Morning lack of commute

[chipotle]

It’s about ten before nine as I start writing this, and I’m not in traffic this morning; instead I’m sitting in the Millbrae Panera, about 10 miles from the house, with a bagel and cream cheese and a cup of coffee. Yes, it’s a holiday, and one that I’d almost forgotten about having off—it was only as I was leaving the office and called “see you Monday” to a coworker that I got back, “Oh, Monday’s a day off. See you Tuesday.”

The power at the apartment went out this morning, just after seven, and as far as I can tell it’s still out. This means that my web sites and the Excursion Society MUCK are down, as well as haikujaguar’s Stardancer. I did learn, at least, that the UPS monitoring daemon in OS X actually works now, as after about five minutes Parmesan (my PowerMac G5) shut down gracefully. Unfortunately, Agii (the web server) didn’t have that enabled, so hopefully it’ll all come back up without undue stress. (In theory, I back up my home directory to Parmesan via rsync every night, and I back up Parmesan to an external drive… somewhat less frequently than I honestly should. Parmesan is actually due for an internal hard drive replacement given its age, but I’m still debating replacing Parmesan itself. That’s another post, though.)

(Note: around 9:20 or so, Agii came back online. I haven’t reconnected to it to check on my own various web services, but I shall before I leave Panera.)

So what do I plan to do with my day off, you ask? In theory, write. I haven’t done anything on “Gift of Fire” since last weekend. I’ve been having trouble dragging myself out of bed early enough to get in writing in the morning, and both of the weekend days were largely committed—Saturday to a somewhat roundabout trip to Santa Cruz, and Sunday to a large block of role-playing on the Excursion Society, kicking off a long-delayed trip and some of the first interaction that hasn’t been characters sitting around hoping something would happen in months.

In practice, I don’t think I want to sit here at Panera the whole day trying to write, though. The atmosphere’s still pleasant enough in its own way but perhaps it’s become a little too sterile, or perhaps I’m anticipating the inevitable lunch rush with dread. (They’ve also taken to shutting off your wifi if you’re on it for more than 30 minutes between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., precisely because of said lunch rush—an understandable business decision but not one that fills me with joy, even though if I’m writing I shouldn’t be on the damn network anyway.) I’m contemplating heading up into San Francisco to check out Ritual Coffee Roasters, which I’ve been to once before, many months ago, and see if I can write there. Will it be magically more inspiring? Maybe. Maybe it’ll just be a waste of time, of course.

I’ve also brought my camera with me. I have a Nikon D70; last week I became a bit technolusty after one of the newer Nikons, the D300. (For those not up on the model line, the D70 was replaced by the D70s and then the D80; Nikon’s newest cameras are the Serious Pro Level D3 and its less buff cousin, the D300, which is nonetheless a serious leap up from the D80.) But, I didn’t use it very much at all last year; if I want to re-engage my shutterbug a little, I need to get re-engaged with the tools I have before buying new ones. And, of course, if I bought a new gadget sometime for the D70—a new lens, a tripod, an external flash—it would transfer to any newer camera body. But the point is to retrain myself to get out there and start taking photos again.

Thinking about computers and camera gear also, not unsurprisingly, makes me think about finances. That too could be another post, but the short form is that on Friday, I got my first direct deposit paycheck. Regular pay means I can put into effect a regular transfer into savings, something I haven’t done since… well, I’m not sure I’ve done it this decade. Last year on contract, I did put money into savings irregularly, but most “savings” actually went to debt payment. At the end of 2006 I paid off my car, leaving just a credit card debt that was, if I recall right, about $10K. I paid that off by the end of 2007. Given the bleak economic outlook for 2008, this is probably an excellent time to not have debt. I now might have the stability to start (gasp) buying stocks and bonds—which at first glance seems odd to think about given that just-mentioned economic outlook, but over the long-term, it’s nearly always a good bet. I’m still doing my research on that.

At any rate, even if I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, it’s definitely time to do something. Upward and onward.

Comments

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

You know, you've posted quite a bit about how you feel you haven't accomplished a whole lot in the past decade...but I look at what you've done with your finances, and it just strikes me that it's huge. You're putting yourself in a very stable, very sane position. I envy you a bit, though I know it comes from making good decisions in this area - something I'm (we're) still working on. It's quite an accomplishment though, especially living in the Bay Area, and one I wouldn't downplay.

Also, 'technolusty' is a great word. :-)

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Thank you, although I think most of that really came from the last year or two of work -- pretty much since I've been at Illumant. The previous work at Cisco sort of plugged up the leaks and gave me enough to coast without incident until I got the next job, but that was the problem I was having most of the time I've been out here. I had enough income to avoid collapse but not enough to do more than tread water. (And, when I ran the numbers, for a few years I was actually sinking a little.)

The one major investment that I've never had is a house, and despite all the problems currently with the real estate market, home ownership is still usually considered the best way to generate/keep wealth. Since I don't have that (and don't expect to pursue it in the next few years), I need to think seriously about what I can do now to not only sock away some savings but invest. Getting into the stock market is a little intimidating, but I'm definitely considering it soon.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

The stock market is intimidating, but your research skills are good, and I'm sure you'll do it wisely.

I have to say, as someone who does own a home, there is a lot of headache that comes along with the investment. I know it's still a part of the American dream, and everyone says it's better to do financially, but sometimes I really long for the relatively carefree days of renting, when things didn't randomly break that I'm responsible for. It's like having a car, only the warranty expires well before you pay it off, the maintenance expenses are constant, and everything feels in constant decline.

Apparently I'm more stressed about it than I realized. :-P

[susandeer.livejournal.com]

Financial stability for the win.

Maybe it's because it's still the beginning of the year. Maybe it's a planetary alignment. Or maybe it's this unspoken, collective awareness that's saying, "No matter who wins the election, we're screwed. let's get finances sorted out NOW" Whatever it is, it's going around and it's good to see. I just gave one of my high interest rate cards the old heave ho by transferring it to my new federal credit union card, whose rate is 1/4 that of the first card. Part of me hopes they grovel when I tell them to close the account.

The day off surprised us, too. I'm so used to Bennie working at places that ignore holidays, that I went and scheduled myself for 2 hours this afternoon at the scenery shop. D'oh!