Friday Cat Blogging 7

Friday Afternoon Cat Blogging!

With tempratures in the high 90s this week, Smacky has managed to find the coolest spot in the apartment. Plus he likes the way his meows sound echoing off the blades…

And finally, a dignified pose:

…and here’s some more!

The Mötley Crüe Hat Was A Clue

I had to tell this story again a couple of days ago, to a friend that I’ve known for years but had not heard My Favorite Celebrity Meeting Story yet.

I’m posting it here for posterity. Everything here is true to the best of my recollection.

It was summer 1992. I was a book clerk at Powell’s City of Books, the flagship store on 10th and W. Burnside, a job that was just cool enough, at least in my hometown of Portland, to overcome the fact that the store was run by control freaks. This was in the days before they unionized, but there was a definite pecking order for the staff and management… Ah, the details of Powell’s politics aren’t really pertinent to the story. Sorry. I was reminiscing. Perhaps some other time.

At any rate I was working one of the many cash registers. There was a long line of customers waiting. Funny how busy it was, but Powell’s is a tourist attraction in addition to being one of the largest independent new-and-used bookstores in the country, so maybe not too surprising. I was just trying to get through my shift.

I saw her in the line. How could I not? Petite, busty, blonde, wearing tight bicycle shorts, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap with the Mötley Crüe logo. I thought she was hot, and hoped that the timing would put her at my register…

And it did. My lucky break. I said “hi” and was almost floored by her pale green eyes. Wow. As she piled a bunch of books and gift-y type items on the counter, I joked that it looked like she was Christmas shopping, which in summer seemed a bit over-prepared. To my surprise, she agreed that these were, in fact, gifts for people, including her boyfriend.

Damn.

I tried not to let that stop me, and kept chatting with her. She was visiting Portland and liked it here, everyone had been so friendly. I mentioned that Powell’s offered shipping, so that she wouldn’t have to schlep all that stuff back home with her; she liked that idea (plus it earned me a few more moments with her). I filled out the form, took her credit card and got her signature, wished her a safe trip and a happy stay in Portland, she smiled and turned those pale green eyes on me again, causing third-degree burns, and then she was gone.

Before the next customer could come up, Stacy, the artsy lesbian, cashiering next to me, leaned over and punched me on the arm. “Wow! You’re so lucky, man. That was Heather Locklear!”

…whaaaaaaa? I flatly stated “No way.” There was simply no possible way that someone that famous and beautiful could possibly… My mind began belatedly assembling clues. Blonde? Check. Green eyes? Check. Amazing body? Check. Uhhhh… duh! Mötley Crüe? Dolt, she’s married to Tommy Lee (or was at the time).

Stacy explained, “She’s in town filming some movie” (Note: the movie was the made-for-cable Fade to Black) and everybody’s been talking about her being in the store. And you got to help her!”

I was a bit dazed and still didn’t quite believe this stroke of good luck. I helped the next customer, and when I re-opened the till, I dug in and pulled out the one piece of physical evidence; her credit card receipt. This is how oblivious I was: I had gotten her signature, and mechanically checked it against the signature on the card, just like a good little retail robot — without actually seeing the name!

Because there it was, plain as day. Heather Locklear’s signature, and the card, issued to “H LOCKLEAR”.

It was a bit of a let-down — but in another way, it was the best thing that could have happened. If I had known in advance it was Heather Locklear, she of whom Garth and Wayne had said “There is a God! Heather be thy name!”, then I would have been totally flustered and silent. Even as it was, I was a bit reserved, but at least I talked to her as though she were just another person and not the dream of men.

It was an awesome moment of Zen, when I, completely by accident, did exactly the right thing.

I was disappointed that the manager of the cash office wouldn’t let me make a copy of her signature as a memento. But only a bit. I didn’t want the credit card number; just the signature. I laughed it off as a joke.

A day or two later, I overheard two other booksellers talking about Heather being in the store again. They were rushing to catch a glimpse of her. I, full of false bravado after my accidental suavery, shrugged them off. “Oh, Heather’s back? Yeah, she’s cool” and went back to shelving books.

Man, that one incident went so far toward making my reputation at Powell’s. Just a year later, and Heather and Tommy broke up. And another year after, I was fired.

…a story for another time. OK, OK, stories. Those two last facts aren’t connected. Dammit.

