E.J. Svoboda

One of my weak spots has been charging a high enough price for a product or service.  I’m a value orientated guy and want to provide the same for my customers.  The downside is that sometimes the price you offer to a consumer ends up being too low and your profit margin isn’t quite large enough to warrant carrying the product.  This quote makes me feel better about charging a higher and more appropriate fee for a product and service provided it meets the same criteria.

People pay for what they value, and that translates into a willingness to pay a premium for higher-quality, greater expertise, or faster service. – Lee Gimpel

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It was announced that former President Ford died last night and I thought I would share my one experience with him.

While in college, the former President spoke at our University as part of a lecture series. I was involved with student politics/government at the time and since I was a “student leader” I was included as part of a group of students who had the opportunity to spend about fifteen minutes with Mr. Ford. It’s the only time in my life that I have found myself nervous to meet someone famous. I managed to ask him a question (we were asked to have a question in mind for him) and I found him to be a very pleasant man. Thoughtful and funny. I went away from the experience feeling that I had met a great person who just happened to be a former President.

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I’ve become a turkey snob. Add it to the list of things that I like . . . well the way I like. I like a juicy bit of turkey breast but find that the Butterball’s of the world end up tasting dry and chalky.

The solution to this problem is to buy a minimally processed turkey and brine it yourself. Cooks Illustrated has a great brine as does Alton Brown. You can find the Good Eats recipe at http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_8389,00.html

Whenever I cook a turkey I always buy minimally processed and do a ten to twelve hour soak. I can place the turkey in the brine bath (I use a big cooler) and leave it out on my porch over night since it’s always cold enough in this part of the country.

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I ordered some of the parts I mentioned below.

It’s difficult to justify buying SRAM Force when my primary goal is to ride centuries (100 miles).  Rival should be perfectly fine for what I want to do.  I ran some numbers on the bike I’m re-building and I think I can easily get it to 17 pounds without breaking the bank.  If I wanted to break the bank I could get it lower by at least a pound.  To really get down to that level would require me to put on some racing rims but most of them have a weight limit that I presently exceed!

I decided to go with the Shimano R-700 crank.  We’ll see how I like the compact gearing.  I’ve ridden for 20 plus years on 52/42 fronts so going to a 50/36 will be different.  I’m going to end up doing a 11-23 rear which should give me a nice range of gears.

After Christmas I’ll put the Giant in the bike stand and start putting on parts as they arrive.

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After much deliberation I have decided to go with SRAM Rival on my build of my 2002 Giant OCR Elite 0.  The bike was originally equipped with Shimano Dura Ace 9 speed but I picked up the frame, fork, and stem only off eBay.  Given that I prefer to run 165mm cranks I will not being going with the SRAM cranks.   They only come in sizes larger than 170mm at this time.  If I can find a great deal on some Shimano Dura Ace cranks I would prefer to go that route.  If not I may opt for the Shimano Ultegra.  The third option from Shimano is to use the R700 cranks.  I’m not sure if I want to go compact or not.

The drivetrain will look something like this:

Brifters – SRAM Rival

Rear D. – SRAM Rival

Front D. – SRAM Rival or Force

Chain – Shimano Dura Ace

Rear Cogset – Shimano Dura Ace

Cranks – Probably Shimano – TBD

Since I’m not going to be needing the SRAM cranks I think I’m going to buy everything on one off’s.

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The mind is for having ideas not holding ideas – David Allen

I was reviewing the Productive Talk series that David Allen did with Merlin Mann and that quote came out at me.

Today I managed to leave my pocket notebook at the house and I feel naked without it.  Instead I’m going to have to use my Pocket PC for any ad-hoc notes.  It’s an o.k. solution but is not nearly as quick to use as paper.

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Do The Worst First. Do Easy Wins Second.

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I’ve been a long time user of Rhapsody ever since yahoo unlimited stopped working on my various computers. Now I’m looking to purchase my wife a portable device since I upgraded my Rhapsody account to their to go service. It’s the price of a CD every month for all that I want to download and take on my (her) portable device.

Last year my father gave me a Creative Muvo with 1 GB and I love it. I wish it were compatible with Rhapsody though.

I’m going to get her a Sandisk Sansa e250R or the e260R.  She doesn’t read the blog and she picked it out for those who are wondering.

Now if I could just get Rhapsody to work on my Ubuntu box.

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Check out www.zillow.com

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Lately I have taken to using a single post it note on the cover of my Franklin planner to remind me of the places I need to visit at lunch time or a particular item that I need to purchase.  I consider this to be an ad-hoc item on my @errands list that requires something to be done about it sooner than later.

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