The quick version: People paid about $9,000 for a weeklong spiritual retreat promised to "absolutely change your life." They fasted, then ate some breakfast and packed into a sweat lodge for a couple hours.

(Think native american sauna, a place to be spiritually purified, typically a group of a dozen or fewer)

The space was 415 square feet, 53 inches tall at the center and about 30 around the edges. Hot rocks were brought in and water was dumped on them to fill the space with hot steam. Apparently sandalwood incense was included as well. Normally, these are made with all natural materials, and the some of that steam can escape. This one was covered in plastic tarps.

Then 55-65 people spent a couple of hours in it.

So, figure the roof supports were probably fairly straight, giving a cone like roof more than a domed one. To make the math easier, let's average the 53 and 30 inch figures, and get an average roof height of about 3.5 feet. That gets us about 1450 cubic feet. Divide that by just 55 people, and you've got about 26 cubic feet per person. That's not quite a three foot cube per person. And that's without allowing the space above the hot rocks. Presumably nobody was sitting on those. Fully packed at 65 people, you've got just 22 cubic feet each, or about 2x2x5.5, which is probably a little small by coffin standards.

Would you seal yourself in a plastic wrapped coffin in a sauna for two hours?

So after a couple of hours people start collapsing. That's a lot of people competing for oxygen, for one. Two die, others suffer from burns (probably from falling on said hot rocks), dehydration, oh and kidney failure.

These were healthy people. Surfers and yoga enthusiasts. How much does it take to dehydrate someone to the point of kidney damage (let alone failure) in two hours?! Eep.

Now, having spent my weekend at something of a spiritual retreat myself, the subject came up Saturday morning.

People, you don't have to spend big money to change your lives. Heck, my total cost including gas and food was only about $300.

One major topic we covered was when you're working for someone else spiritually you have to seriously consider what kind of vested interests you have in the client, or the work. One of them had at one point had to stop accepting any kind of payment for his work, because the need for money became a vested interest. If you had 65 people paying you $9,000 or more for an experience, do you think you could remain at all dispassionate about trying to give them a $594,000 experience? (And don't you think you could afford better than plastic tarps, but I'm just sayin'...)

I'm sure he's a great guy. I'm sure he's passionate about helping people change their lives. Some of those people will never be the same, that's certainly true. I'm not gonna talk more about him because I honestly know very little about him.

But whenever you are asking someone to help you, with anything, ask yourself what their vested interests might be. Are they in your best interests, or theirs? I think that will tell you a lot.

We grabbed a container and gently scooped him up. I transferred him to a little vivarium (glass lizard cage) from when we had little anoles in the motorhome. At first he nipped at me a little out of fear. Not enough to break skin, but I washed it very thoroughly anyway.

I set up some water and a little dish of seeds, in case we could get him eating.

The odds weren't good to begin with, I knew. But I figured I'd try, in case he could be nursed back to health. Maybe he was just hungry and thirsty.

I did get him to drink a little water from an eye dropper. He did try to eat one of the small seeds. But along the way I noticed blood coming out the back of him. Just a little. But the fact that there was any at all pretty much confirmed it. I kept giving him tiny bits of water, just trying to make him comfortable. He didn't seem in pain, just tired.

Jareth was finishing a bath, and Kayla was upstairs playing when the end came. He started thrashing about a little, and I knew it was time. I scooped him up gently. There was no resistance, no biting. It didn't even seem like pain, just a little last bit of fight left. He coughed up a little bit of blood and then he was still. He stopped his little breaths. I petted his head one last time and set him back down gently.

The kids took it well. They were disappointed. They'd hoped he'd get better and be a pet. But I explained that he was just too hurt. We talked a little bit about how plants die, and I compost them to make dirt to feed the plants in the garden, and that animals die, too. I told them Amy and I would put the mouse outside somewhere nice, and that the mouse would also become dirt and bring life to the flowers in the yard. Then he would be something else. They both suggested that he'd be a mouse again next time around, and they both hoped he would stay away from garages next time.

Amy is still off at the school, learning about what Jareth's days are going to be like as a first grader. The first graders will have a class pet. I wonder if it'll be a mouse. Whatever it is, I wonder if Jareth will end up asking the teacher if maybe it was a mouse once.

There is so much debate about national healthcare these days. Or maybe not enough debate, depending on who you ask. There's the camp that's afraid of the status quo, and the camp that's afraid of change. Maybe an oversimplification, but bear with me.

I don't think I need to argue too much that something has to change. Clearly the status quo isn't working. But what about all the fear of change?

The insurance companies are afraid their going to lose their monopoly-driven huge profits. Okay, that one's probably valid. I hope it is.

