Bike et al update

On Tuesday the 6th after work, I rode to the bike shop and purchased my upgrades. How I came up with $50-$60 is beyond me (at least for the moment) because it set me back $82 for the rack, headlight, taillight, under-seat wedge and cargo net.

As of Friday the 8th, I estimate I have logged 82.5 miles on the bike this year (not sure what my total is - can't find the notebook I used last year to log my miles). This Friday should bring that total to 114.2. I again rode my bike to my Monday night volleyball match (where again, we lost 2-1). On Wednesday we had the final night of our tournament for that particular league. I carpooled with my girlfriend and put the bike in the bed of her truck in case she wanted to leave shortly after the tournament and I wanted to stay and play a bit longer. Well we ended up winning the tournament after three games, 25-19 or 20-ish, 29-27, and the final 25-22. Afterwards we went to the restaurant upstairs at the Tucson Racquet Club to eat our free cheese crisp (with half-chicken and half-green chilis) and drink our free pitcher of beer. I couldn't tell you want the beer was since I wasn't there when my teammates ordered it, nor did I really care. I trust their judgement. Amy decided to leave right afterwards but the rest of us played some drunken volleyball before calling it an evening, so I rode the 5.5 miles home, arriving just after 11:30. At some point I realized I left my helmet in Amy's truck, so I had to do it with no cranial protection. Scary.

On Saturday, I went with Amy to visit her family who was camping in Tombstone for Mother's Day weekend. She mostly wanted to spend time with her grandmother, Sophie, who is a riot! At 87 years old the woman has tons of energy (and can put away a whole plate of biscuits and gravy, much to my dismay) and is only barely showing signs of slowing down. Amy describes her as a fiercly independent woman who really doesn't take any crap from anybody. Kudos to Sophie! We left Sunday afternoon and had enough time to get home, shower and take a long nap.

Monday (my new day off), Amy took a "mental health day" as she called it. She has been dealing with her ex-husband who still owes her money from their house they owned, but hasn't (according to her, and I have no reason not to believe her) done his part to close out his end of the deal. It all started before the recession, but he didn't get the house refinanced when he said he would, and since then housing prices have plummeted and he's lost his job. Life sucks, hence the need for a "mental health day." I kicked ass cleaning up the house (mostly) and in the afternoon we went out to buy a medicine cabinet, exhaust fan cover and supply air register, all for my second bathroom (which Amy now uses exclusively). Unfortunately we purchased these items later in the day on Monday, so I've yet to install any of it. Hopefully I can get it all taken care of this weekend. The only remaining item for that bathroom is a base board, but I'm not planning to do that anytime in the near future.

I made meal plans to get us through this weekend before needing to re-stock. I need to cull through some new (and easy) recipes to get us through until the end of the month. I haven't been using the crockpot as often as I should, so I think I might find some new crockpot recipes. The prep time can sometimes be obnoxious, but the leftovers are usually good for quite a while!

Starting Saturday, I'm picking my studies back up in preparation for my June 15th Building Technologies Exam. I took it back in October and failed it, unfortunately. This time around I should be able to pass it relatively easy. The next exam will be a re-take of my Building Planning exam (which I failed because I ran out of time on the shorter vignette - Interior Layout), which will be available to take in September. Pending the results of the most recent test, Pre-Design (105 multiple choice questions), BP should be my final test. After that test, I will officially (hopefully) be an Architect!

Ciao.

The Weekend

I didn't make it all of last week riding my bicycle to and from the office, unfortunately. However, I needed to go the bank and with the pending need for gas, decided to do it on Thursday, since it was payday. Technically I made it to the new month for gas, since I get paid on the last day of the month.

Technicalities...

Nor did I make it to the bike shop to get my shopping list of upgrades on my bike. On Friday, I biked to work on the way to my Pre-Design exam (test 7 of 9 to get my Architectural License), where I found out my office was reducing the work-week again, this time to 32 hours. My boss had mentioned it a couple times during staff meetings in the previous weeks, so we all knew it was coming, but it's just a bummer. To make it easy, management decided we'd work four, eight-hour days and asked us our preference for our day off; I picked Monday. Friday will always be Friday, and work always seems to crop up towards the end of the week, needing resolution before the weekend. I've always had a love-hate relationship with Sunday; it's a very bittersweet day, isn't it? I love the relaxed nature of Sundays, yet there it is, the lurking presence of Monday just beyond the shadows waiting to pounce. For me, Monday was the logical choice.

