I let the axiom “buy used” extend to almost everything that costs more than $50. There are some things that I won’t buy used, (mattresses, for one) but things that either don’t wear out or can be repaired easily, those are no-brainers for buying used. My bicycle is used. It cost $140 and already rode like a dream. Now I put few dollars and some elbow grease into it every year to keep it in good shape. Here’s the main categories of stuff I always buy used.

Hobby Items

There are no better things to buy used than items you need to start a new hobby. If you’re looking to start exercising, learn an instrument, make jewelry, brew beer, etc., Craigslist is your best friend. America’s basements are the graveyard of good intentions. It’s where dreams go to die!

I can only imagine what the true percentage is, but let’s just invent a number and say that 80% of people trying out a new hobby give up within a year. All that new equipment they bought just goes into the basement to collect dust. That’s where you come in! When you decide to try out the same hobby, you get to profit from their laziness! That stuff they bought will eventually appear on Craigslist, and it will be at a deep discount just to get it out of the house. (You can thank our nation’s spouses for this part of the equation)

Take the home brew set-up I bought. After successfully making a few gallons of hard apple cider last fall, this spring I wanted to try brewing beer. This requires a big pot to brew in, so I went searching Craigslist for just a five gallon pot.

The only listing I found was a guy selling his entire home brew set-up. He tried brewing a few times, but the hobby didn’t stick, so he was selling it all. This set-up included everything. Two huge glass carboys, a five gallon pot, a bottling bucket, another bucket, tubing, a huge funnel, cleaning solution, a hydrometer… you can see it all above. And he only wanted 60 bucks for it!

Well, I couldn’t resist. Those glass carboys can go for $50 themselves!  So now I have about 40 bottles of porter aging in the basement. If the hobby ends up being a bust, I’ll just sell all of this stuff again for $60 and the ultimate out-of-pocket expense will be nothing, except for the ingredients used.

Another good example is exercise equipment. We are on our second treadmill, and we paid $0 for this one and for our first one. The first one was a hand-me-down from friends, and I think I actually sold it on Craigslist for a nominal amount, before getting the second treadmill as a hand-me-down from my parents. I actually made a profit from owning a treadmill. How many people can’t say that? If you have the capacity to move a treadmill out of someone’s house, you should never have to pay for one.

Also, weights. I have a barbell with over 200 pounds of weights. The price on Craigslist was $70, and I didn’t even take all of the weights the guy had listed. “I don’t think I’ll be needing the 50 lb plates, thank you very much.” Obviously, they are functionally identical to new weights, but cost 50-75% less.

Electronics

I bought three Apple devices new in my lifetime before coming to my senses. One, I actually got my first iPod (3rd gen) for free in college through a weird site where I completed surveys and things for points, and used those points to get the iPod. Two, I bought an iPod Nano at some point.

Three, I bought an iPod Touch  after lusting after them for years.  This was after Apple changed their stores to their current austere cash register-less environment. I was very embarrassed to ask one of their “geniuses,” “I want an iPod Touch. How do I buy it?”

These days I wouldn’t dream of buying new electronics. Have you seen how much those things cost?? Doesn’t the newest iPhone retail for a thousand dollars or something like that? Instead, I live perpetually behind the times by a few years. I buy a used item, keep it for a few years, replace it with a slightly newer item, and sell the old one.

Remember how you felt when the newest gadget came out four years ago? Well, basically I experience that today. Gadget-wise, I live behind the times, but since I never catch up to the present day, I never feel like I’m missing out, and I’m saving tons of cash.

For instance, I’m typing this on an iPad right now. Not the newest iPad, of course, but the fourth generation iPad which debuted in November 2012. It came with a $500 price tag, but I bought it for $76. I bought it to replace an Asus tablet which I also bought used for $80 in 2014. I’m now selling the Asus and will count its selling price against the cost of the iPad, so the net cost of the iPad will be less than the $76. See what I mean?

I’ve also discovered that when it comes to Apple products, people will even buy the broken ones! I assume they fix them and re-sell them. I’ve done the same thing with cameras, too. There’s a tiny scratch on my Canon Powershot SX260’s lens which has been bothering me for a year or two, so I might sell it and upgrade to a two-year old model soon before our next big international trip.

That’s a Barnes & Noble Nook, sold on eBay for $20, replaced with a more useful (and used) Amazon Kindle for the same price.

My favorite part of buying something used is that if you don’t want it anymore, sometimes you can sell it for exactly the same price as what you bought it! Then you’ve essentially spent zero dollars! I have no doubt that I could sell our two kayaks for $500, the same price we bought them for ten years ago.  The same goes for my used bicycle.

Clothing

I haven’t done this in a while since I haven’t needed to buy much new clothing in the past few years, and what I have needed I’ve been able to cover with Christmas gift cards, but yes, I will buy used clothing on eBay!

It’s very simple. For instance, since I have a brand and size of shirt that always fits me (JCrew, slim medium) I will set a Saved Search on eBay for that. Then eBay will send me an email with few new shirts for auction every day, and if I find anything that looks in good shape, I will set a maximum bid of $8 or $10.  (I almost always win because no one is bidding on used clothing.) Viola! That is an easy-as-pie wardrobe refresher.

Tools

If this all sounds familiar, maybe it’s because it was basically the theme of my third blog entry ever in 2014. I had bought some tools for putting in a fence and a paved patio, and was counting on selling the tools for what I paid for them to someone else who needs them, basically treating Craigslist like a tool library.

I never actually bothered to list these things for sale until last week, so I have $20 from selling the post hole digger and tamper, and a grading rake still collecting dust in the shed. I’ll be keeping the sledgehammer. If you’re a home DIYer, there are so many odd jobs that require a specific tool that you’ll only use once. Why not buy it used, then pass it on to the next person?

What are you favorite things to buy used?

The post These Are A Few of My Favorite Things… To Buy Used appeared first on RidinKulous.

1. Sell my car by the end of 2015. I haven’t done this yet, but I want to get it done by the end of the summer. My idea was to sell my Honda Civic and use the proceeds to pay off the rest of the loan on Marge’s Toyota Corolla.

I’ve sort of forced my hand by paying almost the entire Corolla loan using a credit card in order to meet a, erm, minimum spending requirement… But don’t worry, I paid it all off immediately with cash from savings. So once the Civic is sold, those savings can be replaced.

Then we can reap the benefits of downsizing to one car: Over $600 a year saved just in car insurance, no more registration fee, a whole lot less in maintenance expenses, and a lump sum of money to invest somewhere productively.

How old is my car? So old that I took this photo of it with a film camera in 2005.

Fun fact: On the day this post goes live, July 27, we will be wrapping up our annual trip to the campsite seen above! And we will be driving that very car. The campground is in New York’s beautiful Thousand Islands region, and we’ve been visiting it every year since, yes, 2005.

