The Haphazard Blog

I filed my taxes a lot earlier this year. Primarily because I did a poor job in tax planning and withheld too much money. I ended up with refunds from both the federal and state. I always got a weird sense of enjoyment in owing every year and filing right before the deadline.

This year, I need to do a much better job with investing. Bank account interest is incredibly low. I missed out on the big recovery from the bottom last year. It’s time for me to become less risk adverse. My irrational fear of losing money prevents me from making any real money. It’s odd that I can identify my problem but have yet to find a way around it. It is getting to be very bothersome. I start to invest, then bail out after a couple trades. And it’s not like they were bad trades. I made money and still didn’t keep doing it.

I wonder what makes someone a good trader psychologically?

I was able to get back to the full 15 minutes this week. I’m getting better as well. When I first rode it, if I closed my eyes I could feel that I was not maintaining a good position. Now I can close my eyes and stay level without a problem.

I tried to use the core trainer without holding the handle. I had no problems keeping my balance, but I was also unable to sit up as tall. With the handle, I’m able to put the arch in my lower spine. I’m definitely helping myself up into that position, but once there, I can tell that I’m not holding my self there with my arms (at least for up to a minute at a time). I also tried to use the stirrups. Same result without the handle, it’s a lot harder to sit up tall. But I could also tell it did facilitated my inner thigh muscles to start working.

It looks like I have more than enough room to get stronger and use this over time. I’ve found over the years that I seem to have a lot of muscles/functionality that needs to be awoken. I think it’s because I simply do not use those muscles most of the day. After I finish riding the core trainer, my core does feel tired. But a couple hours later I can feel that the muscles are working so much better. I think over time, that time will get longer and longer to the point where they are firing a lot more than they are not.

This week I’m planning to try some of the pre-defined workouts. I think the side-to-side workout should be fine, but I have a sense that the waist and hips ones (they incorporate tilting) will be difficult and out of my current reach. I also want to time how long I can sit up tall.

Yesterday we went to Wichita to get some shopping taken care of and decided to stop at Souper Salad for a quick lunch. They are a pretty good place for vegetarians and vegans. They will mark what is vegetarian (not that what they say is vegetarian is actually lacto-ovo vegetarian) and vegan. I noticed the oddest thing. Bleu cheese dressing was not marked as vegetarian. Some other dressings I’d assume to be were also non-vegetarian. So I tried to find out why and found a nutritional guide on their web site. Here’s what it says:

• Honey Mustard – Contains Eggs, Contains Other Animal (they do not specify what)
• Fat Free Cranberry – Contains Other Animal
• Caesar – Contains Eggs, Contains Finfish
• Bleu Cheese – Contains Eggs, Contains Finfish
• Chipotle Ranch – Contains Eggs, Contains Finfish

I wondered if “Other Animal Product” is honey, but they mark stuff with eggs in it as vegetarian.  Why in the world is there fish in Bleu Cheese dressing? I checked the dressing in my refrigerator and it doesn’t have anything listed that could be remotely considered fish. Is this an aberration or one of those items specially made for the restaurant industry like Extra Heavy Mayonnaise. I think I’m going to stick with fat-free Italian dressing. It’s better for me anyways.

The Manning Face Returns

I’m not sure that game could’ve played out any better if I planned it. The Saints won, the Colts lost.

I praised Manning for being clutch and what the victory would mean for his legacy. Then he throws a back-breaking interception returned for a touchdown in the 4th quarter to essentially end the game. They make Adam Vinatieri, the most clutch kicker in NFL history, inactive and watch Matt Stover miss a FG. It wasn’t Vanderjagt style, but Vinatieri doesn’t miss.

I got sucked in to the Manning hype. Letting the regular season overshadow the post-season. Even with the loss in SB XLII, Tom Brady is better. What was I thinking? They lose a SB, he has his knee destroyed and has a good season and I’m ready to accept Manning is better. I’m supposed to be smarter than that.

I thought if they won, people would wonder if they blew 19-0. It is starting to look like 17-0 is going to stand forever. Especially if they add 1 or 2 more regular season games. Now we know they blew a shot at 16-0 and the Super Bowl.

During the broadcast, they mentioned that New Orleans had a 1st half defense, 3rd quarter defense and stuff only for the 4th quarter. I think that is the best way to handle Peyton Manning.

