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The Freight Train Engineer Horn Continuum

20 Mar

No, this isn’t the title of the new Big Bang Theory episode (although it would be an excellent Sheldon-centered episode title).  Rather, it’s the presentation of my newest personality scale.  Some of you may remember The Sidewalk Penny Personality Test from last February.  (Some of you have even contacted me to say that you’ve tried it.  I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that gluing the penny to the sidewalk, while funny, is also sadistic in these trying economic times.  You know who you are.)

This week, I’m unveiling a scale that will help determine the level of apathy in your neighborhood freight train engineer.  This scale comes from two and a half months of exhaustive research (literally, as I live 200 yards from a 24-hour active train track).  Somewhere in the second month, I made an interesting discovery.  There exists a wide range of train horn blowing behaviors, but along this continuum are five discreet spots.  The noises of all passing trains can be associated with one of these types, implying that train engineers are somewhat more predictable than I previously assumed (you know, from my previously vast stores of train-related knowledge).  Those who live near a train track will hopefully enjoy this new personality tool, while those who do not live near a train track will at least enjoy the knowledge that their ears are safer than mine.

Without further ado: The Freight Train Engineer Horn Continuum

  • The Early Warner- This an anxious sort of engineer.  He’ll hit the horn at every crossing, but he’ll also let you know that the train is approaching from 2 miles out, 1 mile out, ¾ mile out, ½ mile out, ¼ mile out, at each intersection, and then at the same intervals as the train is receding into the distance, just in case you were planning to jump out in front of the last few cars.  Most often heard during the pre-dawn hours, this engineer makes most residents of my complex want to hurl Prozac tablets at the tracks.
$500 internet dollars to the person who can tell me what movie this frame is from. Also- trains don't whistle, but it might be cool if they did.

$500 internet dollars to the person who can tell me what movie this frame is from. Also- trains don’t whistle, but it might be cool if they did.

  • The Safety First- Related to the Early Warner, but with slightly higher levels of serotonin, this engineer is either new on the job or swallowed the rule book.  He blows the horn at every intersection at precisely the right interval for precisely the right number of seconds.  With four crossings within a half mile of my dwelling, this means four insistent blasts, plus the three or four extra blasts thrown in for good measure.  After all, better safe than sorry, and no one should really be sleeping past 8 am on a Saturday anyway.
You can buy this on eBay for a quarter, but it's from England, so you'll have to remember to drive your train on the other side of the tracks.

You can buy this on eBay for a quarter, but it’s from England, so you’ll have to remember to drive your train on the other side of the tracks.

  • The Doppler- This engineer hits the horn 500 yards from the first intersection and doesn’t let go until the train is out of sight of the last one.  This provides a prime example of the Doppler Effect, as everyone within a half mile gets to hear the sound waves approach, reach maximum volume, and recede.  The Doppler engineers seem to favor the mid-day routes, which means that from 10 am to 3 pm, it’s science time.
dopplertrain

This may be the one train cartoon explanation of the Doppler Effect. I had to search through 5 pages of ambulance cartoons to find it. You’re welcome.

  • The Every Man For Himself- This engineer is just a few routes past the point of caring.  He’s been on the job for too many years and seen too many crossing jumpers.  He hits the horn once at the proper distance, and then you’d better not ignore the flashing crossing lights because you’re not going to get a second warning.  This engineer often has the night routes, when anyone stupid enough ignore a crossing sign and be on the tracks probably deserves a near-death experience.
It's the fine print on this sign that gets me. It's the kind of sign that I want to steal for my door.

It’s the fine print on this sign that gets me. It’s the kind of sign that I want to steal for my door.

  • The Menace- Once the Every Man For Himself engineer, this engineer has been stuck on the midnight route for far too long.  Inhabited areas at 3 am are his delight, and nothing brings him more joy than hitting the horn at just the right moment so that the sound waves reverberate all along the building. If he can startle more than 50 residents out of a sound sleep with a single horn blast, it’s a good night.
He's coming for you, but don't worry- the heart attack will kill you first.

