Waiting For The Burn

I wanted to share with you an experience I had in the shower last week.  Don’t worry, I will keep it PG (or maybe PG-13 depending if you mean 1990’s PG or 2014 PG criteria).

I shower in the mornings.  I feel I need to share this with you so that you understand that the event that I am about to describe occurred when I was less than 100% awake and probably only after one cup of coffee.

There is a scene in the original, 1950 version of the movie Cheaper By The Dozen (IMDB link) whereby the father (a motion studies expert) describes the fastest way to bathe.  I have a similar process for showering that I have worked on and I can normally get in and out of the shower in less than 5 minutes.  I move from one part of my body to another rather quickly and have a certain progression that goes something like this…

1. Get body wet, including hair
2. Put conditioner in hair*
3. Lather up face soap and wash face, neck and behind the ears
4. Rinse off face
5. Lather up bar soap and wash armpits, nether regions** and then feet
6. Rinse off hair and body

* I only wash my hair on Fridays so there is a different process for that day of the week
** Hopefully this is PG enough for you as I will refer to this region later on in this blog

This is my current process but a key point to this story is that step 3 used to involve using the same bar soap that I used on the rest of my body in step 5…that is until my wife brought home this bar of this soap.

Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Bar Soap
https://www.drbronner.com/DBMS/BARSOAP/OBPE05.html

Initially I was excited about having some new soap as the last bar had reached what I will call “sliver” status.  It was only a bar of soap by the loosest of definitions.  What was remaining from this bar did not even have enough volume to attempt to use the Vulcan Soap Meld that we all have done from time to time when moving to a new bar of soap from an old one.  The new bar was nice and rectangular with sharper edges and it even smelled very nice (since it contained peppermint).  The peppermint, however, was ultimately my undoing.

I got into the shower with this new bar of soap and reached step 3 fast enough and had moved on to step 5.  I would estimate the start of step 3 to the start of step 5 takes about 1 minute.  As I reached the end of step 5 however, despite having rinsed off my face in step 4, my face began to tingle.  The tingle turned into another sensation (that I cannot quite find a word to describe).  It was then that I began to think that something was not right.  That nameless, second feeling then turned into a burn.

I tried, quickly, to rinse my face again but that did not help.  It was then that I began doing some math.  The tingle / burn happened about 60 seconds after I had initially washed my face.  I lost about 10 seconds testing if a re-rinsing would help so that meant that in about 50 seconds or so my nether regions would also be experiencing this same sensation.  I also resigned myself to the fact that I was powerless to stop it since rinsing the soap off appeared to have no effect.

At the same time i both wanted those 50 seconds to pass quickly and for them to pass slowly.  The only way I can compare this is to the feeling when you stub your toe and there is a brief moment when you are not feeling much pain but you know a wave of greater pain is coming.  For toe-stubbing, the “waiting for the pain” to “feeling pain” usually only takes a second or two.  In my case I almost had a minute to think about what was to come.  It felt like longer than 50 seconds though.

In the end I got through it and despite what you would think I am still using this soap for parts of my body other than my face.  With rearranging my wash / rinse process to happen for each area of my body, the pain is almost non-existent and only the tingling sensation occurs and, other than the most nether of my nether regions, it is a benign to slightly enjoyable experience.

Jon

Let’s Try This Again

Faithful reader, you may recall my failed Motivation Project from around this time last year.  It ended up in me Abandoning the Project.  I did make some progress over the summer and did get down to just under 190 lbs. however another 9 lbs. has somehow snuck back on to my personage.  I have successfully lost this same weight in previous years (check out the Outsourcing My Body blog series from early 2012).  I had an idea over the weekend and I sent the following email to my children…

===BEGIN EMAIL===

Subject: New Project (and a way for you to make some money)
Body:
Children,
    I, your father, have gained some the weight back I have lost over the summer and now am needing your help (and I will pay you for it).
    Here is my plan: I currently weigh 199 pounds (I weighed myself this morning).  I have a goal of getting down to 180 pounds and a "stretch goal" of getting down to 175 pounds.  A stretch goal is an extra goal that you make in case you make your original goal and still want to continue.  It is a word we use at work here at HP.
    Anyway, I will make a few, smaller goals and I will reward YOU, my children, when I hit those goals.  The rewards will increase as I lose more weight and they will be as follows...

