Ana learned to ride a bike today. And Sam learned to ride his tricycle last week.

It’s documented on video for posterity’s sake: kids_learn_bikes_lo.wmv

After getting burned in tech stocks in 2000, I became an ultra-conservative investor. Gina and I have our savings in the very boring iShares Bond Index Fund, which plods along at a steady 5% return.

5% seemed really pathetic until I read this: if you invested a single penny at 5% back when Jesus was born, today you’d have a golden sphere a few hundred times the size of earth.

Sounds like an exaggeration, right? So this morning I tried it on my calculator. I typed 0.01 * 1.05, and I hit the equals sign 100 times. And then another 100, and another 100… watch this:

1 penny invested at 5% per annum

After 100 years….. $1.31
After 200 years….. $173
After 300 years….. $23,000
After 400 years….. $3 million
After 500 years….. $390 million
After 600 years….. $47 billion
After 700 years….. $6.2 trillion
After 800 years….. $811 trillion

You get the idea. Every hundred years, we’re adding roughly 2 zeros. So after 2000 years, your penny invested at 5% is worth around $100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

What do I learn from this?

1. 5% is an unbelievable return.
2. No family has ever had a reliable 5% return for any extended period of time
3. The current economic system is unsustainable. They say the stock market always returns 10% over the long haul? Baloney.

I launched my first software product with my partner on Monday. It’s called ThoughtFarmer, and it’s a Microsoft-based wiki software product for intranets. Check out the site: www.thoughtfarmer.com.

Duet: Sam & Dad sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (266K MP3)

This is Sam’s first live recording. He decided on one of the classics: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

Venue: Sam’s bed
Date & Time: Wednesday, December 21st, 2005, Bedtime
Lead Vocals: Samuel Alexander McGrath, age 21 months
Backup Vocals: Dad, age 32 years

Ana drew this nice little picture of me. She’s 3-1/2. She even drew the bags under my eyes! What a sweety.

After 6 weeks of advertising my BMW in the Buy & Sell, I put it on craigslist. It sold the next day! And craigslist is free!

The bargaining part didn’t go as well. I had it listed in the Buy & Sell for $6300. When I finally posted it to craigslist, I lowered the price to $4900. And when the first person came to look at it, he asked me what I’d take for it. I said, “Um, I guess $4000.” He said okay.

I don’t think I’d do well as a real estate agent. Negotiating isn’t my strength.

Turns out a 250 gram bag of Clodhoppers has 1080 calories.

On Sunday, I ran my first marathon. It was a perfect day, a perfect venue, and a great race. My whole family was involved in the race in some way or another. My sister and brother ran the marathon. Gina and my other 2 sisters ran the 8k. Ana and her cousin ran the kids’ race. My sister-in-law, and even my mom(!), raced the half marathon. It was something to see my mom out there.

I finished in a respectable 3:25:43. My target was 3:20, so I’m happy. With some more training, I think qualifying for Boston (3:10) is within my capabilities.

The only downer is that my dad hit his head on the stove vent just before leaving the house for the race. It was bleeding and he was dizzy, so he missed his first Victoria marathon in 5 years. But he doesn’t give up too easily–I’m sure he’ll be running another marathon within a few months.

Today Sam uttered his 7th word. He grabbed a candy bar in the supermarket, thrust it towards Gina, and uttered, “Buy.”

Meanwhile, Ana was exhibiting her consumerism in a more sinister manner. Upon getting the groceries to the car, she showed Gina a package of Halls that she had swiped. “See?” she said impishly. Gina marched her back inside, and made her say sorry to the grocery clerk (who was having trouble holding back the laughter.)

I had the 97th fastest swim in the 2005 Vancouver Sprint Triathlon–or 58th slowest, depending on how you want to look at it. It took 17 minutes for me to swim 750 meters, 38 minutes to bike 19km, and then 22 minutes to run 5km. Overall, I finished 27th. It was lots of fun, and has me psyched to do more triathlons next year.