Greg In The Desert

After writing my post on the “How To Eat Chicken Wings Video”, I got a craving for some chicken wings. I called-in an order at the nearest Wing Basket and drove down to Albuquerque to get them.

When I pulled up to the place I could see a car sitting in front with it’s lights on and people inside. It took me a few minutes to get parked and out of the car. As I got out, the passenger of the other car got out and hurried to the door. We both seemed to race to the door but I did stop to open the door for the other person. She ignored me as I opened the door, not even a thank you, probably because she was too busy talking on her cell phone.

She was now first in line and both the cashier and myself were getting annoyed as she kept asking the same questions since she didn’t pay attention to the answers the first time because she was too busy talking on her phone. Since I was the only other person in the place it because pretty clear their one call-in order was for me. They only had one cashier so they could only do one order at a time.

Eventually she made her order. It was the smallest least complicated thing on the menu and it only took her 10 minutes. I’m not sure if she was consulting with the person on her cell phone or made this choice all on her own. Once she got out of line, she seemed oblivious that there was someone waiting in line behind her.

My Wings were delicious once I got home to eat them. The point of this story is to explain why I hate people and try to order everything on the internet.

On Thursday a week ago I went into work and had an large ice tea. I went to Dion’s for lunch (I am not blaming Dion’s for the following, it is very unlikely it had anything to do with them) and had a sandwich. I went home for the rest of the day and had water and some homemade soup while I worked on my house.

Friday morning I woke up about 7 am to go to the bathroom. No problems during the transaction and I went back to bed. At 8:21 am I woke up and looked at the clock and thought it was strange I was dizzy. Then I could feel I going to throw up.

I ran to the bathroom and spent about two hours at the toilet. I had no food in my stomach yet I experienced uncontrollable vomiting. I was extremely dizzy. I was sweating more liquids than I was vomiting and was freezing cold. I became disoriented.

The disorientation is hard to explain but my brains ability to tell which way is up or down was gone. It’s kind of like when a picture is turned on it’s side and it’s difficult to make out until the picture is rotated correctly.

Sometime during my marathon vomiting session I had to go to the bathroom. I managed to get myself up on the toilet and continue to vomit nothing into the tub. Crapping my pants wouldn’t have helped the situation. I am very thankful that didn’t happen.

After about two hours of what felt like a month I managed to stagger my way back to the bedroom. I was still vomiting but I had nothing to vomit so I wasn’t making a mess. It took a lot of concentration and stillness to get my vomiting to stop. Meanwhile I was still dizzy and cold. It was at this point that I considered calling an ambulance but I finally stopped vomiting and I didn’t want to start again by moving.

I managed to text a friend after a while, something about “HELP”. They brought me some crackers and electrolyte liquid. The throwing up stopped about noon on Friday and I spend the next two days eating crackers and mostly drinking water and electrolyte liquids. And sleeping.

Over the next week I had little appetite and it even seems like I forgot what hungry was. I had to force myself to eat real food. I also had body aches and headaches to suffer with.

I’m sure I had salmonella poisoning. I couldn’t be the flu since I didn’t experience a sore throat, coughing, sneezing, fever and other flu like symptoms. I could be pregnant but that seems unlikely.

I was already on the weight loss path due to lifestyle changes (as in I’m not dieting) and I can attribute at least 5 lbs of weight loss to the food poising. Although it was nice to get a boost in weight loss I absolutely cannot recommend this method.

I am setting at PDX (Portland International Airport) near my gate for a flight that leaves later today. I arrived this morning for quick work related business. Somewhere at the security checkpoint at Phoenix International Airport and boarding the plane to PDX I lost my ID.

I didn’t find this out until I was in my Rental car getting everything ready to drive off. It turned out to be a very stressful day. Obviously rental car companies will not allow you to drive off without a drivers license. I have to thank my good friend Mustafa for coming down to the airport to get me and take me to where I needed to do my official business.

He brought me back and I approached the TSA officer and told them I lost my ID at Phoenix. They took me aside, teased that the rubber hoses were over there, and asked to look at what I did have.

I pulled out everything in my wallet with my name on it, he looked it over and then I found my Costco card that had a picture on it. A crappy picture but it was something. That was it. No further pat down, not special baggage checks. I supposed bad guys don’t walk around with worn out credit cards, Costco cards, voter and library cards. He also quizzed me on some items in my checkbook.Despite the bad reputation TSA gets, I have never had a bad experience with any of the officers.

