Traveling Thoughts

Ok, I live in the US and I’ve never been out of the country, so, this is something I have no experience in. However, it is something that people have been searching for and it’s been landing them on my diabetes blog on an entry about me smuggling candy at halloween time when I was a little kid.

So, there’s the typical things (or at least the things I think of as typical) to smuggle in. People. Fruits. Drugs. Cuban Cigars. Weapons. Those are the typical things I think about being smuggled into the US. Not meat. I mean, meat, is there really meat in other countries that we can’t get here. Or perhaps it’s because of the meats we have here the same meat from another country tastes better? But then, I was reading, and some of the meat people are trying to smuggle in (to the UK mind you, I couldn’t find much of anything about the US) is coming from countries whose animals have hand and foot disease. Why would anyone smuggle meat from those countries?

Not that anyone’s going to tell me why they’d smuggle meat into the US, but I thought that it was an interesting search term that popped up.

The one thing that I can always count on breaking when I do a redesign of my diabetes/cycling blog ridetoremedy.com is my google map that shows all the Tour de Cures that I’ve ridden in.

I redesigned my blog sometime this summer, June I think it was, and my map hasn’t worked since. Well, it worked, kindof, the map showed up and white squares showed up where the markers should’ve been. I couldn’t figure out what the heck had happened because I transfered all the code from the first layout to the next.

It pissed me off that it wasn’t working, but I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. The code worked outside of the layout but not in it. I stripped everything down and still couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working.

Today, I thought, well maybe it’s another piece of javascript that’s interfering. And so I started taking all that out. The map worked when I removed one piece. So, I made it so that that particular piece of code wouldn’t show up on my map page. Do you think it worked, no, it didn’t.

I couldn’t figure out why, and then upon closer inspection, I discovered that when I had chopped out that piece of javascript, I also took my stylesheet with it. The problem with my map, for all these months, was a little piece of code in my stylesheet. The code in my stylesheet for my images, the code that put nice little borders on my images, it was causing the markers to appear as white boxes.

In the future, when I do site upgrades, and my map breaks, I’m gonna have to remember that the problem could be in my stylesheet.

Has anyone in the fashion society thought about how stupid this rule is and how it needs to be thrown out the wind? because in my opinion (however unfashionable it may be) it’s a stupid rule. It’d be like saying that we can’t wear black between easter and labor day, everyone would think that rule was crazy. It’s the same to me with the no white between labor day and easter. it just doesn’t make sense.

i can’t even find the history on this rule. it can’t just exist to exist…

does anyone know why this rule came into effect?

This was an email that was forwarded to me and it made me laugh so I thought I’d share it.
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If you had purchased $1,000 of Lehman Bros. stock one year ago, you would have $49 left.

With Wachovia, you would have $16.50 left.

With AIG, you would have less than $5 left.

But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It’s called the 401-Keg plan.

Over the last 15 or so months, I’ve taken many road trips. Road trips obviously implying that I’m on the road, in my car. Most of the time, I was alone, and I liked it that way. Sometimes Grams was with me, and that was ok, but I really didn’t have much to talk to her about.

I’ve been to California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado (on several occasions) and Texas. I’ve taken several trips to different places within New Mexico that were longer than usual drives (3-4 hours).

In a recent conversation with a friend as she was preparing for a road trip with her bff and her daughter and her bff’s daughter, I said that I prefer to travel all by myself because I get places faster. There’s non of that “I’m hungry” “I’ve got to go potty” “Are we there yet?” crap. I stop only when I need gas. On an 8 hour trip, that may equate to 1 stop (I get good gas milage what can I say).

So, on my most recent trip, I was headed to Snowmass, CO which could’ve just been an 8 hour trip but because I went the long way to go through Denver and get my friend Laura, it was more like an 11 hour trip. I wouldn’t trade that trip for anything. Well, except for the parts where I was driving solo to and from Denver and ABQ.

Laura and I spent a good 10 hours in the car together over the last week. And it was probably the most enjoyable 10 hours I’ve ever spent in the car on a road trip in the past 15 months. On the way from Denver to Snowmass we had so much to talk about that music was unnecessary. We started our trip with a trip to Starbucks, stopping to go to the bathroom wasn’t an issue for me (in fact, I was the one that said I needed to go).

On the way back, we were so exhausted that there was a little less talk, but Laura played DJ and that was cool by me. Being that it was daytime on the way home (where as it was night time on the way to Snowmass) we made stops and we went slow to take pictures. There was a stop for StarBucks on the way home as well.

