So, in doing "what if" math we've figured out that it is quite possible that we'll have the house paid of next year, but even the back up scenerio is 2 1/2 years, which seems like, I dunno, tomorrow.
Yet, for some reason the 15 days until our vacation seems like a dozen years.
The six months until we go to Disney seems like a millineum.
The 4 1/2 hours until I leave work today feels like FOREVER.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Local Politics Rant
If you don't live in Clinton, you don't care, so you can ignore this.
This is the shortened version of much, much longer rant...
Clinton is getting a 3 mill tax hike to pay for a new library. Period. No, we can’t vote on it, Mayor Rosemary wants it done that way, so there it is. Forget the fact that the land was donated seven years ago and they have done absolutely NOTHING to plan to pay for it until about a month ago, when apparently they suddenly realized that if they don’t begin construction before the end of 2008, they will lose the donated land and it will revert back to the family that originally owned it. Solution?
First news article: The city applied for a leftover Katrina development grant for $3 million to fund the new library. Woohoo!
Second article, about two weeks later: Oh wait, the library is going to cost $5 million. Ok then, let’s propose a tax hike. 3 mill should do it. Oh, and by the way, when we applied for the grant we told them we’d match funds, so this is how we’re going to do it… (Note the first line of the article which begins, "The city of Clinton is poised to ask voters to approve..."
Third article, the next week: Oh by the way, we had a public meeting about this tax hike on Tuesday, and the thing is, we’re not actually going to let the taxpayers vote on it because they’re clearly too stupid to know how to use a voting machine. Besides, it would cost a whopping $30,000 to hold the vote to let the taxpayers determine if they want to give us 5 MILLION DOLLARS for a non-essential project that we’ve previously ignored for SEVEN YEARS. That’d be silly. Besides, accorder to Her Highness the Mayor, it would pass with 90% approval anyway.
Um, 90% of who? Her friends and family? She didn’t ask me. Or anybody on my street. Or anybody else I’ve talked to who lives here. And if 90% of the people are willing to pay more in taxes to fund it, why didn't you just do a 1 mill increase SEVEN YEARS AGO, which would have it half paid for by now?
So the Mayor and Board will vote next Friday morning on a tax hike that they’ve clearly already agreed to do, since they applied for a grant based on using that money to match funds. Much like everything else that’s been passed since I moved here, we have absolutely no say in the matter, and if it wasn’t for the law requiring notice I suspect we wouldn’t have known anything about it at all until after the fact. It’s wrong people. I don’t care how much we need the new facility, it’s not an essential service and they have no right to take $5 million away from the taxpayers without asking first. The bad part? I support the new library. Desperately want it. Would be willing to pay additional taxes for it. But I'm not stupid enough to think my opinion is the only one that matters, nor do I like the slapstick way it's been handled.
And if you think I believe the part about the tax being reduced or going away after the library is paid for, let me assure you I don’t. If the public had to vote to renew it, it would go away. If the Mayor and Board get to vote to renew it, it’ll be around forever, just shifted into a different form. Once we get used to paying it, they won’t give it back. Just another reason to keep us out of the voting booth.
This is the shortened version of much, much longer rant...
Clinton is getting a 3 mill tax hike to pay for a new library. Period. No, we can’t vote on it, Mayor Rosemary wants it done that way, so there it is. Forget the fact that the land was donated seven years ago and they have done absolutely NOTHING to plan to pay for it until about a month ago, when apparently they suddenly realized that if they don’t begin construction before the end of 2008, they will lose the donated land and it will revert back to the family that originally owned it. Solution?
First news article: The city applied for a leftover Katrina development grant for $3 million to fund the new library. Woohoo!
Second article, about two weeks later: Oh wait, the library is going to cost $5 million. Ok then, let’s propose a tax hike. 3 mill should do it. Oh, and by the way, when we applied for the grant we told them we’d match funds, so this is how we’re going to do it… (Note the first line of the article which begins, "The city of Clinton is poised to ask voters to approve..."
Third article, the next week: Oh by the way, we had a public meeting about this tax hike on Tuesday, and the thing is, we’re not actually going to let the taxpayers vote on it because they’re clearly too stupid to know how to use a voting machine. Besides, it would cost a whopping $30,000 to hold the vote to let the taxpayers determine if they want to give us 5 MILLION DOLLARS for a non-essential project that we’ve previously ignored for SEVEN YEARS. That’d be silly. Besides, accorder to Her Highness the Mayor, it would pass with 90% approval anyway.
Um, 90% of who? Her friends and family? She didn’t ask me. Or anybody on my street. Or anybody else I’ve talked to who lives here. And if 90% of the people are willing to pay more in taxes to fund it, why didn't you just do a 1 mill increase SEVEN YEARS AGO, which would have it half paid for by now?
