Viva, Las Vegas!

I've wasted 10 years of Vegas trips...never played craps (at least not understanding it while doing so). And it's SO easy.

Shooter is the guy with the dice. Shooter throws, 2,3,12 loses immediately, 7 or 11 wins immediately. If you bet "the pass line", you win even money.

If the shooter throws something else, that # becomes "the point". A block is put on that number (physically on the table) to show it. Your "pass line" bet stays, and if the shooter throws "the point" again before throwing a seven, you win (again, even money). If a seven comes first, you lose.

Once "the point" is set, you can add an odds bet to your pass line bet. That bet can be any size up to some house limit, typically a multiple of the pass bet you made between 3x and 100x depending where you play. That bet provides even odds, so it's a GREAT bet to load up on. If the shooter rolls the point before a seven, you win the odds bet, and you get a varying payout depending what the point was - a 4 or 10 is harder to get than a 6 or 8, so they pay more.

Once "the point" is set, you can also bet the specific numbers. So, if the point is 5, you could bet $15 each on 6 and 8 (for $30 total). If the shooter rolls a 6 or an 8 before they roll a 7, you win a multiple of your bet. These bets are lots of fun, as they don't have to come off the table when you win - if the shooter is hot, they can keep rolling 6 or 8 repeatedly and you keep winning without making more bets!

And if you feel unlucky, you can pull your odds bets and number bets any time you want...if you have a lot of them out and the shooter rolls a 7, you can lose a LOT of money all at once, so sometimes following your gut is a good thing :). But it's even better to load up the table on a hot shooter, screaming and yelling the whole time. Bring lots of cash, even a $15 minimum bet table will require $500 to really play...maybe more if you max out your odds bets like you should.

WOOHOO!!

GTA IV

Grand Theft Auto IV rocks:

1) Stealing a car, having the person try to grab the door just as you take off and they're holding on as you fly around the streets (for a while :)).
2) HUGE stunt jumps in cars! The game needs more jumps scattered around, these things are just too good. Hitting one perfect is so hard with traffic thick in many areas, and I'd love to do them all in different cars and try sliding into them or hitting off-center to get great effects.
3) Bowling a turkey is HARD. Throwing 180 in darts should be fairly easy but has eluded me so far. Shooting a perfect game in 8-ball will be near impossible.
4) Michelle is easy.
5) Controlling slides while driving on big bridges through traffic, never hitting another car.

Multiplayer looks really good, only did some quick trials last night but it appears to be goofy fun, especially when you get 3-4 people loaded in a car, all hanging out firing at some other car loaded up the same way racing through the city :).

A night in the life

A typical night with the bears (on the weekend):

Dinner at 5-6
A walk outside around the block or playing in the backyard
Bath at 7
Dressed for bed at 7:30
Pillow fight with Philip until 8
Katarina and Philip pile-on daddy until 8:05
Karatina and Philip jump over "alligator" daddy until 8:10
Katarina gets a book to read, Philip runs off and gets trucks from another room
Philip gets a book to read, Katarina needs a tiny bit of milk
We forgot to brush our teeth!
Katarina screams to read her book first, Philip goes to play with his trucks
Halfway through Katarina's book, Philip wants to start it over so he can see all of it, big fight ensues
Katarina and Philip read Philips book
In the bed and lights off around 9, but no one knows since the last hour was insane
I need to go peepee!
5 minutes later
I need to go poopoo!
15 minutes later
I need a drink
Philip is stealing the covers!
Katarina sings "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's AMORREEEEEEE!"
Daddy falls asleep...

ROCK YOUR FACE OFF!

I'm in a rock band. Actually several. And they perform all over the world, most recently in Madison Square Garden with flames going off everywhere. I guess it was a'ight.

As one friend put it, it seems to be in our DNA to play one role/instrument in a band. I'm definitely a bass guy at heart, but I like the guitar and drums and vocals, so I guess I just have a lot of DNA.

Anywho:
Rock Band
Best. Game. Ever.

'Nuff Said.

