livingdeb | Entries tagged with logistics

Last year I had a couple of vague resolutions which I had actually totally forgotten about halfway through the year. Nevertheless, I did make progress on two of the secret specific ideas I had: I started jogging regularly and I started drinking enough water.

This year I am ready to be more specific.

* First, I resolve to post more blog entries. Maybe way more. Last year I posted only 17, so that should be easy. But I also want to spread them out a bit, so I'm aiming for at least one each month.

* I resolve to track my exercise. Not just the big stuff like jogs and exercise classes, but also the little stuff like lunges while brushing my teeth and counter-top push-ups while waiting for the microwave. I hope to take advantage of the gold-star-reward type of motivation. I won't technically have gold stars, but check marks work pretty well.

* I resolve to track my progress on several eating goals. I want to lose weight, but I don't want to do anything that I'm not willing to commit to indefinitely. So first I tried a bunch of easy stuff that didn't work. Now I think I have a good list of things I think I could be willing to do and that I think will help, like don't eat junk food when I'm hungry (eat real food first).

* Finally, I resolve to organize my books. Specifically, I should refrain from checking out a library book unless I have read or removed a book from my home library. I only want to keep books that I like so much that I want to re-read them and/or lend them out to people. But I can't remember how well I like some of my books (which seems like a bad sign, but how can I know for sure?) and I haven't even read some of my books (which again seems like a bad sign, but...). I also keep some books for reference. Last year I started carrying around a list of books I know I want to buy so that I can look for them when I'm in used book stores. This plan is working great. (Yes, I still really like owning paper books.)

I think I found an affordable donor-advised fund provider: Fidelity Charity. do any of y'all use them? Or any donor advised fund? What do you think?

What I want is a place to send my contributions and then they send them on for me anonymously so the charities don't waste a bunch of money begging me for more.

I used to do this through a program my employer had, but then I realized their fees were super high. So I switched to JustGive.org, but they no longer exist. So I switched to Network for Good, which charges 5%.

A donor-advised fund is a different thing. I think it's designed for people who want to be able to donate their appreciated stocks to avoid the capitol gains tax. Or get the tax donation right now, and then let the money grow in investments and donate it later.

But I think this might be good for what I want to do as well. I think I can send them all my contributions for this and next year to make their $5K opening minimum--they don't have a long-term minimum. Then they charge only the higher of $100 or 0.6% for administrative fees plus 0.015% - 1.11% investment fees. (I assume these are annual fees.) For my usual $2700 annual donations, $100 would be 3.7%, so cheaper than Network for Good's 5%.

One negative is that with Network for Good, I can charge my credit card which gives me 2% cash back. But with a donor-advised fund, I probably need to transfer the money directly from my credit union (or maybe write a check or something). I think I'm okay with that. Ideally I would donate monthly. And maybe even contribute monthly unless I'm bunching like this year.

Fidelity Charity actually has a quiz on whether a donor-advised fund is right for me. The result came out no, but it is because I said I want to donate less than $5K per year--at more than 5K I get a yes. The questions didn't seem to address my concerns, so I don't think the quiz is a good indicator for me.

I found the wonderful White Coat Investor article that shows me that Vanguard also has a donor advised fund but it's too rich for my blood. And apparently Schwab has a fund similar to Fidelity's but I already have an HSA account at Fidelity, so I'd probably prefer that. And it's fun to read and makes it look like it might work for me.

Any input?

I've read in frugality blogs that you can use vinegar as a hair conditioner and so I tried it.

What's the deal?

How does it work? Reading about how things work on your hair and skin is like reading snake oil ads. Sometimes they use science words to make the magic sound more palatable to modern ears. Since shampoos (and soap and baking soda) are alkaline and vinegar is acidic, there may be pH balancing going on. As for the cuticle sealing, exfoliation, and whatnot, I don't know.

How do you make it? I recall reading that you use half vinegar and half water, but since I buy vinegar that's 9% acetic acid and the norm is 5%, I use about a 4:1 water:vinegar ratio. I just pour some vinegar into my bottle, then fill with water. (Now, researching for this article, most of the ratios I'm seeing are much higher: a cup of water for only 1-5 tablespoons of vinegar.)

To be fancy, you can use apple cider vinegar (which is 5-6% acetic acid). Unless you're blonde. Maybe.

The next question is, how do you actually use it? "Apply." Unlike conditioner, it doesn't stay on your head, it just runs down your hair. So who knows? I just pour it all over the top of my head, leaning my head back when I'm pouring it near the front to keep it out of my eyes. Then I trust that it will run down to the bottom of my long hair. And of course it doesn't feel slimy, ahem, slippery like conditioner, which I've learned to associate with minimizing the tangles in my hair, so that's disconcerting.

Then let it sit, like regular conditioner. Then rinse it all out. When the hair dries, it supposedly stops smelling like vinegar, but that may not be entirely true for someone sticking their nose right in your hair.

Does it work?

If you know me, you might be thinking that obviously it doesn't! But my hair always looks like that, or even worse.

In fact, I think it actually does work, at least as well as conditioner does. With conditioner, my hair is much easier to brush than without, and that is also true of this vinegar rinse. In addition, my hair is slightly softer and smoother feeling after using this than after using regular conditioner. So now that's always what I use.

Obligatory disclosure: I have fine, thick, wavy/curly, dry, brown/grey/reddish hair, so your mileage may vary.

Are there side effects?

Cost - This is cheaper than regular conditioner, especially if you buy your vinegar in a gallon jug like I do.

Safety - The bathtub no longer gets slippery like when I used to use conditioner. So we don't need hard-to-clean mats in the shower anymore or those groovy flower stickers from the sixties.

Travel - When traveling I fill a 3-ounce bottle with straight vinegar to get through the airport checkpoint. Then I bring a larger bottle for mixing it with water and applying. If you have flights over several days, you'll have to reconstitute it bit by bit instead of all at one time.

Hipness - Martha Stewart approves. Well, I think she's still hip, but if she's not anymore, then nevermind.

Once again I am going to manipulate my finances for tax savings like rich people do, only by simulating a poor person. (Unlike the time I did this in 2015, I will still be paying some income taxes this year, as I should.)

It all started when I fantasized about contributing more to my Roth IRA this year.

Earned income

I have contributed the maximum to a Roth IRA every year that I have worked since Roth IRAs were invented. Unfortunately, you can only contribute to a Roth IRA if you (or your spouse) has earned income within a certain range. The top end of that range is not on my radar. But at the bottom end, you can't contribute more than you have earned. And money from pensions, interest, and dividends do not count as earned. So I thought my contributing days were over. But this year, I worked a few jobs. In fact, I worked so much that I actually earned a little more than the maximum contribution, including the catch-up provision for older people, of $6,500. (Although I didn't actually take that much home after taxes.)