2. Pay off Marge’s car by the end of 2015. See #1. There is about $988 left.

Squid chicharrons in Lima

3. A litany of 2015 Expense Category Goals. I wanted to spend less than $1,000 each for the year in gas, dining, takeout food and clothing.

Halfway through the year, those totals are $480.58, $555.31, $381.78, and $477.13, so we are on track with everything except dining. Dining expense normally wouldn’t be a problem to get under control, but we have a ten day trip to Japan in October, so that could be tough. There’s just so much sushi there!

4. Pay off our mortgage and student loans in 2017. This one has been massively re-thought.

At the beginning of the year, rental properties weren’t really on our mind. But at some point this year, it was all we thought about.  We made an offer, that offer got accepted, and apparently my last update about all that was back on May 19!

It’s a gorgeous two-family house that should be no problem to rent out. We haven’t closed on it yet, but our accepted offer was $134,000. To help finance the purchase, we took out a home equity line of credit because we didn’t have 25% of the price in liquid cash. Since we have paid off nearly 50% of our home mortgage, we could take out a sizable HELOC, $25,000, and avoid having a PITI party.

So, needless to say, with the addition a nearly $100,000 rental property mortgage, plus the $25,000 HELOC, debt priorities have changed. Add to that the fact that I will be re-prioritizing all of our savings towards maxing out retirement contributions before making any debt paydowns.

That said, after making the retirement contributions, I may either pay down the student loans or the HELOC first. The student loan balance is lowest, so it would provide the most immediate gratification to pay it off, but the interest rates aren’t the lowest, so we’ll see…

5. Retire by age 43 in 2025. We come back to the rental property topic again.

Previously I stipulated that retiring at age 43 would be ideal because I would have put in 20 years with my employer, and would get a jump in my pension up to 40% of my final salary. I’ve been running the numbers on rental properties, and while rental income can help to add to your net worth during your working years, where rental income really shines is during your retirement years.

Say your annual expenses are $50,000 in retirement. If you’re renting out just a couple apartments and clearing $1,000 profit a month, just that $12,000 a year makes a huge dent in your expenses. That $1,000 a month could easily flip an unfeasible retirement into a feasible one.

My point is, considering that my pension would already be taking a hit of around 27% if I started taking it at 55 instead of 62, just a few rental apartments could generate income equal to my pension! And rental income is (mostly) passive.

Playing with the numbers further, we could achieve QT (Quittin’ Time) at age 40 with this rental property. It would be even easier with a second property. Rentals seem to make a big difference. Of course, we actually have to close on this one and rent it out first to see how we like it.

How’s your year so far? Better than you expected? Or worse?

The post January’s Goals Revisited appeared first on RidinKulous.

No, that is not some trick of math. It’s not some military contract gone awry where toilet seats cost their weight in gold. No, I paid gave someone $40 for a pencil.

And it’s not a special pencil either, made out of rare wood and embossed with gold. No, this is a genuine General’s Semi-Hex Number 2 pencil.

So why did this seemingly conventional pencil cost so much, and why did your boy Norm shell out $40, more than he’ll spend on a pair of shoes, for it?

Well, it came pre-sharpened.

This is David Rees.

You might be aware of David Rees and his passion for pencils from seeing him on CBS Sunday Morning a few years ago. Yes, it was a perfect storm of things Marge and I loved that morning. Sunday Morning was the only reason we were keeping our cable, after all.

Click here to see the story since it won’t let me embed it.

Basically, David had a job working for the 2010 federal census, going door-to-door, writing down numbers. This involved much pencil-sharpening. David discovered that he really enjoyed bringing a dulled pencil back to a perfect point. He loved it so much that he wondered if he could get people to pay him to do it.

I was vaguely aware of David from his odd clip art-based comic Get Your War On. So when I first heard about the pencil-sharpening gig, I was suspicious. How many had he done, like ten? Was he somehow just taking advantage of gullible people? Was this even real?

Well, his appearance on The Best Show on WFMU convinced me, his passion was real.  He had done his homework. Give him any question about pencil history, pencil construction, pencil materials, pencil companies… and he knew the answer. But still, charging people to sharpen a pencil by hand for them? It’s oddly impenetrable.

Then came David’s tv show.

Last year, David produced the most amazing tv show for the National Geographic Channel called Going Deep. Much like the pencil-sharpening business, with each episode of Going Deep, David studied something so simple, you would end up amazed at the depths he plumbs. Marge and I loved this show. It might actually be my favorite thing in years.

I’d recommend the episodes How To Make An Ice Cube and How To Dig A Hole, where David describes his perfect hole, the Party Hole.

And who can forget when a scientist explains to David that drinking ultra-pure water is actually very dangerous, and David drinks it anyway!!!

Which brings me back to the pencil-sharpening. Once I saw the tv show, I got it! I finally understood the pencil sharpening. It’s not even about the pencil! It’s about understanding a simple act and figuring out how to do it perfectly. I’ve seen enough documentaries about craftspeople on NHK World to know that there are people who make a thing, and then there are people who craft a thing. David crafts these pencils.

So I bought one and framed it as an inspirational object. It can serve as a message to you all that maybe we should all take care with our crafts, no matter how small, or whatever.

Yeah, it’s framed

Buying the pencil also had a double-sided effect. One of the things I hope to get across on this blog is that you need to Support The Things You Like. If you don’t support the things you like, those things die. I effectively watched Going Deep for free since it was on Hulu, but I like it and David so much, I want him to keep doing what he does.

By the way, did you know that season two of Going Deep with David Rees starts tonight? Yes, I did plan to post this entry today, and no, I’m obviously not being paid. If you can watch something called “Esquire Network,” you will be able to see it. Otherwise, hopefully it will show up on Hulu like the first season. David is just an absolute delight on tv, and I don’t see why he isn’t the biggest star in the country right now. This new season even features his female equivalent, Amy Sedaris, teaching him how to pet a bunny.

Would you pay $40 for a pencil?

The post Frugal Failure: I Paid $40 For A Pencil appeared first on RidinKulous.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is an 8 foot mountain of snow nonchalantly dropped in our backyard, as if it was a vacant lot! And not just snow, but snow and garbage!

My first thought, obviously, was that the city did this. They have been doing their darndest to keep the streets cleaned, and there are supposed to be official places to dump the excess snow: Parks, parking lots, vacant lots. On Wednesday, they plowed our street. So naturally, I imagined some numbskull thought he could get away with taking a shortcut and dumping everything in our yard.

If we owned a huge property, this wouldn’t matter. Heck, I regularly shrug off having to shovel the sidewalks once the plowdrivers inevitably ruin my beautiful sidewalk work. But we only have a 25×100 foot lot!  And with extensive patio work planned for this spring, I can’t sacrifice this huge plot of land to Snow Mountain! We all know what’s going to happen. This would melt and re-freeze and not disappear until July!

