Memorial Day Weekend!

Today I feel worlds better than yesterday. The food poisoning was rough. I am glad it is cleared out now and I can move on with life! I am actually feeling hungry again which is a good sign since I essentially ate nothing yesterday.

I am back in the office today and am off to Myrtle Beach in the morning. Given the events of the past week I can really use the time away from everything to recuperate a bit. More good news is that I have been upgraded to first class for my flight tomorrow. I love it when I actually get upgrades!

I am staying in a beachfront hotel with ocean view. I scored a good deal on hotels.com for the place that got decent reviews. It has a kitchen so I can save a little on food costs too. I am planning to hit up the awesome seafood place I went to last year and also a good steak place.

I will spend the majority of my time relaxing on the beach and zoning out. Hectic work and life is going to be left behind in Atlanta until I return Monday night. Hope you all have a good long weekend!

Sick on the road: food posioning

I suppose I was overdue for it but this morning I woke up with a quite upset stomach. I felt a little funny going to bed last night but figured I must have eaten a little too much at dinner. Now the real fun begins. My flight back home today is at 1:30PM and it is going to be a long day for sure.

I have to drive about an hour (or more with traffic) to Boston Logan Airport. Then I have a 3 hour flight back home and another drive in traffic back to my house.

Update: I made it home and am going directly to bed. I haven't felt this bad since bad food in Cambodia.  I hope I will be OK for work tomorrow and most importantly Myrtle Beach this weekend. Time will tell!

Sometimes I am bored on the road

Work travel isn't all fun and glory and free weekends in Vegas. Today I am in the very un-exciting Framingham, MA. It strongly reminds me of suburban Atlanta (a place I loathe). Picture bad traffic, strip malls, chain restaurants, and little else. Just the same stuff over and over as you drive around.

This is when I am thankful for the internet. I can zone out and take myself to a different place mentally and not have to worry about it as much. I am spending a good deal of my time catching up on various things and travel planning for Asia this November. I have nothing else to do so I may as well be productive!

The good side of this is that there is nothing that interests me that costs money. I have dinner and call it a night for the most part. I always try to come out ahead on my per diem money and being in the middle of nowhere helps that a lot! Boredom isn't fun but it is better than overspending in most cases.

Busy Travel Week: Work and Fun!

Today I am in Maine/Boston and return to Atlanta on Thursday.

I am traveling for work to take care of 2 projects that happen to fall into the same time and general area. It's rare but nice when it happens!

I will be back in Atlanta only for Friday then I am off to Myrtle Beach for Memorial Day weekend. I am looking forward to some much needed beach time and relaxation. A great way to end an otherwise rough month.

I probably won't be back to Maine for a while so I am making sure I get my first taste of Maine Lobster this time around. I have been meaning to check that off my list for a while now. I am finally seizing the opportunity today!

Mass Transit: A Better Way of Life

Today was my first day at work in our new office. I am already happier with the new setting with nicer things all around.

I took the train to get to work and I must admit I much prefer it to driving. While it is nice to have my car sometimes I like not dealing with traffic and being able to do whatever I want during my commute. I just wish the Atlanta train system was more reliable and extensive.

It actually takes me a little longer to get to work but it is also further than my old office from my house. It will take some adjustment but I will learn all of the little tricks to make it easier. The last time I regularly used the train was back in college and it saved me a lot of money and time. It appears this will be the case once again.

As an added bonus I also get to walk 1 mile per day. I could change trains and go directly to my building but the time to transfer and the long escalator make it a wash. I decided that I may as well get some exercise if the weather is good and hopefully drop a couple pounds while I am at it. I have options!

At the same time I also had a job responsibility shift so now I will get to travel more. I am excited about this as I like my road time. Keeps things different and interesting and I am doing work that interests me more. And to boot I get to earn a lot more miles!

It is yet to be seen how much my commuting costs will drop as a result of using the trains. The company will reimburse half the cost of the train pass and I will certainly spend a lot less on gas and car maintenance. It will take a couple months to see the real results!

Big Office Move Tomorrow

I made it through one hell of a week. We are officially moving servers and workstations over to our new office in Downtown Atlanta tomorrow morning. Hooray for unpaid overtime!

I will actually come out ahead overall in this move. I will get to start taking the train to work therefore saving gas and more wear and tear on my car. I will also be in a much better neighborhood with lots more to do near work. I can take the train to the airport on travel days if need be also.

My office will be a corner office with windows and in a much quieter and nicer building. I have a lot more food options and and interesting place to walk around when I am ready to pull my hair out after a meeting. It will certainly be a welcome change of pace after 4 years in the dump of a warehouse that we were in.

Now if I could just get a raise!

The Credit Card Game: Update!

As of today I hit my final spending threshold to get all of the credit card bonuses I have signed up for. It is very helpful when my boss lets me put large business expenses on the new cards to get me there quickly. I also make the "churn" card my primary card until the requirements are met.

Once all of this clears I will have earned:

• 50,000 Membership Rewards Points
• 55,000 Continental Miles
• 75,000 American Airlines Miles
• 100,000 British Airways Miles
• 10,000 US Airways Miles

All of this has allowed me to book 2 Business Class flights to SE Asia for myself and my girlfriend for this November. It is nice to be able to not slum it in Economy class for that long of a haul.  I am actually going literally around the world due to the routing if my ticket. I go through Europe on the way over and across the Pacific on the way back. All in First/Business class. Not bad for $160 in taxes!

When it rains, it pours

As if having major car problems weren't enough I am also sick this week. It is just a sinus infection but it certainly brings my energy level down to near zero. Just in time for our office move at work and I have a lot of project deadlines closing in too. Excellent.

Complaining aside I still believe that my "luck" comes in waves. Things are good for a good long wall then it all seems to hit the fan at once. It takes roughly a month to get to normal again. That has been my past experience. If this holds true I should be back to the usual in early June.

Time to load up on meds and vitamin C and chicken based soups. This is a long week...

Car Problems Part 4: Resolution?

After two days of working on my car my Dad and I got my head gasket replaced. He did the majority of the work and it was quite a process. I bought him a nice dinner last night as a token of gratitude. He has been non-stop since he got here working on it.

Turns out the head gasket was blown. We did a lot of maintenance and tune up items to the car while we had it apart. I now have a new timing belt, new water pump, new thermostat, new serpentine belts, and several new hoses installed. These items needed to be replaced soon anyway so we did it all at once.

The car seems to be running OK now for the most part. It had some hesitations and issues when we first got it back together but I think it is better now. It was running funny but I think it needed to get the junk out of the system and now runs normally. I will be monitoring it for a couple weeks to be sure everything stays normal.

I hope this has resolved it. It has been a stressful situation for the past few weeks. It has also been quite expensive. I am glad my emergency fund was there to cover it because it would sure suck to have all this riding on my credit card!

May 2011 Prosper Lending Update

It is the middle of the month again and it is time for my update on prosper.com lending. It has been another quiet month with business as usual. I had one written off by Prosper and 1 more has paid off completely.

I have decided to completely abandon Prosper. They have gone to a fixed rate system and that does not appeal to me at all. My ability to earn extra interest (arbitrage) has been eliminated. I will continue reporting on my experience until I have emptied the account.

I "write off" all loans in collections as a loss.

Here are my stats as of today:

Outstanding Loans:

Late: 0 (< 30 days)
In Collections: 0 (written off)
Current: 25

Closed Loans:

Charged Off: 11
Paid Off: 32

Open Bids: 0

Total currently invested: $424.21 (Principal Value)
Cash in Account: $8.92

Total Principal: $433.13