I found this link about taking your child to work while I was flipping through my Gmail random links. It isn't really what I expected, but I got to wondering how many people actually take their children to work, even for "Take your child to work day". I remember going a few times with my dad to work, and if I went with my mom, well I got to go down to our basement since she worked from home. It seemed more like and excuse for some kids to get out of school, but under the right circumstances, I think it could benefit older kids to see what their parents do and what working could be like.
I don't know if I would bring any of my (future) children to work with me, or if they would even be interested, but if others out there do, what do you do with them? Do you treat it like they're shadowing you doing your job? Do you use it as an excuse to not do work? Do they get to sit in your office or cube all day entertaining themselves? I almost think that "Take your child to work day" has been moved into middle school or high school where kids can job shadow someone for a day, but then it's more like "Send your child to someone else's work day". It seems like bringing your child to work may be frowned upon at most middle to large companies, but maybe some still see a benefit in it.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Resources
The recent desk upgrade and interest in making large purchases (bike, MacBook Pro, house) spurred me to start keeping track of my finances in a way that I could forecast and see what I was spending money on each month. I have a copy of Microsoft Money so I chose to use that. So far it seems like a typical Microsoft product. It has a lot of features that I most likely will never use, the basic tools to input individual income and expenses are easy, but when you start to use the budgeting, forecasting, and reporting tools along with automatic downloads, glitches tend to happen. For example, I setup my online banking and credit accounts so Money can automatically download my statements each month. This worked well, and other than having my 'Payee' and 'Memo' fields flipped, I was pretty happy with the ease of the task. Then I started to set up my budget information including recurring bills and income. Then Money asked me if I wanted to have my taxes tracked to get an estimate for this years taxes. I thought, why not? It would be handy to know approximately how much I would have to pay or would get back. So I grabbed my latest pay stub, input my gross income, pre-tax deductions, taxes, and post-tax deductions, click and done. Then I go back to the main line item list and hover over my latest paycheck item... Click: would you like to add this as a recurring item? Um... I thought I just did, but sure I guess. Rinse and repeat. Go back to the budget page. What happened to my income (input twice already)? Geez I guess I have to do it again! Third time through the process. Now I go to the budget area and I have three recurring income items! Well isn't that special? Microsoft thought that I should be getting paid triple, what a tease. Once that got cleared up things moved a bit faster. One thing I did like in particular was that you can add financial goals to your budget and set dates for them. So I added in things like "bike", "house", and "Europe trip with Wendy and Brad" then I set dates ranging from now to three years from now.
I'm still sifting out which tools I want to really use and which ones are just fluff to me, but the ability to automatically download my statements shows much promise for continued use.
I'm still sifting out which tools I want to really use and which ones are just fluff to me, but the ability to automatically download my statements shows much promise for continued use.
Hungry for travel
About a month ago I got to go on an awesome trip to Europe courtesy of my mom. We traveled to Austria (Vienna and Salzburg) and the Czech Republic (Prague and Klatovy/Pilzen). There are a few things I don't like about traveling, mainly long flights and stupid American tourists, but even those downsides can't overshadow the thrill of getting lost in another culture and coming back to tell everyone about it. There are too many details to tell the whole trip here, but I can spare some highlights and some pictures. I can't say that I have one favorite place or event from this trip, but one of the most thrilling things for me is navigation. Just getting from place to place, finding travel options and blending in with "the locals". Give me a map and a list of places you want to see and I'm happy. Both Vienna and Prague were very easy to get around in. They had plenty of restaurants, history filled buildings, and "government buildings" according to my mom. If you're looking for hot European shopping, Vienna is most definitely NOT the place to go. With my mother in that city for 5 days, we found no good shopping areas and that is impressive. Prague however had tons of places if you're looking for either cheap touristy knick knacks or beautiful crystal or garnets.
An insightful thing to think about is how you deal with pictures while traveling. Are you the type that wants to take a picture of everything even if you don't know what it is, or won't remember what it was when you get home? Or are you the type that prefers to enjoy the moment and then hopes that someone else got a picture of where you were? I definitely fall into the latter until I get home and try describing the trip to people and have few visual aids. Then I wish I were more of the former. I was somewhat lucky in that the three other people I was traveling with on this trip all took pictures of everything, so eventually I could have pictures of everything times three.
In summary, I make a good, cheap tour guide... hire me for your next trip! Just make sure to hire someone else as a photographer.
