Sabby Ann

I hesitate to write this entry, but I also want to share the lessons learned. 

When we decided to go to Florida, we agreed that we would economize wherever possible. Our total budget was $1000, for two adults and a one week trip. We had looked into airfare, but since the dates of our trip kept changing, driving seemed like it would be best. Gas prices were all over the place, but we paid on average about $3/gallon, and my Cobalt averaged about 33mpg for the entire trip… so we spent about $250 on fuel. 

Our accomodations were also pretty cheap. On the way down, we picked a Howard Johnson off the expressway somewhere in Georgia, for $50ish. For the rest of our stay, we found a Rodeway Inn motel in Kissimmee for about $30/night. We miscalculated the number of nights we needed, but with taxes it came to about $170 for 5 nights. The motel definitely wasn’t the nicest of places, and it was on the “cheaper” end of the strip (read: sleazy). It was a bit of hassle to have to drive all the way to the far end of the strip everyday, but all of closer motels seemed to charge ~$40+/night or they would assess a daily surcharge of around $10/day. 

The motel itself wasn’t horrible, but it certainly wasn’t great. The things I care most about (aside from cost) are cleanliness of the bathroom and of the bedding. The bathroom appeared pretty clean, and I didn’t see any mildew growing on anything in the shower - big plus. I brought flip-flops for the shower with me, just in case, but I didn’t end up using ‘em.

I pulled back the bedding, and the sheets looked clean & unrumpled. I didn’t see strands of hair on the sheets or towels, and no obvious stains on anything. The room had a distinct odor, musty + cigarette smoke; we ended up heading to Walmart and buying an aromatic candle with a candle warming plate. I already had a bottle of Febreeze in my car, and that didn’t seem to make any difference, but the candle definitely helped to mask the odor (it was still present, but not overwhelming). 

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Our original plan was to visit Universal Studios for few days (both theme parks, plus the Wet & Wild water park), and the Kennedy Space Center for two days. We had previously purchased the launch tickets, which include two days of admission to the KSC, so we figured that we would just need to buy tickets for Universal… and they had been advertising a special deal, $99 for a 7-day pass to all 3 parks. 

Well, we found out that the KSC tickets are only valid at the time of a launch, so we couldn’t use those tickets. We also learned that Eric’s cousins, Mike, his wife & their daughters, were going to be in Orlando at the same time… so we decided to hit up some of the theme parks with them. 

On Monday we went to Sea World. Mike mentioned that they were saving money on their trip by using  Craigslist for discount theme park tickets, and I decided to check it out. Apparently employees of theme parks receive a few vouchers for free admission each year, and many people decide to sell them (against policy) for extra cash. Regular admission to Sea World is $69.95pp/day, and the online price is $59.95pp/day. We found a woman online, the night before, who said she worked there and would sell us two tickets for $45/each. We made plans to meet, and she never showed. She originally suggested meeting near Celebration, but I told her that I’d rather she walk us through the gates so that we could verify the tickets were valid - and she agreed. I think we spent an hour plus just waiting for her, then we finally decided to just buy ‘normal’ tickets. Eric & I attempted to order them online using our iPhones, but then we discovered that the online price is only valid for advance purchase (7 days or more ahead of time). So there went $140, plus another $10 for parking. 

Sea World offers a second-day free with purchase of a regular admission. You take your ticket to the desk inside the park, they ask for your first & last name, and then the second-day ticket is printed with that name on it. When we were at the gate, we had wondered why the attendants were checking ID for some people but not for others… now we now. So I guess it would be possible to re-sell that second day ticket, or to buy someone else’s second-day, but you’d have to coordinate that beforehand and give someone else’s name when you obtain the second-day pass… and of course, that presumes that they don’t check ID at the ticket trade-in counter, only at the admission gate. 

The next day, we went to Universal Studios. Again, we made arrangements to meet an employee and get walked through the gates, for $50/each. We waited around nearly an hour, but he didn’t show and wasn’t responding to phone calls or text messages, so we again had to purchase full-price tickets. The line to buy tickets was rather long, so while we were waiting in line we tried to buy them online (the ticket pick-up kiosk was really short!)… and success! It probably saved 15 minutes or so, but the price online and at the gate were the same, $73/ea for one day. Parking was $12, so that cost about $160. 

