking about decanoyl-N-methyl glucamine and sodium docecylsulfate to write a post or two.

If you were a dragon and had 3 heads, would you still be one person?

2008-11-25T04:57:00.004-06:00

I once made a philosophy major cry.

I had left my head at home, and I didn't think very hard about it, and didn't think that perhaps philosophy majors get a lot of crap and thus don't like answering the repeated question: "Yes, but what will you do with it?" I was genuinely curious. I wasn't trying to give him a hard time. Really. You don't believe me, do you?

I should have asked him why he chose it instead of something else, because he had a plan, I just didn't see what philosophy had anything to do with that plan. It was more sensible to me that someone trying to go into that line of work go for a business major or some such.

But that's pretty much how I feel about philosophy. As demonstrated by this excerpt the 'engineering ethics' paper I just wrote:

Kantian ethics or deontological views entail that since we are rational beings, reason alone can be used to determine what is moral and what is not. The main argument against this view seems to be stupid people. The analogy presented here is a babysitter who spills water on the cat and in her determination to get the cat dry before the adults come home puts him in the microwave. In her capacity for reason, the microwave seemed like the best option. Her reason and intention keep her in the morally right area with deontological ethics. Perhaps Kantian ethics has a learning curve.

That's my favorite version of ethics. The one that involves reason. Sheesh. I should say that this was how the philosophy professor who guest lectured my chemical engineering controls class so non-chalantly discarded kantian ethics, which is why this paragraph is dripping with sarcasm. I was annoyed with him, but the man has years of philosophy training up on me, so I couldn't think quickly enough to argue with him. I could have argued it in the paper, but this was more fun.

I find philosophy interesting at times ... like when I'm on the toilet. Or just spacing in Kinetics class. I often think about why we're here and how in the world we got here and what I really want out of life, etc. Apparently last Thursday was 'World Philosophy Day.' My friend shared a BBC article with me that included four questions 'to make your brain hurt.' It was interesting, because I've actually thought about a few of them before. It was also interesting, because it demonstrated what kills me about philosophy. It's the so amazingly loosely based analogies they love so much. Sometimes it seems like they just say whatever they want, and it automatically applies ... just look at this bit: They get you piece by piece to admit that you are not your body, but rather your mind (ok, ok), and then out of nowhere ... Bam!

what if surgeons imprinted your mental states on two pre-wiped brains: George Bush's and Gordon Brown's? Would you be in the White House or in Downing Street? There's nothing on which to base a sensible choice. Yet one person cannot be in two places at once. In the end, then, no attempt to make sense of your continued existence over time works. You are not the person who started reading this article.

Whooaa there. There's not really any part of this I agree with anymore ... I don't even know how we got here. Obviously I am not only my mental states, but also my experiences--basically memories. And I feel as though if we had the technology to reformat brains and install new OS's on them, we would probably end up with more than one someone running around, so I do not accept that premise, either. Then all of a sudden I am not the same person who started reading the article ... maybe I've just watched too many sci fi shows or have a vivid imagination, but it just seems crazy to rule in that we can copy brains and rule out that there can't be copies of ourselves .... oi.

Don't get me wrong, I find Philosophy to be rather interesting and often useful, but this is just crazy talk ... and it's 5:30am and I'm writing this to avoid finishing my homework, so I should go. Read the rest of the article, though. It's pretty cool!

When I was a kid, I had to walk to school ...

2008-11-23T18:37:00.007-06:00

I just paid $1.73 for non-ethanol gas. I can't really even remember the last time gas was that cheap. That's a lie. When I was a kid, the thing I remember about gas is that it was always around 97-99 cents/gallon. That was nice, but the times, they are a changin'. I think in high school I paid less than two dollars for gas, but I was perhaps a little spoiled back then and my parents paid for the gas, so I wasn't too concerned. The prices must have crept up while I was away at college where I was in absolutely no need of a car (3 cheers for Boston's public transportation system). I remember something about the price increasing while I was having a little too much fun on the T in Boston but again, wasn't too concerned. Now that I pay for gas and drive myself most places, I'm a little more concerned. And when the gas prices started rising I got a little nervous as I'm sure everyone did. I even went out and bought a new (used) car!!

Alright, so the reason I'm not kicking myself now that gas has gone down is actually that miles-per-gallon was really just an excuse to get rid of my 11-year-old mommy-mobile which was white. I mean, really, do I read like a person who likes the color white?? Not that I wasn't grateful to have the car at all (I was super lucky that my family seems to have so many cars on the brink of not being able to start again ... ever ... RIP, our red corolla). I'm also super lucky that my mother insists that for me to stick around as a dependent and keep their lovely insurance package they have to actually pay for a few of my things, so they absolutely cannot go without paying for my car insurance. Yay mom! Thanks! Not that I couldn't handle it ... it's just, who would want to?

Back on point, gas has dropped 2 dollars here in the past month or so, and it's starting to freak me out. I actually want it to go back up! Because, let's face it, gasoline is not nice. When the prices go up, people start to become concerned with finding energy sources that aren't gasoline, and they were for awhile. I'm still happy with my car, first because it doesn't make me look like I have a couple of 11-year-old kids, but mostly because it doesn't waste as much gas with little ol' me driving just little ol' me around. I'm still concerned with global warming and foreign dependence and all that ... is the rest of the country?

Add to that point that every time I see gas prices it reminds me that we are seemingly in the midst of a 'bagel.' If you don't get that, you should watch more West Wing. The state of the economy is surely the main reason that gas prices are so low right now. I don't think it can be that suddenly the people who have the oil are cool with us ... eh Chavez! What's up, friend?

Uh ... anyway. What I'm (nervously) saying is: Go back up, gas!! Not too high ... maybe around 2.50? Or better yet, just stand still for a little while. Just relax, chill (chillax, if you will), and be stable. That would make me happy. But if that were to happen, surely it would mean the whole economy would have to be stable, and that's a whole 'nother can of worms ... (yeah, that's right--I wrote "a whole 'nother")

Hey, at least there hasn't been anyone complaining about BPA in awhile!

Extra Fancy

2008-11-17T22:56:00.004-06:00

You're probably wondering what I've been doing lately. "What are you thinking about, Kendall?" is what you're saying to yourselves. Well, I'll tell you what I've been thinking about, and it's not very many things, so don't be disappointed.

