RyeBlog

Okay, it’s been a while. Time for a big update.

• Moved into a new house
• Rhett turned 1, started walking
• Got a new job, am going to start next Tuesday doing Web & Application development for a company called “You Take Control” (Porter works there now)

Since moving into the new place, we’ve done a bunch of work already:

• Replaced handles on all the cabinets
• Installed new kitchen sink / garbage disposal / kitchen faucet
• Installed under-cabinet lighting and up-lighting above cabinets
• Removed strange light above sink, installed new light above sink
• Removed the crooked and uneven tile from under the “dining room area”
• Installed laminate flooring in the upstairs area
• Picked paint colors, and started painting
• Started running a quad-shielded coax wire to get a better signal to my MythTV box
• Fixed leaking drain on one of the faucets in a bathroom
• Fixed various sprinklers

Since it’s been so long, I figured I’d better at least put something cool to watch:

[quicktime width=”320″ height=”256″]http://www.ryebrye.com/blog/bigfiles/BirdsEyeTimeLapseSmall.mov[/quicktime]

The local media in Utah has taken it upon themselves to incessently harp about gas prices in the region. Here’s the story being told:

• Gas prices around the country are dropping precipitously
• Utah gas prices are dropping slowly
• Utahns are paying 20 to 30 cents more per gallon than the rest of the country

The conclusion the media feeds to us is that Utah residents are being gouged. An all-out witch hunt has been started, even going so far as to call for state legislators to investigate the reason for the high prices. KSL called for a one-day “boycott”. Heck - even the governor has decided to start a probe into the prices.

Look at the data for yourself

The sensationalist media seems to prey on the uninformed public being too busy to actually look at the data and think for themselves.

One Simple Explanation: Utah prices lag the national average by a few weeks

Note in the chart above, that in March the Rocky Mountain region was paying less than the national average. Hmm… You will also notice that if you shift the price curve over a few weeks - you will see that the Rocky Mountain Region pretty well mirrors the national average, only it lags behind by a few weeks. When prices are increasing, this favors Utah - because people we will be paying two-week old prices… but when prices drop sharply in the national average, we pay more.
Why is this so hard to understand? Sure I don’t know exactly what CAUSES the lag in prices, but it’s pretty simple to see on the graph - if you allow for a 5% to 10% error it’s a pretty decent approximation.
Also notice this: Prices in the Rocky Mountain region (that contains utah) are dropping just as sharply as the national prices. (Funny side note: I’ve heard local media taking credit for this drop in Utah gas prices, saying such things as: “Yes, I know gas prices are down to 2.49 a gallon, but can you imagine where they would be if we didn’t bring so much attention to it?” (My guess - probably even lower. It seems the only thing the attention has done is curb a slight amount of demand which has, in turn, stretched out the lag time of gas prices in Utah because they can’t move their supply as quickly, and therefore they are stuck trying to sell off the old gas that they bought at two-week-ago prices for a longer period of time)

It’s not just Utah

It’s conventient to go on a rant about how we are paying higher than the national average - but anyone who passed high school algebra should know that when you have an average in a population with any variance, you are going to have some values above the average and some values below it. That’s why it’s called an average.

In the above graph, the national average has little red triangles on it to make it easy to identify. From the above graph, you can see that a lot of regions are paying above the national average - and the West Coast (the top line) is worse of than the Rocky Mountain region.Note, some regions seem to overlap - which is what makes it look like there are more regions paying above the average than there are paying below it. I didn’t slice the country into regions, I just used ones that the government already had.

According to the logic of the media - only people living in the Lower Atlantic, Midwest, or Gulf Coast regions of the country are not being “gouged” by “evil oil barrons.”

In Conclusion

If you are a member of the Utah media and are tempted to continue going off on this topic - please be aware that eventually the quiet thinking members of society will get fed up and expose you for the idiots you are. This is a non-issue. Go find someone abusing puppies or something to talk about, and stop wasting my time telling me how I’m being “taken advantage of” and showing clips of random people at gas stations answering the question: “Which do you feel: violated, or gang-raped by the big oil company that is stealing food from your starving children’s mouths?”