Some people are afraid they'll end up losing their current coverage. I can see that market forces might take some of those plans off the market. My hunch is that the ones that go away are the ones that don't actually work that well anyway.

Some survey has been quoted claiming something like 90% of people are happy with their current plans. I don't believe that. Now, if 90% of people said their current plan was "better than no plan at all"...that I'd accept. If I told you you could have the same benefits at half the cost, would you keep your current plan?

The more I start thinking about the fear of change I wonder, what is it we're really afraid of?

I think the fear of change thing is a little backward from what people probably think at first. Sure, there is always going to be some uncertainty about what's coming. But I don't think that's "it."

Any time you exchange something for something newer, you might get something newer or better, but you probably have to get rid of the old. And we build attachments to things. I have a basement and a garage that testifies to that. We don't let go of things easily. So changing jobs, for example, becomes scary. Not because we don't know what to expect of the new job, but rather because we're used to the old one, and changing jobs means walking away from the old, familiar one. Even if it sucks, it's familiar, and it means letting it go. We're attached.

So, you get sick. You have insurance, and the doctor helps you get better. Not that he spends enough time to make sure everything is taken care of. Not that he follows up afterwards to see if the treatment worked. Not that he remembers a month later that you were sick (not without checking your chart first, anyway). But, the end result was you got better. Good thing you had insurance, you tell yourself. Now your brain is a sneaky little thing built to survive. It's got some outdated habits for that. Your brain decides you got better because you had insurance. If you lose your insurance, you'll get sick and die. Can't let that happen! So you think about changing insurance plans. Now your brain jumps in. "Hey, you can't do that. If you lose your current insurance plan you'll get sick and die." Since your brain controls other stuff, it triggers some chemicals. (It'll do whatever it takes to win, so chemical warfare certainly isn't out of the question.) You feel fear. Your heart races. You decide to keep your coverage as it is, and the fear subsides. You've survived. Think about changing again and your brain will remind you what happened last time. You don't want to die, after all, right?

Your brain doesn't get that the new plan will be better. Trading a car, switching houses, throwing out that old comfortable sweater that doesn't fit anymore... they're all hard because their about letting go of something we're attached to.

Basically, everything in our lives either raises our energy and adds to our life...or weighs us down. Not just the things we own. Not just the boxes of knicknacks we never unpack. Ideas. Beliefs. Habits. Jobs. Even insurance plans.

A new shiny car can give us enjoyment on a long commute. But sometimes it's just a stressor. You have to insure it. You have to take care of it. The more attached you get to it the more you find yourself fearing hailstorms, and the dents and dings of parking lots. If you're someone who lives in a crowded downtown area, dents and scratches and such might be a fact of life. If you spend more time worrying about those things than enjoying the car then it isn't an uplifting ride anymore, is it? Suddenly, letting go of the expensive car (and its payments) and having a simpler car you don't have to stress about might make sense. If you can get past the attachment.

How about fear of job interviews? Is that something that adds anything positive to my life? No. It's an obstacle. One I should get rid of.

Do your religious beliefs help you, or stress you out and hold you down? Your habits? Video game time--does it enhance your life, or is it just escapism? For some Facebook is a boon, for others it's not. Everything in your life can be evaluated in that simple way. Does it add to your energy, or lower it? Every physical, mental, or emotional possession. Every friendship.

You can't move forward much if you're dragging along a lot of deadweight and anchors. Cast off the ones that hold you back! What are you getting out of a fear of dancing, for example? What benefits come from not pursuing a new career path? Maybe there are some. Maybe not. But you don't know until you start looking. Dig deep. Introspect a little. It might be scary at first. Your brain might resist. "Oh, we can't possibly let go of that!" You might find freedom and peace. What could be so bad about that?

Maybe I should. Maybe as a writer I should be keeping it current. Hell, I don't even keep my Facebook page current.

I have thrown a couple little things on here. Like the note at the top that comments are broken. I also added a link on the side to Sara King's web site. I recently read her in-develpment Outer Bounds manuscript. I loved it. Good stuff. It seems she's written quite a bit else, too. I'll have to check that out. Maybe that'll help me stay focused on getting something done of my own.

I need to ask my wife to help me switch this blog from MovableType to WordPress. I can admit I'm not up to trying it myself. She's done it once or twice already. But she has other, more important things she should be spending her time on. On top of that, I'll probably end up with a much more basic template for the blog, without the top banner. That's actually delayed me changing anything, because I really like that top banner.

I have recently written a short story. It's about 2700 words. About five pages single-spaced. It needs polishing yet, but I need to let it sit a couple days before I can really start plowing through it making sure each word is carrying its weight and bringing the right impact. Maybe I'll post it when it's done. We'll see. If you want to read it and give me your thoughts, let me know. There's an email link on the left.

