LRN got hacked this morning. Thankfully, I backup weekly and subscribe to my own RSS feed. 20 minutes to total restoration.
Shaving for Real
- Image via Wikipedia
When you look at a safety razor, you see the mostly-unguarded blade. When you look in the mirror, you see your throat and you see this blade–by definition, razor-sharp–and you realize that you are about to put a knife to your own throat. Why?
Because shaving sucks.
For my 18th birthday, I received 2 Mach3 razors. I used them for more than 10 years. It certainly beat disposable Bics, but not by much.
I liked it, but only because I didn’t have anything good to compare it to.
I’ve start using an old-fashioned safety razor. Now, I can shave smoother and with less irritation than I ever could with a modern razor and it only takes a few extra minutes.
Why would you want to abandon modern technology to put a blade against your jugular?
Modernization isn’t always an improvement. There is something about reaching back in time a couple of generations and doing things, not only the way they used to be done, but the way they should be done. It’s the same feeling I get handling an old rifle or sitting in an antique car.
A real shave is 15 minutes of peace and focus. Lock the kids out of the bathroom and focus on the task at hand. The concentration will usually give you a chance to forget about the rest of the world for just a few minutes. This is pure meditation.
As a benefit, when you’re done, you feel refreshed and well-groomed. It feels good to take care of yourself.
What do you need to shave like a real man?
Start slow and ease your way into it. Put a cup in the bathroom. If you shave with a modern razor, the easiest way to improve your shave is to use hot water. Put your shaving cream in the cup and add a bit of hot water. Mix that up and use it to shave. The hot foam will do wonders for your skin and the closeness of your shave. I did that and immediately start trolling antique stores looking for a good, cheap shaving brush.
A brush makes applying your shaving cream a small pleasure. Spreading the hot foam on your face with a brush gets in on all sides of each hair, softening it for the razor. Ideally, you want a badger-hair brush, but I’ve been perfectly happy with boar hair. I found one at an antique store for $5.
Shortly after acquiring my antique shaving brush, I decided to go even older-school and upgraded to an old-fashioned safety razor. I took my life, and my life-blood, in my own hands to shave for real. I went with a Merkur 23C Long Handle Safety Razor. It’s a basic razor with a longer handle, because I have large hands and long fingers. Don’t worry about getting an adjustable razor. There’s no point. It cost $29 at West Coast Shaving*.
You will need blades for the razor. West Coast Shaving sells a variety pack of 45 blades for $15. Try them all and stick with the one that works best for your facial hair. I tend to change blades every 4-5 shaves. More than that, and they get a bit dull and make me bleed. I try to avoid bleeding.
Now that you’ve got a brush, a razor, and blades, it’s time to get rid of the worthless can of shaving foam. Shaving soap works much better. You can get 3 discs of Col. Conk’s soap for $15, and they will last 6 months each, easily. They are almost exactly the same diameter as a regular coffee cup, so guess what? Just drop it in your cup.
That’s everything you need to shave for just $65, and of that only the blades and soap are recurring costs. Your razor and brush will last forever. I figure it costs me about $1 per month to shave, now.
How do you avoid killing yourself while getting ready for work?
It’s all a matter of technique.
- Dampen your cheeks with hot water to soften the hair. I prefer to shave immediately after I shower.
- Run hot water over your brush. Get it thoroughly soaked, then shake off the excess water. You want it hot and wet, but not dripping.
- Briskly brush the soap disk until the brush picks up as much soap as it can. It may or may not form a lather in the cup.
- Put the brush on your face and whisk it around. I use a quick circular motion to build up a lather on my cheeks. This works the hot soap into each hair. Keep brushing it onto your face until it forms peaks.
- Pick up your razor. I run it under some hot water, just so the cold metal isn’t a shock after the hot foam. From here, you need your full attention on what you are doing.
- Shave.
When you are shaving there are a few things to keep in mind.
- Take your time.
- Never, ever, ever, ever turn the blade while it is in contact with your face. You will bleed. Once the blade touches your face, it goes in a straight line.
- Keep the edge of the blade as close to parallel with your face as possible.
- The goal is hair reduction, not removal.
I make 4 passes when I shave. First, I shave from the top down. Next, from the back towards my nose and mouth. Then, from the front to the back. Finally, I shave against the grain from the bottom to the top. This results in a closer shave than anything I’ve ever had with a modern razor.
