Monthly Archives: August 2012

Balancing the budget…

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Anyone who’s ever tried to eek their way out of debt knows that the first step is to put themselves on a budget. Unless you’re a natural bean counter or have a high pain threshold the process is pretty much agonizing. Since what I seem to have lately is too much to do and not enough time in which to do it, I thought maybe some of the same principles could be applied. Just like preparing a budget, the first thing you need to know is how much you’ve got and where it’s going. Conveniently I’m a creature of habit so this part wasn’t too hard.

So far, here’s what I’ve come up with for a typical weekday*:

* And yes, the hours are blurred because posting the exact times you do things regularly on the internet is pretty dumb, but not having any graphic way to show where my day goes leaves the post a little flat, so that’s my compromise.

The first thing that became apparent to me was that the vast majority of things on this schedule are pretty much non-negotiable, with the exception being “free time” that usually falls around 7:15-9:30 PM. That’s two hours and 15 minutes out of a 24-hour day that’s more or less unaccounted for by something I consider a “must do.” It’s the part that gets cut out when any of the other activities run long… and I’m starting to understand why my weekdays feel like a sprint most of the time.

So the good news is I pretty much know exactly where my time is going. The bad news is I lack the ability to create more time, so that pretty much leaves trying to rejigger the time that’s already available as the only real option. It seems the only way to add new activities is for something I’m already doing to fall off the list… Which explains why I haven’t touched a computer game or the Xbox since I got serious about writing again. It also explains why the house is never quite what I’d call “clean”.

Looking at your day laid out in black and white is sort of depressing, if only because you realize how little flexibility you actually have. Now that I can see how little time there really is for the fun stuff, it’s time to start making hard decisions about what stays and what goes… and figuring out how to get less than six hours of sleep on an average weekday and not to fall asleep at my desk. If I could just cut two hours out of the time I’m laying in bed doing nothing, I think I’d be way ahead of the game and might actually manage to write and watch an hour long television drama all on ths same day.

Missing in Transit…

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Setting aside the fact that the US Postal Service has a legal monopoly on delivering first class mail in this country and they fact that they’ve had 236 years of practice moving things from Point A to Point B, sometimes I wonder why they have as many problems as they do. Then, of course, I get a handy reminder of why they suck and I used them as little as possible.

I ordered a prescription refill from my vendor of choice on the morning of August 11th and it shipped out later that afternoon. Then, somewhat inexplicably, on August 14th my order was scanned at a post office in Fort Lee, NJ and labeled “missent.” Which is fine, of course, except for the part where according to the USPS it has never been seen again. They’re quick to point out that theirs is a “delivery confirmation” system and not a “tracking” system like they use at such upscale shippers as FedEx and UPS. So it’s equally possible that the envelope containing my prescription has actually left the Garden State. It’s also possible that it’s still sitting there. There is apparently no way known to man to find out which of these options is the case. Let’s just say that the conversation with the USPS Customer Service Representative (and I use that term loosely) does not fill me with confidence. But hey, if it stays missing for five more Postal Business Days, we can officially proclaim it lost, so that’s a plus.

Don’t worry, I’m not letting CVS Caremark off the hook for their role in this little fiasco either. After all, they’re the ones who selected the USPS as the shipper of choice, which shows piss poor decision making skills right off the bat. They’re also the ones who won’t reship a prescription unless it’s been “missing in transit” for more than 15 days. They did, however, offer a very helpful suggestion of getting my doctor to give me a new prescription that I could fill at my local pharmacy… Which pretty much defeats the purpose of using your goddamned bloody mail order pharmacy program in the bleeding first place, doesn’t it you backwater asshats?

I’m a reasonable guy. I don’t expect miracles. All I know is that I can order tasty bits from Europe and have them in my hands three days later (including a Sunday) with UPS. I can order a book from Amazon and it’s sitting on my porch in 48 hours. But apparently delivering the drugs that keeps my blood pressure from rocketing into the “about to have a stroke” level in less than ten days is a bridge too far for United States Postal Service. Next time I’ll leave well enough alone and just walk to New Jersey to pick it up. It’d be faster.

Editorial Note: In the interests of fair and balanced reporting, two hours after I called USPS, the package in question was scanned in at my local post office and showed “out for delivery.” It arrived, crinkled and battered, ten days after I ordered it, but it arrived. Fortunately, the rant had progressed too far past its failsafe point to call back.

Need more ammo…

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I think it’s fun that the tinfoil hat brigades of the internet have gotten up in arms about federal agencies purchasing “large” amounts of ammunition. It’s especially fun when they define 147,000 rounds as “large” amounts. Let’s face it, many of us know individual citizens with at least that much ammo stored in their basement, hideout, bunker, or other secure, undisclosed location where they plan to wait out the end of the world. When you have an quarterly firearms training requirement for a couple hundred people, +/- 200,000 rounds just isn’t going to last that long. And it’s definitely not going to be enough to wage a shadow war against our fellow citizens. It’s cute that some people are just that paranoid, though.

