KickIdle.com Blog

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the new apartment that I leased in Braintree, MA lately. It’s a bit outside of the city, and on Sunday I had the windows open while I worked on some furniture. it wasn’t until later on in the day that I realized how much I had missed just hearing wind in the trees and birds chirping. it’s funny how insulated from everything you can become when you spend all your time in high rise hotels.

I’m really looking forward to summer in the Boston area.

Cindy wanted to do a Money Diary (inspired by Ramit Sethi) and I agreed to do one the same week. So, here’s a snapshot of my financial life. (A few income factors are obscured for legal reasons.)

Monday

• Breakfast consisted of OJ I previously purchased, so no cost this week.
For lunch, the guys from work went to my favorite deli and I had a soup & sandwich combo for $9.77.
• Dinner was free courtesy of the hotel, so no cost for that either.
• I bought some powerline ethernet adapters from NewEgg, total cost $146.95.

Tuesday

• No breakfast on Tuesday, so that was free.
• Our work group went to Chick-fil-A for lunch. I had the nugget combo meal for $9.01.
• For dinner I had free fried chicken at the hotel.
• I also spent $29.80 on a gift for Cindy.
• United Airlines got $425.20 for a flight related to work.

Wednesday

• Work group went to the local Thai place. I had pad thai for $13.00.
• Dinner was at the new mexican place in town. Enchilada combo for $15.38.
• I also picked up some mints from the register counter (8 for $1) and shared them with the other guys.
• The powerline adapters arrived, but one was DOA, so I had to spend $11.29 on an RMA shipping label.
• I picked up three single-use boxes of laundry detergent for $6.00 total.
• I also spent $9.99 on iTunes buying some Jon Hopkins songs.
• My AT&T bill for my iPhone autopaid onto my AMEX card – this month’s total $93.38.
• My scheduled transfer moved $1620.26 from my savings to my checking in preparation for my Chase Marriott VISA bill autopay.

Thursday

• Work group headed to Olive Garden for the soup, salad, breadsticks combo – $9.65.
• For dinner, I ate at the deli and had a soup and salad combo for $12.18.
• After I got back from dinner, I did laundry for $5.00 in the coin op machines at the hotel.
• My corporate AMEX card posted the monthly cashback. This month it was $27.55. I really only use that card for rental car fuel and the occasional business expense related to running my S-Corporation.
• Geico autodebited $129.61 from my checking account for my auto insurance.

Friday

• I took the plunge and purchased a new laptop from Dell. The $2,582.80 total went on the corp AMEX card since it’s a business expense. (Next month’s cash back should be more than $27. )
• Lunch was at the deli again for $13.72.
• Dinner was pho at the local vietnamese place – only costs $10.25.
• Chase autodebited $1,620.26 to cover my VISA bill.

Saturday

• Had lunch at Chick-fil-A again, for $9.01.
• Dinner was as a local pizza joint, but since it took an hour for our food to arrive, our meal was comped. Free pizza!
• After dinner, wanted to see The Men Who Stare At Goats. Unfortunately, due to Twilight New Moon opening, they had removed TMWSAG at the last minute. So Sean and I decided to watch 2012. $9.25

Sunday

• Lunch at the deli (yes, I can eat there every day) – $12.50 for a soup & salad bar.
• After lunch, I browsed books in Books-A-Million for a while but didn’t buy anything. Then I went to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art. I left $20 in their donation stand since admission is free. They have an exhibit of Karsh photos that I really want to see more of!
• After the museum I ate dinner back at the deli (stop looking at me like that) for $9.77.
• I also ran over to Target to pickup a 12 pack of razors for $27.49.

Other Notes

• Each day at the hotel costs a total of $88.75. The hotel accrues the charges and periodically charges my credit card.
• The hotel charges, airline tickets, laundry and detergent, and $51 per diem are reimbursed by work.

