Biking Dimensional Analysis

Given:

• bike price  = 500 dollars
• gas price = 3.50 dollars/gal
• gas mileage = 19 miles/gal (source)
• commute distance (round trip) = 10 miles

500 dollars * (1 gal/3.50 dollars) * (19 miles/1 gal) * (1 day/10 miles) = 271.4 days

Based on that, I need to ride my bike 272 days to pay for my bike.

Lambourne House Projects

My intention is to capture these things as they happen rather than having to think back to them years later.

1. Come to find out, none of the grout in the house had been sealed by the flippers.  Damn them!  Thanks to Madd Construction and $150 (plus the $90 for 5 years of sealer), the grout is now sealed.  Apparently, this is a project that they recommend (especially in the bath surrounds) that I do annually.
2. Kids bathroom didn't have a fan, which the inspector pointed out to his credit.  Called around and got 2 estimates.  K-Bar put the fan in (and moved the light switch into the bathroom) for $525 but left me with more of a project than I started with.  Now I need to have the plaster repaired around the new switch and the ceiling patched.  Even better, we determined the bathroom ceiling has painted-over wallpaper that has to come down.  As a side note, I went the rounds with the owner of K-Bar in regards to my servicemagic review.  Morale of that story, you do a C+ job, you get a C+ rating.
3. Inspector pointed this one out as well.  House didn't have any rain gutters, which was very apparent this Spring with all the rain we've had.  After consulting with a foundation specialist company (Intermountain Foundation Repair), I got 2 bids for this job and liked both companies (Ace Gutter and Rain Gutter Specialties), but decided to go with Ace for a few reasons.  They actually ended up having to cut out a section of my drive way so they could put in a drain system, but it was expected and I think it was the best decision.  All and all, the project ($1850) cost less than I had anticipated, and I'm happy with the results.