The Versa is a highly practical car. "Practical" was pretty much my first impression, and still sums the car up well.

But it was not long at all on day one that I made the realization that this car has no soul. This was a car designed with a fair amount of thought, but without any passion. Nothing about the car feels inspired or inspiring.

There are a bunch of little details, although several of them just barely miss the mark. The seats are very comfortable, but not lull-you-to-sleep, lazy buy comfy. They're just right for driving in, but too narrow to feel at home in. The seat recline lever is on the right of the seat bottom, because the seat is too close to the door for you to reach the left side. The gas fill is on the wrong side, too.

There are cupholders for everyone, but the front ones are in front of the shift lever and down most of the way to the floor. You have to lean forward and reach down to reach even a tall mug in them. But they have notches in them to accomodate a mug with handles. (One handle would have to face forward and one rear if you had too, they're in a spot to narrow for them to actually sit side-by-side, so they're staggered.)

Acceleration is fairly smooth, but not by any means aggressive. The suspension keeps things nice on bumpy roads, but there's a vibration in the wheel above 65 on the tollway. There isn't quite as much lean as it feels like at first in corners. The car's center of gravity is lower than yours, so you'll lean a little more than the car.

There's a little window in the front pillar ahead of the side mirrors. There are even defroster slots for those little windows. Not that you can really see anything useful through them anyway.

The seat position is nice and high in the car without pushing you into the roof. Visibility is great in every direction. The hood and trunk are both positioned so that they can't block visibility. The only thing you see outside is... outside. The irritating downside to that is that there is absolutely no visual reference for where the car ends. It's somewhere past the windows, but you can't tell where. It makes everything else feel closer to you than it probably is. Or maybe further away than it really is. Flip a coin and cross your fingers when you park.

The stereo is easy to use and in just the right spot. The radio reception isn't what it should be, and the speakers are crisp and clean until you get to a song you like and turn it up. Then they're underwhelming and disappointing.

Fuel economy is supposed to be about 30mpg, but I haven't been able to test that. It's range is clearly shorter than my Celica's. It probably has a smaller tank, and I'm averaging about 35mpg in the Celica.

The car is pretty quiet, even at highway speed. Until you have to accelerate hard, when it gives you that little "do I have to?" whine from a 4-cylinder engine that could use another 25 HP.

The car was probably very popular with the focus groups that must have played a part in its creation. Then again, the focus group participants probably only got to drive a couple of miles in it. So the Versa is a car that admits you can't please everyone, but does a good job of not offending anyone. It's inexpensive without seeming chinsy. Although the dashboard is clearly hard plastic that's supposed to look nicer than it is. It's practical, there's no denying that. The Versa could be a great first car, that reliable car that gets you through getting to college and back and lasts with you.

You can fall in love with the practicality of the car...but you won't fall in love with the car.

Okay, to be fair, I can hardly call my writing anything resembling professional. But that's the point.

Most of my working career has been very task-oriented. Come in to work at a set time, and there's a pile of to-do list. Take a task, finish it, put it somewhere else, and grab the next one.

Recently, as an analyst, there are some reports I run that are still tasks. But there are now longer-arcing projects. Those are the things that can't get done in one afternoon. Some of them can be divided into steps, which become little tasks of their own. But it isn't like I work on it 'til it's done and then just cross it off a list.

And then there's writing.

Now, I have this long-standing tradition of starting these big, ambitious projects. All too often, Generally, I'll get to the really complicated part and then a new project/idea comes along, and I launch into that one. I leave a trail of partial-project carnage in my wake.

Naturally, therefore, I have a stack of book ideas, some with more progress than others. Some are just a file folder with a few pages of notes. Some include partial chapters and disks of note files. One has about 2/3rds or so of a first draft.

And then there's the current book. I wrote an entire first draft for it. Then a reasonably serious flaw got pointed out, and I set it aside, temporarily daunted.

But I'm back to it now. Sure, I could pick an easier one to come back to. That 2/3rds first draft is one or two main point-of-view perspectives. I think I have a reasonably complete outline for it. I understand the characters, the motives, the conflicts that drive the plot.

But no, not yet. Maybe that'll be next. I have...three or so that I'm looking forward to starting next.

The current one gets intimidating at times. In the current revision process it has grown from three point-of-view characters to six (one of which I'm already thinking might get removed in the next round of revisions). That makes the whole thing more complicated. Before, there was one character arc that didn't get a complete ending. Now I have to add in two more endings and fit them into the same overall story.

I've been taking the revisions one character at a time, for the most part. I've started with the characters added in. They get smaller shares of page space than some of the others. I'm nearly done with the third and final addition. Just a few chapters to go.

The main two characters I might have to re-write together some. They're a bit interwined, and they're also going face some large changes. It's a lot to keep track of.