Stocks

The whole point of working was to have more money available to spend, not less. But then it occurred to me that I could make my contribution by transferring some of my stocks from my taxable account to my IRA.

Saver's Credit

Out of curiosity, I looked up the cutoffs for the Saver's Credit again. And for 2018, if your Adjusted Gross Income is less than $32,000, then if you contribute to certain retirement accounts, you qualify for a credit for a certain percentage of your contribution up to $2,000. In other words, if my AGI is below $32,000 and I contribute at least $2000 to my IRA, I would get a $200 credit.

So I calculated my income and it's just over $32,900.

Traditional IRA

However, I can reduce my AGI by contributing to a traditional IRA, so I created one.

And I found out that I cannot just transfer stocks from my taxable account to my IRAs. And if I sell my stocks first and transfer the money, well, I've held my stocks so long that most of the current value is from capital gains, and thus would be added back to my AGI. (I feel like I'm in Laurel and Hardy scene, only a boring financial one.)

So I just funded my traditional IRA with $1200 from savings. (This gives me a little wiggle room in case my calculations are off, plus the minimum to open an index fund at Vanguard is $1,000, though I could have just left it in cash.)

I had already contributed $1000 to my Roth IRA, so I can get that 10% back on the maximim allowable amount of $2,000, for a total credit of $200.

Maxing the IRA contribution

Next year, I have the whole first quarter to continue contributing to my 2018 IRAs, so I could sell the stocks then (adding to my 2019 income), transfer the money to my Roth IRA, and then re-buy the stocks, hoping any price increase during that period doesn't hurt me too much. On the plus-side of risk, cashing in on some of my capital gains now, while I'm in the 0% capital gains tax bracket, could save me money over doing so later in a possibly different tax environment, such as where capital gains are taxed the same as other forms of income.

But then I vaguely remembered learning that if you re-buy the same or similar stock (or fund) right away, then it doesn't count as a long-term capital gains anymore. So I tried looking that up and it turns out I was (probably!) thinking about the "wash sale" rule, which only applies when you sell at a loss and then re-buy within 30 days. So that won't apply to me.

So that's all cool. And I can rollover my new traditional IRA into my old Roth IRA at any time later and pay the taxes on that $1200 (or however much it is at that time). So I'll probably watch for a market drop during the beginning of the year and do it early in the year regardless.

Exciting times!

Flooding in Austin (from probably hurricane-related rains) has roiled up the water in the river that we getting our drinking water from so much that the silt, mud, and debris in it is clogging the filters much more quickly than usual. Fresh water has to be used to clean the filters. As a result, the city is only able to provide 100 million gallons of water a day instead of their usual 300 million gallon capacity (for the first time ever), and residents typically use 120 million gallons per day. Excess water is stored, but some of that water needs to be saved for other purposes such as to keep a safe water pressure for fighting fires. Therefore we are being asked to conserve water, specifically to use 15-20% less than we usually use.

Meanwhile, they have stopped providing water treatment as perfectly as they can (to keep up that water pressure), so they have asked that we boil our water (for three minutes) before ingesting it. The next day, the turbidity was so high at one point that they had to tell us to boil it by law, but we got a nice warning ahead of time. Last I heard, the water still did not have a bacteria problem or anything, but it's still a good precaution. And also nice to have a little time practicing remembering.

We are not allowed to water our yards or foundations (not a problem, since it's still raining) or use water to wash our driveways, etc. I don't do any of that, so it's tough for me to figure out ways to save water. My first thought was that it's a good time to go on vacation! But cool things are happening here right now (friends visiting from out of state, parties).

So here are the ways I use water and what I have thought of to use less.

Drinking

My favorite beverages are tap water, milk, and orange juice. I am accidentally drinking less water because I have to boil it first and sometimes it's not ready. I already buy regular milk (not powdered milk). I did use this as an excuse to buy a carton of orange-strawberry-banana juice rather than a can of orange juice that needs to be reconstituted.

Of course, people are also buying bottled water. Shelves emptied out immediately, but supply is increasing. I don't want to take it instead of people who need it more, but even if supplies catch up, I'm not into all that plastic, and I don't want to change.

Friends of mine in a nearby unaffected town have offered to let people come and fill up bottles of water. If they're not home, just use the outside spigot. Nice, eh? I have not taken advantage of this.

Eating

I'm trying to favor dishes that don't require added water. So I haven't had pasta. I have had French toast, eggs, cereal, and soup from a can that doesn't need added water. And I've eaten Robin's pizza. And I've eaten out once (bringing my own drinking water). Future plans include sandwiches, tostadas (technically another kind of sandwich), salads, and yogurt. It's time to try my idea of mixing plain yogurt and canned pumpkin plus sugar and pumpkin pie spices.

Showering

Try to sweat less (ha ha!). We already have a low-flow shower head. I turn off the water while soaping up. I keep forgetting, but I could catch the water that comes out while waiting for the warm water and boil that for consumption or dish washing.

Dish washing

Ugh. I'm actually using more for this because I'm hand washing dishes like usual, and then boiling up a big pot of water for a final rinse. I did think to use sliced cheese instead of grating cheese so I don't have to wash the grater, but Robin already used the grater, so I used it, too. Any lid that's just got condensation on it from boiling water just goes into the dish rack to dry without washing it first.

Laundry

The city recommends holding off on doing laundry, but I can only dry one load of laundry per day, so it's not good to let it pile up too much. I'm holding off on washing the sheets. I'm wearing certain clothes more than once before washing, but I always do that. (Minimizing the sweat would be good here, too.) I sort of want to run out and get a front-loading washer right now (they use less water). I mean, it's on my list of things to do already. But our old machine still works.

Tooth brushing

I already don't run the water while brushing my teeth, so I don't see how to save here.

Toilet flushing

We already have a low-flow toilet. I'm flushing it less often (only when the water isn't very pale and clear). The city recommends not using the toilet for a trash can, but I already don't do that.

In conclusion, we should conserve water both when we don't have enough and when we have too much.

How long? At first they wouldn't say, but it sounded like first we have to wait for the water to settle down, which means waiting until the rain stops for a while. Then they have to finish their clean up and re-stocking. So my guess was however long it takes to stop raining plus a week. Now people are saying at least two weeks.

A friend of mine had the brilliant idea of getting season tickets to Texas Typhoon, a small water park that also has a ropes course, and then we go play on the ropes course every week for exercise.

Today was our first day, and thus a bit experimental. So many experiments!

What to wear - the ropes course requires regular clothes; the rest of the park, a swimsuit. My friend's idea to wear a swimsuit under her shorts was the winner.

Hat - I decided to wear my big, floppy sun hat. Then it turns out they make you wear a helmet on the ropes course. But they let me wear my hat under the helmet. Can you say, "Beauty Queen"? Oh, no need. I'm nevertheless going to say wearing a hat was a big win.

