Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Tired this evening for some reason. Long day, but I got the (hopefully) final polish on The Project From Heck before it goes up to our front office to get ripped to shreds. Tomorrow is assembling the associated binder with all the cases and other materials we cite. Joy.

Went to a men’s knitting group tonight. All of three of us showed up, one of whom was way, way late. I stayed two hours, chatted a lot with my friend who showed up at the same time I did while we knitted, got a goof I put in the last time I sat down to knit taken out of the project (ripped out 4-5 rows to get below the goof, got it back on the needles successfully, and now there’s no sign of the goof. yay), and put several more inches on the thing. It’ll be done, eventually. Not like there’s a massive rush to finish a scarf now that Spring’s here (though getting the hot thing out of my lap while knitting will be a plus). It’s only once a month, so I can go again. Was nice to get out of the house and listen to the two-person band who was playing jazz/blues while we were there.

Short run tomorrow, and a swim after work, then it’s making potato salad and getting myself ready for a brick workout up in Columbia with the club. Get to test out the course (which I fully expect to kick my ass, since I’ve done zero hills this year), see what it’s going to be like in 2 weeks for the race itself. Get to see BC that evening, and he’s bringing over Tiger Woods golf to make me practice. I told him that’s fine, but I get to drag him into Super Smash Bros Brawl if he does bring Tiger Woods. I think that’s a fair trade.

Oh, and I almost forgot, called the student loan company to confirm that they credited the payment and I have a zero balance. Won’t get the official letter from them for another month to 45 days, but the helpful woman on the phone did confirm that it is in fact completely paid off now. Hooray!

After much hemming and hawing over which bill to pay with my unexpected tax refund, I just scheduled the final payment for one of my student loan companies. They are, of course, fussy about wanting to be paid at a date in the future and not immediately (cue the rolling of the eyes), so I had to schedule the payment for next week and not today, but it’s in queue and set to go. One company down, three to go (private graduate school was expensive). This one had the highest interest rate of any of my companies, and this is an early payoff, so that’s interest saved, and a little more money in my pocket each month. I have to say, it was very nice to see one less red number on the side of my account listings in Quicken.

Hadn’t seen BC all week. Our schedules hadn’t meshed at all, so we hadn’t gotten together until this afternoon. When he walked in I just held him for several minutes. Hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him (and vice versa).

After a short while we went to go see D-War: Dragon Wars.

Worst.
Movie.
Ever.

This is so getting added to the cannon of bad movies. Thank heavens the theater was in no way, shape or form crowded, because I kept leaning into BC’s ear to MST3K the thing (actress: “Don’t we have a plan?” me: “Honey, you don’t even have a plot, of course you don’t have a plan!”). Lawdy, what a mess. Sudden scene changes with no warning or transition, people suddenly knowing all about this obscure Korean fairy tale, the Tim Gunn lookalike bad guy, it was all just dreadful. It was very difficult not to dissolve into loud laughter, though we did giggle a lot over in our little section of the theater. A lot of so-so CGI was really wasted there.

Checked in on ‘s pussy, who thankfully was still alive and happy. Off to an amazing dinner at Vegetate after that, then home to get in some needed alone time. He had to zip home, but we have a date set for tomorrow. Which is good, since I just spotted his sunglasses on the dining room table.

Prior to his arrival I was feeling quite blah this morning, so I spent a good bit of time cleaning, my default reaction to feeling out of sorts. The bathroom looks much better for it, as do all the floors. BC and I are going to go on a charity run next weekend, so I’ll finally get rid of a bunch of stuff I need to donate, and make room for some folding chairs I have, and my two clothes drying racks when not in use. I’ve been feeling a bit out of sorts in general at home, and now that race season is almost over (with the big effort races out of the way), I can actually focus on home stuff. The whole “entertainment” portion of the main room is a bit of a mess, moreso since my PC is now on its last leg (the CPU fan is making a most disagreeable noise). The two pieces there, the large desk and the big shelving unit, were bought for my last, large bedroom, and not for this space. They sort-of-work, but not really. A more proper entertainment center with media storage and perhaps a small desk and book shelf would work much better.

Not that any of that is happening any time soon, mind you. Debt reduction first, more decorating later. Paying off that loan this week cut a good year off the total time it’ll take to kill off all remaining loans with that company (just two more there). That’s the company with the highest interest rate, so with the greatest chance for savings on interest by paying them off early. It’s definitely been nice to see the payoff date change from several years in the future to just a year and a half (well, less than that, but that’s date if I continue the current payments with no more early payoffs) with the two sub-loans paid off these past couple months.

