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Archive for September, 2008

Tried to do my civic duty

October 1st, 2008 at 05:27 am

I don't know...the election must be getting to me....

I read in the paper yesterday that the state of Kansas was thinking about changing the interstate speed limit from 70 mpg to 65 mph. This was the Kansas Energy Council that was proposing it, and they had other things they were pushing as well. They were having a public forum today from 9:00 to 12:00 to allow the public to comment on it.

The reason they wanted to change it is to reduce "greenhouse gases" and gas consumption. They also wanted to increase speeding fines by 50%, lower the "fudge factor" to 5 mph instead of 10 mph and be able to report to insurance companies speeding over 5 mph instead of having to wait for you to be 10 mph over for the same reasons.

I asked my boss if I could go on my lunch hour, and she said sure. I left around 11:00 and showed up by 11:15. It was already over! I had written up my little speech I was going to give, and so the lady there that was putting everything away said I could put my name and address on it and she would take it back, because if you didn't show up at the public forum you could send in your comments in writing.

When I left, there was a TV reporter outside interviewing someone. I didn't want to walk through the background, so I just waited for them to be done. When they were done, I kinda yelled out, "Hey, you can interview me too." She came over and asked if I was for it or against it. I said against it, and she said "I think we have enough coverage of people against it. There were a lot of people in there against it. The lieutenant governor pretty much said it wouldn't pass."

That's good news. But, just because I didn't get to have my say in front of a crowd, I'm going to post here what I was going to say:

My name is *** *** and I live in ***, KS. That is about 20 miles north of Interstate 70 between Salina and Hays. I work in IT at *** here in Wichita. My husband, ***, farms around ***, and so cannot move closer to Wichita. My company does not have a telecommuting policy, but they have allowed me to work 4 10 hour days, so every Monday morning, I drive 165 miles to work, stay here in the Wichita area for three nights so I can work my 4 10's and after work on Thursday I drive 165 miles back home.

I can make it to work, if my vehicle is gassed up the night before and there are no other stops along the way, in 2 hours and 15 minutes. The effect of decreasing the interstate speed limit from 70 to 65 would increase my drive time on Monday mornings and Thursday evenings about 30 minutes. My commute on those days would now be closer to 3 hours, with a 10 hour work day on top of that.

Instead of impacting my drive time and family time like this in order to cut down on gas usage across the state, I submit to you that it would be more effective to encourage businesses, for instance, with tax incentives, to come up with a telecommuting policy for their workers that are able to do their jobs in a home office setting. In normal circumstances, if an employer would allow their workers to work 1 day a week at home, that would be an automatic 20% savings in gas for those workers. If my employer, for instance, would allow me to work a week a month at home, I would save over 25 gallons of fuel, 25% of what I use during the month just for my commute. This amount of gas savings is not trivial, and actually would be more of a savings than dropping the speed limit by 5 miles per hour.

Thank you.

Found credit card offer

September 25th, 2008 at 04:26 am

I found the credit card offer I was talking about yesterday. It was a Capital One card and it was 0% interest until November 2009, no balance transfer fee, no annual fee and up to $30,000. I applied to transfer my balances over there...they couldn't give me the "60 second answer" so they will send me something in the mail.

Hope this goes through. I haven't had any other offers lately...

Oh, just remembered...the mortgage company owes me about $700 for the escrow. Wonder when they are going to pay me that? I tried to call them, but it was too late. I'll call them tomorrow...

Update

September 24th, 2008 at 05:21 am

First of all, if I offended anyone over on the forums, I am sorry. I was trying to defend someone and went too far. I am glad that Jeffrey cleaned up that messy series of posts.

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Now that that is out of the way, let's get updated. Like I mentioned, I got my house sold a few weeks ago. I sold it for about $1500 more than I bought it for, but I paid $4000 in closing costs, paid 6% for the real estate agent and sprayed for termites, so I ended up walking away with about $13,000. I put down $17,000, so I lost $4000 from when I bought it 2 years ago. But, that is only $166 a month, pretty cheap rent Smile Let's look on the sunny side of this!

$9900 of it is earmarked for the land payment at the first of December. I transferred it to our online savings account so I won't be tempted to spend it on other stuff before then.

Before, I was allocating $900 every two weeks for bills between the two houses, and now, including the $25 a week rent I am paying for my room (yep, only $25 a week! I get cable, internet, a bathroom to myself and a place to do the three s's (shit, shower and shave) for that) is only $410 every two weeks.

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Because of all the extra time I put in last weekend and last week, my boss let me take my normal day off on Friday and let me stay home on Monday and come in at noon on Tuesday. Awesome! That is a nice way to recognize someone's work.

So, I told DH that, and he said "great! I have lots of swathing for you to do." Hee hee. He also liked that I would be around for longer Smile I got home Thursday night and then spent 4 days in the swather. We got a lot done...we figured I did over 200 acres and he was baling at the same time. We are charging $10 an acre and $8 per bale, so I alone brought in $2000 this weekend! I don't know how much he did...our bale counter over counts sometimes, so we have to wait until we move them to count them. We probably put in $400 worth of fuel for the swather, though.