Security Vulnerabilities

Wow - fascinating data on the first year of various popular operating systems and the security vulnerabilities and fixes released.

http://blogs.technet.com/security/archive/2008/01/23/download-windows-vista-one-year-vulnerability-report.aspx

Thanksgiving 2007

Doro the Pinata didn't last long...


These guys had nothing to do with it - pre/post holiday paintball is the most awesome idea ever.

Teach a 3-year old to fish...

And they'll throw rocks at you.

Leasing (a BMW)

Leasing had a bad rap with me, but no more. Cars are depreciating assets, and it makes no sense to own depreciating assets as a general rule. So, renting one seems like a good call, and after my buddy told me he had recently switched to leasing, I decided to run the numbers.

1) Much lower opportunity cost - zero money down
Leasing can be negotiated to have zero money down, simply making the first car payment when you pick up the car. That means ZERO opportunity cost - opportunity cost is the killer for paying cash for a car. Treat opportunity cost as the loss of money you WOULD have made if you were investing that money instead in the market - for a $45,000 car, 8% = $3600 loss per year). That's not wholy accurate as you are making payments, Excel can help do the EXACT math with some future value functions, but it gives you an idea that this isn't a small factor.

2) You save a ton on the initial 3% NC taxes
Leasing only requires you to pay tax on the part of the car that you are consuming (i.e. the depreciation of the car). For a BMW 335i Sedan on a 3 year, 10,000 mile per year lease, that's 64% of the MSRP. So, if you option the car out to $45,000 MSRP, the depreciation is $45k * .36 = $16,200, and you pay the NC 3% tax on that over 3 years instead of paying 3% ALL AT ONCE on ALL $45,000 (or whatever you negotiate the purchase price down to)... Call that $486 spread over 3 years vs. $1350 out of pocket immediately - it's a big difference.

3) You might be able to buy it and flip it at the end of the lease
The lease residual is fixed for a BMW based on the car and the term, so that gets rid of one big complexity in the calculations. As noted above, a $45,000 2008 335i Sedan will have a residual value after a 3-year 10,000 mile per year term of $28,800. If it turns out you kept the car in PERFECT condition and it's still selling HOT, it might be worth more than that. You have a fixed purchase price option in the lease, so you might be able to make some quick cash just flipping it at the end (or keeping the car if you really love it). There's NO risk in that option, kind of amazes me that it's so in favor of the consumer but there it is...

4) BMW includes GAP insurance in the lease - no risk of being upside down
GAP insurance makes sure that if the car is wrecked or stolen and the insurance payout is less than the amount you owe, you don't end up with NO car and OWING money... BMW includes that coverage in the lease, allowing the zero money down option in #1 with zero risk.

5) BMW CCA rebates?
BMW Car Club of America, which anyone can join for like $75 for a 3 year membership, provides a rebate to purchasers AND leasers of a new BMW, maximum of 1 per year. Any 3-series gets $500, 5-series gets $1000, etc. So in the course of a lease for 9 years, that's 3 cars and 3 rebates vs. just 1 for purchasing the car.

6) You'd have to keep a car for many years to make purchasing cheaper
Depending on the car and interest rates and such, it could be a lot longer than you'd think before buying the car makes sense. Leasing a car for 9 years with a $600 payment = 9*12*600 = $64,800, a very large sum. But, you'd have had at least 3 new cars in that period and therefore never have paid ANY maintenance costs (BMW's include all maintenance for 4 years/50,000 miles), and avoided several replacement sets of tires (at $1250 a set...), and received 3 BMW CCA rebates. And most of that money was earning for you during the 9 years (see opportunity cost and tax savings, #1 and #2). I think it would be pretty safe to assume it's at best break-even for the owning scenario at 9 years..

7) If you own a company, LEASE!
Leasing is an expense, owning a car is a capital item that is depreciated. Suffice it to say that leasing a car through your company as a cost of doing business, thereby reducing profits of said company and thereby avoiding all taxes on that income, is unbelievably advantageous. 3-year lease costs at $600/mo are $21,600, imagine if that was discounted 33%, which is basically what the lease does when run through your company...

8) You get a new car every 2-3 years!
C'mon, that's pretty awesome! Assuming you're not paying through the nose for it (see 1-7 above :)). You can try out models/features that you don't want forever or might not be as popular and not be stuck with it on resale time (convertibles, getting a manual transmission in a model that mostly sells automatics, etc.). Tons of coolness here.