What the fuuuuck!

If you see a mountain, climb it. Pose by Norm, illustration by Marge

Anyway, the city claims it wasn’t their workers that did it because they don’t bring large trucks down our alley. I don’t know if I’m inclined to believe them or not, but if the city didn’t put it there, who did? Some private contractor idiot looking to unload snow from his paying customers’ lots? Is this a threat? Is someone going to show up at the door saying, “Say, that’s a lot of snow ya got back there. I’ll move it for a hundred bucks!”

In a heartening show of empathy, our mayor took an interest in this snow dumping and sent people on two separate days to check it out. Code enforcement took photos of the tire tracks in the hopes of matching them up to a truck. I don’t expect anything to come of it, but I can at least say that we wouldn’t get that kind of attention in the larger cities here like Albany, Troy, or Schenectady. I love my city, and as cheesy as their slogan is, Cohoes actually is a “community that cares.”

I the meantime, there was work to be done. I knew that the snow had to go, so Marge and I got to work destroying the mountain, bit by bit, by hand with whatever tools we could find!

The snow was definitely dumped into place, but what’s annoying, aside from the parts that were completely ice, is that the snow was starting to compact. It was dense enough that we couldn’t use normal snow shovels. We had to use metal shovels to cut it into chunks, which we then chucked into the alley.

After three hours of back-breaking digging, we took about 3-4 feet off the top of the mountain.  The city told us they “might” be able to get someone to help us. That didn’t happen. But when they’re ready and take a truck down here, there will be a bunch of snow waiting for them in the alley…

Compare to the first picture to see the progress.

When I said I wanted to shovel all of the snow in existence, I was joking!!!

Addendum:  A few days later, the garbage truck came down the alley and got stuck for a few minutes in the pile we made. The garbage guys looked just as confused as I was about the mystery pile. 

The post What I Talk About When I Talk About All The Snow In Existence appeared first on RidinKulous.

It goes without saying that I never go to Starbucks. When it comes to personal finance advice, “skip the Starbucks” is some of the most cliched, basic, duhhhhh advice around. It’s only slightly less obvious than “giant SUVs are more expensive to operate than small cars” and “bottled water is a scam.” I should hope that anyone who needs the “skip Starbucks” advice doesn’t read this blog, because that is purely Amateur Night. But as much as I avoid certain stores, sometimes I end up with a gift card for one of them.

So yesterday morning, I was reading my favorite news source The Onion and one of the stories hit especially close to home: Man Basks In Triumphant Glory After Purchases Line Up To Exact Value of Gift Card. Little did I know I was about to enact that exact scenario!

On my way back from the Asian Supermarket, I remembered I had a Starbucks gift card from Christmas burning a hole in my pocket. I hadn’t found a use for it yet. I don’t even know what people buy at Starbucks, besides coffee. And despite this being fake money in the form of a gift card, I still didn’t want to spend it on something I could make cheaply at home. So I decided to get some food instead.

Well, I had $10 on that gift card, and to my delight, this Starbucks’ pastries all seemed to cost $2.45. That means I could get 4 items, which would add up to $9.80. But I wasn’t sure if the food was taxed. There is a gray area where prepared food* is taxed, but food ready to eat but not really “prepared” is not taxed. Generally, bakery items are not taxed…

I threw caution to the wind and went for it!

Starbucks bakery nummers

And, lo and behold, there was no tax on my Starbucks pastries! The total was $9.80, leaving 20 cents on my Starbucks gift card (which I promptly threw in the garbage) and leaving all of my cash in my wallet. I love life imitating art.

FYI, the scones were okay, but that chocolate croissant was kind of a joke.

Do you have any gift card “wins?” Do you have a pile of gift cards with pocket change on them?

* Hey, for a fun read, do you want to know what the IRS’ definition of a sandwich is? It includes hot dogs, wraps, and open-faced sandwiches. Discuss!

The post Starbucks Gift Card Win appeared first on RidinKulous.

For $35, you got a pass to see every Best Picture-nominated movie over ten days. There’s nine Best Picture nominees this year, so that’s less than $4 a movie! That’s an incredible deal, especially since these are all supposed to be great movies. And the stars aligned, dear readers. Over Presidents Day weekend, I had scheduled two extra vacation days which I was going to otherwise lose, and Marge was going to be out of town on a trip to Las Vegas. So with all the time in the world, yes, I saw every last movie. Here’s my rankings.

9. Hidden Figures
About three black women working at NASA in the Mercury program. Honestly, this one was too much of a crowd-pleaser for my liking. Just not my thing. You pretty much know exactly what you’re going to get. People actually applauded at the end of this one. The actors were great, but the film suffers from A Beautiful Mind-ism/Good Will Hunting-ism. That’s where we’re supposed to be in awe of a character’s knowledge because of how many numbers and complicated words they know or can put on a blackboard. So many scenes where one of the women will be writing a huge equation you don’t understand, and it’s inevitably followed by some snarky remark from a white guy or some reaction shot. I prefer a movie with smart characters that simplify it enough so that you can follow along over the two hours (see #3) instead of closing you off.
Also, if you do like the film, make sure you don’t read about the historical inaccuracies, unless you like to be disappointed. The best scenes and major conflicts didn’t really happen.
Key Scene: When John Glenn’s capsule is coming back from orbit, and cars are pulled over to the side of the road to watch the sky. Did that really happen? Could people really see anything? I don’t know.
Key Quote: “Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.”

8. Hacksaw Ridge This is the story of Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. And, ooh sorry guys, I thought this was a little corny. At least the first half was. The issue at the center, that a man who refuses to hold a gun still wants to contribute to the war effort, was what made for an interesting story, but also made it an “issues movie” where characters exist to stand in for philosophical points of view rather than act as normal people. So a lot of the characters fell flat for me. And maybe times have changed, but as the various privates, sergeants, and colonels try to get Doss discharged, I was banging my head against the wall thinking “What’s so wrong with a guy who just wants to be a medic on the battlefield!?” The second half of the movie is basically the incredibly intense re-taking of Hacksaw Ridge on Okinawa, and does a more than adequate job showing how admirably Doss served. You’s swear it was a superhuman effort if you didn’t know it was true.

Key Scene: When Doss decides to stay on the ridge after everyone else has retreated for an aerial bombardment. What a nutcase.

Key Quote: “Have you ever looked into a goat’s eyes?” “No, sir.” “Good. That would be unnatural.”

