Maybe Not so Idiotic

You may remember my post last week about new HD DVR service and such that I really shouldn't have done and how stupid it was of me to take the offer. I assumed that I was "locked in" because it all came with a 2 year agreement and there's something like $480 for an early termination fee. Not fun at all.

Well, after talking to a couple of savvy friends, I started to look into it a bit more to see if there was a 30 day satisfaction guarantee or anything. I spend quite a bit of time last night looking on the DirecTV website reading the boring legal documents most of us usually just ignore. Even after that, my question wasn't fully answered; it was still vague, so I ended up e-mailing them with my question.

Their response was still vague, but one single sentence seemed to give me the backing I needed: "Please know, that all sales are final, once the service and your equipment is activated." The key words in that sentence are once the service and your equipment is activated. I have new equipment ordered, but it's not scheduled to be delivered and installed until Thursday. In addition, looking up my account online, there's nothing there about my new service. So I figured, what do I have to lose, and called them up.

After arguing w/ the automated telephone system , I was able to cancel the not-yet-activated services & equipment with no penalty. After that, I was re-directed and canceled my whole service! I'm so thankful that God's giving me the chance to get out of the mistake I made. That doesn't always happen and He's being incredibly gracious.

This marks a new point in my life: the first time in my memory that I haven't had TV service of some kind (cable, sattelite, etc). From now until I'm in a different place finacially, it'll just be the local network channels that I can get using my antenna (granted, its still HD, so its not bad TV, its just not much of it).

This post is already too long (as most of these end up being), so I won't go into it now, but maybe in a few days I'll post something on one of the big reasons I decided to give up the TV. As for now, I'm going to cut my hair and take a shower, while enjoying the weather dropping below 60 degrees tonight for the first time in too long!

Too Hot to Sleep

I've been trying a new strategy when it comes to heat this weekend: be happy for those who are enjoying the weather. Its a sort of "rejoice with those who rejoice" type of approach and is very different than my normal perspective. Any of you who know me, know that I'm not, nor have I ever been, a hot weather guy. I can't explain it, but I just really like the cool and the rain. Yes, I like sunny days too, but sunny and 75, not blindingly bright and roasting.

But really, I'm trying to be excited for those people who really like this weather. Our attendance lady at school, for example. While I don't think she has SAD, her mood is very closely tied to the weather and she craves the sun in a way I've never seen before. So for her sake (and she's a hoot, by the way), I'm glad for the weather we've had this weekend.

As for me, however, the worst part of hot weather is not the temperature, its not the sweat, its not your clothes sticking to your skin, its not the furnace that every car becomes. No, its the nights that never cool off. Those nights are so hard to sleep through, and I really like my sleep. Like last night, for example, I don't think it dipped below 80 until after midnight. Yuck! Its supposed to get cooler tonight, but a layer of clouds has rolled in and it makes me aprehensive.

In fact, I've been out late enough this week that I was mentally ready to go to bed about now (10:30), but because its still so hot, I'd never get to sleep. Ah well, que cera, cera.

And that reminds me (I'm writing this post as something to do while I wait for it to cool down), sometimes its weird writing a blog since I have no idea if people read it or not. Ben and I were talking about this recently. He knows people read his blog, but he doesn't often get feedback for certain types of writting, so he doesn't know for sure what people think about it. For me, I'm so sporadic in the times I post (ie never during the school-year) that people don't check it regularly. This doesn't bother me, since I don't post regularly. : ) But it does make me wonder if anyone reads it when I do post, or if they do, how old is the post by the time they read?

Oh the wonders of the blogging world! Oh, and in case you're wondering, we're down to about 2 weeks before I leave for a month.

I'm an Idiot

So I was good and actually scheduled out when I have to get certain things done like I said I needed to and, for the most part, today has been a very productive day. I've gotten all but one thing on today's task list done, plus a few other things that aren't on my list.

The problem, however, is that one of the things on my list sorta' backfired. I was supposed to call my sattelite company (which I did), with the intention to cancel my TV service or get them to give me what I want for free. I really don't use my satelite at all since I got my HDTV because most of the shows I watch are network shows and available in HD. Its kinda' lame to watch SD shows on my HDTV, so I pretty much don't. So I figured I could drop the service and still be fine, along w/ saving myself some money.

Well, I get on the phone w/ the guy, tell him what I'm thinking and what I want (HD & DVR service) and give him the task of convincing me why I should stay w/ them, since its uber extra $$ to do the upgrade, when I could basically get it for free if I switched sattelite companies. He searches, I think, he makes an offer, I think, he lowers the offer, I'm still thinking, he lowers the offer again, I ask questions...the process continues for a while. (Funny side note: as a slow processer, I often didn't say anything while I thought thru what was happening; the service guy must have interpreted this as me not being happy, because he would then, w/o prompting, offer something additional).

So I get to the end and I'm going to get the HDDVR receiver for the cost of just the HD receiver, which is cool, but I'm also getting an additional fee each month for the HD service and the DVR service. So in the end, I have installation fees (one time) and added monthly fees. So instead of canceling and saving money, I've added and am spending more money each month. Granted, its only an additional $16, but still.

