Re: MSNBC (Oberg) - Deadly space lessons go unheeded

From: Terrell Miller (millerto_at_bellsouth.net)
Date: 01/29/05 

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 23:58:39 -0500

> JazzMan <No_Spam@airmail.net> wrote:
> :Can't afford it. I don't have a big house, or even a small
> :house. In fact, I rent a lot for my mobile home because that's
> :what I can afford. Even still, my rent has gone up by almost
> :one hundred percent in the last five years and it's really
> :hurting. I don't have a fancy new car, I drive an eighteen
> :year old GM that I can keep running without spending a fortune
> :on modern tools and diagnostic aids.

Hey, as long as it's running it does exactly what you need from a car. I
kept my '75 Valiant until it literally stopped running. Then I kept my
'88 Camry throught 172k miles until the repair bills were rapidly
approaching new car payment range.

I may not keep my 2000 Accord that long, though, because at some point I
will be unable to resist the lure of a hybrid SUV. It's calling to me...

> I haven't taken a real
> :vacation in years, well, actually, never. Not in my whole
> :twenty five year working career. Why? The places I'd like to
> :go (Scotland, Australia) cost too much to go to and stay at.

little friendly advice: join AAA. For like fifty bucks a year you get
towing, a monthly travel magazine, *and* you can get free TourBoooks,
which are like the Fodor's guides except free for members. Whenever I go
someplace in North America I always grab a AAA Tourbook a month or so
ahead of time and read up.

They also make for cheap entertainment, you can do "head tours" at your
leisure <g>

If you book your flight months in advance, leave Friday and come back
Sunday, stay in a cheap hotel (looks just the same with the lights out),
rent a compact car (gets you there just as well as a Beemer) or take
public transportation, and carefully research your trip to hit the
non-beaten-path spots in America and Canada, you can do a 4-day vacation
for less than $800 per person. What my fantasy baseball league likes to
do is pick some city we've never been to, go see a couple ballgames, and
have plenty of time to see the sights. Pittsburgh, the Cape Cod league,
all the little minor league teams in Southern California (once you get
out of LA the prices on everything except real estate are really cheap),
we even did a really enjoyable trip to Detroit of all places. You have
to have a high energy level because you are on the go pretty much
nonstop, but you cover a lot of territory and see a lot of stuff that
you would likely never see otherwise.

Moral of the story: there is an awful lot to see right here in the
USofA, some of it in the unlikeliest of places. Two spots that I would
absolutely love to spend a summer in are suburban Detroit (Milford) and
the Delaware Valley region of Jersey. Oh, and the western outskirts of
Pittsburgh. All of which is God's Country, very pastoral and beautiful.

If you do some homework and be thrifty, you can have just as good a time
for a lot less money than you can if you have a Vacation somewhere
prestigious. Don't let the things you cannot do get in the way of the
things you *can* do.

Fred J. McCall wrote:
> :Paying for my health coverage would consume enough of my
> :after tax income that I would have to abandon my home and go
> :homeless.
>
> Yet you can afford a computer and internet access.
>
> Yeah, right.

if you do the math, the Internet is a really cheap form of
entertainment. My DSL is $40/month. I probably average 60 hours per
month, so it's less than a buck per hour to get a "window on the world"
or whatever. Obviously you have to amortize your PC, but a decent
computer can be had for well under a grand and it'll last you five
years. That's about a quarter per hour of internet usage, not counting
game playing and spreadsheeting and MP3 playing and the like. So it
really only costs about a buck an hour to use the Internet. And it's a
good way to get exposed to an awful lot of stuff you wouldn't have a
chance to even know about otherwise.

I'd say that JazzMan is making pretty good use of the resources
available to him. Gotta admire his spirit, and he's obviously very
well-spoken and intelligent. Good people. 

-- 
Terrell Miller
millerto@bellsouth.net
"Every gardener knows nature's random cruelty"
-Paul Simon RE: George Harrison