Weight Reached	Cash Reward
195	$ 6
190	$ 14
185	$ 20
180	$ 26
175	$ 34

    So, as I reach each goal (195 pounds, 190 pounds, etc.) you will received the Cash Reward to SPLIT between yourselves.  For example, if I reach 195 pounds then you will each receive $3 (so $6 total reward).  When I reach 190 pounds, you will each get $7 (so $14 total reward) and so on.  If you add up all the rewards, it equals $100 (so $50 each).  This money will sit, unused, until I reach each goal.  I have the money with me as I write this email.  I will not give up / quit and spend it on something else.  Whatever is left of this $100 after 6 months (so May 3rd of 2015) I will put in the offering plate at church.
    Now, your job is to help me lose weight.  You can be creative but here are a few ideas that I have...

1. Encourage me.  I need you to be POSITIVE since calling me things like Fat Old Man or Lazy No Good Cheap Father will not help.
2. Exercise with me.  Get up early and take a walk (or run) with me.  Maybe we do the 200 Sit Up or 100 Push Up challenge together.  Maybe you force me to walk a dog (while you walk another dog alongside me) in the evenings.
3. Don't tempt me.  Don't ask to eat out so often or make ice cream runs or ask for candy or other high calorie, no nutrition things around the house (I am tempted to eat what is in the house).  I am not saying we cannot do these things, but it will delay you getting your cash reward or cause you to lose it in the church offering bag.
4. Be creative.  What else can you think of?  Maybe you set goals for me for steps per day (Son, I will need my pedometer back).

    Let me know if you have any questions.  We start tomorrow (or tonight if you like)!
Dad

===END EMAIL===

    So there you have it.  In 6 months I will be $100 poorer, one way or another, and I may or may not have lost all of the weight and hit my goal.  I will keep you posted.
Jon

Why Do You Want To Join Our Team?

Let me start with a statement that I almost find hard to believe: I have not paid for a haircut in about 5 years.  This is a true statement in the sense that I have not paid any money to an individual to cut my hair (Great Clips, etc.).  I have simply either let my hair grow (sometimes for a year at a time) or shaved it using clippers that I had purchased in the past (here is the first self haircut blog).  I suppose you could make a point that I paid for the clippers but I paid for them over 5 years ago.  Now, the wife did buy a better set to use on the dogs and I have used that set from time to time.  No matter.

Recently I have cut my hair shorter and shorter.  I went from a “4” (1/2”) blade guard to a “3” and worked my way down to a “1” (1/8”).  The “1” was a bit short for my taste and eventually the “1” broke so I simply used a “2” on my hair once a month.  A few weeks ago though I went with a “0” (no blade guard at all).  Now, that is a bit of a stretch as the Wahl trimmer that I use does have a built in guard and it has 2 heights.  I started with the longest height (definitely shorter than a “1”).  Then I began to think about the next step.

I talked with several guys that I work with who happen to cut their hair very short or even shave their head.  I would stop by their cubicle and ask if they had a moment for a non work related question.  The first person I spoke to used a trimmer with a built in guard on the lowest setting.  I was curious as to how much work it was going to be to keep my hair looking OK. Once a month had been my norm but he indicated that he needed to trim his hair every 4 days or so otherwise it began to look bad (some hairs do grow at different speeds I guess).  I thought about this for a few days and then put the guard at its lowest setting and cut my hair as short as it had ever been (I think I had hair when I was born so to the best of my knowledge, this is a true statement).

For the next few days my head felt strange.  The wind felt very different and I found myself stroking my head all over uncontrollably.  I got used to it though.  I then stopped by the cubicle of a co-worker who began shaving his head sometime in the past few years.  I asked about the time commitment and he indicated that he shaved his whole head every day and it took 8 to 10 minutes (including beard) per day.  I asked how much he spend in razors and he did not have an exact number but did admit that he did consider that but no matter what he spent, it was still cheaper than paying someone else to do it.  After that talk, I began to consider shaving my head, if only once, just to see what it felt and looked like.  But there was another piece of information that both co-workers shared with me.

As I spoke with each person, they had this subtle look and even attitude (probably not the correct word) as they were giving me advice.  You see, both of these people decided to cut their hair very short only after they started losing their hair.  They arrived at this hair style as a “least worst” solution given their limited choices.  As they would each talk to me I would notice them look at the top of my head and my obviously dense, thick hair up there.  It was as if they were confused as to why I would consider their hair style when I had other options.  They were asking me, “Why do you want to join our team when you can be on the other team?”  They each seem to suggest that, if given the choice, they would not have the haircut that they had chosen but would rather have longer hair if they had a head of hair like mine.  If they were in my shoes, they would not play on their team.

I was sharing this thought with another co-worker (a younger one with more hair).  He did seem to understand and after I showed him a picture of me from 2006, he suggested I let my hair grow a few months, maybe even until Christmas, and then actually pay for a haircut and come back to the team that not only has hair but also pays for its upkeep.

