16 posts tagged “march”

My credit card has started providing a little chart that sums up that month's expenses. I laughed to see that airlines make up the vast majority of my spending:

Man, this news of the recession is getting old. I don't have as much empathy as I ought for people in bad real estate situations - one of the reasons I was willing to leave Portland was that I was bitter that I was priced out of the housing market, so I'm not feeling it for people who were part of the great bubble that cut me out. (I guess maybe I should be grateful to them.)

But the recession is a bummer, nonetheless. My job is intact and my life hasn't changed, but I've noticed that all is not well around me. My favorite little pen/stationery store went out of business. A cute little French restaurant down the street went away. And my very favorite second-run movie theater (that sold beer!) closes tomorrow.

The loss of the Parkway Theater hits me the most. I admit I didn't go often, but I was proud that it was an option, and often made a note that I'd like to see a certain movie there. It was certainly my preferred option when I DID go to see movies in the theater. Should I now feel guilt that I'm not a good enough consumer to keep these places in business? My focus has been on getting out of debt - my car is paid off and my credit card balance has been paid off almost every single month since August 2007 (with a couple of little lapses in the interim.. just keeping me on my toes!). 

Even better, I've been saving consistently so I can pay for my big trip to the UK without incurring any debt. Of course now I've got an unanticipated trip to New Orleans throwing a small wrench into the paid-for vacations scheme, but I'll pay it off quickly after I return.

I do keep eyeing the real estate market here, which is dumb. Although I have no plans to leave, I also don't know that I'll be here for the 5-10 years it really takes to make a mortgage make sense. And since I'm stubbornly insisting on keeping my housing expenses at 31% of my gross, and that includes insurance, taxes, and maintenance, I can really only afford about a 200k mortgage. And guess what, my friends? In this part of the world that doesn't go very far at all.

Plus, ironically, I love my apartment! The neighborhood is great, I have the top floor so no one walks on my head, and the view out my windows is of a green hillside.

Still, I keep watching to see things go down in price. I dunno, it may happen, but realistically I am going to go on my trip and keep saving money. I'm sorry for the pen shops, French restaurants, and Parkway Theaters of the world. I'll spend a bit, but I don't think I can save them all.

I thought this was a trick at first, but it's not. I'm impressed by the cleverness, and sobered by the message.

See for yourself!

I was supposed to bike 62 miles today, and go out tonight, and pick up a few hours at work tomorrow, and go out tomorrow night, and Monday night, and.. I just had to put my foot down. It was supposed to rain today so I bagged the ride, and I decided not to work on Sunday, and I can finally get some stuff done at home! It looks like I had a small explosion in my living room - not too bad by objective standards, but relative to my preferred state, it's pretty bad.

On today's to do list:

• Goodwill run to drop off stuff that's been piled in the corner ready since October.
• Laundry
  
• Start cleaning
  
• Plan lunch for this week rather than waiting til Tuesday morning to think about it

There's more.. but if I get all that done I'll feel VERY accomplished.

You know, it's not that long ago that I wouldn't touch anything pink with a ten foot pole. These days, it's much of a pinkness in my world! I got my new phone! And it's pink! and it's so cuuuuute! Witness the cuteness:

It's got the interwebs and everything! (that is obviously a stock photo... I'll get better ones later.)

Also: my first cable project is going swimmingly:

Look what happens if you knit obsessively for two months!

money money money
My car will be paid off next month! wooooooop! So I just raised my insurance deductible from $500 to $1000, which will save me ten bucks/month. My cell phone swap will save me about 20 bucks/month. No longer having a car payment will save me 257/month (that was my doubled-up payment.,.. behold the brilliance of an inexpensive car).

So, that's just under 300 dollars that I can do something else with. Despite my dismay about the amount of interest I'm paying on school loans, I'm so far going to resist sending extra money to it, in favor of getting Cash in the Bank. I'd love to save a huge chunk monthly, but I fear I'm setting myself up for failure, so I think I'll try stashing a certain amount per month in a relatively inaccessible place, and then a bit more in a more accessible spot. I've paid for most of my travel expenses for the year (not counting my Christmas flight), but of course doing the actual travel takes money too! And I'm going to have guests in town later this month, and guests = fun spending of money!

Last month was SUPER expensive as I paid for 2 plane tickets, a train ticket, theater tickets, Pink Martini tickets, a fire ballet ticket, AND my week-long bike ride. I spent 144% of my take-home! But I was able to dig deep and pay for all of it without fully emptying my savings, so that was good.

