A Budget
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A Budget Last Updated: Wanna buy a pen?
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Update At Last week, one of the local weather geeks pointed out that when we had a 28-degree low predicted for the next morning, it was the first time we'd see that temperature in 220 days. Now, I realize, for some of you, 28 degrees is about as likely as us getting 140F, but 220 days without a "hard" frost (so called because you can be pretty much guaranteed that if it gets THAT cold, it's going to be below freezing just about everywhere not covered by heaters or extensive insulation) is a record here. And, frankly, we've enjoyed it. During the month where we're supposed to only get 39% of available sunshine, we've had almost two weeks solid of sunny weather. That's all changing today. Mr. Heat Miser shows up today, and tomorrow, with purported buckets full of snow and serious, serious chances for winter storms. That's right. It's the storm we all hate. The first one. You see, up here, that first winter storm is dreaded for many reasons. First - there's the likelihood - especially this year - that the initial precipitation will come in the form of rain, before things cool off. Rain that cools on the surface forms, that's right, ice. And then there will be snow - on top of the ice. That's a bit like polishing the surface to a high gloss sheen, then throwing down a couple of barrels of oil - then telling the pig to stand on it before you teach him to skate. And that's only our first worry. Worry number two is - as you might expect - driving. See, those of us who are native to this stuff are fairly good at driving in it. By "fairly good" I mean "we've all been in the ditch a time or two, but have managed to get out - eventually." It's a simple matter of winter - if you drive in this climate you WILL go into the ditch, you WILL find yourself stuck, and you WILL either get help from strangers or a tow truck. It's a simple matter of it's happened, or it's going to happen. Period. But the first winter storm, well - you see, for the last few months (or 220 days, in our case) the biggest hazards we've faced on the roads are occasional rainshowers or road construction. Now, while the road construction isn't going to go away, it's certainly easy enough to avoid. Either different routes, or for crying out loud, don't run into the concrete barriers. The first winter storm means that us natives, well, we've got to get our sea legs back, as it were. Then there are the idiots who are not native to this land, and by "land" I mean "the land of ice, tundra, and those idiot Vikings half the year". Most easily identified by the small sports cars, the spiffy luxury SUVs, or in general anything attempting to do 15 mph or more over the speed limit. Yeah, those folks (And for the rest of you - yes, we have sports cars. We even drive them sometimes. However, when winter comes, they go into storage and don't come out again until spring. That's why we have four or five vehicles in the driveway - so the Mustang can go into storage, and the old beater pickup can be used instead to give us as much heavy metal as possible so we're safe. As for the luxury SUV and speeding drivers, it's simple - in this climate you drive an SUV with four-wheel-drive at your own risk. Four spinning wheels moves you twice as fast as two spinning wheels does, and not always in the direction you'd like to go - and speeding on ice is about as dumb as ... well, speeding on ice is), we consider them to be either suicidal, or excellent bad examples. Speeding on ice - or on any road that you're unsure as to the quality of surface - is a one-way high-class ticket to death, pure and simple. We lose a lot of people in traffic accidents every year - most of them avoidable. During this time of year, there's the inevitable "slid into a [fill in the blank]" and there's not much you can do. Inevitably, someone will do a straight-line-smash, and you'll find five or six cars occupying the space only three vehicles should in standard rush hour stopped traffic. It happens all the time. So, in my case, I'm quite happy (well, not quite but you get the idea) not to have to struggle with rush-hour traffic this week. Thank God.
