Sidewalk

One of the reasons I chose to live in South Roanoke were the presence of sidewalks and mature trees. To me, both of these items are essential to a livable neighborhood. Sidewalks, so that the area can be experienced on a human scale, and trees because they are beautiful and provide shade and a place for squirrels to live (along with some problems).

One thing that would be an excellent addition would be a sidewalk extended up Franklin Road to Avenham and proper crosswalks at Franklin and Wonju. The sidewalk would just need to be extended maybe 200 or 300 yards south on Franklin and then around the bend to the sidewalk along Avenham.

I'm surprised that they didn't build a crosswalk at Franlkin and Wonju when they redid the intersection there to allow for two left turn lanes. I thought they were going to build that in and they did put in one crossing, but didn't finish the job. This is a gnarly intersection to cross on foot because it isn't square. Do they think people wouldn't want to walk to the store? They certainly won't if they have to battle their way across traffic.

Trees along Franklin would be nice as well, but I'll settle for just being able to walk safely to the store.

Timeless

I can't believe that this article was written 36 years ago. If you updated a few of the concepts (carbon, terrorists, hybrids) and the numbers, you would have an article that could be published in The Atlantic next month.

Slower

I drove to Maryland this past weekend with the kids. As an experiment, I decided to see how much better gas mileage the Silver Surfer would get if I drove at the speed limit for the entire trip. It is about a 250 mile drive each way with about half of it on interstates and half on highways plus a little bit of stop and go driving while we were there. The mileage computer (optimistically?) read 23.8 MPG at the end of the trip. This compares to about 20 MPG on other trips where I don't really pay attention to speed (read: drive 5-10 MPH over the limit along with most of the traffic).

According to the calculator here, driving 65 MPH vs. 75 MPH saved me about $10 and took an extra half hour each way. I saved about $20 driving at the speed limit at the expense of an extra hour on the road. Whether it is worth it or not depends on what else you would be doing with that time and how much you like (hate) being in the car.

Mobile

We had the first concerted effort by our daughter to lobby for a mobile phone this past weekend. She was with her teen cousin who, like many teens, is constantly texting. Plus, some of her friends have recently acquired mobile phones. She's eight.

Now, if we were in Norway, I could see it - she might get caught in a snowdrift or attacked by a rougue reindeer. But, in Roanoke, I don't think so.

Railroad

I'm all for getting rail service to Roanoke. If they could get the rail transit time to DC and Richmond down to close to the driving time (within 25%) and the cost was reasonable (the IRS rate for driving is $0.585 per mile), I think they would get a lot of traffic both business and leisure.

Plus, isn't Roanoke supposed to be a railroad town?

Inside

We now have two gaping holes in the back of the house. It's been a noisy and dusty process and this is one week that I wish I worked in an office, but we are making good progress. As you can see from the photos, we are weather proof and have a lot of the plumbing and electrical roughed in.

The only real issue we've run into is that the door manufacturer built 5' doors when 6' doors were specified. It was their mistake but it would have taken another 3-4 weeks to get the proper doors delivered, so we took their offer to sell the doors at cost. Another foot of door would have been nice, but the time lag would have been a real pain to coordinate across all of the various activities. Also, it puts us almost $1000 ahead on the budget.

#8

Columbia, MD where I grew up, was ranked #8 in America's Best Places To Live. The pros were the strong economy and amenities. The con listed was traffic. It was a good place to be as a kid - lots of parks and bike paths, good schools, a big Mall. We are not planning on leaving Roanoke anytime soon, but Columbia would be on my short-list if things don't work out.

Fair

We had an very American Sunday evening last night. A friend invited us to go to a Salem Avalanche game. The Avs lost to the Nats 5-3, but it was one of the most action packed games I've seen in a while. The game featured a huge collision on a play at the plate which resulted in the catcher hobbling off the field (the runner was safe), at least two batters getting beaned in the noggin, a bunch of errors and a home run. Who says baseball is boring? Plus, we got to sit in one of the luxury boxes up on the mezzanine and the kids got to run the bases after the game was over.

Oh, but there was much more. The Salem Fair happened to be going on right across the street at the same time. We saw the Bearded Lady, the Incredible Tatooed Man and the Creature That Ate Sheboygan and that was just the crowd. All of the kids got to go on a ride ($5 per ride?) and they had a blast. Quite entertaining.

Free

While pulling in the recycling bin the other day, I spied a Natty Light can in the grass near the side of the street. Darn kids. I picked it up to throw it in the bin and noted that it was full. Free beer! Natural Light is not exactly a gourmet beer, but I don't mind it in the summer because basically it is hop-flavored water. I picked it up, took it inside, washed it off and put it in the mini-fridge (college!) A few hours later, it was cold and, boy, was it tasty.

My wife was appalled that I would drink a beer that I found on the curb, but I don't see the problem at all. It is in a can so I'm not going to get some kind of contamination (especially if poured in a glass). Anytime someone wants to throw full beer cans on my lawn, please feel free. I especially wouldn't mind Amstel or something similar.

