How would I spend $1,000?

Why would I spend it? When I was a kid and someone like my aunt gave me $20 on an occasion, she's ask, "What are you going to do with the money?". I was confused by the question, even then. What "do"? I'd likely put the money in the bank to keep/have or use as needed for living. When financial security is a goal, that goal means having money. To me, it seems that some people are allergic to money and think money is to spend ASAP. My goal is to use/spend 50% or less of what comes in.

$1,000 is not a lot of money. It's less than purchasing health insurance for this household for one month, which we don't do and would be crazy to do. It is about the cost of rent, utilities, internet, cable and phones for a month.

If our needs were covered and we wanted some gadget, we'd consider about $300 of it spendable.

Big Trouble Ahead

Is our children learning?

October

This is my favorite month. It's 61° right now, and although it's just a preview because summer isn't completely over yet, I'm enjoying it immensely.

Aldo and I were talking last night about flu shots, which will likely be dispensed free to employees at his workplace. We don't take them, as we don't like the odds we see of getting sick with something soon after taking them. This year we're going to take extra vitamin C beginning when the flu shots are taken, and for about a month. It usually takes a week or two before people start falling, and they get some mighty bad bugs. Those who are able end up going to the doctor, and the medical system profits greatly from those shots that so many are convinced are a good thing. I've seen on the news that people can even get drive-by flu shots, and the lines are long with many senior citizens waiting. It seems odd that some people will argue for getting the shots, because it is science after all, yet they ignore what they may experience and see with their own eyes. Some god that science is.

This week, our neighbor kids' grandpa, who is in his late 50s-ish, had to have quintuple bypass surgery. Then Aldo's dad called yesterday to let us know that Aldo's sister had to have another stent inserted last week. She used to have insurance through her employer, but the premiums were doubled, so she discontinued it. Fortunately, she was able to get the care she needed anyway.

I got a dremel for filing Lulu's nails, and it is much better than trying to cut black toenails. It is great not to risk cutting into the quick and making her bleed. I have to bribe her with FreshPet Select Slice 'n Serve, but at least we get it done.

Woodstock 1969

So what if I'm uninspired?

Configuring Hushmail IMAP in Opera

The Opera browser has a built-in mail client, and since Opera is my most-used browser, I've been using it for e-mail and newsfeeds, as well. It has IMAP support, and Opera Mail supports both TLS and SSL. I've been using FastMail for years, and it is an excellent service. Another e-mail provider, Hushmail, offers encrypted e-mail, and gives configuration information for Outlook and Thunderbird, but not Opera. This setup worked for me -


Another thing to make note of is that your passphrase for logging into the Hushmail website is not the same as your password to access mail through a client. Hushmail randomly generates a password for access through a client, and you can find it by logging into the Hushmail website and scrolling through your Preferences.

The Pill alters attractions

Interesting scientific results suggest that women make different choices when taking The Pill. Science asserts that women naturally make genetically complimentary choices as far as their specific attractions, but the attractions change to sameness when using birth control pills.

People, I've changed my mind about Paris Hilton

This is a must-see. I think I will campaign for her now.

Telemarketers reach a new low

I am on the Do Not Call list. This list applies to telemarketers who are selling a product, but charity solicitors and political callers are exempt, and they love to point that out. I have no use for any of them, and in fact will avoid any product, company, charity or candidate that a solicitor tries to sell me via telephone, whenever possible – which is most of the time.

Today a caller asked for me by name, and I told him I would like his company’s name and address. He claimed to be from “Health Solutions”, said that it was an online pharmacy, and gave me a phone number. As it is my lucky day, the guy hung up on me after giving me the info. I could not find Health Solutions online pharmacy by googling, but I googled the phone number, and it did not belong to any such “company”! The phone number was for Unbridled Books, which looks like a very nice, reputable site.

Sadly, I can't report the call without having valid information about the caller, and I don't currently have Caller ID on the phone that he called. Even if I did, many times these disreputable callers come up on the display as "Unavailable". There is nothing valid about any telemarketer or telephone solicitor.