7. La La Land
With all the buzz, I was looking forward to this one, and… I just don’t think it’s very good. It’d heard it was earnest, and that’s fine, but it’s also not fun. The musical numbers are actually kind of sparse, but worst of all, I didn’t care about the characters. Emma Stone’s Mia is supposed to be a struggling actress, and I really didn’t buy it.. I didn’t understand how Ryan Gosling went from a pretentious jazz snob to joyfully picking up a paycheck as the keyboard player in a terrible mainstream band. And it is constantly referencing older, better musicals in the hopes that some of the charm will rub off. I really felt like I was watching  the theater’s pre-roll commercials sometimes. The characters are hollow. Mia’s ambition as an actress is only to be famous. The plot was dull. I did enjoy seeing the different musical performances within the film (the jazz band, the 80’s cover band, Ryan Gosling doing Christmas songs, the terrible John Legend band). The only great part is the last ten minutes. That’s when the music and dancing really shines and the story actually takes an interesting turn. In fact I think the whole movie might exist just to get to those last ten minutes.

Key Scene: The last ten minutes.

Key Quote: “Hoagie Carmichael sat on that stool.”
Audience fun fact: There was a confused old man in my row. When La La Land starts, there is a production company credit that starts as a square black & white screen with the ends of the words cut off. The old man yelled “Hey jackass, make the screen bi…” Then just as he was yelling the company’s credit opened up to reveal a widescreen color logo. Then! The movie opens up on a gridlocked highway. We go from car to car hearing snippets of their car radios. Now the old man thinks he’s hearing cell phone ringers and pipes up, “Hey jackass, turn off your cell phone!” He actually said it twice before figuring out it was the movie making the sounds. Luckily he was silent for the rest of the movie.

6. Fences This was adapted from a play and you can tell. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re looking for action, go elsewhere. Most of this movie takes place at one house. Denzel Washington is a former negro leagues baseball player named Troy. By the way he tells it, he’s one of the best players ever and was denied a shot at going pro because he’s black, although he exaggerates. Now he’s a garbage man, takes pride in that, has a good wife and children (by a few women) but is constantly complaining, often with good reason. Denzel and Viola Davis are basically running a masterclass in acting here. There’s a lot of incredible acting here, and some clever, subtle camerawork. But yeah, very talky. One of Troy’s sons plays in a jazz band, and I was hoping, “Oh, maybe we get to see them play!” But no, Troy has to work in the morning, which is half a bad excuse because Troy doesn’t want to be reminded of how much better his kids are doing than he is, and half a convenient way to get out of staging jazz performance in a play. It gets a tad too dramatic in the last quarter, not to give anything away, but people who’ve seen it will know what I mean.

Key scene: The initial scene when Troy gets off work and he’s shooting the shit with his best friend Bono and his wife Rose. He’s got a bottle of gin, as usual, and gets more and more, uh.. convivial as the scene goes on.

Key quote: “You got anything in there to top those pig’s feet, Rose?”

5. Hell or High Water Mucklemouthed sheriff Jeff Bridges is just days from retirement! Then a pair of brothers decide to rob a bunch of banks to pay off a reverse mortgage or something on their dead mother’s house. All Bridges wants to do is lightly racially insult his Native American/Mexican deputy and get ready for the quiet life. Okay, it’s really not as hackneyed as that. But I wonder why every police chief in a movie has to be a week away from retiring. The movie basically cuts between the brothers robbing one bank after another, and the police, trying to track their next move. Life in west Texas is changing! Cattle ranching is hard! Them banks took all our money! The issues it brings up are a little on the nose.  Then a robbery goes awry and the bank customers form some kind of impromptu militia to chase the robbers down in a sequence that must be a Texan’s wet dream. But the story itself is like clockwork, and does not go the way you expect. Very tidy, and great characterizations. The movie is succinctly told without an extraneous scene. It didn’t really wow me with originality, but there’s not much to complain about here.

Key scene: When one of the brothers forces a bank exec to fax a payoff letter in front of him, and he gets all nervous and sweaty at the fax machine.

Key quote: “Those conceal carry permits really complicate a robbery!”

4. Lion
Interesting film, based on a true story. Young Saroo and his older brother Guddu live in a remote village in India. Guddu takes the train to look for work, and against his better judgement brings Saroo along. Guddu leaves Saroo to nap at the train platform for a few minutes, and my first thought was literally “India seems like the kind of place where a kid could wind up a few miles from home and literally never be heard from again.” I didn’t know anything about this movie before seeing it, but that’s exactly what happens.

If you’re looking to be convinced that India is a hellscape, look no further than the next thirty minutes. Saroo desperately tries to survive and find his way home, but is almost sold into sex trafficking, escapes and then ends up some kind of orphan prison. The movie jumps ahead to Saroo’s adult life, one of relative privilege after being adopted by Australian parents. But he’s tortured by the thought of his real family still searching for him, and becomes obsessed with finding his home village, which is not easy as he barely remember the name of it. As an avid user of Google Maps and Streetview, I was enthralled when Google Earth became a pivotal tool in this movie. The movie could function as a straight up commercial for Google Earth, actually. And year, I’ll admit, I cried a bit at the end. If you don’t, you have no soul.

Key scene: When Saroo’s basically wallpapered his house with maps of India covered in highlights and pushpins, and he’s just clicking around on Google Earth.

Key quote: No quotes. The most memorable sound was the entire audience sobbing and blowing their noses at the end.

3. Arrival The one would be right up my alley: A brainy sci-fi flick that has its feet firmly planted on Earth. Aliens show up in huge spaceships shaped like half-used bars of soap and it’s basically up to Amy Adams to figure out how to communicate with them, so we can figure out their motives.  The aliens’ language looks like stains from coffee mugs. Weirdly, this is mainly a movie about language, about the actual mechanics of the written word, about how language influences thought, and about just how dangerous poor communication is. I was on the edge of my seat! No, really! I like this movie for being unapologetically nerdy. Not to give anything away, but the ending reminded me of Interstellar. Where the whole alien encounter is some weird MacGuffin for the main character to revisit their past. Ugh. But there is a nice switcheroo here which made this ending way more interesting than Interstellar’s.

Key scene: Basically any time they’re interacting with the aliens, these weird octopus-looking things. I couldn’t get enough of that.

Key quote: “Abbott is death process.”

2. Moonlight
Now this is a great movie. I went into this one knowing nothing except its reputation as basically an art house flick. I was expecting it to be nothing but washes of color, faces, music and almost no dialogue. There’s a little bit of that flavor, but not so much to deserve the reputation. This is an incredibly acted drama that follows one black kid through three stages of his life. The portrait it paints of this one character is the stuff of legend. I loved how each actor really inhabited the role. Over time you can see how past experiences can influence and change a person until they’re barely recognizable. The kid starts out quiet and bullied, grows into a twitchy, nervous teenager questioning his sexuality, and ends up as a muscled-up tough guy, still quiet and definitely lacking in confidence. It feels really lived in.
Key Scene: When Chiron’s old high school crush tries to impress him with his cooking at the diner where he works.
Key Quote: “What kind of dude goes around giving other dudes nicknames?”