Time enough, despite the fact that I feel like I would make a hummingbird look patient when it comes to these things.

I paid off another (sub)loan from one of my student loan providers today. I called to get a payoff amount and they offered to take the payment over the phone at no charge, so I paid it off. Two down from them, two to go. Good stuff.

Combine that with the race Sunday and I was ready to drink with coworkers tonight at our regular work happy hour. So I did. And it was fun. And drink-full.

And I miss my BC. Should see him tomorrow, but it’s been almost a week.

5k race on Saturday. Don’t care a whit about it, but it’s the first race for a friend who’s been running but not racing, so going to be support. Should be an interesting experience. At least the organizers offer a good breakfast after the race for free. Good stuff.

Weight is still down from before the race. We’ll see if it keeps up.

So, I get this notice from one of my credit card companies. It’s the usual, “we’re changing the terms, blah, blah, blah,” type things, which people I guess usually just toss since it’s typically written in a lot of legalese. I decide to peruse the thing, see if there’s anything that pops out, and lo and behold, in the middle of the first page:

Your APR for [pretty much everything] is chaning to a corresponding ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE of 24.99% (Daily Periodic Rate (DPR) of 0.068465%).

We increased your APR due to the balances and APRs on this account.

Exsqueeze me?!?! I always pay off this account every month, there’s never a balance on it. The ‘new’ rate is almost 1.5 times more than the current (10.99%), not that any rate matters much since I always pay it off, but yeah, no, I don’t think so. I guess I don’t make them enough money as it is, so they want to squeeze more blood out of this stone.

Further down there’s a procedure to ‘reject’ the change, which involves writing to them, they won’t take just calling them (which has, of course, always worked in the past – to call and object and get any interest rate changes reversed or lowered below the current). I guess I’ll be sending a letter next week. If they up the rate, that’s the end of using this card, rewards or no. I won’t close the account as it’s my oldest credit account, but I certainly won’t give them any more business.

I guess the point of this is that it pays to read those standard notices (financially, at least – I won’t mention what it’s done to my blood pressure today).

I feel like I should feel better on a day when I mailed off a check to pay off a student loan (how tempting it was to write on the check: “From hell’s heart I stab at thee. For hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”), but I’m just sort of blah. Did manage to get more sleep last night, but still mildly restless. No run this morning, but planning on doing one in the heat this evening instead. Allergies haven’t helped any, either (snot much? thanks).

Work, after being all “ZOMGWTFBBQ!” for the past couple of days was relatively quiet today, with fewer instances of forehead slapping than I’ve had most of this week. I am very, very glad it’s the weekend, though. I don’t think I can handle any more (work) stupidity right now.

Thank you to my f-list folks from MN who checked in to let us know you were okay.

I decided to take a first stab at getting through the backlog of books and magazines I have in the house by cancelling daily delivery of the Post. I only get to skim the paper as it is, and daily comics aren’t worth the hassle. They, of course, tried to do everything they could to keep me on, reminding me of the specialty sections, offering to lower the rate, &c. No dice, switch it back, thanks.

Now maybe I can work through the stack. Since it’s bad when you’re getting your mail and your first thought upon seeing a magazine is “oh look, another magazine I’m not taking the time to read.”

It seems to be the season for folks’ iPods to die, based on my blog/LJ reading. Not to miss out, my heaven-knows-how-old 3rd Generation iPod is currently giving me fits. The battery’s been shot for ages, but that’s not a big deal; I only use it on a platform speaker at work (where it’s charged as it plays) or in a car (where, again, it’s plugged in to charge). I use a 1st generation shuffle (the gum stick sized ones) if I want to listen to stuff while I’m out and about, since for the most part I don’t need to see a screen to listen on the Metro or while out walking, I’m not sitting on Metro that often to need to watch things, and I’d rather lose a hundred dollar piece of equipment than a multi-hundred dollar piece were I, heaven forefend, to get robbed.

So, true to the trend, the connection with the platform speakers at work seems to be cutting in and out, which is very annoying. I just want the current iPod to keep playing as it does now, without needing a real battery, and just as a big hard drive to keep my music. Grr.

Haven’t been sleeping well this week, I think it’s the usual August heat and our AC not quite keeping up. The joys of aluminum architecture. I suspect melatonin is getting ingested this evening as I’m really not ready for another sleepless night, and I really need to be able to train, which doesn’t happen (or doesn’t happen well) when I can’t sleep.

…

There are times I want to talk about work, and times when I’m glad I can’t. Let’s just say that it’s a scary world out there, boys and girls, and leave it at that. And I don’t even get to see the really scary stuff, yet, since my big ole clearance hasn’t come through yet.

