ipod choices

i finally gave in and bought an ipod touch. something i'd been avoiding for a long time.
Now the question is what do i do with my CD's i'd like to rip? rip them in mp3 format or put them in apple's aac format?
Honestly the only way we listen to music is through the ipod or an ipod clock radio (at least for now), so I am uncertain which format is best.
i'll investigate further.
regards,
makingourway

finally getting satelite tv

Well, we've been offline without any cable tv for a long time. Seems like inlaws are the primary driver of having satelite so they can watch overseas tv. I'm ok as long as we don't have English channels. It'll force the children to work on their foreign language skills and we can maintain control over what they watch in English by controlling their DVD purchases.

Regards,
makingourway

What to do for New Year's eve?

Mrs. Way and I have been discussing what to do for New Year's eve.

We've been horribly busy and she took the low rung on vacation selection this season - one generous colleague took all three weeks of xmas and new years off - how kind of him to ensure none of his peers need worry about the holiday challenges!

As a result we haven't planned much. Her best friend is traveling and husband and children are unfortunately unavailable - we had been hoping to have them over.

We do have an invitation to join several friends at a country club - not as intimate as we had planned since it doesn't include our children, but after thinking about it - they're certainly too young to stay up late and it will be less stressful.

After thinking about it, I also realized it will probably be less expensive, too.

Entertaining is never cheaper than going out on your own.

Regards,
makingourway

cable TV versus buying DVDs

It's been about 6 months or so since we cancelled our cable TV service.

Grandma watches European video over the internet for $7 per month.

We usually go to the library and borrow videos for free.

I occassionally buy entire series on DVD: Heroes, BattleStar Galactica, etc.... My wife and I enjoy watching them together.

In addition we take advantage of occassional used DVD sales from video rental stores. HOllywood Video had a great sale at $3.99 earlier this month and Blockbuster had 4 for $20. It gave us a chance to buy things we'd been interested in.

Ove the two sales I spent $150, which will last us a few months. It's about what a single month of cable had cost me in the past.

One thing I'm tempted with is to buy an on-line video streaming service - perhaps netflix, which is only $8 per month, but I'm not sure we really use it.

Every so often, I watch www.hulu.com for movies and videos. It's free and quite enjoyable. My favourites include Master and Commander and I'm looking forward to Harold and Kumar.

Regards, makingourway

tropic thunder - ugh!

We saw it.
We laughed a bit, but couldn't decide if whether the film was more foolish or funny.
Many times we asked ourselves why we were watching it.
I can't recommend it - wait until it comes out on cable.
Although it was funny at moments, I asked myself why was I watching it if I only get to the cinema once a month - wasted time!

check out Heroes website

My wife and I are addicted to the Heroes television series. You can check out their website here.

We bought the first season on DVD at Costco and aim to buy the second season when it's released.

I recommend checking out the website for several reasons:

1. They have graphical novels -ALOT- in PDF format that round out the series
2. They have animated episodes that do the same
3. I think you might be able to watch some of the episodes on-line!
4. There's ALOT of content
5. There's also a web only series, too

My wife isn't keen on video over the internet, but maybe she'll check this out with me.

Since we've cancelled our cable television service i've noticed that I need to follow-up on entetrainment news more to see what's worth watching.

We're considering the Lost series. We'd buy it on DVD from costco.

Regards,
makingourway

What to watch when you no longer have TV

Having cancelled our cable TV, we have just made a major change in how we spend our time and entertain ourselves.

For the children, we go to the town library and borrow 5-7 DVDs. This is all they have to watch over the next week until our next trip to the library.

I've noticed recently that they will try to watch the same DVD over and over. Although the seem to be watching less TV, the repetition seems to mitigate some of the reduction.

However, one of the benefits is that I can review the DVDs they borrow. Programs with great violence, such as Ben10, Naruto, etc... must wait until they are much older.

As for parents, my in-laws watch TV over the internet and my wife and I are exploring our DVD collection. I wonder how long it will last.

Regards, makingourway

Romero's newest movie is out - Diary of the Dead!

I remember reading the script for the Dawn of the Dead. It scared the tar our of me. I was young and the nightmares were chilling, however, it also fired up my imagination and overall was a positive experience.

Since then I've followed the Romero franchise. It's quite a lot of fun, though Day of the Dead was fairly weak compared to the other shows.

I've now read Romero's MTV Movie blog discussion about his newest product, I'm looking forward to seeing it. You can read it here.

There's a not so flattering review at ign right here, but I think I'll see it anyway.

Of course with the little ones and wife that dislikes horror the how and when are quite challenging.

Regards, makingourway

how expensive can doodlebops be?

Here's a cautionary tale:

My wife went on-line to buy doodlebops tickets. She used the link on the doodlebops site to TicketsNow.

We paid about $130 a ticket for premium seats in the front sections, which felt expensive.

However, we checked ticketmaster and found no seats available.

When we received the tickets they had a face value of $46 each.

While I'm grateful we could buy these tickets, I'm pretty pissed that we had to buy them through a scalper. More importantly, I think it's pretty sleazy of the doodlebops producers to direct consumers to a ticket reseller who charges a premium instead of ticket master or another primary service.

So, here is my advice if you want to see the doodlebops:

1. Use a ticketing service like ticket master to find when they're coming in advance.
2. Buy them through them
3. If you can't, go to Tickets Now to pay a premium

The only downside for saving the money is that you may not be in a front section.

Regards,
makingourway

What do you deserve for bad food

Living in the Chicago suburbs has it's down parts - such as a dramatic reduction in the number of interesting restaurants available.

There are some great ones in the nearby super-burbs, but the truely local restaurants vary in quality dramatically.

We recently tried a local chinese restaurant. I was quite impressed by the sophistication of it's menu. I've only found jellfish in downtown Chinese restaurants.

