swirlspice

Obligatory Look Ahead at 2009

Erica — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:05:56 +0000

Now that I’m high on accomplishment, time to voice my intentions for 2009.

Money. It’s completely unsurprising to me that this is the first topic that popped into my head when I started to write this list. I have three complete years of Pearbudget spreadsheet data, including one full year of data for my current living situation, so I have a pretty good handle on how much I spend and where it goes. I hope and expect that this year will be the year that I go from bad-debt-reduction mode to save-up mode. I’ve been balancing both for a couple years, but I’m more than ready to leave that payoff/paydown stuff behind. This will be a big mental shift for me, as well, because I’ve pretty much never lived outside of debt-reduction mode.
My goals for 2009 are:
1. Pay off that last credit card.
2. Fully fund my Roth IRA for 2008.
3. Determine how and where it’s prudent to combine finances with Missy and then do that.
4. Save money as aggressively as I paid down my debt in 2008.
I expect that accomplishing these goals will be pretty easy.
Home life. Things on this front are pretty damn good. It continues to amaze me how easy my relationship with Missy is. But I can’t say that there’s nothing I need to work on.
My goals for 2009 are:
1. Be more helpful.
2. Pull my weight around the house and take a more active role in taking care of house business. For example, that room upstairs ain’t gonna paint itself.
3. Find out what steps Missy and I need to take to legally protect ourselves as much as possible and then do that.
I expect that accomplishing these goals will require some dedication. There’s lots of upside if I succeed, but not too much downside if I don’t, so I have to provide myself with some impetus and not be lazy about it.
Business. The more I spend time and money on my various web projects and the more I earn doing it, the more I see a need to separate that from my personal finances.
My goals for 2009 are:
1. Meet with an accountant and determine the best way for me to manage my side-project finances.
2. Keep track of the time I spend on my various web projects. I’m not sure how detailed I want or need this to be. I’m hoping it’ll help me gain some clarity around how much of my life this takes up and how much my time is worth.
3. Write stuff off!
4. Take myself seriously, take my projects seriously, have an actual plan for them, and execute on that plan.
I expect that the parts where I already have a pretty concrete action item will be a piece of cake, though they’ll require some discipline to do it in a timely fashion. I’m not really sure what that last part will look like.
Social life. Even though I already feel like I’m crazy busy, I just need to get out of the house more. It’s not because I’m not having enough fun. I’ll admit it, I’m kind of a homebody, and I’m totally fine with that. It’s because no matter how awesome the internet is, face time with people can’t be replaced. There are so many people I know on Twitter that I would really like to sit down with.
My goals for 2009 are:
1. Make a list of people I want to talk to and talk to them. In person.
2. Try not to let living in the ‘burbs prevent me from doing stuff just because I think it’s too far to drive.
3. Try not to let the fact that I don’t drink nearly as much as I used to prevent me from entering into social situations in which there is alcohol involved. This might seem like it’s coming out of the blue. All I know I’ve become increasingly intolerant of listening to people my age talk about getting trashed (as an end, not as a means or a coincidence). I have a hard time sometimes deciding and reconciling how much I want to drink (or not) and — just as important — how much I want to spend (or not).
I expect that I’ll do a pretty good job with these, until I get exhausted. I’ll have to push myself, but also acknowledge my own limitations as an introvert.
My body. I said that my diet in 2008 was the healthiest it’s been. You wouldn’t know it from looking at my butt. This sounds so cliche and whatever to even say it, and I hate that I even think it, but I looked at pictures of myself from xmas and thought, “Holy shit! Is that what that looks like?” There are advantages and disadvantages to not having a full-length mirror and scale readily available. At the same time, my weight was very stable throughout the year, so I’ve clearly got a good balance of eating and working out. The psychological problem I’m having is that I’ve been skinnier, so I know I can be skinnier. Never mind that was because I barely ate because I was broke. Although it was also because I ran a lot more. But the trick here is that I need to be doing this because I enjoy the benefits of eating better and being in better shape, not out of shame and guilt.
My goals for 2009 are:
1. Run a race. Any race. I clearly only stick to running when I’ve paid money to enter a race.
2. Stop using the weather/my location as an excuse not to run. I’ve become a total wuss about the weather, even though I have plenty of cold weather running gear.
3. Get a new bike, because I really do not enjoy riding the bike I have and it keeps me from riding as much as I could.
4. Take another stab at biking to work.
5. Take more responsibility for my eating habits. Missy feeds me. I need to learn to do it myself (and to feed her, too).
6. Somewhat related to that, there needs to be a shift in my eating habits, and it’s only gonna happen if I do it myself because I can’t expect Missy to do it for me. Not sure yet what form this will take. Less red meat? Less meat all together? TBD.
I expect that I’ll have some mixed results here. It will require some discipline for sure. How I eat is as much about learning as it is about making radical changes. Actually thinking ahead about preparing meals is a total mindset shift for me. That change is far bigger than changing what I eat in the first place. As far as exercise, I already know what to do; I just have to do it.