In Sum

(Figures below ignore the Chase VISA payment which was paid for with prior expense reimbursements…)

Money spent on food: $125.24
Money spent on entertainment: $39.24
Money spent on travel: $1046.45
Money spent on household activities: $168.10
Money spent on gifts: $29.80
Money spent on computer stuff: $2741.04
Money spent on cell phone: $93.38

Income from expense reimbursement: $1057.45
Income from per diem: $375
Income from cash-back: $27.55
Approximate weekly salary post-tax: $760

Net for the week: (-$1911)
Net excluding laptop purchase: $671

Thirteen days until Cindy & I head to Moab!

I flew back to Boston today to start working again. It’s certainly great to be back in town so I can see Cindy as well as earning some money. The flight was uneventful, but the landing was awkward. Not that most people would notice, but growing up with a pilot in the family and flying a lot for work, it was obvious. There must have been a cross wind at the last second, because the pilot ended up putting one wheel down and then having to rock the wings to get the other wheel down. She handled it very smoothly, but it was noticeable if you were paying attention.

After I got my luggage, I went to the National Rental Car lot and was greeted with several empty rows. Ever car in the Executive Level and Emerald Club rows was taken (the rows were about 80% to start with). I found a National employee and she was at least helpful about trying to find me a premium class car since they were out. Unfortunately, all the cool premiums were already gone too. Guess they had a big shortage today for some reason.

Eventually I saw a Toyota 4Runner and told her I’d take it as long as it had a MP3 AUX jack. It did, so I threw my bags in the back, plugged in the iPod, and pulled out. Fortunately, I noticed that it appeared to be in 4-wheel drive before I left the lot. I looked around the dash and found a button that looked like it would turn off 4WD. But of course, hitting it actually put the truck into center differential lockout.

For those of you not 4WD savvy, differential lockout is great for super-crappy conditions. Unfortunately, it makes the car virtually impossible to turn on pavement.

So now I was stuck in the center of the National lot trying to figure out how to get this thing out of 4WD before I got to the exit gate. I finally spotted the 2WD/4WD selector and flipped it to 2WD. Naturally, the transmission wasn’t disengaging 4WD. Figuring it was better to pull out of line than take this thing off the lot and possibly be stuck with a bad transmission, I put it through a squeaking, tire jerking turn as I pulled out of the exit line.

Lucky, playing with the transmission for a few minutes finally got it to pop back into 2WD and I could finally leave the lot.

Next, I ventured off into Arlington MA to drop off my Nikon D200 to have the sensor cleaned. I had tried cleaning it myself a few weeks ago with Eclipse sensor wipes but had instead managed to smear crap all over the sensor. So much for being frugal and doing it myself…

After the drop-off, I headed back to Quincy to check-in to the hotel and pickup Cindy. Her face was still numb from the dentist, so we hung out at the hotel for a little while until she wasn’t dribbling water ever time she tried to drink. Then we decided to try Old Country Buffet in Brockton. Cindy is in love with Golden Corral, so she was hoping to find a look-alike in the area.

Overall, I’d say Old Country Buffet does a pretty good job with their buffet, although both our stomachs were upset later this evening. So not sure if we’ll be back there or not.

We’re already trying to plot out what to do with our time in Boston. So far we’re planning on doing lunch/dinner with some of our friends and seeing Ponyo and probably GI Joe at the movies. Since we have a 4WD SUV this time, I think we’ll probably try to go somewhere off-road, maybe up on Plum Island.

Whatever happens, looking forward to doing it with my baby!

or How I learned to stop worrying and love AMEX

Justin Levy talks about the power of a hand written note in a recent blog post and it reminded me that I wanted to give a kudos to American Express for their handling of my recent credit card dispute. I had recently renewed my subscription to the Clear Registered Traveler service that lets you avoid the long lines at the security checks at major airports. Unfortunately for me and about 100,000 other people, two months after I had paid the yearly renewal fee, Clear announced that they were ceasing operations immediately due to their inability to find sufficient credit.

This, of course, is exactly the scenario that economists were afraid would happen on a pandemic scale during the “credit freeze” last year. Regardless of whether you think the actions of the Federal Reserve & Congress helped or hurt the situation, it’s clear now that we avoided the worst case scenario from that credit freeze, but that doesn’t mean every business was going to make it. Apparently, the business I had just paid $176 to was one of the ones that was failing.

