Financial Discouragement

I've mentioned to several people how I feel that our current financial difficulties are probably a blessing, forcing us to re-evaluate our budget and trim down to what feels like survival levels.  This has motivated me to go through and check all of our monthly services to see if they merit their respective costs.  It's also given me motivation to begin selling off items we don't have much use for any more, which is great for simplifying, as well as some additional cash.

This morning was a difficult part of the journey.  We've already come to grips with our garage door opener being broken, and since the cost was several hundred dollars to fix, and we're not in a place where that makes sense, I purchased a manual garage door lock, to install myself:



This has worked, though it's been a frustrating change, from easy push button access from the car to getting out and struggling with a challenging to open door.  Well this morning Brooke was getting ready to go work out and asked me to open the garage door for her.  It wouldn't budge.  I finally figured out that the garage door spring had snapped, snapping the attached cables as well, and damaging the door.  We're now back to the place where it's several hundred dollars to fix, except now that price is just to get back to opening by hand.

The past 18 months has been an extremely frustrating time, which is the only way I know how to describe it.  It feels bad, but honestly, I still have an excellent, high pay job that I enjoy, so I'm still extremely blessed.  Yet I'm in a financial hole that seems at times to be impossible to get out of.  It feels unfair that as we are trying very hard to work our way out of this hole, more poop seems to be flung in on top of us, in what feels like rapid succession.

So if the take-away from large debt is downsizing, perhaps the steady trickle of medium to large scale financial setbacks is going to bring about a better perspective, increased patience, or maybe reliance on God for our financial well being.  I don't know yet.  For now, I'm going to get more serious about pursuing additional work, as well as seeking to reduce our auto insurance, encourage Brooke to use our HSA for all medical expenses, and come up with a food plan that may save us some money.  I'll detail the food plan next, as I feel this is particularly difficult, and lacking good online examples.

Fun, inexpensive way to show your wife you love her

Luckily, my wife doesn't read this blog yet (I think), and even if she did, I doubt she'd read it before tomorrow when she'll find the card I just made her.

Card: "Since I'm usually with you in my free time,
I guess one of my hobbys(sp) is hanging out with hot people

Typing the text out is the first time I noticed the mis-spelling, but the picture is cute, and the sentiment is what I was looking for.  All in all, I think it's perfect for where we're at right now, where I really can't afford to get her gifts as often as I'd like, but I want to remind her that she's important to me, and that I'm always thinking of her.

The card was just printed on card stock, the envelop is a lame, taped together and cut to size piece of printer paper.  This kind of thing costs nothing but time, and I hope to do this more often, as I know it means something to her.  The inside is filled with a mini-letter that I won't be reproducing here.  Suffice it to say I have many things to be thankful for, all relating to her.  And I think she's hot.

Bicycle commute upgrades

Today I got to use a couple recent acquisitions for making my morning commute better, and I'm really pleased.



The armband is probably the least useful of the three.  I carry everything with me in my backpack, which I then secure to the bike rack using bungee cords.  This works great for the clothes, food, and other items I need at work.  I have the Topeak MTX bike rack, and had always intended to get one of the bags designed to easily snap into place, but they're a little expensive, especially for the deluxe versions with built in panniers, which I feel I'd probably need to accommodate all the stuff that currently fits in my backpack.

The one problem I have been dealing for two months with, is what to do on the train ride.  Keeping my backpack strapped to the bike is the most convenient by far.  I usually only have about 10 seconds to get my bike into position, either on one of the hooks designed for bikes, which are almost always blocked, or somewhere else that has the space, before the train takes off.  Because of the way I secure the bungee cords, and the location of the pockets, there's almost nowhere I can put my phone and have access to it on the train.  I've also recently replaced my broken Kindle, which is even harder to access as it is slightly larger.

The arm band leaves my phone easily accessible and allows me to hear or feel it if I get a call or text message, when I used to have to wait until I got to work to discover.  The case is really cheap, and well made for what I want.  I'm barely able to use the phone through the plastic, which is good enough to check a quick message, and does what I need it to.  I wish it was easier to remove the phone for those times when I need to take a picture of a thief or vandal (stories I'll tell later).  I may have to modify it slightly, sacrificing the secure, snug fit for a slightly less secure, but easier removal.

