My Other Blog

Things being what they are, occasionally I get to talk with some interesting people or do interesting things related to my work.

I had the chance to talk to a revered figure this afternoon. It was great to learn from the source in a one on one phone call.

His name doesn't matter nor does the topic of conversation but it was fun and not something a lot of people get to do. The Only in Walker title comes from the fact that after this high brow phone call I had to help my wife fill the back of the Jeep for a dump run she needs to make after she cleaned out our shed.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments

A blogger who writes about things related to my work finds some great images.

While I found these on my own, I have to say he inspired me to look.

It doesn't get much sillier than Hong Kong Phooey.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments

We just started feeding our dogs this brand of food. It is called Merrick and the dogs love it more than any other food we have ever had.

We buy Grammy's Pot Pie flavor. Some of the other flavors have venison, trout and buffalo.

We buy at a store where we live but you can also buy it directly from the Merrick Petcare website with no shipping charges. If you have pets you really need to check out the food and the creativity that goes into the product.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments

Yesterday I had to go to our office in Phoenix. I stopped in at the Starbucks in the Safeway store at about 6am. There was woman there about my age drinking her mocha, or whatever, on the phone chatting away like it was the middle of the day.

It was 6am.

My wife didn't think there was anything odd about this. Maybe it is a Venus Mars thing.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments

Kobe Bryant had 81 points the other night vs. Toronto, 55 came in the second half.

Good grief. I can't imagine anyone likes this guy anymore but that is quite an effort. There are issues around whether he shoots to much relative to the number of shots his teammates get.

I wonder how they felt after 81.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

I stumbled across a picture of Count Chocula and after looking around a little bit I found this terror chart.

Hysterical. 

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

This is professional tennis player Dominik Hrbaty and his shirt that he first made famous at the 2005 US Open and continued to wear in the 2006 Australian Open. In case you can't tell, in addition to the two holes the light color on his shoulders is pink.

I think it is very funny and I hope he sticks with it. Not to be too critical but I doubt casual fans would no who he is but for the shirt so it is a clever idea.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 7:06 AM | Permalink | Comments

The North Dakota State University Bisons beat Wisconsin in a huge upset yesterday.

NDSU has a great hockey program but this is the first time I have ever of their basketball team. I'm not sure that it is a D-1 program, and my guess is that this might be the biggest win in the school's history.

It's games like this one that makes college basketball so exciting.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

Theo Epstein is back as GM of Red Sox. I don't really get what happened but I am glad he's back. Too bad they dismantled the team while he was on vacation.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments

I have a new one to add to the list. This week I have been watching the Dakar Rally. It is a 5000 mile off road race that this year started in Lisbon and finishes in Dakar.

Ride Along For At Least One Day In The Dakar Rally
One of the race classes is the garbage truck-looking vehicles that I have a picture of here. There would be room, for a day, for someone to ride along. This idea is not as remote as it seems. An aquaintance of mine is racing in the car class in this year's rally. It is possible, I am not saying likely, that I could make this happen in the next couple of years.

I am saying part one but I do not know if there will be a part two or not but this is something I want to put together and try to live up to. I do or have done a couple of interesting things but not that many. I've been on the Fox News Channel a couple of times, I've been to Alaska once and Hawaii a bunch of times, I've hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim in one day, I've gone to two world series games and I fight forest fires. I'll put down some things and maybe a little color about why. These won't be any particular order, just as I think of them.

Visit New Zealand (Done)
This is likely to happen very soon, perhaps around my 40th birthday. We know someone with a house there and we can stay for free.

Visit Peru or Chile
We have seen both of these places on the show Amazing Race and they are beautiful, not what I would expect an emerging market country to look like, we own stock in a Chilean bank. Both places have mountains and beaches, which is our cup of tea.

Visit Iceland
Again we have seen Iceland on Amazing Race (I am a vidiot) and it looks fantastic. I am planning on opening an investment account at Kaupthing Bank to buy ETF shares. I think Iceland will develop a lot over the next 20 years or so.

We went to Iceland in July 2006.

See Mount Everest
Not climb, see it from base camp. I am not extreme enough to want to try to climb it, but seeing it from 16,000 feet may be something I can do. We used to know a couple of sisters that did this and base camp was too high for one of them. This is by far the least likely thing we will do.

Go To The College World Series
I watch every year and I love the action.

We went in June 2007. Links here, here and here.

Watch A Game in Fenway On Top of the Green Monster
We have to go to Boston in the spring of 2006 for my niece's bat mitzvah, this is doable but painfully expensive.

I am adding a couple of more today (June 12, 2005).

Serve As Fire Chief For A Year Or Two
I actively volunteer as a wildland firefighter. At this point I am an engine boss in training. I have had a fair bit of training and have fought a few fires in my time. We are in the process of trying to become a fire district. The benefit to me will be that my volunteer work will become a part time job. The downside with regard to this goal is that my becoming chief is just about impossible. Either way this is at least ten years away although I did get to be IC for a while in a drill we had yesterday.

Be A Part Owner Of A Minor League Baseball Team
I think minor league baseball is one of the great American things. If this is doable I would look to the pioneer league which is mostly in Montana and Idaho. This would very capital intensive. There are also investment companies that own multiple teams that take smaller investors as limited partners.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments

I had heard of this race but had never seen it before. They are showing some of the race on OLN. As best as I can tell there are three classes; cars, motorcycles and these things.

I actually know (sort of) someone who is in the race.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments

This is another picture from the Dakar Rally.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

The Camaro is back. Some of the details look like the 1968 version. I will be curious to see how many people will want a great American muscle car if gas goes back to $3.00.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments

We watched this film the other night. It was tough to watch. It boiled down to being an indepth character study of Timothy Treadwell, a guy who devoted his life to studying bears in Alaska.

It was tough to watch because Treadwell was portrayed as someone with many unresolved conflicts. The film told his story with Treadwell's own footage mixed in with some interaction that film maker Werner Herzog has with some of the people in Treadwell's life.

Herzog's portrayal left me with the impression that Treadwell had a messianic complex, was paranoid, was gay and did not know it and a couple of other things.

I am not saying he was any of these things but I am saying that these were the impressions the film created.

While the film was tough to watch I thought it was well done and definitely worth the time.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 7:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

Doug Flutie became the first player to drop kick an NFL extra point since 1941.

He has been an amazing athlete for his entire public life. That he is still in the league is a marvel unto itself.

If anyone was going to do something like this, it makes sense it would be Flutie. 

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

2005 was quite a year for us and I am thankful for the luck we had. I am not a huge goal setter but I usually have a couple things I'd like to see happen.

On a personal note we plan to buy a small house in New Zealand. This is the type of thing that could easily fall through due to many variables. The financing should be easy, our house is paid off. I plan to use the equity in our home to make the purchase. I don't find this to be particularly risky in that we have no mortgage but we can afford to have one. We will try to rent it out for vacationers when possible but we won't be in trouble if it doesn't rent.

For the fire department (I am the co-assistant chief for our volunteer fire department) I hope to complete the purchase of a new truck. We need a newer Type 6 truck. A Type 6 is a pickup truck with a small tank, a pump and hoses that we use for wildfires. We have needed a truck for a while. I had the idea about a year ago to buy a used one in a particular way that has finally rotated into favor with everyone else. I have been very committed to this having raised some money through my other blog. Finally this will happen and I am thrilled that I was so involved with it.

Professionally, I hope to keep learning more, continue to add value for clients and reach more people with my writing.

I hope this will be a good year for everyone, happy new year.

Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments