I tried to call someone the other day, and their answering machine was bent on preventing me from leaving a message.  The task seemed simple: say what I needed to say, and press the"#" key when I was done. 

On my first attempt, I tried to be clear and concise.  However, about halfway through the message, the thing beeps and asks me if I would like to replay my message.  No problem, I think, maybe my message was a bit long.  I'll just shorten it.

On the second attempt, I think I got about the same distance in before it beeped and did the same thing to me.

Third attempt, I tried talking faster, only to have it cut me off sooner.

I can't remember the fourth attempt, since I was as angry as I was amused.

On the attempt where I finally got it, I talked quickly, only to have the thing NOT cut me off at all.  I felt like Usain Bolt, slowing down as he reached the finish line at the Olympics.

By the end of it, I was trying not to laugh, because it was a serious message.  At some point, I got off enough of the message that I felt was sufficient to prompt a call back.  However, when the guy did call me back, he had no idea why I called, because he couldn't get all of the info out of the message.

Being a good worker is one thing.  Doing it for free is another.  The other day, a coworker and I were driving out to a location, when he asked me if we were going to be late.  I looked at the clock in the car, and said, "No.  That clock is about 10 minutes fast."  He looked at his phone and confirmed that it was a full 10 minutes fast.  That's when it hit me.

Every morning, I drive into work, and the last thing that I see before I get out of teh car is the clock in the car.  So, when I look at that time, that's when I think I have arrived at work.

At the end of the day, I look at my computer or phone to get the time.

I've only just realized that for the past month, I have been giving an extra 10-15 minutes to work without knowing it.  What's worse is that we log our times on what is basically an honor system.  This means that I've been screwing myself out of an extra 10-15 minutes a day for the past month.

Fortunately, Daylight Saving Time began this weekend, so when I had to reset the clock, I made sure it was right.  However, I still feel that I am owed 5 hours, so I will be shaving that off of the end of my days for a while.

I really hope that my employer recycles.  Last week, I'm pretty sure that I killed a tree, simply due to the paperwork around here.  Not a thin tree, either.  I'm talking about one of those trees that you can hide a fat person behind.  I'm sure that I knocked out the equivalent of a mighty elm in the past month.  It's not really my fault.  Well, part of it is.  Proofreading on a monitor just does not work.  I'm not the first person to say this, and I'm sure that it become apparent if you read some of my poorly typed blog entries.

Back when I was at the military academy, I got a tour of the NSA.  Well, two tours.  Anyway, at some point we were told that they have a contract with some pizza box makers.  Apparently, all of the Top Secret documents, which have been shredded to a level barely above dust (seriously) are then watered down into a pulp, which is then used to make pizza boxes.  The pizza that you ate this weekend may have been boxed in what was once some super-secret document on China.

If this were the case at my job, I would have personally produced enough boxes to supply frat parties for a semester.

One of my coworkers made a run to Dunkin' Donuts the other day.  When he returned, he ate what he brought back, but seems a bit irate.  He starts searching his desk.  Under his paperwork.  Even in his trash can.

"Is there a cookie over there?  God damn it, I think she forgot my cookie."

And he is about to lose it.  Apparently, this must be a really good cookie.  So much so, that he picks up his trash can, puts it on his desk, and proceeds to remove everything to check for it.  There is no cookie.

"Damn it.  I paid $1.69, and no cookie.  That's really the whole reason I went over there in the first place."

A couple of us that are watching the entertainment tell him that he should just go back and tell the girl that she forgot the cookie. DD was literally a block away.  He refuses, deciding to stay angry, instead.  Any mention for the duration of the day pretty much sets him off.

Later that day, after I had given blood, I decided to grab an extra package of cookies from the recovery table.  He was grateful fro them, but I think it just made him angrier inside.

I was going to write this entry the day it happened, but I got lazy.  Fortunately, because I delayed, I can give resolution to the story.

He went back to the on Thursday, and the same girl happened to be behind the counter.  When he went up and ordered a cookie, she asked him if he had been there the other day.  When he said that he had, she apologized and said that as soon as he left, she realized that she had not put the cookie in the bag.  Then she gave him the cookie that he just ordered at no charge. 

He was finally happy.

Black 6, out.

As most of you know, I'm the type of person that either wants to get something as cheaply as possible, or to get something additional when I am spending money.  Sometimes I get to do both.

When I got my credit card from my bank, I had the option of a cash back reward, or points.  At the time, I went with points.  I did a calculation of how much I would get back if I chose cash, and then the cost of a Best Buy gift certificate in points.  The gift certificate came out ahead by a couple of tenth of a cent. 

Now, I'm looking at the number of points that I have, and I can get a good amount of stuff for them.  i have also found that I can get cash back.  However, looking at the program, I decided that i would have to do a bit more math.  The top three rewards that I felt were most useful to me would be the cash back, the gift certificates, or money off of a plane ticket.  Here's how it breaks down:

Cash back's lowest redemption is $25 for 3000 points.  That works out to 120 points per dollar.  That the ratio I get until the $200 for 20,000 points.  There, the point spread dips to 100 points per dollar.  There is no change at the higher values, so if I chose this option, there would be no reason to redeem anything lower than the $200 option.

Next is the gift certificate option.  Now, they have them for a bunch of stores, but there is no difference in the amounts for points depending on merchant, and amount of points required is directly related to the amount.  Again, the spread is 3000 points for $25, and the $200 one would cost 24,000 points, so we have a constant of 120 points per dollar.

The last choice is the flight savings.  Basically, if you buy a ticket through the link, it will use the points to deduct money off of the price.  If there is a weird hanging amount (like $9), then you just pay that, but you can essentially work out an almost free ticket.  The lowest one is $150 off for 15,000 points.  Pretty straight forward at 100 points per dollar.  At $225 off, it cost 20,000 points, bring us to 88.9 points per dollar.  It's at $300 off that we level off, at 25,000 points, meaning that it's 83.3 points per dollar.

So, in the end, it would be in my best interest to fly somewhere, however, barring that, I should take the money and run.

Black6, out.

Yesterday, I was shopping for a French-Cuffed shirt.  Those are the ones that take cuff links (I'll tell you my take on these in another post).  For the number of stores that you find that sell cuff links, there are none that sell the shirts that actually use them.  In fact, I remember going into a Sears a few months ago, standing by their cuff links, and asking where the shirts were.  The sales woman thought for a minute, and then realized that Sears did not sell them, and was baffled by this fact.  Anyway, these shirts are hard to find.

Now, have you ever walked into a store and realized that the pricing was WAY above what you would pay?  That happens to me on occasion.  Like yesterday.  I walked into Brooks Brothers, and about halfway into the store, I see a sign that says "3 shirts for $199".

I wanted to run out of the store. 

There was no way in hell that I was going to pay $66+ for a shirt.  However, I was deep in the store at this time, and so it's a bit too far to quickly walk out without feeling stupid.  So, I do what any paranoid person does: I look at something with no intention of buying.  However, I'm sure that my ruse was easily detected when one of the salespeople came over to talk to me:

Them:  Can I help you find anything?
Me: No.  I'm just browsing.

And that's how you know it's a lie.  Men don't "just browse" in a store when there isn't some major gift-giving holiday approaching.  Any male entrance into a store is for a specific item, or a specific type of item.  Mine was a shirt.  My lie is so I can leave the store with some dignity, instead of at a full run, while screaming, and clutching my wallet in fear that the money will be sucked out.

Black 6, out

It's almost kind of sad, but lately my life pretty much revolves around payday.  It's almost the only thing that I think about.  I get paid every 2 weeks, and on pay day, I wake up and find money in my bank account.  I go through the week in a pretty normal manner, until the following Sunday, when I begin a mental countdown of getting paid.  The anticipation builds over the final weekend, until Monday morning, when the cycle starts over again.

Maybe it's my heavy use of Microsoft Money.  It's a lazy way of balancing my checkbooks and accounting information, while at the same time, I have a complete forecast of what my finances will look live over the next couple of months.  Almost all of my bills are on auto-pilot, and their easily scheduled frequency means that there are very few monetary surprises.  Only an unexpected expense that revolves around my vehicle, or the occasional trip actually throws off the rhythm, and even that is forgotten after a month or less, if I even care about it at all.

It's very odd to have nothing to look forward to except the paying of bills, and methods of saving cash.  Thoughts of how I can divert money so that it becomes hard for me to spend, and how much I can divert so that I don't waste anything by buying stuff that I don't really need.  It's almost sad from the standpoint that it is seemingly materialistic when there are much more important things in life and the world to care about.  The thing is, I barely think about those thing.  Just the bank accounts.

Maybe it's not even that I am actually required to do something about the accounts.  I really just look at charts and plan.  I guess I do think about deeper things, but I really have no control over those things, so I'm more apt to just let them occur.  Meanwhile, i have deity-like control over my funds.  Oh well.

Black6, out.

Shopping for a place to live is a pain in the neck when you live nowhere near the place that you are moving to.  I mean, online searching is great, but you really can't walk into a place sight unseen.  It's one thing to have teh floor plan, and another to realize that you have no idea what 22 feet looks like.

Furthermore, pictures don't always do justice.  For example, I was looking at a place where the apartment looked nice, and the picture of the front of the building seemed good, too.  Then my mom mentioned that the area wasn't that great.  Thank goodness for Google Maps street view.  It took me about 5 seconds to realize that it wouldn't be that great.  Saved me a train ride.

Apparently, it's a buyers market, which seems great.  However, I'll be moving back to NYC, which means that even a low price means getting bent over the table.  When I mention a 2-bedroom co-op apartment for $220,000+ to people in New York, they say it's a good deal.  Mention that price for a place in a normal state and you'd be out of your mind.  Heck, that's not even Manhattan, where an apartment will run over $500K.

Basically, when this started, I was looking at places to rent.  When I saw that rent would run from $1,800 to $2,800 a month, I figured that if I were going to pump money into a place, I might as well be able to get something back at the end of it all, should I have to move.  That's where buying comes in.

Now, I just have to find somewhere where I am willing to live, as well as figuring out how that will affect my commute.  No reason to be stuck in traffic for an hour each way.

~Black 6, out.

I'm sure that everyone loses pens.  Lots of pens at that.  You either drop them, or you hand it to someone to write something down and they put it in their pocket.  I mean, some pens just stop working, but i don't worry about those.

Anyway, I have a Pilot G-2 .07 pen that I have been using for the past couple of months.  Amazingly, it is almost out of ink.  Although this seems mundane, it's probably the first pen ever that I have done this with.  It's almost become a small pet project to protect this pen until it's eventual death, which I estimate to be within the next week.  I may just start writing more things down, in some sort of euthanasia for the pen.  

This pen has cause me to think more about the stuff that I own, and most importantly about reducing the amount of waste.  It seems to be another section of my desire to be thrifty, since by not wasting anything, I will spend less money replacing things.

On a similar note, since I'm getting ready to move (again) getting rid of stuff is a great idea.  I just have about 3 weeks to do it, so that shouldn't be too hard, but we'll see.

Black 6, out.

My current (temporary) living situation has me sharing a bathroom with a couple of people.  Three others to be exact, split between two rooms.  There is one toilet, two sinks, and one shower.  Occasionally, this will cause a minor inconvenience, such as timing of showers, or the fact that the toilet has a tank that does not fill up quickly enough to allow two people to pee in rapid succession.  Often, the yell of "Don't flush," is made to speed the process.

However, one thing still poses an issue: the toilet paper.  I swear that for the first month and a half, my roommate and I were the only ones that changed the roll, or got additional rolls for the room.  at some point, I think we both began to silently boycott doing this.  Amazingly, rolls continue to show up in the room.  However, there always seems to be an empty cardboard tube on the toilet paper roller.

It seems that way, because there always is.  Apparently, we are all so lazy that we will not remove the cardboard tube.  Instead, we take the new roll, and set it on top of teh holder with the empty tube.  If that runs out, someone will eventually throw that tube out, but there have been times where there was an empty tube on the roll, an empty tube on top of that, and then a full roll next to that.

Black6, out.