Monkey Twin

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Found this on the paper edition of The Hater in The Onion’s A.V. Club

One of the things on a list of “thoroughly ridiculous, obscenely expensive gifts to keep normal people enraged and millionaires entertained will Neinman Marcus offer next year? Here are a few ideas:”

Monkey Twin — $250,000
Everyone knows monkeys are adorable, but how much more adorable would they be if they looked exactly like you, while also still being monkeys? There’s a scientist in Columbia who will engineer a rhesus monkey with your face—or the face of a loved one—for $250,000. The perfect gift for the kid who has everything. When your child asks, “Daddy, I want a pony,” you can answer, “Well, how about a monkey with your face instead?” You’re welcome.

General Electric DRIP

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Back in October 2004 I invested the proceeds from the forced sale of a mutual fund into a General Electric DRIP. I wanted a company that was large and well-established but was still focusing on innovation and growth. General Electric fit that profile and they have increased dividends for the past 31 consecutive years. That’s ultimately what I was looking for… a stable stock with a great dividend history. To boot, they have a number of great products. (However, I’m really bummed about NBC dropping iTunes support. Rather than restricting online support to just one service, it should be available as widely as possible. But that is another post…)

So I put that $993 into GE. I did the initial purchase with the help of NetStockDirect, which merged with Sharebuilder, which now is part of ING. Fortunately, I now can directly purchase my shares through BNY Mellon. I believe it cost something like $7.50 to set of the account. Dividends are reinvested automatically for free. Additional shares can be purchased for the low commission fee of $1. I have since added enough to bring the account up to $3000. And, since I have to pay for medical school, that is where it will stay until I start getting an income. I set up a Google Documents spreadsheet to keep track of how my investment is doing. My average cost per share is 34.46. In 3.14 years of investing I have earned $214.32 in dividends (am at about $97 a year right now) and have a profit of $260.46 (with the stock at 37.45). My compound annual growth rate is 2.68%, not too terribly good, but I’m in it for the long run.

I also put together a dividend growth calculator on the spreadsheet. GE for the last few years has averaged a 12% annual dividend growth. I assumed a 4% annual stock increase (very modest for GE since the the 10-year Average Annual Total Return is 10.70% for the year ending 12/31/2006). I then allowed the stock to grow with quarterly dividends being purchased. The good news is that if these variables hold for the next 20 years, my investment of $3000 will grow into $25,000. From there it will just continue to get larger and larger. Below is the chart that shows the hypothetical growth of GE Stock assuming these variables.

My goal now is to just forget about it and be pleasantly surprised when I’m 44 (wow, that seems a long ways away!)

Hypothetical Growth of GE Stock

Good resources:
Motley Fool: Drip Portfolio
Buy stock one DRIP at a time
the moneygardener: to DRIP or not to DRIP

Weight Lifting & Whey Protein

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I’ve been trying to get to the gym about every other day. It’s tough because I’ve been super busy with school. I’m a member of the WAC (Wisconsin Athletic Club) in Wauwatosa. For close to the first year I went in and just did my own workout. I get quite a bit of cardiovascular work through biking, tennis, skiing, etc. so tend not to run indoors on the treadmills. My workouts are, therefore, mostly just weightlifting. I would tend to do the same workout each time and slowly try to increase the weights. I didn’t have any strategy for working certain muscle groups. This past summer I remembered that new members get a free personal training session (a series of three). I had some free time this summer so I took up that offer. In the first session we just quickly discussed my current program and what I wanted to accomplish. The next time I came in he had a workout planned and we just had to go around and get a general idea of my 1-2 rep max on each lift. He then gave me a printout from a spreadsheet that calculated what I should lift for 70-90% exertions. I’ve been slowly moving up in weight (soon I might put up my workout on a Google Spreadsheet type thing). I’ve been doing 2 sets at about 12 reps. I definitely feel that this workout is much more beneficial for me than the one that I had been doing previously. I’ve already seen and feel much improvement. One of the things that I was particularly doing wrong was fatiguing my smaller muscle groups before working my larger groups. The problem with this is that the larger muscle groups rely on the smaller groups for balance and proprioception.

Anyway, in order to get the most benefit from my lifting and to help my body recover, I bought ON Gold Standard, 100% Natural Whey from Amazon. There’s a pretty funny review of a similar product on Amazon.

