Ok, with a bit of prodding from a friend of mine, I had a look at my mileage for the year so far and I am just shy of 3000 kms. Pretty disappointed since last year I was further ahead…not by much more but still. Last year’s July mileage was about 1800 kms and this July I barely broke the 1100 mark. I am hoping that I can make up the difference next month.

Last year’s August mileage was a disaster due to injuries but so far this year I am still going strong, knock on wood. My legs and ankles are fine and my butt is only slightly bruised. LOL! hrmmm…the latter may be a direct result of not doing 1800 kms in a month.

Speaking of butt pains, my Brooks B17 may or may not have broken in this past week. On this morning’s ride, I was thinking to myself that the saddle seemed “comfortable” but I don’t know if you are to suddenly realize that or not once the saddle breaks in.

So, what’s on the agenda for August? Let’s see…got to bring up my speed which is woefully lacking when compared to everyone else I’ve cycled with, well, with the exception of AW; need more distances; hit the village of Winona for their peach festival and explore new routes. The latter may be done with the help of the City of Toronto’s cycling map or, alternatively, I may just point my finger towards a spot on a map of the GTA and hope that I don’t hit the lake.

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PepsiCo Inc. will spell out that its Aquafina bottled water is made with tap water, a concession to the growing environmental and political opposition to the bottled water industry.

Nothing really new but I’d like to comment on some of the comments I’ve seen in forums about how people who drink bottled water prefer its taste and are worried about the quality of their local water supply. Let’s get serious here, how many people in North America, over the past few decades, have actually died from drinking poor water? This is NOT the Third World! C’mon, not everyone drinks bottled water, there must be a lot more people who do not drink bottled and they’re not dropping like flies are they?

Just poor excuses to spend money on something that, in the end, harms the environment. If you’re so concerned about the quality of your local water supply, go to your municipal government and demand that they hike taxes in order to improve the water supply. If you’re willing to pay for the stuff already, then, why not do it in a manner that will help everyone else around you?

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It looks like we now have the budgie as a pet! The brother who expressed an interest in the bird only had a lukewarm interest in it and so we all felt that it was better if the person who took it was just a bit more than lukewarm. The good thing is that he knows someone who is willing to let us have a birdcage on the cheap.

Now, the bird can stop living in the bathroom and be out where it gets a bit more interaction, though, that may mean fending off the attentions of my cat. hehehe Guess I will have to teach Lucky here the difference between the nasty pigeons outside versus the yellow budgie inside.

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I don’t know what is going on but, when I tried to use the laptop this morning while downstairs in the living room, Ubuntu Linux would not recognize the wireless card. Grrrrr…do I really have to go back to 5.10?

So, I am going to wait a bit and see what the people on the Ubuntu forums say and I am also waiting for a new set of LTS Ubuntu Linux CDs that I had ordered last night. I’m beginning to wonder if Ubuntu is going to inflict upons its users “upgradeitis” much like Microsoft and Apple has?

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It’s been quite a while since I looked into the Linux laptop but a couple of days ago I decided to take another crack at it and follow the instructions left by a Ubuntu forums member. They are listed here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=430531&page=2

I thought that it didn’t work but I didn’t try surfing the Web after inputtng the instructions:

sudo ifconfig ath0 up

Once that was done, as the poster said, it seemed to give it a kick in the pants because it now works! Yay! So, the system is as updated as far as I would like it to be updated for now. Surfing while at the couch has just become do-able once again.

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I’m afraid that I spoke too soon when I complained that it would take another six weeks to move my RRSP to E*Trade from Edward Jones. Looking at my E*Trade accounts online this morning, I discovered that all (?) of them have been moved over. Got a couple of questions about a charge but everything else looks fine.

Guess I will have to start looking over the ETF universe later on this weekend if it’s not taken up by adventures in budgie-sitting.

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You can now add that to my list of skills.

On my way to the supermarket this morning, I met up with my sis who said that she’d seen a budgie among a flock of pigeons while on her way to the supermarket. After the usual dickering of why didn’t she catch it, we walked back to where she’d seen it and quickly found it again. Kind of hard to miss given that it has bright yellow coloration. Our initial impression that it could not fly was quickly dispelled when it took off in all its glory from our clumsy attempts to lure it into our hands and bag.

Grrr…ok, I then decided that the only thing to do was to take off my shirt and use it to drop over the bird and wrap it away to captivity. After the expected squawking from my sis at my bare skin, the bird was quickly caught and taken home.

It seems in pretty good shape; it’s been sleeping and chirping loudly away in the small bathroom, I’ve purchased some seed so it will have something to eat. Not sure what to do with it now. I’d like to keep it but I realize that with a cat here it’s not a great option. I’m going to keep an eye out for “lost budgie” poster for the next couple of days and if none show up decide what to do then.

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It’s been almost three weeks now since I started the process of moving all of my funds and accounts over to E*Trade. It has not been a very smooth process. Everything was slated to be moved over “in kind” so I can then deal with the holdings as I saw fit. The TDWaterhouse account moved over pretty easily even though it took over two weeks.

The RRSP account over at Edward Jones is now supposed to be moved over manually. I don’t know why but it may have something to do with their mistaking an “S” for a “5″ on my statement which held everything up. So, that will take up to about 4-6 weeks. Hrmph…maybe it would go a lot faster if I simply walked my funds over myself?

So, I’m afraid it will be another month at least before I can start on my big ETF shopping spree. *sighhh*

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Finally got to read a book by the guy who coined the term “latte factor” when it comes to personal finances. There are some interesting points made in here such as date of last payment for which debts to pay off first (I disagree with this because I prefer to pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first) and tossing out the idea of budgeting because it doesn’t work for most people.

It’s an interesting book and it’s given me a couple of new ideas, one of which I’m already acting upon. It doesn’t really help me when it talks about supply and demand of your money when it comes to saving and spending. I’ve got the demand part pretty well under control, it’s the supply part that worries me! This is an excellent book, though, for those of you who feel a bit overwhelmed when it comes to the idea of saving for retirement. Be aware that the book is a bit of a mish-mash of American and Canadian themes which is typical when a book is written for one market and then “adapted” for another.

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In this particular instalment, we seem to be marking time a bit as our various heroes start to come together. In earlier books, they were scattered for various reasons but now that they’ve run into one another or have met up with one another they can start to put the threads of what is happening together and try to figure out who is responsible.

There is still a bit of mystery as to whether or not Jacen is going to arise as a new Sith Lord. I say a bit because it looks like Lucas Books is running an online contest for people to pick his new Sith Lord name. duh!

Looking forward to the next instalment!

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