Let’s ponder this for a moment… If the United States Government were really planning to wage war in the streets against its own citizens, don’t you think that maybe, just maybe they’d have ordered the ammo on some kind of “secret” contract instead of by posting it right there on the internet for every contractor in the country to see? For the record, they would have probably ordered more than 100 sets of riot gear, too, but I’m trying to stay just a little focused.

Look, a little paranoia isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s healthy to ask questions in a constitutional republic, but it’s not healthy to see a conspiracy that includes millions of run of the mill working stiffs at every turn. At that point, you start making the shift from concerned citizen to crazy coot and that’s never pretty. Like TMZ, sure it’s good for entertainment value, but it’s not exactly what I’m going to consider hard news. Yeah, I’m looking at you here, Infowars.

P.S. And before someone raises the question of the millions of rounds ordered by Homeland Security, go ahead and do the math on the number of armed guards they have who are also required to do quarterly firearms training and you’ll find that the per capita number of rounds ordered isn’t particularly alarming either, but hey, thanks for playing.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Parking Lot Etiquette. You might know that I’m a creature of habit. I’ve even parked in the same spot just about every word day for the last 14 months. Or I did until wild haired old biddy with a hooptie started parking in my spot. I like to think I’ve shown admirable self control in not dropping the truck into 4-lo and pushing her beat to hell Buick out of the way. And then I remember that normal people would probably just shrug it off and find a different spot instead of developing intricate plans to show up earlier each day until they discover when the biddy in question arrives so they can start showing up a few minutes ahead of her to get their coveted parking spot. Not that I would ever do that, of course.

2. Science. I’m not all that old and so far I can remember eggs being good, then bad, then good again, then bad again, then good, and currently they’re apparently “as bad as smoking.” Seriously, science, is this really something worth studying repeatedly and changing our collective minds about every couple of years? People have been eating eggs for pretty much as long as there have been people. As a species, we like eggs and we’re probably going to keep eating them indefinitely into the future… So instead of telling us how bad (or good) eggs are, how about getting busy doing something productive like developing a more effective drugs to counteract the effects of the eggs that we all know we’re going to eat regardless of how “bad” we know they are for us?

3. Things that are Self-Explanatory. The older I get, the more I realize that almost nothing is actually self-explanatory… especially concepts that are so easy a caged monkey can be taught how to do them with the right combination of banana slides and electroshock. I guess that’s not surprising, really. The older I get, the fewer expectations I tend to have about people and how they behave as a group. Still, if you’re well into advanced middle age and I need to write a memo explaining that you should always remember to answer the question someone asks you instead of giving them everything other than the answer, something has gone horrifically wrong with civilization as a whole and we are probably doomed.

And since the week can’t be completely full of annoyances, if you’re at all curious about what doesn’t annoy Jeff this week, that would be the fact that it’s a three day weekend. Those make me happy.

August and everything after…

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I was a teacher once, so I understand the generalized feeling of dread that accompanies the end of the summer. The sense of loss in the closing days of August is almost physically painful. Which is why every time I see one of my teacher friends lament the end of summer on Facebook, I smile just a little bit on the inside. Sure, that’s not the empathetic, caring response, but if you came here looking for caring and empathy, boy did you show up at the wrong place on the internet.

I smile mostly because I think of the pain of August as the universe evening the score for those of us who spent the last two months at our desks, while our teaching friends were posting pictures from the beach. While they were in Florida or Myrtle Beach, we’ve been here banging away at our keyboards like so many galley rowers lashed to our oars. Sure, I could have stayed in teaching and enjoyed the single greatest employment benefit ever invented, but that wouldn’t have been good for me or for anyone else really, except maybe people who read blogs. I think if I would have had one back when I was teaching, the posts would have been epic… and would have possibly gotten me fired, since a way with words and an almost boundless forum for your grievances are terrible things to waste.

My point is, I hope all the teachers out there enjoyed their summer vacation, because in between federal holidays and annual leave, I’ve still got about a month’s worth of days off that I have to burn before the clock strikes 2013. I know I’m certainly going to enjoy my time when I get around to taking it. Just knowing that it’s banked and sitting there when I’m ready for it makes missing out on the summer vacation a little easier… because I’m looking forward to the end of August and everything after.

Auld lang syne…

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I was rummaging around my old files looking for something this past weekend and ran across something unexpected. I had been under the impression that the posts from my original blog, hosted on MySpace back in the day, were lost amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the interwebs. But no, there they were, every post from June 2006-October 2008 safely tucked into a 147 page Word document just waiting for me to find them.

It could just be that I’m always critical of my own writing, but I’m pleased to see that there’s been a marked improvement in the style and substance of my writing over the last six years. I was certainly less circumspect back then, and a few of the posts I’ve read so far have a certain raw quality that surprised me… It’s hard to believe I said some of those things out loud right there on the internet for everyone to see. Still, there are a few real gems in the mix and it was something of an odd comfort to see that I’m still basically the same person I was back then at the ripe old age of 28. I’m a little older now, a lot more cynical, but the posts are unmistakably something that came from my keyboard.