Mini

Now that the kitchen remodel is picking up some steam, all of the old appliances are failing. A couple of weeks ago, the kitchen faucet started dripping like crazy. The the garbage disposal started to die. A couple of days ago, the refrigerator gave up the ghost.

Since a repair call for a refrigerator with an expected life of a month is not going to happen, we have gone back to our college days and bought a mini-fridge. This monster features enough space inside for a six pack of beer and a quart of milk. Plus, we moved some of the magnetic crap from big fridge so we hardly miss it. What else do you need?

21

I don't know whether to be relieved or distressed that this poll indicates that 21% of Americans are insane. When you sign mortgage papers, it is pretty clear how much you are going to have to pay back (all of it, plus interest) and what the consequences are if you don't. If you can't afford it, don't sign the papers. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.

Bailing people out of this creates a nasty moral hazard problem and penalizes all of us that play by the rules. If there were frauds perpetrated (and there were), take 1/1000 of the money allocated in the Senate bill and hire enough prosecutors to charge everyone involved under the appropriate statues (mail fraud for one if any documents were sent by USPS).

Mall

The potential bankruptcy of Steve & Barry's is bad news for Tanglewood Mall. It seemed like they were just getting that mall off the carpet when the economy slid out from under them.

Train

I just started my training for the NYC Marathon. I'm following the First To Finish plan again which has worked well for me in the past. I'm keeping my plan online so I can see and update it from wherever I happen to be.

Energetic

The Economist has an excellent survey on the future of energy in their 21 June issue. As usual with their surveys, the writing and research are solid.

It won't be easy to move away from fossil fuels, but this survey gave me hope that it is possible to significantly reduce consumption of oil in the next 20 years. It happened the last time there was a tripling of the oil price, so it stands to reason that a similar transition to a less oil intensive economy and society is probably on its way. This time, it will be more permanent.

Nudge

The book of the week was Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. The book is about helping people make better decisions by shaping the way choices are presented. These nudges can do a lot of good things among them increased rates of organ donation, improved diet and provide for a better retirement.

The principles of "choice architecture" are based on the same foundation as behavioral economics in general. In this view, people act human rather than as the automatons with perfect information and foresight presumed by simple economic theory. These principles are well explained in the part one which describe the way people tend to interpret data and make decisions. If you don't know much about behavioural economics, this is as good a short introduction as you will find.

There are many interesting examples throughout the book where they bring the power of choice architecture to bear. For example, in cases where the true cost is difficult for consumers to understand (e.g. credit cards, mobile phones), Thaler and Sunstein propose a disclosure regulation called RECAP for Record, Evaluate and Compare Alternative Prices. Mobile phone companies would be free to charge as much as they want. However, they would have to provide customers and potential customers with a clear and unambiguous presentation of exactly how much they would pay for each service. In this way, consumers could compare the costs of complex products in a way that would be of the most use for them.

The authors justify nudging people into making the right choices by what they call "libertarian paternalism". This idea holds that as long as people truly have a choice, structuring the choices so they are optimal for the individual and society as a whole is a good thing. The potential for conflicts of interest when structuring choice architecture is examined as a potential liability. Thaler and Sunstein believe that it would be relatively simple to control through the use of the publicity principle, where a policy should not be made unless it can be publicly defended.

As an econogeek, I found Nudge to be an enjoyable read. Even the less geeky would find the intuitive ideas compelling. Many of the policy suggestions are difficult to argue against and we may very well see some more of them happen.

Bike

We bought our daughter her first "real" bike last weekend. It's a black and red Giant Boulder. We got the smallest frame size available and it seems to fit her OK. The standover is a touch too but the top tube length seems right. As a low-end bike, it is a heavy beast and we are working on getting her up the hills in the neighborhood. It's tough at first, but she's getting it.

Creepy

The stock market has been quite creepy in the first half of 2008 with the S&P 500 down almost 10%. I don't even want to look at the quarterly results from our IRA and 401k plans.

I guess I will look on the bright side. I'm not selling stocks at this point in my life, I'm buying them. If the whole point is to buy low and sell high, I'm at least doing the first part right.

Windmill

I stumbled across the Windspire personal windmill on the web. I don't think we have enough quite enough wind or space in our backyard to make this work and it isn't cost effective, but it would make you the greenest person on the block.

Using the numbers from the proposed rate increase of 23.9% for Appalachian Power (Yes, Virginia, there is another rate increase on the way), a customer who uses 1000 kWH per month would pay about $0.088 cents per kWH. Assuming you could generate and use the specified 2000 kWH per year, you would save $176 per year for a payback period of 28 years.

Financially, you would do better with insulation but that isn't nearly as fun as a 30 foot tall windmill in your backyard (or your front if you really want to show off your green cred).

Roof

Another few days and we have half a roof on. A few more days and we should have a complete roof. After that, the windows and doors come in and then the real fun starts: we start to bash through the external walls.