Business
Friday, May 09, 2008
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Ezra Klein, who also has an interesting post on household debt levels.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Jay: Idol
Jason Castro is finally going home, several weeks after he earned it. Hallelujah!
Inaccurate as they’ve become, I think Dial Idol is spot on, with the contestants in exactly the right order, and for the first time I can recall seeing this year, an unambiguous “red” indicator of who’ll be gone.
David Cook was amazing, and I liked his version of Hungry Like The Wolf. Baba O’Riley made us want to make our first ever iTunes purchase to get the full version.
Achoo-Bot was a bit more human, but still a bot. I never noticed just how much Stand By Me resembled Spanish Harlem. To me he was just adequate, and if he wins I am not sure he’ll sell as they’d like.
Syesha took her late bloom and overacted Proud Mary, of which I dislike the Turner version, while doing okay. What I heard of the other song, the only unfamiliar one of the night, was fine. She played the race card so overtly and shamelessly that she ought to get points off for it, and it’s not necessary with her talent.
To be fair, I hate hate hate Clapton’s I Shot The Sheriff. Never knew it was a cover. I thought Jason was vastly superior, making the song make sense to me. For me, he did not lose the night on the first song, apart from it maybe not being what people expect of an Idol.
Everyone knows Mr. Tambourine Man. Nobody missed his mangling of the words. He couldn’t have done a better job if he was intentionally trying to be voted off the show. Not a top four contender.
I’ve come to a realization about American Idol. Most seasons aren’t that good.
I just happened to start watching partway through season 4, quickly rooting for Bo Bice, while appreciating Carrie Underwood and being happy for her win, despite not being her market. There were WTF contestants outside the top two, but it mostly worked.
Season 5 had a different magic. Taylor Hicks was an absurd winner, though his album was better than he gets credit for. Katharine McPhee was kind of an absurd runner up. The field was loaded with talent, though, so we have Chris Daughtry, Kellie Pickler, and Bucky Covington, all great.
Season 6 was a low talent or potential group, notwithstanding the placement of Melinda, who could sing circles around Archuletta, who is her more successful heir. At least we got the uniqueness of Blake Lewis in second.
This appeared to be a better season, but it also appeared the show was trying to make it so by having planted already pseudo-established talent, to the point of most of the top ten being clear or allegedly handpicked plants. The ways in which the producers and judges play the public to try to get outcomes they prefer, let alone the fact they can throw out votes and do whatever if they really want, has never been more obvious.
Yet it’s kind of boring. Jason’s gotten some of the support he has because he’s so different. Archuletta is boring. Syesha is mostly boring. Chikezie is… oh wait! Amanda is… oh wait! There were predictions of a Cook versus Castro finale just because you’d have it down to the two least boring contestants.
Plant or not, if David Cook wins, I’ll feel like it’s not a total loss. Yet I could wish he doesn’t, so he can escape the machine sooner.
My impressions of the early seasons, having not watched them, are that season 1 had a decent cast but got incredibly lucky with Kelly Clarkson, who made Idol as much as Idol made her. Season 2 had a great cast, but the Clay versus Ruben controversy, which I was aware of even as a non-viewer, lost a lot of people. Again, though, Clay’s success made it look good and paved the way for non-winners to have big careers later. Season 3 may have had some talent, but Fantasia was an absurd winner, despite being who the powers that be wanted. Just my impressions from here. I think it’s telling that my brother said “you still watch that?” in a way that sounded like he’d watched early seasons and gotten jaded, be it by season 2 or season 3.
If most seasons aren’t that good, heck, that means this one could be considered one of the better years, and that may hold even if Achoo-Bot wins. They’ll get their desired Clay McMelinda, while we get to see what Cook, Johns, Chikezie, never thought I’d say it but Carly too, and maybe Amanda produce going forward.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Jay: Much to Say
But if I start typing, I risk the kids coming unglued. In a way it’s gone fine, Deb being at work while I’m with the kids. At least, if doing anything useful - at least in chunks longer than 3 minutes - is not desired. Also, working on the house seems to go over better than working on work, even if that runs the risk of “help” or at least being a human moth magnet.
Henry fell asleep repeatedly over lunch, then refused to nap and revived completely by the time I had him cleaned up. I cleverly put lunch on the table for the girls, so they’d be at the opposite end of the house while I put him to sleep, so instead they followed us into the bedroom. Which didn’t matter, because he was openly amused with my antics, thought I was a funny guy, thinking he’d nap.
In a way this isn’t much different from normal, in that there are stretches of peace, but I never know when I will be interrupted or how long I have at once to write, think, code, design, plan, whatever.