And now that I look at all that, I’m overwhelmed. This year is not going to be a piece of cake.

One thing I’ll have to do is review progress more often and use it to keep up momentum. I got a huge high off of looking back at 2008. What more could I have done if I’d ridden that high more often?

One thing I’ll have to do is what I do at work when I’m feeling unmotivated which is turn on some tunes and schedule tasks/micromanage myself to death. I like Garrick’s idea of scheduling tasks as time blocks on a calendar as opposed to keeping a To Do list. Sometimes I have to not give myself a choice.

One thing I’ll do is get back to some 30-day challenges in 2009. I had some great successes with some of the ones I tried in late 2007 and early 2008.

Accomplishing these goals should be much like the 100 Pushup Challenge: Not at all easy, but totally doable.

A Boy’s Life

Erica — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:31:54 +0000

A Boy’s Life

Since he could speak, Brandon, now 8, has insisted that he was meant to be a girl. This summer, his parents decided to let him grow up as one. His case, and a rising number of others like it, illuminates a heated scientific debate about the nature of gender—and raises troubling questions about whether the limits of child indulgence have stretched too far.

I experienced so many emotions reading this. A difficult experience for both parents and children, to be sure.

Month by Month Round Up of 2008 LGBT Sports News

Erica — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:09:13 +0000

Month by Month Round Up of 2008 LGBT Sports News

Compiled by by Roger Brigham for the Bay Area Reporter.

(via Pat Griffin’s LGBT Sport Blog)

Resources on Minnesota Issues: Same-Sex Marriage in Minnesota

Erica — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:19:20 +0000

Resources on Minnesota Issues: Same-Sex Marriage in Minnesota

This guide is compiled by staff at the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library on a topic of interest to Minnesota legislators. It is designed to provide an introduction to the topic, directing the user to a variety of sources, and is not intended to be exhaustive. In particular, it is focused on items available in the Legislative Reference Library.

Genders and Drop-down Menus

Erica — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:58:40 +0000

Genders and Drop-down Menus

The favor I want to ask is this: please think about how you’re handling race and gender on your websites. Just look at it. You don’t have to change anything. Just make a mental note in your head about what your saying to your users about the importance of race and gender, and the categories that exist for them.

I’ll give you a hint: If you’re still asking about race in a required drop-down menu, you’re way behind. Because doing it that way says to a user:

You have a race.

It’s really important to me.

It’s one (and only one) of these listed here.

…. I think gender is taking the same path as race.

Obligatory Look Back at 2008

Erica — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:44:02 +0000

I was gonna go right to the ~~resolutions~~ things to think about doing differently for 2009, but thought it might be helpful and useful to see how far I’ve come in 2008 first.

The short answer is that my life, right now, is the best it has ever been. I am the happiest I have ever been.

!!!