We had made plans to spend Wednesday at Magic Kingdom, with Mike & his family. His wife had also made plans to purchase discount tickets, and she said that she could get us discount tickets to Disney, for $50/ea. They purchased annual passes (from someone else) for them, and they bought a pair of one-day vouchers from an employee for us. We were a little worried about being able to verify whether they had been used or not, but they worked great. It was a hard plastic card with all sorts of text, and they each had the employee’s name as well as a letter (A through F, perhaps?). When we got to the gate, we just slipped the card through the reader, gave our fingerprint, and we were granted admission. 

Thursday we drove over to Cape Canaveral and visited the KSC. They were sold out of the tour that Eric wanted to go on, but we were still able to get in for the day and do all the normal stuff. Since we weren’t sure when we might come back, we bought Eric a one-year pass and then just bought a regular day pass for myself. The annual pass provides a discount on food, merchandise, and regular admissions… so we figured it might work out. Although we used it for a discount on my ticket, we forgot to use it for a discount on lunch & purchases. Oh well. 

That night we went to Epcot, to see the evening fireworks. Mike & his wife lent us “their” annual passes, with the thought that we’d be able to use them Thursday evening and Friday morning. The parking booths at Disney were unattended, so we didn’t have to pay for parking. The tickets worked great, we fed them through the scanners and went right in. They had turned the fingerprint/biometric scanners off - I didn’t realize and still pressed my finger down, but Eric was let in without doing that even. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. Epcot was having their International Food & Wine festival, so they had booths set up in each country with samples. Each sample was $3-4, so I tried several different dishes and drinks from  ”around the world.”  We caught the fireworks display, then left as the park was closing. 

Friday was our last day, and we had to leave by lunchtime (in order to make it to Atlanta for a wedding on Saturday). We were planning to visit Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney MGM) for a few hours, then get on the road. We paid for parking, then got in line with the annual passes. Eric & I got into separate lines, and attempted to go in. Ahead of me in line were a few middle-aged guys that were having some problems getting the scanner to accept their ticket & fingerprint. They each tried a few times, and then the attendant lady overrode it and let each of them in. When it came my turn, I put my ticket in the slot and placed my finger on the scanner, and it gave me some sort of error about not being recognized. I did it a second time, same result. The third time I flipped the ticket upside down, did the fingerprint scan, and it let me in. The attendant was monitoring two lines, and she looked like she was ready to override mine if it didn’t go through as well… but no need. 

Once I got in, I turned around to wait for Eric. I noticed that he was at the front of a line, and that there were two attendants standing there with him. Then a few seconds later, Eric got out of the line and walked away, pulling out his cell phone. He told me that he had tried three times, then the attendant took the ticket and asked for identification. Eric claimed he didn’t have any with him, and ultimately they asked him for his birthdate - they said that they could look that up on the computer in the office, and use it to verify his identity. He gave them a random date, then stepped aside while they went in to check. Since they would surely discover that it was a fake, and since they had already taken possession of the ticket, there was no point in waiting around. So yeah, “his” ticket was confiscated. It didn’t make sense for me to hang around, so I left and we went to Downtown Disney to go shopping for a few hours before leaving town. 

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We knew that buying other people’s tickets came with risks, and that Disney of course could confiscate the tickets if caught. But Mike and his wife indicated that they were able to get in relatively easily (the attendant had to reset the fingerprint to get it to accept them, but that seems to be a pretty common occurrence). The people they purchased the annual passes from said the same thing; one was able to get in using their own fingerprint, the other person had to try a few times with different fingers. 

The last time we were at Disney, in January 2006, they had a biometric scan thing where you had to insert several fingers. This time, you just had to place one finger on a scanner… so I’m guessing it’s a fingerprint ID now, but I’ve read conflicting information online on what it actually checks. One site actually had someone refer to it as something that checks “bone density”, lol. 

I looked online, and Disney World tends to turn off the finger scanner checking at certain times of day, like when the lines are particularly long or in the evenings. The attendants have a lot of discretion when it comes to overriding, checking ID, etc. So while some people get caught, most people are able to get in using someone else’s pass. 

It looks like reselling passes doesn’t work (as well) at Disneyland in California, because the gates have a screen that displays a picture of the person whose pass it is, as well as the fingerprint/biometric scan. Seems like a good idea to me, and I wonder if Disney World will deploy a similar system in the near future.  

