Saturday, December 24, 2005

If the economy is struggling, you would never know it

This Christmas season has been hectic. I have never seen so many people out shopping and driving. It took me 30 minutes to get from my house to Costco at 1 pm on Friday afternoon. And every day, afternoon, and evening for the past 2 weeks has been a traffic nightmare. It seems like all restaurants are busy, all inventory is low at all kinds of retail stores, and parking / lines / congestion is worse than I've seen in past shopping seasons.

I think it might be a good time for me to invest in some retail store stocks.

Move-in tips - For New Construction

If you ever have an opportunity to move into a new construction, whether it be a condo, townhome, or single family residence... make sure to test the phone lines and cable before you move in, and also make sure to notify the utility companies in advance that you'll be moving in.

It was the last thing on my mind, but as it turns out, the phone lines were fuzzy and the cable TV / internet lines hadn't even been hooked up yet. It's going to take Comcast 2 weeks to have someone come and hook cable up to the house (even though the house itself is already wired on the inside). Since Comcast was unable to come out to our house sooner (the earliest they could come was 2 weeks after we moved in), I will have gone at least a month without any kind of TV or high-speed cable internet.

And we just got the phone lines cleared up yesterday. Apparently, one of the RJ-45 lines had a mixed up wire in the GE Connection Center. Since that's been fixed, I may have to resort to dial-up internet in the meantime (before, the line was so full of static that no faxes would come or go, and no 56K internet connection would stay connected).

Suburban gas mileage - not much better while going to Whistler

I took the Chevy Suburban to Whistler with a full tank of gas, expecting to do a full round trip on one tank (round trip is about 450 miles, so with the 35 gallon tank, I would need to get 12.8 MPG). Couldn't make it. I pushed it about as far as it would go, and I went 403 miles on 33 gallons for a measly 12.2 miles per gallon.

Whistler was fun though. Went to the top of Blackcomb (just under 8,000 feet) and went nonstop to the bottom (I think it's at 2,200 feet) a couple times. Each time took me around 20 - 25 minutes, which is great, because the average trip down the mountain at the local Snoqualmie Summit West is about 30 - 35 seconds.