I am not sure what I am going to do really.  I did decide against shaving my head (even once, just to see what it looked and felt like) but I am not sure about just letting it grown months on end.  It is very short right now (maybe 1/8”) so it will take some time to get it long enough that it even needs to be brushed or combed (probably 6 weeks).  I will have to keep you posted.

Jon

Venti, Dark, Room

Well another month has passed with no blog entry from me.  Apologies.

A few months back my company ran a “Wellness Challenge”.  They do this every year and I usually participate.  You can set up teams, measure your health (via weight lost, minutes exercised or steps walked), and earn points that can be spent on prizes.  This year they really focused on steps walked though so I put on my pedometer each morning and really tried to take as many steps as possible.

I would find longer routes to do various routines.  I even went to an upstairs bathroom via a route that netted me about 500 extra steps round trip.  I began walking more at home at night (which the dogs much enjoyed).  I even changed how I got coffee.

The free coffee that is almost undrinkable is only 70 steps away from my cubicle.  The coffee in the cafeteria downstairs is 250 steps (give or take depending if I walk down or ride down the escalator).  They serve Starbucks brand coffee and when I want coffee, that is where I normally go.  However, in my effort to increase my steps I began to walk to the nearest Starbucks which is just over 1/2 mile away.  The route I took to get coffee was now almost 2,000 steps so I would walk it most days (weather permitting).  I even got a co-worker to join me a time or two.  A few times early on I even walked a bit further to the Dunkin Donuts (but their coffee is not to my liking).

The Wellness Challenge lasted (8) weeks so I made 30+ trips to Starbucks.  I still make the trip most days even though the challenge has been over for a few weeks.  Other than trying iced coffee a time or two, my order was always the same, a venti coffee.  I have not visited Starbucks that much in my life and when I do it is usually with the wife.  I normally let her order for me.  As with ordering at restaurants, I let her order 2 things that sounded good to her, let her try each, and then have whichever one she liked least.  So, I have not developed a feel for the Starbucks language skills needed to place an order like all the normal patrons do.

I stood in line the first few weeks feeling like a foreigner in a foreign land while those in front me of me in line let their very complicated sounding orders roll off their tongues while the cashiers reacted with effortlessness jotting of the key words or symbols on the sides of cups (“Triple, Venti, Half Sweet, Non-Fat, Caramel Macchiato” anyone?).  Sometimes the cashier would ask to confirm an order first before the person could even speak.  I assume these people were regulars and ordered the same thing each time.

I quickly wanted to be one of these people.  I wondered how many days or weeks of coming in and ordering the same thing would net me a place among these people.  I was hoping for that “Norm!” feeling like on the TV show “Cheers”.

At first, I just ordered a “Venti Coffee”.  Sometimes the person would ask me what kind of coffee I wanted.  They offered (3) blends each day and when asked I would just indicate that I wanted the darkest roast.  After a while I started ordering a “Venti Dark Coffee”.  I also noticed that most times they would ask if I wanted room for cream (I did).  Occasionally though they would not ask this so I changed my order to  “Venti, Dark Coffee with Room for Cream”.  Once I got my order perfectly worded (and even a bit complicated sounding) I ordered it this way every day, day in and day out for (4) weeks.

I am still waiting for anyone to remember me and my order.  I began to get frustrated about not getting recognized in this way.  I began to formulate hypothesis about why I was not being remembered.  Maybe I needed to order a drink that required some preparation?  My drink was too easy perhaps?  After all, it was just coffee.  They did not even need to write my name down and then yell it out when it was finished.  Maybe that was it, maybe they needed to know my name!  Maybe I need to find something else to order that required some assembly (“Venti Iced Skinny Hazelnut Macchiato, Sugar-Free Syrup, Extra Shot, Light Ice, No Whip” perhaps?).

I think I will continue my morning walks but I think I will stop visiting Starbucks.  It will save me $2.54 per day (the price did go up $0.09 during my visits).  The same thing is only $2.09 downstairs in the cafeteria.  They don’t remember me there either (and I can avoid the Pizza Nazi).  The wife is suggesting we cut back on our caffeine anyway.  I wonder if they will even miss me?

Jon

Ten Thousand Miles

The odometer in the Fiat just passed 10,000 miles so I thought I would take some time to show you the anal-retentive way I keep track of my mileage since Day 1.  First a little background.

When I rolled off the lot in my Fiat 500 it had 73 miles on it.  It was given to me with a full tank so for the purpose of this exercise we can consider 73 = 0 in counting the miles I have driven.  Here is the first chart I would like to share showing mpg for each the 33 tanks of gas that I have used…

The Fiat 500 was listed as 34 mpg in town and 40 mpg on the highway.  Most my driving is in town so I was a bit disappointed with the initial mpg that I was getting.  I was hoping things would improve as the car was broken in and the trend line would indicate that it is. I have hit 35 mpg on 3 occasions.

