blog

Assuming one can afford to buy a newer vehicle, why pay to maintain an old one? For the maintenance records I kept over the last 2 years of my ownership (2005-2007), when maintenance costs were highest on my 15-year-old 1993 Chevrolet Lumina, I spent over $2800 (including regular oil changes, a new air filter and one windshield replacement) to keep it running. That includes trying to get the best deals on parts and labor, by going to national repair shops that claimed to offer the best prices for one type of repair (brakes, glass, etc.). Here’s what I got for $2800:

• New rear brake pads, resurfaced rear rotors, new front rotors, cleaned and lubed calipers, new battery, remanufactured alternator (third one in my ownership), new serpentine belt, new rear struts, alignment, transmission fluid flush, power steering hose replacement, new heater bypass hose for engine coolant leaking problem, electrical systems diagnosis (when it wouldn’t start), which led to the purchase of a new starter.

That worked out to a car payment of around $120 a month, or even less when I spread it out over more years. With only the legal minimum auto insurance covering the car (from a discount insurance provider of course), holding on to my old beater made economic sense. Ultimately however, the myriad minor issues (some with workarounds), combined with the stress of relatively expensive and unpredictable repairs, and the inconvenience of getting those repairs done, diminished the value of the money I was saving. Goodwill has a vehicle donation program offering free pick-up and a reasonable tax deduction for the donor. I took advantage of that and now will get a small tax credit on the sale of the vehicle.

I believe Zooomr has smart sets out of the box, but I wouldn’t know because I’m still a happy Flickr customer. I’ve been loving the full-screen plus title/description, “on black” slideshows since they were introduced last summer. One feature that Flickr doesn’t support [yet] is the ability to define rules for a Set and have it auto-generated based on some predefined interval. iTunes and other software has popularized the concept of adding some intelligence to a collection of things, in an attempt to automate the decision making process involved with building a collection.

A Flickr community member and programmer has taken it upon himself, to create a simple user interface that lets Flickr users create and administer some smart sets, after authenticating his application with your Flickr account (a quick process). He’s titled the application Flickr Set Manager.

The “random” smart set is fun for me, because it jogs my memory of pictures that tell stories I’ve forgotten or have become less clear over time. The “least interesting” pictures give me insight into what “doesn’t sell,” in other words, what people don’t click on, which can as interesting as seeing what people do click on. Finally, my “most interesting” smart set is set to auto-generate each day (I’ve setup each to regenerate daily), but mostly stays the same day to day, since I’m getting enough new visitors daily to influence the statistics. The value with this set however, is that it exposes the “most popular” statistics to users other than me, since currently the most popular photo data is available only to the owner under the “Popular” menu option when logged-in.

Viewing the “random” smart set slideshow is a nice trip down memory lane, and a gift that “keeps on giving” every day.  I highly recommend the Flickr Set Manager, though if want official support, I think Flickr will add this in the not-so-distant future.  Besides smart sets, I’m excited to have read they’re working on video support on Flickr as well, which seems like a more logical place to share my 30-second video clips than today’s general purpose video sharing sites.

I called in for insurance quotes on some cars I’m considering purchasing. Quotes are for Minnesota with Geico, 6 month premiums, full glass, comprehensive coverage, with a $500 deductible, for my zip code (in the city) and age (over 25).

• 1993 Chevrolet Lumina: $360 (what is this doing here? I’m driving this now.)
• 2005 Infiniti G35 sedan: $666
• 2008 Volkswagen GTI (2.0T): $706
• 2004 Volkswagen R32: $737
• 2007 Mazdaspeed3: $737

Saving $77 for a 6 month renewal over 5 years is $385 (around 2% of the purchase price) savings for the G35 sedan over one of the hot hatches. However the savings is lost when fuel is considered. Here is my math, feel free to double check it: If I drive 10,000 miles per year with the G35 and I assume it gets 23 MPG in mixed driving (city/highway), that works out to 434 gallons of fuel per year. At $3/gallon, that is $1302 for 10,000 miles.