Speaking of my guest later this month, we're going to eat at Chez Panisse, which I've wanted to do for over a year. We're going to eat at the cafe, rather than downstairs off of the prix fixe menu, so we can pick and choose and share.

spendy spendy spend spend
And, things I'd like to buy, in no particular order: knitting books (stitch 'n bitch, a book of finishing techniques), more shelving for my kitchen (to be wedged in the last remaining bit of room), storage for knitting crap, some improved kitchen cabinet organization thingy, new case for my new phone, a little bag to go on the top tube of my bike, and a much smaller seat bag, new shirts, new sports clothing, chairs for my dining room table, tablecloth for same, art/decorations for my bedroom, a more grown up/nicer looking set of drawers/bedside table, new shoes, more expensive meals out. I probably won't buy any of these soon, and I'll likely buy all of them eventually, but the list is a reminder that if I just buy what I want, I'll NEVER get money in the bank. Plus: I can totally live without almost all of that.

I've always maintained that it's bad luck/unwise to talk about replacing a possession in front of said possession. In my last car (which was twenty by the time it bravely protected me from a Cadillac and broke its axle in the process) I'd NEVER talk about getting a new car, and if I slipped, I'd pat the steering wheel and reassure it that I loved it. (I really did. I cried when they took him away.)

My phone must read my blog, then, and found out that I'm getting a new one. How else to explain the fact that it ran away from home? Better yet, I'm GLAD it's the phone that is missing, and actually, grateful that I pulled a temporary crown out of my tooth as well.

Confused? Stay with me!

Yesterday I met three women to bike Mount Diablo. You can see some pics of the general area at this link; I found this photo here -

Driving towards it, I was asking my passenger, "Seriously?? we're biking up that!?!?!" but she assured me that it's tough but doable, and that we probably wouldn't do the whole thing this time. We didn't, that's for sure! I don't have an altimeter on my bike but we climbed over 2000 feet, I think, in just a few miles (though we biked TO the mountain so had some mileage already when we got there). Partway up, there's a spot where we regrouped to decide whether to continue up, go down and exit via the north entrance, or turn around and retrace our route to the south entrance. We went with option B and rode down and out a separate way.

At this point let me note that I *knew* my brakes were getting a bit mushy. I'd meant to do something about it.. but hadn't. I DID make it down in one piece, but the down is a DOWN and it took lots of braking. I was glad the road wasn't too full of other bikers or cars so I could take it at my own comfort level, weak braking and all.

Anyway, the ride was tough at that point, and we still had about 20 miles to get home. When we had only 5 miles left we stopped at a farmer's market to take a break, and one of my fellow riders offered me a chewy little energy/candy thing (made by Luna/Clif Bar, it's got electrolytes & stuff and is quite yummy). I was happy to chomp on it, and completely forgot that I had a temporary crown in... that is now no longer attached to my head. What's incredibly lame is that I did something similar to a different crown last summer! Me and gooey things, not so good.

At that point I was tired, sore, and rattled because I had bits of temporary tooth in my hand, instead of in my head. Fortunately I wasn't in any dentally related pain. So we hopped back on our bikes to finish the ride. At the VERY end of the ride I realized my bike-seat bag was unzipped... I did a quick check and my keys and wallet were safe. But when we got to the car I realized my phone was gone! *sad* My passenger was super nice and didn't kick up a fuss when I tried retracing the last five miles to look for the phone, but we got lost halfway in the retrace, so we wound up only following half the route and didn't find the phone.

I think it's gone.

But that's not all! after the whole mushy-brakes on a BIG DOWNHILL deal, I brought my bike to a local shop for some adjustments and love. I found out I'd been riding with my front brakes not fully engaged. That was incredibly stupid and, frankly, dangerous.

So to sum up, on a ride in which I could have broken my collarbone, OR lost my wallet or keys, I ONLY pulled out a temporary crown and lost my phone. I'm in the strange position of being incredibly grateful about it.

I try to be a Good Citizen. A Good Egg. I am, at heart, a Follower of Rules.

But... you know how I ordered a new phone? And how it's a really good deal? That's because I found a blog post that told me how to get in on the cell phone company's employee referral plan, even though I don't know anyone working there.

Yeah, the company could have a smarter sign-up plan that doesn't accept a cheating email address. Yeah, cell phone companies charge a stupid amount of money and (I imagine) are raking in the big bucks. BUT I'm working the system. Cheating. Stealing? Is that too strong a word? Dear Reader, am I being needlessly concerned? It *feels* sketchy and I feel Pangs.

Goodness knows I'm getting free illegal cable in my apartment building. Am I becoming morally bankrupt??? (I mostly kid, here...)