People often say in reviews of protein powders and other health and fitness dietary products that the product is delicious. I try it and am underwhelmed. The people who rave over protein powder are clearly unaquainted with good food (that’s what comes of living on egg whites and skinless chicken breasts), or they’re comparing it to some of the really horrible stuff out there. The best I can say about the flavor of any of these products is that it’s uninteresting. So let me say that the flavor of this whey protein is uninteresting. It certainly isn’t bad. It could certainly be made better by the addition of ice cream, but that sort of seems opposed to the spirit of drinking protein powder.

I’m sold on this stuff because it passes the kid test. My kids like it. Like most kids, they aren’t into interesting flavors, and they aren’t into eating the delicious and nourishing food we put in front of them every night. Also like most kids, they like chocolate. The double rich chocolate version is convincingly chocolatey to anyone who doesn’t know better (like my kids). I put this powder in a Nestle’s Quick can and tell them it’s chocolate milk (note: I don’t actually lie and say that it’s Nestle’s Quick, but my equivocation puts me on shakey moral ground and I’m sure I’ll someday pay for it), and they’re quite happy with it. I, alas, am something of a chocolate connoisseur and can’t be so easily fooled as my kids, but still I find the flavor entirely okay. I suspect that when my children first taste real Nestle’s Quick at a friend’s house, they’ll wonder what Dad’s been feeding them and there will have to be some sort of a reckoning, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, they’re getting a pretty decent protein supplement to make up for the meat and fish that they won’t eat at dinner.

Pretty funny… I’m not so sure about using this stuff for his kid’s chocolate milk, though. Sure, it might be healthy, but it is expensive compared to existing chocolate milk mixes.

Ministerial degree from the mail-order church

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I kid you not. At the Progressive Universal Life Church (PULC) you can become an “ordained” minister with the “legal right to use the title ‘Reverend'” for a “small loving offering of only $19.50.” With this degree you are supposedly authorized to preform all functions including marriages, baptisms, funerals, and services.

So what does this “church” believe? “[The PULC wants] to help you reach your full potential in life. [They] want to help you become all God meant you to be. [They] want to help you achieve wholeness!” Ironically, they say that this church stands for “religious freedom.” “The freedom for each and every person to believe as they choose and the right to express that belief–so long as it harms no other.” The stated doctrine of the church is: “every man and woman has the right to determine what is right for themselves.”

BUT WAIT!!! (I’m not making this up.) “For a limited time only, we are offering our Doctorate courses for an unbelievably small donation… ACT NOW! You are guaranteed to pass all courses.” Here is a list of the available doctoral programs that upon completion, you “have the legal right to be known as ‘doctor’.” Ahh no, in the US, only medical doctors (allo and osteopathic) are legally titled Dr.

A common theme reverberating throughout the PULC’s webpages is the allure of obtaining wealth. This is on the page regarding the ministerial license: “As a point of passing, thousands of Ministers have become enormously wealthy performing simple religious ceremonies.” Wow, enormously wealthy. This is the kind of religion that I want to join! I not only will get a certificate of ordination printed on high quality paper perfect for hanging in a very visible spot in the house, but I will also be making upwards of “$500 for performing a simple ceremony”!

I put this under the category of “funny” because that is exactly what it is. This is a company with the sole purpose of making money. I find it hard to believe that donations to it are tax-deductible. They do not talk about worshipping God and only use the name of God when referring to how He can help us. The few quotes from the Christian Bible that they use are there only to motivate the reader to buy into the scheme. However, they are definitely not a Christian church…there is not one mention of Jesus anywhere on the site.

Sadly, I heard about this company on a blog that I read occasionally on Google Reader. This guy had actually gotten married by the PULC and then went on to become a “minister” himself. Some of the stuff that he writes is pretty interesting, but I’m not so sure about him now…

To read more about this “religion” and other strange ones, visit Breakaway Beliefs: That Old-Time Religion is So Passe

My complaint about Gmail

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I love Gmail. Yeah, I know the title is regarding a complaint. However, no other email application either online or through a standalone program on the hard drive is as good. It is fast, free, has a ton of space, and is very easy to use with a consistent uncomplicated interface. I even set my Grandma up with PCLinuxOS (she does emails and uses the word processor). I had previously tried to get Evolution or Mozilla Thunderbird working for her but something would always go wrong. She would accidentally click somewhere and the program would change to something that she was not familiar with. Gmail is so simple to use that I don’t think she is having much trouble anymore. In fact, I think that she is even starting to enjoy emailing people.