If they didn’t find my drivers license in PHX, I have a real pain to go through to get a replacement. That’s a story for another blog post.

My father, James Richard Smith, died on 12 June 2009. He had a stroke a few years ago and his heath has been poor since. He died at home which is where he wanted to be as opposed to having to live his life out in a hospital.

For the last several weeks I have been dealing with the aftermath in Arizona. Originally I thought I would write more about it but for now I am going to leave it at that. Although I am far from done with Arizona, I’m going to try to get back to some normalcy and start blogging again.

I remember being in Junior High and High School reading about the 1918 Flu epidemic and The Great Depression. In the future, such events wouldn’t happen again.

Here we are in the future. A possible great epidemic is upon us. We are experiencing the largest recession since the Great Depression. General Motors is closing down Pontiac. The United States has a black president. There are still no flying cars.

We are in interesting times. Hang on and enjoy the ride.

The current recession is like nothing ever experienced since The Great Depression. The semi-conductor industry is getting hit hard and I’m concerned that I could loose my job. It was the beginning of January that my employer said they will not need to cut jobs. At the end of January Intel announced plant closures and layoffs.

I can only speculate but I think these closures were going to happen at some point. They are just occurring earlier than were originally planned. Intel had already been slimming down for the last several years. The 1000 lay offs in the manufacturing sites were a surprise and maybe they were expecting those position to be eliminated though attrition. The site I work at is reducing 100 to 200 people.

A little over two years ago Intel cut jobs here in Rio Rancho when they merged factories and elimated the 200mm factory. This happened when the economy was booming. Then, I was very unprepared to loose my job. I had significant debt, little savings and no plan in the event that I lost my job. That was a very stressful time because the whole process lasted 6 months and I didn’t know if I would have a job or not. In the end, it turned out to be a whole lot of drama for nothing as I was never at risk for losing my job.

That whole ordeal taught me a lesson and I decided that I never wanted to be in that position again. Since then I have cut all my debt except for my mortgage and have started saving and building an emergency fund (I still have a much more to save before I make it to a years salary).

The economy seems to be getting worse. I fear Intel will have no choice but to cut more jobs to remain profitable as semiconductors sales drop. I could still get redeployed, the fancy term Intel uses for “we eliminated your job but if you can find another job in the company go for it. There aren’t any.” What happens If I do get laid off? Business Week says Albuquerque is one of the best cities to ride out the recession. I’m not sure I believe that and have started to plan for long term unemployment, a year or more.

Besides my savings I won’t be immediately without money. Not only do I have accumulated vacation and absent time that I can cash in, it’s very likely I will received at least three months of severance pay, maybe more due to my long service with the company. After the severance pay runs out I could draw on unemployment for a while. I have company stock and although it’s lost significant value in the last few months the stock sale could produce enough money to live off of for several months. Finally I could pull money from my 401K if I absolutely needed cash.

I will need to cut costs where I can. A few of the major expenses I can think of:

• Good bye satellite tv. Ironic since I will have plenty of time to watch it. I may replace it with a much cheaper Netflix plan, if I find I have time to watch movies. I still have my Apple TV and uh… bittorrent.
• I might eliminate the data plan from my iPhone. If I find I am at home most of the time I don’t see why I would need it much. I won’t eliminate my internet service. I already have a fairly inexpensive plan and using the internet will be needed for job searching.
• Since I won’t be at work, I will stop going out for breakfast and lunch. I will need to monitor my food budget much more closely. Now I buy whatever I want without much regard for costs. Maybe I will become one of those extreme coupon clippers.
• My 1997 Ford Ranger is paid for and in good conidion. I recently reduced the insurance on it. Assuming I’m unemployed for more than a few months, I would plan to ride my bike around town to reduce the chance that my truck would have problems. If I did have problems with my truck I am more than capable of making repairs myself. I could pay for repairs with a credit card and make the minimum payments if I had to have someone else fix it.
• I’m not sure there’s much room for reducing energy costs. I already have the thermostat aggressively controlled by the home automation computer and I don’t use that much energy by myself.
• Today if I want something, I put it on my credit card and buy it. If I want to travel somewhere I go. I do carefully budget these expenses so that they are paid for at the end of the month. It is pretty easy to do when I have steady income. If I get laid off and a new iPhone comes out, it’s going to take quite a bit of will power to not buy it.