The triangle bag is fantastic.  It is not much thicker than my bike, and doesn't get in the way of anything.

The primary reason I got it was to hold my kindle so I can access it easily when on the train.  It worked perfectly.  This makes using my kindle incredibly easy, as well as keeping it protected during the ride.  Side note, for one year I pretty much didn't think the kindle needed protecting, then one day managed to put enough stress on the display by keeping it in my pocket that it broke without my noticing.  It had survived amazing abuse up until that point, but from now on, I'm going to be far more careful.

The third purchase was a replacement, as I lost my rear view mirror last week.  After using a rear view mirror for nearly a year now, I'm fully convinced it's one of the most important pieces of safety equipment I own, behind only my helmet and tail light.  I'm going to try to find a second on ebay to keep as a backup, for if I lose it again.  It snaps off easily, which is a good design to protect your eyes in a wreck, and since it's inexpensive, is only annoying to replace, not truly frustrating.

I wholeheartedly endorse all three of these purchases, as they've made my morning commute immensely better, and at a very reasonable cost.

Journey through tough financial times

My current focus is a huge credit card debt.  This had an element of spending too much over time catching up to you, but mostly it was our roof, hot water heater/supporting plumbing, entire air conditioning system, and grandmother's 90th birthday out of state trip for the family all coming in the same year.  So now we have debt I would have done just about anything to avoid.  Anything besides put my wife through a Dallas summer with no AC, skip my grandmother's 90th birthday, etc.

To be honest, there's a part of me that is glad to be forced to confront our finances with a "can we survive" mentality, vs. just getting comfortable looking at a budget that says we spent a tiny bit more than we made this month (It was unavoidable, it was a one time thing this month!).  It's never a one time thing, there's one time expenses every month.

So now I'm looking through the house with the lens of "What would that yield on eBay?"  We don't keep an enormous amount of stuff in our small house, but I'm finding some forgotten "treasures".  I don't need two flashes for the camera we only use on occasion.  I don't need the xbox, now that I spend every free moment of gaming (few that exist) on PC, playing through a backlog of Steam sales finds that will last me for the next 5 years.  So on and so forth.

I've realized I'm an optimizer.  I want to extract the maximum possible value from the things I have, and spend money on.  I get incredible value from my $7.99 Netflix subscription, my $30.00 or less cell phone subscription, and my $2.99 skype subscription.  But what about my car insurance?  What about my alcohol monthly budget?  Groceries?

Now that my focus is drawn with forceful necessity to eliminating all unnecessary expenses, while seeking any possible source of additional income, I'm able to see more clearly what I'm getting out of what I spend.  For what it's worth, I also want to share what I have found, and continue to find, as viable options for optimizing a relatively conservative income, in Dallas, TX, admittedly one of the more affluent cities in America.  Join me in my journey of discovery, and feel free to offer advice or criticism.

Further Bicycle Commuting Thoughts

So, on Thursday of this week I got to have my first, "Thank God I'm on a bike" moment.  I don't expect them to be frequent.

I was on Alpha Road approaching Preston and traffic got ridiculous.  I had not spent enough time noting the location of sidewalks, and as of right now, I'm not going to be the guy riding in between lanes begging for someone to open their door to make my day suck.  If I had, I might have just taken the sidewalk, and spent even less time in traffic.  As it was, there must have been some accident south of Alpha Road on Preston, because traffic was backed up, moving even slower than what I was in.  Each light cycle, a few cars would pile into the intersection, and get stuck there, which would end up preventing any cars from being able to proceed along Alpha Road.  With perverse pleasure, and a brief flashback to some scene in Premium Rush, I weaved through stationary cars, emerging on the other side feeling pretty awesome.  The people behind me had caught up to me by the next light or so, but the moment was fun.

Prescott Brewing's Ponderosa IPA

Prescott Brewing has apparently been at this for over 20 years, and from this one I can see why they've stayed in business. This beer is fantastic, and certainly plays to all of my favorites. This beer has great balance between malt and hop, and has grapefruit flavor, piney notes, and finshes clean, mostly without aftertaste, except for something refreshing that reminds me of spring water.