Almost as important to me is the cost per mile which can be seen below for each tank…

This is a bit deceptive since not only mileage affects this but also the price per gallon…

So, as my miles / gallon increase, unfortunately so has the price / gallon.  This does allows for a steady price / mile cost though.

Some other information that may only be important to me is the cost per day.  I have spend $1,016 so far on gas over 289 days for a price / day of $3.52.  My car payment originally was $8.83 per day (I have since then moved my loan to my credit union for a lower interest rate and shorter term making it $9.70 per day now).  I will not bore you (further) with my insurance costs.  I have only had the maintenance costs of an oil change and that sums up my costs.  I am on pace to drive 12,700 miles for the first 12 months though that will go up as the son and I are heading to Indiana with a brief stop in Tennessee on the way.  That should add close to 2,000 miles.

If you want a copy of my super duper spreadsheet that allows me to track all these things just leave me a comment.

Jon

The Listening Project–Supplemental Blog 11

So I picked up a few CDs recently from GoHastings.  I went way over my average $1 of spend per CD (probably averaged $4 each with shipping) but I was rewarding myself for finally starting to lose some weight.  I have been walking quite a bit and I needed some new tunes for my mp3 player to motivate me.

#	Artist	Album	Date Listened	Again?
1190	Chevelle	Sci-Fi Crimes	3/28/2014	Yes
1191	Chevelle	Vena Sera	3/31/2014	Yes
1192	Megadeth	Youthanasia	4/10/2014	Yes
1193	Megadeth	Risk	4/11/2014	Yes
1194	Megadeth	The World Needs a Hero	4/14/2014	Yes
1195	Megadeth	The System Has Failed	5/2/2014	Yes
1196	Megadeth	United Abominations	5/5/2014	Yes
1197	Megadeth	Endgame	5/6/2014	Yes
1198	Megadeth	TH1RT3EN	5/7/2014	Yes
1199	Megadeth	Super Collider	5/9/2014	Yes
1200	Pillar	For The Love Of The Game	5/19/2014	Yes
1201	Randy Stonehill	Paradise Sky	5/20/2014	Yes
1202	Stone Temple Pilots	Tiny Music…	5/21/2014	Yes
1203	Yes	90125	6/9/2014	Yes

• Chevelle “Sci-Fi Crimes” & “Vena Sera”:  Don’t you hate it when bands change their sound from album to album?  Well, with Chevelle you don’t have that problem.
• Megadeth (all CDs above): I probably should not have bought all of these at the same time but rather just a few at a time over a period of months.  Being angry and singing / screaming about it seems more believable from a 25 year old Dave Mustaine than a 45 year old Dave Mustaine.   All in all though I like all of these CDs.  I am only missing their first 2 releases to have their complete catalog of studio releases.  I did not care much for their sound before their 4th album anyway so I have all that I want.
• Randy Stonehill “Paradise Sky”: I was very shocked to find this on the $1 rack at Half Priced Books but there it was.  This is Randy re-recording stuff from this first few releases (circa 1970 through 1981).  The front cover of the CD says “Official Soundtrack to the movie FALLEN ANGEL” which I have never heard of but appears to be a documentary about Larry Norman (who produced 2 of Randy’s early LPs).  There is a long and possibly sordid tale about a great fallout between Randy and Larry.
• Yes “90125”: Buying this broke a rule for me.  It was a whopping $5 (at Amazon) but I used it as a filler item in my cart to get to the limit of free shipping.  This is the deluxe re-issue that contains my favorite version of “Leave It” (the a cappella
  version).

So I shot past 1200 CDs without blinking.  I will admit also to ordering (3) LPs recently but this blog is specific to CDs so I will likely not blog about them.  The LPs (from Bourgeios Tagg and The Call) were never released on CD that I could find.

Jon

Pizza Nazi

11 weeks between blog posts!  What has become of me?  I did want to take virtual pen to virtual paper though on a situation that did take place in the recent past.

We need to go back in time a bit, like maybe 7 years.  As most of you faithful readers know, I moved to Texas in 2006 and then back to Indiana in 2009 and then back to Texas again in 2011.  While in Texas the first time, I came into my company’s headquarters office to work.  The office is quite large and could hold 10,000 employees if needed I imagine.  I really have no idea how many people work here though.  Anyway, in my first stint in Texas, I frequented the cafeteria for lunch quite often.

