Ok. I hate this meme. I’ve put off doing it for the last x years that I’ve had a blog. I just didn’t see the point of jumping on that knitter’s bandwagon.

But I keep thinking of witty things to write so I’m going to put down a few things.

1. Mapgirl is my nickname.
2. I introduce myself at parties by this nickname, since the party hosts usually call me by this name when sending invitations.
3. My real name is only used by business associates and people who knew me in college.
4. When you meet me in person, I will expect you to call me mapgirl.
5. It started out as a nickname on IRC.
6. And then my friends from IRC would call me this in person when we met for drinks.
7. And it’s snowballed from there.
8. It is derived from studying, what else? Geography.
9. I am Korean.
10. I am short.
11. I like kimchee with rice and cold pork. I could eat that every day for lunch.
12. I prefer pig to chicken.
13. Drives me nuts to eat lunch with my Muslim friend at work because he doesn’t eat pork. We have to select restaurants that serve both, which is hard to find. So we almost always just have chicken.
14. I am vain.
15. I am vain about being thin.
16. I am blessed with good genes for metabolism.
17. I am blessed with poor genes for teeth.
18. I have beautiful hair.
19. I like to hack it off and give it away to charity.
20. I feel like that makes up for being so damned vain about it.
21. Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry is one of my favorite stories.
22. If you don’t understand what 21 has to do with 19, I demand that you read the story.
23. By far the best version I’ve heard is by Barbara Budd from As It Happens. Unfortunately, because it is a copyrighted work, you cannot listen to the CBC archives for it. You’ll have to listen at Xmastime for it to play on the radio.
24. When I hear it, it makes me cry.
25. I cry a lot. I am a cry-baby.
26. Don’t get me started on Hallmark specials.
27. I don’t own a TV.
28. Someone asked me once and I realized, I’ve never owned my own TV. It always belonged to someone else.
29. My favorite TV shows are The Simpsons, Sopranos, and old sitcoms.
30. I’ve thought about being a librarian.
31. I’ve worked in a library in college.
32. Best part of that job was reading all the daily newspapers.
33. I love books.
34. My favorite incentive at work was gift cards to the bookstore.
35. I won a prize in physics in high school for building a speaker from a styrofoam cup.
36. I was more highly motivated to win than the other students. The prize was a gift certificate to the school bookstore.
37. Some of the boys were mad that I won because I am a crappy physicist.
38. I have good craftsmanship, and that’s why I won. My sh*t is well-built. ‘Engineered’ some like to say.
39. But my knitting and spinning is full of flaws.
40. I can do a good job, but often it’s not worth the effort if it’s only for me.
41. But if it’s for someone else, I’ll go nuts and make it perfect.
42. But I rarely make things for others since it involves going bonkers.
43. Once I was told that I would get nothing and like it.
44. That’s my philosophy for buying gifts.
45. I rarely give material gifts anymore.
46. I find gifts cause me to accumulate crap I did not want or need.
47. I prefer not to burden people with the same.
48. So I call them or send an email to acknowledge them.
49. But I won’t buy a present, unless it’s the just right thing to send.
50. I am someone who buys practical gifts.
51. I’ll get you a blender if I think you needed one.
52. That’s one reason why I stopped giving gifts. People didn’t like what I was sending.
53. I’ve never been mugged.
54. I should have been mugged for all the walking I do at night in scary places.
55. I carry pepper spray.
56. I consider myself ’street smart’ sometimes.
57. I think I’m rather foolish though.
58. I love adrenaline.
59. But I am not an adrenaline-junkie.
60. I take calculated risks.
61. I am a fire performer and safety.
62. I cringe when I see people misuse fire arts at Maryland RenFaire.
63. I enjoy talking like a Pirate.
64. Yarr… It’s true matey.
65. I have pictures of myself on a Spanish galleon in RenFaire garb.
66. I look smashing.
67. I need a cutlass to complete the outfit.
68. I am dorky enough to get one.
69. I enjoy science fiction.
70. I enjoy classical literature.
71. I enjoy chick-lit fluff sometimes, but find most of it is poorly written and frankly insufferable idiocy.
72. But I loved Bridget Jones’ Diary. It seems to rise above most of the genre. Partly because of her neurotic behavior, and the insanely funny plot twists.
73. I love good movies.
74. I’m not a huge fan of video games.
75. I like tennis.
76. I was a fan of cycling during Greg Lemond’s heyday, but I am disillusioned by the doping.
77. It breaks my heart to admit that because I really had my belief in cycling shaken up by someone who is a good friend and rode competitively. His stories make me very sad for the sport.
78. I met this friend at work because I was wearing a T-Mobile jersey pin on my cap.
79. I’ve always hated Lance Armstrong. He was an arrogant bastard as a junior out of Texas when I was following the sport. I don’t care if he got cancer. I think he’s that much of a jerk.
80. I begrudingly give him respect after hearing from a competitive cycling friend tell me that he personally saw Armstrong lap the entire field of racers at a race they both attended.
81. I’ve met a Nobel Prize winner. But I was so little, I don’t remember it.
82. I met a second Nobel Prize winner. That was pretty cool to stand next to history.
83. In six degrees of separation, I can make the link to Kevin Bacon.
84. One of the best live speeches I ever heard was Hillary Clinton at Wellesley College in 1992. She was amazing and inspiring.
85. I’ve only been to one inauguration. (They’re effing cold in January!)
86. I only remember hearing Maya Angelou while I was there. She was brilliant.
87. I used to be in marching band.
88. I think group and team activities like band and sports are good for kids.
89. I miss team sports a lot.
90. I am competitive.
91. I use harrassing voices when playing darts, Scrabble, and backgammon. But only to family and close friends. Part of the fun is the side game of harrassment.
92. I don’t like gambling in casinos.
93. I am usually game for dollar bets and stuff like that.
94. I sometimes have insomnia.
95. I have it right now.
96. I love Hello Kitty, but My Melody is my favorite of all.
97. I bite my nails, but not to the quick.
98. I grow my nails out long.
99. I love a good pedicure.
100. I am not a vegetarian. My people eat dog. (I don’t know why, but people think I’m so crunchy-granola that they assume I don’t eat meat. It’s very weird, but I’m not really that crunchy.)