I managed to keep them from letting him get any milk, and so far any juice, so that’s a plus.
The idea is for me to do this and that and piece together a living here, while Deb spends a lot of scheduled shifts out of the house, which also constitutes a mental health break. Any running around or seeing clients in person would work around her schedule or get covered by brief, as-needed babysitting.
However, we also talked about the idea of having someone like my mother come here for extended times even while I am not scheduled to leave, so allow me to get things done, while not having the kids alone for long periods without backup. That’s looking better and better.
Okay, gotta check on them…
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Jay: One-Hundred
Who wants to trip the odometer? Deb’s Neatly Tangled Shop is now at 99 items sold (in under a year - very nice), and this is your opportunity to be the big one-oh-oh. The century buyer. The triple digitizer.
Update:
Yay! 100 Items sold! In well under a year. Go Deb! And, yeah, don’t let the benchmark being reached stop you from buying, even if the shop isn’t as well stocked as it was. She’s working on it.
Jay: Blargh
I feel lousy this morning. Got enough sleep, even if much of it was in Sadie’s bed because she apparently decided our bed would be better and warmer. Well, “even if” makes her bed sound bad, and actually it’s awesome. I may have gotten deeper sleep there. I noticed Valerie eventually abandoned her bed too, presumably joining the crowd in ours.
I woke up from one of those crazy mashed up dreams. It involved starting a job, and the place or aspects brought in elements of multiple past employers and situations. The place was named Halliday, which is one job. The lobby was right out of Corporate Software, which later became Stream. I was supposed to start at $8.00 an hour, which happens to be minimum wage in Massachusetts currently. I speculated they might start at slightly higher, which Flatley Company did when I worked at Waterford Village. Minimum wage then was $2.90 and they paid $3.00. Then minimum wage went to $3.10 and they paid… $3.10, which completely destroyed some notions I had.
I was talking with someone, speculating that the company might pay me a little above the minimum. Sure enough, it was going to be $8.02, which somehow morphed into the exact same thing as the $12.02 I started at with Corporate Software. Anyway, even the reference to pay rate is a reference back to prior jobs.
The exterior of the building was some kind of generic cross between places, hard to say one more than another, but there might have been elements of a Christy’s Market, adding another old job.
Later, when I was on the job, there was a scene in an apartment. Apparently apartments were part of what the place did, which goes back to Waterford Village. It was vacant, had been mine, still had some of my stuff in it, and was not going to be rented any time soon. This was like the office I had in Easton, which took me a month extra to move out of after the last official month, with them in no hurry for it. A guy named Matthew showed up in the dream. We once shared an apartment in Greenfield, and I was telling him he might soon want to get his stuff out of this one that he’d left it in with me. He hadn’t even realized I’d moved. Shades of former partners having left stuff in the office in Easton, which had to go to them, be disposed of, be adopted, or be stored.
Confusingly, in a related sequence, I was showing someone how many bookcases I was going to be able to fit, in a ridiculous arrangement, in just the entryway/kitchen area alone. The someone was an amalgamation of a former partner and someone I didn’t work closely with at Stream, but who was similarly brilliant.
Very strange. I also remember thinking that I could crash in the apartment if needed, like if I needed to stay over at work since the place was vacant, I had access to it, and they’d made me welcome to use it, short of actually moving in.
Lots of stuff to do today. Hope I can remember what it is! I have some e-mailing and calling and going and researching and writing and food storing and cleaning and organizing and so forth to be done.
We received a book yesterday that we’d order super cheap from Half.com, a used copy of Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. I need to do more than skim the intro, but it should be interesting. Sadie is beyond ready. She fell asleep last night with a book named “Ted” open, pages down on her chest. She studies and recites books from memory. She knows the letters. She has an idea of some words, like the Q thing she identifies with closing a program (Quit), that made he so excited to learn about how q and u go together.
This morning she spent some time on my lap while I didn’t write and I did an impromptu tiny lesson on m and s, which are the first ones covered in the book. She can point them out on the keyboard (and sound like I’m stupid to ask her) and I had her say the sounds. The actual lessons take about 15 minutes. Not a bad amount of time to devote, once or twice a day. I doubt she’ll need the whole thing or want to be held back to that speed once we’re rolling.
Anyway, I need to go take care of stuff in the kitchen. And post the birthday I didn’t know about before I started this. Sooner or later I’ll have no birthday-free days.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Jay: Thinking Aloud
This is an exercise in helping me figure out what I am going to tackle today, and beyond, and wrap my head around what awaits my attention before I get all scattered.
I probably don’t need to mention the usual dishes to wash or load into dishwasher, of which there are relatively few because I’d caught up. I’ll want to just almost from this post right to the shower, so Deb can do laundry if her back is up to it. Poor back. (Sounds like it’s not.) Going to the store simply is, without option to avoid it. I could go to the bank while I’m out.
I have to take the registry thing to the town hall for an abatement on one of the excise tax bills, and pay the two of them. That needs to precede any visit to the registry, which needs to be preceded by contact with the insurance company. In Texas. Which probably means simply not possible to register car this week, before the gathering Sunday. Annoying. Also annoying that said gathering is at the same time as something else we were invited to first, which worst case I could have gone to with Sadie alone, since she’s the one near Dale in age, and it’s his birthday party.
I have e-mails to answer. Some are going on two weeks old.
We’re expecting my father to swing by late in the day, so I have to plan around that, even for a quick drop off of some stuff. That influences the timing of errands.
Yesterday I discussed a web site update with the former big client, who has realized that my original preference on something was right. I’d proposed to them a month to month flat fee for site maintenance and updates covering most anything short of a complete redo, since it’s not covered under the current support contract they have and I did the original based on their marketing/design person’s plan. They managed to get me to do a one shot update for the monthly rate, which ended up working out to no more than $12 an hour and required a ton of waiting. That’s long paid, but the last tiny bit is still not done, waiting for a photo. Obviously I am not going to make another change, which could involve changing every page, without another modest fee. I suggested an additional change to include and will hear back eventually.
I did site backups across the empire and was going to update WordPress on all the blogs that use it, starting with Dan’s, which I didn’t update last time. I was falling asleep at my desk last night when about to do that, so figured I’d better wait. I’ll want to do those before much time passes, so I don’t feel like I must do the backups over again.
I have some paying work I need to get cracking on, which among other things will require me to get more familiar with RSS. I have dabbled with RSS readers myself, but none have “stuck” and I always revert to reading from links. How 2003 of me! I guess I need a reader I like enough, and then to be careful what I include, or to be able to categorize it well. I could almost see an automated system being useful, so your daily reads would appear every day, keyworded stuff would appear daily even if it’s not a daily read, and a measured amount of “check weekly” and “check monthly” stuff would automatically be included in your daily reading, perhaps varied by day, so if you want to do more reading on the weekend, it can play catch up then.
That probably exists.
I also need to learn all there is to know about measuring RSS feeds subscribed/read for a given site. Heck, I have no idea how many people read us that way.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Perhaps I can fit in some of that project today.
I also need to work with/learn more about Facebook and some of those.
I’m still on the office reorganization, which spills into the kitchen, where I still have stuff on the table that was once in the office. That seems to work okay by pecking away at it, like when I crave physical work and need to get up from the computer.
Shoot, that about covers today, doesn’t it? Not even getting into posts to write, my book/series of posts idea to work on while timely, CotC, the business site needing updating, etc. and so forth.
Well, off to it. Don’t be alarmed it there’s a lack of posts or if I revert to drive-by commentary.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Jay: Getcher Fresh Hot Domains here
There are a bunch of domain renewals coming up, and since we won’t actually want them all, I thought I’d mention them, in case someone would like to snag any of them.
All the bizosphere domains are expiring, and at the time I was cajoled into getting the standard set of four Real Cheap. Which they aren’t so much, on renewal. Frankly, I still love the name and brand enough I’d rather keep them all, but I’d be willing to let go any except bizosphere.com. The others are .biz, .net and .info, with the last being the one that will summarily get dumped regardless.
On the carnival-related front, I have:
carnivalofbusiness.com
carnivalofcapitalists.com
firstcarnival.com
I wouldn’t mind keeping them, but they add up. Oddly, I’m probably most attached to, or consider most valuable, the last one.
For quite a while, the plan for the business to supplement and ultimately replace my work for XTreme Computing centered on the name Geek Practitioners. That was inspired by the commonalities I saw between doctors (general practitioners) and computer service people, especially generalists who might diagnose fully, or know enough to refer you to a specialist. The obvious marketing angles centered around medical themes. To this day the Welcome to Help color scheme derived and mutated from what I had in mind for GP, based on available colors of scrubs.
This is how there came to be a blog at geekpractitioners.net, while geekpractitioners.com is the root domain on hosting that I took over for welcometohelp.com, and use for bizosphere.com and some others. The blog wound up with the name, while the slogan turned into the business name, taking an entirely different approach, which is still evolving.
A bunch of domains I bought that derive from “geek” or “gp” and medical/emergency oriented initials or terms are expiring, by way of explanation of the next ones:
geekemt.com
geekhmo.com (HMO=Home, Mobile, Office)
geekcpr.com
geekfirstaid.com
gphmo.com
I might not ditch them all, depending on coolness and brevity and cost. The last one sounds meaningless, but is short as domain names go.
Heck, I don’t see any more that are due to expire in May and June that I’d part with readily.
One I have that I’m torn about is ellisfamilyband.com, which I snagged because I couldn’t stand it being left available and the band in question only having a MySpace page. What I didn’t realize was they had theellisfamilyband.com, which has the distinction of ignoring the standard rule of shorter is better. Thus my annoyance many years ago when I got bzmoms.com for my sister-in-law and she was annoyed it wasn’t bzmomscrafts.com or bzmomscraftsandmore.com or whatever her preference was. Now you’d grab them all and redirect them as desired, but then it was very expensive. Anyway, it’s sitting there redirecting to the other domain, making absolutely no sense for me to own, but being something that ought to be in the family. By June 18 I’ll have to decide, depending on cost and available funds at the time.
Obviously I’ll renew the business domains, or those used for blogs that do or can make ad revenue that way more than covers the normally modest cost. Under most circumstances, it’s well worth paying to retain a domain so someone else doesn’t own it instead, just in case, to use it later or to have it sitting there, being of value. The “of value” thing appears not to be what it’s cut out to be sometimes, considering the difficulty I’ve had selling the no brainer valuable xtremeware.com domain. Even so…
So there they are. Any interest? The ones I mentioned will either get a reprieve or be abandoned, so I’m going to be interested in parting with them somewhere between free and very cheap.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Jay: Preoccupied
I was working on a post about recent work experiences, but decided I’d cut to a this and that post and save the other for later.
Things got more interesting again with the baby. Henry is apparently allergic to milk. He got into a sippy cup one of the girls had, got a meaningful amount, and where it dribbled down his front, he got contact hives.
So we are up to milk and presumably milk products, with it all the clearer the big incident was cheese-related, bananas, apples, grapes, juice of the above, apparently broccoli, and I could swear I’m forgetting something else. The seems to be able to eat/touch column includes rice, oatmeal, potatoes, chicken, beef, pork, butternut, carrots, and sweet potatoes. We’re reasonably confident about pear. He tasted Valerie’s cranberry strawberry juice today with no obvious or immediate consequences, but hard to say. The girls aren’t going to be easy to train. I got cranberry specifically because we know apple and grape juices are bad, and in case it’s good for Val’s urinary system. At the same time, wanting it so tasty she drinks plenty and stays hydrated.
Good thing he loves rice cakes.
This means Deb is back off dairy again, and I’ll avoid it for cooking anything we’ll all eat. We really need to find margarine that contains no dairy products.
I have so much on my plate, I’m lucky to slip in a post. I had a crazy, way underpaid bit of work Sunday and Monday. I helped someone with a computer speedup and de-infestation yesterday. Apparently I have some big fans at the old stomping grounds. The bit of work yesterday might lead to more. I have some work we’re calling tech-marketing that I need to ramp up and spend some real time on, getting a handle on it. The cool thing is it reminds me of my favorite college class, which was named management seminar, and was a graduate-style case course on strategic management and, by extension, business development. It’s like being handed a case to work on for real. There’s some writing work still pending, which I need to check on, status-wise.
There’s everything being made interesting due to the baby’s medical/diet issues.
There’s an ongoing, fits and starts reorganization and cleanup of the office and the house generally, purging stuff we don’t need, traveling a bit lighter.
There’s the project of thanking all the awesome people who donated to us recently, which is up near the top of the priority list for today.
There’s marketing. It looks increasingly like I may be able to piece together a living from this and that, and may be able to do that and spend a lot of time on the home front, while Deb has the potential of some supplemental outside work. However, the marketing includes of her, on the idea we can both do this and that without more than part time or hit and run outside the house work.
So that’s the stuff I’m working on or concerned with, that may mean a post is slow to appear if it’s somewhat extraneous.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Jay: That Was Fun
Now that I know what I’m doing and the instructions are clarified and the miscommunications have done their worst, I will be going back to the site where I was doing a theoretical 2.08 hours - plus red tape time that easily doubles that - bit of contract work. At 4:00 AM, when people will be there who know the POS system and aren’t required by company policy to turn into pumpkins at a set time.
I figure it should, in fact, only take a couple more hours to do the other 94% of the work. And a little more red tape time. After gas, it’ll be somewhere south of $20 an hour.
While this may be all the experience with the particular source of work that I will ever want, pleasant as the upstream experience has been in large part, I hope I will have made the most for them of a situation that was messed up before I ever accepted the task. Someone went there Thursday and, whatever the reason, never even started the project. Mine was the “please, someone, take this work” that was to save someone’s bacon by getting it done before Monday, and I thought the 4 AM thing covered the manager who needed to leave and couldn’t help had she stayed, getting it actually done without anyone losing their job, and making it possible for me to have someone there who could and would actually do what needed to be done working with me by someone in authority on the site.
There’s just much to be said for the problems generated by a company hiring a vendor hiring a staffing agency hiring a staffing agency hiring a warm body. I should probably get to sleep ASAP, since I got way too little last night. Even tumbling out of bed and driving there will mean being up by 3:30. I’m ready to collapse already.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Jay: Busy Today
In an odd sort of way. It’s so nice, I should probably take the kids outside, but I think Deb may do that for a while to help along my attempt at productivity. At the same time, I’d wanted to try to give Deb some less encumbered time to work toward restocking the shop, which did land office business the last few days. We’ll get there.
I’m writing thank you e-mails to people who donated, as a big priority. We’re still just blown away.
I have a bit of work lined up for tomorrow, late afternoon. The rate is reasonable, as far as a flat rate that makes it worth an estimated 2 hours or so, plus a half hour or so round trip. However, there’s a huge amount of time involved in reading and digesting the red tape to be handled, and the instructions for something unfamiliar, easy as it may be (swapping POS system components). It’s probably closer to 4.5 hours total work. Reading that material is on the agenda, though I relaxed when I became reasonably sure I did not have to call anyone involved until I arrive on the scene.
I have a smaller bit of work at a time to be determined the first three days of the week. It’s pleasing that between them it’s most of a week’s rent, or enough to put the car we all fit in on the road, or whatnot. The smaller bit of work is likely to lead to a little more of the same, when every little bit matters.
I managed today to get back to the guy I’ve been discussing a different sort of work with, involving blogging, social media, and business development types of activities on a tentative, exploratory basis. I’m psyched about the possibilities.
There are some WordPress sites we run that I need to upgrade. One needs a different template, as I suspect that specifically of being a security hole.
Then there are other work-seeking efforts to be done, and so forth. I may be a little scarcer about posting here than otherwise might be the case, though I may put some pictures up, as it’s been a while and there’s an accumulation. Back to work…
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Jay: Interview With Carly (No, Not the Irish Singer from AI)
Sean Hackbarth interviewed Carly Fiorona, with economic policy questions for John McCain. It’s interesting and not all that long, so you might like to check it out. It includes a question from me, which I gave to Sean phrased as:
Maybe ask if he’d do anything to stop the ethanol-from-food madness, encourage waste biomass or alternatives instead.
It is worth noting that, like me, Sean is looking for work. I’ve known him since 2003, when I started blogging. He’s been blogging longer than most of us, and has some cool experience.
Jay: On Today’s Menu
Wow.
I have to run stuff to the post office, as people have been cleaning Deb out. Like 1/3 of the Etsy shop and several items from the book shop, and there was only one order ready to ship before the post office closed yesterday. I’m looking at 7 first class or priority packages, and packing slips for a couple more.
That’s first, because it’s about prompt shipping for which the shops have become known.
Then I need to do thank you e-mails. Lots of thank you e-mails. Sometime in the next day, I figure. We’re just… astonished.
I also need to do my planned “hire us” item on the sidebar, which would have been better done before yesterday’s post went up. I didn’t ask for anyone to link it, and have no idea how the heaviest of hitters knew about it almost as soon as it was posted. So I didn’t expect anywhere near the traffic or response.
I have an American Idol post to write.
Maybe not today, but very soon there will be an edition of CotC. While I may still call it a fundraising edition, and if that catches a few more people who’ve appreciated or are attached to it then great, the impetus now is that so many people donated here and mentioned CotC in conjunction. Plus I’m going to burst if I don’t do something soon with all the links I personally have been accumulating, let alone whatever is in the mailbox I haven’t looked at lately.
It’s a good day to put the resume and/or work solicitations in more places.
I need to look at some information worth knowing in advance of a likely phone screening for the far away support job possibility. No matter how massive your background, it seems there’s always a “really like you to know...” that you don’t, or have not even heard of.
Okay, off I go. Just wanted to fix this stuff in my mind and put forth what’s up, for the curious, as something besides birthdays.