The next step, then will be to put the chapters back into book sequence so I can read it straight through. Then I'll go through it again, in sequence this time. I'll have to make sure chapters transition nicely. I'll have to check pacing. I'll re-evaluate each character arc to make sure they achieve what they need to.

Only after that will I start the real polishing and proofreading. All that for a book that a lot of people would suggest I not try as the first one to publish. But even if it doesn't end up the first one I send out to agents/publishers, I can't afford to set it aside half done. That's a cycle I can't afford to leave unbroken.

So that's where things are at. Long way to go. I'll never finish it if I don't keep making progress. Find/make time. Avoid distractions. Focus. Take it in manageable steps. But at the end I'll have something I can be hugely satisfied with. Then I'll start over again with a new book. There is one idea for a long series that is far more ambitious. Yeah, I'm not starting that one next...

He wants his kids to go to public schools. It's not about cost. It's not about wanting to avoid anything religious. It's not even really about the prestige of the school. He wants them to excel at standardized tests.

He doesn't want his child Left Behind. But it's more than just that.

Here's some of his reasoning:

College admissions are heavily influenced by test scores. The people he recently went to college with (Masters Degree in Information Systems) seemed to succeed or fail based on whether they had mastered multiple choice questions. During his college years, he has witnessed a virtual disappearance of essay questions--replaced by multiple choice, standardized tests. ((I did hold back my suggestion that maybe he encountered a lot of idiots at college because the college admissions staff were just looking for students with high test scores...)

He recently had to re-take his driver's license test. He failed it the first time. There were no questions about turning into a skid, for example, but rote memorization questions like, "How much is the fine for parking in a handicapped space?" He seemed pretty sure that was the one question he failed the test by.

He feels strongly that in today's world, in order to succeed and get ahead, you have to know how to memorize, repeat, and score well on standardized tests.

(Maybe on our tax forms we'll just have to fill in the circles? Wouldn't that be so much simpler?)

He has even had trouble getting jobs because of his degree. Master's Degree, less experience and in today's job market? "Overqualified." He took the degree off his resume and suddenly started getting interviews.

All this paints a picture for him of the world his children are growing up in. He wants to prepare them for it. Can't blame him for that.

So I hid my horror. At least I think I did. I hope I did. But it was there, as real and cold and unavoidable as the omnipresent overcast gray sky outside.

And just as horrifying, I could understand how he could see the world like that. I couldn't argue that the world of today looks any different than that.

And yet (at least I really hope), that isn't the world my children will live in. Today is just now. It's the world of ten to twenty years from now that the children of today need to be ready for. I'm pretty sure it will be a very different world than the one we have today.

I'm pretty sure that world will need innovators, problem-solvers, creative thinkers, and articulate expressors--people who can have a unique new vision and be able to manifest it, people who can collaborate in a team and genuinely lead, not just manage people. I don't think that rote learning and standardized test skills will have a lot to do with that...

The basic idea is if you can't get a traditional publisher to publish your book, pay a company that will publish anything for a fee. These were origially called vanity presses, but now more and more of them are moving away from that name as they get digital presses. Now they're Print-On-Demand. There isn't an upfront investment, unless you want extra services, like layouts, or covers, or maybe some editing/proofreading. This is self-publishing.

It's easy to see that as a way to get published. Famous authors have self-published. In many cases because the traditional publishers didn't exist yet. Most poetry is self-published. If you want to publish a poetry book, you might have to do it yourself. That's different.

But here's why self-publishing is bad, from a novelist's perspective. Anyone can self-publish. Anyone can pay a vanity press to put out a book. It doesn't matter if the book is any good. It doesn't matter if it uses sentences or not. It might be unreadable tripe. The vanity publishers don't care. They get their money from the authors. They don't risk a dime of their own. They aren't invested in the book. They don't lose anything if the book is a dismal flop that readers hurl against the wall screaming.

The traditional publishers, on the other hand, invest fairly big money up front. They have to take a risk with every new title they put out. They aren't going to do that unless they think the book has a decent chance of success. They get huge piles of submissions. They rule out many of them just from the query letter that introduces the book. If you can't get a few paragraphs with proper grammar and spelling, they aren't going to invest time reading even a few sample pages. Some of the ideas will sound interesting. Some of them will be old ideas that have been done to death. Eventually, the publisher will find a few that they'll want to read a few sample chapters of. For the most part, they'll know in a few pages if the author can handle the language or not. Then they'll see if he can tell a story.

It's hard to get published this way. You might have to go through a dozen publishers, or a score. Some of them will tell you why they won't buy your book. Then you know what to work on. But these publishers are professionals. They've got some ideas what the readers they market to will and won't buy. They're looking for the books that will leave readers wanting more books from the same author. I'm sure Ms Rowling had to send her manuscript to quite a few publishers.