I'll probably go for it anyway, and have already decided that if I get caught & upgraded to a non-employee-referral plan I'll suck it up and pay the price OR pay the crazy termination fee. But my cheapness and tech lust may be getting the best of my better judgment.

I'm off-plan with my cell phone (though.. I should really call to confirm! but I *know* I last made changes in March 2006) and I just ordered a new phone. A PDA-type phone. With a local phone number! Look at me, it only took 20 months to finish moving. I hope it's a good number. 

...because I went rock climbing today and my arms hurt and my hands are mad at me. Other than that it was pretty cool. I easily scaled the first thing I tried, which was a non-rated warm-up thingy. The next two climbs I tried, I got stuck and bailed out, and then I finished off next to, and then on, the easy non-rated route.

Megan and Esther did great - Esther's been climbing 3 times a week since January, and Megan has only been one other time. I was impressed with both of them! They each tried routes that were personally challenging, and for the most part were able to pull it off. I'd worried that having 3 of us would mean someone would be bored and useless, but I was glad to be off-duty some of the time: of course climbing is tiring, but so is belaying!

Never in a million years would I have guessed I'd be 30 feet up a wall attached to a rope. But you gotta take what life gives you, and it's my personal policy to accept as many invitations to try things as I can, so... there you go. ouch.

Wow, I had to read 9 pages of my neighborhood to get caught up with everything. Guess I was busy this week! Anyway, as previously posted, I went on a whale watch yesterday and did take a few pictures. For the first time I got to try really using the new, free, photo management software I downloaded, about which I've already posted. I assigned names, descriptive text, & tags to pictures on my computer, then uploaded them to Flickr, and the information all made it up! Hooray, this means that going forward at least the pics on my hard drive will be tagged. God I love organizational technology.

I can't remember why, but for some reason the last time I was home with my family, the subject of non-Newtonian fluids came up. If you want to be overfilled with science! read the Wikipedia entry, but if you want to learn about these in a crazy fun way, first watch this video:

Yesterday I went on my first ever whale watch, with SF Bay Whale Watching - who, I just discovered, also run a blog about, you guessed it, whale watching! The trip went out to and around the Farallon Islands which are a bird preserve 27 miles beyond the Golden Gate Bridge.

It's amazing to me that I have lived within miles of one coast or another for just about my entire life, and this was my first whale watch! But, it's not cheap at all, so that's probably got a lot to do with it. Unfortunately, it was a gray and blustery day, which made for some choppy water.

Guess what? I get seasick! On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is vomiting and 10 is scampering happily about the deck in the fresh sea air, I spent most of my time at 6, with a long period of time at 4, and one perilous dip into 2-land. The tour operators recommended that if we saw our friends looking green, we try to engage them in conversation to distract them, but when Esther tried to do that for me, I found that removing my fixed stare from the horizon made me feel far worse. That was when I dropped as low as 2, but I managed to get out "Don't talk to me" and resumed my coping techniques, namely staring ahead and singing softly to myself: I considered that part of the logic of sea chanties may be that they distract the crew from their troubles by engaging their minds in something OTHER than how their stomachs are feeling. So, I spent at least 3 hours gripping the hand rail, fixing my eyes on the horizon, and trying to sing every song I knew.

Unfortunately, though I'm killer at Radio Singalong, I don't know that many songs. I can sing "Me and Bobby McGee" and most of "Margaritaville" and an incredibly obscure song called "Buck Tempo" that was covered by a musician I really like named Matt the Electrician (Bay Area people note, I want to go see him play in SF on Thursday the 12th of April). So, anyway, not knowing many songs meant I spent a lot of time singing Christmas carols. Only this morning did I finally remember that it's Eleven Pipers Piping! Also I sang a few patriotic numbers. And for a while we were hitting 10-foot swells and I was getting rather drenched. It all felt a bit grim, really, but that feeling is rather familiar from some of the less-pleasant bike rides I've done, so I knew I could withstand grim. I managed to choke down a piece of bread from my sandwich, and that, combined with having smoother going on our return trip, buoyed me up as high as 6 or maybe even 7.

We did in fact see at least 3 whales, but "seeing" means spotting a blow of water/air, and then noting a distant dark shape that looked a lot like a wave, as the whale went back under water. It wasn't quite what I expected.

So, lessons learned: do take Bonine again, as it may be all that kept me from dropping to 0. Eat a solid breakfast at least an hour before heading out, as all I'd had was coffee and I think that was a big mistake. Try to go when it's warmer/smoother waters (like end of summer/fall), and try to see different whales next time. Gray whales just aren't that visible from the boat. I guess also I should find out what type of whales DO make for good whale-watching.

But, believe it or not, I think I'd go again. Just not any time soon.