It was a very enjoyable trip, it made me think differently as I was driving home from Denver to Albuquerque about how much more enjoyable it is to have someone in the car with me, playing DJ and being my co-pilot and for there to be non-stop conversation and laughter.

because I’m a bit narcissistic, it’s not unusual for me to google my own name. It used to be that when I googled Courtney Benefiel, I was the only one that came up, which you know, is perfect, because, I thought I was the only one…but lately, another Courtney Benefiel has been popping up, a Courtney L Benefiel at that.

Ok, so maybe I’m a bit self centered for thinking that I was the only Courtney L Benefiel out there. But really, Benefiel isn’t a common name. And even if there was another Courtney Benefiel, what are the chances of it being a Courtney L Benefiel…*sigh* high enough apparently…

She’s messing with my search results.

You’d have thought it was the end of the world by the way I was running around the house this morning like a chicken with it’s head cut off. Yesterday I had been proud to set a new personal record and demolish my paycheck in less than 5 minutes. It was easy to do too. Larger than usual payments to each of my 3 student loans, a significant payment to my visa card, and largely significant payment to my best buy card (the macbook is finally paid off). That left me with the $500 that I had sitting in my account and that would pretty much remain there until the next paycheck. I don’t like to spend that money. With several house sitting ventures coming up I’d have more than enough cash to sustain my needs like food and gas for my car over the next 15 days. I’d have that $500 as a safety net if I needed it. That was the plan anyways.

The freak out occurred when I opened up my bank account this morning and noticed I had less money in there than I should’ve had if all my payments had gone through. Not all my payments had gone though, thank the lord, I was able to stop one of them, but what had happened is I forgot about the all important, it sustains your life, health insurance payment (I hate that payment, I can have a house with that payment, ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but at a minimum, I could have an apartment with that payment).

I’ve never forgotten that payment before, I mean, it’s paying for that insurance that makes sure I get all the supplies I need for my diabetes, that keeps me alive. After long thought, I decided that I was so anxious to pay off my best buy card, which I still owed half of my laptop amount, that everything else basically became insignificant. My little budget and schedule of payments mattered not. I totally broke the teachings of Dave Ramsey on multiple occasions this paycheck. If I had paid the minimum payment on all bills with the exception of my Best Buy card because it’s the smallest amount owed, it wouldn’t have mattered that the health insurance payment was also due. Then, next payday, I could’ve taken that surplus that I didn’t put towards bills and just let it chill in my account and put it towards my Visa card because that’s the card with the next smallest amount. It’s called snowballing debt.

It works when you do it properly, if you get all excited like me to get stuff paid off and you don’t follow the rules then things start to fall apart. Dave Ramsey tells us all the stuff he tells us for a reason. I gotta try to stick to it a little better.

Sue challenged me yesterday, with the Maniac Monday One Word MeMe and yeah, I’m a day late, but yesterday was a little maniacal so it kindof makes sense that this didn’t get done (read: on monday). One word answers aren’t easy for me, I’m a detailed kind of person (that’s why I say challenged), but here we go:

1. Where is your cell phone? missing
2. Your significant other? non-existent
3. Your hair? growing
4. Your mother? dancing
5. Your father? dancing
6. Your favorite thing? bike
7. Your dream last night? unmemorable
8 Your favorite drink? water
9. Your dream/goal? ex-diabetic
10. The room you’re in? mine
11. Your hobby? cycling
12. Your fear? dying
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? ummm
14. What you’re not? ecstatic
15. Muffins? blueberry
16. One of your wish list items? kayaking
17. Where you grew up? NM
18. The last thing you did? blogged
19. What are you wearing? dogtags
20. Favorite Gadget? speedometer
21. Your pets? dogs
22. Your computer? hermes
23. Your mood? emotional
24. Missing someone? yeah
25. Your car? pegasus
26. Something you’re not wearing? underwear
27. Favorite store? REI
28. Like someone? meh
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? today

let’s see here, I choose Jules, Alli, Drew, and Ashley to answer all these questions with just one word. Have fun!

Actually, Ashley, I challenge you even further, I challenge you to answer yours with pictures that you found on flickr (I really enjoy those posts)

And Drew, I’d like to see you answer yours with pictures you’ve taken ;P

So, I’ve been slacking over here when it comes to writing, I’m really just not passionate about it anymore, but I was trying to write with the letters theme that NaBloPoMo has going on right now.

One of the things that I’ve noticed is that some hits to my other site, RideToRemedy.com are coming from emails.

Being that it’s an email, I know nothing more than the fact that there was a link in a “letter” to my site. I always wonder, what’s being written, what’s being said, is it good, is it bad?

What’s in those emails…

I was walking into the office after lunch and in one hand I had a 12 pack of diet coke. In the other hand, an open Red Bull.

The ladies outside the doors just looked at me with eyebrows raised. (They were aware that I was trying to lay off the soda and caffeine.)

The words that came out of my mouth were:

“I just don’t do well if I don’t have a vice.”