All in all, this vacation has convinced me that it’s not at all worthwhile to pursue discount tickets for the Orlando-area theme parks. The discount counters in all of the grocery stores and gas stations seem to offer the same prices as you can find online (through the theme park websites). The timeshare presentations seem to be legitimate, but the last thing I want to do on vacation is waste a half-day to get a pair of one-day tickets… and probably receive tons of junkmail and spam afterwards. And clearly, buying discount tickets off of Craigslist doesn’t work well.

While many people have had success with it, I’ll stick to buying real tickets from legitimate sources (ie, the theme park itself). A lot of sellers on Craigslist end up being no-shows, which means wasting your time waiting around AND having to buy a full-priced ticket anyway. The chance of buying an already-used or fake ticket is too high, because there’s no good way to verify the authenticity & validity short of trying to use it (at which point, you’re already out the money!). And there’s also the chance of getting caught with a ticket that doesn’t belong to you, having it confiscated, getting kicked out of the park… and who knows what else (getting black-listed for the future, criminal charges, ?)

We’ve been in our house for two years now, and one of the items on our “to do” list has been to make a brick-paver patio in the rear of the house. Our house is L-shaped, with the master bedroom/bathroom on the back, and the all-season sunroom sticking out (to form the L). 

I wanted to tackle it last summer, but we just didn’t have the money. This summer it was also on the list, but with the siding project we didn’t have the time OR the money. I had intended to buy the brick pavers this fall, at a liquidation sale, but there weren’t enough pavers in stock for the company to even have the sale.

We decided to ’start’ the project last summer though, by killing all of the grass where the patio is going. We used a season-long herbicide, so by the end of the summer the grass was completely dead. This spring it remained dead, but several (tall) weeds started growing over the course of the summer. We also used this as a staging area for siding, so we’ve had scrap metal and miscellaneous debris laying around there all summer. Yeah, our yard definitely looks white-trashy. Sorry to our neighbors… eventually we’ll clean it up!

One of the problems with dead grass is that it doesn’t absorb water… so rainwater just sort of puddles there, and sticks around for awhile. The ground stays pretty saturated, and it can get rather muddy.

I’d really like to clean up that area some, so it doesn’t look *quite* so bad. Get rid of all the dead grass, pick up the scrap metal and old windows, etc.  Since we know what we want to do back there, I was thinking that I could clean up the debris, and then dig out the dead grass. If I can excavate it down a few inches, I could fill in that entire area with gravel - to serve as a base under the patio. 

I called around to a couple of suppliers, and got some prices. Our patio will be almost 500 sft in area, so if I go with a 4″ deep aggregate base, that is about 6 cyds of stone. If I go with 21AA Limestone, it will cost $265 (delivered). If I use 21AA crushed concrete, it will be $136 (delivered). Quite a difference! 

Now I just have to figure out if I can dig it all out, and if I’ll be able to get all that stone placed before winter. And do I rent a bobcat/skidster loader to help speed things up, or do I try and do it the old-fashioned (and cheaper!) way?

John McCain Will Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage. While still having the option of employer-based coverage, every family will receive a direct refundable tax credit - effectively cash - of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance. Families will be able to choose the insurance provider that suits them best and the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider. Those obtaining innovative insurance that costs less than the credit can deposit the remainder in expanded Health Savings Accounts.

After 2+ weeks of huge declines on Wall Street and in the financial sector, my 401(k) has taken a huge hit. In fact, as of close of business yesterday, my Jan 1, 2008 - Oct 9, 2008 rate-of-return was a whopping -47.6% Yeah, nearly half of it’s previous value, and still dropping daily. Crazy!

Last Saturday we went to Eric’s parents house for his mom’s birthday, and they mentioned that they were a little worried. They had planned to retire in about 5 years, but they’ve since pushed that back to about 10 years from now.

My parents came over on Sunday, and they made a few comments about the stock market decline as well. Mom said that her YTD returns weren’t bad so far, because she pulled all of her investments out of stock funds and put them into bonds and similarly low-risk “income” funds a few years ago. Although her returns weren’t spectacular (<5%), she at least had not lost money in either of her accounts. She also had my dad pull (some? all?) his money from stocks and switch to bond funds, though he didn’t make that change until recently.

A few coworkers have also indicated that they stopped contributing to their 401(k)’s, and many have also pulled money out of the investments they were in. I’ve heard quite a few people indicate that this is the start of the end, there’s no way things will recover, the long-range forecast will be horrible because the baby boomers will pull their money out of stocks when they retire and the economy will collapse, etc.