He’s coming for you, but don’t worry- the heart attack will kill you first.

 

And there you have it- a five-point scale of freight train engineer personalities.  Feel free to reference this guide the next time you find yourself near a train track.  If you’re unfortunate enough to live near an active track, let me know which types of engineers frequent your area.  In the meantime, I’ll be researching noise cancelling headphones.

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Shameless Plug (Well, Maybe A Little Bit Of Shame)

21 Feb

Back in January of this year, a friend and I launched a new blog project called What The Health.  We decided to put our Master’s of Public Health degrees to work, and translate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into plain English.  Our rationale is that if everyone can understand what’s in those 907 pages, then they’ll be able to make better decisions about their healthcare.

We’re strictly non-partisan in this project, and we’re not being paid by anyone.  As public health people, we just wanted to cut through all the incorrect and biased information out there, and provide the real wording.  We also decided to do it in a way that doesn’t put people to sleep.

Today we posted episode 6.  We’re now 50 pages into the PPACA, and we need your help.  As I said before, we’re trying to not put people to sleep with our blogs and video.  If you can spare 3:24 seconds (because that’s how long the video is this week) and let us know if we’re awesome or awful, we’d really appreciate it.  Click the link, and take your pick of watching the video or reading the blog.  They’re pretty much the same thing, but one involves a chalkboard background drawn by my awesome other friend, Katie B.

 

What The Health Episode 6

 

A note from my anxiety-ridded self: please don’t tell us that we’re awful.  That would make us sad. Do feel free to pass the blog along to anyone you think might find it interesting. We love getting blog views. That makes us happy, and easier to bear it when people tell us that we’re awful.

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Regrouping

18 Feb pine mountain 3

Last week was a stressful week.  Not because of any one thing, but more in that slow building “time is getting away” sort of way.  There wasn’t enough time to get things done, and I kept feeling like I was letting people down. Work stuff went out late, blogs didn’t get written, emails and texts didn’t get returned.  I considered it a good day if I managed to feed myself at least twice.

By Friday evening, I was done.  I hit send on a report for work that I knew wasn’t my best by far, and shut off all the electronics.  Except for my phone, which I used to call my mom.  Calling mom makes everything better.  Then I sat on the couch and watched five episodes of Star Trek: TNG.

Worf sees you judging me. It's not wise to anger the Klingon.

Worf sees you judging me. It’s not wise to anger the Klingon.

On Saturday, I woke up feeling restless and trapped, like I’d been in one place for too long and I had to get out.  This wasn’t a new feeling for me.  When I get stressed, my OCD flares up. My mind churns up all the failed interactions and times I’ve let people down.  If I can’t shut it down quick enough, the guilt gets overpowering. After that, the best way to get my brain to stop obsessing is to give it something beautiful to look at.

When I was in college, I used to drive half an hour down the highway to Calloway Gardens.  For the non-Georgia folks, Calloway is a botanical garden, wildlife rescue center, lake, golf course, vegetable garden, steeplechase track, and holiday wonderland, all in one.  The Calloway Foundation gave a lot of money to my college, and the students got into the gardens for free. As a result, I spent a lot of Saturdays by the lake or among the flowers.

This past Saturday, it dawned on me that not only do I once again live within driving distance of Calloway, but that I live even closer to Pine Mountain and the FDR State Park. Once I realized this, I finally found the drive to get out of bed and into the car.

That drive was the best thing I’ve done for myself in a long time. I took a state highway, which this far south is a two-lane road with the occasional passing lane. I drove through towns like Luthersville, Greenville, Pine Mountain, and Woodbury.

Yes, Walking Dead fans- I said Woodbury.  It’s a real town in south Georgia.

When you see a sign like this, you know you’re heading in the right direction.

For the record, this is the Woodbury with all the cows. The Woodbury with all the walkers is Senoia, GA.

