The SoapBoxers

Today, I’m going to provide a few tips on car safety. I’m far from a automotive expert, but I have picked up a few things over the years.

AAA is great to have, but do you want to be completely at their mercy? Changing a tire was a mandatory part of the curriculum in Driver’s Ed when I was in school.

When pulling over to the side of the road, pull over to the side of the road that shields you best from oncoming traffic. You want to be as far from the traffic as possible. I goofed once and pulled over to the wrong side – it is pretty harrowing to have semis whizzing by at 70 mph when you’re changing a tire.

Keep something in the trunk that will allow you to clean up after changing a tire. I hate getting dirty hands on my car interior. Paper towels and bottled water work great. Additionally, the bottled water can be used for drinking if you are stranded. Baby wipes also work very well.

The jacks that come with today’s cars, quite honestly, suck. Spend a few extra dollars and get a hydraulic jack. I have a bottle jack in the trunk of both of our cars. I think they cost me around $20 each. One of the jacks has unfortunately been used quite a few times. It is much easier to work with than the jacks that come with the cars. Bottle jacks are quite small and should fit in a crevice of your trunk.

Always carry a set of jumper cables in your car. If you have a dead battery, someone else might have cables, but why leave it to chance? Also, if your battery is showing any signs that it may be dying, replace it! Batteries aren’t cheap, but do you really want to be stranded in a parking lot in the freezing cold because you were trying to squeeze another year out of an aging battery? Don’t be penny wise and pound-foolish.

Replace your windshield wiper blades at least once a year. If your car is outside a lot, they might need to be replaced more often. I replace mine in late fall to ensure that I have new blades during the winter. Blades are pretty cheap, and they are pretty easy to install once you figure out the trick. Don’t throw away the old blades – toss them in the trunk. They take up virtually no room, and come in very handy in an emergency if you break a blade while scraping ice from the windshield. Not that this has ever happened to me, of course …

I really hate to say this. I would hope that the vast majority of people that pull over to offer aid are truly trying to help. However, it is prudent to stay alert in case of predators. On the flip side, you should also exercise caution if you are the person stopping to give aid. Most likely, the person actually is a motorist having a problem – but be wary of a carjack scam.

Studies have shown that keeping mentally active can help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. The best way to accomplish this is to adapt a lifestyle of learning. How do we do this? I’ll show you what I have done. Hopefully you can springboard from these ideas to other ideas that may work for you.

There are a lot of activities that can be fun and also give your brain a workout. I have developed an addiction to the Facebook game of Wordscraper, which is a derivation of Scrabble (the developers of the game were sued by Hasbro, and a settlement was reached). I play 10-15 games at any one time (it is turn-based, and games usually take several days to complete). In addition to giving my brain a workout as I attempt to figure out the best word to play in a situation, I learn new words from the other players.

Around the lunch table at work one day, four of us were talking about how much we enjoy playing Trivial Pursuit, but that we were unable to find people to play against. Shortly afterward, I brought a game into the office, and we started playing games during lunch (keeping track of the game’s status with sticky notes). The players have varying strengths and weakness, and there are occasional sidebar discussions that can be quite entertaining and educational.

For about a decade, I have played in fantasy baseball leagues. Baseball, in particular, lends itself to lessons learned from economics – particularly maximization of utility. Do you take guy with a lot of stolen bases and sacrifice home runs? Do you ignore saves and focus on the other categories? The successful players have to make difficult decisions during the course of a season.

For about a decade, I have subscribed to two types of magazines – sports magazines and computer magazines. I have a variety of interests outside these two areas, so I decided to subscribe to some other magazines in order to expand my horizons.

After a bit of browsing at Barnes and Noble, I decided to subscribe to Popular Science and Archaeology.

Popular Science made a lot of sense, because it’s full of cutting edge science (such as a man soaring across the English channel on a jet pack). Although I don’t have an academic background in science, it has always interested me. For years, I tormented people with my idea of wireless electricity (imagine all the clutter that could be eliminated by getting rid of cords). On the day that MIT researches announced that such a beast existed (which they call WiTricity), I got about a half dozen emails from friends, with the basic message of “hey, you’re not crazy after all”.