"When everyone is special, no one is."--Dash, The Incredibles.

In the academic world, you aren't published unless its a peer-reviewed work. Your peers review it to make sure you've got your facts straight, that what your saying can be backed up. To make sure it's reliable. Anyone can put their article up on a web page. Not the same.

When you buy something published by one of the traditional publishers, you can know that it has been screened, at least to some degree. It has been through some editing. (Some established authors bully their way through that process. You may have read books where the quality goes down as a series goes on. That's why...)

Anyone can put up a web site, or a blog. That isn't publishing. Publishers pay authors. Authors make a product and then sell it. With vanity publishing, you make a product and then pay to distribute it. Would you do that with any other product you make?

When I was in college ('89-93) there weren't a whole lot of people on the internet. It took some figuring out how to do anything there. So the ones that were there were having some pretty intellectual discussions. Logical debates. Thought out posts attempting to make a case or explain things. Then the Web came out, AOL got big. Spewing ideas was easy. Anyone could do it. And they did. The signal-to-noise ratio changed.

Now, I'm not going to say that all self-published books are crap, and that no traditionally published book is crap. There are gems and piles in both categories. Similarly, there are the occasional intelligently written MySpace page.

But then, these days anybody can type up a rant and click "publish" without even going back to re-read it...

So I put some numbers together. Every four coffee drinkers in the office was using a case of paper cups a year. Each case had a cost, but I also noted the total paper weight of those cups. In a company with something like twenty thousand employees that adds up. I noted the cost of decent quality insulated travel mugs with printed logos. They'd pay for themselves in about 6-9 months.

There were a dozen or so total submissions from our floor. I figured at least I spoke up. This was a couple of weeks ago.

Then I came in today. There was a nice red travel mug on my desk. Insulated, stainless steel liner, not cheap plastic. There are no paper cups to be found on the floor any more. Even the plastic ones for water are gone. I haven't checked any of the other floors to see if it happened everywhere or not.

Hrm. Whatdyaknow? :-)

Early on we were a hunting and gathering people. Population was limited by the available food, and most of daily life centered around staying fed.

Then the agricultural revolution came along. We realized we could spend less energy and less time if we took control of our food and grew it in an organized fashion. So what happened? We spent less time hunting and gathering, and had more time and energy for other things. Ancient agrarian cultures gave us art, architecture, philosophy, science--all kinds of new and great thinking. Okay, I'll admit, it also brought about slavery, since the more people you had farming, the more people you could support.

But there was also some natural limiting factors. We could only keep so much surplus. Some of the extra was traded off, but it isn't like farming spiralled out of control, per se.

Then the industrial revolution came along. But this time, it wasn't "hey, we can spend less time making stuff and more time thinking and expanding our consciousness," but rather, "hey, we can have more stuff!" Now everyone can have cars, and all kinds of fun things. We invented new and innovative forms of advertising. The more people wanted stuff, the more stuff we could make, which made it more affordable for people to have more stuff.

Then there was the credit revolution. Now we could buy even more stuff. Even if we couldn't afford it. Now we could "keep up with the Joneses." Now we could accumulate debt in style. We came up with new and innovative ways to buy things beyond our means.

Further technological advances made it cheaper to make disposable things than to repair things. After all, manufacturing is cheap. Repairs are labor intensive, and time is money, after all. Oh, and repairs take skills. Manufacturing just takes automation--or outsourced labor. Besides, the more we can make stuff cheaper, the more stuff we can all have.

There was a time when ninety percent of the economy was farming. Now that's quite a bit smaller, and about seventy percent of the economy is "consumer spending."

In other words, consumption. Nearly three quarters of our time and energy are centered around using things up. Maybe that's an oversimplification. Or maybe it's just a truth people don't want to admit to themselves.

The economy is down because people are spending less--consuming less. Our priorities have gotten so out of whack that consuming less has become a national crisis. Ah, but the solution is easy, right? Get people to spend/consume more. That fixes the economy.

There are government incentives going on to encourage you to throw your car away to buy a new one. But the VIN of your old car has to get recorded to make sure it comes off the market for good. Somehow buying used is bad. Repairing is bad. Disposable has become the solution.

Maybe we don't need to "stimulate" the economy. Maybe we need to take it apart and fix it. Maybe we need to heal it. Maybe we need to heal ourselves.

Maybe the consumption itself, rather than insufficient consumption, is the problem. Maybe we don't need new cars. Maybe we don't need McMansions, and ginormous flat screen plasma TVs. Maybe we don't need hundred million dollar summer blockbusters to watch for a couple hours and then mostly forget. Maybe we don't need everything in our lives to be disposable stuff made in other countries with materials we don't know about. Maybe we don't have to devote our lives to working too hard to pay off the debt from all this disposable crap stuff.