In Warm Springs, I got off highway 29 (/27/19/41 spur, because there’s only one road and it has all the names) and turned onto Roosevelt Highway.  This is one of the most beautiful roads in Georgia, and it links the city of Warm Springs to the city of Pine Mountain by passing through the FDR State Park.

The benefit of all those drives in college is that I know where all the best viewpoints are along the highway. My favorite is the trail head on top of Pine Mountain. There’s a historical site there, where FDR had a grill built so he could host formal picnics for his friends. The grill has been filled in with cement to preserve it (which I suppose somehow makes sense), but the picnic clearing is still accessible.

And I’ll tell you, the view from up there is incredible.

pine mountain 2

pine mountain

I’d still be up there, if it hadn’t been so windy and bleeding cold on Saturday. Warm air does not rise when you are atop a mountain.

There’s something about a mountain top that always soothes my soul. Pine Mountain is pretty small, even by Georgia standards, but it’s one of my favorite places in the entire world.  Time doesn’t seem to flow the same there as it does off the mountain, and you almost expect FDR and his entourage to appear for their afternoon picnic.

Coming down off the mountain, I took the long way home, making sure to pass through Woodbury to secure the above photos.  It was too cold to open the sunroof, but too beautiful of a day not to at least have the shade pulled back. When I arrive home four hours after I’d set out, I felt happier than I had in several weeks.  Just like in the sky, the clouds were parting and I could see the sun.

This happier feeling led to my decision to attend a photo shoot on Saturday night.  I’d been thinking about the event all week, going back and forth on if I wanted to attend. I’d talked myself out of it at least a dozen times, with reasons such as I didn’t have the money to spare, my costume wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t pretty enough, none of my friends were going, it wasn’t going to end until 1 am and I had church on Sunday, etc.  A phone conversation early Saturday evening with a friend convinced me that I needed to get past the doubt and just go.

For those who don’t struggle with anxiety, the decision to go out on a Saturday night might seem like an easy one. For me, it can involve an hour or two of going over possible conversations in my head, so that I won’t be caught unprepared for a remark. It sounds crazy, I know, but that’s how OCD works sometimes. I’ve made it a point to work on this, and it is getting easier to just go out and be among people.

A big part of me being able to go to the photo shoot was the knowledge that I would be among fellow nerds and geeks. Everyone there would be con-goers, which are on the whole a very accepting group. I packed up my costume and my bag, and drove to Atlanta (and thereby burning the rest of the tank of gas I’d just bought that morning).

Just like my decision to drive to the mountain, my decision to go to Atlanta paid off better than I could have imagined. I met some very cool people, and some very talented photographers. A wizard of a make-up artist even made me look like a proper girl (it’s day two and some of the eyeliner is still on. It’s not a voluntary choice- that stuff is seriously waterproof). I also got some of the best pictures I’ve ever had taken of me in my life.

steampunk

Steampunk

Steampunk

For the first time in my life, I don’t need someone to tell me that I’m pretty. I don’t need them to look me in the eye and repeat it because I won’t believe them the first time, or the second either. I don’t need that, because this time, I believe it myself. And that is worth way more than the cost of a tank of gas.

So bring it on, universe. I’ve got new friends and Saturday night’s eyeliner on my side. I’ve been to the mountain top, and you can’t bring me down this time.

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Getting To Know The Maintance Man

7 Feb

I’ve been in my new place for five weeks now.  When I moved in, I thought a lot about the friends and family members that I would have over.  The game nights, the dinners, the mural-painting sessions- it was all going to be such fun.

download (1)

Note- kitchen shown has been enlarged to represent a real kitchen, rather than the closet attempting to pass for a kitchen in my apartment.

I didn’t plan on my most frequent visitor being maintenance.

(I have no picture for this.  

Also, protip: don’t Google “maintenance man”

unless you’re sure SafeSearch is on.)