Oh yeah! Need to post about Henry aging a few months yesterday, and how cool that was.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Jay: Crunch Time
This is going to be a different post from the one I started the night before last, with the same title. That one started out on the topic of needing to locate the taxes I’d done, for the partnership and personal federal, and to do the state ones and get them mailed. I since located the partnership ones and mailed them, along with two books from Deb’s book shop. One was an advanced computer book from my collection, so went for $17.50 at about the cheapest price available. For us that’s real money. When it arrives in the twice a month payout. I also rewrote the federal to be neater, and did the state, cursing Romney over RomneyCare. There’s now a form HC, which at 3 pages if you need the whole thing is longer than the main Form 1 at 2 pages. I had the urge to ignore it, but you are supposed to use it to determine your personal exemption. By running too low on money to pay the last $1300 of insurance for Deb and the kids to cover October through December, and failing to apply for subsidized coverage, we paid a penalty of $220 in extra taxes.
Anyway, that’s all done. I have to mail those today.
Looks like the interview last week was a bust, which is fascinating in that it was a temporary gig. Which I suspect they planned to try to get someone permanent out of, and looked accordingly. The interview the week before was obviously a bust as well.
I have a possible something in the works with an internet marketing business. I have someone putting in my resume for a well-paid support job that just happens to be in Lowell, so it’d be on the $25 a day commuting plan. If I can stop worrying about money and the household long enough to chase an income just slightly harder and keep the household, something - even something great - should come pretty fast. It’s probably a matter of keeping the balls in the air a few more weeks.
Trouble is, we’re out of time, and while some awesome people have picked up distress, we haven’t been forthcoming on just where things stand. I’ve threatened to have a fundraising edition of Carnival of the Capitalists, even though I’m too busy trying to raise money to try to raise money. I’ve pointed out the resume, Deb’s Etsy shop and used book shop, and my availability for side work.
I haven’t asked for donations, apart from whatever is implicit in making the PayPal button available. And it feels wrong to do so, much as we get annoyed by unhelpful people who dwell on the fact history ought have been different, rather than acting on (or ignoring) what is. I could say and rue much about how we got here, but that doesn’t keep us from getting evicted.
Then again, I’d rather ask individuals for help than use public assistance paid for with stolen money. Or worse, stolen from the future, given the financing of so much of it through debt, creating a future need for inflation and/or higher taxes. But what do I know. I’m just a crackpot who saw the housing/credit bubble vividly starting years ago.
So yeah. Pretty much asking now, as I prepare to mail the tax returns and then throw ourselves on the mercy of the gas & electric department to avoid having those shut off tomorrow. When I gave them Henry’s birth certificate, which by itself should give us until August 20, they also wanted an income number. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I’d made last year. I would never have guessed it would be low enough for the EIC, or that rent, medical and health insurance technically took 2/3 of it. There was enough in residual, undrawn funds that it carried us a long time in the shutdown of the business (in which mailing the tax returns yesterday is the last major act, though I’ll have stuff to handle for a while).
If blogging is a bit slow, or you see as much on other blogs as here to keep them up enough to justify their value to advertisers, it’ll be because we’re scrambling. The ads, the selling things, the found money, the incredibly generous donations we already received, the Etsy sales - nothing to sneeze at but also in jeopardy because you have to have money for materials and shipping - and the bits of side work here and there only go so far. The fact I tend to stock the pantry as if I’m expecting to ride out the end of civilization - or something like this bad stretch - only helps stretch things so long before real money needs to be spent on groceries and sundries again.
Of course, if we lose power, that’s the end game. What money we do make is online. That would trigger a total meltdown of our situation. I don’t think that should be a problem, but we do have to start paying them Real Soon Now. We’ve been managing to get $250 or $300 a week to the landlord, staying basically half a month to a month or so behind. If we miss a week, game over, barring something like working with us because I just started a job and it’s all going to change. This week we’re sketchy but should manage it. Next week? No idea. I expect to do some small side work early in the week, but not likely enough.
Anyway, if you can hit the donate button, even in small amounts, that would be amazing. Alternatively, use the address deb at neatlytangled dot com for PayPal, as hers doesn’t have a transfer limit (to get it from there to the bank) and is useful that way. If we’ve ever entertained you through blogging, given you helpful advice, or even if you think I’m an idiot but want to keep the kids fed and off the street, perhaps it’s worth something.
Onward! Time to take care of business. Mail tax returns. Deal with utility crisis. Try to shake loose work. Planning to add Deb’s resume to the ones online and put a “hire us” box in the sidebar where “donate” is now, soon as I get a chance. So on. So forth.
Thanks for helping, or even just reading and quietly not saying or doing something unhelpful, no matter what you really think.