When I think I’m done, I dip my fingers in some warm water and run them around my face, in all possible directions, to see if I missed a spot.
When the hair is gone, wipe of the remaining cream and splash cold water every place the razor touched. This closes the pores and will help prevent infections and razor bumps.
The last step is aftershave. Aftershave disinfects your face. It also prevents infections and makes you stink nice.
There you have it: the secret to a baby-butt-smooth shave and 10-20 minutes of masculine meditation. If you are looking for a present for someone, you could do a lot worse than a real razor set.
*I have absolutely no affiliation with WCS. I am just very happy with the service and the product.
Letterboxing
This week, I’ve been taking my kids letterboxing.
We go to a letterboxing site(either LBNA or Atlas Quest), choose a letterbox, then follow the clues. When we find the letterbox, we stamp our letterbox journal with the stamp we find there and stamp the book we find with our stamp.
It’s similar to geocaching, but without a gps.
Even as a grown-up, I get a bit of a tingle when we uncover the prize.
One of the clues we followed yesterday was this one:
To find this place, travel north with Hiawatha’s grandmother. She will bring you close to the spot. For the first part of the trip, the grandmother will become one with the number equal to the age of the oldest person Jerry Rubin trusted. On the north side of town, she will decide not to head toward the east, and she will become the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Make the change with her, and right away you will find yourself to the west of a Holiday. On the right side of the road will be a brown sign pointing you to your destination. Leave the Grandmother to travel north without you, and follow the directions on this sign. You want to find the place where the City lets you Park (at least from 8 am to 9:30 pm). If you avoid the Dead Ends, you will find a parking lot. Leave your vehicle, and walk toward the water. If you turn toward the place where Henry meets Agnes, you will walk past the swimming area, and come to the numbers in triangles. Just past the 7s, 8s, and 10s, you will reach your destination, and find the place where Close only Counts. In the middle of this place, there will be a two-trunked tree. Standing with your back to this tree, and facing the lake, you will see three trees at the shoreline. Walk to these trees, and look under the leaves, under one of the roots sticking out of the ground near the right-hand tree. That is where you will find the letterbox.
Unfortunately, the letterbox had been stolen, and a wasp nest left in its place. I’d never actually been attacked by wasps before.
Until yesterday.
Not recommended.
We found a different letterbox hidden behind a loose stone surrounding a fire pit in a public park. Another was buried at the base of a tree a mile around a lake at a nature center near my house. A third was hidden in a hollow tree stump near a major intersection near my house.
Each one has been a different adventure, and each one has made my kids smile. Even the “I hate everything” 12 year old gets into it. The 4 and 5 year olds are asking if we can plant a letterbox.
To get started, you need a notebook to record your adventures, a $2 ink pad, and a slightly unique rubber stamp. That way, you can record your findings both in the letterbox and in the notebook you bring home.
For less than $10, you can get started, make some memories, and get some exercise.
Have you ever tried letterboxing or geocaching?
Selling Your Home: For Sale by Owner
- Image by Casey Serin via Flickr
When you’re preparing to sell your home, your first instinct is often to rush straight to a realtor. There are benefits to using a trained real estate agent, but it isn’t always necessary.
The biggest motivation to skip the realtor is avoiding the fees, which can run as high as 7% or more in some places. What does that 7% get you?
First, it gets you experience. Realtors know which hoops you have to jump through, from both a legal and a marketing perspective. Do you need an inspection? How much of your stuff should you move to storage? Are you comfortable with high-dollar negotiations?
Time is another critical item in the fee. Do you have a minimum of an hour to dedicate to advertising and screening potential buyers? Every day? Do you have a flexible schedule to show your house at times convenient for the buyers?
The third element is access to the Multiple Listing Service(MLS), which lets other realtors see your home listing. There are alternative listing services you can use, but none are as widely know as MLS.
There are some good reasons to use a realtor, but none of that means you can’t sell your home yourself. FSBOs are done every day.
If you are nervous, your local community education program may have a course on selling your home yourself. These courses are usually very affordable.
Some tips:
- Be objective about pricing. Look at the selling price of similar homes in the area, NOT what your dream price is or how much you have spent on improvements.
- Always keep your home ready to show. Keep the dishes done, everything put away, and the floors mopped. The “lived-in” look will not help your house sell.