Despite having plenty of choices like made to order hamburgers, fresh pasta, deli sandwiches, sushi, salad, etc., I rotated between the taco / burrito and pizza sections with the pizza place being my preference.  You can get a loaded, 10” personal pizza for less then $5 and single topping or cheese only pizzas were closer to $4.  I would normally get my pizza “to go" so it was put in a small, cardboard pizza box which I carried over to the check out lines to pay for it.  This is where I first met the Pizza Nazi.

This name is a little cruel but her demeanor is so much like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld that I could not help calling her that.  There were 3 lines with 3 cashiers but she was the only one who would make you open your pizza box to make sure you were not lying about your toppings.  I don’t know why this bothered my so much but I think it was because I felt like she assumed I was lying.  The way she asked you to open your box (with a non believable “please”) just did not set right with me.

It was the way she asked, the words she would emphasize, the pauses she would insert that drove home this feeling of being wrongly accused.  I cannot explain this very well with text.  You would have to hear her voice to know what I mean.  I would hear that accusatory voice from time to time in a crowd or on the street and it would stop me in my tracks.  Was it just my imagination, or was she watching me?  I tried to avoid her line when I could but sometimes when her line was way shorter than the others, it was just too obvious that I was avoiding her by getting in a longer line.  I would try to figure out if she had a day off and eat in the cafeteria on those days.  Ultimately I moved back to Indiana and left the cafeteria and the Pizza Nazi behind.

When I returned to Texas in 2011, I quickly found a cubicle back in the same office and noticed (almost as quickly) that the Pizza Nazi no longer worked in the downstairs cafeteria.  2012 and most of 2013 came and went and I resumed my pizza eating schedule and the world was great until…

I remember the moment that I realized that she had returned.  I was getting coffee one morning and heard her voice, that voice that had haunted me for those many years.  I cannot explain the daunting feeling that came over me at that moment.  I was disheartened, almost frightened even.  She had returned and my carefree pizza purchases, with only mentioning what was in the box and not having to open the lid, were over.

In her defense, she does seem more pleasant, or at least appears to be attempting to be more pleasant.  But even her “Thank You” and ”Have a Nice Day” seem forced, like she has been told to say those phrases but does not know how to convince the customer that she means it.  Again, text cannot do her speech justice.  I have stopped buying pizza again in the cafeteria but mostly due to calorie watching more than avoiding the Pizza Nazi (though she does play into the overall stoppage).  I do buy coffee in the morning but she never asks me to lift the lid on my coffee cup.  So, other than bearing her forced “Have a nice day!”, it is not too much to tolerate.

Jon

Too Many Choices

All I wanted was some curtains.

So we are in our new house now for about a week and we still do not have many things set up or purchased.  We still have a box or two laying around inside the house (and many more in the garage that need to be sorted and stacked or perhaps tossed) but one thing that is glaringly missing is any kind of window coverings.  This is not from lack of effort on my part.

We have been to so many local stores (not to mention online stores) looking at curtains that they are all beginning to look the same to me.  Our main problem is that the model home here in our community has the perfect curtains but we cannot find anyone who sells them (or anything like them).  If you go HERE and look at pictures 2 and 4 you will see what we have in mind for our living room and dining area windows.  We have emailed the rep from the company that built our home.  We have even emailed the lady who works at the design studio where we selected everything for the design of our home but no one seems to know (though the design studio person did think they might be custom made).  The hundreds of other curtains we have looked at that seemed nice are tied for (a distant) second to the curtains in the model home (sigh).

Then there are the choices of area rugs.  While we have spent time looking at rugs (most stores that sell curtains have a rug section conveniently located nearby), the rug choices is being held hostage by the curtain choices.  We did find the rugs from the model home online at Overstock…

 

…and we really liked the green color scheme in that house as well.  Eventually that house will be sold so we do run the risk of having our front room look just like our neighbors should they buy the house and the furniture and leave it as is.  The problem is that this rug only works into our theme if we get those curtains!  If not, we have to start over and there are just too many options out there.  I almost long for the days where you just had a few choices so as to make this process simpler and quicker.

This reminds me of a conversation I had a while back with a friend of mine.  He had, well how do I say this, “been away” for a while and had not been in a grocery store in something like 8 years.  Anyway, I was talking to him about what had changed the most while he was “away” and, without hesitation, he replied that there were many more types of Oreo cookies now.  This seemed like a strange thing to lead off with but I did check it out when I was at my local grocery store and low and behold there were 13 different choices to choose from.  Mind you, our household has pretty much been Oreo-free for the last 8+ years so I was just as amazed as my friend was.  I really would not know where to begin on selecting an Oreo.  Unlike curtains and rugs however, I can afford to buy them all.