Here’s what I’ve accomplished this year. In no particular order:

I paid off two of my three credit cards. I have struggled with my debt in a variety of ways for a long time. To make such progress, feel such success, and experience such freedom has been astounding.
I earned a promotion and a hefty raise at work. This is mostly a reward from the previous two years’ hard work. It also reflects my boss’s confidence in me, which is much appreciated because I really respect and genuinely like him.
I lived in this house, with Missy. It’s different to me to feel such stability and comfort in my living situation.
I joined the Board of Directors of the Twin Cities Women’s Choir. I was completely flattered to have been asked and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to give back to an organization that has provided me with so much happiness and joy.
I auditioned — solo! by myself! — for ENCORE! and got in. I don’t do auditions. The whole point of singing in a choir is so that no one can hear just me. But I really enjoy the experience of singing with the smaller group and I had to do it if I wanted to continue. So I did.
I met and made new friends through the beauty of the internet and a trip to SXSWi. It’s so wonderful to put face, voice, and presence to a screen name. It blows me away how Twitter more than any other medium has significantly contributed to my online relationship-building, and how it translates to offline/meatspace relationship experiences.
I have consumed the healthiest diet of my entire life. This may have dubious status as an “accomplishment” because this is almost entirely due to my just eating what Missy puts in front of me. And Coke Zero. The availability of nutrition facts online has led me to selecting healthier options at some of my favorite places to eat.
I enjoyed several vacations with Missy, including a wonderful trip to Costa Rica. I have always been one to just go places by myself if that’s what I want to do, whether I was meeting people there or not. Missy and I travel really well together. Road trips, plane trips, fun trips, friend trips, family trips, whatever. Going places — and enjoying them with her to boot — has been phenomenal.
I launched two websites — cinna.mn and fresh.mn — and acquired The Dish. That move to fresh.mn, on a very low level, had been a long time in the making. I’m glad I took the leap. cinna.mn was almost an afterthought; what I’ve learned is that there’s clearly a niche in this community to be filled. The Dish… that all happened so fast. I didn’t really see that coming, but it’s a perfect fit, a wonderful opportunity, and I’m so grateful to Ann Freeman for that.
I enjoyed Christmas with my family. I won’t dive into the history of this. Suffice it to say that I truly looked forward to going to Detroit for Christmas. That hasn’t happened in a looooooong time. Probably since college. It had everything to do with my personal growth and present state of happiness. My family welcomed me back, welcomed Missy in, and we both enjoyed the visit.
My relationship with Missy is stronger than ever. I am so in love with this woman. We’re still shmoopy. To still be this shmoopy after 21 months is… well, I didn’t think we’d still be this shmoopy after 21 months. And I know 21 months is peanuts in the grand scheme. This relationship, for me, right now, still holds a lot of shiny newness. I’m still in awe of me/her/us. And yet I can feel it evolving and maturing. This is what the books, poems, songs, and movies get written about. Wow. Just, wow.

New Law Protects Retirement Savings for Lesbian and Gay Couples

Erica — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:01:56 +0000

New Law Protects Retirement Savings for Lesbian and Gay Couples

Before 2007, partners who inherited retirement plan savings typically faced immediate taxation on inherited benefits, unlike different-sex spouses, who could roll savings over to an individual retirement account (IRA) with no tax penalty. Under the [Pension Protection Act of 2006], as of January 1, 2007, qualifying plans could permit any nonspouse beneficiary—including a domestic partner, parent or sibling—to roll over inherited retirement benefits paid as a lump sum directly to an IRA. Qualifying plans include defined benefit plans (pensions), 401(k) plans, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), profit-sharing plans, money purchase plans, 403(b) plans and governmental 457(b) plans.

Unfortunately, this provision of the PPA was subsequently interpreted to be optional for employers, meaning each company had to affirmatively adopt this protection for partners under each qualifying plan. Under the [Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008], all qualifying plans that pay lump sum benefits to nonspouse beneficiaries are required to provide the rollover opportunity as of January 1, 2010.

(via Eleventh Avenue South)

Roll your own podcasts at NPR

Erica — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:22:43 +0000

Roll your own podcasts at NPR

1. Name your podcast (optional).
2. Add topics or keywords to your podcast.
3. Subscribe directly using your preferred podcasting tool.

The Obama Girls and Blacks at Sidwell

Erica — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:49:10 +0000

The Obama Girls and Blacks at Sidwell

A series from Jack and Jill Politics. [I] [II] [III] There’s more to come, so check back.

