Part of being a trucker is occasionally eating a full meal at a truck stop. Some are good and most are not. Tonight I had a decent meal at the Brintle Truck Stop in Mount Airy, NC. And now I’m sitting here watching football and drinking a glass of tea. I sure wish their WiFi made it all the way out to my truck in the parking lot.
Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Well, for everyone who has been wondering what I have been planning for a career, here it is. I decided that I want to be a truck driver. I’ve done a lot of investigating over the past few months into the trucking business and decided that it would be something I’d like to do. I still have to pass my physical and go to school and pass that and get hired, but I’ve already started working on all of that and I hope to be on the road by mid October. Anyway, wish me luck and I’ll update this page as things progress.
In case you’ve been living under a rock or perhaps you’re just finding this blog, you no doubt know of my “boycott” of retail giant Wal-Mart. Well, it’s all over. I’ve decided that boycotting Wal-Mart is like boycotting ExxonMobil or Royal Dutch Shell… pointless. Me not shopping at Wal-Mart isn’t going to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US nor is it going to bring back local mom and pop stores. I’ve decided that it’s time to recognize that the US economy is changing and I need to stop living in the past.
To break my boycott I went to Wal-Mart and made my first purchase there in over 2 years. I bought a softball bat (clearance priced at $15), some wrist weights to wear when I walk, an apple pie, and some fried chicken from the deli. The bat and weights are great, but the pie was undercooked and had nasty hard bits in it and the fried chicken made me sick to my stomach. People have since told me to stay away from the food at Wal-Mart and just buy the name brand stuff. A little late for me (and my stomach), but good advice nonetheless.
Speaking of brand named foods, one thing I’ve noticed a lot lately is that many foods are now offered in 100 calorie packets. This is something I’ve been wanting for a while now. It makes it much easier to watch what I eat. My only problem is not eating too may of the food packets at once. I would be happy to see more foods offered in these smaller portions.
I came across this post at Wired blogs detailing a top 10 list of reasons to throw away your cell phone. Most of the reasons listed are self induced and completely avoidable. I’ll just comment on a few.
First is the one about “perpetual availability.” One of my friends gets mad just about every time her cell phone rings. She always says she is tired of people calling her all the time. I always say, “Just turn if off,” or if she’s particularly mad, “Don’t bitch about it anymore if you’re going to leave it on.” But she refuses to turn it off or even leave it at home or in the car stating that she might miss something important. My solution to this problem of “perpetual availability” is to completely ignore my phone most of the time. I turn it off when I don’t want to answer it. I leave it at home if I don’t think I’ll need it. I usually check my messages only once a day and sometimes only once a week. And if it rings and I don’t want to be bothered, I just don’t answer it. Pretty simple.
I’ll also comment on cell phones being “horribly expensive.” I’ll admit that my cell phone costs me more than a land line, but only just a few dollars more. I have the lowest plan Verizon offers. Most of the people I talk to have Verizon, so those calls cost nothing extra. And I rarely use all of my 450 minutes or 100 text messages. My phone was a bit expensive, but you can get a good phone free of charge if you sign a long contract.
And why not sign a contract? All the cell phone providers cost about the same and as long as the service is good, there’s really no difference between them as far as I can tell. Verizon coverage is excellent. I get coverage even when I’m off in B.F.E. as long as I stick to the main roads. When my contract was up last year I searched around at other providers, but they all cost about the same. Since I haven’t had any problems with Verizon, I see no reason not to stick with them. That being said, the contracts are a bit silly and are clearly just a money grab on the cell phone providers part.
Maybe I’m the wrong person to be talking about this since I rarely talk on the phone. I just think people worry about their phones way too much. They are tools for our convenience, not our overlords. People just need to relax and realize that if you turn it off, calls go straight to voice mail.
Today was my last day at Dell. I turned in all my equipment, my badge, and walked out the door. One of my coworkers was also leaving today as well and we left at the same time. It was sorta odd to walk out to my car and realize that I’d never be back again. I told almost no one that I was leaving until today and most people will only find out from the email that I sent out at the end. It still hasn’t really hit home that it is over, but I’m sure it will eventually. For now I’m just going to enjoy some time off.
People keep asking me if it is raining where I am. The answer is yes, yes it is. It rains at least once a day, just about every day. There is water standing and flowing just about everywhere, even on the high ground. Rain is also in the forecast every day. I don’t mind it, but I’m sure the people in flood prone areas are getting pretty tired of it by now. The only thing bothering me is the humidity. Yuck!