The more I think about it, the less happy I am with myself. I don't need all the channels and I don't need DVR service. They are things I'd like, but I'm not sure it was the wisest choice. But now I'm locked into a 2 year agreement (not a super big deal, since I've had the service for 2 years already) and higher monthly payments. The only potentially good thing w/ this is that I'll have services I want. But I'm definatly dissapointed in myself.

I guess as I was hearing his deal, I realized I was getting the services for a much better price than they offer up front (he even thru in 6 months of free STARZ channels, which I don't really care about much).

Thinking about it, my biggest frustration w/ it is that I'm not cutting back on spending like I'd like to. No, I don't indulge all that often, but I'm feeling the financial pinch and really should be looking for ways to cut back, not spend more. I got a deal and 'saved money' on my services, but I would have truely saved money if I had just canceled my service. I'm an idiot.

Pathetic

The one word I would use to describe myself today would be pathetic. For the life of me, I can't seem to motivate myself to do the list of things I need to do. I don't know if its because I'm still early in break (the last day of school was one week ago today), just a very lazy person, or need someone else to get me going, but I just seem to avoid the stuff I need to be doing.

The funny thing is, I almost have to work harder to find things to fill my time with. This blog post, for example. As I'm sure you're aware, I'm not really a regular blogger, mostly because of the time it takes and the time I usually don't have. Yet I still have only posted one other time since finishing the school year. I'm post now, partly, as a way to not do the other things I need to do.

I don't know if I've posted this before, but I know I've said to people that, for the most part, I don't mind living by my self. In fact, most of the year I kinda' prefer it. After working a 10 -12 hour day, I usually don't want to see people and would rather be by myself. That works out great. In the summer, however, it gets very different. Instead of spending my whole day with medium sized groups of people, I spend my day by myself. This is the time of year when its the hardest to be by myself. Part of me wonders if I'd be more motivated if there was someone else here. I'd like to think so, at least. : )

One good thing that I've done this summer is create a list of the things I want to accomplish. I've been adding to the list over the past week and have now just about filled up a post-it note with things I need/want to accomplish. The next thing I really should do is set myself some deadlines and plan out when I'm going to work on each of those things. Without those deadlines, I really don't think that I'm going to get anything done on my own.

I am, and alwasy have been, a fabulous procrastinator. In fact, a good friend of mine gave me a demotivational poster that sits right above my computer all about procrastination. I think one of the reasons I'm so good at procrastinating is that I need the external motivator of a deadline to force me to complete a task. As a perfectionist, I want to complete everything to the best of (and if I could, beyond the best of) my ability, so when a deadline is near, my desire for perfection forces me to complete the task.

Right now, the only natural deadline I have is the end of the summer, which seems a long way off. But when I look at the amount of time I actually have do accomplish things around the house this summer (see previous post), I realize that I'm down to...only about 3 weeks before I leave for nearly a month. And let's be honnest, once I start trainings and school stuff in mid-August, I'm not going to get much done around the house.

So I think my goal for the end of today should be to set deadlines/a schedule for myself to complete my list of tasks. If I can get that done today, I'll have more luck in being able to actually accomplish the goals I have for myself.

Summer's Here!

Believe it or not, I've made it thru another school year. For some reason (I'm blaming the weather), it doesn't really feel like the school year is over. Today feels more like a Saturday.

Recently many people have asked me "What do you do with your summers off?" I have trouble answering that question, mostly because I don't feel like I've had a 'typical' summer break yet. The first one, two years ago, I was trying to buy my condo (which was an ordeal) plus a wedding in Cali, I believe. Last year I spent a large amount of my summer w/ Ben, often in the hospital downtown. So I really can't answer that question. What I can do, however, is give you a general idea what my plans are for this summer.

For the rest of June things are going to be fairly low key. I don't have much planned, though that will probably change now that I have time to have a life again. Most of my June plans, however, will probably be just getting together and hanging w/ friends.

July starts the craziness of my summer. The last 2 weeks I'll be in Spokane for a workshop on Biotechnology for teachers. I think it's going to be good, but I'm not sure I'm excited about being away from home by my self for 2 solid weeks. Ah well, I'll get graduate credits for it, so that's at least something.

Right after that (the very next day) is junior high Summer Safari. "But wait!" I can hear you say to me. "You're doing high school staff, not junior high. Why would yo be going to Safari?" Simple. We're sending a group of our HS leaders as sort of junior staff to Safari and I may need to go help lead the team. Donny's son Hudson will be getting a kidney transplant right around that time, so he won't be able to lead, and Phil is taking charge of the junior high group until we can hire a new JH pastor, so he's running the camp itself and not available for the HS students. I haven't talked details w/ Donny yet, so I don't know what all I'll be doing, but it looks like I'll be there, so I've blocked off that time.

This takes us up to August 7th. On August 10th I'll be leaving for the HS trip to JH Ranch in northern California. That's a week long, and then the next week (the week of the 17th) I start training classes at the district; back to work. I have trainings Tuesday thru Friday and then must report back to school for the pre-year meetings & setup on the following Monday, school starts the next week on Tuesday. Thus ends my summer.

With the 2nd part of my summer so insanely busy, I'm going to try and relax during this first part. I'm also going to try to get some things done around the condo during the rest of June as well. We'll see how much I get done. For now I'm just enjoying not having to wake up early. : )