Things I would rather spend $1652 on than the front end of a Cavalier..

So I got a call back from the woman I hit on Saturday. She got an estimate. $1652. She's going to get a second estimate, and I'll probably just pay the body shop.

I still think I'm better off not going through insurance. I have no idea what effect filing a claim would have on my rates, but my understanding is that if I call them to ask them, they could treat it as a claim and raise my rates. Plus, you supposed to report accidents to them within a certain amount of time, and since I've probably exceeded that time, they could drop me for that. Plus, I figure I should save actually filing a claim if I ever have a more serious accident and really need the insurance coverage. And maybe on some level, if this hurts me enough in the wallet, I'll actually become a less shitty driver.

Knowing my luck, they will find something else wrong with the car and it will wind up being way more than the estimate.

I realize this was completely my fault, and given the way I drive, it's surprising I've gone this long without causing anyone serious damage. Still, it's frustrating how much damage I managed to cause in a few seconds inattention at 2mph in reverse.

And I can't help think of a whole bunch of things I could spend $1652 on:

-one mortgage payment, plus an extra hundred something dollars for home improvements of some sort.

- 413 gallons of $4 regular unleaded gas

- a very nice flat panel TV

- 12 minutes or so (which is probably more than I'd need) with Kristen.

- 6 Nintendo Wii game consoles, plus a Wii Fit

- 1652 Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers from the Wendy's dollar menu

- 244 bags of Purina One Kitten Chow for Nibbler, my attack kitten

- About $50 short of the cost of a 24" iMac with the ed discount (which is actually something I've wanted for a while to replace the $200 Celeron that I'm currently blogging on)

Hey, Jealousy...

My mom, being, well a mom of a certain age, has a number of religious plaques hanging in their house. One of them, in the front hallway, is Desiderata. I've always liked one of the lines in it. I've just never been able to figure out how to live it.

The poem gives the advice that If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

I regularly compare myself to others, and I seldom like what I see. I often feel like everyone else is just doing better at life - that they have better jobs, more friends, a better social life, nicer stuff, better luck, and aren't total idiots when it comes to meeting members of the opposite sex.

While some of these areas are probably valid - I don't know anyone who has had as dry a dating life as myself - some of them are less so. My job might not be perfect, but it pays decently, is occasionally fun and interesting, and doesn't involve digging holes or gutting pigs. And there's no telling if the people who drive past me in much nicer cars are driving them because they are way more rich and successful than me, or if it's because they have giant car loans.

And even the relationship angle is probably overrated - sure, no relationship sucks compared to a good one, but it's probably better than a bad one - and it's something that's easy to idealize when you look at other people's from the outside.

The grass isn't greener on the other side, but it's still annoying when the neighbors manage to mow their's more frequently...

Kill your TV, before it drowns you...

A few weeks ago, I was talking with coworker and his brother about TV shows. They recommended a couple shows that I should watch, and I groaned that I already had a ton of shows on my PC and DVR that I haven't gotten around to watching.

That's got me thinking about how TV has really changed with technology. It used to be if you wanted to watch a certain show, you tried to make time to watch it. If you really liked it, you might rearrange your schedule, but most of the time if you couldn't watch it, you just accepted that and hoped to catch the rerun.

Then came the VCR. If you really wanted to watch something, you could tape it. But it was cumbersome, and you had to remember to put a blank, rewound tape in and navigate the complicated scheduling mechanism.

But nowdays, it's easy to build up a massive collection of entertainment. We have DVR's like my RePlayTV that can capture hours of TV, that we just need to tell what we like and they will give us hours of programing. No need to remember to set your VCR or be around. And if you forget to set the DVR or it takes a poop on you, you can always rent or buy the dvd, stream it from a site like hulu, or if you are an evil pirate like me, grab it off a torrent or peer to peer site.

And there are more shows now too - it used to be that there wasn't anything to watch in the summer except reruns and failed shows that networks are burning off. Now, there are lots of cable networks that show new, quality shows during the summer - Burn Notice, The Closer, and In Plain Sight come to mind.

Right now I have a nearly-full 60 gig DVR and a ton of shows I've downloaded. I recorded the entire 5th season of The Wire and have yet to watch it. I love the show, but I want to dedicate time to sit down and watch it without a lot of interruption, because it demands that, and I haven't had that yet. Most days, I allocate an hour a day (usually around 10pm at night) to watch TV. Since I record more than an hour a day, I regularly find myself having to go in and delete stuff I haven't watched just so I don't run out of space or record over stuff I really want to watch but haven't yet.