1) The thing I am thinking about most of the time is thermodynamics of adsorption of anionic and nonionic surfactant mixtures. Seriously. I'm in the middle of writing a paper. And it's taking much longer than I thought it would. Hopefully I'll be done with it by the end of this week, but I am writing a blog post instead of writing the paper right now, so ...

2) Failure rate data (is this mentioned only because some of the guys from work stumbled across my blog? ... perhaps, perhaps). Right now at the internship I'm collecting data from everywhere on how often pipes and valves and pressure vessels and pretty much everything fails (in tiny ways, in small ways, in very large catastrophic ways--it's pretty interesting).

3) Whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing for whatever class I'm in ...

4) The new bond movie that was friggin awesome! I love Bond.

5) What countries I'd like to visit/live in. I'll start with all of them on the list, and then stop dreaming and maybe see if I can actually pull off a few. I'm looking into Engineers without Borders as well as the Peace Corps. Anyone know any other programs like this?

6) What I'm going to eat next ... it's not that I don't have anything to eat, it's just that sometimes I forget that food is important ... yeah, it's been that kind of month.

Oh yeah, and at the grocery store today I found 2 different items that were labeled 'Extra Fancy.' Ooh la la. One of them was a bag of rice. really. white, long grain, rice. sigh. and the other item was a bag of granny smith apples, but there were no other granny smith apples in the store, so if there were other kinds that were less fancy than these, they were sold out before the 'extra fancy' which makes me wonder if there's really anything fancy about them at all ...

I think I should change the name of my blog to Extra Fancy Polymers are just a bunch of Extra Fancy mers.

I voted!

2008-11-04T08:46:00.004-06:00

I don't know what it is about those little white stickers with the American flag on them, but I really love them. They say "Hey! Look at me! I'm a patriot!" and it's a situation where it's OK to boast! It says: I just voted, and it's cool that we can do that, and it's cool to do it! And it's completely free, and very easy. You just go to your polling place, and pull a lever or punch a card or draw a line or fill in a circle, and you did it! And you get a nice little sticker to tell everyone you did it, too . . . Only I forgot to get mine :-(. I was so psyched about the sticker, but I was so much more psyched to be actually voting that I forgot all about it. Damned sticker. I'm so disappointed, that I might have to make one all on my own. I actually sat outside in my car thinking about going back in to get a sticker ... that's how much I like this sticker.

So I voted, and then I went to Starbucks to get my free cup of coffee just for voting. Turns out you don't need the sticker to get a free cup of coffee. Just go tell them you voted and they'll give you a free cup of coffee. It's good coffee, too!

Today will be exciting. I hope everyone's ready. I should have had a party. What was I thinking? I'm a little disappointed that I can't watch election results in real-time anymore. That made it a bit more fun, but I guess this is better (better? maybe for people who trust news agencies. silly people). Anyway I hope you all have a great day, and I'll sooo be watching CNN tonight after the polls close on the East Coast.

Wait, what?

2008-10-24T01:21:00.003-05:00

Haven't blogged in awhile. It's because I'm crazy busy. I started a new internship while still taking classes and doing research for 40 hours a week ... that internship deals directing with the oil and gas industry along with many other industries, and I'd love to tell you all about it--you'd be surprised about a *lot* of things--but first I gotta figure out what's proprietary information, and what, well, won't get me in tons of trouble. fun times. Anyway, I though I'd tell you this story before I ran off to bed.

My roommate stole my shower curtain.

Seriously. I was a little amazed as well. There are two of us here, and we have one bathroom, and this morning I woke up at 9am, and ... no shower curtain ... I had 2 interviews today, so I was pretty much pissed, but I put my hair in a bun, and ran off to work. I got home around 8:30 tonight, thinking I would take a quick shower and then run off to my friend's birthday party at a nearby club. I walk into the bathroom with my towel, taking my hair down, ready for the shower, when I realized there was *still* no curtain ... WTF? It's been 12 hours! plenty of time to wash it (if that's what she was doing--I've never washed a shower curtain in my life...) or whatever it was she thought she needed to do! So I text her 'So, the shower curtain is going to be back tonight?' And a few minutes later I get a responce 'Yup. 2am' .... 2am?!?! WTF??? that's at least 17 hours the curtain will be gone!! *And* there was no remorse or surprise in that text. No 'I'm sorry!' No 'oh no! I forgot!' Just a 'yup.' Like it's normal for one's shower to be out of commision on the 23rd of each month due to a missing shower curtain ...

She used to live alone ... so maybe she's used to frequently washing her shower curtain ... I really don't know. But communication is the key to any relationship, so surely when I see her tomorrow morning I will let her know that she should probably let me know the next time she needs to remove the shower curtain for whatever reason ... like, do I need to have a back up hidden somewhere in the apartment just in case?? ;-)

CNN Breaking News says

2008-10-13T15:16:00.002-05:00

"The Dow Jones closes up more than 900 points, according to early tallies -- its biggest point gain in a single day ever."

Oh yeah. Kendall's doing her dance of Joy.

Yay global effort.

Oh Yeah, I'm Mad!

2008-10-12T02:29:00.004-05:00

Hi friends,

I had a little encounter tonight, and I just wanted to tell the story before I run off to sleep and forget the finer parts:

I was out having a few drinks with some friends of mine from my restaurant, and as we were leaving, some random guy ran out into the parking lot and tagged my friend's car (which is an awesome red mustang, might I add). My friend sort of jokingly yelled at him "eh! get away from my car" thinking he was engrossed in some interesting drunken game. As we grew closer to the tagger, we learned that he was colorblind and thought my friend's car was pink ... I didn't believe this, because, well, who trusts people that just came out of a bar?, so I asked him why he was colorblind, and he drew out his 'brother' who is also 'colorblind' and I came to believe that they were both either very well educated in genetics, or both actually colorblind. So I went with colorblind and seeing as how they were seemingly intelligent, entertained myself whilst arguing the Obama-McCain debate with them. They were for Obama, while, I (obviously) was arguing for McCain. I was a little disappointed because the only thing we really got into was the '100 years war' which I addressed earlier on this blog. I gave up on them and we headed toward the car ...

WHERE we discovered that when the asshole 'innocently' tagged the car, he had actually placed a small Obama sticker on my friend's taillight.

