Immensely Satisfying

#1. Walking into the post office, surveying the line of suits waiting to mail stuff on their lunchbreak, then simply dropping my online-postage-bedecked package into the package slot and turning on my heel. Total time at the post office: 45 seconds.

#2. Rain. Not snow, but rain.

In other news, I can’t afford to have very many of these totally exhausted evenings. Not with two concurrent web projects going on. Hopefully I can have a productive evening tomorrow, getting some detailed thumbnails cranked out for my client. Once I get set up and trained on the use of their online time logging system, I’m going to need to shift gears to get the other contracting project done. I think I can juggle both — again, as long as I can force myself to time-manage properly and not allow myself to be unusually tired in the evening.

That said, I’m going to bed early tonight. Like, now.

What I Did On My Snow Day

I thought for sure that I’d get *so* much accomplished on my snow day. I had such grand plans.

*sigh*

I made a concerted effort to work on the LSM site, as I appeared to be on a bit of a roll with that. Within the past couple of days, I had locked down the Guest logins so no one can change the passwords on those, or add their own name to the contact info (grrr!). I also made it so that no one can delete an event that already happened, just in case I need to upload photos of that event later, as the photo table relies on the event table to get info about each event. I also adapted the script that displays the available sheet music for download, and changed it around so that my new script (on another page) displays all the board meeting minutes that are uploaded.

I was pretty proud of having done that, so I started working on a couple things this morning. First, I tried changing the upload form to include uploads of meeting minutes, so I wouldn’t have to rename and upload all of them myself. I wasn’t in the groove, though, and couldn’t wrap my mind around all the small changes I was going to have to make. Instead, I thought I’d work on some e-mail forwarding: making a singular e-mail address for the board of directors forward to each member of the board. I tried setting up a mailing list on my personal domain, which was daunting, then went to make sure I could forward an address on the LSM domain to one on my domain. And OMG none of the forwarding I set up would take effect! Not even when I tested it and forwarded the new board e-mail to my personal address. Seriously frustrating. I mean, forwarders don’t need to propagate like domains, do they? Why should I have to wait to see if the forwarding works? At any point, I gave up.

Aaron and I had grilled cheese on 100% whole wheat bread for lunch, then he went outside and shoveled the driveway for an hour. In the meantime, I did the dishes, bleached the sink, swept the kitchen floor, and cleared off the dining room table. And listened to Pimsleur’s Japanese 1 lesson #2, where I learned to say, “How are you?” and “I’m fine, thanks,” along with other things I already knew, like “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” “Thank you,” and “Goodbye.”

After Aaron was done shoveling, we sat together in the living room while he warmed back up, then I posted some stuff to eBay while he talked to a couple friends on the phone and decided whether to go to work tonight.

After Aaron left for work around 5:30pm, the evening turned into something fairly normal. Made dinner, watched the news and Good Eats, and played on teh internets. And here I am.

Not exactly a vacation day, but not exactly a day full of accomplishments, either. Ah, well.

Back To “Normal”

I feel like I’m having the typical winter almost-February depression. I’m not sure if it makes things better or worse that I can point to a source of the depression, for once. It doesn’t change anything, knowing there’s a reason I feel this way now.

I feel like blogging is kind of pointless, too. I’m either going to be a typical “woe is me, look at how much my life sucks right now” blogger, or I’ll be blogging about something absolutely pointless, like games or work or what I fucking ate for lunch (homemade macaroni salad, if you care).

Of course, it’s not like I’m going to find anything better to do, like working up my new portfolio site or washing dishes or some shit. I’ll just end up sprawled out on the couch, reading the same Star Trek book I’ve read literally innumerable times since before I was in Junior High, and raiding the refrigerator before next week’s renewed weight-loss push talking to Amy on the phone for over two hours.

Depression sucks. Strangely enough, though, it also feels normal. Friday night, alone, with some food and a book and my own personal raincloud to hover over me. I’ve been here before.

On Working In Finance

Even though it wasn’t the post-graduation dream job I’d hoped for, my four-year-plus stint at Sky Bank has helped me learn about the world of finance, which is good. Sometimes I forget how much of what I’ve learned can be applied to my daily life until someone reminds me.

I wouldn’t call it a resolution, exactly, but one of my medium-term goals is to reduce my credit card debt. I have… *does some math* …over $7500 in credit card debt spread across four cards, with APRs ranging from 13.24% all the way up to 19.80%. This is unacceptable to me at this point in my life, so I decided to start with one and pay it down. I haven’t defined my goal yet, i.e. how much and how soon, but I at least have a focus.

Two of my cards have similar balances, but the one with the higher balance has a significantly lower interest rate. I asked Aaron earlier this week which one he would pay down first, and he wasn’t much more sure than I was. Today, I asked James at work, and he suggested that I figure out which one was accruing more interest, and pay that one down first.

Holy shit. I *do* know how to calculate that. In my sleep.

So, for each card, I took my balance, multiplied by the rate, divided by 365 days in a year, and multiplied by 31 (actual) days in a month. It might not be the exact same way the credit card companies figure my interest, versus how certain loans work, but it was a ballpark figure that I could use for my own devious purposes.

Turns out that the lower balance, higher APR card accrues just under one dollar more interest per month than the higher balance, lower APR card. So, my initial decision was supported, and I’m on my way to having lower credit card debt. w00t!

Thank you, Sky Bank, for teaching me at least one relatively valuable life skill. That, plus I know how my mortgage works, how checks clear (or don’t clear), and how electronic payments are posted. Yay for unexpected jobs?

Firaxis Needs A Proofreader

For Christmas, Amy got me CivCity Rome. I installed it this evening, and have been enjoying learning all about my fun new game. Being a former scholar of Latin, I hold Rome in a special place in my heart. (Mrs. Nemeth TOTALLY would have given me Latin extra credit if I’d brought in this game as proof that the Roman culture still influences today’s society.)

However, there is one thing that’s really, REALLY bothering me about this game.

The grammar.

Just look at this screengrab:

Tell me, can *you* find all the comma splices and run-on sentences? I can. I propose that the caption should read as follows:

Hail, Quaestor! You do well, and Rome smiles upon you, honoring you with this high rank and title. I would like you to stay on in Capena for a while. The people here are scared and believe their illness brought on by evil spirits. We must show that Roman Gods are stronger. Erect some temples and encourage the locals to marry. This town is important to Rome; let’s put some backbone into it.

I tend to be a little comma-happy, setting off all clauses with commas, even those that some grammarians claim can simply attach onto the normal sentence structure. Not everyone is as liberal with their commas as I, although I always have a reason. I also prefer more complex sentence structure than I’ve rewritten above; being that this is a ten-and-older game, though, and narrated to boot, shorter sentences work better.

Am I a grammar nerd? You betcha. Maybe there’s a patch to fix the horrendous sentence structure — I’ll have to go see, I suppose.

*sigh* My inner nerd shines through once again…