:: Trying to keep track of it all... ::

:: 5.22.2003 ::

Money...

Whoa, thats a big one huh?
I'm having the hardest time justifying working this summer.
No duh... right? Well hear me out.

It seems that since we've started working recently and are now generating an income we are actually spending more money than we were before we were gainfully employed. Or as my ever concise mother put it were "sluggards".

2 months ago, before we started working, we were at lets say status X with our finances. Not much money was coming in, but not too much was going out either. And we had all day to do what we wanted. I guess you could say we had found a financial equilibrium.
Now that were working our financial status seems to be dropping. Our position X is now lower than when we started! Now were down to position W! How is this possible? We havent really been spending a lot of money. At least not that I'm aware of. And whats happening to all the money thats coming in?

Our whole intention for getting jobs this summer was to save some money and bulk up our savings account for the coming year when I wont be working.
In preparation for school, I need to buy about $1800 dollars worth of tools, we need to put first, last and security down on a rental in Maine, well have some moving expenses, etc. etc.
So we figured, get jobs and save some money. We didnt have much money going out, so all our income could pretty much go into the savings, right?

Wrong!

We've actually had to dip into our savings, since weve started working to pay for stupid useless stuff like health insurance (which is a criminally large amount of money, and another whole rant in and of itself.)
When we lived in Boston I noticed this same money in/out phenomenon. When we moved there in '98 we were making very small salaries. But we still found the cash to take vacations, go out to dinner, buy stuff we wanted, etc. etc.
As time progressed and our salaries increased, we never seemed to be able to save much more than we always had in the past. After 5 years both our salaries had doubled, our housing costs were the same, or lower as they were when we started out and our standard of living was the same. We still went on the same vacations, and went out to eat with about the same frequency. It just seemed that all the extra income disappeared into these little gaps. We were able to save some money, but it was mostly from my side business, and not from our respective incomes.
What is this phenomenon?
Its really weird...
I mean if we were to quit right now, would we be any worse off financially? I'm starting to think it wouldnt really matter.

:: Zachary 9:39:31 AM [+] ::
...

I got to go to the shipyard!

What...?
The shipyard is cool.
OK, so maybe its not for everyone...
The company I work for, Hy-Line asked me if I could help take our old ferry from the shipyard in Providence back to our facility in Hyannis. So I said sure. It was me as crew, Patrick who's the First Mate on my usual boat as Mate, and this guy Eric as captain (Patrick and Eric working hard, or hardly working?). It was pretty fun.
We got there about 11:00 AM and the boat wasnt in the water yet. It had just gotten new bottom paint for its trip to California. (Hy-Line had just gotten a new jet cat ferry, so they sold the old jet cat ferry to a ferry company in San Diego. And the only way to get it there is to sail it, thats why the new bottom paint. CA is a long way from MA...)
So I got to watch it get lifted up in a travel-lift, and plopped in the water. Well... its about 100 feet long and weighs somewhere under a hundred tons, so they didnt really "plop" it into the water. They sort of settled it gently.
Anyway...
It went in the water, and we sailed it to Hyannis. Took us about 3 and a half hours. It was a beautiful day for a sail, we had the music playing and the whole boat to ourselves. It was pretty interesting. And a nice change from the usual routine of the trip to Nantucket and back.

Here are some pics.

:: Zachary 3:13:33 PM [+] ::
...

Mothers day foolishness

It was mothers day the other day and instead of buying my dear old mom some jewelry or beautiful flowers or any old crap like that, I thought I would make my gift for her myself. Because a handcrafted gift made with love is worth more than... uh...
ahem...

Anyway, when I was a kid I remember we used to always make mother's day cards in art class. So I thought why not make my mom a handmade card. Yeah thats it!
Lets see now, wheres the construction paper... hmm dont seem to have any. Uh... Crayons? Nope, none of those either... Paste? Yeah right. dammit...
Wait, I do have a computer, I'm pretty good with graphics, and I do need to really start learning Macromedia Flash a little better.
Eureka!! (I didnt really say eureka...)

Here's the fruits of my labors. Not real high-brow but it made my mom laugh. And its re-usable! Well at least until she gets bored with it.

I told her she could show it to her co-workers for a laugh if she wanted. She said maybe it would be better if she kept it to herself.
Probably a good idea.

:: Zachary 4:36:05 PM [+] ::
...

Artsy Fartsy

So here I am at work.
I took this pic one day on Nantucket when we had a layover due to high winds.
It was a pretty bad pic contrast wise, and I was trying to clean it up in photoshop when I started playing around.
I cant even remember now what it was that I did but I think it came out kind-a interesting. Pickle says I look like I'm about to lose my chowdah. hmm... could be...

:: Zachary 7:50:37 PM [+] ::
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