Thursday, April 20, 2023

Life in a Southern Town

 Every Wednesday I have to take Boris to his OT at 8 am.  It's only a half hour so I wait in the parking lot and then drive him to school.  At first, I used to stress about getting him there as soon as possible because he was technically tardy and missing some class time even though he had a note.

However, as the days and weeks passed in this Mid-South town, I realized: it didn't really matter.  He's in 2nd grade, it's not like he is missing out on anything crucial.  I still get him there quickly, but I don't stress if I miss a light or if the Therapist talks too long while giving me the summary report.




My FIL sometimes complains about traffic down here.  I know it's mostly an "I'm an old guy, that's what we talk about" thing.  But on some level, he really feels like there is traffic here.

The worst traffic here is nothing compared to the "best" traffic in Chicago.  

The annoying thing is how most people who are turning left don't pull out into the perpendicular street.  It's annoying because as it is when the light or arrow turns green, the first person is typically slow out of the gate.  If you are more than 5 cars back, you're chances of making that light are slim to none.  

Also, honking your horn at a car for a vehicular misdemeanor is frowned upon here.  And given the recent landscape, you don't want to find out the person has a short temper and is armed.  So it goes.

Monday, April 17, 2023

FaceBook Friend Catagories

I always wanted to do a post about some of my Facebook Friend groups so why not.  At one point I almost had 1000 "friends" but I whittled that down to under 400 over the last decade.  At first, I was friending anyone I had ever met but then I got more selective.

Virtual Friends:  In this first group are people I've never met IRL but am connected to somehow.  This includes a good number of former ChicagoNow bloggers.

Virtual Randoms: These are people I've also never met but also have no tangible connection that I'm aware of other than we both lived in Chicago.  There's probably one random leftover from MySpace.  

Actual Acquaintances: These are usually people I met once or interacted with long ago.  Former running group people come to mind.

Actual Friends:  People I actually know and give a sh*t about.

Somebodies that I use to Know: People that use to be important to me but are no longer.  But we kept the vestiges of our friendship through FB stalking and occasionally liking or the random comment.




Thursday, April 13, 2023

Ten Bucks a Day so far

We have had our playset for approximately 15 months, give or take a week.  I'm trying to figure out the Unit Cost so far.  Anne Landers had a formula to justify buying something, say an article of clothing.  If it costs $100 and you wear it once, it costs you $100 per wear.  if you wear it twice, then it's $50 per wear, and so on.  The more you use something, the lower the cost.





Now my kids do not use the set every day.  Some days it rains and then it takes a few days for the ground to dry.  Or it's too hot to be outside.  But this is offset by the fact that there are two of them, plus occasionally cousins come over.  

There are lots of ways to crunch the numbers but I'm gonna just do a very conservative look and a slightly optimistic one.

Conservative Estimate:  I'm gonna assume that 4 kids using the playset most days equals one kid using it every day.  So using the time and date duration calculator to figure the time between January 14, 2022, when it finally arrived, and April 14 this year, I get 455 days.  


that works out to $6000/455 = $13.19 per use.


Slightly Optimistic Estimate:  If we get more optimistic, then we can assume 4 kids using the playset most days equals two kids using it every day.


that works out to $6000/455/2 = $6.59 per use.


And if we take the average of these two values, we get the more like CPU of $9.89.


So after a little over a year, it cost ten bucks to keep my kids entertained and off their iPads.

Monday, April 3, 2023

Counting the Steps update

Last month I managed to get my 2nd best month of steps.  I got 27 out of 31.  It turns out my best month was the first month I started this thing when I got 29 out of 31.  Since then I'm averaging missing 4-8 days per month because of weather, sick kids, or something else that prevents me from getting off my butt.





Getting 10K steps a day isn't gonna help me with my weight loss goals.  I actually need to get two or three times that if I'm gonna limit it to walking.  

Also, the first two days of April I only got in about 5K.  Mostly because I was hit with a virus of some type.  Maybe a mild case of COVID but we did not test.  I've had all my shots and Nightingale believes it was more likely allergies.  I'm not certain but whatever.