There was a lot of talk online about how Clear had screwed people – Clear made it clear (no pun intended) that they wouldn’t be refunding any payments even if the customer had signed up the day before the announcement.

This is why you should always use a credit card for purchases…

I called American Express and disputed the charge on my card, since I had paid for 12 months of service and only received 2 before Clear had shutdown. The AMEX representative immediately put a hold on the charge while the dispute was researched. A few weeks later, I got a call from AMEX letting me know that they had given me a prorated credit for the 10 months of service I hadn’t received. There would be formal letter in the mail, but I appreciated the phone call and was once again pleased at how well AMEX treats their customers.

When I got home from New York and checked my mail, there was indeed the formal letter from AMEX outlining the resolution of the dispute and the credit to my account. There was also this…

That’s right, the AMEX rep sent a hand written thank you note. A note thanking me for the chance to resolve a dispute. This is what sets AMEX apart from any other credit card company I’ve dealt with. Anyone who wants to see what a customer centric business is like should get an AMEX card and start using it!

Just a quick update – this past week I took the Ninja Baby, the two Nikon DSLRs and a burning desire for fun to celebrate Ninja Baby’s birthday in Manhattan. After taking several memory cards worth of photos, touring everything we could think of between 34th Street and 80th Street, and discovering the joys of Alaskan King Crab Scampi, I’ve returned to VA. Ninja Baby is already fashioning a blog post & photo summary of “Day 1″ from the trip, while ridiculing me with lines like “I guess I’ll get to see your photos from the trip sometime next summer.”

Ok, I don’t always get photos posted promptly. But I’m making a promise to get them done this time! Can’t let my Ninja Baby down after all the hard work showing her a good time in New York City!

If you’ve never left your “comfort zone”, you’ve probably never experienced culture shock. Culture shock is quite simply when you find yourself in an environment where people act differently than you’re used to acting. It can be as big as going from America to Japan, or as simple as going from Boston to Virginia. The geographic version of culture shock is the easiest to understand and the most commonly experienced. But when you work in an insular community, espescially one with rigid social rules, you can experience culture shock too.

In my case, I spend time on military bases as part of my job. Most of the time, the bases seem just like working at any other big organization. But sometimes there’s the unexpected culture shock that hits you from left field.

Yesterday, I left work and jumped in the car. It was about 95 degrees out, so I had the AC turned all the way up. There was a red pickup ahead of me as we left the parking lot, and when he got up to the road he just stopped. After a few seconds, I was resisting the urge to honk at him “Boston style”. But as it dragged on, I finally decided to drive around him. I had no idea what he was doing, and didn’t really care.

As I pulled alongside him, I noticed he had his window down and was waving at me. Thinking he needed directions or something, I rolled down my window. I couldn’t hear what he said at first – I had to turn down the AC too. As soon as I did, I realized what he was saying. “The music’s playing…”

On military bases, the base PA system will play music at the end of the day, normally 5:00pm. When that music plays, everybody on base stops what they’re doing and listens until the music finishes – if you’re driving, you stop in place on the road and listen. It’s definitely surreal the first time you get caugh up in it. I had been caught in it before, but because of my AC I didn’t hear the music while I was sitting in the car. Fortunately, I only made an ass out of myself to that one guy instead of the whole base! But having to conform to unexpected social norms is eerily similar whether it’s in a foreign land like Japan, or just around the block at a military base…

Started this morning off late, then had to run to the car through a monsoon. Left my coat in the car last night, so I was thoroughly soaked by the time I made it. Then noticed what looked like a parking ticket on the windshield. Got pissed, because I was parked legally. Got back out into the rain to pull the ticket out from under the wiper. As I’m literally dripping wet sitting in the car (ruining the leather seats, I’m sure), I see it’s a “public awareness” notice from the police reminding me to keep valuables out of my car at night.

Wow, thanks.