So the Mayor and Board will vote next Friday morning on a tax hike that they’ve clearly already agreed to do, since they applied for a grant based on using that money to match funds. Much like everything else that’s been passed since I moved here, we have absolutely no say in the matter, and if it wasn’t for the law requiring notice I suspect we wouldn’t have known anything about it at all until after the fact. It’s wrong people. I don’t care how much we need the new facility, it’s not an essential service and they have no right to take $5 million away from the taxpayers without asking first. The bad part? I support the new library. Desperately want it. Would be willing to pay additional taxes for it. But I'm not stupid enough to think my opinion is the only one that matters, nor do I like the slapstick way it's been handled.
And if you think I believe the part about the tax being reduced or going away after the library is paid for, let me assure you I don’t. If the public had to vote to renew it, it would go away. If the Mayor and Board get to vote to renew it, it’ll be around forever, just shifted into a different form. Once we get used to paying it, they won’t give it back. Just another reason to keep us out of the voting booth.
GREAT NEWS!
I just got and email informing me that I won half a million bucks in an online lotto that I didn't enter, and all I have to do to claim the money is email some guy that can't spell and has limited use of capitalization skills all kinds of personal information! We can pay off the house now!
Boy, is that great timing, because I was about to go off an a psychotic rant over local politics, but now I'm just too darn excited about my $500,000! (Ok, so actually it was 500,000 pounds, but I can't find the little pound symbol and since in reality it's zero bucks anyway, I figured it didn't matter.)
Boy, is that great timing, because I was about to go off an a psychotic rant over local politics, but now I'm just too darn excited about my $500,000! (Ok, so actually it was 500,000 pounds, but I can't find the little pound symbol and since in reality it's zero bucks anyway, I figured it didn't matter.)
Thursday, September 6, 2007
My Obsessive Camera Research (I need a 12 step program)
No, I don't have it yet, but Allison asked about our research and I thought I'd just post it, since the comment would have been longer than the original post!
First, let me explain. I over-analyze EVERY big purchase. Should have seen us trying to buy a new TV earlier this summer. Took MONTHS. I work too hard for my money to spend it without research. And sometimes I go overboard. Allison, this is more information than you EVER wanted about why I bought this particular camera.
Because of some specific features we wanted, we ended up buying a Canon Powershot SD850 Elph. It's one of the smaller ones, but not THE smallest. Cost about $325 with shipping from tigerdirect.com. They also had a VERY similar SD800 that was a little less expensive, and half a dozen other similar models with slight variation in features. There was very little difference between the 800 and 850, other than a small amount of zoom, a fraction of a megapixel, and some stuff with movie mode, which I don't care much about. I would have been perfectly ok with the 800 but with the small price difference at TigerDirect we just went ahead and got the 850.
As to WHY we went with that, well, for starters we wanted something small. We like to GO and we wanted something that wouldn't be bulky to lug around, especially when we go to Disney in the Spring. When I bought my dad a digital camera for Christmas a couple of years ago I went with a bigger model because his hands won't grip a compact (he almost cut a finger completely off in a bulldozer accident when I was younger and doesn't have full us of it now). The bigger ones can also be a little easier to steady and sometimes more user friendly because they have more room for buttons, screen, and an optical viewfinder (although several of the small Canons do have the viewfinder), but for us that wasn't as important as portability.
The other thing we looked at was features. Not so much on the megapixels, though. Despite what camera makers want you to believe, unless you're blowing up to poster size, anything over 5 megapixels won't make THAT much difference. I think this one is 8, the other model was like 7.1. Really, not much difference in quality if you're using the high settings. We did want a decent zoom, but you can't find a really good one on a compact. The 850 has a 4X, the 800 had a 3.8X which was actually slightly wider than the 4X. Again, the bigger cameras have bigger zooms, but we're ok with the 4X. A less important issue, but something that was in the back of my mind, was the type of media it uses. The Sony's use their style memory sticks only. The Canon uses the regular SD cards, of which we have an abundance already and can be a little cheaper than the Sony sticks. (We have a couple of Sony sticks too, for the PSP.) One thing I was hesitant about, but will probably really like once I actually use it, is that it doesn't use regular batteries, it uses a special battery that cost about $50-60 bucks to buy separately, but is rechargeable and should last a whole lot longer than regular AA's. It comes with one, but we'll end up getting a backup.
Greg liked the Canon for two reasons, it has a glass lense rather than plastic (tends to be better quality pics) and it has a bunch of preset modes, like for fireworks, portrait, foliage, even an aquarium mode. Don't get me wrong, for fireworks mode you better have a tripod because it's going to leave the shutter open a while, but we're going to play with them and see what works.
The other major factor in buying the Canon was that just about every website I went to, including Consumer Reports (yes, we have a subscription!) ranked multiple Canon models at the top of every type of camera list for quality of equipment and pictures. Other top models were Fuji Finepix's and some of the Sony's. Some of the other websites I used (in case you want to look at other types of cameras) included:
www.steves-digicams.com - More information than you could possibly want on a lot of cameras, includes specs and sample pics in different conditions, as well as pics of the actual camera that help you judge size and button-layout.
reviews.cnet.com - Gives a one-to-ten rating and breaks down the features, also gives some customer reviews.
