Eric J. Gruber

Today was the first “official” (not counting weekends) day of my vacation. Here’s how it went down:

• Watched the movie “Dog Day Afternoon.”
• Gave my desk a much needed cleaning, accompanied by shredding of documents no longer needed.
• Jump started one of our cars after it died on Amy while she was at the bank. I’ll get it checked out more tomorrow.
• Studied my Ruby on Rails book (a lot).
• Joined Amy and Ember for a little recycling at Wal-Mart.
• Played outside with Ember, then played even more with her inside while Amy went to work.
• Circuit training in the hot garage.

A pretty full day, I suppose. It started out with rain, so I knew it was going to be a pretty low-key day anyhow. Tomorrow is even more packed. It’s funny how vacation can be sometimes.

At least I succeeded in not checking my work e-mail. That’s a big deal for me. Really.

The dead battery thing was a bit of a bummer. I’m going to get it checked out more tomorrow by taking it to Auto Zone. Are you aware that they’ll test your battery for free? Of course, if the battery is dead, you’ll likely feel inclined to go ahead and purchase from them. I’m hoping that’s all it is. I’d hate to get stuck when we do our traveling later this week.

I’m glad I had a lot more time to spend reading my (731 page) book. Man that thing is a doozy. But, I need to read it to keep up with web technologies, and it’s the perfect tool for some projects I’m working on. I just need a little more education to make my ideas come to fruition.

We (the family) headed out to a midwest mecca of consumerism called The Legends, this weekend. We went, we saw, we spent, it was a glorious afternoon.

The one thing that really annoys me about shopping is how the cashiers really push customers on signing up for the store’s credit card.

For instance, one store we visited (an outlet store I should say) had some great buys, so I snatched them up and headed to the counter. I was expecting the “Would you like to save XX percent by signing up for our store card today?” question, and I already had my answer ready to go: “I don’t use credit cards.” It’s my defacto answer for retail stores because it lets the pusher know that I’m not interested in their drug.

But this cashier, young and ignorant (as I was once) had her own reply: “But there are a lot of things you can do with credit that you can’t normally do.” One thing she mentioned could be done with credit was the ability to “buy now and not have to pay for 60 days,” overlooking the fact that I was handing her CASH as she said that to me.

Like the 10% off my first purchase is worth the trade off of the 20% interest rate of a stupid credit card.

Logic like this worries me. I fear for our country’s future.

Another week, another 5k race.

And I managed to trim a minute off my time from last week’s race.

OK, I’m officially tired now.

Have a great Independence Day.