Other than this video dragging on a lot this looks like so much fun. Wish I had one of these as a kid. Note to dad... get him some rubber wheels!
p.s. Vid ends with a sweet spill.
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28.7.07
17.7.07
The true cost of television...
I just read an article about the 'real' costs of watching television. They broke down the 'start-up' costs, added in all of the reoccurring monthly charges, accounted for the increased consumerism, and factored in the opportunity costs of all that 'wasted' time. The figures are pretty astounding... from the article:
"So what does this all add up to? Say you're 25 years old and you initially spend $2,000 for your TV, DVD player, entertainment cabinet and gaming system after getting your first job. Add in monthly costs of $100 for cable, $10 for electricity use, $20 for renting movies, $25 for buying games and $20 for an occasional pay-per-view event, and you're looking at $175 a month. Add in another $525 a month extra you spend due to the influence of commercials if you are the average person, and you are costing yourself $700 a month watching TV."
Using an 8% growth rate, only compounded annually, that $700/month would grow to more than $3.7M by the time you're 70 years old if you ceased watching TV at age 25.
Of course what's not considered here is that from time to time you may learn something from television that actually saves or makes you money and one may also derive some stress relief or relaxation from their time in front of the screen.
Article Link.
"So what does this all add up to? Say you're 25 years old and you initially spend $2,000 for your TV, DVD player, entertainment cabinet and gaming system after getting your first job. Add in monthly costs of $100 for cable, $10 for electricity use, $20 for renting movies, $25 for buying games and $20 for an occasional pay-per-view event, and you're looking at $175 a month. Add in another $525 a month extra you spend due to the influence of commercials if you are the average person, and you are costing yourself $700 a month watching TV."
Using an 8% growth rate, only compounded annually, that $700/month would grow to more than $3.7M by the time you're 70 years old if you ceased watching TV at age 25.
Of course what's not considered here is that from time to time you may learn something from television that actually saves or makes you money and one may also derive some stress relief or relaxation from their time in front of the screen.
Article Link.
16.7.07
Mosquitoes... narrowly avoided.
So Trish & I decided to get away for a night this weekend and decided that would be by camping in Whistler for Saturday night. We booked a tenting site at the Riverside RV Campground & Resort.
We checked in around 1:30pm and decided to set up our tent before hitting the town. Now at this point in the story you may be wondering why we were setting up a tent since we have the Disco Camper v. 1.5 at our disposal. Well, it turns out that the sites in question are not drive-in and are in fact walk-in and thus the Disco Camper would not suffice. So, we set up our tent at the spot they designated for us and due to the extreme amount of mosquitoes and a campfire ban in effect we decided to enjoy the rest of Whistler until bedtime.
Later that evening as we drove back towards the parking lot near our campsite Trish noticed some people 'in our site', or so she thought. We parked, put some pants on, and then strolled toward our site where sure enough there WERE people in our site and they had already set up their tent and staff from the campground had taken down our tent and removed all of our stuff from the site. We were a little shocked, but tried to find out what was going on. Apparently we had set up in the 'wrong' site, according to the managements quick research. We reviewed our info and had actually set up in the spot we were told to, however, in the computer we were supposed to be 5 sites down. In the hurried take down of our tent by the campground staff they also inadvertently broke one of our tent poles rendering our tent somewhat useless.
The campground has some log cabins in addition to their tent and RV sites, and fortunately there was ONE log cabin remaining which they decided to put us into.
All and all it worked out pretty well and they handled things fairly well, other than the broken tent pole, which they will be replacing. But the cabins were clean, dry, mosquito free, and had showers, etc. so it was somewhat of a nice surprise.
We checked in around 1:30pm and decided to set up our tent before hitting the town. Now at this point in the story you may be wondering why we were setting up a tent since we have the Disco Camper v. 1.5 at our disposal. Well, it turns out that the sites in question are not drive-in and are in fact walk-in and thus the Disco Camper would not suffice. So, we set up our tent at the spot they designated for us and due to the extreme amount of mosquitoes and a campfire ban in effect we decided to enjoy the rest of Whistler until bedtime.
Later that evening as we drove back towards the parking lot near our campsite Trish noticed some people 'in our site', or so she thought. We parked, put some pants on, and then strolled toward our site where sure enough there WERE people in our site and they had already set up their tent and staff from the campground had taken down our tent and removed all of our stuff from the site. We were a little shocked, but tried to find out what was going on. Apparently we had set up in the 'wrong' site, according to the managements quick research. We reviewed our info and had actually set up in the spot we were told to, however, in the computer we were supposed to be 5 sites down. In the hurried take down of our tent by the campground staff they also inadvertently broke one of our tent poles rendering our tent somewhat useless.
The campground has some log cabins in addition to their tent and RV sites, and fortunately there was ONE log cabin remaining which they decided to put us into.
All and all it worked out pretty well and they handled things fairly well, other than the broken tent pole, which they will be replacing. But the cabins were clean, dry, mosquito free, and had showers, etc. so it was somewhat of a nice surprise.
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