Every month about this time I get all kinds of nervous. It has nothing to do with the phase of the moon, hormone levels, or low blood sugar. My monthly bout with anxiety is exclusively due to that time of month - rent day. My balances are low and I continue to hope beyond all reason that this month all will pay on time. I often question whether this is worth the ulcers I am causing myself - I sure hope so.
Although this may sound trivial, I’m pretty proud of my latest project. Although I have hooked up basic ceiling lights and installed X10 light switches, I’ve never really done any AC wiring. In the new house the basement “closet” is the area under the stairs. Even though I installed some closet rods, it is still sorta just the dark underside of the stairs. So I thought I would install an outlet, light switch, and a light fixture. I bought all the supplies at lowes which cost next-to-nothing. The only problem was I had no clue what I was doing. Having been electrocuted before during an X10 switch install, I was a little fearful of messing with wiring. However, I fought through the nervousness, drilled some holes, and tacked up some new wiring. I stripped wires, attached ground lines - still having no idea what I was doing. I just plugged things in based on what seemed to make the most sense. This morning I finally tied my little project into the main wiring - half expecting an explosion. To my pleasant surprise everything worked. I did it right somehow. Awesome.
Next project - reflux distilling. Remember that moonshine thing you printed out for me a couple years ago David? It will eventually become a reality.
I just realized today that the effectiveness of advertising is inversely proportional to the amount spent on that ad.
Washington Post $85 - got me a few losers and no-shows
Roommateclick.com $45 a few nibbles - haven’t given it much of a chance yet
Roommates.com $25 - had a good handful of people out to the house based on this
Craig’s List $FREE - probably have had more calls from craigs list than anything else
Maybe if there were a service that was less than $FREE I would do even better.
So I was thinking about Christmas and wondering why it is we are encouraged to ask for gifts that we would not buy for ourselves. By definition haven’t we determined that these items are not worth purchasing ourselves? Otherwise we would have already purchased them. We are increasing the market for shit we don’t need. How much better off would we be if we all asked for the things we were going to buy anyway - toothpaste, sandpaper, and a set of 50-weight ball bearings?
