Baby Finances

I hate those last couple hours at work right before you go on vacation. It is the absolute worst. I always have TONS of stuff that I need to do - but I don't want to do it - I'd much rather be on vacation. So I'm always a bit out of sorts the last few days as I furiously try to tie up any loose ends before I go on vacation - but really I'm just trying to screw around as much as possible before I go and hopefully nothing major will fall through the cracks while I'm gone. Hopefully, then all the small things I didn't do because I was "too busy" will become critical items in my absence and someone else will do them. Really I don't want to do my work - I want to do some else's. So I'll just do that and hope that other people pick up the slack - and eventually someone below them will pick up their slack - and we'll hire another flunky at the bottom. I've been seriously starting to consider business school. I got in a conversation a...

I think that migraines should now be referred to as "brain cramps." I mean it's basically the brain equivalent to cramps. You head hurts, your stomach feels like shit, you just want to kill anyone who makes any sounds around you. I tried to get out of bed this morning and almost fell on my face because I couldn't see straight. Fucking ridiculous. I don't want to drive anywhere for fear that the sunlight will make my brain freak out and I get into an accident. Maybe that's where the idea of vampires came from. People who had really bad migraines all the time and were super sensitive to light. Then they only did anything at night. I'm not sure wehere the whole blood sucking thing comes into this theory - but hey - it could happen. Maybe they thought that drinking blood would make their brain hurt less? So this has unfortunately been a very unproductive day - when it really needed to be productive. I still want to puke a bit - but I can see straight ...

It's pretty amazing how stuff changes over such a short period of time. The presidential debates for the different parties used to be rarely watched and seldem quoted. Now - they're easily accessible at any time of the day on places like YouTube. The merger of 'standard' media with 'modern' media is happening - and happening fast. Online media used to be looked at as the bastard brother of the major TV news media. Now they are merging - and it seems like online media is almost winning. I was looking at HDTV's the other day - and a question popped into my head is why are people buying TV's when everything should just be streaming TV online. Who wants to watch TV on some arbitrary schedule that the stations set for us. I don't want to have to schedule my day around a program I enjoy. What happens if I get in a traffic jam and am twenty minutes late for LOST!? I'd be pissed. Which is why online TV is amazing. What pisses me off is that th...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours. Scholastic only printed 12 million. Holy crap! That's like 9% households bought a copy in the first day. That's a large part of the population. Talk about crazy cultural phenomenon. That's got to be a record. I need to go shopping - I haven't gone in a while and now it's getting to the point where it's absolutely necessary. I'm not that big a fan of shopping. I like looking at pretty clothes, and designer outfits and judging them (maybe it's just the judging that I like... a little unsettling thought.) But someone it's not that fun to have to dig through clothes that I can actually afford - find stuff that fits and looks good trying on TONS of stuff. It's just not that fun. I'd much rather be doing something funner. What's up with the guy from LOST being shown on previous for some new show on CBS. HELLO! You're on LOST! I'm watching thi...

Sunday afternoon is the only day of the week where it is possible for me to take an afternoon nap - for some reason it never works out on Saturday. The guilt that comes along with taking a nap instead of doing useful things is rough on me though. It must be that whole catholic guilt thing that people always talk about but I never seem to suffer from. Maybe the nap-time guilt it the only one that I feel. So the debate is fast and furious in my head to nap or not to nap (and go do my laundry at the laundry mat) that is the question. If I do my laundry now it will probably be less crowded - but my apartment is nice and cozy and ready for a nap.... Do I go with the useful chore finishing clean laundry needing part of my body? Or the useful thought inducing (even if it's just the thoughts to lift my laundry or sort it or whatever) chores? Hmmmm.... I think the nap is winning out right now.

I finished the HP7 Book. (Marathon read - it was definitely one of those books that I did not want to put down.) You should read it for yourself - no spoilers posted here. If you want to chat about it IM me. My self imposed internet/IM/texting/phone call ban is now lifted as well (s0rry if you did any of the above I turned the power off to everything so I wouldn't be tempted). I did go to the UPS tracking website to see where my book was along the way (yes I'm a little obsessive compulsive/crazy - but since you are reading this you already know that.) I kind of want to read it again to see what I missed the first time - but my eyes kind of hurt at this point. Tomorrow I have to do laundry. My eyes hurt now I don't want to read, or type, or do anything with my eyes open. I'm not really exhausted (I mean, all I did all day was read a book.) But I don't know what else I can do with my eyes shut.