Got to work late and found out that someone was already looking for me. Then the boss-man came by and wanted to hold a meeting to find out what’s been going on. Which is great, because I’m certainly not in charge of this circus! So called my boss, who basically said “Well, I don’t have anything to help you with your meeting, so good luck.” Great, thanks for the assist. Went to the meeting and survived. Then found out that the documentation I thought I was done with needs to have a software upgrade process drafted and added to it. And the guy who is nominally in charge of that software and did the upgrades in the past is out of town for the rest of the week.

Don’t you wish you had it this good?

Cindy‘s getting her wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow. Which on top of the physical misery that will entail, we are both feeling like crap because we’re apart right now. I really wish I could be there to feed her Frosties! But thanks to the vagaries of my job, I’m stuck in Alabama for the rest of the week. (And then I’m unemployed for the week after that.) But I’m desperately looking forward to when we will be meeting up in New York City for her birthday!

Being apart still really sucks until then…

I spent today wearing my Vibram FiveFingers – a “shoe” that fits each toe separately. It was the most popular conversation topic in the elevator. Complete strangers randomly asked me about them all day, which is pretty fun in my book. There was even one guy who recognized them and told me he had tried a pair before but they didn’t fit his feet very well.

Cindy and I bought a pair of them back when we were in Virginia for the July 4th weekend. Here’s our feet for comparison purposes.

Cindy and I decided to head to Captain Fishbones tonight after work. Capt. Fishbones is located in the Marina Bay area north of Wollaston Beach in Quincy, MA. Parking can be scarce on the weekends, but on a Tuesday night it was not a problem. Located directly on the marina boardwalk, it sports a nice view of the marina. Unfortunately, the enclosed dining area isn’t high enough up to really see out into the bay past the ships. But overall, the ambiance is comfortable and pleasant. There is an outdoor area with gas space heaters, but since it was fairly cool and foggy this evening, we stuck to the indoor dining.

The menu included a nice variety of fresh seafood leavened with traditional burgers, chicken, and pasta fare for the land-lubbers. They also have a selection of beers, wine, and cocktails (we stuck to water tonight though). Cindy ordered the fried whole clams with coleslaw and I went with one of the specials, a blackened swordfish steak served on a Caesar salad. The service was quick and friendly and everything looked great when it arrived.

(Despite the fact that I was talking with Cindy about taking a picture of the food when it arrived, I took a bite of mine before I remembered to photograph it. Sorry. )

Cindy’s clams were good with little to no grit – I think she only complained about sand in one of them out of the whole plate. This is a marked improvement over our experiences at Legal Seafoods. For some reason, those guys at Legal can’t get the hang of washing grit out of shellfish. But I digress… Cindy’s coleslaw was a mild sweet-cream based slaw, something she’s had no experience with and thus didn’t particularly enjoy. I thought it was delicious (although I tend towards enjoying a hint of mustard in cream based coleslaws). It would make a good side dish choice for anyone trying to avoid spicy foods though.

My swordfish was excellent – cooked to a perfect temperature and seasoned with just the right bite. I’m always nervous when ordering “blackened” fish in the north – while this wasn’t up to true Cajun standards, it was still very well executed. The salad was adorned with hearty dark croutons and a well executed Caesar dressing. I’d had the option of adding anchovy fillets, but they turned out to be a little too much salt for my taste. If you’re into anchovies, they appeared to be of good quality and were certainly tasty.

The pricing was not outrageous – total price for our dinner with water to drink was $27 (pre-tip). Bear in mind that my salad was only priced at $8 – which was amazing because that swordfish steak was not particularly small. So a typical two-entree dinner should run about $36-40, well within budget for a good seafood meal. Lobster and other market priced seafood was available, but I didn’t check the rates.

Overall, I’d recommend Captain Fishbones to anyone interested in some quality dining in the Quincy area. Their website also features a entertaining little flash animation (I’m not normally in favor of splash screens on websites, but this one got a chuckle). Check it out if you’re in town!

Captain Fishbones
332 Victory Road
North Quincy, MA 02171
phone: 617-471-3511