It was a busy weekend, altogether. On Saturday, I did laundry, grocery shopped and cooked dinner. Amy is gluten-intolerant, so we have to use a wheat-free pasta, which is surprisingly easy to find. Quinoa is a great wheat pasta substitute (better than rice pasta, anyway). On Sunday, I oiled up my dog Flame (see - Sabaceous Adenitis) then washed her off twice in the shower. Amy and I cleaned up the front patio and considered options for what to do with our bikes. We proposed hanging them in the patio or putting them on the north side of my townhouse in a storage cabinet (her idea), which seemed to be the best idea. The problem is my townhouse is small, and we are really trying to be efficient with our use of space. After Flame was taken care of (and the tile floor covered in residual baby oil) I left to meet some guys to play sand doubles for a couple of hours. Afterwards I returned home, showered and cooked dinner with a nice side. Amy brought a patio table and two chairs from her parents' house, so we were able to enjoy dinner outside under candelight. It helped there were no insects about.

Monday (my new day off), I lounged in bed until almost 11, before finally getting up to make breakfast. Amy was long since gone to work, so it was just me and the dogs so it was quiet. I made a couple of egg and ham muffins with juice and coffee before settling down to continue reading Second Messiah, which is a fascinating book and provides many alternative theories to history (King Arthur and his KotRT represents Jesus and the twelve Tribes of Israel, the Black Death may have extended to the Americas by the Norsemen and eradicated the Toltecs, Freemasonry, and the Knights Templar before it, are actually, or at least originally intended to be, preservations of the original Jerusalem Church, which is what Christianity was really supposed to be, oh and that the Shroud of Turin is not an image of Jesus, but of Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar). Finally I decided to get to work, which was to finish painting my second bathroom (so Amy could have her own), install the cabinet hardware, mirror and towel rack. I then cleaned the tub and toilet so it was ready to use (mostly). Afterwards, I cooked dinner before riding my bike to my Monday night volleyball match (we lost 2-1).

All in all, it was a very nice and productive weekend. I'll touch on the subject of efficiency and my townhouse at a later date (I hope).

Day 5

Well I exceeded my goal for last week, which was to ride my bike to work three out of five days. I rode it Tuesday through Friday, and I have to say I'm very pleased with myself. I decided I would try to ride it all week if I could, so I made the trek this morning and I look forward to meeting this goal!

I play volleyball in a league on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then just for fun on Sundays. I've ridden my bike in the past to the two leagues but since my game tonight is at 9, I don't think I'll be riding. As much as I enjoy it, I don't have any lights on my bike, and I really want to get to bed at a reasonable hour.  The league on Wednesday is sand, so some of us stay late and play doubles. Afterwards is usually pretty late and I'm pretty exhausted so I don't ride my bike. If I don't stay late, I'm usually car-pooling with my girlfriend who plays on my team.

I tend to grocery shop every two weeks, although since returning from vacation I haven't gotten around to draft meal plas for two weeks at a time. Part of that stems from the fact that my girlfriend moved in with me into my 950 SF townhouse the weekend before we left. There is stuff everywhere and my fridge is almost spilling over with items we haven't even yet tried to account for in our meal routines. As we get back on track, I would like to explore further the possibility of grocery shopping on my bike. I understand I will need a trailer of some sort which is large enough for two weeks worth of grocery shopping and has a compartment for cool/frozen items.

These are areas in which I would like to explore riding more, and hopefully as I get more comfortable and responsible with my time management, I will. In the meantime, another goal I have set for myself was to get through the rest of April without purchasing gasoline. I have three days remaining and I'm probably just over 1/8th of a tank. That will probably get me to my volleyball match tonight and then I will be officially warned with the "low fuel" light. I don't anticipate needing to drive anywhere else this week (Wednesday will probably have Amy and me car-pooling in her truck). If I meet my goal, then the idea is to reward myself with a few things:

1. Head and tail lights

2. Under-seat wedge for the essentials (I currently carry these in my backpack).

3. A 40# rack so I can place on top, a gym bag with clothes. I won't have to carry a backpack anymore...

4. A cargo net for the rack

Total: +/- $50 depending if I can find the items on-sale. At the very least, riding my bike this month has saved me about $60, so it's a worthy investment. There are some pretty good bike shops in town, so I plan to do all of my shopping online and will hopefully get everything at one place. I know I should take my bike to pick the items up (to save money from driving and to have it there to make sure all of the items fit), but I'm not convinced I'm going to.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep on trek...er biking!

Fitting post for Earth Day

I know the post is for Earth Day, but as much as I care about the Earth, I care more about the money I'm wasting.

I drive a 2000 Chevy 2500 Silverado truck; it's blue. I love my truck (I also own a gun, but I'm not a republican). About 3  years ago I moved into central-east Tucson from the northwest side as part of splitting up with my fiancee, partly to get away from her, but mostly to move to the side of town where most of my new friends, work and business transactions were. It made sense to me that in order to spend less money in gas, I'd move closer to where I spent most of my time. Oh, and I own the truck outright.

For 3 years I've been very happy with where I am. Suddenly gas prices started rising, so after a while (I tend to take a while to act) I decided to try my luck with riding my bike to work since I only live 3.1 miles away. I went out and dropped a whopping $250 on a hybrid Schwinn. That was last year; I rode for a few months and then it got cold (I know, I know... it's Arizona) and then gas prices dropped. I was happy to drive in my comfortable truck again. I still felt the occasional nag that I should get out there and ride the damn bike to save the world... but it was way easier to drive.

