Greg and Kat's blog

I’m heading to North Carolina tomorrow night for about 10 days.

I’ve said if before and I’ll say it again: the jetset lifestyle only sounds like fun until you do it. Once you actually find yourself in an airport more often than once every couple of months, you start to realize that the whole process is a lot like some colourful analogy involving something that’s really bad.

This might affect my thrice-weekly blogging. Or it might mean I have a lot more to talk about. Only time will tell.

My last stop before I go tomorrow is the SFU Surrey Open House. All should consider coming.

P.S. Must… have… one!

Since I have been living the non-swinging bachelor life, my weekends seem to have been settling into a routine. Here is the most typical weekend plan:

Friday night

Sit on the couch. Stare blankly at TV, trying to recover from the week.

Saturday

Loaf around the house, pretending I’m about to be productive at any moment, but mostly wasting my day. Possibly run a few errands in the afternoon. Possibly even do something social in the evening.

Sunday

Start the day by hopping on the bike and doing a round trip around SFU (which takes about an hour). Celebrate my healthiness by having Taco Del Mar for lunch. Maybe some errands in the afternoon. In the evening, remember that I have no food in the house and get groceries at about 10:00.

The Saturday/Sunday things can swap days, but they’re otherwise pretty consistent. Sometimes, the Taco Del Mar will be replaced with some by some other Mexican-ish fast food.

Some actual productivity might happen at any point, but most likely on Sunday evening. That’s when I remember the things that really have to be done by Monday.

There was definitely less wasted weekend last semester, since I was a lot busier. This semester, I can afford to actually have most of a weekend. There’s something to be said for that.

I’m feeling a little directionless today. I have a bunch of possible blog topics queued up, but none of them are really calling out to me. So, I’m going to tell some six word stories that summarize things.

Not teaching causes lack of structure.

Lack of structure causes low productivity.

Teaching students is addictive: in withdrawal.

I don’t care about HR issues.

Two day weekends are too short.

I find the Superbowl fundamentally uninteresting.

Could live with wife any time.

A while ago, I posted a calculation that I had done on renting a home vs buying one. Those calculations have been intriguing me ever since. I have had several conversations with people about the pros and cons, and and what-if scenarios.

I finally decided that I needed to automate these calculations so I could easily handle the what-ifs. Thus came to be my very own Renting vs Buying Calculator.

Follow that link, have a look, and play with some numbers. The buttons beside text boxes generally calculate/estimate the corresponding value from relevant numbers above. You only really have to fill in the numbers without buttons beside them. The defaults are my current best-guess at the economics of buying/renting a nice condo in suburban Vancouver.

It’s shocking how hard it is to make buying financially better, as long as you assume two important things:

• House values aren’t going to continue to rise at the outrageous rates they have for the last five years in North America. This is already slowing, and betting your only/largest investment on that assumption is foolish.
• You have the discipline to invest in something else (mutual funds or what have you) without the pressure of a looming mortgage payment. Automatic monthly withdrawals make this easy, but it has to actually happen.

The only scenario that I can find where buying has a marginal benefit is buying a small detached home (one of the 1970s-era Vancouver specials), and renting a basement suite. Of course, that comes with the extra responsibilities and headaches of being a landlord.

On the other hand, it can be hard to find rental places that are as nice as what you might imagine buying. The rental market seems to generally target “livable”, not “nice”.

Any comments on the calculator are appreciated. It has everything I can think of that should be in there, but some of you might know better than me.

Update 12/2010: vancouvercondo.info has created a similar calculator.

As most of you know, Amanda is leaving Computing Science and movin’ on up to Student Services. That’s very sad, and I’ll blog about it later.

Because Amanda’s a good boss, she wanted to do something for her team before she left. She decided on playing hookie on Friday afternoon and taking the team to a movie. (But shhhhh! It’s a secret: no sane manager would play hookie with their entire team.)

We discussed the movie a bit before we went. I was campaigning for Juno. Instead, she chose 27 Dresses.

Now, I’m not above watching a decent chick-flick. I remember About a Boy being okay, for example. Actually, I kind of like Hugh Grant. This movie, on the other hand, wasn’t “decent”. Not even close.