Back to my complaint. I have used Gmail daily since April 23, 2004. Yes, 22 days after Gmail was first announced. It took me that long to secure an invite. I was trying to get one since release day 1. I’m the kind of guy that likes to try new programs and have contributed suggestions and bug reports for many Google products. As I’m sure many of you know, a team at Google is working on the next generation of Gmail. Gmail 2.0, as it is being called by the bloggers. It is supposed to be significantly faster with a completely rebuilt and optimized back-end. Being the tech guy that I am (another example, I still think that BeOS had multimedia capabilities that Leopard is finally starting to touch and only because processors are much faster than they were back then), I am not happy with the roll out strategy that Google has for new Gmail versions/features. I’m not sure what things Google takes into account when determining in what order accounts get new features. However, my account, which had to be among the first, seems like it is always a few weeks behind in getting the new stuff. Case in point: 1) I received Gmail Chat a couple of weeks after people started getting it and a couple of days after a friend who I had invited had already received. 2) I received POP3 or, more recently, IMAP support significantly later than many people. 3) Google is allowing a certain percentage of accounts try the new version of Gmail.

I don’t know… Being an early adopter of technology, especially Google’s products, I feel that people who got an account the earliest should be given high priority in “demoing” the new features. It makes sense to me.

Update (11/6/2007): I just got the “newer version” (Gmail 2.0). Thanks Google! It is a nice improvement. I’m glad that they didn’t try to significantly change the interface because it is nice and simple how it is now. I can already feel the speed improvement. Also, the Google Chat integrated into Gmail is now finally working on Safari!!!

Andy Roddick could beat an average player with a frying pan

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Found this article on ESPN.com today. It is called “Could Roddick beat an average player with a frying pan?”

Andy Roddick is a 25-year-old professional tennis player with 23 ATP titles to his credit, including the 2003 U.S. Open. Having spent his entire childhood training on the tennis court, sometimes for as many as 10 hours a day, he now has the ability to strike shots at speeds and with a level of accuracy that are almost impossible to comprehend. Andy has hit the fastest serve ever recorded, at 155 mph. If you had never played tennis before and hit with Andy, you would immediately understand that you were dealing with an incredible athlete. You wouldn’t win a point and would possibly get injured by one of his serves.

I play tennis, too! While Roddick was the world’s No. 1 player, I made it to No. 2 on my high school team the season I played. Like Roddick, I can hit all of the shots. Unlike Andy, I can’t hit any of them particularly well or with any kind of power or placement. I hit my first serve around 105 mph, which is slower than his second serve, and it doesn’t have anywhere near the kind of action Andy’s ball does. I pray to God the first one goes in, because if it doesn’t, I could easily double fault.

The best way to make the comparison is to say that there’s no comparison. Roddick spends his time plowing through opponents in major tournaments, while I spend too much time on my couch watching him do so. Still, like Roddick, I am a tennis player and a competitive guy, so although I never had the dedication or the talent to play at his level, I wanted to know what a win over a player as great as he is felt like. In my heart I knew that I had what it took to beat him. I just had to figure out an unfair way to do it.

As to how unfair, well, that would take some thought. While someone with no tennis experience would not win a point from Andy in a set, I probably wouldn’t have a prayer of winning more than a point or two either. This is, in part, because I’m not that good, but also because the difference between a recreational player and an actual pro might be greater in tennis than in any other sport.

The story continues and is a very entertaining read. The story is actually an excerpt from Todd Gallagher’s book “Andy Roddick Beat Me With a Frying Pan — Taking the Field with Pro Athletes and Olympic Legends to Answer Sports Fans’ Burning Questions.”

One of the comments at the end of the story is this: “No one on my college team could break into triple figures on a serve…..Todd, there is no way you serve 105 when Federer first serve average was 119 in US Open final…..but nevertheless, a very entertaining article.”

I don’t know where he went to college, but I’m not a Divison 1A college-level player and I can serve a 105 mph serve, though, not super consistently like any professional or college player could.