This blog entry is being written from 11,877 feet above sea-level and transmitted over the air via the magic of GPRS. (my phone has awesome signal from up here - probably because just about every cell phone tower in Utah Valley is within line-of-sight from here)

The hike up here is strenuous. The last few miles are definitely the hardest part of the hike. My butt hurts worse than a drunken sailor in san Francisco (they have uncomfortable bar stools over there)

There is another peak to the north of here that is slightly higher - up until 1970 this south peak was listed as the highest peak, but by then the trails already went up to here. If we really wanted to prolong this trip by a few hours, we could head over there, but I will save that trip for when I am actually in shape.

I’ll post some pictures later.

Things are going well at VitalSmarts. I work with good people, and market a product with a 100% success rate. What more could you ask for?

Here’s a time lapse of my first full week of work at VitalSmarts. The first day has some strange things going on because I was playing with the settings, and the last few days have a shorter time interval. If you really get bored, you can go through it frame by frame… (I cut out the scenes from the night-time because those are all dark and not very interesting.)

As a result of watching back the time lapse, I’ve realized that I don’t smile much while I’m working at a computer. I’ve also realized that - even though I’m sitting most of the day - I move around a lot. This must be the secret to my slim physique.

The RyeBlog staff would like to take the time to wish a Happy Anniversary to RyeBrye and AuBrye. It’s been one year! Yippee!

Thank goodness for traditional anniversary gifts, because all Ryan is supposed to give this year is Paper. Next year, is Cotton…

Does the paper have to be unused? Isn’t it more romantic if it’s old scratch paper? What if it is presented by scattering it all over the floor of the computer room? What if the anniversary present has been there since last finals week and has been hiding ‘in plain sight’ - wouldn’t that be romantic?…

Long-time RyeBlog readers have long been aware that my wife is pregnant. and have even seen ultrasounds of our soon-to-be-blogging son…

Now it is time for the general readership of RyeBlog to guess when he will be born. The person who guesses closest (yes, even if you “go over”… there is no Bob Barker here to regulate on you) will win bragging rights. Another possible perk of winning is that, should you ever decide to become a professional psychic, I would offer myself as a reference for you. (But you already knew that, didn’t you… since after all, you are psychic)

Post your guesses in the comments. Please give a time of birth also… this time will be used as a tie-breaker. Since the child will be living with a birth day instead of a birth time, we will judge the guesses based on two criteria:

1. Who guesses the closest to the correct day - regardless of time.
2. If there are multiple guesses of the same day - whoever guessed the closest time will win.

So now, get out your crysal balls and start guessing! Oh - and if it helps your crystal ball make predictions… the “due date” is June 13th.

Before anyone accuses me of being one of those people who “didn’t vote, but still complains” let me tell you - that is not the case. I voted three times. Once for Chris, once for Taylor, and once for Katherine. My reasoning was: I don’t care who makes it through - as long as Elliot is gone.
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Oprah has her Favorite things - so why not RyeBrye? This is the start of a random section where RyeBrye will fill you in on some of the finer things in life. Then you - like Oprahs readers - must go mindlessly buy up all of these items that exist.
The Space blanket has a strange name. It has little to do with space - and it’s really not big enough to be called a blanket - but if you are ever in a bind and you have nothing else - you will be glad you have one. (Unless, of course, you are in Space - because then your body would explode).

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Anyone who knows me knows that I love Free Cone Day, and I love telling people about Free Cone Day… So last night before I went to bed, I posted a link to the press release describing Free Cone Day to digg.com - and I posted a link in the comments telling people where to go in order to find out if their local scoop was participating…

At around 9:00 AM the story made it to the front page of Digg, and millions of people started heading to www.benjerry.com. Ben & Jerry’s may have been ready to serve ice cream to over a million people today, but their web servers weren’t ready to handle the traffic… and they were dead for almost an hour.

Sorry Jerry. I would apologize to Ben, but everybody knows that he doesn’t really do much with the company anymore…

In any case - be sure to enjoy Free Cone Day while it lasts. Their website is back up and running now. We can all be happy now.