Of course, TV isn't the only thing I procrastinate on - I've also got a pile of items needing eBay descriptions, a stack of books to read, a ton of home improvement projects that need to be improved, and a bunch of unarchived goals, ranging from losing weight to finding true love to getting my ham radio license.

Technology is great - it lets us do many things that would have been impossible a short time ago. But it also makes it easy to bite off more than we can chew, to make it easy to almost do things, to forget that there are things that technology can't make us do faster - except for skipping commercials, it still takes an hour to watch an hour-long TV show. The more we can "almost" do, the easier it is to lose sight of the limits to our time, the need for us to prioritize, the reality that we will never get done everything we need to or would like to get done.

OMG, a Giant closed somewhere. The economy is screwed...

It's weird when you read a blog post from a reasonably big-time blogger that mentions an area that may be familiar to you, and you are trying to figure out where it is. But Megan McCardle's recent post claiming that the suburbs are doomed based on her discovery of a recently closed Giant supermarket somewhere north of Baltimore, is just that.

On our way home from the beach, a friend and I decided to put the GPS through its paces and have the thing find us a grocery store close to our route. It put us at a Giant slightly north of Baltimore. Or rather, the ghost of a Giant, with the outline of the logo still visible where it had been ripped away. We passed through spectral scenes of shiny, empty office parks nestled between country bars and thriving tattoo parlors. For some reason, the eeriest most melancholy sight was the boarded up IHOP. When IHOP has left you, you really have been abandonned.

The first thing I thought of when I read her post was the former Giant at the corner of Perring Parkway and Joppa Road in Parkville, across from North Plaza. I don't think that's the one, however - there isn't an abandoned IHOP that I know of, and the area is actually bustling, with a new Chick-Fil-a and some other stuff. The Giant closed mostly because it appeared to not have been touched since 1973, while a new, huge Safeway complete with Starbucks opened right across the way.

A number of other Baltimore-ons chimed in asking for the location, but Megan has yet to grace us with that info. Giant has been doing some restructuring lately, and closed a bunch of stores, so I wouldn't infer a whole lot from a closed Giant.

I am really curious where it was. As several other commenters pointed out, there are a number of Baltimore suburbs that have been somewhat shaky for years, that have less to do with the popping of the housing bubble and more to do with crime, the decline of low-skill manufacturing jobs, and a host of other issues local to those areas. The area I live doesn't fit her profile, and not just because the Giant near the White Marsh Mall still does a good business (despite there being about 10 other supermarkets in a 2 mile radius. Most of the housing stock near me is circa 1975-1985, and most of the new construction farther north from me is larger single-family homes, not small starter townhouses like mine - which is what you would expect to be built in an area that having tough economic times.

My guess is that Megan may be guilty of a bit of having a hammer and figuring everything is a nail - that while there are probably exurbs hard hit by the housing bubble, I can't think of any "just North of Baltimore". Without knowing where she's talking about, i can't really say, and as a Maryland transplant I'm not the expert on the history of areas. But I don't think the suburbs are going anywhere anytime soon.

Another day, another hamfest...

Today was the BRATS hamfest in Howard County, MD. I came, I saw, I sweated, I came home somewhat disappointed.

Today was hot and humid. Walking outside my house at 5am to leave it was like a steam bath. Made a point of parking facing away from the sun, but it was still hot.

I can survive the heat - before I got my cat and started worrying about the effect the heat would have on her, I would regularly not turn the AC on even when it was 90 or so. BSOM, however, is a bit of a heat pussy. I'm guessing so were a lot of people there, because sales were slow, and the crowd seemed to go away pretty quickly. By 10:30, BSOM was complaining about the heat and ready to call it quits. While I hated the thought of leaving money on the table, there appeared to be few people left roaming the isles, and I figured I was better off getting BSOM to help me pack up than waiting around in the hopes of selling a few dollars more stuff.

I had a fair number of lookers, but not a whole lot of buyers. I did sell a couple of large items, but I didn't sell much, and I can't remember the last time sales were so slow, especially with a fair amount of new merchandise. I ended up making $221 after all was said and done - about half of what I usually make. I don't know if it was the heat, or the economy, or because it's later in the season and people who wanted to buy the stuff I'm selling already bought it.

I've got one next month in Westminster - I'm hoping that the weather and sales are better. I really need to move some merchandise and make some money.