That is what we should have been able to do this whole summer. But the rain has stopped us from doing that. We probably lost a month and a half where we couldn't get in the fields because it was too muddy. What a year. It would have been a lot different had the wheat not gotten hailed out and if we could have had even $1000 weekends all summer.

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I ended up getting reimbursed for the mileage for when I went to the java class. I accidentally paid for the rental car on my credit card instead of the company card, so they had to reimburse me for that. Got reimbursed a total of $632.58 to me, with $434.42 the rental car, so almost $200 for the mileage. It all went to the credit card.

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I had an offer in the mail about a 0% interest 0% balance transfer credit card for an entire year, but I can't find the offer now. My two 0% offers end in December, and I need to get them transferred over here pretty soon so we don't have to pay interest on them. It is bad enough I haven't paid off my normal working credit card for a few months now. I kick myself every time I think about it, but I don't know how else to hold this ship together for now.

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Ok, why is Living Almost Large trying to pick another fight? On the "Do you NEED 2 incomes" thread, she posted this:

Question, do people when considering staying at home for a child, make a non-gender based decision? Meaning that person staying at home has the lesser income whether or not they are the husband or wife? Or is it decided by gender?

I have to wonder why people on a financial board typically tell a woman to stay at home if her income doesn't cover daycare. But if it's the man who earns a lot less, rarely is it force your husband to stay at home.


Well, I'm going to respond here, but I'm not touching that in the forums with a 10 foot pole. The following are stereotypes, but sometimes, stereotypes become stereotypes in the first place because they are true.

First, they are called boobs. Babies do best with breastmilk, and men can't make that. If you can give your child breastmilk for a year after birth, that puts them on the best track for the rest of their lives. The simplist way to deliver said breastmilk is for the mom to be there holding the baby. What a pain to pump and freeze and defrost and warm up and wash bottles, etc. Not that a family can't choose to do it that way. Go ahead! But it is undeniably easier to pull down your bra and let the little bugger go at it.

Second, "maternal instinct" is not some myth or some way to keep women in their place. It is real. Women tend to WANT to stay home with their children. And, babies/children tend to want to be with their moms. Again, if someone chooses to do it differently, fine. But if the mom wants to stay home, why is that bad and the husband in that relationship automatically labeled a woman-hater or a pig?

I am not a feminist. That much is probably pretty clear. But, I think any woman is capable of, and should, do what she can do. Some women can do a lot. Some, not so much. Same as men.

Each family should let the person that does that job best do it. But THEY should decide, regardless of political leanings.

It seems like to acknowledge your femininity and natural predilections and tendencies offend some people. Like biology, culture and personal preference has no say...to be a "new" woman you have to forsake all womanly characteristics and emasculate your men (or not have one at all) to prove something.

And any woman can decide for herself and each family can decide for themselves, what is best for them. Because a woman decides to stay home does not mean she was forced to.

It is sooo funny that someone called me a misogynist. Dude, do you know me? I grew up on a farm, doing actual farm work, not just living there. Working in the field on a tractor by myself by the time I was 10. Rode horses, worked cattle, harvest, all of it. In high school, I worked for my uncle and dad roofing. We had 6 girls in high school (two cousins and me and my 3 sisters) on that roof, and lots of people came by just to see us working up there...they had never seen anything like it before. Played 3 sports in high school. Played basketball against the guys almost every Sunday night at the open gym. There would be 15 guys and 3 girls playing (my two best friends and me) and we just shot free throws to determine teams and no one complained when we were on their team. I played two sports in college. Majored in math and physics and got a 4.0 GPA. Got a math masters degree in theoretical algebra. Now I work in IT and farm with my husband. I got an award a few years ago called the "Women who soar" award from work because of my leadership and I just get crap done. I didn't get married until I was 30 because I wouldn't settle, and I did just fine on my own, thank you very much. I like to hunt with my husband and his friends, play video games and hate cleaning the house. I am the definition of an empowered woman.

But I don't lean left at all, so I will not be called a feminist. It is too bad that in order to be a feminist, you have to be willing to kill babies before they are born, want special treatment for women on the job, want all gender roles flipped upside down and reject God because he is the ultimate patriarch.

Wait a second, maybe I'm a "Sarah Palin Feminist." We have to come up with some other term for that, to get the F word out of there. No wonder I want to vote for her.

missing post

September 18th, 2008 at 06:55 am

Grr. I just blogged for about 45 minutes and then hit submit and forgot my VPN was on for work and lost everything. I can't do that again.

But, we got the house sold, I got moved into a new place I am renting from a friend for $25 a week, farming is good, boss likes the work I'm doing and she is giving me a day and a half off next week because of all the time I've been putting in this week.

Sorry! That's all I can recreate. I'm going to bed!