Drinks - Um, it's hot, and we need to not get sunstroke. But who wants to pay $3 per soda? We are bringing drinks and leaving them in the car. Drinking before, probably during, and after. They also have cold water fountains, but my friend doesn't like plain water.

Earrings - I wore earrings I wouldn't mind losing too much. And they didn't fall out! I still like this strategy.

Keys - I figured out how to wrap my key chain around my wristband--big win. I even remembered to take my flashlight (and other keys) off first. Yes!

Credit card - You can link your credit card to your wristband. Sounds like a good idea, but mine was in the car when I had my first opportunity. Now I'm wondering if I should link my favorite or a secondary credit card.

Lockers - They exist, but are not included in the season ticket price. My friend just put her things on top of the lockers--she calls this a big win. I put my things in the trunk of my car. I still don't have a favorite strategy.

Shoes - We need shoes for the ropes course, but can't have shoes on the water slides, but can wear any footwear we like in the other watery rides. I really liked having my sneakers on the ropes course. I liked that the soles are pretty thick and inflexible. But I forgot to plan what to do about the water. I wimped out on running around barefoot and just wore my sneakers, thinking they would dry out okay later and that I would bring my Teva sandals next time. My friend tried the barefoot thing and it seemed okay so long as you don't go too long in one stretch, but though she doesn't like plastic sandals, she is thinking about getting some. I was thinking I should just go barefoot and toughen my feet. But I also realized that I could bring my worn-out sneakers.

The ropes course does indeed use up all of our muscles as expected. I could feel my core muscles engaging, and one arm was quite rubbery at one point and then we did another thing where I had to stop and rest in the middle. Twice. (We didn't use squatting muscles.) I think there are three levels of courses (plus an extra free area where they don't make you wear a harness and helmet). We did most of the ground level. We did one part twice--the part where getting some momentum going was very helpful, and the second time we both basically ran all the way across. It was nice to see improvement right away. And I have LOTS of room for improvement.

Speaking of which, it took me a hilariously high number of tries to get on my inner tube on the lazy river. Normally, I flop on top and then flip over, but that wasn't working for me. My back-up strategy of coming up from the middle didn't work because the centers of the inner tubes are smaller than usual and I couldn't fit my bent legs through there. Fortunately my friend had a good strategy. I tried and failed it several times. Then she explained again in very detailed terms while demonstrating. I succeeded on my third try after that. I know! Lots of room for improvement. Especially if I want to succeed at looking as graceful as my friend did. I successfully dismounted on my first try, fortunately.

I do have what I think of as a pre-blister on one hand. It had that feeling where if you ignore it and keep doing what you're doing, it turns into a blister. But we stopped in time! Gloves or fingerless gloves of some kind (like people use at the gym) might be a good idea; I don't currently have any.

Note: The ropes course does not open until 1:00 p.m. So we are basically doomed to do this in 100-degree heat. (Technically, my car told me it was not 100 degrees when I left the house, but it said it was 101 when I left to go home.) This early, our highs are supposed to average 95, then in the second half of summer, 99. But this year, we were hitting 100 by the end of May. Grr. Fortunately my friend and I are much better at handling heat than cold. So ha!

Cartoon of the Day - Today's Dilbert, Boiling an Ocean - "Dilbert: I told our boss his presentation had a low signal-to-noise ratio and he thought it was a compliment. Wally: I think you just invented my new favorite game."

Oh no.

Want to play that game? Hmm, I'm not coming up with anything myself.

I decided to try Robin's reading glasses to see if they made it easier to read my atlas. The short answer is yes.

But in reality, I have a very long history of being near-sighted, correcting that vision with glasses, and thus developing a very strong habit of lifting my glasses to help me see fine print better. Obviously, this is not a good strategy with reading glasses. I felt like I was in some sort of (not very funny) slapstick comedy.

It just feels so wrong to look through glasses when trying to read! Ha! I'll learn.

Video of the Day - Saturday Night Live's Black Jeopardy - There are actually many different episodes of "Black Jeopardy," and I watched two more after seeing this one, which features the Black Panther from Wakanda, but this is by far my favorite.

It feels wrong laughing at racist society, so I'm not sharing this on Facebook. But I'm a sucker for the fish-out-of-water strategy of examining culture. Plus the acting is fun, especially Darnell's facial expressions, and I just love T'Challa.

Darnell (host) - "This is the reason your cable bill is in your grand mamma's name."

T'Challa (Black Panther) - "What is: To honor her, as the foundation of the family?"

Darnell - "Hmm. That's really nice. It's wrong." ...

Shanice - "What is: 'Cause I'm fid'na get a car, and I don't need all that on my credit?"

And now, because of this video, we joke about putting "raisins" in things at my house. You know you want to be in on the joke. Deb-Bob says, "Check it out!"

I used to get occasional work scoring essay questions on teacher certification tests. After retiring, I applied to work with the company again. A few things have changed.

First, it took them a whole year to get back to me. (After I had just decided I don't want to work full time anymore. Oh well.)

And they didn't call me for teacher certification tests (1- to 2-day jobs) but for TELPAS (Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System) (4 weeks--4 days for the training alone). Will it be interesting (different answers from each person), boring (same answers), depressing (very poor English), or a combination?

They now use some other company to deal with their I-9's.

They are no longer in walking distance. Duh--Center Ridge Drive is not the same as Cross Park Drive. It's now a 20-minute car commute or an extra hour by bus. So I'll be driving. Also, I see no street sign from the I-35 frontage road. Nice.

And they no longer provide lunch. Today I was told they have vending machines. And during scoring, they invite food truck vendors and put up a schedule showing which are available during which days. That's too bad. They used to have a decently healthy yet tasty lunch catered--plus dessert! I plan to bring my own lunch and deal with pressure to eat out--in the old days, it was the best of both worlds.

The salaries have also increased, though they have continued to lag behind inflation. When I first started, they were paying $10/hour for jobs that required a teaching certificate and I was making less than that at my job. When I quit, my salary and, more relevantly, the salary of a first-year teacher had doubled, but they were paying just over $12. Now this position (that requires only a college degree) pays $13/hour.

I do not have high hopes for liking this job. But I'll be trying it.

Yesterday, while donating blood, I noticed some similarities between how I am treated as a blood donor and how I am treated as a voter. In both cases, they ask me over and over again to confirm my identity.

In the case of voting in my county, I actually know why.

Station 1: You are looked up on the voter registration list and asked to confirm your address. They need to make sure they are checking you off the list and not someone else with a similar name.

Interesting note: If, when your voter registration card is mailed out, it is then returned in the mail, the county assumes you might have moved. You get flagged, and if you don't confirm or update your address, you might be kicked off the registration rolls.

