Three years old

Tabby turned three years old today.



Becky had hung a whole bunch of balloons in front of her bedroom door which she was absolulely thrilled to find and play with for most of the morning.

We spent all morning in the library, played at home all afternoon, then had cake and opened presents. I think her favorite is a pink tent. Becky bought it a long time back and has been hanging on to it for right now.

Tabby liked it so much she's sleeping in it tonight.

Whitefish Dunes

The kids had a great time in the water.

And playing in the sand

Jack hoped that maybe if he planted himself and was watered, maybe he'd grow a little more.

Didn't really work

Really, I was there too.

Pizza Hut

Brittyn (store manager): "Good to meet you, Jack."

Me: "Thanks. Good to meet you too."

Brittyn: "Okay, these are the hours you're available?" (shows me the weekly schedule format from the application).

Me: "Yes. Everyday except Sunday. Any time of day, Saturdays, weekends, holidays. I'm available any day but Sunday."

Brittyn: "Okay." (Crosses Sunday off the chart). "And you want to work full time?"

Me: "I do. As much as possible if it's available."

Brittyn: "All right, well, you passed the DMV screening and that means we hire you. I've already ordered your shirt and name tag. I can start putting you on the schedule August 10th."

Bay Shore Park

Becky took us all out to Bayshore Park yesterday. I have to admit I'm the only one who didn't want to go. I had things I wanted to do at home and the sun and beach just don't do anything for me. But she made me go.

Of course, we had a great time.

Phone Service

I have always been pretty happy with our AT&T service. But man, this has a been a bad week for it. They were supposed to hook up our phones the Friday we moved in. It didn't happen. When I called they said it got put off until the next Monday. No reason. It was really like they just ran out of time on Friday and were taking the weekend off. We have cell phones so it wasn't that big a deal.

Monday they hooked up our service. Tuesday it was dead. A technician came and looked at things Wednesday evening and told us we had a bad jack. When we plugged our phone in, it shorted out the line. Again, not a big deal. We have enough jacks in the house that we plugged the phone into a good one and we'll tell the landlord about the bad jack when we get a chance.

Over the next few days our kids notice that the phone line upstairs (not the bad jack) has no dial tone, but if they unplug the phone and plug it back in again, the dial tone comes back on.

This morning our phone rings, but only the downstairs line. The upstairs line is dead again. When we answer the phone, there's no one there. So I play around with my cell phone and find that I can make outgoing calls from our home phone, but incoming calls are getting a "number has been disconnected" message. I called AT&T, they did their thing where they ping the house to check the signal. No problem. Called our house, they got through fine.

Frustrating. I mean, are prospective employers going to get through? Or get told I no longer have a phone? Fortunately, Pizza Hut got through last night. With an inconsistent problem though . . . who knows if anyone else has tried to call?

Stress

I ran a red light yesterday. One of those roads without much traffic, but with a light in the middle of it? I saw the corner, saw no traffic anywhere around, but missed the light and totally blew through it. That's not something I do. I'm a very good driver, very safe. I guess I was just preoccupied with . . . well, Becky and I had been talking about jobs I was going to apply to and I just started thinking about the whole unemployment thing. It's been over seven months looking for jobs and being told no over and over and over. I handle stress really well, but that's a lot. I guess I'm starting to feel it a little bit.

Over the past week I've put in applications at United Health Group, Pizza Hut, Pondersa, Applebee's, Papa John's and Jimmy John's. Hopefully something pans out so I have some type of job while taking my class.

A sinkful of Tabby

Apparently our bathroom mirror needed washing. Being the industrious girl she is, Tabby took the initiative to get the job done.

Or maybe the soap needed playing with. Either way, Tabby's the right girl.

Moved In

Whew.

Friday through Tuesday with no internet. Played Civ IV for the first time in ages. The boys and I played a game together all Sunday afternoon. Jack and Sam have been playing Age of Empires III.

Phone service was supposed to be hooked up Friday, was delayed to Monday, died Monday night, couldn't be fixed until Wednesday. Turns out we have a bad jack that shorts out service if we use it. Yay cell phones.

HOT!

Storage pod was mostly emptied into the house Friday evening. Becky's dad stayed long enough to help set up the beds.

Saturday morning while Becky went to the store, the boys and I finished emptying it. Stocor took it out of our driveway Monday night.

Who would have thought restocking the kitchen from nearly empty would be so hard? Becky has gone to the store pretty much every day. She even let me go once.

There are a dozen or so boxes we plan to just not unpack given that six months from now, when my class is done, who knows what we're going to do. They are finally put away in their closets and everything else unpacked. I mean, well, we need to straighten the garage in order to get both vehicles in. But other than that.

We're close enough to church that we walked on Sunday.

Ben spent a day and a half in bed with a puke bucket.

I've applied for jobs at Ponderosa and Applebee's (currently fully staffed, but taking applications), Pizza Hut (constantly hiring drivers) and Universal Health Group.