1. Manchester By The Sea
Talk about movies showing how the past can change a person… Casey Affleck plays Lee, a very emotionally cut off janitor at a apartment complex. His brother dies, and now he’s the guardian of his brother’s son Patrick. Affleck is great in this.  Very silent, but prone to violent outbursts. In flashbacks, we see Lee’s an extrovert, and we slowly find out why and how he’s changed over the years. Basically, it’s a movie about grief, which is not a great way to sell a movie, so forget I said that. It’s actually really funny, a lot of times in a dark or understated way. (Check the opening scene) Matthew Broderick bizarrely stops in for exactly one scene. I’m glad Affleck won the Oscar, but I also think Lucas Hedges, who plays Patrick, should’ve won best Supporting Actor. That kid shows some versatility. I am a sucker for geographically familiar movies, and being that this mostly takes place in Massachusetts in winter, it feels very familiar to me. Lee is using a shovel to scrape repeatedly at icy snow at one point. We’ve all been there. It’s definitely not the most showy movie, but the performances and setting all combined to make me really care about the characters.

Key scene: When Lee’s uncle is yelling across a crowded room to his wife that Lee needs something to eat, she can’t hear him, he decides never mind, she still can’t hear him, then he can’t hear her… There’s a lot of uncomfortable scenes like this.

Key quote: “You can’t talk about adult shit for thirty minutes? How about those interest rates? Hey, I lost my AAA card!”

 What was your favorite movie this past year?

The post Norm’s $35 Oscar Movie Roundup appeared first on RidinKulous.

If you weren’t aware, Ridinkuloids, 1,500 Days interviewed our corporate overload, Gygax! I normally don’t like to talk about what goes on behind the scenes here, but long story short, we are part of an intergalactic blog network ruled by a ruthless, but effective, demigod and his trained wolf.

Gygax really spills the beans in the interview… Not that I’m complaining! Gygax is a benevolent and kind leader, and also all-knowing.

If you’re new, here are some of our Very Important Posts.

The Hottest Cell Phone You Need To Own RIGHT NOW! The Nokia 2600 is the hottest cell phone on the market. Find out why!
For The Love Of God, Don’t Max Out Your 401(k) Contributing as much as possible to your retirement seems like a great idea, unless, well… click to find out!
How Much Did Our Trip to Peru Cost? Is Peru a cheap or expensive place to visit? You will never know unless you click on that link!
B-B-B-Bats! Question: What animal did we spend over $1,000 to eradicate from our home? Clicking that link will bring you closer to the answer!
Comfort, Style, Luxury – The Ultimate In Transportation If you demand only the finest in transportation, boy have we got an option for you. Click on the link to find the secret answer!
Camping! A Frugal Friend’s Favorite Vacation Question: What sleeping arrangement costs $25 a night and lets you sleep under the stars? You get ten guesses, and if you don’t figure it out, then you’re allowed to click that link!

The post Greetings, 1,500 Daysers! appeared first on RidinKulous.

People find Ridinkulous all different types of ways. Maybe you’ve clicked through while reading interviews with our dog Maeby or our corporate overlord demigod Gygax on other, more popular blogs. Maybe you’ve clicked through while reading one of the comments I leave scattered like little poops across the internet. Or maybe you’re my favorite type of reader, and you found us by using a search engine.

As an aside, Marge and I are fascinated by search terms. Do you remember when AOL… I was going to say “leaked,” but they just straight up uploaded billions of search terms people had used with the idea that someone could use it for academic studies? Their users’ names had been scrubbed, but other than that, they left all the search terms as-is, meaning you could figure out who a person was if they were giving away enough personal information in their searches.

It was a serious violation of privacy, but also a really intimate view of someone’s life.   Take a look at User 711391’s search history here to see how voyeuristically thrilling it is! Marge and I played these for comedy on a podcast we used to produce in 2006 (the golden age of podcasting). We would dramatically read people’s search terms as if it was their inadvertent autobiography.

We were contacted by a couple of Dutch filmmakers to be in some movie about the AOL search term debacle, specifically that very user 711391 who had seemed to put her whole life in search terms. Well, they never filmed us, but it looks like they ended up making the movie, called I Love Alaska. It’s more of an art project than a documentary.

Aaanyway, I just figured out how to use Google’s Webmaster Tools to show all of the search results that lead people to find Ridinkulous.net. There is some interesting stuff in there! Today we’re going to see how people get here, and I will try to answer the questions these searchers seem to asking

Ridinkulous Search Terms

Charles Osgood sick

I’ve written about our love for Charles Osgood and CBS Sunday Morning before, so I’m happy to tell you that, no, he’s not sick.

norm seinfeld

Aside from one instance when an actress accidentally referred to Newman as “Norman,” there was no character named Norm on Seinfeld. Of course, you might’ve been searching for our hit podcast Seinopsis and just couldn’t remember the name.

Bats flying around my house

We get a lot of visits from people either looking for information or commiseration on the bats in their house. We have had plenty of bats over the years, and this summer we finally dealt with them and banished them for good.

Ocean state job lot tarps

I’ve mentioned before that my favorite Black Friday ad was a flyer from Ocean State Job Lot advertising discounted tarps. I guess I’m not the only one in love with those tarps!  I’m glad you and I could be united, person searching for tarps. Coincidentally, I noticed mine has a rip in it, so I might soon be in the market for a new Ocean State Job Lot tarp!

max out 401k

Sometimes we even get search terms related to finances! Imagine that! Obviously this person landed on my epic 401(k) fee rant For The Love Of God, Don’t Max Out Your 401(k)! I hope they heeded my advice.

use a serving of poutine to find and defeat

Poutine is a delicious food, but this search make it sound it could double as a heat-seeking missile! Just wait until those bad guys get a face full of hot gravy! This is a deadly weapon sure to defeat any opponent.

spot the cat

Got me. I don’t know what the hell that means. Maybe it’s a game?

in part 1 of steve’s video, which shop does he visit that sells both shoes and coffee?

Tricky! Steve has visited many shoe/coffee shops. It could be either Soleful Brew, Beans & Toes, or Lacey Joe’s.  I do remember that Steve bought a pair of New Balance trainers and a large fair trade dark Columbian roast.

early retirement ideas

Travel more. Work on your music career. Build miniature houses for animals. Wear a mask and protest outside the Scientology building all day long. Read more books on your list. Learn how to make cheese. Walk all the way to Nunavut. Stare at a hotel concierge until they make you leave. That’s the great thing about early retirement. It’s Your Thing!

charles osgood retirement

No, he didn’t retire yet. So you check that off now as two good things. Charles Osgood is not sick nor did he retire.

how much did a house cost in 1900

One goat.