FIRST of all, no matter what you are for or against, or what the sticker is supporting, you DO NOT place a sticker on SOMEONE ELSE's car. I feel as though we may have been able to take legal action at that point, but really, who wants to do that when you can just yell obscenities at the other party?

Which is pretty much what I did. I very well (I think) expressed my disgust with the actions of he uneducated morons in the party of the sticker tagger, and then we left ...

But seriously? Who does that??

Comments on the debate

2008-09-29T21:53:00.005-05:00

It's old, I know, but during the bailout I really had nothing to say (... I was just pretty darn perplexed). Then after the bailout I tried writing about politics and explaining my ideas, but I just hated it, so here's the only thing I liked about that post--commentary on the VP debate:

I'm watching the VP debate right now, and I've got to say that it's pretty darn funny. It's pretty clear that Palin hates Biden's living guts, and that Biden respects Palin about as far as he can throw her (probably less--she's pretty small). It also seems like he really believes that everything he says is convincing.

(it's in quotes, but there's no way it's right-->) "McCain says that Obama voted against funding for the troops, but McCain also voted against funding for the troops!!" huh? ... really? "He voted against funding for the troops because there was a 'timeline'!!" Ooooooh right. yeah, I remember that. So? there was a freakin' timeline on the bill!!

Tell me who that statement was meant to sway? The Obama-voters already agree with Biden, the McCain voters think that makes Biden sound like an idiot, and the undecideds already know that McCain would never support a timeline and that Obama does. wow.

And I just have to mention what a friggin airhead Palin looks like up there. Dodging questions and using her *nudge nudge wink wink* personality to make jokes and almost disrepecting the debate altogether ("You want to listen to me, or do you want to tell your little jokes?" "I can do both" -SN). Obviously she is not used to debating these 'Washington types'. That last bit was in a South Texas accent ;-). I say obviously, because as my friend mike points out, Biden got Palin to say she supports completely equal rights for gays and lesbians. I disagree a bit, I think it was more Gwen Ifill and less Biden (and that it was a bit unprofessional of Gwen Ifill to pull this, but she was a jerk to Biden at one point as well, so it's cool), and I also think that Palin thought she was being clever, but everyone was involved ... Anyway, no matter how the pretty pundits spin it, I think it was a pretty terrible and useless debate.

Yes, I have a tire guage

2008-09-26T13:48:00.008-05:00

Hey people. If you click the title up there, you'll be directed toward the blog of my friend Patrick. He works for the channel 6 news in Tulsa, OK. I really wanted him to show me the studio, but he's a busy man ;-). Anyways in this post he has some ideas on using up half-charged batteries, and wanted my opinion (and yours, because you know better than I do ;-)). If you'd like for the rest of this post to make sense, you should probably go read his first, because, well, I'm lazy, and that's that.

Alright, Patrick, you engaged me, but there's no way I'm just going to comment on the battery thing. One at a time, then ...

Let me start with: Frankly, I was a little annoyed with Obama's tire gauge comment. I know how to take care of my car. I own several tire gauges, and Obama instructing me to go out and check my tire pressure to save on gas was just a little bit insulting to me. Dude, you are running for public office--not lead mechanic. Don't tell me how to look after my car. Granted, the comment probably wasn't intended for folks like me who understand that low pressure in tires is no good for many reasons. But actually, I *do* expected everyone to have a tire gauge and check their tires when they look a little low. To not do that is irresponsible and dangerous. That should be part of the driving test. What pressure should your tires be filled to?

And sure, they ignored the rest of Obama's energy policy after that, but that's what they do! McCain's energy policy is grossly overshadowed by the fact that he wants to expand domestic oil exploration ... maybe they should read the rest of his energy plan as well.

I agree that the gas 'crisis' is more of an inconvenience. But I'm not making minimum wage and raising a family, etc. It might be a crisis for those families--I couldn't say ...

And then there's recycling. Yay, recycling!! I also love it. I'm thinking about getting my restaurant to let me recycle their old ketchup bottles, because right now, they just throw them away :-( I'm also pretty terrible at taking my own recycling to the site (we don't have a pickup program in Norman), so it usually just sits in my apartment for awhile and annoys my roommate. I should move that actually ...

Patrick has an idea to use up the often wasted half-charge batteries channel 6 throws away by making a big old circuit board dealy and plugging in the used batteries and sending the power back into the grid, or whatever.

I want to say that no, the idea does not really sound plausible. Sorry, man. The voltage is really low (only 1.5 V in your standard battery), and they all have varying amounts of charge left which could royally screw things up, and I don't know enough about electrical engineering to try to devise a way to do it. I've gotten solar power to work, but you can adjust the voltage on those things, and I was in a group, and I'm not sure I could do it again on my own ... I'm thinking about it, and I'm not actually sure I know any electrical engineers. I know a computer science dude that had to take a few EE classes, but I think that's about it. Hey guys, did I forget someone? (Mike D, you're the closest to an EE who actually reads my blog ... what do you think?)

Patrick, I think the easiest solution to this problem would be to use rechargeable batteries instead, but that would take some work convincing your higher-ups, and rechargeables don't work forever . . .

Update: an inverter? Would that help? Me and electricity do not mix. It just seems like such a small amount of power ... I'm not sure, but I would guess the power it takes to run the studio lights/cameras/televisions/computer/whatever is orders and orders of magnitude greater than the little battery you just plugged in, thus making it insignificant ...

Don't Panic

2008-09-25T02:23:00.003-05:00

Perhaps everything in life should, much like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, come with a 'Don't Panic' sign. It occurs to me that people tend to freak out about things that haven't been decided or don't really matter yet. We can use BPA as a demonstration of that, but I'm pretty much tired of writing about that, and I also feel it's pretty self explanatory. Pretty much every study ever conducted needs to come with a Don't Panic label. In politics and finance ... we really need that label. Just about the only thing I know about the causes of the Great Depression is that the market started slipping ... and we panicked (I just found it very strange that the past tense of panic--with a c--is panicked--with a ck .... weird) and everyone tried to pull all their money out and save it, and then *crash and burn soundbyte*!! Because of this, I'm always nervous when the media gets all upset when the market goes down a certain amount that doesn't really have any context for me. So you can imagine how nervous I became when I come home to eat lunch and turn on the TV to find John McCain talking about how he is going to put his campaign on hold to work with the rest of the government to resolve our financial crisis.

