Archives for April, 2007
Saving for the Next Adventure
In December I took my first real vacation in a very long time. And by a “real” I mean spanning more than a slightly extended weekend, going somewhere I’ve never been before, to do something unrelated to my job. My boyfriend and I started diving in July and we thought going on a dive vacation to a place where the water was warmer might be adventurous enough. We decided on Cozumel and had a fantastic time. Relatively speaking, it wasn’t an expensive vacation; I just didn’t have much to work with because I didn’t have much saved. I certainly didn’t have enough saved to pay for it all. Before we even got back to Seattle I knew I would want to do another trip as soon as I could possibly manage [the time and the money] … but I also knew that wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t come up with some way to save for my next adventure in advance.
I will admit that I have been pretty terrible at saving money. I have tried so many times in the past without much luck, and while I have definitely gotten better I needed to come up with something different – something that would hopefully actually work. A while ago I opened a “REGULAR SAVINGS” account to help me save, but when I logged into my bank, the savings balance was right there next to my checking balance … and all I had to do was make a few clicks to magically move money from one to the other. As far as P Money (my spending consciousness) was concerned, the savings account was actually just a subsidiary of my checking account – meaning none of it was off limits for any fanciful use that might please P Money. (See my problem?)
At some point I realized that I needed to improve my financial condition, and that it was of tremendous importance for me to have some money saved away for paying my rent. I think “they” actually recommend you have enough saved away to cover your expenses for 3-6 months. Well, that was a daunting thought that was not very appealing in terms of a manageable goal, but the idea of having a couple months’ rent in reserve was. So I did a very simple thing – I opened a second savings account called “RENT RESERVE,” and started putting money in it. It didn’t take long for me to reach my goal of having two months’ worth in there. I even began using it as a clearing account for my monthly rent payment, transferring my next month’s rent into it as soon as I got paid and transferring it back out when the rent was due. But here’s the kicker – remember how P Money felt about the regular savings account? Not so with the Rent Reserve! P Money treated the Rent Reserve as if putting money into it would gain the favor of the gods and taking money out (for anything other than the rent) would earn an unspeakable wrath. This was just amazing to me, and I knew it was an important development towards P Money’s financial maturity.
I was excited. I mean, if it worked so well for the rent, why couldn’t it work for something else? Something more fun? Like … a trip somewhere? (Notice the sarcasm?) It turns out that while there is no reason it “couldn’t” … there appears to be at least one reason that it “wouldn’t” – because it didn’t. Not that it was a complete failure per se; it just wasn’t as prosperous as I would have hoped. Let me explain. I opened a third savings account and called it “THE NEXT ADVENTURE.” It was meant to be treated like the Rent Reserve account, with money only going in until the time came to use it for its intended purpose. Unfortunately P Money didn’t really see it that way. While P Money didn’t consider it to be a subsidiary of the checking account to the degree that the regular savings was, it wasn’t too terribly far behind. I think the biggest problem was that it was too open-ended. Whereas the “success” of the Rent Reserve was easily measured in terms of how many months’ rent was in there; there was no such measure for the Next Adventure. P Money didn’t even know when or where the next adventure would be. It would have been something like saving for a wedding when you’re not even engaged.
But anyway … let me get to the real point of all of this. That trip back in December was that next adventure. I used up what I had managed to accumulate in my NEXT ADVENTURE account, what I had left in my REGULAR SAVINGS account, some of the funds in my checking account, and some of the credit I had available on credit cards. Since I hadn’t managed to save up even half of the cost of the trip beforehand, I was going to be paying for it for a while. And while that wasn’t a terribly big deal, my overwhelming desire to have another adventure was. But like I said before, I knew another trip wouldn’t be possible any time soon (or perhaps ever) if I didn’t come up with a better way to save for it in advance – especially since it wasn’t going to get any cheaper.
If you step back and think about how much you spend on things over the course of even one month, it might not take very long to see where you spent a few hundred dollars on things that weren’t really necessary. For me, that money was spent on eating out. Well, there was no way in hell I was going to stop eating out … but maybe I could eat out less. I mean, if it meant I could go on a vacation instead, couldn’t that compel me? Perhaps … but I know myself better than that. When faced with the decision of going out to eat or saving for my next adventure, much more often than not Hungry P (my epicurean consciousness) will win. Immediate satisfaction is easy, and procrastinating saving for some undefined notion is even easier.
I needed a way to get around P Money’s uncanny ability to maintain access to every cent of mine no matter where it resides, as well as the devious nature of the P (my consciousness) in general. I needed to make the savings somewhat subconscious and as close to automatic and effortless as possible. I needed a way to trick the P into saving money for something that didn’t exist since I knew a promise of a great adventure in a far-off place wasn’t enough. The most foolproof plan would be one that wouldn’t punish me for doing the things I do, so much as reward me for things I’m already doing.
(To be continued …)
09/05/2007 Update:
Well … I have yet to finish my blog entry, but the plan has been very successful. We went to Bonaire at the end of April, and not only did I have enough saved up to cover my costs … but I had a few hundred leftover. I kept it in my ADVENTURE SAVINGS account, and I have continued to follow the plan without any noticeable negative effects on the rest of my financial well-being. I am elated to report that as of 09/04/2007, the balance in my ADVENTURE SAVINGS account broke $2,500. Seriously! This is a new type of accomplishment for me. It is not that I have never had $2,500 in the bank; it is that I have never saved up that much money for a very specific albeit rather ambiguous reason. I think P Money is finally getting the picture.