For one of the hatchback, assuming 28 MPG mixed driving, that is 357 gallons for 10,000 miles, at $3/gallon, works out to $1071 in fuel.

Annual fuel savings for 28 MPG over 23 MPG is $231. Savings over 5 years is $1155. When fuel and insurance are considered, the better deal is one of the hatchbacks, with a 5 year savings of $686 (again, just 3-5% of the purchase price, rather negligible).  The gist with these cars: fuel savings is more significant than insurance savings.

As a condition of the financing program I selected for my home purchase, I was required to attend a “Home Stretch” seminar.  Home Stretch is a first-time home buyer seminar that covers the entire process of buying a home.  I attended the 10-hour seminar (over 2 days) just days before my closing, so I was expecting to be bored listening to things I’d already learned, but just the opposite happened.  I attended the Minneapolis course led by Housing Consultant John Trostle, and I can wholeheartedly recommend the program to any home buyer, first-time or experienced, to pick up some great tips.  Not only did we covered the entire home buying process, John (being a home inspector) advised us on many things to watch out for, like lead-based paint, moisture behind stucco, and various building codes for Minneapolis and St. Paul.  John also spent a lot of time on other related aspects like personal financial management, getting to know neighbors and community, and improvements/maintenance we’ll want to plan for.   John has a great sense of humor and really made the course enjoyable.

I compiled the following moving checklist and tips based on my recent move. Most of this is more applicable for homeowners than renters, and I’ve written down websites and services where my address makes a difference (like PayPal).  Please add your own tips or experiences in the comments.

• Moving truck (Budget was cheaper than UHaul, check online Budget coupons)
• USPS Change of Address Form (online version), useful 15-20% off total purchase coupons for Home Depot, Ikea, JCPenney, etc. - Ikea charges flat delivery rate of $49 (depending on location) for up to 25 items (next day delivery), Home Depot rents pick-up trucks for $20 for the first 75 minutes)
• Employer (or school if student), or children’s school if applicable, past employers from the same tax year (W2), other forms of taxable income (website advertisements, Google AdSense for example)
• 401k or other retirement investments, employer did not do this for me
• Insurance updates - auto, home (Geico and Travelers for example), personal articles, medical, vision, dental, long term care, etc.
• Gas company (Centerpoint in Minneapolis)
• Electric company (Xcel Energy in Minneapolis)
• Phone company or mobile phone (Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T), VoIP phone, SkypeOut etc.
• Lawn care/snow removal depending on season/locale
• Garbage/recycling company
• Internet service provider, television service (I’m tuning HD over the air for free, otherwise Comcast, DirecTV), any other content subscription services that are billed routinely, iTunes subscriptions, podcast subscriptions/donations, internet radio, etc.
• Delivery services: newspaper, Amazon Prime, groceries (Simon Delivers)
• Banks/financial institutions (credit and debit cards, savings accounts, other accounts), stock trading (eTrade), mutual funds, etc.
• Water department
• Credit card companies, check credit report for store credit cards you might have signed-up for and forgotten about
• National Do Not Call number for your new address, call 800 number at bottom of mailings to stop credit “pre-approval” letters, supposedly prevents your address from being given out by credit reporting bureaus (Equifax, etc.) to potential creditors
• Other lending and financing: federal/state/private student education loans, auto loans, boat/RV loan, etc.
• Magazine subscriptions (Wired for me), check the inside cover for updates by email/snail mail
• Sales (income generating) websites: eBay, Paypal (can require snail mail verification), Amazon book selling (billing address for credit card), update bank addresses first
• Websites, applications, webapp subscriptions: Flickr, SmugMug, web hosting or domain name registration renewals (Bluehost and NameCheap in my case), Pandora, anything that might have a monthly fee (check your credit card statements)
• Social websites: family website, Facebook or LinkedIn where friends and family can access new address. More contact info: email signatures, out of office auto-responders, instant messenger clients/services, or business cards (or Plaxo). Consider sending an email or SMS to your contacts to inform them of your new address. Don’t forget the non-tech contacts that are slow/never respond to email (call, mail, or go see grandpa and grandma).
• Update your resume/CV, job listing websites (Monster, Dice, etc.), recruiters or companies you might be working with
• Health club membership - Anytime/Lifetime/Snap Fitness, YMCA, etc.
• Shopping websites Amazon, NewEgg, Buy: clean out old addresses, set up your new address to save time later (1-click checkouts)

This year my coworkers decorated my cube with balloons and streamers for my birthday. Some friends took me out for a nice lunch at Big Bowl. After work Sara treated me to dinner and a show at Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, where we saw Christine Rosholt and her ensemble.