Here’s what I know I have on deck for next year:
1) One more surgery. Medical FSA is budgeted.

2) Laser eye surgery. Medical FSA will have to be budgeted, but I’ve decided definitely to push it off till 2008 since I’ve pushed it off so far. Hopefully my prescription will hold for another year.

3) Motorcyle repairs and expenses. I’m budgeting $1000 for some minor maintenance work to be done, as well as a snappy new helmet. (They need replacing every 3 years and mine will be 5 years old next spring.)

4) Automobile repairs and expenses. I am budgeting something around $2500 for the whole year. Damn the expensive X-mileage services at the dealership. I will skip the next one and go 10K miles later. (Went at 97K this year, will go at 120K next year, and skip the 110K service.) Yes, I am seriously thinking of putting much nicer tires on the car too since I realized this week that around 110K miles, I’ll need a new set. A new clutch is going in next month when my baby turns 100K, so beyond that, the car shouldn’t need much next year… Though this week I’ve noticed that I also have to get the pump replaced on the windshield cleaner jets. The driver’s side squirts the fluid too low and I’m having some visibility problems. (This means I have to squeegee the driver’s side windshield every time I fill the car, and I’m not going to do that when it’s freezing outside. No way!)

5) Save another $2k in my Save-O-Meter. This includes making up for the $1K draw down I did on buying the motorcycle. (Yes, saving is a fixed expense. If I don’t treat it that way, it won’t happen. You know, that ‘automatic’ thing by that ‘automatic guy’, David Bach.)

6) Pay off the Debt-O-Meter by July 1, 2007. “I think I can. I think I can.” “Little by little. Bit by bit.” I worked out some figures and I can definitely do this if the bonuses are good next year.

I am keeping the nose to the grindstone for work the next few weeks. But here’s your fresh and tasty content for the day, links and posts mostly from weekend browsing. Good stuff though.

Advice for new graduates from the Washington Post. (Go to Bugmenot for a login if you need it.)

Bellsouth is going to stop charging the replacement fee for Universal Service Fee that expired on August 14th. When will Verizon stop?

Frugal Duchess on saving for retirement or college fund. My vote is for retirement! But hey, I’m done with college anyway! LOL! Seriously, take a look at my comment and you’ll understand why retirement is a much better answer if you want peace of mind for your kids.

Jim at Blueprint for Prosperity has some good strategies for sticking to a budget. I should probably listen to him, but I’m just not a very good budgeter. I don’t really like the way Quicken has too many categories and then the auto-creating budget always seems really skewed.

