New Blog!

Yes, you heard it and you heard it here first! I am moving my blog to a newer, sleeker place. It's still called Ruminations, only this time it's found HERE I'll leave this site up so that people can access archives and all that (especially the former awesome posts that I wrote up ;) but all new posts will be at the other blog.

Thank you, and good night!

Packing

It is approximately 10 days before I leave for Germany and, naturally, I have started packing in my usual method. My usual method involves me calculating how many outfits I will need to keep me going until I leave, plus an outfit for the flight, plus counting how much clothing I will need for the 20 days of my stay (3 days in Germany, plus 17 in Finland).
Not surprisingly, I discovered I will need:
1) All of my underwear.
2) All of my socks.
3) All of my jeans.
4) And all of my shirts
To get me through the first 20 days of my trip.
This should enlighten you as to the size of my wardrope (ie, not very large).
Lucky for me that I work all but two days before my travel. So I know that I can pack all my shirts (minus 3, 2 for the days off, 1 for the day of travel), minus the Target ones, and all my pants, minus the khaki ones. If you see me and you wonder why I'm wearing red and khaki and I'm not at work, realize it's because nearly all of my other clothing are hibernating in my suitcase.
Packing naturally involves quite a bit of shopping, and I've noticed that my 10% discount card at Target is coming quite in handy: I spent $160 there the other day, but managed to buy the following items: 1 pair of shoes, 1 purse, 1 umbrella, 1 pair of pants, 3 shirts, some gift items, a new jacket, and a vacuum seal bag. This was some gooood shopping.
Unfortunately, I still have more left to do. I need to stock up on all my "Personal Hygiene Products," which yes, I know, I can buy them in Germany. They have everything we have. But we have lower taxes, which amounts to lower cost, plus my 10% discount...and I'm getting all the shampoo, floss, toothpaste, razor blades, etc. that I will need in advance.
Then there are still a few gift items that I have to get, including some decidedly vague cookies my host sister wants me to pick up. I'm rather tempted to just buy a large variety of cookies and hope to god that I got the right ones, but I recently discovered that's a bit out of my budget and, further more, I'm going to have to budget rather carefully for the remaining gift items I want to pick up.
That's because I made the mistake of making up a budget. And let's just say that I definitely have to watch my spending. There are some things that I am simply not willing to skimp on, of course, such as my bike ride around the Netherlands and my honeymoon (to Ireland!!), but other things, such as my trip to Ukraine, are at risk at the moment. It could be I've overestimated my base costs per month ($560 Euros for room, food, and pocket money), but thinking back to my previous long-term stay in Germany, I think overestimating it might be a wise thing. I have no idea how much I spent then (I didn't keep track) but let's just say I spent freely.
But not this time. I'm definitely going to have to watch what I spend, budget, and skimp on a few things. So, sorry, I won't be spending as much on postcards as I did last time. For those of you who already got a postcard from Germany from me, consider that pretty much it. Instead, you get my blog, which is infinitely more detailed and cheaper than postcards, not to mention immediate!

Despite the unpleasant budget news, I am still very much looking forward to this trip because I know it's the last time I'm going to pretty much cutloose and not have to work. That, itself, warrents a celebration.
Other than that, I need to try and find some sort of way to supplement my income while in Berlin.

Maybe I'll become a prostitute.

America's Debt Diet

For the first time in my life, I watched Oprah, but don't worry, it was with good reason! Oprah Winfrey has finally decided that the time has come to use her amazing star power for good, instead of endorsing frauds. She has launched what she calls "The American Debt Diet," which is a reoccuring segment of her show that chronicals three American families, all in debt, and their struggles to get out of it. It's a lot like the biggest loser, only it doesn't pretend to be a reality show.

I just watched the first episode, and it was truly frightening. All these people, so many credit cards, so much debt, all of them admitting they don't have a clue how to manage money...and I thought I was bad for only having a checking and a savings account. No, these people are much, much worse. First of all, they all have decent incomes (not one of them is making a measly $8,000 a year as yours truly is). Second of all, they all seem to use money to make themselves feel good. Kind of how I eat a bag of candy to reduce my stress ;). Then they all have credit cards, spoiled children they can't say no to, and houses they can't afford.

Why do they do it??

When I started going to college, I decided that it would be a good idea to learn from the mistakes of my elders, and decided no credit cards (my brother-in-law charged his education on his), go to a cheap college where the majority of the tuition would be covered by scholarships, and try to work and save. While I have from time to time regretted my decision to go to WSU, thanks to the relatively unchallenging courses, everytime I compare my student loans to the national average, I feel a lot better about myself. I racked up only $5,600 in student loans compared to a typical $18,000. I have no credit card debts and have actually only had a credit card for maybe 3 months. This is due to the fact that I work for Target, and it just seemed like the Company Thing To Do. Not that I needed their extra 10% off; I already get that as an employee. Unfortunately for them, I lost the card somewhere in my room and have yet to find it. No one's charged anything (I keep checking to make sure...), so I figure one day I'll find it, and cut it up. It was pointless really: I would buy something on the TargetCard, go home, pay it off from my checking. 3 steps instead of two. Who needs it?

