Born on Veteran's Day

Why is it when bad stuff happens (money-wise), it all happens at once? I make quite a bit of effort throughout my day to maintain my finances in such a way that we can have most of the things we want in my family. But it seems like just as I get on top of things, and start to get to a point where I can get ahead, something (or somethings) comes along to screw it all up.

This time it was my brilliant college/GI Bill advisor, who recommended a class that I didn't need for my major. For those of you not familiar with the Montgomery GI Bill, you don't get paid if the class doesn't relate to your major in some way. Well, the VA people didn't find out that this class doesn't relate to my major until mid-April. This means that:
a.) It's too late to drop the class without it hurting my GPA.
b.) I've been getting paid for this class for the last 4 months, and will now have to pay back the money (it will come out of my next payment).
c.) I will get paid less for the remainder of the semester than I had anticipated.
d.) This happens just as I'm needing this money to cover the cost of the summer semester.
e.) I've essentially wasted every Friday night of 2009 at school, taking this class, instead of being at home with my family.

Now there are those who may contend with my whiny-ness, stating either that I should have verified that I needed that class before taking it, or I should be happy that I get to go to college for free (in fact I make a little bit of a profit off the whole deal). To those people I would like to blow a juicy raspberry.

First off, you're right, I should have gone behind the advisor and double-checked his work. It was foolish of me to assume he could do his job. In my defense, he lulled me into a false sense of security by taking the time to sit down with me, walk me through the process of enrollment, and answer all my questions to the best of his ability. Little did I know his complete lack of job experience would soon cost me thousands of dollars.

As to the second point, I take offense at the suggestion that the GI Bill is a gift. Yes, I only had to pay $1,200.00 over a period of 12 months (and then another $600.00 kicker) and will, once it is all said and done, reap a benefit from the program of somewhere in the vicinity of $47,628.00, but I really do feel like I've earned that money.

I guess my biggest problem is that fact that he didn't seem all that bothered that he had thrown my life into shambles, completely wrecked my budget (vacation during the Spring/Summer break is looking less and less likely), and made it extremely difficult to pay the mortgage for the next 3 months or so (Which just went up about $200.00 due to some mis-management of my escrow account. Yay for the banking industry. I should have just gone with the ARM, so I could ignore my mortgage payments for a year or 2). When I confronted him on the problem, he gave me a blank stare, followed by, "Well, there's not much I can do for you. Try this lady. Maybe she can help."

It was a wrong number.

I like watching the shadows move during a sunset. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but they start to move really fast as the sun sinks lower and lower on the horizon. Usually, such a past-time would be relegated to the ranks of paint drying or grass growing. But at sunset, that's when things really get interesting. Sometimes if there's a shadow moving across a chalkboard or whiteboard, I like to mark it and then see how long it takes to move a foot.

Sleepy and Dopey

So I think I need to give myself a bed time. Lately I've been getting to bed at around midnight, which kinda sucks since I (try to) get up at 6 every morning. I am definitely one of those people who needs 8-14 hours of sleep a night. The only problem is, how do I enforce it? I could get my wife to do it, but that starts down the long slippery slope from wife/lover/goddess-of-my-life to mother-figure. And that ain't kosher.

The best solution I've arrived at so far is to get rid of the cable TV (gasp). That way I wouldn't flip it on when I got home (at around 9pm), since the only channels we would get would be showing the news at that time (I hate local news). This might solve my problem, but it would mean that the missus wouldn't have anything to watch during her long days at home alone.

I'm stumped. I've got to change something soon, because I won't be able to get away with these naps at work for much longer.

What a Great Idea! #6

Yeah, I'm tapped out. I figured at least one other person would have a good idea to share by the time I made 5 weeks (actually 3 weeks, I made the last two up on the spot), but apparently all the good ideas are already thought up. Oh well. Back to the drawing board for ideas I guess. I'll keep you all posted if I come up with anything else.

I kind of feel like Tom Hanks on Castaway, like this blog is my own Wilson and I know it won't respond to me, but I still keep carrying on conversations with it. Maybe it will keep me from going insane too.

Um...what?

As I mentioned in a previous post, there were a couple phrases, idioms, euphemisms, whatever they're called whose origins were shrouded in mystery. At least, to me. And since the reality found here is of my own creation, they are officially shrouded in mystery.

The first was 'dead ringer'. Now, to give myself a little credit, I am familiar with other such phrases (I'm going with phrases okay? You don't like it, write a letter to somebody.) that institute similar words. For instance. 'Saved by the bell' comes from the practice of attaching a bell to the gravestone with a string trailing down in to the buried casket. The point of which was to prevent anyone from being buried alive.

Another olde tyme phrase with similar word usage is 'Send in the ringer'. Of course as we all know this one is in reference to a competition of some kind in which a participant is entered under false pretenses or presented in such a way to misrepresent their abilities. Neither of which has anything to do with somebody looking exactly like somebody else.

The other one was 'apple of my eye'. I got nothin' on that one. The best I can come up with is the 'apple a day keeps the doctor away', which makes no sense whatsoever. Or maybe people used to somehow mistake small apples for eyeballs? Any ideas? Or do you have any such phrases whose origins are unknown?