2600 tracfone

You might’ve been looking for more information on the cell phone that was the subject of my love song, The Hottest Cell Phone You Need To Own Right Now.

dude let’s hang out

Cool, man. Where do you want to go?

obscene food

Well, we have a series about food called Cost Per Serving, but I wouldn’t call any of it obscene. What were you trying to search for?

how much did napoleon dynamite cost to make?

That’s the weird thing. Napoleon Dynamite cost $215 million dollars to make, which is as much as Transformers: Age of Extinction. Idaho is the most expensive place in the world to film, Llamas eat $2,000 worth of food a day, and Jon Heder’s hair took 7 hours to style every day.

i went on vacation

So what? What are you, bragging?

chocolate babka seinfeld

I’ll admit, Seinfeld is the reason I started baking chocolate babkas. No shame in that.

did charles osgood retire

No! Someone else already asked me that! He’s not sick! He didn’t retire! Just…. Jesus!

how much does an 8000 btu air conditioner cost to run

Wow! Lucky for you, I have calculated that exact cost you are looking for. For us, it would cost $2.62 to run the air conditioner all day.

crustier

I don’t even want to know. Never visit my website again, freak.

cost of taxi from lima airport to miraflores

We get tons of searches for the price of traveling in Peru. This taxi ride in particular cost us $15.91.

day bare for deg

So that is the Norwegian translation of a romance novel written by Sylvia Day. So obviously, they ended up here….

What’s the weirdest way someone has found your website? What’s the weirdest thing in your search history?

The post Search Terms: Your Questions Answered! appeared first on RidinKulous.

I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I decided to write another post about how to have what I think is the perfect camping trip. I noticed that our set-up was much more “minimalist” than all of the other campsites. I want this entry to focus on our camping style which contains none of the fuss that makes camping more work than fun. So if you’ve never gone tent camping or called it quits after a bad experience,

WARNING! For the first time, I am experimenting with affiliate links, and a few of them are in here. We’ve never made a red cent from this blog, and that’s maybe as it should be. But if you buy any of the supplies linked, we will get a cut, but you can be sure, we will not not steer you wrong!

Childless Couple Pro-Tip: The post-Labor Day week is your golden hour!

Chips, soda, music, water, Thousand Island Sun

We’ve spent years returning to this same campsite every summer, and I don’t know why it took us so long to realize that timing makes all the difference. The major benefit/problem with our campsite is how beautiful the location is. Every day we get lookee-loos stumbling on it and saying “Oh this is a nice site. We should try booking this.” Well, you have to get up pretty early in the morning (literally) to book this site before I do. But needless to say, our site and the ones around it are always popular and are booked throughout the summer. That means we have neighbors. Sometimes lots of neighbors. And if you’re looking to having a quiet commune with nature, this is the problem.

But while the campground is fully booked during Labor Day weekend, it is virtually empty by Tuesday! Those kids have to go back to school! That is our car all by its lonesome above. After Labor Day, the only people left are retirees and childless couples… like us! We had a huge swath of riverfront all to ourselves to explore. And since it’s technically still summer, the weather is nice and the water is still as warm as it’s going to get. The first week of September is definitely the time to go camping.

Who needs an RV?

Unlike most of our neighbors at the campground, we use a tent. I see so many people driving in with big campers attached to a truck, or driving a dedicated RV. Then I watch them spend hours setting up and fussing with things, running loud generators, messing with weird pumps and faucets. There always seems to be something that they need to tend to with the RV. Then I imagine the cost of driving the thing. All of our gear fits neatly in a Honda Civic which gets 30 MPG. The typical RV gets 5-10 MPG. It takes us ten gallons to get from home to our campsite.  That means it would take an RV thirty to sixty gallons! Yikes. (Although I was a bit jealous of our neighbors with Airstream and Shasta trailers)

So you’ll need a tent. What makes a good tent? Size is part of it, but smaller is actually better! We don’t recommend overbuying when it comes to tent size. You might want to buy the biggest tent you can afford, but you will be sacrificing quality. Previous to our current tent, we had a $70 Eddie Bauer tent (see left) from Target that leaked like a sieve in any substantial rainfall. Even with the fly on, the rain wouldn’t stay out unless we also put a tarp on top of it all.

Our current tent, under its fly

Our current tent is a 2-3 person tent from Mountain Hard Wear called the Hammerhead 3. The Hammerhead is smaller and much more expensive than our old Eddie Bauer, but is a much better buy. It takes a serious downpour before a drip of water will seep into the sleeping area, which I can only remember happening once or twice. And for nice, dry nights, there is an enormous panel on the front that opens up so you can sleep under the stars, but with a screen to keep the buggies out.

It also has a well-designed fly that extends far away from the tent, so rain doesn’t drip near it. It also creates a vestibule for each sleeper’s door so you can place your shoes outside the tent and they won’t get wet.

Let our neighbors be a cautionary tale to you. Their tent’s fly laid on the tent walls and didn’t even extend to the ground. After their first night, they had to lay all of their clothes and their sleeping bag on the picnic tables to dry out. Everything got wet their first night. A good time was not had by all.

We were worried at first that the Hammerhead might be too small, but there’s enough room for all of our stuff, and since it’s so functional otherwise, we would forgive it a lack of space. You don’t need to enough room for everything you own. You’re supposed to be spending time outside anyway! We keep our luggage in the car. We change clothes in the campground bathroom anyway, so it doesn’t make sense to keep all of our clothes in the tent. We got the Hammerhead as a wedding gift nine years ago and it still performs perfectly. Unfortunately, Mountain Hard Wear doesn’t make this tent anymore, so you’re going to have to do your own research for your tent!

Weather Prepardness

Having a successful camping trip means being prepared for the weather. Keep yourself and your things dry should be your #1 concern, because as soon as your stuff gets wet, your trip can be ruined!

But if you can’t fit your stuff in your tent, where does it go? For years, we tried bringing all of our food and supplies in various plastic containers we had. Inevitably, they weren’t very waterproof and we’d have wet bread, damp matches, etc. A few years ago we invested in two Rubbermaid ActionPacker Storage  boxes. We have a 24 gallon and an 8 gallon box.

This is yet another wise investment for campers. During the off-season, we keep our tent and air mattress in the large box, and all the various things like paper plates, plastic bags, flashlights, aluminum foil, tongs, batteries, etc. in the small box. When it comes time to head to camp, all we do is make sure nothing needs to be replenished in the boxes, and throw the boxes in the car. Then at camp, the big box holds all of our food. Pretty much everything stays in these boxes. We don’t leave anything out. So if it ever rains, we don’t have to worry about it.

