About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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August 9, 2008
Friday night, an announcement: My departing flight was delayed last night for potentially two hours. This would make me miss my connecting flight so I could go home and try again in the morning or take this flight and rebook the connecting.
Decision: I didn’t want to repeat the airport dropoff dance in the morning so I waited out the delay and booked the first flight out the next morning. Lucky for me, BF was around so he could put me up for the night, and I would be halfway to my destination by morning instead of travelling all day Saturday. If he hadn’t been available, I would have been able to book a distressed passenger rate hotel room for the night for about $45. Not in the budget!
This morning, checking in for my flight, the first one of the morning, the check in kiosk asked if I’d volunteer to be bumped if necessary. I was curious so I hit “yes” and it automatically wait-listed me! Wait! Wait! I didn’t mean that! I was just *curious!!* ahhhh. I got to the gate late because the security line was insanely long and the gate agents were super happy to see me because I was officially a volunteer. Reluctant, I asked what they had in the way of flights. If I got there by noon, I was willing. If not? Nu-uh! It was hard enough to get one day off, I can’t be wasting all my time in the airport!
Then it turned out the by-noon flight I was promised didn’t have a seat and I could no longer get on my original flight because the smaller planes have 20 fewer seats than the first plane and ten people were still sadly standing in the corral with no seats. Better to choose my fate as best i can rather than hope to be squeezed in. I wonder if this system is really cost efficient for them? They had to give something between ten to twenty free flights, and here I am, flying on BF’s free travel voucher to begin with!
The next flight out is 11:05, so here I sit, waiting for my seat assignment with my free travel voucher tucked in my bag. *sigh* At least the free voucher means I can possibly come back another time and see her again.
Oooh! I think they gave me a first class seat. *spiffy*
August 8, 2008
Nothing like a free yummy Orange Creamsicle for a hot summer day.
Oh horror: Someone in my office is strutting around in new …. CROCS. *shudder*
And another someone is wearing a tube top. I thought those were even more casual than tee shirts?
Yay long weekend!
Either I should look at my portfolio with an eye to rebalancing as necessary or just, as my bio teacher used to say, “Shut my eyes and cover my ears and it’ll all go away.” *grump* It’s probably really going to all go away as it’s profusely bleeding red right now.
Yodlee makes it so easy to take an unnecessary daily peek at the balances bouncing all over the chart; I’m going to make it a point to scroll right past my portfolio on a daily/weekly basis because there’s no point in fretting if I’ve made my choices. June was the worst month with a depreciation of $1,710. The losses have been exponentially less since then: July (-344) and August (-169 thus far).
It’s a little sad because just the month before (May) it was doing pretty well and the value of my investments was actually above the net investments. Now they’ve traded spots on the graph.
I’ll be giving it some time to ride out some of this market volatility. Since I’m taking a very long view with this money, and am not contributing a significant amount right now, it behooves me to be patient and educate myself about the market in the meantime.
August 6, 2008
I’ve just discovered our $20 yard sale treadmill, and boy howdy, suddenly I’m all about using it. After my feet were hurting yesterday after I walked home, I was still grumpy and needed to work it off, so I finally decided to give the treadmill a try. Never before have I given treadmills a chance; why should I when there’s all that lovely pavement outside and a dog to walk with? But it’s totally different than I expected, and I felt all workouty.
In fact, it was the first thing on my mind on the way home, so I threw a load of wash in and started up a run. Of course, it rapidly devolved into a run-walk-run-walk session, but whatever. I love me some endorphins.
I’m even thinking of getting up early and getting in a 20 minute run before getting ready for work. Clearly, I am thoroughly wound up because I only implacably need to snack, clean or work out when I just can’t keep it bottled up inside anymore. It’s time to get in better touch with my feelings, and stress levels, otherwise I’ll find myself cleaning other people’s houses and wondering why I just can’t stop cleaning!
August 5, 2008
Tell me honestly, now, is it really weird that when I sustain a really fantastic-looking injury, I want to show people? I’ve got a newish 1 inch by 2 inch gash across the top of my foot from an altercation with an unfinished edge of a desk, and I had to fight the urge to snap a photo and share it. It’s mostly a morbid fascination that’s probably not shared by the world at large.
Also, my feet are now massive blisters from walking home in completely inappropriate sandals. They’re fine for kicking around, but not power-walking, I guess. Ow.
Votes: juvenile? or do you share cuts and bruises, too?
(seriously, I want to know if you think it’s weird, but don’t think I’m not secretly hoping you’ll all come out of the woodwork with stories to share.)
This article on a recent Superior Court ruling in California caught my eye because I had to pay an early termination fee to cancel my beloved T-Mobile service and start using my iPhone. Originally, the fee was supposed to be taken care of, but the promise was broken, so my pocketbook took a whopping $200 hit. Gr.
Anyway, I got excited thinking that perhaps there was hope yet for getting that $200 back ….
The preliminary, tentative judgment orders Sprint Nextel to pay customers $18.2 million in reimbursements and, more importantly, orders Sprint to stop trying to collect another $54.7 million from California customers (some 2 million customers total) who have canceled their contracts but refused or failed to pay the termination fee.
While an appeal is inevitable, the ruling could have massive fallout throughout the industry. Without the threat of levying early termination fees, the cellular carriers lose the power that’s enabled them to lock customers into contracts for multiple years at a time. And while those contracts can be heinously long, they also let the carriers offer cell phone hardware at reduced (subsidized) prices. AT&T’s two-year contract is the only reason the iPhone 3G costs $199. If subsidies vanish, what happens to hardware lock-in? Could an era of expensive, but unlocked, hardware be just around the corner? It’s highly probable.
If I recall correctly, I think Europe’s way of doing things is far better: They purchase whatever phone they want, and then sign up for service with whatever phone carrier they want. I don’t know what that does to the price of equipment and service compared to ours, but I know that I could have continued on my merry, slow-tech way and saved a whole lot of money!
August 4, 2008
I’m heading out to Portland for a long weekend starting on Friday. My cousin and I are making this a girls’ weekend (aka: no family visits) but since I’m normally only up there to visit family, I have no idea what else Portland has to offer.
We’re going to go hiking, and I’d like to visit Powell’s City of Books since I’ve never been. I don’t want to buy anything, I just want to wander around the books and ogle them.
I’m not looking for touristy things, necessarily, just fun, frugal things to do or see. Does anyone have suggestions?
