House Hunting Hell

Mindy and I have begun a serious house hunt. We narrowed down a list of 129 some listings available ( in our price range within the Buffalo Grove, IL area ) to an elite group of 12 that peaked our interest. We spent a good portion of saturday visiting each one of these 12 houses. Now I can hardly see straight. What a marathon!

Unfortunately we did not find any that really popped out and yelled “Buy me now!”

So the hunt continues…

Ergonomics search exposes 1 degree of seperation

Some of you know that I am a little strange. I type in a non-standard keyboard layout called Dvorak. Which has befuddled many a techie as they have tried to pull a Nick Burns on me.

I also prefer to type on a Microsoft Natural Keyboard, you know one of those split in the middle keyboards that is about 2 inches taller than the standard. I also enjoy experimenting with keyboard input devices and trying to improve the ergonomic layout of my work area. I feel that this is important if I am going to be sitting on my duff for 8 hours a day for the forseeable future. So I did a little research and I would like to share it with you:

Ergonomic Chairs

---

I was spoiled in my first job, at the Trace Research and Development Center, in that I was issued a fantastically comfortable and ergonomic chair, The Aeron chair. Since that time I have been scuttled about in less comfortable chairs of varying degrees, from tolerable to god awful. I still haven’t found a worthy replacement. But I did find some useful tips, if you have to deal with a lesser chair.

Ergonomic Desks

---

Biomorph is intriguing with it Circle of Power ideas, and it’s easily adjustable desks from seated to standing positon. “Oh, to have dual monitors again!” And there always in my fantasies is the PCE, which seems eerily similar to the chair that Pierce Brosnon sat in The Lawnmower Man.

Ergonomic Input Devices

---

I came across some unusual bits in this category including the Datahand Pro II , and also the Kinesis Contoured Keyboards. I would love to try both of those devices and see if they are any good. I also came across a nifty product which I had seen and heard of before called the FrogPad. I was poking around on the FrogPad site and I was pleased to see that it is now available with Bluetooth, it can easily be worn , and it can be used as a better interface to PDAs.

But then I found a page on the FrogPad site that freaked me out! The FrogPad and Disabilities Page connected Spokane, Wa where I used to live and work, with the Trace Center, Madison, Wi where I also used to live and work! Is this page my digital nexus of the universe? The corner of 1st street and 1st street? Bizarre.

DVDs I never watch

There is nothing that makes me lose the desire to watch a DVD like purchasing it.

Am I alone on this? I get suckered into the Target DVD deals for like $7.50, and my inner dialogue goes something like this:

“I NEED TO HAVE THAT MOVIE!! That movie is AWESOME! Come on Nate, just buy it. You know you want to. I mean $7.50 is like the cost of one late night movie ticket. Once you own it, you can watch it anytime you want.”

Sometimes I give in to this inner demon, and sometimes I hold strong and resist the urge. But one thing remains constant, almost immediately after I purchase a DVD I will watch it once and then I will put it in the ever growing collection of DVD’s that never get watched again.

Even stranger, is that sometimes the movie will stay on the shelf long enough that it will show up on cable TV, and as I am channel surfing and run across the Cable (edited with commercials and all) version, I will sit down and watch the frickin’ MOVIE! I have even caught myself watching the movie, and thinking: Man this movie is great! But, do I walk ten steps and put the DVD in… NO!

I find that this happens to varying degrees depending on the category of movie that I am purchasing. This buy and forget attitude happens less often with comedy’s and action movies, than it does with drama’s. Maybe that is why drama’s always get the Academy Awards for Best Picture? It is kind of a consolation so that some poor shmucks like me feel better about owning it and never watching it. At least I purchased a movie that some random Academy thought had high quality, that helps me sleep at night.

funny

Finally, I work for people whose business process isn’t just marketing guys making stuff up. Thanks Dice.

Quote from Dice.com

US and Canadian Mortgage Calculation Formula

Working on a little project for work . I needed to find a Mortgage Formula, that would work for both Canadian Mortgages and US Mortgages.

Apparently there are some key differences in the way that Canadian Mortgages are computed compared to US Mortgages. For instance, did you know that Canadian Mortgages have there interest compound semi-annually ( that is 2 times per year )? Whereas US Mortgages compound interest on a monthly basis?

Neither did I.

There are some other minor differences like the default term length of 25 years or 300 months, as opposed to 30 years in the US. But changing when the interest is compounded is what made finding the right formula tricky.

I finally came across an equation that let me solve for both Canadian Mortgage Monthly Payments and US Mortgage Monthly payments. Here is the skinny:

—— Input this data ——————————-
principal amount = E9 ( in dollars )
Amortization Period = d10 ( in years ie 6 mon = .5 )
Payments / year = D11 ( 12 = monthly, 52 = weekly )
Published Interest rate = D12 ( ie 9 % = 0.09 )
Times per year Int calculated = d13 ( CDN mortgage use 2
US mortgage use 12
all other loans use 12 )
—– Calculate the proper rate of interest ———–
e14 = Effective annual rate = EXP(D13*LN(1+(D12/D13)))-1
e15 = Interest rate per payment = (EXP(LN(E14+1)/(D10*D11))-1)*D10*D11
e17 = Payments = APMT(E9,E15/D11,D10*D11) ( both these functions are
= PMT (E9,E15/D11,D10*D11) ( identical,diff spreadsheet)
APMT( principal amount,interest rate per period,# periods )
( this is a standard function on any true commercial spreadsheet)
OR use the following if done using a calculator
= Payments = P*I/[1-(I+1)^-T]
= E9*(E15/D11)/(1-((E15/D11) +1)**(-1*D10*D11))
Total interest cost = E17*D10*D11-E9

Fantastic Specimens

An artist named Hujime Emoto has created monstrosities out of paper, modeling paste, and bamboo for a Museum of Fantastic Specimens.

Check out this nasty little devil!

Navigating the museum could be tricky if you don’t speak japanese, but if you want to just enjoy the photos of all of these hand crafted monsters here are some links and my descriptions of the art within:

Room #1 - Dragons and Demons
Room #2 - Fish and Crustacean beasties
Room #3 - Imps and devilish beings
Room #4 - Armadillo / Salamander cross breeds
Room #5 - Winged amphibians and turtlekin
Room #8 - Alien squids, frog people, and other greats
Room #10 - Multi-limbed nasties, very ‘Alien’ face raping beast-like.

Enjoy!

Bars in Evanston

A couple of Mindy’s college friends came into town and we went out in Evanston.

We met out at Prairie Moon, then we swung over to Tommy Nevins, and wrapped up the night at Bluestone.