Also, TARP IS GOOD. Tarp is must. We usually have a pile of firewood and collected branches. Heaven help you if your firewood gets wet. Having a tarp is a must to throw over the wood pile if there’s a storm coming. All you need is a simple 8×10 foot tarp like this one.

First sign of rain, cover that wood!

Also, don’t be afraid to throw things in the car! Chances are, it won’t be far from your campsite. If the sky suddenly darkens and fat raindrops start falling, we’ve been known to throw things in the trunk. Our chairs especially can’t get wet. There’s foam in the seats and backs, which is great for comfort, but if they get wet, they can take a whole day to dry out. We find these chairs more comfortable than the typical camping chairs which are thin fabric held up by a bunch of poles. I wish I could tell you what these are called, but we bought them twelve years ago and there’s no labels on them!

For a table, we use that simple APAK Goods folding table. There is already a picnic table for doing any serious food prep. The folding table is mostly holding our food and drinks in place

Lighting

I think you only need two good lights: A interior tent light and a flashlight. Lanterns are good too, but not as useful as a flashlight. Besides, a campfire serves some of the same purpose as a lantern. At this point, for any camping light you should only be looking at LED lights.

We recently did away with our original Coleman tent light. It’s very solidly constructed, but provides only a dim light and really seems to burn through batteries. Now we bought these two E-Trends LED bulbs that simply hang from any hook and provide much more bright light. They’re much lighter than the brick of a Coleman light. Marge said the new lights make our tent look like an art installation.

Eating

Key tip: Don’t bring food with you. We made this mistake a bunch of times, bringing not only boxed food from our pantry, but a whole cooler full of ice and meat. It’s all just more to pack. Since the packing process occurs four times (packing up at home, unpacking at camp, packing up at camp, and unpacking at home) you want to make that as painless as possible. More work hinders fun!

Buy all the food you need after you get there. Unless you’re serious backpackers, you won’t be far from civilization. We just make a trip to the local grocery store after we set up camp and buy whatever we want. One of our camping supplies that’s remaining unchanged over 12 years is our Coleman Xtreme Cooler. This was a good buy. I think we picked it up for $25 back in the day. It seems well insulated, and we keep it out of the sun on hot days.

Key tip: Buy block ice, not ice cubes. We put two big ice blocks in this cooler and we are set for at least five days. Ice cubes melt much more quickly because of the amount of surface area, and you’ll be buying a bag or two every other day. Also, instead of draining the ice water from the cooler, leave it in there and keep your food in plastic bags to keep it from getting wet. The water will slow the melting of the remaining ice blocks.

We also keep cooking extremely simple. We only have this very basic Texsport steel camp grill. We cook steaks or hot dogs or toasted sandwiches, veggies wrapped up in foil with seasoning, and have many ingenious s’mores recipes, but those would requite their own entry. Having a propane stove might add convenience, but that also adds more stuff, including propane tanks that need to be re-filled. We try to buy just enough food that we’re able to finish it all by the time we leave. That leads to some creative re-uses, like the pizza weenie (hot dog wrapped in provolone and pepperoni) seen above.

You’ll also probably want to keep a supply of water on hand. We’ve found that this 5 gallon collapsible water tank from Coghlan more than fits our needs for when we want a drink of water or need to wash our hands off.

Sleeping

As described in our earlier camping entry, we have a system for making a comfortable bed. We have the cheapest air mattress sold by Coleman which has held up for years. We inflate this, lay a basic Coleman sleeping bag out on top of the mattress, put a fitted sheet over the whole thing, then sleep under another sheet and a quilt. This feels better than crawling into a sleeping bag because it feels more like a real bed and you have more freedom of movement. We had one cold night this time (40 degrees) and we wished we had brought another blanket, but usually this set-up is sufficient, at least down to 50 degrees. 

The Coleman mattress is nothing special. We had a couple leak early on, but this one has managed to last six or seven years so far. I don’t recommend spending extra money on an air mattress. Our neighbors with the wet clothes had a huge air mattress they had to inflate at the bathrooms and carry back because, I guess, they didn’t have a battery-powered pump. I can’t imagine how much space it took up in the tent.

Fun Stuff

You’re here to have fun, right? What fun stuff are you going to bring? Since everything is going to be exposed to the elements, I recommend buying your stuff used. You don’t want anything expensive to get ruined, right?

We bring kayaks with us. Kayaks are not cheap water toys. You can easily drop several hundred dollars on a small, basic kayak. Years ago, I was having a hell of a time getting used kayaks for cheap on Craigslist. But when that happens, we don’t give up. We put up an ad asking for what we want! Yes, I put up an ad asking for two 12′ long kayaks, looking to pay $250 each. And it worked! (This is also how I found my beloved Schwinn Suburban commuter bicycle for just $140) The people we bought them from were leaving the area and needed to get rid of them.

We also brought our used Kindles with us, loaded with library e-books. The two Kindles cost a total of $30. Sure they are older models, but does that matter? Bringing a Kindle is not only lighter weight-wise compared to paper books, but I’d argue maybe even better for the wet weather. Paper books get damp easily, while you can get a cover for your Kindle which will actually keep the rain out of it.

Bathrooms

We are always disgusted by the people eating and shitting in their motor homes, letting the excrement collect either inside their little house or in little gray tanks underneath. Yuck. No thanks. We use the campground bathrooms like civilized people. We each have a little grocery bag with travel size versions of all our toiletries that we take from the car to the bathroom, with a little clamshell container for the soap. That’s it.

Our showers and bathroom breaks are also typically the only time we can charge up our cell phones or iPods. Camping is the time to get away from such nuisances, but we still need to be minimally connected to the world. Using showertime as the only time to add another 10% charge to your phone is also a good way to artificially limit your cell phone use as well.

The post How To Camp Successfully: Your Tips and Supplies Guide appeared first on RidinKulous.

And it will be totally worth it.

We moved into our house basically on New Years Day 2009, a year before our house’s 150th birthday. Though about half of the house had been totally remodeled and beautiful, there were rooms that needed a lot of work. Mostly it was the upstairs bathroom. The sink wasn’t hooked up, the floor tile was in pieces, there was a wall missing, ceiling bowed out.

It was a bare room without lights. Fine to use during the day, but creepy to use at night. Most disturbingly was the one night when Marge went to the bathroom and heard a chirping in the top corner of the room. It was dark, only lit by moonlight, but she could tell that there was an animal in there that wasn’t happy with her presence. She was pretty sure it was a bat.

Well, we fixed up the bathroom and put in a new wall and fixtures. All nice and new!  And all goes quiet for a while. A year, in fact. Then in the middle of the night, we are woken up by Maeby pacing around the bedroom.  Luckily, she woke us up. In the dark we could make out…

there was a bat flying around the bedroom!