Station 2: You are asked to confirm that the sticker they just handed you is yours. I guess technically, two people could drop their stickers at the same time and pick up the wrong ones. I've heard of cases where the person manning station 1 hands your stickers directly to the person manning station 2, but things are so crowded that things get mixed up.

Station 3: A receipt-looking thingy is printed and you are asked to initial your sticker if the number on it matches the number on your receipt thingy. I now know that you are proofreading the typing of the person manning station 3 to make sure you get the correct ballot for your precinct, school district, etc., and, during primaries, for the party in whose primary you are voting.

Interesting note: It is sadly not as uncommon as one would hope for people to walk away before they see the waving flag that shows they have cast their ballot. It's easy to imagine that once you've made all your selections, you do not then click through the summary ballot and then press the "Cast Ballot" button. Of course the election workers are not allowed to cast your ballot in your absence--for all they know, you left in disgust because you could never figure out how to select the choices you actually wanted.

**

While donating blood, they also hand me stickers to pass from station to station, each time asking me to confirm my full name and birth date. They really need to know which blood is coming from whom just in case something terrible is found in your blood--they can let you know and, if necessary, prevent you donating again in the future.

I currently have some paper-shuffling duties. One of today's goals: Given a big box of cards (about half orange and half purple), put together 155 decks of cards. Ideally, each deck would have 20 orange cards and 20 purple cards. But we don't have enough cards to do that. So get as close as you can.

Plan A: Deal out the cards as if to 155 players. When you run out of cards, you're done.

Problem: I do not have the space to lay out 155 stacks of cards.

Plan B: Make 155-card stacks with the orange cards and make more with the purple cards. Take one card from each stack to create each deck.

Solution: I ran out of cards after creating 16 stacks of orange cards and 13 stacks of purple cards. So we have enough cards for each deck to have 16 orange cards and 13 purple cards.

Notes: I always call this the communitive property for some reason. (I think of equations more as communes than commuters?) Also, yes, these cards look quite ugly together.

2017

Last year I had four resolutions:

1) Spanish - I resolved to finish reading my online Spanish text before it expired and I did. I also hoped to do additional activities but was not willing to commit to specific ones at that time. Score: I finished the DuoLingo Spanish lessons and did half the Spanish lessons at Language Transfer.

2) Blood donations - I resolved to make regular donations, and I actually did this all year long. I've even put it in my calendar as a recurring event, figuring I can adjust them if necessary.

3) Activism - I resolved to sign petitions and try to do other things. I did sign petitions. I also participated in the March for Science and called my representatives a few times. So I'm going to call this a success as well. But it has not worked to make me a better activist.

4) International media - I experienced loads of books and movies from other countries.

2018

I plan to keep donating blood regularly, signing petitions, and consuming international media, but don't feel the need to make resolutions on these.

1) Exercise - I want to exercise at least 30 minutes per day (besides walking) at least five days a week (unless I'm sick).

2) And then I have several other ideas that might be good, but I'm not willing to make a resolution about any them. So let's just say that I resolve to do one additional cool thing. And here are some possibilities I already have thought of:

a) Write a real program in Python (beyond assignments)

b) Go through the rest of my beginner and intermediate Spanish resources:
* Puntos de Partido and an accompanying workbook - sort of like a sister to my other Spanish
* A couple of Practice Makes Perfect workbooks
* finish the Language Transfer course
* Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish
* I think I have a grammar guide
* I think I have some story books

c) Declutter a lot. My sister is doing a project to declutter 2018 things in 2018. That's a lot of things. She's putting a chart on her refrigerator and adding a gold star for each item she gets rid of. Did I mention that's a lot of things? Admittedly, you can use your own judgment in deciding whether a stack of magazines counts as one stack or multiple magazines. (Admittedly, if you count each page, 2018 things isn't quite so many.)

d) Figure out a way to do something fight discrimination somehow. I am convinced that even if all racism disappeared, certain people would still be at a disadvantage due to things that have happened in the past such as redlining, crappy racist-caused job history and trauma, networking mainly only with other people who have been disadvantaged in the past, etc. So just not being discriminatory isn't enough.

I don't know how to do this. But I have been learning that there are plenty of ways that I inadvertently support discrimination. You know, I don't do it myself; I have people for that. My worst one is probably looking for low prices, which can support discriminatory labor practices.

I have read to look for places where you have power such as in hiring decisions and making sure to use your power for good, but I don't think I have much of this kind of power which makes sense because I deliberately don't seek out that kind of power.

However, it is becoming very clear that I have more privilege than most people. Besides the obvious advantages of being born healthy to loving parents in the US, my physical and mental health problems are nothing at all compared to what I have been hearing about and reading about for so many people. Are there ways I can use my privilege to help other people? Apparently I refuse to use my brain to invent awesome stuff like I should have all these years.

Here's another idea: I have read that it's hard to get lifeguards and swim instructors in my part of town. So kids in my neighborhood have fewer lessons and less swim time available to them, and they are less likely to learn to swim and later more likely to drown. I could try for one of these jobs. (This is exactly the kind of job I can get--where they need to hire a bunch of people at once.) Though it might be the case that this was a surprising problem for only one summer after which they raised the salaries significantly and started doing way better and better-timed marketing in the high schools to find interested people in time to get them trained.

I can't forget that Monopoly study where one player started with twice as much money as the other person, got twice as much money when they passed "GO," and got to use two dice to move around the board twice as quickly, and after only 15 minutes were already attributing their success to their own brains and hard work. When I first saw it, I thought that if I were the advantaged one, I would immediately give half my excess to the other person every time. But in real life, there's more than one other person to share with so I can't use the same strategy.

And in real life I am way too selfish to want to give up the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed just to make lots of people's lives infinitely better. (So much easier and more fun to give away half my Monopoly money!) I could at least copy those rich people discussed at the end of the Ted Talk above who pledge to give away half their wealth (before or after their death): I could make a charity the beneficiary of my IRA (though it's less than half my wealth). It does remind me of Thomas Jefferson, though, freeing his slaves in his will (at no sacrifice to himself at all), but then he had so many debts that his slaves had to sold to cover those debts and didn't even get to go free then.

Anyway, I'm going to try to keep my eye open for ways to share my privilege or otherwise use my power for good to help those who are discriminated against or otherwise underprivileged or just in need of help, ideally in ways that are fun for me.

Exercise update

It's been a while since I wrote, so this will be long.

12/21, Thursday - I felt energetic again, so I planned to do my pilates video but could not due to technical difficulties. So I jogged instead. I managed the whole three miles again and did it in my lower time again: 41 minutes. Yay!

12/22 - I went to the Silver Sneakers class. I was running late, so I jogged part of the way there. I still arrived late (right! I don't jog twice as fast as I walk anymore). I felt weaker and less energetic than usual and blamed my very long break. Then I remember that I had arrived sweaty and somewhat used up, plus it was warm and humid in the room. By the second half of the class I was back to normal. Woo!