Virginia Tech Hokies - Have Heart
I graduated high school in 1990. Less than a few months later I started college at Virgina Tech. For financial reasons, I was only able to spend a semester there, but I have incredibly fond memories of Blacksburg and my short-lived time on VT’s beautiful vast green campus. I actually think that “once a Hokie; always a Hokie” – because over the years I have never been able to shake my affinity for the school. I will admit that at times it seems strange to me to feel such a strong tie to a place I only spent a few months of my life, but on more than one occasion over the years I have thought about returning.
News of the shootings today was surreal. I tried to imagine what it could have been like to be so close to such a horrific occurrence at that age … on that campus. Of course I failed, and I guess that’s something to be grateful for … yet I still want to be empathetic. The mention of names of halls I have walked through brought the pain a little closer to heart. I can’t help but feel like there is a large dark cloud hovering overhead, and I wonder how the world failed this young person so utterly miserably that he could not handle life anymore, and couldn’t handle it to the point that he felt he needed to take so many lives along with his own.
If the Virginia Tech campus is still populated with the same type of students I lived and learned with so many years ago, there is plenty of hope for their healing processes. I have never since had as many true friends in one place at one time as I did there. So many people were willing to welcome this quiet, shy, out-of-town girl into their circles; open to offering me assistance without my asking; and happy to help when I needed it.
While many lives were lost, and for countless souls this tragedy will never be forgotten, I hope that fortitude in numbers and the strength of Hokie hearts will help those affected be able to celebrate the lives of those friends and family members lost … and give them the spirit to go on to live their own lives more fully and meaningfully.
Undescribed Dirona (Janolus sp 10)
While diving in Sechelt last November, I took a picture of a very cute little creature that I was unable to identify at the time. This week I attempted to find it again, and ended up finding two nudibranchs that appeared similar - the Golden Dirona (Dirona pellucida) and the Janolus Fuscus. I also came across a post from 2000 by Marli Wakeling about the Dirona aurantia (now classified as the Dirona pellucida) on the Sea Slug Forum:
There is another nudibranch that mimics this one, but it is new and undescribed; in fact it is a Janolus sp. One can tell the difference from the liver coloured digestive tract…otherwise identical.
That sounded like the nudibranch in my image, and I contacted Marli to see if she could give me a positive identification. She believed it was the Janolus sp. she had referred to her post, and she forwarded the photo to Dave Behrens for a second opinion. It turns out that while this creature’s existence is known; it has not yet been described for science and has no name.
05/11/2007 Update:
I recently submitted my photo to Bill Rudman at the Sea Slug Forum, where you can see the message I sent him in addition to the Janolus sp 10 factsheet.
Waking Up with Tavis Smiley
Sometimes I get tired of watching the news in the morning. Every weekday I watch the local news on channel 5, followed by The Today Show at 7:00 AM … until I have to leave for work. I recently started getting up earlier, though, and if you watch the local news for that long, you quickly realize it repeats itself. So, the other morning I decided to flip through the other stations I get. I guess I thought maybe I’d find something like Little House on the Prairie, which years ago was on every morning. I loved watching that wonderful program, and rarely did they show one I had already seen. No such luck this time.
But … when I flipped to channel 9 (our local PBS station), for some reason I was compelled to linger. It was the Tavis Smiley show, and Mr. Smiley was interviewing a very dynamic woman named Suze Orman about her new book, Women and Money. I had just seen that book this weekend when I was at Barnes & Noble browsing a table in the center aisle. I ended up watching the rest of the show. Mr. Smiley mentioned he was going to have Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine on tomorrow, and I was looking forward to that. Unfortunately, getting up super-early to watch a show on PBS was not yet ingrained in my memory and I missed it completely. But I was able to watch the next day’s episode, and quickly decided I like the Tavis Smiley show. I’m not sure what it is about Tavis Smiley, but I like the seemingly authentic way he is when he interviews his guests.
It’s too bad PBS doesn’t have more “good” programming on to last me through the 6 o’clock hour. I stayed tuned after Tavis Smiley to see what was on next once and was hugely disappointed. It was the Teletubbies. I will never understand the appeal of that show – not even to a 2-year-old.
I will “keep the faith” that PBS will continue to keep the balance and offer shows of both interest and intellect.
Climbing the Majestic Mountain
This was taken on July 29, 2005, as I was walking through Paradise on the way to Camp Muir.
I ended up summiting early the next morning …
Identifying Invertebrates
This event took place on October 13th and 14th of 2006. Thanks to sponsorships by the Puget Sound Action Team, the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, and the SeaDoc Society, Janna Nichols of Pacific Northwest Scuba was able to offer fish and invertebrate identification classes free of charge.
Janna’s classes came highly recommended by others who had attended them in the past, and I was pretty excited for the opportunity. Unfortunately I couldn’t make the fish class on friday evening, but I attended the invertebrate session on Saturday morning, followed by two dives at Sund Rock.
In one word, Janna’s class was fun, and I felt like I was in grade school again. (that was a good thing.) I actually learned quite a bit. Well, I guess that’s relatively speaking – I learned at least enough to pass REEF’s “most common fishes” test. (Once you pass that test and complete two REEF surveys, you are considered a “level 2 novice” REEF surveyor.) For more about REEF and the fish survey program, visit reef.org.
Like others before me, I will also highly recommend Janna’s class. (I hope to make up for missing the fish section some day myself.) You can find some photos from that October weekend in Jannna’s smugmug gallery.
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