FourBux

Life’s funny sometimes. Other times, eh, not so much.

Some of you may know my wife and I have been working lately on purchasing a home. Six months ago we moved into a condominium with the intention of getting in and then getting out. The housing market across the US is dismal; in the Phoenix area the numbers are almost twice the national average, but in the bad way: houses are on the market for twice as long, the prices have dropped at twice the rate as elsewhere, there are tons of people just trying to get out of the market without losing their shirts. The Fed just cut interest rates. Again. Now is a fantastic time for us to buy a home, except for one thing:
More »

What do you mean you forgot me?

So today I started my new car pool program. The plan was to meet at this person’s home at 6:00 AM, and ride in together, taking advantage of the carpool lane and generally avoiding all the normal traffic pitfalls. Only having to gas up the car once during the week will save some cash, too.

I’ve said on more than one occasion that I’m not a morning person. Really, really, the opposite, actually. Last night, in an effort to not make my new carpool mate late for work, I went to bed early, forgoing my typical late night cup of coffee for fear of oversleeping this morning. I went to be before 11, and true to form, my sleep reservoir was full at 4:00 AM, so I got up, spent some time in the home office, had a pot of coffee, and left on time.

We’d had a ton of rain yesterday and last night, so the roads were slick and flooded. Phoenix isn’t known for the great way it handles the occasional deluge when it comes to the city streets. When I found her road, there was some sort of flooded wash that I had to cross. Those of you who’ve been on here for a while know my car is not made for crossing washes…in fact the bottom of the car sits about four inches off the ground. Illuminated by my headlights in the pre-dawn darkness I thought that it probably looked more dangerous than it really was, I decided to chance it. The idiot’s last words, right?
More »

I spent my day on the can

I swear. There are some days that I really wonder if the job is worth the frustration. It isn’t a difficult job, in fact I’ve often said a trained monkey could probably pull this off. It certainly isn’t strenuous. It’s just the stupid things that give me pause. Or maybe it’s the number of stupid things that give me pause.

Today’s case in point:

The icon at the above, in full-size glory, is the result of a request from our internal development group. What they asked for was, and I quote, a “small, simple trash can icon.” We went back and forth all morning about the dimensions, then colors, and followed that up with a rousing conversation about the pros and cons of corrugated metal versus metal wire basket styles. That little thing above is the final artwork that got approved.

Long story short, I just spent my day creating a low bandwidth, high-contrast, empty version of the the default trash icon from Apple’s OSX dock.

I just wish they’d requested that from the beginning.

Every time, without fail.

Let’s call it what it is…

What did you do this weekend?

This weekend I made the mental point to not just sit around the house watching television. I also tried not to work, and being totally honest here, those two activities make up most of my out of office time. My brain was starving. I’ve been telling my wife for a while now that I wanted to read something. Something big that I can really get lost in. I’ve set her one-volume tome of the Chronicles of Narnia on my nightstand in the hopes that at some point I’ll pick it up and get hooked again, although I have yet to touch it. She’s been reading The Historian for months now and I’ve been waiting for her to finish it so I can start it (she hates it when I start reading something before she finishes it.).
More »