12/23 - can't remember, didn't write it. Probably nothing?

12/24 - was busy, nothing

12/25 - noticed sore throat the evening before, was feverish, also visited friends for Christmas--no exercise

12/26 - felt much better, did pilates video. Felt only a little sub-par during most of it, except for the push-ups at the end where I just gave into gravity.

12/27 - triceps ache for some reason. No exercise except a short jog to the mailbox (less that 1 mile round trip).

12/28 - nothing

12/29 - nothing--slept over 12 hours

12/30 through 1/2 - Nothing. It sure looks like exercising too soon after getting sick the second time did me in. I had no energy until New Year's Eve and am still taking it easy.

Well, the start of a play.

Allergen (singing): I'm a little alergen,
Short and stout!
Here is my handle!
Here is my spou--[interrupted]

Alarm horn sounds. [In my head, it's a deep foghorn.]

Brain: Red alert! Red alert! All hands on deck! Repeat: All hands on deck!

Bone Marrow, we need antibodies quick!

Bone Marrow: Right away, sir! I've also got some on standby from last time!

Antibodies march on stage, single file.

Brain: Good work, Mary!

Antibodies! We have invaders. They look like this [shows Wanted poster of allergen]. Go out and find them! You know what to do!

Antibodies run around stage in all directions. One of them finds the antigen, bows to it, shakes its hand (spout?), pulls out hand cuffs, and cuffs the wrists of their two shaking hands together. The other antibodies mostly end up going off stage, but there will always be one or two running around.

Antibody: I got one, boss! I got one! Help!

etc. There was going to be someone manning a fire house to wash away the enemy. "Aye aye, Captain. I'm giving her all I can, but I'm running out of water!" "Make more!" But I didn't want the whole thing to be horribly inaccurate. When I tried to research what actually happens, everything I found had either too much information or too little. Oh, well, this is enough to get the picture, though.

I got the idea for this play while thinking about the issue of solutions for problems that don't exist.

One tenet of my faith is that if you try to make things better, you are much more likely to actually make things better than if you don't. And you can increase your odds even more by researching which kinds of solutions are actually effective. (And, apparently, which of the problems you perceive are actually problems.) As Bonnie Raitt might advise: you've got to know how.

Song of the day - Bonnie Raitt's You Got to Know How

Below are the lyrics as I hear them. (Note that she says it's okay if you don't magically know--you can learn.)

You can make me do
What you want to do,
But you got to know how.

You can make me cry,
You make me sigh,
But you got to know how.

You can make me do like this.
You can make me do like that.
Oh, baby, but you got to know how.

Once a pal of mine
Stole a guy of mine,
But I got him back, now.

It was the same old song:
She couldn't keep him long
'Cause she didn't know how.

When I love my man, I make him holler. Woah, my!
Yes, sir, I really know how.

The technique ain't tough
If you care enough
You can learn to know how.

I might drop a hint
How to strike my flint
If you're know how(?). [Others say "If you yearn to know how." In another version she sings "If you want to know how."]

Now don't you tell me about the life you led.
Don't try to drink me into bed.
No, baby, that ain't the way how!

You got to take your time.
You know it ain't no crime
If it lasts all night.

I think you'll be ideal
When you begin to feel
That you're doing right.

And when you love me right, you'll hear me holler. Woah, woah, my!
Yes, sir, when you really know how.

(Instrumental section)

And if you stay with me
Who knows how it will be
When we finally know how?

We'll get a house in town.
Don't need to move around
When we really know how.

Well, there's tricks that I don't even know,
Ones we'll make up as we go.
Woah, mister, when we really know how.
Yes, mister, when we really know how.

Exercise update

Saturday - Nothing. I was feeling better than Friday, but experience tells me that I tend to err toward being too macho, so I did not do exercise.

Sunday - After a one-mile walk, I felt oddly light-headed, so I didn't do any other exercise.

Texas has passed a law against sanctuary cities to go into effect September 1 unless it is found unconstitutional. Sanctuary cities are places where police officers are not allowed to ask about immigration status. The idea of sanctuary cities is that this allows all residents to feel safe working with the police to reduce crime.

This is like when I worked for the Census Bureau; we had to swear not to give Immigration any information we found so that everyone would cooperate with us and make it easier to get a proper count.

The bill also means that police have to honor detainers issues by federal immigration officials. In sanctuary cities, they don't want to do this unless the person in question is suspected of a major crime.

If you listen to liberals, this new law will lead to the harassment of people based on their looks and will increase crime by people taking advantage of the new fear of harassment. (Also, people who have done nothing or very little wrong will be grabbed and sent back to dangerous countries, leaving their children behind.) The crimes that interest the feds include illegal immigration as well as other crimes.

If you listen to conservatives, police have been refusing to help immigration in any way, thus putting all kinds of dangerous criminals back on the streets.

Well, what's the truth? Does sanctuary city status lead to letting more dangerous criminals go free or not? I don't know, and I don't know how to find out.

(Interestingly, both liberals and conservatives claim to want the same thing: keep dangerous criminals off the street. Liberals claim that of course they cooperate against dangerous criminals; conservatives that they don't. If the conservatives are lying, it's so that they get to harass minorities legally. If the liberals are lying, it's so that they get to--what? What is the evil thing they're trying to get away with? Why would anyone want to protect criminals? Who aren't important football players or police? I am getting really sick of the politicization of everything. I just want to know what actually works and what the bad side-effects are.)

Meanwhile, I decided I should get another copy of my birth certificate because I can't find the first one I got and I don't want to carry my passport around. Maybe I could just carry a photocopy of my passport (or birth certificate), but I can't find information on that. Instead I found The Hill's No, Texas did not pass a ‘show us your papers’ law.

"Opponents of SB 4 call it the “show us your papers” law. In fact, no Texan is required to submit “papers” under this law. Local law-enforcement officers are not required to ask individuals about their immigration status. Nor are they required to notify federal immigration authorities about an individual — unless there’s a criminal investigation involving that person."

Well, if I'm getting pulled over for speeding or having a tail light out, doesn't that mean I have become involved in a criminal investigation? And what about people being pulled over for driving-while-Hispanic-looking? Do I need to have papers to show or do I not?

Personally, I am lucky and my pasty-white skin-cancer-riddled face does not look Muslim or Hispanic, nor does my name sound alien. I am unlikely to be asked about my immigration status, just like I am unlikely to be asked to prove that I am over 21 in bars. But I still can be asked, and the police should not have to go around judging people by their looks--if they ask some people, they should ask everyone, and so that could include me.