Maybe, instead, it's time to rethink it all. Maybe we need to start valuing ideals and ideas again. Maybe it's time to start valuing art, and thinking, and ideas, and creativity--you know, things that originate in minds and imaginations rather than things that originate in foreign sweatshops and only exist to get used up and then disposed of. Maybe we should start seeing the real value in artisans, and writers, and debate. Maybe we should consider that what our teachers do is of tremendous value. Maybe we should consider that parents staying at home to raise children in a loving home aren't "sacrificing their careers"--that they're doing something far beyond anything we can put a price on.

Maybe we should be distracting our children less and encouraging them more. Maybe we should be sheltering and sanitizing them less and helping them grow strong and independent instead. Maybe we should be worrying less about that they can memorize and instead marvelling at what they can understand.

Maybe our children don't need every little disposable synthetic gadget or mindless TV to distract them and keep them out of our way when they could be doing things to nurture their growth so they can become poeple truly living life and "in" the world. Maybe we don't need to be distracting ourselves with instant gratification when we could be creating--creating lasting gratification and building a future instead of just making a mess and hoping our kids will clean it up when their older. How are they supposed to do that if they don't even have an example to follow.

Oh, but if people don't spend and consume, that'll just drag the economy down more, and that hurts jobs, right? Then more and more people would be having to either settle for lower-paying jobs that don't support their consumeristic lifestyle or they'll have to get education to switch careers.

Maybe if our lifestyles weren't driven by consumption then we wouldn't have to chase each other's carrots up corporate ladders. Maybe if we weren't focused on crap stuff we could focus on what was important. Maybe the solutions are not about spending more, or borrowing more, or banks lending more. Maybe that's actually the problem, instead. Maybe we should only buy what we can afford. I know, revolutionary concept, I guess. Radical, isn't it? If we can't afford a down payment, then maybe renting makes sense. Maybe buying used cars works just as well. Maybe other forms of transporation are better. Maybe if we worked a little more locally. Maybe two hours a day commuting could be invested, rather than just spend. We even let our time be used up--consumed. Or maybe time really is money. I really hope not.

Along the way, the company's name changed, and my title became Sr. Department Assistant. But they had three different sister companies all doing more or less the same things to more or less the same customers. The three got crammed into one. There were round after round of layoffs. They didn't need three HR departments, or three IT departments, and so on.

In 2004 I got a new boss during one of those rounds of restructuring.

Then on a Monday in August (still '04) I had a meeting with him. Everyone has having those meetings. It was partly him getting to know everyone and what they did, and partly discussing the future and how they wanted the different teams structured.

It was an afternoon meeting. We talked about what I was doing, and he asked where I saw myself in the future. I talked about how my position had already grown beyond just an admin, largely because I had kept taking on new responsibilities. I suggested potential titles to more accurately reflect what I did, and I talked about where I thought the job should evolve to next. He seemed to like what I was saying. He talked about how he would review with the senior management crew and together we would work out a plan to get me there.

Everything he said was a lie. That Friday I found out, when he asked me to join him in a meeting. I followed him into a conference room. There was an HR person there. The meeting was going over my severance package. They told me I wouldn't be allowed back to my desk, but assured me any personal belongings would be mailed to me, but that it might take some time. My boss went up for my lunch and car keys.

Shaken and a bit numb I drove home. There were things at my desk I needed pretty quickly, so I called the lady I worked next to. I told her where to find most of my personal stuff. She boxed it up and mailed it. She was great.

I never got the rest of my stuff.

Included with the severance package was some layoff paperwork. Signed by my boss that Monday morning. Morning. The morning just before he told me how he was going to help me plan my career path and career evolution.

I still haven't gotten over that. I'm still resentful. Nearly five years later our finances still haven't recovered.

A year or two ago he applied for a job where I'm working now. One of the HR guys asked me if I knew him. I said I did, but admitted I couldn't give them an unbiased comment and explained what had happened. He didn't get the job.

I still can't help but get a little anxious whenever I see my boss meeting with HR. Part of me still gets a little uncomfortable on Fridays. Every job I've ever had end unexpectedly (albeit mostly temp jobs) did on a Friday.

This week we were told there would be changes to the org chart to "better align" us with another major arm of the company that restructure recently. Monday we're supposed to see the new org chart. There are people anxiously waiting until then so they can look to see if/where they are on it. One of the bigger things I'm working on is one of the major initiatives for 2009. While intellectually I can tell myself I should be okay, I just can't shake the dread in my gut.

I guess I know what I'll be discussing with my therapist tonight...