Amazon has 2.2million pre-orders. Or one out of every 43 households (this doesn't count all those people who are too impatient to wait for the 10:30am delivery.) Rochester NY has about 436,000 households. That's about 10,000 books to rochester alone at 3lbs a piece. Are they just sending one UPS truck to Rochester with all the HP books? That's like one Semi full of HP books for just Amazon orders only to Rochester. Flipping crazy amount of books. That's got to be a major logistics issue for UPS. Amazon too has to have a crazy good system to be able to ship out that many books. But I bet the only thing that they change on each package is the label on the outside - they just slap another one on and send it on to UPS. I hope that UPS gave Amazon a discount for all these next day Saturday deliveries. Otherwise that's a lot of lost margin. I've got nothing to do this weekend other than obsesses about HP until it gets here. I'm trying to distract myself...

So I totally cheated. I couldn't go w/o reading digg for an entire week. *Sigh* That's not really what this post is about though. I just read an article on Digg that was saying that people aren't willing to do what it takes to save the planet. IE drive cars that you have to plug in every couple hundred miles. Let's examine this argument for a second. I really don't understand how people think that electric cars are saving anything. That energy to power a car has to come from something. If it's not coming from the gas in the tank it's coming from a power plant. That BURNS COAL or creates nuclear waste. Let's face it the vast majority of our power does not come from the sun, wind, or hydroelectric. Most of it still comes from the coal and nuclear power plant standbys. So is that electric car really that green? How much coal is needed to produce that energy? In that burning process does it produce more or less greenhouse gases and other wast...

I have a question for all of you loyal readers out there (all two of you). Here's the situation. We have one person who used to work at my company because they were really unhappy with some of the people that we work with. So they found another job and they left. They have done some freelancing for us on the side. Now this person is really unhappy with their other position. They don't like one of the people that they have to work with, and now wants to come back (I was supposed to know this but found this out inadvertantly.) The other day I went out to lunch with them and they made an unsettling comment about "well I could deal with the person I really don't like if I knew it was only for another year or two." (Speaking to the hopeful eventual exit strategy of the company.) My take on this is that this that if this person comes back they are going to be just as unhappy as before, and they aren't going to want to go above and beyond because this person is...

The HP Spoilers/leaks really annoy me. WTF? Can't you people wait until Christmas to open your presents? You can't open you Christmas presents on Thanksgiving and still be happy to get your presents next year on Christmas - you'll want them on easter. Because of all the leaks I'm absolutely avoiding all sites that could potentially have any information out there that I wont' see until this weekend. This means that I'm cut off from the outside world and now need some mental stimulation. Please feel free to bother me all week - but do not call/email/IM/talk to me this weekend until I'm done with HP7. I've been waiting for this for years and I do not want it spoiled for me. I've had a couple of really crappy runs in a row. My legs just keep cramping up. I'm not sure if it's the hot weather - I've been eating out too much - or not drinking enough or the fact that I'm still recovering sleeping time. Not sure - but it's really ...

There's like no Thai restaurants in Rochester open today. It took me three tries to find one not closed for vacation. So sad. In reality I should have been going to the grocery store getting milk and stuff - but instead I went out for a lazy dinner. I wish there was Chipotle in Rochester. Work was boring today - but I'm getting to work on stuff that I actually think is fun. Which just rocks. So after work I went running - grabbed some pretty tasty Thai food - and now am doing work from home. It's all calculations using processor time. So I can set up the parameters and just let the algorithm do it's thing. Then check on it intermittently. If you don't - you can fry your processor easier than an egg on a hot pan. I'm having some issues with the current thing I'm working on. It's just peeving me off. I had some major drama this morning. I thought I broke my Ipod. I would have been super pissed - then gone out and bought a new one. But I look...

This was a very 'action packed' weekend. Friday night I drove to Cleveland - watched HP5 Movie w/Josh and his girlfriend. Played a little wii then went to bed. Got up - drove to Toledo - was at my parents house for like 1/2 hour where I showered and attempted to find wrapping paper. I failed at the wrapping paper thing and ended up finding a Christmas bag that I put Lauren's present in. I figured it would only take like 20 minutes to get over to where Lauren's shower was - but I totally should have looked at the directions more closely. The place was in the middle of nowhere and was about 45 minutes away. Opsy! I didn't mean to be 20 minutes late.... It was really great to see Lauren again, and I finally got to meet Dan. Lauren - what's Jake's email? I need to email him. Or did you send it with the dress/shoes mail? Oh - and what's your new contact info/address etc? Went and hung out with family for the rest of the night. Then got up early in t...

