Die Hard Three

You may not be aware, but for most regular people “life” is simply a battle between time and money. When you’re a kid you have lots of time – but no dinero. As an adult you generally have money but no time. You end up taking cabs when you could walk. You eat out instead of cooking at home. You travel in statutory-holiday-packed high-season instead of vacation-days-using off-season.

This was my life. With a salaried paycheque I had way more money than I had time. But a couple years ago I made the decision to reverse the situation. After leaving my job on Monday I essentially traded my income for a whole bunch of vacation days.

Right now it feels ok but I think the in-between period is going to be tough. I like eating out in restaurants every day and taking last-minute weekend trips to Europe four or five times a year. And I think it’s going to take some real effort to control my poor impulse control.

To help with the transition I plan on using this blog to provide updates and solicit feedback on my journey of cost saving and adventure. It’s been my experience that writing is an effective mechanism for helping with these sorts of things.

For example, since my last day at work I’ve only eaten in a restaurant once: this morning the GF and I met up with my aunt and uncle at the Richtree Market. I normally skip breakfast (aka: the useless meal) but this was an exception-worthy occasion if ever there was one. I had a delicious cinnamon roll but instead of ordering a five-dollar orange juice I simply had tap water. I suffered no ill effects and remained fully hydrated throughout the entire meal.

The work-around for the tiny water glasses is you just take a whole bunch of them.

Next up I had to buy toothpaste. On a regular day this is in itself a daunting task. And today was no different. In the industry we call what I experienced “analysis by paralysis”. This occurs when making decisions where there are so many variables that the only way one can move forward is to remain frozen in front of all the pertinent information until the answer pops into your mind. I tried to use my newfound free time to determine the best value for my dollar but in the end it proved impossible.

I ended up going online and purchasing several, heavily-discounted, industrial-sized tubes direct from China.

Financial tradeoffs aside, you’re all probably wondering what my increase in free time means for you, my loyal readers. What it means is that I will have more time to dedicate to my blog. You can look forward to post after post of lengthy, in-depth, detailed, technical articles on everything from how to determine if a used jigsaw puzzle has all the pieces to figuring out how many pairs of underwear one will need for the remainder of ones life.

I’m looking forward to sharing my journey with you.

I promised you guys I would blog with each of my coffees so here you go. I’m at the Plant Coffee and I just ordered my fifth coffee ever. This time I decide to go with a plain old regular one. The server gives it to me and I instantly realize that I have no idea what to do next as all my previous coffees had been pre-prepared by the barista lady.

So I pick up what looks like a mug full of poison (previous coffees resembled milkshakes) and venture into the store to try and figure out what to do next. After a quick visual scan I locate the “coffee enhancement station” (I’m not sure what the industry term is). I’m bewildered by the array of choices and elect to add cream and honey. I don’t think it worked because it still tastes terrible.

The place is quite busy but in one section there are two large tables with customers occupying the ends. I grab a spot at one and sit myself down. As I do this, two other customers enter looking for a place to sit. One of them is carrying a hand-held baby carrier containing an eleven-week-old infant. I make a motion that the table next to me is available (even though there are people at it).

They set up camp and the mother of the child promotes me from friendly stranger to babysitter while she and her friend go get their coffee.

$9 for the first hour, $5 for every subsequent hour.

Most times babysitting is a lot of work but this time it’s pretty easy. At this stage of the child’s cognitive development he has only the rudimentary ability to recognize faces. I put this knowledge to use and simply make sure that my face is in clear view at all times. My system works flawlessly and he remains well behaved and empty-diapered the entire time. His caregivers return after a couple of minutes and I relinquish my responsibilities to his legally appointed guardian.

At least I think he remained empty diapered.

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I always imagined that as I closed in on the end of my career I’d have one last, really important briefing note to submit. Or there’d be some time-critical bi-monthly financial report that would have to be updated – a race against the calendar to get the numbers in by “conclusion of business” (manager-speak for “before I get into work tomorrow”). I blame Hollywood, Bollywood, and Hollywood North for why these last few days at work have not played out as I imagined they would.

Instead things have been pretty quiet. I’ve been trying to get a FAwPV – that’s the EGOT of time-off with pay. Don’t be fooled, it’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve also been able to review the various HR policies related to the different types of leave entitlements. And let me tell you, I should have read this stuff *years* ago – you wouldn’t believe what’s in there.

During my research I discovered that there’s no legal way for an employer to regulate bathroom breaks. Apparently, in the eyes of the law, the bathroom stalls in government buildings are these mini porcelain sanctuaries. If a worker were so inclined, he or she could spend several *hours* each day “on” the toilet and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. This is based on an actual dispute between the government and one of its employees where the lawyers from the Justice Department were unable to come to a consensus on a legal definition for “going to the bathroom”. Amazing.

Because reading the new Harry Potter book at home would interfere with valuable jigsaw puzzle time.