[Link] As a kid in high school, I understood full well where my place was in the pecking order. I was a band geek. Had we had computers back then, I'd have been an unapologetic computer geek, but as it was I was a band geek with a full double-helping of AV geek, I was near the bottom. One would normally expect that, as a drummer, I'd have been scraping women off me, but then, the AV geek portion of the whole high school reputation thing meant that I was just a geeky drummer, rather than the usual "hey, he's the drummer" thing. Sure, you laugh - the only guy I ever knew that did better than drummers with women was a guy who (no shit) played the clarinet - because he got to sit in the middle of a bunch of girls the entire time and talk with them, he was miles and miles ahead of the rest of us. And it didn't hurt that he was good looking. Sure, go ahead and doubt me - or ask my wife about the guy - she's met him. Anyway - Home schooling is, in my opinion, a mistake for most kids. Not all - some benefit from individual attention, provided the parent is trained to look for signs of trouble that school professionals might otherwise find, and also provided the parent takes the opportunity to socialize the children. One thing I learned at home was to deal with things in a group - but not with a group my own age. It's a whole different kettle of fish when you end up negotiating with or stuggling with a group your own age. And I think what these home-school kids aren't learning is how to compete for resources - teacher's time, the necessary reference materials, good lab partners, etc. So when they find themselves blocked in some fashion, they're not sure how to end-run around the process - and stuff like this happens. Sure, home schooling works for some, and there are legitimate reasons for it (such as wanting to teach your kids what goes on in the real world when you live in Kansas), but I don't think it's for everyone - especially the emotionally disturbed.
[Link] Let's recap, shall we?
Now, Mr. Jackson, I realize that you've very little experience working with a team, but when a team owner looking to make a profit and return to the Super Bowl takes one of the leagues' best players and plants his hind parts on the bench for what that player has done and said OFF the field, well, that's called "making a tough decision." When it turns out that the player, who recently had his contract re-negotiated to make even more money, will not be paid for this time, well, that would seem to indicate a profit motive - until you figure a lot of people wanted to see this moron pop his mouth off even more, well, that's still a "tough decision." When, however, you've given a kid every opportunity to correct action you've made clear is inappropriate and likely to cause him serious trouble, and he doesn't, well, it's called parenting. Jesse, given your past, it's fairly clear you know nothing of this, and so you should probably keep your nose out of it. Mr. Owens, his parents, and his family are the only ones who should be concerned about it - and his parents probably taught him better - he's just an over-paid idiot who isn't willing to learn...
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Update At Nine years ago I was enduring ribbing from co-workers who had returned the previous day from Chicago - training on a new version of software. I was ribbed because I stayed home with my wife in her 37th week of pregnancy (three weeks from the due date), and because I missed "all the fun." In those days, I was fortunate to drive a company car. The company paid for repairs, gas, and the vehicle - I paid for insurance. I never could figure out why my insurance costs on that vehicle were 45% higher than the insurance costs for the other vehicle - other than perhaps I used my own insurance agent on that one. But there was that. My wife's car - at that time, the Tempo - was acting up, and needed a tuneup which we'd scheduled for the weekend. Meanwhile, we were planning on the "let's get the details" worked out planning for baby #2's arrival that weekend. It was, after all, a Thursday, and we needed to pick a new daycare on Friday, so we were scheduled off. My wife went to work in my company car - first time she'd done it - and I was left waiting for her to pick me up. Because of the weather (it was raining, and threatening to freeze), she went first to daycare, to pick Rhiannon up (back then, she was in an in-home daycare that needed all the kids picked up by 6 pm, or she'd charge something like an extra $20/hour for all time past six). She then got me. We then went home to our two-bedroom apartment. My wife was cuddling our daughter on the couch, eating cheese and crackers, waiting for the frozen pizza to finish. I was suffering from the effects of a bad lunch, and was in the bathroom. Even then, in our sixth year of marriage, I had developed an accurate ear for certain tones - and one of those tones I could easily identify was the "oh holy shit get over here something has gone SERIOUSLY WRONG." And this was the tone used when she yelled "John!" The next ten days were, in some ways, a joyful nightmare. Jack came out three weeks early, had serious problems breathing, was transferred to another hospital, where their specialized equipment and specialists stabilized him and managed to get him back onto the road to health, he came back to his birth-hospital in a snowstorm in an ambulance ride the insurance company later denied they approved (Aetna are lying bastards, and I don't care who thinks it's legally actionable - I'll easily prove both claims in a court of law), spent another five days there, finally came home, and all of this was in one of the snowiest weeks I can ever remember - we went from no snow on the ground on November 14th when Ann went into the hospital to nearly 18" of snow by the time Jack came home from the hospital on the 23rd - and through another snowstorm on the 24th, and more snow right though Thanksgiving (where we ate at the Ground Round, because we weren't in any condition to have thanksgiving at home). Jack's first two years were stressful for everyone - he would cough and wheeze regularly, necessitating that we figure out how to detect coughs before they became coughs. We also learned all about employers who were legally actionable (and how much money it takes to sue someone, and how little it's truly worth it), and a lot of other un-fun experiences. When I watch him running the bases as he did this summer, or flying up and down the soccer field this fall, playing forward or midfielder, I sometimes forget that his lean, strong frame started out as "peanut" in an oxygen tent on a dark and stormy night when rain turned to ice.