Dumb Little Man on crappy things a manager can do to get his employees to quit. I have to say, working for small companies eliminates a lot of this sort of thing. The places where I’ve run into the most problems with office politics were places that were 500+ employees. But I think all of this is generally good advice for anyone who wants to know what NOT to do when they become a manager.

Fedexfurniture.com is pretty neat. Cheap furniture from boxes. However, I don’t understand why he didn’t paint over the logo and scrub the site of FedEx mentions. That probably would have stopped a lawsuit. (Of course, I am a big fan of Jennifer Grannick. I heard her speak at a conference. She’s quite a smart cookie.) Love Jose’s motto though: It’s OK to be Ghetto!

Jonathan is really into T-bills. I’m fascinated by the process and his calculations, but I’m still having a hard time understanding what he’s doing. Namely, right now, I see that I have an expiring CD at Millennium Bank. I could roll it into another 180-day CD at a new APY of 5.6%, APR is 5.46%.

I just ran some numbers on the latest 28-Day T-bill auction at a discount rate of 5.075%. When I use Jonathan’s nifty calcuations to figure out the APR and APY, I get 5.075% and ~5.20% respectively.

Without taking into consideration tax rates, I see clearly that I am better off rolling my money into another 180-Day CD. Yes, I’m losing liquidity for about 6 months, but my account is already set up and it’s something easy I understand.

Virginia has a tax rate of 5.75% after the first 17K is taxed at 2%, 3%, and 5% rates. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just leave it at 5.75% instead of the true rate. I’ll need a check on the math here, but I believe that the 5.20% rate, when including the tax rate exemption produces a rate that is closer to 5.5%. (APY x 1.0575) Or is it that I discount the bank’s CD rate of 5.6% by the 5.75% tax rate for a post-tax yield of 5.3%? In that case, the T-bill is the clear winner, but I need a check on the math.

I put up my own little spreadsheet for this so now I think I’ll be able to make rapid calculations regularly, which hopefully will help my understanding of T-bills versus regular savings products I already use.

Jonathan doesn’t use high yield online savings accounts because he prefers the return on T-bills better. I see his point when it comes to short-term liquidity. I am locking up cash into laddered CDs to discipline myself, but perhaps I should explore the T-bill thing further for my savings. That way I have money freeing up every week instead of every 30 days on the CD’s.

Something to ponder while I build back up my Save-O-Meter from the bike purchase. (Would you guys like me to move the graph? I haven’t decided if I should do that or not. I was going to move it to $6K since that’s where I’d like to be by the end of 2007.)

My 1st Million at 33 has it available now.

Try the voting thing out on the right sidebar. I didn’t vote since I really like the post I submitted this week. I feel like Chris Klein in Election. I can’t vote for myself. That would be wrong, so I abstain.

1) Tresemme is really awesome cheap hair conditioner. You get a quart of it for 4 bucks at Target or a beauty supply shop. It doesn’t have expensive silicone additives that make your hair feel silky, but dry it out. Since using Tresemme and an ocaisional JOICO K-Pak® Deep-Penetrating Reconstructor, my hair has been restored. (Pooh on Pantene’s Smooth and Sleek conditioner. The shampoo is ok though.) Yes, I do tend to use more and glop it on, but it’s so freakin’ cheap that I’m still saving money.

2) Paycheck challenge: I went to Target and spent too much money thinking I was going to get 10% off my purchase when I charged it to my Target card. Nope. I am going to have call and find out what I’m to do to get my discount the next time. What does this mean? If I budget right, I can still spend less than what I have left in the bank this week. I really must stop putting things on my credit card if I think I’m going to cut it close with the paycheck challenge.

3) Decluttering the house is fun. I like throwing things away. I have a tendency to hoard things and I’ve been recognizing that I still have clothing I bought (er, my mom bought for me) from high school, 15 years ago. It’s still stuff in good condition, but the cuts are out of fashion. I really don’t know why I’ve hung on to it except that it’s perfectly servicable clothing. I can’t stand throwing this stuff out/giving it away since I can still wear it.

