Back-to-School Thriftiness

It doesn't really apply to me, since I'm taking a year off before medical school, but I thought I'd share an idea to save money this upcoming school year: print your own notebook paper. The good deals at places like Office Depot sell 100-page spiral-bound notebooks for ~$3.00. However, for $6 or $7, you can get a ream (500 sheets) of much higher quality, sturdier, and brighter paper. Print out a notebook design on it, and you're good to go. Using this method and a fast and cheap laser printer can save tons of money and time in the long run. As you can imagine, you can also print out different types of papers this way. Log, semi-log, and many other papers are available online. Even rulers!

• Graph, grid, and lined paper
• Rulers

Finding the Cheapest Gas

With all the driving I do, sometimes I find myself reminiscing about the <$3.00 gas I used in Arizona. Saving money on gas can really add up in the long run. Where can you go to find out the lowest gas prices in your area? Check out the listings at MSN Autos. They're updated fairly quickly and use OPIS to obtain gas prices instead of volunteers.

Research Group Bond-fire

Hmmm... Today was a little interesting. I woke up with the goal of obsessing over the 4th paragraph of my personal statement, mail a paper so I can get restitution from a guy who broke into my car, and pay off the Adelphia bill. The day started out OK, but then quickly became stressful as I hopped from place to place trying to get internet so I could get some people's contact info. I had to get in contact with them or I would have been in some major trouble at research. In the end, things worked out though. And all that hopping around for internet turned out to be a waste of time :(

End-of-the-day Goal Checklist:

• Obsess over the 4th paragraph...somewhat
• Mail restitution paper...somewhat
• Pay off Adelphia bill...nope

But I did get to go to a bonfire! Check out the Gardetto's and cool Ikea furniture!

Tipping

I'm jobless right now because I'm trying to concentrate on med school apps, so tipping has become a little bit of an issue. OK, maybe it was also an issue before I was applying. Or maybe I'm just cheap.

Today I ran across a guide to tipping in the United States. It lists who is "supposed" get tipped and by how much. It looks like I inadvertantly made a lot of enemies over the years. Take a look at the guide. How many people have you shortchanged? Cool!

Road Trip Preparedness

It's always important to be prepared when going on a road trip, especially if you plan on going to an unfamiliar place (like the middle of Arizona). Here's an incident I had and what I learned from it. Hopefully you won't run into the same problems.

What I brought along for safety:

• Laptop with Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 (without GPS) - Mapping software that doesn't require the internet
  
• Power inverter - to charge laptop/cell phone via cigarette lighter
• Paper maps of destinations, including directions
• Flashlight
• Blanket
• Jumper cables
• First aid kit

The incident:

After dinner at Kingman, we headed off to Flagstaff. The two places are ~150 miles apart and we had to make the drive at night, on the two lane I-40. Sometime during the drive the battery light starts to flicker. Then the battery light goes back to normal...then it starts to flicker again, staying solid for longer durations. Then the headlights start to dim. At this point, we're still over 100 miles to Flagstaff. And we didn't have any cell phone reception. What made it extra not fun were the storm clouds I could see flickering in the distance. The three options were:

1. Continue to Flagstaff
   
2. Go back to Kingman
3. Find another place to spend the night

We felt going to Flagstaff would be too risky. I wouldn't feel comfortable seeing how long my car could go with the battery slowly discharging.

Options 2 and 3 were the best options left. Going back to Kingman would require that we find an exit, so I looked for the nearest one on my laptop. It happened to be ~30 miles away from Seligman, which I could see from my laptop, included a few businesses, including a motel. Unfortunately, it didn't list any car repair shop. I unplugged the power inverter, turned off the fan, made sure the windows were rolled up, and turned off my deck. We then headed over to Seligman.

Now I wondered about what I should do about towing since there was that chance the car could die on the way to Seligman. Since my map didn't have a car repair shop listed in Seligman, I felt the next best option would be Flagstaff. It still would cost me a lot of money though. It was time to give AAA a call. Good thing I'm a member.