If I am unemployed, I am not going to sit around and feel sorry for myself. In fact it’s an opportunity to get some things done that I haven’t had time to do.

• I have bunch of junk that I need to sell and or donate that I haven’t been able to sort out.
• I have a number of projects around the house I can work on that cost little or no money. I also can scour Craigslist for materials.
• I have my iPhone and Mac OS programming to practice.
• I will be blogging a lot more.

I think there will be some jobs out there, they just wont pay nearly as much as what I make now. If I have to I will work for minimum wage at the local pizza place. I could survive off that little money and still make the house payment. Who knows, I might actually enjoy it.

Unlike the last time I went through lay offs, I am not stressed about loosing my job this time. Sure it won’t be easy and it helps that I don’t have a family to care for. I will have to make some lifestyle changes. I have a plan and I am prepared for what ever comes along.

I got two emails to my gmail account wishing me a birthday. From people I don’t know. For a birthdate long passed.

Greg: Hope you are having a great bday. I am guessing the weather is a little warmer for you-it is freezing here with it only to get colder in the next 24 hours!!! We are leaving on Fri. for Breckenridge-all of us are going sking this year-we are going to try Anna in ski school and i am actually going to try to ski-it has been 15 years since i’ve skied so say many many prayers that i come home in one piece. your brother is so excited-i think he likes winter sports much more than i do!!!! the kids are doing well-sam is playing bball and so is emma-if you want a good laugh one of her games is the ticket. she is having fun trying!!! max and anna are keeping me company-as usual. would love to hear from you and hear how its going. we are thinking of you. Brian and Angie

And this one

Greg,

Just wanted you to know that we are thinking about you on your 30th birthday! Wow! Where have the years gone?
HAPPY, HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY!!!!! (a day early)

Love,
The Fickels

Annie, the family dog, died today. Technically she belonged to my sister but lived with my parents. She is a mutt from the pound and was probably abused.

They took her to the Vet a few days ago and she had respiratory problems and maybe cancer. She had lied down on the floor near the front and passed away. Her hearing went out a few years ago so it’s not unusual for her to sleep and not wake up for anything.

I estimate her to be around 15 years old, maybe older. She was with us for around 12 years.

With the current financial catastrophe going on, I’ve decided to invest in myself. I have signed up for Pragmatic Studio’s IPhone Development Studio, 10 November through 13 November in Denver.

The $1800 early bird registration certainly wasn’t cheap, and it isn’t being paid for by my company. I’m tried of this “teach myself programming” that I’ve done most of my life. I want some real instructed programming-on-the-Mac training. I can’t seem to get that anywhere in New Mexico, the local colleges don’t seem to offer it.

I’m mostly a VBA guy (and some RealBasic) so I need to brush up on my Objective-C. I started going back through Beginning Mac OS X Programming and should be able to get through it by the time the class starts. Only problem with this particular title is it covers Xcode 2 and there’s some pretty big changes with Xcode 3.

John Fleck posts today about a New York Times story on how the Saudis are afraid that by squeezing demand for oil they are going to put themselfs out of buisness.

While they are reaping record profits, the Saudis are concerned that today’s record prices might eventually damp economic growth and lead to lower oil demand, as is already happening in the United States and other developed countries. The current prices are also making alternative fuels more viable, threatening the long-term prospects of the oil-based economy.

It’s not your imagination, gas prices are higher than they were in 1918 when adjusted for inflation. Unless Saudis significantly reduce the price of gas and keep it down, the path is set to lessen our need and maybe one day eliminate our need for oil as a means of transportation.

My truck gets 15 MPG (when I’m lucky) and the last time I filled it up it cost me $68. When gas was about $2.50 a gallon, I looked at getting a Honda scooter that gets about 80MPG. Considering my truck is already paid off, the break even costs didn’t work out for the scooter nor is it likely to still work out to purchase a more efficient vehicle (I need to redo the math for current gas prices and I will publish it later). I still want to reduce my expenditures on gas so I’m going to burn fat instead of oil.

Assuming the weather cooperates, i will start riding my bike to work next week. I’m also working on resurrecting Project Maverick (my long languishing project car) and it will be electric. Both of these things I wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for the high price of gas. Apparently I’m not the only one reducing my use of oil, Exxon is selling off it’s retail gas business because it can’t make enough money off it.

Finally my point is that once people get into these habits they are not going to fall out. The movement against oil has already started and will counter the oil producers greed.