New York Drivers....Angry???

So I found this article describing how New York Drivers have been moved up the list to the most aggressive in the country. To quote:

"New Yorkers were most likely to wave their fists or arms. They were most likely to lay on the horn and they were most likely to make some sort of obscene gesture,"

Obscene Gesture? Wave their fists or arms? What the #$?@ is that supposed to mean? I grew up driving in NYC and that's where I learned. Those are not obscene gestures or random flailing of limbs. Those are polite criticisms on other people's driving skills, but since they can't hear us in our car we need to move around a bit more to be noticed.

At least when people drive around NYC you know what they are going to do. They drive aggressively (It's not defensive driving there, it's offensive driving). I currently live in Salt Lake City and if the people weren't so damn nice here I would probably rip off their heads as I drive around. It's not that they are bad drivers here, it is more as if they have no clue that other people are on the road. When a person pulls into the left lane, for no reason, doing 10 under the speed limit, just as I was about to pass him, that is enough reason for their license to be revoked, I feel. Keep in mind this has happened on more than one occasion.

I could probably go on for hours describing the inability of people to drive here, and probably most other places, but please, don't insult my NY drivers. At least they can drive (Ok, at 90 while flipping you off, but I can handle that).

Very funny site

Ok I was just pointed to this site, Lovelylisting.com, via my Money magazine and it is great. I laughed so hard I started to cry. Really. And no, it has nothing to do with money. It is all about bad real estate photos that the blogger posts and makes comments on. And just coming off of house hunting last year I can appreciate them all the more.

2009 Personal Goals - June Update

5 Months in and things are slowing down.

1. Finish the first draft of my fiction novel.
Start of 2009 - I have the first 1/3rd of the book written
February 1st - Nothing more written
March 1st - Nothing more written
April 1st - Nothing more written
May 1st - Nothing
June 1st - Nothing

2. Drop my weight to 167lbs.
Start of 2009 - I started the year at ~185
February 1st - ~180
March 1st - 175.2
April 1st - 172.2
May 1st - 172.2 (somehow again)
June 1st - 171.0 (Finally something)

3. Pay off all my credit cards.
Start of 2009 - I started the year with 5 credit cards with balances and one relative we owed money to.
February 1st - Payed back the relative. Still 5 cards with balances.
March 1st - Payed off 1 card. 4 cards with balances.
April 1st - Payed off another card. Currently 3 cards with balances.
May 1st - Payed off one more. Down to 2 cards with balances. 1 with 0% APR until 2011 though so that one may be waiting a while.
June 1st - Still 2 cards to pay off

Other achievements of note.
Finished bar, YEA!!!! Next up I am doing some little things around the house like building a wood holder for the outdoor fireplace and repainting the guest bedroom.
Finished another book on my 100 greatest books list.
And still waiting to hear from the University of Utah regarding my residency status and my loan status. I also started researching PhD topics and that should be narrowed down within the next 2 months.

The 306 Greatest Books #84 - The Nicomachean Ethics

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Nichomachean Ethics (AKA Ethica Nicomachea) by Aristotle. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List. 

Generally I have found the Philosophy books to be a weird mix of "well, duh" and "what is going on here". The Nicomachean Ethics in particular, is a difficult book to describe because much of what Aristotle goes into is common sense today. In the book, Aristotle goes through and describes each of our emotional attributes and describes the extremes of them; from bravery to cowardice, and so on. The result of his analysis was that the middle of the road response in most cases was the "good" response and that most people should strive to be "good" people. Overall, I felt like I was reading a treatise on the seven deadly sins and I did not gain much from it afterwards. I can't imagine ever having to recommend this to anyone.

Bar Done!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!

Yes it has been several months since I started working on the bar. You can see the first part of the bar done HERE. The second and last part is pictured below. The main problem I ran into is I miss-stained the bar the wrong color, a far darker color, so it took me over a month to unstain it. That was a pain. Also I had to figure out a way to saw 5" logs in half. Also not a fun thing since I only had my little circular saw. But it is all done and ready for use. YEA!!!!.

View of the front of the bar with the bar top down.

View of the front of the bar with the bar top open.

Side of the bar showing the three pillars.

Back of the bar with a closeup of the checkerboard bar top.

Everything done and in place with the bar of the bar all set up.