On the buying end, I made two purchases - a TI-86 from BSOM that he didn't want to bother eBaying, and a Picturetell video conference camera for $20 that I hoped would net me the same profits I made from selling Polycom stuff, but appears to go for, well, about $20 on eBay.

You can call me "crash"

I was out yard-sale shopping this morning with a bsom. It's the first time he's been able to go with me in a while, since he's been getting his house ready for his soon-to-be-born son. Usually when we go together he drives, but for some reason he wanted me to drive today. I wish I had insisted he drive.

Went to a few sales, then stopped at one where there was parking in front. Got an N64 for $5, then hopped back in my truck and started backing up when my friend went "look out". Then I heard a crunch.

I neglected to notice that someone had parked behind me, and I hit their car. Since they had a Chevy Cavalier, and I drive a 4wd Ranger, my bumper went over their bumper and smashed the grill and bent the hood. If I drove a car (or if she had a truck), it probably wouldn't have caused any damage.

It turned out to belong to two elderly women. They were pretty good about it. I gave her my info, and asked if she would consider getting an estimate and calling me rather than going through insurance. So now I have to wait for her to call me and let me know how much I'm out.

Between this and the stop sign warning a couple weeks ago, I'm thinking I should stop going to yard sales. Any money I've made over the last few years is going to be eaten up either by higher insurance rates or paying for damage.

So much to do, not enough time...

It's probably a bad sign when blog readers start wondering if I've been abducted. I know my posting of late has been a bit thin, and it's probably not going to change anytime soon. I've got a couple posts I want to make, but I also have a bunch of stuff going on in the meatspace that I'm trying to figure out how to get done.

First of all, work starting to get crazy - I've worked a bunch of overtime this week, and probably will be for the rest of the summer and into the fall. We are supposed to set up something like 300 new machines by the start of the school year, and our staff is me, one coworker, and one high school kid. And we still don't have the machines yet. Add in some new security software that we are deploying for laptops that hasn't been tested, and has it's own share of issues, plus a whole bunch of new responsibilities our group has taken on, and I'm not sure how a fraction of what needs to get done is going to get done. I actually found myself remarking to a coworker that I'm almost looking forward to summer ending so things will slow down. When you work for a college, summer is usually slow, but this one has sucked so far, and is only likely to get worse.

And while I don't have much of a social life, I do have a couple time-intensive hobbies - I've been trying to get to the gym, although I'm lucky if I make it a couple times a week. I've also been going to auctions every Wednesday, to bar trivia, a few hamfests, and yard sales on saturdays. I've got a ton of stuff that needs to go on eBay, and my home office looks like a UPS depot exploded - it's full of inventory and packing materials.

This is what the next couple weekends look like for me - and I somehow need to fit the gym and OT in as well..

- this weekend - hamfest

-next weekend - parents coming down for a short visit Thursday and Friday, mostly so my mom can see the cat. Need to clean house, don't know when. Also a police auction on the Saturday.

-weekend after that - I was hoping to have my annual summer party this weekend, but I'm debating if it's worth it - and if anyone will come. Need to decide in the next day or two and send out invites, or nobody will come for sure. Also planning on taking that Friday off and taking a day trip to the outlets in Lancaster to stock up on near-dated cookies and slightly irregular underwear.

-following weekend - old college roomate coming from the midwest, wants to see my house and hang out.

By now, we are in mid-August, summer is almost over and early arrival students are showing up.

I'm not sure how I can get everything done, unless I give up sleeping.

Your mom's a HOA...

When I bought my townhouse, one of the things I liked was that the Homeowner's Association dues were cheap - around $35 a month. Other townhouse communities I looked at were in the $60-$100 a month range. Plus, the HOA didn't seem overly concerned about things - while they mentioned in the documents when I bought the house that I needed shutters around my front door, they never enforced it. I figured I had the laziest HOA around - perfect.

But there is a problem with lazy. For one thing, they don't always send me bills for dues, and when I do get them, they have late fees for not paying the bills they never sent me. I missed the last two, and the latest one came with a letter from the HOA lawyer. I guess in the future I need to just guess how much I owe (dues include water and common area utilities, so they aren't a fixed amount) and send them a check every three months.

And yesterday, I got a letter in my mailbox about violations I need to correct... including the shutters around the door, plus the back gutters on my house are loose.

The gutters do need to be done, although I hate having to take another day off from work to get it done. Luckily, bsom had them done recently, so I figure I can just use whoever he used. It would be nice to get gutter helmets installed.