We’ve seen each other six times now, for six separate issues.  Some of these visits have been informative, some have been entertaining, and some have been downright creepy. Part of this comes from living in a 134-year-old former cotton mill, and part of this comes from having a maintenance team with a twisted sense of humor.  In any case, I offer the three best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) maintenance stories from the past five weeks.

space

Request 1: washer/dryer move and install

This request started out fairly normally.  I had purchased a washer/dryer combination and needed it moved upstairs to my apartment and installed.  Maintenance came with a dolly and two men, and got the unit into its new closet home with only the minimal amount of loud noises.  Everything seemed fine until one maintenance man remarked, “isn’t this the unit that had the dead bird in the dryer vent?”  Before I could get my head wrapped around that, the other guy said, “No, that was over in A building, and it wasn’t a bird, it was a baby bat.”  I guess he saw my face, because he told me, “Don’t worry- we resealed all the dryer vent openings after the cleaning last week.  You don’t have to worry about finding a bat in among your socks.”

The takeaway from this story: This is why there is a net hanging on the wall next to my dryer.

space

Request 2: find the leak that is letting the neighbor’s cigarette smoke into my apartment.

My apartment started smelling strongly of cigarette smoke about two weeks after I moved in.  When it started being noticeable on my clothes, it was time to take action.  I assumed the problem was from the air vent system, and so I invited maintenance over to take a look-see.  They showed up with a ladder, and discovered that while the air vents were just fine, there were several holes along the shared wall that were likely the source of the invading smoke.

This process to fix these cracks took two days, as the wall in question is 40 feet long by 20 feet tall.  At the end of it, two thumb-sized holes going clear through the wall, along with several other cracks, had been plugged.  I was thrilled.  I was looking forward to living in a smoke-free environment.  Nothing could bring me down.  Then the maintenance man headed out the door with the words, “You’re all sealed in.  Enjoy,” and the sort of unnerving laugh that made me want to both bolt the door, and move as soon as possible.

The takeaway from this story: No more smoke comes through the wall, but I am now concerned about cybermen, daleks, or any other enemy of the Doctor.

space

Request 3: while you’re here picking up an ozone machine, can you look at this thing on the wall?

Following the great wall sealing project, there was still some lingering smoke in my apartment.  Maintenance dropped off an ozone machine, which promised to filter all the air in the unit.  Long story short, the machine worked its magic, and the apartment is officially smoke-free.

Maintenance came by today to pick up the machine, and I took the opportunity to ask about an odd growth on the wall in my bedroom.  It looked suspiciously like a wasp’s nest, and I wanted it gone ASAP.  The following conversation ensued:

Maintenance guy: Oh, that’s nothing to worry about.  It’s just a mud dauber thing.

Me: Mud dauber? As in the wasp species? As in there is a wasp nest made of mud on my bedroom wall?

Maintenance guy: Are mud daubers wasps?

Me: Yes.

Maintenance guy: Then yes.  But it’s empty now.

Me: All the more reason for it to be removed.  I’m not interested in subletting my bedroom wall to a family of insects.

Maintenance guy: Ok, I’ll go get a ladder.

Me: Please do.

In the end, the poor guy had to use a paint scraper to get the nest off the brickwork of my bedroom wall.  He looked at the nest and reassured me that it was empty.  He didn’t answer my question about how the wasps got into the bedroom to build the nest in the first place, however.

The takeaway from this story: That maintenance man should expect a request soon to reseal the edges of my bedroom windows.  Also, the net from the laundry room is now hanging by my bed.

space

So, who wants to come visit me?

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Going Live With A New Project

15 Jan

For the last couple of months, a friend of mine and I have been working on a new project.  I blogged about it on New Year’s Eve, and you can read that post here if you missed it.

The blog is called What The Health, and its purpose is  to put the PPACA into plain nonpartisan English.  We want people to be able to learn what’s inside of the law, and be able to make up their own minds about how they feel about it, without being subjected to fear-mongering or political bias.  There’s a lot of misinformation about the law out there, and health care is not something that anyone should be misinformed about.