Smacky’s birthday

No wonder Smacky’s been cranky lately!

I’ve been chalking it up to the heat. But, noooooo.

I completely forgot his birthday! It was last Sunday, July 24th.

I’ll have to make it up to him. Y’know… before he kills me.

My Credit Story goes on and on

The reason I wanted to include the previous post here, is because there have been more recent developments in the whole “pay off my credit cards” goal.

See, I got another credit card. With a much higher limit than any of my previous ones. Yikes!

It may not look like it, but this is actually a good thing.

First, it allows me to transfer the balances of my other debts to this new card, consolidating them — and, of course, then eliminate the other lesser cards, just close those suckers right down.

Second, because this new card offered me 0% APR on transferred balances (which is the reason I applied in the first place), I have eliminated finance charges for the rest of the year. And the new card has a $0 annual fee, and a relatively low APR on purchases, although it’s a variable APR that can fluctuate depending on the Prime Rate. So I gotta watch that.

The downside is that, because of timing, transferring the balances adds one more pay period (half a month) to the time until I’m free once more of debt. But as I said, it’s still a good thing.

It appears that I have managed to repair my credit to the point where it was before I screwed up — wait, let me find a more positive way to say that. Ummm… How about “…to the point before I began exploring the challenges, risks, and rewards of fiscal adventure.” Heh.

However, even though I’m keeping two of my credit cards, the total amount I can go into debt has gone up significantly. As a hedge against plunging too deep into debt again, my new revised savings target is at least enough cash to pay off my total unsecured debt, which will be $3500. I should be able to set aside this amount by mid-2006.

In fact, a side point; I’m going to be retiring $1800 in debt in the next two months. Wow. Until I sat down to figure that out, I didn’t realize how much extra money I have. And I’m not going to have to make any major lifestyle changes to do it; I live pretty simply, but even so. Extrapolate that out over the course of a year, and that’s $10,800, or around 25% of my gross income.

I need to be holding on to some (most!) of that money next year — my new financial goal.

My Credit Story

The following was originally posted over at my 43 Things list:

Starting about 15 years ago, I was introduced the world of credit cards. Coming from a typical lower-middle-class family that never talked about money except in the most abstract way possible, I had a very poor idea of what “money management” was all about. I had an income and I spent it on stuff I liked.

Then I met some friends who strived to be upper-middle class, and who said things like “It’s not like it’s real money; it’s credit” and assumed that it was normal to have credit cards maxed out and just pay the minimum balance. Whoa. Talk about falling in with the wrong crowd.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized that buying groceries on a credit card with a 21% APR was a Bad Thing. Of course, by then, I had been dragged through the modern-day gauntlet of dealing with Collection Agencies. I had to figure out on my own how to say no to abusive phone calls and demanding voices on the other end. I shifted from thinking I’d never have to pay all this back, to thinking… well, that I won’t ever be able to pay all this back, so why bother? I decided that the only thing “good credit” got you was more credit, and tried to run.

In other words, my thinking went from bad to worse. I didn’t differentiate between unsecured debt, like credit cards, and secured debt, like a mortgage or a car loan. And I discovered that yes, if I had to, I could live without a car, but that it would be nice to own a house someday. But not with my credit history.

About ten years ago, I met a man who took me under his wing and helped me see lots of my life in a different light. I realized, in part, that I did, in fact, incur those debts, and that if I wanted to maintain my good mental image, I needed to pay them all back. Part of that was having a career plan (hard to pay back debts when I bounced from low-paying job to low-paying job), and the other part was actually setting aside the money towards those looming unpaid balances.

There’s way more to this story than I should tell here. However, my main point is that I have felt like I’ve been in financial prison, figuratively speaking, for at least 10 years. I screwed up and I’ve been paying the price (heh) to undo my mistakes.

And I now stand within 3 months of being finally, forever, completely free of all my past and current debt. I’ve got just under three months and I will be a free man once again.

I have been meaning to add to the above and edit it a bit to give more history, but that will do for now.

43 Things is a great idea that shows the power of distributed communication. It’s basically an online “to-do” list, and that’s how it got started. But because of a couple of additions, it’s become a community-building tool and a social network, also. What happens is, people can search for other people who are trying to do the same things they’re doing, and link to them. And ask for, or offer, advice, and cheer people on… it’s a great idea. Did I say that already?

