Kelsey stars in my first YouTube post

Kelsey, our 50 lb shepherd mix, loves to play with balloons and try to keep them in the air.  I think it is hilarious.  You can also hear Lila laughing in the background, as she thinks it is great fun, too.  It inspired me to try my first YouTube post.

BMI & The Metric System

I recently crossed the 100 kilogram mark. For my fellow American-educated friends, that is just a hair* over 220 pounds. I am also just a little over 6'7" tall, which puts me right at 2 meters. This makes BMI calculation easy, because it is (mass in kilograms) divided by (height in meters) squared. This puts me right at a body mass index of 25. This easy math got me thinking about how horrible the English units of measure are. I imagine that BMI is a recent creation and that its ties to the metric system are somewhat arbitrary, but it was still a reminder.

Working in engineering, almost everything is metric, and I love it. I want to pull my hair out when I come across something in a weird English unit. For example we use microns, that's one millionth of a meter, as a unit of length all the time at work, but every once and awhile somebody will document something in "mils" which is thousandths of an inch.

This somehow made me think about facebook groups and how I could start one for people who thought America should switch to the metric system. Of course, such a group existed already.

I joined.

But for the foreseeable future, our children will probably just have to learn that BMI is their weight in pounds divided by their height in inches squared, multiplied by some conversion factor that few of them will ever be able to remember.

*note: a "hair" is not a metric unit, but I like it. Does that make me a hypocrite?

Sorry Mastercard, I wrote checks.

Whole house treated for termites after termites found -- $1534
New relay for A/C after it failed on a really hot day -- $132
Having a plumber come clean out a clogged sewer line -- $297
Having our home ready for when our son is born -- priceless!

Okay, so I had to write this for a few reasons.

First, I tried to find information online about what prices to expect for the termite treatment and the sewer line clean-out, and it was very difficult. Websites for service companies would say "Call us for a quote." People in plumbing forums would say stuff like "that was really expensive." But people would never give me a price to use to set my expectations. So maybe some random person looking for this information will find this post. As they say in the boy scouts, do a good turn daily.

Second, I just found it ironic that I paid for every one of these items with a check. Sorry mastercard, I really do appreciate your services.

Third, we've always experienced costly repairs in waves. I'm hoping this wave is almost over, but yesterday I found water leaking from the bottom of the AC unit in the attic. I'll have to call somebody tomorrow, and I don't expect it to be cheap. We had several major things go wrong with the house when Colette was pregnant with Lila, so maybe this is God's way of helping us get these things out of the way before we have a new baby join the family.

Fourth, I just kept thinking up more possible things to go with "priceless."
Keeping my pregnant wife happy -- Priceless
Knowing God is in control -- Priceless
The blessing to live in a safe, sturdy, air conditioned home -- Priceless

Well, this got longer than I intended.