These guys stole my idea! Some iterations of my idea also featured an air ionizer, though. And all iterations of my vacuum idea were to be uncommonly powerful.
Oh well.
My Vacuum!
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Category Archives: Insanity
Being a Smart Millionaire
Like many people, I’d like to be extraordinarily wealthy some day. Between a string of business ideas that I’m convinced would make me fantastically wealthy, and the lottery which never seems to work out in my favor, I have lots of occasions to hope I’m rich.
Of course, as a millionaire, there are lots of extravagant purchases I’d like to make. But I think you can make them a lot less extravagant.
For example, I’m a nut about keeping my car really, really clean. It’d be nice to build a really nice auto garage, where I could do detailing, and maybe even hire a mechanic to keep up my cars. So why not buy a failing auto garage business somewhere, fix it up to millionaire-pet-project standards, and then put it in business? It might not be profitable, but it’ll at least defray the costs of running it just for your own use.
And what millionaire doesn’t own a limo or two? There are some seemingly-rare models for sale right now. So you pick them up, and start a limo company. You can make sure not to over-schedule them so that there’s always one available for your use, but when you’re not using them, they’re making you money. Again, it might take a long time to be profitable. But you view it like how I viewed the first hosting company I started: I wanted the server for myself, and if I could get people to subsidize the cost by buying space, great. It’d be great if I someday made a profit, but if I just ended up having use of a dedicated server on the cheap, that’s great too.
You can even work philanthropy in this model. Merrimack’s library is badly in need of a new building. I bet we can find a neighboring town that shares our need, too. So you build a really, really nice library somewhere, merge the two libraries, and donate it to the town. But, when you build the library, you build in a few spaces for a coffee shop and deli. And, as part of the donation, you own rights to put in retail shops there in perpetuity. Will you ever make enough to pay off the library? I doubt it. But getting a little income from a philanthropic donation? That’s nothing to complain about!
If you weren’t too picky about people using some of your properties, you could even apply this “semi-business, semi-personal toy” model to real estate. As a multi-millionaire, I’d love a few vacation homes. For example, this would be a great retreat /vacation home. But I’d only use it for a few weeks at a time. This‘d be awesome, too. Add some oceanfront property and maybe a winter retreat in a tropical location. But a lot of them you won’t live in for more than a few weeks at a time. So you file a corporation, have it own your vacation homes, and rent them out most of the time. Of course, you keep your personal property in your main home. And the others are just awesome vacation homes. And when you’re not using them (which is most of the time!) you’re renting them out, paying off at least the costs of maintaining the homes and paying their tax bills. And, ideally, making owning them a little less expensive.
Granted, I don’t quite have the money to buy a slew of vacation properties, or start a limo company, or buy a private room in Internap’s Boston data center. But if I do, you can bet that I’ll be gaming my purchases to try to make me a little money, too.
WBC
Here’s a fun story. The Westboro Baptist Church was ordered to pay $10.9 million in Maryland after they were sued for protesting at the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. These are the “God Hates Fags” people, the “Thank God for AIDS” people, the “Thank God for IEDs” (Improvised Explosive Devices) people, and even the “Thank God for 9/11” people. Oh, and “Thank God for Dead Miners.”
They plan to appeal, but frankly, everything I’ve seen suggested that they have some pretty bad counsel. Their counsel, by the way, seems to consist of some of their members. (But if it can be overturned in a matter of minutes as Phelps said, why did they lose in the first place?)
From what I’ve read, their belief is basically that they — a very small church that the Baptist church has been careful to distance itself from — are the only ones in God’s favor, and that every bad event in the world is God taking vengeance on homosexuals and society’s tolerance of them. Shockingly, they haven’t been well-received anywhere they went.
Homes to Consider
Today’s real estate market is in a slump. What this means, clearly, is that you should be buying.
If you’re willing to live in the middle of nowhere, here are a few very interesting ideas for homes:
- $320,000 buys this ~3,000 sq. ft. building, a former railroad station. With just a tiny bit of work, it would be a nice home. Check out the living-room-to-be; mount an LCD TV right over the fireplace and put down carpeting over most of the floor (except for right by the fireplace). There’s a bookcase off to the right, although I’d paint it white. Breakfast nook anyone? Just put down a carpet. This view is pretty inviting, too. (And check out the palm trees outside: it’s Georgia, after all.)
- If you’re more of an athlete, how about this school in Kansas? $325,000 buys you 24,500 square feet on 5 acres. The gym looks ready to use. Read “17 classrooms” as “17 palatial bedrooms” after you renovate them a bit. (Carpet + less-hideous ceiling + ditch the fluorescent lights.) And tell me that library wouldn’t make a nice home theater.
- This place in Missouri is ridiculously nice. Tell me the third picture isn’t what you want to see as you walk home. It sets high expectations for what’s inside, but it’s even nicer than you might expect.
- This old Montana bank is dirt cheap. 6,200 square feet for $140,000. I’d want to totally gut the interior, and the location is probably not desirable, but still… Oh, and put a nice fence up on the roof for safety, and then you have a pretty sweet ‘outdoor’ area. And it has a vault!
- This place is totally undesirable but ohhh so cheap. It looks like it’s ready to fall down, and the power substation in the front yard destroys whatever value the place may have had. The good news is you may never lose power.
- Cheap place in Indiana with an associated business.
- This building is butt-ugly but is situated on a nice dam. I want to live here!
- Whoa! 40,000 square feet of amazing office space? Might make a nice home.
Granted, you’d be an idiot to buy any of these places without looking carefully into all the costs and zoning laws, and I’m not sure any are in good locations.
