Digital Wilderness

Trying to keep my blogging momentum going… Today’s post is all about randomness.

There’s a fun and travel-intensive weekend ahead of me! Friday, Kristy and I are heading up to Indianapolis for my yearly fix of DCI. This year I’m going all out. Rather than heading to a local show, we’re going to the DCI World Championship semifinals! Let’s go Phantom Regiment! (Unfortunately, after winning it all last year, they find themselvs in 9th place at the end of the “regular season” this year… )

Saturday we’ll be heading to Western KY to spend some time with my family. Every year around this time, before school starts, my father’s side of the family converges on my grandparents’ farm, south of Henderson, KY. This year I’ll be bringing a special guest. Kristy will get to meet the entire paternal side of the family…all at once. She graciously accepted the invitation and seems to be up for the challenge of meeting everyone! Yep, she’s a keeper

There are rumors of a Quantum Leap Revival. Yes! That would totally make my day! Quantum Leap is one of my all time favorite shows.

I’ll follow that with an interesting report on a study that concluded Opposite financial habits attract.

Eli Finkel: We found that when looking at spending patterns, spendthrifts and tightwads tend to pair up.

Tess Vigeland : And though singles say they would rather marry someone with spending habits like their own, they often don’t. Finkel says it has a lot to do with trying to address the pain we each experience. Tightwads actually don’t like spending too little money and spenders don’t really like spending too much.

Finkel: On those rare cases where we have a trait about ourselves that we dislike, those might be the cases where we would seek somebody who’s the opposite of us. So, if I’m somebody who spends a great deal of money and experiences some pain about it, I’ll dislike it enough in myself that I may well seek the opposite in a partner.

Vigeland: Of course, if you disagree on finances, the research also shows you may experience “diminished marital well-being.”

The actual study can be found here: Fatal (Fiscal) Attraction: Spendthrifts and Tightwads in Marriage

Considering that the number one cause of problems in marriage is money, and 50% of marriages end in divorce, I’m not sure if this is a good thing…

Here’s an interesting website to which I wanted to bring attention: givinganon.org.
In a nutshell, the site let’s you give anonymously to others.

Giving Anonymously is a non-profit organization facilitating generosity between people. We are a volunteer organization; each of us donates our time without pay to keep Giving Anonymously running.

We began with a few goals in mind: We wanted to relationally connect people through giving, to make it fun, and in the process protect relationships from feelings of obligation. Giving to others in need can be full of mixed motivations and our hope is to facilitate Pure giving.

Anyone who enjoys putting cash under a friends door or in their mailbox will often times not know if their friend actually got the gift and they cannot hear what it meant to them. So, we came up with an idea to have a messaging line where recipients could call after receiving their gift. When a recipient doesn’t know who gave the gift to them they are even more free to express their gratitude and we capture this through voice files that we email to the donor.

And the last bit of randomness for today – I completely missed my 1 year anniversary at Medpace! I started July 28th, 2008 and the past year has been a good journey. I’m not doing much of what I was originally hired to do, having instead stepped into a more specialized role with a different system. I’m thankful for this opportunity and appreciate the challenge of establishing new processes and reworking old processes to streamline the flow of getting the system up and running. The company itself is great. They definitely have employee morale in mind by providing word day activities such as cornhole and pop-a-shot tournaments, ice cream socials and lunches, as well as outside work events such as the Christmas party, paintball, golf outings and more.
It has been a welcome change from my previous employers!

I had a “first” earlier this week, one that may surprise folks considering my rep as a tech/internet geek – I used Priceline.com to book a hotel room.

I’ve never really had the occasion to use it in the past, but it did cross my mind to try out for my vacation to the Northeast earlier this month. Since I didn’t know where I was going to be from one day to the next I couldn’t book in advance and it never worked out to do it on the fly.

Because of the amount of traveling and late/early hours I’m going to have this coming weekend (more on that later), I thought it best to save about three hours of drive time and crash Friday night in Lexington. I knew I could get a room at a Motel 6 for $40 but hoped for something even cheaper. The frugal nature in me hates the thought of paying so much for a room if all I’m going to do is sleep for a few hours. It would be one thing if I could relax and enjoy the room, pool, etc. but when all I need is just a bed and shower…

So, after watching a video on how to best use Priceline to get a good deal, I gave it a shot. I started out by looking for 3 star rooms in the east Lexington zone at a price of $25. One at a time, I adjusted the stars and zone while keeping the price under $40. No luck; none of my bids were accepted. Can’t say I was too surprised since the average cost of hotels was well above what I was bidding.

However, once I increased my bid slightly, I hit the jackpot. I ended up with a $109 room at the Lexington Downtown Hotel (a Hilton affiliate) for $40! Hmm, let’s think about this…$40 at a Motel 6 or $40 at a Hilton? I didn’t end up saving any money, but at least it’s a nicer hotel and a great deal, which makes it much easier to stomach.

While it did take some time and fiddling to get a bid accepted, it was worth it and I’m definitely going to be using the site again! Thank you William Shatner!

Have you used priceline.com? What has your experience been like? Have you used any of the other sites (such as hotels.com, orbitz.com, travelocity.com) and gotten any good deals?

Two months ago this evening, I got up enough courage to pick up the phone and call the girl I had been hoping to meet for 3 years, whose phone number had recently been passed on to me.
Two hours later, I asked her on a date and she graciously accepted.
Two months later, she continues to make me smile and remind me daily of God’s grace and mercy.

Thank you Kristy for a wonderful two months! It’s such a short time in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like we’ve known each other so much longer. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you and spending time with you and look forward to more times in the future!

Thank you for being you and allowing me to get to know you!