Yearly Archives: 2010

My House Is My Ship

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Spaceship House

Spaceship House

After Christmas, my son put together most of his city Legos that he got as presents.  One of the gifts was a ship, and it started me thinking about how similar our house is to a ship.

So here are the ways that I think houses are similar to ships, whether spaceships or ocean ships!

Both ships and houses have an engine that make them functional.  The engine in a ship would be the motor that makes it move, and the equivalency in a house would be the furnace/air conditioner.

The electrical system on each do a similar function.  Yeah the house is connected to a grid system, but the use of electricity still does similar functions such as light the interior…

Both ships and houses protects the  people and contents inside each of them from the weather.  Okay, so a ship’s real purpose is to move on the water, but it protect the passengers from the weather too.

Okay, now on to a spaceship.  Again the purpose of a spaceship is to travel through space, where as a house is to not move at all!

Spaceships and house really have a lot of similarities when then come to protecting the people inside!  A spaceship needs to protect the people inside from the heat, cold and other such harsh elements.

Okay, I confess, I’m really typing this post because I would like to compare my house to a spaceship because I thought it would be cool to talk about the way the computer systems in houses will continue to develop into more complex systems that would rival such computer systems in as old classic films such as “Star Trek” and “Star Wars“.

Today, we have systems that automatically turn on lights when we enter a room and then back off after we leave a room, and there is also the programmable thermostats.  Someday soon I can imagine house doing much, much more!  I can see a computer system that would greet us like Hal in 2001.  Such system could make sure the garage door is closed and all door inside the house are locked after a certain hour.  These systems could automatically open the doors as we greet the house just by our voice (or other montoring criteria).  It could wake us up in the morning, and turn off the TVs when we aren’t at home.  I’m just scratching the service here, but I can imagine that it could be quite incredible.

-MR

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MR Cache 2010, Dec 18 – Ghost of Christmas Past

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Ghost of Christmas Past

I was watching the recent Disney version (with Jim Carrey) of “The Christmas Carol“, when I saw the ghost of Christmas Past.  I thought to myself, “what a dumb looking ghost”!  The movie itself was okay, I’ve seen too many version of “The Christmas Carol” over the years to get too excited with this one.

I kept coming back to the ghost of Christmas past, with the flaming head and the candle extinguisher.  It was the candle extinguisher that really got me thinking how out-of-place this ghost was…  So I fired up my good friend Mr. Google, and entered the search query “Ghost of Christmas Past”

After reading a few site, it appears that the Disney representation of the Ghost of Christmas Past may be the most authentic representation that Charles Dickens intended.

Favorite Christmas Post for this past Christmas Week:

Christmas Experiences During The Great Depression I humbling include this link from my own site.  It’s very personal and the message is to realize how good we have it!  Back then even food was considered a great gift (ex. an orange).  This is why you’ll hear older people associate Christmas with an orange or tangerine.

Why I Love Christmas: A Guest Post from My Daughter, Nina At 11 years old, Nina post a great article on why she loves Christmas.  She did a spectacular job with the article, and sounds like one of my kids!  I really do look forward to reading more from her in the future.  The apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree. (at LenPenzo)

Merry Christmas! Come Take A Peek At Our Tree! A rare look at a blogger’s real Christmas tree picture.  Kris reminds us that the holiday season for a parent is a kid first occasion, as she point out her favorite ornament on her tree called “Pipe Cleaner Mess”, sounds hilarious! (Everydaytipsandthoughts)

What We Are Spending For Christmas? Guest post from Mr. Credit Card that explains what he’s spending for Christmas gifts from Christmas!  I’ve ever even hear of Ugg Boots!  (BudgetingInTheFunStuff).

Everyday Feels Like Christmas The Financial Samurai’s childhood sounded a lot like mine growing up!  I had the same feeling and excitement!  Somehow he was able to expand and build on the feeling and excitement so that he feels like every day is Christmas.  I’ve read about others that have the same feeling.  For example, Warren Buffet says he is always excited to get to work in the morning too.(FinancialSamurai)

Lessons for Children from a Frugal Christmas Kids develop interestingly with respect to money and gifts.  Christmas is really about giving, so kudos for Jessica that her kids have progressed to that level of Christmas spirit! (Monvesting)

Holiday Rush

There are other truly great posts out in the blogosphere, but unfortunately I’m going to have to cut this short, I’m off to celebrate Christmas birthdays…

-MR

Christmas 2010

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I hope my daughter won’t be too disappointed!  Her big Christmas gift in her list to Santa was to visit his workshop!!!

My clever wife told my daughter, even if Santa did take her to his workstop, she wouldn’t remember because Santa would make her forget.  Afterall, the location of the workshop needs to be a secret!!!

Thanks for supporting my site!

-MR

Presents For Family Adult Members

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Christmas Tree

Christmas Tree

I have certain adult family members that get upset  if they only get 1 present.  These same people also complains if they get a lot of (in one family member’s words) small junky stuff.

As an adult, I really don’t care if I get a Christmas gift or not.  It’s nice, but 1 Christmas gift per relative is more than enough for me.  Heck, a Christmas card from the adults in my family is more than enough for me.  One of the biggest reasons I do like to get 1 gift from each family member is because my kids ask why I didn’t get more presents…  But 1 present from each family couple is plenty!

Know that just because I don’t really want Christmas presents doesn’t mean I don’t want to get them for other adults (especially my younger, adult sister).

To me, Christmas gift giving is more for the kids.  To them, each gift still has that magic quality, especially those presents brought by Santa Claus!

As a small child, I remember waking up around 6:00am excited to go down and rip open packages!  The beginning of Christmas morning was always so exciting!  But even as a kid, I remember getting tired of opening packages after a while!

So now for me at the current point in my life, Christmas presents are much more of a chore than something to look forward too.  With some of my other family members though, it’s almost a competition!  I do get a lot of pleasure out of watching my kids open their presents though!

Do you still exchange presents with other adult family members?  If so, how many presents do you exchange?

Presents, Bah Humbug!

-MR Scrooge (lol)

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