I drank this one while watching Tattoo Nightmares, hearing my son in the next room taking a "nap" singing at the top of his lungs because he's totally not tired. I'm certainly in a good place to enjoy this beer, the tattoo cover-ups are awesome, my boy is cute, even in his refusal to sleep, and it's overcast and cool in the mountains of Arizona. I loved this beer, and I'll admit, I'm too positive about IPA's, but I really think this is a fantastic example. If I could get this back home, I'd certainly get it again, and I'd put it on par with Dogfish head, though very different.

SanTan Brewing Epicenter Amber

I'm back in Arizona, after being gone many years, and I'm not particularly familiar with the local brews, so I picked up a mixed six pack including 4 local beers I'd never heard of before.

SanTan Brewing, based out of Chandler, AZ, looks like it's been in business about 6 years now.  They've got a pretty decent selection of regular brews, and they have a really awesome sounding motivation for their existence here: http://www.santanbrewing.com/about-santan/

This particular beer is pretty decent, which might sounds negative, but I'm not usually a big fan of amber ales unless they're also hoppy, or have more going on with their yeast.  This one has great caramel and toasty notes, finishes dry, and has nothing negative to detract, so it's very solid and respectable, and would make a great introduction to craft beer to someone used to light beers.  I usually perceive the dry finish to be watery, so my first sip wasn't impressive, but I've come to enjoy it about 1/3 through.

There's nothing otherwise distinctive about this, I'd accept more if drinking by the pool, but wouldn't seek it out.

Biking to work, Day 2

Friday morning I took another stab at commuting by bike and train, with the advantage that I was able to leave earlier than I will most days (~5:45a.m.).  As much as it feels it should be shorter, it seems to be about 10 minutes between leaving my house and sitting down on the train, which is only about a mile from my house.  The train ride is then about 20 minutes, like clockwork, and my 5.5 mile bike ride takes a little less than 30 minutes, leaving my total commute at just under an hour.

This morning I got to try out a few weight lifting exercises at the gym, and use the showers, which was a welcome change to trying to make do with paper towels and a regular restroom.  I'm thinking I may try to switch to using just a hand towel to dry off, to keep the bulk in my back-pack down, as a full bath towel really isn't necessary.  The lockers appear to be the best place to hang up my biking clothes and towel for airing out/drying during the day, again, a big improvement from hanging them under my desk.

Some of my biggest concerns are traffic on the portions of my route that are off the bike trail.  They are hilly, two lane roads in poor repair, in an area of town known for heavy traffic during rush hour(s).  This being the week of July 4th means exceptionally light traffic for now, but we'll see how that works out in the long run.  It's also a much different proposition to get Brooke to come get me when I'm 15 miles away, through heavy traffic, than 2.5 miles on a usually not too busy road, so if something happens to my bike, or the weather gets bad, I haven't figured out exactly what the plan is.  From what I hear, there is a bus I can get on right next to the office that will lead to the train, so that may be my backup.

How to teach your kids what you believe, when you're not sure

So I have a rather difficult situation developing.  I have a 4 year old son asking increasingly complex and probing questions about everything.  This spans many things I'm comfortable with, such as why does the rocket shoot so high in the air when I stomp on the balloon looking thing, or what does CSS mean?  (He only knows because he asks everyday what I'm going to work on, and I tell him the same thing I tell my team during stand-up, slightly shortened.)

He then asks things I have a harder time with, such as why did God make it so we can get sick?  Why did God make bugs that bite us?  I have complicated ways of explaining these things to myself.  I'm comfortable, mostly, with my understanding of these things.  That means I can give him increasingly larger portions of my understanding as I feel he's ready.

But then he asks things like, what do Tyrannosaurus' do to people?  Simple question right?  I could just queue up Jurassic Park and answer that question for good.  But the truth is, I'm still not at perfect peace about what I believe.  I was raised literal 6 day Creationist.  I have severe difficulties reconciling what I now know, and what I once thought.  I want to believe in a simple interpretation of Genesis, because most of the time, I like simple, and I like to think I can understand the basics of a thing, especially one so important as the origins of life.