But the bad thing was that I couldn't find my card. 99% of the time I have my AAA card on me, but that night was that 1% of the time I didin't have it. I waited until I got reception, then I began to call my roommates. I put all of my old cards in a file folder in my apartment. My roommates found an old card, and gave me the AAA number and my account number. I called up AAA and after a bunch of phone tag, found out my number had changed and I had a sweet deal where I get 300 miles or something of free towing. That would be more than enough to make it to Flagstaff. They also gave me my new account number. Whew.

We were also able to make it to Seligman, and we found a hotel with a vacancy. The guy at the counter told us of a auto repair place in the town. Good to know that there actually was a place, and that the software just didn't catch it. Unfortunately, he said they overcharged. Ouch. And he didn't have their number. But at least he told us the general direction of where it was.

To look up their number I used Google SMS (it's free!) to find auto repair shops in Seligman, AZ. Their number was listed. Why didn't I think of Google SMS sooner and use it to double-check the Streets & Trips results? It would have really eased my nerves.

In the morning we went to the repair shop, they charged me $33 for the diagnosis fee, and fixed the problem. What was the problem? Corrosion at the battery terminals. The guy cleaned it up really fast and we were on our way.

The Lessons:

• Bring AAA card if you have one
  
• Check car to see that it's in working order (even the battery terminals)
• Remember to not rely on just one source for business listings

Movie Review - The Descent

So, last night, I saw The Descent. It's a fun and entertaining movie, that is, if your definition of "fun" is getting scared out of your mind.

Surface stuff: A group of outdoorsy girls decide to go spelunking to bond better after a certain incident. Things don't go as well as planned. This is evidenced by them needing to find a way out of a cave as monsters come out of nowhere and attack them. (!) It's like Knotts Scary except, well, scary. Lots of weird dream sequences and shocking moments. This movie is intense.

Deeper stuff: Look at how well-defined the characters are and how their intra- and interpersonal relationships change because of the crazy monsters! That's kinda interesting, I guess. The mood created by the lighting and the environment is pretty cool too. It really sets the tone for the movie (claustrophobic, suspenseful).


Rating: 4/5 Tsinilas

A Few Arizona Pix

...and I'm back. I'll save my comments for another post. Here are a few pictures for now:

Vacation!

Alright, maybe it was a bad time to start up a blog. I'm leaving this morning at 6am to go see the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, and whatever else they have in Arizona. I'll be back Friday before my 8pm-12am research shift. Great way to end a vacation and get slapped in the face by the real world. I promise a really cool entry with some pix courtesy of the SD700 IS, a trip synopsis, and maybe a few tips when I get back. Bye!

Laptop + Desktop Productivity

I love the way laptop keyboards feel, but when I'm at my apartment, I need to use my desktop computer too. However, I don't like having to switch between both pairs of keyboards and mice. I've found a solution in Synergy, though. The program allows me to share the mouse and keyboard with my desktop like my laptop was another monitor. Just move my cursor off of my laptop screen, and it shows up on my desktop monitor. The only drawback is that I can't move windows between the laptop and desktop. When combined with folder and printer sharing over the network, it feels like I'm using one big computer. Try it.

Picture Time

I got a new digital camera this past week. Finally. Time to start snapping away.

What's the Name of that Song? Now You Know.

I am not a huge fan of listening to the radio, but I can't deny that I listen to it a good amount when I drive. Every once in a while there's an unfamiliar song I hear that I like and want to download. If I want to find the name of the song, I try memorizing some lines so I can go back home to Google and do a "song line" +lyrics search. But what if the song is in a different language or is an instrumental, or if I can't memorize the lyrics?

I imagine that is a problem many of us face. Yes.com is the solution to the problem. Simply type in your zipcode, click on the station you were listening to, and browse to the time the song started playing. You'll be greeted with the name of the song and its artist. Click on the song, and you'll be transported to the iTunes music store for your downloading pleasure. Cool.

Blogging it Up Once Again

...so I decided to start blogging once again...