My Inner Geek Rejoices

Okay, this is awesome. Segway is teaming up with GM to make a new all-electric two-person urban transport device that makes all my gadget geekiness giggle with gratuitous glee. It's got six wheels - two small ones just for safety in the back (they don't touch the pavement unless you run the battery clear dead and then lean back), two small ones in the front that it rests on when parked, and two larger main wheels that it runs around on, automatically balancing on these two wheels Segway-style.

It's strictly for urban commuters - the 35-mph top speed limits it for use on major roads. And the version they're showing around right now has absolutely zero aesthetic appeal. It's not cute OR cool-looking OR impressive-looking OR even ugly enough to inspire a sort of backward affection. It depends on sheer geek appeal. They call it the PUMA in a futile attempt to make it seem tougher somehow. But it runs for 35 miles before needing a recharge, and that's plenty for almost anyone who commutes on urban streets. They're also promising a low energy impact to accomplish that recharge. If they make it reasonably rain-proof and sell it for less than, say, 10 grand or so, I think they'll have a serious seller on their hands.

The jury is, of course, still out on the wisdom of picking up your date in this thing.

True love = exorbitant over-spending!

It's been a month, so here's a brief thought for you in the middle of Holy Week that has nothing whatever to do with Holy Week. (This week around here being an insanely busy one if you're employed where I am.) Enjoy Holy Week, never lose sight of the victory won by Jesus' sacrifice, and worship with abandon this Sunday.

The rest of this post will be a rant on something much less sacred.

De Beers, the dominant worldwide diamond supplier, created a masterful marketing campaign some time in the twentieth century (early 1900's or just after the Second World War, depending on which source you believe) that said the proper amount to spend on an engagement ring is two months' wages. Since then, most people have accepted this figure as the proper one.

Some of you will shout me down as a cheapskate and say I must not love my wife very much, but you'd be wrong. About the loving my wife thing, that is. Almost five years in, my marriage is better than yours. Sorry, it's a fact.

I am admittedly a bit of a thrifty person, but those who know me best will tell you that one of my love languages is gifts, and I've been known to save up my lunch money and surprise my wife with something awesome and a bit expensive from time to time.

But before De Beers created the aforementioned marketing campaign, engagement rings with diamonds were much less common than they are today. Only the very rich could afford diamond rings until the discovery of the Kimberley African diamonds in the late nineteenth century, which led to greater supply and lower prices. Until the early twentieth century many engagement rings were plain, or had other precious stones, if they were used at all. During the Great Depression the sale of diamonds dropped drastically, and after the Second World War De Beers began heavily marketing the slogan "Diamonds are Forever," and promoting the idea of two-to-three-months' salary being the proper amount to spend on an engagement ring.

There's an interesting art project here that explores this idea. This it was that got me thinking on this topic and produced this rant.

I think all this is pure malarkey. The idea that a minimum-wage-earning worker struggling to make ends meet should spend in the neighborhood of $2000 for an engagement ring makes my blood almost boil. That is fiscal irresponsibility. Such a ring will almost certainly have to be financed over time, and it's a terrible idea to carry a debt like that into a marriage. I know some of you will probably disagree violently with me on this, but there it is. Besides that, consider the implications of having such a man's fiancee/wife toting around a two-thousand-dollar bauble on her finger in what is most likely a low-income neighborhood.

How much was Cindy's engagement ring, you ask? None of your business. But it was certainly less than one sixth of my annual salary. And we're not still paying for it. Is this an indicator that my love for her is somehow lacking? I will fight anyone (despite my total ineptitude in hand-to-hand combat) who suggests such a thing. I love that lady more than the highest poetry, prose, music, and art allow me to express. I desperately want to be the best husband Cindy Carlson Purtle could ever have. And with God's help, I will be.

Oh, and she said yes. Eat that, De Beers.

You may now criticize me mercilessly.

[Note: I know it's fashionable to criticize De Beers for exploiting workers and fostering "conflict diamonds," but they really seem to have turned the corner in the past two decades and are now doing much more responsible commerce in Africa than many other large corporations who do business on that continent. See this article for more on that.]