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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November 21, 2006
That’s my dog. 17 years old, running on momentum and some last wheezes of grumpiness. And he’s keeping me up ’cause he’s swelled right up under his left eye and refused to eat dinner tonight. Now, this is a dog who expects dinner, on the floor, 6pm sharp, every night. He’s the doggy William H. Macy a la Pleasantville! “Where’s my dinner??” he sniffs, every night. “These humans,” he would think, “they’re just untrainable. It’s time for dinner!!”
This little guy would eat mid-earthquake if one tried to interrupt his dinnertime. He used to stress eat, hiding in the cupboard from fireworks. We used to joke that his tubby butt could use a break from eating after he’d had his dental cleanings, but his tubby butt is now 17 years old, and possibly, probably, fighting an infection of some sort. It’s not a dire rush-out-to-the-vet-right-now emergency, but momma’s having a sleepless night fussing about him. I hope he’s better in the morning, but I’m staying home from work to take him to the vet.
He wouldn’t eat tonight. And I can’t do anything until morning.
Edit: had to edit a couple of words that made it sound like I wasn’t taking him to the vet if he looked better. I think my fingers were just running on there. He doesn’t get off that easily!
I was afraid I’d spoken too soon when I said that I’d finally won the cable/internet wars. It turns out that even after calling them about 47 times and getting through only about 5 times this month, they STILL hadn’t cancelled our internet and the cable was still being charged at that outrageous pre-promotion rate! It’s the 21st, people!! You have it on your records that we cancelled on the 4th!! But they still thought they could get away with charging us for it. Of course. No explanation for why the internet was not cancelled when PaDucky called on the 3rd, no explanation on why it wasn’t cancelled when I had to follow up on the 4th. No wonder I never got my revised bill.
And as for the installation? That day, there was a death in the family and no one was home. I had the presence of mind to remind PaDucky of the missed installation a few days later, but he was told by the CSR that no installation was necessary the one time his call was actually answered, and my calls have been unanswered ever since. I’ve wasted over an hour waiting on hold at various times listening to their asinine messages. Not only that, since no one was home that day, they just up and cancelled our promotion — even though I couldn’t ever get through to reschedule!!
This is beyond frustrating. I’m being told that the promotional price confirmed on the 4th is no longer in the system and that the supervisor will have to call me back in 15 or 20 minutes. If this isn’t resolved today, I’m cancelling their service — this is lousy customer service and ridiculous to boot!
November 20, 2006
Warning: Don’t get suckered into losing your rollover money by unscrupulous brokers!
a la bookswapping.
http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/2006/11/bookswapping-and-frugal-gifts.html
So far, so good with the Yodlee aggregation … I like the Dashboard! I don’t like how it times me out every 15 minutes or less, but that’s probably healthier than staring at it umpteen times a day.
BUT it’s counting the stupid truck loan in my net worth which drops me down to, basically, a negative net worth. Ugh. FINE. If you want to get all technical and legal and stuff about it, FINE. Fine, I have a second auto loan in my name and FINE I’m technically responsible for it. Humph.
This would probably be why I don’t like trying to track my net worth. Until I disentangle and detach the last tentacles of familial obligations, it’s gonna bring me down. Hrmph. Oh, did you know that octopus arms DO sort of have minds of their own? That’s kind of creepy.
November 19, 2006
oh, and *incidentally* in time to combat Frontier Airlines’ Fly 3, Get 1 free offer:
25,000 bonus miles-Earn for 3 qualifying roundtrips
Travel dates: November 10, 2006 – January 31, 2007*
Ticketing dates: November 10, 2006 – January 31, 2007
Offer: Purchase and fly qualifying United, United Express or Ted roundtrips during the offer period and earn:
- 5,000 bonus miles for completing one qualifying roundtrip*
- 10,000 bonus miles for completing two qualifying roundtrips
- 25,000 bonus miles for completing three qualifying roundtrips—enough for a Saver Award ticket
*First qualifying roundtrip must be completed by December 31, 2006 in order to be eligible for any bonus.
Terms and conditions:
For full terms and conditions, visit united.com/fly3.
When I quit my get-through-college job, I’d only been 21 for long enough to participate in the company’s 401(k) program for about 6 months. Quitting meant that I had to figure out what to do with my thousandish pre-tax dollars that were sitting in that 401(k) because I was not going to cash that out. Hastily, I ran to Wamu, since they’re my primary bank, asked for information that I couldn’t quite puzzle out and signed the paperwork to rollover my money into their Equity Fund (Class A).
Two years later, the account has increased by $150 and will be costing me a fund fee of $15 for 2006. I still don’t know much about the account either.
Now, my slackerism has cost me at least the extra five bucks for the year (compared to Vanguard which has a $10 annual fund fee for most accounts) but I wonder how much it has cost me in terms of performance?
The allocation pie chart tells me that 97.06% of my money is in equities, and 2.94% is in money markets or cash/cash equivalents.
My homework is to figure out what “equities” equivalent Vanguard has (should I check Fidelity as well? I lean towards Vanguard because I’m already using them, but that doesn’t mean that I should keep all my investments with the same company, does it?) and compare the performance over the last two years.
Ok ok, back to making my bread!! It’s a three-day workweek so I have TONS to accomplish before Turkey Day (2.5 if I’m nice to the newbies cause Lil Boss gave me permission to let them take a half day -fully paid!- on Wednesday … if I so desire. Hah!!)