Unofficial Time for Run Hit Wonder 2005 10K

Unofficial time in the Run Hit Wonder Portland 2005 10K: 66:18.49.

Wow, I kinda died out there.

Not sure what happened. I showed up, I had a strategy, I got plenty of sleep last night, I had a good pre-race-day dinner (fettucine pesto e pollo from La Terrazza… mmmmmm), drank lots and lots of water, didn’t run but still exercised the past two days.

Still, I woke up with a headache, stuffy nose (took another Zyrtec for that), legs were stiff and took a while to warm up and stretch out, just felt blah.

It was funny seeing all the looks from folk wondering who all these orange-shirted people were, wandering around the city. Since there were 10,000 people entered in the race, that made for a lot of orange shirts. I must have been asked five times this morning what it was all about.

And I took a chance, and grabbed a spot near the start line. Not in the elite runner’s group, nor the 7:00-and-under pace people. I wasn’t that gutsy. But I lined up with the 8:00 pace people, and it only took me about 9 seconds to cross the start line.

I got excited and ran a little fast for the first two miles. My strategy was to aim for a 10:00 pace the first third, 9:30 pace the second third, and then hope I had enough in my for a 9:00 pace to finish. But since I ran the first mile in 9:24… uhhhh… I think I overdid it. All my miles after that were 10:00 or greater.

Maybe it was the heat. Maybe my speedwork hasn’t been enough. Maybe my allergies were kicking up. Whatever. It’s all excuses. I went out, I ran, I finished, I did what I did. On the bright side, my stretches have helped my sore heel; hardly any soreness at all. My hamstrings are a bit sore but not too bad; they finally warmed up, and I stretched well after the race. Once again, the Nike shirt for some reason really irritates my nipples. Argh. I much prefer my UnderArmor or Brooks shirts; they don’t chafe me.

I stuck around for a couple of songs from the lovely Ms. Jett, but it was hot on the field, no shade, and I didn’t have any cash to get some beer or food and didn’t feel like paying the ATM transaction fee at the park.

My reward was a delicious NW Raspberry Milkshake from Burgerville. Mmmmm.

And now that my two biggest races are past me for the year, I can go back to just running for fun, rather than training for an event. I still have another 10K I want to do, the Pints-to-Pasta in September, and I might do another 10K in August, but that’s too far away to think about just yet. Doesn’t look like I’ll be doing a half-marathon this year. Oh, well, there’s always next year.

Too f-in’ hot

Was going to do speedwork tonight. Too f-in’ hot. So I just tried to maintain a steady pace on my normal 3.5-mile loop. I did, however, go slower than normal, and I did not carry a watch. Also, I stopped twice for water. Didn’t stretch afterwards and now, sitting in front of my computer, I can feel my hamstrings tightening, tightening, oh, they’re tightening. Ow.

Rewarded myself with dinner at The Iron Horse. Walked up and back after dinner, which adds at least another 2.5 miles of exercise to my total for the day/week. Had the chile verde burrito. Mmmm…

On my walk back, I watched the western sky slowly build up to an intense fire-y orange-reddish neon-y glow. Amazing. Nearly the entire western sky was bright with sunset. Not only that, but there was a rainbow. One nice side benefit of the amazingly high humidity is the sunsets. It made for a nice moment of Zen.

Run Hit Wonder 2005

If you’re downtown on Sunday and in Goose Hollow or NW, and want to watch for me, I’ll be #3793.

The Run Hit Wonder shirts are bright orange this year. I picked mine up today.

It’s official: my running clothes are officially more colorful than my street clothes.

Goodbye, James Doohan

Wow. Too much to blog about today. And by that I mean that there’s too much stuff happening that demands a personal response from me, news or events that evoke a cherished memory.

Still… I’m sad that he’s passed away, but seeing that he was inspiration to millions of engineers, geeks, and scientists, James Montgomery Doohan, a.k.a. “Scotty” from Star Trek, could not have chosen a more fitting date on which to leave this mortal coil.

That’s all I have the energy to find right now.

For the record, the comment that first made me teary-eyed was this one from the Fark thread:

2005-07-20 11:56:49 AM / anthonyhawke [TotalFark]

I’m sure Bones needed your help with something, anyway. Gonna miss Scotty

Goodbye, Mr. Doohan.

Guess I’ll polish off the scotch tonight.