We covered ourselves with blankets and scrambled out of the room! But Maeby was still in there! I opened the door and yelled for Maeby to “Get out! Get out of there!” as the bat continued to fly around.

Did you hear something?

We slammed the door, but now the bat was stuck in our bedroom. Eventually, I worked up the courage to cover myself with a blanket, crawl on the floor as if under enemy fire and open the window screen so the bat could fly out.  I think I even felt the bat’s wing flick against the blanket at one point. EWW!

The next day, I actually left work early so I could work around the house sealing holes. After reading that once bats are in your house, they’re in there, I did not want a re-occurrence of the night before! At that point, we didn’t know how it got into the house. Upstairs? Downstairs? So I went into every room, caulking and foaming up every spot I could find. Bats can get in through holes as small as ¼”, don’tcha know.

That seemed to work for a while, but oh was I wrong. Here’s the horrifying run-down of some subsequent bat run-ins:

The 2010 Vancouver Olympics: Marge and I were sat down to watch the Olympics (hopefully curling!) when suddenly a bat came flying down the stairs and around the dining room! It was terrifying! We panicked and tried to crawl under the bat’s flight pattern to the back door, which we then left open for the bat to fly out.

The family: I can’t even remember how we came upon this situation, but we went upstairs, and there were three bats flying around! Trust me, if you saw this, your eyes would be popping out of your head and you’d be stuttering “Buh-buh-buh-baaats!”

B-B-Bats!

We felt bad because one was obviously larger than the other two, meaning it was probably a mother with two babies.  We ran outside and opened the back door. It was twilight, and we could definitely tell that two left, but couldn’t be sure if all three were out. We didn’t see any more flying around indoors, so we went back upstairs to bed…

The leftover: I still had a funny feeling the next day that there was another bat inside, even though we didn’t see it all day. So the next night we went outside again, opened the back door and waited. Lo and behold, at dusk, the last bat flew out the back door. It had been living in there all day.

The sleepy one: Whenever a bat shows up at night and we leave the door open for it, it can be difficult to tell when or if it’s left. You have to stand outside and constantly  keep your eye on the door. Look away for a second and you could miss it. In this instance, we didn’t see it fly out, but we also didn’t see it flying around inside the house anymore. So we went inside to sleep. The next morning, Marge found the bat sleeping on top of the window sill!

A bat sleeping in my house? I give it my mad dog face.

“It’s kind of cute,” she said, which I doubted. We had to get it out of there, so we came up with a very inventive procedure that involved both of us wearing gloves, putting a piece of Tupperware over the bat and slipping a piece of cardboard behind it. It worked okay, but the bat semi-woke up and hissed at us!!

It bared its sharp little teeth and Marge agreed that, at that moment, it wasn’t cute anymore. It was pretty much terrifying. But we closed him into the box where he continued to sleep and we left him in the grass outside. I don’t know, what are you supposed to do with a sleeping bat?

Nighttime scares: We had a run of a few times where Margie would wake up in the middle of the night, go to the bathroom, and then I’d hear screaming as she encounters a bat along the way. Commence the run outside in pajamas (or less) door opening and waiting for it to fly out.

Aside from the fact that they’re terrifying, it’s dangerous to have a bat flying around in the house. We keep reading that, if you find a bat in a room with a sleeping person, that person should be checked for rabies. Reason being that they could’ve been bitten by the bat. Not sure how that could happen without the sleeping person WAKING UP, but I suppose it does.

The Last Straw:
Usually, we don’t have to be worried about bats until July. At that point, we start creating the BFZ, the Bat-Free Zone upstairs. By selectively closing off rooms, we can manage to keep any bats that enter the house contained to the bathroom, hallway and library, since they always enter somehow in one of those rooms.

We had a very early hot streak here in upstate NY. In mid-May, it nearly hit 90 and tied some records. Since it was May, we hadn’t set up the BFZ yet, and while I was sitting in bed using Screeny the Tablet, once again a bat came flying into the bedroom! Just like the first time, we ran downstairs, opened the back door and waited.

At that moment I decided this was going to be the last time.

The next day, it turned out that the bat never even left the house that night. Because look what we found the next morning hanging from the crown moulding in the library:

Bat sleeping in the library

Each one of these incidents ends up with me struggling to figure out where the bats are entering the interior of our home. Most likely it’s the space behind the cast iron radiator that is impossible to reach. So I am basically at a loss for sealing up the home from the inside, unless we move the radiator to fix the wall. That’s not happening, and there’s no assurance it would work. It’s not good to have bats living in the walls anyway. The only thing to do now is seal up the outside of the house which means…

Calling in the Bat Man

Yes, we hired a guy. If I decided to tackle the bat eradification on my own, I just know it’d be the same thing all over again. First, I’d need a much bigger ladder, since our house is two stories tall with a flat roof. Then I’d try to seal up all the gaps without really knowing what I’m looking at. And then we’d probably still end up with bats in the house.

Hiring an expert means it finally gets done. He’s seen everything, so he knows what to look for. The day this post goes up is the day he should be coming back to seal all the holes and install the one-way bat boxes that let the critters fly out, but not back in. He also gives a three year warrantee.

We had to wait two weeks before he had a spot on his schedule, and in the meantime, it’s happened again and again. Look what was waiting in our bathroom one morning!

Bat sleeping in the bathroom

I have to say, it’s basically a quality of life issue at this point. Each year, the first bat incident usually marks the beginning of our bat scare season, where we are hesitant to walk upstairs to the bedroom at night if the lights aren’t on since we basically expect a bat to be flying around. Even though it only happens a few times a year, we shouldn’t have to walk around our house at night scared that a bat will hit one of us in the face or bite our dog. If I think about that $1,200 and what it will do for my life at this point, it seems like money well spent.

Of course, there’s also an un-frugal way of dealing with bats. Our bat man told us that he does a lot of bat removals from people’s houses. That is, there’s a bat in the house! Call someone to get rid of it! He has people who call him repeatedly to remove the bats. He tries to tell them that this problem could be solved by paying for the full bat exclusion, but they don’t listen to him. This is dumb for two reasons:

1. You can deal with the bat yourself. Yes, it’s scary, but you can open a window or a door, right? Do that, leave the area, and hopefully, it will fly out on its own. Don’t call up poor bat man at midnight and make him drive out there to deal with it.
2. If it’s repeatedly a problem, this comes down to the old Repeat Expense Vs. One-Time Expense conundrum. If it just happens once, okay. But if the bats keep getting in, and you are so short-sighted that you don’t see the repeated expenses of having the bat professionally removed each time totaling up, you will end up spending way more money than if you had just done the bat exclusion and done away with the problem for good.

What expensive thing have you decided to buy to improve your quality of life?

The post B-B-B-Bats! appeared first on RidinKulous.