9) It's not your car! Little things won't drive you nuts
You don't have to sweat a break-in period, it won't be your car in 50,000 or 100,000 miles or whenever that would make a difference :). And if it gets a small ding (a dent of a quarter-size or smaller is okay on the lease turn-in), you don't sweat it!

10) Your sales rep will like you, so you can get better deals
When a sales rep gets you to lease, they are building a portfolio of recurring sales. If they have 600 people they have done leases for after 20 years, each of them comes back every 2-3 years on a schedule for a car (if they like you and the brand), so you basically just have to start writing the orders and life is very easy. No beating the pavement to eat. So, they are likely to work with you on the purchase price to keep that recurring revenue coming (keeping or selling more to an existing customer costs 10% of getting a new customer).

11) You can buy extra miles cheap
Before the end of the lease, you can buy extra miles cheaper than paying for overage at the last second. This makes it smart to take the lowest estimate of your miles per year and do that in the lease. At $.20 per mile, the cost at the end of the lease, you pay a lot more than normal. But at $.16 per mile, the cost 4 payments before the end of the lease, you are not that far from the standard lease cost per mile... Again, that saves you on opportunity cost (you don't pay for the miles until the end of the 3-years), and you don't risk paying for miles that you don't use (paying for them the whole 3 years).

The final analysis:

So, after all that, it came down to WHICH lease terms to take. Factoring in how many miles I might have to buy, how much tires cost and how many miles they would last, BMW CCA rebates, etc., I calculated the total lease costs over 6 years (to synch a 2 and 3 year) and did a 3 year 10k mile lease. If not for the acquisition fees and doc fees (the one-time hits), a 2 year lease would be VERY appealing. Even with them, it almost makes sense.

Resources and other miscellania:
BMW Financial Services rates (new every month, search yourself when ready)
BMW dealers will try to mark up the BMW Financial Services money factor. They can't manipulate the residual value, so find the money factor above and negotiate that. Going .0004 above is the max they are allowed, and .00015 more if you want to waive the security deposit. Mine tried for the max, .00255, it was EASY to get them down to .00225 and next time I'll get it lower. You can also pay extra security deposits, which you get back at the end of your lease, to lower that money factor even more - .0007 for each deposit I believe.
BMW Financial Services charges $625 for an acquisition fee, the dealer can mark it up (mine wanted $825).
State of NC has fixed title and tag fees. Factor those in, roll them into the lease.
BMW dealers (and all dealers) have to charge a fixed doc fee to ALL customers, it is legally non-negotiable. $399 at my dealer.
Lease Payment Calculator - I found this was precisely accurate. If your numbers don't match, the dealer hasn't told you everything (I discovered some other fees this way :)).
BMW Car Club of America

2008 BMW 335i

Oh yeah. This thing is incredible.

BMW says 300hp, other dyno tests say significantly more.
BMW claims 0-60 in 5.4, other tests say 4.8.
If my wife had been driving this when she crashed her civic, she wouldn't have crashed.
And I'll be a LOT happier to drive to work and everywhere else now :).

Look for a post later on leasing. I did a lot of homework on that, and surprisingly it was a much better decision than paying cash or doing a loan... We'll see if I still feel that way in 3 years...

XM vs. Sirius

The Odyssey van has XM Radio, which has been great. And it's the start of the NCAA Basketball season, and XM has exclusive coverage of NCAA and specifically ACC basketball...sweet for driving while a game is on, and it has a simple scoreboard that has constantly updated scores for any game.

Anywho, the new ride coming in to replace the Subaru Outback has Sirius as the only option. So, each vendor (XM and Sirius) does a $6.99/mo deal for extra subscriptions over the first, so they strongly incent you to have all of your satellite radio from a single source. And since I can add Sirius to the van for $50 in hardware, sell the XM hardware for $50, it's technically very easy for me to manage this.