Momma and Poppa Bear at work were fighting today. It was totally not a comfortable situation. I'm been super anxious all week. It's just been really stressful, too much to do, too much to think about, not enough time to get everything done = me super stressed out. Anxiety makes my stomach hurt. Fighting makes me feel like I have an ulcer and a panic attack all at the same time. Try a four hour meeting - working through lunch with that type of anxiety. Then getting a pissy pants email saying something dumb. I'm gonna kill someone. Then - just when it's 5:30 and I'm about to get actual work done for the day - oh the CEO forgot his laptop and he's at the airport. Are you leaving soon? I can't - I don't have a car here - Can you go drop him off his laptop? *Sigh* At least I got promoted to delivery girl... *SOMEONE* wanted to log on and see what was on his laptop. I was good - honestly - I don't really want to know. Ignorance is bliss a lot of...

So we totally did our State of the Company address today. Amusing as always. I said I was sad about not being bought out yet - and said "tear" with the motion down my face. He then comments "we fire people who cry." Ummm why does he ALWAYS pick on me? After all of these fire side chats the rest of the company things I have no friends, get to travel to lots of fun places all the time (you mean DC that like one time... a year and a half ago....), and now that I'm going to get fired b/c I'm crying over not being bought out yet. I can't leave this stand. I don't care if you are the CEO and hold the majority share. I'm going to give you shit - it's just too big of an opening. I just can't help myself - I can't hold back when you give me such a large opening. What are you going to do? Fire me? That's not going to happen - I'm too good at my job and too valuable at the company. So I pull out the whole fake tears - sad fac...

I went out to dinner last night with some people at work. I had a long conversation/argument with our CEO about whether or not Snape was evil or good. After re-reading HP6 in Vegas - and with some of the clues that JKR gave - I'm now convinced that Snape is in fact evil. I think the tipping point was that Dumbledore looked truely suprised to see Snape - and actually started to beg Snape. Dumbledore clearly did not expect Snape to do the job. Our CEO was convinced that there is a bigger reason for Dumbledore trusting Snape. But Sirius revealed that the reason that Dumbledore trusted Snape was because Snape said that he was sorry that HP's parents died and felt bad about his actions as a DeathEater. That was it!! WTF was Dumbledore thinking??? I think that Snape has a much deeper reason for hating HP's father - something that hasn't been revealed yet - and in turn has always held a grudge against HP's family b/c of that. I still can't decide if I think tha...

I've been reading Freakonomics and there was a really interesting theory. That more money doesn't necessarily garner more votes. That if a political candidate had twice as much money as another candidate that was more popular - then that additional cash would only increase his vote share by 1%. But the real reason that the popular candidates have all the cash is because people want to back them and show off that they donated money to the winning candidate, and the additional money did not actually equal additional votes. It's interesting to think about especially with the political fund raising competition that has been going on recently. But you would think that the more popular the candidate the more people would want to see him/her win and the more money that they would have. So I'm not sure that I can completely separate the cash and the popularity because I would think that they are intertwined, especially since there are laws about how much money you can do...

I’m on the plane back – I’ve slept a couple of hours and now can’t really sleep anymore. My thoughts are filled with just recaps and analysis of this past “weekend.” (like lost-and-gone-forever.blogspot.com – analysis of the great TV show LOST – thank god that you don’t actually have to watch TV to see TV programs – I’ve never watch anything mind numbing.) Though, it’s not really a weekend when it occurs in the middle of the week; but it’s not a full week either. So I’ll deem it an honorary weekend. I think that Jess & Scotts pre-marriage party (Bachelor/Bachelorette party just doesn’t seem to say enough) qualifies. I don’t want to go into a sordid list of events that happened – but rather just keep thinking about personalities and how such a random group of people got together to chill out in Vegas for a weekend. The first person I met was Jess’s cousin Ryan. He was pretty chill. He was fun to hang out with and was a good drunk (unlike some other people) ...

I have to say that the Nike+ system is really awesome. I know some people out there with Ipods that aren't Nano's are probably a little annoyed. But since I already have a Nano - this thing is Awesome. Some people might not like it. But I'm in love with the fact that I get quantitative data for my runs. I can see my average pace, where I was going fast and for how long, how far I went, etc. It's such a great training tool and for me a huge motivator. I can read all the books and do all the research about what I'm supposed to be doing - but without someone with me being able to see where I'm going wrong - I just do what "feels right" and not what makes logical sense. I can then come back look at my runs - look at the trends and correct any issues that I'm having. It's absolutely the greatest thing since sliced bread. I can also set goals for my running online - like how far or how fast I want to go and it will automatically keep track o...