Here are some pictures from this adventure:
Me and Amy in Grinzing, Austria with the Lamm sign
St. Stephans Church in Vienna
Charles Bridge seen from Prague Castle
Changing of the Prague Castle guard (in the pouring rain)
An insightful thing to think about is how you deal with pictures while traveling. Are you the type that wants to take a picture of everything even if you don't know what it is, or won't remember what it was when you get home? Or are you the type that prefers to enjoy the moment and then hopes that someone else got a picture of where you were? I definitely fall into the latter until I get home and try describing the trip to people and have few visual aids. Then I wish I were more of the former. I was somewhat lucky in that the three other people I was traveling with on this trip all took pictures of everything, so eventually I could have pictures of everything times three.
In summary, I make a good, cheap tour guide... hire me for your next trip! Just make sure to hire someone else as a photographer.
Here are some pictures from this adventure:
Me and Amy in Grinzing, Austria with the Lamm sign
St. Stephans Church in Vienna
Charles Bridge seen from Prague Castle
Changing of the Prague Castle guard (in the pouring rain)
How I got my groove back
I sit in front of a computer on a desk for work, so if I'm going to come home and do something on my computer I sure don't want a crappy little desk to greet me. The previous desk I used had barely enough surface space to put my monitor and keyboard on and had legs held on partially by the cardboard backing tacked onto them and the back of the top. I finally found a desk that would work well for my activities, computer and non, that didn't cost $200! I have plenty of room for my monitor, keyboard, mouse, picture frames, and open space for projects. I was so excited to have a desk I wanted to be at that I started using Microsoft Money to keep track of my finances (description in a future post), and once I finally have all of my odds and ends in their places, I'll be using the open desk area to frame one of my pictures from my trip to Europe (also in another post). As poor of an excuse as it may sound, my previous desk was a large factor in why I didn't use my home computer as often, and hence, haven't posted here for a long time.
For anyone who may be interested in purchasing the desk linked from this post, good luck. Because it was such a good deal through Staples, all resources have been exhausted. I got very lucky and found the last one from the second Staples store I tried and they are out of stock online. If you do find one, I highly recommend it.
For anyone who may be interested in purchasing the desk linked from this post, good luck. Because it was such a good deal through Staples, all resources have been exhausted. I got very lucky and found the last one from the second Staples store I tried and they are out of stock online. If you do find one, I highly recommend it.
If I scrunch up my cord and let go...
a bunch of posts come out all at once. Let's skip the part where I admit that I suck for not posting in a long time. Weather does funny things to people. It can create allergy problems, it can lift peoples' spirits, and apparently it encourages some people to smoke more often and with large quantities of other smokers.
I have been riding the bus now for several months and there is only one building standing between the bus depot and where I work. I can either go through the entry way (great for cold days) or walk around the outside (great for enjoying the weather). During the cold months there would sometimes be one, maybe two, people shivering outside having a hit of nicotine by the door. Now that the weather has changed to favor more outside activities, smoking has become the popular outside activity for this building. What makes it worse for me is that not only is there a large quantity of smokers outside when I walk by, but both of my potential walking routes are blocked by at least three cloud sources. I also love the section of a conversation I overheard as I ran by the outside pack of polluters. Smoker A asked if Smoker B was ready to go in yet and Smoker B proudly responded, "No, I like to stay out here until the very last minute. I'm a chain smoker you know." Fantastic for you, and thank you so much for sharing bits your addiction with me. Why can't they have those smoking booths like in the airports for outside areas too? They can still get their hits and hang with their friends, but I wouldn't have to practice speed walking while holding my breath.
I have been riding the bus now for several months and there is only one building standing between the bus depot and where I work. I can either go through the entry way (great for cold days) or walk around the outside (great for enjoying the weather). During the cold months there would sometimes be one, maybe two, people shivering outside having a hit of nicotine by the door. Now that the weather has changed to favor more outside activities, smoking has become the popular outside activity for this building. What makes it worse for me is that not only is there a large quantity of smokers outside when I walk by, but both of my potential walking routes are blocked by at least three cloud sources. I also love the section of a conversation I overheard as I ran by the outside pack of polluters. Smoker A asked if Smoker B was ready to go in yet and Smoker B proudly responded, "No, I like to stay out here until the very last minute. I'm a chain smoker you know." Fantastic for you, and thank you so much for sharing bits your addiction with me. Why can't they have those smoking booths like in the airports for outside areas too? They can still get their hits and hang with their friends, but I wouldn't have to practice speed walking while holding my breath.
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