I will let you know how the curtain hunt progresses.  Maybe I can just go with black and white stripes in honor of the Oreo cookie.

Jon

The Listening Project–Supplemental Blog 10

According to my records, I have bought exactly 1 CD in the past 200 days.  That seems incredible to me so I began to ask myself why, all of a sudden, I stopped having the need to purchase new (to me) music.  I came up with a few reasons.

• Job Change at Work: I changed jobs in June of 2013 and the work I do during this new role is not one that allows me to listen to music while I work.  I plowed through a lot of the almost 1200 CDs while at work (before I took this new job).
• I bought a Fiat: That Fiat came with a free year of Sirius XM and my CD collection cannot compete with the 80’s on 8 channel.
• The Motivation Project: For a brief period there, I swore off new music.

But, I did buy 1 CD in November…

#	Artist	Album	Date Listened	Again?
1189	Stryper	No More Hell To Pay	11/22/2013	Yes

• Stryper “No More Hell To Pay”: This is their best album of new stuff since their getting back together.  I put this in the Fiat’s CD player and listened to it to and from work for a whole week.  Michael still has his voice and they obviously can still play guitar.  I just packed up all 1200 CDs in a box in preparation for our big move in 2 weeks but this CD still is in the Fiat’s dash.  I only bought this CD as I had a $10 Best Buy coupon that expired in November.  The Best Buy closest to me closed and Best Buy sent me a $10 gift card to comfort me on this loss.  After tax and shipping, I think I paid just over $5 for the CD.

Jon

An Expensive Month To Move

In case you have not heard, we are building a new home.  Getting the exact date that we would have possession of this new home (and therefore when we could start moving) has been difficult.  We needed it 60 days in advance since our current lease indicates that is the amount of notice that we have to give.  Getting the builder to commit to a date that far in advance was not possible.  In the end we made a guess of Feb 4th and as it turns out we were not that far off as our closing date is scheduled for Feb 7th.  That happens to be a Friday so I confirmed with our landlords that we could push the date back a bit until Feb 10th so as to allow us a few days to move.  Our lease does not stipulate specifically what a partial month payment should be so I simply asked my landlords to provide a number.  Let’s say that I pay $1,000 in rent each month.  That is $12,000 per year.  Dividing by 365 would give us a per day cost of $32.88.  Our rent for 10 days would then be $328.80.  However, February happens to be the month we are moving in so this complicates matters.  What the landlord did (and I do not blame him) was to divide $1,000 by 28 for a per day cost of $35.71 and a 10 day rent total of $357.10 which is $28.30 more.  So, on top of all the other expenses with building / buying a new home and moving, I get this little extra bonus of a fee.

Speaking of painful things involved in this process, dealing with a lender.  My involvement with a lender started about 18 months ago when I asked my bank to look into whether or not I could refinance my Indiana property.  I filled out a form online and a few days later got a very large envelope with about 20 pages (if memory serves) of charts, tables and explanations.  Bottom line: I did not have enough credit history to get a credit score.  We signed up for a credit card from our bank and began charging stuff, not so much for refinancing but in anticipation of buying a home here in Texas after we had sold the home in Indiana.  Previous to that we had not had a credit card at all for a few years.

Fast forward to a few months ago when we had to pick a lender.  The incentives offered from the builder to use their preferred lender made this a no brainer on the surface but I did shop around a bit and the other lenders basically told me that I should use the lender preferred by the builder as they could not match any of their numbers.  Everything was OK until we locked our rate 45 days out and then the request for documentation began.  Most things that were asked for were understandable but 2 of them seemed over the top.

1. A copy of a check from last month that appeared as a deposit in my checking account statement that I provided to them.  I borrowed from my 401k account to help with the down payment and closing costs.  Despite telling my lender about this in advance (like 4 months ago) and despite providing a quarterly statement from my 401k provider that matched the deposit amount, they still wanted a copy of the check.  Now, I did not have the foresight to make a copy of this check and I did point out that IF they KNEW they would need a copy of this check then THEY could have told me when I told them about this check 4 months ago.  In the end, I chased this from both the issuer of the check and with my bank (a credit union actually) and thankfully the credit union came through quickly (with a bonus of only having to pay a $1 fee for this service).
2. Proof that I sold a house from 2006.  This one was a little strange.  I have bought a few houses in my life (4 to be exact) and I have never been asked to prove that I sold some previous house (other than say the one I was selling in order to move into the new house).  They (the lender) claimed that their fraud checking service caught this and as such the wanted me to prove that I had indeed sold this house.  In the end, not even my title company from 2006 could provide this document and the lender decided to take the risk of me lying about selling this house.