I’ve always had a slight interest in archaeology, but the fiction books co-written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have ignited it into a larger interest. Some of Preston and Child’s books are based in the southwest, which is a hotbed of archaeological activity. Archaeology (the magazine) covers a lot of different topics within the science of archaeology. The stories of tomb raiders and other thieves hold the most interest for me, but I find myself reading most of the other articles as well.

Not only can writing be a cathartic release, but it also forces you to organize your ideas into coherent thoughts (although this might not be apparent from my own writing). You can write for public consumption (this blog, for example) or simply write in a journal.

Reading, of course, is the old standby when it comes to mixing entertainment and education. Find a subject you like, and start reading again. I love mysteries, which add another dimension of learning, as I’m always trying to figure out the mystery before I get to the end of the book. If you can’t make the time to read, consider audio books. Audio books have the added benefit of making the commute a bit less monotonous. Librivox.org has a great selection of classic books available in electronic format at no cost (although they do accept donations).

Many people choose their checkout line based on how many people are in line. This may give you a rough idea of how long it will take to check out, but if you want to be an expert line analyzer, use these handy tips:

1. Lucky 13: Your first glance should be to aisle 13. My wife thought I was crazy when I first mentioned this, but in my experience, the line is often shorter. Triskaidekaphobics (and there are more of them than you may think) will avoid the line.
2. Hang out with the guys: Single guys check out quickly. They tend to have fewer items, their items tend to be easier to scan (more frozen pizza and fewer produce items), and they don’t argue as much about price. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a 21 year old guy quibble about whether the price of an item was $1.49 or $1.09?
3. Houston, we have a problem: Avoid obvious problem situations. A mom (or dad) with 3 crying kids is probably not going to break the world record for checkout speed. An underage cashier combined with a beer purchase necessitates a call to a manager to OK the sale (in at least some states). It’s not just the number of items that slow things down.
4. Super Cashier: Cashiers are not carbon copies. Does the cashier appear to be easily distracted, or are they very efficient? Our local Target had a very efficient and knowledgeable cashier. Unfortunately, she was moved (promoted?) to the returns area.

There are plenty of fine kiosk merchants at malls. The calendar people are great – you poke around looking for calendars, stop occassionally to ask where one is located, but your calendars, and leave. Essentially, an ideal customer experience.

Then there are the stalker merchants.

These tend to be lotion sellers. They will stray far from their kiosk in an attempt to lure customers (women) in. At first, my wife and I were a bit annoyed by them, but simply altered our path so that we veered sharply toward the edge of the mall walkway to avoid them. We were walking literally a foot from the edge of mall walkway (right next to the “regular” stores). The message really should have been quite clear – we were not interested in buying products from these folks.

They began to stalk us to the edge. One one occassion, there was a mild verbal altercation.

What kind of crazy people do this? If I am actively trying to avoid you, engaging in harassing behavior is probably not going to turn me into a customer.

That is when my wife discovered an interesting fact. The mall office actually did care about this. Not only that, but there was specific language in the merchant leases that forbid this sort of aggressive behavior, with fines for violation.

If you encounter this sort of behavior, fight back.

– Call the mall office, or visit them in person. The office is usually tucked away in a hidden corner of the mall (obviously, the mall operators don’t want to waste the prime retail slots on their offices), but it should be on the directory.

– If multiple people were affected, multiple people should complain. It is great to say that five people were in the group that was harassed, but having five different phone calls will leave a sttronger impression.

– Describe the incident accurately and honestly. It should not be necessarily to embellish your story, and these embellishments could get you into hot water. Stick to the facts.

– Describe how this may affect your future shopping habits. If there is a competing mall (with different management) in your metro area, the suggestion that you may shift shopping to that mall may hit home with the mall operators.

– If you continue to experience the harassing behavior, call back. Keep track of dates and times.

I was at the mall today. As I veered to avoid the lotion people, I realized that they were no longer there. Perhaps the merchant simply decided not to renew their lease … but I like to think that the mall non-renewed them because of their behavior.

This is geared more toward moderates rather than partisan voters.