I listened to that whole speech. Nowhere in there did he once say "Don't Panic." You laugh, but I'm completely serious. The whole CNN front page is exploding with Bush and McCain and Obama and CNN Money and oh look! The new plan they are coming up with is called the bailout! It's as if we are in a little rowboat, and there's a little leak in it, and we are slowly (or not so slowly) gaining water. Well, kids, I think we should name our 700 billion dollar plan after a little tin can an a scooping motion. Good Idea. Seriously. Why can't we call it the "Don't Panic--help out the banks" plan. So was this a bad idea to draw so much attention to the financial woes of the US by pressing pause on the presidential campaigns? I don't think so. It would have been better if he had told everyone not to get too excited! but it's still better than letting the bill go as is which was basically a few pages that said Paulson could really do whatever he wanted with the 700 billion. That makes me more nervous ... but I won't panic!

Don't Panic. We can apply this to many situations! Instead of making everyone 'evacuate' when a hurricane is imminent of the shores of Louisianna or Texas, we should call it 'don't panic, but get the hell out of there as fast as possible.' Don't panic. I feel it instills confidence. I tell that to new waitstaff at the restaurant. Usually they just glare at me, but I'm sure it works ....

Don't Panic. What else should we apply this too? How about conspiracy theories? Or that lady who videos a rainbow in the sprinkler water while voicing-over her fear of what the government could possibly be putting in the water that would make these crazy crazy colors ... But she's not even as bad as the people who believe that contrails from plane engines hanging in the sky are really 'chemtrails' created to poison or test chemicals on the good people of the US ... At least crazy rainbow lady had a more efficient way of testing/poisoning the American people. Don't Panic.

I really can't think of a single good reason to panic. My favorite German band--Wir sind Helden--has a song called "Endlich ein Grund fuer Panik." It means "finally a reason to panic." though, they're pretty vague on what that reason is. Something about trees and running and finding a new home and a heart beating. Sure, OK. whatever that means, it sounds like it's a pretty good reason. But I'm not doing that, so I'm not gonna panic. I'm pretty convinced that picking the best of two guys isn't going to end the world one way or the other, so I'm not going to panic about one or the other--even if they are going to take a week or two off in order to make sure the Secretary of Treasury doesn't buy a new boat with his 700 billion ... and even if the government actually is dumping fun things on our heads ...

Yes, this post was about the presidential race ... I think I came full circle, but ... it's 3 am ;-)
Oh yeah, and

Don't Panic.

Let's write an awesome title.

2008-09-24T13:09:00.004-05:00

I'm writing the title for my paper that I should present next year at a conference if everything goes as planned. Soooo here's a couple of options. Let me know which one sounds better/conveys the meaning I'm looking for.

Changes in a, b, c in X mixtures with Y or Z.

Changes in a, b, c in X mixed with Y or Z.

Effects of X on a, b, c in Y or Z mixtures.

So do either of these convey that X is being mixed with Y and the test are being run, and then X is being mixed with Z and tests are being run? That's what I'm going for. Also I like the word mixtures better than mixed ... and I don't have a good reason for that except it pulls up better literature search results than mixed does. And we are all about the literature searches. Though, I might just give up on Z and do that one later, you know, when I have undergrads to do the grunt work and stuff ...

Also I don't particularly like the word 'changes.' I know there's a better one out there somewhere, and I'm sure I'll think of it just after I submit the title to the conference ... 'Changes' is also very vague--there's no mood there. Were the changes good? Were they bad? They *should* be good. We'll just say that. Increases in a, b, c might be better. Show me what you've got!

Thanks!

I wasn't going to bother

2008-09-16T21:29:00.008-05:00

But I was sent articles reporting this study from 2 3 (now) different people from 2 3 different places (Thanks Steph and Aunt Wendy--glad to know I have the crazy BPA girl rep down). The Reuters article is much more level than the consumerist post (surprise, surprise). BPA is still hot. I suppose the scientific community likes how easy it is to attract media attention just by releasing a BPA study. This new one decided study health problems in relation to BPA. If you look hard enough for some sort of relation, I betcha one will pop out at you.

The study tested urine samples for BPA, and it found that the people with higher concentrations of BPA in their urine had higher risks of heart disease and diabetes. Sounds scary, right? It's the 'had higher risks of.' That phrase implies causality--that BPA gives people a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes ... oops

It reminds me of a study done a few years ago that found that people who drank diet soda were at a higher risk for being overweight or obese. My local news (not your station, Patrick) reported it just like that, and then afterward the newslady said "so you may want to think twice before drinking those diet sodas." I couldn't believe she said that. I also couldn't believe this was news. If I were overweight or obese, I would probably drink diet soda, also. Doesn't sound so scary when I say it that way, does it? If you read the article linked above, it's actually a fairly balanced account of the study, that is if you read all of it and don't stop after the first couple of paragraphs (way to go WebMD, btw. The link I previously posted that presented all the sides of the BPA story pretty fairly was also from WebMD) Higher risk is also a deceptive term. It makes one think that if they drink diet soda, they are more likely (at a higher risk) to gain weight, when what it actually means is the average health of the people in the study who drank diet sodas was such that they would probably gain weight or had gained weight. AKA overweight people drink diet soda, and most people I know who drink diet soda do so to keep from drinking regular soda which would make them gain more weight. I know that's not as exiciting as the irony of diet sodas actually encouraging weight gain (irony check, Alisha!), but it's the statement that is not fabricated to stop at nothing to get you to watch the news every night ...

Another common misleading word used in the Reuters article is 'linked.' "Common Plastics Chemical Linked to Human Disease" It's not linked! It'snotlinked, it'snotlinked, it'snotlinked. Ok, well, maybe it's linked: the same way that I'm linked to anyone else in the world possibly through 6 degrees of separation--possibly not. Correlation does not imply causation. Who knows what causes the correlation. It could be that things that people who tend to have diabetes and heart disease consume often have containers which incorporate a polymer that uses BPA. It could be a complete coincidence! There's no way to know .... so don't freak out.

Information travels so fast on the Internet that anything can become viral. Except apparently logic and critical thinking ...