This paperwork is not limited to the lender, our home owner’s insurance company asked for a bunch of stuff as well (with the added complexity of switching our car insurance over the them).  Add that to getting down to crunch time with the builder and you can see how one might be overwhelmed.  At times like this I like to think like I do before a dentist visit: in just a little bit this will all be over and you will be in a better place (in this case literally) when this is all said and done.

Jon

A Love Letter To My Roku

I had the day off yesterday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  The kids (and subsequently the wife) did not.  They (the wife and kids) attend an all day Classical Conversationa meeting on Mondays as part of their home schooling.  When I first told the wife that I had the day off, she asked* (asterisk added as you husbands can do the translation) me if I wanted to come along for the day as some of the other dads did from time to time.  I quickly saw my day off diminishing in glory but then I got sick.

The wife and son were sick last week and it was my turn (the daughter has managed to avoid it thus far).  I have blogged in the past about how my wife acts when I am sick and I assure you that her reaction was the same as it always is (you will have to read the linked blog for more details).  At any rate, I had my Monday back again albeit with limited mobility as my body seemed to weaken with even the simplest of tasks (like blowing my nose).  This allowed me to spend the day with my new love, my Roku.  I did not think that something would come along so soon to replace my other recent love, my Raspberry Pi, but it did.

If you are not familiar with the Roku, it is basically a device that can turn your normal, Dumb TV into Smart TV.  Depending on the model of Roku that you buy, you can even connect your very old, very dumb cathode ray tube TV assuming it had RCA jacks.  Fortunately, my TV is not that dumb and with the help of the Roku I can use it to watch Netflix and a host of other online content via other providers (PBS, Smithsonian, Crackle, etc.) and using an app called Plex, I can get to my personal collection of ripped DVDs and CDs.  Plex even connects me to YouTube (should I run out of other things to watch).  Without this app, the Roku might not be as exciting to me so perhaps I should have titled this blog so as to include my love of Plex as well.  I even bought a 2nd Roku for the bedroom and the wife and I are almost through the 10th season of Frazier now (our nighttime ritual involves an episode or 2 before lights out).

So, as I was saying, I got to spend yesterday, all alone with only the couch, a cover, a few dogs and my Roku.  It all reminded me of a Peanuts cartoon that showed Charlie Brown lying in bed and smiling with the text “Happiness is being too sick to go to school but not too sick to watch TV.”  I plowed through a few Nicolas Cage, Denzel Washington and Mel Gibson movies and an episode of Wilfred.  On a side note, an old manager at work was on vacation in Germany last year where he was talking to a fellow tourist on a tour bus.  That tourist was an acting coach from Australia who used to coach the actor who plays Wilfred (a grown up man in a dog costume).  By my count, that is only 4 degrees of separation!  That story is also the only reason I began watching that show.

Anyway, if you have a not so smart TV and you have a Netflix streaming subscription then check out the Roku.  I got one of mine on sale at BestBuy and the other refurbished and on clearance at NewEgg.

Jon

Motivation Project–Abandonment

It comes as no surprise, not even to myself, that my Motivation Project did not work.  It has been so long, more than 4 months, since my last blog with this tag and honestly I don’t know where the wheels fell off exactly.  I know that I made a trip to Indiana for the wife’s 20 year high school reunion somewhere in there and something about being so close to so many local restaurants that served biscuits and gravy got me off the path.  If I had kept it up then I would be on day 152 and would have lost about 13% of my precious CD collection.

I have not abandoned the ultimate project behind this project though.  I still intend to get the weight off and my last blog kind of took off from that point.  I actually had started off again toward the end of December (albeit 15 lbs heavier) and then an ice storm hit rendering walking around the neighborhood quite impossible.  It was quite the event that ultimately cost me my only ice scraper that I still had left from my tenure in Indiana.  We were stuck inside the house for days and it was just enough to convince me to give up (again).

I have had so many false starts that I am tempted to give up.  Recently, the wife and I were re-watching one of the early episodes of the TV show “Til Death” (I will have to blog later of my new love for my Roku).  Some new neighbors had moved in and they were runners.  Seeing them prompted the wife to get back into shape (or at least appear to be a runner).  The husband, upon seeing his wife in jogging clothes, quipped, “What!? No, you said we could be fat. That was our 40th birthday present to each other.”  This is almost how I feel.  Like I want to give myself the present of not caring.  But, I owe it to my future self not to fall into that way of thinking (side note, I would be remiss if I did not make it clear that my wife is not yet 40).

Anyway, where do I go from here?  I thought about NOT writing this blog and then deleting my blog posts around this (now abandoned) project.  Obviously I did not do that.  It can serve as another reminder of how imperfect I am.  At any rate, the point of this blog was to close out this project and admit to the world that this motivation did not work for me.

