Reduction in Footprints May 1, 2008

So. Yeah. We traded in the new car for a newer car. After trading in the other new car for this last new car and so on. It gets, at its best, 41 miles per gallon, but the average is in the mid-thirties. At your left is the exact size and color of the model we got. Practically life-size! The best part is, despite the gas costs being even lower, the car payment is less, as well. Brand-new, with 12 miles on it, this tiny little pocket car is still about $60 less per month in payments.

Woot.

Charlie looks hilarious in it. He said if, at any point, he feels emasculated from tooling around in it (no pun intended), he’ll run home and sit in his butch truck for a minute.

We also signed up for Farm Fresh Delivery today. Thankfully, both beetqueen and Annette gave good information and we finally decided to go for it. Everything comes from local, organic farms and we get to add as much or as little every week to the order as we need. We’re getting the small fruit and veggie bin on Thursdays, plus a loaf of bread, organic skim milk, and eggs.

So those are the two big changes we’re making to consume less gas. One negative, however, is that Charlie has finally come to the conclusion that he doesn’t think things are going to work out at the club, and through this conclusion he has set up an interview with a friend who owns a gym. The gym happens to be about 7 miles from here, three times as far as the nightclub. In the grand scheme of things I realize this is not a tremendous commute. But the owner also mentioned that there are two busy times of day at the gym, between which there’s about a 3-4 hour gap, which would be ridiculous to fill up without going home, letting out the dogs, eating lunch, whatever.

So I can’t say I’m thrilled that this is his first choice and that he’s so gung-ho about it, but it’s not my decision to make. With the new car we’re practically doubling the mileage he gets on the truck, so hopefully he’ll use that as the commuter car. But first, he needs to talk with the guy and see what’s on the table.

I’m also coming up my own threshold; in a couple of months I’ll hit my three-year anniversary at the coffeeshop, during which time I’ve received one raise and one promotion. That’s it. When I got the promotion they said “no raise until spring.” Now it’s May and I haven’t heard a peep about it. I’ve mentioned it twice to my manager and she hasn’t said anything.

This morning (Thursday) my 6 o’clock person was an hour and a half late, and I had to call the girl coming in at seven to see if she could come in sooner because I was ready to tear my hair out. I’m closing tomorrow with an idiot, closing next Tuesday with another idiot, one of our part-timers quit because our trainer called her out for standing around all the time, and Audrey’s trying to find a job that can pay her bills, so she won’t be sticking around that much longer. I just don’t see things going anywhere at this place. As much as I’d like to keep the job until I graduate, I’m peaking in terms of maximum irritation.