An important question

2008-09-16T11:16:00.003-05:00

The University of Oklahoma Career Office has a website to connect OU students with companies and organize the interview processes. I just opened an account because the career fair is coming up. On the account information form where you tell them what skill set you have (reliable, communication, managing people, hey look what I can do!), there's also a place to fill in a website. My important question (I should think it would be obvious by now) is should I put kendallcorner on a job site? It's not in any way a professional website, and there are a few pictures from college on it, but I think it says something about me that I actually do have a website, and it's a pretty good representation of how I think and the things I am interested in. Also, at some point I'd like to start posting more information about my research on other parts of the site. So what do you think? Please comment! I know more people read this blog than often comment ;-). Thanks!

I can't get anything done today

2008-09-10T14:26:00.007-05:00

Because I can't stop reading/watching videos on youtube about the Large Hadron Collider! The more I read about it, the more excited I am. yay physics! I don't understand any of it, but it's still pretty cool, and the videos make it sound easy. I've been finding background on the LHC, how the accelerator works, and even how the massive ATLAS detector works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9XotvwgnaY (nice accents ;-))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQNpucos9wc (really cool, you should totally check that out)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzcATqu5NtY&NR=1 (whaa?? wow)

That last one has some pretty weird fantasia music going on, but it's still really cool. I've also picked up on some info about what great things could come of this experiment.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/09/lhc-top-5-best-and-worst-things-that.html

And then I found a play-by-play of the 'first beam' on September 10th.

http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/2008/09/pins_and_needles.php (it works!!)

And as goes with something really awesomely brilliant and breakthrough in science, so go the crackpots. I'll be honest with you. I haven't found many real crackpot just looking today. I've heard about them, and I do recall watching one a month or more ago, but I didn't keep track of it, and now I can't find it. The internet is so overwhelmed with people making fun of the crackpots, that I just can't find the true crackpots today (this makes me really happy), but I'll keep looking. If you didn't know already, there's a few interesting experiments planned for the LHC, and with some of these comes the possibility of creating microscopic black holes, and once crackpots hear about this, they freak out a little bit. Some people are afraid that these blackholes are going to pull the earth in and end existence as we know it ... wow. Do you think a physicist would even attempt an experiment like that if they thought they might even have the remote possibility of pulling the whole earth into a tiny blackhole?? Of course, it's not like they would have any ramifications if this did occur ...

Many people have been rebutting the crackpots.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/09/why-world-wont-end-on-september-10.html

Or just making fun of them

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/large-paranoia.html (end of the world playlist!)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7607548.stm (even the news agencies are doing it)
http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=2914 (in case of imminent world destruction, break glass)

And some people point out the negative ramifications of this outlash of crackpot crazies who don't know what they are talking about!!

http://depletedcranium.com/?p=810 (MIT dude gets death threats for his experiment!)
http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/2008/09/doomsday_fears_claim_a_life.php (a girl in India died!!)

Idiots still make me angry. Just tell me when you get tired of reading about dumbasses on my blog, and I'll try to write about something else that bothers me ... like when people don't push in their chairs. Weird thing to have, right? Anyway, next I'll start watching some CERN propaganda.

http://lhc-first-beam.web.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam/Welcome.html

That site has a page about the safety of the LHC stating that these hypothetical black holes are no more dangerous than cosmic rays which have been hitting the earth since ... well, as long as any of us can remember ... oh the homework you crackpots need to do ...

Update: I forgot the best one http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/ Though I'm sure most of you have seen this one already.

I should change the name of this blog

2008-09-04T11:48:00.006-05:00

To "Hi! You're an Idiot." Because that's my favorite thing to do. Point out how idiotic people are. One major difficulty I have with the internet is stupid people. Really really. They just kill me. Might literally someday ... you never know. I read a few blogs because they're entertaining and smart, and the bloggers aren't morons! They don't talk about what they don't understand. usually. When they talk about what they don't understand, you just can't prove them wrong, and don't even *try* to prove the commenters wrong, cuz that's just silly. I have come to the conclusion (which perhaps you have already attained) that the people who write blogs and comment are ... well, mostly unwaivering in their beliefs. They either know what they are talking about or have such specific research that they are certainly right (which I like), or they're morons who infer and have nothing to backup their claims and don't understand the full situation (which I do not like). And while it is moderately hilarious to read people making moronic asses of themselves, they are reenforcing the misinformed ideas of other morons who also don't understand everything. I try not to do that ... I also try to be devil's advocate which doesn't turn out very happy for me usually ... I would also say that I'm a rare blogger who doesn't resolutely stick to her position. Maybe that's why I have a small readership ;-)

Anyway here is just one example, but it's the simplest one to pick out and explain. We're back on BPA, btw. Hooray, Bisphenol-A! Anyway, as I have said before, the FDA said BPA is cool, and that's good enough for me thus far. They have some pretty good guys over at the FDA, one of them being one of my old professors from MIT who is smart as shit (seriously, how do you think he got where he is). He didn't work with BPA as far as I know, but still, if they've got him, they must have some big guns. The FDA said it wasn't harmful, but people are still complaining, (that's what happens when morons explode on the internet) and the consumerist wrote this post about an article printed by the Washington Post. About the 4th comment down, someone decides to post this graph. Let's see if we can point out everything wrong with this picture ...

So first of all, there's no reference and it's done in excel! If s/he wanted to make all this up, s/he totally could have. But I'm very clever and actually found the main site where the picture is from, and it looks to be a biotech company, but I still have no idea what this graph was intended for. I just got the URL of the pic, and I bet if you click on my pic you'll get the URL as well. So now you've got about as much information as I do. So since it's a biotech company who's obviously hurting for money since they are using excel to make graphs for what I assume are presetations or papers they are publishing, we'll just go ahead and say that the data is not BS. Accept the premise! So let's look at that increase. Whoa! that looks like a 200% increase in the last 30 years. We learned about this the 5th grade, so I make fun of it all the time. These people obviously want to make it look like cancer rates have gone up a lot. If I wanted to make it look less like cancer rates had gone up, I might, I dunno have started the y-axis scale from 0. This is actually only about a 27% increase. Which by itself is still a little disconcerting. I guess it just didn't look scary enough on the 0 graph, which, incidentally, excel defaults to. I'm just saying that they obviously had to do some work to make it look like that.

What next, friend? Well futher down, other people (thank god) start talking a little sense and point out that people are living longer and that by itself means there will be more incidences of cancer. Also that there are millions of carcinogens out there, and how do we know which causes what? And there's absolutely no evidence on that chart relating cancer rates to BPA use! There's not even a 'use of BPA' chart alongside it going up with the cancer rates ... that and we've been using BPA since before 1975. come on, buddy. And then some one made another lovely excel chart relating global warming to the number of pirates on the high (and low) seas. See, now that's funny.