I completed my 2006 income tax returns using TaxAct (web version), and recommend the software. There is nothing to download, your information is shared between federal and state forms, available from year-to-year, and  your return is paperless if you E-File. Some will qualify for free (E-File, paperless) federal returns. The Minnesota income tax return fee was $12.95.

Tax notes for my personal reference: deducting my education expenses (up to 4000) was more advantageous than taking the Lifetime Learning education credit (2000 per return). I was no longer eligible for the Hope credit (1650 per student) since it is available for 2 years of post-secondary education only. The Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit, a 400-3400 tax credit (depending on car model) is available for those with a hybrid vehicle.

A benefit of buying a camera at National Camera Exchange is that they include passes for photography classes (2 classes, for up to 2 people per class). Sara and I attended “SLR 1” and “SLR 2,” and picked up some tips that I wanted to share. Most of these tips require practice. If you are interested in more information, I recommend the classes at the Roseville, MN National Camera Exchange, where the staff has generally been helpful in my experience.

• Longer telephoto lenses bring the background closer. The class presented several shots of the same scene, which included a foreground subject and a background subject. As the focal length of the lens increased (50mm > 100mm > 300mm), the subjects in the photo appeared closer together.

• Terminology: keystoning. Keystoning is distortion that results from using a wide angle lens on a close subject (shooting a tall building from beneath it for example). Sometimes this is desired, but generally it is not. The tip here is to use a telephoto lens (from a further distance away from the subject) to reduce keystoning.
• Tip: inverse shutter speed rule. For photos shot hand-held, shutter speed should be equal to or faster than the focal length of the lens, to keep photos sharp. Generally I’ve raised the ISO setting on point-and-shoots to gain sharpness, but this adds noise in photos where there is too much light. Example: for a 200mm lens, shutter speed should be at least 1/200^th of a second, else use a tripod.
• Flash photography: consider a external flash and dome diffuser. Dome diffuser will provide a softer light, great for people photos. The instructor advised us to experiment with setting the external flash at a 45 degree angle to reduce the light on a flash-lit subject. The Nikon external flash for the D40 was 230 USD retail price.
• The instructor explained histograms, and echoed advice from others that they should not be used during composition, but instead as a way to review amount of pixels that are mostly white or mostly black. Left side of histogram is pure black, right side is pure white. My Nikon D40 has a color histogram instead of the more common black and white histogram. Ken Rockwell covers this in his D40 User’s Guide, on a page titled How to Use Color Histograms.
• Metering: instructor showed us a gray card, used to set the correct exposure. I will probably never carry a gray card though, so my takeaway from the metering portion of the class was regarding shooting subjects that are mostly black or mostly white. Set the exposure by aiming the camera elsewhere (ideally filling the frame), then lock the exposure by pressing and holding the AE lock button (or using the exposure compensation if taking several photos). This was useful recently when shooting black cars at the Twin Cities Auto Show.
• General lighting tips: best time of day to shoot is morning and night. If shooting during the middle of the day, move subject into shaded area and use fill flash to avoid harsh light. Side lighting shows texture, but should generally be avoided for people.
• Composition tips (mostly review): rule of thirds, low angles, use of lines. Try to include diagonal or s-curve lines through the photo. Interesting tip: shoot subjects doing what they love, and they will smile bigger and be more natural or relaxed. Keep photos simple (don’t miss interesting macros), beware of background subjects that will be distracting (though I usually crop these out later).