Let’s say that you care about five issues (listed in order of importance)

Issue 1: Candidate A agrees with you. 90% of congress is on your side.
Issue 2: Candidate A agrees with you. 80% of congress is on your side.
Issue 3: Candidate B agrees with you. 50% of congress is on your side.
Issue 4: Candidate A agrees with you. 30% of congress is on your side.
Issue 5: Candidate A agrees with you. 20% of congress is on your side.

Who should you vote for? Candidate A, right? After all, candidate A agrees with you on four of your five most important issues, including the two that are most near and dear to your heart.

Wrong. You should vote for candidate B.

Issues 1 and 2 are safe, since congress overwhelmingly agrees with you. Conversely, issues 4 and 5 are hopeless for you at this point in time, as they simply don’t have enough support. The one issue where your vote makes the largest difference is issue 3 – which is teetering on the brink of having enough congressional support.

Keep this in mind the next time you vote. Which issues are teetering on the brink?

Major league baseball uses the Elias Bureau’s ratings to determine type A and type B free agents. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you should probably just skip this post). The components of the rankings are supposed to be secret, but they’re really not. In fact, one blogger – Eddie Bajek at Tigers Thoughts – believes he has pretty much cracked the formula (although he is humble enough to admit that he is likely to tag a few guys incorrectly). Eddie has shared a lot of his thought process on his blog, and I think he’ll be pretty close with most of the players.

The Elias rankings are flawed for a large number of reasons. To save time, I’ll just point out three. Ballpark effects are not taken into account. 50 homers in Coors are treated the same as 50 homers in Shea. Age/injury status are not taken into account. A 42 year old facing off-season surgery is treated the same as a 28 year old who is healthy as an ox – although the 28 year old is likely to be a better player in future years. Finally, some of the stats are just bizarre. Fielding percentage for catchers is a particular amusing stat. Catchers are awarded a putout on a strikeout – thus, catchers for teams with pitchers who have high strikeout rates get an artificial boost to their fielding percentage.

My suggestion is to scrap the entire Elias system. Instead, focus on a better measure of value. Money. If I can get 10M/yr and you can get 5M/yr, I am twice as valuable – regardless of what Elias says. Hence, my former team should receive a higher level of compensation.

How, then, do we determine type A and type B? By figuring out where their salary fits into the MLB salary structure.

Here’s one thought. Obviously, this is a rough draft, and not a final product.

Step 1: Calculate the salaries for every on MLB 25 man rosters at the end of the year. Include prorated salary bonuses and incentives that were earned.

Step 2: Determine the 90th and 80th percentile. The 90th percentile would be the cutoff for type A and the 80th percentile would be the cutoff for type B. (Obviously, this could be tweaked).

Step 3: OK, this is the hard part. What, exactly, do we measure? Total value of the contract? Average salary? Obviously, we want to avoid having teams game the system. I’ll take a stab at it.

NOTE: This refers to the player’s NEW contract, not the expiring contract.

A: Only begin this process if the team loses the player submits a request for compensation. There is not point in going through this process for a 40 year old utility infielder.

B: Determine which incentives are likely to be achieved, and add these to the base salary. I believe the NFL does this for salary cap purposes, so I believe that MLB should be able to handle this.

C: Determine how many “significant” years exist within the contract. For example, let’s assume a contract is structure this way:

Year 1: 20M
Year 2: 20M
Year 3: 20M
Year 4: 500K

Clearly, year 4 is not a significant year within the contract. Let’s set the cutoff as 70% of the highest salary. This, if the highest salary that is expected to be earned under the salary is 10M, only years with salaries of 7M or more would be counted.

[Note: this step probably seems strange. It is just in place to avoid having teams add empty years to the contract to spread the signing bonus over more years (see step D)]

D: Prorate the signing bonus over the significant years. If the contract is 10 actual years (5 significant years) and has a 50M signing bonus, we would prorate the 50M over the 5 significant years – adding 10M to each salary. We would have to determine how to handle option years. My initial thought would be to simply not include them at all.

E: Look at the salaries we end up with after jumping through these hoops. Is the highest salary at the 90th percentile? Then the player is a type A free agent. If the highest salary is at the 80th percentile, the player is a type B free agent.

F: Have MLB’s arbitrator settle any disputes.