It's interesting to me how video games can actually teach you skills that are transferable in the rest of your life. I started writing this post a while ago, and now I'm about done with this game (until/unless there are updates), but I still want to share.

"The Trail" is a game where you walk down a trail, picking up items of value you find, between rest stops. You also complete challenges after which you receive a "recipe" for food, clothing, or decorations. At the rest stops you can craft, sell, and buy items.

Very early on, it becomes obvious that you want a really good hat to help you keep your energy up. If your energy gets too low, you can energize with food, but if you run out of food or forget to eat, you will faint, and your things will fall out of your backpack, and passersby will likely take them.

It also becomes obvious that you want a big backpack. Better shirts and pants give you a little more storage as well.

After a while, you can build a house, then expand it. Inside, you can have furniture, some of which is just decorative, but most of which gives you additional benefits. For example, a bed helps you last longer on the trail and a chair helps your shoes last longer. Various kitchen items make your food more refreshing.

Clutter

There are two kinds of storage you can buy. One is shelving. On each bookcase you can store up to 12 items, no matter how large. And the items are accessible to everyone in your town.

The other kind is a trunk. Inside, you can store a certain volume of items, and many items can be "stacked" up to 10 high, so that ten items fit in just a little more space than one item. No one else in your town can get to these items.

Looking in other people's houses, it became clear you could get more than one of each of these storage items. I now have 11 bookshelves and 13 trunks. It sounds out of control, doesn't it? Just like my real house!

I determined that I do not want to buy any more trunks. Each trunk has a purpose. For example, in three I store building materials at each of the three levels. In three more I store finished housing materials, clothing, and food items. I should not need more than one trunk for each of these purposes, though sometimes I have so many crafted items curing that it does take a lot of space.

Still, I pick up everything I see on the trail, so I end up with a lot of stuff.

No recipe requires more than 4 of the same item, and all items are replaceable. So there's really no need to have more than 10 of anything stackable. So one strategy is that once I have more than ten of something (with some exceptions for things that are valuable in many recipes), it's time to get rid of them, either by crafting something with them or selling them directly.

And once I have crafted things, there's no reason to have more than one I'm using and a spare, so I should just sell the others.

And there are some things for which there are no use (except as something to collect for a challenge), so I sell all of those as soon as I get them.

I still have plenty of trunks, but I also have enough space to organize my furniture to look comfortable.

Edited to add: I bought two more trunks to be able to save up stuff things to sell. Conditions have changed in the town such that it's advantageous to wait until you have 21 items to sell rather than selling them ASAP.

In real life, I do tell myself things like one dresser and my three feet of closet should be big enough to hold all my clothes, the same way I think I have enough trunks and shelves in the game.

But there are things I never use. Of course "never" is a tough word because it's a very long time. I have a lot of hobbies, and I don't have time to do them all. I tend to go back and forth between several of them. But some of my things have not been touched in a very long time. Should I conclude that I don't need the supplies for those? Probably.

I have a lot of books that I have not read yet. If I still haven't read them, that's a sign that they are not of interest to me. Or that I should read them already. I can't know for sure until I read them. That's why decluttering takes so long! But really, just like on the trail, I can usually re-buy things that I think I'll need in the future. You can't count on specific styles of lamps always being available, but acceptable lamps probably always will be as well as non-rare books.

Specializing

In the game, I think there is room to stuff every single piece of useful furniture into your house, but I have chosen not to. Specifically, there are three kinds of couches that lower your cost for river crossings. I got one near the beginning but decided not to get more and have since sold the one I have. (Don't worry, there are still places to sit!) Instead, I decided to amass such big piles of money that I can easily afford any river crossing without the discount.

I joked to another player that she had all her couches facing the same direction, one right behind the other, like stadium seating. She laughed and said that she basically treated her house like a warehouse.

Also, some of the furniture is just ugly (to me). And all you really need anyway is a really good hat, a really big backpack, and decent tools. Everything I have is good enough so far. By good enough, I mean so durable that I sell more than half of what I make, in some cases ten times what I make or more. So it's really no big loss unless I need to be the best at everything.

Also, the way we can share things, it would make sense to get all the furniture that improves one type of item (like axes) and let other people get all the furniture for other items (like slingshots or backpacks). (But we don't actually do that, partly because you can also buy and share things that are more perfect than anything we can make.)

In real life, you could also get so good in some areas that it makes up for other areas somewhat. For example, I'm not into having to earn money, so I am above average in frugality skills to make up for that. (This is the opposite of what I do in the game!)

But I still like doing some of all kinds of things. More specialization in some areas would mean it would make sense to get better tools for those activities and hang out with other people good at those things. I still don't have a feeling about what I next want to become expert in. So far, things have sort of happened to me. I became an expert typist. Then an expert at my employer's degree audit system. I'm currently working on cooking foods I like that are minimally evil and learning Spanish.

Changing Times

I curated a great assortment of things to share on the shelves. Then people moved on with their goals and wanted different things. For a while I reserved one shelf for special requests. But I've changed most of the other shelves, too. It is amazing how long it used to take me to update my offerings. It is hard to admit that the perfect assortment is no longer perfect.

(Nowadays, no one is even playing except Robin, so I just put up whatever he wants.)

In real life, I've read blog posts about clutter that recommend making sure that you are not collecting and storing things for someone who you are not. You may have some things that were perfect for the old you, but for which the current you has no use. Or you may have some idealized version of who you would like to be for which you are collecting items.

In my case, it's hard to tell when I'm done with an old hobby. And for a long time, I never knew whether I would get a job that would require some of the things I've collected, but now that I'm retired, I am free to get rid of all that stuff (except maybe for tutoring resources), plus all those job-hunting hints and resources.

This year my homeowner's insurance went up 9.5%. Unless you count the new installment fees ($2/month); then it's 12%. And last year it went up 18%, but at least that year they also raised my limits. So I called.

The lady who answered offered to re-write my insurance. Then if the new number was lower, I could switch to that, but if not, I didn't have to. And the new number was lower than last year, though not as low as the previous year.

Apparently, the insurance companies don't check on whether there have been changes to your property, so they just assume there have been some that you haven't reported. And so your rates just go up every year. But if they "re-write" your insurance, they ask you a bunch of questions all over again and start over with a new number.

The questions were about things like what the square footage is, what kind of foundation I have, how many stories, what size the garage is (I wish!), and what materials the flooring, walls and roof covered with.

I asked how often one should request a rewrite, every ten years? Every year? And she said very little changes in one year. She recommends every three to five years.

Other changes: 1) I'm now all electronic (they won't send me paper by mail), though apparently I can change that back online. 2) I'm paying once a year instead of in monthly installments. 3) I'm getting insurance for the replacement value, which I never could figure out if I had before, but which I apparently didn't.