In high school there were a couple of cars I learned to drive with. There was a greenish five-speed Mazda GLC sedan (1982 or '84?) and a big boat station wagon.

The first car I owned was a gold Mazda 626 coupe. I recall thinking at the time that it looked a little sporty. Amy tended to disagree on that one. Whether it looked it or not, it wasn't.

After that came a Honda Accord LXi lift-back style coupe. It got good mileage and was comparatively zippy by my standards at the time. On a couple of occasions Amy enjoyed driving it too. We were doing a lot of Civil War reenactments at the time. One involved a trip to Tennessee. We toured the (still relatively new) Saturn plant while we were there.

The reenactment was at a farm field that wasn't in use. It rained--a lot-- before we got there. It was bad muddy. There were National Guard volunteers there helping get people out. There was at least one snapped axle on a van, and quite a few vehicles towed. We got out, although the muffler was in the car with us before we left. We stopped on the way home and had it welded back on.

That led us to trade it for a Nissan Pathfinder. I wanted some ground clearance, dammit. The two best contenders at the time were that and the Toyota Forerunner. The Toyota was great, but felt narrow in comparison. I was very happy with the Pathfinder. We towed it behind the motorhome. We got to play with it. I wasn't terribly gentle with it. I had to replace some brakes and rotors, but that was the only repair it ever needed (other than the tube-style running boards rusting apart until I had to sledge hammer them off...).

I had that car for quite some time. Eventually the A/C died. The belt broke. I bought a replacement, but it was such a pain to get to I just never bothered. I rolled the windows down in the summer and didn't worry about it. But after a while of long commutes, it just wasn't as comfortable for an hour at a time between Elgin and Bensenville.

So that eventually got traded in for a '96 Infiniti I30t. That was a fun car. Actually zippy, comfortable to drive. When Dad and I drove it to Canada (2003?) it got decent mileage and was comfortable at 80 (or sometimes more).

Then the time came to trade Amy's car for the SUV she had been jonesing for, an '01 Infiniti QX4 (upscaled Pathfinder). Amy's car was newer than mine at the time, and was going to hold on to its value longer. So we traded mine instead.

I then got her '99 Infiniti G20. It was a perfectly decent sedan, if not as fun and without most of the bells and whistles of the I30. They both got about 24mpg (although either would have done better if my driving habits were different at the time, but that came later). In retrospect, I wish I had kept the I30.

Two crashes later (one partly my fault and one totally not) I used insurance money to replace it with a "cheap" car. It was a mistake. It was self-punishment. It was stupid. I shouldn't have done it. (Have I made that clear yet?)

That car was an '01 Nissan Sentra. Burgundy. Only the kids called it red. There was nothing sporty about it. It was pretty scratched up, once the thick coat of wax wore off. Oh, where to start with this piece of crap. I could get as much as 40mpg out of it if everything went right. The radio didn't work. Whole sections of dashboard lights didn't work. The A/C didn't work. No remote opener. The trunk pull didn't work, so the trunk would only open with the key. There was no spare key, and the passenger door lock was stiff enough that I worried about the key breaking off in it. The trunk leaked. The driver-side front door leaked and dripped on my arm when it rained. No matter how much I tried to clean it I couldn't get the cigarette smell out of it (I wasn't able to smell it at the dealership, but I never figured out what their secret was). My eyes itched whenever I ran the heat (or just whenever I drove it too long). The engine had been replaced, and it had the wrong dipstick. Dad had to make a notch on it for where full was supposed to be. Foil and a rubber band were the wasther fluid cap.

In the end I hated that car. It was NOT a nice car to drive an hour and a half each way. Then the catalytic converter started clogging. It started gradually, and I didn't even notice at first. It just started getting more and more under-powered. Then suddenly it was having real trouble getting up to freeway speeds at all. That was when I got the catalytic converter diagnosed. It was not going to be cheap to fix. Coming home from the shop it wasn't able to get above 45. On-line car shopping commenced that night. Fortunately that was a Friday. There was no way the car would get me to work.

Saturday we left it at home and Amy took me car shopping. We found my new car. Getting the Sentra to the dealership to trade in took a long time. There was one stretch where it got above 35. Down hill. I think there was a tail wind. I drove in fear of stop signs. Just zero-to-thirty took about three minutes. It took us almost an hour to get to McHenry. (The return trip took about 20 minutes.)

So now I have a red '03 Toyota Celica GT. Everything works. It's fast. It's fun. It's technically not the most comfortable touring car. The suspension is a bit sport-tuned. But it is dramatically more stable around corners. It'll do a corner securely at 50 that the Sentra started slipping at 40. It gets to highway speed almost a little too easily. I'm not driving it ultra-conservatively like I did the Sentra, and yet this morning I got about 36 mpg coming to work.