Come to think of it, the TargetCard Peddling has to be one of the things that I really do dislike about Target, and one of the ways that it is worse than Wal-mart. I never thought I'd say it but it's true. First of all, as they mention in the Debt Diet Episode, In House credit cards have the highest interest rates. Mine was 20%. I never had a balance, so it doesn't matter, but can you imagine how quickly you could get behind and never catch up? Second, cashiers (and the whole salesfloor team) is constantly under pressure to get the RedCards sold, which is probably why I'm glad I work flow and backroom. No pressure :) When I worked cashier after Thanksgiving and Christmas, I had to peddle them...and I ended up getting 5, which is pretty good considering I'm horrible at selling stuff. As an up note, a lot of customers would refuse saying they didn't need another credit card. Good for them!

Anyway, back to the topic: So far, the only debt I have at the moment is my student loans, and I've even started paying off the balance on them to where I only owe $4,802.49. This is on two loans. My goal is to have the first, unsubsidized loan (which means I pay the interest) paid off before the rates rise on July 1. Then I'll probably save up (or invest money) to get the balance for the second loan, which I don't have to pay until probably January 2007. It's subsidized, so I don't have to bother with interest until then.

Provided Graybeard (my car) holds up, I will have no debt in one year, maybe even sooner. And that's not a position many Americans find themselves in.

Even worse than where American consumers find themselves is where the American government finds itself. They tell us we should save money and not get in so much debt, while they're spending like money grows on trees. Oh wait. I forgot. They're the government. For them, money does go on trees. And when the shit hits the fan, it's the overly indebted American consumer that gets to pay for it with higher interest rates, inflation, and dollar with little value.

Reread the part where I mentioned "higher interest rates" due to government debts. That affects primarily you and me, also known as The American Citizen. If you have debt that you can get rid of, get rid of it now, before you find yourself completely unable to pay.

And, anyone who wants to watch the Debt Diet Episode can find it here, on Bit Torrent, or can IM me and I'll transfer it to you...much much slower, however :)

Bread

As far as food goes, I'm not a particularly picky person. Gourmet food is more or less wasted on me; I haven't the palat to tates the difference between it and real food, so simpler is better.

But that ends when it comes to bread. I love bread. But I don't mean the mushy, chewey crust-not-worthy-of-that-name American (sliced) bread. I mean bread that takes effort to chew, where the gluten is well defined and the crust hard, but not stale. It used to be I would have to go to either Europe or Panera to get this kind of bread. Just thinking of German Brötchen makes me wish the next 16 days would go by a little quicker. But it's expensive to fly to Germany just for bread. As for Panera bread, it's fairly expensive. So, I've been spending some time lately practicing baking my own good bread.

Here's the first loaf of bread I made, simple french bread

I was rather surprised at how well it turned out, considering the fact it was my first try. The secret, I suppose is simply letting it rise: I mixed the water, flour, and yeast together before going to bed. Then when I got up to go to work (at 3am), I took it out, kneeded it and formed it into the loaf on a cookie sheet. Then I let it rise for 8 hours until I got home from work, then baked it. And in 40 minutes, perfect wonderful bread.

Then I moved on to the more complicated Sourdough Bread
This takes a lot longer to bake than the French bread, especially if you don't have any sourdough starter, which I didn't. So, last Saturday morning I made up the starter, let it "sour" for 48 hours, on Sunday evening added the flour, water, yeast, salt, let it rise in the bowl over night, then shaped it, let it rise at work, then baked it. It was finished by Tuesday, but with less than satisfactory results. I could hardly taste the difference between it and my french bread! Fortunately, I had chosen to "maintain the starter" and proceeded to take that out and let it sour more this time. The second loaf, above, was completed in only 2 days, and has a bit more sour taste to it. It's still not as sour as I prefer my sourdough bread, so I figure in a few days, I'll start another loaf.

By the time I leave for Germany, I shall have made the perfect sourdough bread! I hope I'm not spoiling myself with all this good bread ;)

Interesting to note...

Germans can be grumpy, unpleasant people—and it's not because of post-Nazi guilt or a diet filled with bratwurst, says one American researcher. It's because of their vowels. Hope College psychology professor David Myers says saying a vowel with an umlaut forces a speaker to turn down his mouth in a frown, and may induce the sadness associated with the facial expression.

I'm not entirely sure where David Myers was going with this one. He continues on to say that English speakers tend to be happy because of the "e" and "ah" sounds. But what about all of those other languages out there that have umlauts, or sounds equivalent to umlauts? Are they also unhappy and depressed, or is it just "let's pick on the Germans time"?

Finnish has a TON of umlauts in their language(äyriäisötökkä), should they be less happy than the Germans then? What about the Russians? They have a different alphabet, but may still have the same umlaut sounds.
I would venture a guess that this might have more to do with weather than with language: if I lived in a place where it was cold, dark and rainy for a significant period of time, I think I'd be a little "unpleasant" and prone to invade any neighbors with better weather.