4) I thought I was going to move away from DC and move back home to Philadelphia with my family. Luckily, things are well and I no longer feel the need to move. But when you think about moving, you realize that perhaps the things inside the home are not really necessary. I have this stupid paper weight from my old job. It’s an ounce of silver encased in lucite. I’d like to crack open the lucite and sell the silver. I need to just put it into the trash since it’s useless and ugly. It’s an item I’m not excited about taking with me. What about my future plan to move to California one day? I certainly won’t want to take most of the possessions I currently have, so why on earth do I have them? I don’t know.

Since I am at my own home sweet home this weekend, I give you a full 7 days of posting this week. Thanks for reading!

This summer has been really busy for me at work and at home. But today, I ran across
the 35th Festival of Frugality at Punny Money. OMG. Nick did a fantastic job gathering a host of celebrities to bring you the festival. Wonderful stuff.

No, really, are you getting everything you can out of your doctor?

Sometimes I feel guilty for stopping my physician and making them spend a full 15 minutes with me. But goddamnit, I was *SICK* last week. That new primary care physician I saw was awesome. She was open to all my weird explanations of my health and symptoms and constant questions.

I’m an obsessive patient. I have a lot of minor chronic health issues and so I am very careful about what I ask the doctor because of medication interaction, etc. I hate going to the doctor, but after accompanying my parent to the doctor for post-stroke follow ups, I see that it is VERY IMPORTANT to get your month’s worth out of your doctor.

-Do not go in and let them only poke and prod you.
-Be EXTREMELY specific about your concerns.
-Read up on symptoms, observations and ask the doctor what he thinks about them.
-Get yourself ready before your appointment with your concerns. Write them down so you don’t forget.
-Take a notebook with you and take notes during your time with the doctor.
-Ask why they are giving you the prescriptions and if there is anything to watch out for in terms of side effects.
-Do the ‘brown bag’ test. That’s where you take all your medications to the doctor so they can see what you were prescribed by all your specialists, etc.

[EDIT: new! After commenting at InsureBlog, I realized I forgot something.]

-If you are bi-lingual, get a translator. Many hospitals now have translation services for free if you request it. (I personally did not like our translator, but there were times where having one who was redundant was better than not having one.)

I gave the doctor a list of post-stroke concerns about appetite, rehab, etc. I talked to friends who have stroke experience about certain types of things to ask (pulse/ox numbers to ensure enough oxygen was getting to the brain, etc.). Neurological observations, caloric intake, mood, physical capabilities, prescription requests, aids for development, etc. I grilled the doctor because I wanted to get the most out of post-stroke rehab for my family. Frankly, the doctor was impressed and asked me if I had medical training. I said no. I read a lot and I have friends who are nurses, doctors and physical therapists.

Even for myself, during my first visit to the doctor recently, I was lousy miserable but asked her what to do with my infection, the meds, any possible secondary infections, etc. And since I had a follow up, I remembered that I had to ask her for an additional prescription for an asthma inhaler and tried to think of other things I might need.

Good luck! Get your money’s worth. Be an educated patient and talk to your doctor. They’re only human, trust me. If you talk to them, they’ll talk to you. They’re not gods and you have every right as a patient to address your health concerns.

My patient advocacy post was supposed to be at 8AM today, not PM. That explains why it why it was buried in the PFBlog feed.

That also explains why my afternoon post isn’t floating to the top. I’m annoying myself today. Is it happy hour yet?

FWIW, I treated the guys on my team for lunch today. For some reason, I’ve had meals purchased for me by other people all week. (Not that I’m complaining) But I figured a little karmic payback for a team lunch was a good idea. And I’m not even the team leader!

I’m feeling flush. I started this morning with $200.00 cash. I think I can stretch all that till next Friday when I get paid next. I have to go on a large grocery shopping trip, get two rolls of quarters for laundry and one tank of gas. Everything else should fit in if I budget my dollars right this week.

I have a Prosper.com account. I put a little money in it, but not enough to put a bid out. I am putting a little more money in it, primarily out of curiosity. I wonder if this thing really works. If it does, I think I’d like to put more longer term savings funds there.

Yes. I know. I should be focused on paying down debt. But I think I’m on a good track to do that. (At least on paper/Quicken I am.) I am thinking about different ways to save my money and get a good return on it. I’ve lost my taste for stock investing for now, but something about Prosper’s concept is really appealing.

So I figure I’ll put a little more into Prosper. Give it a whirl and see what comes out. Couldn’t be much worse than watching a portfolio lose 75% of its value during the dot-com crash. (Yep, but it wasn’t a lot in dollars.)