Update:
You guys are amazing. Not to replace individual thanks, but holy cow, we’re just blown away.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Jay: Shopping List
Don’t mind me. This is mostly composing aloud of my list of things I need to get at the store, following a quick run to the post office with another sold book. The budget for the grocery run is $25. Diapers should take $6.49 of it, unless I buy them elsewhere and juggle other money toward them, which is possible considering how ideal Market Basket is for buying food itself. I can look at this list here from the store if needed. Hooray for technology!
Besides the errands, I’m still working on the office, and today playing with some web and database code, which may be significantly easier than I had anticipated. Since working on code, be it that as a possible project, creating a portfolio of what I have done, or trying to dredge out stuff I can complete and make available, or fiddle with to learn more, means needing to hook up at least one additional computer and improve the lab environment, the office rearranging project goes hand in hand.
I still haven’t heard back on the contract I interviewed for. I need to e-mail the guy there and others. I did hear from the bank, where my online banking has never worked. Before they escalated it, they had me try it live on the phone to capture a server log of the attempt. It’ll be interesting to see what the problem is. I have to wonder if it’s FiOS or my router the FiOS comes through.
Anyway, what do I need to remember?
Meat. Depends what is on sale. We have none, period, and can use chicken and ground beef, for starters. Pork or unground beef are valid options. I could easily buy $50 of meat to restock, before even getting to anything else. With the dairy ban for Deb, we shoot for high fat more than we normally would.
Potatoes
Carrots (best price is there, or I might skip)
Beans, maybe lentils too (almost out of 64 oz bag of pintos, out of all else but split peas)
Frozen veggies (just a few cheap bags to interrupt the drought)
Cheese
Milk (not out, but cheapest place for it)
Pasta
Spaghetti sauce
Possibly some fresh veggies, sweet potatoes, butternut, or fruit depending on prices or sales
Bread
Yeast
Sugar
Maybe coffee creamer
Maybe coffee
Maybe tuna (goal of kids actually eating)
Maybe tomato soup (ditto)
Butter if still low there (ditto - Sadie can tell the difference, eats bread plain rather than with margarine)
I know I’m forgetting something and I’ll remember as soon as I walk out into the kitchen. I hope.
There are things low, like ketchup and rice, that can wait. I can do scratch rather than needing Bisquick.
Vegetable oil (using a lot where I’d put butter or margarine in pan to fry stuff, avoiding dairy)
Honey
Peanut butter, if they have a good price
Oatmeal, ditto
That may actually be it. It’s just that the innocent entries for meats and veggies could easily overwhelm the whole thing. Then if there’s a must have sale, that adds to it. Since I lost the flier, I should see if it’s online the way most are…
Huh. It appears Demoulas Market Basket supermarkets have no web presence. Weird indeed.
Anyway, off to it before the day slips any further.
Update:
I found the paper flier for this week. They have some nice sales, especially on beef and hamburger. That helps.
The kids are having a trauma over who will go with me…
Friday, April 04, 2008
Jay: Birthday and Many Things
So yesterday was my birthday. And that of a lot of other people, now up to a total of seven on that day in my calendar. That may be the largest number on one day. (Pauses to check, because he’s such a geek, finds that it’s tied with July 28, but no other day has more than five so far.)
It would have pretty much sucked - well, it did - apart from getting a car, and a substantial donation.
My left knee, and to some degree my thigh, have been killing me beyond all reason. It may or may not be connected to gout, which had been quiet recently until today, when I seem to have a minor touch of it in my right foot. Nothing like it was. The knees have bothered me before, over the years, and can be sort of twisted easily, or hurt by kneeling on a hard surface, or standing in place too long (I tend to need to sit, or move around extensively, after sufficiently long food prep, for instance). This has been unusual, and tough to keep away because of the kids and the need for activity that stresses it.
Ironically, sitting in this chair tends to bother it, while taking a walk tends to help it. Stairs? Excruciating, once it’s flared up, bordering on impossible.
That was making me extra cranky. Part of today it was better, but we have kids and stuff. They are pretty much a guarantee I can’t take it easy on the thing, and Valerie managed to add a bit of back to the mix yesterday by doing a backward somersault off my lap and being prevented from landing on her head.
Speaking of Valerie, she needs to learn to tell us when she’s bleeding, rather than being fascinated by the artistic possibilities. Keeping a bandage on would be good, too, once Dr. Dad has ruined her fun.
So yeah, a car. My aunt got this silver/gray 1994 Buick Century with 86k miles on it in 2003 at a good price. She drove it to 174k miles, replaced it yesterday, and brought it to us.