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Update At Yes, it's a time sink - of the first water. You build a "profile" by checking boxes of interest - and then it goes out and finds things that others with similar interests have found and marked "interesting". Things? Like what things? Like this - a scene from the movie The Matrix - in ASCII Art. Or reference material you never knew you'd need. Or something sure to be of interest to a segement of you - gifts for drummers. Mom? Christmas is coming, and this one works. There's also some cool stuff like wallpapers, or (if you've got a fast machine and a big pipe) some fractal artwork. There's also stuff like A guide to Google's Advanced operators - very interesting, that. And then there's stuff like this, which includes one of my favorite quotes...
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. There's also stuff like camping tips from those who been there, my next computer, and other fun things. Then there's the "totally weird corner of the web, with strange things which frighten me. Oh well. As you can see, this could be ... er, fun.
[Link] I looked over my last year, and it was definitely a struggle at times. It should have been a clue to me, but I couldn't see it without developing some distance. The struggles were there - or were there if you knew both sides of the story, as I did - I just needed to develop some distance. The problems at my last job were there - as they are in any job. Remember, if they're paying you, it's because you can deal with the problems they don't want to - that's why it's a JOB. But the issues underlying the problems were apparent - or were to me as I re-read what I'd written. Honestly, I had a lot of problems at the old job. Most of them were because my employer had a non-unique approach to IT that many companies share. And that's about all I'm going to say about it. All of the problems were resolvable - and I did resolve a vast number of them. I didn't get 'em all, and I missed a few - which I won't in the future - that much is certain.
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Update At Last night we drove 45 minutes into a rather... well, we'll just say "inner city" neighborhood in the capital city of our fair state (not two miles from THE State Capitol, I might add), and we got there a little after 7 pm. We then spent ten minutes going from door to door trying to find the location of our taste test - fourth door's the charm, apparently. We both ate a breakfast food item (to be more descriptive might well land me in jail, so I'll spare you the details), and we left - me with a bearer check for $30, Jack with two bearer checks for $10 - $20 total. On the way home, he wanted to know why he couldn't do more of them, and it started me thinking. Over the last fifteen years or so I've probably made close to $2000 in various "focus market research groups" as I get queried about this, that, and the other. The one that sticks in my head especially well is the one that took three separate appointments (A Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) where I spent 45 minutes each day trying different types of ... yes, get ready for it ... Triple Chocolate Brownie Fudge Overload ice cream. A whopping $100 back in 1991 or 1992 for eating ice cream. The worst was the one that paid me $50 for eating some nasty foamy "organic" breakfast food that tasted like cardboard - and then paid me another $40 for sticking around to talk about it afterwards. There I was grossly underpaid. But Jack seems to think this is right, appropriate, and even more - his due. Dunno about that boy...