But I suppose it's comforting that i'm not the only person who has noticed that if you're going to yell at somebody in any language, German would be the language to do it in!

The link also has other interesting tidbits in there too, which I also recommend for reading.

Edit:
Lately I've thought more about this post and decided that it might also suffer from a great degree of cultural bias. For example, in the midwest, we smile a lot and you're expected to be friendly. We're not as bad as the South, but we're getting there. In Germany, it's completely different and reserve is the order of the day. You don't smile at people for no reason. If you do, it's evidence of a weak mind. This doesn't mean that they're grumpy and unfriendly; it's just harder to get past that public reserve. This is true in Finland and many other European countries. And it has nothing to do with language.

For another response to this, Andrew Hammel has his own ideas.

Comparing Kansas and The Free State

Some Porcupines have started lists that detail the differences between the states they left, and New Hampshire, and I find it to be a very useful activity:

Kansas
*5.3% sales tax
*$0.24 excise tax on each gallon of gas
*$0.79 tax on each pack of cigarettes
*$2.50 tax on each gallon of spirits
*$0.30 tax on each gallon of table wine
*$0.18 tax on each gallon of beer purchased
*Three state income tax brackets, ranging from 3.5% to 6.45%
*Mandatory insurance for all drivers, regardless of driving history
*Mandatory seatbelt laws
*A rather disturbing history of emminent domain abuse
*$5,047 are spent per pupil per year in Kansas schools
*Homeschooling regulations require parents to "Operate a home school as a non-accredited private school, teach for a period of time equivalent to public schools (186 days a year), register name and address of school", but requires no records to be kept, and no testing.
*Average state property taxes were $116.682 for $1,000 valuation.
*You cannot buy Sudafed or other cough medicine over the counter. Rather, you must go to a pharmacy, show ID, and sign your name in a book. You are not allowed to buy significant amounts of it at any one time. If you go to various pharmacies and buy Sudafed (say, if you have a lot of sick family members), don't be surprised for a search warrent to be issued on your house, as you obviously have a meth lab. You're guilty until proved innocent.
*All liquor shops are privately owned, though people under 21 years of age are denied entrance unless accompanied by their legal guardian. Everyone must have picture IDs.
*You must present your Social Security card in order to get your driver's license (picture ID)
*If you want to quit high school before graduation (to home school, or do something mmore useful with your time), you must read and sign a piece of paper that says you recognize that dropping out of high school will have a significant downward effect on your income, and that you are basically screwing yourself over for life.

Now, New Hampshire
*There is no state sales tax.
*There is no state income tax.
*There is a $0.18 tax on each gallon of gasoline purchased.
*There is a $0.52 tax on each pack of cigarettes.
*The state government controls, and owns, all sales of alcohol (both wine and spirits) in the state. They must be purchased at State liquor shops.
*There is a $0.30 tax on each gallon of beer.
*Insurance is optional, not mandatory. If you have a good driving history, you can save yourself the $40 each month.
*Recognizing that adults are intelligent beings and The State is Not Your Mother, seatbelts are recommended, but OPTIONAL for 18+
*Due to a ruling against government land grabs in the 1980s, New Hampshire has had NO instances of emminent domain abuse.
*$7,926 are spent per pupil for school funding
*Homeschoolers in NH have the option of operating a homeschool, with no teaching or attendence qualifications. Homeschoolers must sumbit a curriculum along with a letter of intent to the school board when they decide to homeschool, maintain a portfolio, and submit to testing by July 1, each year.
*New Hampshire is ranked 49th when it comes to local tax burdens, with the highest property taxes in the US (due to a lack of other taxes on sales and incomes).
*You may buy cough syrup as you desire, without getting your house searched.
*You do not need your social security card to get a driver's license, but if you have just moved there, you need to have proof of residence (a utility bill or the like, with a New Hampshire address, addressed to you).

Obviously, there are plenty of things we can do to improve the status of the Free State relative to Kansas, especially when it comes to school funding, liquor, and property taxes. Part of me wonders, however, if some of the high property taxes are not due to the extremely high per pupil school funding. Homeschoolers and private schoolers in the state are effective out of $7,000 if they decide on a form of education other than the public schools. How is that fair?

My Price Elasticity of Demand Just Snapped

It doesn't matter the price. Money has, all of a sudden, ceased to havve meaning for me. While I can't see the point of paying more than $40 for a pair of pants and $20 for a shirt and think no one should ever, ever pay more than $100 for a pair of shoes...I have to have this.
I don't care if the clothes I wash in it are crap, but imagine not having to buy a dryer. NOt having to wait an hour for the clothes to dry. No purchasing detergents! No thinking something is dry and then putting it on and discovering it is, in fact, wet in teh crotch. No more buying detergents! No more paying extra for electric bills or water!
If you're European, you won't have to hang up the laundry and wait for it to dry!

I want it :(