The internet is such a vast and informative place. Where you could actually read the FDA review and the papers published examining the BPA as a carcinogen and actual scientists' responses to these papers. Why would you listen to the dumbass that posts on consumerist with a fake chart that is designed specifically to look like cancer has gone up dramatically more than it has? Or even the Washington Post or your local news? So many people have pointed out over time that these people know about as much about science and technology as you do. If not much much less (if you are one of my friends, you probably know what I am talking about). I never understand it ...

Oh woe is Pandora

2008-08-26T01:22:00.005-05:00

If you haven't heard by now, Pandora might be closing due to rising royalty rates. Now some of you may remember a while back, when you heard that Pandora was possibly shutting down because the rates were too high. The truth, it sounds like, is that Pandora kept on chuggin' even though they had to give 70% of their revenue to record labels and artists (70%!!). They decided it was better to keep going while fighting the rates (I assume in some sort of court...). Their hope is that this situation will be resolved and they won't have to shut down, but wired.com says they've already stopped broadcasting in the UK, and the US is next in line. In fact Pandora says they're losing money right now. It seems they're just holding on in case they win the fight and can afford to stay afloat.

Hi recording industry. You're all idiots. You're the old man in the rocking chair with a blanket over his knee wheezing and reminiscing about the 1950s. Do you not understand that the world only turns in one direction? (unless superman's around, but I don't think he's gonna get out of bed for the recording industry) We've gone beyond CDs and albums! We can share information too quickly these days to be hoarding it. Do record labels and some artists really want us to go back to the days where we listened to the radio all day and then went out and purchased a CD when something the DJ and record companies decided we should listen to caught our ear? It's not gonna happen, and I'm hoping I'm a perfect demonstration of why. This is how I listen to music:

In the car and pretty much only in the car I listen to the radio. I listen to country, classic rock, and alternative. I can pretty much gaurantee you that I will never again buy a CD containing music I have heard on the radio, and I'll tell you why--it's probably not the reason you're thinking. It's because I know that I will hear it again on that station. Stations overplay everything! I won't buy the CD, because I know that by the time they are finished playing it everyday on the radio, I will have decided that I'm pretty much bored with it. Hey, I'm not even in the car that much, and I still can't believe how often some songs are played.

I don't listen to the radio that much. (Hi record companies, this part's important!) In fact I get most of my music from computers. I buy new albums online from artists I already know, I use playlist.com to create playlists of music I enjoy or am listening to right now (there's one in the sidebar right over there!! -->), I listen to friend's playlists and suggestions, and oh yeah, I listen to pandora. If I am ever wanting to hear something new and interesting, I listen to pandora. If I find something I like (which I often do) I go to itunes or amazon or somewhere else ... and I purchase it (which I also often do). oh boy. Then I can listen to it just long enough that I know it by heart, but not quite so long that I can't stand hearing it anymore. It's a very simple system. Now maybe not everyone listens to music like I do, but I've got a hunch that at least many of my friends do . . . eh?

So I got worried when I heard Pandora could possibly shut down, because there are a few playlists that I just absolutely love, and I haven't gotten around to purchasing some of the music on a couple of those lists. So I just opened it up and starting writing down the name and artist of every song, and holy cow!! They really have a spectacular variety of music. I never realized how much it was. I filled a couple of pages of a legal pad in an afternoon ... Pandora is amazing--not just for the internet radio hole it fills, but also for the whole project. You can give them nearly any song you can think of (not German songs though, I've tried ) and they will be able to come up with similar styles and artists. The project was massive, and it turned out so well. I think I took it for granted how easy it was for me to type in "Fratellis" and have it spit out everything from The Real McKenzies to The Young Knives. It just came out with good stuff everytime, and that took a lot of work, and I really hope it doesn't get shut down. I think I would cry. Or at least be really really sad if I am ever forced to listen to the radio at work . . .

It's over!!!

2008-08-22T14:54:00.006-05:00

The olympics are over now, and I can get back to normal life, although I've got to be honest with you, I was a little busy working 2 jobs all week last week in order to make up for my being on vacation in Boston over my 'extended' weekend (extended is in quotes, b/c I extended it ...), and I didn't really watch it at all. How sad. I kinda miss it now that it's gone. Perhaps China will, too.

Anyway, since I've been obsessing with the olympics and on vacation, I have missed a few updates that you might want to know about.

One is that the FDA recently declared BPA safe. This article was from just before everyone started freaking out about BPA. This is an obviously dissatisfied washinton post follow-up article (but of course they're dissatisfied--they didn't get their way!). And this is an article I like because, it's not so much a level headed evaluation as it is a direct oposition to the washington post articles in tone as well as spin. Turns out straight forwardness doesn't always get you what you want. If you want a more level-headed approach, you should go for the Web MD article. Now that's some good journalism. They displayed and defended all 3 viewpoints in this matter. The FDA seems to be continually monitoring new research about BPA just in case. They sound like they're doing a pretty good job to me, so feel free to drink your nalgenes!!! all day long!! Alright, don't drink the nalgenes. Just what's inside of them. Unless it's been in there since you were first worried about BPA. Then I might wash it out first ... I don't think BPA kill bacteria

The next part I was going to let you know about has to do with Pandora, but I don't know how long that's going to be, so I'll just wait until next post. I can, however, show you how the consumerist called Sam's club on being deceitful when it comes to polystyrene cups. Just check the picture out. It's from this post. Oh boy. You are so very not environmentally concious. Though, it doesn't actually claim that it is better for the environment. But if that's not what they are wink-nudging at, I don't know what it is. Sam's club (aka Walmart), you suck, and I am not amused!

More on my summer vacations and Pandora later!

I <3 Olympians

2008-08-13T14:37:00.005-05:00

Ah! I am pissed! Because I wrote this cool half-blog *before* Michael Phelps won all 8 of his events, and then I went to Boston, and it turns out I never published this. But here it is for you to enjoy, because while I'm not one to brag, I think it's pretty funny. It was actually right after he won his 5th medal and thus surpasses the record for most gold medals won (over multiple olympics):

"I have not gotten anything done in lab this week. It's mostly because the friggin olympics is on all friggin day! How can I go to lab when beach volleyball is playing flanked by the 200m Breaststroke?? And right now, all they're playing is volleyball, swimming, and gymnastics. Yay, yay, and yay! When does the running start? Track and Field is pretty awesome, and I'm excited about that.

