Day In The Life of Baz

Today at work was the annual Egg Drop contest. I didn’t figure it would be as hilarious as it was, but it was. I also didn’t think that I would get involved, but I did. Everyone was supposed to prepare and entry and “register” by 12:00 PM of the previous day.

Anyway, everyone was getting ready to go outside to get started. They were bringing out the ladder and everything. I was just finishing off a Sprite from lunch, when my manager looks at me and says that we should enter. I was like “are you serious?”. She said she was, and pointed to my almost empty Sprite can. Then she ran off all excited. There were a few other employees there and I looked around and asked “is she serious?”. Yep, she was dead serious.

So, off I went to the break room searching for a can opener. I got one, popped the top of the can off, gave it a quick rinse and handed it to her. She stuffed it with some paper towels or something and that was it. He carried some tape outside which we would use to tape the top back on. She was serious. And, as I should have expected, at the very last minute, when we had to climb the ladder, she hands me the can and says “go ahead”. And just like that, I was representing our department. Lovely.

So you live in Wichita Falls, TX and you decide Easter is coming up so you’re going to take some time off and go on vacation. Paris, France should be nice this time of your right? So you head over to Orbitz.com and look up the cost of a flight only to be disappointed at the outrageous cost of tickets right now. What’s the alternative? You could always swim.

Hey, it’s not my idea. It comes straight from our friends at Google Maps. So I was trying to find out how long it takes to get from Wichita Falls, to Paris, TX. The guys at Google thought it would be funny to map out my trip to Paris, TX instead.

Now here’s the real hilarious part, check out step 30: “Swim across the Atlantic”. Yes people, we’re swimming. This from the same people who brought you error messages such as “Oops, something went wrong. Try again in a few minutes” or “Keep your fingers crossed and try again”. So I guess it’s really not that unexpected. Very funny though. Click the images for a direct link to the map.

Popularity: 12%

Ok, now I know what most of you are thinking. “He’s a High Yields Savings account whore!”. But that’s not it I swear, it’s just how things happened to come about. I’ve had ING Direct for some time now. They were kind of falling off on raising their interest rates, so I hoped on over to Capital One, which had a slightly higher rate. Then I heard about Emigrant and HSBCDirect, with higher rates still. So what’s a guy trying to save some money to do? Now there have been many, many different reviews of ING Direct, Emigrant, and HSBC Direct. I did a lot of research and finally I’ve decided what I’m going to do.

I was about to cancel my ING Direct account, when they came out with the Electric Orange online checking account. This account gives an interest rate of 3% on the balance. So I figured, even though the their interest rate is lower than most, the checking account is amazing. They have a Bill Pay service and a “send a check” service. The only reason it’s different from a normal checking account is that you can’t have a normal check book. Hey, I don’t use that thing anyway. Everything I do is automatically deducted. So I’m keeping the ING Savings account and the Electric Orange account.

Now Lava over at Save Money might not like this much, but hey. I’ve been checking my gas mileage on and off lately, since some environmental issues have changed. I used to average about 24 MPG in the city and 29 MPG on the highway. That’s not that bad for a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer. So I guess I shouldn’t complain much. Since I’ve moved down to Plano TX, I’ve decided to start tracking it again since so much has changed. First of all, my route now involves traffic, which I didn’t have to deal with before. Also, for my musical entertainment, I’ve added two 12″ speakers enclosed in a speaker box, which of course is dead weight. These two things should have crippled my mileage, but in reality the average is about the same. When you think about it, that makes a lot of sense, since the reduction due to the speakers and the traffic would be offset by the fact that I’m driving solo these days. Yep, since Lava’s not here with me, I’m 100+ lbs lighter (I think I can safely say that she’s over 100 lbs without getting into too much trouble). So all in all, things have averaged about the same.

Today was an interesting day. It started out as the regular Sunday morning: I woke up, got some breakfast, lazed around the house for a bit, then I flipped on the television and started browsing channels. When I realized there was nothing good on, I decided to watch a movie. So, I popped in a DVD and laid back and I was just relaxing. Then all of a sudden, something hit me. “Don’t I have to be somewhere? No….it’s Sunday, no one has to be anywhere on a Sunday”. Then it started rushing back to me.

Last Sunday was the day of the Car Show and Concert that I went to. I woke up from that with a stuffy nose. Apparently I had (still have) some allergy problems. As soon as I got out of bed and got dressed for the Car Show I started feeling better. I got there and had a blast for the entire day. When I got back in, however, the symptoms returned as soon as I got to bed. Monday morning was much of the say, with the exception that when I got to work I started feeling worse. I only clocked three (3) hours of work that day. I really couldn’t concentrate on anything. I got home at about 11:00 AM, went to bed and was out until 11:44 PM. Yep, that’s right.