Blog Entry of the Day - Miser Mom's "Garbage Offsets"

This is a charmingly-written post about 1) ways to prepare tomato plants and 2) how to offset your landfill use. Warning: this writer really, really hates wasting things and you might think she's extreme. Mostly that makes me happy but if it drives you nutso, so will this post.

Quote on tomatoes: "But my high-E windows mean that my tomatoes languish without additional help, making the transfer from jars to the ground problematic, unless I give them a way to get full-spectrum light. So during April and early May, whenever the weather is warm enough, I take my tomatoes outdoors to play during the day, and then bring them back in at night to protect them from cold and/or rain. What's different this year is that these field trips have a new tomato school bus, so to speak."

Quote on trash: "What would happen if, for every garbage can my family produces, I rescued an equal amount of perfectly good stuff and got it into the hands of people who could use it? My net effect on the local landfills could be zero, even if I'm not technically zero waste myself."

LiveJournal has been sold to the Russians and as such is now subject to Russian laws about privacy, etc. I tried to read, or at least skim through, the new regulations, but they basically said only two things: 1) read and agree to these and 2) we are switching to Russian regulations (which, in spite of all the pages we are making you read, there is no information on these regulations here).

Googling appears to indicate that the new regulations are very similar. There is no need for alarm.

Yet, all my Bostonian LiveJournal friends are jumping ship and moving to Dreamwidth, which is apparently an open-source version of LiveJournal with no ads. I love the idea of an open-source provider with no ads. (No, I don't know how they afford their staff.) However, they don't currently have photo hosting, which you can get with a paid subscription to LiveJournal, though they are planning to add it. I don't currently use photo hosting, but I would like to. I haven't had pictures here in eons.

But another choice is Blogspot. Some of my other friends use that and it's prettier and nicer than LiveJournal and I kind of regretted not starting there after I had been blogging for a while.

I don't want to make the mistake I made in grad school: The first year in the dorm was so great that I stayed in the dorm a second year. Unfortunately, all the great people moved out and the new people were way less fun. Finally the third year I called around and found one of the great people who needed a roommate.

So I'm going to take this opportunity to jump ship, just as soon as I decide which new ship to jump to.

Any opinions?

Short answer: No. I am not a fluent Spanish speaker.

My friend Amy from undergrad said they did work, so maybe my undergrad was better than the local community college, where I took my Spanish classes. And that could be, if the classes were smaller and they did a lot of talking and the students kept up with the work. I took two other languages there, however, (though not for as many semesters), and I'm going to say that their classes were not better.

My Spanish IV classmate who has learned many languages said that he found taking classes to be the worst way he has tried to learn a language. (And yes, he was one of the better students.) He prefers to jump in and interact with people who know the language. He is a cool and amazing dude and very, very different from me!

So, on to the long answer.

Reading

I still can't read the ¡Ahora Sí! newspaper without looking up a bunch of words. In fact, I don't feel any better at this than I did before I took these classes (after having taken three years of Spanish in high school and doing additional self-study after that).

One exception: My grammar knowledge is much better, and I do understand verbs better than before. I pretty much always know what tense they are, which is very, very nice. And in books that are mostly English but have some Spanish in them, I almost always understand the Spanish now.

Listening

I still cannot understand Spanish spoken in the wild except for the occasional word or phrase. And sometimes entire sentences (generally spoken by or to three-year-olds). That includes the Spanish spoken in mostly English movies. But I am much better at understanding the simple and clearly spoken Spanish on DuoLingo because I now know most of the words well enough to understand where most of the word separations are.

Speaking

Talking is much easier than listening because I can use only vocabulary that I actually know. And I now have enough vocabulary that I can often figure out ways to say things I want to say to people. For example, I wanted to ask "Is there a post office nearby?" I don't know how to say "nearby" but I do know how to say "near here" and "around here." I wanted to ask, "Do you know a good place around here to buy stamps?" But instead I settled for, "Can I buy stamps around here?"

But sometimes talking takes a while. Example: Here's what happens when I want to say "The children were six years old."
Head: The children = Los niños
Mouth: "Los niños"
Head: are = ser or estar? No, wait, we say "had six years" instead of "were six years old" in Spanish. Which past tense, though? Having six years is still happening, so tenía. No, it's plural, so that's tenían.
Mouth: "tenian"
Head: six years = seis años
Mouth: seis años.

Nevertheless, I now have to guts to try to speak Spanish to Spanish-speaking restaurant workers. This is big! There is one lady in particular who is often at our favorite restaurant. She will talk for ages with other people in my class who we have dragged to the restaurant, but I can also have a short conversation with her involving a few halting sentences.

Writing

I am very good at spelling and writing things in Spanish, once I figure out how to say them. Spelling is so much easier than in English. It really is almost perfectly phonetic, though there can be more than one way to spell a certain sound.

What's next?

I need a lot more vocabulary. And I really only do well with flashcards and by finding patterns (for the latter, see, for example, my blog posts on agent nouns, reflexive verbs, and compound words).

After that, I will also need to learn a lot more about how to make phrases, for example, how to choose the right preposition. I think this will be most easily learned from broad reading and watching movies. But meanwhile, I think I could also benefit from more crutches such as Zen Language, a system compared to DuoLingo.

Reasons to study a foreign language

And on a slightly different note, there are a lot of lists out there on reasons to study a foreign language. They mostly go on about how it will help you in your career in international business. Here are the benefits I would list (besides being able to interact with more people and media).

* learn a cool accent
* increase sympathy for non-native speakers of your own language
* learn specific strategies on how to help non-native speakers; ones I've learned include:
--- speak more slowly
--- pause between words; word breaks are not obvious
--- try different ways of saying things instead of saying the same thing over and over
--- use more hand gestures
* learn better grammar
* increase your vocabulary in your native language (for English, this especially true for Germanic and Latin languages)

It's resolution time!

Last year

I didn't have much in the way of a resolution last year. But I did, indeed, follow along in Spanish IV with my ex-classmates who took it in the spring. This was good because there was no way I could have learned as much as I did during my class in the summer. Unfortunately, I just did the grammar and vocabulary and very little of the extras. Also, my classmates were not very active with the e-mails, so motivation wasn't enhanced much by that.

This year

This year, I am willing to make a few specific resolutions.

Spanish

My online Spanish text expires this year. [Insert rant about negatives of electronic "ownership" here.] So I resolve to read through all of it before that time. I hope to do additional activities as well but am not willing to commit to specific ones at this time.

Blood

I resolve to donate blood on a regular basis. For the first time in my life I was able to donate exactly eight weeks after a previous donation a couple of weeks ago. I had hoped that after menopause, my hematocrit levels would be fine, but no. However, after my doctor told me I had an iron deficiency and should take supplements, yes! My hematocrit was not even borderline.

