Gas Price History from GasBuddy.com Vanguard Energy ETF (VDE) History from Google Finance Fuel prices at the pump are highly correlated with energy sector index funds (which invest primarily in oil since that’s the way the energy market is weighted) so if you want to smooth out your fuel budget you can do your … Read more
Ben’s List of Free Programs 7-Zip http://www.7-zip.org/ Open Source compression / decompression program that handles almost any format (rar, zip, bz2, tar, etc.). Better than WinZip. CamStudio http://camstudio.org Screen recording application (use Handbrake to encode output file to a usable format) CHIRP http://chirp.danplanet.com Open source program for programming amateur radios (great for BaoFeng and … Read more
Kris actually hit some targets! In January I picked up a Mossberg 500 and finally got a chance to shoot it this weekend. Dave & Melody (and their puppy) came along and showed us a great shooting spot not too far out of town. This was Kris’s first time firing a gun and she … Read more
Here is an estimated breakdown of how people will die in the United States this year. Death by a person controlling a gun: 31,000 Death by Car Accident: 32,000 Death by Suicide: 38,000 Death by Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,000 Death by Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,000 Death by Diabetes: 69,000 Death by Alzheimer’s: 83,000 Death by Accidents: … Read more
Last Sunday our Scripture Reading was Psalm 23, it is a solemn reminder that we constantly live with death. There isn’t a second of relief from the possibility of loved ones or ourselves dying at any moment. But it also is a comforting passage, as Christians we are comforted by Jesus Christ. Because of Christ’s … Read more
Source: Bitcoin Charts, April 5, 2013 I learned to recognize bubbles from William Bernstein’s short history of bubbles in the The Four Pillars of Investing… here are a few, along with some more I found on Wikipedia… Tulip Craze South Sea Company Mississippi Company Railway Mania Florida Land Boom Stock Market Bubble Poseidon Mining Bubble Japanese … Read more
Current U.S. Debt: $16,800,000,000,000 (as of 4/7/2013) [1] Earlier this week I calculated out how much national debt we have per employed person (155,500,000 employed people as of Feb 2013 [2]) in the U.S.: $108,039. Add in the all the state and local government debt [3] and it’s $115,756 per working person. I have a … Read more
My readers from California will spot the irony in this… Over 73,000 Signers Support German Homeschooling Parents in Danger of Deportation Christian family seeking asylum; Obama wants to deport. Here’s a German family, the Romeikes, that believe in homeschooling their children, but in Germany that means jail-time and their children will probably be taken away. … Read more
Got my $44 UV-5RA Chinese built ham radio. For the price I couldn’t pass it up just to see how good a ham radio this cheap could be. Update 2014-05-11 It has been a little over a year since I first wrote this and BaoFeng has released several versions of this radio, UV-5RE, UV-82, FB-F8+, UV-B5, GT3, … Read more