Unfortunately the food was quite poor - lacking flavour and even interesting texture. A true disappointment. Ms. Makingourway came home feeling quite ill.

During our meal, Ms. Makingourway sampled her entree and found it displeasing. I told the waiter, who asked if he could replace it. My wife ordered an appetiser in it's place. Later, upon receiving the check, I noticed the waiter had charged us for the more expensive entree and gave us the extra appetizer (40% cost of the entree) for free.

I was a bit perturbed - shouldn't the entree have been removed from the bill? We hadn't eaten it at all (except one small disappointing bite)! I decided a battle wasn't meritted in light of Ms. Makinourway's declining condition. But I do have after thoughts.

What would you do? Would you demand the disappointing dish be removed from the bill?

Regards, makingourway

The Wall Street Journal's fascination with Lego

I recently read an article in this week's Journal (on-line) and then noticed the front page article for the weekend. There is certainly an abundance of it - check it out here.

While the idea is novel and amusing, I was certainly amazed by the premier positioning in the journal itself.

I suppose it's a welcome distraction from the sub-prime lending issues - or simply that there is not much else happening.

Regards, makingourway

Dinner at the melting pot

Two busy professionals seldom have time for a formal sit down dinner, occasionally, we, as a family, will go out for a special treat.
This week we chose the melting pot.
I have to say it wasn't bad. I liked it, but didn't quite fit into the gourmet experience I had while visiting New York so long ago.
Most importantly, i was quite suprised by the actual cost.
Four adults and two toddlers spent $130, however that was having no alcohol and full meals ONLY for two. In other words, four of us were able to eat somewhat sparingly for the price of two, however,the real price should have been $260 for 4. That's amazingly expensive for a strip mall restuarant, at least for fondue!!!
I did learn one important lesson.
Never take toddlers to a restuarant where they'll be waiving sharp long tined forks in their and everyone else's faces!
Between the boiling hot oil, bubbling broth and on table burners I couldn't rest a moment. Ruined my appetite. I love them so - I love my own eyes as well - nearly lost one between the bread and apple dippings.
My wife and I need to rething where to eat with the kids.
Suprising Beni Hana - heated table included - seems to work better - perhaps it's the flying shrimp!

Regards, makingourway

Cost Benefit of a swimming pool

If you could buy a house with a swimming pool installed, would it be worthwhile? Can it be cost justified? What's the cost benefit?

Having a swimming pool in Chicago is somewhat unique - not many families have one.
Weekly maintenance runs about $65 per week plus materials.
Pre-summer and post-summer openings and closings run about $550 or so each.
A high end alarm with motion sensors and wave sensors costs abut $240. If you have children or children nearbye, you'll want the alarm.

If you have children, a swimming pool is a nightmare and a blessing. Like the biggest swimset, all the neighborhood children will want to visit and swim. Unlike a swimset, parents always have a nagging concern that their children could fall in the pool - despite their best efforts, alarms, etc.... Obviously fencing can help, but is fairly impractical in stopping your own children if they're over 3 years old.

Here are some quick thoughts:

4.5 months of maintenance = $1,350
Opening and closing = $1,100
Additional gas and electrical costs TBD

Direct cost = $2,450

Now what may the benefits be? They certainly are more intangible:

1. Less recreational expense as entertainment may be at home - savings $60/weekend $1,080
2. Ability to host parties for friends and family (hmmm is this an additional cost?)
3. Increased social benefits - friends tend to visit your country house with the pool more often - convience and city parking saved
4. Pleasure of swimming for the whole family
5. Certainty that if anyone is peeing in the pool, at least it's a family member
6. Reduced need for weekend get aways (your pool and backyard are your getaway) - two trips at $150/night (min. with kids) + gas = $350 x2 = $700

Total Benefit $1,780

Still about $670 difference. Is the convenience and social benefit worth it? I'd say so.

What are your thoughts? Is a swimming pool something you can cost justify?

It's almost impossible to justify building one, but purchasing a house with one already installed might be a good deal. The numbers would be very upside down if you had to incorporate amortizing the actual pool.

Regards, makingourway

free fun entertainment for children

Being on the road so much, I miss my children horribly and find weekends consumed with catchup time. Since they're so young, we try, but have minimal success bonding on the telephone.

Yesterday was a 14 hour bonding festival. Quit enjoyable. Unfortunate how jealous the oldest gets of the youngest. Will need a way to deal with that.

After walking around, running errands and going on adventures, we decided to come home a bit and rest (lots of carrying stretched Daddy's arms).

We went on-line to youtube and started looking for video's of dolphins. It was quite alot of fun. Kept the whole family entertained for well over an hour. Obviously it's important for parents to parse the descriptions or rely on google's search engine for adultness ratings, but the whole family had a wonderful time.

Topic based video on demand is alot better than surfing channels on TV.

Regards, makingourway

Family fun doesn't need to be expensive

We had a great family day today. Active, exciting and involving everyone.
In retrospect, it was fairly inexpensive.

We had a soccer game ($50 for the season and t-shirt), we went to a stables and met the horses (big for the little ones - helping groom the sources), we rode the horses (for a whopping $20), had a great family discussion about world war II reconstruction in Europe, read some comic books together ($2.70 each) - Fables is adult but accessible to the children and ran a few errands. Dinner was a roasted chicken from the super market ($6.00) - surprisingly tasty and home made Pad Thai.

Sure beats a trip into the big city - we always spend $150 or more on such grand adventures.

The key is a schedule of organized community activities (sporting events) and inexpensive commercial entertainment (the stables).

And making time for family moments (reading) and discussions.

We also practiced karate, which resembled acrobatics more than anything else - "the flying makingourways"! Even karate classes are inexpensive fun for the whole family.

Regards, makingourway