To end this on a positive note, I recommend entertaining yourself by taking a look at these sites:

Kill the Calls

Suing a Telemarketer

Zen and the Art of Small Claims

Water Cleanse

I went and got super nachos for take-out at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, and they were incredibly salty.  I am now drinking bottled spring water to wash out some of that salt.

Beware of dirty websites

Facebook and MySpace users are being targeted by a new worm, which turns infected machines into zombie PCs on a botnet.

This is bad news, though not very surprising, especially in regard to MySpace. I have accounts at both sites, and MySpace is pretty important to me just to be able to stay in touch with family and close friends who are not geographically close.

Blogger custom domain marries the www

When setting up my domain here, I had the problem that the address pebblecottage.info showed a default GoDaddy page that implied an unattended domain.  To arrive here, one had to type the www.  I had checked the box in the Blogger settings for forwarding from the domain to the www, but that alone didn’t work.  It seems that with enough googling, I’ve solved the problem and am sharing it for those who use GoDaddy and are having the same problem.  This assumes you already have your Blogger site working with www.yourdomain.com.

After choosing the redirect option in your Blogger settings, sign in to your GoDaddy account and go to your domain settings.  Select “Total DNS”.  Under CNAMES, you should have an entry for www that points to ghs.google.com.  Once you’ve verified this, go to Domains – Details.  Select “Forwarding”, click to enable forwarding, and use www.yourdomain.com as the forward to address.  Most importantly, choose the “Redirect Type” to “301 Moved Permanently”.  Click OK.

Even that much was not enough to make it work for me.  I had to add another CNAME record, and at this point was worried that I would really screw things up.  I suggest that you remember what you had originally, so that you can revert to those settings if you have to.  My final tweak in the series was to add the CNAME record “.” (without the quotations) and point it to ghs.google.com.  Just as you have the www pointing to ghs.google.com.  Yes, it’s a Dot.  Period.  End of report  

Now your domain and the www have become one, and are entirely equal in the eyes of the internet.

On Budgeting

I don't exactly budget, but intentionally manage money. If one budgeted $50 monthly for clothing, and didn't achieve that spending level during a particular month, it shouldn't be a problem. If there is a problem with surplus money, it may be because the person is not comfortable having money. Money is to spend, they say. It almost seems to me that some people are allergic to money, psychologically. They don't realize that it is essential to have money in order to be prepared for advantageous expenditures.  Advantageous expenditures showed themselves to me today at Long’s.  I went there for some calcium supplements and Kleenex pocket packs, but saw that their store brand of Kleenex (2–ply, 160 count) was on sale for 88¢.  This is a fantastic deal!  Kleenex, like most everything these days, is overpriced.  Thinking I was finished, I headed to checkout, going through the office supply aisle.  I saw some chunky 180 sheet notebooks on sale for 99¢.  The sheets are perforated so that they can be detached easily, and the price is usually $2.49.  I can’t remember ever buying such a thing before.  I don’t buy things if they are not the right price, generally speaking.  I got two of these, and am hoping that they will help me and Aldo to quit enlarging our pile of printing paper notes. 

Saving and having money are essential.  I personally do not like recurring monthly expenses, and I deal with this by 1)  Not using credit, and 2)  Paying for things by the year, rather than by the month – like car insurance.  In that instance, I save 12% annually in interest.  In order to make larger payments, one has to have the money, and that is done by being a chronic saver who is comfortable with having money.  Another thing I don’t like is tax refunds from overpaying taxes.  Getting such a refund means one has done something wrong, namely trusted the government with your money instead of trusting yourself.  We pay taxes, and the goal is to pay as little as possible.  This is difficult to do without having a fixed income.  It’s necessary to estimate what we think we will owe.  I do love things like economic stimulus payments and the additional funds that Barack Obama would like to see distributed.  I don’t believe that such payments will cause us to be exploited later by the government – that may just be a given, and there is no law that says we have to spend that money just because they want us to.  It can be a cushion against what is going to be imposed on us next, anyway.