Jack has applied at a host of fast food places; McDonald's, Subway among them.

Becky has applied for jobs at Hancock, Joann's and Wal-Mart.

Had a wonderful chat with my grandmother.

There's still stuff to do, but we finally actually feel moved in.

Moving again

One benefit of having our vacation cut short is that it accelerated our plans to move to Green Bay. Today we are going to pack a few boxes to put in our storage unit, tomorrow we will pack up the rest of bags and Friday we are actually moving.

Today we also have on the agenda to get utilities, water, phone and internet set up for the GB address. And a trip to the post office to change address.

Peeking into the profession

SOA blog has an entry with the results of their Retirement 20/20 initiative, which was basically a call for actuaries to submit papers proposing new retirement designs. I just finished reading the winning paper. It proposed a plan to replace current "tier II" plans (401K or similar voluntary saving plans) with a mandatory participation plan using smarter investment strategies, requiring annuity payout, and incentives to maximize amount of investment. Or I guess it doesn't totally replace tier II plans, it just fills the same role they do and would likely, for all practical purposes, result in replacing them for the majority of workers. Current retirement savings would still exist and could be used. In fact, the proposed plan would still use current providers, but with some different standards, higher degree of worker particiapation and more strict federal oversight.

Personally, I liked it. I think it is smart that the plan didn't try to replace Social Security, but provided a model which once proven could be expanded to phase out Social Security to some degree. Possibly. I like that the author recognized that while his plan might be controversial with individuals who would prefer to manage their own risk, he wasn't proposing a savings or investment plan (which is what those individuals are actually looking for), he was proposing a national retirement plan and considering the interest of that much larger pool.

It was well written and for the most part intellectually accessible. I have to admit, though, there were some technicalities of the plan that I only vaguely grasped. I mean, as someone just getting into the actuarial field. I don't yet have experience working in it, am currently reviewing the math for the first actuarial exam and my only exposure to the financial aspect of the field (outside, you know, personal experience with my own 401K), is from taking a single accounting course a few years ago.

Mostly what I read it for was to see some hot topics in the profession. I wanted to see some examples of what actuaries do, what they write. The blog, like most, has a comments section and the blogger, Andy Peterson, invites commentary on the papers. I was hoping to see some discussion by other actuaries. After all, Andy mentioned that in the panel where the papers were presented there was considerable discussion inspired by some healthy disagreement on some aspects of the plans. I figured, the blogosphere being what it is, there was sure to be some comments! But there's nothing.

I guess there's all sorts of reasons there may be no comments. Maybe no one reads the blog. Though I guess I do, huh? And one is significantly greater than zero, isn't it? Maybe actuaries just aren't the type to comment. Insert stereotypes about timid math geeks . . . or more likely, if my experience with actuaries is any indication, they're just smart enough to not troll their own professional boards. Maybe the blog's readers tend to be newbies like me who feel underqualified to comment meaningfully.

Whatever the reason, while I enjoyed what I read, I would have liked to see what interaction goes on in the professional community.

Heart Rate

I have to admit, I don't use the suggested high end/low end heart rates when I'm on the exercise bike each morning. I find I hardly break a sweat if my heart rate stays between 130-165. So I just push myself enough that I do sweat a bit. I have a routine I use to keep my heart rate up. I set high and low "load" targets as measured by the bike's "load indicator", whatever that means. High = 4.5, low = 2.5. I stay at high for four minutes to spike my heart rate. Since I can't maintain 4.5 for 20 minutes, I then go two minutes at low and repeat that 4 min:2 min cycle three times. I start with a 1 minute slow warmup and that leaves 1 minute for a sprint at the end.

My heart rate ends up fluctuating between 160 - 230. Enough higher than suggested that I wonder if it should concern me? There really doesn't seem to be any physical distress though, just a good invigorating workout.

Except . . . every time during the third repetition of the cycle I know I should be at high speed from 7 mins to 3 mins, then low from 3 mins to 1 min on the countdown timer. But every time . . . every time . . . I've confused it and gone high speed from 7 mins to 4 mins. After about 30 seconds at low speed I always catch it and tell myself I won't do it next time. But I do.

It's not a big deal in terms of the workout. Just means the last bit goes 3 mins fast/2 mins slow/2 mins fast instead of 4 mins fast/2 mins slow/1 min fast. But I think it's interesting to note the effect of heart rate on brain functionality. At least I think that's what I'm seeing.

Fortunately, as exciting as my calculus reviews are, they don't quite get my heart pumping that much.

Happy Fourth of July

Hadn't planned on being here today . . . we were going to spend it in Laramie, Wyoming with Becky's sister, Sherry's, family.

But it's still the same free country, still grilling out, lighting off explosives, going to see fireworks. And Sherry's daughter Amanda is here. Hopefully her husband, Tony, will be back from work in time to go see the show with us.

Happy Fourth!