From Part II:

The Obamas need to know that their children will become probably a lot better educated about their father’s government, beliefs and policies than they ever have before through going to Sidwell. At a minimum, they should be prepared to answer some direct & specific questions that don’t involve dolls, High School Musical, Gossip Girls, puppies nor slumber parties. No matter what reassurances administrators may give, politics is pervasive at Sidwell and really everywhere else in DC. Especially when the powerful mix.

There’s a powerful story in there about the experience of learning about apartheid in South Africa. Must read.

grok - Wikipedia

Erica — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:03:46 +0000

grok - Wikipedia

I used the word “grok” the other day, was asked what it meant, and then ended up looking it up to make sure I had the definition right.

To grok… is to share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity. Author Robert A. Heinlein coined the term in his best-selling 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. In Heinlein’s view of quantum theory, grokking is the intermingling of intelligence that necessarily affects both the observer and the observed.

From the novel:

“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with” and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment.” Other forms of the word include “groks” (present third person singular), “grokked” (past participle) and “grokking” (present participle).

In an ideological context, a grokked concept becomes part of the person who contributes to its evolution by improving the doctrine, perpetuating the myth, espousing the belief, adding detail to the social plan, refining the idea or proving the theory.

I had actually used it slightly incorrectly, but now that I know what it actually means… I’ve grokked it (I think). And I really want to read Stranger in a Strange Land.

Six-on-Six: The Musical

Erica — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:42:12 +0000

Six-on-Six: The Musical

SIX-ON-SIX: THE MUSICAL focuses on one of Iowa’s most cherished traditions – six-on-six girls’ high school basketball. Featuring 17 original songs, SIX-ON-SIX: THE MUSICAL explores every aspect of this time-honored institution – its history, rules, personalities, phenomenal popularity, and the legal controversy that resulted in its ultimate demise.

Proponents of six-on-six are the fans of the game, including the athletic union members who govern the sport and the lawyer they hire to represent their case. Opposed to the game are the detractors, including a strong feminist, her 16-year-old daughter, and the lawyer they hire to represent their case. Intertwined with the main story are several subplots, including: the media attention surrounding a high school standout and her opportunity to break a national scoring record; the tension that develops between the two lawyers who represent opposite sides of the controversy; the pressure the feminist places on her daughter to succeed; and the simplicity and sweetness of young love.

It’s a musical. About basketball. In Iowa. You can see it in Des Moines next summer. I’m not even sure what to make of that.

If it were at all realistic, that sweet young love would totally be girl-on-girl.

Racism is Over

Erica — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:19:50 +0000

Racism is Over

A new day has dawned in America. A black man is president. But that’s not all… now that we’ve achieved this highest office, what else has changed?

Examples:

“I haven’t had to spell, repeat or re-pronounce my name to anyone in this new America.”
“White People With Dreadlocks: Gone. Halleluhah.”
“Hey peeps. I am LOVING the new America! It’s made airplane travel sooooo much easier.”

Heh!

eHarmony Decides to Gay it Up

Erica — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:10:38 +0000

So some guy in New Jersey was mad because eHarmony only offers hetero pairings, he sued, and eHarmony decided to settle. They’re now offering homo pairings at a new site, compatiblepartners.net.

Stupid. And not just because of that domain name.

Warren had said in past interviews that he didn’t want to feature same-sex services on EHarmony — which matches people based on long questionnaires concerning personality traits, relationship history and interests — because he felt he didn’t know enough about gay relationships.

I believe him.

So, dude that was angry at being made to feel like a “second-class citizen”? Now you’re getting a second-class product. Are you happy?

“October 28 was activation day for my cochlear implant.”

Erica — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:09:23 +0000

“October 28 was activation day for my cochlear implant.”

My friend David has been writing about his experience having his cochlear implant activated on his blog, Things I Didn’t Hear. It’s fascinating, and has not been easy for him.

[Part 2] [Part 3]

(My other friend David has been considering getting a cochlear implant for a while as well. Strange coincidence.)

Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede

Erica — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:16:28 +0000

Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede

This is the epitome of what is wrong with America today.

The Ultimate Consumerist Guide to Fighting Back

swirlspice

Obligatory Look Ahead at 2009

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