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Update At Yesterday was fairly low-key - kinda. I hit the library for delivery of four overdue books - $5 each, except that this week is annual "amnesty week" - return, no questions asked, and your fines are forgiven. So I did (hey, I'm cheap, not stupid). I also did some looking around the library, and I suddenly confronted what is, perhaps, the RIAA's biggest nightmare - a huge rack of CDs available for people to check out. Yes, that's right, BORROW AND RETURN MUSIC. And it started me thinking - I wonder what sort of volume of "unauthorized duplication" would occur if the RIAA hadn't made such a stink? Sure, they'd still lose money, but by pointing their fingers at it and screaming "EVIL" it occurred to me that it might not be as bad as they're screaming. I remember back in the early-to-mid eighties working in a large retailer - think Target/Wal-Mart - and the new-release albums were running $12.99 each. Yes, albums - get over it, kids. There was the second-tier release pile, which tended to be in the $7.99-$9.99 range, the "name" bargain bin at $2.99, and the "who the heck knows" bargain bin at 99¢ each. Nowadays, I'm seeing new CDs at $26.99 at these places, and let's face it - while prices may not have exactly doubled since 1984, the music certainly hasn't gotten twice as good - neither of which justifies doubling the prices. Which is probably why I don't buy a lot of new music. Most of my purchases are old music, or new music by old bands. For my birthday I picked up three CDs of music - Two greatest hits compilations (by Sweet and Slade), and one album I really liked (Limelight, by Rush) from high school (or shortly thereafter - I don't pin music to exact dates like my wife does...). Oh well. Anyway, back to life in the nuthouse - last night and this morning I pulled together the itenerary, and this morning we picked up the wreath sales Jack made earlier this fall, and went forth to deliver. Due to the bulk of his sales being at my wife's employer (and none, fortunately, at my former employer), we plotted a huge loop from south to north St. Paul, over to Minneapolis, and back home - a total of almost 80 miles to deliver the wreaths. And I'm not complaining, not by a long shot. There were a couple of families who sold 100 units - or more - which meant they had a huge delivery load. Then again, they were also probably far denser in distribution than we were - our neighborhood was poached right out from under Jack about three days before we got out. Figures. But that's done (except for a few people at my wife's office who weren't going to be around this weekend, and my parents, of course), so we're settled in - we picked up the Thanksgiving Turkey (only a sixteen pounder, but at 38¢ a pound with qualifying $25 additional purchase, we couldn't go wrong) and a substantial balance of the fixings, and the turkey will soon begin his thaw-and-brine cycle to become ... well, Thursday's "Lupper" (late lunch/early supper). And Friday's, and Saturday's, and Sunday's, and Monday's... Yeah, I like turkey - what of it? Tomorrow? Housecleaning, of course. Of course. And if you think my life is weird, let me assure you that there's worse. There's a reason we have an FBI in this country, and once we get rid of these terrorist types, they can go back to watching the real wackos. Oy. Just - Oy. Sweet Jesus - this man had me on the floor, laughing and gagging - then I got to the Natto experiment. And it is truly downhill for poor Steve from there.
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Update At I did, I think, discover the root of the problem when it comes to the fundamental difference between men and women and shoes. Women go shoe shopping, find a pair of shoes which they like the look of, and then try them on. Men wear out their shoes, go shopping, and try the shoes on - THEN develop a bond with the item. It's comfort over style for us, mostly, whereas with women, it's style over substance. With that out of the way, we came home, and are cleaning now. On tap for the balance of the day is probably more cleaning - then who knows. Probably even dinner.
[Link] First off, I use WinAmp to play the MP3s - simple, not much to mess with, and not much to screw up. The latest versions of WinAmp do not include the reason I originally used it years ago - the ability to rip. For that, I downloaded "Freerip" - which is a nice ripper with the added benefit (you can tell I haven't done this for a while) that it includes links to an on-line database of titles - so when you rip an album someone else has already done and entered the titles for (and updated the server), you don't need to retype the information. FreeRip also includes the ability for you to customize the titles of the music - for example, if you want your music stored in [artist]\[album]\[artist]_[title]_[genre].mp3, you just put in the appropriate variables in the right box, and a fellow named Robert becomes a sibling of one of your parents. One small, annoying, troublesome feature - the use of the ampersand (&) in titles. I have a small collection by most standards (a little over ten gigs of music). Some of the stuff I have I may have ripped before, in "selected track" mode due to the limited storage on the laptop I called my "boom box". This limited storage caused me to be rather pragmatic on my music selection - I picked only my favorites. Now that the house is networked, I can share music with my wife and children - which means their tastes are also a consideration, and I have to go back and re-rip albums. Oh well. But the issue becomes the use of the ampersand - if I've got two of a track out there, I really want to get rid of the loner and stick with the one I've newly ripped. And there's no way to compare except via title - which, for me, means batch files (I've used duplicate-finding programs before - slick, but I just don't trust 'em). And a batch file command line chokes on an ampersand. So I had to go through, find all of the ampersands, and paste the word "and" in instead. Should you ever run into a problem, well, there's a solution for ya. The batch files? Maybe next week.
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