I have substantial credit card debt, by the way. I owe Citi and Capital One right around $16k (mostly Citi b/c of the better interest rate) and I'm trying to pay it off as quickly as possible. I just took a trip to New Zealand with my new girlfriend (we've been seeing each other for about 8 months) and I was able to pay for most of it in cash (thanks to my obsession about trying to pay off my credit cards). So now that I'm back and it's really nice outside, I thought: 'hey, why don't I start riding my bike more?' I rode it once before the vacation, but I drove the entire week after I got back. Now, today's Tuesday and I've ridden it twice this week, 2/3's the way towards my 'three days per week' goal. I'm happy. I have tons more energy already. My back feels better already (I don't workout lately, so I've been having chronic lower-back pains). If I keep this up for the rest of the month, I'll have gone a whole month without buying gas, which would be wonderful (6 days to go and I'm at 1/4 tank). 

So back to my point: I was on my igoogle home page and there was a Wiki-How-To link on ways to save water. From there I saw a link on how to live without a car. I read this article and it really got me to thinking whether or not I really could. So I thought about it and thought about it and then emailed my poor girlfriend (no, really I feel bad for her) this: 

"OK so I'm obsessed with making sense of things... sue me.

I tabulated my total expenses related to the truck last year and came up with $3300 (plus or minus $5) broken dow as such:
Gasoline: $2,095
Registration: $156
Insurance: $728.95
Maintenance (I called my mechanic and he actually added this up for me!!!): $227
Car washes (total guess but I don't get the truck washed often): $100

That boils down to 275/month! And I don't even make payments!!!

I thought about money I made while driving the truck, but really that money is for wear and tear on the vehicle, not just gas. I guess you could say that it should offset some of the maintenance costs, but to be honest, all it does is add miles and wear to the truck that maintenance really can't fix anyway... so I prefer to not even consider that.

Value the truck has brought...
- Freedom to go anywhere I please at any time for any reasonable distance: priceless
- Carting Dogs back and forth to Vet. The most realistic way to do this without a vehicle would be to rent a car each time. I am guesstimating I take the dogs 2 times a year (Flame): $100
- Moving things. Let's pretend you don't have a truck and I/we would have to get a u-haul truck. I checked the rates for a 10' box truck which would probably only take one trip to move your stuff, and I guesstimate it would be about $50 (29.99 + 1/mile). Pickup trucks and vans are the same price but are.59 / mile.

The only other real value the truck has brought (besides sentimental) is time. I don't know how many miles I put on my truck last year but if I break it down to just work, then I know that in a work year there
are 2080 hours, or 260 days. Each day is at the very least, 6.2 miles = 1,612 miles. I get about 11 mpg = 146.5 gallons. If we say the price of gas on average is $1.80 that's $264. If we say the average price is
$2.20 then it costs me $322 just to go to work.

It takes me on average 15 minutes to get to work driving, and about 25 while riding my bike. Extrapolating that over a work-year means I save 43.3 hours by driving. However, by riding my bike, I save either $264 or $322 respectively, which translates into $6.10 or $7.43 / hour! :). However, if you consider the fact that I will sometimes drive other places for lunch or after work, that number rises because I immediately don't do those things when I ride my bike to work (reducing the amount of hours saved by driving). For example - if I spend 10 hours per year driving to get lunch, suddenly by riding my bike, I now save those 10 hours, reducing the hours saved by driving to 33.3 per year, raising the hourly rate to $7.9 and $9.7 respectively . Also, if you consider the fact that I will sometimes
ride it to volleyball, that number doesn't rise, but the hours applied to it do.

So the point of all of this is... If I completely rid myself of the truck I would save between $2000 (I currently budget for $2,428/yr) and  $3000 a year, depending on how many things needed moved (but then we use your truck, perhaps). I would need to invest in some stuff for the bike like a trailer to put groceries in but for the most part, things could work. It would just take much more effort and dedication. I would also have the income from the sale of the truck (around $10k I'm guessing) which would help offset my debt. If I keep the truck but ride it 3 out of 5 days a week to work (156
days) and as often as possible to vball, and to buy groceries, then I save at least $300/year just from gas alone.

I have to think about those numbers and make sure they are reasonably accurate. $3k/yr is an enticing figure... Even if I can put $2k/yr additional to my credit card, that would be huge! I would definitely have it paid off by mid-next year. After that I can buy a respectably nice used car or SUV for under $15k for cheaper than what it costs to pay for my vehicle + credit cards each month today."

So there you have it. The reasons for this post are: 

A. To write something again.

B. To have the information somewhere that I can easily retrieve it.

C. To hopefully have someone with some intelligent thoughts on the subject comment... well, intelligently.

If my logic is flawed, please let me know.