To follow up on my gasoline consumption post, I've been considering buying a bike and commuting to work. I use to ride my bike a lot as a kid and rode to school off and on from 4th to 7th grade. It was my main mode of transportation growing up and was a good source of freedom. Since then I haven't been on a bike much except for a couple rides down Mammoth. I've been researching bikes and figuring out some of the logistical problems a bike commute presents.
One of those problems is getting to work without being completely soaked in sweat. I don't think there are any locker facilities available in our building and changing clothes in the bathroom doesn't sound ideal. Not a huge deal so I'd just have to find what works best. If I leave early enough in the morning I doubt my usual casual business attire will be a problem.
A bike commute would also force me to bring my lunch, eat locally or go out with coworkers. Bringing lunch would be the frugal approach. I'd probably start bringing lunch and then eat out once a week.
My commute is convenient right now so I haven't had a problem working a 5/40 schedule. Riding a bike would introduce a little more overhead into my daily routine and I'd probably switch to a 4/40 with Mondays off. This would force me to get into work earlier so I can still get home at a reasonable time. I'd end up with a whole day off and would accumulate holiday time since most County holidays fall on a Monday.
The more confusing part is figuring out what kind of bike to get and how much to spend. I've never rode a road bike and just a handful of mountain bikes so I'm really not sure what I need or what I prefer. From what I've read a road bike might not be best for navigating city streets and handling rougher spots. I also like the idea of doing some light trail riding so I'm leaning towards a hardtail mountain bike; no suspension helps keep pedaling efficient. Just have to go down to the bike shop and see what's comfortable.
Last thing to consider is the cost of starting up a bike commute. Bike, helmet, lock and who knows what else could start to add up. As is I'm spending about $550 a year on gas to commute. If I started bringing my lunch and switched to a 4 day work week that number could be reduced by 60% so that digs into the savings. With that in mind I'm looking at a budget of $400 for everything to get started.
I'd see hard savings in fuel costs and maintenance, but more importantly I'd be getting exercise and opening up a new avenue for outdoor activity. Considering the cost of a gym membership this is easily worth a couple bucks a day to me. This could be the dropkick I need to reform my sedentary lifestyle and get into shape.
Anyone have bike commuting experience or general bicycle knowledge to share?
Tagged with: bikes, commute, gasoline prices
Posted under: Life Stuff
Every once in a while I catch myself wanting to buy some particular item for no good reason. A while back it was Star Wars books. I felt I needed the entire 9 book Rogue Squadron series and other books to fill in gaps in my collection. I read through the Rogue Squadron series and now those books are sitting on the shelf with little hope of being read again. I'm probably going to put them up on eBay and get some money out of them. The heart of the problem is why did I even have to buy them in the first place when the library probably had them for free.
I guess owning the books brought me some sort of satisfaction. This satisfaction wears off quickly once the usefulness of an item has been fully realized and then you're left with "stuff". I read the books and know I'll never read them again, but I'm still reluctant to part with them. Maybe we all have a pack rat inside of us telling us to hold onto stuff.
I think my urge to collect comes from a young age where advertisements encouraged us to be good little consumers and spend money on anything and everything. Anyone remember
pogs? They were just cardboard circles, but I had to collect the stupid things. I think they're out in my parent's garage now taking up space. Some items might have real collectible value, but my pogs are probably worth a cent or two each.
Anyone else have stuff that's ripe for listing on eBay or Craigslist?
Tagged with: collecting, junk, stuff
Posted under: Life Stuff
If you don't read The Blarg then you don't know that I became an uncle this weekend. Head on over and check out some pics of my cute little nephew.
Tagged with: family, nephew
Posted under: Life Stuff
This will be our first Christmas on our own and it has led to some interesting developments. I'm down for just sleeping in and having a nice relaxing morning. Anybody have stories about their first married Christmas or adjustments that had to be made in family traditions? And of course our first Christmas tree.
Tagged with: christmas, family, photography
Posted under: Life Stuff
Since everyone else is taking the personality test I'll throw mine in along with the Multiple Intelligences test. Nothing too surprising.
Tagged with: internet, life
Posted under: Life Stuff
The last few times I've gone to buy something on Amazon I've run into the same problem; it is becoming more and more difficult to actually buy products fulfilled by Amazon and try to meet the $25 required for Super Saver Shipping. There is no straight forward way to tell Amazon's search to only search products sold by Amazon. Some categories have an option to filter Amazon only products on the left, but that seems pretty hit and miss. Problem for us consumers who don't like wading through third party products is Amazon is making too much money to care. Anywhere from
30-50% of the units that move through their site are through third parties. The only good solution I've found is a site,
Amazon Light, that uses Amazon's web services to search and filter out the third party results, leaving you with search results that are nearly all eligible for free shipping. This will come in handy during the holiday shopping since I despise going to the mall.
Tagged with: amazon, internet, search
Posted under: Life Stuff
As some of you know I started a new job with Los Angeles County at the beginning of August and I have been there a month so I thought it is about time I posted about it. At the beginning of July I left my previous position with a consulting firm I had been with for a year and took a month off to get ready for the wedding, honeymoon, and moving out. We got home from Hawaii on the 2nd and I started on the 6th. They hired a group of new developers and put us all through 3 weeks of training classes in a bunch of different areas like communication skills and software testing.
Now that I’m out of training and getting settled into my team I find that I am really starting to like working for the County of Los Angeles. First of all I’m at the Imperial building in Downey so I have a nice 5 minute / 2.5 mile commute which has made a huge difference. This cuts down my time spent in the car by over an hour and fifteen minutes per day which means I get home earlier and incur less stress from the drive home. The shorter commute is also saving me about $1000 a year in gas.