But I don't want to cling to an interpretation of the Bible that I'm not confident it instructs us to hold.  I have enough faith to believe what the Bible says, because it describes reality as I understand it.  I have wrestled, and still do, with how we could have a sense of humor, a sense of the infinite, a desire for eternity beyond progeny, a physical body that couldn't survive a cage match with any number of supposedly near or distant animal relatives, for the trade-off of a brain that only in the past couple thousand years has given us the tools to really tip that balance.

So when the shows he so desperately wants to watch tell him Tyrannosaurs died out millions of years ago, I confirm it.  I tell him dinosaurs lived a long time ago.  He's 4, so 2 years ago was a long time ago, and he tells me as much all the time.  Dada was a little boy a REALLY long time ago, so I'm sure to his understanding, I won't be wrong, regardless of what he ends up believing, for at least another year or two.

 I still feel like there's a lot we don't understand, but I hate to see that as the only justification for saying that we'll one day reconcile physical evidence with a 6,000 year old universe and 6 x 24 hour day Creation.  Is it possible for me to hold on to that possibility while believing it's probably not so?  Is my belief in God's gift of eternal life dependent on my understanding of the speed of light, when it comes to understanding what we see coming from billions of light years away?  I don't think so, but it doesn't make it easy to know what to say to Jacob.

First day of my longer commute

Today I took my first shot at commuting to the new office using only public transportation and my bike. I ride a neon yellow(ishgreenish) fixed gear bike that I got when I started commuting by bicycle last year, riding the only 2.5 miles or so to ClickMotive's location. Now that we've been acquired by Dealertrack and moved to the Galleria, the commute is a bit more complicated. I ride about a mile down to the D.A.R.T. light rail station, take it about 10 miles south to Forest Lane where I get out and take a combination of bike trails and roads for about 6 miles to the office.

This morning, I exited one exit too early, took a wrong turn, managed to bike down to the station I should have exited, then took another wrong turn, which took me up to Spring Valley, which is probably a better road than Alpha Road, the one I had planned on. My commute in took about 1 hour 20 minutes. My badge didn't yet have access to the showers I had counted on, which was a major negative, one I'm hoping to never repeat. I'm also hoping I didn't greatly offend my co-workers, as all I could do was paper towel off and re-apply deodorant, as well as change clothes. This was my normal routine at the old office, but 2.5 miles is a lot different than 6.

My route home was using the crummier road, with even more potholes and fewer nice houses, but took the better of the two bike trails, and I was able to get to the station near my house about 1 hour after I left, with still a couple wrong turns, though nothing as time consuming as this morning. I'm thinking I can keep total commute time to about 1 hour, which was feeling like my undetermined maximum allowable time to contemplate doing this regularly.

The exercise is great, having the showers means I can leave the moment I finish letting Dexter out in the morning, and if I commit and get a monthly or yearly pass, which I can use pre-tax dollars to buy, I'll be saving noticeable amounts of money, plus wear and tear on the vehicle. However, being even farther from home, making it even harder to get my lovely wife to come pick me up in emergencies, is a significant challenge, as is the fact that I'd be averaging 2 hours daily commute time, which is 4 times what I was used to.

I drove in on Monday, and it was a total of 1 hour, roughly 30 minutes each way. Since this is the lowest traffic week of the year, I may need to gauge how much traffic affects those two times. My assumption is that my commute time by train and bike will not vary much, as I am the slowest vehicle on the street currently, and cannot fathom that traffic will slow me down even more, not to mention the bike trails won't have that kind of traffic, and the train isn't affected by it either.

New blog, different interests

I'm not familiar with how blogs have changed since I last wrote one, which was 3 years ago if you count a couple posts, many more if you look back to when I posted frequently. I want to have a place to organize what I write, and a reason to push me to write with more frequency. I'm now a father of a 4 year old boy, a software developer working on web applications, and an avid home-brewer of many types of beer. I want to share knowledge I obtain, and become better at doing so.