Today and Money

This morning I took my car to the mechanic for service. It was a trip that was very much overdue and I knew it was going to involve a bill that was painful to pay. The check engine light has been on, it has been off, it has been on and blinking, the car has made unpleasant noises and it has shaken. Poor car has not been treated so well over the past eight months and it needs to brace for its first winter outdoors. So the car has a shorted ignition coil and needs the 80,000 mile twice over. And it is going to cost some money. So that sucks. This after I had figured out last night how to make it through the next month or so based on my income given the small amount of debt I have incurred recently. Living in Chicago has turned out to be even more expensive than I anticipated. I am glad that I have a roommate because it means reduced rent, but it also means I have to pay for storage for the stuff that won't fit in the apartment. And, sheesh, public transportation is not cheap. I guess considering what it would cost to drive to the city and park, it is probably not bad. But in compared to previous costs and given I am paying for a car that I am not using but on the weekends yet am required to have available for work.... it hurts the budget. So I was thinking about how I am going to balance the budget, give up clothes needed to be appropriately dressed for work, sleep through work instead of getting schwanky coffee, I think the most likely is less eating out. Probably better than that is a combination.

So all this was on my mind as I was walking home. So this kid was on the phone walking behind me. It sounded like he was on the phone with his mom and he was telling her that his wallet got stolen on the train. He had gotten up to let a woman get past him, he said and "a guy bumped into him once and everything was gone." He had called everyone he could think of, including his father who was out of town and it was going to cost at least $10 to get home and he didn't know what to do. Neither did his mom, apparently. So I was thinking, hum, I have $24 in my wallet but he needs $10. I was going to use that money for laundry. I wonder how he was planning to get home. By the time I considered that I should give him some money, he was gone. What a terrible person I am! Hopefully he got home okay.

A minimal view of lots happening

Whew!! It has been a long time and a great deal has happened. Soon after my last post I moved out of my apartment in Shorewood while working a temp job at the Milwaukee Center for Independence in the payroll department. Eric, thankfully, was able to watch over the moving process at the end of June, though there were several hitches in the process. Namely a car running into the moving truck and some problems with the storage space I had reserved which led to finally obtaining a larger one further away. The larger size was probably a blessing as most people know I have a lot of stuff. At the end of June I had an interview in Chicago with the Census Bureau for a job with the Census Coverage Measurement department. It was pretty cool going to downtown Chicago and seeing all the hustle and bustle of business people in the midst of rush hour. The interview seemed to go so so as it focused quite a bit on supervisory skills which I only really have in the classroom. I did the best I could, and I guess that was good enough because I got the call on July 13 to start work for them on July 27... a mere 14 days later. So, I gave notice at the temp job and trained my replacement (a whole other story), found a place to live, and made hotel reservations for the first week of work which turned out to be training in Oak Brook, Illinois, site of the permanent Regional Office for the Census.

So now I am living in the area of Chicago known as North Center, living on the third floor with all kinds of locks between the outside and the inside of my apartment, parking on the street, riding the "El" to work and back, and settling into life here. There is a lot to get used to. While grocery prices are good here in comparison to other densely populated metropolitan areas like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (I saw an article about it recently), they really do suck. I need to take a serious trip to Woodman's, but then I also do not have much storage space for the items I would purchase. My cupboard is full as it is from the stuff I had in my apartment cupboards! It would help if it would get cooler so I can really get to some cooking and get back into the swing of things in that arena after quite a bit of time without frequent cooking- well without any real cooking to speak of. It is going to take some time to get more settled because there are still three weeks of Kilties to go so I am not able to move stuff back and forth between Milwaukee and here like I might want. Hopefully I can get more organized and clear some stuff out of here once Kilties is over.

What a Monday!

I really wanted tacos for dinner, I don't know why, but by the time I got home there was no way I was going to get any. Two things delayed me. First, it was dark and cold outside, I had my laptop in my backpack and my gym bag so it seemed logical to take the bus. So I looked at the clock and found that the bus was supposed to come at 5:50 pm. So I was waiting in the union and saw that there was a guy waiting outside at the bus stop. The expected time came and went and there was no bus, not surprising. So when I finally saw a Route 62 bus coming I headed outside. The guy at the bus stop moved closer to the stop. The bus slowed, but didn't stop! This is particularly odd because that stop is the end of the line and often the bus drivers take a break there so it is extremely rare for the bus not to stop at all. The conspiracy theorist in me is beginning to think that there is a notice out to bus drivers not to pick me up as this is the third time in the last five days something similar has happened.

As I was missing the bus, I was on the phone with my dad who I was asking how quickly my heart rate should drop when I run. He said his doctors have told him 20 in a minute is good, in case you are wondering. He told me I shouldn't call him to ask such questions, I should use the Internet like he does. Nice. Anyway, my dad advised me to walk home, so I headed back into the Union and through Bolton. In the hallway I encountered a guy. He wanted to borrow a writing implement so he could write down a phone number from a flyer, so I loaned him a pen and gave him paper. "I applied for a job today," he said.
"Really?" I said, "why is that ironic?"
"Well, work might be hard," he replied.
I think I guffawed. I think what he was getting at was that it is hard to work and go to school at the same time. I learned a lot about this guy. His name is Nick, he went to Lakeland College in Sheboygan, he wants to be an astronaut- live in space and work there. He is kinda in trouble because we have neither aeronautical engineering nor astronautical engineering at UWM. He was wandering the halls in search of Red Mountain Dew which is sold in only one machine in the Bolton/Union/Lubar complex. Oh yeah, he hasn't had a girlfriend in 2 years and doesn't feel like he is in a good spot to get into a relationship considering the time and effort required. Also he apparently doesn't get out much because he feels he must limit his social life in order to do well in school. At first I was waiting to get debriefed- like he was doing some kind of social experiment to see how long I would talk to him. Then as he asked, "Are you walking this way?" I thought, "Oh my God he is going to rape and kill me!" But, of course, I left him standing in the building with his red Mountain Dew. I called Brad he said he was hitting on me, but then he always thinks people are hitting on me. On the other hand Ryan says I never pick up on people trying to hit on me. I don't know the whole thing was kinda weird, but humorous. And it put me back at least ten minutes... and however long it has taken me to type about it.

While I was running on the treadmill this morning at the gym I watched most of the Roland Burris press conference. Why was a press conference held in an airport? Aren't they crowded enough and have to address enough security concerns without a bunch of reporters with cameras hanging around? It was a pretty repetitive press conference... "What will you do when you are turned away from the Senate?" "I feel I am the answer to the problems of the people of Illinois."

Okay enough for today... next time maybe a little about technology dependence.