"So what would you do if you were Michael Phelps right now? I bet you would don all 11 of your gold medals and where them around town. Phelps opens suitcase and, "oh look. How in the world did these 6 medals from the previous Olympics get in here? Lucky for me they were here, because now I'm going to wear them around town!"

"Around town (I guess 'town' shouldn't really be used to describe Beijing, but whatever): 'Hi! Look at me. I'm Michael Phelps and I have just won more gold medals than anyone in olympic history. What am I going to do next, you ask? Well, I'm going to win 3 more gold medals, and then will I not only have the record for most gold medals, I'll have beaten the other guy by 4, I'll surely have a world record in every event I swam in, and I'll also have the world record for most golds won in a single olympics. Please come bask in my awesomeness.'

"'So Mr. Phelps, can you tell us why you looked pissed after you won a gold medal and broke a world record in the 200m butterfly?'

"And this is an actual quote from nbcolympics.com, 'I'm disappointed because I know I can go faster, but there was nothing I could do. I handled it the best way I could.' Turns out his goggles were filling up with water and he couldn't see a damned thing. And he still won the race with the best time ... ever. And he was mad because he could have gone faster. wow. If anyone deserves all the praise and shiny things he is getting right now, he does."

That was it. The entirety of the half-post. Beautiful, I know. So now he has all the medals, and what do we have to say? Well, I just don't have much really. We were watching the final race in a bar/bowling alley in Boston, and I said 'wait, is this the final race??' My friends said 'Yes!!!' Turns out I missed a whole 2 races the night or two before ... boo! Anyway, it was great, because the whole bar was screaming at the television (of course, they didn't care about the women's 4x100 medley that had just played, but whatever). It was pretty fun. Looking back, I believe I did not publish the post, because I did not want to jinx his chances at actually winning 8 gold medals in one olympics. Unlike Dana Whitaker, I don't like to mess with the mojo.

Right now I am fighting with my photoalbum software to get it to spit out a photo album that doesn't look like the crappy one I have right now, and one that includes my trip to Boston as well as my trip to Colorado. Soon the pictures will be available on the album. Also, I spent about an hour last night uploading the Boston pictures to facebook (slow internet at night due to crappy cable and wireless through my desktop because the rooms aren't wired for a network--seriously??), and then it tells me that it failed. No more information than that. Not that a few pictures succeded, the whole thing just failed. Wow, facebook, I hate you. Don't you think it would have been nice to let me know that I was not succeeding, I dunno, like an hour ago?? If you're lucky, the pics will be up later tonight. I will be at the restaurant tonight, but when I get home, I'll get to typing ...

More about buying cars

2008-08-11T17:23:00.002-05:00

My friend Stephanie, it seems is trying to buy a car, and has expressed many burning questions about buying a car, and instead of write a blog post in her comments section like a blog-hog, I thought I'd just write up another post to clarify a few things and answer more questions.

What I first decided was why I wanted a new car. Fuel economy. and I looked like a soccer-mom. Probably good for not getting tickets driving through a college town at midnight, but not so much for the 'hey, let's take my car' response from friends. So I concentrated on Fuel economy, and figured not looking like a 45 year-old woman while driving would follow suite. And I think it did. If you like to go camping and hiking or just like destroying the planet, you could go for a 4 wheel drive SUV of some sort. If you actually *are* a soccer mom, then there's a used van waiting for you at the Hyundai Automax in Norman, OK. Old, but works great. Just had the transmission replaced, but you'll have to replace the left tie rod next time you go in for an alignment. I also decided to go with a used car, mostly because I'm cheap. But I've also read it's a better investment to go with a used car instead of a new one (especially if it's certified and all that), since the value of the car drops tremendously as soon as you drive it off the lot. The difference is that a new car will have a warranty and shouldn't be difficult for at least a few years. A used car will most assuredly have a much smaller warranty if any at all, and you'll be paying to take care of it. But your monthly payment will probably be smaller.

Once I decided what I wanted, I got on Autotrader and checked out everything in the area that was within my budget. If I found a car that interested me, I looked it up on consumer reports to check out it's reliability and fuel economy (my parents have an account, and it's awesome). Some years for some models aren't very good, and some are spectacular. After a while, that gave me an idea how good certain models are and what I should be looking for. I also checked out the blue book price for the year and model to see if it was priced well. During all of that, I had a carfax.com account to look up vin numbers. If a car is new with low mileage and dirt cheap, there is probably somehting wrong with it. Carfax.com can tell you how many owners the car has had, and how many miles were last reported on it. They can also tell you if an incident has ever been reported by a DMV or if the manufacturer has canceled the warranty. I'm not sure if it's neccesary, but it's cool.

So by the time my dad came out to Norman to help me check out dealerships, I had a pretty good idea what was available and what was good and possibly in my price range. It happened pretty quickly, but I had done my homework, so I was ready.

And also for the olympics

2008-08-08T14:06:00.003-05:00

My friend Spike found these drinking game rules for these summer Olympics. Please enjoy. Haha they sound like great fun.

08.08.08

2008-08-08T11:17:00.005-05:00

My last post was going to be about my vacation in Colorado and also about Murphey's law since I came down with a cold about 3 days into the trip. But I actually just bought a used car last night (sweet!), and I figured I wouldn't jinx it by writing about Murphey's law. And since this is right after my post about my old white van breaking down and recycling Starbucks cups to help with my 'carbon debt' (yay for buzzwords. Now if we just start calling it a nano-carbon debt, we'll confuse the hell out of the news-media) I figured it was well placed.

That's my new car!! It's a 2005 Hyundai Elantra, and not to be a Hyundai salesman or anything, but Hyundais are pretty good cars that you can usually get pretty cheap. It gets twice the gas mileage as my not-so-hippie-van did--that's right, over 30 instead of around 15!! . . . I thought I might enlighten those less fortunate *cough*Kevin*cough*, and tell the story of how I bought the car. ( ;-) Kevin, it seems, recently bought a car and thinks he got jerked around a bit) Well, I don't know if I got a spectacular deal, but my dad is a salesman and also knows a bit about cars, and he helped me out and seems to think I got a good deal, so that's good enough for me.