I have no idea how to install shutters, or who to have install them - it's not like there's a listing for shutter hangers in the phone book. (Well, maybe there is - I haven't checked, and I'm not even sure where my phone book is). Supposedly, they are in my attic - which doesn't have an actual floor, so I'm a little leery about going up there.

I've heard a lot of people grumble about HOAs, and I've always said "well, mine's OK". Well, that's not really true anymore, and if I ever buy another house, I'd probably look for one without a HOA. I don't know that I would avoid one because of a HOA, but if it came down to two similar houses and one had one and the other didn't, I'd definitely go with the latter.

madanthony tries a Catholic singles group...

So I noticed a posting in the bulletin of the church I go to for a Catholic singles group having a singles night - being held at a bar that's practically around the corner from my house. I figured I might as well go - I'm not the world's best Catholic, but I still consider it a part of who I am, and I figured it would be worth a shot.

It was a nice group of people, but there was one minor problem - they were all considerably older than me - probably mid-thirties to 50's. Not exactly the age range I was looking for. When I saw singles, I thought it would be people fairly close to my age, but it wasn't.

I thought it would be a good outlet for me, and I'm disappointed that it wasn't. However, it was a decent group of people - and it wasn't like they spent the whole time talking about religion or anything - so I wouldn't feel uncomfortable going to another Catholic singles event or "theology on tap" type thing, if I could find one geared more to my age group.

And while I didn't get into the histories of the people there, and while a few mentioned having kids, a few also mentioned that they had always been single. Since they seemed reasonably normal, I guess it's a little encouraging - that not everyone in their late 20's who is still single is not crazy or ugly, that there should be some reasonably normal people my age who are still single.

But the hard part remains finding them....

Now I just need to fi

A random post about randomness...

I know some people who are annoyingly positive. They feel that all the problems of life can be solved through positive thinking - that if you think you can succeed at something, you will.

While I agree that positive thinking is important, I don't think that it alone can overcome circumstances. Life involves a certain amount of luck, of being in the right place at the right time. Having a positive view of life will make it easier for you to take advantage of those situations, and may even help you when interacting with people in those situations, since people can sense positivity.

So I decided to do some reading on randomness.

The first book was The Social Atom. It has some interesting analysis, but I wasn't thrilled with it. The author sees most interaction in life as governed by science, as acting like an atom. It's interesting, but many of his arguments aren't that convincing.

For example, he pretty much dismisses most of economics because much of the theories are based around the idea of a rational person, and he doesn't think people really are rational. That is probably true, but he also dismisses the idea that the rational assumption, while untrue, is a good starting point to build economic theories around.

One of his arguments around the rational against rationality was the dot-com bubble. People bought stocks despite analysts saying they were overvalued, so they must not be rational. This ignores a few things - like the fact that there were plenty of analysts making arguments that stocks weren't overvalued, that the internet economy was different than the traditional economy, that negative earnings in the short term were worth it because they would grant first-mover advantages to those companies that would help them in the long term. These arguments tended to be wrong for most companies, but nobody knew that at the time. There were also a few companies early on where spending money early on led to profits long-term - think amazon.com or eBay.

Buchanan also rejects the idea that religion can/should exist, because it doesn't fit into his model for the social atom.

The other book on randomness was The Drunkard's Walk, which I enjoyed much more. It looked at the the history of statistics, probability, and randomness. While it got a little too math-y at times, it had a lot of interesting points. One of them ties quite well with the idea of why people make seemingly irrational decisions like poor investments- because they often don't understand that success for a few years in a row can be a coincidence.

It also looks at why people - sports coaches, authors, ceo's, movie studio execs - are often branded sucesses or failures based on luck. He points out that often changes in those things to reward or punish behavior doesn't make a difference. He also points out that many sucessful authors - like the woman who wrote Harry Potter - submitted their manuscripts a ton of times before getting published, and that people have resubmitted pulitzer-prize winning novels - only to have them rejected.

In some ways, this lesson is depressing - your success depends as much, if not more, on being on the right place at the right time than being good at something. But the reverse is also true- if you've failed, that doesn't necessarily mean you will in the future. And if you the more times you try, the more chance you have of succeeding.

So the lesson I got from all this is that luck does play a roll in success. But the way to have the most chance of succeeding is to keep trying. A positive outlook may help in success, but the best you - or I - can do is keep tring.