Hmmcast #140 mp4

It’s supposed to be a record heat day tomorrow and was getting hot today, so it was time to choose some outside work with water involved. This table needed a lot of work.

Hmmcast #139 mp4

As mentioned last week, my wife and I have begun a friendly stock competition. We each started with $500 and we’re going to see how each of us does. I’m blogging about the picks and her first pick was 20 shares of SHOR at $12.15 a share. As of this writing she’s made $7.00. We’re both using the site Zecco which offers up to 10 free trades a day, 40 free trades total a month.

The initial account setup experience for Zecco has been slower than I remember setting up other online accounts. My account should be ready sometime this week so I can start trading. Meanwhile, she’s taking advantage of my downtime.

One thing I’ve learned about Zecco so far is that you have to request for uninvested cash to be swept into their money market account by a special form (PDF) which you can fax or email to them, otherwise it just sits there with no interest being paid. Also, the instructions for how the whole new account process works on the website aren’t very good.

Update 6:14pm PST: My wife Skyped me to say she made her second trade today: 16 shares of MXWL at $15.40 via Google Finance:

Maxwell Technologies, Inc. (Maxwell) develops, manufactures and markets energy storage and power delivery systems. Its products are designed and manufactured to provide failure-free, low-maintenance, performance over the life of the applications into, which they are integrated.

MXWL closed today at $15.67 so she made another $4.32 bringing her total portfolio up to $511.32 (a little over +9% for the total portfolio which isn’t bad for a couple days).

Hmmcast #138 mp4

My wife may correct my tattered memory but I believe the bike ride we took Wednesday night was our first bike ride ever together. This September we will be married 18 years. Our oldest teen was there to catch us gearing up.

Hmmcast #137 mp4

Hmmcast #136 mp4

On our last vacation I bought us a blood pressure monitor to be able to check our blood pressure at home. We’ve been trying one in the pharmacy inside Fred Meyer and my wife’s blood pressure was a bit on the high side so I wanted to have a way to check it out at home. For under $60 you can purchase an automatic blood pressure monitor for home usage. We bought ours at Target.

Approximately 1 in 4 have high blood pressure [source]. Things we can do to keep blood pressure down include:

- maintain a healthy weight and diet [calculate your body mass index (BMI)]
- exercise
- limit alcohol consumption
- reducing salt and sodium in your diet
- quit smoking

My wife suggested buying bikes to ride on the trail in town together. We still have the stationary bike but it’s not getting nearly enough usage. In the summer time riding bikes seems better than a stationary bike both for scenery and fresh air.

Update 6/28/07 4:23am PST: As my buddy Harold correctly notes in the comments below last night, this Hmmcast does not demonstrate the proper method to check your blood pressure. Sorry, my bad. A confession: that was somewhat intentional in order to force a high blood pressure reading for the video (dramatic license, since I don’t have high blood pressure under the correct blood pressure taking conditions and my wife wasn’t available). The problem is nowhere in the video do I ever say this, so the viewer is left with the assumption that I’m demonstrating the proper method and showing a true reading.

I’m not.

Clearly not one of my brightest ideas ever without any explanation as some viewers might get the idea that this was intended to be a serious instructional video — as Harold did. Being put by me in the “how to” category doesn’t help that much either. Doh! My apologies to anybody that might have been confused.

Seriously, if you want to check your blood pressure correctly you should do the following (and this is paraphrased from the Healthy Living pamphlet that comes with the automatic inflate blood pressure monitor, no messing around):

- be sitting down in a comfortable environment for about 10 minutes before taking the reading. Take deep breaths and slowly let out your breath. If you just smoked a cigarette or drank something with caffeine in it (coffee, soda, etc) then wait 30-35 minutes.
- always check the blood pressure using the same arm
- sit with your legs uncrossed and feet flat on the floor
- wear loose fitting shirt and make sure the cuff is placed over your naked arm, not over clothes
- place your arm flat on the table with your palm facing upward

Additionally, Harold offers some other good suggestions in his comment below.

Hmmcast #135 mp4

For $4.99 we picked up the hamburger press, a handy tool for your grilling arsenal this summer. Eat your heart out, Rachael Ray!

Hmmcast #134 mp4

Back in October 2005, I reviewed my first MMORPC experience with Reel Deal Vegas Casino Experience. No, the ‘c’ is not a typo for ‘g’ (games), it’s for Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Casino. Today I checked out the newer versions which add two new floors to the growing online casino.

These games are for entertainment purposes only and no real money gambling takes place. Players can create and join guilds, level up, create or lose a virtual fortune, trick out your own suite and more all for the price of the games and a monthly fee ($9.99). Each month players receive one new free slot machine.

Hmmcast #133 mp4

Hmmcast #132 mp4

Hmmcast #131 mp4

Yesterday Fred asked how loud the fan noise was with our new nVidia graphics card. It’s not the fan that I’ve noticed as much as the bright power LED. Ahh, but there is a solution for that …