Financial & Travel Musings

Yeah, I know, it’s too early for a new year resolution but making an early start on the weight loss and general health improvement plans seems a better plan than delaying it a month or more.

So what are the tactics? Well, something in the line of a fat burner seems like the way to start as I’ve way too much fat knocking around. Reducing the amount of excess fat on me is one major objective.

Second, I’d like to be somewhat fitter. Doing that will reduce the amount of fat too although it’s worth bearing in mind that early on in such a programme the weight is likely to go up as muscle is heavier than fat ie you can’t use your weight as a measure of how well you’re doing in terms of “weight loss” as losing weight per se isn’t so much the objective but rather it’s being generally fitter and healthier.

Now, this programme is going to involve some exercise and ideally the fat burning type. However, going from very little exercise to a whole lot is not a good move so I’m going to work up to that gradually, probably starting with the Tai Chi as I did last time around. Tai Chi? Yes, it doesn’t sound like much of a start to a serious exercise programme BUT it gets the body in reasonable shape over the course of a month or two and I’m hoping to really succeed with the overall programme so I don’t want to try “too hard” at the off and thereby discourage myself.

Anyway, let’s see how successful it is…

Popularity: 6% [?]

For me education has been something of a hobby over almost 20 years.

At the start of that I picked up an MBA (OK, more work than hobby) and followed that up with a range of night classes over the years to 2001. That’s when I thought that I’d up the ante with my French and started on what turned out to me a modern languages degree that, recent exam results permitting, I should be picking up just before Christmas.

In that I’ve run off the end of the degree, I’ve been leafing through the prospectus recently and it’s just filled with courses that look really interesting. In theory, I should really finish off the diploma in English first as it only requires me to do one more course but neither of the courses that I’d need to do for that have any interest for me at the moment so, at least for now, that’s shelved.

I’d quite like to do the child development course to help with bringing up the little guys but that’s quite a major undertaking and in the coming year I’d prefer something more doable. Looking at the artsy courses I thought it might be interesting to do the art history one but one look at the recommended text put me right off that plan; the history course text seems fascinating for the most part but it has a tendency to delve into very detailed lists of events which isn’t really me so I’m not sure about doing it.

Moving on to more likely candidates for the coming year, I looked at the astronomy courses and both of the possible ones seem fairly doable though the observing one causes me complications in the coming year so I’ll likely end up doing the planetary science one. I looked at the geology course too which sounds really fantastic but it’s not practical for me in the coming year so I’ll have to add it onto me “to do” list.

If only the world archaeology course started in January/February I’d have jumped at that. 12,000 years of history over five months has a lot of appeal but the September start doesn’t work for me in 2009.

Or, of course, I could just plump for the “do nothing” option

Popularity: 12% [?]

In the eyes of a lot of people Las Vegas is all about gambling and nothing else.

However, although clearly the financial foundations of the place are very much built on the income for gambling that means that non-gamblers get a substantial subsidity on the cost of a vacation based there. Yes, you can pretty much assume that a hotel in las vegas will come with an integrated gambling complex but it also comes with substantial amounts of free or cheap entertainment for the non-gamblers too.

Many years ago “the” place to go for the kids was Circus Circus which amounts to a pretty much non-stop walk-through circus with small-scale acts going on pretty much constantly and larger events on a regular basis too. However, these days you’ll find many more places targetting families with kids and range of family friendly entertainment on offer is unbelieveable.

Even getting there is usually fairly cheap too!

Popularity: 28% [?]