Health-Care System Fails US Citizens

...and we desperately need a revolution.

I'm Wireless!

Since I couldn’t get my network set up at home, I went to a bakery with WiFi access this morning, and tada!  I was connected .  It was the first time ever I’ve used a laptop for internet access, and it feels like I’m starting over in learning things.  I’ve never used a Linux system before, either, but it does not seem all that different.  What is different is using my fingers instead of a mouse. For some reason, I have been opening Firefox without trying to open anything.  I also got a link in e-mail that was not clickable.  I have plenty of things I need to figure out.  I can’t wait until I get access at home.

Love @ Denny's

Aldo and I met at Denny's years ago, after having seen each other in the restaurant for a few years. He was usually in the bar, and I never went there, because I was with my daughter. We would say hello when he was walking through, but neither of us thought anything in particular about the other. Well, other than I thought his ripped-at-the-knee Levis were damn tight. Then the time came when my daughter was older, and I could go to bars in general and Denny's bar in particular. It was a nice place, not sleazy like some other popular places. We got to know each other there, and with some effort, I even got him to go to my favorite bar for playing pool and darts. That bar turned into a hip-hop place, and Denny's, which even used to have karaoke, now doesn't serve any liquor at all. The bar is closed.

After fighting with my Netgear router for a couple of hours, I decided we should go out to dinner. Aldo isn't much into restaurants, but when I can persuade him, we go for Mexican food or Denny's - more often Mexican food. Tonight we went to Denny's. Whenever we go there, we end up reminiscing and feel like we are dating.

What I am wondering is where all the regulars go nowadays. Denny's is not very busy, but it is one of few coffee-shop type places. We wonder what happened to all the people we used to see most every day.

Interruptions

Aldo's job interrupted us on Wednesday, in that he had to work on that day and the next, when they were his days off. Since we schedule life and my work around his job, I am and will probably remain off-track for a few days. Having said that, I think his job is the best that can be had for us, considering our lifestyle, values, and America's system. The best things about the job are the usual hours, the location and our ability to get life insurance for both of us through it. His work environment is excellent. He works in a resort-like place in food service to senior citizens.

As a result of the scheduling problem, we had little notice that he had to get to work, and I had planned to take Minnie to do her grocery shopping and banking. Fortunately, she is flexible enough that it didn't matter that I was 7 minutes late. Yes, I am anal   Get used to that; it will frequently come through.

Target is on the other end of town, near Aldo’s job, and I like to go there once a month on the weekend.  Since his days off changed, I had to alter that and go yesterday.  Since it was a weekday, I had plenty of other work, including taking Minnie for an appointment, and losing an extra hour at Target didn’t help things go smoothly.  I schedule just about everything, and I had to get gas as well, when it was supposed to happen on a different day.

I got an e-mail from amazon.com yesterday, letting me know that my Asus Eee PC had shipped, and that I can expect it today.  I had pre-ordered it a few weeks ago.  Here's an article about this “netbook”.

Flowering Tea

My friends Sophie and Ken returned from their vacation over the weekend, and brought me newspapers from various places. Newspapers are my favorite souvenirs from other people's trips. So I went to visit them last night, looked at photos, checked out the status of their home upgrades, and picked up the "souvenirs". Before I was about to leave, Sophie showed me something she recently bought - a Primula Teapot.  There is a flower blooming in the teapot!  She gave me one of the teaballs to try, and I just made a pot in my 4–cup coffeemaker.  I do like jasmine tea.  The flowering tea looks better in the pot that comes with the set, since it is made for the purpose. 