It’s been a while since my last update and I think it’s time for a public announcement. I have decided to end my career at Dell and move on to other things. My last official day with the company is August 3rd. I am leaving on good terms and of my own free will. Overall I have had a great experience in my seven years at Dell. I have learned a lot and done things I didn’t think I was capable of doing. I saw a lot of changes to the company which has grown tremendously since I began working there in June of 2000. But with all that growth, Dell still treats its employees well and has always treated me with respect and fairness.
So why am I leaving? I decided that even though the pay, benefits, and work/life balance were good, I’m not really happy with the work I am doing. I am capable of performing my duties, but it is not what I enjoy doing and I certainly don’t see myself doing it the rest of my working career. These feelings have really hit home recently as I have been looking for jobs outside of Dell. At first I thought my problem was with the company and began looking for jobs similar to the one I have at other companies. However, as I read the job descriptions online and in the papers, I soon realized it wasn’t Dell, it was the job I didn’t like. There are many opportunities at Dell, but the more I looked into them, the more I realized they weren’t for me. I decided that it was time to take a different approach, so here I am.
Where do I go from here? Leaving my job at Dell has turned out to be a scary and hard thing to do, but over the past few days I’ve really come to grips with it and I realize there are many opportunities in life, some of which have been right under my nose. I’ve been researching some of those opportunities and I’m now even getting excited about them. Stay tuned for further updates as I move through this transition period.
I decided to go for a walk yesterday. Really I was just going to walk to the ATM and make a small deposit, but I ended up walking around in Pflugerville, TX.
You see, I had found this ATM up on the wrong road. At the time I didn’t know it so I just kept walking, looking for the ATM. I ended up walking about five miles round trip.
On my way I was nearly run over twice. The first was a lady pulling out of a parking lot and just not looking where she was going. The second was an old man who was on a cell phone and weaving all over the road. I was also honked at three times and a guy on a bike gave me a kindly smile and nod.
I never did make it to the ATM, but I did stop and pick up a few groceries along the way.
I have recently been struggling with my finances. The hard part is figuring out where everything is going. I was basically paying for everything with my debit card and not keeping track of how much I was spending. It turns out I was spending more that I was making. Because I don’t have a credit card, I was drawing on my savings to make up any differences in what was going out. When the savings ran out, I began to get overdrawn on my checking account. It was time to get things back under control.
Several years ago I discovered a guy named Dave Ramsey on the radio. Dave teaches people how to get out of debt and start saving money. His methods sometimes run counter to the conventional wisdom, but they are simple and easy to follow. He’s not one of those get-rich-quick con-artists, he’s just a regular guy who preaches common sense in finance. using his methods I paid off about $8,000 in credit card debt and was debt free for about 3 years.
In March of 2004 I decided that it would be nice to buy a new car because my old car was kinda getting shabby. Of course I hadn’t saved one penny towards buying a new car, so I financed it and suddenly I was back in debt. This is where is all started going wrong. By December of 2006 the savings was gone and my checking account was overdrawn.
In early January I decided that my problems could be linked to the fact that I had strayed from the path that had gotten me out of debt in the first place. Not only had a I strayed from the path, I had never really been on the path at all. I had followed along in the ditch and that got me out of debt, but it didn’t keep me out of debt. To get and stay out of debt, I realized I’d have to walk back to the road, crawl up out of the ditch, and walk down the center-line.
My solution was to go to my trusty Financial Peace Planner and get on a plan. That meant budgeting and using an envelope system, two things I had not done before. Both of them seemed too cumbersome and complicated. I’ve found that not to be true at all.
Being a complete and utter nerd, I decided that I would create a spreadsheet (download here) to help me with my budget. This was a good idea because not only did it help me to create an easy to work budget, it also satisfied my computer geekiness. Once I had my budget I discovered that using the envelope system wasn’t as cumbersome as I had thought. With everything now planned out in the budget, it was easy to withdraw the correct amount of funds on payday and then put the funds in my wallet whenever I planned to use them.
I also discovered some great web sites that I have added to my Links page (page not active at this time - Ed.). Check them out and contact me if you have any questions.
I found a roach in my bedroom last night. So today I sprayed the sliding glass door with bug spray and boric acid. I think that will keep them out for a little while.