We went to a few places on Wednesday and drove some cars around but didn't really like them terribly. I'm also difficult to please b/c I'm cheap! I wanted a car under 9,000 and half the dealers just didn't have anything in that category. I had decided on 9,000$ because we thought we could trade the hippie van in for around 2,000, and I figured I could pay 7000 off in 3 years just fine. I also figured that any car in my price range would be so old that I wouldn't want to be paying it off for more than 3 years anyway. So we walk up to this Hyundai dealership and tell the lead salesperson that we are looking for a fuel-efficient car under 9,000. She brings us a salesman and he shows us a car that I test drive. It's the Elantra above. It's an 05 and it's still under warranty, so obviously we are interested. We ask for the price. Here's where it gets sticky.

First they just give us 2 numbers. 1500 down and 250/month. I was amazed that they didn't even give us a term. I had no idea at that point how much the car actually cost--apparently some people take the offer just like that. crazy people. So we let them know that I had my own financing (we use USAA who generally gives a fairly good rate), and that we really just want to know HOW MUCH the car was. oh. they got it. They then offered us 500$ for my van (what??) and priced the Elantra at 11,000. Not even close to our 9000$. We were a bit annoyed, because we'd just wasted time on a car that was 3,500$ out of my price range. Oi! We tried to tell them it was too much and get out of there, but of course they will not allow that, so they brought out the viper . . .

The dealership is more concerned with how much you can afford per month than how much you want the car to cost. If they can get most any price within your monthly payment range by stretching the payment out for 7 or, it turns out, sometimes even 10 years, that's what they try to do. The head of sales came out and tried to weasel out of me how much I was willing to spend per month and fix me right up. I swear we had to explain to her about 3 times that we were choosing a car based on the overall price and not the monthly payment . . . we also told them that if we could only get $500 for the van, we would just sell it ourselves. Then we told them we would not be purchasing a car that evening under any circumstances but that we would keep in touch. Numbers were exchanged.

The next morning I got a call from the salesman who we had test driven with (good thing, too, because the head of sales was the scariest lady I had ever seen, and I was not inclined to do business with her ever.) to inform me that they could definitely get me 1000$ on the van. I called him back later that afternoon to let him know that if we couldn't get 1500$ for the van, we weren't even going to bother trading it in and that I was going to shop around a bit first. He said it was plausible to get 1500 for the van, but that I would need to bring the van in so their people could check it out. They always want to bring you in. I suppose it's home field advantage. My dad let me know that it's always easier to negotiate on the phone. On the phone, you're on equal footing. You can cut him off or even hang up on him if need be ;-). So I discussed it with my dad, and we both agreed that paying off an 05 for 4 years is acceptable, but that it was still too expensive. I figured I could do 10,000-1500$ = $8500 over 4 years, so this is what I did (at my dad's wonderful suggestion): I called the dealership and told them that I was busy (which I am) and that if they couldn't get it down to 10,000$ with a 1500$ trade in on the van, I just simply did not have time to come in and talk to them (which I did not). So the guy told me he would talk it over with his boss and call me back.

He called me back in about 5 minutes (it was raining, and nobody seems to go anywhere when it's raining--especially to dealerships) and said it was a deal, so I went over and bought the car. whew.

Hah. And after I filled out the paper work and did the loan stuff and got my keys and everything was settled, I pulled my new car around to empty my stuff out of the van. I unlocked the car and one of the sliding doors wouldn't open . . . sometimes that lock sticks, but it hasn't done it in ages. I thought it was pretty hilarious that it did it right after I traded it in and right in front of the salesman. oh well, it's yours now! Maybe they know how to fix that. Lord know we had no idea . . .

Anyway I hope it was a good story. I've already had a dream that someone stole my car, so you know that I like it! Have a happy olympic starting day! I really love the 08.08.08. Why in the world is that so cool? It's just another day, and yet . . . it's epic.

PS. I just google image searched 'carbon debt' and the second page is my starbucks cup from the last blog post. wow! I had no idea there were so little pictures related to carbon debt. Cool!

Tie Rods: very important parts of your car.

2008-07-15T15:24:00.006-05:00

Apparently my big white hippie van's wheel almost fell off. Before we complain about the van, let's just tell the fun story of what it feels like when your wheel is about to fall off. I was driving down the road when I noticed the car was shaking. Not badly, but a very noticeable steering wheel shake. I slow down and pull over just to make sure all the wheels are alright. They look fine, so I get back in and as I'm getting back up to speed, I notice that the car pulls very hard to the left every time the wheel goes around. By 35-40 mph the whole car is shaking, and making me very nervous, and as I get up to 65-75 it actually gets a little better, just because I can't feel the individual shakes anymore--so only the steering wheel is shaking . . . after a few conversations with my dad, we decide to tow the car to the nearest mechanic and get it looked at. Turns out a bolt on a tie rod was loose and about to come out, which I believe means cya l8r wheel!

Fun, eh? Now back to the hippie van. Yes, that's right, I drive a big white hippie van. "But Kendall," you must say, "why do you drive a big white hippie van? It's so bad for the environment, and bad for your badass reputation!" Yes, I know all of these things. The fact is that it's still cheaper to pay an extra 100$ a month on gas than it is to pay a car payment (old car--all paid off) and insurance (which my parents have so lovingly taken care of, because it turns out paying for insurance for 5 people isn't that much more expensive than paying for insurance for 4 people.). Awful, right? Cheaper for me ... but not cheaper for the environment. Who will pay the cost in the end?? (cue ominous music!)

Anyway, I decided to pay off my carbon debt by giving this tid bit of advice. (If you already know this, then I'm screwed! ) Did you know you can recycle those plastic starbucks cups? They are plastic number 1--better known in the polymers world as polyethylene terephthalate (PETE), or the plastic that every bottled, water, coke, moutain dew, etc. is made with. In fact, most clear plastic solo-type cups are made with this stuff. The sad part is that the classic red solo party cup is actually made of polystyrene, which, if you've been reading, you know we can't recycle in this country. If you use the clear plastic cups (and surely they make a tinted version), you can just throw them in the recycling bin when you're done. Which is what I'll do this weekend.

By the way, San Diego was awesome. You should all visit sometime.