Thank You for Choking

My favorite moment of the game was the pick-6. The horrible timing. Phil Sims declaring immediately before the play that the Saints shouldn’t blitz because Manning shredded the Jets and they blitz. Then Sims trying to explain himself instead of admitting he was dead wrong.

I admit I was concerned when Manning hit that long pass as they were trying to come back. But New Orleans was able to keep them out of the end zone. Very well done and well deserved.

Now that my personal Super Bowl curse is broken, I hope things are looking up on the Patriots front.

The show that has topped my TiVo Season Pass/DirecTV Season Manager is back for the final season. I’m looking forward to the conclusion of it all and have the big mystery explained.

The premiere episode was really good. I re-watched the Season 5 finale and Juliet dying is a sad scene (the whole scene). In the recap and the flashbacks to “the incident” they did edit it down some so it wasn’t as dramatic. She ends up surviving only to be killed again.

We got confirmation that not-John Locke (or not-Locke) is the smoke monster. He wanted to kill and Jacob and he has done it. I guess the question I didn’t ask was why he wanted to kill him (besides hating him) and what he would do after that. What is their relationship? Is it fate vs. free will?

Why did Jacob want/require Sayid be saved? Is there significance to him being dead for a while and suddenly awakening?

There are so many questions. At first I thought Jacob was reincarnated as Sayid. I changed my mind because when Sayid sat up, he asked “what happened?”. I would expect Jacob to know that.

The biggest mystery now is what is going on with the alternate reality where Oceanic 815 doesn’t crash? Although that is not completely accurate because some things are different like Desmond was on the plane and Shannon stayed behind in Australia. Is this what would’ve happened if the bomb had gone off?

Time travel is such a hard thing to write. It’s so easy to end up in a paradox. If they never crash on the island, then who goes back in time to set off the bomb to stop the plane from crashing? Is this alternate universes like Fringe?

Who was Juliet talking to when she was dying in Sawyer’s arms? Was she somehow in two places at once? Are they in some type of place (heaven? hell?) where the only way out is “death”? Could her message, “It worked”, refer to anything else other than the hydrogen bomb detonation?

I think some type of dream is too easy. Lost fans would be furious if everyone on the plane had lost consciousness and it was all a dream. We’ve seen time travel. Faraday had some weird experiment where the missile took a lot longer to arrive that it should. Finding the island is nearly impossible. To leave the island you have to follow a specific path. The island has vanished/moved.

I can’t even come up with a logical theory right now. So many mysteries to try and explain. I hope that come May I’m not disappointed. The build-up has been big. Please don’t go out like the Sopranos. I don’t want to think I wasted my time watching the last 3 seasons.

I think the Colts will win. I really want the Saints to win. I have been rooting for the loser the last 4 years (Seahawks, Bears, Patriots, Cardinals). I’m sorry New Orleans.

I think if Peyton Manning wins this one he passes Tom Brady right now, even while having one less Super Bowl ring. He will have totally turned around from when he just couldn’t win the big one. Just this season, he has been as clutch as anyone has ever been. No lead is safe with him. Sixty minutes of football is too long for him. So far, there hasn’t been a defense that has stopped him figuring them out. I’d consider either having two different schemes for the first half and second half if I was facing him. The question would be, is the defense smart enough to do it? Two weeks to prepare might be enough time.

I think this game will be a high scoring affair. I also think it will be close. The Colts defense is going to be impacted without a healthy Dwight Freeney. No one is going to stop Peyton Manning. 30 points or more for each team.

I hope I see the Manning face more than a few times tonight.

It has been a while since I had installed a new hard drive. I bought a 2 TB hard drive for media. In Windows I initialized the disk, partitioned and formatted it. Well, as the formatting was taking longer and longer I thought I’d check if that was normal. (It ended up taking 7 hours.)

Some people were recommending a quick format for new drives. That would’ve taken no time at all. I think I got to the bottom of it, and despite taking so long (I would’ve done it overnight to save time had I known), I think the regular format is best.

The quick format basically sets up the disk for use. The thinking of some is that since the disk is new and empty, there’s no need to do a full format (writing to the entire drive).

The regular format checks for bad sectors. This is what ends up taking so long. On the surface, it may seem like modern hard drives don’t have bad sectors (unless they are going bad), but in reality they do. The manufacturers set aside space to re-map bad sectors to so that from Windows perspective, the drive has no bad sectors. So the regular format makes that initial sweep of a new drive to discover any bad sectors before you put it to use. Quick format is better suited for a drive that was fully formatted previously.