I’ve been wearing the same stainless steel two-tone watchband for the last 15 years, but my body decided that it was time to develop an allergy to it.  Metals that have always been safe for me are sterling silver, stainless steel, platinum, and 14 or 18k gold.  I can’t wear gold-filled or plated jewelry.  At first I decided to put the watch on my other wrist, to be sure that the itching and rash was actually from the watchband, and Aldo had cleaned it for me before that.  I had an allergic reaction to my platinum wedding ring awhile back, but it was because it just needed to be cleaned.  No such luck with this, and my other wrist started to itch pretty quickly.  So I went without a watch for a few days.  Some of my friends don’t wear watches, and use their cellphones to tell the time, but that isn’t for me.  I was looking at my naked wrist last night to determine whether it was time to leave to pick up Aldo from work, and I found it very annoying to have to ask the time or pull out my cellphone.  I decided to pick something up today, even if just temporarily until I can find the perfect watch.  I found the Casio Forester watch on sale at Long’s, and I don’t really care that it is a “men’s” watch.  When I find the perfect watch, Aldo can use this one.  Then again, I may like this one!  It is a Forester like my vehicle, so maybe we are well-suited.  I had hoped to get a leather band, but I think this will do and not cause an allergic reaction.  I’m not accustomed to velcro on a watch.  I’ve always liked the stretch bands.

If we had a local dealer, I probably would have at least looked at these Philip Stein watches.  I find them intriguing.

Death or Taxes?

Not really taxes, but I’ve had a couple of things on my mind lately.  There have been multiple deaths in my family since 1999.  The US economy has changed over the last 5 years, and prices have gone sky high, but I am not so sure that we are spending much more than previously on things like groceries.  I keep meticulous financial records, have for many years, and I was going to figure out the averages for certain expenses for the last few years.  But that would require that I search my DayTimer files.  I will do it sometime soon.

In 1999, my Aunt Mary died.  She was 86, and had been in a nursing home for two years.  She entered that home after breaking her hip, because my uncle could no longer care for her.  But he spent every day visiting her, and sometimes took her for a ride.  She also had dementia.  I was able to visit often, because the nursing home wasn’t more than a mile away.  Her experience there was good, and I think that is because she always had visitors making sure that she was well-cared for.

In 2000, my Aunt Isabelle died.  She was my favorite aunt, and her illness was brief, lasting only a month.  We had always written letters to each other, and did so at the end, as well as talking on the phone.  She died at the age of 80.

In 2004, my cousin Roger died, at the age of 55.  He was a teenager when I was a little kid, and we were pretty close.  I only found out about his death by accident, because my mother and his father didn’t bother to tell me, even though they lived in the same town.  I found out from another cousin.  When we were kids, I used to pretend he was the Master, and I was Genie, from I Dream of Genie.  He died of arterioschlerosis, because he did not get the medical care he needed.  His father, who is 91, had bypass surgery when in his 80’s, and is in good shape for his age.

In 2007, my mother died.  This was after a couple of very bad years, partly because of dementia.  Her death process was horrible, and I was by her side during her last month.  We had never gotten along, she had disinherited me, and the only reason I could be with her was because she didn’t have her faculties.  Had I not been there, she’d have been alone.  The repercussions of her actions and her death are not yet resolved.  And that is very difficult.

In March of 2008, exactly six months after my mother died, my cousin Norman died.  Like his brother Roger, he died of arterioschlerosis.  My uncle called and gave me the news.  Norman had been on his way to Trader Joe’s, in another town, and crashed his Honda Pilot.  He and my mother had been close.  He lived in her house for awhile, when she had gone away for the summer.  I can’t help but wonder if his death was related to hers.  He died at the age of 65.  I think he could have gotten the medical care he needed if he had been willing to get it.  Maybe.  His unwillingness to seek care was related to the fact that today’s medical profession is more of a marketing profession.  Providers are more willing to sell the newest prescription drug, whether or not it is related to the patient’s condition.  Still, he might have had the good luck to get a doctor with integrity.

These deaths are a part of what I am dealing with these days.  I do pretty well, but am constantly in search of understanding.

 

It's what's for dinner

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and dinner used to be promptly at 5 pm, until the workforce interfered. Since then, dinner has changed to the last meal of the day, regardless of time, and it's not really dinner if it isn't Aldo's day off. I usually eat early, and today's dinner was a Hebrew National beef frank on a wheat bun, and spinach/strawberry salad. Nice and easy for a summer day, although I prefer Nathan's hotdogs - even though Hebrew National answers to a Higher Authority.