- Keep track of the potential buyers. Put the name, address, phone number, and any identifying notes in a spreadsheet so you can follow up later if your house doesn’t sell.
- A bid is not binding. Don’t stop advertising until you close on the sale.
- Make a fact sheet and blank purchase agreement that potential buyers can take home.
- Hire professionals where necessary: lawyers, inspectors, and closing agents.
Selling your home yourself can be intimidating, but it is a job you can tackle yourself for a significant savings. Would you try it?
Be Prepared or Be Me
We had some nasty storms roll through over the weekend. There was a lot of tornado-ish activity, 70 mile-an-hour gusts of wind, hail, and an electrical blackout. For almost 24 hours, we were living in the stone age, with nothing but smartphones for internet, and high-lumen flashlights being used to see. With no cartoons for the girls, we were forced to read them bed-time stories, while my son and his friends were forced to use their imaginations to entertain themselves.
Every time we called, the electric company added 12 hours to their estimated repair time. Amazingly, they came in 7 hours ahead of schedule, if you don’t count the first two revisions.
By Saturday afternoon, we were out shopping for things we should have already had ready.
For years, we had discussed buying a generator. For some reason, it never became a priority. We have a large freezer and refrigerator full of food. With no electricity, a generator was suddenly prioritized. All of the places near us were sold out of budget-priced generators when we decided it was better to drop $400 on that than to lose $600 worth of food. We did find one, eventually, but it would have been better to take it out of the garage than have to shop for it when we needed it. Naturally, 10 minutes after we got it home, the power came on. Do yourself a favor: if you own a home and have a small corner available for storage, start shopping for a generator. Pick one up on sale instead of waiting until you have no real choice.
We have a ton of batteries. It’s one of the things we stock up on when they are on sale. Unfortunately, our broadest-beam flashlight takes a 6-volt battery, and we don’t keep a spare. By the end of the night, it was getting pretty yellow and dim. Another night would have killed it completely. This wasn’t a widespread blackout, so there was no shortage of batteries, but it would have been nice to have the spare already at home. Check your emergency supplies and make sure you have replacement batteries that fit everything you need.
The one thing that would have improved the night most is a good lantern. We had our 5, plus two of my son’s friends all trying to play board games by flashlight. A lantern could have been set on the entertainment center and lit most of the room.
For everything we were without due to the blackout, the one thing I truly missed was the air conditioner. When the storm died, so did the wind. Completely. Opening all of the windows didn’t help at all. Other than that, it was nice to have everyone forced to interact. Nobody was whining about being bored and we were all having fun.
I want to schedule a pseudo-blackout more often.
5 Reasons to Quit Saving and Start Living
- Image by owaief89 via Flickr
Life is all about trade-offs. You trade your time for a paycheck. Your trade your paycheck for food, rent, and security. Don’t get so obsessed with saving and security that you forget to live your life. There are many good reasons to put your savings on hold in order to really live. Here are five of them:
1. You have an adequate emergency fund. You will never hear me advise against an emergency fund. If you don’t have one, stop reading this and get one. Go. Without an emergency fund, your budget is a financial crisis waiting to happen. With an emergency fund, you can weather life’s speed-bumps without watching them become total train-wrecks.
2. Your retirement is on autopilot. You are not allowed to stop saving and investing for retirement. Ever. Assuming you have a traditionally scheduled career that involves you working until you hit 65 and deferring a huge chunk of living until then, your income will cease when you retire. Do you know how long you will live? Do you want to spend your retirement broke and bored? Are you relying on the responsible financial management of the federal government to make sure you will still get your Social Security? Invest in your retirement and get this investment on autopilot so you can stop worrying about it.
3. Your income is set. I don’t believe in the fairy tale of a company being loyal to its employees. The aren’t. However, if you have a stable-ish job, an in-demand career, and some side-income coming from alternate sources, your emergency fund can be enough to carry you through the low times. That’s what it’s there for.
4. You have dreams. If you’ve always wanted to travel the world, follow a band on your, volunteer extensively, or anything else, it’s time to do it. Don’t postpone your passion.
5. Deathbed regrets suck. Very few people lie on their deathbed lamenting the things they did. Regrets tend to be focused on opportunities missed, skipped, or indefinitely postponed. Do the things that are important to you before it’s too late to do them. Don’t abandon your future in favor of current pleasures, but don’t forget to live, now.
Do you have any other reasons to stop saving?