I’m already plugged into a team and working on an active project so I’m feeling good about being able to contribute so quickly. Working for the county is a nice change in that I’m not working for some company whose only concern is making a buck. Here I feel like the money isn’t the only thing motivating me, there is also a sense of being able to help make a difference. A lot of the systems our group creates are used by other county departments to directly serve the public. I see this leading to higher job satisfaction and less potential for burnout.
The benefits were one of the biggest things that attracted me to the county. The private sector can only offer so much and the benefits here made up for the raw pay cut I took. The big benefits include excellent medical and dental coverage for both Sarah and me, 401k with 4% matching, paying into a pension instead of social security, and generous vacation/holiday/sick time. There is also a lot of room to move around since the county is so large and everyone is always looking for good talent.
So that’s what I’ve got going on.
Tagged with: life
Posted under: Life Stuff
Denise will probably be the only person that finds this interesting, but Leaf Cat paid Sarah and me a visit the other night. For the rest of you, Denise named the neighborhood cat "Leaf Cat" because she saw it walking around the condo complex with a leaf in its mouth. She decided she wanted to stop by, take a tour of the place, get some noggin scratching and then take off. Good times.
Tagged with: animals, photography
Posted under: Life Stuff
I'll be married in about 4 hours and I have been looking forward to this day for a long time. I'm excited to start a new life with Sarah and I'm not really nervous. I've been getting lots of "your last days of freedom" comments and I'm slightly confused by that. Not sure if people are just joking around or if that's how they really view marriage. I only see positive things happening by getting married.
You can probably get a good idea about someone's attitude about marriage by analyzing how they would handle finances. Are accounts and paychecks kept separate and each partner does whatever they want with "their" money after the bills are paid? Or are the financial identities of the partners merged into one where all money earned goes into a pot and both agree on how it should be spent and saved. Financial independence in a marriage just seems strange to me.
See ya all at the wedding or stay tuned for a plethora of pictures when we get back from Hawaii.
Tagged with: life, wedding
Posted under: Life Stuff
Been a month since my last post and much has happened in that time period. Since The Blarg and MRI both updated I'll finish things off with a sort of sibling blog hat trick if you will.
First off I left my position with the consulting firm I had been with for the past year. My last day was July 6th and I'm taking a month off before starting up at LA County with their Web group. I'm really looking forward to the change, hopefully the work will be more challenging and rewarding. The benefits are excellent and you can't beat a 2.5 mile commute (I was doing 25 miles each way to Diamond Bar and my gas bill was approaching $180 a month).
Wedding stuff: 4 days and counting and nearly everything is done. Taking time off helped since I was free during the day to do whatever needed to be done. Took some late engagement pictures last week and got those printed up (thank you Richard!), printed up place cards, table numbers, programs and made favors.
Our new place: With my sister, MRI, moving to San Diego they needed to rent out their condo. With Sarah and I getting married we needed a place to rent. To say the least there wasn't much debate about what we should do. Sarah is already moved into the condo and we're getting settled in. We have the 2 most important things already: a bed and a HDTV.
Previously mentioned HDTV: My new toy is a 42" Panasonic Plasma and I'm loving it. We've been watching TV on my 20" LCD for about a year and I was ready for something really nice. Cashed in credit card rewards and got a free HD-DVD player (would have had to spend $100 on a player with HDMI anyways) and I've got the receiver already. OTA HDTV and DVDs look gorgeous. Pics of the setup will definitely be posted once I receive my speakers.
Honeymoon: I just need to do some last minute confirmations but everything is booked and we are picking a few things we want to do. I just kind of want to explore and take a bunch of pictures. Kauai and Maui here we come.
Photography experiments: My goal is to come back from Hawaii with a bunch of awesome pics to print and fill our large empty walls with. One of these pics I want to be a nice big panorama and to facilitate that I'm taking a tripod and new gadget to make sure it is perfect.
That's where the Panosaurus comes in. It positions the camera in the portrait position and you calibrate it to rotate around the nodal point of the lens so things line up properly as you rotate the camera. I'm thinking a 360 view from the top of Waimea Canyon would be pretty sweet. And here's a quick test I did of my bedroom (12 pics stitched together with a manual exposure, I only have 2 light bulbs in so one side of the room is darker):
On a side note I think it is pretty interesting that you're possessions can really demonstrate what type of person you are. Some interesting observations about myself/room (I'll work left to right):
- Homemade rear speaker stand made from metal bookshelf end spray painted white and screwed to wall.
- Box with water bottle wrapped in paper with line and nail in front, Panosaurus calibration equipment.
- Phone which hasn't actually been plugged in for several months for some reason.
- Numerous pictures of soon to be wife.
- Cluttered desk
- Bookshelf. Normally top shelf dedicated to SNES game collection and other video games. Next shelf dedicated to miscellaneous literature: Greek mythology, WWII and Vietnam books, fantasy and sci fi. Next shelf would be almost completely dedicated to a mostly complete Star Wars book collection. Next 2 shelves are filled with math and programming books. Wow that all just screams nerd.
- Boxes in living room ready to be moved out.
- Boxes in bedroom ready to be filled.
- Wardrobe consisting mostly of t-shirts, that might have to change soon.
That might be it until after the Honeymoon since the next 4 days are going to be pretty busy with Rehearsal dinner and getting all the last minute things ready. In the meantime stick it to the RIAA man and download Prince's new free album.
Tagged with: gear, life, photography, wedding
Posted under: Life Stuff
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