This morning at 8 am, we posted our first entry.  This week’s post covers the first 12 pages of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or just the Table Of Contents.  If you could please take a minute to check it out by clicking the link below, I’d really appreciate it.  (I’ll even promise not to beg for views more than three or four more times in the future).

Just like I try to do with this blog on personal finance, I promise not to make a blog on healthcare reform terribly boring.

http://saywhatthehealth.com/2013/01/15/week-one-an-introduction-to-the-ppaca/

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The (50% off) Descent

12 Jan

Well, it finally happened.

I resisted as long as I could.

I told myself I didn’t need them.

That I was just fine without them.

My life was complete.

…

I’m so ashamed.

That’s right, I’ve become…

A couponer.

Just now, I started a Google search for pictures of crazy couponers, and I lost 20 minutes while looking for cheddar cheese coupons (that stuff’s expensive, you know).  Earlier today, I spend 45 minutes trying to get around another website’s print limit when my printer decided to eat the page mid-print.  (It turns out Coupons.com is surprisingly easy to beat, but that’s beside the point here).

The point is I’m sitting at my desk with a stack of papers and a grocery list, ready to do battle with Wal-Mart over retail prices on gluten-free spaghetti.  I tell myself that it’s because gluten-free foods run $2-3 more than their gluten-containing counterparts, and I’m just ensuring my dietary needs don’t run me into the poorhouse.  But that’s just the surface reason.

What I’m pretty sure has happened here is that my need to save money hasn’t evaporated along with my student loans.  The debt is gone but the penny-saving mentality remains.  Now it has gotten me lost in the land of anti-retail, searching for that elusive unicorn of coupons: the buy one, get one free.

BOGO sign

Sshh, don’t make a sound. You’ll startle it away.

So far, I’ve managed to stay to the light side- only using coupons on items (and quantities) I already plan to purchase, not trying to sneak expired or illegally doubled coupons by the cashier, and keeping my total number of coupons to under 7.  I fear the day may come when I let the sales dictate what I’m eating that week.  From there, it’s only a short slide until I find myself in a dark pantry surrounded by 1500 packs of paper towels, 16000 rolls of toilet paper, 3 camping stoves, and 17 gallons of ranch dressing, defying the government to come take my preciouses away.  (Someone promise me you’ll do an intervention before I reach that point.  Like, maybe after the second camping stove purchase.)

Until I reach that point of no return, I’ve got errands to run.  I found this great coupon for air fresheners that stacks with a coupon for ranch dres…. I mean, I’ve got 50 cents off Glutino-brand cereal.  Yes, that’s the coupon I meant.

Anyone have a good couponing story they’d like to share to make me laugh/feel better about my new habit/warn me off the path of addiction?  Leave me a comment and let me know!

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New Year, New Blog

31 Dec

Here we sit at the end of the year.  12 months ago, I was sitting in the same chair on the same rug in the same room, but yet in a totally different place.

In January, I was working five part-time jobs, living at home, and $12,000 more dollars in debt.

Now in December, I am working one full-time job and four part-time jobs, will soon be living in a new apartment of my very own, and my credit report lists a dozen more “closed- paid in full” accounts.

Since I accomplished my goal, I’ve been trying to decide what to do with this blog.  After all, even though my undergraduate loans are gone, my graduate loans still loom large and forboding on the horizon.  I’ve decided that I’ll keep blogging here about money, loans, and life, but less frequently.  I do enjoy writing this blog, and I’ve heard from several people that you enjoy hearing about my constant battles with the student loan companies.

But, a new blog project is demanding my attention.  This is a project that I’ve been working on for a month or so now, and I’m excited to finally share it with you.  I hope you’ll check it out, and I hope the Americans among you will take in interest in it.

The new blog is called What The Health, and it’s being written by myself and a former classmate (this means we both hold Masters Degrees in Public Health).  We’ll be going page by page through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Healthcare Reform) and explaining in plain nonpartisan language what it means for the public.  We’ve also included a Cuteness Clause, for when the project becomes too tedious for our readers.  You can learn more about the project by clicking here: http://saywhatthehealth.wordpress.com/about/

I wish you all a very happy New Year’s Eve, and a wonderful New Year.  Thank you for supporting me on this journey through your comments, your subscriptions, and simply your page views.  You kept me going when I felt like there was no way I’d ever make it though my mountain of debt.  Cheers y’all.