How Proteus Saved Lives in World War II

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I’m currently studying for an upcoming microbiology exam on bacteriology and wanted to quick comment on something that one of the doctors told us. During World War II, Nazis were very fearful of typhus (the epidemic from caused by Rickettsia prowazekii). They wanted people in the concentration camps to do manual labor for as long as possible before being killed. Bringing people with epidemic typhus into the camps would cause everyone to become too sick to work. So to prevent the spread of typhus into the concentration camps, Nazi “doctors” tested villages for typhus antibodies via a blood test. Fortunately, some Polish physicians determined that inoculating villagers with Proteus would cause a cross-reaction with the typhus agglutination test. It would appear as if a typhus epidemic was going on in that village and the Nazis subsequently left them alone.

It was a pretty brave thing for the Polish physicians to do. It’s unfortunate that this couldn’t have been used to save even more lives. Here’s an article, A Bacterium Saved a Town During World War II, that talks about the same thing.

I have Leopard!

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No, this is not a type of STI. It is the name of Apple’s latest operating system, OS X Leopard (10.5). I stood in line at the Apple Store in Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee to be one of the first people to purchase it when it went on sale at 6pm on Friday, October 26th. I waited in line for a little over an hour but used most of that time to study for upcoming micro and psych exams. (Unfortunately, I’m still writing this post on Tiger because I’m forcing myself to wait until Wednesday after the exams are over to install it. I’d have trouble effectively studying if I had Leopard to play with so this is probably a good thing…) Having got my Powerbook G4 back in September ’05 (just before the switch to Intel), I did not have the chance to experience an Apple product launch. Well, I guess I could have bought an iPhone but it is/was a little too expensive for me.

The Apple Store was closed from 4-6pm in order to get it set up with all the Leopard gear. I was the 16th person in line. At about 30 minutes to 6pm I stopped studying and started talking to the interesting Mac people around me. Since I was at the beginning, the people around me were pretty hardcore “Mac heads,” as one of the guys identified himself as. I had a fun time demoing an iPhone and a iPod Touch. I had seen an iPhone before and already knew how incredible that thing was and the iPod Touch was amazing as well. It is so thin! Now if only Apple will allow 3rd party apps on the Touch as well… (It already does have Safari though.)

With about 2 minutes to go before 6pm the Apple Store employees let about the first 25 people walk up to the store and form a line. With 10 seconds to go they started the countdown and at 0 seconds the door to the store was opened and we marched in. All the employees were cheering and clapping their hands (and everyone else in the mall must have been wondering what the heck was going on). The first thing we got to do was grab a free Leopard t-shirt. Apple had provided each store with enough t-shirts for the first 500 people. I still had a bunch of studying to do so I just got in the line for buying Leopard and within minutes had bought it. It came in a cool looking case with a hologram “X” and the purple aurora in the background. On the back it says “Designed and engineered by Apple in California.” I then played around in the new iMacs for awhile. Leopard is amazing. I’m just going to love the new QuickLook feature. The cheering continued as we left. Customers got a standing applause as they left the store!

It is amazing how much loyalty Apple can command. For what other product do people wait in line to buy even though purchasing it later or online would be much quicker (and maybe cheaper)? People did camp out for the Wii and PS3 but those things were in scarce supply. For Leopard I could walk into the store tomorrow and buy it no problem. Or I could have even ordered it online and got it delivered before the 6pm release. However, I still chose to attend the release party. It is probably all due to the “experience” of being there. Part of the fun is being around people that are interested in the same things you are. The free t-shirt was nice too. You can bet that I’ll be wearing that shirt proudly at the library while studying tomorrow! 🙂

More details after I install it.

The Science Education Myth

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In an article, called The Science Education Myth on BusinessWeek, Vivek Wadhwa talks about how the U.S. is actually doing a great job of educating today’s students in math and science and that maybe more emphasis should be placed on the humanities.

Political leaders, tech executives, and academics often claim that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science education. They cite poor test results, declining international rankings, and decreasing enrollment in the hard sciences. They urge us to improve our education system and to graduate more engineers and scientists to keep pace with countries such as India and China.

…

The authors of the report, the Urban Institute’s Hal Salzman and Georgetown University professor Lindsay Lowell, show that math, science, and reading test scores at the primary and secondary level have increased over the past two decades, and U.S. students are now close to the top of international rankings. Perhaps just as surprising, the report finds that our education system actually produces more science and engineering graduates than the market demands.

…

In fact, the few countries that place higher than the U.S. are generally small nations, and few of these rank consistently high across all grades, subjects, and years tested. Moreover, he says, serious methodological flaws, such as different test populations, and other limitations preclude drawing any meaningful comparison of school systems between countries.