None of the characters were sympathetic: I hated them all. Even the protagonist (who I suspect I was supposed to care about) was whiney, meek, and generally annoying. The “pretty” sister wasn’t actually as pretty as the not-as-pretty, practical one. Both guys were dicks and too stupid to live.

Basically, if the movie had ended with everyone dying in a fire, I would have been fine with that. The only exception was Judy Greer, who I think I have a bit of a crush on, and whose character was actually compelling (but on screen for maybe two minutes).

So guys: if you have a choice between seeing 27 Dresses and paying nine bucks to sit in the theatre lobby and play video games, get yourself a roll of quarters. The women in the crowd seemed to like it, though.

I have mentioned my landlady here before.

A few months ago, she came down and was in a flap (as my mother would say when she meant “flustered”). Eventually, we got around to the gas bill being twice as much as it usually is, and she didn’t know why. I looked at the bill: it hadn’t been paid last month. (Her written English is such that she didn’t get that.) She was adamant that she always pays them when they come.

She takes the bills to the bank and pays them there. I didn’t even know you could do that. It’s like Internet bill payment without the Internet. Crazy. (My mother always sent cheques.)

She had the receipt and we realized that the $144 had been sent to BC Hydro, not Terasen Gas. So, she decided to go to the bank and have them fix it. Great.

Of course, that didn’t happen and the flap continued. She asked me to go over to the bank with her today and help her figure it out. What we finally figured out made perfect sense (poor teller).

The next Hydro bill was for exactly $144. So, her Hydro account balanced and they didn’t send a bill the next month. So, she paid all the bills she got, and never had a credit.

Sigh. I think we’re good now. As long as she really didn’t get a bill from BC Hydro in December.

Before I get to the point, I want to explain my last two weeks, with pictures where I have them:

• Dec 19: Kat gets to YVR at 21:00 after my marathon FAS UCC meeting in the afternoon.
• Dec 20: A few last things at work for me; Kat works on her talk.
• Dec 21: Kat’s Ama’s Birthday. For her grandmother’s birthday, the grandkids prepared the meal (for the second year). Kat and I did a lot of the heavy lifting, preparing butternut squash soup, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, ham, pasta, and probably some other stuff I forgot. [10:00–21:00]
• Dec 22: Kat and Tina get their hair cut at Neil’s, followed by dinner. [16:00–21:00]
• Dec 23: Lunch with Kelly and Paul, then I gave blood.
• Dec 24: Xmas Eve lunch at Ama’s. They used to have dinner on Xmas eve, but decided that was too late this year. So, it became lunch, then dinner (and Wii) with Pam and her parents. We brought potato salad (mmmm… potato salad). [10:00–1:00]
• Dec 25: Presents, then the rest of the day at Kelly and Paul’s. A whole day and my pants didn’t even really hurt at the end. [14:00–2:00]
• Dec 26: No boxing day shopping, but dinner at Tony’s. [17:00–19:00]
• Dec 27: Dim Sum and Hockey with Oli, Tina, Jon, and Eunice. The guys that are paid to live in the same city as me scored more goals than some guys paid to live in some other city. That makes me feel pride, apparently. [11:00–22:00]
• Dec 28: Beer & Bacon fest 2. The second Beer & Bacon featured a Wii and three pounds of bacon. [18:00–2:00]
• Dec 29: Dinner with Suyoko and Sameer (the boyfriend that I had never met). [18:00–21:00]
• Dec 30: Bubble tea with Angelica, Jen, and Eugene. [14:00–16:00]
• Dec 31: New Year’s Eve at our place. I also spent an hour or so at Daniela’s. [19:00–1:00]
• Jan 1: Lunch at Ama’s. As always, lunch is a long thing. [11:00–16:00]
• Jan 2: Kat leaves for YVR at 4:15. Back to work and coffee with Amanda at 11:00. After being at work for three hours, I finally got to my office and put my jacket down.

Kat and I didn’t cook at eat (alone) a single time while she was home. The meals we did have at home were scrounging leftovers.

Now that you have the context, you should understand why I say “I’m kinda glad Kat’s gone so I can get back to work.” I said that a few times today and got crap for it.

I’m tired, and want to get back to work so my day has some structure to it. It turns out Kat’s more popular than me, and when she’s here, it’s a whirlwind of stuff to do. I’m glad to have less stuff.