Long-term Planning
In business, and really just life, it’s important to plan for the long-term. In a lot of publicly-traded companies, managers have incentives to manage for the short-term: if they boost the company’s numbers for the year, they get huge bonuses. The plan doesn’t account for the fact that they may well have gotten there by sabotaging the company’s future.
But the long term is different from the absurdly long term. I’m sitting here reading an article about how Merrimack needs to replace its manhole covers. There are two plans; one is very expensive but will last us 50 years. The other is significantly cheaper, but there’s a chance that, in a couple of decades, they might need to be replaced again.
I guess the right way to look at it is the total cost over time. But frankly, in 20-25 years, I’m going to be in my 40’s, and probably not living in Merrimack. I’m not going to think, “Man, I wish we’d spend more on manhole covers.” I won’t even remember that we replaced them 20 years ago.
One of my classes this semester is called Strategic Management. Some classmates presented their “strategic recommendations” for a golf company. One of their plans was aimed at growing the company’s market share over 100 years. I had to choke back my laughter when they said this.
It’s important to plan for the future. Doing something that you know will endanger your company in the future is a bad idea. You always want to be thinking of the future. But how can you know what the golf industry is going to be like in 50 years? How can you know what the economy will be like? For a five-year plan you can infer that it won’t change too much, besides a little technological advancement. But if anyone ever gives you a 100-year plan for their company, I encourage you to crack up laughing. I almost did, at least.
Business School
Kyle’s ending sentence reminded me of something I’ve noticed before: we at Bentley are not normal. Even those of us who aren’t obsessed with starting the next big company still have business on our minds all the times.
The other day one of my friends here remarked, “I want a Gap T-shirt.” Or at least, that’s how you’d have heard it. But what we heard, especially since a lot of my friends here are accounting majors, was, “I want a GAAP T-shirt,” which is actually what he meant. He just said it and we all cracked up laughing. I think I’m going to try to whip one up in Photoshop.
I came across this book on Amazon today. It’s called “Amtrak Privitization: The Route to Failure.” And my first thought was, “That’s not at all what I’m looking for,” (I was looking for a book about car maintenance by someone with a similar name), “but it sounds really interesting.”
The problem is, if you asked a sane person what their opinion of the book was, I think they’d tell you that it was the most boring topic they could imagine. And here’s another book that makes the opposite argument: the government should ditch Amtrak and let the private market “fix” it.
Of course, Railroad Law a Decade after Deregulation doesn’t grip me quite as much, especially at 50 cents a page.
As an aside, there’s one copy for $71.81 on half.com. The next is $101.98. In theory, you could buy it, read it (or use it as a doorstop), and then relist it around $95. It seems like it’s not a hot seller, but $71.81 is unnecessarily low on the part of that seller.
Not Compact
The one “problem” with my 10D is that you can’t possibly fit the thing in your pocket. I’m buying a “grip” for it from Andrew, which is going to make it even larger.
So I don’t feel as bad about tacking a huge lens onto it. Heck, the lenses I use are small compared to what the real pros shoot with.
But here’s what I need. Canon made a 1200mm lens. This thing is ridiculously large. At f/5.6, it’s as fast as my camera at 200mm. This is n amazing lens. This is the only lens where photos of the lens are routinely more interesting than photos taken with the lens. I knew for a long time that the lens was very expensive. But I wasn’t aware of the definition of “very” expensive, nor that Wikipedia had a page on it. It apparently cost just shy of $90,000, and was available only by special order.
So then I found this article about Nikon’s ‘version’ of that lens, a 1200-1700mm lens. Of course, being a Nikon, it’s black instead of white. Linked to from that page is this article on Reuters, written by one of their photographers in France who took the agency’s 1200-1700mm lens to an event this July to get some shorts of the new President of France. The situation is one in which most pro photographers would weep and give up, and the lens is barely long enough. (He jokes that next year he’ll put a 2x TC on it.)
I’ll gladly accept donations.
One to Ten
Numbers 1-10, sorted alphabetically:
- Eight
- Five
- Four
- Nine
- One
- Seven
- Six
- Ten
- Three
- Two
This was oddly difficult, by the way. Kind of like that chart that has color names written in different colors, and you have to say what color the word is.
San Diego
I haven’t paid all that much attention to the fires in California, especially after discovering that my family out there wasn’t anywhere near the blaze. But take a look at this. This family just got back from their honeymoon and their house was burned to the ground. Very literally. There’s a small pile of ash left.
AT&T is coming after them trying to collect $300 for the receiver that was damaged in the fire. The guy on the phone at AT&T had the audacity to suggest that they should have taken the rented satellite receiver with them when they evacuated.
Way to go, AT&T. Short of changing your logo to a swastika or making fun of 9/11 victims, I’m not sure you could possibly have made yourself look more foolish than this.
Tacos
Don’t forget to get your free taco from Taco Bell, conveniently scheduled to be given away on Tuesday from 2 to 5.
For those in the area, here is a gameplan. You may want to focus on the Boston area and skip Western Mass. (Unless, of course, you are in Western Mass.) You get more bang for your buck. Or, more accurately, you get more taco for your free.
Unfortunately, collecting my tacos due will require that I skip two classes in a row. While I argue that it’s a sunk cost, it’s been pointed out that the opportunity cost of my tacos will be about $300. And you should include the cost of complementary goods, too.
So it seems that I’m going to class on Tuesday from 2 to 5. But, in return for my roadmap, if you’re collecting tacos, remember who did the laborious research of typing “Taco Bell” into Google Maps for you.