I had planned it to be a surprise when these old posts started showing up, but I think some errant clicks Sunday may have let the cat out of the bag for those of you who get email updates whenever there’s a new post. So here’s the big announcement: Starting this coming Sunday and continuing every Sunday until I clear the archive, I’ll be making every effort to add five “new” old posts to the mix here. I’m going to edit them a bit for grammar and punctuation, but otherwise in the interests of preserving history as it happened you’re going to see them just like you would have on MySpace back in the day. Join me, won’t you, in this trip down memory lane.

Repeating myself…

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This is my 709th post, not including the two years worth of material I lost when MySpace when the way of the dodo bird. After more than 700 posts, across six years, two blogging platforms, and in excess of 15,000 page views I worry sometimes that I’m repeating myself. Part of that stems from just not being all that creative and part of it is that as an adult productive member of society most of days tend to be pretty similar – which means I have a tendency to have the same experiences over and over again. I mean when you spend five days a week doing some variation of get up, drive to work, work, drive home, make dinner, go to bed there’s an upward limit of how many new experiences you’re going to have.

That of course is a little troublesome when you make your bones trying to write things that people will find interesting. Honestly, I never thought I’d still be blogging this far along. If I did, I would have been anal retentive enough to build some kind of index so I could try not to repeat myself too often. Since I didn’t do that and we’re too far along to start now, you’re just going to be stuck with whatever random idea happens to pop into my head on any given day… and when I repeat myself just smile and nod the same way you would when your great aunt Fanny tells you the same story for the 273rd time. I’ll do my best to self edit that sort of thing, but won’t make any promises. Since my routine isn’t apt to change any time in the near future, you’re pretty much stuck with it, so don’t go complaining now that you’ve been warned.

Mad props…

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I’m going to level with you. I have no earthly idea how you people with a wife/husband and an assortment of kids get through your day. It’s Friday afternoon and I don’t mind telling you that I’m flat out exhausted by the week when it rolls to a close. I’m exhausted from the sheer volume of human interaction that it takes to get through the day. Being an introvert, every one of those interactions requires a tremendous amount of energy to fight my natural instinct towards keeping everything a nice respectable distance. You’re just going to have to take my word for it when I say it’s exhausting in its own right, which brings me back around to the point of this discussion.

I’m almost positive I’ve said this before, but my hat’s off to you guys out there who get home and then turn around and fill the night with soccer practice, dance rehearsal, tutoring, going to the mall, or whatever the case may be. How you keep up with it is quite simply beyond me. If I don’t have those 4-5 hours between work and sleep to block out the world and refocus, I’m told I have the disposition of an angry badger… and that’s not fun for anyone involved. I suppose we all do what whatever we have to based on the situation we’re in, but in this case the only thought I can offer is “better you than me.” Seriously. I have an deep, yet purely academic appreciation for what you do, but I’m so glad it’s not on my agenda that the English language doesn’t have an appropriate way to describe it. Keep up the good work.

Now if you’ll pardon me, it’s time for a glass of wine and a good book so I can marshal my energy for dealing with the world tomorrow morning.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Policy. As a young intern many years ago I cut my teeth as a policy guy. I know how to read them, how to write them, and how to interpret them to mean pretty much anything I want them to mean. That’s why I always enjoy it when someone decides to try “selling” me on the virtues of one particular policy or another. It’s pretty easy to spot a blatantly one sided policy when I read it and no amount of talking around it is going to convince me that it’s really a good thing or beneficial to me in any meaningful way. Conveniently, I don’t have to like it or even agree with it, I just have to comply it… and I’ve been doing that for years.

2. Roadside Produce. When it comes to fresh produce from the roadside there’s a fine line between perfectly ripe and apt to go bad somewhere between the point of purchase and the time I get it home. As much as I appreciate the three cantaloupes for $5 deal you’re making me, I’d appreciate it more if the bottom half of your melons weren’t, you know, squishy. Same with the $10 a dozen ears of corn. While I appreciate a bargain as much as anyone, I’m not feeding an Amish family with this purchase, so how about sizing some deals that are more appropriate for meals involving fewer than 10 people?

3. Salad. In an effort to be slightly less heart attack prone, I’ve been eating a lot of salad over the last two years. In that time, I’ve really only noted one thing with any consistency – That no matter how many different kinds of dressing you have, at the end of the day you’re still eating a bowl of weeds. Sure, sometimes the weeds are topped with bacon or chicken or eggs or croutons, but regardless of what you add on, it’s all built on a foundation of weeds. I’ll get plenty excited over a well-cooked steak or even a barbeque chicken, but I just can’t seem to get myself revved up for salad any more. It seems to me that life is entirely too short to spend 1/3 of your meal times face to face with food that only tastes good when you slather it in 101 different toppings.