Now I realize that my retirement investments are very high-risk. I am heavily invested in a variety of international stocks, nearly all of my mutual funds are (supposed to be) aggressive growth, and I have only a miniscule portion (<3%) invested in bonds. I figure that I have at *least* 30 years before retirement, so it’s okay for me to stash money in those funds. And based on the economics and finance courses I’ve taken, I’m expecting that the trends of the past will continue to bear out - that despite periodic downturns, the overall trend over any 10 year+ period has been positive. I understand the principle of dollar-cost averaging, and that in theory now is the best time to invest in the market. It’s just really annoying to hear just about everyone pulling out now; it makes me feel like there’s a big secret and I’m the only one who hasn’t heard it….

It’s been a crazy week on the jobsite… Called 9-1-1 twice, once resulting in the HAZMAT team being called out. The police made emergency closures of the road (twice!), and I got in far more overtime than I wanted!

Last Thursday the contractor was pouring some concrete sidewalk ramps. The concrete truck was pretty much empty, so the foreman sent the driver to go “wash out” across the street. The driver didn’t notice that there was a cable (or phone, not sure which) line hanging low on the overhead lines. The crew didn’t see him pull in, and the concrete truck ended up snagging the cable.

He didn’t notice, and kept going - which caused the adjacent wood utility pole to snap in half, and damaged a second pole. When the first pole broke, the electric line came crashing down, landing right on top of the concrete truck. We heard a loud boom (presumably the pole breaking), and then saw sparks and arcs all over. 

Fortunately the driver remained inside the truck. I had left my cell phone in my car, so the contractor called 911 to get the fire department on-site. The city police came out and shut down the road, since the power line was live and laying on the ground, and then several fire/rescue trucks came out. They put a call into Detroit Edison, and everyone more or less just had to wait around for them to come and kill power. The fire department gets patched straight into Edison’s hotline (it was a 10+ minute wait when the contractor tried calling), so they sent out a crew pretty quickly. Within an hour they had a couple of guys in the bucket truck, disconnecting the line and then eventually untangling the concrete truck. The driver was pretty shaken, but otherwise okay.

Fast forward four days, to yesterday. The guardrail contractor was on-site, using the pile-driver to install the guardrail posts. Just after 5, I went down to check on them and noticed that the crew had stopped working, and that the road was covered in a grayish smelly liquid. I asked the foreman, and he said that they blew a hose, and that hydraulic fluid had leaked onto the road. 

 

A few minutes later, I noticed that some had gotten into the river too.This photo (below) was taken approximately 10 minutes after the “spill” - there wasn’t a lot of hydraulic fluid that actually got into the river, but it definitely poses an environmental concern. 

The fire department was first on scene, and they dumped some oil-absorbing powder into the water. The photo below was about half an hour after the spill.

The fire chief also mobilized the Hazmat crew (which serves all of Wayne County, as well as portions of Oakland and Washtenaw Counties). It took close to an hour to mobilize and arrive on the scene, but they totally took charge once they got there. The chief sent a crew to evaluate the extent of the contamination downstream, and then immediately began working to deploy the booms (floating tubes which collect the floating debris) to contain the mess.

Eventually the environmental cleanup contractor was contacted, and they arrived just before 10 PM. I was hungry and exhausted, and by then all agencies had been notified and everything was under control (and fire, police, and hazmat were leaving)… so I left. I figured that they’d be mostly done with the cleanup by morning, but they were still working! They finished sometime mid-afternoon, leaving the booms in place… It sounds like both the DEQ and the environmental cleanup contractor they will monitor it for awhile, and will change out the booms as needed. Anyways, here’s what it looked like after they left. 

Just a short amusing story:

Last night, Eric made spaghetti for dinner. When I was scooping mine out, I commented that the spaghetti sauce seemed thicker than usual. Eric responded that it was because the beef was fully defrosted when he made it. I questioned why that would make any difference, and he launched into a brief explanation of how the surface area of the hamburger is greater, so more of the sauce gets absorbed creating a thicker sauce… or something like that. I can’t remember if the surface area is more when we cook the beef frozen or defrosted, and where exactly the sauce gets ‘absorbed’.

At any rate, his explanation came naturally, but was so geeky! C’mon, how many people can turn a comment about spaghetti sauce into a discussion about surface area? Especially to do that without even thinking twice…