Jon

A Letter To Myself

Dear Jon,

    At the time of this letter I am 44 years old and I am writing to you, my 65 year old self.  This is probably an easier concept for you to grasp on your side of things than it is for me on this side of 65.  I hope that all is well and that you indeed even exist (meaning that I both survived to be 65 years of age and that I still possess the mental capacity to read).  I hope that your 35 year wedding anniversary was a grand event.  I hope that you are enjoying retirement (please tell me you are retired!) and that you are enjoying your grandchildren.  I hope that this letter finds you still enjoying the house that is being built as I write this letter and I really hope that you are mortgage free.  Now, on to the main point of this letter.

    My son (or I guess more correctly, our son) is 15 years of age at the time of this letter and I have found myself speaking to him more and more about decisions he is now making and how they will affect him when he is 25 years of age.  I have asked him several times specifically, “How would your 25 year old self prefer you spend your time right now?”  Normally this question is asked within the scope of choosing to read a book or play one more game on the X-Box.  Unfortunately he is not thinking very highly of his future self (though he is getting pretty good at shooting people on the X-Box, a skill that I have mentioned repeatedly is NOT something that employers look for either now or likely 10 years down the road).  These conversations got me to thinking about you, my future self.  I do not know exactly why I am writing to you at 65 versus me / us at, say, age 55 but it probably has to do with my association with 65 and retirement.  At my current age, I cannot fathom retirement but 65 seems far enough into the future to have accomplished enough in order to be able to retire.  If you, my 55 year old self (or any other aged self), are reading this letter then keep in mind that this is not meant for you exactly.

    I was recently rereading some blog posts that we wrote the summer before we turned 40.  We seemed determined to get in shape / lose some weight before we hit 40 and if you recall we actually pulled it off.  I smiled as I read those posts and then also felt saddened and even ashamed at what I have let our body revert back to.  In the 5 years that have passed since then, I have returned to my pre 40 year old ways.  I could really use another spring / summer like that year where I had the time and motivation to get back to 180 lbs.  I seemed happy and excited, not just about getting in shape and losing weight but about everything.  It is not that I am not happy now, but I fear that I was happier then.  If I lose that much happiness every 5 years then I fear that you are not going to be a very happy person.  I am wondering what I can do about that.

    I want to start off by apologizing for any health issues that you currently have due to my neglect over the past 5 years.  I don’t exercise enough and I eat poorly.  I am hoping that this letter will spur me on and help me change my ways in a manner that will still be effecting you as you read this letter.  Our wife never stops offering to help us out but our stubbornness for some reason pushes us to do things on our own which more often than not results in nothing getting changed permanently.  On a side note, I can only imagine the daily regimen of pills that she now makes you take.  If I could chart the number of pills taken daily from Day 1 of our marriage up until now and then extrapolate to age 65, well all I can say is that the money you are not spending on that mortgage that I hope you don’t have is probably spent at the vitamin shop.  But I digress…

    As for what I am going to change to ensure your health.  I think it has to be both simple and extreme.  Simple plans have always worked the best and extreme plans have even worked better.  Cutting back on desert never works but cutting out desert altogether seems to have worked in the past.  We tend to like to play the part of the sufferer so forgoing desert, limiting coffee (or probably eliminating it) and daily exercise might fit the bill.  If nothing else, if I start a walking / jogging regimen now, by the time I reach your age you might be able to walk the dozen or so dogs that our wife will have certainly talked us into by then.

    Speaking of our wife, in case you don’t remember, we have an awesome one.  She even bought us a little Fiat 500 a few months ago.  I hope that you have fond memories of that car and the joy it brought us for the many years that it lasted with little or no mechanical issues.  As I mentioned before, we are currently in the final stage of building her a house and she is very excited.  I am not that excited as I am focused too much on the finances (you know how we are).  I am not sure why having a mortgage weighs so heavily on my mind.  I have had them before and I have never been in want and have always been able to pay the bills.  Also, no amount of raises or bonuses in any job that I have ever had has ever made me feel financially secure.  Thinking that more money will somehow change my feelings seems silly now that I think about it given that it has never changed my outlook previously.  I really should enjoy this time in our lives more and I make an effort to do so.  I will do my best to ensure that you have fond memories of your mid 40’s.

    I really hope this letter motivates me to change my habits in a positive way but I suppose you know if it did or not, huh?  I am not sure of a good way to end this letter so I will not attempt to think of one other than…

Best Wishes,

Jon (your former self)

PS: Do you really look like this?
http://www.in20years.com