She seriously downplayed its condition and overstated its degree of foibles, I think. It’s beautiful, body looking at least as good as he one on the ill-fated van of the same model year. The foibles are things like a fan blade on the AC being broken, so you have to turn it off and back on strategically. I seldom use AC, even in a vehicle that has it. The trunk apparently can leak some in heavy rain. There can be a little trick to opening the rear doors. There are rear doors! And room for three carseats, of which they left an extra, a spare of my mother’s, in the car. It uses a quart between oil changes, and she keeps it to 65 on the highway. We’d mainly use it on local roads, very limited driving to places we’d need to go together.
The trick now is to be able to afford to register it. That’s a tough one. My aunt is getting the form to declare it a gift and save us the sales tax, so that will help.
I’ve always been particularly fond of my mother’s sister, who is only 17 years older than me, but this is just amazing and a huge surprise.
Anyway, I parked it where we’d been parking the truck, moving the truck up into the main part of the driveway. We’d been using two spots deep in the driveway, then hogging a third, spare spot with the Sentra. That wasn’t considered a favorable spot due to the mulberries, and really neither is at least one of the others.
Today I got home from dropping off a trickle of rent to the landlord, ran into the gal upstairs, and she had moved her car so we could have our other space back, having seen that we got a second car. The very same day, they swapped his truck for something better, very nice. Funny how things synchronize that way.
I was amazed, as I figured we’d lost that spot fair and square. The spot we’d hogged with the old Sentra has a trailer in it now, which works out perfectly. They can be funny sometimes, in their youthfulness, but once again, the people upstairs are great.
What else?
I ended up doing a lot of dishes and cleaning. I took Valerie on errands with me, to the post office, Benny’s, the bank, and Stop & Shop, where her bladder almost made it through the entire lengthy trek. I was threatening to make myself birthday brownies, with a mix on hand, but never did get around to it.
That would have been no fun for Deb. On the off chance stuff bad for the baby translates into breast milk, she’s been off the likely suspects, bringing them back until it’s just eggs and dairy. She ate a single egg, in a sandwich with ham. He got rashy the next day. It’s back off eggs long enough to let him clear up and test it again. It could have been random environmental, or something stray he ate courtesy of the girls. He also tried pear, and while there’s room to wonder, that’s one of the least likely problem foods. I’ll give him more this weekend and see, maybe.
I did splurge on flour tortillas, so we had chicken burritos for supper. That was popular. He’s had seasoned chicken since we started reintroducing stuff, but I cooked a little chicken by itself for Henry, just salt and a little pepper. He loves chicken.
For that I pulled out a tiny frying pan I never use, big enough to fry a single egg, and now I want to use it again and own more like it. It’s stainless steel with a thick copper bottom. Yeah, I needed more oil than I am used to using, because the second I turned on the burner, it seemed, the pan was sizzling hot and the meat wanted to stick to it. But oh, it cooked so nice. I think I’m in love.
And hey, the non-stick pans are starting to lose their mojo. They end up with a spot in the center, where the heat focuses, that the coating loses its ungrip. Once that gets serious, you may as well have a traditional pan. The really bad one is Deb’s deep frying pan with a glass cover, which gets used constantly. I wouldn’t mind having more than one of those, including a larger version, if I were outfitting the kitchen more completely.
What else?
Today was better. Overnight was weird, in that I was up most of the night, but during that time the knee was better, after a couple hours of sleep. The very best thing for it is to lay down a certain way on the bed. I can coddle it some laying on, say, the floor, but the bed is better, and then sleeping while it rests is better still. It got worse again as the day progressed, but it does that. While it may be nauseating at times today, last night I experienced a revelation of understanding how someone can pass out in response to pain.
Ibuprofen is shooting up the “must buy some” list.
I have an interview Tuesday in Needham. That’s a Good Thing. Same former colleague who landed me the main interview Monday got me another, but this time it’s his own employer, for a 2 - 3 month contract supporting a new software rollout. Beyond that there hasn’t been much activity, besides a ton of additions in LinkedIn and correspondence stemming from that, including with my last manager from VB support, who was awesome.
I did up the root of elhide.com to be a resume links and simple supporting text page, to give it the shortest possible URL without setting up a new domain. Plus elhide.com is more memorable than, say, gphmo.com. Which stems from when I was going to setup a new business as “Geek Practitioners.” The HMO in this case, besides a play on the medical theme, stood for “home, mobile, office.”
Still have to do a blogging-oriented resume. Still have to retrofit the blogs with “hire me” sidebar sections prominent. Still working on the odds and ends side work, but that’s going a little slower than expected.
Anyway, off to bed, I guess. Wanted to do a post for the day and talk about the birthday and the car and such. Got delayed and now it’s after midnight, but oh well.
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