I get to enjoy music without headphones. I stay dry in the rain. There's no puddle in the trunk. I still get a little warm when I brush my hand along it in the garage. I *like* my car. I think I like it more than I've liked any car I've ever owned. I like that feeling.

I can see how that makes sense to a kid who knows he'll be starting First grade next year...

They give us some families as examples. Some are putting more than $100,000 per year into retirement savings. Others are "pouring money" into their 401(k)s. Others are spending $50,000 per year per kid to send their kids to Cornell University.

Apparently there's hardships for each of them if their taxes go up. You know, like retiring at 57 maybe instead of 55. Or maybe making the kids pay for some of their college.

As the sole "breadwinner" in a single-income family struggling to afford good schools for our own kids, you'd think I'd have deep sympathy for their struggles.

But these are dual income families. Attourneys, CEOs, engineers, senior managers, financial planners. Families with more than $250,000 in cash savings.

The same article shows a table comparing tax burdens by income bracket. The $200-500,000 bracket they're focusing on is 2.3% of all taxpayers, but 17% of all taxes paid. They highlight that on their table. There are two lines they don't highlight. At the top of their table. 66% of all tax payers are in the under $50,000 bracket. They pay 8% of the total tax. 22% are in the 50-100,000 brakcet. That's 88% of taxpayers at 100,000 or less per year.

Take everyone above 200,000. They're 2.93% of the taxpayers. They pay 54% of all taxes. That is quite a disparity.

Do those people pay more than their "fair share"? Yeah, probably.

Do I have any sympathy for them? I don't think so. Then again, we haven't finsihed unpacking all the boxes in our living room, so I guess you never know. Not long ago I found the iron we'd been looking for for months...

Call it a learning experience?

I shouldn't have bought the car. I shouldn't have convinced myself to take the repair money on the one before it (champaign beige 2001 Infiniti G20, AKA "MomCar") and picked up something "cheap."

Lesson One: There is no such thing as a cheap car (same applies to free kittens, of course).

Lesson Two: Never buy a low-priced car (say, under $5000?) at a little dealership.

Now, some people (Dad, for one) can buy a $500 car out of the paper, spend days getting it running right, resolve all the other quirks that come along, and keep it running for years. I... can't do that.

The Sentra had been getting more and more underpowered. By the time (Friday) I took it in to get it checked, it was having trouble hitting 65. Clogged catalytic converter past it's lifespan. Two part system with four oxygen sensors. ~$1200 or so best-case scenario. (The mechanic also didn't like the "probably junkyard" engine put in. They joked that it might have been older than the rest of the car.)

"... get a different car," they advised. I didn't really argue with them.

The car had issues.

The oil dipstick wasn't right. Dad had already had to notch it so it would actually have a full/empty line. The A/C didn't work (and wouldn't hold a recharge, so NO to the easy solution there). The radio didn't work at all (I couldn't even change the clock). Half the lights in the heat controls didn't light. Front passenger side running lights and turn signals kept dying. The driver side door seal leaked in the rain. So did the trunk. The trunk release was broken, so the trunk could only be opened by key. It had "smoked in" stench that was particularly bad when the heat was on.

Now, after they looked at it it went down hill dramatically. I couldn't get above 45 getting it home Friday night. Saturday was car shopping. We picked a cash budget to stay in. We quickly crossed out a used Prius as remotely an option.

We took the kids to two dealerships after having spent plenty of time looking online. We found ourselves comparing three Toyota Celicas. We discarded the 2005--out of budget. There was a dark blue 2000 5-speed, but we dind't get a good feel for it, disliked the dealership, and disliked the salesman.

So, the car we had last on our list, thinking it "wasn't quite it" at first (it was red and automatic. I started off wanting stick) turned out to be what we were looking for.

It's a 2003 Celica GT. We took it to the mechanic, who spent almost two hours going over it with me, pointing stuff out, giving me advice and warnings about oil. They even decided not to charge me the $50 they quoted for the inspection. (Maybe in part since I'd just paid them $50 the night before to diagnose the Sentra.)

It's not perfect. It has a ding at the rear. The hatchback leaks somewhere, leaving water pooled by the spare. (The dealer committed in writing to finding and correcting the leak, which they suspect is just a seal that needs replacing.)

It needs some fluids changed out (the trans fluid smelled burnt). It needs tires (why is it that every car I've bought for me since moving out has needed tires from the start?? The Pathfinder needed tires. The I30 needed tires. The Sentra needed tires. See the pattern here? There was an Accord that Dad found for me, that just went through alternators...)

I like it. I smile walking past it in the garage. I've never had a car that I walked past and touched and felt warm inside with that "it's MINE" feeling.