 

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Chasing the Fear

21 Dec

I know I promised big news to be revealed on Monday, and it’s now Friday and no news has been revealed.  I’m sorry about that.  There’s been a delay with that project.  I’ve also had trouble finding any words to string together this week.

Shortly after I published last Friday’s post, I found out about the terrible events at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  The news made me fearful above all else.  I run my church’s Sunday School program, and every week I am responsible for 10-20 children between the ages of 2 to 10 years old.  It’s a small program, and I know all the parents well.  We don’t have a security system beyond volunteer background checks, signage, locking the two exterior doors, and setting up portable fences outside so cars don’t come through the parking lot that doubles as our playground.  We don’t even have doors on half of the classrooms.  We’ve never had a security problem.  Honestly, the worst problem we’ve ever faced on a Sunday morning was when one student tripped over a hula hoop and scraped her knees, hands, and chin.

But now instead of seeing the close-knit community that provides us with security, I see all the ways it could go wrong.  An adult getting supplies from our store room might leave the alley way door unlocked and a stranger could walk in.  A preschooler could run out the front door and into the street.  A fire may start in the kitchen and two classrooms could be left without an exit.

If I let myself think too long on these things, I won’t be able to do my job.  I’ll be too busy worrying about what could go wrong that I won’t be able to teach the students about hope, peace, faith, and love.  I would miss out on the moments that make me love my job, and what’s worse, I would be teaching my students about anxiety, distrust, and fear through my actions.

What I can do is provide as safe of an environment as possible for my students.  I can set up fences, I can put signs up saying “parents and students only,” I can lock doors, I can make sure the students know what to do in case of a fire, storm, or security breach.  I can make sure I know every parent, and who is allowed to pick up which kids.  But after I do all these things, I can remember to not take a single moment with my students for granted.

Because as my church was reminded this week, all the preparation in the world cannot stop all the evil.  On Monday morning, we woke to the news that one of our precious preschool students had passed away from cancer.  This little boy was a beacon of light and joy, and he will be deeply missed by all who knew him.  There is a Facebook page where people are sharing memories and photos of him, and it makes me cry and laugh at the same time every time I read it.  This is the second time I’ve lost a student to cancer, and I pray that it will be the last.

So in memory of the victims of Sandy Hook, and of every child who had been taken from this world too soon, I’m going to do my best to look past the fear of “what if.”  I will provide the safest environment possible for my students, and then I will not take a single second that I have with them for granted.

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Tallying It All Up

14 Dec

In case any of you missed it, I accomplished my goal on December 3rd.  I paid off my undergraduate student loans, and I have the picture to prove it:

zero balance

After I finished dancing around the room and texting everyone I’ve ever known, I sat down to total all my payments for these loans.

Over this past year, I paid just over $12k.  Over the 8-year life of my loans, I paid just over $26k.  Since my original loan total was $23,300, I paid about 10% extra in interest.

I could have done a lot with $26,000: a nicer car, a bigger apartment, a lifetime pass to Dragon*Con (and ones for 5 of my friends as well), or a trip to any convention I wanted.

Instead, I have a college degree that informs my work life every day, and shaped my life in so many other ways.  I think I made the right choice.

Here’s hoping my graduate degree pays off in the same way.  Because really, there’s so much more I could do with $70,000.

One final note: this is the first New Year’s Resolution I’ve ever made and kept.  And no, next year’s resolution will not be to pay off my grad loans in a year, unless I win big on a lottery ticket in the next two weeks.  But I do have a new project starting on January 1st.  I’ll be posting more about that next week, so stay tuned.

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The Best Account SnapShot Ever

6 Dec

zero balance

I think that says it all.

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