Petitions

I'm also going to continue to sign petitions, even though it's draining. And I am going to keep my eyes open for other ways to help protect fairness and the environment that I don't mind doing and that could actually be effective. I don't see myself as an activist, but I don't want to just sit idly doing nothing.

International media

I'm also going to continue experiencing media from other countries. More on that in my next entry.

A special blind-leading-the-blind feature! (Actually, many of y'all are probably not that blind in this way.)

It turns out that wooden drawers need maintenance. And that it's easy!

My house was built in 1955 and so the kitchen drawers are made of wood, including the runners. This led to sawdust appearing in my cabinets under the drawers. Figuring out the problem (not termites!) was the first step in finding the solution.

What you do is wax the parts that slide together. You can rub a candle on it or a block of candle wax or even a bar of soap, but I decided to go with paste wax. Here is a convincing video I found.

There is such a thing as furniture paste wax. Don't use car paste wax.

My drawers just have sides that stick down past the bottom of the drawer a bit and that ride over bars of wood. We dusted these off (sawdust everywhere!) and applied the paste wax with a paper towel.

Side note: The sides of my drawers were made with plywood, and the plies going in one direction wore down more quickly than the plies in the other direction, at least on the big (heavy) drawer. This, in turn, led to the development of ruts in the supporting wood bars. Like ruffled potato chips. Tres chic!

This turned out to be AWESOME! The drawers now slide smoothly, in a way that I never knew drawers with wooden runners could. I love them now. Deeply. Seriously, next time you come over, I will make you open and close one of these drawers.

Warning: If you do this in your own house, be very careful that you do not accidentally pull out the drawer and drop it on your foot. I learned this the easy way from another online source. Still, it's very hard to break old habits.

**

Unfortunately, this treatment also filled the kitchen with the smell of poison from the solvents used to turn wax into paste wax. After a couple of days it has dissipated except while opening and closing the drawer. It never occurred to me that paste wax would be poison.

So Robin and I decided that we should do my dresser drawers right before our next vacation.

Or it turns out there's such a thing as less poisonous paste wax. Or you can make it yourself. Maybe I'll check out Breed & Co. or possibly TreeHouse to see if they have some.

If I ever do my dresser drawers, I'll try to remember to write a Part II on this subject.

Do you have any wooden drawers in your house (or at work or elsewhere)? Do they stick, make noise when you open or close them, or make sawdust? Are you a long-time expert who wants to give me and my other readers additional advice?

For various reasons, I deliberately do not use any Microsoft products at home. This is no hardship for me (except for Excel).

Unfortunately, the open-source Linux word processors I've tried, Open Office and Libre Office, are both Word clones.

What I want is something that takes all the best ideas from previously developed word processors, which for some reason Microsoft refuses to do. [Though I will admit that I do like that Microsoft does use mouses (or touchpads or whatever) and also still has short-cut keys so you don't have to take your hands off the keyboard for quickly doing things you've done a million times before.]

Reveal codes

I miss reveal codes from WordPerfect 5.1, for example. You know how whenever you delete something wrong or copy and paste something from another source, your computer sometimes decides you want some wacky font instead of the one you're using for everything else? With reveal codes, you can find that wacky-font command and then delete it. Without it, you have to select everything, and maybe some extra just to make sure, and then try to change it all back to match, remembering your font, your font size, un-bolding it, or whatever.

Equations

I also miss the way Macs do equations. You can easily do wacky things like subscripts of subscripts (instead of just making them a smaller font than the main subscript and hoping that's good enough). Or fractions inside of fractions.

Characters

I also miss the easy way to make tildes and other modifications to letters on Macs. For a tilde, you just type Ctrl-n, then the letter you want the tilde on top of, usually an n. In some applications, no matter how much I scroll around through their options of weird characters, I can't find an x-bar. Grr.

Mostly I don't care. I'm no longer typing for zoology professors, so I don't have to do tricky things anymore. Unless I'm typing Spanish or other foreign languages, and I found typeit.org for that.

But finally I decided to try something new (to me). I've read good things about LaTeX, but it has a steep learning curve. And so I'm first trying LyX, which is a wysiwyg-ish version.

Tutorial

Under the help tab in the software is an introduction and a tutorial, both of which I've now read over the last three days.

Graphic design versus going with the flow

Okay, there are two ways to go about designing documents. One is to specify exactly how everything should look, down to individual pixels. This is what we try to do on paper and with typewriters and is important for things like brochures which, after you fold them, need to have certain things on each panel on both sides.

However, this does not work well on the Internet where you have no idea what size window people will have open let alone how big a screen they will have, etc. Some people resist this and try to make everything look just how they want and try to force everyone to have their windows big or it just won't work.

But the best practice is considered to be to use a design that can work in many situations. So, for example, instead of saying you want the title to be in 18 point boldfaced font, you just say you want it to be in "Title" font, which is big and bold. You can specify the defaults you want, but the viewer can change these.

So, when you're coding html, it's best to designate the function of everything as you go and then separately specify the style of those things. So everything is a title or a paragraph or an equation, and you make make up your own styles for other things.

LyX is more like html than like Word. First you decide what you're writing (such as a letter, a book, or an article). That determines what styles are available (such as signature, title, or bibliography).

So the advantage is that you're thinking in terms of function instead of in terms of typesetting. You don't have to remember what size you decided to make subtitles, you just remember that you're using subtitles.

Even if you like this idea, the bad part is that you are relying on someone else to figure out all the styles you need. For example, on letters, I still can't figure out how to include my title under my name in the signature block. Surely that's possible--I didn't check the documentation or google anything yet. But I don't actually know, and there's definitely an avenue for frustration here.

Still, there is no sudden changing of fonts that you don't understand--everything of the same function is the same style as each other.

Equations and characters

Equations and characters are a lot like on Macs. Woot!

And you have automatic numbering of things like footnotes and equations so you can stick one in the middle without having to find all the other ones. And you can make automatic tables of contents. And you can go directly to specific sections rather than having to scroll or find the right search terms.

Export

You can't export it to Word, so if that's required for a job application or other sharing, this is no good. However, you can export it to PDF.

Conclusion

I'm going to try using LyX for NaNoWriMo.

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Note of the Living Deb

Entries tagged with logistics

Resolutions!

Donor-Advised Funds

On vinegar as hair conditioner

Tax Planning: Saver's Credit

Saving (City) Water

Fun Exercise Experiment

Fun with Reading Glasses

Things Are Different

Managing voters versus blood donors

Math in Real Life: The Commutative Property

The Latest in Resolutions

The Allergy - A Play

SB 4 - Show Me Your Papers (or Not)

Life and Video Games: "The Trail"

Homeowner Insurance Re-write

Seeking New Blog Home

College Spanish Classes: Did They Work?

Resolution Update 2016/2017

On Wooden Drawers, Part I

Trying a New Word Processor: LyX