There were a few other sites, but those two plus Consumer Reports were the most user friendly for me. I also went to places like amazon.com and other retail sites that let customers review products and read a ton of user reviews. I know that different people have different expectations and that often drives the reviews, but I also know that if I see a consistent complaint then it's probably something worth a closer look! I also hit Best Buy, Satan's Electronic Emporium (Circuit City, we don't like them), Sam's, Walmart, and Target to test drive the floor models after I narrowed it down. Frankly, if you can't hold it comfortably and use the controls, it doesn't matter how good the pics are because you won't be able to use it!
Geezum petes. I need help.
First, let me explain. I over-analyze EVERY big purchase. Should have seen us trying to buy a new TV earlier this summer. Took MONTHS. I work too hard for my money to spend it without research. And sometimes I go overboard. Allison, this is more information than you EVER wanted about why I bought this particular camera.
Because of some specific features we wanted, we ended up buying a Canon Powershot SD850 Elph. It's one of the smaller ones, but not THE smallest. Cost about $325 with shipping from tigerdirect.com. They also had a VERY similar SD800 that was a little less expensive, and half a dozen other similar models with slight variation in features. There was very little difference between the 800 and 850, other than a small amount of zoom, a fraction of a megapixel, and some stuff with movie mode, which I don't care much about. I would have been perfectly ok with the 800 but with the small price difference at TigerDirect we just went ahead and got the 850.
As to WHY we went with that, well, for starters we wanted something small. We like to GO and we wanted something that wouldn't be bulky to lug around, especially when we go to Disney in the Spring. When I bought my dad a digital camera for Christmas a couple of years ago I went with a bigger model because his hands won't grip a compact (he almost cut a finger completely off in a bulldozer accident when I was younger and doesn't have full us of it now). The bigger ones can also be a little easier to steady and sometimes more user friendly because they have more room for buttons, screen, and an optical viewfinder (although several of the small Canons do have the viewfinder), but for us that wasn't as important as portability.
The other thing we looked at was features. Not so much on the megapixels, though. Despite what camera makers want you to believe, unless you're blowing up to poster size, anything over 5 megapixels won't make THAT much difference. I think this one is 8, the other model was like 7.1. Really, not much difference in quality if you're using the high settings. We did want a decent zoom, but you can't find a really good one on a compact. The 850 has a 4X, the 800 had a 3.8X which was actually slightly wider than the 4X. Again, the bigger cameras have bigger zooms, but we're ok with the 4X. A less important issue, but something that was in the back of my mind, was the type of media it uses. The Sony's use their style memory sticks only. The Canon uses the regular SD cards, of which we have an abundance already and can be a little cheaper than the Sony sticks. (We have a couple of Sony sticks too, for the PSP.) One thing I was hesitant about, but will probably really like once I actually use it, is that it doesn't use regular batteries, it uses a special battery that cost about $50-60 bucks to buy separately, but is rechargeable and should last a whole lot longer than regular AA's. It comes with one, but we'll end up getting a backup.
Greg liked the Canon for two reasons, it has a glass lense rather than plastic (tends to be better quality pics) and it has a bunch of preset modes, like for fireworks, portrait, foliage, even an aquarium mode. Don't get me wrong, for fireworks mode you better have a tripod because it's going to leave the shutter open a while, but we're going to play with them and see what works.
The other major factor in buying the Canon was that just about every website I went to, including Consumer Reports (yes, we have a subscription!) ranked multiple Canon models at the top of every type of camera list for quality of equipment and pictures. Other top models were Fuji Finepix's and some of the Sony's. Some of the other websites I used (in case you want to look at other types of cameras) included:
www.steves-digicams.com - More information than you could possibly want on a lot of cameras, includes specs and sample pics in different conditions, as well as pics of the actual camera that help you judge size and button-layout.
reviews.cnet.com - Gives a one-to-ten rating and breaks down the features, also gives some customer reviews.
There were a few other sites, but those two plus Consumer Reports were the most user friendly for me. I also went to places like amazon.com and other retail sites that let customers review products and read a ton of user reviews. I know that different people have different expectations and that often drives the reviews, but I also know that if I see a consistent complaint then it's probably something worth a closer look! I also hit Best Buy, Satan's Electronic Emporium (Circuit City, we don't like them), Sam's, Walmart, and Target to test drive the floor models after I narrowed it down. Frankly, if you can't hold it comfortably and use the controls, it doesn't matter how good the pics are because you won't be able to use it!
Geezum petes. I need help.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Oh, the Anticipation!
My new camera should be here tomorrow. I can't wait. With that in mind, it probably won't get here until Friday. Now, it may have taken me 3 weeks of research to decide on what I wanted, and another week of testing floor models and comparing prices at every store in town, and just because we're somewhat... fugal, we ended up ordering it from tigerdirect.com, which had it for $100 less than Best Buy, but now that the decision is made, I WANT IT NOW! I want to play with it to figure out where all the buttons and menus are before we leave for vacation.
17 days until vacation. Heh heh. 17 daaaayyyyysssss.
17 days until vacation. Heh heh. 17 daaaayyyyysssss.
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