So I called XM to tell them not to auto-renew my subscription when it ends in December, and I get the normal "let me transfer you to our custome retention department". They go nuts, offering free radios and discounted service. So I let them give me a year at half-price, which amounts to the identical cost to put both cars on Sirius. I win - no changes required in the van, I can still get ACC Basketball in that car, and my daily driver will have Sirius for FREE (1st year is free) and it has better normal stuff (other than ACC basketball)!

Looks like you've got to push all of your vendors. DirecTV does this BIG-TIME too, they hate to think you'll move to cable and they'll make HBO and HD feeds and everything free for 6 months if you just think about switching. Credit card companies will waive yearly fees, cut interest rates, etc. if they think you'll close your account. It's a consumers world baby!

Silence is golden

Finally did a silent machine RIGHT.
I'll post on the details later, along with the Virtual Server machine I posted on a second ago. Suffice to say, I am VERY happy with the results. I even have a high-end video card (8800GTS 640mb, bought before the GT was announced) and it's still almost inaudible. I've lived with it for 3-4 months now and I'm thrilled with the results.

Coming to a driveway near me Nov. 26

It's a Virtual World

Well, it's taken me forever to post about this, but here's the start. Virtual Machine technology is a game-changer, which the explosion of the VMWare and Microsoft products (Virtual Server/Virtual PC/System Center Virtual Machine Manager) attest to. Of course, Microsoft also has Application Virtualization and OS Virtualization, the only vendor with end-to-end coverage for all possibly scenarios.

At home, I decided to stop messing around and do this right. I coughed up $2000 and bought a huge box - quad-core CPU, 8GB of RAM, 3TB of storage, and totally silent. I cranked that baby up and now have near instantaneous access to any of the virtual machines I need to keep my skills sharp. I also added 2 more drives for another 1TB of storage to allow me to replace my 1TB NAS device for home data storage, and that has been GREAT (much faster, much more compatible with things, much quieter, much cheaper).

Anyway, I'll blog more on the exact specs of this box, but I've been living with it for 3 months or so now and it's really amazing...I can spin up 10 VM's without problems, simulating very complex scenarios, and I have the right software included to manage a library of VM's and relevant software (ISO's of CD/DVDs for easy software installation, scripts, etc.) and make the whole thing accessible to the internet in a very secure fashion.

Shown below - VMRC Plus as the console for accessing the VM's, 7 VM's running easily, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager up.

Wow, and Ow

It's been a long couple of months, full of fun and way too much work.
End of the year for me (June 22 is the official end) marks the time I start tracking every hour to make sure I'm hitting my utilization goals. Since my bonus is paid on exceeding that goal, I have to crank...that and the work at my customer is piling up faster than I can think...up to 28 projects and counting.
Lici was able to finish her teaching nicely, but it was a rough couple of weeks for both of us at the end - finals and grading put her out of commission, and we had a lot of babysitters for a while :).

We finally bought the playset for the kids (thanks to Gilbert for helping get it to the house) so they can swing and slide and climb outside, then it took over a month before there was time to build it. That day was awesome - the posse arrived at 1pm on Saturday, stayed until 8pm and it was done (had a tiny bit of help from the sunray forums). The kids were THRILLED!



The nerds and I then spent a long weekend nerding out hard at Gilberts. Having Vance, Tom, and Guy come in from out of town rocked. Dawn of War was a great game, solid networking and a somewhat working A/C made it all complete. That and TMC putting on a perfect show :). Lici had a long weekend with the kids but survived intact.

The next weekend Lici went to Orlando for a 4-day conference with all of her buddies, leaving me to handle things. It was a GREAT weekend, had tons of fun with my bears, and then Lici came back with some phat shades :).

After 2 weeks of 14 hour days, we finally got to Eric "Shane" Dawson's wedding, being held in lovely San Sebastian, Spain! Wednesday had me running to the airport after squeezing in a few hours at my customer, 5pm and we're off. Monday we're back at 3pm and back to work on Tuesday morning, but what a weekend! More on that later, and at Jake's blog.

I was able to snag a few gifts, including these nifty masks. Tiger and Kitty Cat faceoff!

Can't wait til Friday night and the end of these insanely long days - 1-2 hours of kid time max per day, 1-2 hours of book/movie, and the rest is work/sleep...ugh.