Month: December 2004

Resolutions for 2005:

1. Learn a musical instrument (carried over from last year)
2. Write two novels *
3. Pay off my credit cards and loan, then never carry a balance from month to month.
4. Save no less than $2600.00
5. I don’t think I’m ready for a marathon, but I will attempt a half-marathon this year.

* I decided, after talking it over with my friends, that if I make a resolution to write a novel, I might put it off all year and then end up with not enough time to finish it. On the other hand, if I determine to write two novels, I’ll have to get cracking in order to get them both done… clever, yes?

Group hug is a site for confession. Anonymous confessions about things people think, or do, and regret.

Makes for fascinating reading.

End of year stuff. Been working on my financial fitness…

I have two credit cards and one loan (the loan for my iBook — yeah, it’s still not paid off). I compared the balances on each of them from the start of the year to now, and I found that my total indebtedness actually increased by $0.50. Depressing, huh? In other words, I managed to essentially pay off only the interest for the year.

What’s a little more interesting is the amount of cash that flowed through each account, because I’d pay them down a bit, then I’d use them back up to the limit, then down again. I made $3840.95 worth of payments against the three accounts! Wow. That’s a lot of money. Since the in-flow was almost exactly the out-go, it’s apparent that I didn’t actually need to use my credit cards and loans and cash advances…

And when you look at what the money cost me, in terms of interest, overlimit fees, draw fees, etc., those total up to $963.83. So I managed to turn $3840.95 into $2877.12 worth of goods and services. Obviously not a wise decision, since it’s apparent that (since the payments were made) I had the money to use, and therefore didn’t have to incur the extra fees associated with the cards and loan.

That’s not even looking at the actual purchases I made. I’m not going there. For the most part those purchases were two trips I made during the year, and the occassional cash advance.

(What’s even scarier is when I add in all the ATM fees, overdraft fees, and associated charges in my checking account. Those are also things that I could avoid paying entirely, simply with better planning. Including the above $963.83, that brings the total “fees I could avoid” up to $1586.87. Yeah, I bounce checks quite a bit… owie.)

So, for next year, this is my goal: I’m going to pay them all off. I’ve got the money to do it, and once they’re paid off completely I can still get the benefit of using them (for instance, the miles on my Alaska Airlines Visa for purchases) without incurring the penalties (interest and etc.)

I’ve got a plan and I’m going to stick with it. I should have them paid off by summer. I think I can also stick some money in savings. I’m expecting a modest tax refund this year, maybe $600 dollars between the Feds and Oregon. Well, at least $500 from Feds, I can’t estimate the state refund yet. That will help quite a bit.

My end of 2005 goal is: no outstanding debt and at least one month’s salary in savings. To that end, my Christmas gift to myself was an actual savings account, which currently holds the princely sum of $300.

Grow, little savings account… grooooooooooow…

I wasn’t feeling very adventurous for lunch today. Just thought I’d get a sandwich, no big deal.

Went down to Big Town Hero, a local chain. On the way there, I rolled around the different sandwiches I’ve had there, trying them out mentally to see which one sounded good. With the holidays almost past, I thought that their “Very Berry” turkey might hit the spot. Cranberry sauce and turkey. Only thing missing would be some dressing…

So I went, and ordered my sandwich… and after I’d put in the order, I saw a little standee on the counter announcing their “Panini” grilled sandwiches. Including a grilled Reuben… damn. Pastrami, swiss cheese, sauerkraut… Mmmmmm (am I supposed to capitalize the “s” in “swiss cheese?) I came –> <– this close to changing my order.

Anyone have any experience with the BTH grilled sandwiches?

And what’s up with all the sub shops playing catch-up with Quiznos, anyway? Do they all have to offer toasted/grilled/heated-up-in-some-way sandwiches now? Is that what the sandwich-buying public is demanding nowadays?

My friend Jake posted this a while back (I’m just now getting to it since he only told me where his blog was last night):

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your own bulletin…along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

So… here’s what I found:

My new mantra.

Yeah, that’s it. That’s the fifth sentence on the 123rd page of the book I’m currently reading, which is “Radiant Cool” by Dan Lloyd. It’s a murder mystery and an introduction to a theory of consciousness.

I guess there’s something new to be learned every day.

Last weekend I made a long post about a trip to Seattle. In the post, I mentioned hearing some music in a restaurant that sounded like two songs mixed together — or maybe just two radios playing at the same time, although that was unlikely, since the new song sounded pretty good.

This morning I was listening to KNRK, the local “alternative” station (although just how alternative can it be if they’re owned by a huge corporation) and they played what I thought was Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”… but it was mixed with Oasis’ “Wonderwall”. It was both illuminating and frustrating. Much like trying to remember a song but getting confused, like you just can’t quite remember how it goes…

Then, in this month’s Wired I saw an article that explained what I’d heard.

Turns out that these are examples of what is called a “mash-up”. It’s been around since at least 2001 (an epoch by internet time) and even Salon did an article about it a year and a half ago.

So now I want to find that song, the one I’d heard in Seattle, the one that mixed Radiohead and Tone Loc. It’s only a matter of time…

“You confound me like a woman!”