Been busy otherwise. BC and I are seeing each other usually once during the week, and then a ton of time on the weekends. He might be buying a house waaaaay out in the ‘burbs, so I shall be investigating transportation options out that way. I know I can bike it, but that’s not so viable when it gets cold out. We’ll see. The joys of not owning a car, sometimes.

Oh, and speaking of such things, I got the payoff info for one of my sub-loans from the more expensive of the two variable rate student loans companies today, so a check is going out tomorrow to pay that puppy off. A minor victory, but a victory I’ll take. Every little step like that is a step closer to being debt-free, and will help accelerate the rate of repayment on these things, so huzzah for that.

I love going to the dentist for a filling. First they numb you up so even now, hours later, I still feel like a stroke victim who’s lost control over half of his face. Then they run a drill which was just as annoying to listen to when it wasn’t inside my mouth as it was (I checked, it was).  Then, when it was all over, I find out that evidently while they’re filing insurance on our behalf, they’re not taking payment from the insurance company – now they file, but you pay it all up front and get reimbursed by the insurance company. Whee.

Good thing I love my dentist (who gave me a lottery ticket for referring a co-worker to him – I won $1.00).

Add to the grumpiness the unseasonably warm, wet weather (I like warm weather, I like wet weather, but not together and not in November when it’s supposed to be cooler) and that the anesthetic has lead to a slight nausea and you have a fun morning.

In slightly better news™, my boss loved a memo I wrote yesterday for the front office, had no changes for it, simply asked that it be put on letterhead and signed out. Sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen, so is a good, good thing. Also, had a conference call over a payment issue that’s stretched out for months now, and it looks like we’re finally going to get to make some payments in a law suit now that everyone’s on board with the right database info and numbers. Whew. I will be happy to have that little thing off our plate. Now if I could just kill off the other two big projects that won’t die, I can get back to more normal matters…

Had my monthly haircut this evening, so texted Brian and headed out to dinner with him and Jhim. Was good to see them both, and good to get out. I’ve been lying low here in SW DC, mainly because money is a tad tight right now, so eating in or eating cheap are the preferred modes for food. Simple food has also been my preference at home because of some stomach woes I’ve had on and off. My digestive system has never been the best, and every now and again it decides to really go off the deep end until I smack it down, which may be coming soon (don’t ask).

Picked up staples at Whole Paycheck on the way to the bus, which thankfully was running pretty well this evening; didn’t wait more than 10 minutes at either stop, and there’s something to be said for catching the bus that drops you right in front of your building. Had planned the trip, so was a good boy and used a cloth shopping bag from home rather than taking fresh bags from them. I wish store still gave you some discount for doing that (some used to give you a nickel or something per bag you brought in and used yourself rather than using theirs), but even without it was nicer to have a bag I knew wouldn’t rip open on the bus, and that I didn’t have to stuff more plastic bags into the recycling bin.

MG’s out of town for work, and we’ve been chatting on the phone in the evening. Sounds like he’s pretty busy there, but doing good work. Miss him, but the communication helps.

Oh, and don’t tell my parental units, but I’m to be an uncle again. My sister-in-law is about a week pregnant (confirmed with the doctor yesterday), so she’s due in June. This, mind you, while she was on the pill (and after she had her first child in March of this year). I did remind my brother that there were things he could do as well (condoms, anyone?), but was gentle in my reproach. At least he’s married to the woman this time (my older niece is the daughter of his HS girlfriend – oy). I’m happy for them, and will be happy to be an uncle again.

The cold is progressing in the normal manner. Which is to say last night was my usual sleepless night (I always have one when I get a cold, like clockwork, on day 3 or 4). Thankfully it was over the weekend so I didn’t have to take time off.

Other than killing monsters (yay for Diablo II), it was a very uneventful weekend. Missed two handsome gents who were in town, and the aforementioned parties and dinner. Did run out to the grocery store this evening, just in time for the bottom to drop out right before I checked out. Brought a golf umbrella, but everything from the knees down was soaked right through (and is currently on a drying rack). Used some of the time yesterday to finally get some crap off the kitchen floor and put away, as well as rearranging some of the cabinets so they work better for cooking and eating. I have floor space again in the kitchen, which is a very good thing.

A very good thing because I will be cooking at home more. I looked over ye olde finances and I need to trim some stuff, and dining out/take out is an easy and obvious target. Hence the grocery shopping trip for some stuff to make for lunch this week. Will be healthier anyway, and allow me to stick some more money toward paying down the student loan with the highest interest rate. The cards are gone, so the next target’s in sight. Wish me luck.